Page 25 of House of Embers (Royal Houses #5)

Chapter Twenty-One

The Scholar

The scholar’s eyes weren’t on Kerrigan. They were on his books, which sat in a corner, out of range for the desperate Fae.

He’d only glanced up once when she’d walked into the room and then had been speaking to his books since then.

The lack of eye contact wasn’t a big deal.

It was just disconcerting that he seemed to have no real fear for his safety.

“How did you get involved with the Society, Lowan?” she asked.

“I’ve been with the Society for years as a… Oh, what do they call us? They wanted to make you one. Valia was one as well. What a kind girl.”

Kerrigan flinched at the name. Valia had been Kerrigan’s friend in the early days of the tournament. They’d worked together against the Red Masks until Bastian had discovered her subterfuge and publicly killed her. Kerrigan regretted how that had gone down every single day.

“A steward?”

“Correct. That was the word they used when they brought me on to replace the last dragon speaker,” he said as his eyes flicked around her face but never looked directly at her. “I don’t use it anymore. Dragon speaker is the more official title.”

“Okay,” she said uncertainly.

A steward of the Society was someone who worked for the government organization but wasn’t a part of the government.

They weren’t a dragon rider, and they couldn’t vote, but they did other necessary functions, like running the library and the Dragon Blessed program in the House of Dragons.

He was right to say that the Society had wanted Kerrigan to become a steward like Lowan here and Valia, but Kerrigan had wanted anything else.

She knew many of the stewards, though the official term wasn’t well known. She hadn’t heard of a dragon speaker before.

“What does the dragon speaker do?”

Lowan’s smile flickered at the edges as if he’d finally hit on territory he cared about. “We speak with the dragons, of course.”

“Anyone can speak with the dragons if they deem you worthy.”

“Correct. Correct. I’d have you read Severina. They give a great account of the Dragon Council and the Fifth Age Edict on dragon relations.”

Kerrigan waved her hand. “Paraphrase it for me.”

His face deflated. “Right. No one cares about your pre–Great War historical data and the life and times of the dragon speaker Aedanite the Second, Lowan. Get it together.”

“I’ve never heard of Aedanite the Second.”

“No one has,” he grumbled. His hands flexed as if he wanted to reach for his stack of books, open them up, and reveal their glorious contents to her.

“The gist is that the Dragon Council is autonomous from the Society. One dragon speaker may address the council once every cycle at a predetermined time.”

“And you are that speaker.”

“Correct.”

“What do you discuss?”

He finally looked up at her in confusion. “Dragons, of course.”

“Of course. What about them?”

“How many young the elders have decided to put through the Test of the Everlasting.”

“The test of what?”

He sighed. “Look, you are clearly not a dragon speaker. So can you trust that I know more about this subject than likely anyone but the dragons or the council themselves? I go to the mountain. I talk to the dragons. We get dragons for the tournament as often as the council agrees. It’s usually that simple. ”

“Usually?”

“Well, obviously the Society has changed, and the current leader has asked me to get more dragons. Early.” He trembled slightly at the thought. “I can’t imagine the Dragon Council would permit their young to go through the Test of the Everlasting early or…”

Lowan continued to prattle on about the impossibility of whatever suicide attempt Bastian had sent him on for more dragons.

Kerrigan, meanwhile, burrowed down into her bond and reached out to Tieran.

“Hey, the dragon speaker here is talking about the Test of the Everlasting. Sound familiar?”

Tieran snarled in her mind. She winced. “We do not speak of it aloud.”

“So it’s not good?”

“We do not speak of it,” he said and then cut off the connection.

Wonderful.

“Look,” Kerrigan said, interrupting the male’s diatribe, “you seem to know a lot about the dragons. More than I do obviously.”

“Obviously,” he said.

“Would you be willing to take us to the dragon meeting you were already going to go to?”

“Of course,” he said with a smile. “Though I don’t know if they’re going to allow us to speak with them.”

“Why not?”

“It’s past the cycle period,” he said in exasperation, as if he’d already said this to someone and no one listened. “I go every spring. I’ve already been there this year. They aren’t going to take kindly to humans coming to the Holy Mountain without invitation and off schedule.”

Kerrigan hesitated. Well, that was frustrating. She reached out to Tieran again.

“So how much trouble would we be in if we went uninvited to the Holy Mountain?”

Tieran grumbled. “Do you have a death wish?”

About what she expected.

“Is there a way to get there safely?” she asked Lowan.

“It has been done under emergency circumstances. I was planning to invoke the Right of the First,” he said. “As long as you have a dragon to perform it, then we could get inside.” He hesitated before adding, “I think.”

Kerrigan slapped her hands on the table. “Great. I’m going to have someone bring you some food and let you rest. It’s been a long night. I’ll be back in a few hours.”

“The books,” he half shrieked as Kerrigan started across the room. “Can I have the books?”

She stalked across the room and grabbed the first one off the stack. She dropped it onto the table. “We’ll start with that.”

