Page 135 of House of Ashes
“In a manner of speaking.” I touched Rhylan’s chest in one of the few unmarked places, feeling the gentle rise and fall of his breath. “It allowed me to come home. But—I could live without the bloodshed.”
I thought of the feel of a sword tearing through flesh, the hot stink of blood and shit, and felt my guts knot.
Fortunately, my stomach had emptied itself in the square earlier, and there was nothing left in me.
“So…if his laws are void…does this mean every Drakkon’s laws are void?” she asked carefully. “Any draga who can reclaim their eyrie…can bring their House back?”
I licked my lips, thinking rapidly through what to say…and settled on honesty. She was a draga of ancient blood, and she deserved better than to be treated like a Bloodless wyvern-rider. “I…yes. If you can claim your eyrie, and your Ascendant lives, you can bring it back while there is no rightful ruler to declare otherwise. But…how long has your House been ashes?”
Her dark eyes flicked up to me, and I read a terrible weariness in them. “I don’t know. I don't know which House is mine.”
It took all of my willpower to keep the pity from my face.
If she didn’t know which House was hers, or how long it had been in exile, she might never find it.
Even if she traveled to every empty eyrie in the world, there were hundreds more that had crumbled with the passage of time, the bones of the Ascendants buried well below the ruins.
Of course the draga wanted to find it, if she was being held back like this. She needed to be in the Training Grounds, needed to be preparing to find her own dragon one day, to rule her own territory.
It was breathtaking, the casual cruelty of Undying Light taking her in as a ward, and not even bothering to search for her history—not even giving her the training a draga needed.
Did they truly expect a scion to remain a wyvern-rider her entire life?
But a coldness prickled over my skin. I absolutely believed Pyrae would keep a scion as a wyvern-rider, if it meant she had a servant dependent on her for food and shelter.
A useful servant, who would carry her messages, and be beholden to her in all things…one she could use as a bargaining chip later, banking on that bloodline.
“Well…I’ll look for what I can. It’s the least I can do since you kept me from splattering all over the town.” I tried to smile, but gods, I felt terrible for her. “I’ll still owe you a proper favor, though.”
Mykah got up, stretching with studied casualness. “If you become Dragonesse, would you stop me from bringing my House back? If I found my eyrie?”
I considered it for less than a second. If any other dragon had asked me—if Kalros had been here, in the flesh, to crawl and beg at my feet—I would have said no.
I would have said to let the Bloodied Talons rot, cowards and rapists that they were. They would always be ashes, would always be worth less than ashes.
But for this draga… “No, of course not. If I had the right to claim a second chance, so do you.”
She nodded, her gaze flitting around the room, resting lightly on the badly-mauled dragonbloods and Bloodless who had been brought in. “All right. I was just curious, is all. Aren’t you hungry?”
For a moment I remembered the sword slicing upwards, and thought I’d say no…but my stomach growled, everything inside me contracting like it wanted to eat itself. A headache was beginning to pulse behind my eyes. “Gods, I’d kill for something to eat.”
I started to get to my feet, wobbling a little, but Mykah put a hand on my shoulder and pushed me back down. “Nah, you sit. I’ll find something and we can eat together. Doric says when you get the battle-madness, you forget things like hunger and pain.”
“He’s right,” I mumbled, sinking back onto the stool helplessly and rubbing my temples. My legs were so much jelly, anyway. The idea of walking sounded terrible.
Mykah popped back around the corner. “Things like pain?” she hinted, and I looked down at myself.
My leathers had been shredded by Kalros and her wyvern’s claws. Blood—some mine, some Rhylan’s—had dried to a fine crackle glaze on what was left.
Only my hands were clean; the scent of smoke and iron coated me, sunk into my hair.
“Oh,” I breathed, and closed my eyes. I was too tired to even consider trying to wash this off. Moving would take energy that had been sapped from me.
I had never killed a man before with my own sword. I had practiced on wood, on leather and straw dummies, but never, not even on Mistward, had I taken a life.
I felt disgusting to the bone, and yet…looking back, I couldn’t think of a single other way to handle it. I couldn’t have let Yura’s band of exiles tear apart the people of Zerhaln and done nothing to stop it.
But the sensation of carving into flesh instead of an inert post…