Chapter 130 Some Bitch and Some Dwarves
Bella
Breakfast is going suspiciously well. The kind of well that makes my shoulders itch, because nothing in our lives ever behaves this politely without planning to absolutely ruin someone later. People are spread across the garden now, seated at long tables that someone dragged out, the grass still damp beneath boots and skirts. Steam rises from mugs. Plates are passed hand to hand. Children run barefoot between chairs, shrieking every time the dew soaks their socks, only to shriek louder when a guard casually breathes a wash of warmth their way and dries them again. Someone laughs when a fork freezes mid-air and thaws again without comment, and I laugh with them. This is what relaxed looks like when you’ve never been allowed to be. Damien sits beside me, elbow resting on the table, listening more than speaking, nodding when people talk about where they came from, what they used to do, what they might want now. He eats like a man who hasn’t slept enough but intends to fix that later. For five minutes, maybe ten if I’m generous, everything is straight out of a fairytale ending. Then the shadow crosses the grass. It moves fast, low, heavy enough to darken half the garden as it passes. Conversation stutters. Heads lift. Cups pause halfway to mouths. Paul’s dragon drops from the sky without ceremony, wings folding as he lands hard at the far edge of the clearing. He lowers his massive head to the ground and exhales, a deep, broken sound that rattles through the earth like something finally giving up. Ashlyn hits the ground running a second later. She doesn’t look like someone who planned to arrive. Her hair has slipped free of whatever tie was holding it. Her clothes are wrinkled, boots mismatched, cheeks flushed from the wind and panic. The second her feet touch the grass, she takes off. Straight toward the gardener’s cottage at the far edge of the grounds. Paul’s dragon doesn’t move. He stays where he landed, head pressed to the earth, shoulders hunched in a way that makes a creature that size look heartbreakingly small. I look over at Damien. He’s already brushing crumbs from his fingers, chair scraping softly as he stands.
“I’ll go talk to him,” he says, voice low and steady.
I nod once and push back from the table. At the same time, I follow Ashlyn. The cottage door is half open when I reach it. I slow instinctively, not because I want to interrupt, but because something in the air is already feeling off. Then the scream hits my ears.
“What the fuck?!”
It tears out of her like she’s been holding it in since the moment she landed. The door slams completely open, and Ashlyn barrels back out, eyes wild, breath heaving, hands shaking like she doesn’t know what to do with them. She spins on her heel so fast I nearly collide with her. Behind her spill the dwarves, all seven of them. Talking all at once. Hands up. Faces flushed. Words tripping over each other in a panic that reads as deeply guilty and deeply sincere. And behind them... is another woman. She’s human, maybe. Dark hair tangled around her shoulders, clothes too thin for the mountain chill, eyes wide and red like she’s cried recently or learned how to cry when it’s useful. She looks fragile in a way that has been practised. My stomach drops. Ashlyn's eyes connect with mine, and something in her breaks clean down the middle.
“Don’t say another word,” she snaps at the dwarves, voice sharp enough to stop them cold.
They all freeze, and she turns back to me and slams straight into my arms. I catch her without thinking. She folds into my chest like she’s been running toward this moment the entire time, fists fisting into my coat, breath hitching so hard it hurts to hear. I steer us sideways, away from the doorway, around the side of the cottage where the stone bench sits tucked beneath the overhang. The shouting doesn’t follow us. The dwarves stay where they are. The woman lingers uncertainly in the doorway, watching like she’s afraid she’s about to be blamed and hoping someone else will take the hit first. I sit Ashlyn down and take the spot beside her. I don’t rush. I don’t fill the silence. I just wait, and eventually, she drags a sleeve across her face and laughs once, harsh and wet.
“Some bitch,” she says. “That absolute bitch.”
I keep my voice soft. “Tell me what happened.”
She stares at the ground, jaw clenched, eyes glossy.
“Apparently,” she says, “while we were gone, she broke into their house.”
My brows lift a fraction.
“She was poor,” Ashlyn continues, voice wobbling. “Broken, cold, needed help and somewhere safe to sleep.”
Her hands curl into fists again.
“And they took her in,” she snaps. “Because of course they did. Because they’re good and kind and they help people.”
Her breath shakes.
“And they fell in love with her,” she finishes, disbelief cracking through the words. “In like… what. A week?”
She presses her palms to her face.
“Oh, what the fuck am I supposed to do now?”
I let that sit between us. The garden is quieter from here. I can still hear the low rumble of Paul’s dragon somewhere beyond the hedges, a sound like grief trying to stay contained in something far too large. I glance in that direction, then back to Ashlyn.
“Well,” I say gently, nodding toward the noise, “I know you don’t really know Paul.”
She sniffles. “I know his dragon cries louder than I do.”
“Apparently so,” I say. “And your soul is kind of tied to his now.”
She peeks at me through her fingers.
“And right now,” I continue, “he looks like the saddest creature I’ve ever seen.”
Her shoulders sag.
“So maybe,” I add carefully, “you don’t have to solve anything today. Maybe you can both cry together for a bit. Maybe you can get to know him.”
She drops her hands slowly.
“You think that would help?”
“I think,” I say honestly, “that letting yourself fall apart near someone who literally cannot leave you might be a decent place to start.”
Ashlyn huffs out a weak, broken laugh.
“Gods,” she mutters. “This is such a mess.”
“Yeah,” I agree. “But it’s yours.”
She leans sideways, resting her forehead against my shoulder. After a moment, she straightens and wipes her face again.
“Can you stay?” she asks quietly. “Just… for a minute?”
I nod.
“Of course.”
We sit there together while the morning continues around us, life unfolding loudly and awkwardly and very much not according to plan, and somewhere across the grass, a dragon finally lifts his head.