Page 44 of The Flame King's Queen

“Oh, they will.” Kane’s gaze shifts to me. “Will you be competing as well, your kingliness?”

“That’sMa’lento you,” Stesha tells him.

“Compete in my queen’s coronation games? Of course I am.”

“Good. I was worried this would be boring. See you at the first event.” Without waiting for a reply, he turns to his dragon and makes his slow, dogged way up his flank while panting under his breath. It takes him a long time, but he doesn’t give up. He has the grit of a dragonrider, that’s for certain. When he’s finally in the saddle, his eyes are heavy-lidded and he’s shaking worse than ever, but he manages to stay on his dragon’s back as Auryn flies away to the north.

“His dragon will hurl him from the saddle on the first day,” Stesha declares, but there’s a gleam in his pale blue eyes.

“Perhaps the two share a stronger bond than I thought.”

Despite his declaration otherwise, I have the impression that Stesha does care if Kane competes, and he’s determined to beat him in every event. With Kane and Auryn entering the Dragon Games, things just got even more interesting.

We walk back toward the bridge together, and I see Scourge standing proudly and protectively over the flare, as still and solid as stone, his red eyes trained on the north at the point where Auryn and his rider disappeared. Nilak is stalking around the dragongrounds, her head low in the manner of an angry cat, snapping at the ankles of the young dragons who stray too far from the safety of the flare.

“You’ve noticed Ashton’s attentiveness toward Ravenna?” I ask Stesha.

“Yes. Idiot captain.”

Stesha shouldn’t have told Kane that someone in Lenhale has been paying Ravenna a dangerous kind of attention, but he’s already regretting it without me saying anything.

“I know. I misspoke. Sometimes my temper is as bad as Kane’s.”

“As bad as Kane’s? Not at all, dragonmaster. Your temper is far worse.”

That evening, I arrange for a horse and supplies to be delivered to Kane, and for a healer from the Flame Temple to attend to him, lest he not survive the night. I don’t fancy battling with Auryn at dawn if his rider perishes.

There’s no sight of man or dragon the following day, but the Temple Mother reports to me that Kane accepted her potions and treatment. Her eyes are flashing with irritation as she tells me about the encounter.

“What a rude, ungrateful young man. He called me a hag. Me! I’m not a day over forty-one.”

“I’m sorry for his rudeness, Mother. Please accept my sincere gratitude in his stead.”

“It’s all right. You’re a good boy, Zabriel,” she says absentmindedly.

I grin down at her. She’s a small woman, barely up to my chest, but there was a time when she stood over me and scolded me for running in the Flame Temple.

She realizes what she’s said and flushes red. “I’m so sorry,Ma’len. I spoke out of turn, still thinking it was the old days.”

I laugh. “Not at all. Sometimes the old days don’t seem so far away. I’m glad to hear you still think I’m a good boy.”

Two days later, I’m training at the barracks with Stesha and some other dragonriders when I hear the clip-clop of a horse’s hooves at the gate. Kane is dismounting from a glossy brown steed. He doesn’t stagger when his feet hit the ground and his hands are no longer trembling, but when he turns around, I see that his complexion is still pale and yellowish.

There are about two dozen of us sparring or practicing with the training dummies, and he watches us for a moment before calling to me, “I’ve come to spar.”

Stesha wipes sweat from his brow. “Then spar with a dummy. You have no armor and you’re the color of stale piss.”

Kane glances at the dummy and draws his sword. “You doubt my abilities? I can hold my own. The witchfinders trained with the Brethren Guard.”

“Why did you bother when your quarry was unarmed, frightened women?”

“Sometimes the locals would become hostile when we arrested their women.” He holds up his blade before his face, pointing to the sky. “We worked alone, but a few untrained farmers with pitchforks are no match for a man with a sword.”

Kane gets dirty looks from every soldier at the barracks. So this is how he is accustomed to fighting. My soldiers would be too ashamed of themselves to ever pick up a sword again if they drew on farmers.

“One of you spar with me,” Kane demands.

“You wouldn’t last ten seconds,” I tell him.

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