The Last Dragon King (Kings of Avalier #1)(2)

After slamming the beast down on the table, I groaned, rolling out my neck.

“You did good, Arwen.” My mom smoothed my hair and then wrinkled her nose. “But you smell like death.”

Adaline broke out into a full-on belly laugh and I sprang from where I stood and ran after her with my arms out like a bloodsucker from Necromere.

She gave a genuine shriek of terror. Now it was my turn to burst into laughter.

“Alright, don’t scare your sister. Go and wash up, it’s May Day!” my mother scolded me.

May Day.

I sighed. All the single girls and single boys of age would stand in the village square blindfolded and then start walking towards each other. Whoever you reached first, you kissed.

It was a long-held tradition of Cinder Village, and as terrifying as it sounded it was kind of thrilling as well. Legend said whoever you kissed on May Day would become your spouse. At eighteen winters old, this would be my first May Day. I was eligible last year but had been sicker than a dog from eating some bad berries, so I was unable to attend.

I reached up and touched my lips, wondering if Nathanial would kiss me—you weren’t supposed to peek, but some of the boys let their blindfolds slip so that they could gravitate towards the girl they wanted.

I wanted Nathanial.

I slipped into the bedroom I shared with Adaline and grabbed a clean tunic and trousers. My mother had long since given up trying to get me to wear skirts and dresses. Ever since my father died nine winters ago, I’d had to become the hunter of the family, and hunting in a dress was just downright stupid.

Adaline was hiding under her bed furs, probably afraid I’d rub cougarin blood on her. I walked towards her and hovered over her. After a moment, thinking I was gone, she slowly pulled down the covers, but when she saw me she screamed again, yanking the furs back up. I burst out in delighted laughter.

“Arwen!” my mother snapped.

“Fine,” I groaned, the laughter dying in my throat.

Sometimes I just wanted to mess around with my little sister, but my position in this family required me to grow up faster than I would have liked had I been given a choice. We had a roof over our heads and food in our bellies, so I knew better than to complain.

“Oh,” I called back to my mom as I was walking out to the community bathhouse. “I invited Nathanial for dinner,” I said casually.

A dinner invite on May Day was no small thing.

The corners of my mother’s lips quirked up into a conspiratorial grin.

“To be nice! To share the bounty,” I told her, heat creeping up to my cheeks. It was customary after a good hunt to invite a guest to the feast. Good luck even. She knew that. But it was also encouraged to invite potential suitors over for dinner on May Day so that the families could meet and start getting used to the idea of a potential marriage.

“Of course, dear,” she said in a sugary sweet tone, and I scowled at her. I was eighteen winters old. I’d be expected to take a husband soon. Nathanial would be a good choice. He had a prominent job in the village, and he was one of the only boys in town who didn’t seem threatened by my hunting trips with the other men in the village. Even when I married off, I’d still have to provide for Adaline and my mother. He understood that.

Brushing my mother’s weird smile out of my mind, I headed down the alley between Mr. Korban’s apothecary shop and Mrs. Holina’s bakery, and stepped into Naomie’s bathhouse.

“Oh, child!” Naomie plugged her nose when I strode inside. “You smell like a dead ratin! You’ll need your own soaker tub with extra sandalwood oil.”

I grinned.

Naomie was like the village grandmother—with a sharp tongue. She took care of us all and hit us with the truth no matter how much it would hurt. For daily washings I would just use the heated bucket of water in our hut, but for washing after a week of hunting I needed Naomie’s soaker tub and soap stone.

I followed her into the women’s washroom and past the group soakers, nodding to the women I recognized. Mrs. Beezle and Mrs. Haney were currently enthralled in the town gossip. I caught a snippet of Bardic needing to cut down on his drinking, and Mrs. Namal needing to tend to her husband so his eye didn’t wander. The top layer of their bathwater was black from cinder soot.

When Naomie stepped into one of the private soaker rooms, cordoned off by a thatch wall, I set my clean clothes down on the stool beside the small one-person soaker tub. Cinder soot and dirt was okay for a group soaker, but blood and hunting guts were not permitted.

Naomie was at least sixty winters old, her fingers gnarled from the winter bone disease. Her silver hair was always tied into a tight bun on top of her head. She spun the tap and the water gushed from the faucet, filling the tub as steam rose up to the ceiling. Naomie was one of the few people with running water in the village. Her shop was directly situated over a natural hot spring. Her great-great grandfather had been a metal worker, so he’d welded the pipes and built everything so that the water would be pulled up from the ground. Her family had owned this bathhouse for as long as anyone could remember.

“I’ve had to raise my prices,” Naomie said, looking at me with a bit of pity. “This war the Nightfall queen has started at the border is affecting my ability to get the soap stones and perfume oils from the elves in Archmere.”

I nodded. “How much?”

“Two jade coins or an acceptable barter,” she said.