Page 94 of House of Ashes

Kirana knew precisely who I was referencing, nodding absently. “If we gained the Shadowed Stars and Undying Light, we could avoid it. We’d have the right of might.”

I didn’t want to destroy her hope, but I had to be honest. “Undying Light will only choose when there’s no other choice. The only good thing to come of it is that they don’t care for Yura, either. Unless she has something on them, we’ll remain equal there.”

“As for Shadowed Stars…fucking Chantrelle,” Kirana spat, the venom in her tone startling. “Maristela’s told her for years now that she has no interest in social climbing. She met Gaelin our first year in the Training Grounds and that was it for them. But they’re a prolific House, and Chantrelle will just push another daughter forward. You know she wanted to become one of the Drakkon’s mistresses?” She snorted, and it was only because she wasn’t looking directly at me that I managed to hide my surprise. I didn’t particularly want to think of my father and his various mistresses, but…he’d been the Drakkon. Of course any unmated draga would find him appealing. “He wouldn’t have her. But Maristela told me Chantrelle very much wanted a child from him, with the aim of having you and Yura cast aside in favor of her spawn.”

“Of course she did,” I murmured. Ridiculous…and yet, it might’ve worked. He didn’t have to name his eldest child as his heir…and although I would never know why he had suddenly grown to hate me, my entire life up to the point of exile had been secure in the knowledge that I was the one he would name.

If he’d fathered a child on Chantrelle, that child would’ve had just as equal a chance as Yura after my exile.

But one thing I knew about my father: he did not like his mistresses to have social aspirations.

He had not loved my mother, but he’d found her serene and comforting. Nerezza had never angled to become his Dragonesse. As for Aerona—Yura’s mother and the unmated Lady of the Gilded Skies—if she’d had any aspirations of her own, she’d kept them very quiet.

He’d made it clear after Sythera’s death that there would never be another Dragonesse during his reign. Chantrelle, who had pursued him in her youth prior to his mate bond with Sythera, had disqualified herself as his companion long before she’d ever realized it.

“We have to try regardless,” Kirana said, drawing me out of my thoughts. “It probably won’t work, but we can’t lay a Second Claim without saying we tried.”

No. All we could do was try and pray.

Because there was no Third Claim. There was only blood beyond the Second, unless one Court was clearly the mightiest.

“Wash up, and let’s find Rhylan,” I instructed her. “We’ll come up with a plan for us, if you’re going to the Wildlands—”

I didn’t get to organize my thoughts any further than that. Nilsa bolted down the corridor towards us, her face drawn and white. She handed a hastily-sealed envelope to Kirana.

“Coldburn’s been attacked,” she said, panting for breath. She must’ve run up all the stairs from the wyvern roost. “They say it’s the Gilded Skies.”

Kirana had ripped the letter open before Nilsa finished speaking. She scanned the few, messily-scrawled lines in silence, and handed it to me. “I’ll fetch Rhylan now,” she said quietly, and sprinted off.

The words were almost impossible to read; blood and ink stained the note, and it reeked strongly of smoke. I could make out the words ‘Gilded’ and ‘send reinf—’ but the rest was illegible.

So it had begun. Yura had not waited a full day before going on the offensive.

Without another word to Nilsa, I dashed to my room, practically ripping off my sweaty training clothes and pulling on my leathers. I tied my hair off in a long ponytail, shoved my feet in my boots and buckled my sword at my waist as I burst back into the hall.

Kirana emerged from her room at the same time, hurrying for the staircase and the wyvern roost, and I’d barely raised my hand to knock on Rhylan’s door before he opened it.

“Good, you’re ready.” He took my fist right out of the air, lacing his fingers with mine as he pulled me up the stairs to the eyrie. “She said the letter was ruined?”

“More or less. Half burnt and covered in blood. But this is my sister’s doing.”

“No doubt,” he said grimly. “Why wait for the Second Claim when she can murder a few innocents now?”

It was our first true emergency; I regretted that Yura had done this, even as we went through the motions we’d practiced with genuine haste and an edge of panic.

Rhylan practically slithered under his harness, shifting as he went; Viros rushed to buckle it in place as I leapt up into the saddle, swiftly hooking my straps on and settling myself.

I reached out to stroke him, feeling the dragon’s tension and fury beneath me, the pounding of his massive heart beneath the black scales.

As soon as Viros was clear, Rhylan practically tore through the dragon door.

I had no idea where Coldburn was; within half an hour, it was answered for me. Coldburn was a tiny hamlet in the Obsidian Flames’ territory, now hardly more than a blackened cinder nestled in the valley of snowy hills and forests.

I squinted down at the clouds of smoke, my eyes watering beneath my third eyelids from the acrid scent of burning timbers and metal.

“She did this to send a message,” I said aloud. “That she came close enough to touch…”

I didn’t expect Rhylan to be able to hear me, but he rumbled a furious assent, diving towards the village.

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