Chapter 7
Blood Moon Summons
The outer gate burst inward with a roar of iron and stone.
Wind rushed through the great hall. Candles died. Plates crashed. Nobles scattered from the high table, their silk and jewels suddenly useless against the smoke rolling in from the lower court.
Isolde stood frozen for one breath.
Then Lucian caught her by the arm and pulled her behind him.
“Stay close.”
She tried to look past his shoulder. “The servants are outside.”
“They are being moved.”
“You don’t know that.”
His head turned. His eyes were bright gold now, no longer pretending to be human. “Isolde.”
“I’m not furniture. Don’t place me and leave me.”
That struck him hard enough to hold him still.
Across the hall, Morgaine had already stepped behind two council guards. She looked frightened for the benefit of watchers, but Isolde saw her eyes. Calm. Measuring. Waiting to see what broke first.
Another crash came from the courtyard.
Thierry ran in from the side arch with a short blade in one hand. “Lower gate is split. Rebels in brown coats. Not many, but loud enough to sound like an army.”
“Baldric?” Lucian asked.
“At the road. He wants to be seen.”
“Then this is not an attack. It is a message.”
Perrin stumbled through the servant arch with soot on his cheek and Mrs. Corvin beside him, dragging a younger maid by the sleeve.
“There are people trapped near the east stores,” Perrin said. “Smoke’s thick.”
Lucian’s gaze moved to Isolde before he could stop it.
Morgaine saw.
So did the council rider.
Isolde stepped away from Lucian. “Go.”
“No.”
“Your people are burning.”
His jaw tightened. “You are one of my people.”
The words struck the space between them.
Too much.
Too public.
Renaud’s face hardened at the high table. The council rider leaned forward as if a confession had just been served with wine.
Isolde lowered her voice. “Then protect all of them.”
Lucian held her eyes for half a second longer.
Then the air around him burst with heat.
He ran toward the broken doors, and by the time he crossed the threshold, the man was gone. A black dragon launched from the courtyard, wings spreading wide enough to blot out the firelight.
The hall gasped as one body.
Isolde did not watch him fly.
She ran toward the servant arch.
Perrin hurried after her. “This is becoming a habit.”
“Then keep up.”
The east corridor was thick with smoke. Two servants were helping an old footman toward the kitchens. A young scullery girl coughed near the wall, unable to stand.
Isolde dropped beside her.
“Can you walk?”
The girl shook her head, eyes streaming.
Isolde pulled the girl’s arm over her shoulder. “Perrin.”
“I have her.”
Together, they lifted her.
The heat behind them rose suddenly. Too fast.
A beam cracked overhead.
Perrin looked up. “Move.”
The beam fell.
Gold fire struck first.
It did not burn them. It curved above their heads like a shield, holding the falling wood in midair for one impossible breath.
Outside, Lucian roared.
The mark on Isolde’s back answered with a sharp blaze.
Every servant in the corridor turned toward her.
So did Morgaine, standing at the far end of the smoke with one hand over her mouth and victory in her eyes.
By midnight, the fires were out.
The lower gate hung broken. The east stores were half-charred. Three wagons on the supply road had burned down to black ribs. No rebel bodies were found, only boot prints, wolf marks cut into two gateposts, and one strip of cloth tied to a spear left standing in the mud.
Thierry brought it to Lucian’s study.
Black cloth.
Ash-gray thread.
Baldric’s sign.
Isolde stood near the hearth with a blanket around her shoulders. Mrs. Corvin had forced tea into her hands. Perrin had fallen asleep sitting on the rug, chin against his chest, still clutching a poker he had taken from the kitchen.
Lucian stood by the desk, shirt torn at one sleeve, hair damp from rain. The mark over his heart was hidden again, but Isolde knew it had burned. She had felt it when the beam fell. Felt his fear before the fire caught the wood.
That frightened her more than the rebels.
Thierry laid the cloth flat. “Baldric wanted the council to see your reaction.”
“They saw enough,” Renaud said from the door.
No one had heard him enter.
Lucian did not turn. “You waited until the danger passed.”
“I waited until the house stood.”
“The house stood because servants carried water while nobles counted exits.”
Renaud’s mouth tightened. “Careful.”
“No.”
The word cracked through the room.
Perrin woke with a jerk. “I’m awake. I deny everything.”
Mrs. Corvin, standing near the shelves, said, “Sleep quietly.”
He lowered his head again.
Renaud’s gaze moved to Isolde. “This is what comes of letting hidden things walk freely.”
Isolde set down the tea.
Lucian stepped forward, but she spoke first.
“Hidden things are usually hidden by people with keys.”
For a moment, Renaud looked at her as if he saw Yvaine instead.
Then he looked away.
A knock sounded.
Thierry opened the door.
The council rider stood outside with two guards, his coat still smelling of smoke. He held a sealed order in both hands.
