Page 1 of House of Ashes

Chapter

One

An hour after the news of my father’s death broke, I was roaringly drunk and raising a toast to his suffering.

“May the old bastard rot in the Nine Hells!” a ferryman bellowed, hoisting a tankard.

My vision was already blurring as I lifted another mug of the swill they called ‘shine’ here on Mistward Isle, and cheered with everyone else.

It burned going down, and that was fine with me. The fire in my stomach was better than the numbness that had come over me when the news was first broken.

I’d only been in the town because this was the day the ferrymen—wyvern-riders who’d chosen trading over message routes—came to Mistward Isle with the dregs of their cargo. All the better goods would’ve been sold on the mainland, and we were in the lean season here on the Isle.

Previous lean seasons had taught me the value of being well prepared.

I’d scraped together a few stolen and scavenged half-moons to venture to Farpost to buy bread, excited that I’d have something to eat besides scorched campfire rabbit for once…or worse, raw rabbit. Sometimes the campfire wasn’t worth the risk.

But instead of their usual orderly offloading, the first group of ferrymen had come racing in from the eponymous mists that surrounded the island, their wyverns nearly crashing into the docks in their haste to land.

Cargo had spilled everywhere, torn from the wyvern’s belly-nets. Chaos ensued as everyone grabbed for scattered food or damaged supplies. A few dragons had grabbed entire crates, vanishing into the alleys of Farpost with their stolen treasure and ensuring that more than a few convicts would go hungry tonight.

Then one of the ferrymen had the wherewithal to stop everyone dead in their tracks by shouting the news out over the tumult.

Nasir of the House of Undying Light, Drakkon of the Royal Koressis Eyrie, the dragon who had united all the Houses in his youth and torn them apart in his senescence—the dragon who had made me, loved me, then exiled me—was dead.

I had hoped for this day for a long time. Whispered a prayer to the gods every night that the next day would be his last. But now that it was here…I wasn’t sure if it was victory I felt, or something else.

Instead of pondering that too deeply, I pushed my empty mug aside and slid another dull half-moon on the scarred table.

In the midst of all the earlier chaos on the docks, I’d stolen two loaves of bread, and decided news of this caliber deserved a rare celebration, rather than spending the hard-won coin on more food.

I had waited years for this. It deserved a commemoration…and maybe it was the shine going to my head, but it was better to be somewhat drunk than to grapple with the clarity of emotion tonight.

One of the barmaids quickly slipped the half-moon in her pocket and returned with another mug of shine. In the Wyvern’s Whore, Farpost’s largest and most prosperous tavern, the gut-knotting, throat-tarnishing shine was all they served.

I knew I would regret this impulsive spending in the morning, but…my father was finally dead.

If that didn’t call for a drink, nothing did.

And the celebrants were out in force tonight. I rarely visited the Wyvern’s Whore, but I’d never seen it so packed before. The ferrymen, being the bearers of wonderful news, were given the choicest seats, and plied with as many rounds of shine as they could handle. By morning, they’d be scattered far and wide across the town, their pockets picked clean.

I was tucked into a dark corner, which suited me fine. A stranger sat nearest to me, his hood pulled up so I couldn’t pick out his features, but I was making a point of not looking at him too hard.

Once or twice I’d seen the flash of his eyes turn my way, and I wanted no part of that.

Black scales gleamed on the backs of his large hands, catching the light as he tapped a half-moon on the table. There was clearly a strong vein of dragonblood in his family, and dragons were bad news. He had to be a new convict here, probably delivered in the last week; none of the dragons I knew of who lived on Mistward Isle had scales that precise shade of ebony.

But when the barmaid saw the half-moon, and the breadth of the stranger’s shoulders, she wasted no time in tossing blonde curls over her shoulder as she prowled back into our lonely corner.

I envied the expanse of tan skin she showed above her blouse. She was Bloodless; she could afford to show skin, while I wore rotting layers cobbled together out of whatever bits and pieces I could salvage from Mistward’s rocky beaches.

As a draga, a fully dragonblooded female, my scent and appearance were a lodestone for the male dragons. It was better to be filthy, so no one would look past the dirt.

But I couldn’t help but feel the pinch of jealousy over the pretty barmaid, who didn’t have a drop of dragonblood in her and would never need to hide.

Especially when she gave the stranger a seductive smile, knowing she could earn more than a half-moon if she sold flesh along with the shine.

I scoffed at myself under my breath, pulling my gaze away from the strange dragon and the barmaid. I had no reason to be envious of the attentions of a convict dragonblood.