Page 160 of House of Embers
“We’re reserves. We’ll enter when Houses Bryonica, Venatrix, and Galanthea arrive.”
Viviana opened her mouth and then closed it. Kerrigan waited.Viviana hadn’t been the same since their last battle. It was both for better and for worse. She wasn’t as prone to taking risks. She wasn’t as confident about anything. But at the same time, she had put the qualities Kerrigan had always hated about her behind her. She was no longer the vapid dowager queen who cared more about her appearance and grasping at power than everything else around her.
Kerrigan could hardly imagine Viviana as the queen who had negotiated the terrible terms after the Battle of Lethbridge. That person had died, and she had been reborn on a dragon.
“I won’t let you down,” Viviana said after a moment.
“I know,” Kerrigan said with a nod. “Ordrax knew what he was doing when he chose you.”
Viviana smiled, and without any of her glamours altering her appearance, she seemed so much younger and regal.
“And you?” Zina asked. “Still set on your course?”
Kerrigan smiled dangerously. “There’s only one way this ends.”
“Cut off the head of the snake,” Zina said.
“They’re not ready for us,” Kerrigan said.
Tieran jostled her slightly.“Don’t get arrogant.”
“Have you met me?”
“I want you to survive to ride with me again. Get in, do your job, and get out. There’s more than one man on the field. Remember that.”
“I will,”she assured him, then slid off his back.
“Is Tieran reminding you to be careful?” Fordham asked as he jumped off Netta’s back.
“Something like that.”
“I’m telling her not to be reckless and die.”
Fordham smirked. “I’ve got her back, Tieran.”
“That is the only reason I approved this asinine plan.”
“First, I don’t need your approval,” Kerrigan said. “And second, this is not one of my reckless jumps.”
“Keep telling yourself that.”
Then Tieran nudged Netta, and they disappeared into the army below.
Fordham took her hand. “It isn’t reckless.”
“Maybe a little.”
He laughed. “Okay. Maybe a little, but who would you be if you didn’t take risks?”
“That’s what I’m happy to find out when this is all over,” she said, leaning forward to whisper into his ear, “Husband.”
He whipped back and smiled down at her. Then he brought their lips together, long and torturously slow. “My wife.”
“On your cue,” she breathed, meeting his storm-cloud eyes.
“Three, two…”
The “one” was muffled as shadows enveloped them and they dropped into the nothing, appearing at the center of the newly erected arena just as Fordham had the first time she had ever laid eyes on him.
