“Where have you been?” Luka seethed under his breath as Lyana came skidding into the royal chambers, off balance in her haste.
He was standing just inside the foyer with arms folded, wings uplifted, and deep wrinkles etched into his forehead. Clearly, he’d been waiting there, pacing, too worried for his own good.
“I was in Cassi’s room,” she whispered. Washing the blood from my wings and changing into one of the dresses I keep stashed there…just in case.
But he didn’t need to know that.
“The first house arrived fifteen minutes ago,” her brother announced.
“The ravens are here?” Lyana squealed.
Luka grabbed her by the arm, gaze darting around the room in search of any eavesdroppers. Or perhaps in search of their parents, who were undoubtedly waiting for her somewhere. But the gilded doors to their private chambers were closed, and the guards were stationed outside. She and her brother were, for the moment, alone.
“You saw them?” he asked.
Lyana met his questioning gaze but remained silent—suspiciously silent.
Luka squinted, trying to read her expression. “What do you know?”
“I don’t know." She shrugged, her features blank. "What do you know?”
“Ana.”
“Luka.”
They stared at each other, frowning.
Lyana relented. The more she revealed, the less he’d assume she was lying. “There was a dragon at the sky bridge, Luka. A dragon!” She tried to rein in the excitement leaking into her tone, but the feat proved impossible. Her voice trilled with awe. “Can you believe it?”
“You were there?” His eyes bulged, a reaction that was the opposite of hers. “I said to stay out of trouble, out of sight. What were you thinking? What—”
“No one saw us,” she interrupted. No one conscious, anyway… Lyana focused on the cover story she and her best friend had put together. “Cassi and I were hiding in a cave we discovered along the cliffs. We saw the dragon. We saw the ravens fight it off. And when they left to report back to their queen, who was traveling a few miles behind, we snuck out of our hiding spot and raced home.”
It was a good lie, a convincing one, and it rolled ever so smoothly from her lips.
Luka brought his palms to his forehead, rubbing his fingers over his short, black curls as he took a long, uneven breath. “Where’s Cassi now?”
Gathering supplies, Lyana thought, a little twinge of guilt in her chest. She smothered it easily. “In her rooms.”
“And she’s all right?” Luka asked.
“She’s fine,” Lyana assured him, then grinned. “Though I’m sure she’ll be overjoyed to hear how concerned you were for her wellbeing.”
Luka rolled his eyes and shoved her playfully. “You two…”
“Us two what?”
Luka shook his head with a heavy sigh. But a moment later, a smile appeared at the edges of his lips—a reminder that the mischievous brother she remembered was still alive in there somewhere. The weight of being the heir hadn’t smothered him entirely, at least not yet.
“So you really saw it?” he asked, eager curiosity in his tone.
“Luka…” His name came out in a delighted sigh, because she was unable to even find the words.
He stepped closer, widening his ashy wings and bending them like a protective cocoon, the way he used to do when they were children concocting a plot that would only get them into trouble. “What did it look like?”
“Fire and fury,” she said, not sure how else to describe the dragon. “Like a star that had fallen from the sky and gained wings. When it roared, I swear the clouds trembled.”
“How big?”
“Its wings were five times the size of mine, at least. And its mouth, the gods, it must have been as long as I am tall.”
“Red eyes?”
“Just like the stories said.”
“Ana…” He exhaled the word in a tone brimming with disbelief and wonder, then squeezed her shoulders, slightly crushing the silk sleeves of her gown. “I can’t believe—”
“I know,” she said, pitch high, hands balling into fists meant to contain the emotions rolling through her.
“What—”
“Surely these aren’t my children standing in the foyer giggling like two fledglings?” a deep voice boomed, interrupting their private celebration. “Not on the dawn of their courtship trials.”
Luka’s wings snapped away from her, folding tightly against his back. Lyana jumped out of her brother’s embrace, bowing her head as she turned to face the king.
“Surely the prince and princess of the House of Peace wouldn’t be gossiping like common servants,” the king continued, hands clasped behind his back, creamy wings wide and commanding as he scolded them, and not for the first time. “Not about something so incredibly disarming as a dragon invading our lands? As the fire god gaining strength? As Aethios being threatened on the eve of our most sacred ritual?”
