by K. A. Linde
“I think it’s the right move,” Hadrian said, running a hand back through his blue hair.
“Of course you do,” Clover snapped.
“Stop,” Kerrigan said. “Just stop.”
Darby put her hand on Kerrigan’s sleeve. “We’ll go with you. It’ll be okay. We’ll find Lyam.”
Kerrigan nodded reassuringly. She could tell Hadrian must have really been on edge if he couldn’t even see that she needed reassurance. Clover got under his skin so easily.
“Thank you.”
Darby fought for a comforting smile, but she just looked scared. And Kerrigan was scared, but she couldn’t look it. That was how their friendship worked. Kerrigan put on a brave face. She led the way to victory and adventure, as she always had. Today was no different.
“All right,” she said, more to herself than anything.
Then, the four of them left the room and headed out of the House of Dragons. Before they even got all the way out, Mistress Moran appeared in the hallway. She looked crumpled. Normally, she was so immaculate. Her black robes pressed and clean. Her hair a tight bun. But this hardly even looked like her.
“Kerrigan, Darby, Hadrian,” she said gently, “I was coming to collect you. I wasn’t sure if you had already left to stay in your new homes.”
“No,” Kerrigan said uneasily. “We have to go talk to Helly.”
“I’m afraid that won’t be possible,” Moran said.
“Why not?” Hadrian asked.
Moran’s eyes darted between them. It was a sign of how out of it she was that she didn’t even comment on Clover’s appearance with the group inside the mountain.
“I… I came to find you because, unfortunately, I have… I have terrible news.”
Kerrigan looked at Hadrian and Darby in confusion. “What terrible news?”
“I hate to tell you this, and I know that it is going to come as quite a shock, but Lyam has been found.” She swallowed hard. “He was found dead.”
Darby gasped next to her. Clover’s face hardened into something resolute. Hadrian just looked thunderstruck, as if he hadn’t quite heard her right. But Kerrigan… Kerrigan felt all of her fears escalate in that moment. A low buzzing filled her ears. As if everything was suddenly and inexplicably underwater. Lyam had told her he knew about her visions. He’d followed her out of the party. And now, he was dead… because of her.
“I am so sorry,” Moran said. “It’s a tragic accident.”
“How?” Hadrian asked practically.
“He was robbed, stripped of all belongings. The Guard found his body in a less than savory area of the city with a knife wound in his back. Horrible business, horrible.”
Darby burst into tears and collapsed right where she was standing, falling into a puddle of taffeta. Clover bent down with her, dropping a caring arm around her shoulders and whispering into her ear. Hadrian just looked… blank. Like all the wind had been blown out of his sails.
“Knife wound?” Kerrigan managed to get out.
“A slew of them in that area of town, I’m afraid. I just wish we could have recovered his father’s compass,” Moran said sadly.
“Can I see the body?”
“Dear gods, no, Kerrigan. No one wants to subject you to that.”
“What if it wasn’t an accident?” she asked more firmly.
“I know that you want to find motive in this,” Moran said, putting her hand on Kerrigan’s shoulder gently. “Lyam was a good, kind boy. He didn’t deserve this. But it doesn’t mean it was anything but senseless.”
Kerrigan didn’t believe that.
Maybe it’d be easier if it was just an accident. Just a bad dream that she was bound to wake up from. But it wasn’t.
Fate was spinning its wheels, and people she cared about were getting caught in the spokes.
20
The Funeral
It was just a tragic accident.
That was what everyone kept saying.
Lyam had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Everything of value had been stripped from him. A robbery. He’d been in the Dregs, close to the… Wastes. Everyone whispered when they said the name. No sensible person would get caught near that den of iniquity.
A tragic… accident.
Even though it didn’t feel like an accident at all.
Her life had skidded to a halt, and yet the world was going on around her. She had been excused from the last two days of task one in the tournament. Fordham had passed through to the next round, but there had been no glint of a knife in the arena. Which would have confused her if she could even concentrate on her vision. She had two weeks until the second task. Two weeks to “recover”—or so everyone told her—but still only a month to find a tribe.
Not enough time. Not enough time for any of it.
She stood with her feet planted in the dirt as Lyam’s body rested on a pyre. Body. His… body. It was hard to even think the words. That whatever had made Lyam… Lyam had been snuffed out so completely that all that lay on top of the pile of wood was a vessel and nothing more. None of his humor or thirst for adventure or sailing knowledge. Just a body.
Someone had arranged him with his arms wrapped over his chest. His eyes closed, his face serene, his body limp and ready to return to the earth. It didn’t even look like Lyam.
Though maybe a touch more than when she had snuck into the depths of the mountain to where they kept him in a cold place to prevent rot. The very thought shuddered through her as her teeth chattered, the deeper she crept. She was glad that she hadn’t asked Darby or Hadrian to come with her. They’d never have made it this far. She hoped to find a clue, to find anything to tell her why this had happened.
But when she got there, she looked down at the body—his skin waxy, his lips blue, the puncture wound deep—and she realized her folly. There was nothing here. Nothing but a wave of grief. She’d fallen to the floor and cried for hours. Lyam was gone. He was really gone.
