House of Dragons

by K. A. Linde

“You will lose.”

  “You haven’t even seen me fight,” she snapped at him. “Are you assuming that because I’m half-Fae that I’m not capable? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “The assassin almost killed you. Would it be so hard to believe that a half-Fae cannot fight after you were stabbed tonight?”

  “She got the jump on me, and she had a knife to break my magic,” she snarled. “Being half-Fae has nothing to do with it. You know nothing about me, princeling.”

  “I know enough to know, halfling,” he shot back.

  “Whatever,” she said, dismissing him.

  “You need a trainer.”

  She laughed derisively. “And who is going to train a half-Fae? You?”

  “No, that’s not what…”

  “As I thought. Good-night, princeling. Our deal is over. You won’t have to worry about me anymore.”

  “I didn’t save your life just to watch you die for your own stupidity,” he growled.

  She whirled around. “I’m not going to die, nor am I stupid.”

  “No, you’re reckless.”

  “Fine. I’m reckless. But Lyam died because of me, and I’m not going to rest and do nothing while his killer is still out there, while they want me dead,” she snapped at him.

  “And you think he’d want you to throw your life away?”

  “He’s not here to say otherwise, is he?” Her anger and grief pulled to the surface. She shook her head and released it all. “I don’t want to die or throw this all away. But there’s no one here to train me to be a better fighter than I already am.” She shrugged her shoulders. “So, I’ll take Dozan’s help to find that assassin and then I’ll fight the best I can.”

  He ran a hand back through his hair. “I’m going to regret this.”

  “What?”

  “I can teach you,” he offered through gritted teeth. “If you’re not too stubborn to learn.”

  Her body stilled. He actually offering? That didn’t make sense. They had each saved the other, and now, they didn’t have to work together anymore.

  “I thought that our bargain was ended,” she said.

  “Then this isn’t part of the bargain. This is just… to help keep you alive.”

  “You want to help keep a halfling alive?”

  “Do you want my help or not?” he snapped.

  “Yes,” she said quickly. She’d seen how he moved against the assassin and in the training ring. He was talented. She’d take his help even just to prove she wasn’t as weak as he thought.

  “Then we begin at dawn,” he said before disappearing into the night without a backward glance.

  Prince Fordham Ollivier was not what she had expected at all.

  Kerrigan could have slept straight through morning and on into the evening. If she’d had her way about it, she would have. She’d tossed and turned all night. Dreams of the assassin running her through had kept playing on repeat.

  But Fordham knocked on her door at dawn.

  Dawn.

  She knew he’d said it the night before, but she hadn’t wanted to think he was serious. Especially since they had been gallivanting around the city well into the night.

  Every part of her screamed to ignore him and fall back into a dreamless slumber, but today was her first day of training. So, she got up and put on her favorite pair of black pants, carefully bound her chest—she’d learned long ago to do that before any kind of fighting session—and then threw a loose shirt overtop. She braided her hair into a curly plait, wishing she had Darby’s magic fingers, and then stepped into the hallway. She looked a wreck, and Fordham looked like… a prince.

  It truly wasn’t fair that he could look like that with only such few hours of sleep. His black-and-silver House of Shadows attire pristine. His back straight, chin lifted, shoulders pushed back. The only sign that he wasn’t happy about the early morning wake-up call was the half-moon bruises under his eyes, which said he’d slept about as well as she had.

  “Morning,” he said, almost chipper.

  “Ugh,” she groaned in response.

  He nodded his head down the hallway, and she followed him out of the mountain. He finally stopped in a small grove outside of the city. The sun hadn’t quite set, and the final blue-black of night was disappearing as a haze of morning crept onto the horizon. Fordham tossed her some bread and a waterskin.

  “You’re going to need that,” he said. “So, don’t drink it all.”

  She mock saluted him as she washed the bread down with water. “So, what are we doing today? Sword fighting, hand-to-hand combat, elemental prowess?”

  “We’ll start with a warm-up and see where you are.”

  “Okay. What’s the warm-up?”

  “Five-mile run and then a series of strength exercises.”

  Her eyes bugged. “Five miles?”

  “To start. We can build you up to more.”

  “Or not. I only run if someone is chasing me.”

  “With your nightly activities, I would think that happens more often than not,” he quipped. “We have to get you in better physical shape if you hope to make it through this fight. Plus, if Dozan comes up with information on who the assassin is, I don’t want to have to pull all the weight.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Like you’re so much better than me because you can run.”

  “You need discipline,” he said, squaring his shoulders off with her and looking her in the eye. “You’re lazy and unfocused. If you had half the prowess you proclaim from some street fights, then you would have handled that assassin with ease.”

  “Fine, princeling. I need discipline. And that means running?” she asked skeptically.

  “You know what? Let’s get this out of the way.” Fordham stripped out of his cloak and laid it in the grass. “Go ahead and try me.”

  “Try you?” she said. “You want to fight?” She looked around. “Right here?”

  “Is that not appropriate for you?”

  “Not many people know how much magic I have,” she admitted, touching her ears.

  “That’s good. Then, they can underestimate you.” He began to circle her.

