House of Dragons Read online

  Also by Jessica Cluess

  THE KINGDOM ON FIRE SERIES

  A Shadow Bright and Burning

  A Poison Dark and Drowning

  A Sorrow Fierce and Falling

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2020 by Jessica Cluess

  Cover art copyright © 2020 by Sasha Vinogradova

  Map art by Sveta Dorosheva

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  Random House and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Cluess, Jessica, author.

  Title: House of dragons / Jessica Cluess.

  Description: First edition. | New York : Random House, [2020] | Summary: “When the emperor dies, the five royal houses of Etrusia attend the calling, where one of their own will be selected to compete for the throne”—Provided by publisher.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019018244 | ISBN 978-0-525-64815-4 (hardcover) | ISBN 978-0-525-64816-1 (lib. bdg.) | ISBN 978-0-593-30544-7 (int’l) | ISBN 978-0-525-64817-8 (ebook)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Kings, queens, rulers, etc.—Fiction. | Contests—Fiction. | Dragons—Fiction. | Fantasy.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.C596 Hou 2020 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  Ebook ISBN 9780525648178

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  Penguin Random House LLC supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to publish books for every reader.

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  Contents

  Cover

  Also by Jessica Cluess

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Map

  Epigraph

  Chapter 1: Emilia

  Chapter 2: Lucian

  Chapter 3: Vespir

  Chapter 4: Ajax

  Chapter 5: Hyperia

  Chapter 6: Emilia

  Chapter 7: Lucian

  Chapter 8: Vespir

  Chapter 9: Ajax

  Chapter 10: Emilia

  Chapter 11: Hyperia

  Chapter 12: Lucian

  Chapter 13: Emilia

  Chapter 14: Ajax

  Chapter 15: Hyperia

  Chapter 16: Vespir

  Chapter 17: Lucian

  Chapter 18: Ajax

  Chapter 19: Hyperia

  Chapter 20: Emilia

  Chapter 21: Lucian

  Chapter 22: Ajax

  Chapter 23: Vespir

  Chapter 24: Lucian

  Chapter 25: Emilia

  Chapter 26: Hyperia

  Chapter 27: Emilia

  Chapter 28: Hyperia

  Chapter 29: Vespir

  Chapter 30: Lucian

  Chapter 31: Emilia

  Chapter 32: Lucian

  Chapter 33: Emilia

  Chapter 34: Ajax

  Chapter 35: Hyperia

  Chapter 36: Emilia

  Chapter 37: Vespir

  Chapter 38: Vespir

  Chapter 39: Ajax

  Chapter 40: Hyperia

  Chapter 41: Vespir

  Chapter 42: Lucian

  Chapter 43: Hyperia

  Chapter 44: Hyperia

  Chapter 45: Ajax

  Chapter 46: Lucian

  Chapter 47: Vespir

  Chapter 48: Hyperia

  Chapter 49: Emilia

  Chapter 50: Vespir

  Chapter 51: Emilia

  Chapter 52: Lucian

  Chapter 53: Vespir

  Chapter 54: Emilia

  Chapter 55: Lucian

  Chapter 56: Vespir

  Chapter 57: Ajax

  Chapter 58: Lucian

  Chapter 59: Emilia

  Chapter 60: Ajax

  Chapter 61: Lucian

  Chapter 62: Emilia

  Chapter 63: Hyperia

  Chapter 64: Ajax

  Chapter 65: Emilia

  Chapter 66: Hyperia

  Chapter 67: Emilia

  Chapter 68: Vespir

  Chapter 69: Lucian

  Chapter 70: Vespir

  Chapter 71: Ajax

  Chapter 72: Hyperia

  Chapter 73: Vespir

  Chapter 74: Ajax

  Chapter 75: Vespir

  Chapter 76: Ajax

  Chapter 77: Lucian

  Chapter 78: Emilia

  Elsewhere

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  For Meredith, the first and best audience for my stories

  Gods dream of empires, but devils build them.

  —the poet Valerius, prior to his exile in 735 AD (anno Draconis)

  One day after the emperor had died and been eaten, the call went out to select his successor.

  Emilia of the Aurun considered this on dragonback as she hovered one hundred feet above the rocky coastline. Frothing waves surged against the cliffs so violently she swore the spray speckled her cheek, even at this height. Salt-choked wind tautened her dragon’s wings with a snap and tumbled her heavy red hair into her face. Maybe she really should wear it in a plait, as her mother suggested every other day. Chara’s grumble reverberated in Emilia’s bones. Shortening the reins, she petted the dragon’s neck.

