by K. A. Linde
Audria wasn’t the best healer. But since that was what Bryonica was known for, it would be an insult to her heritage for her to not at least try. Kerrigan was glad that no one thought it was an insult to her heritage, considering water was her worst element.
“It’s a good idea.”
“I asked Zina if she’d work with me,” Noda confessed next to Audria.
“What did she say?” Audria asked.
Noda shook her head. “She said her favor to Helly was to train on Mondays, and I could figure it out myself on Fridays.”
Kerrigan snorted. “Sounds like her.”
“Yeah, so I guess I’m going to try to get ahead on my ancient Fae. My elective is in languages.”
“Boring,” Roake said. “I’m going to be working with Lorian. He said I really had something.”
Fordham arched an eyebrow in disbelief. “Interesting.”
“Why?”
“Nothing.”
Roake crossed his arms. “Well, what are you doing?”
“I received dispensation from the council for magic lessons with Gelryn.”
Audria gasped. Roake even looked impressed. “Gelryn the Destroyer? He’s offering lessons?”
“He’s offering me lessons.”
“No offense, but didn’t he fight a war to kill your people?” Noda asked.
Fordham shrugged. “A thousand years ago.”
His eyes met Kerrigan’s in the space, and she understood then. He was going to work on his magic lessons with the dragon to try to get information about the war. It was smart. A way to include research in his training time.
“Well, Ker, it’s just you,” Noda said. “Should we brainstorm what you should do?”
“Nah, I’m good. I have a few ideas. Might try a few different things.”
Fordham shot her a questioning look, but she shook her head. She wasn’t ready to tell anyone her plans. Not even Fordham. Because not even Fordham knew the secret she was hiding.
They ate together in the dining hall. Audria regaled them with Season gossip. The official opening wouldn’t be for three more weeks, but small parties were already cropping up. Kerrigan was thankful she didn’t have to participate. That none of them did. She thought Audria felt the same, though she’d never admit it.
As the others branched off to their extra training sessions, she turned to head in the opposite direction.
Fordham jogged to catch up with her. “Hey.”
“Hey. Aren’t you going to meet with Gelryn?”
“Coincidentally, in the same direction as where you’re going. What are you planning?” he asked. “I know you well enough to know you have a plan.”
She glanced up into those smoky-gray eyes. Her heart lurched. She gulped and hastily looked away.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Come on. It’s me.”
“Fine,” she said with a huff. “I’m meeting with Tieran.”
“Flying?” he asked, surprised. “You have to already be the best rider here. You’ve been riding since you were a kid.”
“Tieran and I don’t get along,” she said, giving him a piece of the truth. “We never did. Netta and I were always better matched. I still don’t know why he picked me, but we have to find a way to work together the next year. We need to figure that out before we’re in front of Alura.”
“Fair. I didn’t realize that you didn’t get along. He was worried when you were hurt.”
“Selfish reasons, I assure you.”
He shrugged. “If you say so.”
“And Gelryn? You’re going to ask him about the Great War?”
“Am I that transparent?”
She brushed her hand against his pale skin. “Pretty much.”
His throat bobbed, his eyes drifting to her lips before his expression returned to his careful neutral. “I figured it wouldn’t hurt. I got a letter from Arbor this morning. It arrived by hawk.”
“Really?” Kerrigan asked.
“Yeah. She was worried about us after we vanished.” He grimaced. “There wasn’t exactly a way to let them know.”
“No, there wasn’t.”
“She and Pres heard about what happened with Wynter and said they’d look into it for us there. So, we’ll get some intel into what Wynter is doing while we’re away.”
She relaxed. “That’s good news.”
“This is my turn,” Fordham said, gesturing off to the right.
“Good luck.”
He grinned at her, melting her heart. “You too.”
She watched him jog away for a minute through the stone hall of the mountain and then buried all of her feelings for him in a place she couldn’t reach. The last week of training had been fine between them. They were partners, as they’d been during the tournament. There was nothing romantic at all when they were sweaty and exhausted and fighting to survive this place. But one smile, and it all resurfaced.
She turned away with a sigh and headed up into a private aerie. Tieran had agreed to meet her for Friday afternoon training. The dragons also had that time off for private lessons, which was useful for their purposes.
Tieran waited for her as she trekked up the last staircase. Her legs barely allowed her the option. She thought she’d collapse at the top. They’d run stairs all morning with Alura and then been forced to do more stairs for footwork training with Lorian. It had been brutal.
“Made it,” she huffed, breathing heavy. “How’s training going?”
As to be expected, Tieran said.
“Great. Yeah. Mine sucks too.”
He shot one golden eye her way. You look like you’re going to perish at any moment.
“That is not inaccurate.”
Kerrigan flopped back onto a chair at the back of the room and took a slug from her waterskin. Tieran watched her, a slight look of disdain on his face.
Why have you called me here?
“Well, we have three weeks to get this together before we walk into dragon rider training. No one else knows that we’re not bonded. We’re going to have to be pretty convincing about it. And I thought we should train before we do it in front of everyone else.”
