Page 1 of Crown of Ashes

ere forever. But they were here for now, and I was sure Lightbringer was mine, forever.

I said goodbye to my parents and started across the field, abandoning Fieran to his fate.

“He deserves it,” Lightbringer said as I reached her, and I looked up sharply.

Sometimes I thought there was a bond between us. A new one, fragile and unclear, but growing.

Perhaps it was just a dream.

“Being left behind,” she added, dipping to the ground. “Shadowbane has been out hunting over the ocean, and he is going to be late. He can never pull himself away from fishing with Suncrest.”

I clambered onto her back. I could manage it on my own now; my body had grown stronger over the past few months, though it was still clumsy. She turned her head enough to regard me with one judgmental eye, but restrained herself from comment in the visible way the dragons had. They were so very patient with us, but they wanted their credit for it.

Then we took off. We soared over Fear, who broke from his latest disaster to wave up at us with both arms indignantly, and I didn’t need any kind of bond to know Lightbringer chuckled.

We flew over the glittering sea, over the city streets that had been forest and field in the Dreaming. Then we came back to the castle.

Kiegan was waiting for me in the courtyard. It had been opened to the sky once more, so our dragons could always enter.

I slid off Lightbringer’s back and into his waiting arms. “Kiegan! You’re back!”

“Not for long,” he said grimly. He hugged me, quick and perfunctory, but I would take it. “I have a report to make to my queen and king.” His voice turned dry at the titles, the way it always did.

“Over breakfast,” I suggested, and he rolled his eyes but followed me.

Kiegan told me over tea and pastries in the study about what he’d learned when he was traveling in orc territory. It was all about the politics of the region, gaps and disagreements that Fear and I might exploit to keep the orcs under control.

Then he hesitated, which was unlike him. “Though there is a more direct way to deal with Braegan.”

“You want to kill your father.”

“I have to.” He drummed his fingertips on the table. “There’s stories. That he’s taken another woman as he did my mother.”

My stomach dropped. “We’d know if a dragon shifter was lost.”

“I couldn’t find much about her.” His eyes had gone dark, his voice hard. “But I will.”

Anxiety choked my chest. Some of the people I loved best were scattered to the winds. Tay. Ander. Tesa. Now Kiegan, too, would go.

But he had to. I could see it on his face.

“Tell me what you need, and it will be yours,” I said.

The fury on his face softened slightly. “Thank you, kitten.”

“Going to take a throne for yourself? Become king of the orcs?”

He scoffed. “Seems like too much trouble.”

“Well. You have to come back to me, one way or another. I can’t lose you too,” I said, and I was going to make some joke about how I needed him around so my manners seemed better in comparison, but my voice had come out uncomfortably sincere.

“I will,” he promised, rising to his feet. Then, ever so dryly, he turned at the doorway and said, “I couldn’t leave my bestie.”

It startled me into a laugh, into a sudden flutter of warmth, and then he was gone.

I sipped my tea, swallowing it along with my tears. I wasn’t sure why it hurt so much to have Kiegan leave. No, I knew why. I just didn’t want to face it. I loved far more people than I had before I left Stonehaven, and that was a gift, but it was also terrifying.

Maura tapped her knuckles in the doorway. I blinked away the last of my emotions, rising to my feet. “Yes?”