by K. A. Linde
Lyam stepped up to his side and glared at the prince. “It’s dangerous out there.”
Finally, ever so slowly, Fordham caught his gaze. Lyam tried not to squirm under the depths of those eyes. The way he made him feel so very small. “I’m sure she was aware of that fact. Now, leave me be.”
Lyam made a derisive noise and then traipsed down the stairs and through the garden. Fordham was an idiot. Lyam really hoped that he lost the tournament and had to return to whatever hellhole had spat him out.
Lyam reached the iron gate and chewed on his lip. Kerrigan usually did this part. Iron didn’t affect her. It must have been the half-human side of her that kept it from making her cringe. Iron had been used in the Fae wars to torture enemy combatants and to brand those who were enslaved. It was used for any number of horrid things that the sight of it, so innocuous, still made Fae hiss through their teeth. The feeling was protective and instinctual. He could no more cut off his own hand than ignore the cold touch of iron as he dragged the gate open.
He jerked the gate shut behind him with another shudder and then turned toward the Wastes. After seeing Clover get arrested, he knew which direction Kerrigan was going. He took the most likely route, hoping to spot her along the alleyways. He knew Kinkadia like the back of his hand. Together, they had explored every inch of the city. Hadrian had been born here, so he knew so much more than them. But what Lyam hadn’t had from birth, he made up for with gusto.
No, Lyam, like Kerrigan and Darby, had been given up.
His parents had been fishermen off the coast of Venatrix tribe. They were drifters, those who were not part of a tribe, selling their wares at market days along the coast and living off their boat. It was a hard way of life for Fae who weren’t part of a tribe. The system had been set up to help the tribes, but his parents hadn’t wanted to be join. They preferred their nomadic way of life. Except the warrior tribe Venatrix decided his parents were interfering with tribe fishermen… and destroyed their boat.
They had no other choice but to move into the city and try to find a new life. They never found it. After they’d lost everything, Lyam had been left at Draco Mountain with a promise to join a tribe and his father’s compass, and then he never saw them again.
He liked to think that he’d gotten his sense of adventure from them. That he was always searching for the water again. It was the reason he’d agreed to the first tribe that would get him on a boat. Not that he wanted to leave Kerrigan behind. Especially now…
Lyam stepped out onto the main thoroughfare that led north toward the Wastes. It was busy for this time of night. The street was crowded with revelers, and the taverns were bursting at the seams. A sign of happy times. He remembered after the protests that the streets had been emptied, a curfew had been enacted, that no one could leave after nightfall. The winter had been harsh.
He strained his gaze through the crowd and saw a tuft of red hair. “Gotcha,” he muttered to himself and followed Kerrigan’s hair like a beacon in the night.
They wove through the crowd, deeper and deeper through the city until she abruptly turned left down an alleyway. It moved away from Central and into the darker fringes of the city. The Wastes were only another ten minutes through the Dregs and into Dozan Rook’s territory.
Kerrigan could handle herself, but he still worried that something would happen to her, especially in that fine pink dress and a prince’s cloak. She didn’t exactly blend in with the grudge. Come to think of it… neither did he.
He usually changed before he snuck out of the mountain to see where she was going. But obviously, coming from the party, he hadn’t had the chance. And now, he was distinctly aware that no one else was out. He hadn’t seen a soul since the main street.
Lyam gulped and pulled out his father’s compass, running his finger over the faceplate reassuringly. Kerrigan turned right again, then another right, and then a left. He took that next left and then froze. No one was there. Kerrigan was just… gone. That wasn’t possible. Had he been following too closely? Had she caught on to that fact? That wasn’t good. He’d been caught by her once, and he’d thought that she was going to break his nose before she realized it was him.
He tried to backtrack and see if he’d missed her. But no, she wasn’t there. So, he proceeded forward with caution into the alleyway. “Kerrigan?” he whispered. “It’s Lyam. I just wanted to check on you.”
