Kingfall
Author: David Estes
Date: 2021-07-14 12:23:49+00:00
Keywords: Fantasy; Fiction; dragons; Epic Fantasy
Description: Warring kingdoms. Ancient blades. Dragonriders and godlings. A growing evil that threatens to destroy the world. Don't miss the highly anticipated follow up series to the #1 Amazon bestselling saga, The Fatemarked Epic. Be bright but do not burn. Embrace the darkness but do not live in the shadows. Infused with magic, shadows and starlight, the powerful godblades were believed to be lost nearly half a millennia ago, when the Godswar ended. Now, however, one has been found by the unlikeliest of wielders: Sampson Gaard, a blind but ambitious prince with something to prove. The only question is w
Publisher: Independently published

Copyright 2021 David Estes

Kindle Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Map of Kingfall- Circa 423 A.W. (After Weeping)- Western Half

Map of Kingfall- Circa 423 A.W. (After Weeping)- Eastern Half

Map of Kingfall- Circa 423 A.W. (After Weeping)- Full Map

PART I

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

First Interlude: The Rifts of Kingfall

PART II

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Second Interlude: The Strength of Fyre

PART III

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Third Interlude: The Brightness and Shadows of Fyre

PART IV

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Eight

Twenty-Nine

Thirty

Thirty-One

Thirty-Two

Thirty-Three

Thirty-Four

Thirty-Five

Epilogue

POSTLUDES

Postlude 1: Aisling Brightshine

Postlude 2: Roman Leary

Postlude 3: King Jameson Gaard

Postlude 4: Dragonrider Dom

PRONUNCIATION GUIDE

Acknowledgments

An excerpt from Dragonfall, Volume II in the Kingfall Histories, coming SOON!

Prologue

Map of Kingfall- Circa 423 A.W. (After Weeping)- Western Half

To view a downloadable map online: https://davidestesbooks.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html

Map of Kingfall- Circa 423 A.W. (After Weeping)- Eastern Half

To view a downloadable map online: https://davidestesbooks.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html

Map of Kingfall- Circa 423 A.W. (After Weeping)- Full Map

To view a downloadable map online: https://davidestesbooks.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html

PART I

423 A.W. (After Weeping)

Sampson     Andovier     Aisling

The godblades were forged of shadow and starlight, the essence of darkness and brightness in stark contrast. And when shadowblade met brightblade in battle: thunder and lightning and death beyond human comprehension.

The Kingfall Histories

One

Sampson Gaard

Unmapped location in The Spine, near Neck, North Avadon

“THE RAIN IS MADE OF STARSHINE AND MISERY, YOUR HIGHNESS,” ROMAN SAID.

Sampson Gaard smiled. Though most wouldn’t guess it based on Roman’s size, the burly man had a poetic side. “Tell me more,” Sampson said, feeling a breath of cool air wash over his face.

“The mountains are rain-drenched. Wraithlike clouds swarm overhead, coalescing into a fog-smothered sky that might be a winged godbeast from lore and legend.”

Once, Sampson might’ve had the thought: I wish I could see it. But those childish hopes had been lost to him long ago, just as his sight was from birth. Instead, he thought, I should be so lucky. A godbeast or two would at least provide something to break up the boredom and tedium. He’d practically begged his father, King Cronus Gaard, to allow him to lead the expedition. To his surprise, his father had agreed. However, what had begun as a grand adventure had thus far been a mundane tale of poor fortune, complete with seasickness, bleak weather and nothing to show for the effort save blistered feet and a month’s worth of hair on his cheeks.

He had learned to curse in three languages, however, so there was that.

He knew he was being facetious, that the real reason for his frustration was how desperately he missed his sister, Amari. For as long as Sampson could remember, he and the crown princess had been as thick as thieves, never separated for more than a few hours. Now, however, the days at sea and overland seemed to wash the memory of their exploits from his mind. Amari, he thought. Do you miss me too? He knew what her answer would be: Cut all the sentimental hogwash with a knife, you pansy-licking, lily-livered craven.

Sampson chuckled at the thought of her sharp tongue and the shared laughter that would surely follow if she made such a statement.

At least I’m dry, he mused. For the last fortnight, his party of gruff and stalwart miners had been forced to march under the cover of darkness in endless rain for the sake of stealth. After all, they were technically in enemy territory now, having crossed the neutral border of the Sacred Sea and into Avadon. They’d expected to be met with resistance in the form of horned barbarians, the scattered tribes of the bloodthirsty Grizari awaiting them as they made landfall.

Instead, there had been nothing but sheeting rain for days and nights on end with no sign of savages, except for one area they’d passed with, according to Roman’s description, evidence of a fierce battle, portions of weapons and armor discarded haphazardly. If there had been blood and footprints, however, the rain had long washed them away. There had been no bodies.

To maintain the secrecy of their gambit, the mining party had navigated the long route, nearly reaching the eastern edge of Avadon that bordered Crimea, circling well around the perimeter of Beggar’s Canyon. From there, the land grew more treacherous, rough, and uneven until they reached the foothills of the Spine, a long mountain range that was said to have been formed by the ancient bones of a godbeast that had perished during the Godswar, almost five centuries past.

Nonsense, Sampson thought. There is nothing here but endless rock. “And, supposedly, magenum,” he muttered, though, in the three nights since they’d entered the cavern, there had been no signs of the potent substance that was their entire purpose for this quest.

“Did you say something?” his companion said. Roman Leary, in his own words, was ‘a brute of a man with a face not even a mother could love’. Sampson had known the man for as long as he could remember. Once upon a time, Roman had taught Sampson to navigate the palace at Wolfsgaard, how to count the steps before each turn, to use his long, narrow staff to identify dangers ahead.

In short, the man had helped Sampson gain his independence, a gift more valuable than even the very magenum they were hunting for.

“Nothing of substance,” Sampson said, finally answering the man’s question. He heard the scrape of Roman’s blade as he poked it into the fire to stir up the flames. He smelled the acrid stench of smoke curling upwards, exiting the cave’s mouth. He felt the rough cave floor beneath his fingertips.

“If you ask me, this rain isn’t natural,” Roman said now.

“What?” Sampson said, not understanding his meaning.

“This rain. I’ve never seen something so…intentional.”

“The weather isn’t intentional. I suspect the dragonlords of the Stormlands would call this a sprinkle at best.”

“Maybe so, but someone or something doesn’t want us to be here.”

Sampson gave the man’s words the consideration they deserved. On the surface, it sounded like superstitious nonsense, but Roman was not a superstitious man and he didn’t speak with loose lips. “Well, Glynn Kerr wouldn’t want us to be here, that’s for certain. He can control much within his borders, but not the weather.”

Roman poked at the fire once more, not responding, and a few moments of comfortable silence ensued amidst the backdrop of the torrential downpour. Although he missed Amari dearly, he was glad Roman was here with him. Finally, Sampson stood, considering what Amari would do in this situation, and said, “I’m going below.”

“I’ll go with you,” Roman said. “I could use a bit of movement.”

Sampson understood the feeling. It felt like they were treading water. The truth was, he was desperate to prove himself on this mission. Not to show his father, brother, or even his sister that he could help the Teravainen cause. To show himself.

A clank resounded as Roman grabbed a torch from one of the wall mounts. The darkness of the innerworkings of a mountain was a challenge for many men, but for Sampson it was no different than anywhere else. He’d lived in darkness his entire life.

He led the way, having memorized the route on his first day here, tapping his staff gently on the ground and walls and listening to their echoes. As they made their way deeper into the cave, the sound of the rainfall faded behind them. Stalactites dripped water on their heads from the ceiling, even as the way narrowed into a downward-sloping tunnel. Sampson hadn’t gone below in over a day, requesting to be informed of any significant progress or indication of the large magenum deposit that their informant had promised King Gaard was located within this very shaft.

Several times since he’d begun this journey, Sampson had experienced vivid dreams in which he’d returned to Wolfsgaard a hero with a ship laden with barrels brimming with pure liquid magenum, enough to turn the tide in the war or at least be sold for a small fortune on the open market. Those dreams had carried him this far, but now the monotony of daily mining life was taking its toll.

“We should have a few of the men install support struts at intervals along the tunnel,” Sampson said as they walked. His own voice sounded hollow as it echoed down the shaft.

“That will only distract the men from their search for the deposit. This tunnel has likely stood for years without failure,” Roman argued. “If it were a recently dug shaft, the place would be teeming with Avadonian miners.”

“Maybe so, but I won’t risk lives in this endeavor, regardless of the value to my father.”

“Do you think he would do the same?”

Sampson stopped, half-turning. “I have my own mind, and I am the leader of this expedition.”

“Indeed you are,” Roman said, chuckling.

Sampson crinkled his forehead. “You were testing me?”

“Aye. And you passed, as you always have. No amount of magenum is worth a man’s life.”

Despite himself, Sampson felt the thrill he always felt when he passed one of Roman’s “tests”. Since he was a youth, the man had challenged him at every turn, something he was thankful for. With words, with experiences. Once he even escorted Sampson, all of eight years old, into the midst of a crowded bazaar in the heart of Wolfsgaard, before apparently sneaking away and leaving him there to find his way back to the castle. Sampson still remembered that feeling of fear when he realized his guide wasn’t beside him where he usually was. The clamor of the marketplace had assaulted his ears, the numerous interwoven scents as potent a thing as his nose had ever smelled.

It had taken him the better part of a day to navigate the crowded streets, paying strict attention to the slope, ensuring he was traveling steadily upward, because the palace was set upon the highest elevation in the area. Partway along what he was certain was the final stretch he had stopped and turned around, cocking his head to the side. “Did I pass?” he’d asked.

“In the most spectacular way, Your Highness,” said Roman, who’d been shadowing him the entire time, ensuring he was never in any real danger.

The memory faded as the sound of iron clinking against stone reached his ears. His team was comprised of the most seasoned miners Teravainen had to offer, paid handsomely for their services, and if there was any sign of magenum to be found they should have found it by now. Instead, all they’d discovered was barren rock. Not even a hint of copper or iron ore or a lode of tin. At least that would feel like some consolation.

Had the informant lied to the king? If so, he was a damn fool. The king wouldn’t pay him so much as a wooden coin unless the information was proven accurate. Plus, the Terran Wolf was known to remove a man’s head from his shoulders for little more than offering a nasty look in his general direction. If the king’s own son returned from a lengthy journey, having wasted royal resources on an empty mission…the informant had better be able to run fast or have an iron neck or better yet, both.

The sound of miners at work grew louder and Sampson knew from the change in the air the moment the tunnel spilled into the broad cavern. Based on his previous trips down the shaft, he knew that half of the space was occupied by an underground lake. According to Roman, the waters were “as dark as spilled ink.”

It didn’t take the gift of sight to know that the other half of the space was bustling with activity, no fewer than a dozen miners bearing picks, axes and hammers, chipping away at the wall, inspecting each chunk of stone for signs of their quarry, the glowing bluish liquid that fueled all things magic in Kingfall. When they’d searched the tunnel and cavern on the first day, they’d quickly realized this was the end of the road. What had initially held the promise of a large tunnel and cavern system had turned out to be shallow and small. Thus, if there was anything to find, it would be right here in this space.

Sampson was smart enough not to insult his foreman, a capable man named Gorman Shift, by asking for an update. Had there been an update, Shift would’ve sent a runner up the shaft to inform him. “A pick, if you will,” he said to Roman, who he could sense close at hand. Roman knew better than to argue, even if both of them knew the king would be appalled if he saw his son toiling alongside common miners. The handle of a tool was thrust into his palm, replacing his staff. Roman’s firm hand gripped him at the elbow, guiding him toward a vacant area of wall. “Thank you,” Sampson said.

“Of course, Your Highness,” Roman said. And then, “Clear.”

Sampson began swinging. The first few hacks were clumsy and fruitless, the stone hard and unforgiving, sending tremors up his arms, but then he felt a satisfying chip break free, tumbling to his feet. It felt small and Sampson didn’t bother to have Roman inspect it—there would be no hint of blue on its inside surface. Plus, his eyes would’ve detected the glow as soon as the chunk broke free. Magenum was the only thing he’d discovered so far that could infiltrate the endless darkness of his blindness, which was just another reason why this expedition had been so appealing to him. He pushed away the thoughts and refocused on hammering at the small indentation he’d made in the wall, again and again, loosening additional stones until he’d created a deeper hole.

When his fingers sank deep into the wall and he was satisfied with the depth, he lowered the pick, wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his sleeve. He didn’t have to request an iron spike, as Roman had been around him for so long he seemed able to peruse his mind as a scholar might study the pages of a book. With hammer and spike in hand, Sampson felt along the rough cavern wall until he’d located the hole again. He gripped the spike, which was as long as a man’s forearm, with one hand while using the hammer to drive it into the growing hole. More stone crumbled away, brushing against the tops of his boots.

Soon he was deep enough to stick his hand in up to his elbow, feeling around for any signs of moisture. Surprise, surprise, it was dry. Rather than growing frustrated, he simply moved over slightly and repeated the process a dozen more times with Roman’s assistance while the other miners did the same.

Despite each successive failure, Sampson felt better with sweat beading on his forehead and his muscles sore and aching than he’d felt the entire day he’d been idle, just eating, drinking and listening to the never-ending storm. When he stopped to take a break, he heard feet shuffle toward him. Foreman Shift, who was apparently between hammerings as well, said, “We still have the magepowder, Your Highness.”

“Is it your recommendation that we use it?”

“I’m being paid whether we strike magenum or not. I’ve worked the lode on the Isle of Mages and several smaller lodes to boot, and I’ve never seen a wall of rock less likely to hold a magenum deposit than this one here.”

“The informant’s description was clear.”

“Since we’ve begun our errand, all we’ve talked about is how this so-called informant visited this very cave and identified a massive deposit of magenum. Yet here we are, richer by naught but a hundred barrows of worthless rock.”

“What would you have me do? If we use the powder now and have nothing to show for it, then all we have left is to hammer our way through the rock itself.”

“Or if the powder fails, we nurse our wounded pride and save ourselves a whole lot of wasted time.”

“What are you saying? We go back and admit defeat?” Sampson would rather lose an arm.

“I’ve been at this game a long time, Your Highness. Ninety percent of mining is finding the next lode. Sometimes you find it, sometimes you don’t. But what I’ve learned is that wasting time and resources on an empty mine is the worst thing you can do. We came. We disproved the informant’s claims. What is to be gained by lingering and breaking our tools upon this rock?”

Sampson knew there was wisdom in the man’s advice, much as he hated to admit it. If he returned home with nothing to show for the journey, it would feel like failure, which would only meet every low expectation that had been set for him since the moment he was born blind and third in line for his father’s throne. He knew King Gaard wouldn’t even bother to show his disappointment, which would’ve almost been better. Instead, the king would just bat away the failure as if it were exactly the result he’d expected.

I’m not here for him, he reminded himself, focusing on the here and now and the problem they faced.

Did it matter if they used the magepowder now or later? Either way, it would get them further into the stone and provide a greater indication of whether there was anything to be found. He realized Foreman Shift was awaiting his decision. “We detonate the powder. Now,” Sampson said. “What strategy do you suggest?”

The foreman seemed to appreciate the question and the prince’s reliance on his expertise. “There’s little benefit in blasting several smaller holes. If the deposit is as large as the informant claims, the vein should run the entire length of this cavern and further still.”

“So we use all the powder in one spot,” Sampson said.

“Exactly. We make the biggest godsdamn hole we can and then we hack deeper and deeper, operating in shifts so we can work night and day. We’ll keep going until you tell us to stop.”

Sampson nodded. It was far from a plan for success, but at least it was a plan. “Agreed. Begin surveying the wall for the most desirable location to set the powder.”

Without another word, the foreman began shouting orders to his men to cease work and prepare the powder.

“Well handled,” Roman said. Once more, Sampson basked in the man’s approval. “We should head aboveground.”

“And miss the fireworks display?” Sampson said. “Not a chance.”

“You’re blind, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“Ha. My ears work just fine. And I’m certain you will find illustrious words to describe the explosion.”

“Using magepowder increases the chances of a cave-in.”

“I will retreat as far as the tunnel, but no further. I want to be here when we discover the vein.”

“As you wish.” To be honest, Sampson was surprised the man hadn’t fought him harder on the subject. Maybe he was growing tired too. Armed with his staff once more, Sampson backtracked until he tapped both sides of the tunnel. They were soon joined by the rest of the miners, who crowded around. Roman described the scene in whispers in Sampson’s ear. Foreman Shift was conversing with his magepowder expert, a man whose experience with the highly explosive substance was proven by his missing left hand, which had been replaced by a hook that, according to Roman, ‘could use a good polish’.

“Everything in order?” Sampson asked Shift when he detected his footfalls approaching the pack of miners.

“Aye. We’ve selected one of the larger holes, in which the rock has proven to be more brittle than the rest. The blast should carve deep.”

“Excellent.”

Roman described how the one-handed magepowder expert was unspooling a length of twine in their direction, using his hook to guide it. Sampson had to admit, what the man could do with only one hand at his disposal was inspiring. When the man’s shuffling steps reached the tunnel mouth, he heard a snapping sound—the man using his dagger to clip the end of the twine. “Care to do the honors, Highness?”

Sampson felt a thrill run through his veins, the most excitement he’d felt since departing Wolfsgaard. “Thank you,” he said, feeling Roman push a torch handle into his palm. “Just touch the flame to the twine?”

“Aye, Highness. And then cover yer ears if you ever wan’ to hear out of ’em again.”

“Thanks for the warning,” Sampson said, feeling the men part so he could pass between them.

Roman followed, tapping once on his elbow to signal he should stop. “Lower the torch,” he said.

Sampson obeyed, hesitating only a moment just shy of the ground before lighting the fuse. For some reason, he’d expected a slow-burning rope of flame, drawing out the moment of suspense like a long breath before kissing a beautiful woman. Instead, he heard the flame hiss down the twine like a thief sprinting from his mark after stealing his coin. It was all Sampson could do to hand the torch back to Roman who clanked it into a fixture nailed into the wall and then cover his ears with his palms before—

BOOM!

Even with his ears covered tightly, a ringing filled Sampson’s head as the ground shook beneath his feet. The sound of rock shrapnel spewing from the wall was punctuated by the projectiles splashing into the inky lake. The expert had evidently positioned the magepowder and fuse well, as Sampson didn’t feel so much as a glancing blow from an errant stone. The air grew thick, as a cloud of dust must’ve filled the cavern, forcing Sampson to drop one hand from his ear to stuff his mouth and nose into his shirt to avoid breathing in the rock powder.

The men coughed and grumbled and muttered curses for several moments until the dust settled. Then, one by one, he heard torches being drawn from their wall mounts and the sound of boots creeping forward to inspect the results of the detonation. Sampson had the urge to follow, but held back, knowing that in the first instance this would be their victory or defeat and not his. They were miners, after all, and he was but the son of a king, as out of place here as he’d been while tapping his staff along the royal halls of his family’s castle his entire life.

Sampson suddenly felt like an imposter, all his previous excitement vanishing as a deep frown settled onto his forehead. Why am I here? he wondered. By “here” he knew he didn’t mean in this cavern, but the bigger HERE—alive, on this world, in existence. It was the existential question that humankind had struggled with for centuries on end, and one they would struggle with a thousand years hence.

As Sampson pondered this unanswerable question that had seemingly, almost at random, popped into his head, he didn’t notice the shouts of the men or the rush of feet as they poured into the hole created by the explosion.

No, he didn’t notice much of anything, not until he heard the screams.

The screams were unlike anything Sampson, in his short seventeen years of life thus far, had experienced, filled with agony and terror and the kind of fear that sends a man jolting upright from sleep as the shadowy monsters of a nightmare slowly begin to fade.

The screams were like bright-hot pokers being shoved into his skin, snapping him from the depth of his thoughts. “Highness, it’s time to go. Now!” The command came from Roman, the urgency in his tone enough to cause adrenaline to shoot through Sampson’s veins, for his protector was not a man prone to overreaction or exaggeration, as even-keel a human as there was in Teravainen.

Sampson didn’t know why he did what he did next, except for pure instinct, because even as Roman grabbed his arm to pull him away from the hidden source of the screams, he squirmed free and ran as directly toward the hole in the stone wall as his instincts allowed, tapping furiously with his staff to avoid crashing headlong into danger.

Roman shouted something, but Sampson was already well on his way, crossing the distance in four large steps, expecting to feel his staff spear into the back of one of the men, but discovering that the blast had more than created a hole. It had broken through the wall and into a hidden space—a room of sorts, the walls, floor and ceiling glowing turquoise, the pure liquid magenum wetting their stone surface, providing him a heart-pounding view of the only substance in the known world that he could actually see.

Well, “see” was a strong word, but Sampson could detect the glow of the magical substance, erasing the abject darkness that was the sum of his vision for the vast majority of his waking hours.

The split-second of joy he felt leap in his chest quickly faltered as screams bloomed in his ears once more.

Something moved across the glowing backdrop and Sampson froze. Wait. Wait. How could he see something move? There it was again, a long object slashing past the glow of magenum: a sword, so black it might’ve been the sun’s mortal enemy and yet not as dark as the darkness Sampson had experienced his entire life. Each time that blade moved, screams rang out. The sword is killing the miners, Sampson realized with a start. But who is wielding it? The sword whistled through the air as the wielder slashed it from left to right, followed by a heavy thump—was that a head? A second, heavier thump followed shortly thereafter—the headless man’s body, presumably. He felt something collide with his boots—the head—and he wondered if the sightless eyes were still staring, asking him a thousand questions for which there were no answers.

The sword stopped moving with a suddenness that took Sampson’s breath away. There were no more screams, which was worse than the alternative because of what the silence represented. “Who are you?” he asked whoever had wielded the blade with such deadly precision.

The response came slow and hissing, and yet there was no mistaking the voice: Foreman Shift. “The shadow guides me, purpose unknown.”

Sampson’s voice was lodged in his throat as he tried to make sense of the senseless. How could the foreman, who had been calm and rationale from the moment he’d met him, murdered his entire crew? It was unfathomable.

Without so much as another word or a war cry, Shift charged, boots pounding, that night-dark blade dancing from side to side against the backdrop of the magenum deposit that had gone from being a great victory to a mass tomb in a matter of seconds. Sampson, having never experienced true battle—his only training being with practice swords with Roman or Amari in a safe environment—froze, his feet suddenly incapable of movement. He finally managed to stumble back a step, out of the corridor leading into the hidden magenum room, but it was too late, for Shift was already upon him, already slashing the deadly blade glistening with the blood of dead men who’d, only several moments earlier, toiled under his command. The fact that he could see the blood glistening was lost on Sampson in his panic to flee.

Sampson should’ve died under that slashing sword, and he would have if not for the man who’d been his companion for as long as he could remember. Barreling in from the side, Roman shoved Sampson clear of the killing stroke. As Sampson fell, he turned his head to look back, hearing Roman’s cry, but unable to see the man, only the stab of the dark blade. There was a sizzling sound, like bacon in a fry pan over the heat of an open fire, and the smell of burning meat.

Like the others, Roman screamed.

And Sampson, finally, snapped out of his stupor.

He rushed forward toward the blade, his muscle memory remembering what his mind could not because of the horrors he’d witnessed. The countless hours of training that Roman had subjected him to had always seemed pointless for a boy who was now a man who would never see true combat on account of his blindness. They were not pointless now.

He slammed his fist down on the area just beneath the dark blade, feeling the satisfying collision of knuckles against bone. It was intended to be a disarming maneuver, but the blade didn’t drop, which meant it had failed. Instead, with almost superhuman strength, Shift shoved Sampson back, his tailbone colliding with the stone wall and sending spears of pain up his spine. Briefly, Sampson sensed Shift turning his attention back to Roman, raising that dark sword over his head. With Shift distracted, Sampson could’ve easily fled back up the tunnel, feeling his way to the surface, not stopping until he’d quit this place of murder and death, could’ve run down the mountainous paths, across the Lost Plains all the way to where their sea vessel was anchored. Void, Roman himself would’ve wanted him to, all the years of training by the man paying off to save the prince’s life. Yes, Sampson could’ve escaped and sailed back to Wolfsgaard where no one would fault him for his actions considering the circumstances.

That’s exactly what a blind third-born prince would be expected to do.

But Sampson was tired of being underestimated, tired of having no purpose other than to strengthen one of his father’s alliances through some future pre-arranged marriage bond with a wealthy lady who’d undoubtedly rather choose a husband who could see. “No!” he roared, finally drawing his own sword, steel scraping against steel, rushing toward the hovering blade. He brought the blade down on where, based on the angle of the sword, Shift surely stood, preparing to finish off Roman. At the last moment, the direction of the dark blade changed, blocking Sampson’s intended strike with a clang. Red sparks flew in the firelit cavern as their shadows danced across the floor.

And, inexplicably, Sampson could see the sparks and the shadows, though not his own feet or his adversary. The how? and the why? and the what? were lost on him as he struck again and again and again, but each time Shift was ready, deflecting the blows with ease. How had a miner foreman learned to swordfight like this? Sampson wondered.

Then, with a suddenness that took his breath away, Shift countered, stabbing at Sampson’s eye. He dodged the attack, barely, feeling the displaced air as the blade scythed past. It created an opening, and Sampson found himself instinctively leaning into it, shoving his own sword upwards toward his best guess as to the location of the man’s unprotected throat.

Despite all the hours of training, despite the survival instinct he felt deep in his bones, despite the heat of the adrenaline rushing through his veins, Sampson was wholly unprepared for the feeling of blade sinking into flesh, for the splatter of warm blood that splashed across his face like rainwater, for the gasp as the man’s mouth opened, sucking in his last breath, for the thump of his body as it hit the ground, his fingers finally opening as they lost all strength.

The night-dark blade clanked to the stone, shadows seeming to coalesce around its razor-sharp edge. Sampson, chest heaving from the effort of the fight, stared at the sword as light from the torches danced along its broadside. Light, he thought. I am seeing light. But how? He frowned as the surface seemed to waver, images flashing red before vanishing. He blinked and they stopped. He shook his head. “Only my imagination,” he muttered aloud.

Nearby, he heard Roman roll over, a groan issuing from his lips. Sampson dragged his gaze away from the foul blade, moving over to kneel, feeling for the man’s body. His fingers came away slick with blood, so much blood. “Everything is full of shadows…,” Roman said.

“You’re going to be fine,” Sampson said, trying to infuse more confidence into his voice than he felt. “Shift is dead. At least I think he is. We need to stop the bleeding and bind your wounds. Where were you stabbed?”

Instead of answering the question, Roman said, “The darkness. It calls to me. Do you hear it?”

“I—” A scraping sound stopped his response before he could get more than a single word out. Sampson whirled around, seeking the source. His eyes landed on the shadowy blade, which he swore was in a different position than he’d left it. Once more, there was something moving along its broadside, almost as if there were something alive inside it, trying to claw its way out.

He rose to his feet once more and crossed the distance to the discarded blade. The hilt was of fine craftsmanship, roped with coils of metal—gold?—that gleamed darkly. The blade itself was unnatural, and he couldn’t quite make out its form, which seemed everchanging, as if forged of shadows rather than casting a shadow under the glow of the firelight.

The sword immediately reminded Sampson of the lesserblades housed at Wolfsgaard. Not the lightblades but the darkblades. Not that he’d ever seen any of them, but he’d been in the same room with them before. He’d felt the power wafting from them. This blade had the same…feeling—that was the only way he could describe it. Except compared to the two darkblades he’d experienced, the depth of this blade’s power was the equivalent of a chasm next to a mere rabbit hole.

It cannot be, he thought, immediately discarding the theory that had appeared in his mind. The godblades had been lost centuries ago. Void, many believed they never existed in the first place and were fantasies passed down from generation to generation. No living creature had even seen one.

He realized that while he was lost in his thoughts, his hand was subconsciously reaching for the blade’s hilt. He jerked his hand back, crying out as a sharp pain seared through his temples. When the pain passed, he found his hand had once more moved toward the blade, but this time he’d noticed too late to regain control, his fingers curling around the hilt, relishing the feel in his palm. It felt…wonderful…almost as though the blade had been handcrafted by a master forger to fit his exact hand.

That wasn’t all. Not even close.

He could…

No, that’s impossible, he thought, tears welling in his eyes. You are imagining it—a trick of this cursed blade…

And yet.

Yet.

There was no mistaking the fiery glow of the torchlights casting their light upon the cavern floor, nor the bladelike stalactites protruding from the ceiling, nor the craggy hole-filled wall that he himself had worked ferociously with his pick.

I can see.

Full of wonder at the myriad sights around him, he stood once more, gazing about himself, soaking everything—everything—in. Then he tested the blade’s weight, finding it perfectly balanced. To satisfy his own curiosity, he scythed the blade across his body. The blade fairly sang as it sliced through the air. Something inside him stirred as he felt a strange kinship with the blade that had just killed a dozen men and almost him.

There was something—no, someone—he was forgetting, and he frowned, unable to recall the face of someone who’d been important to him, once. Raymond? No, that wasn’t right.

He frowned as those eerie images resurfaced along the dark blade, scraping and clawing, and then his hand betrayed him once more, turning the sword slowly in the opposite direction, point aiming directly toward his own heart.

His lips began to quiver and a fresh well of tears blurred his newfound vision as he strained every muscle in his body against whatever sinister force was imposing its will upon him. “No,” he growled. “No, please. No.” Unbidden, his sister’s face appeared in his mind. She looked…disappointed in him. “Amari?” he said. “Amari, help me.”

Her image vanished as creatures of darkness twisted and writhed, the sound of their tormented cries assaulting his ears.

Sampson Gaard, blind no more, shoved the blade into his own heart.

Two

Andovier Helm

West of Kingsfort, Odinian side of the Vein

THE BATTLE HAD RAGED FOR THE BETTER PART OF THE DAY, beginning at dawn until it collided with noon, fierce sun bearing down on the combatants, testing their mettle and weakening their resolve.

And yet High Commander Andovier Helm, leader of the Odinian forces, had experienced longer, fiercer battles in his service to King Normandian. In fact, his army was on the brink of victory, having finally gained the upper hand over the Terran forces as the flow of their reinforcements had slowed to a trickle, the last few rafts landing on the eastern side of the Vein, the powerful river that marked the border between Odin and Teravainen as it churned steadily north to south, linking the seaward inlets known as the Fingerlings to the Bay of Sighs.

In the distance across the river, the walls of Bearhoff, Teravainen’s border fortress, were visible. Ando was almost certain King Gaard held more forces in reserve behind those walls, but for some reason he’d decided not to employ them on this day, for which he was glad. His forces had been bloodied and killed and could use a reprieve to bury their dead and tend to the injured.

