Page 11 of The Wrath of Ashes
“Elin! Get your arse up here this instant! There were agreements in place.” The earl hissed from the tops of the stairs, and she turned, her face fierce with all the anger that twenty years had garnered him.
“And you violated them. An heir and a spare were my agreement to you, and your sons are your spitting image. All seven of them!” Elin pulled herself from the bars and whatever she’d come to say, fizzled out when she stormed upstairs. With shocking finality, the heavy, wooden door slammed.
Promiscuous rodent.
Asha had little else he could do but curl onto his side and weather the healing pain of his ripped ear and striped back. His father’s maidservant had given him a thimble of poppy milk once as a child to help, before money grew too thin to afford it.
The bustle of servants overhead ran in full force, people cleaning areas of the castle untouched, making up for Lyss’s absence, softly weeping. The harder Asha focused, the more he imagined he could hear until all went up in a great tizzy, then silenced, peppered only by the quick step and harried breath of one of the maidservants. Her eyes were puffy and swollen, filled with tears that genuinely startled him.
“They’s told you about Lyss?” Adrianna, he realized, clutched a bundle to her chest.
Asha couldn’t form words. He only nodded, afraid to say a word lest his voice break.
“My lord says you must clean yourself up for your guest.” She forced her arms through the bars, handing him clean clothes and a razor. He stared down at the things in his arms as she scurried off before bringing him a bucket of water. He wanted to refuse it all but risking them turning their nose up at him…making him stay? He wanted nothing to do with Earl Tippin or his shrew of a mother. He heard the violence she could give, the stern way she held Earl Tippin at bay. To claim she was sorry was bitter fruit. She’d been kind at times, but now that he knew the gestures were out of her own guilt and not kindness… The gifts seemed hollow.
“Fine. If they wish me pretty for my bride, then so be it.”
Mezerath
The earldom, at one time, had been a fine thing, flush with gold and thriving. In appearance, it was increasingly apparent that time was no more as they flew overhead. There, brown fields with bleached earth grew sparse, even in the autumn harvest season.
Baldric, his captain, whistled, throwing up a hand for Mezerath to fall back as they donned their horned helmets and landed first, their wyverns testy from the long flight. They shuddered almost in unison, huffing to one another that they were ready for a moment’s rest.
Whistles went up and Rath tugged on Heckle’s reins and gently floated down, landing softly amid his servants, poised pretentiously before a welcoming party.
“Hail! We, the party of King Mezerath, the first of Sauria, announce ourselves with permission of King Reigh of Monsmount. A tribute has been paid and our letter of permittance bearing the king’s seal.” Mezerath’s servant held the letter aloft, but none asked to verify it. None wanted to approach their wyverns.
“Are the earl and countess present?” He scanned the crowd, looking for something and didn’t find it. The drab colors of the assembled help all stared in varying degrees of awe, surprise, and thinly veiled disgust.
“They are predisposed but will be with you forthwith,” what appeared to be a groundskeeper said. None that greeted them wore any sort of finery or décor, and the notion didn’t seem to escape his human servants.
Moments later, a severely thin woman strode free ahead of a chastened male, his face a map of greed, with a certain rodent-like quality that didn’t escape Rath. From the signs offresh bruising around his nose, Rath could only assume their dispute had become rather domestic, and she the victor. Her posture and certain facial elements had a familiar air to them. A Wyverncrest. He usually wasn’t good with telling humans apart, but this he knew.
“Earl and Countess Tippin!” a somber-faced boy that bore a passing resemblance to the rodent-like earl said.
“Well met, King Mezerath of Sauria. We have been expecting you. The notice was short, so forgive our lack of preparations.” The Wyverncrest woman nodded her head, and Rath tilted his head slightly, letting his chain jangle. His human retinue dismounted and stood at the ready for Rath to step down.
As he approached, he stood taller than his companions, a head above them all with great horns above that, casting an ominous shadow as he approached, keeping his face carefully stoic. He watched her shrewdly, how she stood proud, and the rodent aside her tetchy and prone to lashing out, no doubt. Lashing out at his mate, at least.
“How was it, might I ask, that you came to know of the boy?” No decorum, no greeting. The weak-jawed man offered his watery-eyed scowl.
“I have the ken of many things, of the sky and stars, the moon and its mysterious dance. Magic flows through my veins as it does the boy’s. Magic is wont to seek magic, so I divined him here.” Rath waved his hand dismissively and inclined his head, nodding toward the door to the estate, ready to be inside, to find his mate.
“Of course, my lord.” The Wyverncrest woman curtseyed and turned, ready to escort him in, but the rodent stopped her.
“The gold that was promised!” Earl Tippin dared to demand so impudently before him.
One of his human companions unloaded a half-cask-sized chest held fast to his wyvern in its wooden crate. Twoapproached, opening the lid for the earl, and he was immediately satisfied with the quantity, though it was a tenth of what a Saurian cask would have been. Before he could reach for it, Rath snapped his fingers, and the trunk closed with a snap.
“The boy, first.” Rath’s low tone made the earl cower and the countess stiffen.
“Surely you’d like to come inside for tea an—” She extended a hand to gesture him in.
“The boy. You want me here as much as I want to be here. I’ll take him and leave.” Rath inclined his head and lost their gaze. “You may show me to him.”
“He is readying himself for you, King Mezerath. Please, give him—” The countess recoiled when Rath growled low.
“The boy’s spirited, you see.” The earl stepped out of Rath’s reach and gestured toward the door.
