Chapter 4
Ididn’t want to congratulate my employer, who already owned half of Cavaria, but Fairfax had lifted his arm and was waiting for me to take it.
With a quick inhale, I placed my hand on his arm.
I walked beside the lord, still a little shaken by what he’d said, what he’d proposed. One year at Cardan Lott.
Try to bond with a dragon, he’d said.
My whole life, I’d believed bottomsiders couldn’t bond. We all believed it.
We snaked back through the tunnels honeycombed through the walls of the arena until we filed into a massive round chamber open to the sky above.
A single dragon stood in the center of the cavernous space, the golden-scaled victor.
Beside the dragon stood a short man wearing riding leathers and holding a massive bouquet of flowers as he accepted the praise of several men in fine suits and ladies in wide hats.
My pulse quickened as we approached Thuron and his rider. The dragon’s sides were still heaving, but he held his head high. Liveried attendants stood at a respectful distance, hands resting at their sides.
Duke Covington stood near his dragon, arms lifting at his sides like a dragon spreading his wings.
I’d never met him face-to-face, as I’d been hired by his lairmaster, and I doubted he’d ever noticed me the few times I’d seen him parade by while I was working.
Beside him, a younger man who resembled the duke but with darker hair also shook hands and smiled, accepting the praise of the small crowd of well-wishers.
Reginald, the duke’s heir. I had seen him on multiple occasions, talking to the lairmaster or climbing into his dragon’s saddle.
But slightly behind the duke, another figure stood like a shadow, hanging back.
The duke’s younger son, Rushland, who, only hours ago, had been covered in blood. His eyes widened as he spotted me.
My breath hissed as it sucked through my parted lips.
I yanked my attention away from the boy, fixing my eyes instead on the duke.
He bowed at his next admirer, but it looked like a halfhearted motion.
His smile, however, appeared genuine, infused with something deeper than the pleasure of winning—something almost like vindication—as he kissed the nearest lady’s hand.
I stole another glance at the younger Covington, tall and blond and built like his father—lanky limbs and broad shoulders.
But unlike the duke and Reginald, his scowl looked cut from marble.
He barely looked at the people assembled before him, eyes forward and unmoving, until he felt me watching him and glanced in my direction. His jaw flexed.
“Congratulations,” said Lord Fairfax as he stepped forward in the long line of nobles coming to kiss the feet of the wealthiest of them all. His voice showed no signs of excitement or emotion at all, unlike his jovial tone from earlier.
The duke tilted his head. “Thank you, Merlon. All the credit goes to my magnificent beast.”
“Indeed,” said Fairfax, eyes traveling toward Thuron and his rider. I didn’t know Fairfax, but the word sounded a little sharp to me, a fact that seemed lost on the duke. Or he didn’t care. The rider got no credit, not even a nod from the duke.
I stared at my feet, hoping not to have to speak, but I quickly felt the duke’s gaze on me and stiffened as I glanced up. His blond hair was fading to white, but his eyes were still sharp and iridescent blue. His lip twitched as he took me in. “You,” he said. “You enjoyed today’s race, yes?”
Did he recognize me? Your son and your dragon were wounded and bleeding this morning, I wanted to say. Instead, I managed a small nod, all my words drying up in this man’s presence.
“Excellent.” For some reason, the word bit like a knife in my side.
“Your friend—uncle?—betrothed?—here hopefully placed his bet well.” He nodded with dripping disdain at Fairfax.
I didn’t miss Fairfax’s stiffening posture as the duke spoke.
He was past his middle years, and the thought of being betrothed to him brought up a gag reflex I tried to cover with a small cough.
Lord Fairfax replied with a small amount of his former cheer, “My niece, yes. She was my guest today.” He turned a smile on me that was touched with tension, as if worried I might call him out on his lie.
“Indeed.” The duke flashed me a smile that felt like a predator warning his prey.
The duke’s younger son let out a small sound that I could have sworn was a quiet chuckle. My blood boiled in my veins. If the duke didn’t know I was an imposter, he would as soon as his son revealed it.
My shoulders sagged as the duke turned and left the large room, his sons following behind. Rumors abounded when it came to the country’s wealthiest dragon owner.
He kept slaves in his basement to spit polish his trophies.
He gambled with lives instead of money.
He drank dragon blood instead of wine.