He strode toward the last line of reinforcements, several of his men following his lead. The first man he came upon raised a green-and-black-painted shield to block his blow, but he merely raised his leg and slammed the heel of his boot into the steel surface, connecting solidly with the Terran sigil—a fearsome wolf—in the direct center. The soldier stumbled backward, tripping over his own feet and losing the shield in the process. The remaining men on both sides met, the bright sound of steel against steel music to Ando’s ears.

The gold-and-burgundy uniformed Odinian forces swiftly overwhelmed the Terrans, killing several and capturing the rest. Ando stepped on the blade of the young soldier he’d kicked before the lad could raise it to defend himself. He could see the fear in the boy’s eyes as Ando’s large, armored frame loomed over him, casting him in shadow with the sun behind him. “Please,” the boy stammered out. “Mercy.”

Ando knew that war was a horrid thing devoid of mercy, but he wasn’t one to kill a defenseless man, even an enemy soldier. Consistent with the instructions he’d given his soldiers, he took the boy captive. One day he hoped to be able to trade prisoners with King Gaard, who’d also captured his fair share over the course of the war.

Thus, Ando was about to relieve the lad of his sword when he heard a shout in the distance, back in the direction of their own stronghold, Kingsfort. He turned to look, his lips parting slightly as he blinked away spots of sun while trying to make sense of what he saw. Flaming arrows arced over the walls. Spear-wielding soldiers rushed the castle gates. A large battering ram was hefted on the shoulders of green-and-black-clad soldiers.

Unlike the Terrans, Ando had opted to veritably empty out his own fortress for this battle to ensure they achieved victory, leaving only a skeleton crew to defend their stronghold if it became necessary. Now, however, they were on the verge of being overwhelmed by a second enemy force that had apparently forded the Vein further north before using the heavily wooded area to encircle them, now attacking from the rear.

“Shite,” Ando said, cursing whatever flaw in his defenses had been exploited. “Retreat to Kingsfort!” he shouted. “The enemy attacks from the rear!” The command given, Ando did not follow his troops, who obeyed without question. Although he preferred to fight alongside his men, this was not the time. It was the time, however, to be a commander and determine what had transpired in order to make decisions going forward. He wasn’t concerned about losing Kingsfort given the enemy reinforcements numbered no more than five hundred at most and his returning soldiers would soon destroy them.

The utter waste of human life, however, cut him to the quick. Damn you, King Gaard, he thought, scanning the battlefield. He considered the situation and all the planning that had gone into this most recent battle. He’d stationed a small contingent of scouts in the north woods. How had the Terrans managed to ambush them before his scouts alerted him of the flanking maneuver? Something about the situation felt…off, as though he were missing some key fact. He realized he was still standing on the enemy soldier’s sword. He stepped off and kicked him in the face before claiming the lad’s sword, tossing it to another of his soldiers who had taken charge of the prisoners.

That’s when he saw one of the scouts he’d sent into the north woods, the fleet-footed lad racing across the bloody battlefield in his direction. “What happened?” Ando demanded before the scout had fully reached him. “Were you ambushed in the north woods?”

The scout skidded to a stop, gulping in breaths as he tried to compose himself. “No. The second force arrived from the east.”

Ando froze. His heart was suddenly in his throat. He managed to swallow, trying not to jump to any conclusions that may not be worth jumping to. “They used ships?” The Terrans were many things, but they were not exactly known for their prowess at sea, preferring land attacks whenever possible.

“Aye. Six ships. They gave the Fingerlings a wide berth to avoid detection.” Odin had a substantial naval force anchored amongst the trio of peninsulas at the far north of the country. They patrolled the northern waters but didn’t venture too far from home to avoid losing men and ships needlessly in a storm.

“But surely the Frozen Passage offered resistance prior to their landing,” Ando argued. He needed some good news. Any good news. His heart was beating harder now, fear burrowing deep into the marrow of his bones. Not Westport. Anywhere but Westport.

“Some,” the scout said. “Word is that a Crimean merchant vessel was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Two Odinian military ships offered some defense but were eventually sunk to the depths. Two of the six Terran ships also met their demise. The other four made landfall at Westport.”

No. “And charged straight across Odin to attack us from the rear?” This was the question Ando had been waiting to ask, even as he watched his soldiers fall upon the Terrans before they could land more than three blows against the heavy Kingsfort gate, which didn’t so much as crack. The second phase of the battle would be over soon, but that was the least of his concerns at this moment.

“I’m afraid not,” the scout said. Ando refused to look at him. Everyone stationed at Kingsfort knew where High Commander Andovier Helm traveled while on leave. To Westport. “I encountered a messenger who managed to escape Westport before the Terrans landed. The city has been taken.”

None of this was by the book, but Ando didn’t really care. At this point, he felt it was better to ask for forgiveness than for permission. Still, his sense of duty precluded him from marching his entire army from Kingsfort to Westport, even if that’s what he desperately wanted to do. Instead, after he was certain Kingsfort was in no further immediate danger, he’d sent a messenger directly to King Normandian in Chrysallis to inform him of his campaign to retake Odin’s largest port city.

He hoped the king’s heart wouldn’t fail upon reading the message.

Now, he rode at the head of a small but agile fighting force comprised of ten of his most capable swordsmen. The gallop across the farmlands between the Terran border and the sea would require the better part of a full day, and they could only manage such haste because they planned to trade their horses for fresh mounts at the approximate midpoint of the journey, assuming they could locate suitable replacements.

Unfortunately, Ando was swiftly realizing that may have been a poor assumption. With each razed farmstead they passed, the knot that had settled into his throat grew. The “lucky” farmers could be seen picking through the burned-out rubble of their homes and barns trying to salvage anything of value. The unlucky ones were strung up from ropes attached to tree branches.

The Terran soldiers had not distinguished between men and women, adults and children.

Ando had been gritting his teeth for so long his jaw was beginning to ache.

Oh Moira, he thought. Where are you? Are you safe? Are our children safe? He tried not to think the worst, else he tumble from his mount. His wife of twelve years was a capable woman, as sharp as she was beautiful, and he trusted her to find a way to escape the Terran occupation, more so because their modest home was located on the southern outskirts of the port city. If she’d received sufficient notice, mayhaps she’d been able to flee with the children south where Odinian troops near the Strangle would be able to help her. All she’d have to do is tell them who she was and she’d receive the best treatment available.

Moira, Olly, Celeste. Ando recited the names in his head, like a mantra. Speaking their names made them more real, somehow.

“High Commander Helm,” the man riding beside him said. The captain was a lifetime soldier, his face scarred and weathered, his eyes the color of steel under the waning light of dusk.

“What is it, Captain Freeman?” he asked. He swore the man’s face wore an expression of concern.

“Should we consider angling southward where there may be unaffected farmsteads?”

Moira, Olly, Celeste.

Ando knew he wasn’t thinking clearly. He was distracted, for obvious reasons. But he couldn’t be. He needed to lead. And the fact that he hadn’t considered changing their path before his captain pointed it out proved just how out of sorts he was. “Yes. Thank you, Captain.” He steered his steed toward the right rather than left of the next farmstead, averting his gaze from the smoke rising from what was left of the devastated structures.

Captain Freeman’s advice proved fortuitous, because to the northwest of the Strangle they reached an intact village that could offer both fresh horses and information, both of which they were in dire need of. Their horses had been warriors, maintaining their pace long after their foamy spittle had begun chuffing from their maws in long streams.

Ando hated overworking the beasts, but there was no other option. In any case, he was glad when they spotted the rural town with no signs of death or destruction.

“We are a poor people,” a man who owned sufficiently hardy horses said to them as they bargained a trade. He had bright eyes that sparkled when he spoke, his hands doing as much of the talking as his lips. “A few coins would go a long way.”

Ando knew he was being played—with his brass-buttoned overcoat and shiny leather boots, this man was clearly well-off compared to many others in this village—but he also knew he didn’t care about parting with some gold under the circumstances. “How do six gold and eight silver sound?”

“Hmm, I was thinking more like—”

“Don’t test me, sir,” Ando growled.

The man’s eyes widened and he quickly stammered, “Yes, yes, of course. The price is fair. More like generous. An even trade of horses and the coin will do just fine.”

“Good. Now what news of Westport has reached your ears?”

“Ask them. They will tell ye true.” The man gestured toward a cluster of people Ando hadn’t paid attention to before. They sat on the ground while a tavern maid delivered cups of something steaming—hot soup or tea or the like. What stood out most to Ando, however, was the expressions they wore.

Haunted. Like they’d seen ghosts.

His family was not amongst them. “Are there others like them here?” Ando asked.

“Not that I know of. They arrived several hours ago on foot. If I were a suspicious man, I’d have thought they were the risen dead—they certainly look it.”

Ando knew what he meant. He could tell they were not blind, and yet their eyes didn’t seem to truly see anything, their dead stares viewing something other than the village. Memories of what had transpired at Westport, Ando suspected.

Moira, Olly, Celeste.

“Prepare the horses,” he said to the man. “We ride for Westport at once.” Ando strode over to the refugees, making plenty of noise as he approached in the hopes that he wouldn’t startle them. As it turned out, he needn’t have worried about that. Even after he was amongst them, they barely seemed to notice his presence as they sipped their thin soup and stared into the face of whatever repeating nightmare they’d endured at the hands of the Terran soldiers.

“Good people,” Ando said, clapping his hands. Most of the heads slowly rose as they looked at him. “I am—”

“High Commander Helm,” one of the men said. “By the gods…”

“You know who I am?”

“Of course. For one of our own to rise to such a station…it gave many of us hope.”

“I—I am not here for compliments. I seek information regarding the situation at Westport. My family…”

“Pray for them,” the man said. “That’s all you can do now.” His cheeks were sunken just beneath his eyes. Ando noticed he was wringing his hands together over and over again, like he didn’t even realize he was doing it. The sleeve of his shirt was soaked with blood.

Ando was a gods fearing man, but had never done much in the way of praying. He believed the gods helped those who helped themselves and didn’t rely on idle miracles. But he also didn’t want to offend the man, so he simply nodded. “What happened? Please tell me.”

“My brother,” the man said. “Her son.” He gestured toward a woman holding a young girl in her lap. “Her husband. All our cousins and friends and loved ones. Taken from us. Taken by those godsless Terran fiends.” There was anger in the man’s tone now, each word spat like a bad taste. Although Ando was horrified to hear of all they’d lost in Westport, he was glad the man hadn’t lost the fire in his belly. Now that Odin’s borders had been breached, they would need a whole lot of fire from a whole lot of men in order to drive the invaders out.

“I’m sorry for your losses. All of them,” Ando said, bowing his head. Moira, Olly, Celeste. “Did you see other refugees along the way? Either heading here or to some other haven?”

The man shook his head. “It was madness. People fleeing in all directions. Soldiers cutting us down without thought to taking prisoners. Men, women, children—we were all chaff to be harvested to them. I should’ve done more. I should’ve protected those who couldn’t…” Tears streamed from his eyes now, the fires of vengeance gone, replaced by regret and sorrow.

“Then you would be dead, too,” Ando said. “You want to make a difference? Join the ranks of the king’s army. We will need every able-bodied man now. Thank you for telling your story.”

With that, he strode back toward the fresh horses, which were now saddled and stamping in excitement at the promise of a ride.

Darkness fell like a knife over Odin, and Ando could almost believe the gods of old had sided with the Terrans. Foolishness, he thought. The gods do not meddle in the affairs of men. No, it was up to men to handle their affairs themselves, and that included war.

They rode on through the dark, thankful for the decent road that led from the small village directly to Westport. Aided by the fresh horses, they could very well arrive at their destination by dawn if the winds stayed behind them.

Under the twin moons and starlight, Ando knew there was something that needed to be said to his men. “This is my fight, not yours. We may very well be riding into an impossible situation, one the likes of which even scoundrels such as yourselves may not be able to ride out of again. I will take no offense if you turn around and ride for the Strangle to join the reinforcements that are surely plotting a full campaign against the Terrans at Westport.”

“I know I speak for all of us when I say we are with you, High Commander,” Captain Freeman said. “In the time I’ve served you, I’ve never known a better man and leader. If you need our help, we will not refuse you.”

Ando was moved by the man’s words, which caught him by surprise. He always tried to be fair but disciplined with his men, but to hear one whose opinion he valued highly speak of him in this way… “Thank you,” he said. “I will not soon forget your support.”

They rode on in silence, the stars their only witnesses.

As they rode, Ando sought to distract his tumultuous thoughts with military strategy. What did King Gaard hope to accomplish by holding Westport? Unless the Terrans managed to take Kingsfort, too, which they’d failed to do, the Odinian forces would only retake Westport within the fortnight. King Gaard would lose all the soldiers he’d risked in the campaign, along with six ships. It was a reckless strategy, one that spoke of a man who cared little and less for the lives of those who served him, using them only as spears to be shattered on his enemies’ armor. Worse, it spoke of a man whose main objective was to reap chaos.

Not for the first time, Ando had the thought that perhaps King Normandian should seek temporary alliances against Teravainen. The Dragonmaster of Travail to the south for starters. Glynn Kerr of Avadon would be a longshot—the leader of the free humans cared far more for gold than he did justice—but worth sending a letter to test the waters. And, of course, the Dead King of Solarii would be open to an alliance more than any other leader. His borders consisted of water on three sides and Teravainen on the fourth. Yes, King Ontarii would ally with the Normandians without question. His considerable wealth would be a boon as they could procure war mages from Aeromand to fight for them.

The thoughts of strategy were exactly what Ando needed to distract his mind, and he continued strategizing and speculating until he realized the night was nearly over, the horizon brightening, the packed-dirt road becoming visible beneath their horses’ trod. And with the rising sun, came Westport.

Typically, this was the part of Ando’s journey where a thrill would rise within his chest at the sight of his home, at the thought of seeing his family’s smiling faces. His children, Olly and Celeste, would spot him first, racing on their little legs and throwing themselves into his arms. He would carry them on his shoulders like sacks of potatoes while they squealed their delight. When he reached Moira, he would deposit them back on their feet and embrace her. His children would see how a man treated his wife, see the love that bound them together.

Now he felt only fear and dread.

Moira, Olly, Celeste, he repeated several times in his head until his worst thoughts subsided.

“What’s our play, High Commander?” Captain Freeman asked.

“We make for the coast, ride along the sea until we’re close enough to get a lay of the land. Then we travel the rest of the way on foot along the beach. There is cover there. Coves and boulders. There’s a hidden path up what appears to be a treacherous cliff. My home stands at the top. We go in full force.”

“Aye, High Commander.”

They veered eastward toward where the line of land—the coastline—gave way to the waters of the Frozen Passage, as choppy and rough as always, the first rays of sunlight illuminating the thousands of whitecaps dancing along the ocean’s tumultuous surface. When they reached the shore, they dismounted and tethered their horses to a tree with plenty of grass beneath for the beasts to graze on. They clambered down the embankment to the rocky beach and then headed northward. For a while they saw nothing but rocks, shells and water. But then—

“Is that…,” Captain Freeman said, trailing off.

“Aye. A ship’s mast,” Ando said. They passed the heavy timber. The further they traveled along the shore, the more wreckage they discovered. Barrels, some shattered, some intact, from the sunken merchant ship he’d heard about from his scout. More timber, some of it blackened, like it had been burned. Scraps of waterlogged sails.

Thankfully, there were no corpses. Not yet. It would take time for the bodies to fill with air and then rise from the depths to be deposited on Westport’s beaches.

Ando turned his attention away from the ship’s wreckage and toward the cliffs. He could just make out the roof of his own house, a roof he’d recently repaired with his own two hands. It was still intact! That was a good sign, he suspected, considering all the burned-out farmsteads they’d passed on the way across country. There were no signs of smoke, though he did spot movement. “Down!” he shouted, grabbing two of his men and making his point by shoving them to the rocks. The men flattened themselves as best they could. Thankfully, several large rocks were just ahead, jutting out from the cliffs and providing ample cover.

Ando slowly lifted his head, until his eyes rose high enough for him to see what had captured his attention. Several men—no, soldiers, he thought, considering the silver reflection of sun off their armor—could be seen standing atop the cliff, gazing out at the sea.

Ando’s heart sank. He knew he shouldn’t have expected his house to be overlooked, but he’d let himself hope. Now all he had left was to confirm Moira had fled with the children before the soldiers had reached his homestead. Of course, she did, he told himself.

He glanced left, noticing that Captain Freeman had also risen to surveil the cliffs. “I count four, but we don’t have a line of sight to the house itself. There are likely more.”

“Aye. My wife keeps the larder well-stocked. I’m certain the bloody Terrans have made themselves right at home.”

“We’ll make them rue the day they partook of your best ale.” Freeman managed a grim smile, one Ando returned.

“And then we’ll drink what’s left,” Ando said, slapping the captain on the back. “Let’s move. We’ll stick to the cliff’s shadow. I know the way.”

It felt odd to Ando, creeping along the cliffs that were as familiar to him as the feel of his wife’s body when they were abed. Almost like a strange dream, from which he may awake at any moment to find that he’d taken a hit to the head during the latest battle at Kingsfort.

If only, he thought. He’d endure a hundred hits to the head rather than having his family forced to flee their home. “We are close,” he whispered back to Freeman, who passed the message along the chain of men. Sure enough, within moments he spotted a familiar boulder that had the unusual shape of a ship at sea. His children loved this rock. His gaze passed swiftly over where each of them had scraped their initials into its surface.

To the left of the large stone was a path between the cliff wall and a series of boulders, rising steeply. At points, the path curled within the cliff itself, the ceiling so low a grown man was forced to stoop to avoid hitting his head. Finally, they reached the top, where the path made its final ascent to the cliff’s precipice. Ando looked back, placing a finger to his lips.

Because he heard voices.

He craned his neck, listening intently as he tried to make out what the men were saying. At first it was nothing more than indistinct murmurs, but then the voices rose, clarifying. “A real wild woman, that one,” one man said.

“More like a wildcat,” another voice said. “And I’ve got the claw marks to prove it!”

The men laughed heartily. Ando was a practical man, generally even-keel. But this was too much for him. Too much for anyone. Before Captain Freeman could even consider trying to grab his arm to stop him, Ando sprang from his haunches, racing up what remained of the slope, drawing his weapon as he ran.

The first soldier died before he even knew what was happening. His head, which did indeed have tracks of blood on his cheek, bounced toward the cliff’s edge and then was gone. The second soldier managed to get his hand to his hilt but was dead—his throat slit—before he could drag the sword from its scabbard. The third soldier had been further apart from the first two, about to light a pipe. He took off, running for a house that wasn’t his to run to.

Ando took off after him, closing the gap in five long strides and then launching himself through the air, dragging the man down by the neck, slamming his head into the ground. Someone shouted something, raising the alarm and drawing the remaining soldiers away from whatever plunder they were engaged in.

More like a wildcat.

Ando located a gap between the soldier’s plate and shoved his blade in deep, the man’s mouth opening wide, like a fish out of water. His eyes rolled back in his head. Ando stood, searching for his next enemy. Having heard the warning shout, at least twenty soldiers poured from the house while another dozen ran from the stables where they were no doubt staking their claims on Ando’s horses.

“Oh, this is rich,” one of them said. And then they charged, swords at the ready, the odds almost thirty to one. Ando felt as though, if anything, he had the unfair advantage, such was the power of the white-hot rage burning through him.

Just before the human tide swept over him, however, his own men arrived, their war cries loud enough to scare the ghouls from Echoeswood. The soldiers came together in the tornadic clash of steel on steel. Ando’s men may have been outnumbered three to one, but not in their minds. Several of the enemy were killed before they managed to land a single blow on one of the Odinians, but then the winds seemed to change. One of Ando’s men was stabbed through the throat, then another through the eye. More men fell—he saw Captain Freeman go down with a cry of pain—but Ando refused to succumb to the numerous swords slashing at him from all sides. He swatted one away with his own blade, each of his own slashes in time with the mantra running through his head.

Moira, Olly, Celeste.

Again and again he repeated their names, killing two more men, opening a gap in the enemy, bursting through it, taking a slash on the cheek. Naught but a flesh wound, he thought, charging for the door to his home, which stood wide open. There was only forward now, because backwards didn’t exist. He’d seen the last of his men die behind him, leaving him feeling ill. I brought them here. I led them to their deaths. Even as he hated himself for the thought, he knew he would sacrifice a thousand men if it gave him the chance to save his family. A man stepped in his path, but he merely lowered his shoulder and smashed through him, trampling the soldier underfoot. He entered his home, slamming the door behind him. The door itself was splintered at the lock—evidence that the soldiers had forced their way inside—but the crossbeam remained undamaged, which likely meant his wife hadn’t had time to fully secure the door before it was breached. He threw the crossbeam into position and soon soldiers hammered at the door, demanding that he open it. He ignored them, casting his eyes about, searching for any signs of where his wife and children had been imprisoned. The inside was a mess of broken bowls and bottles, overturned chairs and tables, decimated chests that had once protected his family’s clothing from moths, the shirts and dresses and pants scattered haphazardly about.

He cared nothing for the destruction of his property, all he cared about was—

His gaze landed on something he might’ve mistaken for a discarded sock, if not for the sliver of skin he could make out just above the fabric. The rest of the leg was hidden behind the table lying on its side.

The pounding continued, and one of his front windows was shattered by a thrown stone, but he didn’t hear any of it, his eyes tethered to that small, unmoving foot. He dropped his sword, the weapon thudding on the floorboards. His hands trembled as he moved slowly around the edge of the table, more and more of the body coming into view. The lovely white dress his daughter was determined to wear until it was threadbare. Her long, golden locks growing curlier by the year.

Celeste.

Beside her was her younger brother, his own hair so blond it was almost white, wavy rather than curly, his eyelids closed so that his beautiful cerulean eyes were hidden.

Olly.

Finally, there she was, lying on her side, her dress ripped and bloodied, her face bruised around one of her eyes, her lip split. Ando saw none of the damage, only the beauty of the woman he’d married all those years ago, a woman who had inspired him to be a better man, to love harder, longer, more completely.

Moira.

There was no life in any of them. They weren’t even covered, just flung in a row before the hearth, half-hidden by the table as the soldiers plundered around them as if they were nothing but dead dogs. Ando breathed. He should’ve been fighting tears and screams of anguish, but there was nothing to fight. He was numb, as if looking down on himself from above. They might’ve been sleeping, so quiet. Discarded like scraps of torn clothing, used and worn out and no longer wanted. But he wanted them so desperately. No, he thought. I don’t want them. I need them. What am I without them?

I am…

nothing.

A Terran soldier was scraping away shards of glass from the windowsill. Ando spotted the rock that had been thrown through the window. He picked it up, feeling how solid it was, the opposite of everything else in his life right now. He wished he were the rock, for he himself felt as if he was as liquid as the ocean. He launched the rock, hitting the intruder square in the face. The man fell back with a cry, clutching his bleeding nose.

Ando strode over to where a mattress had been dragged from the master bed upstairs and shoved into the corner. The bedclothes still clung to the pad and he stripped them off, carrying them over to

Moira, Olly, Celeste.

He covered them as if arriving home late to find them already sleeping, tucking them in. He planted a gentle kiss on each of his children’s foreheads. He left his wife for last, kissing her lips, which were already cold. Their faces were now wet with his tears, which he hadn’t even realized had been falling the entire time.

The hammering on the door was no longer a dull thudding sound, but a raucous splintering as the wood began to crack. Another soldier peered cautiously through the broken window, trying to avoid meeting the same fate as his comrade.

Ando reached down and grasped his sword. He touched the edge with his finger, his skin parting as easily as if it were soft cheese. Blood welled up, proving to him that he was still alive. He walked to the door just as a sledge crashed through the wood, the bearer trying to drag the hammer back out for another blow but finding the tool stuck, wedged in the damaged wood.

Ando lifted the crossbeam and wrenched the door open, jerking the soldier who was still gripping the hammer inside. He grabbed his head and snapped his neck, tossing him to the floor without care. There was more tinkling glass as another window was shattered by a stone. The man who’d been peering through the first broken window climbed through, leading with his sword, blood leaking from his nose and over his lips. Ando kicked the next soldier that tried to barrel through the doorway and then reached over and grabbed the blade of the one who’d come through the window. He relished the bite of the blade into his palm, even as he stabbed the man through the throat.

More men crawled through both windows now, even as others tried their luck through the doorway. Ando planned to take as many of them to the grave as possible before joining his family in the brightlands.

If his wife had been a wildcat, then he was a dreadbeast, raining violence down upon all comers, rending flesh and breaking bone. One man rushed him from behind and though his sword glanced off Ando’s plate, he absorbed the blow and flipped the man over his head, slamming him onto the edge of the table headfirst. The man’s body slumped over, unmoving.

Another blade slashed in from the side, breaching the gap between armor and cutting his sword arm. Ando reached over and collected the sword with his offhand, which would serve him nearly as well due to the hours of sword training he and his men engaged in with both hands. The man who’d dared to cut him died next, followed by the man after.

That’s where it ended. Several more men had managed to circle behind him and now they wrenched his sword from his grip. Even still, he fought, refusing to be subdued, biting one man’s hand and stabbing his finger into another’s eye. Despite the ferocity of his rage, they locked his arms behind his back and dragged him to the floor. Cold steel pressed against the thin skin of his throat. “Not so tough now, are you?” the dagger’s owner hissed in his ear.

Without warning, Ando snapped his head back, smashing his own skull into the whisperer’s face, breaking his nose. A string of curses followed as the dagger was temporarily pulled away, but then it quickly returned. “Now you die.”

Ando closed his eyes.

Moira, Olly, Celeste…I’m coming.

“Wait.” The unexpected voice spoken with an air of command startled Ando’s eyes back open. Standing before him was a man wearing a long, black robe. A hood covered his head, shadowing his face. He leaned on a long staff, from which were tied several stoppered vials filled with a light blue liquid that seemed to glow from within.

Magenum, Ando thought. This man is a mage.

“Beggin’ your pardon, Lord Grimfire, but this man killed many of us. He deserves to die like the rest of them.”

“Insolent fool,” the mage said. Not just any mage, Ando thought, recognizing the name. Grimfire was King Gaard’s high mage. It explained much regarding how the Terrans managed to take Westport with such ease. It also meant this robed man standing before him was a major reason why his family was now dead. “This is Odin’s High Commander, Andovier Helm.”

“So?” the soldier said.

Calmly, Grimfire reached over to his staff and removed the stopper from one of the small vials, letting the contents spill down the wooden shaft. Then he spun the staff upwards while muttering something in a tongue unknown to Ando. Runes flashed on the staff’s shaft and a pulse of bright energy rocketed outwards from its tip. Ando felt the heat as it passed just by his ear, and then the dagger slid away from his throat once more. He glanced back to find the man howling and clutching at his ear, half of which was now missing, leaving charred misshapen flesh behind.

“I’ll take one of those, too, if you’re offering,” Ando said. “Though I’d prefer it through the forehead.”

“Apologies, High Commander Helm, but I have other plans for you. King Gaard would rather watch a fish wriggle on the hook for a while before tossing it in the fire. Bind him.”

Ando closed his eyes again. Death would have to wait a while longer.

Three

Aisling Brightshine

Wolfsgaard, Teravainen

AISLING BRIGHTSHINE SAW THE WORLD IN BLACK AND WHITE THESE DAYS.

She understood there was color, had even seen it as a young godling—brightly colored flowers, an endless azure sky, the white-turquoise froth of the ocean as it lashed its waves against countless shores—but those days were long gone. Now there was only darkness and shadows.

The harshness of the world had stolen all the color from her eyes. Once the sky had called for her and she tasted its breath. The moon yearned for her and she felt its caress upon her skin. Humans had cut off pieces of her, until there was little of her left.

Her latest master was the worst of them yet. A king, of course, for her kind could only be bought by the richest of men. From experience, she knew the greater the price she fetched, the greater the evil to come. This time, the price had been the highest yet, exorbitant for any but one of royal lineage. Ten thousand gold coins and ten barrels of magenum. The magenum was, by far, the more valuable portion of the exchange.

This was her eighth master, but she suspected it would not be her last.

Because of my curse, she thought. Anyone I touch will be ruined.

Sitting on a hideous black throne carved in the image of a snarling wolf, the king inspected her like one might inspect a prize mare purchased at auction, his eyes undressing her as they roamed over every inch of her lithe form. She’d been the object of cruel fetishes before, by two of her prior masters. Something about the pink hue of her skin in combination with her bluish hair made men ripe with desire. Or mayhaps it was simply because she was their possession, something to be controlled and used. She hoped and prayed that King Gaard did not desire her in that way.

“I’d heard the stories,” the king said, “but they don’t do the truth justice.”

Aisling felt everything: the chill in the air because a window, somewhere, had been left open; the smoothness of the marble tile beneath her bare feet; the scritch-scritch-scratch as one of the guards used a finger to snuff out an itch within the tangle of his beard.

“What you want from me cannot be seen on the outside,” she said.

“You will not speak unless requested. And never again will you presume to know what it is that I want from you.” The king’s voice was as harsh as it was cold. He was flanked by two younger humans, one male and one female. The male was the spitting image of the king, but his eyes were softer, gentler, more kind. The king’s son, Aisling assumed. The other, the king’s daughter, gave nothing away with her expression, which was so stoic and unmoving she might’ve been a statue. The trio had dark hair and dark eyes and wore dark, fine clothing.

Almost like people about to attend a burial ceremony.

Aisling nodded to the king. Long ago she’d learned the small, simple gesture was the most effective way of subduing one with a nasty temper. And this man most definitely had a temper. The truth was, she was exhausted from hearing the honesty of her own heartbeat. The isolation and loneliness she’d endured for years felt like a shovel digging her grave.

Mayhaps death would be a relief, she thought. Just as quickly she fought off the thought. No! My kind must not go quietly into the night.

As if she could do anything about that, given her station, being passed from the rich to the richer, always a prisoner, always forced to do that which she did not want to do. She had not seen her sister, Heiress, in hundreds of years. All because of her own foolishness and naivete.

Still, she had to try. For all she knew, she might be the last of her kind, the last of the godlings. Immortal, magical, pure. The last thing that remained of the Gods Era, before the Godswar had changed everything and allowed humans to rule what was left of this bleak, barren, broken world. Once, perhaps two decades ago, she’d heard of another godling that had been sold to a prince across the Endless Ocean in the land of Dimaria, but it was only an idle rumor. No, her lot was to forever be amongst those who looked upon her with awe, or hate, or mistrust, or passion, or curiosity, or in another of a thousand ways that made her feel as small as a flea.

