Chapter 5
Five
The bedroom I’d been given had a large bathing room, with a wide, bowl-like black marble bathtub sunk into the ground.
I locked the door behind me, stripped off my clothes with delicate motions, nursing my aching hands, and started filling the tub with steaming water.
Every second of it should be an enjoyment. My baths on Mistward for the last four years had been performed infrequently, and always in private; being naked and vulnerable was a fraught time for any draga on that island.
My mother had stood watch during my rare baths for the first two years. After she died, bathing had been a rare occurrence, done only when I could no longer stand my own filth without wanting to scratch my own skin off with my claws.
And they had always been done in the icy waves of the shore. I’d found a small cove near my cave, where the rocks were high enough to hide me from a dragon overhead, and where the water was shallow enough that I didn’t need to fear a riptide carrying me away.
There was no soap, no relaxation, only a few minutes of shivering terror.
I examined a shelf full of amber-glass bottles of oil, reading through the labels until I found jasmine. The thick, sweet scent of home filled my nose when I uncorked it, relaxing the tension in my shoulders.
If I could make nice with Rhylan and Kirana, soon I’d be smelling the real flowers, the dense jasmine bushes that grew on the terraces of Varyamar.
I poured the oil into the water, and turned to look in the mirror. What I saw stopped me in my tracks, the scent of jasmine and promise of hot water forgotten.
I did not recognize the draga in the mirror.
She was too thin, her ribs showing in shadowed slats, clavicles standing out in jutting lines. Dry lips, hollow cheeks, dark shadows under the pale, silvery eyes that seemed to stare a thousand miles into nothing. Mottled bruising around her left eye extended up into her temple.
Even her scales were lifeless, not shimmering with the vibrant health they’d once had.
This draga was not Serafina. She was a scrap of her former self, a beaten-down, desperate creature molded by the cruelty of Mistward.
She was starved, broken, reduced to something hardly better than a wild animal.
I turned away from her, unable to stand looking at the pathetic, miserable creature that was my reflection any longer.
But the bath was forgiving. It cradled me, hiding my tears when I splashed my face, warmth seeping into my bones for the first time in years.
I hadn’t realized how truly cold I always felt inside until now.
As I washed, I considered Rhylan’s plan. He had chosen me only because I possessed the royal dragonblood that would give weight to my claim, but once the Jade Leaves laid eyes on the sorry thing I’d become, they would realize they had backed the wrong draga.
As my mother had once told me, there was no such thing as victory without a plan.
I needed to match Yura. I could not walk into the Houses as a filthy, scrawny beggar and ask them to give me their allegiance. Only the appearance of health and power, and the riches of Varyamar, would give me an edge.
Working oil into my hair, I leaned back in the bath and forced myself to close my eyes and relax my tight muscles.
You are in Jhazra Eyrie. This is not Mistward Isle. No one is going to attack you here.
My instincts had been sharply honed over the last four years: I was in peril every time I closed my eyes.
They wanted to flutter open and check for danger. I kept them closed.
No. You are not there. You are here, and Rhylan is right. You must eat and gain strength. You must be clean, because nobody will scent you and steal you.
I managed to keep my eyes closed for only another ten seconds, then they snapped open against my will. I froze in the bath, scanning the room, ears pricked for the slightest footstep outside the door.
I was alone, of course, because this was Jhazra Eyrie. Deep within me had been a wriggle of fear that this was only a dream, that I’d open my eyes and see Mistward around me, feel ice water on my skin, smell the distant rot of the tidal flats.
If I wanted to form a Court, I would need to shed this wild animal I’d become, but the habits were deeply ingrained now.
When I was done washing, I avoided looking in the mirror as I dried off and pulled the borrowed clothes back on.
A new tray of food had been left on the table in my room. I didn’t like that I hadn’t heard so much as a single step, much less the door opening and closing.
I quickly ate several fruit-filled pastries, and wrapped several more in a cloth that I stuffed in my pocket. They were giving me fattening foods: dense breads, cream-based soups, nuts and fruits.
A servant was posted outside my door. I discovered her when I peered into the hall, nearly jumping back into the room at the sight of another living being.
It was the same Bloodless woman who had delivered this morning’s breakfast. This close to her, I could examine the livery she wore in greater detail; the hems of her overcoat were thick with gold embroidery, depicting dragons in flight.
She bowed to me, her pale hair catching the light of the eyrie crystals. “The prince has asked me to bring you anything you might need,” she said, and when she straightened, I saw the faintest hint of disapproval in her gaze.