Darby squeezed her hand, bringing her back to reality. Kerrigan blinked back the weight of that grief. She had heard nothing that the man said, who was there to bring solace to the grieving.
“Would anyone like to say anything?” the man finally asked, addressing the crowd.
Hadrian and Darby looked at Kerrigan. They had apparently agreed that she would be the one to do this, to find a place within her to speak words about the person she had lost. But what could she even say? She hadn’t prepared for this. But she couldn’t send him to rest without at least someone speaking for him.
So, she stepped forward and cleared her parched throat.
“Lyam was not like you and me,” she began softly. Her throat was already closing at the words. But she knew what he would have wanted to say. “Lyam came from very little. His parents were fishermen along the western coast. They had a wonderful life there on the sea. Lyam always kept his father’s compass with him at all times. He said… he said that it showed him the way back to the water. But due to fishing regulations, his family was forced to give up their life and come to Kinkadia, the city of light. They found no light here.”
The crowd surrounding Lyam’s funeral pyre shifted uncomfortably at her words. They were not the words anyone had been expecting. But she knew Lyam’s truth. The tribe system had failed him, as it had failed all the Dragon Blessed. And she was not just going to sit back and let them burn him without knowing what had happened.
“His parents never found work here. No one would hire unskilled labor. All they’d ever known was the sea, and the sea had been stolen from them. Lyam was dropped off into the care of the House of Dragons, given an opportunity to rise in the ranks. An opportunity his parents had not been afforded. And now, at only seventeen, he was murdered in cold blood,” she said, her voice getting angrier. “An injustice so great that I barely have words for it. We have work to do. We need to make this right. For Lyam and for all the families out there, struggling and living in fear. That’s what Lyam would want. That’s what I want to give
him.”
Kerrigan met Clover’s eyes across the circle near the back, and she was smiling. She nodded once at her. Then, Kerrigan stepped back and took Darby’s hand. Neither of her friends said a word. In fact, no one else said anything.
Then, a dragon blew hot fire onto the pyre, and Lyam went up in flames.
Dragon flames were supposed to be the ultimate honor. A sign of great respect for the deceased. Lyam would have wanted dragon fire. He’d loved riding almost as much as she did. But it was too little, too late.
They stood together for a long time as the flames licked at the wood, burning it low. Darby huddled between Kerrigan and Hadrian. Clover came around the pyre and rested her head on Hadrian’s shoulder. His arm slung around her to bring her in close to the group. Everyone else left in waves until just the four of them remained.
None of them had to say that they wanted to stay through the night. That they wanted to hold vigil for the loss of their friend. They just clustered together and watched the flames burn and burn and burn.
It was hours before Darby finally sank down into the dirt, heedless of the layers of her midnight dress.
“Darbs?” Kerrigan asked gently.
“I can’t do it anymore,” she said, brushing furiously at her wet cheeks. “I can’t keep crying. I’ve cried buckets the last four days. And I’m going to cry more buckets, but I just don’t want to be sad right now.”
Hadrian sank down next to her. “I know what you mean. Lyam was always so… happy.”
“He was a nuisance,” Darby said around a hiccup. “There wasn’t trouble he couldn’t get into.”
Kerrigan glanced at Clover, who tipped her head to the ground. The two of them sat, too, forming a small circle with Darby and Hadrian before Lyam’s funeral pyre. The sun had already sunk so low, brushing a burnished glow across the horizon.
“And you!” Darby said, thrusting her finger in Kerrigan’s direction. “You were just as bad.”
“Still am,” Kerrigan said softly.
“Because you don’t think this was an accident,” Hadrian said.
Kerrigan slowly shook her head. “No, I don’t.”
“I liked your speech,” Clover said with an arched eyebrow.
“Well, that makes one of you,” Kerrigan said.
“What you said was true,” Hadrian said.
Clover gasped next to him and nudged his shoulder. “Finally going to admit where you come from, sweetheart?”
He glared at her. Momentarily forgetting where they were with her chiding. “I don’t forget where I came from, but I was given the opportunity to rise above my station—”
Clover held up her hand. “I read the brochure.”
“Stop,” Darby snapped, uncharacteristically peevish.
Hadrian and Clover’s bickering died off immediately with murmured apologies.
“Why don’t you think it was an accident? Because he followed you?” Darby asked. “He’s followed you a hundred times and never been murdered.”
Kerrigan wished that she could explain it. But none of her friends knew about her visions. Only Lyam had known… and he was dead.
“I have a feeling,” she said with a shrug. “I don’t know how else to explain it. It feels wrong. The whole thing feels like a lie. Lyam wasn’t stupid enough to be caught by a robber in the Dregs.”
“I wish there were a way to prove it one way or another,” Darby said with a sigh.
Kerrigan wished that too, but she didn’t see how it was possible. All she had was a hunch, and that wasn’t enough for anyone.
By the time the flames were nearly guttered out, Darby had fallen asleep with her head in Clover’s lap. Clover was leaning back against Hadrian, as if she belonged there, both of them barely keeping their eyes open.
