Eternal (The Dragonrider Heritage #8)

by Nicole Conway

She flashed me an irritated sideways glare as she spun her daggers over her hands. “Do you always talk so much while you fight?” I did, actually. It took some of the focus off almost dying.

But if she’s anything like her father, she won’t just come out and admit that she’s having issues. He was always one to keep his own suffering bottled up.” Thatcher cast me a cattish, sideways grin. “Gee, that sounds familiar. I wonder why?” “I’ll hit you, you know,” I grumbled.

I swirled the waterskin, eyeing the opening she’d just used and wiping it off before I took my own drink from it.

I'm glad a fantasy character semi-cares for hygiene. Thanks, Reigh!

You’re tough. And you’re smart. And you’re a Broadfeather, so you’re half-crazy.

Here, it was as though if you flew far enough, you might be able to chase down that huge, swollen red orb and find the place where it touched the ground and set everything ablaze like a world of molten flame.

Thankfully, we hadn’t spotted anything else that wanted to kill us. Bizarre, I know.

She was just there, with me in that moment. No signs of judgment, or fear, or even apprehension. She walked with me into the dark, into the den of all my personal demons, with her head held high. Not because she had to, and not because I’d asked her to. Because she wanted to. She had chosen to be here with me in this nightmare. And for the first time in over fourteen years, I didn’t feel alone.

“I believe it’s time to go. Age before beauty,” he jabbed. “We’re twins,” I reminded him sharply as I stepped to the water’s edge. “I’m not sure that phrase applies.”

Reigh Farrow—third-born prince of Maldobar and accomplished dragonrider—was the most obnoxious, shortsighted, hotheaded idiot I had ever met. I had been forced into proximity—friendship—whatever you wanted to call it—with him for years now. We’d met shortly after I had gotten involved with Thatcher, and the three of us had spent years training and working together at the dragonrider academy. Reigh was a loudmouth. He had an astounding impulse control problem. Every one of his emotions simmered right under the paper-thin surface of his extremely fragile ego. But he was also the most talented healer I had ever known. And right then, at that very second, I would have given anything to see his stupid face rushing over to help.

This wasn’t about opening old wounds. It was about finally closing them.

Grief was a strange and ever-changing monster. It looked different depending on who glimpsed it, like reflections in a broken mirror, always changing and never quite making sense.