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Andor

I’m used to disappointing people, especially when it comes to my family.

But when Brynla and I ran into Vidar, Kirney, and Belfaust’s search party on our walk back from the slangedrage’s cave, and I saw the look on my brother’s face once I told him we’d lost the egg of immortality, it was like a knife to the fucking heart.

It didn’t seem like he cared much that I had died.

Literally died. Nearly chomped in half by a deathdrage before being brought back to life by an actual goddess—one who happens to be Brynla’s mother and is made entirely out of lava.

No, none of that seemed to matter to Vidar.

All that mattered is that Brynla stole the egg and it got destroyed in the process, therefore negating their entire operation.

I have no right to judge Brynla. After all, I’d kept Princess Frida a secret, as well as the plan for the heist, so I suppose this makes us even. And I know now that the fates twisted our path. The egg was never meant to be ours.

I’m glad my father won’t be able to use it.

Though it would have given the Kolbecks, and the army of the Elgins, the royal house, the upper hand in the long game, we’d be playing with something we don’t fully understand.

I can’t help but think about the Harbringer, the way that Brynla described Lemi tearing out her throat and eating her face and how she still managed to live after that, to chase after them.

Will the Harbringer be forced to remain like that for eternity? Is there truly no way out?

But that’s something we don’t have to worry about anymore. Yes, there could be more eggs. There probably are. But right now, we have to let go of that dangerous dream and concentrate on the actual dangerous dream that’s in our hands.

Before we ran into the search party, Brynla and I found the deathdrage’s fertilized egg stored safely in my pouch that I’d dropped when the dragon attacked.

We took the egg and the remaining vials of suen back with us, unsure if Steiner would be able to save the egg since it had been without it’s mother’s heat for so long.

But once we got back to the boat and set sail, Steiner put the egg in the incubator, and we could see the faint pulse of its heartbeat under a special light; the dragon inside is still alive and growing.

Like I said, another dangerous dream. The idea that we’ll be raising a deathdrage is utterly insane. Voldansa’s words still ring in my head, even after the multiday journey home. That dragons remember what has been done to them.

This might be the best thing that could ever happen to House Kolbeck.

Or it could be the worst.

“Good luck, brother,” Vidar whispers to me as we exit the carriage.

I step onto the wide path outside Stormglen, my home looking especially imposing today.

I suppose there’s a chance it may not be my home after my father finds out what happened.

After all, the only reason I was able to blow off my engagement to Princess Frida was that I promised to get the egg of immortality instead.

And there’s my father now, flanked by my uncle, stepping out of the gates. My father’s tall, lanky body looking extra intimidating in his long black garb. He claps his hands together with gleeful anticipation, which only makes my heart sink like a stone.

Oh, I am so fucked.

“It’s going to be all right,” Brynla says softly as my father approaches, giving my hand a brief squeeze. “I’ll take the fall.”

“You will not,” I practically hiss at her. “You don’t say a damned word. Promise me that. Promise me.”

I can tell she wants to defy me, but she pinches her mouth shut and nods.

“So, tell me, were you successful?” my father says, stopping in front of me. “Did you find the egg of immortality?”

“Yes,” Vidar says, and I’ve never seen my father’s eyes light up like that. “And no.”

My father frowns, a scowl already twisting his lips. That didn’t last long. “What do you mean, no?” he asks, his voice sharp and commanding.

“The heist was successful, thanks to Brynla,” I say to him. “We broke into the convent and she retrieved the egg. However, it was broken while Brynla was trying to save my life. She did save my life.”

I can feel Steiner staring at the back of my neck, and I silently plead for him to remain silent.

He has such a hard time with lying, but we all decided that it was the best course of action with my father.

I would take the blame for everything, but it would be an accident.

We would tell him that the egg was destroyed while we were trying to escape.

All of my crewmates agreed to this, as did the Freelanders unwittingly roped up in our affairs.

Those Freelanders are now in Menheimr, attempting a fresh start at life, with Toombs and Kirney serving as their guides.

Vidar and Steiner were harder to convince, but I made it seem like my father would find a way to blame them both if the truth came out—that they let Brynla steal it from under their noses.

Vidar was first to acquiesce. Steiner took more convincing thanks to his moral code, but once I pointed out that our father would probably have Brynla killed, he finally agreed.

“Broken?” my uncle says with a sneer. “And you didn’t save any of the yolk?”

“They did,” Steiner speaks up. I look at my brother in surprise.

“They saved the yolk and brought it back to me. But when I tried to extract and refine it on the ship, it had already turned. I’m guessing the egg was so old it lost its value the moment it was exposed to air.

Even if we had saved the egg, there was nothing I could have done. ”

Sweet, sweet Steiner. I’ve never been so relieved, or proud of him.

“I see,” my father says. “Well, that’s just terrible luck, isn’t it?

” His hawk eyes fix on me as he starts to stroll forward, hands clasped behind his back.