“Come on,” Kerrigan said softly. “Let’s get some sleep.”
Hadrian gently shook Darby awake. She yawned dramatically and then slowly came to her feet with the others. As a unit, they trudged back to the mountain. Hadrian and Darby had stayed at the mountain the last couple of nights instead of moving in with Fallon and Sonali right away, but Kerrigan knew that wouldn’t last. That she wouldn’t have them to lean on forever.
“Take my bed,” Kerrigan told Clover.
“You sure?” she asked around a yawn.
“Yeah, I’m still not tired.”
“You look tired.”
Kerrigan laughed once. “Yeah. I can’t shut my brain off, I guess.”
“Okay. Well, be careful. I want to think that it’s just an accident, but if it’s not, Red…”
“I know,” she whispered. “I won’t leave.”
Kerrigan didn’t have anywhere to be or anything to do. She just had restless energy deep in her bones that she couldn’t possibly shake. As if it was building—something was building inside of her. Not like her visions, which usually felt immediate, as if right that second, it was going to take her over.
She was just… edgy. And she didn’t know how to not be.
So, she walked.
Her feet carried her aimlessly throughout the darkened halls of the mountain. Past barely lit ornate tapestries, ancient metal fighting gear, through the peacefully slumbering dragon chambers, and then to the tournament rooms.
She could lie and say that she didn’t have any hope to find a dark-haired boy with gray eyes, but it was just a lie. They were connected, and something told her that he couldn’t sleep either.
She would be lying again to say she felt no joy at finding out that she was right. Fordham was seated at a long table in the hall with a leather notebook open before him. He’d shucked off his cloak and untucked his tunic. His dark hair was all a mess from him running his fingers through it, and he looked both contemplative and delectable. Words she should not associate with a prince who had been nothing but cruel to her.
Still, she stepped forward and seated herself at the table across from him. He’d surely heard her steps, but he didn’t look up from what he was writing. He scrawled a few more words into the margin before lifting those tempestuous eyes up to meet hers.
“Hello, princeling.”
“A little late for you to be wandering the halls, don’t you think?” he asked.
“Couldn’t sleep,” she said with a shrug. “You either?” She gestured to his notebook.
“No.”
“Still writing poetry?”
He frowned. “Why are you up?”
“Funeral,” she whispered.
His gaze softened for a split second and then returned to its neutral mask. “I heard.”
“Yeah,” she said noncommittally.
“I didn’t realize the streets were that rough in Kinkadia,” he admitted.
“They’re not,” she said at once, defending her home. “Well, they aren’t all that great. The Guard doesn’t care so much about the human side of town. But Lyam wasn’t robbed. He was murdered.”
Fordham’s eyebrows rose. “That fact was not circulated.”
“That’s because no one believes me.”
“And you have proof?”
She sighed and shook her head. “No, but… my gut tells me that there is nothing simple about what happened to him. He was following me out of that party, just like he’d done a dozen times before. He wasn’t stupid enough to be caught and robbed like that.”
Fordham was silent for a moment before saying, “All right.”
“You don’t believe me either.”
“On the contrary,” he said, closing his notebook, “I’m prone to believe that there is something larger happening here.”
“You are?”
He leveled her with a look. “You informed me of what was going to happen in the tournament and then passed out in my bedroom.”
“Right,” she said softly. “About that.”
He waved it away. “My gut is also typically right. And it tells me that what you said about Lyam is likely true.”
Kerrigan didn’t know why she was confiding in this broody
princeling. But he was here and she found herself attracted to him and something did seem to continue to drive them together.
“Yeah, well, I wish we weren’t the only ones. I have one month to get a tribe to accept me, and now, I have to figure out what happened with Lyam.”
“A tribe to accept you?”
“I made a deal. I have the length of the dragon tournament to be accepted into a tribe, or I have to work for the Society into perpetuity.”
He frowned at that news. “Would working for the Society be so bad?”
“When the other option is freedom?”
“Point taken,” he said dryly. “I’ve only recently discovered freedom myself.”
Kerrigan tilted her head. “How exactly did you get out of the House of Shadows?”
Any humor or lightness left on Fordham’s face evaporated. As if he’d forgotten that they were just two people alone in the dark and remembered his place in the world.
“I walked out,” he said simply and then stood swiftly, tucking his book under his arm.
“Wait,” she said, getting to her feet. She reached her hand out, forcing his name out of her mouth, “Fordham.”
He strode away purposefully and her shoulders dropped in dismay. Well, scales.
Right before he reached the corridor that led down to his rooms, Fordham came to a stop and turned back to her. He was silhouetted in the opening. She swallowed.
“If you want to find out what happened to your friend, I could go with you.”
Kerrigan staggered forward a step in shock. One minute, he’d been pissed and ready to flee from her presence, and now, he was offering… this? What in the gods’ name was going on in his head?
“Why?” she blurted out. “You hate my kind.”
“A favor for a favor. You helped me in the tournament, and I will help you with this. Then we are even.”
His words were precise and severe. As if this would be the end of their bond. That helping her would close the loop. He clearly did not like the idea of being in her debt.