Page 7 of Feralheart

I hurried to the water bucket and scrubbed my arms, face, and hands again. When I’d finished, the smoke tinge was gone and my palms still tingled where I’d touched the wild one’s scales.

I flexed my hands, and the skin across my palms pulled and stung. Fine red lines had risen. I closed them to fists until the tremor stopped.

Heartsbrim’s stall sat in the southern wing. The ruby dragon had the over-bred look of all elite bloodlines. He tolerated my presence as I ran the polishing cloth over his scales, suffering the attention with the patience of a creature that had learned compliance long ago.

A sound at the gate sent me spinning. Lady Vella Severine entered the stall, dressed in a silk gown the color of wine, her reddish-blonde hair coiled on the top of her head and adorned with tiny pins shaped like dragons. Their wings fluttered, enhanced by her magic. About a year older than me, twenty-eight or nine, she moved through the world like it owed her.

Her family controlled half the grain mills in the eastern provinces, so maybe it did.

“Do a good job. Don’t be sloppy,” she said, though she didn’t sound angry, just stating a fact. Her time mattered. Mine didn’t. “I want Heartsbrim’s scales to shine.”

“Yes, my lady.”

She stepped closer, examining her dragon as one would property. “You’re the woman who’s good with them, aren’t you? People say the dragons actually like you.”

I kept my eyes down. “I do my job, my lady.”

“Hmm.” She ran one finger along Heartsbrim’s front leg. “See that you do it well. I won’t have my dragon looking dull for the exhibitions.”

She left without another word.

As I buffed scales, I thought about the wild dragon and the way it had looked at me. The heat of its hide. The intelligence in its eyes. And the way it had flown, jagged and labored, leaving no blood trail for the hunters to follow.

My mouth found the same low hum, my mother’s tune working its way through my teeth. Heartsbrim’s breath hitched once before evening out.

I pressed the cloth harder, working on the same spot until it gleamed. My hands knew the rhythm. My body knew its purpose. Make yourself useful enough to keep and unassuming enough to ignore.

The spot I’d polished reflected my face back at me, showing a small, useful person. A woman the elite would never see.

The wild dragon hadn’t kept its head down. It had looked at me in a way no beast at the aerie ever did. And I’d sent it back to the sky while Tolross lay in our home, getting sicker.

The cloth stilled in my hand.

I hadn’t chosen a stranger over my brother. I’d chosen the scream I could stop over the one I couldn’t. That didn’t make what I’d done noble. It only made it true.

I finished with Heartsbrim in silence, packed away the supplies, and slipped out of the aerie without looking up at the sky beyond the stable doors, where something wild had flown free.

Inside the fortress, I walked quickly and quietly toward the records room.

The Scorching.

If I could get inside, I could read the requirements. Pausing at the door, I reached for the knob.

“Eradin.”

I spun with my heart clawing up my throat.

Narlene from the kitchens stood at the end of the corridor, a basket of potatoes propped on her hip. The silver threading her dark braid caught the muted sunlight coming through the window to her right.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” she whispered, glancing back down the hall.

“I got turned around.”

Her gaze flew from me to the records room door. “My Dorresk works these rooms. I know who belongs in this wing. You don’t.” Her voice dropped. “Whatever you’re thinking—don’t. If someone caught you… Well, we can’t let that happen.”

After giving me a long look, she strode away.

I rushed back to the aerie before the overseer could miss me.