“You are a prize,” he told me. “And under the rites of the Trials, you were to be won.”
He offered me his hand. “Be careful, Cara. And remember I’m here to help you when you need me.”
Not if. When.
“And I am here for you,” I said breezily, though I doubted it meant anything to him. What could a mortal do for a shifter like Ander?
But his gaze softened slightly. “Thank you.”
When we stepped into the main chamber, his raised voice was curt. “Fear!”
He looked as if he hated having Fear’s name on his lips as much as Fear hated to name Ander. “I would discuss terms with you for this favor.”
Six
Fieran
Ander said my name the way that had become familiar: cold and demanding.
“Somewhere else.” I led him further into Bismyth territory, toward my room.
He had come looking for Cara, which was interesting. And he had brought his shifters with him, who looked as if they weren’t sure they wanted to stay there without him. The tension in the air between Bismyth and Amber was a fierce and living thing.
I glanced back at Cara once. She stood unmoving, her long blond hair hanging loose around her shoulders. She looked radiant in her light armor, her leather vest, and her sword and braces fitted to her lean figure.
I closed the door behind us. The celebration shrank to something happening in another world. The lamps had not been lit, and the curtains moved with the breeze off the dark sea. Some part of me yearned to dive out the window and let my wings catch the wind, and it wasn’t solely because speaking with Ander always left me annoyed.
“You married her,” he said.
“She married me. The distinction matters to her.”
“You want me to bring her back to Amber. With the queen’s attention on my clan.” He mentioned the queen’s attention with a flatness that told me it was not the first time he’d said it aloud today. He was worried for his clan, and yet he had time to worry for my wife.
I had expected anger. He had been relieved to see her married to me and out of Amber, and that was unexpected. “Tell me the threat.”
He studied me for a beat. Deciding how much I already knew. A fair exercise; I did it to everyone. “The queen has sent a message. If an Amber dragon claims the half-mortal during the ceremony, there will be consequences. You know her practice of sending clans to die for their disobedience.”
“I do.” She had not been able to order Bismyth into unwinnable battles because of the magic that bound her, but she had done it to Lazuli, thinning their ranks due to their tendency of collecting inconvenient knowledge.
“Whatever you thought you were hiding, she knows who Cara is. Or she suspects enough that the result is the same.”
“She suspects. The distinction matters.”
“Not to my dead clan members if Cara draws an Amber dragon.” Something shifted in his face. Brief, controlled, and then gone. “I thought you’d solved my problem and protected her. She would have been free of the queen’s leverage over my clan. For one moment, I thought you’d done a decent thing. Accidentally.”
The words landed with the weight he’d intended. “She can’t belong to Bismyth. Not yet.”
His eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“The Claiming requires she come through Amber. It will serve both our clans in the end. It will be worth this danger.” He wouldn’t trust me, but I tried anyway.
“She will die, Fear.” Ander turned to face me fully, his voice livid with rage, his eyes blazing. I’d seen that look before when we were boys, before he tackled me into a wall; the memory rose, sharp and strangely nostalgic.
Back then, we used to beat each other bloody and then apologize. We’d always made up.
“She will not. I promise you that, Ander.”
He scoffed. “Putting aside the worth of your promises…you’re asking me to take her back into a threat the queen delivered to my face and tell my clan to absorb whatever damage comes after.”
