House of Dragons

by K. A. Linde

  “That sounds isolating,” she admitted. Though she did not ask the question she wanted to know—how exactly had he gotten out?

  “It likely helps that the majority of us do not know any different,” he admitted. “They have not seen the streets full like this. They do not know the joy of running for miles in any direction. They have not been permitted life.”

  “That’s terrible. The stories… they make the House of Shadows seem like… like monsters. But this sounds like a horror that should not be bestowed on anyone. To be so isolated would be true torture.”

  Fordham didn’t have to say anything for her to know that he agreed. Especially now, after tonight.

  They returned to the mountain. Kerrigan realized she was still a little tipsy from the drinks. Waking up at dawn to run for miles didn’t sound tempting in the least. But she just enjoyed the lightness in her head as they headed back to their rooms. When they came to the place where their paths diverged, she stopped in anticipation. Not quite ready to say good-bye.

  But Fordham gently took her hand. “I’ll walk you.”

  Her heart thudded in her chest. He released her hand and they walked together, side by side, tension brimming between them. She had felt desire and obsession but nothing like this. Nothing where her entire insides squirmed and shivered at the mere touch. Suddenly, her mouth was dry. She had no words for how she felt in that moment.

  When they reached her door, she expected him to release her and go. But he hovered there before her, and for a moment, she was too frightened of what she would find when she looked up. For all her bluster about not being afraid, about controlling her fear, deep down, she had never been more afraid. She could master herself in life-or-death situations because she had to. But this?

  “Kerrigan,” he said.

  Her body shivered at the use of her name. All this time, he’d never really called her by her name. And now, to hear it from him in this moment, her body turned to mush.

  “Look at me,” he commanded in the soft, urgent voice of his.

  Slowly, she pushed down all her trembling fears and met his gray eyes. They were the same eyes she had been looking into for weeks. The same face that she had wanted to see smile—really smile—so she had brought him for a poetry reading. The man with a dozen layers and a million secrets. She had no hope of unraveling them all, but somehow, she was pulling them back inch by inch. And he was doing the same. Despite her fear—or maybe because of it—she realized just how much she wanted this.

  “Who are you?” he asked softly.

  “Who… who am I?” she asked with concern.

  “You are nothing like I expected.”

  “Nor are you, princeling,” she said with a smirk.

  He brushed a lock of her red curls out of her face and his finger ran along her jaw. She didn’t breathe for the length of that touch. She wanted to move into it, but they were on a precipice. As if at any moment they could plunge forward into oblivion or be wrenched backward. And she didn’t want to be the thing that scared him off.

  “I mean it. I was raised to believe that humans and half-Fae were different than full-blooded Fae. No, not just different… they were an abomination. Lower functioning and barely capable of more than servitude. Fae were silenced for even questioning those basic teachings. So, when you were sent to me that first day, I assumed the Society was trying to slight me for bending their rules and finding a loophole.”

  “But they weren’t,” she whispered.

  “No, I see now that they actually sent their best.”

  She laughed shyly. “I wouldn’t say their best.”

  “You are the first human or half-Fae I have ever been allowed more than a passing interest in. And everything I was taught was wrong,” he told her plainly.

  She swallowed, taken in by his confession. She had known that the House of Shadows had these beliefs, but hearing them told such made her heart ache. The lies that were spread about her people. It was heartbreaking.

  But Fordham’s realization was more than moving. It showed that people could change. They had the ability to see others as three-dimensional. And after he saw her as a real person and not lesser, he couldn’t unsee it. His world tilted on its axis and now, he had to look at the world through a new lens of empathy.

  That was what she had seen from him over the last couple of weeks. Not a softening expressly to her, but a softening of his hardened core beliefs. And she fell for him even more in that moment.

  “I’m glad that you came around. It couldn’t have been easy.”

  “No,” he said, stepping forward.

  She stilled under that gaze. His head dipped lower toward her. She wanted this. She wanted more from him. Her eyes fluttered closed of their own accord, and she hung in mid-air heavy with anticipation. His breath fell against her lips, hot and tantalizing. She could practically taste his lips.

  But then he withdrew, leaving her hanging suspended.

  She opened her eyes in surprise and a little more than embarrassed. Red tinged her freckled cheeks.

  “Thank you for this evening,” he said formally, withdrawing a step.

  “Oh… you’re welcome.”

  “No one has ever done anything like that for me before, and I won’t soon forget it.”

  She wanted to say so much more. She wanted to be bold enough to take that kiss for herself. But she saw something in his moody gray eyes that stilled her. It wasn’t fear, but it was taut with tension.

  He wasn’t ready. For some reason, he still wasn’t ready to make that step. He had changed his views of half-Fae enough for her, but even still, he couldn’t move past that… couldn’t give her the kiss that she so desired. This was still to new. Too anathema to his upbringing.

  So, she stepped backward, hid her plain desire from her face, and nodded. “I’m glad that you enjoyed it.”

  “I should bid you good night.”

  She saw the resolution in his eyes, the set of his jaw. The night was over.

