Fated Flames, Volume Two

Chapter 1

A woman’s instinct should never be ignored. Didn’t I tell you that ?

I groan.

I’m trying to sleep, I say, or perhaps I only think the words.

My mind seems both frantic and fuzzy, my body heavy, then weightless.

I pry an eye open and am rewarded with a murky view of Mother’s private training room packed with people sparring.

I’m sitting in the midst of them at a low table filled with cake, but all I want to do is lie my head down and go to sleep.

You need to practice, Mother says, suddenly beside me.

I’m tired, I say. And sore. The whole left side of my body throbs in response.

All the more reason to practice. Fork in hand, she examines the cake in front of her. Why did the Creator give women superior instincts, Serah?

The fork flashes out, skewering a slice.

To survive men’s foolishness, she says.

I sigh. I know, Mama. She’s told me this a thousand times.

Then why didn’t you stop the arrow?

The arrow?

I look down at the wooden shaft protruding from my chest.

Everything comes rushing back—Lord Lyken, the scorpion, the flash of light. I look at my mother in horror.

Am I dead?

She shakes her head. I don’t think so. Here, have some cake.

My eyes, my real eyes, snap open.

“Serah!” A soft hand grasps mine in theirs. “You’re all right. You’re safe.”

I struggle to focus on the face leaning over me. “Selena?”

“No, it’s—it’s Tilly. Remember?”

Red hair and shining eyes swam into focus. It’s Lady Tilanthia, the king’s sister. A glance past her shoulder shows me my bedchamber in the gray light of dawn. I shut my eyes against the spinning room. “Tilly. Yes, of course.”

I try easing myself up into a sitting position, but Tilly squeaks with alarm. “No, no, stop. You shouldn’t move so much.”

“Why?”

Even as I ask it, I feel the reason. A band of pain radiates from the left side of my forehead to my hip. In a surge of panic, my hands fly to my chest.

No arrow.

I sink back against the pillows, my relief immense. “How long have I been asleep?”

“Just since last night,” Tilly says.

My head turns her way. She’s still wearing her gown from the feast. “Have you been here since then?”

She seizes her lip between her teeth. “Yes.”

I’m touched more than I know how to say. We’ve barely met, and yet she stayed with me like the best of sisters. I give her hand a weak squeeze. “Thank you. That was so kind.”

Tears spring to her eyes, and before I can say anything else, she leaps to her feet and reaches for the bell-pull. “I’m sure you’re hungry. Let me call for some food.”

“Wait. If you don’t mind, I’d rather hear what happened first.”

I want to know how I survived.

Tilly’s eyes fill even faster. Spinning room or not, I sit up.

“Tilly, what’s the matter? Was someone hurt?” I mean someone other than me, of course; I’m neither dead nor appear to be dying at the moment, but someone else was there, someone dear to her.

What if Lord Lyken…?

Her chest heaves in a vain effort to hold back the tears already leaking down her face. I reach for her. I make my voice as gentle as I can. “Tilly, was Lord Lyken hurt?”

She breaks.

“Oh, Serah.” With a wail, she throws herself over my legs. “You were hurt, and it’s all my fault.”

She lies there, sobs racking her body.

“What?” I blink down at her. “What are you talking about?”

“You,” she cries. “You wouldn’t have been there if I hadn’t asked. I’m so sorry. I just wanted to talk to him, but then I couldn’t, and I ran off and left you there to get shot.”

This sets off a fresh bout of weeping.

“Shh,” I say, stroking her hair. “Now you know it wasn’t your fault.”

“Of course it was. If not for me, you would have been inside with Soren. No one would dare think of attacking you with him.”

I suppose my mind is still foggy and that’s why her words only just now sink in. “So I was shot?”

She raises her head enough to wipe her nose. “No, but it was so close. If Lord Lyken hadn’t stopped the arrow—” She shudders.

“He stopped it?”

“He blocked it with his wing, but when he opened it, he also hit you.”

“With his…wing?”

She nods. I’m silent a moment as I try to absorb all this.

I wasn’t shot, but someone tried to kill me. Lord Lyken was shot, and he saved my life…with his wing. I rub at my throbbing forehead. “How is Lord Lyken?”

“Fine,” she sniffs. “Well, that’s what he said. He wouldn’t let anyone look at his wing.”

“I see. Does anyone know who the archer was?”

I knew there was something off about the archer I saw outside my chambers. I didn’t say it aloud, but my instincts whispered it even as Rally and Ty tried to reassure me. That the archers are one and the same, I have little doubt.

Tilly shakes her head, then hides her face again as the crying starts anew.

“Tilly, I’m fine. Lord Lyken is fine. I’m sure they’ll find the archer and—”

“Kill him?” she says hopefully.

“Um, I suppose.”

The crying lessens, and in time, she peeks up at me. “Just tell me you forgive me.”

“It’s nonsense, but I forgive you.”

This seems to placate her. Lifting my hand from her hair, I pat the bed beside me. Still looking miserable, she begins crawling that way but stops.

“Do you want to see your face?” she asks hesitantly.

“Is it that bad?”

She winces.

“I suppose so then.”

She fetches a hand mirror and returns, wriggling under the blankets next to me before gingerly handing over the mirror. My eyes widen on my reflection.

“This is from a wing?”

She twists a bit of blanket in her hands. “Well, dragon wings are large.”

“I didn’t think I was that close to him.”

A stripe of bruising the color of a ripe plum runs down the left side of my face. From the way my body aches, I suspect the bruising continues beneath the nightgown I’m in.

“Who changed my clothing?” I ask suddenly.

“The maids. Why?”

The relief is almost as welcome as finding out I didn’t have an arrow lodged in my chest. I hand the mirror back. “Just curious.”

The room is brightening, and I notice with a smile that my cat friend lies at my feet.

“He stayed here all night, too,” Tilly says, following my gaze.

He needs a name, though I feel I haven’t known him long enough to say what would fit best. After all, it sometimes takes me weeks to name a goat.

That line of thought leads me back to the more pleasurable events of last night.

“You barely know me.”

That’s what I told the king when he looked at me like I was a lone ship and he the storm bent on claiming me.

“My first form is not so easily controlled…especially when it comes to my mate.”

Does he truly believe that’s who I am? I breathe out the sudden fluttering in my belly.

“How is Sor—I mean, the king?”

Tilly begins fidgeting again. “He was here.”

Her tone immediately has me studying her. “And?”

She wrings her hands together. “He transformed, Serah.”

Transformed? “Into a dragon?”

She nods.

“Is that…bad?”

Her head tilts back and forth. “Let’s just say it ended the party.”

“And?”

“And the eastern gardens aren't there anymore.”

“Those were the eastern gardens?”

Another nod is the answer, and maybe I’m still dazed, but I feel more disappointed than anything. I didn’t even get to see the gardens in the light.

Tilly is still staring into her lap.

“That's not all, is it?” I ask.

She gives a slow shake of her head.

“What is it?”

My cat friend wakes and slinks his way onto my lap. I smooth down a patch of rumpled fur on his back as he curls up.

“Tilly?”

The words tumble out of her like a confession. “There could be challenges.”

“Challenges,” I repeat when she doesn’t elaborate. “Do you mean with the king, or—?”

Her eyes squeeze shut. “I mean for the throne.”

“What?”

She opens her eyes and her mouth to say more, but that’s when the door opens as well.

And a very different man from the one I danced with last night darkens the doorway.