Free Rise of the Dragons by Morgan Rice Page B

quite know how to relate to a growing daughter,
especially one who craved to be a warrior, as if he did not know which path to
encourage her on. He did not know what to do with her, she realized, and a part
of him even felt uncomfortable around her. Yet he was secretly proud, she
sensed, at the same time. He just couldn’t allow himself to show it.
    Kyra could not stand his silence
anymore—she had to get to the bottom of it.
    “Do you worry for the feast?” she asked.
    “Why should I worry?” he countered, not
looking at her, a sure sign he was upset. “All is prepared. In fact, we are
late. If I had not come to Fighter’s Gate to find you, I would be at the head
of my own table by now,” he concluded resentfully.
    So that was it, she realized: her
sparring. The fact that he was angry made her angry, too. After all, she had
beaten his men and she deserved his approval. Instead, he was acting as if
nothing had happened, and if anything, was disapproving.
    She demanded the truth and, annoyed, she
decided to provoke him.
    “Did you not see me beat your men?” she
said, wanting to shame him, demanding the approval that he refused to give.
    She watched his face redden, ever so
subtly, but he held his tongue as they walked—which only increased her anger.
    They continued to march, past the Hall
of Heroes, past the Chamber of Wisdom, and were nearly at the Great Hall when
she could stand it no more.
    “What is it, Father?” she demanded. “If
you disapprove of me, just say it.”
    He finally stopped right before the
arched doors to the feasting hall, turned and looked at her, stone-faced. His
look pained her. Her father, the one person she loved more than anyone in the
world, who always had nothing but a smile for her, now looked at her as if she
were a stranger. She could not understand it.
    “I don’t want you on those grounds
again,” he said, a cold anger in his voice.
    The tone of his voice hurt her even more
than his words, and she felt a shiver of betrayal rush through her. Coming from
anyone else it would hardly have bothered her—but from him, this man she loved
and looked up to so much, who was always so kind to her, his tone made her
blood run cold.
    But Kyra was not one to back down from a
fight—a trait she had learned from him.
    “And why is that?” she demanded.
    His expression darkened.
    “I do not need to give you a reason,” he
said. “I am your father. I am commander of this fort, of my men. And I do not
want you training with them.”
    “Are you afraid I shall defeat them?” Kyra
said, wanting to get a rise out of him, refusing to allow him to close this
door on her forever.
    He reddened, and she could see her words
hurt him, too.
    “Hubris is for commoners,” he chided,
“not for warriors.”
    “But I am no warrior, is that right,
Father?” she goaded.
    He narrowed his eyes, unable to respond.
    “It is my fifteenth year. Do you wish me
to fight against trees and twigs my whole life?”
    “I do not wish you to fight at all,” he
snapped. “You are a girl—a woman now. You should be doing whatever women
do—cooking, sewing—whatever it is your mother would have raised you to do if
she were alive.”
    Now Kyra’s expression darkened.
    “I’m sorry I am not the girl you wish me
to be, Father,” she replied. “I am sorry I am not like all the other girls.”
    His expression became pained now, too.
    “But I am my father’s daughter,” she
continued. “I am the girl you raised. And to disapprove of me is to disapprove
of yourself.”
    She stood there, hands on her hips, her
light-gray eyes, filled with a warrior’s strength, flashing back at his. He
stared back at her with his brown eyes, behind his brown hair and beard, and he
shook his head.
    “This is a holiday,” he said, “a feast
not just for warriors but for visitors and dignitaries. People will be coming
from all over Escalon, and from foreign lands.” He looked her up and down
disapprovingly. “You wear a