Page 134 of House of Ashes
“Who are you?” I asked, flicking water off my hands.
“Mykah,” she said, taking my question as a tacit invitation to join me in the inn. She was on my heels as I returned to my stool and picked up the jar of salve. Mykah watched curiously as I began dabbing the salve over the stitched-up wounds criss-crossing Rhylan’s chest and sides. “It’s Mykariah, really, but that’s a mouthful.”
“Which House?” I tried not to sound impatient, but it was like she hadn’t been schooled in etiquette at all. Doric had said something about her being his ward…but the Lunar Tides wouldn’t be so stupid as to leave a scion out of the Training Grounds, and not bother to teach her proper draga manners.
Surely not.
But she shrugged, her little shoulders going stiff. “House of Ashes, if you must pry about it.”
I looked up from my ministrations to stare at her. “And you’re a ward of the Lunar Tides?”
That dark, pinkish-violet coloring in her scales and hair resembled no House canon I knew of. I mulled it over as I moved on to Rhylan’s arm, wincing in sympathy as he groaned under his breath.
“They’re my guardians for now,” Mykah said, squatting on the other side of the mattress and watching with intense interest. “My true ward-family wanted me out of the way while all this is going on, so they sent me here. Right into the thick of it!” She snorted. “Ooh, that one looks nasty.”
“So which House is your ward-family?” Talking to her was keeping me grounded in the present, distracting me from all the guilt I wanted to dive into. I moved on to the wound Mykah had commented on—Kalros had managed to snag the hollow of Rhylan’s throat with his claws. The stitches were neat, but brutal, ringing his neck.
Mykah’s lips twitched. “Undying Light.”
My hands didn’t pause in their work, though I was surprised. Pyrae and Tashan were not known for their generosity.
And her lack of etiquette suddenly made much more sense. If she was a foundling, a scion cropping up from a long-exiled bloodline, she could be from a House that had been burned to ashes so far in the past, none of us would have records of it today.
But it still didn’t quite click into place for me. Pyrae would have no reason to take in a foundling…
Oh. Unless one of the younger sons of Undying Light had fathered her…and they wouldn’t want to lose face by sending Mykah to the Training Grounds, bearing their name, but the marks of another Ascendant.
“Are your hands clean?” I asked, and when Mykah nodded, I passed her the jar. “Get his other side. I don’t want to flip him over yet, not while he’s still bleeding.”
Her eyes went wide, but she began tending the wounds on Rhylan’s left, able to reach his neck where he’d been torn up.
She’d likely only wanted to come in for one reason: to see a dragon up close in male form, one from outside her ward families. Even a young draga from a House of Ashes would be curious, particularly if she’d been kept out of the Training Grounds, away from any future mate.
I took the break to straighten, stretching my back muscles and hearing my spine pop. “Thank you for saving my life, by the way. Whatever favor you need, it’s yours. The House of Silvered Embers owes you.”
Mykah gave me a considering, narrow-eyed look, the calculation a little alarming on her soft, baby-cheeked features. Then she broke into a wide smile. “I’ll remember that, don’t worry.”
“Just don’t ask me to kill your ward family for you,” I muttered, and she plastered an innocent “Who, me?” look over the calculation that had been there seconds ago.
Then Mykah cleared her throat. “What I really wanted to know was…you’re Princess Serafina, obviously.”
“Yes.” I didn’t pry further. She had the look of someone who was working herself up to ask something she didn’t know if she should voice aloud.
“And Silvered Embers was named a House of Ashes because your mother killed his.”
A scowl descended on my face before I could stop it, and I had to carefully school it away, not wanting to drive her off. “That’s what some claim.”
Mykah finished spreading the salve on her side of Rhylan, and she focused on the jar as she screwed the lid back on, frowning at it.
I waited patiently.
“How did you bring your House back from ashes, then?” she finally burst out, speaking so fast all the words blurred together.
I should have expected such a question, particularly from a ward with scion-marks.
“It’s the laws of the Interregnum. If a Drakkon or Dragonesse dies without leaving an heir, and breaks the lines of succession, all their earthly works are considered null. If Drakkon Nasir had named an heir…” I shrugged. “I would probably still be on Mistward Isle, and my eyrie would have been forgotten eventually. But, since he chose to leave us with chaos, his declaration of my House’s exile was voided. When I returned to my eyrie and claimed it, I brought my House back from the ashes.”
“I’m sure you’re glad of the chaos, then,” she murmured, sitting with her back against the wall.