Page 99 of House of Ashes

I braced my free hand on his chest, pushing back. “Rhylan. We need to stop. We need to think about this. This is…”

Because you’re hurt, and you want comfort, was what I didn’t say. But I couldn’t let it go any further. If the bond formed, the gods only knew how long it would be before I felt the regret emanating from his soul.

I would rather die than feel that.

“This isn’t for us,” I said, forcing myself to sound firmly, utterly convincing. “I am here for you, and it is real, but…not with a bond.”

He stared down at me, eyes shadowed. “You don’t…gods. You do mean it.”

I made myself nod. Made myself disengage my hand from his, curling my own fingers into a fist.

Rhylan rose up, backing off the bed. His chest rose and fell rapidly, and he pushed his hair out of his face as he moved towards the door.

He opened his mouth, wanting to say something…and shut it again, looking away.

He left silently, closing the door behind him.

I waited, half expecting the door to open again. Thirty seconds of silence. A minute.

Five minutes.

He didn’t come back. I curled up on the bed, uncaring of the reek of death that clung to me, fighting the scream of despair that rose up from somewhere deep inside.

“What idiocy,” Myst commented, coalescing from the air. She moved like a cat, delicate claws hardly making an impression on the thick bedding.

I swallowed the scream, and waited for the thick lump in my throat to subside. “What is?” I asked flatly, when I had control of myself.

“You.”

“Me?” I sat up, aghast. “For not getting myself into a terrible situation?”

My Ascendant sat on her haunches, raising a foreleg to inspect the silver rings glittering around her claws. Her tongue flicked out, wiping a smudge from a pearl, and those slit-pupiled silver eyes moved to me. “It’s idiocy to pretend to a bond that could do nothing but help you. Why go through all these silly motions? Make the bond, child.”

I laughed silently, clutching my sore stomach muscles. “Because all the silly motions mean I’m free in the end.”

To my horror, Erebos’s voice joined the choir of temptation. “It is all rather tiring, is it not?” his deep voice rumbled. “Watching the little charades go round and round…going nowhere.”

The dragon himself slid from a patch of shadows in the ceiling, in a form not much larger than Myst. I supposed the bedroom was a little small to support his full-fledged size, but there was something disconcerting about two ancient Ascendants prowling my bedroom, one now tiptoeing over my dresser on feet no bigger than a dog’s paws, his jewels jingling with every step.

“Oh, are you two in league now?” I asked in acid tones.

Myst stretched like a cat, the light playing on her silver-snow form. “A certain dragon may have put aside his rather overblown grudges for the sake of sanity,” she allowed. “This is ridiculous, Sera. No descendant of mine should be playing games, breaking the Law, because she’s afraid. I gave you my blood! And we’re no cowards.”

“I’m not afraid. Also, you thought breaking the Law sounded exciting, last I recall—and don’t forget, you didn’t exactly approve of Rhylan.”

“Even an Ascendant can make hasty presumptions.” She directed her silvery stare at Erebos. “We’ve decided that the glory of our Houses would be greatly increased by a bond between our descendants. Honestly, Sera, you had a perfectly good opportunity right there and you wasted it. No—you didn’t just waste it, you set it on fire and threw it out the window. Shame on you.”

It was Erebos who alarmed me far more than Myst and her talk of glory—he looked at me with huge dark eyes, twining around my legs in a rather feline manner.

“Do you wish for my House to die out?” he asked sadly, turning that liquid gaze upwards from my knees. “You would deprive me of descendants, Sera?”

“Oh, no no no,” I said, drawing my legs up on the bed, out of his reach. “I’m nowhere near thinking about children. Right now I’d just like to make it to the Second Claim without dying.”

“You might breathe a little easier,” Myst said slyly, “If you didn’t have to play pretend all day.”

I shot a glare at my Ascendant. “That’s a low blow, Myst.”

And I thought I had hidden the crushing weight on my chest every night so well.

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