46. Hollow Heart
~ VOSKI ~
That night, in the dark, I slipped through the shadows, senses pricked.
I’d kept my usual routine for the rest of the evening, sulking in her office for an hour, nursing a drink that I made her believe I consumed, rather than poured into the potted plant next to my chair.
After she babbled about the travel, and I’d grunted my acquiescence long enough, I excused myself to go to bed, taking the exact route I did every night, and slamming my door, as if her foresight had offended me.
I even undressed and sat in my bed as I usually would.
But instead of the inability to sleep because my skin crawled, I sat in silence, examining the sounds of the house slowly descending into sleep, counting the minutes until I was sure it would be safe to sneak out—and chewing my lip as I strategized.
I’d learned about the misused dragons when serving in Fyrehold, months earlier. The same trip during which I’d met Grace, though she’d met me as a servant of Donavyn and Bren’s rather than a Furyknight in my own right.
While there, I’d helped uncover an enemy scheme that spanned kingdoms—and recognized my mother’s handiwork in the coding system the fuckers used to communicate in secret.
The Queen of Vosgaarde still worked to uncover the names of all the men involved in that wicked plot.
But we’d believed them chased underground, and the dragons they’d enslaved, freed to become feral.
In the process of eradicating their leaders, a massive herd of dragons had been drawn out of that slavery in Fyrehold.
While they’d refused the invitation to join our herd as free, independent minds, when they’d flown off together, we’d assumed they would start their lives anew, hopefully building a healthy herd of their own.
Had they been recaptured somehow?
Or had we missed more of their number?
I’d expected my mother’s involvement with this to be political—she collected powerful men and women to work for her goals as surely as a child collected marbles. But I’d never expected she’d have a practical hand in the scheme itself.
Yet, there she’d sat, smug as a cat cleaning downy feathers from its whiskers, telling me that we’d fly dragons tomorrow when we traveled.
She knew I’d always been fascinated by dragons, even as a child. It fit that she’d informed me of these dragons like she offered a treat.
I couldn’t know how much she knew, whether she had learned I was a Furyknight, or not.
My searches of her office had uncovered little of value, and nothing I hadn’t already suspected.
But I knew one thing: There was no chance she got her hands—or slippers—dirty.
If she was using the dragons to travel, someone else was doing the legwork, and managing the connection with them.
She lacked the necessary empathy for a dragon to wish to connect with her mind, I was sure.
Still, that meant someone else here on the estate—or someone very close to my mother—was in contact with dragons.
I suspected she’d been holding onto the dragon news until the moment she’d measured that I would leave, and she’d lose control of me.
Did that mean there were dragons waiting to carry us?
‘Kham?’
‘I’ve seen none of them. If they are here, their minds are closed, and they’ve kept enough space that I didn’t scent them.’
That seemed unlikely. Dragons were naturally gregarious, herd animals. And Kham was a healthy, powerful male. Any dragons nearby would have greeted him, at minimum.
Wouldn’t they?
I frowned. ‘When you were in Fyrehold, did the wild dragons communicate with you?’
‘Distantly. They weren’t aggressive. But the herd we saw, the one that threatened Kgosi, those dragons weren’t wild.’
‘They weren’t? I thought almost all the dragons in Fyrehold were feral?’
‘They were—but the numbers that rejected introduction to the herd were not. They were herd-minded. But in a strange way. I didn’t speak to them—they refused to link with any of us—but Kgosi has shown some of what he sensed in their brief connection.
So we could watch for it. And Koa has communicated with a handful of them during her wild days.
They make her very uneasy. They are part of the reason she didn’t seek a true herd.
’ He hesitated, rumbling with disquiet. ‘If she’s been flying with them, if Breckon uses them, she will be unsettled. ’
His tone grew dark on those last words, tightened by the self-restraint of a protective male, frustrated by his inability to step in.
I was very familiar with that sensation.
‘I need you to circle overhead tonight, as close to the house as you can without being seen by human eyes. Find out if anyone leaves the manor tonight. I’ll need to follow them.’
‘Of course. I can fly quite close. The windows glow while men are awake, but their eyes don’t see into the dark. I’ll warn you if I see anything.’
