Page 93 of House of Ashes

“I saw, Rhylan.”

“We should have told you.” He gripped my hand tightly enough to hurt, his eyes closed as he breathed in the silence I left. “I know we should have, I know I promised no more lies, but…it took two years to destroy my family. That’s all. Nerezza murdered my mother. Tidas murdered Loralei. My father was suffering badly enough from Mother’s death, but Loralei…that put him over the edge. Whatever part of him the broken mate bond didn’t shatter, Loralei’s death finished.” A bitter sound, not quite a laugh, escaped him.

“You don’t have to explain yourself. I…I knew you had your reasons.” I stroked the back of his hand, tracing the black scales that had rippled down his arm. Ignoring the irritation of him accusing my family of being responsible once more…it wasn’t the time to bring up those grievances. “And now I know what they are. I don’t expect you to cut yourself open and serve up your pain just to prove something to me.”

“But the whole time you’ve been here, that’s what I’ve asked of you.” He finally opened his eyes, looking at me. The flames in his eyes had guttered, leaving a gulf of desolation in their place. “Cut yourself open. Explain everything. Stop being…what I made of you.”

“This isn’t about me.” I squeezed his hand, hard. “Not right now. I can deal with that. What I care about right now is you and Kirana and Loralei.”

“I can do nothing for Loralei,” he said harshly. “All I can do is destroy the one who destroyed her, and send him to the Nine Hells, not that she’ll ever know. She’s in the Eternal Cycle, Sunya willing. So all I’m really doing is making myself feel better. I’m starting a war for my own sake. I’m willing to tear Akalla apart for…for nothing more than my own selfish satisfaction. She will never know.”

“No.” I put a finger to his lips, my heart jumping when he kissed it without thinking, closing his eyes and bowing his head to listen. “You can’t think of it that way. It’s easy to claim vengeance is selfish, but that’s not why we’re here. We’re doing this for the living. Tidas murdered Loralei…do you think he will end with her?”

Rhylan opened his eyes, shook his head.

“And I know that Yura will never be anything other than what she is,” I said, quiet but firm. “So we’re doing this for those left. So Tidas can never destroy another sister.”

For the first time since the First Claim, the slightest smile touched Rhylan’s lips. “I’m glad you came with me, Sera.”

I leaned forward and kissed his forehead lightly. “I’ll be with you through it all. Don’t think of it as selfish, Rhylan. Just do it for those left whom you love.”

“How long will you stay?” he asked, almost a whisper.

I met his eyes, wondering if I should lie, if I should dare to be truthful.

Finally I said, “For as long as you need me.”

I wasn’t sure how Rhylan took my assurance. I only hoped that he would find a way to ease the pain, and that he knew, somehow, that I would be here for him in whatever way I could.

And I was determined not to remain stuck in my own hole of despair. Blind to others’ pain, not seeing the obvious written all around me…it shamed me to think of how I had behaved when his own House had dealt with more than their share of loss.

An insidious voice whispered to me that I was not wrong…that I had lost almost everything. I was the last of the Silvered Embers, the only dragonblood of my House. I didn’t have another sibling to lean on, not so much as a cousin.

My aunt and uncle had no love for me; I had been honest about that. Pyrae and Tashan had always looked down on my father for not producing a child with Sythera, his bonded mate, and establishing a scion of Undying Light as the undisputed heir to the throne.

But I pushed that little voice away. It was not a contest of pain, and I was no longer the sixteen-year-old draga shoved out of her life and into a nightmare. I refused to allow myself to be held back by that past version of myself.

There were plenty of things to be happy about. I had been announced before all the Houses; I no longer had to hide. We were mates, as far as anyone knew, and I could lean on Rhylan.

Nonetheless, the day after the First Claim, he did not emerge from his room that morning.

I ate alone, as usual, and when I reached for the tonic, I was disturbed by how undisturbed I was by the sewer scent.

Kirana’s warnings echoed in my head as I drank it down, knowing now that I was drinking dragon’s blood, that it would affect me in ways I couldn’t foresee…that too much blood made a monster. I remembered the face of the Naga in the book.

But as disgusting as it was, as ominous as the warnings were, I was elated by the weight coming back, by the energy coursing through me that I hadn’t realized was so depleted.

Even training was easier. Kirana had taken the night for herself after establishing Garnet back in her roost; she was a little quieter today, but she threw herself into the sparring match with the same energy I had.

Like me, they’d had time to come to terms with their loss. I recognized the same contemplation I went through at times, when I considered Nerezza and how I had buried her—the cold, brutal shore where I had left her grave—and understood that although they’d reopened old wounds yesterday, they also had scar tissue in their place.

Today that scar tissue seemed harder than ever. Kirana didn’t hold back, but I was growing stronger.

I managed to pin her down by the skin of my teeth, bleeding from several scratches she’d given me, and Kirana even managed a smile.

“You’ve gotten so much faster,” she told me. “All the better, if we’re really doing this.” She sighed, wiping sweat off her forehead. “Yesterday really…it really drove home that this is going to be a war. I think I was still clinging to that last little hope that we could avoid that…”

“I was, too.” I did not want a war. It would only weaken the Houses. But if the choice was between bloodshed and Yura winning…I would fling myself into bloodshed without a second thought. “But I know her. She won’t back down until she’s dead.”

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