But no answer came.
Only steel.
Lyam gasped, clutching his ribs as a blade slid into his back. He fell to his knees as pain flooded his system. Whoever had stabbed him yanked the blade from his back and came to stand before him. The person was slight with a flicker of white hair appearing from under her black cloak. But instead of a face… was a black mask.
“Please,” he croaked.
“No, dear boy,” a woman trilled.
Then, she brought her face, covered by a black mask, close to his and stabbed him in the heart.
He had just wanted to see the sea one more time… and now, he never would.
14
The Dealer
Kerrigan strode into the Wastes, sweeping the hood of Fordham’s cloak off her red hair. She was hardly inconspicuous today. Normally, she wanted so desperately to blend in here, to belong. But today, she needed to talk to Clover and knock some sense into her.
But attracting attention in the Wastes was dangerous. And she was attracting a lot of attention.
“Hey, baby, you want to go a round?” a male Fae asked, adjusting his crotch for emphasis. As if she wasn’t aware that he wasn’t talking about a fight in the Dragon Ring.
She rolled her eyes and kept walking.
He followed her when she didn’t reply. “What? Think you’re too good for me?”
Kerrigan almost laughed. “Yes.”
Then, she whipped up an easy wall of air between them and continued forward through the gambling hall. She knew where Clover would be after what had happened. She would want the familiar, and there was nothing more familiar to Clover than the sound of the Dragons Up tables.
Unsurprisingly, Kerrigan found her in front of a cheap tankard of ale, holding a loch cigarette between her fingers and laughing with a handful of regulars.
“Red!” Clover cried as she saw her approaching.
Kerrigan’s fury topped out, and she threw the punch before she could stop herself.
Clover toppled off her barstool, landing in a heap on the sticky floor of the gambling hall. “What the…”
“What in the gods’ name were you thinking?” she shouted.
The gaggle of regulars went deathly quiet. In fact, much of the area surrounding their fight had gone silent. Everyone waiting and watching to see if the fight would turn into a brawl.
Clover clutched her cheek as she came slowly to her feet. “What was that for, Red?”
“You know exactly what that was for.”
She clenched and unclenched her fist. Clover looked at it carefully. She knew that she couldn’t take Kerrigan in a fight. Clover might have a height advantage, but Kerrigan had more muscle, and she had magic.
Clover gulped as she realized the extent of Kerrigan’s anger. “Why don’t you sit down and have a drink… on me?”
“I don’t want a drink. I want answers.”
“Then, perhaps,” a voice said, stepping in silkily, “we should take this upstairs.”
Kerrigan glared at Dozan. How did he just materialize out of nothing? Had he known the second she stalked into the Wastes that she was here? Or was it before then, when she’d left the ceremony? How far did his little spies go?
“Dozan,” Clover said, going pale. She bowed her head slightly. “Of course, we’ll follow you.”
Dozan’s gaze swept the room. “Nothing to see here. Continue.”
Just like that, the rope snapped. Everyone went back to their games and drinks and fondling. It was as if nothing had happened at all.
Kerrigan was still furious. And her fury went deeper than h
ow stupid Clover had been, but it was the only thing that she could fix.
Dozan arched an eyebrow at her. “Shall we?”
She huffed and then strode away. Upstairs meant Dozan’s office, and she had been there enough times to know the way. She didn’t want to sit back and wait for him to escort her. But he kept an easy pace with her anyway.
“This cloak,” he said for her ears only, “where did you get it?”
She glared at him. “I borrowed it.”
“It has the sigil of the House of Shadows on it.”
“So?” she asked, raising her eyebrows. If he was going to ask questions, she would make him work for his answers.
But Dozan gave nothing away. Just released the scrap of material. She didn’t look back as she climbed the stairs that led to the king of the Wastes’ residence.
A guard stood outside Dozan’s office and glared at her. But Dozan swept his hand to the side. The guard allowed the three of them to enter.
