Page 11 of Court of Embers (Dragonesse #2)

Chapter

Six

I can’t help but feel like we’ve broken everything. Even if we’re bonded now, no one’s going to forget that we were pretending that whole time. How could they accept us on the throne now?

I shifted in the saddle, tossing my head to whip my braid back over my shoulder, face pointed into the warmth of the wind.

Now that I could relax, unafraid of a sudden burst or roll that might unseat me, I actually appreciated flight, sinking into Rhylan’s mind, feeling the steady breeze under our wings.

Until my gnawing fears came back to life, filling my head with woes.

Do you need me to give you a few history lessons? Rhylan asked, and I felt the current of amusement beneath his mental words. If he were in male form now, he’d be grinning. That’s far from the worst thing any Drakkon or Dragonesse has done.

It’s still against the Law.

Sure. So are a lot of other things. Drakkon Valis mated both of his younger sisters, murdered an entire House, and still ruled for eighty-odd years.

Well—

Dragonesse Yzira hired an army of dragon hunters from the Eastern Shores, used them to decimate her enemies, and instead of paying them, she had her Drakkon burn them all to a crisp on the battlefield five minutes after she’d won.

Rhylan…

Oh, and you should know this one—remember Nilara? She took the throne with her own Ascendant as her mate.

They were literally bound and thrown into the Searing Ocean for that .

I stared at the back of his head in bemusement.

The House of Bright Moon was famous for a single insane draga and her equally crazy Ascendant demolishing three thousand years of bloodline stability in a single week.

I don’t know if that’s the kind of infamy we’re looking for.

My point is, they were doing worse things than we are, and they still made it to the top.

And my point is, lowering everyone’s expectations enough to touch the ground isn’t exactly a silver lining here.

Rhylan stretched his neck, letting out a low roar and a series of rumbling chuckles. When we save their asses from Yura and uproot her conspirators, they won’t care. Finding out there’s secret Ustrael worshippers hidden among them is going to overshadow our crime by a mile.

I gazed out at the horizon, at the faintest spark in the glowing dawn that might’ve been the peak of a distant eyrie. Gods, it does make one wonder if there’s others, and how far it goes.

Rhylan’s mental voice grew grim, and he allowed me to feel his concerns, a vast pool of anxiety beneath his surface-level good cheer.

I’d think so. Who in their right mind would choose the Outsider on their own?

What makes this one wonder is if Aerona is part of it, because she spent a great deal of time with Nasir, especially while he was on his deathbed.

A chill ran down my spine. As much as I hated my father now…there was a small, recalcitrant part of me that still loved him, still remembered the days of being held on his shoulders under the sun.

And it was that small part that gnashed its teeth with fury when I imagined that dragon confined to bed, withered and feeble, with a smiling enemy at his side.

If she is, I’ll kill her as soon as I’m done with Yura , I said evenly.

Whatever your heart desires, princess . He was silent for a moment, flapping his wings several times to loft us higher.

Below us, the shimmer of Koressis’s lake sparkled like a diamond.

There are still some old dragonbloods who remember the emergence of Vhaiothez.

Maybe they’re the ones we should be speaking to.

I contemplated the mental picture he’d formed. They would be more likely to sniff out the scent of something wrong.

It’s a long shot. If there is an Ustrael cult, and not just your sister being an insane offshoot of her own accord, maybe they’ve seen something like this before .

He let out a mental sigh, along with his massive ribs expanding and contracting beneath me.

But, like I said, long shot. If there was any sign of organized flesh-eating and apostasy, that’s the kind of news that would’ve been all over Akalla.

The Houses could’ve fought over that issue for decades.

And yet there was never so much as a squeak made about it.

But they would know the scent of Primoris , I said. And if they catch a whiff of it anywhere near Yura, or Talariel Eyrie…

Then we’d have some form of proof, and a solid eyewitness.

But we’re also jumping to conclusions again.

Just because Myst said she smelled something like it doesn’t mean there is one.

We’re operating under the assumption that a Primoris is hatching, but really, all we have to do is prove that Yura has engaged in the forbidden and align everyone to take her out.

I stroked his back, my fingers resting on one of his circular scars. The scar tissue was cool and smooth under my fingertips. But I trust Myst’s word implicitly. And if she says she smells something wrong, I believe her.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t believe her. I’m saying that we keep trying to cast a wide net, when really all we need is one, single thing .