  “Good night,” she muttered wistfully and then reached for the handle.

  The door fell open behind her, and she stepped inside, staring into Fordham’s gray eyes all the while. A crinkle sounded beneath her feet at the first step. Her brow furrowed in confusion, and when she looked down, she discovered a letter.

  “What is it?” Fordham asked.

  She reached down and picked it up, immediately recognizing the handwriting. “A letter from Ellerby.”

  37

  The South

  Fordham followed Kerrigan into her room as she broke the Elsiande wax seal and opened the letter. “What does he say?”

  She shook her head as she read through the letter. It was short with a flourishing signature at the bottom. And it said nothing. Not a damn thing.

  Dear Kerrigan,

  * * *

  Thank you so much for your entreaty into my well-being. All is well with me. I have returned to the countryside for my health. It is wonderful to be back in my hometown of Archdale, where I can wake up every morning whole and hale and look out across the Corvian Sea.

  It does bring me joy to hear from you. As ever, you should have no reason to worry over me. I merely wish to continue the long days I have left in this world with my family—particularly my nephew, Ever—nearby. The city has lost its luster of late.

  * * *

  I do wish to hear from you soon.

  * * *

  Sincerely,

  Ellerby Emberton of Elsiande

  She cast the letter aside, and Fordham gingerly plucked it off the ground.

  “That bad?” he asked.

  She huffed, “All he does is rave about his health. He says nothing about why he abandoned me to this fate. Only that he left to return home to be with his nephew.”

  Fordham read through the letter once, twice, three times before he sighed. “I believe this is a code.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t believe he is speaking plainly. I think it is a cry for help.”<
br />
  “What do you mean? He clearly says all is well.”

  “Yes. He says it multiple times. How often do people write a letter and say over and over again that they are well?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t get many letters. What do you think he’s really saying then?”

  “That he was in trouble. He fled the city in haste and has given you explicit directions as to where he went. He reminds you not to worry, and that he just wanted to be with his nephew. I would suspect his nephew was part of all of this in some way. Then, he says he wants to hear from you soon. Soon, not again, which is the customary address, is it not?”

  She reached for the letter and reread the whole thing. “It is. Soon is too immediate. It’s not used. I would have never realized all of that. So… he’s in trouble?” she asked. Fordham nodded. “Which means we need to get to Elsiande to speak to him. Maybe he knows why Lyam was killed and why the assassin tried to kill me next. Maybe he knows who is doing all of this.”

  “And how exactly do you presume we get to Elsiande? Isn’t it a few days’ travel by horse?”

  She bit her lip and grinned up at him.

  “Oh no,” he muttered. “That look usually precedes us being tortured.”

  “I have an idea.”

  “A bad idea?”

  “How do you feel about stealing a dragon?”

  “If someone catches us, we’ll probably be kicked out of the mountain,” Fordham reminded her as they crept through the dragon quarters.

  “Where’s your sense of adventure, princeling?”

  “Securely on the ground,” he muttered.

  She turned around in surprise. “Are you afraid of heights?”

  “Heights? No,” he said at once. “Falling from extreme heights—like off the back of a dragon, for instance…”

  She laughed. “Dragons are perfectly safe, and riding one is the most exhilarating experience of my entire life. You’re going to love it. Or… at least, you’ll get used to it since you’re trying to get a dragon in a few weeks’ time.”

  “Fine,” he muttered.

  Kerrigan grinned at him and then continued through the cavernous rooms where she had spent so much of her time, growing up. She could name practically every dragon as they passed. Some twitched an eye open at her approach, saw it was her, and then went back to sleep. This place was warm, welcome, and familiar.

  “What are you afraid of?” Fordham asked behind her.

  “Nothing,” she lied quickly.

  “Everyone is afraid of something.”

  “Someone once told me that if you master your fear, you’ll do great things. So, for most of my life, I’ve walked right into every fear I’ve had. I face them and embrace them. I don’t want to have any fears holding me back on my way to greatness.”

  “Hmm,” Fordham said.

  “What?”

  “Well, that doesn’t sound like you aren’t afraid of anything. It just sounds like you’ve learned to live with your fears every day of your life. Which means… you’re afraid all the time… of everything, but no one can see it.”

  Kerrigan stopped walking as a shiver ran down her back. How was it that she had only known him for a few weeks, and already, he saw straight through her like no one else in the world?

  “Yes,” she breathed, turning to look at him. “But isn’t that life?”

  “Where I come from… yes,” he said softly. “Here though? I don’t think everyone else is afraid all the time.”

  “Everyone else isn’t a half-Fae who was abandoned when they were a child and has had to fight for their place in this world every day of their life.”

  Fordham just watched her. He didn’t say anything. Didn’t try to soothe her. He saw exactly who she was down to, and accepted that.

  Kerrigan swallowed and kept moving until they came before the plum-purple dragon she had been looking for. “Tavry,” she whispered.