  The hair on the back of her neck stood on end. He stalked her like prey, a slow, steady prowl. The magic in his veins crackled to life. She could practically feel the hum of him brushing against her fair skin.

  “They can.” A shudder snaked down her skin. This might have been a mistake. Training with someone like Fordham certainly hadn’t been her best idea. The monster that you knew was still a monster. “They do… underestimate me.”

  “Like me?” he asked silkily.

  And somehow, the softness in his voice was worse than all the harsh edges and barbs.

  “Uh… yes. Like you.”

  She brought her magic close into her chest. A gentle thrum of power that suffused her body, bringing it to life, as if all along, she had just been going through the motions, and here, like this, she was real. She was prepared. Her feet were spaced perfectly apart. Her hands were held in tight fists at her sides. Her awareness was controlled and ready.

  Then, Fordham turned the corner, finishing his methodical stroll around her body, and all her perfect planning fell to shit.

  He jabbed out lightning fast with one hand, brandishing water magic like it was the air in his lungs. It slashed out, lassoing around her legs. She managed to sidestep, getting thrown onto her back, but it was exactly what he’d been anticipating. One second, he was in front of her, and the next, his feet were dancing through steps so fast that she couldn’t even put together the forms. He moved like the wind, as if he’d been born to this. His foot caught her at the same time a brush of wind catapulted her backward, and the earth beneath her feet propelled upward.

  She sailed through the air, landing hard on her backside, a solid ten feet from where she had been standing earlier. And Fordham stood there with his arms crossed over his chest and one eyebrow raised.

  The whole thing had only taken a matter of seconds.
Not minutes, seconds. She had never seen anyone move like that before. Not even Fordham, and she had watched enough of his training sessions and seen him in the ring to know that he had never shown off those moves to anyone.

  “Are you satisfied?” he asked from his stance overtop her.

  She groaned and rubbed her aching back. “Where did you learn to move like that?”

  Fordham lifted his chin, a twinkle in his gray eyes. “I am crowned prince to the House of Shadows. What did you expect?”

  “No idea,” she told him honestly. “A pompous jerk with a chip on his shoulder?”

  “The chip on my shoulder is earned,” he said with almost a little smile at the end.

  Then, he held his hand out to her. She put her hand in his and let him haul her to his feet.

  “As you have your secrets, I have mine.”

  “Secrets?” she whispered.

  “I didn’t see you run to the mountain to convince anyone that Lyam was murdered, that house was abandoned, and that there was an assassin after you.”

  She bit her lip. “No one will even believe me without proof. The knife isn’t enough.”

  “And the empty house?”

  “They’ll dismiss it. Tribe members come and go all the time.”

  “Fine,” he said begrudgingly. “But there is much at stake these next few weeks. Let’s not walk into them, unprepared. Discipline is the foundation of the House of Shadows’ military protocol. If you can survive the next few weeks, there’s hope for you surviving this fight and catching this assassin.”

  “Five miles?” she asked.

  “It’s a start.”

  Fordham took off at a moderate jog, likely more for her benefit than anything.

  “Tell me… about the… military protocol,” she said between pants.

  He wasn’t even breathing hard. “The House of Shadows is divided into three primary families.”

  “Like the… four Bryonican… royal houses?”

  He frowned and nodded once. “Sort of. Family is a loose term. It’s more like different factions, and people can move between families. My father has ruled the House of Shadows for five hundred years but not continuously. Another faction will rise up, depose my family and take over for a decade, and then my father will rally enough support to take back the throne.”

  “That’s… barbaric.”

  He shot her a rueful look. “Challenge is a way of life. The Society rules under absolute power across all of Alandria. Unchecked and unaccounted for. Challenge is put down like a dog. That is not freedom.”

  Kerrigan just peered at him in surprise. “You are… competing to… join… the Society.”

  “I am.” Though he said nothing further about why he had decided to join something he clearly disapproved of.

  They ran until they came to the top of a bluff, and Kerrigan could run no more. “I need a break.”

  She all but collapsed onto a nearby stone. She tilted, trying to get the stitch out of her side. It felt quite literally like someone was stabbing her repeatedly. She’d had it happen recently enough to know.

  “This is torture.”

  Fordham paced back and forth in front of her. “It’ll get easier.”

  After her fingers stopped throbbing with the pulse of her erratic heartbeat, she managed to take a sip of her waterskin. “I’m surprised you’re talking about home.”

  He looked off toward the mountains. “You needed to know why discipline was important.”

  “Right, but you could have just told me to suck it up. Instead, you told me about your family… your people.”

  His gray eyes met hers, cold and unyielding as ever. “Now, you will try harder, for you know the cause. I have gone to war. I have seen things you cannot comprehend. It has saved my life.” He held out his hand again, hauling her back to her feet. “And it will save yours.”

  27

  The Baths

  Three days of discipline training equated to aching muscles, a desperate need to eat anything and everything in her path, and long long hours in the baths, like she was doing right now. Sleeping would have also been a great way to pass the time, but it still evaded her. Every day, she felt like she was going to drop dead from exhaustion and fatigue. Then, as soon as her head hit the pillow, her eyes were wide open.