He was right, and I knew it. Yura had admitted to me, directly and outright, that she ate dragonblood flesh. If my credibility remained intact, that’d be one thing, but now…all I needed to restore my good name and reputation was a single piece of proof.

A single wrong scent. A gnawed bone, an eyewitness.

One trustworthy voice willing to speak on my behalf and back up my word.

But a memory niggled at the back of my mind…all I could place from the forgotten haze was a dark sea, a devouring sea full of shadows…and a dragon’s scream.

For some reason, I associated that memory with Myst. I frowned, hunkering down in the saddle as a flock of brave birds dared to encroach on Rhylan’s air space.

What did Myst have to do with a sea of inky shadows? I wasn’t sure, but that nudge of memory, and Myst’s fear, had combined to make me absolutely positive that looking into Ustrael and her worshippers was the right thing to do.

Yes, lovely, but first we need the Houses under our thumbs.

I smiled crookedly. That’s something my mother would’ve said.

Rhylan let out a roar of outrage, startling the birds away. Sera, love, absolutely no male ever wants to be told that he sounds like your mother.

If the wingspan fits , I said, and took some of the sting out of it by climbing forward on the saddle and pressing a kiss to his sun-heated scales.

He grumbled, beating his wings a little harder than was absolutely necessary, but a luxurious ripple ran down the length of his body when my lips touched him.

We both quieted as we headed south into the perimeter of the Jade Leaves’ territory, drifting on bubbles of thought that we shared without actively thinking; I felt Rhylan’s apprehension at seeing Sylvaene again, the eyrie where his little sister was buried.

Without using words, I stroked his mind with my own, soothing him.

His thoughts drifted to Kirana, the hopes that we could lure Cai from his ancestral eyrie, that the Jade Leaves dragon would do better than us at bringing Kirana out into the world again.

I was contemplating Tyria, a draga my mother had deeply respected, when I saw the hazy black column on the horizon, rising from the thickly forested hills beneath us.

Rhylan. There’s smoke in the sky over Sylvaene.

With his sharper eyes, we narrowed in on the column, and the others just rising behind it. He breathed deeply, nostrils flaring, and curled his claws with disgust.

The currents are heading south, I can’t fix on a scent .

We need to help them , I thought, seating myself firmly and loosening Aela from her sheath. See if we can get eyes on the intruders, and come in from behind.

He banked, curving so that we’d arrive over Sylvaene from the south-west, and rose higher, higher, until the air stung my nostrils with ice crystals, and the thinness of the atmosphere made me gasp for breath.

We both aligned ourselves for speed. Rhylan tucked his forelegs close to his chest; I leaned over the saddle, chin nearly touching the leather, and prepared myself as he streaked through the sky.

And when he dropped, I was prepared, thighs screaming as I clung to my seat, narrowed in on the glimmering lights of the massive tree below us.

The tree was Sylvaene Eyrie, the largest tree in Akalla, a mountain unto itself.

Made of more plants than there were stars in the sky, thick roots twisting and melding into a single entity, it spread through a deep valley, with a root network miles wide, and a canopy wide enough to cover the city of living houses below.

And above that canopy were the emerald dragons of the Jade Leaves. Some formed a defensive ring above the canopy of Sylvaene, but Tyria’s sons were harrying the invaders, trying to drive them out of the valley.

But the smoke rising from Sylvaene’s valley…smelled wrong. Rhylan tilted to avoid flying through a column of the smoke, and even in the open air I tasted a sickly, acrid tang that was nothing like dragonfire. It reminded me of rot, of flyblown meat marinated in acid.

Nausea immediately flooded me, my mouth watering with the urge to rid myself of that tainted taste. I swallowed hard, nose wrinkled, pressing a sleeve over my nose to keep it away from my face.

What in the Nine Hells is that? Rhylan demanded, but he was just as stunned as I was, his nostrils burning and clamped shut—cutting off one of his most important senses. Without the scents on the wind, a dragon could easily drop on us from above or behind.

I don’t have the slightest idea, but it’s okay, I assured him, though nothing about the scent of that smoke was okay. I’m watching our backs.

With that being said, I kept up a constant rotating scan, one eye on the sky above, checking our rear in every direction as Rhylan raced to catch up with Cai and his brothers.