Tieran looked skeptical. You think that we can fake a bond?
“You’re the one who said that we had to try. Do you want to be kicked out of the program? I don’t have anywhere else to go. You could always go back to the Holy Mountain …”
No, he said automatically, glancing away. No, I won’t go back there.
He’d made similar comments when they first finished the tournament together. She didn’t know what had happened at the Holy Mountain, where he’d been born, but whatever it was, he clearly had no interest in talking about it and definitely no interest in returning. That was good for her because she had nowhere to go. It wasn’t like she could set up home in the House of Shadows. Not with what Wynter wanted from her.
“Then great. Let’s give this a try.”
Do you even know what the training entails?
“Not really,” she said with a shrug. “Flying?”
He snorted a breath of hot air in her direction. You are so incredibly naive.
“Hey! It’s not my fault that I don’t know what this training entails. Three weeks ago, I didn’t think that I’d ever even have a dragon. I wasn’t exactly listening in to find out how they trained competitors.”
Tieran made a sort of shrug. You just admitted your own incompetence.
Kerrigan jumped out of her seat in a huff. “Fine. I don’t know why I expected this to work with you. If you want to berate me for not being the person that you wanted, then you shouldn’t have agreed to this meeting.”
But it’s so much fun.
“I’m going,” she snarled. “I’ll do research on the bonds in my spare time instead. Maybe it’ll tell us why we weren’t bonded.” She headed toward the entrance, a deep fury rushing through her. “I’ve worked too hard to let you ruin this for us.”
Tieran’s tail swept out of nowhere,
blocking her exit. We can train.
“Why should I bother?” She crossed her arms over her chest.
You need me, he stated simply.
A fact. She did need him. She couldn’t dragon train without a dragon.
Though I believe that researching the bond will be satisfactory as well.
“Yeah, I should probably do that in all my spare time,” she teased. “So, you think we can train?”
I think we have no other choice.
“Right. Well, we have a month to try to get this right. Why don’t we get started?”
Four merciless hours later, she and Tieran were no better off than when they’d started. In fact, she stormed out of the aerie in such a fury after her failure that she overturned a servant carrying a dinner tray. She apologized profusely to the human working within the mountain. Still, she couldn’t shake her anger.
It would be one thing if they weren’t any good at this. It was another that they both had sharp tongues and knew when to properly wield them. After her bouts with Lorian, she didn’t have it in her to deal with Tieran too. It had been a long week. Maybe it would all be better after she slept off the muscle aches.
She pressed the door to her room open, ready to collapse face-first into her bed until she realized someone was standing in the middle of the room. Her danger senses hadn’t even been triggered. She was too tired to even recognize who was standing there.
“Go away and come back later,” Kerrigan grumbled.
The person laughed. “What in the gods’ names happened to you?”
Clover. Right, it was Clover. “Oh, hey.”
She laughed. “I haven’t seen you all week.”
“Training,” she said, dropping onto her bed and unlacing her shoes.
“You didn’t say hi when you got back?”
“Knocked out.”
“Why am I not surprised?” Clover asked. She sank into a seat and lifted her feet to rest on the bed.
Kerrigan kicked her shoes into a corner, stripped out of her training clothes, throwing them into a pile of neglected laundry, and changed into something clean. “What are you doing here?”
“Came to check on you. No word for a week after you were supposed to be back from the House of Shadows. Hadrian and Darby were worried too.”
“I’m alive.” She sank down on the bed and winced as her legs and back protested. “Barely.”
“Send a note next time?”
Kerrigan nodded. She scanned her friend. Her severe black bob had recently been cut even shorter with bangs nearly obscuring her blue eyes. Her cinnamon skin glowed against her white tunic and black pants.
Kerrigan realized why she looked different. “You’re not wearing Dozan’s colors.”
Normally, Dozan Rook had his card dealer in a black button-up with a red vest. It made his employees noticeable. Clover usually wore them, even out of the Wastes.
“Yeah, I’m going to a meeting after this. I came to check on you and… try to drag you along.”
Kerrigan closed her eyes and buried her face in her pillow. “Clove …”
“Look, I know that you’re tired. Training looks like it’s not going well, but hear me out.”
She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. The front of her shirt opened, revealing the gold chain she always had dangling from her neck. The piece of metal was nearly the size of Kerrigan’s palm and flat as a disc. Kerrigan had rarely seen her without it.
“I’m listening.”
“Remember the protest I went to?”
“The one where you got arrested and I had to get you out of chains?”
“The one,” she said smoothly. “The group that put that together is trying to get more organized. They have real plans. They’re having an activist meeting to try to see how much interest there is.”
“How much interest there is in what?” Kerrigan asked, afraid she already knew.
“Human and half-Fae rights.”
Kerrigan nodded minutely. “I see.”
“It’s not fair that we have no say in our own government. The Society gets to make all the rules. They get to enforce those rules, and we suffer. We should have people in those meetings, vocalizing our opinions.”
