Page 10 of House of Embers (Royal Houses #5)
Chapter Nine
The Chase
Tieran dove.
Kerrigan held on for dear life. She was glad for all those months in training inside the tournament arena, all the times she’d done this exact thing. Her blood was hot, her senses on alert, her body ready for the next move.
She still had nightmares about the time she and Tieran had flown into battle together, the deaths that were on her hands. But it didn’t stop the fact that she was good at it. She was an instrument of war, and she would utilize her talents to their best ability.
“Netta is coming from the other direction,” Tieran let her know.
Anything she wanted to say would be lost to the wind. But with the new connection, she could practically feel Tieran’s adrenaline pumping through him. And she wondered.
Kerrigan pushed her thoughts toward Tieran, down the new link between them.
“Good. Tell her to come in high.”
Tieran’s surprise was a flicker of his wings. “You spoke into my mind.”
“It’s disconcerting, isn’t it?”
“You didn’t tell me you could do that.”
“We just figured it out together. Now keep your head in the game.”
Tieran’s rumbling laugh rippled through her, and then they were both back in the upcoming fight. She wasn’t sure if they were out on a leisure flight or if they were a scout for the Society, but either way, she couldn’t let them get away.
The other dragon rider had been moving in a hovering position when they saw Tieran hurtling toward them. They reacted instantly, pivoting on a coin and launching into a dive roll away from Tieran.
And while Tieran was smaller, he was unreasonably fast and always had been. Kerrigan had tears streaming from her eyes as he picked up speed, swinging in tight on the tail of the larger beast.
Kerrigan didn’t recognize the dragon, who had brownish-yellow scales and a bulky build.
His rider was an indistinct male Fae with honey-blond hair streaming out long behind him.
He was dressed in a red tunic and brown pants with a dark emerald cloak wrapped around his shoulders.
Not even riding leathers. Maybe he was just out for a leisurely ride. Too bad for him.
If he had a dragon, that meant he was part of the Society. That made him her enemy.
The rider had a head start that kept him several lengths in front of Tieran.
And while he was catching up on the bulkier dragon, she didn’t want him wiped out before they got there.
Kerrigan also wasn’t as familiar with this mountain range as she was the one back home.
If this rider was from any of the surrounding houses—the war house, Herasi, to the west; the forest house, Sayair, to the north; or the outskirts of Kerrigan’s own Bryonica to the east—then they would be in for a race.
“Here we go,” she whispered into the wind as Tieran approached.
Just as he got within distance, the other dragon veered sharply left. Tieran took the turn sharply but not quite as well as the other dragon. They rounded the next corner, and the other rider dropped low on his beast as they fell into a deep dive.
Kerrigan held on tight and mirrored his position as they moved into a rocky outcropping. Her heart thudded in her chest as they gave chase, threading through the tall rocks at record speeds.
And this rider, while not as well or as recently trained as Kerrigan, did have the advantage of the surroundings.
These were clearly familiar to him. As they moved through the rocks, taking pin-tight turns, she felt their lead slipping.
They couldn’t let him get away. That was her only thought as she was taken on his wild-goose chase through the mountains.
But the farther they got away from Ravinia Mountain and the safety of the House of Shadows, the more she wondered if this was planned.
Were they luring her away on purpose? Was this scout more advanced than she was giving him credit for?
She didn’t know. Only that if she let him get away, the Society would immediately know their current location.
And with only two dragons, they could do considerable damage to the mountain before Kerrigan was able to rally support for her cause—before most of Alandria even knew she was still alive.
She swore that wouldn’t happen.
The people needed to know she was alive. Hiding out in the mountains was only helping the Society. She wasn’t going to turn herself in or doing anything rash like Fordham suspected, but hiding wasn’t the answer either. The people needed to have hope, or else there would be no rallying call left.
That all hit her in a moment, and she pressed her urgency on Tieran, giving him a final boost of energy. He slid around the next rock outcropping and slammed sideways into the rock, sending it raining down onto the other dragon.
A cry rang out from the rider as rocks fell onto him. But they were still going, moving out of the worst of it as Kerrigan and Tieran pressed in closer and closer and closer. They just needed another minute.
They pulled up alongside the other dragon, bumping against the larger beast and then veering out of its way as it tried to throw its larger weight into Tieran. Without the bulk to stop him, they could only poke at him. They needed to be smarter, since they weren’t larger.
The rider’s eyes flared at the sight of her recognizable red hair and freckled face. “You’re alive!”
He shouted the words as if he found them unbelievable. He must not have been there the day that Bastian had sent the might of the Society against her. That likely made him local. Was he scouting for them? Wrong place, wrong time?
“Land!” Kerrigan yelled back at him.
The Fae male’s face contorted at those words. “I won’t land! You’re the one who came after me!”
“If you won’t surrender, then we’ll have to make you.”
“Make me!” the male yelled in fury. “They said you were a bitch.”
Tieran snarled in fury at the insult. It was a step up from being called a leatha but still wholly unoriginal.
“Well, never mind,” Kerrigan said on a laugh and moved to standing.
Because what the male didn’t know was that she now had Fordham’s powers at her disposal.
The Daijan bond had wrapped itself around their powers, and they could share.
She could feel the shadows come to her hands as fierce and terrifying as the first time she’d seen Fordham do it.
And the benefit of shadows was that she could jump .
Which Kerrigan had never done before but was prepared to do to take him out.
And then Netta appeared overhead.
“Mine!” Wynter shouted.
From one second to the next, Wynter launched off Netta’s back.
Midair, her entire body disappeared, and she landed squarely on the back of the other dragon.
The male looked shocked at the sight of another person on the back of his dragon.
His instincts took over too late. Wynter was a formidable fighter who could see the auras of someone’s magic.
It gave her an edge in almost all ways in a fight, except for when her magic couldn’t work on Kerrigan, when Kerrigan had been wearing the Ring of Endings.
The ring that was currently on Bastian’s finger.
“How?” the male gasped before Wynter’s fist cracked into his face.
He fell backward, and his dragon roared in anger. It whipped sideways, and Wynter careened to her knees, clinging to the beast. If she wasn’t careful, it was going to send her flying. She hadn’t had the training for this.
“Kerrigan!” Wynter screamed. “Catch.”
Kerrigan only had a second to process what Wynter was saying, and then she bodily threw the Fae male off the side of his dragon. When his dragon dove for him, Wynter was already gone, back on Netta’s comforting back, and racing after him.
Kerrigan swore at the sight of the Fae free-falling toward the rocky outcropping below.
She and Tieran pushed down at the same time.
He was only a few feet past them. Tieran reached out and grasped him between his claws.
He pulled up quick out of his dive, missing the other dragon’s claws by inches. Then he sped away from the rocks.
“Call off your dragon!” Kerrigan shouted down at him.
“I will not! You started these hostilities!”
“We’ll kill you,” she snarled. “And then you’ll have a dead dragon.”
She hated even making the threat. It was barbaric that this was the outcome—that the death of one would kill the other. But it was the world they lived in, and it was the only threat they had. They could outpace his dragon, but if he fled without his rider, then it would all be for nothing.
The male cried out in anger and then went silent. “I told him of your threat. He will have words with your dragon,” he snarled.
Tieran tightened his grip. “His dragon is called Henrley. His rider is Gerrond. They have been bonded for fifty-seven years,” Tieran explained into her mind.
“He says that killing them would be against dragon code, but I told him we are at war. He went silent after that. He will follow us back to the mountain if we do not kill his rider.”
“Good , ” Kerrigan said. “Then let’s go back. Gerrond has some explaining to do.”