Was it because they all knew our mate bond was a sham? Or was it because he could’ve had a pretty princess, not a walking skeleton with bad manners?
“What’s your name?” I asked, filching another pastry from the table and eating it in three bites.
“Nilsa, your highness.”
“I would like to know where Rhylan is, Nilsa.” She watched as I grabbed another two pastries. There was no point in leaving them to go stale.
Nilsa led me to the spiral stairs that wound both deeper into the mountain, and upwards to the dragon terrace.
But she led me down, rather than up. We descended two flights to a hall lit only by those sparkling crystals embedded in the walls, and I couldn’t stop myself from being amazed when she brought me to a large room with a roaring fireplace.
Rhylan was there, slouched insouciantly in a chair before the flames and staring into them intently. He looked every inch the brooding prince, his brow creasing as he looked up at us.
He was not alone.
A massive dragon laid near him, his clawed forelegs crossed neatly near the flames. Hundreds of short, spiky nubs grew from the crown of his head to the tip of his tail. He was so deep in color he seemed less like the color black, and more like the absence of light itself: a void cut in reality, taking a dragon’s shape.
Only the strands and chains of gems draped over him, from the rings on his horns and claws to the necklaces draped across his back, reflected the flames.
I almost backed away. This was not a dragonblood with an earthbound male form, but a true dragon, the Ascendant of this House.
Every House possessed their own Ascendant, the ancestral dragon who had built their eyrie, and created their bloodline by feeding their blood to a chosen Bloodless human.
The gems would have given it away if his sheer size hadn’t. True dragons were known for their deep and abiding love for jewels and precious metals, guarding their hoards with jealous determination.
Guilt and despair sucked at me when I thought of my own Ascendant, alone for four years in the darkness of an abandoned eyrie—although those years were the blink of an eye compared to the thousands of years she had already lived.
Ascendants thrived so long as their descendants did. Rhylan’s Ascendant was massive, the picture of glowing health.
And he was examining me intently, in a way I didn’t care for very much.
“Come sit with us, Serafina,” the Ascendant invited. He gestured to a plush and empty armchair with a single claw.
His voice was so deep, I felt the vibrations of it in the floor beneath my feet. He sounded like more than one dragon speaking at once, a chorus of voices in one.
“It’s Sera, if you don’t mind.” Nilsa had disappeared, leaving me alone with them. Strangely, I would’ve preferred her presence.
I took the proffered chair, and realized the Ascendant had deliberately chosen one with its back to the wall. I had a full view of the room and its entrances and exits.
I glanced at the jewel-dripping dragon, and he stared back with a rather knowing look.
“This is our Ascendant, Erebos,” Rhylan said, gesturing towards the dragon unnecessarily. It would be hard to miss him.
The Ascendant extended a claw, and I reached out and wrapped my hand around it. A sapphire the size of a bird’s egg glinted on a claw ring as it caught the firelight.
“A pleasure,” Erebos said, preening.
“No, the pleasure is all mine.” I released his claw, folding my hands in my lap.
Erebos carefully adjusted a necklace of medallions, smoothing them over his chest. “You did not tell me she was polite, Rhylan. In fact, I believe the words you used were haughty, rude, and snobbish.”
My resolve to make nice immediately shattered.
A brief and awkward silence fell throughout the room. I stared daggers at Rhylan, who at least had the decency to meet my eyes.
“Snobbish?” I asked sweetly.
He raked a hand through his dark hair. “Yes, I once called you snobbish. Five years ago.”
My eyebrows rose. “You thought I was snobbish five years ago?”
That would have been while we were both matriculating in the Koressis Training Grounds.
He’d thought…I was snobbish?
Gods, I’d been so terrified that he would think me clumsy and ill-bred that I’d barely been able to speak in his presence.
I’d had a tendency to drop things and forget how gravity worked when he was around, likely a self-fulfilling prophecy brought on by my own lanky adolescent self-consciousness. Even worse, I’d known that speaking to him, or watching him in the flight-training vale, would make me that much more bitter about my promised arrangement with Tidas.
But why had he been speaking of me to his Ascendant five years ago? Had I made that poor of an impression in the Training Grounds?
“My apologies for what I thought when I was sixteen,” he growled.
Erebos let out a sigh, then curled his head down, to all appearances going to sleep. Perhaps the arguments of his descendants bored him; he’d lived to see centuries of them come and go.
