Page 6 of House of Embers (Royal Houses #5)

Chapter Six

The Winner

“There’s not enough time,” Kerrigan said as they left the infirmary.

“For what?”

“Anything,” she said.

“Kerrigan…”

“We have to beat Bastian. We’ve been gone too long.”

“Amond has you riled up.”

He did. That was for sure. If anything, she felt more desperate to get started.

Step one was complete—reclaim the throne.

And now that had come with extra parts, none of which she or Fordham were looking forward to.

While they were working on step two, they had to deal with this coronation, and all of it felt like it was taking too much time.

“You’re never going to sleep with all this in your head.” He pressed a kiss to her hand. “Come with me.”

“Where?”

“Where I used to go when I felt like you feel right now.”

She narrowed her eyes. “All right. I’m intrigued.”

Fordham slipped through the spy tunnels at the back side of his closet, and down they spiraled through the quiet mountain.

Fordham knew the steps like the back of his hand, and after checking the spy hole, they stepped out into an empty corridor.

After a few more turns, they stopped in front of a solid metal door.

It had an eye with sunbeams etched into the metal.

“This way,” he said.

He lit a torch in the creepy hall, and they went down, down, down.

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.”

It was another ten minutes of stairs before they stopped in front of another metal door. Fordham’s hand disappeared into a pocket of shadows for a moment, and then a key appeared in his hand.

Kerrigan shook her head. “Not going to get used to that.”

He grinned as he inserted it into the door. It shrieked on unused hinges, and Kerrigan followed him inside.

“A crypt?” she asked. “Wow. You sure know how to show a girl a good time.”

Fordham laughed. “This is my family crypt. It dates back thousands of years.”

“Creepy.”

“I stole the key and made a copy when I was younger. I used to hide here when I was supposed to be doing other things or when my father wanted me to torment people. I just disappeared. And no one ever found me. It was my thinking place.”

“I’ll repeat, creepy.”

“The House of Shadows is a creepy place.” Fordham shrugged. “This is where I came before the ball when I brought you to the House of Shadows the first time. Prescott and Arbor found me sitting here.” He gestured to a stone. “Talking to my mother.”

“Oh,” she whispered. “Why didn’t you bring me then?”

“We were on much different terms. With the curse…”

“Right,” she said, stepping forward to look around.

Kerrigan could see the appeal, honestly. The room itself was larger than she would have thought for a crypt. Olliviers stretching back thousands of years had spaces all over the square space large enough for a few dragons to be comfortable in.

Fordham pointed out notable relatives. His father with his many wives interred beside him.

The king during the Great War had a statue that nearly brushed the ceiling.

A gleaming sword was at his side that Fordham explained was the sword he slayed the Society leader with.

On the other side were long-distant cousins and aunts and uncles who had been lost to time.

At the center was a full sarcophagus carved out of the same stone as the room.

It depicted a Fae female with a crown on her head and her arms crossed over her chest, multiple rings on each finger.

There was no written explanation of who she was.

“The first Ollivier.” He patted the sarcophagus. “It’s empty though. Not even the ashes remain. Or that’s what my dad always said.” He pointed out dates on the oldest plots. “They date back as far as when Fae first came to Alandria.”

“Fascinating. I think we have a tomb that dates back that far for Argons as well.” She sighed. “If Bastian hasn’t destroyed Waisley.”

Another thing to worry about.

“We’ll get it back,” Fordham said.

Kerrigan shook her head. “I wish I could go up against Bastian one-on-one and end it all.”

“I know you want to fight, but this isn’t that kind of battle.”

She paced the room as she fumed. She hated that he was right. Because of course he was right. Bastian would never go up against her like that. Not without his own contingencies in place. He’d come up against her with the full might of the Society, and she’d turned around and run away.

She couldn’t meet him and end this. There would be someone else to take up the mantle. Someone else who hated humans and half-Fae. Someone else who wanted to destroy the world.

Kerrigan sat on the ground with her back to the sarcophagus of the first Ollivier. “I can’t help but feel like we’re wasting our time.”

“I can’t help but think you want to throw yourself into danger to get this over with quicker.” He sank onto the cold floor next to her. “Are you planning something reckless?”

“Me?” she asked, fluttering her eyelashes.

“I know you always are, but I don’t want to lose you. I don’t want you to run off and get yourself killed. I couldn’t live without you.”

Kerrigan swallowed at those words. “I’m not going to run off. It’s not about that. I just don’t want him to get any stronger. You heard what Amond said. What if I can’t beat him?”

“He’s not the only one getting stronger. You have more magic than you had before, which was already formidable.”

