Page 13 of House of Ashes
“What do you want more than anything in this world, Sera?” he asked.
“Varyamar Eyrie.” I said it without thinking. I didn’t have to think; that name was always on the tip of my tongue.
It was the one thing I’d dreamed of, all these years in exile. I wanted my home, the eyrie where the Silvered Embers had been born, and to bring our House back from shame. Now, thanks to the Interregnum and my father’s great mistake, I had a chance to do so.
Most of all I just wanted to live in the eyrie I’d always known. In the years of living on Mistward, I’d kept my homesickness close to my heart.
Only in the deepest, quietest hours of the night would I allow myself to examine it, to take it out and polish it like a precious jewel, knowing that if all hope was taken from me, I’d begin to fracture, and eventually shatter.
My hope had never died. It had guttered like a candle many times, and banked so low I thought that maybe the fracture had already begun. But in the end, I was always able to scrape out one tiny coal of hope and relight my candle.
The news of my father’s death had turned that candle into a torch. I could finally go home.
Varyamar was just across the sea, calling me.
Rhylan stared straight into my eyes, holding my gaze. I felt that same tiny flutter I’d felt when I was fifteen, and he had been everything I wanted in a dragon.
I crushed that flutter ruthlessly.
“I can give you Varyamar,” he said evenly. “I know you despise me. Consider that I…dislike you as well, but I’m willing to put that aside for what I want. You have too ancient a bloodline to overlook, the blood of two royal Houses, and that makes you my best hope.”
That hurt, more than a little. I had done nothing to him to deserve any animosity. Nothing at all.
“And what do you want? What do you get out of this?” I edged away from the drop, no longer quite so inclined to attempt a thousand-foot climb. “My gods, we’ll be executed for pretending. It’s genuinely the worst plan I’ve ever heard.”
But Varyamar felt closer than ever. That little jewel of homesickness within me sparkled, calling my name.
His brow creased, lip drawing up in a hint of a snarl before he mastered himself. “I want Prince Tidas’s head, and there is nothing I would not do to get it.”
Gods, I wished I could be alone with my thoughts. For four years, the world had gone on without me…and I had no idea of the playing field I was walking into.
What had Tidas—that soft, sulking dragon—done to have Rhylan slavering for his blood?
He had always been nearly the perfect prince in my mind, the favored son of the Razored Cinders. It wasn’t until I’d first seen Rhylan in the Koressis Training Grounds that I’d understood the truth: Tidas was weak, whiny and expectant, not a prize, but an anchor that would pull me under.
For a dragon who expected the world to fall swooning at his feet, he didn’t have the bravery to back up his inflated ego.
On the other hand, he had mated with Yura, my cruel, ruthless sister. With our arrangement broken, he had still claimed the highest-ranking mate he could find.
And she would make up for his weakness ten-fold.
I’d started pacing without realizing it. Rhylan remained still, gaze following me back and forth as I wore a path in the dust.
He cleared his throat. “This is what I propose: we pretend we are a mated pair. With our Houses combined, we have the sway to form a Court.”
A Court was more than one House in alliance, and almost as necessary as being a mate bonded pair to claim the royal eyrie. It would be the might of a Court in its entirety—the right of might, an underpinning of dragonblood society—that would capture and keep the throne.
I was sure that even as we spoke, Yura and Tidas were doing their best to form their own Court. I could only hope that the Jade Leaves’ aversion to her—and the Shadowed Stars’ own contender—would buy me time.
But Obsidian Flame and Silvered Embers…we were both of ancient bloodlines as well. Any House would pause to consider the benefits of such an alliance.
“We can take Koressis with a Court of our own,” he said, his gaze flicking out to the night. I paused in my pacing, watching the sky for any hint of an approaching dragon, but when Rhylan relaxed, so did I. “All I want is for Tidas to spend his last moments understanding what he lost. I want him to know he’s been ruined.”
Rhylan was a mystery to me, but that was a motivation I could understand.
I finally stopped pacing, looking back at him. “If I agree to this—if—I want Yura. She’s mine to destroy.”
He paused so briefly I was sure I’d imagined it. “Done.”