  Apparently, near-death experiences did that to a person. Five years ago, she had almost died, and sleep had never really come back. The knife embedding into her shoulder was just another thing to add to the list of reasons she couldn’t sleep.

  She tipped her head back and sank an inch lower into the steaming water. A natural hot spring ran under the mountain and provided bathing water year-round for residences. It was easily one of the best things about living here.

  Kerrigan tended to go when everyone else was already asleep. She didn’t mind being naked in front of the other girls, but she still wasn’t used to showing her ears. Not if she could help it.

  Her eyes fluttered closed as the last couple days slid off her skin. She just wished she could calm her mind as much as the water calmed her body.

  It didn’t help that she was anxiously awaiting to hear from Ellerby. She’d written him a letter and had it mailed to his home in Elsiande. She had no idea when to hope to hear from him… if she even would. Considering the state of his home, she thought it was unlikely. But now, she was worried about him.

  The whole thing frustrated and confused her. To make matters worse, it put her no closer to finding a tribe to take her in time. She was going to have to put something together, figure out a way to pull some strings.

  If only she could sleep…

  Her breathing evened out. Her fingers slipped into the water. The lull of the underground baths pulling her deeper into slumber. It had been days since she’d slept more than a handful of hours. She couldn’t resist the pull.

  A dream took root almost immediately. A dream unlike any other. This was crystal clear. The images stark and blinding, as if imprinted on her eyelids.

  First, a gold medallion broken into three unequal parts. Once the pieces of the puzzle slid together, a symbol appeared—a raven. The same raven that had been on the dagger. The raven took flight, and abruptly, she was now looking down on the arena, but it was flooded. A series of platforms were held together by ropes, ladders, and an unsteady framework. The entire thing hovered in the air over the water, and as she watched, the structure moved. She found Fordham in the arena. He stood on a rounded bit of scaffolding as he reached out for something in front of him. A figure appeared behind him, but she couldn’t tell who, and with a sharp push, Fordham fell. She knew instinctively that he couldn’t fall, that he would lose everything. She reached for him, but already, the dream shifted.

  This time, it was a blur of images flashing hastily before her eyes, as if there was so much, too much, to show in one snap. A warehouse, a length of rope, a dragon flight, a blue drink in a gold goblet, the back of a girl’s head with hair the color of ash, the Dragon Ring, Dozan standing over her, a figure in black, and a red mask.

  “Kerrigan! Kerrigan!” a voice cried, jolting her awake.

  She snapped out of her vision, jerking out of the water and coughing spastically to clear her lungs. She’d fallen all the way under. Any longer, and she might have drowned. She sucked in deep breaths as she tried to make sense of what in the gods’ name was happening to her.

  “Oh my gods, are you okay?”

  Kerrigan cleared her green eyes enough to see who had found her and kept her from drowning. “Audria,” she said in surprise.

  “Are you all right?” She fiddled with a loose lock of her blonde hair.

  “I’m… I’m fine. Thank you,” Kerrigan said, suddenly tongue-tied.

  Audria was beautiful and royal and… a friend from home. A friend she could never be again because Kerrigan didn’t want anyone to know where she had come from.

  “What are you doing down here?”

  “I could say the same to you.”

&nbs
p; “True,” Kerrigan conceded, running a shaky hand back through her red hair.

  “But… I came to find you. I wanted to talk.”

  “About what?” Kerrigan asked, retreating in the water but Audria stepped forward.

  “I saw you were training with Fordham.”

  “Yeah,” she said warily.

  “How’s that going?”

  “It’s… grueling. I think he takes pleasure in me being in pain.”

  “That sounds like the House of Shadows.”

  Considering what Kerrigan knew about the House of Shadows from Fordham, she would be even more inclined to agree. They weren’t just brutal to those they thought were beneath them; they were like that to their own too. Brutality was built into their being from a young age. No one could come away from that unscathed.

  Audria continued when Kerrigan didn’t reply, “What’s he like?”

  “What do you mean?” Kerrigan crossed her arms over her chest. The last thing she wanted was a line of interrogation from Audria.

  “You’re the only person he talks to,” Audria said with a small shrug of her shoulders. “I’ve tried to get to know him, but he has no interest in talking.”

  “I don’t know,” Kerrigan said softly. “He’s exactly what you’d expect.”

  It was a lie. Fordham wasn’t what she had expected at all. Yes, he brutal, strong, arrogant, but there was something else underneath it all. She didn’t know what exactly. She was just now discovering it. But he didn’t have to train her for this fight and he was anyway. That said something about his character. Maybe he wanted everyone to think he was a brute. Maybe it was easier.

  “If he was exactly what I expected, then he wouldn’t be training you,” she said gently. “I don’t mean that how it sounded… I’m not…” She cringed again. “I’m not prejudiced. I am completely pro-rights for all marginalized people. I just think that he wouldn’t be.”

  “I don’t know why he’s training me,” she admitted.

  Why was she still talking to Audria? She couldn’t be friends with this girl. No matter how nice she was.

  “Okay,” Audria said uncertainly. “But just be careful, okay?”