“You know I agree with you,” Kerrigan said.
“But …”
“But I have a year of dragon training. I can’t protest against the very government that I’m part of.”
Clover’s eyes shuttered. “Why not? Isn’t that the point of being in the government? To enact change?”
“Yes, and you know that I plan to, but right now, I’m not even in the Society. I can still be kicked out in the next year.”
“So, you’re going to let them censure you?” she asked, getting heated. “Let them keep you quiet for the next year when we have the momentum of your win now?”
“No, that’s—”
“Don’t be a coward.”
Kerrigan dropped an arm over her face. “I don’t even have the energy to argue with you. If surviving the next year is cowardice, then fine. I can’t change anything if I’m kicked out.”
Clover vaulted out of her seat. “I never thought I’d see the day when you backed down over the fear of getting caught. Someone in the Society killed Basem Nix for what he knew about the Red Masks. The very people who beat you in a dark alleyway for being half-Fae. Do you think they’re actually going to find the killer if we remain silent?”
Kerrigan moved her arm and looked at her friend. Was she staying here out of fear? Was she letting the Society rules dictate her? Was it worth her principles?
Part of her said yes. It was worth everything to get what she wanted. But at what cost?
“Okay,” Kerrigan said with a sigh. “I’ll go.”
18
The Meeting
Kerrigan tugged the hood of her cloak tighter around her face as they moved through the streets of Kinkadia. The city was bustling with the summer energy and late daylight hours. It wouldn’t be dark for hours yet, and street festivals would be set up throughout the city. It had long been Kerrigan’s favorite time of year. The city truly came alive despite the suffocating humidity, coupled with an oppressive heat and the stink. The city couldn’t help but stink in this weather.
They skirted the Square and came up on an inn a few blocks away. Kerrigan was surprised. She’d been expecting something in the Dregs, surrounded by pubs. Something disreputable.
Clover must have seen that on her face because she scoffed. “People in all neighborhoods want this. Not just the people at the bottom. We have to be able to fund it after all.”
“Of course,” Kerrigan said. “I thought it would be somewhere more private.”
“The dining space will be open as normal. There’s a garden out back that opens onto a private courtyard. The meeting will be held there. No one else has access, except the innkeeper.”
Kerrigan nodded. That made more sense to her.
“This way,” Clover said.
She navigated to the back of the property with ease, as if she’d been doing this for a while. They stepped under an archway and into a garden paradise. Vines covered the walls that enclosed the garden and courtyard. Plants of every type filled the area, large enough to hold a couple hundred people. Not that Kerrigan suspected that many people would attend this meeting on a Friday night. This almost reminded her of the greenhouses on the east side of the mountain. Just the sheer expanse of plants. No matter how long Kerrigan had lived in the city, it always managed to surprise her.
Clover walked them through the empty courtyard and to a back entrance to the inn. She knocked three times, and the door pulled inward.
A pale woman with a shaved head and kind eyes answered. “Clover, you made it.” Her gaze shifted to Kerrigan. “And you brought a friend. Come in.”
“Kerrigan, this is Thea.”
Kerrigan stepped inside the darkened interior. “Pleased to meet you.”
“No, dear girl, the pleasure is all mine. We could
not be happier to have you with us. What you did in that tournament …” She raised her hands to the ceiling. “A blessing for our cause.”
“Oh,” Kerrigan said awkwardly. “Well, good?”
“It is good. Praise Lament.” Thea touched the Lament symbol at her breast—an X encased in a box.
The Lament was a human religion that had mostly fizzled out in the last decade since the Red Masks persecuted those who believed and burned their churches. A few churches still existed on the fringes of the city, but she hadn’t expected them here in this meeting.
“Thea is the leader of the RFA—Rights For All. She’s been organizing for years to try to get the Society to listen,” Clover explained.
“To no avail,” Thea explained. “We got somewhere after Cyrene, but then the mass murders by those horrid Red Masks derailed it all. Everyone was too scared to step forward. That is, until you showed up.”
“Oh,” Kerrigan whispered again. “I’m glad that I can help.”
“Me too,” Thea said, putting a hand on her back. “Let me introduce you to the rest of my team.”
Kerrigan followed Thea into a private dining room, where a half-dozen people sat around a wooden table. The candlelight was low, and a meal was prepared before them. Not simple food either. A stew that smelled thick with spices, roasted chicken, homemade rolls, summer fruit, and even some kind of decadent chocolate cake. It showed her more and more that this was not some push by a few people with nothing. There were humans and half-Fae with means, and they wanted this as much or more than the rest living in poverty.
Thea introduced her to each of the people present—three women and men. Each of them beamed, getting out of their chair, shaking her hand, offering their thanks. Their effusive behavior made her uncomfortable. She’d never been in a room where this many people thought that she could help them save the world. She was just one girl.
“All right, don’t crowd her,” Clover said, putting herself between them. “I’m glad that Kerrigan is here, but we don’t want to scare her off either.”
Kerrigan grinned. Only Clover could get straight to the meat of things. “Thanks.”