  “It’s all right. They won’t pick me,” she said, as if this were a conversation and not something she’d repeated in the locked room of her mind. They won’t pick me. They’d have to be idiots to pick me.

  Of course, Emilia privately believed that idiots had been running the Etrusian Empire for hundreds of years.

  If her mother heard her say that, Emilia’s hair would be the least of her concerns. After all, the House Aurun hadn’t seated an emperor or empress in over three generations, and their family had the worst land holdings: the Hibrian Isles, two semi-large parent islands constellated by a smattering of smaller ones. Plunked down in the northwest corner of the empire, theirs was a frigid land of sea and wind, of winter and not-quite-so winter. The family needed an emperor in power to advance their fortunes.

  They needed Alexander.

  And there he was, a dot waving to her from the lip of the cliff. Emilia pressed Chara’s sides with her knees, slackening the reins. The dragon snorted fizzling embers, tucked her wings, and tipped into a steep dive. Emilia lived for th
at plunge, that butterfly-flutter of her stomach. All the heavy pains of mind and body evaporated in midair.

  She leaned back in the saddle as the cliff sped nearer, then pitched forward as Chara unfurled her wings and furrowed her three-clawed feet in the damp ground. The clean scent of upturned earth enveloped Emilia. Her brother came running while she rummaged through the saddlebag and removed a satchel, slipping it over her shoulder as she slid to the ground. She walked about to stand before Chara and stroke the dragon on her most favorite spot, at the juncture of jaw and neck. Chara nestled her snout at the center of Emilia’s belly.

  “Thanks, girl,” she murmured, and stepped aside to let Chara flap her way up into the sky. There was still time for play before the calling.

  Alexander appeared and wrapped an arm around Emilia. By the blue above, he was warm.

  “You’re a hearth f-fire. How?” Her teeth chattered as she spoke. Emilia clamped hands over her ears, twin curves of ice against her palms.

  “Blood of the dragon. Obviously.” He bumped her with his hip. “Pity you have none. You’d freeze on a summer’s day in Karthago.”

  “You l-laugh now.” Emilia pulled her purple cloak tight against her body. “Wait till I’m the one who’s ch-chosen.”

  “Not to worry. I’ll just pitch you over the cliff if that happens.” Alex kissed the top of her head. Without teasing, he said, “They won’t choose you.”

  It was some comfort. While technically any child of the five families could be called to the Emperor’s Trial, only the Houses’ eldest ever were. It was an unspoken tradition. They were all fortunate Alexander had been firstborn, not she.

  His hair was deep Aurun gold, not her tangle of red. His complexion was fair as milk, as opposed to her deathly pallor. His laughter was easy, hers nonexistent. Unlike Emilia, he didn’t have to be monitored carefully whenever they hosted the lesser Hibrian nobles at winter fetes or during the summer bonfires.

  Unlike her, he didn’t cradle death in his hands like a dozing serpent.

  They walked the path toward the calling circle on the other side of the promontory, Emilia’s heavy satchel a reassuring thud against her hip. She shivered as the icy wind knifed through her once more. She’d never liked Stormways, the family’s oldest, draftiest, and most northern castle. Technically this was their territorial capital, though it was far from grand. A pity, then, that she hadn’t left it in nearly five years, but that could not be helped. The far north was the most sparsely populated area. She could be inconspicuous here.

  The Aurun banners, stark white emblazoned with a purple Aspis—the water serpent, their personal dragon—rippled in the gusts. Overhead, Chara and Alexander’s dragon, Tarkus, dove and capered about each other. Both dragons had long, slender bodies with whipping tails, though Chara’s scales were a creamy pearlescent while Tarkus was plum-colored. Aspises’ heads were sleek, their scales silken, their noses doglike. Two horns corkscrewed on either side of their skulls. Unlike the other dragon breeds, an Aspis could spend time underwater and suffer no ill effects. Chara hunted whales in springtime and would float back home like a bloody wisp of cloud, blubber ragged between her teeth.

  “Did you go flying to get a last look at the place before you become empress?” Alex teased. Emilia nudged him in the ribs.

  “When I’m living in a golden palace at Dragonspire, I’ll remember freezing my backside off with real fondness,” she deadpanned. Suppressing a shudder, she added, “I, er, needed to clear my mind.”

  Alexander understood her. Normally, Emilia could be found with cooling cups of coffee and ink-stained fingers before the library fire, books and papers fanned out around her in a labyrinthine formation only she understood. But then the very fissures of her brain would spark, and she would have to leave before she hurt anyone.

  Emilia stopped on the path. Ahead of them lay the evidence of what she’d done.

