Chapter 22
Twenty-Two
Ihesitated at his door, fist raised to knock, not quite daring to do it yet.
I needed to. If Maristela was willing to fight for the alliance…that would change everything. Tyria would bring her House and all of its might to the table if the Shadowed Stars agreed to join our Court.
But the terror that Rhylan would open the door and glare at me with withering scorn kept my fist frozen in midair.
Because I was the one who ran. I shoved him away.
Maybe he was telling the truth, but the part of me that still lived in Mistward—the Sera who was skin and bones, who put aside feelings for the sake of survival, no matter what—that Sera would not have it.
And yet…the regret choked me.
As I stood there, steeling myself to knock and failing, the shadows shifted at the far end of the hall. A slither of dark scales, a knowing eye…
Under Erebos’s watchful gaze, I straightened my shoulders, lifted my chin, and knocked. I refused to let the nosy, interfering Ascendants believe they were right.
Never mind that they had thousands of years on me, and the wisdom to accompany it.
I would stand firm by our agreement. That, I knew for sure, was rock solid ground.
The door swung open and Rhylan gazed down at me, but not with the scorn I’d been waiting for.
No…he gave me a lazy smile, hair rumpled like he’d just rolled out of bed, and looked very much wanted to invite me to join him there.
“Um…” Whatever I was about to say was sidetracked as my eyes roamed downwards, over his broad chest, to the hard ridges of his stomach and the thick V of muscle that demanded the caress of a tongue…
I jerked my gaze back up to his face.
“Anything I can help you with?” he asked, a purr in his voice. He reached out and tucked a lock of still-damp hair behind my ear, fingers lingering at my cheek.
What in Naimah’s name was happening? What…what was he doing?
The soft sound of a draconic chuckle from the shadows made me scowl.
“Maristela has extended us an invitation to Kirion Eyrie,” I said stiffly, shoving the letter into Rhylan’s hand. “Gaelin and Elinor are ready to help force this alliance.”
“Hmm.” He unfolded the letter, scanned it, and pulled me into his room. “Well, let’s go see old friends.”
Oh, gods. I couldn’t be in here. Not while I was torn, while Erebos was stalking me, his words lingering in my mind—that Rhylan had proven himself, when I knew perfectly well that he had, and I was…so afraid to acknowledge it.
“You should put some clothes on,” I snapped, not wanting to see the thick muscles of his shoulders, or acknowledge the line of his back, which caught the light and begged for a tongue to stroke down his golden skin…and the bed was right there.
“Why?” Rhylan gave me a sidelong look under his lashes, unable to hold back a smile. “Have you ever noticed that tone you get when you see something you want, and you just can’t bring yourself to reach out and take it?”
“Shouldn’t you be less concerned with my tone, and more concerned with the fact that Yura is already attacking your territory?” I glared at him, crossing my arms over my chest. “We need this alliance if we’re going to prevent another attack.”
“Yes, that tone. That’s precisely it.”
I growled. “Focus on the things that matter, Rhylan.”
He strode to his closet, throwing clothes onto the bed, but somehow none of them were making their way onto his body. “Well, you see, Sera, I am focusing. I can’t do anything more for Coldburn, but I can make sure that wherever she strikes, I will strike back at her ten times as hard. And as for things that matter…you can see that I am packing my clothes for a stay in Kirion, where we will do everything in our power to bring Chantrelle into our Court, and you are…standing there and watching me.”
Rhylan flashed a smile over his shoulder. He threw a pair of boots next to the bed, the muscles of his arms flexing, and gave me a very good look at the tongue-worthy expanse of his chest again. “But you would’ve known all that with the mind-speech, of course.”
I could’ve happily struck him down with lightning at that moment. What did he mean, rubbing the lack of a mate bond in my face? He knew it would never work.
“I’m just making sure you’re getting ready. We’re expected to be there by tonight.” Gods, I sounded as dour and stiff as my old training instructor. “I’m glad to see you’ve started.”
I spun on my heel and escaped his room, silently seething.
He was trying to seduce me. As though that would work. If he wanted to fuck someone so badly, he could go find some Bloodless woman for his amusement…but as soon as that thought crossed my mind, jealousy exploded inside me, a sickening jolt of rage that made my fingers curl into talons.
I managed to not slam my door shut like a tantruming child, but once in the safe confines of my bedroom, I leaned against it, tilting my head back and closing my eyes.