“Better,” the king said when she held her tongue while he continued to inspect her. “Now you must demonstrate the thing I want from you that’s on the inside.” She hated how her own words sounded reflected back at her from his lips.

He still had not asked her to speak, so she didn’t, as obedient as a whipped dog.

“Bring the subject in,” the king said, and the doors at the rear of the throne room opened. A pair of guards dragged a man inside. He fought them every step of the way, purposely making his legs go limp to slow their progress. One of the guards punched him while the other grabbed his face with a hand and squeezed him into submission. In the end, they were forced to carry him to the front before dumping him unceremoniously beside Aisling.

The man finally noticed her, his eyes widening. The corner of his lips curled up. “Ain’t you an exotic-lookin’ creature,” he said, licking his lips.

She hadn’t even touched him yet, but from this close distance she could already sense the cruelty and inhumanity in this man. Inhumanity, she mused. What a strange term. In all her experience, she’d never known a single human to have what was called humanity. She wanted to speak, so desperately, but she held her tongue. Please don’t make me do this. Please.

The king nodded to one of his guards and, with a swiftness that took her breath away, he drew his sword and plunged it through the man’s stomach. He gaped, staring down at the wound with a look of shock.

The king drummed his fingers on the throne’s armrest impatiently. His daughter stared at the bleeding man, her expression unchanged, as neutral as though she’d just been informed that the sky was blue and human blood was red. The son, on the other hand, flinched. A bead of sweat formed on his forehead. Aisling’s extraordinary senses detected a raggedness to his next few breaths, an increase in his heartrate. This man didn’t enjoy the sight of blood the way his father clearly did, and he couldn’t hide his emotions as well as his sister.

The man beside her was dying, his blood running through his fingers as he fruitlessly tried to stop its flow with his palm. Aisling felt ill, the man’s pain resonating through her, twisting her core into knots.

Still the king drummed his fingers, as if he had all day to watch a man die.

Finally, when Aisling had begun to sense the end was near for this man, the king said, “Heal him.”

Aisling didn’t want to heal this man. In fact, ever since she was informed she was being sold yet again, she’d vowed to herself not to heal another human. Not ever. Especially not a loathsome man such as this. And yet, despite her vow, she could not resist the singing of her blood, its desire to make that which was broken whole again. That, more than even keeping her alive, was its greater purpose.

Thus, she turned toward the man without a word, closing her eyes and placing her hand on his. He was fading now and didn’t seem to be aware of her or recognize what was happening. Aisling drew his hand away from the wound, the blood pumping out with even greater force, like a dam that had sprung a leak.

She looked toward the king. “May I speak?” she asked, keeping her voice as even as possible, although behind the words was the sharp sting of scorn.

“If you must,” the king said with a callous wave of his hand.

To the guard still gripping the sword, she said, “Cut my hand, across the palm.”

The guard looked uncertain, glancing toward the king for confirmation. The king said, “Do as she asks.”

He shrugged and extended his blade in Aisling’s direction, placing the edge on her palm. He hesitated, so Aisling took it upon herself to grasp the blade and cut herself, not so much as wincing against the pain. She was used to it, after all, and at least this pain was of her own making.

White, glowing blood immediately welled up and began to stream down her hand, dripping onto the fine marble floor. She quickly shifted her hand back to the man’s mortal wound, pressing her bleeding palm firmly against his abdomen.

She closed her eyes…

It hit her like a barrow of bricks dumped onto her head. The man who she knew was a bad man was even worse than she could’ve possibly imagined. Images of his deeds flashed through her mind, each more horrific than the last. Rape, murder, desecration. She grunted, straining against the wave of weakness that washed over her, threatening to pull her down into a deep chasm from which there was no climbing out of. Her head bowed and her body seemed to shrink within itself. She toppled over into the fetal position, barely managing to keep her arm up so her fingers remained touching the evil man’s skin. Instinctively, she knew if she lost her grip the healing connection would be broken, and the man would die.

It got worse.

Her body began to shake, her very bones seeming to rattle against the insides of her skin and muscle. She felt hot, then cold, then hot again, as if wracked by a high fever. Everything hurt. Even her eyeballs, throbbing inside their sockets. Her nostrils stung. Her lips felt like they were dry and cracking. The soles of her feet felt bruised and achy. She wanted so badly to just close her eyes and go to sleep. Her eyelids felt heavy, dragged down by anchors.

And then it was over. The man’s wound disappeared, enough of her glowing white blood having entered him to replace that which he had lost.

The man gasped as his eyes shot open. Aisling opened her eyes too, trying to scoot back quickly but too slow because of how weak she felt. The bad man grabbed her wrist roughly, his eyes full of fire.

Aisling felt the dark, suffocating dread of fear.

The guard was not idle. He slashed his blade down on the man’s arm, severing flesh and bone at the wrist. Aisling drew back, but the man’s hand had not yet realized what had happened and it came with her, continuing to grip her arm. She stared at it in horror until, blessedly, the fingers lost their strength, the hand flopping to the floor.

The man screamed, staring at his stump, a waterfall of blood pouring out.

And then the king said the worst thing he could possibly say: “Heal him again.”

Her response emerged without thought. “No.”

The king stood slowly, lips knitting together, jaw lifting slightly. She wished her senses were human. At least then she wouldn’t have been able to see the throbbing artery in his neck, pulsing out from his skin, again and again. She wouldn’t have noticed the slight narrowing of his pupils or the whitening of his knuckles. She would’ve been blissfully unaware of what was about to happen.

“Wait.”

All eyes, the king’s included, shifted to the man who had spoken. The king’s son. “Yes, Prince Jarrod? You have something to say?”

“I—no. Well, yes. I was just thinking, that perhaps, in this situation, I would recommend, maybe, if it pleases Your Majesty—”

“Out with it, Jarrod,” the king said harshly. “The prisoner is about to expire.”

“I was just going to say that perhaps the godling would like to amend her response.” The prince’s eyes roamed over to meet Aisling’s and she could see the plea in his expression. Please do what he says, that expression seemed to say.

Though she was somewhat surprised the prince had spoken up against his father, it was a weak attempt. She held his gaze, even as she said, “No,” defiance in that single word.

This time, the king’s response was swift and fierce. He grabbed a horsewhip from where it was conveniently coiled around a knob on the side of the throne. And then he began to strike.

Her dress clung to her slender frame in ragged tatters. Her back felt raw, sliced to ribbons by the dozen or so heavy lashes from the king’s whip. She’d felt the rage wafting from him like the stink from a festering swamp.

Left to his own devices, he would’ve killed her, she knew. It had taken three guards to subdue him, and they had paid a heavy price. Right now they’d be nursing their own wounds from the king’s hand. She guessed they’d been ordered before the entire spectacle to pull him back if he got out of control, but their obedience didn’t protect them from his wrath any better than Aisling’s disobedience.

She lay on her side on the cold stone, bits of brittle straw poking into her flesh. And yet, despite her pain and hardship, Aisling felt more satisfied than she’d felt in a long time. As she’d endured the brutal beating, she’d cried out, but that didn’t stop her from watching the cruel murderer rapist die, her keen ears relishing the sound of his last breath, the final beat of his horrible black heart.

Hearing that, more than anything, had made the beating well worth it.

After the king had turned his rage upon his own guards, he’d ordered her to be taken away. She’d been carried to this cold, dank room, where she’d been left alone for what felt like hours. Left to her own thoughts, she considered the situation. For the first time since she’d been forced into slavery, she saw a light at the end of the tunnel of her dreadful life. This master’s temper defied all reason and logic. If she pushed him far enough, perhaps even his own guards wouldn’t be quick enough to stop him from ending her.

Four centuries of life was more than anyone should have to endure, after all.

A sound drew her attention away from her thoughts. It was still distant, perhaps an outer door being opened, and yet unmistakable.

Someone was coming her way.

Aisling remained on the floor, just breathing, hoping it was nothing more than a castle servant bearing food she didn’t need and water she did. As it turned out, she was half right.

The sound of footsteps grew louder, echoing down the long corridor. A key rattled in the lock and the door creaked open. Her eyes remained closed, pretending to sleep. Wishing the newcomer would simply leave the food and water and exit once more.

“Gods,” a voice whispered, compassion in its breathiness.

Aisling remembered the way that same compassion had sounded when she’d heard it last. Not that it had changed anything, though she admitted that had been her fault and not his. The prince—Jarrod, she remembered the king had referred to him as—placed something on the floor. She heard him approach her, crouching down, the susurrations of his breaths wafting against her skin. “Godling?” he said. “Are you awake?”

“Human,” she said, hoping he would realize how derogatory it was to refer to her by her race alone. “Leave me alone.”

“I am sorry for what my father did. His temper is…hot.”

“Like an inferno,” she said, finally opening her eyes to find the prince gazing upon her.

He flinched back, almost tumbling backwards. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to stare.”

“I’m used to it,” Aisling said. “I could probably earn more coin if I joined the carnival.”

Prince Jarrod Gaard cocked his head to the side, as if trying to make sense of her response.

“It was a jape,” she said. “I haven’t had a choice in my occupation for some time, nor do I get compensated for my services.” Now that’s an understatement, she thought considering it had been nigh on three hundred years since she’d last smelled the scent of freedom.

“Oh. Ha. Sorry, I’m not accustomed to conversating with—”

“My kind?”

“No! I mean, well, yes. You are the first godling I’ve met, but I was going to say I’m not used to speaking with women, unless you count my sister, Amari, which I don’t.”

This prince was an unusual fellow, especially considering the station into which he’d been born. Nervous when he shouldn’t be. It might’ve been endearing if not for the fact that his father was her newest abusive master. “Aisling,” she said.

“What?”

“My name.”

“Oh. Aisling. That’s nice. I’m Jarrod Gaard.”

“I know.”

“Oh. Of course. Do godlings have surnames?”

“Brightshine.”

“Truly?”

“Truly.”

“Aisling Brightshine. It suits you.”

“I’m so glad you think so.”

This time the prince wasn’t befuddled by her dry wit. He chuckled. “Another jape. Right.”

To her surprise, she managed a small laugh, something she hadn’t done in some time. Of course, that made her body move which caused pain to shoot through her. She must’ve flinched, because the prince’s expression suddenly morphed into one of concern and he moved toward her. “Aisling, those wounds need to be cleaned and bandaged.” His hand extended as if he meant to touch her.

“Don’t touch me.”

“I—I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“You apologize a lot.” She gritted her teeth as the wave of agony passed.

“I’m sorry. I mean, I’m not sorry. Well, I am, but I’m trying not to apologize again. What can I do?” There was such sincerity in this young man’s every word, every action, that Aisling wondered whether she’d misjudged the entire human race. She immediately discarded the notion. One good apple didn’t vindicate an entire rotten bunch. Plus, she already knew humans were capable of compassion. The problem was that when push came to shove, a human would always make the selfish choice.

Like a man she’d once known several lifetimes ago.

She realized Jarrod was still waiting for her to answer his question. “Nothing. You can do nothing. Eventually I’ll heal myself.”

“Wait,” the prince said, his dark eyebrows furrowing. “You mean you can heal your injuries at any time?”

“Godling, remember? Immortal being with magical glowing blood? Any of that ring a bell? Your father certainly didn’t pay a small fortune to have wigs made from my lovely blue hair.”

“Then why don’t you…”

“Heal myself right away? Perhaps I want to feel the pain. Perhaps I want to feel something other than dread and misery.”

“I’m…sorry. Truly.”

“There you go again.”

“I brought food,” the prince said, gesturing to the plate he’d placed on the floor. Aisling had already smelled it; the meaty aroma might’ve made her nauseous if she was capable of such a thing.

“Godlings don’t eat.”

“I didn’t know.”

“Most don’t. I am, however, in desperate need of water.”

Jarrod seemed relieved he could finally be of some use, hurrying to grasp the tin cup filled to the brim with water. “Please,” he said. “Drink your fill.”

“I will require more than this, but it’s a start.”

“I will bring more,” he said. Aisling made no move to grasp the cup. The truth was, she felt exhausted from the entire ordeal. She leaned forward and allowed the prince to press the edge of the cup to her lips. She was impressed by how carefully he tipped the contents into her mouth, releasing just enough at a time so that she didn’t choke—not that she was capable of that human reflex either. He’s done this before, she thought.

“Mayhaps you have a career as a nursemaid,” she said after she’d downed the entire cup.

“Because of my mother,” he said. “She’s an invalid. I help her drink sometimes. But don’t tell my father that. He’ll order I train twice as hard with the sword.”

“You don’t enjoy combat? I thought all men relished the opportunity to beat their chests and then poke each other with pointy things.”

“Mayhaps I’m an exception.”

“Hmm.”

There was a brief lull in their conversation as they both listened to another set of footsteps approaching. “I have to go,” Jarrod said.

“So do I,” Aisling said. “I have a full schedule today.”

Jarrod smiled but then his face grew serious once more. “May I visit you again?”

“Yes, but please make an appointment next time. I would be so embarrassed if I had two visitors arrive at the same time. And bring lots of water.”

“I will. And please, when you’ve rested a bit, heal your wounds before they get infected.”

His concern was so moving she didn’t have the heart to tell him she wasn’t capable of getting an infection.

To her surprise, as he departed she found a small smile creeping along her lips. She vanquished it in an instant, laying her head back onto the pillow of brittle straw and icy wet stone.

Four

Sampson Gaard

Unmapped location in The Spine, near Neck, North Avadon

THE WIND EXHALED, AND IT WAS AS IF HE WERE WEARING NOTHING, the icy chill cutting him to his core. He shivered.

It had been like this ever since Sampson had stabbed that foul black blade into his own heart. The cold. The chill. As though ice rather than blood was running through his veins. Not for the first or last time, he wondered, How am I alive? He used his fingers to part the folds of his bloodstained shirt at the top of his chest. If not for the long scar he could feel on his breast over his heart, he might’ve believed it had all been a horrifyingly real nightmare. Yet, there it was, the proof of what had, impossibly, happened.

The dark sword embedded in his flesh, wraithlike shadows swarming over his body, Sampson had crawled to the tunnel, dragging himself measure by measure, until, finally, he’d emerged into the open air, dangling precariously from the rock shelf. He’d gulped at the air as rain pelted his face, trying to make sense of the senseless. Foreman Shift murdering his entire party of miners before Sampson had managed to disarm and kill him; the way the black blade that had impaled his heart had seemed to call to him, his fingers yearning to grip its carven hilt; the feel of the dark metal in his hand, as though he had taken the first real breath of his life…

The impulse to stab himself had caught him by surprise, and he’d felt powerless to refuse it. Even during his lowest period, when he was old enough to understand that he was born different, that he would never be able to fully experience the world because of his blindness, Sampson had never sought death. His love for his sister—and brother, too, even if he pretended otherwise at times—made life, even one without sight, worth it. And yet, he’d tried to take his own life with the very blade that now rested nearby, as ordinary looking as any other sword save for its night-dark color. Void, even the shadows that had seemed to cling to its edges had dissipated a while back.

And yet all of that was nothing compared to the fact that he could see the blade. And when he gripped it…

I can see the world. How? How is that possible?

He longed to grip that blade again, to open his eyes and see more than darkness. But what if I stab myself again? What if this time it kills me? Or worse, what if he used it the way the foreman had, to kill others? It’s just a sword, he argued with himself, standing once more. Aye, a sword that made one man go crazy and pierced my heart without ending my life. He pushed the thought aside because he needed to find Roman, whether dead or alive. He owed the man that much and a lot more. Please be alive, he thought. He started toward the back of the cave, but then stopped, finding he couldn’t take another step. He breathed through his nose, feeling that strange pull. He tried to resist, tried to take another step, going so far as to lift one leg into the air. His foot fell, landing in the same position it had started. “Godsdammit,” he muttered in frustration, whirling about and rushing back to collect the sword. As soon as the hilt touched his hand, it was as though he were coming up for air after being underwater for a long time. He felt less anxious, more certain.

And the colors! Logically, he knew the browns and grays and blacks (the colors used by Roman to describe this place) of the cave were nothing special, but to him they were the most precious gift, more beautiful than anything his imagination could’ve ever conjured. And when he turned and looked out from the cave mouth, he swore his heart stopped. There were so many more colors outside, so many he couldn’t possibly guess their names, except for the brightest, most vibrant of all—green. Roman had tried to explain the green of plant growth many times to Sampson, but he never truly understood until this moment. The green covered the mountain’s foothills—grass and plants and trees. Sampson could name these basic floras without too much difficulty based on their size and shape. Roman’s poetry brought to life before his very eyes.

How? he thought again. How could this sword give sight where before there had been none?

He sighed, wishing he could cling to such a moment forever, but he was being selfish, something Roman had never been. He slid the blade into his scabbard, the color and light and everything fading, and once more strode into the darkness.

That was when the strangest thing happened: he saw. He saw the stone walls of the tunnel just before him, the rocky path laid before his feet, the flicker of the torches lining the corridor in the distance.

Had he been granted his sight permanently now?

His blade seemed to pulse in his grip. Wait. He distinctly remembered sliding the sword into his hip scabbard but could not recall having drawn it once more. What is it, my blade? he thought. He stopped, breathing in the darkness. Had he just directed a question, albeit in his own mind, toward the sword? More than that, he realized he’d just referred to it as my blade, as if he could claim some ownership, possession, over it. And why can’t I? he thought. I defeated its previous bearer, so under Terran law it is mine to claim. More than that, this blade had literally touched his heart without ending him and given him the most precious gift imaginable. If that didn’t create a bond between weapon and wielder, Sampson didn’t know what would.

In the back of his mind, Sampson knew if he gave voice to any of these thoughts he wouldn’t sound dissimilar to a madman. He slammed the door on that thought and continued down the torchlit tunnel.

When he reached the cavern, he paused just inside, gazing about the area. He saw Foreman Shift’s corpse right where he’d left it. He stared at the man’s face, not with morbid fascination, but because he now knew what the man looked like. With his wide-set eyes and hooked nose, Sampson felt he didn’t match his voice at all. Why had the man gone berserk, murdering the very men who’d labored beside him at his command? Sampson’s eyes roamed to the blade he continued to grip in his hand. “Stop,” he breathed. “You can’t blame the sword. A man makes his own decisions, and Shift made his, which meant he was forced to face the consequences. Oh, fantastic, now you’re talking to yourself.”

He chuckled at himself, at the same time wondering whether the ghosts of any of the dead men were laughing along with him.

His gaze shifted from the dead foreman to where he’d last seen Roman, chest slashed open and bleeding, skin smoking from the unnatural wound. Nothing. The area was empty. He scanned the rest of the cavern, seeking any sign of his protector. All he saw was bare rock, portions of it chiseled and chipped by the miners before they met their unexpected demise.

Then he spotted it: a trail of blood—so that’s what red looks like, so bright, so piercing—some of it formed into distinct drops and other portions smeared. It led into the hidden room they’d unveiled by detonating the magepowder.

“Roman?” he called out. His question was met with a wall of silence, though he could feel his blade thrumming with a strange, restless energy.

He followed the trail of blood, peering into the gap in the wall. Beyond, he saw the glowing magenum painting the whole of the hidden room. Only a few hours earlier, such a discovery would’ve taken his breath away and filled him with elation. He would’ve pictured himself returning to Wolfsgaard a hero. His father would clap him on the shoulder and say, “Well done, Son. I’m proud of you.” But even his father’s pride would mean nothing to him next to seeing Amari’s face again, that cocksure expression that said, “I knew you could do it. Never sell yourself short again, Brother.”

Now, however, he felt nothing at the sight of the magical deposit that may very well be the most valuable discovery in the history of spellcraft in all of Kingfall. Because amongst the glowing liquid, he saw the bodies. Something was moving amongst them, grasping them, dragging them, piling them up. Though before today Sampson had never laid eyes on the man, he recognized him immediately because of his sheer size, which dwarfed everyone else in their party.

Roman Leary was busy, hard at work, but for what purpose?

“Roman?” Sampson said again, feeling a shiver run through him.

“Almost finished,” the man grunted, hefting the final corpse from where it was smashed and broken in a crook between wall and floor. He dumped the dead man atop the pile horizontally and then turned to face Sampson. “Please,” he said. “Sit.” He gestured to the pile of the dead, as though it were a chair.

Sampson blinked, his eyes narrowing as he inspected the pile of bodies more closely. His lips parted in surprise. For Roman’s seemingly haphazard piling of corpses had been anything but. On the contrary, there had been a very specific method to his madness, using the dead like raw materials—timber or brick—to construct this thing.

A throne.

A throne of the dead.

“I’m not sitting on that,” Sampson said with disgust.

Roman fell to his knees, and Sampson finally remembered the man’s chest wound. His flesh gaped open, his shirt drenched with blood. Not red anymore, but as black as pitch. The skin around the wound was blackened too, like it had been scorched by fire.

The man was coming closer now; no, he was falling face first in Sampson’s direction. Sampson lunged forward and caught him in his arms, almost losing his balance under the weight but managing to gently lower him to the ground. It was awkward while still gripping the sword, but he got it done. Clearly, the man was in shock from the pain and blood loss. The whole thing with the throne of bodies was nothing but a result of what this man had endured. It was a wonder he was still alive.

Just like me, Sampson thought, but he shoved the notion aside with everything else he preferred not to think about at present.

Carefully, he rolled Roman over onto his back. His eyes were closed, his lips too. Contrary to what he’d told Sampson, his face wasn’t unpleasing to look at, his chin broad and thick with graying stubble that matched the salt and pepper of his shoulder-length hair. His chest continued to rise and fall as he breathed, but there was a jolting hitch to it. There was no doubt: the man was dying.

“Stay with me, Roman,” Sampson said. “Please.” His voice hitched on the last word, because if he lost this man, this friend, it would be worse than losing his eyesight all over again, worse than stabbing himself in the chest, worse than anything he could imagine—save perhaps losing Amari. No, he thought. Buck up. Be a man. He needs you to be strong now more than ever. With that thought in mind, he grabbed his own shirt with the intention of ripping it into long strips that could be used to bind the man’s chest and stop the flow of blood, regardless of its color. His hand stopped, gripping the folds of his shirt. In his other hand, the sword pulsed, like a throbbing heartbeat, one that was weakening with each passing second. It cannot be, he thought. And yet he knew it was. The sword was beating in time with Roman’s heart, which was fading moment by moment. Along the blade’s surface, red, glowing runes appeared. He was no runemaster, hadn’t even studied them during his lessons growing up with a personal tutor.

And yet he was able to translate the strange characters as easily as if he were reading the common tongue. SHADOWBREATH, they read.

LIVE, a voice said, and he whirled about, searching for who had spoken. There was no one here but the corpses and his dying friend.

His eyes shot to the blade, his hand feeling the pulse weaken further. “Shadowbreath,” he murmured. “Live.”

YOU ARE THE SHADOW, that voice said. He was dimly aware that the voice didn’t speak aloud, audible only in his own mind. “I am the shadow? What does that mean?”

The glowing crimson runes flared once more, pulsating in time with Roman’s dying heartbeat. He was out of time, his mind racing as he tried to make sense of everything, from being able to look upon his lifelong friend’s face for the first time, to the fact that he was still alive to his communicating sword, to how, beyond explanation, his blade was somehow connected to a dying man’s heart.

Thrum, thrum.

Thrum…thrum.

Thrum…………thrum.

Shadowbreath. Live. You are the shadow. A gear seemed to turn in his head, and he acted without another thought, leaning closer to Roman, until his lips were a hairsbreadth from the man’s damaged flesh.

And then he breathed.

It was no ordinary breath, the exhalation visible, almost like how Roman had described a winter’s breath when the air is cold and dry, except it was the color of a shadow rather than a ghoul. It swarmed inside Roman’s chest, misting over him, filling every rend and tear. “Live,” Sampson spoke, the word emerging with a queer power he’d never heard in his voice before. Already his blade was pulsing with greater strength now, each thrum stronger than the last, the beats evening out in a more consistent pattern. And yet, instinctively, he knew he wasn’t quite done yet.

He jammed the flat edge of the blade down on Roman’s chest. The man’s eyes flew open and he gasped. Smoke rose from his flesh and the smell of cooking meat filled Sampson’s nostrils.

Roman screamed.

They sat on the rock shelf, sun warming their skin. The rain had finally abated, the storm clouds drifting away, their final wispy tendrils burned off by the sun, leaving behind a sea of blue perfection. It left Sampson in awe as he stared at the sky.

Neither of the men had said a word since Sampson sealed Roman’s chest wound with his blade. After Sampson had retracted the blade, he tapped the steel with his finger, expecting it to be hot to the touch, but instead found it as cool as autumn air.

Roman had stood and then they’d climbed the slope out of the cavern that was now a tomb. They’d sat beside each other, just staring across the lands they’d traveled for many days to get to this very place. Whatever mania had gripped the large man as he’d built the corpse throne seemed to have passed now.

“You can see,” Roman finally said, his gaze landing on Sampson. Sampson looked at him, meeting his eyes.

Sampson’s breath caught. There was something special about a shared glance, a connection he’d never understood before now. It was as though their minds were tethered, as though their souls had wound together for a brief and fleeting moment. “Only when I’m gripping my sword,” he said.

“Your sword?”

Sampson looked away, hearing the challenge in the man’s tone. “I have claimed it for my own,” he said. He could hear the shortness in his own response, like he was speaking to a stranger and not the dear friend he’d known his entire life.

“Sampson,” Roman said, but Sampson didn’t turn his head to meet the man’s gaze again. “Sampson.” Roman reached out and settled a meaty paw on his shoulder.

This time, Sampson turned to meet his gaze once more, Roman’s brown eyes deep pools of warmth. For a long time, this man had been far more than a guide and protector. He had been Sampson’s friend, the only one he had not counting his siblings. And hiding his mind from a friend such as Roman felt unnatural. “Now that I have it, I can’t give it up,” he said, feeling tears prick at his eyes.

“I know,” Roman said. “I know.” He squeezed his shoulder. “I am happy you get to see all of…this.” He waved his hand over the sprawling landscape stretching across eastern Avadon.

“The world is even more beautiful than your descriptions,” Sampson said.

Roman laughed. “You think? My poetry has its limits, that is for certain.”

They sat in silence once more, neither of them wishing to ruin an impossible moment they’d both only dreamed of for Sampson.

What now? The question came so unexpectedly into Sampson’s mind that he cocked his head to the side in confusion. Those two words made no sense. His quest was complete. He’d discovered the magenum deposit he’d been sent to find, along with a whole deal more.

Of course, the answer to the question of What now? should’ve been obvious: Go home. Share his incredible news with his family. He could picture Amari’s expression, the genuine excitement in her eyes for him. Jarrod would be pleased, too. What other option was there? Now that they’d verified the existence of the magenum, King Gaard would arrange for an entire shipload of miners to extract it, load it into barrels, and transport it back to Teravainen to be used by the king’s mage or sold to Aeromand at a hefty price.

And yet…

And yet.

His father.

What would his reaction be to the blade? Sampson could try to hide certain of its…attributes…from the king, but he was no fool. He would quickly discern the power the weapon offered. He would see it for what it was. And then?

And then he would take it.

That thought made Sampson grip the hilt harder, until his fingers ached. The king would see the weapon as property of the kingdom, and therefore his. He could hear his father’s words now: Sampson, I am pleased you were able to experience sight for these several days, but now you must give it up, for it was never yours to claim. We all must make sacrifices for the greater good. This blade does not belong to you, but Teravainen. Give it to me…

“No,” he breathed. “I won’t.”

“What was that?” Roman asked. Sampson hadn’t realized he’d spoken aloud.

“Nothing,” he muttered. “I was just thinking about the future, about Father.”

“I was thinking the same,” Roman said.

“Truly?”

The man nodded. “We will need to hide the truth from him when we return to Wolfsgaard, explain how the magepowder misfired and killed all the miners. We can lock the blade away in a chest. Use it in secret. He never has to know.”

Oh gods how Sampson wanted to cling to his friend’s words. The thought of returning home and having the chance to see, even if only at specific times when his father wasn’t around, was so tempting.

And yet, in his heart he knew it would never be enough for him. Now that he’d had a taste of sight, he wanted more. He wanted it all the time, every second of every minute of every hour of every day for the rest of his life. Giving it up, even if only temporarily, felt like being stabbed in the chest all over again. “I cannot return to Wolfsgaard,” he said, hearing the sadness in his tone. “Not while Father rules.” When, one day, his father died and Amari was crowned Queen of Teravainen…maybe then.

What will Amari think? he wondered. When he and his party of miners didn’t return, his father would send soldiers to search for them. They would find the magenum, along with the corpses, but he and Roman’s wouldn’t be among them. Amari would be hit the hardest. He hated to hurt her in any way, but he also knew she was strong—the strongest person he’d ever met, even if their father underestimated her. She would survive. And one day they’d be reunited.

“I understand,” Roman said.

“And I understand if you want to return to Teravainen. We can fabricate a story, a believable one. Wolfsgaard is your home, too.”

Sampson couldn’t hide his relief when Roman shook his head. “No, it is not. Not truly. You are my home. You’ve always been my home. You know I think of you as the son I was never able to have on my own.”

The man’s words filled Sampson’s chest to brimming. In that moment, Sampson didn’t care that he was a man grown and expected to act a certain way, he threw his arms around Roman, who did the same, his larger frame surrounding him like a wool blanket, warming him to the core.

Unintentionally, his fingers opened and he dropped the sword, which clanked to the ground.

Blindness took him once more.

Five

Andovier Helm

Wolfsgaard, Teravainen

WOLFSGAARD WAS EXACTLY AS ANDO ALWAYS PICTURED IT IN HIS HEAD: a vile, uncouth place full of ruffians and vagabonds who’d be more likely to kick you in the ribs when you fell than to offer a hand of assistance.

Since being marched within the city walls, he’d witnessed half a dozen fights already, two of them involving women hitting women, two of them involving knives—at least one of which had ended in the demise of one of the fighters. Linked with chains to the other prisoners, he’d been jeered, spat on, insulted, threatened and propositioned. The latter had come from a harlot who’d shadowed the ragtag line of prisoners for near on three city blocks before turning away to bother someone else.

Still, up until now, the humiliating march through the city had been a much better experience than the one at sea, which had lasted a fortnight on account of the headwinds they’d faced the entire way, almost as though the weather itself was opposed to them ever reaching the heart of Teravainen. It had also meant that the captured prisoners had been forced to man the oars night and day, exhaustion, filthy conditions, and malnutrition leading to half of them growing ill with half of those dying. The dead had received a burial at sea, tossed over the side like the contents of chamber pots. Thus, it was no surprise that large sea creatures with mouths full of several rows of dagger-sharp teeth had followed the ship as it made its way from Westport to Kingsgaard.

