Page 151 of House of Ashes

This meeting wasn’t the trap. It was whatever came afterward that I would rue.

“I’m going to meet with her.” I folded the letter and tucked it into my chest pocket, over my heart—keeping my enemy close. “Rhylan, you don’t—”

“I’m coming with you.” His jaw was set with tension as he strode to the harness. “We’ll return to the eyrie for the provisions after this.”

“Thank you.” I put my hand on his shoulder as he began the shift, scales and mass erupting until the black dragon filled the harness.

“This isn’t wise, Princess Sera.” Viros’s hands moved rapidly over the buckles, but his eyes were grave. “She is a contender; she won’t hold back if she believes she can end this tonight.”

“I’m sorry, but that’s where you’re wrong, Viros.” I checked the buckles on Rhylan’s sides, ensuring they weren’t digging into his hide, before I mounted him. “You see, Yura doesn’t want the fighting to end. She would eat, sleep, and breathe war every day of her life if she could. So I have no fear of her harming me tonight.”

They would not believe me, but it was true. Because as long as Yura had an opponent…that was when she felt truly alive.

It was the only reason I hadn’t died in the Training Grounds so many years ago. She’d had me dead to rights…and she had let me live, gravely wounded, my memories shattered, only because she couldn’t live without something to hate.

I only feared for everyone around me.

Rhylan launched himself through the dragon door before Viros could respond, but that was all for the better. There was nothing the Eyrie-Master could say to change my mind.

I wanted—no, I needed—to know what my sister was planning, if any hint of her future movements could be gleaned from whatever bile she planned to spew in my ear tonight.

And I wanted to speak to her truly. No Claims, no Houses to impress or intimidate…just a meeting between blood-kin.

The path Rhylan took was familiar to me from all our training flights; I blinked down my third eyelids, keeping my gaze glued to the ground below as he weaved between peaks, slowly gaining altitude with every beat of his wings.

Frost formed over my cheeks and I wiped it away hurriedly, checking the sky. There was no one else out here; the faint wisps of cloud hid no dragons, and the moon was full and bright. We were alone.

Except for them. I saw the tarn, many miles ahead, its deep bowl reflecting the moon like a mirror. Vague smears resolved into finer details as we drew closer.

At its edge, an iron-gray dragon sat with his neck arched over the tiny figure beside him. Even in the gray tones of night, the moonlight washing out her gilded form, I recognized Yura. She stood ankle-deep in the water at the tarn’s edge, peering down into its depths.

As we circled overhead, Rhylan descending with deliberate slowness, Yura raised her head.

My dragon landed at the edge of the tarn, well away from Yura and Tidas. I dismounted, reaching up to stroke his jaw as I paused, watching my sister.

“Stay in this form, please.” I kept my voice low, and Rhylan’s deep rumble of assent drowned out my words. “I want to be able to escape quickly.”

My first instincts had been correct; this was not an obvious trap. There were no other dragons here.

I took the first step. Yura emerged from the water, following the edge of the tarn, and we watched each other as we walked, meeting halfway between our dragons.

My sister stood straight-backed and tall, golden waves hanging loose to her waist and bleached white by the moonlight. She exuded her empty serenity, smiling without her eyes, which were as black as the tarn’s depths. There was something disturbing about her movements, her bare feet moving over the rocky edges of the shore like creeping creatures, the rest of her body preternaturally still.

“Sera. I didn’t think you would come.”

“Of course I came. Sisters should speak face to face once in a while, don’t you think?”

Yura’s smile never slipped, didn’t deepen, didn’t fade. It was like speaking to a marionette wearing a porcelain mask. “And I had been so sure I would never see yours again. Our father was quite convincing about your death. I truly believed you had succumbed on Mistward Isle.”

“I’m always glad to disappoint.” I kept my feet wide, grounded as firmly as I could manage on the stones. My shoulders remained loose; the easier to unsheathe a sword with. “What is it you have to say, Yura?”

“Now that I look at you, I wonder how I could have believed him.” Yura tilted her head, unblinking, ignoring my question. “You’ve always had a fire in you, elder sister. You just kept it well hidden.”

My teeth clamped together, jaw set. There was no point in pushing her—she had always been this way, meandering to the meat of a subject.

“Even when I had that fire in my hands…” Yura raised one hand, her claws catching the moonlight as she formed an upraised cage. “I could not bring myself to smother it. It was too early, you see. Guttering, flickering like a candle in the wind…there is no pride in snuffing out a candle flame.”

Her claws gleamed as the cage closed into a fist. Her face was white, a death mask, the empty pits of her eyes like holes.

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