“Thank you,” Elara whispered, feeling like she’d been struck.Oh no.
Her mouth had forgotten how to form other words, but there were too many people around for it to be noticed. Jesper wasted no time in getting between them, dragging his flailing sister into a bear hug.
“Congratulations toyoufor having such an amazing Wingleader.” His knuckles rubbed against her head, messing up her ponytail. “I’ve never been prouder of you.”
“Why are you such a bloody child?” Signey grumbled, shoving at him. Jesper caught her hands, and an impromptu wrestling match broke out. Watching them made Elara miss Faron with a sudden ferocity, even though they had just spoken before the race. Would Faron congratulate her on having won? Or would she be worried that Elara was getting along too well with the enemy?
Signey finally managed to win the match by kicking her brother so hard in the shin that he cursed. Elara’s smile fizzled out when she noticed that Marius and his den were halfway up the hill. No acknowledgment. No congratulations. NoNice race. Nothing.
She broke into a run, catching up to Marius at the top of thehill. The smarmy expression on his face was so at odds with what had just happened that it took some of the magnitude out of her victory. He didn’t respect her any more than he had before the sky trial. He would probably tell people that her victory had been a fluke to save face. In his eyes, she would never be worthy of respect.
Elara expected the conclusion to hurt, but she realized that she didn’t care. She didn’t care what Marius Lynwood thought of her or San Irie. She had proven him wrong, not to gain his respect but to remind herself that she could. To remind herself that people like him were the ones who were nothing, because they only had as much influence as she chose to give them. He might have been Langlish born, privileged and powerful and surrounded by people only too happy to tell him that this made him better than her, but her very existence in his world was proof that his position couldn’t change the facts.
She had come to Hearthstone Academy.
She had beaten him in the sky trial of an incendio.
She was everything that he had been taught to fear: an Iryan with the intelligence, strength, and confidence to turn his own skills against him.
So, in the face of that arrogance, she smirked, a sharp and scathing thing that felt like a weapon on her lips. “Hey, Lynwood? Fuck. You.”
And then she walked away to celebrate with her den.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
FARON
THAT NIGHT,GAELSOTO CAME TOFARON IN HER DREAMS.
He stood unmoving in the center of Deadegg’s town square. Even though the sun was high in the sky, Deadegg was quiet and still. There was no wailing from babies bouncing on their mothers’ hips or screaming from children too young for compulsory education, begging their fathers for the money to buy a cherry drink. There was no bleating of goats clogging the narrow roads or barking of stray dogs in search of scraps. Even the storefronts appeared to be empty, wooden shutters drawn closed, awnings lowered and doors chained up.
There was just her and Gael and the city of Deadegg around them, as silent as fog.
“You lied to me,” Faron said instead of wasting time trying to determine if any of this was real. “You’re trying to raise the First Dragon.”
Gael tilted his head, his hair sliding against his smooth cheek like rivers of ink. “I have never lied to you, Empyrean. I told you that I wanted something from you in exchange for my help.”
“You didn’t tell me the whole truth, then,” said Faron, wellversed in the many forms a lie could take. “You made me think that you needed me. But that’s not quite true, is it? You only need me if Commander Warwick doesn’t give you what you want first.”
“It sounds as if you think you have me all figured out. So why don’tyoutellme?”
“I’m sick of your games,Gray Saint. I want the truth, or I swear to Irie I will never summon you again.”
Gael studied her in silence, his hazel eyes sliding over her face with so much intensity that she could almost feel it. Faron didn’t blink. In a battle of wills, she had few peers. He would meet her as an equal or not at all.
A faint smile bloomed on his face. “All right, then. The truth.”
“What do you want from me?” Faron demanded. The question seemed to echo around the empty town, louder and louder until it were as if she had screamed it.
What do you want from me?
What do you want from me?
What do youwant?
“I want the same thing you want, Faron Vincent,” Gael said, cutting through the clamor. “Freedom.”
“From?”