Ando hadn’t been lucky enough to perish at sea. Even the stars had mocked him; they had the audacity to shine forth with a rare beauty this cold world didn’t deserve.

Now, however, Ando found himself wishing he were back on the ship as they entered a portion of the city that had been roped off and cleared of all pedestrians. The towering city walls stood at one end, with a series of catapults lined up and awaiting use. Presumably, these catapults would be used to launch heavy boulders over the wall at an attacking enemy. Given the city wasn’t currently under siege, the catapults served a different purpose.

“Crank a catapult back, load a body into the cradle, and then loose it over the wall,” the overseer said, glaring at each of them as if he’d rather load them into the catapults and be rid of them. He was an angry man, his eyes coal-dark and his lips a snarling slash that matched the scar just over his right eye.

“Why not just bury them?” one of the other prisoners asked. Ando didn’t know his name. He hadn’t bothered to learn any of their names or even speak to a single person since his capture. What was there to say? Words held no meaning. Nor his heartbeat. Nor the breath in his lungs.

“They died of the plague,” the overseer said with a sneer. “Can’t risk contaminating the ground. Each corpse is weighted. They’ll sink to the bottom of the ocean.”

Normally, such information would’ve turned the gears in Ando’s head. Because as they’d approached the city from the sea, he’d noticed that Wolfsgaard was built almost right up to the ocean, the eastward facing wall flanking the shoreline. Which meant the overseer had unwittingly given him information about their position within the city. In the past, Ando had used information to his benefit, more than once employing such details on the road to victory over the Terrans in battle.

None of that mattered now. How did one care which way the sun rose and set when the light would never touch their faces? How did one smile when none of them would ever smile again?

Ando had decided to keep his head down until, inevitably, he perished while in captivity. He deserved no less for failing to protect—

A swell of pain hit him as he’d almost thought their names, almost remembered their faces. He couldn’t. Not ever again. He stepped forward, the only one to do so while the other prisoners had been shuffling their feet to back away at the first mention of the plague. The guards prodded them from behind with swords to stop their retreat. The plague was said to have originated in the Four Kingdoms, amongst the Calypsians. Supposedly they strove to contain the highly contagious disease’s spread by quarantining its victims to an island guarded by mad dragons. From there, the deadly sickness had spread along trade routes, reaching Crimea before creeping into Kingfall. All the nations of the continent were now struggling to prevent further spread. Ando had heard the disease tormented its victims for days if not weeks, claiming both body and mind before finally, mercifully, dragging them to death’s door. None knew how the disease chose its victims, nor why others who’d been in close contact with the afflicted were spared.

“Get back in line,” the overseer commanded.

“I’ll be the first,” Ando said, wondering whether the plague would choose him. Hoping it would.

The overseer snorted out a laugh. “I’ve never had a volunteer before.”

“Well you have one now.”

“I appreciate the enthusiasm. As you wish.” He gestured toward the rotting pile of bodies. By Ando’s estimation, there must’ve been half a hundred, at least. I’m coming, my love, Ando thought, marching up to the reeking pile and grasping the first corpse under the legs and neck, cradling it. It was a woman—that much he could tell—but he could not discern her age due to the decomposition of the body. The plague had ravaged her, her skin marked with pocks and pustules, several of which burst when she moved. Worse, one of her arms twisted and flopped free with a grotesque squishing sound.

Ando didn’t flinch. He was accustomed to the horrors of war. He wasn’t heartless, only desensitized. His walls were thick and he was able to erect them swiftly. Thus, he placed the woman’s body in the catapult’s cradle and then returned to retrieve her severed arm, tucking it beneath her so it wouldn’t fly free upon launch.

All the while, the overseer, his guards, and the other prisoners watched him with morbid fascination as he worked. He ignored them all until she was in position. There was no need to crank the catapult’s lever—it had been pre-cranked. Only then did he turn back toward his taskmaster. “Only one body per launch?” he asked.

“If they’re small, you may be able to fit two. Three or four if they’re children. But you’ll need to lash them together to avoid a misfire.”

Ando had heard everything up to the word children. That word, however, caused his ears to stopper as images of the last view he’d seen of his own two children smashed their way into his mind. He closed his eyes, fighting back tears and the desire to kill this horrid, heartless man and add his own body to the pile.

“Oi!” He finally opened his eyes at the overseer’s shout. They were dry and stinging.

“It will be done,” he said through gritted teeth. He went back to the pile and added another body that was on the smaller side, using a portion of rope from a nearby pile to tether them together. Though he didn’t pull the cord overly tight, the rope bit deeply into their mottled flesh. Once the job was finished, he moved to the side of the catapult, where there was a lever used to release the payload. He jammed it to the ground without another thought. The cradle sprang forward and up with impressive power—the machines were well constructed and maintained—sending the tethered bodies airborne and over the wall, disappearing from view. A moment later a splash could be heard.

“And that’s how it’s done,” the overseer said. “Thank you for the demonstration, High Commander.” The overseer managed to make the title that had once commanded so much respect sound like an insult. “Now get to work, you dogs! No one eats until the dead are gone.”

As if anyone would want to eat after this sort of work, Ando thought. Even if they were performing some other, less gruesome, task, Ando knew he wouldn’t have an appetite—might never have one again.

They toiled for several long hours, until the sun was well past its apex and falling hard and fast to meet its daily demise, only to rise like a phoenix from the ashes the following dawn. Each time they’d made a sizeable dent in the pile of corpses, men with wheelbarrows would come. They wore thick clothing that covered them from head to toe, only their eyes visible as they went about their work. Their barrows bore more dead, which they added to the pile before turning face and departing to fetch more. Teravainen must be in dire straits, Ando thought. He knew all nations of Kingfall had struggled to eradicate the plague, but this was a whole other level. Odin encountered several cases a year, but they were quickly snuffed out by quarantining the victims and their families and close friends until the threat had passed.

After the third time the group of barrow runners had increased the workload, the first of the prisoners was afflicted. Ando had never seen a plague victim before, and he wished he didn’t have to now. The man, who’d been working as hard as any of them to dispose of the diseased corpses, suddenly lurched to the side, grasping at his face just as several bulbous pustules rose from his skin, expanding outwards before popping, splashing greenish pus on the prisoner next to him.

“Gods save us,” the other prisoner muttered as the stricken prisoner nearly fell into his arms.

Ando turned toward the overseer and his guards, who’d been watching them the entire time just in case any of them grew a mind to try to escape. “This man needs help,” Ando said.

“There’s only one way to help him now,” the overseer said. He tossed Ando a sword, which he snatched from the air easily, despite being caught wholly off guard. Who gave a sword to a prisoner, especially one as famous as High Commander Andovier Helm?

“There must be another way,” Ando said, even as he relished the cool steel in his hand. “Some treatment or care that can be provided.”

“There has yet to be a case of a plague survivor. You should hurry. Madness will arrive soon. Do what needs to be done.”

Ando was a prisoner now, not a soldier. He wasn’t supposed to be killing anymore. But then he heard the groan as the plague victim stumbled, clawing at some invisible enemy. His fingers were stiff and bent. His face was a miasma of rising and exploding pustules. This man was going to die, but not until he’d endured significant suffering at the hands of the foreign disease that had invaded their lands. Ando had always believed it was his duty to relieve suffering wherever he could. Sometimes that meant protecting Odin’s borders so those who were defenseless could live their lives without worry or fear.

And I failed, Ando thought.

“Do it,” the overseer said. “Before he infects others.”

But Ando didn’t hear the command. He’d fallen into that pit with the smooth sides from which one could not climb out of. The walls were lit with images of the three people who’d meant more to him than anything else, including this horrid, meaningless life he was clinging to like the edge of a cliff.

“Do it!” the overseer shouted, but still the man’s shouted words were unable to cut through the fog that had settled over his mind. He was, however, acutely aware of the sharpness of the blade in his hand, touching it with a finger and feeling its bite as it opened his flesh. It would be so easy to fall on the sword, to take that which he had no remaining use for:

His life.

The overseer, unintentionally, had given him the greatest gift anyone save a necromancer could give him. A way to end it all.

He was finally snapped from his stupor when the plague victim grabbed his shoulder, moaning, eyes bloodshot and drool spilling from his lips. Ando’s expression changed to one of horror, not because of the grotesque creature that was upon him, but because of his own selfishness, seeking to relieve his own mental suffering above all else when this man was suffering both physically and mentally.

“Go with grace, my brother,” he said, and then he stabbed him through the heart.

From that point on, Ando became the executioner of the group, a role he didn’t relish but which he wore like a mantle. By the time the last group of barrow runners arrived, Ando had been forced to kill half of the prisoner group to end their suffering. Like all the other bodies, they were weighted down and sent over the wall to be claimed by the ocean.

“Your day is almost done,” the overseer said. “Drop the sword on the ground.”

As Ando stared at the man with dead eyes, he wondered if his heart would ever beat again. Would he ever take a breath that filled his entire chest? Did he even want to?

The only remedy for the sadness that felt like a giant maw about to swallow him whole was anger. Anger needs a target, and this horrid man was as good as any.

Ando met the man’s eyes. Logically, he knew the man was just another pawn on King Gaard’s gameboard, but he could tell he enjoyed his sick work. He enjoyed the power of commanding others, probably because in the rest of his life he was mistreated and underestimated. Ando had known men like this before, more than he liked to remember. Insecure. Full of false bravado. They were dangerous in their own way. Ando pitied men like this.

He knew he could cut through the overseer and his guards like a farmer harvesting wheat. Killing them would relieve the suffering of countless prisoners to come. But he was also not so arrogant to think he would be able to escape the city, much less the country. He would be the most wanted man in all Teravainen, hunted by men and hounds to exhaustion, until he was eventually imprisoned once more. Plus, ending the overseer’s life wouldn’t relieve future suffering, not really. The man would merely be replaced by another who would be equally cruel or even crueler. On the other hand, he could still have his own small kind of rebellion.

Rather than dropping the blade on the ground as commanded, he tossed it back to the overseer in the same manner he’d given it to Ando in the first place. The man tried to catch it, but missed, the steel clattering on the cobblestones. He glared in Ando’s direction. “I could have you executed for such impudence,” he said.

“Could you?” Ando was no fool. He knew his own value as a war prisoner. The king’s mage, Grimfire, had spared him once, and not to meet his demise halfway across Kingfall at the hands of this pathetic excuse for a man. “I think not.”

The overseer’s lip curled up, and for a moment Ando thought he might actually do it, stride across the space separating them and stab him through the heart. But then the overseer’s sensibilities kicked in as he surely realized that to kill Ando would mean the end of his employment and potentially even his own life. So instead he just laughed off the challenge as if it were the most amusing thing he’d heard in a fortnight. “You will live to regret your entire life,” the overseer said.

Ando said nothing. This man could do nothing to hurt him more than he’d already been hurt.

The overseer laughed. “You had two children, correct?”

Ando stood, breathing, wondering if his heart had stopped beating in his chest. Because he couldn’t feel it. His entire world had narrowed to this hideous man who he had the ability to tear limb from limb. “You should consider your next words very carefully,” he growled.

“So should you. The next load is here.” He motioned to the line of barrow runners passing beneath the rope that was being lifted by one of the guards. “The plague is cruel, is it not? They say it burned through the orphanage like wildfire.”

Ando closed his eyes. To keep them closed would be to relieve his own suffering, something he would never again permit himself to do. He opened them, realizing the truth of his thoughts. That was the only way to atone for his failures. To seek death would be cowardly. I am sorry, Moira, he thought.

He strode to meet the barrows, just as they began to dump their final load. “Stop,” he said, his voice full of the command he’d used so often on the battlefield. The barrow runners stopped.

“Dump them!” the overseer said.

The barrow runners’ eyes flicked to the overseer, then back to Ando, who said, “Don’t. We will collect them from the barrows directly.” He could not bear to watch these innocent children be dumped on the stonework like sacks of potatoes. Void, sacks of potatoes would be treated more gently, to avoid bruising so they could fetch the highest price at market.

“DUMP THEM!” the overseer bellowed, and Ando didn’t need to look upon the pathetic man to know his face was red now.

“Do these children not deserve your respect?” Ando said, appealing to these masked men’s humanity, if they had any left. “The loss of a child is so much more than a single soul. Scores of potential generations are lost by a single tragedy, entire armies of ghosts left to haunt what they leave behind. Those who would’ve saved the world and those who might’ve destroyed it. We will collect the children directly from the barrows.”

And so they did. The barrow runners backed away, ignoring the overseer’s curses. Ando set the example by being the first to stride over, tenderly picking up the first child, a girl, her blonde hair stuck with cloying sweat to her forehead. Her face was marred by the remnants of the ruthless disease, but it could not hide the beauty that had once been there. It reminded him of his own daughter’s beauty, and he choked on his emotion as he carried her to the catapult. She was so small and birdlike that she barely filled a quarter of the cradle.

Once three more children had been added and tethered to the girl, they sent them over the wall like the rest. Barrow by barrow, they finished the work.

And when it was done, Ando finally looked over to gauge the overseer’s reaction.

The overseer was gone.

As expected, they slept in a grimy stone dungeon. They were relatively well fed all things considered, which Ando thought didn’t bode well for whatever was to come. Feeding prisoners well typically meant they would be put to work. He hoped it wasn’t more plague duty, though he didn’t delude himself into thinking it wasn’t a possibility.

It’s no less than you deserve. He couldn’t seem to stop such thoughts. Nor did he want to.

Two more prisoners succumbed to the plague before the night was done. This time the guards took care of it themselves, which Ando suspected was because of his prior insolence. The overseer wouldn’t risk giving him a weapon again.

As it turned out, Ando was wrong about that, for the very next morning after a breakfast of eggs and meat, the prisoners were led to a room filled with dented armor and scratched and notched weapons. The overseer was there, his eyes meeting Ando’s first. There was a sparkle in the overseer’s eyes, like he’d awoken with all the excitement of a child on New Day morning who’d discovered presents wrapped in shiny parchment waiting for him beside his bed. “Outfit yourselves for battle,” the overseer said.

Ando frowned, considering the purpose behind the man’s command. He’d heard of prisoners being made to fight in wars before, but that was clearly not the case now. They were in Wolfsgaard, many leagues away from even the closest enemy border, which was Solarii. Entertainment then, he thought. They will make a spectacle of us.

The overseer was still watching Ando, as if curious to see what he would do. In fact, he wasn’t the only one looking toward Ando. Shite, he thought. The men were prisoners of war, soldiers, trained to obey orders given by the highest ranked. Which, of course, was him. But this was no battlefield and they were not a company. They’d been thrown together by fate or ill luck or the whims of a power-hungry king. The only thing they had in common was that they were survivors, to this point at least.

“Do as you will,” he muttered, and then moved to set an example for the rest. Though he would give no command on this day, his actions could say that which he left unsaid. He found a breastplate that appeared to be suitably large for his broad frame. A helm that should fit on his head. Over the course of the next several minutes he managed to piece together a mismatched set of armor that was only missing a few pieces.

And then he found a sword. Though it was not the shiniest in the lot, nor the most well-kept, that was not what was important to him. The look of the sword was nothing compared to the feel. The sword he chose was well-made, well-balanced. Though it had nicks and imperfections and a dullness to the metal, overall it was in decent repair. A little oil and sharpening would return the weapon to the beautiful blade it had once been.

Unfortunately, there was no time for that. “Move out,” the overseer commanded.

Some of the men had only managed to scrounge together a few pieces of armor and had barely grabbed any weapon at all. One young soldier had spent so long on his armor that he found himself emptyhanded, his expression one of fear when he realized he would march into battle without anything to defend himself.

Not my problem, Ando thought, but then froze. An image of Moira had appeared in his head; not how she’d been at the end when she was at peace, but the fiery, passionate woman she’d been in life. It was almost like she was still with him, hands on hips, looking as beautiful as the day he’d met her, and yet slightly terrifying at the same time. Andovier Helm, she said in his mind. You would allow this young man to be thrown to the wolves without means to defend himself? Shame on you.

Ando sighed as the vision vanished. Even now, his wife was the voice of reason in his life.

As the men began to file from the room, shoved and jostled by the guards, Ando positioned himself near the young soldier. “What’s your name?” he said in a low tone so as to not draw attention.

“Josiah, sir,” the lad said. By Ando’s estimation, he was sixteen, seventeen at the most. He’d seen young, green soldiers like Josiah more times than he could remember. Void, this lad may not have even seen combat yet, training within the safety of Westport until all had gone wrong when the Terran navy had unexpectedly made landfall.

“I’m Ando.”

The boy glanced at him like he’d grown an extra head. “Ando?” He said the nickname as though it were spoken in a foreign tongue. “You are High Commander Andovier Helm. Ando was the name of my family’s hound growing up.”

Ando couldn’t help but to laugh at that, because he knew the lad was in shock and not trying to poke fun at him by comparing his name to that of a dog. “Well, that’s my name and what you will call me while we are acquainted. Understood?”

“Aye, High Commander.” The boy managed a weak salute.

“Ando,” he reminded him.

“Aye, High Commander. I mean, Ando.”

“Better.”

They were in a long tunnel now, marching two abreast toward a bright yellow circle at the end. “Stop yer yappin’!” the overseer said.

Ando lowered his voice further. “Here. Take my sword,” he said. “It’s a fine weapon and will serve you well.”

The boy stared at the offered sword. “But what will you use?”

“Weapons are plentiful on the battlefield,” Ando grunted.

“I—thank you, but…”

“You’ve been trained, no?”

“Aye, but…”

“You’ve never killed a man,” Ando said. It wasn’t a guess. Men who had killed held a different look in their eyes than men who had not.

“No. Not unless you count burlap dummies filled with straw.”

Ando liked this lad already. He had a sense of humor. “They only count if they bleed,” he said.

“How do you know if you’re capable of killing?” Josiah asked.

Ando hadn’t expected the question, at least not asked in such a manner, so he considered it thoughtfully. “I suppose you don’t, not until faced with the situation. I suggest you look within yourself. Why are you considering killing another? What is your purpose? If you find it lacking, then you may regret the act.”

“What if it’s because I don’t want to die?”

Ando shook his head and opened his mouth to respond but all that emerged from his lips was a grunt as the back of his knee was met by a heavy boot. He stumbled but did not fall, looking back to find the overseer close at hand, wearing his usual sneer. “I warned you not to speak.”

Ando met the man’s eyes with steel, and then answered Josiah’s question. “That’s not enough,” he said. “Your will to survive must be for some greater purpose.” Like killing the man I’m looking at right now.

The overseer cocked his head to the side, confused, not realizing Ando was speaking to the young prisoner who now gripped the sword he’d chosen. “Speak again and I’ll cut your tongue from your mouth.”

Ando turned away, glancing at Josiah. Josiah smiled. Ando returned the gesture, which earned him another kick from the overseer. This time he was ready for it, steeling himself so much that he absorbed the blow without his knee buckling. He marched on, toward the killing field.

The arena was a large, walled oval with three separate ground entrances. After the darkness of the dungeons and tunnels, Ando blinked several times against the brightness of the sun until he could see well enough to further inspect his surroundings. The day might’ve been even brighter if not for a sky full of somber, lugubrious clouds moving slowly across the expanse. Above the walls were rising sets of smooth stone blocks for spectators to sit on. Most of the blocks were currently occupied. Ando ignored the jeers and the taunts, letting them melt together until they might’ve been the distant rumble of thunder.

To the rear, he heard the clangor of metal as their escape was sealed behind them.

Beside him, Josiah doubled over, retching.

“Get it together, soldier,” Ando said. The overseer couldn’t stop him from speaking now.

“I’m—I’m sorry, High Commander.”

“For the last time, I am Ando now. Nothing more. And your apologies won’t fell the enemy. Your sword will. Focus on how it feels in your grip. Your hands are strong. They have wielded such a weapon before. It is familiar to you, no?”

“I—yes. It is. I’ve been training for over a year.”

“Remember that in the thick of battle. You are prepared for this.”

While he’d been offering advice to the lad who he knew would be lucky to survive this day, Ando had been gazing across the audience, searching for something that would be set apart from the masses. He found his target to the east, where a walled-in dais had been erected separate to the teeming masses. Lines of guards surrounded the area, which bore four large stone seats. The largest would be for the king, with the next largest on the right hand for his primary heir, Crown Princess Amari Gaard. The other two, on the left, would be reserved for the princes, Jarrod and Sampson.

None of them were filled, at least not yet. Or perhaps the royal family preferred to sleep in. Ando hoped they would come. King Gaard did not wield the weapon who had killed his wife and children. But he had certainly given the order that led to their deaths, as guilty as those who’d carried out the deed. He wanted to look him in the eye. He wanted him to feel his pain, his suffering.

“Friends!” a man with a loud voice said, standing on another platform set to the west amongst the audience. He wore a white robe with a purple sash, the only hair atop his head in the shape of a ring around the edges, not unlike the walls of the arena they found themselves in. “A fresh batch of victims—I mean, competitors, ha!—fresh from Odin to compete in the arena!” The crowd unleashed their appreciation at his words. The man pumped his arms at his sides to quiet them. “And I have a special treat for you. A man who is known from the Endless Ocean to Crimea, from the Frozen Passage to the Sacred Sea. A man who has been the bane of our great nation for years. Aye, the rumors are true. Because standing before you is the top general of the Odinian forces, murderer of hundreds of your fellow countrymen, creator of widows and orphans…”

Ando knew righteous anger should’ve been rising within him at this man’s words and ignorance, but instead he felt empty. Nothing this man said could bring back his family. And he couldn’t despise these people, even as they screamed their bloodlust at him, because they only knew what they were told. The king controlled information; thus, the king controlled them. Hell, if he were in their shoes, he suspected he would hate himself right now. Hundreds of leagues to the east, he’d be given a hero’s welcome. Here, he was the ultimate villain.

In his younger days, he might’ve taunted them, waving and blowing kisses. Back then he harbored a measure of arrogance, something his young wife had often chided him about. But age and experience had mellowed him, transforming that youthful arrogance into a quiet confidence that had served him well for many years.

While he’d been lost in his thoughts, the arena caller had continued to prattle on about him, no doubt paying him more compliments. By the time he was finished, every eye in the crowd was staring at the prisoners, no doubt trying to determine which one was the infamous High Commander Andovier Helm. He gave them no satisfaction by raising a hand. Instead, he watched the other two entrances in the walls for signs of movement.

While he watched, one of the men turned back toward him. “What’s the plan?” he asked.

The rest of the prisoners once more looked in his direction. Ando cursed inwardly. Now the spectators would know for certain who he was. “I have no plan. I am not your commander. Survive. That’s the best advice I can give you now.”

One of the men caught his eye. Though he too was looking toward Ando, he wasn’t leaning in like the rest of them, hanging on his every word. Instead, he wore an expression of thoughtfulness, eyebrows raised. They locked eyes, and then the man spoke:

“I have heard of such barbaric traditions amongst the Terrans before. This is our first time in the arena. The first time usually means we will face other first timers, other prisoners.”

Ando closed his eyes. He didn’t know how this man was such an expert on Terran traditions, but if he was right, then this was worse than he expected. If Terran soldiers were sent against them, or vicious creatures, Ando would have no problem fighting them, killing them. But other prisoners? What right did they have to kill others like themselves? For survival only? Was that enough? His own advice to the young soldier, Josiah, came back to him. Why would I kill a man in this arena? I have nothing left to live for. I have no desire to entertain the bloodthirsty Terrans. I am tired. So tired. “Moira,” he said aloud.

“What did you say, High Commander, I mean, Ando?” Josiah asked. The lad was still close at hand, but Ando didn’t hear him.

“What would you have me do?” But this time he couldn’t see her in his mind. This time, she offered no stern advice. This time, she had abandoned him to make his own choices.

The man who spoke with the voice of command was still speaking. “…they’ll be disorganized, caught up in the chaos of the situation. The group that maintains formation will be the group that emerges victorious.”

“But at what cost?” Ando said, his voice a low growl.

“Would you have them lay down their weapons as you have done?” the man said, challenge in his tone.

Ando was surprised anyone had noticed he’d given his sword away. He also didn’t think giving his weapon to another was the same as laying it down. Unless it is, he thought, frowning. Had his act been noble? Or…had he used Josiah’s predicament as an excuse to do that which he’d already had a mind to do? “The other prisoners have no less right to live than you do,” he said.

“Do you think they’ll care the same about us? When faced with their own mortality, most men become little more than animals. That will be our advantage. We will remain men, organized and disciplined.”

“And you will be the discipliner?” Ando asked.

“Someone has to lead, or we’ll be lambs to the slaughter. You were the obvious choice, Helm, but it seems your reputation dwarfs the reality.”

This man was becoming irksome, with his sayings and phrases. But Ando also knew he didn’t want to lead, so he remained silent.

“Thank you for making my point,” the man said. “Now here’s what we’ll do…”

Ando had to admit, the plan the man laid out made sense. It was close to what he would’ve told them to do. Unfortunately, it was based on an assumption that turned out to be dead wrong.

While he listened to the finer points of the plan, Ando glanced up at the king’s dais, which remained empty. With a pair of groans, the two other entrance gates were cranked open, and out stumbled two more groups of raggedy prisoners garbed in dented, mismatched armor.

One group was clearly Solarii, their sun-bronzed skin and bright blonde hair giving them a striking appearance, even under the circumstances. Solarii was a small peninsula nation to the south of Teravainen. Three quarters of its landmass was surrounded by the waters of the Bay of Sighs while the final quarter shared a border with Teravainen. The only reason Solarii had survived this long was support from the Archmage Council at Aeromand, whom the Dead King of Sunsei had claimed as an ally for well on a century now. As of late, however, Ando had heard rumors that the Solarii army had suffered several consecutive defeats to the Terrans.

The other group was comprised of wild-looking humanoid creatures with bulging muscles and ram-like horns curving atop their bony scalps. Grizari, Ando thought. Prisoners from the Scattered Tribes of the Lost Plains. How did the king manage to imprison such folk? To even reach the Grizari, the Terrans would’ve needed to either cross two countries, including Odin, which clearly had not happened, or sail around the southern portion of Kingfall and across the length of the Sacred Sea.

Which, now that Ando realized they’d grossly underestimated the Terran navy, seemed like a distinct possibility. But what could the Terrans possibly hope to achieve by fighting the Scattered Tribes? For years now the tribes had been distracted with their own infighting as each of the four major tribes sought dominance. Once, long ago, the Grizari had been a threat to humans, but that was little more than a historical reference at this point.

And yet here they were, Grizari prisoners of war wielding clubs and hammers and other blunt instruments that had long been their preferred weapons for battle. They looked royally pissed off, eyeing the two groups of humans with hatred. For several long moments, the three groups stood frozen, just watching each other.

“Would a battle between these three armies entertain you?” the arena caller shouted.

A roar arose from the crowd, followed by a chant of “Blood! Blood! Blood!”

When the din had died down to a dull rumble, the caller said, “Well then, what if I double the stakes?”

Ando hadn’t yet decided what he was going to do when the battle began, but now the decision was made for him, instincts firing the moment the words had left the caller’s mouth. He whirled around just as the iron gate groaned open. Jackals, which had apparently been creeping along the tunnel on silent feet while the combatants’ attention had been elsewhere, leapt forward, snarling from the back of their throats. From other areas of the arena, Ando heard shouts and snarls as well, which meant jackals had raced down the other two tunnels as well, entering the arena to attack the Solarii and Grizari prisoners.

Weaponless, Ando only had a bare moment to react as the first of the jackals was upon him, leaping for his throat. He twisted away from the attack, simultaneously grabbing the mongrel around the scruff of its neck as it snapped at him, jaws missing his throat but clamping down on his hand, fangs sinking deep. He grunted but managed to use his other hand to jerk the creature’s head back the opposite direction, hearing the satisfyingly vicious crunch of bones snapping. The creature went limp in his arms as he collapsed atop it. Beneath him, he could feel just how bony and mangy the jackal was—it had been starved leading up to this point. Ando almost felt bad for the poor beast, who was as much a victim of the king’s brutality as any of them.

Ando rolled over and fought back to his feet, spinning in a full circle to take stock of the situation and ensure another jackal didn’t creep up on him. One Odinian prisoner was being ravaged by a hungry jackal, his throat already torn open and gushing blood. Another’s arm was mangled brutally, the creature clinging to his flesh and dragging him to the ground. The man who’d tried to keep their group organized had managed to stab a jackal through the heart, wrenching his blade out and then turning to lock eyes with Ando. Something passed between them, a mutual respect between two men who’d led other men into battle. They nodded to each other, and then leapt into action.

Ando took care of the dozen or so surviving prisoners closest to him, while the other man organized the other half. They left the dead for now—nothing could be done for them. Josiah was still alive, the blade Ando had given him slick with jackal blood. His eyes were wide and wild when Ando spun him around by the shoulder, and the lad almost stabbed him. As it was, Ando dodged, and the jab slid past. “Gods,” Josiah breathed. “I didn’t know it was you.”

“I shouldn’t have snuck up on you like that. You killed a jackal?”

The boy nodded. “I tripped and fell backwards, and it fell on my sword—your sword.”

“A kill is a kill,” Ando said, meaning it. While not the most graceful tale of victory, he was alive and the jackal was not. He shepherded the lad and the other soldiers toward where the other man was doing the same. The initial wave of jackals that had attacked from the rear were all dead or maimed. Several jackals managed to break away from the other groups, sprinting in their direction.

“Form your line!” the other man shouted. Training and discipline kicked in at the command, and the soldiers stood shoulder to shoulder, the distance between them and the jackals vanishing with mesmerizing speed. Three of the men had made the wise decision to select spears as their weapons, and they extended them outward now. Ando, still weaponless, was surprised when Josiah thrust the sword he’d given him back into his hand.

At first, Ando refused, but the lad said, “You’ll put it to better use than me.”

Ando’s lips formed a grim line, but then he nodded. “Stay behind me until I can get you a weapon.” It wasn’t the jackals he was worried about. Speaking of which…

The last five beasts arrived, barreling recklessly into the line of soldiers on account of their starvation. Two died on the outraised spear tips, while Ando and the other leader slashed their blades across another two’s throats. The final jackal managed to find a weak spot in the line, taking only a glancing blow as it launched itself onto another man, throwing him back and landing atop him with such force there was a ringing sound as the rear of his helmeted head crashed into the ground.

His scream was horrific for a moment before blood filled his airways.

Ando had not been idle, springing to the soldier’s aid. He was too late to save him, but made sure the jackal paid the price, putting the mangy beast out of its misery with a stab through its spine.

