Page 13 of House of Embers (Royal Houses #5)

Chapter Eleven

The Plan

“I’m personally offended by this meeting,” Dozan said as he slid into the room.

Kerrigan rolled her eyes. “We don’t care. Sit down.”

He stepped forward into her space, and she just tilted her head up to meet his golden gaze. “You interrogated someone without me, princess?”

“I didn’t want them dead, so I didn’t invite you,” she quipped.

He smirked. “But making them scream is the fun part.”

“And here I thought you liked to get it over with quickly.”

“Never,” he purred.

Fordham slapped his hand against Dozan’s chest and pushed him a step backward. “Take a seat.”

Dozan smirked at him. “You’re so easy to rile. Perhaps you should work on that.”

Fordham gaze was steel when he said, “Perhaps I should put my fist through your face.”

“Fordham, shut up,” Kerrigan said, placing herself between the men. Her gaze shifted to Dozan. “Why don’t you go find Wynter? She mentioned something about your stamina earlier.”

Dozan’s eyes flickered open in surprise, so quick that she might have missed it. “You’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?”

“Told her it might not be worth it,” she shot back before Fordham could punch him.

Dozan grinned. “Maybe I’ll let her find out.”

“You do that.”

Dozan arched his eyebrow at Fordham before finding his seat.

Kerrigan whirled around and pushed Fordham. “You are just letting him push your buttons.”

“He irritates me,” Fordham muttered.

“Yeah, and he knows it,” she hissed. “You’re completely on edge and need to bring it way down or we’re not going to survive this. Dozan is the least of our concerns, okay? We’re allies. We’re on the same side.”

Fordham just shrugged. “I didn’t punch him.”

Kerrigan laughed. “You take a seat too. Scales .”

Fordham winked at her and then took up a spot to her left while everyone else settled in.

Hadrian and Darby sat on a couch on the far wall.

Clover smoked her cigarette on the balcony, her eyes never leaving the pair.

Wynter sat straight-backed on a chair, glancing up at Dozan with all the grace of a feline ready to eat her prey.

Dozan looked perpetually unconcerned, his antagonistic smile gracing his face.

Were they both aware how obvious it was that they were circling each other?

The only person they were missing was—

“The stairs here are murder,” Kivrin said as he approached on crutches.

“Sorry, we picked the most secure location,” Kerrigan told him.

“Understandable. What’s this all about?”

“I’ll explain after we seal the room. How’re the sessions with Amond?”

Kivrin winced. “Here and there. He’s in worse shape than me at the moment.”

“Withdrawal?”

“Darby has been helping. She is much better at healing than she gives herself credit for, but Clover might have to give him some of that loch, or he’s not going to survive.”

Clover’s head whipped to them at the sound of her name. “Amond?”

Kivrin nodded. “It’s not looking great.”

She took another inhale on her cigarette. “I’ll see him after this.”

Kerrigan shot her a concerned look. “Thank you.”

Kivrin took a seat opposite Wynter, and Kerrigan pressed the doors closed. A second later, she sensed Fordham draw on his magic to seal the room from prying eyes and ears. He nodded at her.

“So what’s the deal with this coronation?” Clover asked before anyone could start.

Hadrian cleared his throat. “I think what she means is: Is there a fight to the death, and should we be worried?”

Darby laughed. “Don’t put words in her mouth.”

“Seriously, I’m not worried about Fordham fighting anyone but Kerrigan,” Clover said. “More like I’m wondering why are we going through with this?”

Kerrigan arched an eyebrow at Ford. “You or me?”

“I’ll take this one,” he said, straightening his black suit.

The silver cravat brought out the liquid silver of his eyes and made her wish they were back in his room using it for its intended purpose.

“The coronation is a necessary step to secure my position on the throne. The army might not follow me without the show of strength. As a part of the coronation, a denouncement is where I can be challenged by anyone for my position. So if they killed me, they’d get the throne. ”

“But you have shadow magic,” Darby said. She glanced around the room. “Right? He’ll be fine.”

Wynter scoffed and lifted a shoulder. “Each of the three royal families has a specialty. Ollivier has the shadows and shadow jumping. Blanchard has ice magic. Laurent has lightning, and their contender, Barron Laurent, is the most talented wielder they’ve seen since before the wall was put up.”

“Great,” Kivrin said with a groan. “And you’re going to fight him to the death?”

“If he challenges me, then yes.”

“But you’ll win,” Hadrian said, gesturing to him. “I mean, right?”