“Especially for you, Andor. Without the egg of immortality, we have nothing to bind Norland’s favor with Altus Dugrell.

Nothing except you marrying Princess Frida. ”

Brynla stiffens beside me, and I reach out and grab her hand, making it obvious for my father.

“Which I still refuse to do,” I say, squaring my shoulders, not letting him intimidate me anymore. “I will not marry Princess Frida.”

“Because of her.” He jerks his head to Brynla with a sneer, even though he refuses to look at her.

“Because of her,” I say. “Because I am not a puppet on a string. I am your son and I have my own life and dreams, dreams you have tried to shame me for ever since my mother died. We are your family, your children, your flesh and blood. Does none of that mean anything to you? Is there not a heart inside your chest, one that wants to be a father, not a ruler? Can you not see that your disdain for your own offspring is the very thing that will break this family apart instead of bringing us together?”

My father continues to stare at me, unblinking, so motionless that I wonder how I could have come from him when my heart is racing, my palms are sweating, and I feel the ground is about to swallow me whole.

Everything inside me is messy and chaotic and real and he’s just a statue with ice in his veins.

“Seize her,” he says coldly, and before I can register what’s happening, two guards come from behind my uncle and grab Brynla. She cries out, Vidar yells, and there’s chaos.

Lemi barks and shifts out of the carriage in front of Brynla, about to attack, but she quickly tells him with her intense gaze and flick of her wrist to stay put, not wanting him to get hurt.

He listens, sitting on his haunches but growling wildly, and the distraction provides me with an opportunity.

I grab my father from behind, my dagger already out and pressed against his neck.

“Let Brynla go or I will end him,” I command.

“Andor!” my uncle yells as he stumbles toward me. “Unhand him!”

“Stay back,” I say. “I’ll do it.”

“You don’t have the guts,” my father sneers.

“I have more guts than you’ll ever have,” I tell him, pressing the dagger in deeper, enough that he gasps and I know I’m drawing blood.

“Andor, please,” Vidar says, approaching me slowly with a show of his hands, as if I’m a wild horse. Perhaps I usually am, but even though my blood is whooshing in my head, my heart a frantic drum, I’m in complete control and thinking clearly.

“I will let him go,” I say. “I won’t hurt him any further.

All he has to do is let Brynla go and promise that she is safe in this house, promise that he will never come after her.

That he accepts that she is with me, the woman that I love, and there is no threat or disappointed look or hateful comment that would ever make me change my mind.

I am not marrying the princess. I am choosing Brynla as mine, just as I will choose every other path in my life.

Not for you, not for the syndikat, but for me.

” I swallow hard, meeting Brynla’s watery, fearful eyes. “For her.”

My father grunts, not saying anything.

I press the dagger in farther until he starts to squirm.

Everyone else is silent. Everyone is waiting for my father to yield.

“All right, all right,” he says. “Guards, let the woman go.”

The guards immediately release Brynla and step back. She brings her ash-glass sword out of her sheath, holding it at her side as a warning, just in case.

But I keep hold of my father. “Promise me that she is free to live in our house, that you will send no harm to her, whether from you or your brother, or so help me goddesses, I will kill the both of you in your sleep.”

“Fine, fine,” he says.

“Promise!”

“I promise.” He’s practically begging. I don’t think any of us have ever seen him like this.

So I let him go.

He stumbles away from me toward his brother, grabbing his bloody throat, which has only produced a trickle. “But you are no son of mine,” he says.

I shrug, sliding my knife back into its holder. “And I bet that won’t change a damn thing between us.”

We stare at each other for a moment, hatred and animosity flowing between us. Though there is something else now in the air, something to complicate things. I think I might see a flicker of respect. Best not to dwell on it.

Steiner clears his throat from behind me. I turn around to see him reaching for the carriage door. “I suppose this is a good time to tell you that there is a consolation prize, Father.”

He steps inside and brings out the giant deathdrage egg, barely able to lift it but handling it well all the same.

“What is that?” my father asks tiredly, his voice hoarse.

“A fertilized deathdrage egg,” Steiner says. “Just like you asked. Although technically, you did ask for sycledrage eggs, but we had to make do.”

“You brought a fertilized deathdrage egg?” my uncle spits out. He throws his arms out. “Where the fuck are we supposed to raise that giant thing once it’s hatched?”

Steiner shrugs. “I’m sure we can figure that out.”

I look to my father. He stares at the egg, his expression changing from discomfort and disappointment to that elated look again.

Not as happy as when he thought he was going to become immortal, but close enough.

He’s probably picturing a forty-foot dragon with him as its rider, laying waste to soldiers in some war that’s yet to come.

If I really wanted to rub it in, I’d tell him that there is no way he’ll ever be able to train it and that Brynla will be the only one who can, or at least the only one the dragon won’t eat.

But because my father looks happy, deviously so, it means that the pressure is off me. I’m no longer his concern, nor is Brynla.