“Elara Serath,” he said.
The court erupted.
Rhydian remained beside me.
“You will address her by the name she gives.”
Malrec bowed.
“Then perhaps the governess can explain why the Sealed Abyss opened the moment she revealed herself.”
“I did not reveal myself.”
“Blackthorn revealed you.”
His smile widened.
“Beasts have always possessed such honest instincts.”
A scream rang from the upper gallery.
Mara stood beside the railing.
A masked servant had one hand over her mouth and a blade against her throat.
Rhydian vanished in a burst of silver fire.
The attacker dragged Mara backward.
I saw the insignia beneath his sleeve.
A crimson circle divided by seven black lines.
The mark of a cult my father had warned us never to name.
The servant raised the blade.
Mara bit his hand.
Rhydian struck him with enough force to shatter the stone wall.
The attacker fell, but before the guards could seize him, red fire consumed his body from within.
He burned without screaming.
Only his mask remained.
Mara ran into her father’s arms.
Lord Malrec stared at the ashes.
I watched his right hand close around the edge of his sleeve.
For one instant, I saw the same crimson symbol upon his wrist.
Then he covered it.
The voice beneath the mountain whispered again.
One seal for the daughter.
One seal for the son.
And the traitor already knows where he sleeps.
CHAPTER 3
ASHES OF HOUSE SERATH
By dawn, every gate of Veyrhold had been sealed.
No servant could leave.
No messenger could enter.
The dead assassin had carried no name, no papers, and no weapon except the curved blade that had nearly touched Mara’s throat.
Yet the royal council found evidence within an hour.
A strip of blue cloth from my cloak lay beneath the gallery.
A vial of southern sleeping poison had been hidden under my mattress.
A letter bearing the Serath crest promised payment to anyone who delivered the princess alive to Avarra.
The evidence was precise, plentiful, and false.
“Someone prepared this before I arrived,” I said.
Captain Rowan stood outside the chamber where I had been confined.
“Or you prepared it before you allowed yourself to be discovered.”
“If I wanted Mara dead, she would have died in the paddock.”
His expression shifted.
Only slightly.
“An innocent woman would sound less cold.”
“An innocent woman who has been hunted since childhood learns not to beg.”
The door opened.
Rhydian entered without guards.
He had not slept.
Silver veins remained visible beneath his skin, and every candle leaned away from him.
Rowan bowed.
“My king, the council ordered—”
“The council does not command my personal chambers.”
I looked around at the iron bed and windowless walls.
“This is your chamber?”
“One of them.”
“How fortunate for you.”
Rowan left reluctantly.
Rhydian placed the forged letter on the table.
“The seal is genuine.”
“My father’s signet vanished the night House Serath fell.”
“Who could possess it?”
“The man who ordered the massacre.”
“My father?”
I met his eyes.
The question had cost him something.
“King Aldric signed the decree.”
“That was not my question.”
I remembered the commander in the cedar courtyard.
White-blond hair beneath a black helmet.
A crimson symbol painted beneath his armor.
“I never saw his entire face.”
“But you remember something.”
I turned away.
Trusting a Veyr king had destroyed my family once.
“I remember fire.”
Rhydian moved nearer.
“You touched me beneath the fortress.”
“I stopped your dragon from tearing through your skin.”
“You reached something I believed buried with my wife.”
His voice lowered.
“When Isolde died, I felt my dragon become a locked room. For eight years, nothing answered me. Then you placed your hand against my face, and it spoke.”
“What did it say?”
“Warden.”
I forced myself not to react.
Rhydian noticed anyway.
“You know what that means.”
“It means your dragon remembers the covenant.”
“And you?”
“I remember what the covenant cost.”
A knock interrupted us.
Vaelor entered carrying a map sealed inside a glass case.
“The assassin’s blade was forged in the ruins of Serath Keep.”
The words tightened around my ribs.
Rhydian looked at me.
“The ruins were placed under royal guard after the rebellion.”
“Not for the last three months,” Vaelor said. “Lord Malrec persuaded the council that maintaining the outpost wasted crown silver.”
Of course he had.
Rhydian studied the map.
“If someone is using the ruins, we go before they learn we know.”
“The council will not permit you to leave while the mountain remains unstable,” Vaelor warned.
“The council has forgotten the difference between advice and permission.”
Rhydian looked at me.
“You are coming.”
“I appear to have little choice.”
“You always have a choice.”
“No, Your Majesty. People like you have choices. People like me have consequences.”
Something unreadable moved through his expression.
“Then choose the consequence you can survive.”
We left Veyrhold through an ancient dragon passage before sunrise.
Captain Rowan accompanied us with twelve riders.
Mara remained under Vaelor’s protection, though she made me promise to return her unfinished book.