When had things changed so drastically? That he would bring up the mind-speech, as though he’d actually consider a mate bond with…with someone like me.
Someone unworthy of it.
Someone he could walk away from in the end, in his own words.
But if that were true…then why did I feel like I was fighting a losing battle?
The eyrieof the Shadowed Stars loomed over the northern Krysiens. It was built into a plateau of solid stone, ten thousand steps carved from top to bottom, without a dragon door or terrace.
Instead, at the very top of the eyrie, an enormous arch had been cut into the stone, forming a smooth bubble of an alcove large enough to accommodate several dragons at once.
I sat astride Rhylan, uncomfortable and nervous, not wearing my usual soft leathers but one of the riding dresses Jenra had made for me. The black silk split at the hips, allowing me a full range of motion in the form-fitting leather pants beneath, and I’d needed to keep an ermine-trimmed cloak fastened around me for the flight through the icy mountains.
Kirana had come out of her misery long enough to advise me that showing up in leathers, no matter how pristine or adorned, would insult Chantrelle. She was the sort of draga who expected guests to arrive with all the pomp and glory of their Houses.
And I cursed her for it. The far north was no place for a dress.
But Rhylan swooped towards the eyrie’s cavernous opening, bringing us into a wall of warmth. Even with gloves my fingers were frozen numb, and as I reached down to tug at the safety straps, I fumbled them.
“Fuck,” I whispered, swallowing panic. Several figures awaited us near the eyrie’s interior doors, well out of the way of the icy wind. Rhylan settled on the stone floor, and I caught a glimpse of Maristela’s honey-gold hair as I tried to unhook them yet again.
I ripped off my gloved and jammed one numb pinky finger in the strap, just managing to unhook it, my fingers red and aching with cold as I stuffed it into the concealed slit in the saddle. Then the other, hoping my cloak hid the movement of my hands…
“Princess Serafina.” Maristela held out a hand to me, standing at Rhylan’s side. “Prince Rhylan. I’m so glad you could come.”
My heart was pounding from the near-miss as I dismounted from Rhylan, but I smiled at her like nothing was wrong. “Thank you, Princess Maristela. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your support in this.”
Up close, Maristela was even more stunningly lovely than she was the first time I’d glimpsed her. The light played on her deep blue scales, burnishing her skin. Like me, she wore a riding dress with soft leather boots, though hers was of a soft, diaphanous lavender material. In the confines of the eyrie, we didn’t need to worry about the brutal temperatures outside.
But her loveliness was mostly the glow she gave off, the sense of self-assuredness. The last time I’d seen her, we’d been peers in the Training Grounds. Rivals, even. Both of us unsure, guided by mothers with harsh hands.
In the time between then and now, I had lost much of my self-assuredness… and she had only gained more, compounded by the security of a loving mate bond.
“Can we dispense with the titles?” she asked bluntly. “There’s really no time. My mother is…well, she’s happy to see us all burn, even if it means she comes out on top of a pile of ashes.”
“Absolutely,” I said fervently. I had no desire to fall back on what the Training Grounds had beaten into us: the royal bloodlines must address each other by title in formal situations. We’d be “princess”-ing each other all night if this continued. “You said Elinor was here?”
Maristela’s polite smile grew a touch crooked. “She’s here, but I don’t want to misrepresent the situation. Doric’s House is still firmly backing your claim, but the Lady of my House is, ah, threatening drastic action if Elinor goes along with it.”
“I thought Elinor joined the Lunar Tides after the bonding.” I unbuckled the harness from Rhylan as I spoke, and if I let my hands linger, well…they were cold, and Rhylan was a massive, walking furnace.
“She did,” Maristela said, politely averting her eyes as Rhylan began his shift back to male form. “And my mother is on the verge of declaring her anathema to her ancestral House if she doesn’t convince Doric to leave your Court.”
Ah. So it was worse than we thought…and all I could do was hope that Elinor wouldn’t bow to Chantrelle’s heavy-handed posturing.
It was possible for Chantrelle to remove her from their House records, of course. To declare that Elinor had never existed so completely that there wouldn’t be a record of her ever having been born at all.
But Elinor had a mate-bond. She lived in Lunar Tides territory, and even if Chantrelle struck her name from the Shadowed Stars’ history, she would always have a home, and someone who loved her…
But even with a home, the loss of an ancestral House was a pain no dragonblood wanted to feel. I sent a prayer to the gods that Chantrelle’s threat was a bluff, that Elinor would stand strong, that the Lunar Tides would remain in our Court.
