Page 59 of House of Embers (Royal Houses #5)

Chapter Fifty

The Metal Crown

A second later, Fordham jumped them out of the snow and back into the mountain cave.

The riders were long gone, and only Aurelie remained.

They recalled their dragons and were back in the skies within hours.

Kerrigan argued for using her bangle, but Fordham insisted that they needed all the magic they could get.

If she found the crown, then she couldn’t risk it.

It was nearly midnight when they landed back in the aerie.

Aurelie headed to find her family. The poor girl was exhausted from the three quick flights, but she didn’t say so much as a word as she disappeared.

They hadn’t told her what had happened on the mountaintop, neither of them trusting that it wouldn’t get out to the troops.

It was suspicious enough that they’d fled right before they were supposed to be leaving for battle.

Thankfully no one else was in the aerie when they arrived so they didn’t have to make any explanations for their rushed return either. Dozan’s spies would likely whisper in his ear, but hopefully Kerrigan would be done with what needed doing before he heard.

“Well, we’re back,” Fordham said. “Where to now?”

“Down.”

They started down the long, winding steps inside Ravinia Mountain.

She had lived here long enough that she had a better sense of direction.

To think, the first time she had ever been here, she had been terrified that they’d kill her.

Now she could walk the halls like it was her home—and soon she would be their queen. So long as they won.

“Titania said that Samil was dead,” Kerrigan began, retracing the path she’d taken in her mind for where the crown would be. If she gave Fordham the pieces, surely he’d put it together too. “Samil was Irena’s father, but Samil is also…”

Fordham frowned. “Descended of Mab?”

“Yes. And so are you, through Mab’s line through Samil.” Kerrigan came to a stop before the door that led even lower in the mountain—the etched eye that stared back at them. “Which makes you descended of Irena as well.”

“Not necessarily,” Fordham argued. “Samil had many children. Irena was just one of many.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “I considered that. I think that the entire House of Shadows is descended from Samil’s line. Branched away long ago to the children with gifts—shadow wielding, lightning, and ice. The powers that only the House of Shadows possesses.”

“What are you saying?”

Kerrigan grasped a torch and lit the way as she yanked open the door. “Irena wielded shadows.”

Fordham’s brow furrowed. “Yeah, but…”

“We saw her use them to get on Ferrinix’s back. We saw her use them with Titania. She’s a shadow wielder, and there’s only one line of shadow.”

“But that doesn’t mean—”

“It corrupted her goodness,” Kerrigan said. “Until there was nothing left of her but ambition and selfishness. She created the Society, but there is no mention of her ruling the Society. She was just the symbol. After what she did, she and Ferrinix disappeared from recorded history.”

Fordham’s eyes went distant. “That’s true. She’s used as the Irena Bargain, but they didn’t keep her in politics. It was long ago though. Most people don’t talk about what happened after the Irena Bargain, just the bargain itself.”

“Which is strange in and of itself. Wouldn’t the founding of the Society be a hot topic?”

“There’s information about the founding of the Society. I’ve read some of it at Draco Mountain.”

“But not here?” she asked.

“Well, no. Just the founding of the House of Shadows.”

“What does that say?”

“That the three families came together as one with the same ideals,” Fordham said. “And together we ruled from our mountain.”

“Exactly. The three families of Samil’s line—Ollivier, Blanchard, and Laurent. And Ollivier has ruled as long as time.”

Fordham shook his head. “We’ve fought for millennia.”

“But the founding of the House of Shadows lies with Ollivier, yes?”

“Yes,” he said. “And you think…what?”

“I think Irena came to a different mountain with her cousins and used her new wicked magic to enslave those she thought were beneath her.”

Fordham stilled when he realized where they were walking. “No.”

“I think her name was lost to time. Even from here.”

“Kerrigan,” he warned.

“Irena Ollivier.”

Fordham removed the key to the Ollivier crypt, his childhood hiding spot, and pushed the creaking door open. “You think it was here all along.”

“Yes.”

Kerrigan dropped the torch into a bracket on the wall and stepped up to the ancient Fae entombed at the center of the crypt—so old that she had lost her name. All that remained were this stone sarcophagus and a crown at her temple.

Fordham came to stand beside her, staring down at his lost ancestor. “You’re sure?”

“Yes,” Kerrigan said, “but if I’m wrong, then we just won’t tell anyone about this excursion and continue like nothing happened.”

Fordham released a stiff laugh. “Fine. Help me move it.”

Together they shifted the heavy stone to the side.

As Fordham had told her the first time they’d come inside, the sarcophagus was empty.

It had long ago been scavenged, or perhaps there was nothing within at any point.

But Kerrigan wasn’t deterred. If Irena had the most dangerously powerful weapon in Alandria, then she was certainly not putting it somewhere easy to find.

Kerrigan ran her hands along the inside, looking for a catch, but came up empty. “There has to be a way.”

Fordham sighed. “Gods.”

She glanced up at him. “What?”

“If she was a shadow wielder, then…she would have put it in the nothing.”

Fordham’s face was resigned as he closed his thunderstorm eyes and pulled the shadows to him. A pocket of space appeared in the emptiness of the tomb. One moment, there was simply darkness, and the next, Fordham’s hand closed over something.

He released the shadows, and in their place was the metal crown.