Page 112 of Flames and Blood

It is not nearly done.

They open the doors, and the long room is full. A man stands up from the far end of the table.

My step falters.

Shit.

Nobody told me. Or it was on the slate at seven this morning, and I stopped reading after the word “succession.”

He comes down the length of the room, stops a proper distance away, and bows his head. He’s older than I remembered. Dark red hair, cut close. A straight nose, a wide mouth, good teeth. He’s as tall as Gideon and as heavy through the chest. There is not one thing wrong with him. His scent reaches me a step before he does—clean, warm, clan-smell close under it, a healthy dragon who has traveled four days and washed before he came in. It’s a good smell. My body reads it, notes it, and does not care.

“Heir.”

“Kaevor.”

“I came as fast as the pass allowed.” He straightens. He has a good, even voice. “I’m not going to say I’m glad, because the word barely covers it. So I’ll say this instead: I thought about you every week for thirteen months. And whatever was done to you in that year, you owe none of it to anybody in this room. Nobody here is going to ask you for it before you’re ready to give it. But I am so grateful you are back.”

It’s exactly the right thing to say. It’s better than anything anyone has said to me since I got here, including my mother.

And I feel nothing.

He doesn’t repel me. He doesn’t stir the old sullen kick I used to get at nineteen when his name came up. A decent man is standing in front of me saying a kind and intelligent thing, and I can’t feel a single emotion for the man I’m supposed to marry someday.

It would be so much easier if he were awful.

I manage a small smile.

He’s not the one, my dragon says. Then she’s gone, and I can’t ask what she meant by that.

“Thank you,” I say. “That was well said.”

“It was rehearsed. Four days on a mountain road.” His mouth moves. “I’ve a worse version I was going to use.”

“Save it. I’ll want it later.”

Somebody laughs. Somebody else says something about sitting down. And then the evening starts. It goes on far longer than I can stand, and I sit through all of it.

Two families at one table. Toasts. A woman from his side who wants to tell me about her sons. The council, who have found a second wind. My mother at the head of it, running the room, and it goes on, and it goes on.

Twice I get as far as standing up.

The first time, three people stand with me, because that is what happens when the Heir rises. I sit back down and say something about the wine.

The second time, I get to the doors, and Aldis is at them. He isn’t stopping me—he’d never stop me—he just says, “They’ll notice, Heir.”

He’s right. I go back.

There is no way out of this room that won’t be news by breakfast.

Somebody brings the second course. The talk goes soft and long the way it does when people are content and not in a hurry.

Tonight. Late. I’ll get down here.

It was a promise. And I’ve broken it for four nights in a row.

Oh God. He must hate me so much.

I wait for my dragon to have something to say about it, but she’s not talking to me right now, and who could blame her? I can’t remember when last I did something so horrible to someone who deserved it less.