Kerrigan dropped into a chair as soon as they entered, but Clover hovered in the corner, as if she were waiting to get in trouble with a teacher in primary care.
“Have a seat, Clover,” Dozan said as he folded easily into a massive chair behind his equally massive desk.
Clover gulped and then took a small wooden chair across from Kerrigan. “Ker… I…”
“Why don’t we start from the beginning?” Dozan said. “Why are you two fighting on my gambling floor?”
“She was arrested,” Kerrigan spat. “She was arrested by the Society Guard.”
Dozan raised an eyebrow, but he didn’t act like he hadn’t known. “She seems to be here and fully intact.”
“I escaped,” Clover cut in.
“No, you didn’t!” Kerrigan roared, coming to her feet. “I let you go. I was there. I saw what had happened, and I went against Society order to get you out of there.”
Clover’s eyes widened. “Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh.” Kerrigan shook her head. “I cannot believe you were protesting the very ceremony I was attending.”
“We weren’t protesting the ceremony,” Clover said, regaining her composure. “We were protesting the tournament. It’s tyranny, Kerrigan. You know it is. It’s how they keep us subjugated. By making us think that the tournament is a festive occasion for us and then creating more dragon riders to keep us under their boot.”
“That is not true in the slightest,” Kerrigan said.
“You’d see that if you weren’t already so far up the Society ass that you can’t see your own privilege!” Clover snapped back.
“My privilege?” she demanded. “I’m half-Fae. I am hunted and trampled on just as much as you are.”
“Sure. But it doesn’t erase the fact that you’re Dragon Blessed. That you have a cushy job, working within the Society system. That they see you as an equal and they see the rest of us as beneath them.”
“They do not see me as an equal!” Kerrigan protested.
Clover just shook her head. “Maybe. But you live your life in the mountain, and you come here to slum it when you’re bored. It is not the same as having lived this life. We don’t have a choice.”
Kerrigan rocked back into her chair and took a deep inhale. Clover was… right. She was right. Even though her way of life had just been turned upside down, she still had options. She had Society members who would work with her to find her a place in the system that had been set up. But Clover didn’t have that option. At the opening ceremony, she’d had to slink out of the House of Dragons’ box before she was caught. This was the life she had to live.
“You’re right.” Kerrigan blew out a harsh breath. “I’m sorry about throwing that punch. You had every right to protest. But did you have to get violent? Get arrested? It’s reckless, Clove. I don’t want to see you get hurt.”
“I wasn’t violent. The Red Masks showed up and started trouble, but we were the ones who were arrested,” she snarled. “Those bastards can all rot in hell for all I care. Those Society guards didn’t even care that the hate group showed up. They only arrested us after the Red Masks instigated the violence.”
All the breath rushed out of her lungs. Her vision flashed before her eyes. “The Red Masks were there?”
Dozan, who’d been uncharacteristically quiet through their argument, leaned forward then. “You have an interest in the Red Masks.”
Her eyes flashed to his. And something passed between them that could only be conveyed between confidants. Dozan unfortunately knew about her abilities and her visions. He’d seen her faint only a week ago in that alley and carried her away. He was more than aware of what she was like when she had a vision.
She nodded her head once. “I am.”
“I see.”
“Well, I don’t see,” Clover said.
“They were out the day that I was… assaulted five years ago,” Kerrigan said faintly.
Clover knew what had happened. Kerrigan had confessed to it one night while they were drinking. But she had no clue of the depths of her own hatred and fear for the Red Masks.
“What are you going to do about it?” Dozan asked.
“Do… about it?” Kerrigan asked.
“You weren’t chosen for a tribe.”
Clover gasped. “Is that true?”
“How do you know that?” Kerrigan asked instead. “Do you have spies everywhere?”
He smiled that deadly smile that had won him his kingdom. He stepped around the desk, leaning back against it and crossing his arms. He looked smug as hell. She wished that he wasn’t such a problem. That he wasn’t handsome and powerful and didn’t know all of her secrets. She wished she could run far, far away from Dozan Rook.
