Chapter 41
Forty-One
Iwent to Anayla’s room because I couldn’t think of anyone else to go to.
She swung open the door and gave me a perplexed look when she saw me standing there. “Is everything all right?”
I shook my head.
She glanced over her shoulder, and both the look on her face—disappointment and resignation intermingled—and the faint rustling told me someone else was in there. In her bed.
Gods, I felt stupid for interrupting. She and I weren’t friends, not really. Fieran had ordered her to look out for me, and she was a good soldier. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It wasn’t anything exciting.” The words, and her grin, were not for me. “I’ll be right out.”
A few seconds later, she joined me in the hallway, wearing a loose tunic and pants and an expression of infinite patience.
“It’s not important,” I told her, despite my pounding heart.
She gave me a skeptical look. “Cara, you needed something, and you came to me? It’s got to be important. At least, it’s important to me.”
My cheeks flushed with heat. Maybe she meant it, but somehow that was just as embarrassing as if she played my friend for Fieran’s sake.
Her voice seemed far too loud in the hallway. I had to get us out of here. “Let me show you something.”
When I led her into my room, I swept an arm at the gold. “I think someone is setting me up for an accusation. It looks like I’m a thief!”
She didn’t look alarmed. She didn’t even look surprised.
“There was gold for the taking everywhere during the Trials,” she said reasonably. “Why would it be a problem for you to have a little hoard of gold? Dragons hoard, so we do too.”
“I don’t.” I shook my head.
Her gaze caught on me as if she knew about my food stores, but she nodded. “You’re not hoarding the gold.”
“No. Someone hid it in here—”
“Dragons do that.” Her gaze caught on something around my throat.
I followed her gaze and touched the good-luck charm self-consciously. I usually kept it tucked under my clothes, but it was too late now, and it was no surprise my keen-eyed friend would recognize his ring. “Fieran wanted to make sure I survived the Trials despite my breakable mortal state.”
“I’m sure he did.” She couldn’t hide her amusement, a good-natured smile breaking over her face. “Gods, he is a fool, isn’t he?”
“Yes,” I agreed cautiously.
“I’ll be right back with an explanation,” she said.
That sounded ominous, no matter how lighthearted she was, but she was out of the room in a flash.
She returned with Fieran in her wake.
Fieran, who was always so sure of himself, crossed his arms over his chest, his jaw rising. I’d never seen him so tense except when he faced down the queen.
Gods. I hadn’t wanted him to know, though he was protective; Anayla was probably right to have him fix this mess before I was arrested. “I don’t know where it came from. There was an amulet first, and when I took care of that, this happened—”
“An amulet?” Fieran repeated, something flexing in his jaw. He knew something about it, and suddenly I remembered how he’d mentioned his ring and some amulet being connected.
“Gods, is it all yours? Is it stolen from you?” My mind was racing. That would be good if that were the case, he wouldn’t have me arrested. That would not suit his plans. “Or—if you all hoard—could it have been stolen from everyone in Bismyth?”
They would hate me if they thought I was a thief sneaking through the barracks. Asrael, Dairen, and other disappointed, disgusted faces flashed through my mind, imagining how they’d regret ever defending me in the mess hall or helping me.
“She’s spiraling,” Anayla observed helpfully, clapping Fieran on the shoulder as she passed. “Fix it, Fear.”
“What did you do with the amulet when you found it?” he demanded.
“I threw it into the sea.”
A shadow of tension skated over his face. “I see.”
“What are we going to do, Fieran? How do we get rid of it all?”
He closed the door behind Anayla. “Stop pacing, Cara. You’re clever. Think this through.”
“Think through who would set me up?”
He rubbed his hand over his face as if I were exhausting. “Dragons hoard.”
“Yes. Anayla explained that.”
“Dragons hoard for their mates too.”
I stared at him, trying to make sense of his words. He let out a groan.
The last time I’d seen him in his room, he’d been toying with a gold coin.
“You’re not my mate,” I said. “I’m mortal. We don’t have mates.”
“You and I are not mates,” he agreed.
“Well, thank the fucking gods for one star left in the sky tonight.” I sank onto the edge of my bed.
He cocked his head at me. “Today you won a battle in front of half the kingdom, earned the adoration of the mortals in this city, and discovered enough gold and jewelry in your room to build a small castle. Why do you sound so dour?”
“No nagging, Fear. Just tell me what’s going on.”
Somehow he was already across the room, his always-suffocating presence towering over me before he crouched.
“You and I may not be mates.” His golden eyes searched my face. “But my dragon thinks I should take care of you.”
For a few long heartbeats, I could not make sense of what he’d said.
“Your dragon made you hide gold around my room and send me into a panic?”
“Well. Neither of us expected gifts would make you panic. You continue to surprise me with your odd mortal wounds.”
Of course he made me sound ridiculous. “That is insane, Fear. You can’t force riches on someone.”
“Apparently, you can. What are you going to do about it? You can send it to your family if you like.” Then his face shifted. “Please, just don’t throw it into the sea.”
I got up and paced. At least I could send it to my family. “What was that amulet?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
There was a command I was certainly never going to obey. I always worried about things, and he had yet another secret he wasn’t telling me. “I don’t understand any of this. Why would your dragon think we should be mates? How would that even work?”
“It wouldn’t,” he cut me off before I could keep asking questions. “My dragon’s lost his mind. Shadowbane’s mate refuses to come to our plane, and he grieves for her, and he thinks I’m a fool…” He swallowed, looking more uncomfortable than I’d ever seen him.
“Well. Shadowbane and I agree on something.”
The ghost of a smile touched Fieran’s lips, and he had that faraway look the shifters all had sometimes, as if they were listening to another conversation. It always made me feel lonely even when they were with me.
I wondered what it would be like having someone in my head all the time. Maybe it would be nice, as Fieran had claimed, to have a best friend always with you.
On the other side of the selection and the claiming ceremonies, if I didn’t burn…what would it be like?
“Shadowbane thinks we should marry immediately, and then I can tell you what I’m plotting. The protection of royalty that shields me from my mother would protect you, too, as my wife.”
“No offense, but I’m not taking advice from someone named Shadowbane.” Where did dragons get these names from? Were they doled out by mortals, nicknames given because none of us knew the dragon language, or had they accidentally chosen them?
Fieran didn’t look offended on Shadowbane’s behalf. “Get some rest. Give some more thought to asking me to marry you.”
“I won’t,” I called after him.
“Never?” he shot back over his shoulder, and then he left me.