ELARA
ELARA’S NEW BOOTS TRACED A CONFIDENT PATH DOWN THE STONEtrail that led to the boathouse. Waiting outside her room this morning had been a package containing her Hearthstone uniform: fitted breeches lined with leather, a pine-green lace-trimmed blouse with a standing collar, a rigid black blazer with pine-green cuffs, and supple leather boots. All of it was fireproof.
There had been a small box of dragon relic jewelry in the package, as well—cuff earrings and claw rings, scale chain-mail collars and horn headpieces—but that had felt like a step too far. The line between fitting in and assimilating was narrow enough as it was without wearing the tools of her enemies.
As she burst through the trees, she came upon the dock, a long stretch of wooden planks that wound around the boathouse and jutted out into the brownish-gray-and-algae-green water. She made a face at the color; it had nothing on San Irie’s crystal-blue seas, cool and inviting.
“Hello, little one,” said Zephyra, creeping into her mind.“Signey waits for you inside.”
Elara couldn’t immediately see her dragon, but she didn’t feelscared or powerless as she entered the boathouse. She may have lost her astral summoning, but she had something almost as dangerous: information. And until Signey knew exactly with whom she had shared it, Elara was worth more to her Firstrider alive.
The boathouse looked pared down only compared to the fortress that was Hearthstone. Wooden like the dock that surrounded it, the building was two stories tall. In the cavernous first floor were three more docks, without any visible boats, and a path that extended backward into a living area and walls of doors. One of those doors must have led to a flight of stairs, because she could see a deck above her head that overlooked Serpentia Bay. Unless she jumped into the water and swam beneath the overhang to freedom, the only exit was behind her.
And Zephyra floated, belly up, between two of the docks like a silent threat.
“Come upstairs!” Signey called.
With a last glance at Zephyra, Elara followed the sound of that voice to the door that led to the staircase. It opened into a great room with vaulted ceilings, where two open doors with inlaid glass and rippling curtains took her onto a massive sundeck. White X-style railings surrounded the space, which had three matching tables scattered across it.
Signey was sitting at the one on the left with her back to the bay and her blazer discarded to reveal the puffed sleeves of her pine-green shirt. A gold ring on the middle finger of her left hand bore a green dragon’s-eye instead of a jewel, its slitted pupil watching Elara’s approach. The sun brought out the honey undertones in Signey’s cedar skin, turned her saddle-brown hair rose gold, shadowed her freckles until they looked like raindrops on dry earth. When sheturned to look at Elara because she wasn’t looking at the bay before, her eyes glowed with the light of the sun, a glorious, gorgeous amber.
She was beautiful. She was off-limits.
Elara reminded herself to breathe.
“Before we begin,” said Signey, gesturing toward the empty seats, “I have certain conditions.”
“So do I,” said Elara, who did not think to prepare any. “But you can go first.”
“My brother can never know about this. Torrey, either, because she’d tell him, but—” Signey didn’t even blink as Elara sank into the chair across from her, as if breaking eye contact would prevent Elara from taking her seriously. Her arm was thrown over the back of her seat, but her casual pose was ruined by the tense line of her jaw. “My brother is not and cannot be involved.”
“In exchange, I want you to teach me how to keep you and Zephyra out of my head,” Elara countered. “I’ve been relying on your goodwill in keeping up the mental walls.I’vebeen trustingyou. If this is going to be a true partnership, then you need to trust me.” “Both of you,” she added in her mind.“You cannot force me to accept this bond. I have to come to you by choice or not at all.”
She felt an answering thread of remorse float from Zephyra and ignored it. No such thread came from Signey, but that was all right. She had kept up her walls, kept out of Elara’s head. Whether she’d only done so to keep Elara from learning Signey’s own secrets was irrelevant.
Signey shifted in her seat, as if Elara had become interesting for the first time. “Agreed. My second and final condition is that we can’t be seen working together. If… if they’re watching me as closely as you alluded to, it will only restrict both our movements.”
“You just want an excuse to continue insulting me in public.”
“If you’ve felt insulted by my mild behavior so far, you’ve led a rather easy life.”
Elara snorted. “Fine. But I get to tell my sister anything and everything I think she needs to know. I’ll lie to everyone else, but never to her.”
“Fine.”
“And Reeve.”
“Fine.”
Elara raised her eyebrows. “Fine?”
“I have no issue with Reeve Warwick.” Signey held up a hand before Elara could argue. “You’ll understand why in a moment. For now, I agree to your terms.”
Below, the water churned like the ocean during a storm, but it was simply Zephyra twisting her lithe reptilian form out from the boathouse and into the wider bay. “I am going to swim with the others,” she reported.“I am merely a breath away if either of you needs me.”Signey watched her go with such a fond expression that Elara almost forgot they were here to negotiate.
“The Soto Dynasty,” Signey explained, “began in Isalina.”
Several puzzle pieces snapped into place, from Signey’s clear discomfort in the presence of her own commander to the brown shade of her skin. Isalina was another island in the Ember Sea, roughly four hundred miles north of San Irie. Despite having been colonized by Joya del Mar, Isalina’s people, the Linda, were long friends of the Iryans. The empire had forbidden all their colonies from getting involved in the war for Iryan independence, but several Lindan mercenaries had still provided naval support in secret, sinking Langlish supply ships.
