Balanced on the Blade's Edge (Dragon Blood, Book 1) (32 page)

On the other side of the water, a rooster
crowed. There were only two other houses on the lake, part of the
reason Ridge had bought it, but he wasn’t sure he was enjoying the
solitude at the moment. Given his mood, it might have been better
to stay on base, to wait in the company of others for his squadron
to return from their latest mission. But he hadn’t given Sardelle
his address there. He doubted she wanted anything to do with the
military again.

Ridge picked at a sliver on the chair and
wondered if he was being a fool. Did he truly expect her to show
up? Was he even sure he
wanted
her to?
After seeing… all that he had seen?

“You’re sitting here, aren’t you?” he
mumbled.

What reason did she have to come though, now
that she had her sword—her big glowing sorcerer-slaying sword? She
didn’t need any more favors from him.

“Drinking again?” came a soft voice from
behind him.

Ridge nearly fell out of his chair. He
did
knock his fishing pole in the water as
he jumped up and spun around, his mouth hanging open.

Sardelle stood at the head of the dock,
wearing an elegant forest-green dress that hugged her slim waist
and accented her curves far more nicely than the prison garb had.
Her black hair hung lush and thick about her shoulders, and framed
her face, including the spattering of freckles across her nose and
cheeks. Somehow Ridge had never pictured sorceresses with freckles.
He was glad for them though. They made her seem more… human. That
and her archly raised eyebrow as she regarded his bottle.

“It’s only the second time in a month,” he
said.

“Ah. I hope it’s not because of… bad news
again?” Her eyebrow lowered, and her expression grew earnest.
Concerned. Maybe she thought he had gotten in trouble because of
her.

“Nope. I was allowed to return to my
squadron, and I got an award for my—” Ridge rolled his eyes as he
quoted the rest, “—cunning, bravery, and initiative.” Some idiot
had threatened to promote him as well, but Ridge had squashed that
snowball before it could roll downhill and turn into an avalanche.
Generals didn’t fly; generals commanded brigades—sometimes forts.
He had no interest in enduring that again for a long time, if
ever.

“Oh, I see,” Sardelle said. “And that’s why
you’re sitting out here and drinking, as if you’ve lost your oldest
friend.”

“The king and general of the armies were so
happy to get that pile of crystals that they just had to award
someone. With General Nax gone, I guess I got it by default. I’m
not a believer in awards that are given without being earned. I
didn’t do a single intelligent thing while I was out there, and in
the end I didn’t do much more than blow up an owl. Someone
else
was paramount in defeating the
Cofah.” Ridge gave her a pointed look. It had all been in her hands
all along.

“All I did was defeat their shaman. You blew
up their airship. And that owl was
big
.”
Sardelle tilted her head. “When you say General Nax is gone, do you
mean… ?”

“A little band of those Cofah sneaked up to
the wall and got to him. I actually missed him when I got back
down. There was no senior officer to foist all of the cleanup
on.”

“Regrettable,” Sardelle murmured.

Ridge wondered if she would have kept flying
away in that balloon if she had known the general had already been
dead at that point. Probably. From what he had heard later, his own
people had been shooting at her, right along with the other
sorcerer.

“Sardelle, I… ” Ridge stuffed his hands into
his pockets and studied the dock boards at her feet. “I can’t
imagine it means much, but I want to apologize for the way you were
treated there. I’d like to say things would have been different if
you had told me the truth from the beginning, but… ” He
shrugged.

“I was afraid that if I did… Among other
things, would you have spent the night with me in that cave if you
had known?”

“Seven gods, no. I would have been afraid you
would melt my dragon if I didn’t please you adequately.”

Sardelle snorted softly. “Just so we’re
clear, you’re talking about… the little wooden figurine,
right?”

Because a woman would find a man who called
something else a dragon silly. Right, he knew that. “Of
course.”

“And the night in the library?” she
asked.

“Oh, I was drunk enough then, that I might
have risked your ire.”

“I see.”

Sardelle padded down the dock, soft green
shoes that matched the dress whispering across the boards. He
wondered when she had gone shopping—or how. Did she have money? Or
had she simply snapped her fingers and willed the dress into
existence? He swallowed as she drew nearer. He wasn’t afraid of
her, but at the same time… he couldn’t pretend nothing had changed.
She looked the same, but… it was hard not to see that aura that had
enveloped her when she had held her sword aloft.

He glanced toward the yard and the cabin.
“You didn’t bring your shiny sword?”

Sardelle stopped a couple of paces away, her
head tilting. “I didn’t think I would need it here.”

“No… it’s generally safe, though the
mosquitoes can be a powerful threat in the summer. Still, it
doesn’t seem like something you should leave lying around for
anyone to find. Or for a mountain to fall on top of.”

“I rode a horse here.” She waved to the trees
by the road. “Jaxi—my sword—and a pack are on it, but I wasn’t sure
if I should… presume to drop my things on your porch. I wasn’t even
sure this would be your porch. That address… at first, I thought it
was some research facility the general had meant to ship my sword
to.”

“No,” Ridge whispered, distracted by the
thought that she wanted to drop her things on his porch.

“Then by the time I got that balloon over the
mountains and down to civilization, and figured out what city that
address was in, I was a little concerned I might find you here
with… someone else.”

“Who else would there be?”

“I don’t know. Given how quickly the
general’s daughter—I presume she’s still alive?—grew infatuated
with you, I gather you don’t have much trouble finding female
company.”

“Oh.” Ridge decided not to mention that he
had ridden home with Vespa, who had tried to convince him to
console her physically over the loss of her father. “She was
actually infatuated before she came, I gathered later, and more by
my reputation than by actually knowing me. Once women get to know
me, they often flee the other way.” Not exactly true. The
incompatibility issues didn’t usually arise until they tried living
together, and he was off for months at a time, trying to get
himself killed—their words, not his—and leaving them alone at home
to worry.

“Ridge, are you lying to me?”

“Maybe a little. I thought it was my turn.”
He smiled and crossed the last few feet between them, sensing that
she wanted that from him, and took her hands. “If you can tolerate
my mendacious ways, maybe you could stay a while, see if you find
the knowing more appealing than others have.”

She leaned against his chest, their hands
still clasped. “I’d like that.”

“Good,” he whispered, locking eyes with her.
His heart was beating as fast as a propeller. He felt like a
teenager filled with that mix of exhilaration and terror as he
mustered the courage to kiss her. But as soon as their lips
touched, there was a sense of the familiar… and the right.

THE END

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Blade's Edge
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