“Lorian, please,” Helly said, appearing swiftly across the sand-strewn arena. “Do not be too hasty.”
“Hasty, Hellina?” Lorian snarled. “After what you allowed to happen at the last tournament? This will not stand. There will be rioting in the streets.”
“Is that a promise, Lorian?” Bastian asked carefully.
Lorian glared back at him. “Not at all, Bastian. I am merely stating that a repeat of last tournament’s events will result in similar complications.”
“She was not a competitor!” Layla cried again. “She is not qualified.”
“I was not a competitor,” Kerrigan said, meeting all of their eyes. “But if you’d just let me explain.”
“Explain what?” Lorian asked. “I’m sure we’d all love to hear your rehearsed gambit for how you got a dragon, but we have no interest in it. We will hold a council meeting to decide your fate.”
“I, for one, would like to hear the girl’s story,” Sinead said calmly.
“As would I,” Helly said.
“Go ahead, Kerrigan,” Bastian said encouragingly. “We all need to know what exactly happened.”
“This is preposterous!” Lorian said.
Helly nodded at her, but Kerrigan could see the worry and fear in her expression. She wanted to tell Helly about the vision that had led her here, but now was certainly not the time.
“When all of this started, I met with Gelryn, and he tested me.”
A gasp went up by a few of the members present.
“He said he’d been waiting for me. Afterward, he said that I’d passed through. I didn’t think anything of it. I wasn’t actively competing.”
“Because you’re not a competitor,” Lorian grumbled.
Kerrigan’s cheeks heated. “Then, something called to me to join in the final task. I was spirited away to the Noirwood Forest, where Fordham and I barely managed to escape an ambush engineered by Darrid. When we got to the mouth of the cave, he was there again and prepared to kill us both. I held him off so that Fordham could enter, but Darrid ran me into the cave with a battle axe.”
“Gods,” Sinead breathed. “The competitors aren’t supposed to try to kill each other.
Helly’s face paled considerably. “No, they’re not.”
“From there, well, you all know what happened. I went through the final task and arrived in the room. It sealed itself behind me, and the Dragon Blessed confirmed that I was a competitor because the room accepted me. Then, Tieran chose me, and we were bound,” she said, rushing over the lie at the end.
“That’s incredibly dangerous, Kerrigan,” Helly said gently.
“Preposterous! The entire thing is outlandish. She was called to the tournament? She cheated. We cannot let this stand,” Lorian argued.
Suddenly, another round of cheers erupted from the crowd. Kerrigan turned with Tieran to see a bright purple dragon soaring in the skies.
Evien, Tieran said.
Kerrigan had always loved Evien because of how much she just adored flying. Not just because she could or had to, but because she wanted to. She’d had many a late-night encounter with Evien, who took her out into the night sky. She’d thought she’d never do that again.
Evien pulled up a little too quickly and landed a few yards away from them. But it was clear who her rider was as soon as her lithe form dropped on the sand—Audria.
The three adjudicators left Kerrigan with Lorian and Helly as they went to congratulate Audria on her success. But as soon as they were done, she rushed over to where Kerrigan stood and threw her arms around her.
“We did it, Kerrigan. We’re both in the Society.”
“Not quite,” she muttered, breaking from her embrace.
“What? What do you mean?”
She gestured to Lorian. “He doesn’t think I qualify. He wants to hold a council meeting about it.”
“No,” Audria gasped. She pushed Kerrigan behind her as if she could keep her safe from Lorian’s attacks. “I vouch for Kerrigan. The room picked her. It wanted her to be in the tournament, and she was tested.”
“A council meeting will be held to decide that,” Lorian said. “She doesn’t qualify. She has no tribe, and we have never had a half-Fae.”
“You never had a human before either, and you let two compete last time,” Audria shot back.
“And look at how that turned out,” Lorian snapped.
“Just because there are a few loud bigots doesn’t mean that we should go backward! We must stay the course or else people will think that all they have to do is cause enough fuss and we’ll take away other people’s rights. That is not the Kinkadia that I know and love. And I won’t stand by and let you use your prejudice against her.”
Kerrigan wanted to duck out of sight. She’d never had someone like Audria, who was so full of privilege, so very Bryonican royalty, stand up for her… to completely defend her. She barely even knew her.
Lorian opened his mouth to object again, but Audria barreled forward.
“And on the second account, my mother and I have agreed to select Kerrigan into Bryonica under the House of Drame.”
Kerrigan’s stomach flopped. Even though she had known Audria was going to do this, everything had changed. Before she had been running away from the people who had abandoned her. Now, she had just faced March and realized it was the very last place that she wanted to be. But she couldn’t say no. Not when her entry to the Society was on the line.
More applause from the crowd revealed a bright red dragon on the horizon.
Netta, Tieran said.
Netta was such a good flyer. She took tight corners and swirled through circles better than any other dragon Kerrigan had flown with. She and Kerrigan had always gotten along because they were both mischievous. Truthfully, she’d hoped to have Netta for herself. But when Netta landed, she couldn’t be happier to see Fordham drop from her back right next to her and Audria.
“Congratulations, Fordham,” Bastian said, holding his hand out.
Layla looked irritated but not as much as she had been with Kerrigan. “You’ve earned your spot.”
The implication was clear: Kerrigan hadn’t.
Fordham shook hands and then pressed through the crowd that had formed between them and to Kerrigan’s side. “You did it. I can’t believe it, but you did.”
Audria huffed, “We’re still working on that.”
“What’s going on?” Fordham asked.
“Lorian wants to hold a council meeting. He doesn’t think Kerrigan qualifies. Even though I just told him that Kerrigan is now a member of Bryonica.”
“She is?” Fordham asked in alarm.
“Yes, she is. So, she qualifies,” Audria said defiantly.
Lorian ignored her as he held conference with the adjudicators and Helly. More and more Society members were stepping onto the sand to meet the new members and their dragons and were getting sucked into the debate about Kerrigan.
Fordham tugged on her arm to draw her aside. “I thought you didn’t want to go back to Bryonica.”
“I don’t,” she admitted solemnly.
“Then don’t.”
“What other choice do I have?” she demanded. “Lorian doesn’t want to let me in. He’s only considering it with the other Society members right now because Audria stuck her neck out for me and said that I was Bryonican. If I don’t have tribe backing, there’s no way he’s going to allow it. He’d send Tieran back before letting a half-Fae with no tribe enter his Society.”