It was true. When she’d learned that she was a demi-Doma, it had unlocked something in her.

As if explaining everything that had never made sense about her power.

Why was she so much more powerful than other half-Fae?

Why did she have visions? Why could she enter the spirit plane?

Why couldn’t she bond with her dragon? Suddenly it all fit together.

Then she’d gotten her magic back in a blessed pool of water under the starlight.

She’d had a vision of her mentor, Cyrene, and seen a room full of past Doma women who had agreed to return to her what was stolen.

She’d been visited by a goddess of starlight, who had let her take more than her share but stopped her before it killed her.

She had woken in the water transformed to a pool of starlight, forever changed.

Her mother’s bangle was one thing, but whatever the starlight had given her, the Doma women had given her, whatever she had taken for herself—it was more than formidable.

“And you won’t be alone.”

“Neither will he,” she said.

“I don’t think that’s true,” he said slowly. “Bastian, the Father, the Red Masks, they don’t have anything but hate in their hearts. They don’t have what we have. They don’t have a reason to fight that serves them. We believe in human rights for everyone. We believe in humanity.”

“That doesn’t seem to be enough,” she countered. “We believed in all that before, and still he won.”

That was the crux of it, wasn’t it?

No matter what happened, he still won.

Despite all logic, the villain had come out ahead with his vitriol and hate speech and “tell it like it is” mentality.

The people had rallied behind him, Fae fearful of change and desperate to stay on top in a world where they saw diversity as a problem.

They didn’t care if others were hurting, the people they saw as beneath them.

That didn’t matter when their interests were threatened and they believed the propaganda that fell from Bastian’s snake tongue.

“He won,” Fordham agreed. He came to his feet and gestured around the crypt at all the dead Olliviers. “My father ruled here for more than a millennium with even worse beliefs than him. Sometimes the bad guys win.”

Kerrigan’s shoulders dropped. “Yeah.”

“But despite my father,” he said, staring at his father’s tomb, “we went to war to end slavery a thousand years ago. There are still people who believe that was the correct way. But they’re not as vocal anymore.

They’re not in the right. We shouldn’t own people.

So sometimes it takes longer to change minds.

To make people come to the side of right. It took me time.”

“It took you meeting me to come around,” she said, turning to face him. “Also, you fell in love with me.”

He smirked. “And I don’t plan to share.”

She grinned. “So how do I change everyone else’s mind?”

“We should focus on the people who don’t agree with him. He was elected fair and square, but then he killed all his dissenters. That isn’t someone who is secure in his position. It means he knows that they could rally against him.”

“How do we reach them?”

“Step two,” Fordham said.

“Step two,” she confirmed.

“Right now, our allies are spread out. We have your friends and family in one place, but that’s not enough.”

Kerrigan ran her hand along the first Fae’s crown. She might feel demoralized, but at least she had her friends here and safe. People who would rally behind her no matter what. Bastian didn’t have anyone.

“Let’s get through the coronation and work with our current allies to figure out the rest of the plan. We don’t need to figure it out tonight,” Fordham said.

Kerrigan’s mind was whirling. For a plan with so few steps, it sure felt daunting. “I know you’re right. I know that we have a plan. That we can win this. But inside, it feels like I’m just one girl against the world.”

“You’ve never been just anything.”

Kerrigan smirked. “That’s love talking.”

“No, I’m serious. When have you ever been just one girl against the world?

You’re Kerrigan Argon,” Fordham said, pushing away from his father’s tomb to come to her side once more.

“You’re a fighter. You’re a loyal friend.

You’re strong and resilient and well-spoken.

You’re the youngest dragon rider in history, the youngest Society member, the youngest council member.

You don’t back down from what you believe in, and people listen to you.

If you’re just one girl, then the world should shake in fear. ”

“Thank you,” she whispered as tears pricked her eyes. “How can I feel small when you see me like that?”

“You can’t,” he said as his arms slid around her back and drew her into him. “This is what he wants. He wants you to think he’s too big to defeat. That it’s too scary and you should stay away and let him ruin our world. It’s easier for him if you do.”

“I wouldn’t want to make it easy for him,” Kerrigan said as she rested her head against his chest.

“It’s not your style.”

Kerrigan laughed. “No, it’s really not.”

Fordham kissed the top of her head and held her tight against him.

She could have stayed there forever. This was what she wanted for everyone.

Not the hell that the Red Masks had unleashed on her world.

No matter how strong Bastian got, she would have to face him. Because she couldn’t let this stand.

“This isn’t the end. It’s just the beginning.”

“It sure feels like it is.”

Fordham stroked his hand through her hair. “If the end is hate, then it isn’t the end.”