A Court Of Mist And Flames Chapter 1 #2
Katama lowered his head, one golden eye watching me with a kind of lazy judgment. I reached up and pressed my palm against the warm ridge above his nostril.
“Thank you,” I murmured.
He exhaled, a hot breath that fogged the air in front of my face even in the cold.
Remy was already unfastening the straps, efficient, practiced. “You should go inside before your mother sees you standing unguarded in the open.”
“I have guards,” I said.
“Not enough for Ashe Rebec’s comfort,” he replied. I smiled because he never called her by her married name.
I huffed. “Nobody who wants to live goes against you, Remy. Even my mother knows that.”
That earned me the faintest curve of his mouth. Not a smile. A concession. “And yet she’ll still insist you never leave your guards.”
“She’s consistent.”
“She’s terrified.”
I looked away, because if I looked at him too long I might ask questions I didn’t want answered.
“I needed the break in Amdar,” I said instead, keeping my voice steady. “Thank you for training me there.”
Remy’s gaze sharpened, a quick scan of my face like he was checking for injury that didn’t show. “You did the work. I just made sure you didn’t die while doing it.”
“Generous.”
“Practical.”
Footsteps thundered behind us.
The sound was familiar in a way that made my chest tighten. Not the rhythm of soldiers or squires. The cadence of palace guards, trained to move like a wall.
Then my mother was there.
Ashe Rebec Rayne, moved like someone who had learned to survive first and rule second.
She wore riding leathers, dark and fitted, her white hair braided tight down her back.
Her eyes were storm-bright even when she wasn’t using magic.
When she saw me, her face shifted through a dozen emotions in one breath: relief, fury, pride, fear.
Behind her, my father came at a faster pace than he allowed anyone to witness in court.
Zander Rayne did not run.
Not publicly.
But he crossed the last stretch of stone like a man whose heart didn’t care about protocol. He dropped to one knee beside me, hands cupping my cheeks for the briefest moment, as if checking I was real.
“You’re thinner,” he said, and it came out like an accusation aimed at the world.
“I’m fine,” I told him.
His lavender eyes narrowed. The same eyes I saw in mirrors. “That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one you’re getting right now.”
My mother reached us and wrapped her arms around me with a force that stole my breath. Her leather smelled like dragon heat and steel oil.
When she pulled back, her hands stayed on my shoulders. Her gaze flicked over me, cataloging every bruise I hadn’t bothered to hide, every frayed edge of my cloak, every strand of hair that had escaped its tie.
Then she looked at Remy.
The air changed. Not hostile, exactly. Sharpened. Like everyone present understood that Remy was family in a way that complicated everything else. He loved my mother and Zander tolerated him because he had single handedly restored order in Amdar. That and he was dedicated to Ashe’s children.
“You brought her yourself,” my mother said.
Remy inclined his head. “I had reports.”
“And you needed an excuse,” my father said, voice low.
Remy didn’t deny it. He simply held out a packet of sealed papers.
My father took them without breaking eye contact. “We’ll read them in council.”
“Not council,” my mother corrected, and her voice shook on the word. “Not with half the nobles sniffing for weakness. In private.”
My father’s jaw tightened. “Ashe.”
“I’m not debating,” she snapped, and there it was, the edge I remembered from my childhood. The part of her that had once been a girl in a squad meant for commoners, fighting to survive in a castle that wanted her dead. “Not when it’s my daughter.”
I felt Remy’s attention settle on me, quiet and heavy, like a cloak. He wasn’t stepping in. He never stepped between my parents unless he had to. He let them clash because sometimes the clash kept them honest.
My mother turned back to me. Her eyes were wet. Her voice was not. “You are never alone. Got it.”
The words hit hard.
I swallowed. My soul gave that familiar, ugly thud, like something inside me was shifting to make room for what I carried. For what I would always carry.
“I wasn’t alone,” I said, gesturing faintly toward Remy, toward Katama, toward the guards that had already repositioned themselves in a tighter ring.
“That’s not what I mean,” she said, and her fingers tightened, just enough to hurt. “You don’t leave your guards. Not for air. Not for gardens. Not for nostalgia. Not for anything.”
“I’m twenty,” I reminded her.
Her laugh was a short, bitter thing. “And that means nothing to an assassin.”
My father rose, one hand resting on the hilt of the sword he wore even in peacetime. He looked past me, scanning the Ascension Grounds as if danger might still be hiding in the cracks.