They had made a fine deal of it for themselves: as the heads of the Court, any problems the Lunar Tides had were now our problems, and we would be obligated to aid them in whatever way we could. For them, having two wealthy royal Houses to lean on was worth any potential fallout, and we needed the numbers of their dragonbloods badly.
But for the Shadowed Stars, an ancient royal House…Chantrelle could abstain and drastically tip the scales out of balance.
The only consolation was that she could hurt Yura as badly as she could hurt us by doing so.
But Chantrelle’s greed also worked in our favor: Doric knew Rhylan well enough to know that we would not hesitate to supply him with gold, if need be. Not even Elinor’s potential banishment signified against the promise of cold, hard treasure.
Rhylan pulled his clothes out of the saddlebags, a white shirt and dark pants that were easily tugged on and smoothed out. I had done the same as Maristela, moving to avert my eyes, but…I didn’t have to do that. We were ‘mated’.
In fact, I shouldn’t do it. It would be terribly abnormal for a draga to be shy of her naked mate.
And with that came the horrible realization that this small, more intimate meeting was a thousand times more dangerous for us than the First Claim had been. That had been a performance, a show, all of us focused on the scales of power.
In this setting, we were expected to behave as any normal mated couple…and I could hardly look at him without blushing.
I swallowed hard and turned to Rhylan, partially to hide my expression of utter panic from Maristela, and partially to smooth the shirt over his chest, to give the small affectionate touches that should come naturally to any mated pair.
“Still cold?” he asked, his low voice husky as he took my hands. The warmth soaking into my frozen fingers was an immediate relief, making it so much easier to melt against him.
“A little, but I’ll survive,” I said dryly. His heart pounded under my cheek, and sped up as he wrapped an arm around me, running his fingers through my hair.
I pretended I needed to stretch, giving myself room to breathe, to ignore the fact that my own heart had started a race to match his.
“Don’t worry.” He tipped me a wink. “I’ve got all night to warm you up.”
I turned, cheeks flaming, and found Elinor and Doric had silently joined us. Elinor had heard him; she rolled pale blue eyes at the ceiling. “Rhylan, we all know you’ve been waiting years for this moment, but Chantrelle wants to see you both as soon as possible. I’ve done my best to talk her around, but she’s recently become very fond of threatening me with excommunication and I’m not sure what else I can do.”
“Am I decent?” I asked my pretend mate, smoothing my dress and trying to tame my hair with my hands. I was no beauty after the flight, but I was hoping not to arrive looking like I’d been dragged backwards through every hedge in Akalla.
“Yes, unfortunately for me.”
I scowled at him, but Rhylan seemed perfectly happy to play the game of flirtatious mate, resting a possessive hand in the small of my back as we followed Maristela, Elinor, and Doric through an arched doorway and into their eyrie, where a maze of branching corridors expanded before us. The walls were the same glittering gray granite as the plateau outside, polished to a mirror-like sheen.
I made myself breathe, in and out with every other step, sensing the rising tide of anxiety that threatened to crash over my head and drown me under its waves.
Because in the end, I was just a young draga, completely untried in the politics of Houses and thrones, with no army to my name. Compared to Chantrelle…she would see me as only an upstart, trying to scrape my way back from the depths of disgrace to take the one prize she’d been trying to claim for decades.
As Maristela led us to another large archway, and I caught a glimpse of the enormous room beyond, the small figure waiting at the other end, I wished I did have the mind-speech with Rhylan, that I could share even a tiny portion of the fear within me. And hear him tell me, without a single word spoken, that all would be well.
I had never visited Kirion Eyrie before, but this was clearly the seat from which Chantrelle ruled. The Lady sat straight-backed and grim-faced in a tall chair of the same pale, bleached ash wood we used in Varyamar.
She looked much the same as she had during the First Claim: her long white-blonde hair flowing in a river down her back, amethysts glittering on every conceivable part of her body where she could fit a jewel. Like her eldest daughter, she had the dusky blue scales of her House emblazoned on the high points of her cheeks, cascading down over her shoulders and hands.
“Serafina,” she said, her tone icy and unwelcoming. “Rhylan.”