On the other hand, his first snore sounded rather manufactured.
I waved a hand magnanimously, tamping down my anger. “It’s all flames within the coals now. We have other problems. I spoke to Kirana about…about what happened.”
I refused to say the words. I did not believe that my mother was responsible for Anjali’s death, no matter what Rhylan believed he witnessed.
She had proclaimed her innocence all the way to her grave and never given me a reason to believe otherwise.
“Oh?” Rhylan raised one brow, watching me as intently as he had watched the fire.
“Believe what you want, but you must understand that I had nothing to do with any of it,” I said. “I didn’t know your House was involved in our Judgment until this very morning. And as long as you hate me, this will never work.”
I waved back and forth between us, with no reservations about speaking openly in front of his Ascendant. What Rhylan planned, the ancient dragon would already know.
Rhylan wore his cold, aloof mask, but flames glittered in his eyes. The dark patches of scales on his biceps began to creep downwards to his forearms.
He was losing his temper, the dragon shift only a snap of rage away.
“I told you it wasn’t the whole story. Do you want to know the truth?” he asked, eyes flashing. “I asked the Drakkon not to send you away. I did not believe you were responsible, only Nerezza. I wanted her, and only her, to pay.”
“You…you did not,” I said weakly.
Rhylan had spoken on my behalf? I didn’t believe it. Not when he so clearly despised everything I was.
But if he had…that meant my father had genuinely hated me. He had known I was innocent, and sent me to the prison island regardless of the truth.
It had blindsided me, how Nasir had cared for me—or pretended to—until the day he’d sentenced us to Mistward, and hadn’t even had the decency to look in my face when he made the pronouncement.
The abandonment by someone who loved me was a pain like no other.
Months later, when I’d realized it was not a mistake, that he had truly sent me away to die in exile, that pain had turned into the festering hatred I’d nursed for so long.
Knowing that Rhylan had asked for him to leave me out of it, that my father had turned him away in order to punish me…that hurt in a way I hadn’t imagined it would, a thin dagger in the heart. I’d believed time had healed most of my wounds, a scar growing over the place where my father’s love should have been.
Clearly, I’d been wrong.
“I did.” Rhylan’s jaw was set, his shoulders tense. “I pleaded with him for clemency for you, and he told me that it was the only way. By his orders, you were never to step foot off the island. He said you were dangerous.”
“Me? Dangerous?” I stared at him, utterly confused. I had just been a girl, dreaming fruitlessly of the dragon she could never have. Back in those days, the only danger was in forgetting myself and my duty, and offending another powerful House by mistake.
Rhylan shook his head, dark hair falling over his face. “Forget it. I know that I’m the one who ruined your life. I accept responsibility for that, and that I must make things right for you.”
I wanted to tell him that nothing could make up for years imprisoned in that hellscape, but that was a lie.
He was willing to give me Varyamar and Koressis, and they would soothe my wounded heart.
Even better, once they were in my possession, I would never need to see him again. I would never again let his face or name cross my mind.
“If you knew I had nothing to do with it, then why do you hate me personally? What did I do to you?” I slammed my fist on the chair arm, fingers trembling in my fist. “That is what you need to get over. We’ll never be able to hide our contempt for each other if you’re stuck on my snobbishness, or rudeness—”
Rhylan closed his eyes briefly, mouthing a count of five. “I was sixteen. I said stupid things.”
“Then act like you’ve gotten over it. I’m willing to let it go if you are. I won’t be a complete bitch if you don’t—if you don’t insult the way I smell.” I exhaled slowly, mastering my anger. “Give me my eyries and my sister’s death, and all is forgiven. For now, we must declare peace with each other.”
He met my eyes, leaning forward to brace his forearms on his thighs. I didn’t look at his large hands, the thin scars he’d collected in the Training Grounds.
Back then, I’d counted every one of them, burning with indignation on his behalf, wishing desperately that I could be the one to kiss them better.
More fool me.
“Peace. We let it go.” He ducked his head. “And I am sorry, truly, about what I said. It was uncalled-for, and I only lost my temper because…because I looked at you, and I knew it was my fault.”
He held out his hand, and I reached out and took it, shaking briefly. That was an apology I could accept.
This time I let go of him first. And at least I was surreptitious when I rubbed my hand against my thigh, trying to erase the warmth of his palm.
“Ahh, the fires of young passion,” Erebos commented wistfully from his supposed nap, and Rhylan and I shot the Ascendant identical looks of outrage and bewilderment.
