Page 80 of House of Embers
He stared his mother down without an ounce of uncertainty.“I will tell all those who can take a rider the truth—that if they do not bond to a rider within a certain time frame, they will die. And if they want to bond right now, they can come with me. I will only take the willing. That is all I will speak on it.”
His mother called for him. They were all speaking over one another, trying to be the voice of reason. But how could they reason with him when he was right? The dragons had the right to know, to choose. Tieran hadn’t been given that choice. Risa hadn’t. None of them had.
Tieran left the mountain to a roar of applause. The dragons were assembled as they had been the day before, waiting to hear the news of his ascension. They were about to get more than they had bargained for.
Kerrigan stared off at all those assembled. She could pick out Audria and Evien on the bank, Gelryn near them, and just a hint of white in the crowd that likely meant Amita had returned. Would they all agree with what was about to happen?
She’d had shit luck trying to get people to drastically change their minds in a short period of time. This would rock the foundation of the dragons. So many wouldn’t approve. The last thing they needed was civil war among them while the Society was equally at odds.
Too late now.
Tieran didn’t have to raise his voice to speak to all the assembled minds. But he had a command to him that hadn’t been there the day before. He had faced his horrors, his lost love, his mother, and the dissolution of all he’d known in one day. Now he was the leader that they needed in these new times.
“A new council member has been declared,”Tieran began to a wave of roars.“I have been given a boon for my acceptance. And the council does not wish me to do what I am about to do. They believe that you should remain in ignorance, that the knowledge I am about to impart would damage our way of life. And to that, I say: Good. Our way of life is nothing if it is built on a lie—a lie the council has perpetuated for millennia. My eyes have been opened, and as such, I shall open your eyes to the truth and allow you a choice.”
The dragons were restless at this speech. Kerrigan could hardly blame them.
“The Irena Bargain is not a great honor but a curse on our kind. It was bestowed on the Great Ferrinix against his will, and the magic enacted a price, tying our lifelines together. Dragons who do not bind themselves to a rider by a certain age will die. There is no if, and, or but. It was the reason I was forced into the tournament and into a bond with the rider currently sitting on my back.”
He paused to let that sink in.
“I do not regret my binding to Kerrigan. She has changed me for the better, and we are a unit. I will ride with her until the end of my days.”
Kerrigan’s heart soared at those words. She had worried, at least a small part in the back of her mind, if this might be the end for them. She should have known better.
“Your death is guaranteed without a rider, and the council has hidden this fact. If the Fae houses do not have riders within their ranks, they too will fall into disrepair and rot. We have both suffered for this unholy bargain. The council believed they were protecting you by not giving you this information. But the knowledge would have eased my burden at having to join the tournament, and it would have given us a reason to fight together, to see if there was a way to fix this egregious mistake that has gone unchecked for many lifetimes.”
A roar came loud and long from Gelryn, and others joined in. Kerrigan bowed her head to the great dragon.
“This is my promise to you: I will do all I can to end this curse on our people. In the meantime, the safest we can be as dragons is by bonding to a rider. The council has agreed that all unbonded dragons past their hatchling state are free to join me at Ravinia Mountain. There you can bond to a rider and join me to war against the very Society that first enslaved us. The choice is yours and yours alone.”
Silence hung at the end of his proclamation.
“We leave at high noon. Those who choose to come are welcome. Those who wish to stay with the council, you are still our brothers and sisters. We are just on different paths.”
***
In the end, it was about half—more than Kerrigan could have ever imagined would want to come with them when they had first stepped out on this mission with Audria and Lowan. She had thought five,maybeten dragons. It still would have changed the tide of the war for them, but nothing could compare to this. Suddenly, they had an entire aerial fleet of dragons ready to bond with Fae.
Audria climbed onto Evien’s back. “This went well.”
“Just had to destroy hundreds of years of precedent to get here,” Kerrigan said.
“It is truly exciting times,” Lowan said as he fumbled to get ontoEvien’s back. He’d suggested to Tieran that he should fly on one of the new recruits, and Tieran had sent a jet of flame over his head. Lowan wasn’t a rider. Evien was nice enough to let him sit behind Audria. The other dragons would likely not be so forthcoming.
“Guess you’re out of a job,” Kerrigan said to him.
Lowan shrugged. “You’re going to need someone to brew the binding pool.”
“Wartime binding can happen instantaneously,”Gelryn said as he landed beside them.
Lowan shivered at the enormous dragon speaking to him. “Yes, of course, the great Gelryn the Destroyer.” He groveled before him. “The potion may be quicker for such a large group though, if I might add.”
“We get it. You want to keep working with the dragons,” Kerrigan said with a laugh. “Perhaps you could start by chronicling the truth of the dragons.”
“Yes,”Gelryn said.“It would do for a speaker to know of our kind. Since the Fae have lied to us for so long.”
“Of…of course,” Lowan said. He just managed to land on Evien’s back, causing the dragon to step forward a few steps, sending Lowan back onto his bottom on the ground. He groaned. “Straightaway.”
