Page 27

Brynla

I stare at Andor as we walk toward the great chamber. Though his fingers are no longer pressed against the small of my back, I can still feel them there, like a ghost.

I bring my attention back to the more important matter at hand.

“What do you mean your father doesn’t know?” I whisper, shocked at what Andor is telling me.

He opens his mouth, about to tell me something that will further aggravate me, I’m sure.

But before he can answer, Torsten’s voice booms into the hall.

“There you are,” Torsten says. He waves his glass of alcohol at us and gestures to the door to the great chamber. “I was thinking you were avoiding me.”

“You’re a hard man to avoid,” Andor says, resentment flattening his voice.

I give Torsten a quick smile as we enter the room, enough that he sees I’m not here to be a problem, but not so much so that he thinks I’m someone he can take advantage of—even though by holding me captive, he’s doing just that.

Just hang on a few more weeks , I remind myself.

Then you’ll find your chance for escape.

Then it won’t matter what Torsten knows or doesn’t know about Andor’s plan to get Ellestra—I’ll be long gone and he’ll be headed back home empty-handed, save for maybe some dragon eggs.

And that’s all they really want, isn’t it?

The great chamber shares a fireplace with the dining hall, a circular feature that allows you to sneak a glance at the other room through the flames.

But unlike the sparseness and grandeur of the dining room, the great chamber is cozy and small.

There are thick rugs, both embroidered with tassels and ones made from animal furs, and several armchairs and couches are in a semicircle facing the fire, the rest of the family scattered among them, with side tables made from wide umberwood trunks.

The focal point isn’t the fireplace itself, though.

It’s what’s hanging above the fireplace: a dragon’s skull, large enough to be an elderdrage.

I’m suddenly reminded of my last encounter with one, the dragon I thought killed Lemi.

The way I was able to stare into its eyes, so close that I could make out the vivid patterns around its pupil, the way that very pupil seemed to see me and know me.

But it was Andor’s arrow that saved my life. Otherwise I would have either gone up in flames or been torn to pieces—or both.

“Impressive, isn’t it?” Torsten says, coming beside me and staring up at the skull with reverence.

“My father killed that one. He was a young lad at the time, younger than Steiner. On the very first day he went to the Midlands, he managed to slay an elderdrage. Instead of only taking the eggs, he and the crew dragged the entire body onto the boat. Nearly sank the damn thing but it would have been quite the sight to see, his ship coming under the Goddess Gates with a dead dragon on deck. The Kolbecks were always a family to be feared, but at that moment they became the house to be respected.”

He swirls the liquid around in his glass. “How times have changed,” he adds, his low voice brimming with contempt. I have a feeling a lot of that contempt is reserved for Andor.

“Your father sounds like quite the man,” I say politely.

He scoffs. “Unfortunately, he’s still alive.”

I look at Andor for guidance and he gestures to an emerald velvet couch across from where Solla and Vidar are sitting. I notice that Kjell isn’t here, and I breathe a quiet sigh of relief.

I sit down beside Andor, the couch small for his large frame, and my thighs are pressed against his. I try to move over as much as I can, but he makes no such attempt and stays right where he is. If anything I swear he’s pressing himself against me on purpose.

I give him a dirty look, but he just stares at me with a wicked gleam in his eyes, his mouth twisted in a smug smile. He’s enjoying this. There’s a small, ignored part of me that enjoys this close proximity too.

Meanwhile Torsten saunters over to me with a glass of alcohol, his movements as graceful as Vidar’s. “Here,” he says begrudgingly. “It would be bad luck if you were the only one not toasting House Kolbeck.”

I grip the glass and watch Torsten intently. He’s the type of man you never want to take your eyes off. When you encounter a predator, you have to watch them closely so you can be prepared for when they strike.

Meanwhile Andor has started to fidget with his dragon-tooth necklace.

“To House Kolbeck,” Torsten says, raising his glass to his family before doing so to the dragon skull. “And to our enemies, for they only make us stronger.”

“Hear, hear,” everyone but me says, though Andor mumbles it under his breath.

I take a sip of the liquor, the strength feeling like it’s singeing my eyelashes, though I must say the finish is smooth and smoky. It tastes expensive, nothing like the stuff that’s sold at the Dark City markets.

Torsten is watching me carefully as I swallow the drink down.

“And what do you think?” he asks me. “Have you had peat alcohol before?”

“I don’t even know what peat is,” I say, to which Solla laughs. I think she’s making fun of me but it’s hard to tell with her.