“Of course not, Father,” Lyana muttered.
“Oh? ‘Of course not, Father’?” the king mocked, turning to his daughter.
Luka tossed her a sidelong glare. Talking back just made everything worse—for Luka, maybe. But if there was one person Lyana knew how to manipulate, it was her father. And she meant that in the most adoring way possible.
Swallowing a gulp, she took a step forward, then clutched one of the king’s hands in both of hers and looked up at him as she shifted her wings a little higher and made her eyes as large as possible. “A dragon? Here? Father, you can’t be serious. We had no idea. I heard the ravens arrived, and I came to find Luka to see if any other houses had come while I slept. We were talking about the trials. But a dragon? Today of all days?” Lyana paused, releasing a trembling breath as she pressed their clasped hands to her chest and glanced up at the ceiling as though it were the sky. “Bless Aethios.”
Luka snorted.
Lyana stopped herself from wrinkling her nose at him. The delivery was a bit dramatic perhaps, but it worked.
Her father relaxed. “I pray the gods give you a mate with some backbone, daughter. May the skies help him if he doesn’t have the wits to tell you no.”
“Aw, that’s not true.” Lyana smiled at him as she stepped back, laughter bubbling in her throat. “You hope I find a mate just like you, so I can wrap him around my little finger.”
The king tried to frown, but his lips disobeyed him and lifted into a grin as a deep laugh surged through his belly. “Maybe I do. Maybe I do.”
“Maybe you do what, dear?”
The queen swept into the room in a sapphire gown the same color as her bluebird wings, bright as ever in a house with feathers made of neutral tans and grays. She’d been the Princess of the House of Song long before she became Lyana’s mother and a queen. Her father claimed to have picked her from the flock during the first test of the courtship trials, when she’d shot three bull’s-eyes in a row into her target from across the arena and landed the fourth arrow in the heart of his empty center ring. But they were happy, it seemed, political marriage or not. Lyana’s family was close, a solid nest. Theirs was the sort of love she hoped for in her match, the one she’d make in only a few days.
“We were speaking of the trials, Mother,” Luka said, ever the doting son.
The queen threw her daughter an unsurprised look. “Ah, that must be why your sister looks so sullen.”
Lyana bit back a reply. Her mother was the only foe she was too afraid to face, with a sharp tongue and an even sharper ability to see right through her daughter’s schemes.
“Are the advisors waiting?” the queen asked softly.
“They are.” The king addressed his children, “Luka, Lyana, your mother and I want you to attend the meeting. We’d like your opinions on the matter.”
“On the matter of what? The dragon?” Luka questioned. It wasn’t so unusual for the two of them to be called into a meeting. After all, they were both learning how to rule. But something in the king’s tone made this particular meeting seem different, more important somehow.
“On the matter of postponing the courtship trials,” her father said.
Lyana’s jaw dropped. “What?”
“How long?” Luka asked.
“The ravens have asked for time, a few days at most, to regroup after the attack and help tend to their wounded. Your mother and I believe the House of Peace should have a unified opinion before the other houses arrive and try to interject on the matter. We’ve never postponed the ceremony before, and now of all times, with the fire god gaining strength, the idea seems rash. Yet, I sympathize with their situation.”
Luka nodded once, strong and sturdy, duty personified.
But Lyana chewed her cheek, thoughts racing a mile a minute. “The wounded? Did they say how many were wounded?”
“There’s no tally yet.”
“Are there any dead?” she asked, unable to help herself.
“Not that I’m aware of,” the king replied. When she opened her mouth to say more, he stopped her with a look. “That’s enough for now. We need to meet with the advisors before the next house arrives.”
Lyana swallowed her questions, but that didn’t stop them from swirling and churning in the back of her mind as she followed her family through the gilded door of the royal chambers, down to the meeting rooms on the level below.
Because she’d seen the fight.
She and Cassi were the only two people who truly knew what happened.
There were no wounded who needed to be tended to, no soldiers to regroup, no battle from which to recover. There was one fallen soldier—a soldier the ravens must believe was dead. It was sad, yes, but hardly so dire as to require delaying the courtship trials.
So why were they lying? Why were they exaggerating the truth?
And more importantly to Lyana, what in the world were they hiding?