Having lost five men thus far, they were still twenty strong as they reformed their line. All the jackals were dead. The Solarii group had fared the worst, their numbers culled by at least half, and those who had survived were bleeding and injured. Of all the groups, the Grizari seemed to have come out the strongest—Ando couldn’t identify a single horned creature that was dead or injured. This is probably just another day for them, he thought, having heard stories of the wild creatures that were known to roam the Lost Plains.

The crowd roared their approval, and at first Ando thought it was for the bloodshed they’d witnessed thus far, but no. The king had arrived, standing in front of his high seat and letting the audience’s approval wash over him like a wave. Then he sat, resting his arms casually on the large stone armrests. The crown princess, Amari, arrived next, taking her rightful seat next to her father. Even from this distance, Ando could tell she was an attractive but solemn woman, her expression as unreadable as the tempestuous clouds of the Stormlands. Next came the middle child, Prince Jarrod Gaard, or so Ando suspected. Though he was clearly trying to maintain a stoic façade like his father and sister, Ando could tell he was uncomfortable with all the attention, sitting so quickly he must’ve bruised his behind.

The third child, the young Prince Sampson, never came, which made Ando frown. Was the prince ill? He knew it wasn’t an attempt by the king to shield him from the brutality of their world; he suspected the king had made such family outings a tradition since the time his children were mere saplings.

He wondered whether the queen, who’d been known to be seriously ill for nigh on three years, would be wheeled in.

Instead, Ando blinked when another form materialized, moving with a willowy grace despite the shackles on her wrists and ankles, seeming to flow rather than walk as she made her way around the line of royal seats to the front portion of the dais. Her hair was the color of a cloudless sky, her skin the hue of a pink sunrise. He saw the king’s lips move, and the woman cocked her head toward him, pausing in a moment of indecision. His lips moved again, and she kneeled before the king, her body turned to the side rather than toward him. On hands and knees, she waited.

The king stretched and placed his feet on the woman’s back.

It was the most sickening abuse of power Ando had ever witnessed.

Crown Princess Amari stared straight ahead, not seeming to care one whit about her father’s cruelty. Prince Jarrod stared at his hands, which were intertwined in his lap. The king flicked his fingers in the direction of the arena caller, who immediately straightened up and shouted, “The jackals have been defeated, but only one army can be crowned victor on this day. Without further ado, let the battle begin!”

As planned, Ando’s group maintained their position, relying on the curving wall to their rear to protect them from being flanked. The Solarii, injured and bloody, tried to form up their ranks but ended up in a messy squiggle that resembled a wet blanket more than the ramrod straight edge of a sword. The Grizari charged the Solarii with seemingly reckless abandon, though Ando suspected there was a method to their recklessness, one he could not yet discern.

He also realized something in that moment:

Their own strategy was all wrong.

“Change of plans,” he barked. “We go on the offensive…now!”

He had not intended to become their leader, but the familiar feeling of having one’s command obeyed instantly and without question sent a thrill rushing through him. It was as though he had never left Kingsfort on that day built on bricks made of nightmares and darkness.

Except he hadn’t spoken, hadn’t issued the command. Because he was not that man anymore. How could he be, when everything that gave him joy had been stripped away by a ruthless enemy? He didn’t want to lead. Maybe not ever again.

He couldn’t, however, in good conscience not inform someone of the error in their approach. Thus, he slid behind the line of men until he reached the man who’d taken on the mantle of leader when Ando had refused it. “We should charge the Grizari, fall upon them from the rear,” he whispered, directly into the man’s ear so only he could hear it.

“If you give the command, they will follow you,” was the man’s only response. He didn’t look back, his stare straight ahead, as though the paths of his eyes were spears pointed at their enemies.

“I—I cannot. You give it. Please.” He hated the brokenness in his own voice. “I can’t have these men look at me…that way. I’m not their high commander anymore. I am but a prisoner.”

“As you wish,” the man said, and then he began barking out orders with such vigor it was clear to Ando that he was born to lead warriors into battle every bit as much, or perhaps more, than he was.

The soldiers responded to the call immediately, and Ando felt himself respond, feeling strange following rather than giving orders. He gripped the well-balanced sword he’d selected prior to the battle, pumping it at his side as he ran. He located Josiah, who was now weaponless, and Ando cut a diagonal path to get in front of the lad, who was fleet of foot and at least ten years younger than him.

Several Grizari twisted their heads and looked over their shoulders at the new threat posed by Ando’s crew as they charged. Rather than changing their own trajectory, they barreled forward toward their prey with even greater determination. It was a wise move, Ando knew. Fighting enemies on two sides was exceptionally difficult even if you had the advantage in numbers, which the Grizari did not. Instead they would try to eliminate one enemy before the second could reach them.

The Grizari smashed into the wet-towel line of Solarii with the force of a maelstrom, lowering their heads to use their solid-looking curved horns as shields to fend off the blades and spears of their sun-bronzed foe. Three Solarii fell immediately, trampled underfoot as if met by a stampede of dreadbeasts. Another three were brutally beaten by heavy hammer blows, the sound loud and raucous. Only six Solarii remained when Ando and the other Odinians fell upon the Grizari from behind.

Ando kicked one heavily in the back to send him sprawling and crashing into one of his comrades. It opened a gap in their ranks, which was exactly his intention. Because he wasn’t looking to defeat them just yet; no, his first objective was to retrieve a weapon for Josiah, who seemed determined to participate in the battle with his bare hands if necessary. Sure enough, once the large Grizari bodies had been shoved aside, several weapons lost by their previous Solarii bearers were revealed. This time, Ando didn’t have the luxury of considering the feel or balance of any of the weapons, so he simply grabbed the closest one, a long spear that could be used to ward off the vicious Grizari, and shouted, “Josiah, catch!” as he tossed it in the lad’s direction. The boy’s eyes widened, but he managed to snatch it from the air, offering a nod of thanks.

Ando turned his attention back to the enemy; the boy was on his own now. The Grizari had killed another Solarii prisoner, leaving them with only five remaining, but the distraction provided by the Odinians had given the survivors a chance as the ram-horned creatures split into two groups, fighting back to back. Ando knew the best strategy to employ here. The other Odinian prisoners would know it too considering such tactics were included in their training. It wasn’t an honorable tactic—basically you tried to defeat your man and then use your momentum to kill another from behind—but it was an effective one. In the midst of war, honor had less meaning than it did in normal society. It was kill or be killed and an honorable man bled the same as a dishonorable one.

He faced his first foe, the Grizari he’d kicked in the back to clear space. He was a thick mass of muscle, his face a blunt thing that reminded him of a blacksmith’s anvil. The portions of his skin that were not scarred were minimal, but smooth and free of hair. Though he was built like a boulder, he was a head shorter than Ando, which meant he had the advantage of reach, especially considering his opponent wielded a spiked club that was two hands shorter in length than his own sword.

The only problem: he’d never faced one from the Scattered Tribes before, their combat style unknown to him. Which is why Ando was caught by surprise when the creature threw his club at his face. The ranged attack might’ve felled him if not for his swift reflexes. He ducked, realizing too late that the club throw had not been intended to kill or even injure him; it had been meant to distract him. The trick worked perfectly, and by the time Ando figured out what was happening the Grizari had already lowered his head and charged into him.

Ando brought his sword down hard on his foe’s head just as the man-beast picked him up around the waist. His sword made contact with the Grizari’s horns and stuck fast, unable to cut through the thick bone. Airborne for a moment, he saw sky and those lugubrious clouds he’d noticed earlier, a sense of vertigo setting in as everything spun.

His foe slammed him down hard on his back, causing a spike of pain to shoot up his spine, his head snapping violently. His blade, still held fast by the horns, was wrenched from his grasp and tossed away when the creature bucked its head with animalistic fury. Ando had been in such a position before, lying on his back on the battlefield, weaponless, having been bested by his opponent. He knew how crucial his next move was, for it would likely mean the difference between life and death.

He rolled hard to the right just as the Grizari’s foot stomped down where his face had been. Stars danced in front of his eyes, but he hadn’t lost his senses. He could’ve rolled right or left but had specifically chosen right because of what he’d seen from the corner of his eye—the glint of metal catching a ray of sunlight that snuck through the thick cloud cover.

A spear tip. He grabbed the shaft of the spear now, only having time to lift it and hold it steady before his foe was upon him again, bare hands extended toward his neck as if to strangle him. The Grizari’s mouth gasped open as the spear penetrated his leather armor, his weight pushing the blade in further, until it broke free through his back, sheened with blood.

Ando shoved the creature aside and closed his eyes until the stars faded. Then he stood, wobbling slightly as a wave of dizziness assaulted him. Somewhere in what felt like a distant place, he heard the roar of the crowd apparently very much enjoying their bloodsport. Killing for the sake of killing, with nothing at stake—not for those watching anyway. For those participating, however, their very lives were the prize.

Ando retrieved his sword, still feeling woozy but beginning to recover as adrenaline shot through his veins. He surveyed how the others had fared. Four of his comrades were down and didn’t look like they’d be getting up again, but, besides his own defeated enemy, another five Grizari had been killed. Unfortunately, the Solarii were down to their last two men, both of whom were clearly capable swordsmen but on the verge of defeat simply because the odds were stacked against them.

Ando hated this—all of it. He’d always thought of the Grizari as savages, yes, but that didn’t mean they should be used like this, made a spectacle of, no more than the Solarii or Odinians should. They were victims too. Victims fighting against victims.

An idea formed in his head, one that was likely impossible, likely to never come to fruition. If nothing else, the thought helped him shake off the fog in his brain, thrusting him back into battle. He was fully prepared for the untraditional tactics of his next foe, who dove at his legs to try to snap his legs with his horns. Ando danced back, stabbing his sword down on the creature’s spine. He stepped on the corpse’s back and launched himself at a trio of Grizari advancing on one of the two remaining Solarii soldiers. He killed two of them in an instant and was about to end the third when the creature whirled around, grabbing his blade with a bare hand. Blood spurted and Ando tried to wrench his sword away, but the creature held fast, grim determination on his blunt-featured face. He swung his hammer…

Clang! The blow was diverted by a sword wielded by none other than the Solarii man who Ando had saved by killing two-thirds of his opponents. Their eyes met and the man said, “My debt is paid,” before slashing his sword back the other way to decapitate the Grizari.

“Well met,” Ando said, spinning on his heel toward where he’d last seen the other living Solarii soldier faced with his own trio of enemies.

Too late. The man succumbed to a barrage of blows, crumpling under the swarm of clubs and hammers. “No!” the last Solarii man shouted, throwing himself bodily on top of the Grizari, tossing them aside while hacking and stabbing and killing at will, ending two of the enemies while the third managed to slip away. When it was finished, the man stood over the body of his comrade, chest heaving, jaw locked. The only feature that stood out on the man was the glove he wore on one hand.

Ando cast his gaze around the rest of the killing field, bodies scattered everywhere—jackal, Grizari and human. A quick count showed that, including himself, thirteen Odinians had survived. One Solarii. And, to Ando’s surprise, one Grizari, the one that had managed to escape the final Solarii man’s wrath.

The final man-beast was backing away from a half-dozen Odinian soldiers led by none other than the unofficial leader of their group. The creature was growling low under his breath, wielding both a hammer and a spiked club, daring any of the humans to venture within his range. The soldiers were well-trained, spreading out to surround their foe, who stood no chance of surviving the contest.

Ando’s plan had been to keep his head down and follow orders that were not his own. But then that idea arose in his mind once more, unbidden. “Wait,” he said, not loudly enough for any of the men to hear him. “Wait!” he said, louder.

The advancing soldiers didn’t look his way, their eyes trained on their retreating foe. But they did stop, their heads cocking slightly in his direction. “Speak your mind, Helm,” the unofficial leader said.

“If you kill him, we will not have won the day.”

“Explain.”

“A complete slaughter will give the king the victory. Sparing one from each group, however…”

Finally, the man’s head turned fully to meet his eyes. “Will royally piss off King Gaard. Are you mad? He could have us all executed just for his own amusement. Anyway, do you really think the Griz will agree to a truce?”

“It’s a risk, all of it. But what do we have to lose at this point? Let me try. Please.”

The man’s stare bore into him for a long second, but then his demeanor softened in defeat. “Fine. Have at it.” With that, he stepped aside. The rest of the soldiers followed suit, though they continued to stand ready to fight if violence erupted once more.

Now that the battle had come to a standstill, the crowd was growing reckless. Jeers and taunts rained down on Ando as he strode through the gap in the soldiers. The Grizari’s knees were bent, both weapons gripped fiercely as he seemed to believe Ando to be his executioner. Instead, Ando tossed his sword aside. “Do you speak the common tongue?” he asked.

The creature’s head angled to the side, thick brows furrowing. His leather armor and face were splattered with blood. “What game is this?” he said.

Ando was somewhat surprised. He’d heard the Tribes communicated with each other in a guttural language of their own creation, but he wasn’t aware they knew the common tongue, even if it was a little broken on this man-beast’s tongue. Each word seemed to be pushed from deep in his throat. “No game,” Ando said. “A truce. The fight is over. Throw down your weapons and live.”

“Humans trick. Humans connive. Humans thieve. Take Griz lands. Take Griz resources. I no trust humans.”

“What is your name?”

“Mrz.”

“Mrz?”

“You speak it wrong. But aye. Mrz is name. Mrz son of Shrz.”

“My name is Ando. I am sorry for your poor experiences with humans—we are an imperfect species. But we are not all the same. I will be your ally if you’ll let me.” Ando was being forced to speak louder to make himself heard over the screams of the bloodthirsty crowd.

“No honor in human ally,” Mrz said. He stepped forward, smashing his hammer into his club. A threat. The crowd roared their approval.

Ando didn’t retreat nor make a move to recover his sword. “I won’t fight you.”

“Then you foolish. You die.”

“So be it,” Ando said. “Your choice.”

“Helm,” the man who’d become their unofficial leader warned.

He ignored him, his eyes locked on the approaching Griz, who’d taken another step forward. One more step and he’d be within striking distance. Ando had said his peace—there was nothing else to say.

“Kill him!” someone from the audience shouted. The rest of the throng took up the chant, “Kill him! Kill him! Kill him!”

Mrz took another step, muttering something in his native tongue that Ando wouldn’t have been able to translate even if he’d made it out. Mrz raised his hammer and drew it back, muscles flexing, hesitating.

Ando didn’t move.

Several Odinian soldiers shouted something as the Griz swung the hammer. Ando kept his eyes open—he wanted to see everything if these were his final moments on this world.

The hammer’s iron head stopped a finger’s breadth from his face. Mrz grunted and withdrew the weapon. “Queer human,” he muttered. “I be ally. Don’t play me for fool or I will smash face with hammer, aye?”

Ando couldn’t help the small laugh that escaped his lips, the first he’d allowed himself since…

He breathed away the thought. “Yes. You can smash my face with a hammer if I betray you. Void, I’ll smash my own face with a hammer if I betray you.”

“Queer human,” the Griz said again, but then he threw down his weapons and tromped toward one of the entrance gates. Now that he was unarmed, the Odinian soldiers stepped aside to let him pass.

“You’re mad, Helm,” the unofficial leader said.

“What is your name?” Ando asked him.

“General Horatio, at your service,” the man said. He didn’t offer a surname, which struck Ando as odd, though he’d just done the same to the Grizari.

Ando filed away the question that sprang to mind, turning to face the crowd, which had resumed their jeering and taunting now that their desire to see more blood spilled had been thwarted. His gaze moved past the crowd to the royal dais, where three sets of eyes were fixed firmly on him. It was the king’s eyes that he met, briefly, but then moved away quickly, having only maintained the stare long enough to communicate a short, pointed message. I’m coming.

It wasn’t the king’s eyes, however, that were the last he met before turning away and returning to the darkness of the tunnel. The pink-skinned woman, while still a footrest for the king’s boots, had turned to look down at him. There was pain in that haunted look, framed by her waves of sky-blue hair. Torment. She was visibly shaken.

And her eyes pierced him to the core.

He turned and walked away.

Six

Aisling Brightshine

Wolfsgaard, Teravainen

“ANDOVIER HELM’s SPARING OF TWO OF HIS ENEMIES IS A DIRECT AFFRONT TO YOUR COMMAND, YOUR MAJESTY,” the high mage, Grimfire, said.

“I gave no command,” King Gaard replied. “I was there as a spectator only.”

“Yet your command was implied. And the way Helm looked up at you, the challenge in his eyes…the people will see you as weak.”

The king flicked away the mage’s concern with his fingers. “I care nothing for what the rabble think. Andovier Helm has been a thorn in my side for too long, but I won’t give him the satisfaction of a swift death. No, he will continue to fight in the arena until he dies in battle. He is not invincible.”

The mage bowed. “As you wish, Your Majesty. But I will caution you, there is an ill wind blowing across Kingfall. I first sensed it a fortnight ago, about the time that Prince Sampson should have first reached the Spine. Have you heard from your son?”

“And how do you suppose he would send a message to me? I doubt the Avadonians would be anxious to assist him in getting word to me regarding a secret magenum deposit we are trying to steal out from under their noses.”

The mage nodded. “No need to get testy, Your Majesty. I am merely warning you to tread carefully.”

“Noted. Thank you.”

With that, the high mage departed, dark robes dragging along the floor behind him.

“Why do you allow him such insolence?” Crown Princess Amari said.

The king sighed. “He is not Terran—he doesn’t understand our customs. In Aeromand…they speak their minds freely. They exchange ideas. They have no concept of royal lineages and being born into privilege and power. I appreciate a dissenting opinion now and again rather than the constant Yes, Your Majestys.”

“He’s a condescending bastard, if you ask me,” Amari said.

“Daughter,” the king said with forced sweetness. “Might I remind you that we are not alone.” He didn’t mean the guards, who were the same as the paintings on the wall—not to speak, not to hear, only to be. He meant Aisling, who was on her knees but stretched forward, head bowed.

“You’re concerned the godling will take offense to my foul mouth?”

“You are the heir to Teravainen. You are the next Terran Wolf, the future Queen Gaard. When I die, you can act and speak as you please. Until then, you are Crown Princess Amari, and expected to act and speak a certain way.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Amari droned.

Aisling barely managed to hold back a smile. The Crown Princess was growing on her. Amari pretended to be indifferent to the goings on around her, but Aisling was quickly learning that she was a shrewd, clever young woman with a sharp tongue and a rare attention to detail.

Though Aisling couldn’t see much more than a few tiny specks of dirt on an otherwise shiny marble floor, she’d captured the room in her memory when they’d first entered. It was a sort of lounge, with a table meant for sitting but not dining with plush seats on which she’d not been invited to sit. A decanter two-thirds filled with dark-red wine had been resting in the center of the table surrounded by goblets and several plates of food meant to be consumed using one’s fingers. Twice now she’d heard the king smack his lips after sipping his wine and thrice he’d licked his fingers clean. Disgusting human habits, she thought as the conversation continued.

“What is your opinion on the matter, Son?” the king asked, shifting in his chair to face his second-born.

“What matter, F-Father?” Jarrod stammered out.

Aisling sighed inwardly. The prince had been kind to her, and seemed to have inherited the very heart that was absent in the king’s own chest, but he was embarrassingly awkward and didn’t seem to have a backbone of any sort, especially when it came to dealing with his father.

“Grimfire,” the king said simply. “Should he be punished for his insolence or allowed his plain speak?”

“I—I don’t know,” Jarrod said.

Aisling sighed again, almost feeling bad for the lad. Despite having been brought up in this environment, he was not made for it. She remembered how he’d shied away from the attention in the bloodsport arena, looking as much like a fish out of water as she’d ever seen a human look.

“Do you have something to add to the discussion, godling?” the king said.

Aisling froze. She hadn’t realized her sigh had been that loud. For the last week or so, she’d managed to keep her head down and stay out of trouble. Thankfully, she hadn’t been commanded to heal any more horrid humans. Yes, she’d been forced to attend to the king like a dog, kneeling in front of him at the ready to obey his every command. And acting as his personal footstool during the barbaric, so-called “entertainment” in the arena had been particularly demeaning, but it was better than looking into the shadowy depths of another horrific soul.

Her head had been down, yes, but her ears had been open. And this time she’d been commanded to speak, so speak she did. “I think, without Grimfire, you would’ve never taken Westport,” she said.

She spoke into the floor, because though she’d been commanded to speak her thoughts, she had not been ordered to rise.

There was silence for a moment, and then the king laughed wholeheartedly. “Ha! The foreigner has more sense than my own children!”

Amari, however, was not to be outdone. “Are you speaking of the Westport that my father’s navy took from Odin only to have it overrun and retaken within days? That Westport.”

“The intention was never to hold Westport,” Aisling said, head still down. “That would be impossible without first occupying Kingsfort.” There was a large map of Kingfall on the wall in the king’s strategy room, which she’d had the displeasure of visiting while King Gaard prattled on endlessly with Grimfire and his other war advisors about their next moves in the war they were currently fighting on two fronts. Aisling had managed to glance at it for a moment before she was forced to prostrate herself on the floor. In that time, she’d committed it to memory and could now recall the name of every city and landmark.

“The godling is correct,” the king said. “She may have a disobedient streak, but she’s not without a mind.”

“Then what was the purpose of holding Westport for such a short time?” Jarrod asked. Aisling was surprised the prince had spoken up, and yet she was glad for it. His father may be an arrogant, power-hungry monster of a man, but mayhaps a sliver of his confidence would rub off on the prince. So long as Jarrod didn’t lose the kindness in his heart…

“Amari? Do you see it yet or shall I have the godling instruct my children on the finer aspects of war?”

“You wished to strike a blow to Odin and show them our navy is not as weak as everyone believes,” the princess said.

“Yes, but why?” the king asked. Silence. Evidently, the siblings were stumped. “Godling,” the king said. “Do you have an answer?”

Aisling didn’t hesitate. “Now the Odinian army must split themselves to defend on multiple fronts. Before, the linchpin of the war was Kingsfort. Thus, Odin maintained the bulk of its forces at the border, with only small security forces at its other ports and borders. Now, however, in addition to Kingsfort they must defend at Westport, Truro…even at the northern and southern gates of the Strangle. But you won’t attack any of those other places, will you?”

“Mayhaps I should promote you to war advisor,” the king said, pounding a fist on the table raucously.

“Would I be permitted to sit in a chair then?” Aisling said. She knew she was pushing her luck now, but after what the king had said about appreciating directness from his high mage, she was willing to risk it.

“I shall consider it. But your primary role will continue to be healing those I command you to heal. And I will not suffer disobedience again.”

Aisling stiffened. It was the first time he’d spoken of that first day, when she’d refused to heal the rapist murderer for the second time. The day he’d beaten her bloody. That was the last day she’d felt truly alive.

She said nothing, for fear of the trouble her sharp tongue would get her into.

“Back to our discussion. As a side benefit of our campaign against Westport, we gained a great prize in High Commander Andovier Helm. Again, it was Grimfire’s foresight that prevented him from being executed when he was apprehended.”

Aisling was there for that conversation, too. The great warrior she’d seen fighting in the arena had been captured trying to take back his home from the Terran soldiers who were inside, having murdered his entire family.

She remembered looking down on Andovier Helm standing in the arena, having spared the lives of two men, one a sun-bronzed Solarii and another a ram-horned Grizari. She remembered him looking up at the king, his eyes shifting to meet hers.

And all she could see was red.

So captivated by the drama unfolding within the arena, no one else had noticed the trauma it had inflicted on her. She’d felt every blow as if they were dealt to her. She’d heard every scream of pain and rage as though they were shouted directly into her ears. She’d died again and again and again…the ordeal leaving her trembling and shattered, as tormented as the day she’d healed one of the darkest souls she’d ever come into contact with.

But he, High Commander Andovier Helm, had noticed her inner turmoil—she was sure of it.

While she’d relived that scene in her mind, the conversation had continued, talk about war and strategy and the blow that had been dealt at Westport. As Aisling’s attention returned to the present, Jarrod asked another question that only a softhearted man such as he would need to ask: “Why do we need to defeat the Odinians and Solarii?”

She heard the king’s chair creak as he leaned back. “What you both must understand is that wealth only gets you so far in life. Power is what every man, and the occasional forward-thinking woman seeks.”

“But you have power. You control all Teravainen. You are the king.” Jarrod’s voice had risen as he’d spoken. Something was bothering him, that much was clear to Aisling. That makes both of us, she thought. Why must humans always kill other humans?

“What you must understand about power is that it’s like a piece of fruit. It will satisfy you for a time, but then it’s gone and you must get another piece of fruit. Or you can save that piece of fruit with the intention of enjoying it another time. Alas, when you return to eat the fruit, it’s shriveled and rotten, suitable only for a pig’s trough. No, the only way to ensure you never go without fruit is to grow your supply, and how do you do that?”

“By planting more fruit trees, growing an orchard,” Amari said tiredly. As the eldest born, mayhaps her father had given her this speech already.

“Exactly. But then thieves may come to steal your fruit, so you must defend your land. Unfortunately, your neighbor grows jealous of all that you have because his fruit trees have withered and died or been overcome by the thieves who’d been unable to breach your defenses. Your neighbor wants to take what is yours and will try eventually, unless you—”

“Take his first,” Amari finished.

“Yes. The only way to maintain power over years, decades, centuries, passing the power down from generation to generation, is to grow that power. Thus, we will begin with Odin and Solarii. But we won’t—nay, can’t—stop there. No, we must then take Travail and Avadon, Calabria and Loslandia. Godstown we will spare so that the gods favor us. But the islands of the Sacred Sea we will take, too, Irea and Yan and Pentock and Firestone. As the sun rises in the morn, everything its light touches will be ours.”

“Aisling, I want to introduce you to someone,” Jarrod said, pushing a chair with wheels before him as he opened the door into Aisling’s cell. Sitting in the chair was a woman. She wasn’t old nor young and had features that Aisling believed most humans would find attractive if not for the disfigurement that twisted them. As it was, the woman was clearly stricken with some sort of malady of the bones and mind, for her eyes looked without really seeing, her hands moving about incessantly without accomplishing anything.

“Your mother,” Aisling said, for though she had not yet seen Queen Janai, she’d heard the whispers. By the king, his own wife was regarded as an eyesore, someone to be hidden away, out of sight and out of mind.

“How did you know?” Jarrod asked, as naïve as a baby jaybird barely out of its shell.

“I tend to be observant,” Aisling said simply.

“You are cleverer than all my father’s advisors put together,” Jarrod said.

And I have lived as long as all of their lifespans combined, she thought. She kept her thoughts to herself. She knew from experience that humans struggled to cope when they learned her true age. Instead, she said simply, “Thank you for the compliment. You are too kind.”

“It’s true, don’t you think, Mother?”

The woman’s lips moved but no words emerged, just a sickly gurgle. A bit of drool spilled from her lips, dribbling down her chin. Jarrod was quick to wipe her clean with a handkerchief he had in hand, presumably for this very purpose.

“What is she afflicted with?” she asked.

“None of the healers know—or at least none that remain. My father was not very…forgiving…toward those who were unable to heal her. It wasn’t until his supply of healers began to run low that he started taking a less harsh view of their failures.”

And then he purchased me, the ultimate healer, to replace them. Interesting he has not yet called upon me to heal her. Begs the question of whether he really wants to see his wife well again. “I see. How long has she been afflicted?” She had to ask these questions, and she had to hope the prince gave her the answers she wanted. For she had known the moment he pushed this woman through the door why he was here, to ask of her what his father would not.

“Two years,” Jarrod said, and Aisling’s heart sank. It was too long. Far too long. Even if she’d been there from the beginning, when this horrible, degenerating disease first struck the queen, there was a fair chance she wouldn’t have been able to help her. Aisling’s powers to heal were not all-encompassing—even she had her limits. Physical wounds—those were child’s play to her, even the worst injuries, so long as the heart hadn’t stopped for too long. But rare diseases and maladies affecting the mind—those were generally beyond the scope of what her glowing godsblood could repair. “Can you help her?”

She wouldn’t give him hope where there was none. “Jarrod, I’m sorry.”

“Please try. I won’t fault you for failing, only for not trying.”

Aisling didn’t want to do this, because she already knew what the end result would be: the same as all the other times she’d been asked to perform such a task for previous masters. No, she didn’t owe him anything—she was nothing more than a purchased slave for his household, after all. Yet she didn’t want to teach him the same sort of lesson his father taught him every day: that kindness would always be met with harshness; that growing one’s power should always be the objective; that attacking a city and killing women and children was acceptable as part of a war strategy.

So instead of refusing him, she nodded. “I will try.”

“Thank you,” he said, the relief evident in the breathy sound of his voice. She didn’t need to touch his soul to understand it. He loved his mother deeply. Perhaps she was the only one in his family he’d had a deep connection with. Perhaps she was the only one who’d loved him unconditionally, as he did her. She had been his world, until the fates had decided to take her away from him in a manner that was as close to death as possible without burying her beneath the ground.

Aisling kneeled before the woman, whose milky eyes continued to roam free, as if in search of something she could never seem to find. Her skin was smooth, clear of blemish or imperfection. Her lips soft and slightly pink. Her hair brushed and free of tangles. Though Aisling was certain there were royal staff responsible for caring for the ailing queen, she suspected it was Jarrod who brushed her hair and applied color to her cheeks and lips.

Aisling refocused on Queen Janai. She grasped the queen’s hands, holding them steady though she felt them trying to move within her grip. Aisling closed her eyes.

“Don’t you need to…do the thing with your blood?” Jarrod said, breaking her concentration.

Aisling opened her eyes and met his. “Not for this. There is no open wound to treat. Her wounds run…deeper. Now please, I require complete silence.”

He nodded apologetically and she closed her eyes once more, focusing on the woman’s palms, her fingers, the lifeblood that was still streaming through her veins. At first the images were tangled, flitting in and out and around each other like butterflies dancing on the breeze. The streams of consciousness were light and airy. This woman is at peace in her ignorance, she thought. But then, as she probed deeper, the images grew darker, more tangled still, like the gnarled, thorny branches of a strange tree in the heart of a forest occupied by a dark presence. At first it was difficult to discern anything of substance, the snatches of memories as meaningless as the scribbles of a madman. But then, suddenly, the random bits and pieces coalesced into a consistent image, the memory unfurling like an opened scroll:

Queen Janai Gaard looked younger, and not only because of her lovely appearance. Gone were the dark circles under her eyes. Gone were the frown lines on her forehead. But the most striking difference was the way she moved. She was graceful, purposeful, the stark difference noticeable even in the simplest act, such as brushing her hair, which is what she was doing now. As she threaded the brush through her hair, tugging out any knots, though there were few, she hummed a soothing melody. Then Aisling noticed something else:

Her free hand was settled softly on her belly, which had the subtlest round curve to it.