It was a deliberate snub, refusing to acknowledge our titles. Unfortunately for Chantrelle, it would take far more than that to irritate me into making a mistake.
And then I felt Rhylan’s hand again, a quick double-pat on my spine before he pulled away.
I hid a smile as I bowed alongside him, managing to follow his motion exactly so that we moved as one.
“Lady Chantrelle,” he said as he rose, giving the title reserved for a draga who had never mate bonded, and would never have a claim to a throne. “We appreciate your hospitality.”
Chantrelle’s lips peeled back from her teeth, displaying them in a ferocious sneer. “Save your pretty manners, Rhylan. You’ve come to beg me to join your Court.”
I thought it unwise to dissemble, and clearly Rhylan thought so, too. “Yes. Many of our hopes rest on you, Lady.”
“Oh, I know.” Chantrelle’s sneer became a sour grin for a few seconds. “I alone hold the power to make you Drakkon now.”
It took every last drop of willpower in me to not audibly grit my teeth. She would allow us to beg…only so she could hold our requests over our heads, before grinding it into the dirt under her heel.
But she was right; she alone, of all the Houses in Akalla, held the power now.
“Would you support me as Drakkon?” Rhylan asked bluntly, and then, shocking me— “Or would you rather have a fit that I didn’t take your bridle and run with your plans?”
Larivor help us, I hadn’t known he’d go into this by insulting her.
Chantrelle stood up abruptly, fists balled.
“You…” She sputtered, before collecting herself with obvious effort. “You could have had it all, Rhylan! Maristela was yours for the taking, this House would have joined you gladly, and instead you chose this… this…” She flung a hand towards me, unable to find a word terrible enough to encompass whatever I was.
“You will not insult my mate.” Rhylan’s voice was glacial, putting Chantrelle’s iciness to shame. “And I think your daughter has a rather different view on whether she wanted to be taken or not.”
Even as he spoke, Maristela strode forward from the sidelines she’d been watching from. “I wanted Gaelin, Mother,” she said, voice tight. “You couldn’t have forced me into a bond with Rhylan, and you know it perfectly well.”
“Because you are young, and you know nothing at all,” Chantrelle said, her tone making it clear that she believed she was the most reasonable person in the room. “One day you’ll see all you could have had and lost. But this problem can still…be resolved in a satisfactory manner.”
Rhylan stiffened at my side. “Out of the question. You’ve never mate bonded; you have no idea what you’re speaking of.”
Maristela understood only a beat after him. “I would rather die than lose Gaelin. Mother…Yura will not spare you just because you hate Serafina. We must commit to their Court before she moves against us.”
“You want me to bow my head…” Chantrelle mused, her eyes coming to rest on me. “To the daughter of a murderess. A traitor. I still smell the filth of that island on you.”
I managed to smile, though I burned inside. “I have never murdered anyone. You can ask the scribes of Koressis, and they will all say the same: I am innocent of any wrongdoing.”
With the exception of breaking the Law of Claims…but that was neither here nor there. There would be no record anywhere that I was a traitor.
“The blood will out,” the older draga hissed, and Rhylan stepped forward.
He was so much taller than her, a solid wall of menace, and even Chantrelle seemed to take note of that. She shrank away, her eyes fixed on his glittering gaze.
“What can we do to change your mind?” he asked. “I will not break my mate bond to Serafina, but I will protect you when Yura comes for you. I will give you gifts from our vault. What would it take, Chantrelle? Or would you rather burn for the sake of your pride?”
She licked her lips, straightened her shoulders, and only then did I see that her hands were trembling.
Not with fear…but with pure rage. The hate in her eyes burned as hot as a dragon’s flames as she looked up at him.
“You’ve already failed all of my expectations, boy,” she said, full of quiet venom. “That was your last chance. I offered you everything and you spat in my face. There is nothing you could give me now that would make me change my mind.”
She swept past him, bumping him with one bony shoulder. The draga seemed about to do the same to me—but at the last moment she veered away, barely avoiding contact. Perhaps she feared Rhylan would retaliate in kind.
Maristela gazed after her with a helpless look on her face, and Elinor’s expression was stony, but unsurprised.
An icy coldness had settled in my gut.
This was the meeting that had mattered the most. Without the Shadowed Stars backing us, Tyria would see no security in joining us, in risking the lives of her entire family.
Our first diplomatic mission to secure our Court’s future was an utter failure.