My dragon landed heavily on the rooftop, not moving until I slid from his back. His head turned to me and a habitual fear rose as I stared into his eyes. A far larger, more terrifying female silver dragon stared back at me in my mind’s eye, the purple glow of the mushrooms that grew in Drathnor’s cave giving her scales a lavender cast. With a blink, she was replaced by a woman, by multiple women, their shapes, their expressions, their faces flickering until they finally resolved into Fern’s form.
And if I can’t?I asked, only daring to give voice to my doubts in my own head.
Fate has tied us together.Argent didn’t clarify who and the nature of those bonds.Sort through their tangled threads and choose the right one and she will end up in your arms for eternity.
Apparently the lecture was over. My dragon launched himself off the keep roof, flying off to the mountain Wyrmpeak was named for and leaving me standing there, the wind tugging at my hair.
Easy for you to say, brother.
My reply went unheeded, Argent able to severe the connection at will. With a nod, I started forward, running down the keep stairs, only to find my human brothers on the landing outside the dining hall.
“There you are.” Kael slapped a bread roll stuffed with meatagainst my chest. I grabbed it and took a bite. “Apparently all first year cadets need to report to the ground floor for orientation.” That easy grin, sometimes it set my teeth on edge. “You know what that means?”
“Our Fern is a first year cadet,” Lorien explained unnecessarily. “We’ll be her escort.”
“Make clear that no one else should look sideways at what belongs to us.” Kael growled that out and sure enough, the lieutenant strolled past, a look of studied nonchalance on his face. I sucked in a breath, ready to ask what we’d do if Fern decided she didn’t want three lunks like us following her around, but the bells for the first class rang. “C’mon.”
With a shove, my brothers were off, leaving me to bring up the rear.
I didn’t want to walk into this massive hall. Scanning the room, seeing all the chairs lined up, a pathway clearly delineated through the middle, had my hand straying to the hilt of my sword. If I let my eyes go unfocussed, I’d see it. All the times people had come here before, the prosaic and the profound moments all jumbled up together as well as the ones still to come. Fern, walking down the centre, looking around nervously. Fern shrinking back as that vicious little bitch, Seraphina, turned and looked down her nose at her. Fern not knowing where to sit, feeling exposed, feeling?—
“This way,” I said, clapping my hand down on Kael’s shoulder. He and Lorien stepped aside, looking back at me, their expressions quickly changing. I didn’t need to turn around to see who walked into the room, but my feet moved of their own accord.
The way Fern pinned up her hair drove me mad. I’d seen it flying free, flapping in the wind like a flag as she grinned, and it took every single thing I had in me not to pull it out of it’s tight bun. Her uniform was buttoned up modestly, but it did little to disguise those curves.
Ones I’d committed to memory.
In dreams, nightmares, I’d mapped the shape of Fern,creating a facsimile of her inside my head and still it paled in comparison to the actual woman. The three of us stepped back, watching her walk past like dogs might a juicy bone. The little slip of a girl at her side smirked and nudged Fern, ensuring our girl noticed she had our attention. It should’ve come as no surprise that we followed hot on her heels. Lorien pulled out a chair, bowing with a flourish. I watched the pink flush spread across Fern’s cheeks as she stopped, looked around and that was the moment when our eyes locked.
Gods.
I’d stared into her eyes many, many times in my visions. That ring of pale amber around the iris of her blue eyes, I could draw the shape of it from memory.
Because I had so many times before now.
My journal was a heavy weight inside my jacket, containing a million secrets. Hand away from my sword hilt, it pressed the book into my ribs as if to reassure myself it was still there.
“All right, if everyone can take their seats.” That officious tone, the way the junior officers walked in like the silver insignias entitled them to order us around, was something I knew all too well. “Women to the left, men to the right.”
That had Fern jerking her focus away from me, taking the seat Lorien offered her quickly as she set her hands on her lap, so this was the point that we men stepped aside and went to our side of the hall.
Of course, my brothers would never do anything like that.
Kael sat down next to Fern, only after he dragged his chair closer, and she made a tiny sound of protest as Lorien sat down to her left. Fern’s companion grinned, a wild thing, right before she sat down in front of our girl.
Leaving me to sigh and sit down at her back.
The officers came to stand at the lectern at the front of the room, settling their papers before looking up and frowning. The leader with slightly more insignias than the others saw me and my brothers and frowned.
“Men on the right?—”
His thumb gestured to the other side of the hall, the good little boys that were already seated starting to mutter excitedly, obviously interested in the conflict they could foresee was coming.
“We’re exactly where we need to be.”
With a sigh, I raked my hand over my face at Kael’s words. Gods, did blood run true, because my brother seemed to have all the autocratic arrogance of a father he’d never spoken a word to.
“Do we have a problem, cadet?” I knew that tone. The blustering of someone who thought they had power, not realising how weak it made them sound. The officer strode over, then came to a stop, arms crossed. “Women are protected by the Royal Riders while they reside in the keep.”