This woman is with child, Aisling thought, frowning. And she looks happy.

The truth could be seen in the queen’s reflection in the mirror hanging over her dressing table. She looked at peace. Aisling knew from experience that peace was a fleeting thing, like rays of sunlight on a cloudy day. You reached out to catch the warmth of a sunbeam in your hand only to find it cold and lacking.

And this time was no different. The door to the room slammed open without so much as a courtesy knock.

He stood in the doorway, his broad shoulders filling the space. King Cronus Gaard, the Terran Wolf. He was younger, too, though the barest hint of gray highlighted the tips of his sideburns. He said nothing at first, the silence that followed the crash of the door deafening, especially to one with extraordinary hearing such as Aisling.

“Darling, is something the matter?” Janai said, her head cocked in his direction. One hand gripped her brush in her hair, unmoving. Aisling noticed her other hand had moved away from her belly, settling on the dressing table. To a human, the pose would look casual, natural even, but to Aisling’s hawkish eyes, she could tell it was anything but natural. The queen’s fingers quivered.

She feared this man as one might fear a recurring nightmare.

“You would play me for a fool?” the king said, the question coming out a low snarl. Aisling could almost believe that he was a real wolf. His chest heaved. His expression seethed. He took one step inside, eyes blazing as they bore into his wife.

The queen, despite her fear, managed a small laugh. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, my dear.” She looked away, returning to the unnecessary work of untangling the nonexistent knots from her lustrous dark hair. Her other hand’s knuckles had turned white as she was now gripping the edge of the dressing table firmly, as if afraid she might float away if she let go.

“My dear,” the king said, “I should have you executed.”

The queen froze, what was left of her act finally disappearing as her fingers opened and the brush dropped, clattering against the floor and skittering under her bed. Like her act, the brush disappeared beneath the hanging bed skirt. “Please, let me explain,” she said. She dropped to her knees, clenching her hands together as if to pray to the gods. Maybe she was. If she had, her prayer had not been answered, Aisling knew that much because of what had happened to this woman.

“What is there to explain? You’ve dishonored me, committing adultery with a man of the lowest station possible. He’s a fruit seller, for gods’ sake, Janai. Did you think I wouldn’t find out?”

“You had me followed?” Janai said.

“I didn’t have to. Your own lady’s maid informed on you. What did you think—that there was some unspoken pact between women? She has more class than you, that’s for damn sure. She will be promoted to palace keeper as a result. And you…” There was an unspoken threat there.

“Don’t hurt, Norris, he’s a good man. Please, I beg that your full wrath is aimed at me. Not him. Please.”

“Foolish woman,” the king spat. “You expect mercy for a man like him? Norris is already dead. Even now, the flies are buzzing around him and his rotten fruit.”

“No!” the queen screamed, throwing herself onto the floor, her face in her hands. Her body shook as she sobbed quietly.

“Compose yourself,” the king said. “Don’t tell me you actually loved this lowly man. If it was a bit of pleasure with a younger man, I could almost live with it now that he’s dead. But love…” Aisling got the sense that his words were part of an attempt to justify his own extramarital activities.

“Yes, I loved him. I love him.”

“And you thought bearing his child would…what? Somehow change the fact that you’re wed to another man, the supreme ruler of an entire nation?”

Her hand subconsciously moved back to the small bump of her belly. Her tears had stopped, leaving behind wet rivers on her face. “You know of the child?”

“Gods, Janai, you really are naïve.” The king, who hadn’t taken more than that single step into the room, reached out to grasp the door, easing it shut. Though it was a calm, deliberate act, there was something more violent in it than if he’d slammed the door with all his might.

The queen was desperate now, and Aisling could appreciate how she was able to cast aside the heartbreak of knowing her lover was dead in order to do the one thing and one thing alone that was expected of a mother:

Protect her child.

“The child growing in me is yours,” she said.

“We both know that’s not true. We haven’t lain together in months. Now I know why.”

“You misunderstand me, my dear,” the queen said, a slight hitch in her voice even as she tried to make it sound sweet and caring. “The child is yours. Or it could be. The kingdom would be elated for another royal child. Imagine, me having another prince or princess at my age? Surely the gods would bless all Teravainen as a result.”

The king stared at her, his lip curling in disgust. “I discovered the truth because of all the mistakes you made. There are people who know the truth. You don’t think the rumors will get out? Behind cupped hands, the people will whisper about their fool of a king who can’t even keep his own wife from running around with other men.”

“It wasn’t men. It was one man. A good man.” Her voice broke on the last. The pleading returned to her tone. “Please. We can find all those who know the truth. We can send them away. Far away, across the Endless Ocean. We will never see them again and the truth will go with them.”

“Really? Is that how you think it will work? If we send them away, they’ll feel even safer. They’ll be in their cups in some foreign land spouting stories about what they witnessed in Teravainen. The world is shrinking. Their stories will be carried along trade routes on merchant vessels, reaching our shores once more. Once lit, the spark cannot be extinguished, spreading like a wildfire across our kingdom, and then, all Kingfall. I will be the laughingstock of the world, the king who was willing to raise his wife’s bastard child.”

“No, no, no,” the queen said. “They will call you merciful. They will call you good.”

“They will think me weak!” the king snarled, becoming the wolf again as he leapt forward. The queen shrank back, covering her head as though she expected to be struck. Instead, there was the crash of shattering glass and the tinkle of shards cascading down onto the dressing table and floor, shimmering crystalline triangles of mirror, reflecting dozens of broken images of the queen’s face as she stared down at them.

“Wait,” Janai said, as she seemed to come to a realization. “The witnesses…you’ve already thought all of this through. You’ve already…”

“Yes,” the king said. “I’ve handled the witnesses. They won’t threaten us.”

“Oh gods, what have I done? And my lady’s maid? You said you promoted her.”

The king nodded. Despite the anger in his stance, there was mirth in his expression now. “It was the least I could do for her loyalty to the crown. Unfortunately, she came down with a nasty fever shortly after she assumed her new post. There were pustules on her skin. We had no choice but to quarantine her to protect the rest of our household. Alas, she died shortly thereafter. So, it seems, my dear, you and I are the only two remaining witnesses to your treachery.”

The queen was beside herself now, looking lost and dazed, as though she didn’t know where she was or how she’d gotten here. Is this when the madness began? Aisling wondered. Is this the start of a downward spiral that transformed her from a lovely woman full of grace and the shimmer of a woman with child into the ailing creature she’d become? A glimmer of hope filled Aisling as she continued to watch the memory unfold. Because if she knew the origins of the queen’s affliction, there might be a way for it to be undone.

Her hope was dashed away in a heartbeat, when the king stepped forward, knelt, and placed a hand on his wife’s stomach. She stared at him, fear lacing every aspect of her expression. All she had left was a last-ditch effort to save her child. “After the child is born, we will secretly leave it on someone’s doorstep. No one needs to know what I did. No one needs to be the wiser.”

The king smiled, though the expression never reached his eyes, which continued to burn through her. “And what of those who assist us with the birth? What of those who handle the transportation of the child? They would need to be taken care of, too. Will you wield the sword?”

The queen’s lips trembled, but she managed to jut her jaw out defiantly and said, “If I must. I will do whatever is required.” Aisling lost her breath at the abundance of love this woman already had for her unborn child.

The king nodded. “I suspect you would. That is good. Because what you must do is drink this potion I’ve procured. This will solve our problem.”

Janai crinkled her nose when she saw the small vial the king now held, having reached into a pocket where it had been secreted away. “I don’t understand. What can a potion do?”

“This one has the power to rewrite the past and change the future,” the king said. “Now drink it—don’t leave a single drop.”

The queen reached out and took the small glass vial, holding it up to the light to inspect it. The liquid inside was dark and brackish. “As you wish, my dear,” she said. She grasped the small cork at the top, and for a moment Aisling thought the queen was going to acquiesce to her husband’s command, but then she reared back her arm and thrust it forward in an attempt to throw the vial across the room where it would surely shatter, emptying its contents on the floor and wall.

The king, however, was ready for just such a tactic. His hand shot out and he gripped her wrist, stopping the attempt. She opened her fingers, dropping the vial straight down. The king’s other hand stretched forward to catch it, but the vial slipped through his fingers, glancing off his knee and then to the floor, where it made a tinkling sound as it bounced once and then rolled.

Still locked together, both the king and queen stared daggers at the vial. And then, all at once, they both erupted into action, scrambling on hands and knees for the potion. The queen managed to twist from her husband’s grasp, more agile than the large man, but his hand found a fistful of her hair, jerking her back as she cried out in pain. He smashed his forearm into the back of her head, and she went down hard, slumping face first on the polished floor covered in shards of shattered mirror.

He reached the potion first, breathing heavily from the exertion as he plucked it up between two fingers. He unstoppered the vial, tucking the cork into his pocket, before turning toward his wife, who remained motionless on the floor. Unconscious perhaps.

A feeling of horror had begun growing inside Aisling ever since the king had produced the vial and asked his wife to drink it. She wanted to scream, but knew she couldn’t, at least not in this place, this memory, where she didn’t exist except as a silent, helpless observer.

The past cannot be changed, she thought. Nor can it be erased. It lives on in the minds of those who survived it, even if history is rewritten by the victors.

The king lifted his wife’s head. Her eyes were closed. Her lip was bloody from when she hit the floor. She looked…dead…though of course she was not. Only sleeping. Except…

When the king tried to open her mouth to force the potion down her throat, the queen resisted, her eyes flashing open as, once more, she managed to squirm from the king’s grip. Aisling felt a swell of elation rise inside her as it appeared the queen might escape her husband, scrambling away, glass mirror shards crunching underfoot, her hand settling on the doorknob and twisting…

The doorknob rattled, but the door did not open.

Which explained why the king had not charged after his wife as she fled, content to merely watch her as he slowly, calmly rose to his feet.

The door was locked from the outside. Perhaps he’d given one of his guards instructions to unlock the door after a certain amount of time had passed or only when he offered a certain knocking combination.

The queen turned to face her husband, back to the door. “Don’t do this,” she pleaded. The fight had left her. She knew there was no winning against him now.

“Mayhaps you should’ve considered the consequences before you consorted with commoners. Anyway, you have nothing to fear. The potion will remove the problem from your belly, nothing more. And then we can move on, never speaking of any of this again.”

“I—I cannot. I will not.” The shimmering tears had bloomed in the queen’s eyes once more, streaming down her face, dripping from her jaw and chin. The defiance was still there, the fight not quite gone as Aisling had thought. This woman will fight to the last, she thought.

The king stalked forward once more, and the queen tried to escape his clutches, but he was ready for her this time. He grabbed her, locking her hands behind her back with one strong arm and slamming her to the floor. She gasped but managed to keep her lips clamped tight as he tried to force the vial into her mouth. He spun her around onto her back and pressed his weight onto her, prying her lips open with one hand while keeping the vial out of her reach with the other. She snapped at him like a wild animal, biting his fingers. “You bitch!” he said, backhanding her across the face.

She sobbed as he poured the vile liquid down her throat. She started to gag, but he pinched her nose and gripped her mouth, forcing her lips closed. When it was done, he slumped back.

That’s when Janai shoved her fingers down her own throat, gagging once more as she tried to retch the liquid back up.

“Gods, woman!” the king said, wrenching her hand from her mouth and clasping it together with her other hand. Then he set to work, tying her to the bed.

“It burns,” the queen murmured, though her vision seemed to be growing fuzzy around the edges, impacting the clarity of the memory.

“Sleep, my queen,” the king said soothingly, using his hand to brush her hair back from where it had gotten stuck to the tear tracks on her face. “And when you awake, all will be right again.”

The memory faded to darkness.

Aisling was about to extricate herself from this poor woman’s mind, when she saw a spark in the darkness as a lantern was lit. At first the glow was minimal, but then it grew and grew until it filled the room.

The king held the lantern, shining its light over his wife in the dark, where she continued to be tied to the bed. “Are you awake?” he asked. “Are you well?”

The queen blinked groggily. “I feel…I feel…” Suddenly, her gaze snapped down at her lap and the bedsheets covering her torso and legs. Once more, Aisling felt that silent scream growing in her throat, a scream that burst from not hers but the queen’s mouth, piercing the silent fabric of the night.

The sheets were drenched in blood.

Once more, darkness ruled.

This time, Aisling didn’t try to leave, though she was aware of a pressure growing on her right shoulder. She ignored it, concentrating on seeing whatever there was to see in the abject darkness that had filled the queen’s mind. There must be something left of her, something I can grasp hold of, fill with light. There was nothing. Until….

There! For in the darkness, there were three specks of light, as small as fireflies, flitting about, moving up, down and all around. Two were quite bright, like torchlights in the gloom. The third was much dimmer, flickering. Aisling’s eyes followed them. What are they? she wondered. It explained why the woman’s eyes seemed to follow something only she could see, why her hands moved as if trying to grab something that wasn’t there. She was trying to capture these lights.

A sound resonated in the darkness. A voice. A whisper. The queen. “My children. Please save my children.” And then the queen screamed.

Aisling was ripped from the woman’s mind, the piercing scream chasing her from the darkness like a dagger in both of her ears. She clapped her hands over them, realizing that the continued shriek was not a residual sound from the time she’d spent inside the queen’s shattered mind and soul, but a very real scream that originated from the afflicted woman’s mouth, which was wide open.

Queen Gaard’s lips clamped down, stifling the scream, her teeth making an audible sound as they clacked together.

Aisling felt a pressure on her shoulder, the same she’d experienced while inside the queen’s memory. She turned her head to discern the source, and immediately recoiled, stumbling backwards and away from Prince Jarrod, whose hand had been on her shoulder, squeezing slightly.

The young man looked stricken. “You were screaming and convulsing. I was trying to comfort you.”

“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “I don’t like to be touched.” Not by humans anyway, she didn’t say.

“It’s fine,” Jarrod said. “I didn’t mean to upset you.” Aisling barely heard him, her mind still teeming with images—the queen’s memories. What King Gaard had done to his wife…it was pure evil. “My mother…,” Jarrod said. He didn’t ask the question he wanted to, as though afraid of what the answer might be.

“Again, I’m sorry,” Aisling said. “There is nothing I can do for her now.”

The prince’s head hung. “Are you certain?” Aisling nodded. “Thank you for trying. If I may ask…what did you see? What made you react so…fiercely?”

Aisling knew she could never tell the prince what she saw. She could never tell anyone. For one, no one would believe her. For two, what good would it serve now? The damage was done and the man who’d inflicted it was the most powerful man in Teravainen and could very well soon be the most powerful man in Kingfall if the war went the way he planned. And for three, the king had killed all others who knew of his wife’s adultery. If he discovered Aisling knew…

“I saw…nothing,” she said. “That is why I reacted that way. It was eerie and disconcerting. Your mother…she has a certain level of peace now.”

Jarrod nodded slowly. “Thank the gods for that.”

“Yes,” Aisling said. “Thank the gods.”

There was silence for a few moments as they were each lost to their own thoughts. Thankfully, Queen Jenai had calmed, returning to her seemingly random hand motions and eye movements, which, Aisling now knew, weren’t exactly random. She didn’t know if the queen felt a measure of peace when she did that, but she hoped maybe she did. Finally, Jarrod said, “I should go.” He started to turn away, hands gripping his mother’s chair to steer her through the door, but Aisling stopped him with a word.

“Wait,” she said. He turned back, expectant, hopeful, as though he believed she was going to try to heal his mother again. If only…but that wasn’t why she’d stopped him. “The prisoners who were forced to fight in the arena…” Her vision failed her, replaced by a curtain of red, blotting out the prince and his mother, erasing her cell and the world around her.

“What of them?” he said. Aisling detected a quiver in his voice. He did not like to dwell on what they’d witnessed in the arena.

“The high commander named Andovier Helm, the man who looked up at us after sparing the lives of the Solarii and Grizari men…what will happen to him?”

Jarrod was inspecting his toes, because clearly this entire conversation made him uncomfortable. “He will fight again, in the arena. He will continue to fight, the battles becoming increasingly more difficult, until he dies.”

“That’s horrible,” Aisling said.

“That’s war,” Jarrod said, his words taking on a stinging quality as he turned away once more. The door slammed behind him, the creak of his mother’s wheeled chair and his footsteps echoing for a long while until silence reigned again.

It was the unkindest thing the prince had said to her since their paths had crossed. To her surprise, it sent a pang of sadness through her chest. She took a deep breath and vanquished the feeling. For humans to be unkind was as natural as it was for a bee to sting. Inevitable, she thought, remembering that first human she’d come into contact with.

The man she had loved.

Aisling sat at the table in the war room this time, feeling wholly out of place, like a misplaced bauble from a mage’s laboratory that had somehow been lost only to find itself in the middle of a battlefield.

Save for the crown princess, the rest of the seats were filled by men. Aisling could smell the stink of their sweat and foul breaths, thick and heavy. She fought the urge to crinkle her nose in disgust, lest she be condemned to be the king’s footstool once more. At least from this vantage point she could inspect the others. Jarrod was there, one seat to the left of the head of the table. He’d met her eyes briefly when she’d entered, and she could see the silent apology he offered in his expression. Amari was on the right.

At the head was the king, waiting patiently until all side conversations died down and all eyes turned toward him. “What news from the front?” the king asked.

The man occupying the foot of the table spoke: “Kingsfort is well-defended once more, but our scouts estimate the forces at ten percent less after King Normandian reallocated soldiers toward his east coast. Your strategy at Westport seems to have worked.”

Aisling had always had difficulties controlling her tongue, and though she bit it now, the words emerged just the same. “And how many men did you lose at Westport?” she asked.

Eyebrows lifted all around the table. She could feel Jarrod’s eyes boring into her from the side, but she maintained her stare on the man who’d spoken from the foot of the table. Grimfire, the high mage. Even if this had been the first time she’d seen him, which it was not, she would know immediately that he was a spellcaster. His staff, which was now balanced against the table, gave him away—it was no normal walking stick, not with the vials of magenum attached via cords. He wore dark robes and an even darker expression. His gaze met hers for a time, his expression one of curiosity, but then shifted back toward the king. “Your Majesty?” he said.

“You may answer, Grimfire,” the king said. “But first, I was remiss in not introducing our honored guest. This is the godling woman I spoke of a fortnight ago.”

“She has a name,” Jarrod said, shocking Aisling. She met his gaze and knew this gesture for what it was: the rest of his apology. “Aisling Brightshine.”

The king chuckled. “Maybe my eldest son has teeth after all. Anyway, I purchased Aisling Brightshine at great cost and now she offers her services.” “Offers” might be the wrong word, Aisling thought. She was still trying to come to terms with the prince’s unexpected interruption and the fact that he’d shared her name with this large group of men she despised.

“Which are…,” a man from the middle of the table said. He was tall with dark, close-cropped hair and a well-trimmed beard and mustache. Aisling suspected he took great care in his daily grooming routine, which did little to hide the ugliness of his hooked nose or overly small eyes.

“Healing, obviously,” the king said. “Her powers will not be used frivolously. They are for the members of this council only, my most trusted advisors.” The thought of touching any of these men made Aisling bristle with disgust.

The man with the meticulous grooming said, “So she’s here in case one of us falls out of our chair and suffers a head wound?” His voice was heavy with sarcasm.

“No, General Henin, she is here for another purpose—to add her voice to our discussions. The godling has seen and heard much in her lifetime and has a mind for war strategy.” No, Aisling thought. I know nothing of war. I merely understand the pathetic motivations of men. “And,” the king continued, “I suggest you temper your tone the next time you speak or perhaps you’ll fall and hit your head sooner than expected and my godling”—he glanced at his son rather than Aisling—“may not be available to heal you. Understood?”

Though the rebuke was sharp and included a threat of death, the man the king had called General Henin didn’t grow red or show any signs of fear, maintaining a neutral expression. “My apologies, Your Majesty, I was simply trying to understand her purpose in these meetings. May we return to the discussion at hand? I believe Miss Aisling Brightshine asked a question.”

The king frowned at General Henin for a moment longer, but then shifted his gaze to Grimfire. “Go on, detail our losses during the Westport campaign.”

Grimfire cleared his throat. “Six hundred and eleven men were lost. Over four hundred sank to the bottom of the sea when the sailing vessel, Wolf’s Vengeance, was sunk. Another fifty or so were lost as we made landfall. The remainder were those left behind to occupy Westport until King Normandian’s forces arrived to retake the city.”

“And that is what percentage of your army?” Aisling asked.

Grimfire’s jaw locked, the edge of his lip curling ever so slightly. He hesitated to answer, so the king answered for him. “My army was approximately seven thousand strong before the Westport campaign. So a little less than ten percent was lost.”

“In other words, your net gain was almost zero,” she said. She wanted to say so much more, about the waste of lives, of the slaughtered women and children, of the surviving women and children who were now widows and orphans, of the surviving men like Andovier Helm who were now widowers and childless and forced to fight other men to the death for the entertainment of the Terran masses. But she didn’t, for fear of the consequences, which would be swift and unmerciful.

“Grimfire?” the king said, a smile creeping onto his face. It appeared he was enjoying this discussion, for some sick reason. “Is the godling—I mean, Aisling—mistaken?”

Grimfire said, “Her calculations are accurate, but they don’t paint the full picture. Now we have the opportunity to feign attacks on other Odinian port cities, like Truro or the South Strangle, which will further spread Odin’s defenses. That’s when we will strike at Kingsfort.”

“Yes,” the king mused. “Aisling said much the same to me previously.”

Grimfire seemed to realize Aisling had been toying him the entire time, his brows dipping into a scowl. “I am glad we are in agreement then,” he said, though he sounded anything but glad.

“We are not in agreement,” Aisling said. Now was the time to press her luck and prove her worth to the king. “You believe Normandian to be a fool, do you? Has he not managed to thwart you thus far? Do you really believe he will fall for your feint?”

“Normandian is a fool,” Grimfire growled. “And yes, he will take the bait and then Kingsfort will be ours.”

“And if he doesn’t?” Aisling challenged. “You could lose half your forces in a direct assault on Kingsfort. Teravainen’s defeat will be all but sealed.”

“It is easier to poke holes in a strategy than to concoct one yourself,” Grimfire said. It was meant as an insult, though Aisling thought it came across as a lame attempt to save face.

“And yet I have devised my own stratagem,” Aisling said. “A two-pronged attack. Why feint an attack on the southern shores when you can actually mount one?” Although it pained her to suggest any form of violence and bloodshed, Aisling knew that pandering to the king’s carnal nature was essential to gaining some level of his trust.

Grimfire wasn’t ready to lie down and be embarrassed by a foreigner and a woman to boot. “It is my turn to poke holes, it seems. Because then we would be forced to split our forces in kind. Also, despite the success of our campaign at Westport, our navy continues to be…lacking.”

“I’m not suggesting you use your own men.” Aisling was dimly aware of the whispers behind hands as the other men in the room discussed this unexpected verbal battle between a godling slave and the high mage. With her extraordinary hearing, she could make out their words, but didn’t focus on them lest she be distracted. Not all of them were kind toward her. Some of them were atrocious, bordering on obscene.

“Sellswords?” the spellcaster said, raising an eyebrow. “It is true the Sacred Sea offers such a luxury. Irea offers the best breed of horses Kingfall has to offer, and their ships are world-renown. Yan’s blacksmiths forge armor and weapons that are both strong and beautiful. And Pentock has hundreds of men, trained and ready for combat upon request from the highest bidder. And yet…you are naïve, godling.” No one corrected the wizard at not using her name. “What you suggest is impossible. There’s a reason no kingdom has sought additional sellswords during this war. A bidding war over men, ships and swords would ruin us all. Crimea would recognize that weakness and sweep over Kingfall like a scourge in the night. It is known that the Crimeans are on the hunt for more land to control after losing the Four Kingdoms all those years ago to the colonists. They’ve finally rebuilt their cities after the Horde was obliterated. Mayhaps if His Royal Majesty hadn’t spent a small fortune procuring your services…”

Aisling’s eyes shot to the king to gauge his reaction. She hadn’t intended to pit the high mage against his master, but she wasn’t about to look this particular gift horse in the mouth. Unfortunately, the king didn’t so much as flinch at the backhanded insult. If Aisling had made such a comment, she would’ve been slashed to ribbons, the king’s full wrath unleashed upon her. Amari had been right: the king treated his mage differently than everyone else, giving him far more rope with which to play. Eventually, she hoped the mage might just manage to hang himself with it.

As it was, the king said only, “I may have a way to raise funds for the sellswords. Clear the room. Only Grimfire, Aisling and my children stay.” Aisling fought off a smile. She took it as a good sign that the king had begun to refer to her by her familiar name. Thank Jarrod’s sudden shred of courage for that, she thought. She was also pleased that the king had taken the bait. Because she already knew what he was going to say. After all, the king had received news from a messenger very recently. It was a private conversation behind a closed door. Aisling had heard every word, which was when she’d begun concocting her plan.

Once the other men had filed out and the door had, once more, been closed, the king said, “I have received news of Sampson.”

Amari and Jarrod stared at their father. “You mean, ‘from Sampson’,” Amari clarified.

“Alas, but no. When your brother didn’t return when expected, I sent another party in search of him. Their messenger just returned.”

When the king paused, an exasperated Amari said, “And?”

“And your brother is…missing.”

“How is that possible?” Amari said. “He left with an entire ship full of men. And Roman went with him. A ship full of men can’t just…vanish.”

“I didn’t say they vanished. My men found the ship, which remained anchored off the southern coast of the Lost Plains. They picked up Sampson’s trail not far, though heavy rains had erased most of the evidence of his passing. It wasn’t difficult from there, because your brother did exactly what he was told, following the exact course on the map provided by our informant.”

“The man you paid handsomely based on naught but a rumor?”

The reaction came swiftly and without warning, the king’s hand whipping across Amari’s face. The blow was so heavy the crown princess almost tumbled from her chair. It was a credit to her fortitude that she remained upright.

Aisling’s entire body was trembling, the blow resonating through her as though she’d been the one struck and not the only other woman in the room. She wanted to scream, but she used every bit of her restraint to clamp her teeth and jaws tight, refusing to allow any sound to emerge.

Amari forced a smile onto her lips and dashed away the blood with a knuckle. “Thank you, Father, for reminding me of my place. I’m not queen…yet.” Though Aisling’s body continued to quiver uncontrollably, she had to respect the king’s daughter. She was born into privilege and power, and yet in many ways she was as much a slave as Aisling was.

The king’s face was red and livid, but he managed to take a few deep breaths, composing himself, continuing as though he hadn’t just struck his daughter. “I paid the informant a portion of his reward upfront, it is true. But he would’ve paid with his life if the information had turned out to be false. It was not.”

Those last three words seemed to fill the room.

Grimfire said, “Sampson located the magenum deposit?” His typically gruff voice had risen toward the end as the mage leaned in. To this man, the thought of a lode of magenum was the equivalent of a holiday feast.

“Suffice it to say, the magenum deposit was located. It’s even larger than we expected, worth thousands and thousands in gold. Presumably it was Sampson who discovered it.”

“I’m confused,” Amari said. Her cheek was enflamed, and a shadowy bruise had begun to form along her jawline. “If your second group of men found the magenum, why don’t they know what happened to Sampson?”

The king leaned back in his chair, raising his arms to place his hands behind his head. “Because none of Sampson’s men were alive to tell the tale.”

Seven

Sampson Gaard

North Avadon, approaching Beggar’s Canyon

“ROMAN?” SAMPSON SAID.

“Aye?”

The two men hadn’t spoken in a long time. After Sampson and Roman had embraced and Sampson had dropped his blade, he’d frantically snatched it back up, his chest heaving, his heart slamming around his chest as his vision was restored. Then, without another word about where they planned to go or what they planned to do, they picked their way back down the mountain and onto the plains. The entire trip down, Sampson’s eyes had been assaulted by new sights and colors and it took the greatest degree of restraint to stop him from pausing every few steps to study the flora. The day was overcast and the wind had picked up, but thus far the rain had held off.

“This blade…” Once more, Sampson was gripping it as though he expected to be set upon by bandits at any moment. Roman said nothing—Sampson had hoped the large man would guess his mind and speak without requiring further prompting. He sighed. “The lesserblades are all supposedly under lock and key, right?”

“Of course. Everyone knows that. Nine darkblades, nine lightblades, eighteen lesserblades in total. Four are protected by each of the primary Kingfall kingdoms. You know of the four at Wolfsgaard. Most believe there are four at Chrysallis, four at Dragonsmount, four at Dunadin, and—”

“The mages control two at Aeromand,” Sampson finished. A recital of his tutor’s history lessons was not what he was after. “But have you ever seen any of them?”

The large man looked at him strangely. “Seen them? How would I? They’re held in a doorless room protected by wards and a contingent of royal guards. At least at Wolfsgaard that’s how it’s done. I assume the defenses are similarly unbreachable in the other kingdoms.”

“I haven’t seen the lesserblades at Wolfsgaard, obviously, but when I turned thirteen, Father allowed me into the room they are kept under lock and key and guard. I have felt their presence.”

“Presence?”

“It’s hard to describe, except to say the air in that room is different. It’s full of energy, always in motion, thrumming.”

Roman chewed on that for a moment. Sampson snuck glances at the big man, studying his facial features, which he’d only ever been able to ‘see’ with his hands. It was like I was only getting half the information, he realized, noticing how subtle changes in Roman’s expression told him as much as a thousand spoken words. “I feel something similar when I’m near the very blade you’re carrying,” Roman finally said.

“Have you ever heard about there being more than eighteen lesserblades?” As they’d walked, Sampson had been racking his brain for any mention in the Kingfall Histories of other lesserblades that were lost in the aftermath of the Godswar. Thus far, he’d come up empty. The number stated was always eighteen, as Roman had just summarized and which he now confirmed in no uncertain terms.

“No,” he said.

Sampson nodded. He didn’t ask his next question, because to do so would make it real. He was growing tired of gripping his blade and longed to sheath it, but feared the return of the darkness. What if the magic of the blade stops working? I can’t go back to that life—I can’t.

Unfortunately, Roman didn’t get his subtle hint not to speak on the topic any further. “The only godweapons that were lost were the godblades.”

Sampson’s heart hammered in his chest, but he forced himself to laugh, as though the notion was absurd. “If only I found one of the long, lost godblades,” he said. “Then I, rather than my father, might rule Kingfall.” Even to his own ears, his words sounded hollow.

This time, Roman said nothing, the clomp of his heavy boots the only sound.

