Bleeding Ink

Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Dessa knew they would have at least an hour head start to get back to Ayveri with the speed at which the envoy was going. The one upside of being on the back of a dragon instead of a horse. She and Milena raced back home, though she knew her best friend would have much rather landed right there in front of them just so she could jump into the arms of her mate after not seeing him for weeks.

Eria landed as gracefully as a dragon could in the courtyard of the palace, though the ground rumbled beneath her when she did. Arsais did the same just a few moments later with Milena worriedly looking over at Dessa. She quickly unfastened herself from the saddle, trying to get her hands to stop shaking, and jumped down.

"Des, you all right?" Milena called out to her, even as she started running for the front steps leading up to the double doors.

Doors that were just then being pulled open by her little sister Lenora, who's bright smile lit up her face as she hung on the door handle.

"Dessa!" she screamed in excitement as she tripped over her own feet in a bid to get to her faster. "You back!"

Dessa's smile was just as bright as hers. It always was when she looked at her baby sister, who she loved more than she ever knew she could before she was born. Even when she was just away for her for a few hours, she ran to her as if she'd been gone for years.

"Hey, Len," she laughed, scooping her up in her arms before peppering her face with kisses.

The three-year-old was the spitting image of their mother with their father's delicately pointed Fae ears, with her bright burgundy hair with Deverell silver streak to match, bowed lips, and upturned eyes. However, she acted so much like Dessa that it had their father rolling his eyes and groaning about how the two of them were going to cause him to go gray. Mostly because that meant both Dessa and Lenora were exactly like Lyv.

And another thing just like Lyv, while Dessa had her bloodrite bond with Eria, Lenora had been bonded with a pixie she'd named Silas. They'd been together since the day she was born three years ago just a few weeks before the Winter Solstice. Silas was actually the son of their mother Lyv's pixie Posy and their Uncle Gideon's Jett. While he looked just like Jett and his love of tea, he'd gotten Posy's light blue hair and love of books.

Len secured her arms around Dessa's neck as she kissed her cheek. "You were gone this mornin'!"

"It's called school, baby."

"School...like when Miss Savina teaches me my letters?"

"Kinda, but a little more complicated than that," Dessa laughed, then kissed her cheek again. "Where's Momma and Daddy?"

"Inside!" Len answered as she pointed back behind her. "Let's go!"

Their mother and father, however, were right there at the doors as Dessa, Len, and Milena continued up the steps as the three-year-old chattered on all about her day so far and made Dessa promise to take her flying on Eria soon. Dessa met her mother's smile with one of her own, then turned it to her father, who stepped up behind her with a hand on the small of her back.

Dessa's parents, Crown Prince Jai and Crown Princess Alyvia, might have looked like a normal mated and married couple, but they were far from it. She'd grown up on stories they told her and what others did also, of what happened when they first met and those three and a half years afterward up until Dessa herself was born. And while she got a first-hand account about the Dark Wars as their history started calling it, she also got to learn about it in university. Her parents, along with the rest of her family, fought and won against a darkness that gripped the lands, that cause chaos and pain and heartache. A war that made her parents legendary for their sacrifices.