Page 3 of Crown of Ashes and Awe

No matter. It was time for my speech.

My lungs filled with anticipation and dread. With him tucked in behind the table and me standing in the doorway, he was my temporary captive. This was the perfect opportunity.

“Demius,” I began.

“This is not the time,” he said, cutting me off with the wave of his hand. “We’ve been invited to the keep tonight.”

I huffed. “That’s not even slightly amusing…”

He'd forgotten me already, his lips moving in an attempt to concentrate on the sentence beneath his finger. It was then I realized which book lay open. The thickest, oldest—the one book he could recite without opening the cover. He'd said so himself a dozen times. So why did his memory need refreshing today, when I was just about to win our years-long argument?

"Demius," I began again.

He grunted with impatience, which was unlike him. "I did not say it to amuse you. We have been invited. You are about to have your wish without the need to travel into the city. Fresh faces await. New conversations. Friends. Everything you wish for will be there." Without lifting his head, he reached up to gesture in the general direction of the keep that rested near the top of the hillside. A place we hadn’t visited for nearly a year.

"What did you do, invite yourself to dinner?" I'd been trained never to raise my voice, but I was outraged. He might have been reading my thoughts for days, might have known an argument was imminent. “A little diversion to put me off? How humiliating!”

He closed his eyes and exhaled completely, allowing his shoulders to deflate as well. Then he turned his head to look me in the eye—something he hadn't done for days. "In the time it took you to bathe, you suppose I ran up the hillside without your notice? Do I seem out of breath? Or do you suppose I stood outside and bellowed up to the woman while you had your head underwater?"

"The woman? You’re saying she camehere?” I took a dreaded look around our humble, dust-covered abode and refused to imagine Mother Semel standing inside. “I don’t believe you. I would have noticed her."

I’d called him a liar, yes, but I would worry about the consequences later. I was getting the fight I’d been looking for. I wouldn’t back down until it was all said. To gather my courage again would take weeks.

"A servant brought the invitation,” he said. “In days gone by, servants were taught to keep out of sight. I suspect little has changed. I only hope she didn’t see you at the pool." He turned back to his book, but hovered, as if waiting for my promise that I wouldn't interrupt him again.

I still couldn’t believe it. There was nothing on the table but the book.

"Where is this invitation? Did you toss it in the fire? Or did it turn into a bird and fly away? Don’t tell me—it was verbal, so there is no proof."

Demius’ old hand stretched out of his sleeve to gesture toward the wall where a paper note had been impaled on the nub of a metal nail protruding from the wood. If I hadn't been consumed by my much-practiced speech, I would have noticed the paper the instant I came through the door.

I felt his old eyes upon me again as I stomped over to collect the proof I’d demanded. I turned away to hide my expression while I read the words.

My dear friend, we are celebrating tonight, and our party wouldn't be complete without you. Viggo has graduated from the Guardian Academy and will be flying a dragon home for the occasion. Since your counsel made his success possible, it is only right that you join us. Bring Asper as well. It has been too long since we have spoken.

Absently,I smoothed out the holes made by the metal, then tossed the invitation into the fire. Had I kept it, Demius would infer the occasion was important enough to make me forget what I truly wanted.

"Well? Does that not please you?"

"Of course," I said. "I assume there will be food—food I won’t be expected to prepare."

"Naturally."

"But it makes no difference. I still intend?—"

"Faodaanwill be coming up in a matter of weeks. You would like to celebrate it in the city."

I hated him reading my thoughts, finishing my sentences. "I intend to."

"Then you shall. Give me...eight days to prepare."

The shock of those words nearly stopped my heart. Obviously, he believed he needed eight days to convince me to stay, but there was something in his voice that allowed me the dimmest glimmer of hope.

Though I was foolish to press him for the truth, I couldn't help myself. "Then you intend to come with me?" I believed the chances of him ever physically leaving the canyon were no better than my own escape.

"I...would like nothing better." His voice weakened at the end, as his attention was already caught on the words at his fingertips.

I hurried back outside where I could unleash my joy in private. Even if it weren't true, if he never really intended to allow me out of the canyon—ever—I could pretend for eight days. And at the end of those eight days, when he would have found reasons to rescind his permission, only then would I fight him with his own words. But for now, I danced upon the dust, singing barely above a whisper. "You promised. You promised. You promised!"

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