In the distance, Sampson could make out the wall of rock that he knew was the natural fortress surrounding Beggar’s Canyon. During the journey from the ship to the Spine, they’d purposefully steered well east of the canyon, for they knew it would be well-guarded by Avadonian soldiers for two reasons: first, Beggar’s Canyon was known to contain the largest gold mine in all of Kingfall (hence the Avadonian leader, Glynn Kerr, being one of the wealthiest men in all of Kingfall), which had always struck Sampson as ironic given the canyon’s name; and second, Beggar’s Canyon harbored one of the four Rifts that had been created during the Godswar. Though the demon-infested Rifts were more of a nuisance than a true problem in more modern times, the dark chasms still required attention and men to combat the trickle of demons trying to infiltrate the mortal sphere.

As Sampson stared in the direction of the canyon, he realized something:

Since they’d departed the forested flanks of the Spine, they’d been on an arrow-straight course for the eastern tip of the canyon, rather than veering more eastward to avoid the area completely. Roman surely must have noticed their course as well but had thus far said nothing. But we discussed our destination before we departed, right? Sampson asked himself. Didn’t we? He searched his memory for a conversation, or at least a few words exchanged, but found nothing but silence. They’d just started walking, their steps leading them to this point.

“Shouldn’t we…,” Sampson started to say but trailed away. The next words wouldn’t come because they felt so…wrong. Why should he avoid Beggar’s Canyon again? If anything, the sheer cliffs were calling to him, beckoning him to rest in their shadows.

“Aye?” Roman asked when Sampson didn’t finish his question.

“Never mind,” Sampson said, continuing to walk in a perfectly straight line across the dry wasteland.

This far to the east, Beggar’s Canyon was quiet, the wind sighing between the walls of cliff like the deep exhalations of a slumbering godbeast.

Roman didn’t question why they were here, for which Sampson was glad given he didn’t rightly know himself. They stopped in the enormous shaded area cast by the towering walls of rock. “We should eat and drink before…” Before what? Why are we here?

“I’m not hungry,” Roman said, sitting with his back against the wall.

Sampson frowned and was about to tell the man that he should eat anyway, as they may not have another opportunity for a while. But he stopped himself, because, well, because he wasn’t hungry either. Nor thirsty. Which didn’t make a lick of sense considering they hadn’t eaten or drank in over half a day. They should be famished and dehydrated, their bodies craving sustenance.

I AM YOUR SUSTENANCE NOW, the blade said.

Sampson cringed, still not accustomed to hearing that whisper-hiss in his mind. What if I want to eat? he replied where only the blade could hear him.

YOU MAY, BUT IT IS UNNECESSARY.

Sampson sighed, wanting nothing more than to flop down, to rest though he wasn’t tired, to reconsider why they were here and what he planned to do from this point forward. Instead, Sampson felt a frenetic urge to continue their ceaseless march, his legs as strong as the moment they departed the Spine.

To continue our march to where? he asked himself, though he knew he was deluding himself. From the second he’d set eyes on the cliffs of Beggar’s Canyon he knew exactly where he was going: into the canyon’s heart.

Which was mad. More than mad—it was the equivalent of stabbing oneself through the heart with their own sword. Oh, wait. Ha. Sampson managed a small chuckle. Everything that had transpired over the last day or so was mad. Was marching bold-faced into a well-guarded enemy territory without any plan or even an idea of what he hoped to accomplish really any different?

“Do you know why it’s called Beggar’s Canyon?” Roman asked unexpectedly.

Sampson considered the question, searching his memory for the endless days of tutelage he’d received growing up. Nothing sprang to mind. Most of his and his siblings’ study was focused on wars and battles and the darker history of Kingfall. He shook his head.

“Once upon a time, this canyon was inhabited by a large population of people without home nor coins to rub together. The beggars lived off the kindness of travelers, passing through on the most direct route to the west. The Kerrs, in their insatiable quest for wealth, began exploring more and more of their territory, eventually focusing their attention on this very canyon. It was then that they discovered the largest gold deposit in all of Kingfall. Just think, the people in this canyon were as poor as dirt, and all the while they slept and begged within sight of wealth immeasurable.”

“That’s a sad tale,” Sampson said. “But what does it have to do with our current situation?”

“Sometimes one doesn’t notice the great wealth sitting beside them because of the pile of troubles in front of it.”

Sampson felt anger surge inside him. His jaw locked and his teeth ground together and he was about to scream. No, he thought. This is not you. Sampson had never been quick to anger, his fuse far more slow-burning than his father’s or sister’s. Only Jarrod could claim to be more cool-headed than him. What is happening to me? He knew the answer well before he thought it. It’s the blade.

EASY TO BLAME AN INANIMATE OBJECT, the blade said.

Sampson ignored the sword, focusing his thoughts on the story of Beggar’s Canyon’s humble origins. The poorest of poor people living in the shadow of unfathomable riches. He knew what Roman was trying to tell him, even if his friend spoke in riddles. Back in Wolfsgaard, he’d been poor in terms of sight, but rich in happiness. But what about his father? Once the king realized what Sampson had in his possession, he would take the sword and his sight with it, of that he had no doubt. Still, he couldn’t help his yearning to see Amari again, the sister he loved more than anything in this entire world. Void, even picturing Jarrod’s face pulled at the edges of his lips. In Wolfsgaard, he was happy, despite his lack of sight. So what was wrong with returning to a place where he could be happy?

He jammed his eyes shut for several long seconds, communing in the darkness, hating it. I can’t, he thought. I can’t go back to that. I’m sorry. Amari. Jarrod. I’m sorry. Please understand. Please forgive me.

When he opened his eyes, he saw corpses piled up in the form of a grotesque throne, which reminded him of a question he’d not yet asked.

YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY I MADE FOREMAN SHIFT GO MAD BUT NOT YOU, his blade said.

Oh great, so you can read my every thought.

YOU MIGHT AS WELL BE SHOUTING THEM.

Well?

THAT’S A DEEP THOUGHT.

Hilarious. And so original. If you’re not going to answer my question…

I DIDN’T SAY THAT. SHIFT WASN’T SUPPOSED TO BE MY WIELDER.

Meaning…?

HE WASN’T PREPARED FOR THE POWER I HAVE TO OFFER. IT BROKE HIS MIND THE MOMENT HE GRIPPED ME.

And I am? Prepared?

YES. LET’S JUST SAY IT’S IN YOUR BLOOD.

Sampson closed his eyes again. Opened them. He was tired. Mentally, not physically. Motion helped, for some reason. “Move out,” he said to Roman, the words rising so quickly he couldn’t stop them.

“Are we heading back to the coast, to the ship?” Roman asked. He spoke the question evenly, as if it were one of his many tests.

“I’m sorry. I cannot return home—not yet. But as I said before, I will not blame you for doing so.”

Roman snorted out a laugh. “I wouldn’t abandon you if my arms and legs were hacked from my body. I’d simply ask to be strapped to your back.”

“I’ll hold you to that if you’re ever dismembered,” Sampson said. “But thank you. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“You would be just fine,” Roman said. His voice had grown deeper, gruffer. “I know my endless tests and challenges must’ve become tiresome, but they were all for a purpose. I only ever wanted you to have a life like any other man. You know, if your sight were to vanish again—”

“Don’t say that.”

“I’m not saying it will, but if it did, you could handle it. You were destined for great things, Sampson, I’ve known that from the moment I met you, just a babe in my arms.”

Warmth filled him at the words of the man who’d been more of a father figure to him than his actual father. And yet they only made him more confused. He felt lost. Oh, Amari, he thought. I need your help. Please. I have lost my way. I’m scared.

His entire life, his older sister had been there to pick him up if he fell, to bandage his scrapes, to wipe away his tears. But now…she felt lost to him, as far away as the moons or the stars in the night sky. Of course, he received no response from her. Only from the sword he’d never asked for:

YOU WERE LOST BEFORE. NOW YOU ARE FOUND.

Sampson could feel the power thrumming through him. He was a Gaard, which meant Teravainen dirt was in his flesh, his bones. Mayhaps he couldn’t return to Wolfsgaard, but what if he furthered their cause from the east? What if he could take Avadon and all its wealth on behalf of Teravainen? He would have purpose. He would make his sister proud. And then even if his father coveted the blade he now gripped, he would be hard-pressed to steal it from the hand that had conquered a nation in his name.

YOU’LL NEED AN ARMY, the blade said. BUT FIRST, SEND GLYNN KERR A DISTRACTION.

Beggar’s Canyon, Sampson thought, though he wasn’t sure why. All he knew was that his instincts had led him here for some purpose.

OUR PURPOSE, the blade said.

Sampson swallowed thickly. Of everything that had happened it was that one word—our—that caused him to cringe. Because he knew without a shadow of a doubt that the sword was his, yes, but he was also the sword’s.

“I’m sorry,” Sampson finally said. “But we cannot return to Wolfsgaard. Not yet. Do you trust me?”

“Always,” Roman said.

The flanks of the canyon might have been the welcoming arms of a giant creature planning to shower them with gifts and compliments up until the moment it devoured them with a single bite.

Let it try, Sampson thought, the hilt of his sword thrumming in his grip. I will only cut my way out again. He almost laughed at his newfound confidence, another gift from the sword. Still, even his confidence couldn’t subdue the sense of foreboding he’d felt ever since they’d entered the canyon’s shadow. A distraction for Glynn Kerr, he thought. That’s why I’m here. But what distraction?

The farther into the canyon they walked, the darker it grew. The sun was well-hidden by the wall of rock, only a long slash of blue sky visible above them. The rocks on either side grew less brown and gray, redder with each step until it was a vibrant crimson hue. Sampson drank it all in with the wonder of a child experiencing something for the first time. Here, in this place that felt almost sacred, he marveled at the intense and unrelenting power of nature. He could scarcely believe that these two cliffs had once been conjoined, a massive singular plateau in the middle of the plains. The histories said that the Roughwater River that connected the cascading waterfalls of the Spine to the warm waters of the Sacred Sea had once included a significant tributary running eastward all the way to Crimea. It was that tributary that had branched off and cut a path through the very cliffs that now dwarfed them.

Centuries ago, these lands had grown drier and less conducive to rain, and eventually the tributary had dried up, leaving only Beggar’s Canyon as proof that the powerful waterway had ever existed in the first place. If I die in this canyon, what will be the proof that I ever existed? Sampson wondered. He supposed there would be a mourning ceremony back at Wolfsgaard, but would any of the mourning be real? Yes, he thought. Amari’s grief will be real. He’d always had a special sort of bond with her. His mother’s pain would’ve been real too, but who knew if she could feel anything anymore. His brother, Jarrod, would be sad, too, mayhaps even distraught, but not in the same way Amari was. His father, well, his father would go through the motions, content in the knowledge that he’d made a wise decision to send his youngest, blind child on this campaign.

Roman had been untypically quiet since they entered the canyon, though his steadfast presence alone was a comfort to Sampson.

As the canyon walls grew redder, they also angled toward each other, the way forward narrowing until it reached its thinnest point, where twelve men would be hard-pressed to walk abreast of each other. Though the canyon was spear-straight, they couldn’t see far ahead due to the rocky outcroppings that seemed to grow from each wall intermittently, forcing them to steer a winding path. In truth, the outcroppings were portions of the walls that had caved in, spilling their boulder entrails across the canyon floor.

The sky grew darker overhead. Sampson stopped when he heard a sound, raising his hand to signal for Roman to stop, too, but the man had already done so, mayhaps even a moment before he had, his own instincts firing.

Given all the time they’d spent in the cave in the Spine, the sound was instantly recognizable: hammers and picks and chisels meeting stone. The happy, productive cacophony of miners hard at work. Which meant they’d reached the one place in all of Avadon that Sampson’s father coveted more than any other: Gold Rock. Despite the constant mining of the massive gold deposit found at the canyon’s approximate midpoint, it was believed it would produce gold for another few hundred years before running dry. Hence, the infinite wealth of Avadon and the Kerrs, much to King Gaard’s frustration.

Now, Sampson clambered up a boulder field pressed against the northern-facing cliff wall to get a better vantage point, Roman following in his wake.

At the top of the rise, Sampson peered over the final boulder’s apex. The first thing he saw was Gold Rock, a towering stone formation rising almost as high as the cliffs themselves. Forming a spire at its culmination, its base was broad, filling the much larger space in the canyon that might’ve been created by a massive pooling of water before the ancient river had flowed onward toward Crimea. All over its flanks, men hammered and chiseled, breaking away chunks of rock that were then scooped up and placed in troughs by women and even children, who then broke the chunks into smaller pieces for closer examination and sorting. Most of the pieces were cast into a large, reddish-colored pile of stone growing on one side of the canyon. But a fairly significant portion was placed in thick bags, a dozen or so of which were already full and tied off with rope.

A fortune in gold worthy of a king.

Roman caught up to him, joining Sampson on the lip of the boulder. While Sampson had been gawking at the extensive mining operation that was the source of Glynn Kerr’s enviable wealth, Roman had been peering down at a point much closer. Now, he jabbed a finger in that direction.

At first Sampson couldn’t identify what the man had seen, but then he noticed the line of spear tips protruding just over the crest of the boulder field. Guards, dozens of them. Of course the mine would be heavily guarded. Kerr would be a fool otherwise. It was known that Avadon was one of the most consistent employers of the sellswords hailing from the island of Pentock. Such a force didn’t come cheap.

All that gold ripe for the taking, Sampson thought, and I’d need a small army to do so.

Even as he thought it, he knew the gold had nothing to do with why he was here. For this was, in fact, his destination, led by some force he didn’t yet understand, except that it stemmed from the blade he continued to grip to ensure his sight was unbroken.

Which left only one other purpose for his coming to this place.

His eyes shot to an area he’d previously not noticed because of its nondescript nature. A stone, roofless hovel of sorts, with tall, sturdy-looking walls with the interior open to the elements. He glanced at Roman, who was also staring in the direction of the walled-in area. The walls were wide, like miniature castle ramparts, broad enough for two men to walk abreast without fear of tumbling off. Upon those ramparts were dozens more men, soldiers all, bearing ranged weapons such as bows and crossbows. Intermittently, there were barrels, which were likely filled with tar that could be dumped onto invading enemies.

The walls had no door, no entrance, no way inside. No, the purpose of the walls and the men defending them was only to keep something from getting out.

“Behold, the Rift,” Sampson said under his breath.

“The rank malodor of the Void is thick and noxious here,” Roman whispered, sniffing the air. Sampson frowned and took a whiff of the air through his nostrils. He could detect the acridity Roman referred to, not dissimilar to the burning of wood and oil.

Once, the four major Rifts had been a serious problem for the kingdoms of Kingfall. The flow of demons had been heavy, a never-ending scourge that threatened to overrun their lands and peoples. Slowly, however, over time, the flow had relented until it was naught but a trickle. The Rifts were still something that needed to be dealt with, of course—men needed to be assigned to guard them, to dispatch the few demons that clawed their way out from the darkness. But compared to before, the Rifts were not much more than a minor distraction at each of their locations: the Infernal Pit in Teravainen, the Soullands of Travail, the volcano on Firestone—which was considered a Rift because of the timing of its creation, but which had never produced any demons—and, of course, adjacent to Gold Rock here in Beggar’s Canyon.

Sampson felt drawn to the wall; no, to what was hidden behind the wall.

But why? he wondered. What am I supposed to do here?

He shook away the question, because he needed to trust his instincts the same way he’d asked Roman to.

Stealth would be necessary. As would a distraction. “Get the soldiers’ attention over there,” Sampson whispered, pointing to the opposite side of the canyon. Roman looked uncertain, but then must’ve seen the wisdom in the notion because he nodded and backtracked down the boulder-filled slope.

Sampson turned away, trusting that Roman would do what was required, and then continued over the crest of the penultimate boulder, sticking close to the shadows. He stopped when he knew he could go no further without being seen, shadows or not. He waited, palm tight against his sword’s hilt, on the edge of the area where the shadows no longer lived, as though crossing that threshold would slash him into a thousand pieces.

Waiting, waiting…

A heavy sound cracked from the far side of the canyon, a stone skittering down from above, landing hard and then bouncing several times before coming to rest. All at once, the guards reacted, their still, silent vigil evaporating like morning dew in dawn’s sunlight. Yet they were not overeager, like green soldiers who’d not yet bloodied their blades. These men were well-trained mercenaries. The man who was evidently the leader barked out orders to a trio of men, who went to investigate whether the falling stone was the result of a natural occurrence or caused by some enemy, thus far, unseen. Still, the attention of all the guards was on the opposite side of the canyon and Sampson knew he wouldn’t get a better opportunity. The men atop the wall were equally well-trained; though they had surely heard the sound of the rock crashing to the canyon floor, none of them looked away from the Rift they were responsible for guarding.

Thus, when Sampson stole out from the shadows, blade in hand, no one saw his flight, his footfalls no louder than creeping shadows moving across an empty canyon floor.

He reached the cover of the shadows cast by the walled-in area, pressing his back to the stone blocks. He cast his gaze back the way he’d come, where the trio of soldiers were dealing with a barrage of stones landing amongst them, occasionally pinging off their helmets and armor. Sampson almost laughed—Roman had accomplished his task well indeed.

Next, Sampson looked up, just able to discern the outline of a few of the Rift guards as they marched along the wall, steady gazes facing away from him. Sampson felt along the wall, which, while well-constructed, was also rich with hand- and footholds that he could use to climb to the precipice.

And yet that was not what he needed to do.

Instead, he circled around, feeling the familiar thrum of his blade in time with his heartbeat, sensing a force beyond anything he’d ever felt somewhere behind the wall. He stopped. He could feel its power, a low hum passing through the soles of his boots. He’d reached one edge of the Rift.

This was it. His purpose for being here. He knew what he needed to do, and yet he frowned. I cannot do this. If I do, so many will die. The world may never be safe again.

AND YET IF YOU DON’T, his blade hissed, THE WORLD WILL BE DESTROYED ANYWAY.

His blade could not lie; this he knew innately, instinctively, the same way he knew his heart would beat even before it thudded in his chest. And yet he would not do what his blade was asking. No, he said.

Before his blade could respond, someone shouted, “Oi!” He froze, glancing back and noticing something shimmering near his hand. It was his blade, the normally hidden runes having blazed to life once more, like a beacon, as though the sword had purposely revealed his location.

IT HAD TO BE DONE, his blade hissed. IT IS THE ONLY WAY TO LEARN WHAT WE ARE CAPABLE OF.

Sampson had no idea what that meant, nor did he care, because it was all he could do to duck before the first thrown spear zipped overhead, clattering harmlessly off the wall. The spears being launched in his direction were the least of his concerns, he realized, hearing a sound overhead. The Rift guards had responded to the shout of the mine guards, and when Sampson looked up, he found two men peering down at him, trying to aim their crossbows at his head.

He was about to dive to the side in a last-ditch effort to escape their bolts when it happened.

Two shadowy creatures with oily, scaled skin landed behind the men, opening their massive maws to bite down on the two Rift guards’ entire heads, ripping them off and then spitting them out. The heads arced through the air, raining blood on Sampson’s head before bouncing away toward the mine guards bearing the spears, who were gawking in the direction of Sampson and the Rift.

YESSS, Sampson’s blade hissed.

The two creatures—no, demons, Sampson corrected in his mind—leapt down from the wall, landing with a heavy thump nearby. They walked upright with a slight hunch, their serpentine tails wicking behind them. Sampson backed up a step, but hit the wall, making a soft sound that the demons instantly responded to, turning their heads in his direction.

“By the gods,” Sampson murmured, for what he saw sent tremors of fear up his spine. He now understood how the demons had managed to bite off the heads of the Rift guards with a single chomp. Because their faces were mouths, or their mouths were faces. They had no eyes, no noses, no cheeks—just massive mouths which gaped open now, revealing several rows of daggerlike teeth glistening with blood and saliva. They roared, and the sound was like a nightmare made audible, freezing Sampson’s sweat on his skin and turning his courage to melted butter.

Sampson raised his blade in preparation for the attack that was almost certain to be the end of his life, runes lighting up once more along the shadowy steel. But then the impossible happened: the demons shrank back with a shriek at the sight of the sword, gnashing their teeth and suddenly looking as frightened as Sampson felt.

In trying to protect himself, he’d actually provided a much-needed distraction for the remaining Rift guards, who’d finally regrouped after failing to corral the twin demons. The first arrow pierced one demon through the side of the head. Its mouth was still open, and Sampson could see the arrow’s shaft inside its maw. The demon snapped its jaws shut, breaking the arrow into two pieces, but the damage was already done. The creature’s legs lost their strength and it collapsed in a pile of dark flesh. The second demon was dispatched not by a Rift guard, but by one of the mine guards, his spear thrown hard and straight, penetrating the creature’s chest and exiting through its scaly back. As the demon fell, still trying to extricate the spear from its skin, Sampson had to admire the mettle of the men guarding this spot—they’d not cowered in fear after watching two of their own perish in the most brutal fashion.

Unfortunately for them, the situation wasn’t over yet.

No fewer than a half-dozen more demons chose that moment to attack, clambering or flying from the pit. Two were like large beetles, their pincers snapping ferociously as they scuttled onto the wall. Two had the dexterity of spiders, each with six limbs and two heads. Their killing stroke, however, was dealt by long barbed tails that snapped behind them like a taskmaster’s whip. The final two flew with leathery wings, though their similarities to common birds ended there. They had faces like wolves with the furry clawed paws to match. One of them managed to dodge a bolt shot from a crossbow and then get its revenge by dragging the shooter off the wall and into the Rift, his scream fading away as he disappeared into the darkness.

Sampson saw this, because he was now atop the wall, though he had no recollection of having climbed the stone parapet. The Rift itself was now revealed to him, and he stared in awe at its infinite, terrifying beauty. It was like a gash in the skin of the land, a cut so deep that no man nor woman could fathom its depths. Rank, hot air seemed to exhale from the chasm, and Sampson had to concentrate to keep from being blown off his perch. All around him—

Chaos.

Guards ran along the wall to combat the demon tide, shouting to each other; arrows zipped through the air, narrowly missing the winged wolf demons; the demons meted out violence on any guards who ventured too close.

Another guard was defeated by a demon, one of the barbed-tail ones. The demon’s tail pierced armor and flesh, burrowing into its victim’s chest before snapping back and flinging him into the Rift. Sampson spun around when he heard a clangor. One of the guards was repeatedly slashing the edge of his blade into one of the beetle demon’s pincers, trying to hack it off. The impact made a sound like steel meeting steel. The beetle advanced, snapping its powerful pincers at the guard, who was forced to retreat, stumbling as he stepped wrongly. The man was no virgin to battle, however, and quickly recovered, regaining his balance even as the beetle sought to push its advantage. The fight hung in the balance for a moment, and Sampson knew now was the time to lend his assistance. He rushed forward, dark blade singing in his hands, stabbing it forward, aiming for the beetle’s softer underbelly just as it reared up for a final snap at the guard’s throat…

Sampson’s blade cut deep and he felt a strange pulse of power shoot up his arms as his victim’s body darkened and then, with a poof, erupted into mist that was carried away by a blast of hot wind from the Rift.

He stared in horror at the blade in his hands because his victim had not been the beetle but the guard, who he’d stabbed through the back. What have I done? he wondered, feeling lost and alone and—

NOT ALONE, his blade reminded him. The beetle’s pincers snapped nearby, but the demon didn’t try to attack him, instead scuttling past warily, sticking to the far side of the wall as if to avoid him completely.

“I—I don’t understand,” Sampson murmured to no one in particular. No, that wasn’t true. He spoke to his blade, even as he gripped it, admiring the perfection that it was, how it felt more like an extension of his arm than something disparate.

YOU WILL, the blade replied, shimmering with runefire. IT IS TIME. DO WHAT YOU CAME HERE TO DO.

Images flashed through Sampson’s mind and he flinched. No. He could not do what his blade was suggesting. How could he? Why would he? It didn’t make sense. And yet…

He knew there were forces greater than human comprehension at work in the world, and somehow he was now a part of their work. He was already in position, standing on the portion of the wall at the far end of the Rift’s length. No more demons had swarmed from the Rift after the initial two and the six that followed. He gazed around. One of the beetle demons had been dispatched, one of the winged wolf demons, too. Though the guards were suffering great losses, they were experienced demon fighters and would eventually regain the upper hand and resume their steadfast vigil.

And why didn’t more demons emerge from the infinite abyss? Sampson asked himself. He knew the answer, for Riftlore had been included in the tutelage he’d received growing up in Wolfsgaard: Because the size of the Rift only permitted a limited number of demons to pass through each day. The exact number for the Rift at Beggar’s Canyon eluded him, but he knew it was formulaic based on the surface area of the chasm’s mouth. It was also widely believed that the Rifts were not large enough to allow other, more formidable demons to pass through, demons whose size would rival the ancient godbeasts of days long past. Once, during the Godswar, the Rifts had been substantially larger, the tide of demons a tsunami of death incarnate. In the aftermath, before the gods had departed this world for their exile, they’d sealed all but four of the Rifts, whilst partially closing the remaining four. Historians had argued for centuries regarding why the gods hadn’t fully sealed the last four Rifts. Some said it was a reminder to humankind of the existence of evil, a reminder to do good in this world and take nothing for granted. Others believed the gods were fickle beings, and they left the Rifts open for their own callous amusement, watching the pitiful humans fight a never-ending scourge. Sampson, however, had always preferred the final theory: that the gods hadn’t closed the last four Rifts because they’d been powerless to do so, some otherworldly force preventing it.

He shook his head to dispatch the thoughts. The battle had grown less fierce as two more demons had been killed. All that was left was a winged wolf and a single beetle, the very same demon that Sampson had unwittingly assisted. Soon the guards would kill the demons and then they would turn their attention to him. Unless…

Sampson stared at his blade, disbelief rolling through him as he remembered the images the sword had pushed into his mind. He took a deep breath, his eyes narrowing under heavy brows. I can’t do this, I can’t—can I?

YOU CAN. YOU MUST.

Dread filled Sampson even as he jumped backwards from the wall, scraping the edge of his blade along the stone as he fell. The stone parted like soft butter, stone crumbling away on all sides, heavy blocks tumbling into the very chasm they were intended to protect the world from. When Sampson landed, he stabbed his blade downward into the ground with a sound like thunder, the very earth shaking under his feet. Miners were shaken from their perches on Gold Rock as ropes snapped. The mine guards lost their footing while the Rift guards tumbled off the shattering wall, either into the chasm or onto the hard canyon floor, crying out in pain as they broke arms or legs or necks.

Where Sampson’s blade had delved deeply into the earth, the chasm began to grow, widening and lengthening between his legs, the ground opening beneath him. Before he could meet the same fate as many of the guards, Sampson threw himself hard to one side, rolling several times before fighting back to his feet and running hard for where he’d spotted Roman Leary standing atop a boulder pile, just watching the carnage unfold.

Sampson clawed and fought his way up the pile, his heart in his throat, throbbing as his mind repeated the same question over and over and over again:

What have I done?

When he reached the last boulder, Roman offered him a hand and he grasped it, the strong man hauling him up with ease. Sampson turned.

The Rift finally stopped growing, having lengthened by thrice and widened by twice. The earth stopped shaking. There were no Rift guards left, the entire lot having been sucked into the abyss. The mine guards slowly dragged themselves to their feet, retrieving the spears they’d dropped during the tumult. The bedraggled miners inspected their wounds, closing the eyes of those who’d died from their falls.

Someone screamed—a woman, one of the workers who’d been separating gold from regular rock before all the violence. She was staring at the newly formed section of Rift, her mouth open in horror. Sampson saw what had elicited such a reaction from the woman.

A head emerged from the pit, its eyes burning with fire, its skin as rough as stone, its lips open to reveal blunt stone teeth surely capable of grinding human bones to dust. It dragged itself the rest of the way out from the hole, standing to its full height, which was more than thrice the size of a normal human man. The creature roared, beating its chest furiously as though releasing all its pent-up rage at having been chained in the depths for so long.

Spears whistled through the air, but they bent and broke when they impacted his stone-hard body. Enraged, the stone demon leapt forward with remarkable agility considering its size, grabbing two of the guards and picking them up into the air as if they weighed as much as a couple of feathers plucked from a bird. He slammed them together and their eyes rolled back in their heads before he discarded them on either side.

Behind him, dozens of other demons flew and scuttled and clambered from the Rift, a veritable wave of death.

People screamed, fleeing the wrath of the massive demon and the army that had emerged behind him.

Sampson, feeling nauseous, turned and walked away. Roman lingered a moment longer before following.

After what had happened within the folds of Beggar’s Canyon, what he’d done, Sampson felt unable to breathe at ground level. “I’m going to climb up,” he said, pointing his blade at the top of the cliff, which was now veiled in twilight.

“Sampson,” Roman said. “What happened back there was not your fault.”

“Oh no?” Sampson said. Memories flashed. His attempt to help one of the Rift guards against the scuttling demon. How instead he laid waste to the unsuspecting man. The feel of the blade slicing through skin and bone and tendon. He’d killed once before—Foreman Shift—but then he’d been defending himself. This…he’d killed the man in cold blood. What have I done? Sampson wondered, remembering the powerful feeling of his dark sword tearing through stone and mortar and then the earth itself, ripping through the unseen barrier between the mortal world and a shadowy land of darkness and fire.

He didn’t even know why he’d done it. Because his blade had wanted him to? Because he’d wanted to? The line between him and his sword felt blurry. Was he the master of the sword or was it the other way around?

“No,” Roman said. “It’s that sword.” He spat the last word. “It’s making you do things you wouldn’t normally do.”

Sampson couldn’t deny that, and yet… “It’s my hand that’s wielding it. And, lest you forget, it was this sword that saved your life.”

“After being the weapon used to almost take it,” Roman said. He paused. “I want you to have your eyesight more than anything.”

Sampson had been prepared for him to say something else, prepared to argue, to fight. The man’s words took the air right out of his lungs. He hung his head. “I know. Roman?”

“Yes, Your Highness?”

“I’m scared.”

“I know. I am too.”

Hearing the strong, capable man who’d always known exactly what to do admit he feared anything made Sampson, in a way, feel better. “I asked you to trust me before we entered Beggar’s Canyon.” Roman said nothing, waiting patiently for him to continue. “I betrayed that trust.”

“Sampson…”

“Let me finish. What I did—it was horrible. Horrifying. I keep hoping I’m asleep and I’ll awake and still have my eyesight and the sword but everything I did with it was a terrible nightmare. Childish hopes, I know. But I cannot be a child anymore. It’s time to grow up. This blade…it’s not natural. I cannot return it to Wolfsgaard. In my father’s hands…” He didn’t finish the thought, leaving the conclusion to the imagination. “But I also cannot keep it, as much as I want—” A sob had snuck up on him, stifling the rest of the sentence.

“You want to see,” Roman said.