The only thing he seemed to care about were the books. Kerrigan could appreciate that.

She stepped out of the room, closing and locking it behind her with a wave of her hand. Fordham and Wynter were waiting. She fell into step with them as they headed away from the room, which was being guarded at either end.

“I thought he might be tighter lipped than this,” Fordham said. His arms were crossed over his chest as he stared at the door.

“He seems awfully eager to share information,” Wynter agreed. A small smile came to her face. She had been making those little smiles and sneaking glances at Dozan when she thought no one was looking. Kerrigan had a pretty good idea what that meant but decided not to bring it up.

“He won’t shut up actually,” Kerrigan grumbled. “And Tieran seems pissed that he’s talking about supersecret dragon stuff. Every time I ping him to confirm what Lowan is saying, he gets mad and ends the connection.”

“If Tieran doesn’t even want to talk about it, then it sounds like he’s telling us the truth,” Fordham said.

“You could confirm with Netta,” Wynter suggested.

Fordham looked sheepish for a moment. “She’s already told me not to bother to ask.”

Wynter smirked. “The king getting a talking to from his own dragon.”

“They’re really the ones in charge,” Kerrigan said. “But regardless, if we can get in to talk to the Dragon Council, it’s worth a shot. We need more dragons. I’d rather have them than give them to Bastian any day.”

“The next question is: Who do you send?” Wynter said.

Fordham glanced at Kerrigan, who raised an eyebrow. “That’s still to be decided,” he said as they stopped before another door. “After you.”

Kerrigan knocked twice, and a faint “Come in” sounded from inside the room.

She pushed the door open and found Audria sitting at a table, eating some soup.

She’d taken a bath and changed into a long, blue dress that hung off her as if they hadn’t quite had anything to fit her severe frame.

Her blond hair was pinned up off her face, and she looked haggard but better than before.

There was color in her cheeks and light in her eyes again.

“Hi, Audria,” Kerrigan said. “You look well.”

Audria gestured to her dress. “I’m not in a dungeon or being watched, so it’s an improvement at least.” Her eyes skittered over Wynter and Fordham. “Or am I?”

“You’re not under arrest,” Fordham said smoothly. “We appreciate your help in this matter.”

“I’m happy to be out of the mountain and back with my team,” she said, lifting her chin. She might have been faking it, but no one else would have been able to see it. She was nobility through and through, even if her good cheer had evaporated over the last few months. “What can I do for you?”

“We have a problem,” Fordham said simply.

“I think you have more than one,” Audria said.

Wynter snorted. “That’s fair.”

“There are only three dragons in the House of Shadows at present: Tieran, Netta, and your Evien,” Fordham said. “We have an opportunity to go to the Holy Mountain and possibly get more, which would greatly even the odds between us and the Society.”

Audria nodded once as if she had already realized that.

“The smartest thing to do would be to send me and Kerrigan with the scholar,” Fordham continued. “Tieran wouldn’t be great with two riders at that distance, and we’d need another dragon to bear the weight.”

“But you cannot leave,” Wynter argued immediately. “You are in a succession battle at present.”

Fordham lifted his chin. “I’m aware.”

“So it would be best if I took Netta,” Wynter said.

“Except that dragons at the Holy Mountain won’t accept us without bonded riders,” Kerrigan said. She’d gotten that out of Tieran earlier when he wasn’t giving her the cold shoulder. “They don’t trust unbonded humans.”

“So I should go,” Audria said simply. “I will go with Kerrigan to retrieve the dragons.”

Fordham said nothing. He stared down at Audria’s lithe form with the darkness creeping up around him.

Audria remained firm, never backing down. “Send me.”

“How can we trust you?” Wynter asked.

Audria released a short breath as if she was prepared for this, as if she had been dealing with it for too long.

“What else can I do to prove myself to you? I fought at your back against the Red Masks. I was there that day. Me ,” she said firmly.

“I went up against Roake. I went up against everyone I knew and loved. I watched them kill Helly. And when you two left, I was imprisoned for weeks , then under suspicion after I was finally released. The second I get a whiff that Kerrigan is back, I jump at the opportunity to return to her side. I might be a Bryonican noble, but I am no traitor.”

Kerrigan smirked as she raised an eyebrow at Fordham.

She had already argued this point. In fact, they’d already decided that it should be Audria who went with her to the dragons, but they’d wanted as much information from both Lowan and Audria as they could get.

Lowan seemed to be on his own side—not for or against the Society that had made him a steward but not a citizen of his own government.

Audria was on their side. Kerrigan had thought so when she’d dreamwalked, and she was even more certain now.

“It makes the most sense,” Kerrigan finally said. “Audria and I will escort Lowan to the Holy Mountain.”

“But—” Wynter began.

Fordham shook his head. “I need Netta to defend our people, and I do not wish to be separated from her for that long. It was bad enough the first time. I agree with Kerrigan.”

“We have one other problem,” Kerrigan said on a sigh. “We have to convince the dragons.”