Page 59 of House of Embers
“Can you?” he asked, brushing the white-blond hair out of her eyes.
“Dozan…”
But he didn’t wait for the rest of that sentence. His hand slid into her hair, and he crashed their mouths together. At the feel of him, the rest of the world dissolved into nothing. The harsh lines of lips slanted against hers. His tongue roved against the seam, and she opened for him, tasting him on her tongue for the first time.
It was cataclysmic, as if her entire world had just exploded. Andall that was left was this man. She had tried to deny it down to the fiber of her being.
She was a princess of the House of Shadows.
She was full-blooded Fae.
She could never sully herself with a human man.
And yet what were they fighting for if not this exact thing? For the chance for two people to find something despite all the reasons society said it should not work. In the end, none of it mattered. She wanted him, and she was finally letting herself have him.
Chapter Twenty-One
The Scholar
The scholar’s eyes weren’t on Kerrigan. They were on his books, which sat in a corner, out of range for the desperate Fae. He’d only glanced up once when she’d walked into the room and then had been speaking to his books since then. The lack of eye contact wasn’t a big deal. It was just disconcerting that he seemed to have no real fear for his safety.
“How did you get involved with the Society, Lowan?” she asked.
“I’ve been with the Society for years as a… Oh, what do they call us? They wanted to make you one. Valia was one as well. What a kind girl.”
Kerrigan flinched at the name. Valia had been Kerrigan’s friend in the early days of the tournament. They’d worked together against the Red Masks until Bastian had discovered her subterfuge and publicly killed her. Kerrigan regretted how that had gone down every single day.
“A steward?”
“Correct. That was the word they used when they brought me on to replace the last dragon speaker,” he said as his eyes flicked around her face but never looked directly at her. “I don’t use it anymore.Dragon speakeris the more official title.”
“Okay,” she said uncertainly.
A steward of the Society was someone who worked for the government organization but wasn’t apartof the government. They weren’t a dragon rider, and they couldn’t vote, but they did other necessary functions, like running the library and the Dragon Blessed program in the House of Dragons. He was right to say that the Society had wanted Kerrigan to become a steward like Lowan here and Valia, but Kerrigan had wanted anything else.
She knew many of the stewards, though the official term wasn’t well known. She hadn’t heard of a dragon speaker before.
“What does the dragon speaker do?”
Lowan’s smile flickered at the edges as if he’d finally hit on territory he cared about. “We speak with the dragons, of course.”
“Anyone can speak with the dragons if they deem you worthy.”
“Correct. Correct. I’d have you read Severina. They give a great account of the Dragon Council and the Fifth Age Edict on dragon relations.”
Kerrigan waved her hand. “Paraphrase it for me.”
His face deflated. “Right. No one cares about your pre–Great War historical data and the life and times of the dragon speaker Aedanite the Second, Lowan. Get it together.”
“I’ve never heard of Aedanite the Second.”
“No one has,” he grumbled. His hands flexed as if he wanted to reach for his stack of books, open them up, and reveal their glorious contents to her. “The gist is that the Dragon Council is autonomous from the Society. One dragon speaker may address the council once every cycle at a predetermined time.”
“And you are that speaker.”
“Correct.”
“What do you discuss?”