Nilsa returned, interrupting anything else we might have to say about that nonsense. She carried another tray heaped with food, offering it to me with a sidelong glance at Rhylan and Erebos.
“Good. As our first order of business, we need to work on your strength. Eat all of that,” Rhylan commanded, standing to take a porcelain cup of soup and putting it directly in my hands. I sniffed it; it was a rich bone broth, swirled with cream and dotted with green herbs.
Our argument had broken as abruptly as it’d begun, and seemingly with greater goodwill towards each other.
I would take it. Anything less would end with our deaths.
Rhylan shoved a flaky roll in my other hand and I bit into it, discovering a filling of figs and goat cheese.
“Thank you,” I mumbled, determined to be on better behavior with my manners. Nobody was going to spring out of a dark corner and steal the food from my hands.
Rhylan watched me eat the roll with satisfaction.
“I’m not saying this to be a bastard,” he said carefully, “but you must regain weight.”
I sipped the soup, finding it almost too rich. My stomach clenched. “I know what I look like. I…saw.”
I selected another roll, trying not to think of the skeleton in the mirror.
“We’ll work on your muscle training after you’ve filled out a little more. Soon you’ll have to look like a princess. Nilsa will be in charge of that. Kirana’s tailor will outfit you for a new wardrobe, but as you put weight back on, we’ll have to reassess.”
I raised an eyebrow at him over my soup. “It sounds like you have this all planned out.”
“Drink it,” was all he said, a warning in his tone. I wondered if he would hold me down and physically force it down my throat if I didn’t comply.
“Yes, sir,” I said, rolling my eyes skyward, but I obeyed—if only because my stomach was growling for more.
“I’ve been working out the plan with Kirana while you were sleeping.” His eyes followed my hand as I picked out a candied plum and brought it to my mouth. “The Houses will be convening in Koressis soon for the First Claim, where someone is almost certainly going to set off a war. Yura and Tidas will be bringing the entire might of their Houses combined.”
“We need an equal show of might,” I mused, slathering cinnamon butter on a slice of bread. “Or, in my case, wealth. I have no other dragonbloods in my House, and no doubt the Bloodless are long gone.”
As my mother and I had been the last dragonbloods of Varyamar, my House was not rich in heirs, but what it lacked there, it made up for in the richness of its treasure hoard.
So, rather than attending with a retinue of dragonbloods, I would be attending much like Erebos: dripping with the wealth of my House.
Which would look ridiculous on a skeletal draga.
I licked the butter off my fingers, and Rhylan looked away. Let him think me crude and unmannered if he pleased; I remembered my table manners perfectly well.
I simply didn’t care at this moment, determined to consume every speck of fat or sugar I could get my hands on. Every time I thought I was too full, I realized that was a lie.
I thought I might be ravenous forever. My stomach was a pit that would never be filled.
“Yes,” he agreed. “We have two weeks before the First Claim.”
I almost choked on my roll. “You expect me to gain my weight back in two weeks?”
That would be impossible. Even if I spent every night swigging cream and oil straight from their bottles, I would have no time to practice riding him to make it look as natural as breathing—the exercise of that alone would work off more weight than I could spare.
More importantly, the First Claim might be the most critical moment in this particular Interregnum.
Draconic Law dictated that because there was no heir, anyone could submit themselves as the future rulers of Akalla. All of the Houses would observe two weeks of mourning for the lost Drakkon—and at the First Claim, the lines would be drawn in the sand. Decisions would be weighed, alliances considered.
Only those aspirants with the right of might would make it to the Second Claim…if the Interregnum lasted that long. If we could simply convince all the Great Houses to join us, their vassals, the minor Houses, would follow, and Yura would have no choice but to back down after the First.
But that was a fanciful hope. I would not possess the allure to position myself as the more powerful candidate on appearance alone—not in two weeks.
“No.” He filled a cup with tea, added several heaping spoonfuls of honey, and pushed it towards me. “The First Claim will be brief—Yura and Tidas will issue their claim, and so will we. The Shadowed Stars might put in a claim as well. We just need to show enough strength to give the Houses something to think about, especially the ones considering backing Maristela. For now, it’s smoke and mirrors, since there’s almost certainly going to be a Second Claim.”
I waved his hands away. He wasn’t my servant and I didn’t need him to wait on me. “I can make my own tea, thank you very much. I think we’ll be lucky to manage that much, but I’m more concerned with how we’re going to arrive. It’s not going to make a very good impression if I fall right off your back like a lump.”
