Chapter 25
Twenty-Five
Kieran
Astrid does a horrible job of disguising her amusement at my expense. As does Mozi. His dragon roar of laughter shakes the quivering trees beneath us and sends several stray pebbles catapulting off the rock edge.
“I’m a joke to you?” I grind out.
“Not a joke, per se. But a source of delight? Regularly,” Astrid says. She presses her hand to her gut. “You really didn’t know?”
I think you didn’t want to know. If you’re in the market for my opinion.
Sickening heat floods my system in a combination of embarrassment and realization. I’m not.
“I refused to let it be Morgan,” I say out loud.
Mine was the book she held in her hand when Evie slapped her. The one she replaced on the shelf.
Astrid’s penetrating gaze lassoes me back into my body when my mind threatens to carry me off. “You’ve been discussing loyalties to the crown with a known traitor.”
…And I’m meant to lead a rebel army against my father.
I can’t even see what’s right in front of my face. Shame burns my face and the flush disappears into my high collared black tunic.
“I have no way to defend myself.” So I give her an easy smile and hold my hands out to the side. Striving more for a picture of repentance and charm vs I’ve botched this completely.
Astrid grips the note and holds it out to me without breaking eye contact. “Get it together. Our efforts will hardly get off the ground if you refuse to look at what is right in front of your face.”
My head is reeling and I slick my tongue over my teeth, the ache deepening from too long clenching my jaw. “I’m not sure what you want me to say. An apology feels cheap.”
Especially considering I am not actually sorry for writing to Morgan. Her intellect, her insights—
It’s no wonder she received an acceptance letter. She’d be a formidable asset to this place, and my original opinion grows stronger roots. She’d be an asset to me.
I pluck the letter back and hastily shove it beside my father’s inside my tunic.
“A promise,” Astrid clarifies. “Do better. See clearly. Think twelve steps ahead instead of one. Maybe then we’ll actually get somewhere.”
I want to ask her opinion on the letter’s tone, on Morgan’s disgust of the monarchy, but it’s treading over the same ground Astrid and I have already covered.
We feel the same. The King’s rule is a sham, my father the true power behind the young man, and the rest of the royals and the nobility are only too happy to fall in line if it means a thickening of their own pockets.
Astrid turns and leaves me with her cold shoulder and an overwarm chest.
You might have said something. I glare at Mozi, drawing my knees up.
There are things happening beyond your reckoning and unless you can bear the necessary grit to do what is necessary, you cannot withstand the storm.
His cryptic and sometimes almost prophetic intonation isn’t new. Today, it’s annoying as well. Always some kind of excuse, I gripe.
Then I’ll spell it in simpler terms and pretend that this is a one-off occasion. Me being thickheaded, he means. These are opportunities for you to grow stronger. More secure. More observant. Take them as such instead of making excuses.
If I remember correctly, you were the one warning me not to engage with the person writing these notes. An enemy. Wasn’t it?
Dragons are notoriously bad at being called out.
Perhaps Astrid is right and you need some time alone to decompress. Your anger will consume you alive if you’re not careful, Kieran. Claws scrape over stone and Mozi perches at the precipice of the ledge.
Coward.
I point the finger at myself, too. I am angry.
I’m furious that I keep doing everything I can and it is never enough. I tap dance to the tune of so many different flutes and at the end of the day, with my feet bleeding, I am still the jester.
Astrid and Mozi are right to laugh at me.
A rumble of Mozi’s hunger deepens the ache I’ve already got in my gut. He pauses before launching. But… I could stick around. If you want the company.
“Nah, you go. I’ll be fine,” I insist blithely.
The sun arcs lower toward the tree line and intensifies the hue of the sky to something peachy and ripe.
If I had my own wings, I’d take off with him.
My fingers itch to grab the row of bony protrusions along his neck and haul myself up, to settle between the joints of his wings and hold on for dear life.
Without a saddle, I’ve got a death wish.
Mozi lowers his head until we are eye level. His features are less pointed than many of the other dragons I’ve seen. The top of his skull is flatter, his eyes wider set, and his horns small and tucked neatly back from his eye sockets.
I press my palm to his forehead. “If you have some final insult to throw at me, please. Just get it over with.”
He blinks, his double lids meeting at the center of his slitted pupils. You do such a lovely job of it yourself. You don’t need me.