“Why weren’t you chosen?” Clover asked. “I thought every Dragon Blessed graduated and got some amazing apprenticeship with a tribe member. That they all became full citizens and yada yada propaganda. Didn’t someone already pick you?”
Kerrigan deflated as she looked back and forth between them.
“Yes. I had someone. He was there, and then he disappeared in the middle of the ceremony. And no, no one has ever not been chosen.”
“Disappeared?” Dozan asked at the same time Clover said, “Gods!”
Kerrigan shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m going to figure it out tomorrow when I’m not so mad.”
“You don’t have to figure it out, Ker,” Dozan said, sliding over her nickname like a lover’s caress. He stepped forward, gently tucking a loose strand of her red hair behind her slightly pointed ear, revealing it. “You know why you weren’t chosen when all the full-blooded Fae were.”
She shuddered. At the touch, at the insinuation, at her ear being exposed.
“Do you think it’s a coincidence that the Red Masks showed up to a protest on the night the first half-Fae Dragon Blessed was to be selected by a tribe?”
“That’s circumstantial at best,” she argued. “It’s not because… of what I am.”
“It could be,” Clover said gently.
Kerrigan narrowed her eyes at her friend. “You think they were protesting me?”
“You and me and Clover and everyone who isn’t like them,” Dozan said. “You’re a half-Fae to them. Nothing more. You’re a leatha.”
Clover gasped. “Dozan!”
Kerrigan just stilled preternaturally. That word was disgusting. And she never got used to hearing it uttered. That Dozan would even use it… even to make a point, it turned her stomach.
“You don’t belong out there,” he said. “You belong in here.”
A short laugh escaped her. “In here? You think I belong in the Wastes?”
“Yes,” he said simply.
Kerrigan looked to Clover in disbelief. But her friend was nodding along.
Clover agreed with him. “You’d be better off with your own people.”
“My own people?” she said in shock.
Her own people were Bryonican royalty. Her own people were the House of Dragons. And yet… she had been abandone
d by all of them. The Wastes had never abandoned her, but they weren’t her people just because she was half-Fae. Just because she didn’t have to hide herself. Were they?
“You could rule here,” Dozan said, spreading his arms wide.
“Rule?” she stuttered.
“Queen of the Wastes,” he offered.
Her throat went dry. It sounded so tantalizing. To be at Dozan’s side. To have all of this. But it was impossible. It could never… would never happen.
“You would never give that up.”
His eyes grew distant. “With your power and all that you are, you could rule at my side. We’d be unstoppable.”
“My power?” she said delicately.
“Yes, you’re just growing into it. Imagine what it could be. Imagine what the Wastes would look like with you at its helm.”
Her power. Her visions. Not her. He didn’t actually want her to be the queen of the Wastes, to stand at his side. He wanted to use her power and visions. Just like Helly had always warned her about. That if anyone knew what she could do, they would use her… or try to kill her. And if Dozan was using her, then there would surely be people lined up to kill her. Because a secret like this couldn’t keep if she was his queen.
“Thanks for the offer,” she drawled, coming to her feet. “But I’m going to have to pass.”
Dozan’s eyes glinted dangerously. He was not a man who was told no very often. He had expected her to grovel at his feet, to prostrate before him for the mere suggestion of it. And maybe, five years ago, she would have. He had been the one to save her, and in her youth, she had worshipped him for it.
But five years ago, he had been the son of the king of the wastes, and within a summer, he had murdered his family to take the throne. She had realized rather quickly that no matter how much she idolized Dozan, he could only love one thing—power.
“Come on, Clover. I should buy you a drink to make up for that black eye you’re likely to have,” Kerrigan said.
She held her hand out to her friend. Clover warily took it, uncertainly darting her eyes between Dozan and Kerrigan.