“Lord Blackthorne,” he said, “by authority of the Dragon Council, the Blood Moon Tribunal has been advanced.”
Lucian’s eyes narrowed. “Advanced?”
“Formal proceedings begin tomorrow at dusk.”
Renaud went still. “That is not standard.”
“Neither is a rebel attack on a ruling house under council observation.”
Thierry took the order but did not open it. “How convenient for the council to write so quickly.”
The rider ignored him. “Lord Lucian Blackthorne is required to present any bonded companion, known or suspected, before the Tribunal.”
The room went silent.
Isolde felt the blanket grow heavy around her shoulders.
Lucian’s voice came out level. “And if I present no one?”
“Then you will submit to examination. If a concealed bond is found, your right of succession may be suspended.”
Renaud closed his eyes briefly.
The rider’s gaze shifted to Isolde.
“And any human found bearing a dragon mark will be held under council protection until judgment.”
“Protection,” Isolde said.
The rider’s smile did not reach his eyes. “The lawful kind.”
Lucian moved then, not toward the rider but between him and Isolde.
The message was clear.
Too clear.
The rider saw it and bowed.
“Tomorrow at dusk,” he said. “Bring her, or they will come looking.”
Ma?lle asked for the room to be cleared.
No one obeyed.
Not at first.
Lucian refused to leave Isolde alone after the council order. Renaud refused to leave because guilt had finally found a chair and sat in it. Thierry remained because he trusted no closed door. Mrs. Corvin stayed because Ma?lle had quietly taken her hand and would not release it.
Only Perrin was sent out, and even then he grumbled until Mrs. Corvin threatened him with stable duty in formal shoes.
Ma?lle sat near the fire, wrapped in two blankets, looking smaller than Isolde had ever seen her. Her silver hair had come loose from its pins. Her eyes, though, were sharp enough to cut through every lie in the room.
“You want the truth now?” she asked.
Isolde knelt beside her. “I wanted it years ago.”
“Yes.” Ma?lle touched her cheek. “And I was a coward in the shape of a grandmother.”
Isolde’s anger cracked under the tenderness.
Lucian looked away, giving them the little privacy a crowded room could offer.
Ma?lle drew a breath. “Your mother was Ash-Blessed. Not a healer only. Not a village woman with a pretty gift. Her blood could open old seals made before the council wrote its first law.”
“The Ash Vault,” Isolde said.
Renaud’s face tightened.
Ma?lle saw it. “Yes, Lord Blackthorne. Say its name. It will not bite you unless your conscience does.”
Thierry looked down to hide a smile.
Renaud did not.
Ma?lle continued. “The vault beneath this keep holds fire that was never meant to be used as a weapon. It was made after the first dragon-human war, when both sides had lost too much. Ash-Blessed blood could open it. Blackthorne fire could close it. Balance, not rule. That was the old pact.”
Lucian’s voice was quiet. “The council changed the story.”
“The council feared what it could not own.” Ma?lle’s gaze settled on Isolde. “Your mother refused to open the vault for them. They wanted a way to strip fire from dragon houses that opposed them. Later, rebels wanted the same power to break dragon rule. Different banners. Same hunger.”
“Baldric,” Isolde said.
“He believes the vault can free the lower clans.”
“Can it?”
Ma?lle’s silence answered too slowly.
Lucian stepped closer. “Can it?”
“It can take fire,” she said. “It does not care from whom. It can burn masters and servants alike.”
Isolde stood. “And Morgaine?”
Renaud answered this time. His voice was rough. “If Morgaine controls your blood and Lucian’s fire, she controls the council’s fear. That may be enough to force a political bond, a claim, a throne.”
Lucian’s jaw hardened. “She will have none of those.”
Ma?lle reached for Isolde’s hand. “Child, the Tribunal is not only a court. It is a stage. If you stand there as a hidden mark, they name you threat. If Lucian hides you, they name him liar. If you run, Baldric takes you before morning.”
Isolde looked at Lucian.
He looked ready to answer for both of them.
That decided her.
“I will go,” she said.
Lucian turned fully toward her. “No.”
“Yes.”
“They will cage you.”
“They already have. They only use prettier walls than Odette did.”
His face changed at the name, but she did not soften it.
“I spent my life being told to stay low so other people could feel safe,” she said. “I won’t walk into the Tribunal as your shame.”
Lucian’s voice dropped. “You are not shame.”
“Then do not hide me like it.”
No one moved.
The fire snapped once in the hearth.
Lucian took one step closer. “If you stand beside me, they will come for you with law in their hands.”
“Then stand properly.”
The corner of Thierry’s mouth lifted.
Ma?lle closed her eyes, but not before Isolde saw pride there.
Lucian looked at Isolde for a long moment, then bowed his head slightly.
Not as a lord to a servant.