Fordham remained silent for a beat too long. “I have fought alongside Barron in the past. I have fought against him in a previous battle between our peoples. We’ve never gone one-on-one.”

The room went silent at the declaration. Kerrigan’s own heart was pounding. Fordham hadn’t mentioned any of this to her when they’d talked about the coronation. She’d thought Barron was an asshole, irritating, but she’d never considered that he’d be a real opponent.

“And if Fordham has to face more than one person before him,” Wynter added, “he wouldn’t be at top strength.”

“Yes, thank you, Wynter,” Fordham added with a growl.

“That isn’t part of the discussion for today,” Kerrigan said quickly. “The real problem is that a dragon rider saw Wynter and me out on Tieran and Netta.” She quickly explained the chase and the interrogation to the rest of the room.

“And you believe this guy?” Kivrin asked in disbelief. “He sounds like a Society stooge.”

Wynter nodded. “I saw his aura. While I read magic auras, you can usually tell if someone, especially someone with a lot of magic like a Society member, is being purposely deceptive. It’s not a science.

I’ve been misled in the past, but my”—Wynter paused over the word—“mental state is much improved. The ability is more defined.”

“Also, we spoke to Tieran and Netta, and they both separately vouched for his dragon,” Kerrigan said. “Henrley’s story about Gerrond’s involvement with the Society was nearly identical but with enough nuance in the telling that it didn’t sound rehearsed.”

“Also, to corroborate his story, we searched his pack and found the research he claimed to be doing with a dated notebook going back years,” Fordham added.

“So what are we doing with him?” Kivrin asked. “You can’t think to let him go?”

“We need allies,” Kerrigan said.

“Is he an ally though?” Clover asked. “No offense, but he just dropped out of the sky.”

“I think he could be,” Wynter said.

Clover snorted. “Why?”

“Because I’ve been spying on him,” Dozan said, crossing his arms over his broad chest. “We sent in servants with food and drinks. We had Delle ask him questions. We took off his manacles. And then I sent Wynter back in. She played a little,” Dozan admitted with a grin.

“He remained steadfast. He never used his powers. He could be a plant, but he didn’t act like one. ”

He’d done all this with Kerrigan’s permission, and still it unnerved her to think about how terrifying the pair of them could be.

“So we let him go?” Darby squeaked.

“We work with him,” Fordham said.

“Gerrond said that the houses aren’t with the Society yet. That they could be swayed. If we want to sway them, we need more people. We need more dragons,” Kerrigan said hastily. “Two isn’t enough to reach the entire continent and guard our back.”

“I could speak to Galanthea,” Hadrian said. “If he’d take me into Kinkadia, I could speak with Fallon and rally their support.”

Kerrigan nodded. “That’s a great idea. We have other allies in the capital and the houses. We need ways to reach them, and we can’t do it alone. This could help.”

“Not to throw us off topic,” Clover said, “but I may have to return to Kinkadia with Hadrian.”

Kerrigan opened her mouth to question her when magic erupted in Clover’s hand. Kerrigan gaped at her. Her perfectly human friend, who had not a stitch of magic in her, was holding fire in her palm the same way Kerrigan did.

Wynter jumped to her feet. Kivrin balked. Dozan put a hand on Wynter’s shoulder as if he was prepared to put her behind his body. They were treating Clover like a threat or abomination. But humans didn’t really have magic. Certainly not like this. And Clover had never shown any inclination.

“I figured out my father’s amulet,” Clover explained. “He left me the directions in a lullaby, and last night, it worked for the first time. Which means we can arm humans and half-Fae.”

The room went silent.

And then Dozan took a hungry step forward. The man who had never had magic and made an empire out of his own power and force of personality now had his greatest desire right before his eyes.

“Wait,” Kerrigan said, stopping him in his tracks. “That’s the only one that works?”

Clover dropped the magic. “Yes, but we were producing them in the capital. We didn’t know how to make them work. If I go back, I can test them all, and then we’d have more people on our side with the power that’s been held back from them.”

This would change the entire world.

They’d be lucky if they got out without a slaughter of the entire Society system and its replacement with total anarchy if they weren’t careful.

As Kerrigan well knew, arming a mob could end in disaster.

She’d been almost killed by Red Masks in a riot when she was twelve, which had triggered the start of her spirit magic creating visions.

The Society had earned everything coming to them, but she wanted to make sure there was something left at the end.

“We need to keep this secret until the last minute. The last thing we want is for them to kill everyone,” Kivrin said at once.

“They can’t…” Clover argued.