Page 38 of Feralheart

“Sire.” I bobbed something that wanted to be a bow and eased past him on the path, close enough to smell warm leather, both hands still locked behind my back.

“Good luck with the moonvetch,” he said.

“And you with your hunt, Your Highness.”

I raced back to the aerie.

The sting didn’t hit me until I’d reached the servants’ gate. A red line ran across two of my fingers where I’d gripped the talon’s edge. I’d bled the whole climb without feeling it.

The prince had stood near enough to touch, watched me hide something behind my back, and never once asked what it was.

A man who didn’t ask questions was a new kind of dangerous.

I hid the talon shard in the supply room under a pile of rags where no one would find it.

I stood staring at the pile after, my heart pounding.

Nuant already suspected something, and now I’d hidden a piece of evidence in a room he could search at any moment.

I should throw it down the quarry drop. Bury it in the forest. Anything but keep it here.

But I couldn’t make my hands reach for it. The talon had shown me the dragon’s sanctuary. She was trusting me with pieces of herself, literally. I wouldn’t repay that by discarding what she’d given.

Even if it got me killed.

The second bell sounded, and I got back to work, hauling water to the wash stations. My shirt soaked through, and beads of sweat drizzled down my face, mixing with the coal dust in the air. It only left when the wind blew right and today, the wind was blowing wrong.

After finishing with the water, I headed back inside the aerie.

I found Euan in the tack room, the leftover scraps from his meal drying on his plate. He sat on a stool, mending a harness strap, his scarred lip twisting to one side when he glanced up.

“Eradin.”

“I need a trial waiver.” I said it plain. “I’ll likely die, but I’m doing it anyway.”

His hands stilled on the leather. He studied my face for a long moment, then set the harness aside. “Do you know what you’re asking?”

“I’m well aware.”

“Can’t talk you out of it?”

“No.”

He studied me long enough I wanted to fidget. “You know how many commons I’ve signed for?”

I waited.

“Four. Including my only son.” His fingers traced the edge of the strap. “Three couldn’t get on the dragon. Just stood there, frozen, until the handlers pulled them out.”

“I won’t freeze.”

“That’s what they said.” Euan rubbed his scarred lip with his thumb. “My son entered the race before the last one. That was thirty years ago. Made it to the Scorching. When he survived the first leg of the race, we thought he just might do it. The second trial ate him alive.”

He stood and pulled a wooden box down from a shelf, his movements slower than they needed to be.

He opened the box and stared at the stamp inside for a long time.

I couldn’t get air past my teeth.