So he did intend to have me in his clan, no matter what he claimed to throw me off balance. “You don’t know yet that I can shift. Maybe I’ll just burn alive.”
“And if you do, I’ll still make sure your brother is healed and returned home,” he said, as if I were being deliberately difficult by threatening to immolate.
“I want to see him healed before I go into your stupid Trials,” I said. “Once he’s healed, I’ll do whatever you want.”
His lips curved, just faintly, and it made his shapely mouth even more cursedly charming. No one so devious should also be so beautiful; it was entirely unfair. “I doubt that very much. You don’t strike me as particularly obedient.”
“And you don’t strike me as particularly honest.”
He didn’t dignify that with a response, probably because it was true.
I waited him out.
He worked his jaw back and forth once, as if he were debating with himself. “I’ll see if I can make a deal without endangering you. The queen is also going to be interested in a dragon-marked mortal. You might find her interest less pleasant than mine.”
Nixi’s words about how Fieran was putting me in the path of the queen haunted me. “I want to come with you. I can pretend to be your servant.”
That smile ticked up another notch, beautiful and disbelieving all at once. “I have a feeling you’ll be terrible at pretending to serve.”
“So, you were lying when you suggested I was good at serving at the pub?”
“Gods, yes.”
It was easy to volley back and forth with Fieran, but maybe the truth would shake him loose from his game.
Until he’d swept Maura out of his life, I’d thought he was fiercely loyal to his friends from how they acted together; he seemed like he should understand my feelings. “I want to help you save Tay.”
He looked at me with a trace of pity in his gaze that made me furious.
“I’ll play whatever game this is where I’m your tool against thequeen,” I told him icily. “But I want to know you’re playingmygame too.”
He hesitated, then nodded. “Fine.”
“I want to show you something,” he said, as we walked back into the towering foyer of the war school.
“Lead on,” I answered, because what choice did I have?
Together, we walked down into the labyrinth dug into the stone beneath the academy. An enormous stone grotto branched off into a dozen different passages. As I followed Fieran, I glanced down each one.
They were all different—one with stairs rising, one with stairs descending, one that clearly dead-ended in an open doorway to the sea below. Some looked wild with plants that somehow grew in the darkness, and others looked polished to a high shine of marble, hung with portraits.
He walked confidently down one ever-changing passage to another as I tried to catalog every turn.
“Is there a map?” I demanded.
“Do you think I’d abandon you down here?”
“Forgive me if trusting the dragon shifter who kidnapped me is difficult.”
“Kidnapped is a bit dramatic.” He led me down a wide passage where a set of broad stairs led up to an enormous arched doorway, the door sealed.
“An exterior door for the queen’s guests,” he told me, before he turned the other way and we walked down a few stairs into another, smaller arena.
This arena was more ornate, with comfortable seating around the sides and an enormous dome overhead. It was dim in the interior and I blinked my eyes, adjusting to the cool peacefulness that reminded me of the village temple before it was taken over for the healer’s quarters.
Slowly, I became aware of the beauty that surrounded me, despitethe fact we were in another arena. The dome above us was filled with pinpricks of light.
Stars.
