Chapter 7: The Fire Festival

Elora had not planned to go to the fire festival, and she had certainly not planned to go with Dacian.

He knocked on her door at dusk, which was already a surprise, because the door was locked from the outside and he opened it with a key.

"My brother has the other one," he said. "Don't look so shocked. I took it when we were boys."

"Why are you here?"

"Because you're bored, and I'm bored, and tonight the whole city sets itself on fire for fun." He held out his arm. "Come and see."

She should have said no.

She had a plan to follow, a list to keep, and a husband who would be furious.

But Mirelle was at the temple with the crown prince, sharing some task Elora had not been told about, and the walls of the room were very close.

"Fine," Elora said. "On one condition."

"Name it."

"You don't ask me about the music box."

His smile thinned.

"I've been very good about that," he said.

"You've asked me four times."

"Three. The fourth was rhetorical."

The festival filled a wide stone square at the bottom of the palace hill.

Dragonkin of every kind packed it, some with horns, some with tails, some with a faint glitter of scales along the jaw.

In the center rose a tower of dry wood as high as a house, and around it stood a ring of priests with their hands raised.

At a signal, every one of them breathed out.

A rope of white fire leaped from their mouths and wrapped the tower, and the whole square roared.

Elora stood with her head tipped back and her mouth open.

"I know," Dacian said at her ear. "Wait for the sparks."

The sparks came a moment later, thousands of them, spiraling up into the dark and hanging there.

She forgot to be careful.