  A golden eye opened. Kerrigan, this is most unexpected. His eye swiveled to Fordham. Prince Fordham Ollivier of the House of Shadows, it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.

  Fordham bowed deeply at the waist. “As it is to make yours, great one.”

  Tavry looked back to Kerrigan. I like this one.

  Kerrigan laughed. “So do I.”

  I assume you did not disturb my sleep just to introduce me to the prince of the Dark Depths. What is it that you require?

  The dark depths. Well, that was different. She wondered what it meant as Fordham stiffened at the words.

  “I received a letter from Ellerby of Elsiande, and I am in deep need of a way to get to Archdale as fast as I can.”

  Tavry looked startled. What is the purpose of this visit?

  She swallowed and persevered. She decided to go with the truth. Anything else, and Tavry would be able to see right through it. “I have been investigating a murder, and I believe that Ellerby has important information to prove what truly happened to Lyam.” She rubbed Lyam’s compass in her pocket. “I have been following the leads. I was almost killed twice. Whoever did this is going to great lengths to make sure they are not discovered. I will see justice for Lyam.”

  Is this true? Tavry’s eye fixed on Fordham.

  He nodded. “Yes, great one. I have been assisting her in these matters, and Ellerby is our last hope to rooting out a murderer in our midst.”

  Tavry closed his eye, and Kerrigan thought they were done for. Then, Tavry straightened to his considerable height. His wings crested as he lengthened his figure.

  We must be back by dawn, Tavry told them.

  Kerrigan calculated the time they had left as she dragged her cloak tightly around her. “It’s a three-hour flight on a good day. That will give us hardly any time to find and speak with Ellerby.”

  Then, we must hurry, child.

  Kerrigan ground her teeth and nodded. By dawn. Gods, was that even possible?

  She decided not to think about it until they were on their way home. Right now, she knew she was doing the right thing. Rules be damned.

  She climbed onto Tavry’s back and watched Fordham assess how she’d gotten onto the dragon before making his own ascent. He took a seat directly behind her.

  “This is your first time. You should hold on tight,” she told Fordham.

  “To what?”

  “Me.”

  Fordham’s hands came to her waist gently at first then as Tavry rose to his full height, he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her flush against him. She tried to tamp down the shivers that spread through her body at this touch.

  Prepare yourself, Tavry told them.

  Tavry reached the edge of the entrance to the dragon cavern. His wings fluttered open. She felt the softest touch of their minds all connecting as one before he flew out of the cave and plummeted toward the ground. Fordham’s arms around her waist crushed her ribs and lungs. She pulled him forward with her, flattening them to Tavry’s back as they all held on for dear life.

  A gasp of excitement and exhilaration traveled through her. As they leveled out, tears streamed from her eyes from the wind, and she laughed uncontrollably. Her arms came out to her sides, even as Fordham held her so securely. This was life. Fordham had been right. She was so afraid of everything in her life. But flying? Never flying. This was the real joy she felt in the world. This was what she had been made for. If only she had been born a full Fae, she might have had this life.

  That thought sobered her, and she forced Fordham’s arms to loosen. “Open your eyes. Look.”

  She didn’t have to turn to know that he’d been squeezing his eyes shut, but at her words, she felt him relax. A soft inhale of breath meant he was finally seeing the world for what it was.

  “The world is so…”

  “Small,” she agreed. “So small up here.”

  “Beautiful,” he finished. “Even in the dark, we can see for miles and miles, and every inch needs to be memorized for eternity.”

  “The poet does come out on something other th
an paper,” she joked.

  He shook his head and said nothing, just held her closer. She leaned back against his broad chest and watched the only world she had ever really known disappear completely in the starlight.

  Kerrigan had lived in a castle in Bryonica until she was five, but her home was Draco Mountain… the city of Kinkadia. She had never been out of the city, except on stolen flights, since she was five. And even then, she had never touched the ground.

  She skimmed the surface with her hands as they flew endlessly.

  When Tavry touched down outside of the town of Archdale in the craggy, rocky wasteland that was Elsiande, she realized that this was her first time away from home in twelve years. Her feet hit the ground, and she shivered slightly despite the oppressive southern heat. Kinkadia had just hit the humid summer heat wave, but Elsiande must have been in it for weeks. She felt like she could drink the air and was certain her hair was twice the size it had been when they started.

  Fordham dropped down beside her on unsteady legs. “Well, we made it.”

  “Yes,” she agreed.

  “Where to now?”

  She shook her head. “I’ve never been to Elsiande.”

  Fordham turned her to face him. “I thought you knew where we were going?”

  “Not exactly,” she admitted.

  “Gods,” he grumbled.

  “I mean, I do know where he lives. He told me before. I just don’t know… exactly.”

  Then, you should hasten. We must leave again within the hour, Tavry reminded them.

  Kerrigan frowned and nodded. “Let’s go.”

  Together, they traversed the uneven rocks that made up the southern landscape. Their eyes had adjusted to the night, but it was too dangerous to walk without a light illuminating their path. So, they held flames in their palms to cut across the rocks.