My entrance into Jhazra had been…less than graceful. And I already knew I wouldn’t be wearing a draga’s typical leathers to something as important as the First Claim.
I’d attended several meetings of the Houses as a child, and most dragonbloods showed up looking much like their Ascendants: glittering with gems, the dragons armored, showing off their wealth.
Rhylan’s eyes softened, flicking towards my pink-palmed hands again. Whatever Kirana had used, it was very good. I hardly felt the lingering ache now. “We’ll work on that tomorrow. As long as you trust me, we can fake it well enough.”
I raised the tea cup to my lips to hide my face.
There was no other choice but to trust him, although my heart still screamed at me not to trust him at all, not after what he”d done.
But I was my mother’s daughter. Intellect would triumph over emotion.
“I’ll trust you as much as I can,” I said slowly, setting the cup aside. “That’s all I can promise.”
It wasn’t much, but it would have to do. He couldn’t ask a miracle of me, nor me of him.
He nodded, expression veiled. “There’s another sandwich. Eat it.”
Gods damn it, but I was sick of him trying to stuff food into me. I snarled at him, the sound ripping out of my throat. “I know how to eat without instruction, Rhylan!”
“You need to eat more,” he snapped back, eyes blazing. “We only have so much time.”
“Is this because you feel guilty?” I asked, grabbing the sandwich and biting into it viciously. “Developing a control complex over my food habits is not going to make up for anything.”
It was delicious. Someone had spiced the chicken filling. I took another bite to be sure—yes. It was utterly delightful.
Rhylan rubbed his temple, glaring at me mutinously. Then he exhaled, settling back in his seat. “Our peace didn’t last long, did it?”
“I think we lasted ten minutes. That’s better than yesterday.”
He closed his eyes, still rubbing his forehead. I wondered if he had a headache from dealing with me; it seemed likely, as neither of us could keep our tempers with each other.
“Forget riding without the mind-speech,” I said with a bitter laugh, wrapping my arms around myself. “How are we going to pretend to like each other? Nobody will believe it.”
He opened his eyes, the dark pupils contracting in all that blue.
“Like this.”
I had no time to protest before he rose from his chair, crossing the two steps to me in a heartbeat. He gripped my wrist, breaking my crossed arms, and laced his rough fingers through mine.
He smelled rich and warm, the scent of mouthwatering spices and woodsmoke. I breathed in deeply before I could stop myself, frozen in place in the chair and terrified that the slightest movement would bring us closer.
Rhylan bent down, brushing a strand of hair back from my face. He tucked it behind my ear, his fingers lingering on my cheek.
I gazed up into smoldering eyes, my heart threatening to hammer its way out of my chest. My lungs were locked up.
It was like all my silly adolescent dreams coming true. My fingers were shaking so hard I balled my fist in my lap.
“I have to make arrangements with the Eyrie-Master now,” he breathed, running his thumb along the too-sharp line of my jaw. “But I’ll count the minutes until we’re together again.”
His lips brushed my forehead in a butterfly’s kiss, so soft and light. The firelight caught the hollow of his throat, limning his golden skin like it was burnished.
I wanted to taste that smooth hollow, catch the flavor of his skin on my tongue and engrave it into my memory.
He sent you to Mistward, Sera.He did that to you.
Before I could recoil, Rhylan’s thumb slid over my lower lip. “Eat it all up, love,” he breathed with a wink, and straightened up.
He’d left me literally breathless, the bastard.
But then the playful gleam in his eyes died, the planes of his face hardening. The flames in his eyes withered, becoming icy stone. “That is how we pretend.”
I realized I was still frozen, my heart working overtime to compensate for the rest of me.
He was gone before I could gather myself. I balled my fists, hating him, hating myself, hating that I was draga and could not help but respond to a dragon.
Especially that particular dragon.
Nilsa silently handed me a bowl of peaches and cream, offering a spoon alongside the dish.
Erebos let out a loud, overly energetic yawn and shifted in place, his head rising from the coils of his body. Chains clinked as he affected a cat-like stretch.
“I would believe it,” he said slyly, and I watched as the massive dragon melted into the shadows, becoming part of the eyrie again.
“Nobody asked you,” I muttered when he was gone. Nobody would talk back to an Ascendant in their own home, but my nerves were frayed.
The only reply I got was a wicked laugh from the walls that shook the entire room.