Page 65 of House of Embers
Lowan stepped forward. “We have activated the Right of the First…”
A plume of fire appeared over his head. Lowan dropped to the ground. The top of his head was on fire, and he threw it into the sand. It looked like he’d done it before.
“We were not speaking to you,”the multicolored dragon said.
“Dyta,”Tieran said, dipping his head at the golden dragon and then the colorful dragon. “Ordrax. As you know, I never intended to return to our Holy Mountain.”
“You were forced out,”Dyta said, hissing like a snake with a forked tongue.
“We have a request of the elders,”he said.
“We have the right to ask it with or without our riders,”Evien added. “Though the Fae speaker has done the ritual properly to allow them. You should abide by our own laws.”
Dyta looked offended at that, but it was Ordrax who stepped between them.
“We accept you both, the riders, and the Faeling for the course of one night unless the council decides otherwise,”Ordrax said.
“Agreed,”Tieran said.
Dyta hissed and then launched into the air, spraying water allover them. Ordrax looked up at her in exasperation before following in her wake.
“That went well,” Lowan said cheerfully.
Audria bent down to assist him in climbing onto Evien’s back. “Your hair was on fire,” she said.
He patted the top of his head and shrugged. “I’ve had it worse. Now, let’s follow.”
There was no other choice but to go into the belly of the beast. Kerrigan held on to Tieran’s back as he sprang into the air after the pair of dragons.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The Dragon Council
Tieran landed on a wide terrace halfway up the mountain with Evien right behind him. Dyta and Ordrax were already slinking down the wide corridor.
“Stay on my back,”Tieran ordered as he followed after them.
Kerrigan never thought that she would see inside the Holy Mountain. Tieran had never planned to return. It wasn’t fair for her to have asked him to do this, but what other choice did they have?
The Holy Mountain was the largest mountain on the continent of Alandria. It was made up entirely of tendrille, the most valuable and strongest substance known to man and one of the only things with immunity to magic. It was mined elsewhere for weaponry, but the Holy Mountain had never been mined for the substance. It was sacred to the dragons. To get to the valuable mineral, someone would have to have a death wish.
And yet the corridors were large enough for a dragon the size of a house to comfortably navigate, veins of tendrille raced down the walls, an onyx seam flowing like a lightning strike down the barely illuminated walls, and in between the tendrille were ancient carvings etched into the walls depicting long-past battles with dragons inflight. No humans were in the reliefs. They must have predated even dragon riders.
Butsomeonehad carved them. Someone had built these corridors. Someone had tunneled into the mountain. Who had done that? Dragons? Humans? Gods?
The options were equally perplexing and terrifying.
It wasn’t long before the dragons exited the corridor that opened up into a large antechamber. It was half the size of the arena, with branching hallways going off in every direction. Enormous, gilded double doors were closed tight at the far end of the room. The ceiling was high enough that Kerrigan couldn’t even make out the art far above her. Dragons couldflyinside the mountain if they wanted.
Human attendants in loose, brown robes scurried back and forth through the corridors. A group was cleaning furiously. Another was carrying a book half the size of their person made out of a hard leather, and still more were carrying jugs of water. Well, at least that explained why the place didn’t smell as bad as she’d thought it would with just dragons living here. Someone was keeping the whole place from smelling like an aerie.
Dyta slunk through the double doors, leaving them with Ordrax’s stoic company. The multihued dragon took up a sentinel position at the door while Tieran and Evien came closer to the door.
“What’s happening next?”she asked Tieran.
“We meet with the Dragon Council to deliver your request.”
“And will they take kindly to that?”
