19. Eradin
CHAPTER NINETEEN
ERADIN
“It’s so pretty,” Lyndie said in a wistful tone, staring into the ballroom.
“If you find vipers pretty.” Reece kept his voice low. “Makes me miss the simple festivals we hold at home.”
The ballroom was bigger than my entire cottage. Bigger than ten cottages, if I was guessing right. Crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling, each one dripping with light that scattered across the polished floor.
Another lady passed the open doorway. With a flick of her finger, she magically changed the color of her gown from pale blue to bright pink, the jewels around her throat, in her ears, and speckling her hair changing along with the gown to match.
I couldn’t push aside the noise my brother’s lungs made when he tried to breathe, the rattle that said his body was eating itself from the inside while the elite ate glazed fowl and changed their gown’s color from one to the next.
The glowing light spheres drifted through the air in aimless, slow-motion arcs, bobbing above the heads of the guests.
One glided out of the ballroom and floated close to me.
A tiny creature stood inside, clutching the metal bars of its cage. Translucent wings fluttered at its back and its body glowed, generating the light. It threw itself against the cage, beating its wings, its mouth open in a scream I couldn’t hear.
If I grabbed it and flung it against the wall, would that break the surface and let it fly free or would I cause the poor thing even more pain that it felt now?
It generated beautiful light, but at what cost?
Selira wouldn’t be caged. Wouldn’t be made into light for someone else’s party.
And neither would I.
“Back,” the thin man growled, smacking the orb into the ballroom like a ball in a competitive game. It soared up toward the ceiling, impacting with one of the chandeliers before bobbing back down to hover over the guests.
The queen sat on a throne on the dais. Lyndie stared her way, her throat moving with her swallow.
“Whoa,” Reece whispered from beside me. “This is…something else.”
“Yeah.”
“Almost too much,” Lyndie said. She studied the room the same way I did a dragon the first time I worked with it, as if she worried it would suddenly turn on her and bite.
Colorful silk banners hung from the ceiling, decorated with black and ruby dragons that magically danced across the fabric.
I made myself unclench my aching jaw.
A priestess stood on a raised platform on the right side of the room, her silver robes catching the light. She raised her hands, and the crowd quieted.
“We gather tonight,” she said, her voice amplified by a spell, “to celebrate the sacred bond between all subjects of the realm, regardless of birth. To honor those who have shown courage and merit. To remember that the Oracle’s wisdom extends to the one who proves themself most worthy.”
Applause rippled through the crowd. Nobles nodded, their faces solemn.
The ache in my spine worsened.
A herald strode over to stand in front of the platform, a scroll in his hands. He bowed to the crowd before unrolling the scroll and reading. “Allow me to present the commons trial survivors.”
“You’ll enter as your name is called,” the thin man said from behind us. “Don’t dawdle and don’t interact with the crowd. Walk over to stand to the left of the herald. Keep your eyes down.”
“Reece.” No surname. Just his first name.
The older man walked into the room, his expression carefully blank.
“Kerrel.”
Kerrel didn’t move. The thin man had to nudge him before he entered and took his place beside Reece.
“Lyndie.”
Her bright smile wavered, and she ducked her head and stepped inside, crossing the room with an uneven gait, as if someone was poking her spine with a pin.
“Eradin.”
I walked into the ballroom and over to stand beside Lyndie, my burned foot screaming with each step. I didn’t hide the limp. Let them see the real cost of their entertainment.
Lyndie grabbed my hand and squeezed it, hers sweaty. She released it just as fast.
“Here, we have prime examples of courage and merit,” the priestess said in a bubbling voice. “Proof that opportunity exists for those brave enough to seize it.”
Applause rang out, louder this time, and tiny lights erupted from the floor, startling guests into awed laughter as they drifted up to float among the caged faelights.
“Please, enjoy yourselves tonight,” the priestess said. She stepped off the platform and exited through a door on the far right.
The elite rushed toward us, tittering. Scowling.
Some grinning fanatically. As they reached us, the thin man pressed us forward, Kerrel stumbling before righting himself.
Lords and ladies circled us, moving the way buyers did around beasts at a fair, studying our faces, our clothing, and especially the marks on the backs of our hands.
“How quaint that you made it through,” a woman in yellow silk told Lyndie.
“Thank you, my lady,” Lyndie said in a cowed voice, her attention on the wall beyond the lady’s shoulder.
“You must be proud.”
“I am.”
“Such an opportunity for your kind.”
Lyndie’s smile quivered, and she shot a look toward the queen before angling her body slightly away. “Yes, my lady. It truly is.”
A servant pressed goblets into our hands. Water, not wine. They gave us water.
A man in a black tunic shot through with red threads strode over to Reece. “Tell me, how will it feel to compete alongside your betters?”
Reece’s jaw worked. “It’s an honor, my lord.”
“Good. That’s the right attitude.” The man clapped Reece on the shoulder hard enough the older man swayed. “Keep that up and you might last a whole day.”
Laughter erupted from the nobles standing nearby.
A lord stopped in front of me, his face flushed with wine and his eyes too bright.
“You’re the one who walked through the last trial,” he said.
I didn’t answer.
“You guided your dragon through the fire.” He leaned closer, his sour breath wafting across my face. “That was either very brave or very stupid.”
“Perhaps both, my lord.” I met his eyes.