The journey south took two days.
The frozen mountains softened into black forests, then red valleys where winter had never entirely conquered the earth.
On the second night, we camped beside a river.
I woke to find Rhydian seated near the dying fire.
He held a small silver pendant shaped like a wing.
“Your queen?” I asked.
He closed his hand around it.
“She wore it the night she died.”
“I am sorry.”
“So is everyone.”
The answer carried no cruelty.
Only exhaustion.
“She entered the western tower during a dragon fever,” he continued. “My curse had begun to burn through the fortress. She believed she could reach me.”
“Could she?”
“For a moment.”
His eyes reflected the embers.
“Then my fire killed her.”
I had heard a dozen versions of Queen Isolde’s death.
None had included the king’s grief.
“Perhaps the curse killed her.”
“The distinction has never mattered to Mara.”
“She does not blame you.”
“She refuses to speak of that night.”
“She is eight.”
“She remembers enough.”
I sat across from him.
“When children survive something terrible, adults often mistake silence for ignorance.”
His gaze lifted.
“You speak from experience.”
“I speak as a governess.”
“Elara.”
He said my true name differently from everyone else.
Not like an accusation.
Like a question he had not decided whether he had the right to ask.
A dragon cried in the distant hills.
Rhydian’s silver markings brightened, and pain crossed his face.
I reached toward him, then stopped.
He noticed.
“You fear touching me?”
“I fear what might answer.”
“So do I.”
We arrived at Serath Keep beneath a red sunset.
The towers had collapsed.
Black cedars grew through broken walls.
Ash remained embedded in the stones, though seven winters had passed.
I dismounted before anyone could help me.
The courtyard waited beyond the ruined gate.
My mother had died near the fountain.
My father had fallen beneath the chapel steps.
I could not see their bodies, but memory placed them where the snow had covered their blood.
Rhydian dismissed the guards.
“I will not leave you alone,” he said, “but I will not make them watch.”
It was the first mercy he offered without demanding anything in return.
I entered the chapel.
The altar had been broken open.
Beneath it lay a hidden stairway my father once told Cedric and me never to use unless the bells rang seven times.
The bells had rung only six times on the night of the massacre.
My father had died before he could sound the last warning.
We descended into the crypt.
Someone had lit candles there recently.
Fresh footprints crossed the dust.
At the center of the chamber stood twelve empty coffins bearing the names of my family.
Mine was the smallest.
Rhydian touched the gold lettering.
“They buried no bodies.”
“They had none to bury.”
A sound came from behind the wall.
Captain Rowan drew his sword.
We found a narrow chamber containing ledgers, weapons, and dozens of crimson cult robes.
At the far end stood a stone table.
Someone had carved the same seven-lined circle into its surface.
Blood filled the grooves.
Vaelor examined the ledgers.
“These are payment records.”
Rhydian took one page.
His expression darkened.
“The council funded the soldiers who attacked Serath.”
“Your father’s seal?” Rowan asked.
“No.”
Rhydian held the page toward the light.
“Malrec’s.”
A floorboard creaked behind us.
A young priestess stepped from the shadows with a bow drawn.
Her dark hair had been cut with a knife, and one side of her face bore temple scars.
“Do not move,” she said.
Rhydian’s fire rose.
She aimed at him.
“Especially you.”
I recognized the silver thread around her wrist.
“You serve Ilyr.”
“I served,” she corrected. “Before the temple began murdering anyone who remembered the old histories.”
Her name was Sister Ilyse.
She had spent five years collecting records the crown tried to erase.
She showed us a mural hidden behind the coffins.
Przedstawiał ród Serath chroniący Siedem Pieczęci, podczas gdy pierwsi królowie Veyr strzegli Strażników Płomienia.
„Rebelia Popiołu nie została rozpoczęta przez Serath” – powiedziała. „To było powstanie Krwawego Kultu. Twoja rodzina odkryła, że członkowie rady królewskiej planowali obudzić Boga Smoka”.
„Dlaczego nas oskarżasz?” – zapytałem.
„Ponieważ do otwarcia więzienia potrzebna była krew Strażników Płomienia, a twój ojciec odmówił.”
Dłoń Rhydiana zacisnęła się na księdze Malreca.
„Mój ojciec wiedział?”
Ilyse zawahała się.
„Podpisał rozkaz egzekucji”.
Król wyglądał, jakby go uderzyła.
„Ale Malrec to stworzył” – dodała. „I zagroził, że ujawni klątwę drzemiącą w linii krwi Veyrów, jeśli Aldric będzie się opierał”.
Rhydian odwrócił się.
Przeczytaj więcej, klikając przycisk ( DALEJ »» ) poniżej!
