Page 38 of The Flame King's Queen

Fiala sighs and shakes her head.

“What do you mean by sighing like that?” I ask.

“Lady Isavelle, Captain Ashton is a fool.”

“How can you speak about your captain that way?”

“I respect our captain as a brave man and the most talented of the wingrunners, but that doesn’t mean he’s not a fool. I could list twenty tragic tales about a Beta falling in love with an Omega who is already fated to an Alpha. Go into any tavern at sunset and you’ll hear the bards singing stories of unrequited love with sad and bloody endings.”

“It’s Maledin’s favorite story,” Dusan agrees with a regretful twist of his lips. “We can’t get enough of hearing it again and again, and they all end the same way.” He draws his finger across his throat, crosses his eyes, and sticks his tongue out of the corner of his mouth.

“But those are just stories,” I protest. “It doesn’t have to end that way for Ravenna and Ashton.”

Fiala shakes her head. “Instead of hoping for any kind of bond forming between Ravenna and the captain, you must wish for Ravenna and Kane to resolve their differences. For their sake, and for our flare’s sake. Otherwise, we will have a dragon war on our hands, and the two flares will tear each other apart.”

“I wouldn’t want that,” I reply, my heart sinking. If a dragon war erupts, Esmeral and I will have to witness Zabriel and Scourge battle with Kane and Auryn, and as strong and clever as our mates are, they likely won’t get through that unscathed. “But it breaks my heart to think that Ravenna and Ashton could find peace and happiness together if it wasn’t for Kane.”

Fiala’s expression is somber. “If Ashton pursues an Omega who isn’t his, all he will find is a painful, messy end. For everyone’s sake, please don’t encourage the captain, Lady Isavelle. He mustn’t ever hope that Ravenna can be his.”

15

Isavelle

It used to be that when I flew into Amriste, only Biddy’s crows would greet me. Now there are farmers, children, geese, and dogs in the street once more. People wave to Ravenna and me as we head for my family’s cottage. The place isn’t as bustling as it used to be with half the residents dead, but it’s coming back to life.

“What a lovely place to have grown up,” Ravenna says, smiling around at the view. “So much sunshine and all the pretty cottages.”

“Where did you grow up? I realize I never asked you.”

“A place called Hurrow. We were overlooked by a big old manor that was crumbling with age. A lot of the houses were crumbling too. People claimed that the whole village was haunted.”

“And was it?”

“Most definitely.”

Dad’s hard at work getting his tannery set up again, so after giving him a kiss, Anise, Ravenna, and I take a walk around the cottages and laneways together.

“How are you and Dad adjusting with just the two of you in that house?” I ask.

“Good,” Anise replies, but her voice goes up at the end.

I stop in my tracks. “You don’t sound sure. What’s happened?”

Anise takes a long, slow look around the village. “Nothing’s happened. Dad is Dad, quiet and serious as always, and he’s grieving. We both are. It’s hard work trying to make Amriste feel like home again. It shouldn’t be an effort, should it?”

I look around the village square, trying to see it through my sister’s eyes. She was kept prisoner in an alternate version of Amriste, a shadow of the real thing. Nothing was as it should be, and now that she’s returned, half the people she once knew are dead, including our mother and brother. It’s no wonder this place doesn’t feel like home to her. It hasn’t truly felt like home to me either, not since I was tithed to the Brethren a year before the dragons returned to Maledin. Maybe it never truly felt like home. Even as a child, I was always trying to leave and travel north to the Bodan Mountains where Zabriel and his people had been entombed for five hundred years.

“Does Dad feel the same way?” I ask.

Anise shakes her head gloomily. “I have suggested we find somewhere else to live, but he won’t hear of it.”

That’s understandable. Dad spent many happy years here married to Ma, and it’s where his only son was given dragon rites. “When you are a little older in a year or two, perhaps we can talk about some other possibilities for you.”

“A year or two seems like forever.”

“It will pass quickly, and it will give you time to consider what you want to do with your life. Zabriel knows all sorts of people whom you might be apprenticed to or train with. You’re not limited to the scant options that women had under the Brethren. Also, if you are feeling restless for some travel, my coronation is later this spring, and you and Dad are welcome to join us in the capital.”

“Sounds fun.” Anise crosses her eyes and sticks her tongue out, making me laugh.

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