Page 84 of House of Embers
The Denouncement
The dragons had already figured out the logistics, but she enjoyed watching them negotiate with Fordham and the war council. Barron Laurent looked anything but pleased by the contingent of dragons who had just appeared. He’d been eyeing Gelryn like he might jump on the dragon’s back and hope that it would be enough to force the binding, as if a Fae could choose a binding instead of the dragon.
Who the dragons would choose was a problem for after the coronation. She and Fordham were up late into the evening, helping the best they could with everything that would come with feeding and housing this many dragons.
It had been exhausting, and Kerrigan was feeling it the next morning, especially since she’d stayed up well into the early hours rolling around the bed with Fordham until neither could even lift their head.
Except he was gone in the morning.
The morning of his coronation.
Kerrigan approached their designated waiting room for the denouncement, but Fordham wasn’t there either. Everyone else was already filing into place outside.
“Delle, have you seen Fordham?”
Delle tilted her head. “He said he went to find you.”
Kerrigan froze. “Uh…he wasn’t with me.”
“Perhaps he is just running behind.”
But that didn’t seem like him.
“He wouldn’t leave,” Delle hissed to her mother, who had been apprised of the situation.
“It would be tantamount to abdicating,” Adelaide said.
Kerrigan leaned into their bond. There was no response to her warmth, but she had a general sense of direction, and it saiddown.
“He’s still here. I’ll go get him.”
She headed out of the waiting room and followed their bond. She could have reached out to him and asked him directly where he was, but something told her that he needed the space right now. That talking to him in person would be better.
The bond took her to a door with an eye etched into it. The pulse of their bond saidhere. She opened the door and then took the steps down, down, down into the depths until she came upon the open crypt door.
“Fordham,” Kerrigan whispered as she stepped across the threshold and into his family’s crypt.
She had only been here once before. Fordham came here to think, and today was one of those days.
“Hello, love,” Fordham said, glancing sideways at her.
He was laid out across the sarcophagus of his original Fae ancestor. The black of his cloak was draped across the stone steps that led up to it. He looked indomitable and every inch the broody Fae princeling she had fallen in love with. And now he looked the perfect part of the king of the Dark Court.
She was glad she had left her pretty, silver dress back in their rooms for the coronation. There was water dripping onto the floor, and it would have ruined the silky material. She had refused to wear something so restrictive to the denouncement. Not when anythingcould happen. Not when she was a fighter. She was instead draped in a black-and-silver tunic and pants.
“Needed time to think?”
“Communing with the ancestors,” he said as he sat up.
“And do they think you’re ready to be king?”
He shrugged. “Fifty-fifty.”
“I doubt that.” Kerrigan came to his side and saw his face in repose mirroring the crowned Fae ancestor below him. “You are made for this moment.”
“This shouldn’t be how this happens.”
“How so?”