I nodded and considered my next step. There were no secret exits from my room.
But, as long as I could get into the hallway, I could traverse this house without being seen.
I had refamiliarized myself with all its secret passages and hidden exits, between the maze within the walls, and my gifts, I’d sense anyone else approaching before they sensed me. I could avoid them if needed.
The question was when, and how would Mother tell her men we were traveling tomorrow? Was I too late? Had the details already been arranged?
No. My instincts said she’d held onto that information, waiting for me to reach my limit—which meant she’d be sending word to someone on this dark night.
And the most likely time was as she went to bed, when she could move around the house without anyone thinking it odd.
Out in the hallway, the clock chimed—only one hour until midnight. The hair on the back of my neck stood up, but I pushed away the memories and thoughts that wanted to crowd in. I had a task, and needed a plan.
In the end, it was simple. Mother always moved toward bed at midnight. That gave me an hour to position myself before anyone was called to carry her message.
Silently, I dressed in the leathers I’d brought in from the tree when I went out there earlier, along with a scarf to wrap everything but my eyes.
I took my time leaving the room, long minutes in silence to ensure there were no eyes on my door before I slipped out and into the passage entrance just two doors down the corridor.
‘Kham?’
‘Nothing yet.’
‘You’re close enough to see them, even if they’re on the wooded side of the house?’
He offered the feeling equivalent of raising an unimpressed brow.
I smiled into the dark and trotted down the narrow stairs that passed inside the stone exterior of the house, to a door that emerged just short of the trade entrance at the kitchen.
It was the fastest way to get outside. Very risky during the day when staff would move in and out of the house on this side, along with the occasional trader or merchant trying to sell wares.
But in the middle of the night, the safest and fastest route out to my dragon, short of simply walking out the front door.
‘Yes,’ he drawled when I didn’t apologize for the question, his tone clear that I shouldn’t even have asked.
It was a relief to be moving through the dark, knowing that if anyone had perceived my flight, they would struggle to follow me. God had blessed me with a near-moonless night, and enough cloud cover that even the stars were few and far between.
But my peace, being out in the night, in the company of my dragon, would be short-lived.
I’d been right about Mother taking action when she was on her way to bed.
Just minutes past midnight, the footman my mother held under her thumb with the threat of his wife’s death had been called into service.
He left the house quietly, but through the front door, looking left and right, then trotting into the night—past the house, and away from the road, unaware that I was on his heels.
‘Kham, Stay in range, but don’t let anyone from the house see you.’
‘Of course not.’ He was still annoyed about my question, but he wouldn’t allow it to affect a mission.
We moved together in our minds, but taking very different paths. I followed the man primarily by sight, while Kham flew high, using his senses to shadow our progress, while staying well out of sight and sound.
Half an hour later, a couple miles from the house, the nervous footman darted past a thick tree and into a moonlit clearing. I’d given him plenty of space because the trees were thinner here, and Kham was drawing nearer, sensing the man’s agitation increasing in anticipation.
We’d been triangulating him, coming at him from different angles. Unconcerned that I couldn’t see him, I didn’t rush, because I knew Kham would keep him in range—but then, as I reached the edge of the clearing and peered around a wide trunk, a jolt of alarm reached me through the bond. From Kham.
‘What’s—’
‘Take care—take great care, Voski. They’re here. They’re here and close and… Creator, help us, I didn’t even sense him near!’
‘Him? The footman?’
‘No. The dragon.’
I went still. ‘They’re already here?’
Kham remained quiet. He hadn’t known the fury was there? How was that possible? Dragons possessed a sixth-sense for each other.
Though, if this wasn’t one of his herd, that connection would be weak. Still…
Swallowing confusion and a sudden chill, I carefully turned and slipped around the tree, keeping myself flat to it so I wouldn’t be seen in the dark, moving in an attempt to get a clear view into the clearing. But the lack of moonlight worked against us.
With Kham muttering in the bond, and his heart slowly sinking, I couldn’t shake the sense of impending doom—and frustration. How had a dragon gotten this close to the house without Kham being aware? And why was my dragon so flustered?
‘Because, you’ll see. He isn’t… something is deeply wrong!’ Kham protested.