Diamond in the Rough - Vivienne Savage Page 0,24
carefully across solid stone. Hyraj and her siblings were the last to make the treacherous journey, Isabis had explained, making them the ideal guides to navigate and safely lead them through the lava fields.
Ahrak and Simi, the woman’s two large brothers, had been their silent shadows throughout, both men armed with swords. Rosalia had begun to wonder if they simply didn’t speak the language until Hyraj explained their distrust of outsiders.
Slowly they came around, however, and had occasionally answered her questions.
“Get what?” asked her brother Ahrak.
“With so much to protect the Legacy, why did it ever—how did it ever leave the volcano at all?”
At her question, his features darkened. “We were betrayed.”
“Oh.”
When he offered nothing further, Rosalia assumed it was a tender subject, even if it had occurred decades, if not centuries ago. She’d learned only through context that the Mori aged differently than normal humans and had been blessed with a longer lifespan—though that was also failing them in recent years.
“He came under the guise of friendship, claiming he sought the teachings of Moritan,” Simi said, his sudden contribution to the discussion startling her.
Beside her, Xavier stiffened.
The answer that had eluded her had never seemed clearer.
“A dragon came to you and stole it?”
“As is the nature of their kind,” Simi confirmed.
Xavier said nothing, and the two men didn’t look at him. He wasn’t his grandfather, and had nothing to do with the crimes of the ancient dragon, but one glance at him told her the matter weighed heavily on him.
She wondered how much of a desire to right his family’s wrongs drove him now.
“And now Grandmother thinks that we should place our trust in another,” Ahrak growled. “The same thing will happen again.”
“Brother—”
“No. This is anekhra, and you know it as well, Hyraj. This creature wearing the skin of an elf will take from us and we will be worse off for it. We should not show them the way. We should leave them to their fate. If Moritan truly desires their company, he will show them the way!”
“But what if the dragon speaks the truth and dark things arrive to take the treasure?”
“Then we go into the mountain and take it ourselves. We are strong enough to do it.”
“Grandmother forbade that. Going inside that volcano now would be death to us!”
“Grandmother doesn’t know everything.”
Hyraj wheeled back as if he’d struck her. Even Simi flinched. Perhaps in their culture, his words were no different than a physical blow. Rosalia stood by, observing the escalating family argument. She sought Xavier’s gaze, but he stood rigid and facing away from her, refusing to make eye contact.
It wasn’t right.
“Are you going to be the one to tell Grandmother that you disobeyed her command?” Hyraj demanded.
“Hy—”
“No. Your behavior is a dishonor to us all. You spit on Grandmother. You spit on me to suggest I should disobey her, that I know better than her wisdom.”
Visible pain washed over Ahrak’s features. “I did not suggest you knew better.”
“Oh? Then what is it when you say she does not know everything—that we are to strand our guests in the lava fields? You clearly believe this is right, and in agreeing with you, so would I.” The woman dragged in a breath and stared up at him. “I am disappointed in you.”
Rosalia could not have chastised a child more thoroughly Hyraj’s verbal castigation of her brother. By the end, his chin dipped and his head hung—an absurd sight for a man so large and broad in the shoulders as the bald Mori man.
“You shame me, and rightfully so,” he agreed after a heavy sigh. “So be it. We guide the outsiders to Mori’onga.”
“Apologies, Xavier. My brother does not always think with his sense, and at times gives in to the passions of the heart.”
“No harm done.”
Every minute afterward amplified and stretched in length on account of the awkward mood between the three men. Warmth bled from the ground around them and baked the air with stifling heat worse than the desert they’d traveled.
As no one else complained, or even paused to wipe their brows, Rosalia remained silent for the duration of the journey. At last, when it seemed the enchanted soles of her boots could bear no more, Hyraj stopped.
“We can go no further with you.” Hyraj and her brothers remained standing a safe distance away from the shimmering magma field. The area pulsed with heat and the life of living flame. Crackles of molten earth appeared in great fissures that spread beyond her line of