  It had been a seagull. Amid the splatter of blood and the pasted smear of organs, gray and white feathers fluttered in the breeze. Back in her room, Emilia had felt the magic welling until she brimmed with it, like a cup. She’d hurried down the castle’s winding steps, rushed out into the overcast day. She’d stalked toward the cliffs, been startled by a gull’s circling cry. Her eyes had latched on to the bird…and the poor creature had uttered its last call.

  There were two types of magic: the orderly arts and the chaotic ways. One type had built this great empire; the other had nearly destroyed the world. Order was creation, and chaos destruction. Emilia possessed no talent for order.

  She was a natural at chaos, though.

  If the other four families ever found out, death would be the kinder option. A chaotic couldn’t be tolerated, not after the War of the Sixth House a millennium ago.

  Alex hugged her tight. “It was an accident,” he whispered.

  Emilia knew how the castle servants gossiped. How they watched her. This was why she always kept her hair a heavy curtain and never plaited it; a curtain made it easier to hide. Her hands fisted until they ached.

  “I know,” she whispered back. They kept walking, the satchel banging at her side. “Here.” She stopped once more, shrugged off the satchel, and looped it over her brother’s arm. “It took some doing, but I had them bound.”

  Alex unbuttoned the pack and drew out several slim, cloth-backed volumes. Emilia immediately rearranged them in order, nervous to have her hard work inspected.

  The Hunt. The Game. The Race. The Truth.

  The four challenges that constituted every Emperor’s Trial.

  Each title stood out in embossed letters upon the covers. Emilia had also included a pair of parchment manuals labeled Bestiary and Topography.

  “I had to do up the island maps by hand,” Emilia said, happy to be boastful. Pride was such a rare visitor in her life. Alex nodded, flipping through one book after the other.

  “You really think the Crotian Sea will be the first stop?” He looked up at her with one eyebrow raised. “I bet it’ll be the Imperial Peninsula.”

  “We’ve factored in dragonflight’s maximum speed, and compared the calling dates with the start of the first challenges. It requires a full twenty-four hours at least for everyone to assemble, even the Volscia and Sabel, and they’re closest to the peninsula of all of us. That indicates a longer flight time. Or do you doubt my calculations?”

  “Teasing. I’m teasing you.” Alex shuffled through the books once more, put them away, and embraced her again. “Can’t believe the day’s here,” he said softly.

  Emilia closed her eyes and listened to the thud of Alex’s heartbeat.

  “We’ve prepared well, at least,” she murmured.

  “No one could’ve prepared me like you, Emi.” He kissed the top of her head once again. “Remember what I promised you?”

  Emilia recalled the shattering echo of screams. The stink of burning flesh. Blood everywhere. She remembered huddling in the corner of her bedroom, sobbing and raking her nails down her cheeks. Her brother holding her, swearing that he would make it right.

  “Of course,” she whispered.

  “I’m going to keep that promise.” He stepped away, held the satchel high. “With this. Our victory.”

  Emilia smiled, the corners of her lips twitching.

  Since they’d learned that Alex would go off to the Emperor’s Trial one day and never return, the siblings had studied every scrap of information on every Trial that had ever been held. Emilia made it her solemn mission to prepare her brother for every possible eventuality. Had she been a normal girl, she might have been permitted to present her findings at the Imperial University. She might have published.

  Had she been a normal girl, she might have done a great many things.

  * * *

  The calling circle was over a thousand years old. A ring of moss-slick stones one hundred yards in diameter surrounded
a large slab of granite in the very center, where the “chosen” dragon would stand. A few servants and liveried guard waited alongside the family, the bannermen holding House Aurun’s flag aloft. As Emilia and Alex joined their parents, the sun pierced a cloud and illuminated the grass, sparking prisms of rainbow light in the dew. The family appeared to gleam in their stately purple velvet, the color of House Aurun. We’re a bunch of rare jewels, Emilia thought to herself, smiling bitterly. Pretty, and without purpose.

  “Emilia, what are you thinking?” Her mother sounded accusatory. She and Emilia’s father often stared as if waiting for her to explode.

  “Dangerous thoughts,” Emilia muttered to the ground.

  Lady Aurun huffed. Emilia’s chest tightened to think of Tarkus settling on that granite slab, his tail swishing, summoning Alexander to fly away.

  Emilia’s parents tolerated her. They tolerated her lack of eye contact and tangled hair. They tolerated the perennial dark circles under her eyes, her headaches, her need to devour every obscure fact upon which she could lay hands, her halting conversation delivered in a voice roughened by lack of use. Her parents tolerated her chaotic soul, but Alex loved her.