In this moment, I believed every one of them.
Hours later, I stared at the eviction notice nailed to our apartment door.
I ripped the notice from the door, crumpling the paper in my hand as I strode into our apartment.
Stuffy air and shadows greeted me, the only light a single candle on the table and the dim orange hues pouring in from the streetlamps outside.
Mother glanced up from her seat at the table in the center of the room, where a half-completed scarf lay.
Partially obscured by the table legs, my sister sat on the floor by the window, a book open in her lap.
At my entrance, she hopped up, the book forgotten on the floor.
“Ari!” she said with a smile, pushing a strand of long golden hair over her shoulder. Then her eyes slid to our mother, and her smile faded.
My heart flipped as I looked at Evie, eager to relay today’s events to her, but my mother’s sigh silenced me.
“Where were you?” Her voice was even, flat, the worst kind of mad.
Evie, wisely, sank back down and pretended not to hear us, her finger tracing across a sentence in her book that she was most certainly not reading.
I took a halting step forward, placing on the table the crumpled warning that had been nailed to our door.
“I went to work today, at the duke’s, and I…
” Flashes of blood sprang through my mind’s eye, but I shoved away the thoughts.
I touched my pocket where the vestren from the duke’s son rested.
I’d changed back into my clothes before leaving the arena, and somehow, now that I was back here, it all felt like a dream, the only proof of the morning’s affairs this coin in my pocket.
How could I explain the past few hours to her?
Mother’s face was red, her voice edged with anger. Her hands were now crushing the soft scarf in her lap. “Were you mugged?” she asked. At my head shake, she blurted, “Arrested?”
“No, Mama,” I replied, my excitement instantly deflated. She had two modes: vacuous and vicious, and I never knew which one I’d walk in to meet.
“Did you take any drugs? Half the city takes drugs on race days.”
I turned to her, the way I assumed someone might face a firing squad. “No.” I decided to let her finish before attempting to explain my day.
Mama scoffed, her eyes examining me for any hint of mischief, any hair out of place.
Her gaze paused when she saw the dark smear on my skirt that I’d acquired at the Covingtons’ lair.
“You were assaulted.” Mama said it matter-of-factly, like it was a statement about the weather or the fact that Covington’s dragon had won the race. Evie glanced up then, her eyes wide.
“No, I wasn’t,” I said, trying to keep my tone even. “I’ll get the stain out, don’t worry.”
Mama’s hard eyes held me firmer than any chains. “If you would stick to a woman’s place, Ari, someone might decide to marry you and I wouldn’t have to spend half my days worried that you were washed up in some gutter somewhere.”
The soft shh of Evie’s finger tracing along her book paused, leaving the only sound my bullish breathing.
My mother stood, stepping away from the heap of yarn on the table.
“You may talk too much and have not a graceful bone in your body, but someone will want you.” The small smile on her face was proof enough that she considered her words a compliment.
I didn’t smile back at her as she bustled over to me, eyeing my hair still neatly stacked on my head.
“When did you learn to do your hair like this?”
“Actually, I went to the race today.”
“Sure you did.” My mother snickered. At my silence, her expression darkened.
“It’s never the truth with you. Always these grand imaginings.
They will ruin you, Ari. Mark my words, living in your own reality won’t change the real one.
Dreams killed your father, and they’re on their way to destroying your brother. ”
Her words knocked the air from my lungs.
Dreams were what held me aloft on the nights I heard the pistols firing in the streets when the gangs crossed paths.
Or the screams of women caught outside too late.
Or when I was plagued by the only memory I had of my father, falling so hard on the floor after stumbling back home, drunk, that he’d knocked himself unconscious and we’d thought he’d died.
The next day, he’d left, and we’d never seen him again.
Dreams were what tied the fragments of my heart together.
As Mother spoke, I moved toward the kitchen area, where all the bowls and pots were still as clean as I’d left them this morning after leaving for my job at the Covington estate.
The bread was gone, though. I sighed and reached for a pot hanging from a hook.
My enthusiasm for discussing Lord Fairfax’s offer drained like rainwater down a gutter.
“Arivelle, what are you doing?” Mama rose from her seat.
“Cooking.”
“You’ll burn down the place. Here, I’ll do it.” She shuffled toward me, her bad knee clearly bothering her.