Scarlett Meris's Arc

Chapter 6 of 15

The name sat on the table between them. Kieran did not let go of the wood. Scarlett watched his knuckles and waited. Outside, Rivilin lifted his head from the yard stones and looked down the slope. His yellow eyes narrowed. Then he growled, low and long, the sound a dragon makes when something wrong is moving under the trees. Brynn went to the window. "Someone followed me." "From Thorn's?" Scarlett was already moving for the sword. "He must have put a tracker on my coat." Brynn touched her satchel. Her hand came away with a small black burr stuck to the leather. "I brushed the whole road. I missed this." Kieran took the burr from her fingers. He crushed it under his boot. "One tracker means more behind him. If he reaches the ridge, he sees the healing house." "Then he doesn't reach the ridge," Scarlett said. "You can't fly out. He'll mark the dragon and send word before you land." Kieran pulled the crown from his coat pocket and set it on the table beside the sword. The gold caught the crystal light along the eaves. Brynn stared at it. Scarlett stared at him. "You're a prince," Brynn said. "I'm the king's son." Kieran did not look up. "The harbor is my family's. The barbs were bought on my father's coin and stamped with my house's mark. The rune-sword came from our vault. I took it because he wouldn't miss one blade." He met Scarlett's eyes. "Now you know why I come here without guards." Scarlett's throat closed. She had ridden his dragon. She had carried his family's steel. "You should have told me." "I'm telling you now." He picked up the crown and pushed it back into his pocket. "The tracker knows my face. I ride down the road as the prince, hunting boar, and I turn him back. He won't question me. He can't." "He'll report you saw him here." "He'll report he saw the prince three valleys south of here, on the wrong road, chasing a stag." Kieran was already at the door. "Keep the sword. Keep Brynn inside. Don't light the eaves tonight." Rivilin followed him to the tree line and stopped there, tail scraping stone. Scarlett watched Kieran vanish into the pines on foot. Brynn stood beside her. "His father," Brynn said. "And he's walking down there alone." "He bought us the night." An hour later Rivilin's growl eased. The dragon turned back toward the yard and folded his wings. No horn sounded on the slope. No hunters came up the path. The crystals along the roof stayed dark, as Kieran had said. Brynn sat down hard at the table. "He gave us his name to save the house." Scarlett laid her hand on the sword. The runes were still sleeping. "He gave us his father but we still don’t know why the king is doing this or whether to trust Killian for keeping this secret," she said. "Now we have to decide what to do next."