No time to think. If he thought, he'd chicken out, so Cihro lunged onto on the first idea he had and speared himself straight at Tiamat’s reanimated-sibling-chimera. Magic from his latest tattoo—violent ink spiralling around his arm and deltoid—unravelled and encased him. His physical form dissolved, becoming phantom.
It was similar to teleporting between shadows with his cloak, vanishing into a liminal state, only instead of happening around his body, it happened to it. Not quite here, not quite there. He passed through the monster's ribcage—there was some resistance, but it was a liquid obstacle, not a solid one. Yells flared up from Day and Raidak.
Caius entered the same hailstorm of bone shards and fire seconds after him, shouting about what was he doing, if he needed help. Not shouting at him—they had to raise their voices to be heard over the shrieking wind.
There was something more valuable than Cihro that Caius could've been there for—the rune—but Cihro knew better. He was there to make sure Cihro was okay, that they could all escape and save the day. The Gilded Thorns had pulled Caius out of the Abyss; he was there to return the favour regardless of how muddy their past.
It wasn't lost on Cihro what it meant. Once upon a time, they might've left each other for dead, or even considered being the one to hold the knife, but time had mended that. Aritian bolstered this belief by wrenching open the ribcage from the outside, cleaving an exit for them. He knew Aritian would've done it just for Caius, but Cihro was there, too, wasn't he? They couldn't escape each other.
Historically, Cihro wasn't ashamed to have called himself a coward. It was fact. It never meant he was incapable, only more concerned with survival than doing what was right. But he found that this love and care, shown rather than told, was a better source of courage than holding the fate of the planes in his hands.
Brunch wasn’t the only thing on Cihro’s docket for his date with Raidak. If they had the whole afternoon to themselves, he would use every minute he could. With so much of his time demanded by world-saving only paused by sleep, he understood the value of every second.
They had taken to strolling the streets after eating, but it didn’t take Cihro long to turn to Raidak. “Wanna race?”
Raidak met him with a competitive gleam in his eyes. “Where?”
Cihro pointed. “The western gates.”
“Flying, I presume?”
“You know it.”
Without warning or countdown, Cihro shot off. Raidak gave a startled bark and ran after him briefly on foot, then lifted off half a second after. It wasn’t fair—Cihro had the jump on most people besides Hope—but it was all in good fun.
Westruun whipped by too quickly to admire. With a proper skyport, having a bird’s eye view of the city wouldn’t be a novelty for long. Between the Yuminor Observatory and Greystone Tower, looking down on the city was mostly reserved for the scholars and spellcasters and the skyships that passed overhead.
It wasn’t a short sprint—the race took about five minutes even at top speed. Cihro knew the city better than Raidak, but he realized early on he didn’t stand a chance. Raidak could’ve left him in the dust, but he had the decency to humour him by pretending to match his speed. Not enough to lose on purpose—in the last five hundred feet, Raidak vanished in a flare of green magic and reappeared on the city ramparts.
The guards posted along the wall jumped and spun their crossbows on Raidak, lowering them when they registered who it was. Cihro closed in half a minute later, waving them off.
Cihro preserved his dignity by landing with grace and not stumbling to a halt. He wasn’t winded, exactly—he wouldn’t have been able to sprint that long on foot so well, but he’d exerted himself by channeling his speed through the winged boots.
“No fair,” Cihro said. He grinned, though—how could he be mad, with how Raidak preened at the win?
“You never laid out any rules,” Raidak pointed out. “You forfeit fairness the second you took off.”
“I don’t put much stock in rules, I figured one of us would break ‘em. I’m just glad you didn’t start casting spells at me.”
“Is there a prize for first place?”
“The satisfaction of beating Westruun’s uncatchable crime lord. Oh, and this.” Cihro flipped him off. Raidak laughed. “I knew I couldn’t win, especially if you were a dragon, so I had to take my advantage where I could.”
“I don’t think I’ll be flying over Westruun as a dragon anytime soon,” Raidak said, casting a mournful expression over the city rolled out behind them.
“Yeah, best not to.” Cihro also gave Westruun a lingering look. Beyond the eastern walls, crops laid trampled and razed by Tiamat’s cult. A path of buildings, even the intermittent towers, were chipped and missing chunks of themselves, mapping a trail of destruction. It would be a while before any dragons were welcome or tolerated in the skies no matter their intent.
Westruun wouldn’t forget anytime soon. It was for Raidak’s protection as much as the city’s peace of mind.
Cihro turned his attention to the Bramblewood. Its boughs thickened with spring, melding into the mountains that sloped then speared into the sky. The seasons would cycle, the moons would wax and wane, and Westruun would rebuild and nurture its crops back to health.
“Wanna fly further?” Cihro asked. “No race, just flying.”
“Where to this time?”
“The mountains.”
Raidak considered, stroking his chin.
“We’re a bit all over the place, so I think it’s fine,” Cihro assured. “So long as we’re in pairs. If there’s an emergency, you can teleport us back.”
“You do realize what a powerful spell that is, don’t you?”
“Sure I do. I’ve been with the Thorns since the beginning, I know how long it took the others to learn it. But an emergency is good cause to use a powerful spell, right?”
“True enough. Lead the way.”
Cihro floated off the wall, Raidak gliding leisurely after him. It took them longer to reach the mountainside at a relaxed speed, and they flew in and settled like a pair of birds. Cihro swung his legs over a ledge and patted the empty space beside him. Raidak joined him, hands coming to rest above his knees.
The distance from Westruun helped conceal some of its wounds. It looked more itself, even if they knew better. It was more whole than broken. Cihro breathed a sigh, not realizing his shoulders had clung onto some tension. Raidak did the same in his peripheral. His hands left his legs and settled flat onto the ground by his hips.
