Page 34 of House of Ashes
As the dragon tucked in his narrow wings, I got a closer look at his rider.
The draga on his back wore a set of pure white leathers to match his tack, an expensive outfit even without the silver embroidery accents and tiny, sparkling blue topazes studding her gloves and boots. Long blonde hair was braided and pinned into an elaborate coil at the back of her head, disheveled by the wind, and her cheekbones gleamed with dusky blue scales.
“Prince Rhylan,” she greeted, sliding from the blue dragon’s back. He shifted into a tall male, slithering from the tack and stepping to his mate’s side.
Like his dragon form, his up-tilted eyes and the scales on his chest and arms were pale blue; his hair was a deep chestnut, trimmed short.
“Lady Elinor, Lord Doric.” Rhylan nodded to them, his arms crossed. It wasn’t warm and friendly, precisely, but neither was it hostile. “Are you here for Kirana?”
Elinor pushed blonde flyaways back from her forehead. The lovely draga looked tired, with dark circles under her eyes; her paleness made the tiny scales on her cheeks stand out like old bruises. “Not this time, but I’d appreciate it if you told her I’d said hello. We’ve just come from the Shadowed Stars. Maristela has officially mate bonded to a dragon from Mourning Fang. She ran off last week against her mother’s wishes to do it, and their House is in uproar.”
She shook her head wearily, and Doric wrapped an arm around her. I envied that simple gesture of affection.
“The lord is newly graduated from the Training Grounds, but they’re hoping the Jade Leaves will throw in their support.” Elinor leaned her head against Doric’s stiff shoulder as he spoke.
Rhylan frowned, exchanging a glance with Viros. “The Jade Leaves are more concerned with House lineage. A boy barely out of the Training Grounds from Mourning Fang isn’t going to hold their interest.”
Elinor let out a small, tired laugh. “I tried to tell her, but Maristela wouldn’t have it. She’s weakened her House and claim with this. Yura is going to eat them both for breakfast without batting an eye, and at the rate she’s collecting promises, we’re all going to have a problem. This is just a rumor, but I heard she was courting the Iron Shards to back them as a Court. There’s a good chance they’ll stand by her side after the First Claim, and she’ll have the right of might from the beginning.”
In my hidden corner, I gritted my teeth at the mention of my sister.
Doric met Rhylan’s gaze, his mouth turned down at the corners. “And what of you? You haven’t announced a mate yet. Lunar Tide stands ready to lend their support to your House.”
I saw the muscles in Rhylan’s back tense. “If you can trust me on this, wait for the First Claim.”
“Have you found one?” Doric asked sharply, his eyes narrowing. “We should know before—”
Rhylan shook his head. “Not now. You’ll find out soon enough.”
Both draga and dragon peered at him suspiciously. I could see from the way Elinor’s head tilted towards her mate, the way Doric tapped his fingers against her shoulder, that they were speaking mind to mind.
“There are few princesses left with direct blood-claim to the royal throne,” he said delicately, his gaze moving around the room to the table laden with gloves and harnesses, clearly ready for use. “Now that Maristela has been mate bonded…that leaves very few options I can fathom standing a chance against Yura and Tidas.” The edge in his tone could put a freshly-honed knife to shame.
“After all the years of friendship between our Houses, I’d hoped that you could put a little more faith in me,” Rhylan said, his blue eyes burning. Black scales shifted down from his shoulders, creeping over his golden skin.
Doric squeezed Elinor, their mind-speech resuming. Finally she inclined her head. “We’ll trust you…for now. But the First Claim is going to be ugly, Rhylan. They’re poised to annihilate half the Houses if this turns to war.”
“Not if we have anything to say about it,” he replied with a thin smile.
Doric raised a brow, but didn’t attempt to refute him. “We should leave now, or we’ll be flying through the night,” he told his mate.
Elinor smiled up at him, but the expression left her lips as she looked back at Rhylan. “I hope you’re right. Give Kirana my love, please. And don’t let us down.”
Doric stepped back into his tack and shifted, and Elinor quickly adjusted and rebuckled the harness before climbing onto his back with the lithe grace beaten into us in the Training Grounds.
I needed to re-learn that grace in the next week or so, or all of Rhylan’s promises would be for nothing.
He raised a hand as the blue dragon darted into the air, Elinor clinging to the harness with the confidence borne of a mind-speech bond.
I didn’t emerge from the storage room until the dragon was a speck in the distance.
“No more princesses? Looks like you’re stuck with me,” I commented, shading my eyes to watch as Doric vanished into the clouds. I pursed my lips in a mocking pout. “Poor Maristela, missing out on a big, strong dragon like you.”
“Or are you stuck with me?” Rhylan murmured in my ear, warm at my back. My skin prickled into goosebumps from my neck all the way down to my toes. I was glad I wore long-sleeved leathers to hide it.
“I suppose we’ll find out, depending on which one of us tries to kill the other first today,” I said cheerfully, gathering the gloves he’d selected as a pretense for stepping out of his shadow.
Viros handed me a thick belt, to which I’d attach a sword on future flights. I buckled it, settling it around my hips, and looked up to find Rhylan watching me with an unreadable expression.