“Afraid of the competition? Don’t worry, Ryu. You’ll always be my favorite person to irritate.”
They were two peas in a pod that way.
A second later, Tate rolled her shoulders a few times, unable to help her unsettled feeling, like the skin between her shoulder blades was trying to crawl away. The feeling seemed to get worse the longer they lingered.
“This is a strange place.”
“Yes,” Ryu agreed. “It’s supposedly worse for people like us.”
Tate wondered if that was because their dragons came from the other side of the Rift—or if it was a symptom of housing two souls in one body.
“We’re the only two dragon-ridden currently alive who didn’t begin with the Rift,” Ryu informed her as they moved slowly toward the others.
“How many known dragon-ridden are there?” Tate asked a question that had been bugging her for a while.
Ryu gave her an enigmatic smile. “The only one who knows for sure is Thora.”
Tate sent Ryu a sidelong look. Did he really expect her to believe that the man who was essentially the emperor’s spy master didn’t know how many other dragon-ridden existed?
Surely, he was aware she knew him better than that.
He leaned his head toward hers. “Information regarding the dragon-ridden is considered one of the most highly sensitive pieces of intelligence.”
“Even from other dragon-ridden?”
“Our history is littered with dragon-ridden who’ve either gone insane or had to be put down when they tried to assassinate the emperor in an attempt at establishing themselves as a supreme ruler.”
Tate stopped and stared at Ryu’s back. “Are you serious?”
Ryu made a small noise of assent.
“No wonder they’re so sensitive.” She would be too in their place.
Tate started walking again.
Ryu’s lips twitched up in a smile. “I find it interesting you didn’t have much of a reaction to touching the glyph. The last time I did that I was out for a week.”
“Maybe because I’m the oldest?”
Ryu slanted her a meaningful look. “That, or a side effect of the present Jax left you.”
Tate didn’t have to ask what Ryu meant. The Apportens Mortis.
According to the ancient woken under Aurelia, it was Jax’s greatest accomplishment. A gift to future generations in the form of a destructive weapon unlike any other.
Only, the truth was very different than what legend led people to believe.
Tate was that Apportens Mortis. A product of Jax’s tinkering while she slept away the centuries.
A part of Tate believed it was possible the ancient had gotten it wrong. The Jax Tate remembered had been a peaceful man, one who preferred science over violence and only resorted to force when necessary.
She couldn’t see him turning her into a weapon unless the situation was very dire. It was too bad he hadn’t thought to include detailed instructions on how this thing worked in the message he’d left her.
The Lord Provost rose from where he was examining a misshapen figure on the ground. “Lady Fisher. Or is it Lady Winters now.”
“Fisher is fine. Winters is a thing of the past,” Tate answered as her gaze wandered to the other man, the one who hadn’t come through the distortion with them.
Tate almost choked when she met the vivid green eyes of the man standing next to the Lord Provost.
