Page 16 of A Matter of Destiny

I swallow hard, then run my hands across my chest. A burst of music floats through the air, carried by the wind from somewhere deep in the heart of my beautiful Cairncliff.

“Fine,” I say, and the word sounds like another sigh. “But I’d like to wait until she’s stronger. You did say she’s healing, yes?”

Ailen murmurs something that’s not quite a word. Deep inside the fire, a hidden knot of sap bursts, releasing a flurry of sparks that dance as they rise toward the darkness of the chimney, and once again I find I’m thinking of Rayne. Of her hair spread across my pillow, her lips parted as she gasped my name, her fists knotted in my shirt. Rayne, who chose the king.

My vision blurs, and I turn away from the fire, hoping Ailen won’t notice when I press my palms against my eyes. Mothers above, what could be more humiliating than the dragon of Cairncliff crying in front of a human? Crying over a woman?

Some dragon I’ve turned out to be.

Chapter9

Rayne

Something makes me stop, one foot in the air, my gloved hand trailing the cold stone on the inside of the staircase up to Ensyvir’s tower. I hold my breath, waiting for my mind to catch up to that flicker of intuition. And a voice drifts down the staircase.

Down? I tilt my head, listening. It’s still early in the morning, and I’ve received no summons to the tower. I’ve received no instructions at all, really, not since I was formally dismissed from His Highness’ service before the royal wedding. I’ve just been coming to Ensyvir’s tower because that’s what’s expected of me.

And, I tell myself as my chest tightens around my lungs, because maybe that’s what’s keeping Ensyvir here. He’s not searching for Doshir and his mother if he’s in his tower, berating me for being foolish. Yesterday I brought a mop and bucket up this staircase, thinking I’d be cleaning his floor all day, and I was slapped for it.

But every time I’ve come to his tower, Ensyvir has been alone. In fact, aside from the occasional terrified servant bringing messages or hauling a heavy wooden desk up a thousand stone stairs, I’ve yet to see anyone else set foot inside his tower. Could that voice really have come from Ensyvir’s room, or are the acoustics of this staircase playing tricks on me?

“Very nice,” that same nasal, male voice purrs. “And what of your other project? The woman?”

Every muscle in my body pulls tight; I hold very, very still. That voice did come from the top of the stairs. And it’s followed almost immediately by another noise, a sound that’s a little like a laugh and a little like an explosion.

“Slow,” Ensyvir replies, his voice dripping down the cold stone stairwell like thick oil. “Very slow. Excruciatingly slow.”

“Well, what did you expect?” the other voice replies. It’s the kind of voice that makes me think of hidden blades and wide, predatory smiles. “Your choice of brood mare—”

Ensyvir’s next laugh drowns out the rest of the man’s words. The thud of my own heart suddenly feels very loud.

“True,” Ensyvir says. “Pity she’s so much like her mother. That bitch was a fool as well. Ready to believe anything if it was said with the right… inflection.”

He drags out the last word, turning it into something crude, and they both laugh. Hard, nasty laughter, the kind that usually accompanies words as sharp as a dagger, and it’s the laughter that tells me the truth. Men only laugh like that at someone they believe is weaker.

They’re talking about me. By all the blessed kings of Valgros, they have to be talking about me. Ensyvir’s project? The woman? Who else could that possibly be? And the brood mare—

Anger burns inside me, devouring the chill of my fear. Memories spark and flare; the dragon in the Knife’s Edge Mountains, opening her mighty jaws. Bathing me in fire. Calling me daughter as the heat faded from her crimson scales.

That bitch? My hands ball into fists as the men’s cruel laughter fades. The dragon who died at my feet didn’t deserve to be murdered by men from the Army of Valgros as they followed orders signed by Donovan’s signet ring but written in Ensyvir’s hand. She didn’t deserve to be called a bitch.

Kings, what had Ensyvir done to her? He’d called her a broodmare. Brood mare for whom? Stars above, what had that man done to my mother? What had they done to the dragon I never got to know, the mother who would have raised me if I hadn’t been abducted to Valgros?

“So, give her something to believe in,” the other man suggests, drawing the words out like syrup over toast. “Undo the—”

Ensyvir snorts, devouring the man’s next words.

“Give her what she wants,” the man says, his voice rising once again over Ensyvir’s mutterings. “And then, once she’s taken it, tell her you’re the only one who can give it to her again. And then tell her the price.”

There’s another chuckle, cruelty disguised as pleasure, and I lose his next words in the swirl of blood pounding through my skull.

“Good, good,” Ensyvir finally says, in a tone that’s smoother and more respectful than he’s ever used with me. “I like it. She’ll be here soon, you know, the little fool. She doesn’t know where else to go, I think, now that she can’t moon over her precious king.”

Another burst of soft laughter drifts down the stairwell. My gut clenches; rage burns like dragonfire inside the marrow of my bones. I’m holding my fists so tight that my nails cut into my palms and my arms throb. I squeeze my eyes shut, willing the rage to subside, trying to control the maelstrom of my thoughts.

And something drifts through the fog of pain and anger, something so clear and bright that it feels like it’s coming from somewhere else, somewhere outside of me.

I will destroy this man.

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