Chapter 4 Say His Name

Raven’s POV

Caspian Valkyrn

I'd never called him by his name once up to the moment he left the cottage, to think I'd almost played pretend wife the dragon King. Burk irked me.

I won, but why do I feel like goblin dung?

For the year, I'd have a cottage that I could busy myself fixing, a loaded pouch of gold and silver.

Best of all, no arrogant, spoiled Dragon Duke breathing his hot breath down my neck.

"I should get to work,"I said, rolling my shoulders.

I got busy, finishing the rest of the dusting and even drawing micro runes to restore the wood to its pre-rot state. The first place I patched was the doorway. My fingers moved till late in the night and my eyes were too heavy to keep open.

Left with no other option, I had to surrender to sleep, collapsing on the bed like a log.

The bed was too small, and my legs went past, leaving my toes hanging.

Same thing went for the sheets, too small.

At first, that helped me explain away the chill running up my toes, but one second it ticked into another, and it had traveled all the way to my shoulders and cheeks. I sprinted from the bed and went searching for every piece of fabric in the house.

"This should help,"I said to myself through chattering teeth.

And still the temperature kept plunging lower.

Eventually, I couldn't take it anymore, and I crouched at the fireplace, but the warmth couldn't reach me.

The fire danced, taunting me as it flickered in my face but no warmth at all.

"How is this possible?" I waved my fingers shy of the scorching flames and nothing. I was still cold down to my bone.

A different chill swept through my veins.

"Did that dragon do something to me?" I said as my teeth grinned against each other.

I collapsed into my threadbare blanket, shivering until I couldn't endure it anymore and questions were running through my mind.

Could this be because of the time weaving?

Did that dragon curse me?

I have to find him, before the sun sets again.

I kicked my stiff legs into Willowind's night market, for a small town that was bustling with such life. Glowing fairies breezily played through the air, below them were spices, herbs and prime cuts of meat, as to be expected of an agricultural town.

There was more to the market, but my steps were slowing down, and my vision was blurring as I waddled through the crowd.

"Dragon … " I called to him, a few heads turned, but I wasn't calling out to them.

I was calling him.

But I didn't want to say his name.

It was easier to hate all the dragons when I held them as a monolith, because after my grandmother I was taking away, all I could crush to my chest was hate.

But I could spend my life sleeping away from being pulled by a different icy grip.

If I died here, I would never be reunited with my grandmother.

I had to call him

Trembling violently, I pushed my pride down my throat and his name upwards.

"Caspian!"

That seemed to suck all of my strength because I collapsed like I was boneless against a stack of crated apples, the crushing chaos turned heads towards my direction.

Strangely, people rushed it to my aide.

At first, I thought today wanted to rub me blind. In my delirious haze, I grabbed an apple year of imbued self-preservation rising onto the surface.

"Stay away . . . don't you dare come closer!"

I was so sure that they thought about helping me that I kept at this, effectively pushing everyone away.

The crowd shuffled away, and I smiled to myself, ignoring the ache that was traveling through my body because of my collapse on the crates.

One of them in the crowd might have genuine intentions.

But I'm not taking the risk.

I've already been hurt before, too much.

Trust was too costly to spare.

Maybe this is where it comes to be close for me and . . .

"What is happening here? I heard someone was hurt . . ." A young mountain through the crowd, clearly a noble of some sort because he was casually wearing silk.

"Stay away …" I said with my fading strength.

The man squinted his eyes at me and then swept his attention over to the crowd circling me.

"Does anyone know who this woman is?"

Everyone shook their heads one after the other. The man's voice got an edge after that.

"I've heard that some petty thieves have been crawling from other towns to steal, especially on nights like this. I will take her to my dungeon to be questioned."

My heart plunged to the bottom of anatase and I parted my lips to say something, anything at all.

But nothing came out of my mouth, all my lips could do was wobble helplessly and tears streaked down my face.

Worst of all, I was thinking of that dragon at that moment. That's how I knew I had hit rock bottom.

The guards' armor cluttered as they marched over to me and one was about to reach for my shaking, shivering hand when a voice tour tore down the crowd.

"Keep your hands off my wife!"

And then suddenly the code that was wrapped around me, but it could cool began to slowly melt away as a want and, like anything I had ever felt before, finally began to reach me until it enveloped me, lifting me up princess style.

It was the dra . . . No it was Caspian.

"She's my wife," he said again, every touch of his bringing life back to my skin. "We just moved to town, and she's been feverish for days. I left her in our cottage just for a moment, but she must have worried and come looking for me."

The lies of fluid out of his mouth more easily than a pint in a tavern, and I clutched at him in a desperation that didn't need acting.

"I see,"the noble man said, stepping forward, his suspicion designating with every step he took towards us.

"Then I should welcome you, I'm the Lord of this province, Count Burk.”