“Where is Kaelith?” I asked, because my mother’s dragon was impossible to miss when she was nearby.
My mother’s expression shifted again, softer for a heartbeat. “She’s readying to fly. It’s her turn.”
“And Hein?”
“He’s guarding the clutch.”
Of course he was.
Dragons, for all their arrogance, shared their parental responsibilities with a devotion that made human politics look pathetic. Hein didn’t care that he was bonded to a king, that he could have been overhead like a silver storm announcing royal power. A clutch needed guarding, so he guarded.
“And Fiona?” I asked, because saying a young dragon’s name felt safer than saying my twin’s.
My mother’s eyes warmed. “Still on the fledgling isle. Still too small to leave it. But she’s growing fast. One day she’ll give Kaelith a run for her money.”
I tried to imagine it. A youngling with enough beauty and fire to rival the most stunning dragon in the horde. The thought should have made me smile.
It did, a little.
Then my mother’s face hardened again, like she resented joy for existing.
“What are you up to these days?”
My father answered before my mother could. “Preparing for the delegation. We’re doubling rooms. Riders from the Fourth Guild are being relocated to provide a block of suites. We aren’t sure how many prospects and riders the Isharans are bringing.”
“I heard Remy will fly with them,” I said.
My father’s gaze flicked to Remy. “Good. They’ll respect him.”
My mother’s mouth twitched. “Or fear him.”
Remy did not look offended. Fear was a tool he understood better than most people understood love.
My eyes drifted past them, taking in the Ascension Grounds the way I always did after being away.
The scorched stone clearing. The warder towers.
The distant line of the ocean wall, thick enough to hold an army.
Beyond that, the outer sectors where the guilds lived and bled.
Infantry closest to the village. Healers tucked to the left, the smallest guild with the softest hands and the hardest eyes.
Warders in the towers, fewer than infantry but heavy with secrets.
And there, nearer the castle’s heart, the gardens.
The yarrow gardens weren’t for beauty. Not really.
They were for survival. White flowers growing so thickly you couldn’t see the ground beneath them, surrounding the healers’ alcove where only the authorized were allowed to be mended.
Even from here, I could almost smell them.
Clean and sharp. Like crushed leaves and old miracles.
“You’re staring,” my mother said.
“I’m remembering,” I replied.
Her gaze softened again, but she didn’t let it stay. “You can remember inside.”
“Everything inside has rules,” I muttered before I could stop myself.
My father’s eyes narrowed. “That’s because everything inside matters.”
“And everything outside doesn’t?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“It’s what the castle always says,” I replied, then immediately regretted it because my mother’s face flashed with pain.
I pivoted, gentler. “I’m sorry. I’m just… tired.”
My father’s hand touched my shoulder, careful, like I might shatter if he used real strength. “You did well in Amdar.”
My stomach clenched at the name. “We survived.”
My mother took a breath, then another, as if she was forcing herself not to ask for details she didn’t have the stomach to hear. “You’ll have time to rest tonight,” she said. “Because tomorrow you’ll be tested.”
My pulse jumped. “Tested with the other prospects?”
“Yes.”
“To see if I’m dragon compatible,” I said, trying to sound casual, like my entire future wasn’t balanced on a razor.
My father’s gaze sharpened again. “It’s not a game, Wren.”
“I know.” My hands curled into fists at my sides. “I’ve known since I was a child.”
Since I watched a dragon burn an assassin and still arrive too late to save my twin.
Since I learned timing was not safety.
I forced my voice steady. “Thoros has a dragon. It won’t be a big deal if I don’t.”
My father’s expression softened at the mention of my eldest brother. “That’s true.”
“Everen is almost as big as Hein,” I said, because the comparison was unavoidable in this family.
“Everen is smaller than Hein,” my mother said, and there was a strange pride in it, as if size wasn’t everything as long as lethality made up the difference. “But he’s quick. Deadly. Thoros suits him.”
I looked up at the sky, at the lanes of wind Katama had cut through, at the distant specks that might have been other riders or might have been birds pretending they belonged in dragon territory.
“I am looking forward to it,” I said.
The words came out bright, almost eager.
A lie.
A truth.
A prayer.
My mother’s hands tightened on my shoulders again, and this time I let her hold me.
Because tomorrow, the test would decide whether I belonged to the sky or to the ground.
And I had already lost one half of myself to the ground.
Click HERE to find out what happens next in the Fourth Guild series by reading A Court Of Mist And Flames.