House of Dragons (Royal Houses 1)

The whole thing had only taken a matter of seconds. Not minutes, seconds. She had never seen anyone move like that before. Not even Fordham, and she had watched enough of his training sessions and seen him in the ring to know that he had never shown off those moves to anyone.

“Are you satisfied?” he asked from his stance overtop her.

She groaned and rubbed her aching back. “Where did you learn to move like that?”

Fordham lifted his chin, a twinkle in his gray eyes. “I am crowned prince to the House of Shadows. What did you expect?”

“No idea,” she told him honestly. “A pompous jerk with a chip on his shoulder?”

“The chip on my shoulder is earned,” he said with almost a little smile at the end.

Then, he held his hand out to her. She put her hand in his and let him haul her to his feet.

“As you have your secrets, I have mine.”

“Secrets?” she whispered.

“I didn’t see you run to the mountain to convince anyone that Lyam was murdered, that house was abandoned, and that there was an assassin after you.”

She bit her lip. “No one will even believe me without proof. The knife isn’t enough.”

“And the empty house?”

“They’ll dismiss it. Tribe members come and go all the time.”

“Fine,” he said begrudgingly. “But there is much at stake these next few weeks. Let’s not walk into them, unprepared. Discipline is the foundation of the House of Shadows’ military protocol. If you can survive the next few weeks, there’s hope for you surviving this fight and catching this assassin.”

“Five miles?” she asked.

“It’s a start.”

Fordham took off at a moderate jog, likely more for her benefit than anything.

“Tell me… about the… military protocol,” she said between pants.

He wasn’t even breathing hard. “The House of Shadows is divided into three primary families.”

“Like the… four Bryonican… royal houses?”

He frowned and nodded once. “Sort of. Family is a loose term. It’s more like different factions, and people can move between families. My father has ruled the House of Shadows for five hundred years but not continuously. Another faction will rise up, depose my family and take over for a decade, and then my father will rally enough support to take back the throne.”

“That’s… barbaric.”

He shot her a rueful look. “Challenge is a way of life. The Society rules under absolute power across all of Alandria. Unchecked and unaccounted for. Challenge is put down like a dog. That is not freedom.”

Kerrigan just peered at him in surprise. “You are… competing to… join… the Society.”

“I am.” Though he said nothing further about why he had decided to join something he clearly disapproved of.

They ran until they came to the top of a bluff, and Kerrigan could run no more. “I need a break.”

She all but collapsed onto a nearby stone. She tilted, trying to get the stitch out of her side. It felt quite literally like someone was stabbing her repeatedly. She’d had it happen recently enough to know.

“This is torture.”

Fordham paced back and forth in front of her. “It’ll get easier.”

After her fingers stopped throbbing with the pulse of her erratic heartbeat, she managed to take a sip of her waterskin. “I’m surprised you’re talking about home.”

He looked off toward the mountains. “You needed to know why discipline was important.”

“Right, but you could have just told me to suck it up. Instead, you told me about your family… your people.”

His gray eyes met hers, cold and unyielding as ever. “Now, you will try harder, for you know the cause. I have gone to war. I have seen things you cannot comprehend. It has saved my life.” He held out his hand again, hauling her back to her feet. “And it will save yours.”

27

The Baths

Three days of discipline training equated to aching muscles, a desperate need to eat anything and everything in her path, and long long hours in the baths, like she was doing right now. Sleeping would have also been a great way to pass the time, but it still evaded her. Every day, she felt like she was going to drop dead from exhaustion and fatigue. Then, as soon as her head hit the pillow, her eyes were wide open.

Apparently, near-death experiences did that to a person. Five years ago, she had almost died, and sleep had never really come back. The knife embedding into her shoulder was just another thing to add to the list of reasons she couldn’t sleep.

She tipped her head back and sank an inch lower into the steaming water. A natural hot spring ran under the mountain and provided bathing water year-round for residences. It was easily one of the best things about living here.

Kerrigan tended to go when everyone else was already asleep. She didn’t mind being naked in front of the other girls, but she still wasn’t used to showing her ears. Not if she could help it.