Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 71403 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 286(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71403 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 286(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
Inside me, my dragon surged, flame and instinct roaring awake after a too-long sleep. Every part of me—and her—demanded I look closer at this man. To step forward. To claim him in front of everyone.
Then a single word whispered across my mind and branded itself in the center of my chest. Firebrand.
I shook my head. Nein. Not him. Anyone but Sebastian Mórisi.
Across the ring, he went rigid, as if he’d heard my thoughts or experienced his own.
His jaw locked. His hands tightened at his sides, his fingers curling before relaxing again.
Around him, the faintest ripple passed through the stones, as if Sebastian had released some sort of power no one else could see or sense.
My heart thundered. My skin burned. Realization hit me harder than anything else.
Ja. He felt it, too.
I broke eye contact first. Stared at the grass. The scarred stone. Anything but him. The urge to flee warred with the need to stay.
Feel the floor. Feel the air. A mantra I repeated before ever taking a stage to dance for thousands of cheering fans.
This was a vote. Not fate.
“Sebastian,” Callen prompted. “You are our deciding vote.”
Please. Say ja.
A pause. Then, “Nei,” the kraken king said. No.
The word fell like a blade, sealing the verdict. I jerked my gaze to the manticore’s stone, hoping…
Still absent.
So it was done. Inter-faction marriages would remain restricted, save for special alliances approved by the royals. Disappointment clogged my chest as the future I’d imagined receded, leaving only frustration in its wake.
Protests erupted, voices clashing, but I barely heard them. I didn’t look at the kraken king again. Didn’t dare. I’d reacted so strongly to him before the vote. Now that he’d murdered my dream, I didn’t want to see him.
Except…
I really, really did. But when I looked, he’d already vanished from his doorway.
As the meeting dissolved and the power from the stones ebbed, I remained frozen, my breath shallow. So the vote hadn’t gone my way. That just meant the “yes” was delayed, not impossible. Someone, somewhere, would change their mind. I just had to convince them.
Or him, specifically. The kraken. He might be the toughest challenger, but he also might be the easiest. Because he’d reacted to me, too.
Nervousness fluttered in my stomach at the thought of going head-to-head with him, but my determination solidified. This must be done. For the kingdoms.
I turned away from the traveling stones, one new truth burning brighter than the dragonfire in my veins: If Sebastian was my firebrand…
Fate was no gift. It was a curse with tentacles.
Chapter
One
The kraken are never unarmed, especially when they appear unarmed.
–An Incomplete Guide to Kraken Survival
Ten council members entered the kraken king’s throne room.
Ten council members emerged pale and silent.
By the time the doors slammed shut behind the last, leaving only a line of new ambassadors, I shook badly enough to rattle the bone-and-crystal crown perched atop my head. I didn’t want to be here. I’d let impulsive determination, an unfamiliar recklessness, and an ache to be more like the plucky romance heroines I so admired lead me here. To leave behind my prized coin collection, bringing only the music box I took everywhere, and sign on as an ambassador myself.
Now I saw the truth. Determination and recklessness were terrible guides. Nothing but pretty descriptions for what I’d done: doomed myself, all for a chance to change one king’s vote. And maybe, hopefully, answer a single question. Was he or wasn’t he my firebrand?
Again and again, I’d told myself he couldn’t be. That I must have reacted to his raw intensity and only his raw intensity. The magic of the stones. Something. Anything but him. I still told myself all of that, every time I changed my mind. But what if he… was?
I closed my eyes and imagined standing on a stage rather than the edge of a war court in Krakenströnd, surrounded by a glass dome and dark, pressurized water, about to face a ruler rumored to feed on fear and leave broken immortals in his wake.
Ja. Only a stage. Pretending I existed inside a fragile bubble, separate from the rest of the world, I smoothed my damp palms over the finest gown I owned. A relic from my first performance for the Dragon Court. Silk and organza whispered beneath my touch, layers changing as I moved. Coal. Bloodred. Rosegold. The colors of my homeland. The colors of flame.
With every breath, the fabric pulsed like a living ember. An obsidian bodice of dragon scales caged my torso, veined with ruby dust that caught the light. Sharp, elegantly curved shoulder guards gave the illusion of wings. My back lay bare, save for thin, crisscrossing chains that kissed my skin.
A costume meant to turn a ballet dancer into my favorite character to ever dance, the Ember Sovereign.
Costumes, my version of armor, had always given me courage. On stage, I could be anything. Even brave. Yet, I couldn’t stop the sinking suspicion that this time, I’d let myself mistake longing for bravery.