Cihro brushed his pinky against the side of Raidak’s hand. Raidak glanced first at their hands, eyebrows up, then at Cihro’s face.
“Can I hold your hand?” Cihro asked, stroking again, so Raidak couldn’t confuse it for an accident.
Raidak nodded. Cihro slipped his fingers under Raidak’s hand and transferred it to his lap, knuckles up. It was his right hand, the scales the deep red of hot coals ready to ignite. The scales were more concentrated on the back of his hand—Cihro traced them lightly, the edges where they met skin and where they overlapped each other. They vanished under his sleeve, no doubt climbing his arms. Cihro wondered how much skin they covered—he’d never seen Raidak wearing robes that that didn't end at the wrist.
Raidak’s arm, sheathed in form-fitting black armour, was one of the first parts of him Cihro had seen. His face, shaded by a hooded cloak, had mostly been chin and a sneer. Even though all they’d done was sit next to each other as spectators, Cihro had felt a frisson of fear. Power and magic had always enveloped him. He had the power not just to enact change through his magic, but by his tenacity, ambition, and at the time, greed.
These were hands that had originally unnerved Cihro, belonging to someone working for the opposing side. Hands that had toiled away at the experiments fighting in Cinder’s arena—the same experiments that had likely been used as part of the siege on Westruun. Raidak was constantly inflicted with his former work terrorizing the people he now swore to protect. The ramifications of his actions—his legacy—weren't just immediate, but lasting, at least until the Thorns snuffed them out.
Cihro didn't think of Raidak’s hands that way anymore, but it must have been a challenge for him. Cihro had lived the consequences of his own actions, albeit on a smaller, more intimate scale. The bigger they grew, the larger their footprints.
Cihro tried not to think in balancing scales. If they all tried to keep perfect harmony between those they harmed and those they helped, they’d lose their damn minds. What benefitted one person could have condemned another. They could only do what they needed to survive and what they thought was right, even if it turned out to be wrong later. Some wrongs could be righted, others had to be worked at. The Gilded Thorns could share their thoughts with each other and come to a collective decision to minimize damage. Raidak had been in a cult—effectively isolated even if he was part of a group. He hadn’t had good people to hold him accountable like Cihro had.
Cihro didn’t know if he considered himself good and moral, but he had at least learned that being good was a job never finished. The churning tapestry of the world would always have its imbalances and injustices. Raidak might not have been able to permanently undo the damage, but he was actively fighting. His hands belonged on their side—they ferried them around, they healed Orla, they helped depose Arkhan, they helped keep a mask away from the cult for as long as possible.
Hands that belong linked with his.
“I wanted to apologize,” Cihro said, ending the comfortable silence. Raidak had, predictably, turned a new shade of pink while Cihro held his hand. Cihro smiled, rubbing his thumb along the length of each finger one at a time, feeling each bone and crease and nail, hoping the touch wouldn't distract from what he was saying. “I didn’t mean anything by being crass earlier. I had to ask because ‘companionship’ can have a lot of double meanings. When you go to an inn and ask for companionship it usually means you’re asking for somebody to have sex with.”
Raidak huffed a laugh. “See, I wouldn’t know these things.”
“I’m not trying to take advantage of you or anything. I wasn’t asking because I wanted to—I mean I would like to eventually—but I’m not trying to rush you into it.”
“I trust that you’re not. I know you well enough to know when you’re sincere. You’ve become equally good at showing your feelings as you are at hiding them.”
“I've learned when to shut it off,” Cihro agreed. “You can’t blame me for enjoying flustering a dragon, though.”
“I’ll try not to make it so easy, but it’ll take some practice.”
“You’re a quick study.”
Raidak shuffled closer so their knees skimmed one another. “Thank you for today. I’m…glad I got to experience a date.”
The end of his sentence was hidden, written invisibly: glad he got to experience a date before the potential end.
Cihro’s smile was all warmth; he laced their fingers together and squeezed. “My pleasure—thanks for suggesting it. I’m glad you got to experience it, too. You make a good date.”
Iona scooped up the fallen music box from the ground with both hands. Jagged cracks were riven through it in several places, and in the background she heard ripping flesh and deep, throaty snarls. Such a delicate thing caught in such a violent place.
“Who dares take my prize from me?” a voice slithered into her mind. “Interlopers. Wait for me and I will be there. Your meddling will be punished.”
“We shouldn’t dally,” Iona said aloud.
“Yeah, that’s not good,” Elspeth agreed. Apparently they’d unanimously heard it.
“Do we still have a favour with the aboleth?”
“Well, he said he could calm down the storm for a little bit,” Elspeth answered.
“He also tried to hypnotize us,” Krusk pointed out.
“He successfully did that,” Elspeth said.
Iona tucked the music box into her bag and joined the group. Raidak continued to claw and bite at the fused, bloated corpse of the hags with no sign of stopping. Splashes of mucus and blood reached her with the force of his blows. She laid a hand on his shoulder. His ebony armour, although cut with lines of chilly blue lights and runes, was warm.
By all accounts, she should have been afraid, but the only fear she’d felt recently was from magical effects. Raidak, now half-dragon with variegated red and green scales—the green should have reminded her of Raishan, the red of the dragon who attacked their skyship.
Iona wasn’t prone to fear. She wasn’t worried he would turn on her, and if he did, she could take the toll. He directed his pain back at what hurt him. There was more than one storm in need of respite—and that was the Thorns, storm after storm, themselves and the world cartwheeling around them without pause.
She squeezed slowly, hoping to extend her calm through her touch. His arm froze mid-air and his breath went from harsh to even. He leaned back fractionally into her grip, blowing out a long sigh, and the glow from his armour receded even though his scales, wings, and tail remained. She lowered her hand without a word.