Torsten gives me a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Of course not. I suppose you don’t have peat in your world. Then again, I’m sure there are things that are grown and enjoyed in Esland that we can’t even imagine.”

I don’t know if he’s being condescending or not but it doesn’t matter.

“There are certain things, such as alcohol from a cactus grown outside the convent, and nuts harvested from certain shrubs, but we don’t get any of that in the Banished Land, especially not when the Soffers control our water,” I say.

“Ah,” Torsten says. “Your punishment for believing in the wrong gods.”

“Our punishment for questioning the government,” I say. “Which I suppose is the same thing.”

“Mmmm. Did you know the Kolbecks were one of the first families who left Sorland once the dragons were confined?” Torsten asks me, his heavy-lidded, golden gaze steady on mine.

“I figured as much,” I say. “Though I never learned much about the other realms. The schools in Esland are quick to censor the truth.”

“We went to Esland first,” he goes on. “Found it too inhospitable. Nothing but sand and rock and death. Then we moved on across the Drage Passage to what is now Altus Dugrell. We found a land of wealth and prosperity. But you Eslanders, instead of following in our footsteps, you went to Esland and stayed there, perhaps because it’s the closest port to the Midlands. Your false beliefs stifled you.”

“Not her beliefs, remember?” Andor says.

“Semantics,” Torsten says. “She was raised in those beliefs. As much as we like to say that we’re in charge of our destiny, where you’re from, who raised you…all of that is imprinted deeply. It’s hard to escape from your birthright.”

I raise my brow at his statement. I want to point out that I did escape from my birthright and I am in charge of my own destiny.

But seeing that I’m currently in the grasp of the Kolbecks, I don’t have a leg to stand on, and Torsten seems the type to form an opinion about you that’s set in stone, immovable no matter what you say.

So I decide to bring the conversation back to him and make it personal. The way he brushed away questions about his own father gives me something to work with.

“If what you say is true,” I say to Torsten after a small sip of my drink, “then I’m extra curious as to what happened with your father.”

He gives me a hard stare, trying to intimidate me. I stare right back, though I can tell that the eyes of the rest of the Kolbecks are volleying between us.

The standoff ends when he taps the side of his glass with his nail. “My father lives on property,” he says. “A house at the end of the Blomfields where he’s taken care of. He isn’t…well in his head.”

“He must be quite old,” I surmise. Torsten has to be in his sixties or seventies, which would put his father at eighty or ninety, at least.

“You wouldn’t know it by looking at him,” he says under his breath, his gaze going back to the dragon skull. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he looks sentimental.

“Our grandfather Ollie is a reminder of the perils of suen,” Andor speaks up, which brings a glare of reproachment from his father.

“He took too much of it over the years. Back then, before Steiner had a chance to modify it, it was a lot for people’s systems to handle.

Some even grew addicted to it without knowing about the long-term effects. ”

Torsten grunts. “They were the pioneers,” he says gruffly. “People like my father risked their health to push the limits of the human body.”

So now you keep him tucked away from you and out of sight? I can’t help but think. Some reward for being the pioneer of the family.

“The dragon egg trade hasn’t been going on all that long in the grand scheme of things,” Torsten continues.

“It was my own grandfather who had started using it when the effects were becoming known to the realm, and when thieves first started braving the Midlands. Before him, it was just used by witches and sorcerers.”

“And so now you’re not worried about ending up like your father?

” I ask, knowing I’m flying too close to the sun with this one.

“If the suen wasn’t refined until Steiner got his hands on it, then that means only the suen over the last, what, five, ten years has had no ill effects. What about all the usage before that?”

That brings a sharp glare from him, like I thought it would. “I have seen what my father has become. I know how to exhibit control.”

Still, there’s a chance that he’ll end up exactly like his father. And I can tell that’s something he fears. He seems like a man who will hold on to the reins of his family until the bitter end, even if he ends up going mad.

He’ll steer them all into madness.

But that’s none of your concern , I remind myself.

You won’t be here to see the demise of the Kolbecks, because unless he dies or there’s some sort of interfamily coup, he’ll be the one to run them into the ground, not the Dalgaards, not the Soffers.

Just him and his own ego. And all of this will just be a bad dream.

I glance at Andor at that thought, only to find him staring right at me, enough that I feel a flush of heat in my veins.

Well, I suppose even the worst nightmares can have their bright spots sometimes.