Silver - By Kailin Gow Page 0,50
me Archer.”
“Would you mind letting go of me, Archer? Only the last time we were here, you spent a lot of time throwing me and my friends around.”
Archer’s hands left her, and he leant back against the tree once again. “Forgive me for that, but I could not al ow them through the gate. I could not even let you through, until I was sure you were ready.”
“Ready? Ready for what?” Briony had the feeling that, left to his own devices, Archer would dance around the subject al day. “You say I shouldn’t trust Fal on, Archer, but you haven’t given me any reason to trust you. You show up from nowhere. You fight me and my friends. You appear on the edges of crowds. Just tel me. What is going on?”
Archer’s eyes sparkled in the sun, and Briony couldn’t help finding the effect intriguing. As a dragon, he had been huge and awe-inspiring. As a young man who appeared only a little older than her, he was less threatening, but there was stil a suggestion to him of hidden depths.
Then Archer did the one thing Briony hadn’t been expecting. He bowed to her. “I first came here weeks ago, with the intention of finding out more about you, milady.”
“Milady?”
“At the start, I watched from around the edges of your school, but I could not find a way into it. I was too distinctive to just blend in, and I did not have the kind of human past they seemed to want to take me on as a student. This world is obsessed with bits of paper, and I did not have them. It was… confusing.”
Briony could imagine that. It was bad enough starting out at a school as it was, but without any of the records that people normal y wanted…
“I was lucky to hear your kind playing their music, and it seemed an easy thing to play along to it.”
Briony remembered some of the piece Archer had been playing in the school theater. “Easy. Right.”
Archer smiled. “Compared to when the dragons sing together in the high hil s, it is. It gave me a way to find out about you. I needed to see if you were who I thought you were, but I got caught up in things. I let myself become involved with your wolf shifters. I found myself in the middle of a battle, and I revealed myself too early. Before I was certain.”
“Archer,” Briony prompted. “Who do you think I am?”
“Why, you are the Princess, of course. My princess.”
“What?” Briony couldn’t help the shocked laugh that came from her then. “I’m not a princess. And I’m certainly not yours. I have a complicated enough life with a werewolf and a vampire without…”
“No.” Archer cut her off. “I did not put that wel . What I mean is that every dragon has a master or mistress.
Someone with whom they bond. That bond helps to give the lord or lady their ful power. When I saw your face reflected in one of the seeing pools back home, I knew that I had to find you. To help my royal mistress achieve her power.”
“Wil you stop saying that?” Briony demanded. “I’m real y not a princess. And I don’t have any hidden powers.”
“You real y are. And you real y do. The woman you know as Aunt Sophie is powerful enough, but she is only the daughter of a royal guard. You are going to be more powerful stil , Briony.”
Briony looked around to Fal on, who shrugged, then back at Archer. “What do you want, Archer? What does al this mean?”
“Why.” Briony froze as Pietre’s voice seemed to come from nowhere. “It means, Briony, that suddenly you have become very useful indeed.”
Chapter 19
Pietre simply appeared from the shadows of the trees, unwrapping them from around him like he was stepping between drapes. It seemed that his ability to show up at unexpected times was down to more than simple sneakiness, and that the old vampire had picked up more than his fair share of talents in his long life.
He obviously saw the shocked look on Briony’s face.
“Oh, did you think that your little boyfriend was the only one who gained unexpected power from his transformation? I have had decade upon decade to learn everything that the blood can give me.” Pietre briefly turned his attention to Fal on. “Flying? Out in the open where anyone could see you, and where half of them would report it