“Go on, then, you overgrown lizard. I’m fine.”
Mozi takes me at my word and stretches his wings out to their full length. They beat toward the earth, sending him careening into the sky. I mark his departure until he’s once again a black speck in the sky and the potency of his hunger dissipates.
I’m left empty and weighed down with each of the notes its own separate anchor.
Now, what am I going to do about Morgan?
There’s no way for me to let her go now, not when we’ve exchanged such honesty back and forth. My heart clenches and stumbles over itself. Does she know who she’s been talking to? Who is on the other side of the pen?
Has she figured me out and the letters are her way of drawing me into a trap, waiting for the zenith moment to snap her iron jaws closed and mark me?
The girl in the cave certainly wouldn’t hesitate. If she’d been able to free my blade, she’d land the point between my eyes and be done with me. Here, there are eyes on her for most of the day, and the staff maintain their absolute control. She’d have no access to—
I push up and pause to get my bearings. Scratch that. Morgan has absolutely had access to things she has no business accessing. Like using my private gym. She simply does it when everyone else is too exhausted to follow her.
Or stop her.
Where else has she gone in this place? What has she seen that she shouldn’t have?
I turn away from the castle and draw her note out of my pocket, the paper warm from being pressed to my skin. It starts hesitantly but then she holds nothing back.
She’s right, too. The monarchy is a sham, and our leader a puppet for my father’s desires. An easy to manipulate figurehead.
Morgan took a great risk in exposing her true feelings on the subject.
The clarity of her words speaks to a zeal and a heartfelt desire for lasting change. Then again, for those who have the willingness to bring about the change they want to see, there has to be a certain element of despair.
You have to be willing to go the distance, as I mentioned to her before. You have to do what it takes to be the monster who makes transformation possible.
Whether she knows it’s me or not, I have to get her to trust me, so she comes around to my side.
To my bed.
I glance up quickly and the wind slaps my face. No, I correct hurriedly, for the rebellion. She can be useful in multiple ways, but I have no idea how to justify training a maid.
This situation calls for care and strategy. There’s no good way for me to make it work even with my privilege. No doubt my father would hear of it immediately and march up to the castle to torture out my real intentions.
Training her out in the open might be a red flag drawing the bull off his path.
My gaze lifts to the sky above and the puffs of clouds like whipped cherry blossoms. The redheaded warrior has been a thorn in my side since she poked her head out of the caves in the mountains. If only she’d kept hidden. Things would be different.
We wouldn’t be in this current predicament. I wouldn’t be invested the way I am.
It’s always been a bit difficult to keep my personal feelings separate from duty. Now things are mingling in a muddled way I’ll never be able to untangle.
I shouldn’t want her but I do.
I wouldn’t consider bringing her under my wing, but I am. Ether take me, if she were any other woman, I’d have no issue relegating her to a separate box in my mind and going about my days.
There’s just no good way out of this. If General Ryson finds out about any number of illicit things I do, he’ll split me open from neck to navel. If he ever finds out I’ve kept the unicorn leader’s daughter alive and primed her for rebellion?
Worse. So much worse than a split belly.
Footsteps thunder behind me and a breathless Astrid calls out, “Your little pet maid is going to kill your future wife! You better get your head out of the clouds and get back into the castle.”
I turn abruptly and my head spins. “Evie isn’t my fut—”
“Kieran!” Astrid interrupts.
She’s in front of my face in seconds. “Did you hear a word I just said?”
Her words snap over my frustration, and I grab her by the shoulders, more to steady myself than anything else.
“Where? Where are they?”
Astrid’s eyes glint. “Finally.”
She turns, taking off, leading the way.
Morgan and Evie. A match made in the darkest parts of the Void. How did the two get into each other’s orbits again?
Was Morgan assigned to Evie’s quarters, a warped and sick twist of fate?
Or did Evie seek—
My ribs constrict as we rush into the dragon aerie and down, always down, into the belly of the castle.
Astrid sprints toward the dining hall. I must have been more out of it than I thought. She hadn’t been gone for more than ten minutes before racing up to get me again. Or the word came through from one of her little spies in DragonSpear.
The King’s castle isn’t the only one under Astrid’s surveillance. She’s got eyes and ears in every wall.
My vision clouds and I’m tense, terrorized, by the time we skid through the open doors of the dining hall. I pull up short.