Servants didn’t do that. Commons especially didn’t.
His smile faltered before he recovered with too-loud laughter.
“I like this one. She’s got spine.” He raised his voice. “I’m doubling my bet. I say this one will make it through the first leg of the race.”
More laughter rang out.
“I say she won’t make it halfway through the first leg,” the woman in the bright pink gown shouted.
They were betting on me. On all of us. While we stood here, pretty things on display, they made wagers on how quickly we’d die.
It made me furious. But underneath the fury, something colder settled in my chest.
They thought I was entertainment. A spectacle.
Good. Let them see a commons woman in a borrowed gown, overwhelmed and out of place.
They wouldn’t see the real me coming until it was too late.
A nearby lord spoke with another, gesturing with his wine. “They say there are five trials this time around. It could take a week or more.”
His companion laughed. “Commons never last past the third. It’s a known fact.”
Was that so?
They weren’t whispering, and they didn’t bother to lower their voices.
My palms itched, and I hid my hands in the folds of my gown.
Reece stood with a plate in his hands, trying to enjoy the warmth, the food, and the brief moment of not being invisible. But his eyes kept shooting to the exits. He was counting guards and calculating threats.
A woman in green silk said something to him, and his face crumpled. A choked sound escaped before he locked it down.
Kerrel had found a corner and was staring at the wall. When he caught me watching, he mouthed, “I’m already dead, aren’t I?”
I didn’t know how to answer.
He nodded and turned back to the wall.
Lyndie stood among a cluster of young nobles, her shoulders tight, thanking them for their kindness. Playing the grateful commons who couldn’t believe her luck. But her eyes remained sharp. She watched everything, memorizing faces, listening to conversations swirling around her.
When she caught me looking, her lips lifted in a brief smile.
In two days we’d be riding dragons, trying to outlast each other. I wasn’t in this to make a new friend.
Alliances didn’t last in races where only one person could win.
A lord beside her made a comment I couldn’t quite hear, something about vintage wine years and proper cellaring. Lyndie laughed at exactly the right moment. Not at the joke itself, but the reference that came before it.
I turned and nodded toward a lady standing nearby. She stared down her nose at me, sniffed, and purposefully turned away.
My burned foot had decided the marble floor was a personal insult. Each step sent stabs of pain up my leg, my shoe rubbing against raw skin.
Music swelled, the floating instruments near the ceiling playing something sweeping and dramatic while nobles danced on one side of the room, their silks swirling in colors that shifted with the light and, in some cases, became the light, blazing like they’d stolen flames.
One of the chandeliers caught my eye, its crystal drops hanging in perfect symmetry, each one refracting light, scattering rainbows across the floor.
For one moment, I let myself feel the beauty.
My skin felt too tight to hold it all in.
Tolross would never see this or feel the magic shimmer through the air. He’d die in our cottage in Shaleside, shallow breaths in the dark until they stopped.
Unless I won the Scorching.
The ache in my throat sharpened into rage, and I welcomed it with a burning across my bones. Rage felt better than grief.
My gaze found Prince Fenian. He stood apart from the clusters of elite, wearing a formal tunic and pants in stark black etched with silver.
The close cut of the fabric showed off the line of his broad shoulders and the narrowness of his waist. He held himself like someone who’d been trained since birth to stand exactly right.
Alone despite being surrounded by his people.
The same way I was alone in this room full of commons and elite alike.
I held his gaze for longer than I should. He’d know this wasn’t an accident. I couldn’t pretend it was anything but choice.
I looked away first, my pulse throbbing in my throat, and walked slowly around the outside of the room, pain from my burned foot scorching across my spine.
His gaze tracked my uneven steps, and his expression tightened. He started toward me. The crowd seemed to part for him without trying. Even the air knew to make room. When he stopped in front of me, close enough I could see the darker flecks in his eyes, he said, “You’re injured.”
“I’m fine, Sire.”
“You aren’t.” He didn’t say it unkindly. “I have salve in my rooms. It’s better than anything they’ll give you with the commons supplies.”
“I don’t need—”
“I know you don’t need it.” His voice stayed even. “I’m offering it anyway.”
He held my gaze, waiting.
I wanted to say yes. My foot screamed with every heartbeat, and the thought of the relief salve would bring made my eyes prickle with tears.
But relief meant owing him, and I’d already watched him speak to his mother, watched her decide my fate with a nod.
I couldn’t owe more to a person who held power over whether I lived or died.
“No, Your Highness,” I said. “But thank you.”
His eyes flashed, but he jerked out a nod and stepped back, returning to wherever crown princes stood when they weren’t crossing rooms to offer salve to commons who turned them down.
As he left, I told myself the refusal had been sensible.
So why did my chest feel hollowed out, watching him disappear into a crowd of people who’d never had to choose between pride and relief?
Selira had accepted my help, but maybe pride was a luxury wild things couldn’t afford.
She was caged even if she stood behind invisible bars.
But standing here in a gown I’d never own, in a room I’d never belong in, about to race for a wish I might not survive to claim, made it clear they’d caged me as well.
We were all caged. The only difference was that Selira knew it.
A servant appeared at my side with a tray. “Drink?”
I shook my head, and the servant moved on to Reece.
Across the room, through gaps in the crowd, I caught one more glimpse of the prince.
He wasn’t watching me anymore. He was watching his mother.
And his hands had closed into fists.