The Dragon Queen's Heir [book one]

26

"SO YOU'RE SAYING you've been having visions and hallucinations since the moment you've stepped foot at Nightshorne?" Nikolai says doubtfully, adjusting his grip on the warm cup of water cradled in his hands. "And these visions and other hallucinations have involved Milay, the person who nearly destroyed the entire school, and this mysterious older sister you told me about earlier, and your mentor Oliver?"

I shiver in my blanket, wrapping my numb fingers around the edge of the smooth fabric and bringing it closer to my chest. "Something like that. Yeah." The night sky stretches above us, masked by the dense trees and branches of the forest. "First it was a vision at my Selecting. Maybe of the future."

I shiver again, and Nikolai frowns, coming to sit beside me. Somehow his presence warms me immediately, even before he reaches his arm behind me and wraps me into a half-hug. "It's okay," he says softly, his breath forming into mist in front of his face. "What did you see? Was it anything concrete, or only flashes?"

"Mostly flashes." I lean into him almost instinctively, inhaling his scent as I struggle to find my next words. "There was a huge dragon. Now I know it's hers, but at the time, it was terrifying. It still is." I snort out a laugh, staring at the grass beneath my feet. "And then I saw her. Milay. She was cackling, like she'd already won." My heart beats erratically in my chest, my breaths coming in shorter and shorter bursts. "The school was burning. Stars, it was--"

Nikolai squeezes my shoulder, cutting off my train of thought. "It's going to be fine, Ciana. I'll make sure of it. Have you seen anything else like it since?"

I shake my head as well as I can in my position, my tangled and knotted hair falling in front of my face as I do so. So fake. I almost miss the bright red it used to be, the bright red it still could be, if only I took off the bracelet and revealed my identity.

Ashlyn . . . Eira's warning growl rises in the back of her throat as she stirs beside me. She's been silent the whole of our conversation so far, opting to let the contempt leaking through our link speak for her. That would just be stupid.

I frown. I know. But still . . . Nikolai has been the only person I've been able to open up to fully so far. The only person without an ulterior plan like Professor Singh, the only person willing to tell me any and every idea he has, unlike Mikki. The only person who hasn't lied to me once.

Shuffling in the bushes in front of us snaps our attention away. Right as I'm about to leap up and grab my things to run, a hand reaches through and pushes aside a thick layer of vines. A thick mop of brown hair appears a moment later, and soon, the whole of a boy I hoped I'd never see again stands before us, one hand clenched around a rough dagger.

"We need to talk," Colin says, his piercing blue eyes directed straight at me.

Heat rises to my face almost immediately as I narrow my eyes. "Why?" I want to run straight at him, demand to know how and why he knows my identity, and why in Nightshorne he's conspiring with the headmaster behind my back. But I stop myself, instead clenching my fist in my laugh. "We were having a perfectly good night before you showed up."

Colin visibly flinches, his face turning a deep red. "Well, this is important. So if you wouldn't mind . . ." He gestures to the brush behind him. I glance beside me to Nikolai, who simply shrugs slightly. "A . . . Um, Ciana, this is important. Please." He sighs and shakes his head, brown hair flying around his head.

"Fine," I say, standing and throwing my blanket onto the grass beside Nikolai. I toss him an "I'll be back" before following Colin into the trees, crossing my arms as we step over stumps and vines and prickly bushes I wouldn't dare stick my hand into. Colin moves like he's done this a thousand times, his footfalls nearly silent even though dead leaves and other things litter the ground around us.

Finally, we stop, Colin turning to me with a resigned sigh. "Okay, so--"

"You can save it." I rub my arms, blowing out a long breath. "I know you know who I am. There's no point hiding it anymore." Pushing past his slight shock, I continue. "And I know you're conspiring with the headmaster behind my back. You're planning something, and I'm going to figure out what." Something tells me this is a bad idea, that if I want to find out what's going on, I should keep quiet. Find out on my own. But sense and logic have abandoned me, and my tongue moves of its own accord.

Colin sighs and fixes his gaze on the ground, running his hand quickly through his hair. "Ashlyn, that's not what's going on. She's getting to you." He pauses, his eyes passing over things unseen. "That's actually what I was going to talk to you about."

Ignoring the slight trill that runs down my spine at the sound of my birth name, I cut him off, saying, "What? She's influencing me? I think it's quite the opposite. You're the one who pretending not to know who I am, all the while talking about me behind my back like some defenseless little girl--"

"Because you are defenseless!" Colin all-but shouts. Birds leap from the trees around us, causing a ruckus that briefly interrupts our conversation. "We all are," he says, chest heaving. "No one and nothing can stop her, at least not alone. That's why we have to stick together, to depend on each other. And that includes finding the spy that's been feeding her information."

I scoff. "Spy? That's probably the least creative thing you could come up with. There's no point for her to even have a spy. She sees everything, knows everything." I shake my head, my fingers finding their way to the bracelet wound around my wrist. I pull it off, shivering slightly at the tingling that overcomes my body when it returns to normal. "This is who I am. A princess, daughter of the fallen king. It's not in my nature to cower and let someone else rule, especially without me knowing."

Colin's eyes widen slightly as he takes in my true appearance, but he pushes on. "Listen, Ashlyn. This is bigger than both of us. Milay has a spy, and she's using him or her to gather information. Information like this," he says, gesturing wildly at my exposed appearance, "that could change the tide of the fight. Of the war." His eyes shine bright with conviction, with misguided hope.

"What's so bad about her, though?" I ask quietly, staring down at my hands. "Maybe she's just misunderstood."

He huffs. "Maybe. But she's rotten now."

"Yeah, and how do you know?" I say, clenching a fist at my side. "Have you seen her, face-to-face, long enough to judge her character for yourself?"

"No," Colin says with narrowed eyes. "But my parents did. And they didn't even survive five seconds."

A little bit shorter than normal :/ Apologies, but I've been very busy with family during the holidays! (Happy New Year, by the way! What's your New Year's resolution?)

~ Amber