House of Dragons (Royal Houses 1)

“He was a nuisance,” Darby said around a hiccup. “There wasn’t trouble he couldn’t get into.”

Kerrigan glanced at Clover, who tipped her head to the ground. The two of them sat, too, forming a small circle with Darby and Hadrian before Lyam’s funeral pyre. The sun had already sunk so low, brushing a burnished glow across the horizon.

“And you!” Darby said, thrusting her finger in Kerrigan’s direction. “You were just as bad.”

“Still am,” Kerrigan said softly.

“Because you don’t think this was an accident,” Hadrian said.

Kerrigan slowly shook her head. “No, I don’t.”

“I liked your speech,” Clover said with an arched eyebrow.

“Well, that makes one of you,” Kerrigan said.

“What you said was true,” Hadrian said.

Clover gasped next to him and nudged his shoulder. “Finally going to admit where you come from, sweetheart?”

He glared at her. Momentarily forgetting where they were with her chiding. “I don’t forget where I came from, but I was given the opportunity to rise above my station—”

Clover held up her hand. “I read the brochure.”

“Stop,” Darby snapped, uncharacteristically peevish.

Hadrian and Clover’s bickering died off immediately with murmured apologies.

“Why don’t you think it was an accident? Because he followed you?” Darby asked. “He’s followed you a hundred times and never been murdered.”

Kerrigan wished that she could explain it. But none of her friends knew about her visions. Only Lyam had known… and he was dead.

“I have a feeling,” she said with a shrug. “I don’t know how else to explain it. It feels wrong. The whole thing feels like a lie. Lyam wasn’t stupid enough to be caught by a robber in the Dregs.”

“I wish there were a way to prove it one way or another,” Darby said with a sigh.

Kerrigan wished that too, but she didn’t see how it was possible. All she had was a hunch, and that wasn’t enough for anyone.

* * *

By the time the flames were nearly guttered out, Darby had fallen asleep with her head in Clover’s lap. Clover was leaning back against Hadrian, as if she belonged there, both of them barely keeping their eyes open.

“Come on,” Kerrigan said softly. “Let’s get some sleep.”

Hadrian gently shook Darby awake. She yawned dramatically and then slowly came to her feet with the others. As a unit, they trudged back to the mountain. Hadrian and Darby had stayed at the mountain the last couple of nights instead of moving in with Fallon and Sonali right away, but Kerrigan knew that wouldn’t last. That she wouldn’t have them to lean on forever.

“Take my bed,” Kerrigan told Clover.

“You sure?” she asked around a yawn.

“Yeah, I’m still not tired.”

“You look tired.”

Kerrigan laughed once. “Yeah. I can’t shut my brain off, I guess.”

“Okay. Well, be careful. I want to think that it’s just an accident, but if it’s not, Red…”

“I know,” she whispered. “I won’t leave.”

Kerrigan didn’t have anywhere to be or anything to do. She just had restless energy deep in her bones that she couldn’t possibly shake. As if it was building—something was building inside of her. Not like her visions, which usually felt immediate, as if right that second, it was going to take her over.

She was just… edgy. And she didn’t know how to not be.

So, she walked.

Her feet carried her aimlessly throughout the darkened halls of the mountain. Past barely lit ornate tapestries, ancient metal fighting gear, through the peacefully slumbering dragon chambers, and then to the tournament rooms.

She could lie and say that she didn’t have any hope to find a dark-haired boy with gray eyes, but it was just a lie. They were connected, and something told her that he couldn’t sleep either.

She would be lying again to say she felt no joy at finding out that she was right. Fordham was seated at a long table in the hall with a leather notebook open before him. He’d shucked off his cloak and untucked his tunic. His dark hair was all a mess from him running his fingers through it, and he looked both contemplative and delectable. Words she should not associate with a prince who had been nothing but cruel to her.

Still, she stepped forward and seated herself at the table across from him. He’d surely heard her steps, but he didn’t look up from what he was writing. He scrawled a few more words into the margin before lifting those tempestuous eyes up to meet hers.

“Hello, princeling.”

“A little late for you to be wandering the halls, don’t you think?” he asked.

“Couldn’t sleep,” she said with a shrug. “You either?” She gestured to his notebook.

“No.”

“Still writing poetry?”

He frowned. “Why are you up?”

“Funeral,” she whispered.

His gaze softened for a split second and then returned to its neutral mask. “I heard.”

“Yeah,” she said noncommittally.

“I didn’t realize the streets were that rough in Kinkadia,” he admitted.

“They’re not,” she said at once, defending her home. “Well, they aren’t all that great. The Guard doesn’t care so much about the human side of town. But Lyam wasn’t robbed. He was murdered.”