“Tell me… about the… military protocol,” she said between pants.
He wasn’t even breathing hard. “The House of Shadows is divided into three primary families.”
“Like the… four Bryonican… royal houses?”
He frowned and nodded once. “Sort of. Family is a loose term. It’s more like different factions, and people can move between families. My father has ruled the House of Shadows for five hundred years but not continuously. Another faction will rise up, depose my family and take over for a decade, and then my father will rally enough support to take back the throne.”
“That’s… barbaric.”
He shot her a rueful look. “Challenge is a way of life. The Society rules under absolute power across all of Alandria. Unchecked and unaccounted for. Challenge is put down like a dog. That is not freedom.”
Kerrigan just peered at him in surprise. “You are… competing to… join… the Society.”
“I am.” Though he said nothing further about why he had decided to join something he clearly disapproved of.
They ran until they came to the top of a bluff, and Kerrigan could run no more. “I need a break.”
She all but collapsed onto a nearby stone. She tilted, trying to get the stitch out of her side. It felt quite literally like someone was stabbing her repeatedly. She’d had it happen recently enough to know.
“This is torture.”
Fordham paced back and forth in front of her. “It’ll get easier.”
After her fingers stopped throbbing with the pulse of her erratic heartbeat, she managed to take a sip of her waterskin. “I’m surprised you’re talking about home.”
He looked off toward the mountains. “You needed to know why discipline was important.”
“Right, but you could have just told me to suck it up. Instead, you told me about your family… your people.”
His gray eyes met hers, cold and unyielding as ever. “Now, you will try harder, for you know the cause. I have gone to war. I have seen things you cannot comprehend. It has saved my life.” He held out his hand again, hauling her back to her feet. “And it will save yours.”
27
The Baths
Three days of discipline training equated to aching muscles, a desperate need to eat anything and everything in her path, and long long hours in the baths, like she was doing right now. Sleeping would have also been a great way to pass the time, but it still evaded her. Every day, she felt like she was going to drop dead from exhaustion and fatigue. Then, as soon as her head hit the pillow, her eyes were wide open.
Apparently, near-death experiences did that to a person. Five years ago, she had almost died, and sleep had never really come back. The knife embedding into her shoulder was just another thing to add to the list of reasons she couldn’t sleep.
She tipped her head back and sank an inch lower into the steaming water. A natural hot spring ran under the mountain and provided bathing water year-round for residences. It was easily one of the best things about living here.
Kerrigan tended to go when everyone else was already asleep. She didn’t mind being naked in front of the other girls, but she still wasn’t used to showing her ears. Not if she could help it.
Her eyes fluttered closed as the last couple days slid off her skin. She just wished she could calm her mind as much as the water calmed her body.
It didn’t help that she was anxiously awaiting to hear from Ellerby. She’d written him a letter and had it mailed to his home in Elsiande. She had no idea when to hope to hear from him… if she even would. Considering the state of his home, she thought it was unlikely. But now, she was worried about him.
The whole thing frustrated and confused her. To make matters worse, it put her no closer to finding a tribe to take her in time. She was going to have to put something together, figure out a way to pull some strings.
If only she could sleep…
Her breathing evened out. Her fingers slipped into the water. The lull of the underground baths pulling her deeper into slumber. It had been days since she’d slept more than a handful of hours. She couldn’t resist the pull.
A dream took root almost immediately. A dream unlike any other. This was crystal clear. The images stark and blinding, as if imprinted on her eyelids.
First, a gold medallion broken into three unequal parts. Once the pieces of the puzzle slid together, a symbol appeared—a raven. The same raven that had been on the dagger. The raven took flight, and abruptly, she was now looking down on the arena, but it was flooded. A series of platforms were held together by ropes, ladders, and an unsteady framework. The entire thing hovered in the air over the water, and as she watched, the structure moved. She found Fordham in the arena. He stood on a rounded bit of scaffolding as he reached out for something in front of him. A figure appeared behind him, but she couldn’t tell who, and with a sharp push, Fordham fell. She knew instinctively that he couldn’t fall, that he would lose everything. She reached for him, but already, the dream shifted.
This time, it was a blur of images flashing hastily before her eyes, as if there was so much, too much, to show in one snap. A warehouse, a length of rope, a dragon flight, a blue drink in a gold goblet, the back of a girl’s head with hair the color of ash, the Dragon Ring, Dozan standing over her, a figure in black, and a red mask.
“Kerrigan! Kerrigan!” a voice cried, jolting her awake.
She snapped out of her vision, jerking out of the water and coughing spastically to clear her lungs. She’d fallen all the way under. Any longer, and she might have drowned. She sucked in deep breaths as she tried to make sense of what in the gods’ name was happening to her.
“Oh my gods, are you okay?”
Kerrigan cleared her green eyes enough to see who had found her and kept her from drowning. “Audria,” she said in surprise.
“Are you all right?” She fiddled with a loose lock of her blonde hair.
“I’m… I’m fine. Thank you,” Kerrigan said, suddenly tongue-tied.
Audria was beautiful and royal and… a friend from home. A friend she could never be again because Kerrigan didn’t want anyone to know where she had come from.
“What are you doing down here?”
“I could say the same to you.”
“True,” Kerrigan conceded, running a shaky hand back through her red hair.
“But… I came to find you. I wanted to talk.”
“About what?” Kerrigan asked, retreating in the water but Audria stepped forward.
“I saw you were training with Fordham.”
“Yeah,” she said warily.
“How’s that going?”
“It’s… grueling. I think he takes pleasure in me being in pain.”
“That sounds like the House of Shadows.”
Considering what Kerrigan knew about the House of Shadows from Fordham, she would be even more inclined to agree. They weren’t just brutal to those they thought were beneath them; they were like that to their own too. Brutality was built into their being from a young age. No one could come away from that unscathed.
Audria continued when Kerrigan didn’t reply, “What’s he like?”