“Yes.” A single tear had broken free, sliding smoothly down his cheek before vanishing into his stubble. “Now that I’ve had a taste, I’m desperate for more. The thought of returning to darkness is almost unbearable. I know I should be grateful.”

“For what?”

“For you. If I hadn’t been born blind, I never would’ve met you.”

“You don’t know that. And anyway, meeting you saved my life a helluva lot more than it saved yours. You were born to be strong and independent, regardless of what the world denied you. I just did my best to guide you the only way I knew how.”

“You did an admirable job, and I will forever be in your debt. But right now, I need to do this for myself. This is my test. I need you to let go. I broke your trust before, but I need to ask for it again. I have to do this on my own.”

As Sampson waited for Roman, who was chewing on his lip, considering, to respond, he expected the blade to speak, to plead its case. Instead, it was surprisingly silent. Which was almost worse. He had the feeling the blade wouldn’t go quietly into the night.

Finally, Roman nodded. “I still trust you, son. Of course I do. Just understand that this is hard for me. Even when I tested you, I always watched over you, always kept you safe. I’ve never felt so helpless.”

Sampson managed a half-smile. He placed one hand on Roman’s shoulder, thankful in this moment to be able to look into his eyes. “You prepared me for this and a lot more. I will return to you. I swear it.”

Roman

Roman watched him go, watched him sheath the blade, courageously casting himself back into blindness.

His heart nearly broke as Sampson extended his arms to feel his way forward to the rock wall. How did we get here? he wondered. And why was the world so cruel as to steal the sight of a babe, only to restore it decades later under the worst possible conditions? Images flashed of a child, a baby boy, in his arms, eyes rolling about aimlessly, unable to focus on anything, seeing only darkness.

The memory twisted from the brightly lit royal courtroom to a shadowy one-room dwelling. Despite the change in setting, Roman continued to hold the baby, except now its eyes were closed. Closed forever.

Whyohwhyohwhyohwhyoh…why?

Roman sank to his knees and wept, for a time. Wept for a lost child and for the one before him who was now climbing the rocks with ease, the son he’d never had, the son he could not lose.

Sampson

The biggest challenge was climbing without sight, as he was forced to sheath his sword before beginning the ascent. At the same time, he felt he needed some time apart from the blade, and if that meant sacrificing his eyesight for a period, so be it. Instead, he had to feel around for the next outcropping on which to grasp or place his foot.

The worst part was the darkness. Though he’d lived with it his entire life, now that he’d seen the light, the darkness was like a pillow stuffed over his face, suffocating him. Panic threatened to shatter his resolve every moment.

Finally, sweating and breathing heavily, he emerged atop the cliffs. The final rise had been easier than the early stages of the climb, a long slope leading from a sheer cliff to the rocky apex, and he was able to draw his sword once more to restore his vision. It felt like breathing air again after spending a long time underwater. From this vantage point, he swore he could see all of Avadon. From here, the world looked different.

Like me, he thought. I am different now. He knew that much without a shadow of a doubt even if he’d been avoiding thinking about it. YOU ARE THE SHADOW, his sword had told him before, back when he hadn’t yet done the unthinkable. Void, he’d breathed shadows onto Roman’s mortal wound and healed him. He’d widened a demon Rift for no reason other than his blade had compelled him to do so. How many had died because of him? How many more would die?

SACRIFICES MUST BE MADE FOR A GREATER PURPOSE. They were the first words the sword had spoken in a long time, since the events at the Rift.

What purpose? Sampson asked. If he could understand that there was something good that could come out of what had transpired, maybe he could bring himself to live with what he’d done.

ALL WILL BE REVEALED IN TIME.

That wasn’t good enough for him. Roman had been right. Even as he’d been blessed with sight, he’d become blind to the sacrifices required to keep it. Sacrifices that suddenly didn’t feel worth making. I want to see Amari. I want to see Jarrod. Mother, too. Void, he wouldn’t even mind seeing his father at this point. Except returning to Wolfsgaard meant losing his sight, which meant he wouldn’t be able to see them, not really. Still, being in their presence again was more important than anything else. He was being selfish before. Time to change all that. All it required was making the greatest sacrifice of his life. Giving up the very thing he’d always longed for.

And yet, even now, he continued to grip the blade as though to let go of it would be akin to standing on the highest mount in the Stormlands while lightning struck all around him.

Instead of lightning, it was fear that sizzled through him, the uncanny events of the last half-day catching up with him in an instant. Panic filled him and he stood, unable to breathe, clutching at his throat with one hand while continuing to grip that damn black sword with the other.

He felt like he was a slave to the sword rather than the other way around. But his sight. How could he give up his sight?

YOU NEED ME. WE NEED EACH OTHER.

If reaping death and destruction was what was required to have his sight, he didn’t want it. “No!” he roared. He stabbed the blade into the ground and then tried to open his hands to release it. His fingers refused to let go of the hilt, as if stuck to the surface with sticky tree sap. He growled in frustration and then slumped back down, arms over his head as he continued to grip the blade. Unwanted tears emerged hot and fast as he sobbed. “Mother,” he cried. “Oh, Mother.” It was the first time he’d spoken of his mother, Queen Janai Gaard, since she’d fallen ill three years earlier. He hadn’t cried then, not a single drop. His eyes had burned for hours, as dry as the towering spires of rock in the Soullands.

As the baby of the family, his mother had always given him extra attention. Jarrod had also had a special bond with the woman, but it was different with him. She’d liked to call Sampson her ‘Miracle Prince’, because she hadn’t thought she’d be able to have another child after Jarrod.

But now…what had he become? What had this cursed blade caused him to become?

He couldn’t imagine looking into his mother’s eyes now. He could picture the shame and pity in her expression. Why, my little Miracle Prince? she would ask if she were still capable of speaking.

He stood again, that disappointed vision of his mother burning in his mind. And then, once more, he tried to rip his hands free from the blade’s hilt. To his surprise, his fingers obeyed and he stumbled back, the dark curtain of blindness falling over his eyes once more.

He’d expected to feel relief, but he didn’t. All he felt was dread. What am I doing? I deserve sight like anyone else, don’t I? Panic hitting him once more, he began to reach for the blade, which was the only thing he could still see, a slightly different shade of black amidst the darkness. “No!” he roared, fighting off the urge. There was only one way to sever their connection, requiring a risk that threatened to shatter his promise to return to Roman into a thousand pieces. You give me no other choice. He turned and took three quick steps forward and flung himself from the cliff.

The initial drop was perhaps the height of a man, the impact punching the breath from Sampson’s lungs, his momentum flinging him down the steep slope, the terrain rugged and rocky, opening dozens of lacerations in his skin as he bounced and jolted along, trying to figure out up from down.

His hope was that the raw extremeness of his actions would help sever his connection to the blade, and that he would have enough time to stop before plummeting to his death. As hoped, his speed mercifully began to slow as the hill leveled out. Still, he remembered the sheer cliff he’d ascended, which had to be close now, preparing to suck him over its edge. Survival instinct kicked in—I don’t want to die—and he reached backward in the direction from which he’d jumped. Back toward where he’d planted the dark blade in the ground atop the canyon’s precipice.

He sensed that the cliff was approaching fast, too fast—he wasn’t going to be able to stop.

But then something slapped into his palm, his fingers closing around it. Vision flashed once more just as gravity pulled him over the edge, dragging him down toward the ruthless rocks below.

He slammed the blade into the very edge of the cliff, the steel cutting deep and holding, his momentum threatening to rip his hand from the hilt. It didn’t. He held on, dangling like a puppet from a string. He breathed, looking upward at the blade that had once more saved his life even after he’d sought to be rid of it. Runes flared along the dark steel but then faded, like sea creatures surfacing only to sink back beneath the waters of a night-dark ocean. Up and down his arm were scrapes and cuts and scratches from his brutal fall down the slope. From each wound, blood as black as tar welled up. Oh gods. What am I? What have I become? he wondered.

Even as he struggled with these questions, he watched the injuries close, vanishing like the runes on the sword. The aches and pains from his breakneck descent faded into nothing, not even leaving behind so much as a broken rib or bruise as a reminder of what had transpired.

And the blade spoke to him once more:

YOU ARE WHAT YOU ARE MEANT TO BE, SAMPSON GAARD. EMBRACE THE POWER AND LIVE.

First Interlude: The Rifts of Kingfall

THE INFERNAL PIT LOCATED IN SOUTH TERAVAINEN ERUPTED IN A TORRENT OF DIRT AND DUST AND ASH.

Several soldiers tumbled into the depths before anyone realized what was happening, their screams bright and shrill before fading into the distance as though the men had never existed in the first place. The rest of the soldiers retreated, cursing and shouting as the pit began to grow. Unlike the Rift in Beggar’s Canyon, which was long and narrow, this Rift was as round as a gold coin or one of the moons at the height of their fullness or the black eye of a drunkard after an eventful night at a tavern of ill repute.

It was also the smallest of the four remaining Rifts, producing only the occasional smallish demon, sometimes two a day at the most, which were slaughtered with ease by the Terran soldiers assigned to Rift duty, which was considered a post akin to a holiday compared to being sent to the front lines of the war with Odin. These soldiers had grown soft, placing bets on how quickly each other could kill the next demon that emerged from the pit.

Now, however, something had changed. The pit’s edges crumbled inward, clods of dirt and grass sucked into the void, as it widened outward with alarming speed. Two more soldiers who’d grown fat from lack of exercise and a diet including too much ale and roast duck were not as quick as their counterparts, the growing pit catching them, the ground dropping out from beneath their churning feet. They, too, vanished into the darkness so complete it would be better described as the absence of light.

When the pit finally stopped widening and the surviving soldiers turned to face it, hands on knees, breaths coming in heaving gasps, they were ill prepared for that which crawled from the depths.

They stared into the eyes of death and were barely able to draw their swords before the creatures set upon them with fury.

The Rift deep within the mazelike corridors of the Soullands had been well-defended for years by some of the staunchest Travailians ever produced by the people who called the Stormlands their home. The duty was less an assignment and more a blood right, passed down from generation to generation, father to son and mother to daughter. Their guardianship was assisted by hardy defenders from Odin, the one and only partnership between the two countries that had persisted for more than a single generation.

The Soullands’ Rift was also known to be the largest portal between the mortal world and the Void, producing the fiercest and strongest demons in all of Kingfall. In a typical day, the Soullands’ protectors would be forced to battle no fewer than a dozen demons, at least two of which would be considered Greater Demons by scholars versed in Riftlore. Accordingly, if these stalwart protectors ever decided they’d suffered enough of the brutality and violence, and chose to walk away from the life they’d been born into, the rest of Kingfall would face an enemy none of them were prepared to face.

But while the Rifts in both Beggar’s Canyon and Teravainen grew, the largest Rift of them all began to shrink from end to end, from middle to middle, the rend in the ground closing up like it had been nothing but a door requiring a firm hand to slam it shut. Those stalwart lifetime protectors stared in awe as the phenomenon continued, crushing the Greater Demon that had been in the process of climbing from the abyss, its very skin aflame. As the heavily armed protectors watched, the demon’s flames were snuffed out, its spiked head lolled to the side, and the creature breathed its last, fiery breath.

The protectors were silent for a moment, staring at the smooth, flat earth where only a moment earlier the massive Rift had been.

And then they cheered, throwing their arms around each other, Travailians and Odinians alike, their weapons clattering to the ground for the first time in centuries.

The Rift at Firestone was an anomaly, for it was not formed during the Godswar, having always been there, standing tall and proud, a lonely mountain spire on a lonely island in the middle of the Sacred Sea.

Well, not a mountain, exactly, for it was built of fire and ash, molten lava flowing down its cheeks like fiery streams of tears from its single, devastating eye. She was a volcano—swift to anger and slow to calm. Unlike the other Rifts, she produced no demons, only fiery destruction. Long had the natives of Firestone lived under the constant threat of drawing Her ire. They had their ways of appeasing her, of course, ancient rituals and ceremonies that many might call barbaric, but which, to the natives, were just a normal part of life.

On this day, when two Rifts were growing and another had sealed itself shut, their Rift neither grew nor shrunk. She did, however, express Her rage at the events occurring many leagues away, across large stretches of water and land in foreign places Her natives had never, and would never, set eyes upon. She screamed and shouted and breathed out Her ash and molten rock fumes, spewing them high into the air and causing Her subjects to quail and quiver as they sought shelter in their makeshift huts.

A heavy chunk of fiery rock landed on one hut’s roof, shredding the sticks and palm leaves as it detonated, killing the entire family huddled together beneath a table. Another hurled rock came in sideways, ripping through one side of a hut and exiting through the other without claiming a single life. Those inside stared through the gaping holes in their home with wide eyes and then immediately fell to their knees to worship Her, even as She continued Her tirade.

Such was fate. A similar event transpired in these two almost-identical huts. One resulted in three lives being stamped out without compassion or mercy; in the other, the souls lived on, their faith strengthened, rather than weakened, by their near-death experience that some might call dumb luck.

The question a historian might ask is this: Did She care about any of it? Most historians would, intellectually, argue that the natives’ faith was misguided and meaningless and superstitious, that who lived and died was mere happenstance. But what if it wasn’t? What if the very strength of their faith and how they proved it decided their own fate?

If so, it would explain how the Flame Bearer, the man the natives had decided was the holiest and most faithful of them all, had lived so long. Not that he was without scars—his arms and legs and chest and back and even face was a tangle of interconnected burns that represented his very history as his people’s spiritual leader. He should have been dead a dozen times over, and yet his very survival against all odds was a testament to his faith and its power, at least in the eyes of those he claimed to serve. It was because of this that he’d been honored with the responsibility to decide when one must die to save the many.

Thus it was on this day, when all others were cowering in fear, that he was standing out in the open on the shore, his arms raised in the air and his head craned back as if to gaze skyward though his eyes were closed. The ash-darkened sky was a tempest behind him, fiery pellets ripping through the air, sometimes landing nearby and other times splashing heavily into the ocean.

The Flames stood before him, preparing their entire lives for just such a moment, when they had the unfortunate fortune of being born third to their parents, who would’ve been wiser, at least in the eyes of the faithless, in stopping at only two children. The babes never knew their mothers nor fathers, as Flame Bearer served as both, raising them in purity and faith, so that when a moment arrived like this very one, they would be prepared to serve their people.

Like Flame Bearer, the Flames showed no fear amidst the fiery maelstrom. They stood shoulder to shoulder in a line, hands clasped together, chins raised slightly, eyes never leaving Her eye. They recited one of many sayings they’d learned from Flame Bearer: She is our rock and our savior; She will not harm us, only take us to use for Her righteous purposes; if we are chosen, we are redeemed; our Faith fills us to brimming with Her love…

On and on it went, a low humming sound that eventually melded together until the words could no longer be distinguished, only the feeling of the words, the spirit.

They continued their chant until, suddenly, Flame Bearer’s head snapped down and his eyes shot open. “Smoke Wisp,” he said, and one of the children—for they were only thirteen years of age—stiffened despite her resolute faith. “You have been chosen for this great honor. She is ready to lift you up and carry you on Her shoulders.”

“Yes, massai.” The one known as Smoke Wisp, an honorable name bestowed upon her by Flame Bearer on the day of her birth, when she was taken from those she should have belonged to, stepped forward, unable to stop the tremors from rattling through her. As she moved, the boy on her left released her hand. The girl on her right, however, did not.

Flame Bearer’s gaze darted sharply to the clasped hands. “Fyre Dancer,” he said. “It is time.”

The girl refused to release Smoke Wisp’s hand, for they were bosom friends, the closest thing to a sister she would ever have. It wasn’t her intention to try to avoid one of them going altogether—she was not so naïve to believe that was a possibility. Instead, she said, “I want the privilege of appeasing Her wrath. I am willing and ready.”

Smoke Wisp looked at her friend, horror in her eyes. “No,” she said. “You cannot.”

“Smoke Wisp is right,” Flame Bearer said. “Though your faith is commendable, the Flames cannot choose their own destiny, for that is my sacred responsibility.”

Then choose yourself, Fyre Dancer wanted to say, but she knew it would not serve her to be petulant. She opted for logic and reason, which was a fool’s errand when directed toward a man who understood little of such things. “Wouldn’t She be appeased to a greater extent by one who has chosen to attend to Her?”

“Haven’t you all chosen to attend to Her when the time comes?” Flame Bearer countered, and Fyre Dancer was somewhat surprised the man was allowing a discussion at all, rather than simply cutting it off at the knees and demanding obedience.

The discussion, if that’s what it was, unfolded while hellfire poured from the skies, and yet they remained unscathed, their own personal version of hellfire raining down on the minds of the participants.

Smoke Wisp lifted her chin, her eyes boring into Fyre Dancer’s. Her lips opened as if she wanted to say something, but no words emerged, her mouth trembling. Her friend, her sister, wanted to be strong, this Fyre knew. And, in some ways, Smoke was strong. But Fyre also knew Smoke didn’t want to die. Not that Fyre did, but if she could give Smoke a little more time by volunteering for this ‘great honor’, she would.

Fyre knew she was losing the debate, which was inevitable considering her opponent was more a dictator than an equal, so she went for the throat, playing the only card she had left. “I had a vision,” she said.

Flame Bearer’s eyes narrowed. “What vision?”

Fyre Dancer closed her eyes, as if trying to recall her dream. “I—I saw. I saw…this day. This moment. You chose me, not Smoke Wisp.”

The edge of Flame Bearer’s lip twitched. Though he was a man of great control over his emotions, she’d seen that twitch before, only when one of the Flames had done something to draw his displeasure. His eyes narrowed further. “Are you implying I’ve made a mistake in my judgment?”

She feigned horror, her eyes widening and her mouth opening wide. “No. Never. I swear it. I am only telling you of my vision. Mayhaps it was meant to be a test for you, massai.”

If Flame Bearer had been a man who couldn’t control his temper, he might’ve stepped forward and slapped her for making such a statement, but he was a master of his emotions, and this girl’s bold words spoken in front of those he was charged with leading were nothing. Less than nothing. “Enough. There is no test left for me to pass. I have proven my faith a hundred times over. It is time. Release Smoke Wisp’s hand or I will assist you in doing so.”

Fyre clamped her fingers on Smoke’s hand harder. Let him try to tear us apart, she thought, her stare locking on Flame Bearer.

Smoke Wisp angled her head, such that Fyre was forced to meet her eyes instead. “Fyre, you are my heart, my blood,” Smoke said, no longer trembling, no longer scared. Fyre stared at her, her own body starting to tremble now. “I am ready.”

“No, Smoke, I will—”

“You will remember me. Please. Remember me.”

“Always. How could I not? You will be in my mind every moment of every day. When I awake, when I drift to sleep, when I—”

“Come,” Flame Bearer said, a gentle but firm reminder that the time was nigh.

Still, Fyre refused to release her sister’s hand, not until Smoke had placed her other hand atop hers, stroking it slightly. “Let go here, but never let go here.” She tapped her chest over her heart.

Their hands unclasped and Smoke turned away. As she walked behind Flame Bearer, who led her toward the trail that would carry them all the way to the top of the volcano, Smoke Wisp never looked back.

The Flames stood on the beach for a long time, their hands still entwined, remaining long after Flame Bearer and Smoke Wisp had disappeared from view. One by one, the Flames began to disperse, until only Fyre remained.

Hours later, the mountain had quieted, but Fyre had not, pacing the shore until the sand had been churned up by her bare feet. The sky was still ash-dark but free of fiery stones. As she trod the beach, she gazed upward at Her majesty and beauty. Fyre hated Her. More than that, she hated him, the man she was supposed to love and respect like the rest of her people.

When he returned from his journey, alone, he stood for a moment before Fyre Dancer, their eyes meeting, their stares locking. It may have been uncomfortable, but he wasn’t capable of such feelings and, though she was, Fyre wasn’t looking at him, but through him, seeing only images of Smoke Wisp, who she had loved with all her heart and soul.

Finally, she looked away, content to be the first to do so and let him believe he had won the day. She walked on, plotting her revenge.

PART II

Andovier     Aisling     Sampson

Peony     Dane

The Thousands fell upon the gods and giants like a rising tide, beginning a war that would last a century without relief. And when the Rifts opened, all those who looked upon the darkness knew true fear.

The Kingfall Histories

Eight

Andovier Helm

Wolfsgaard, Teravainen

STARING UP AT KING GAARD IN HIS MOMENT OF VICTORY, a victory earned not because he had spilled blood but because he had not, Ando had forgotten his pain, his loss, his bone-deep sadness.

For that brief and fleeting moment, he had forgotten about them.

Never again, he thought, even as he wished for more moments like that, not because he wished to forget them—never, not ever, Moira, Celeste, Olly—but because the pain was more than he could bear, a million—no, a billion—times more agonizing than any physical wound he’d ever borne.

And he hated himself for wanting that peace again.

“There will be retribution for your actions,” a familiar voice said. Ando could feel General Horatio’s shadow as it fell over him. They were back in the dungeons now, though they no longer had individual cells. All the cell doors stood unlocked and open and the prisoners were free to move from cell to cell and occupy the long corridor as desired. One end of the corridor dead-ended at a stone wall, while the other culminated at a sturdy iron door with bars across a square window near the top. Through the window several guards could be seen on the other side.

Now, sitting with his back to the wall, his eyes closed, his face shrouded by strings of long, wet hair—he’d dunked his entire head in a bucket of water after they’d returned from the arena—Ando didn’t move.

“I know you’re awake.”

“You’re mistaken. I will sleep through the rest of my life, though a waking sleep it may be.”

“I am sorry for your loss,” Horatio said.

“And yet that changes nothing.” Ando ground his teeth together, fighting off the images of those he loved at the last, trying to replace those memories with the sweeter, kinder ones. I took those memories for granted even as I created them. He hated himself for that. Though he missed them every time he was forced to leave home when duty and honor called, he never thought about all the memories Moira would gain that he would not. Now he conjured what those memories might look like, wishing he had been there for each and every one of them.

“No, it does not,” Horatio agreed.

Ando finally opened his eyes, not because of the man’s words but because of the way he said them, as though speaking from experience. He peered at him through vine-like tendrils of hair. “Who are you? What is your surname?”

Horatio responded but ignored the question as if Ando hadn’t asked it at all. “They say you held out the longest of any commander facing the Terrans,” he said.

“Not long enough,” Ando said, “though my men are still holding out at Kingsfort.”

The man finally offered him a morsel of his identity. “I led the Solarii border forces,” he said.

Ando thought it odd the way the man imparted the information, as though he were not a participant in the battle but a disinterested bystander. “If you are captured, then Solarii is overrun.”

Horatio shook his head. “Not yet.”

“Fine, General Horatio No-Surname, explain to me how you are here and yet the Solarii border remains intact.”

“I sallied out with my men in an attempt to catch a Terran encampment by surprise. Only they somehow knew we were coming. We were slaughtered. Those of us unfortunate enough to survive the battle were bandaged and brought here to recuperate until we, like you, were sent to fight in a whole different kind of battle.”

Ando considered the man’s story. If he told it true, it was a case of bad luck for him but good luck for Solarii. If their border remained solid, the small peninsula kingdom wasn’t finished yet, though it felt like only a matter of time before they were defeated by the larger kingdom to the north. “You don’t look Solarii. Your skin is too pale, your hair too dark. Who are you? I won’t ask again.”

Horatio sighed. “It will not please you.”

“Nothing pleases me anymore,” Ando said. “So you may as well rip the bandage off.”

“My name is Horatio Raan.”

Ando’s heart hammered. He knew that surname, though he’d never heard it combined with the first name. The Raan he’d known of was always referred to as simply General Raan, not dissimilar to his own title of High Commander Helm. Raan was a Terran surname, not Solarii, which explained much.

“I don’t believe you sallied out with your men only to be ambushed,” Ando said. “How were you really captured?” Though he asked the question evenly, there was a gritty undercurrent to his tone.

“No need to tiptoe over the eggshells, High Commander. I commanded the Terran army you fought against during the Battle of Lost Stars.”

Ando already knew this, but to hear it spoken so brazenly from this man’s lips sent fire shooting through his veins. He stood suddenly, stepping forward so his chest bumped against Raan’s, who didn’t step back. “You lured us with small, easily defeated platoons as bait. Then you fire-bombed us, killing both my men and yours without prejudice. It was the bloodiest day in the war to date, and we have not had a bloodier day since.”

“I’ve long regretted the choices I made that day,” Raan said. “Regretted them every day for the last three years.”

Ando remembered that horrid night all too well. The darkness was so complete he was forced to assign every tenth man as a torchbearer to light the way, the cloud cover as thick as a woven blanket without seam or tear. It had truly felt like the beauty of the stars had been lost to them forever. “You mean you regretted your choices as you played traitor to your own country?”

“You don’t understand anything.” The man’s voice had taken on a darker edge, and Ando wondered if one or both of them might end up stabbed before the conversation was finished. Of course, the only thing they could stab each other with were dry stalks of pointy straw as they’d been stripped of their weapons after leaving the arena.

“No? Do I have it wrong? Did you not hide behind a wall of shield bearers while you sent your men to die in your stead? Did you not have boulders painted with magenum, lit with fire and then catapulted into our midst?” Ando was tempted to punch the man’s face into the next cell but knew it would only be him projecting his hatred for King Gaard onto one who was but a pathetic puppet in the king’s bloody show. Instead, Ando shoved Raan back hard and managed a mirthless laugh before slumping back to the floor, relishing the aches in his muscles and joints from the battle in the arena.

To his surprise, General Raan did the same, plopping down beside him, back to the wall. “I yearn every day for death,” the man admitted.

Ando said nothing, breathing in the silence. He would not admit that he had anything in common with this cretin of a man.

“Do you not want to know why?” Raan asked.

“No, but I suspect you will tell me anyway.”

“I lost my entire family, too. Wife. Four children. Three girls, one boy.”

More lies, Ando thought. An attempt to make himself human, nothing more.

“I lost them to an invisible enemy. I will have no vengeance. I have no opportunity for revenge, to spit in the face of their murderer while cutting his throat. Does that mean I should lay down and die?”

If any of the words pouring from this man’s mouth were true, his family had been killed by the plague. Which meant when they were forced to catapult the plague corpses over the wall it would’ve been Raan’s own personal hell. If he was telling it true, which he was not. Ando finally spoke again. “Aye. If it means you’ll shut your trap and leave me in peace then I’ll give you the knife. Hell, I’ll do the stabbing, too, if that will help.”

His words had been intended to sting the man, to get him to back off. Instead, the man laughed. “Mayhaps one day I’ll take you up on the offer. But not today. For I am not done fighting. The mountain I must climb for redemption is tall and steep. You should start climbing it yourself.”

“I need no redemption,” Ando said.

“You’re wrong there. All men need redemption, especially the ones who believe they don’t.”

Ando was shaken awake by the young lad, Josiah. “What is it?” he murmured.

“They’re going to kill each other.”

The statement cleared the cobwebs better than a bucket of cold water on his head would have. Ando rolled over, groaning due to his bruised body, and then followed Josiah out from his cell and into the long corridor.

The sound of shouts could be heard toward the end of the hallway, and as they approached the dead end, it was evident they arose from the last cell, especially because every other cell they passed was empty. Ando turned the corner to find a ring of men, all Odinians, rimming the sides of the room. The prisoners were shouting and cheering, egging on the combatants in the center of the ring.

“Shite,” Ando muttered, shoving through the audience, knowing exactly who he would find in the middle. Just as he reached the front, the bronze-skinned Solarii man was hit so hard by the horned Grizari warrior, Mrz, that he was rocked backwards into the arms of a few of the men, who promptly shoved him back into the fray, where he ducked under another powerful blow from his foe before tackling him solidly to the straw-laden floor with a heavy thump.

What Ando didn’t expect to find was the third man in the ring: none other than General Horatio Raan. Raan wasn’t fighting, however, he was trying to do the opposite—pull the men apart. Now that they’d gone to ground, the ex-Terran general leapt into action, grabbing the Solarii man by the shoulders to try to drag him from Mrz, who he was now hammering in the face. Feeling hands on him from behind, he flung an elbow into Raan’s face with an audible crack.

Raan reeled back, clutching at his face, blood streaming between his fingers and spotting on the floor.

Ando strode forward, feeling anything but sore now, adrenaline vanquishing even the deepest of his bruises sustained in the arena. Instead of making the same mistake Raan had and trying to pull the Solarii man off, he kicked him hard in the ribs to dislodge him. Mrz immediately tried to take advantage of the reprieve to roll over onto his foe and gain the upper hand, so Ando kicked him in the sternum. The Grizari howled and rolled in the opposite direction, clutching his chest.

Ando calmly stepped between them, waiting.

Slowly, the two men stood, glaring at each other and Ando now. Again, Ando noticed the strange glove the Solarii man wore on one hand, and his non-sword hand at that. “You want to kill each other?” Ando said. “You’ll have to kill me first.”

“He killed my brother,” the Solarii man said.

Now that was unexpected, but certainly explained how the fight had started. “I’m sorry,” Ando said. “Truly. But he didn’t think he had a choice. We were all forced into the arena, forced to kill those we wouldn’t have otherwise killed—”

“I would keel his brudda and him anywhere in the world,” Mrz spat, not helping the matter.

As expected, the Solarii man lunged forward, determined to go through Ando if necessary. Ando sidestepped, kicking out the man’s legs and using his own momentum against him. He landed face-down on the straw.

Ando stepped over him, until he was close enough to grab the Grizari’s throat. His skin was as rough as leather, his neck broad. Even if he’d wanted to, which he didn’t, Ando wasn’t certain he’d be able to get his hands fully around his thick neck to choke him. Given their difference in stature—Ando tall and broad-shouldered, Mrz short and thick in seemingly everyplace—Ando had to look down to meet his eyes. “I saved your life. You owe me a debt.”

“I paid debt when spared human’s life.”

Ando wasn’t certain how that made any sense, considering it was he who’d spared the Grizari’s life first, but he wasn’t about to argue. “You said you would be my ally. Well, this man is my ally, too. I can’t have my allies killing each other.”

Mrz cocked his head, seeming to consider the logic in Ando’s argument. “Queer humans,” he said. “My father’s tribe settles disputes with blood. It is way. No matter. I no fight if filthy human stay out of path.”

The Solarii man cursed and tried to fight to his feet again, but Ando stepped on his back and held him down like a snake pierced by a sword. “Solarii,” Ando said. “Will you steer clear of Mrz to keep the peace?”

Another curse, but then, realizing Ando wouldn’t let him up until he acquiesced, he said, “Aye, I agree.”

Ando could practically taste the lie in his tone it was so pungent. “Your people honor blood oaths, aye?” Ando asked.

When the Solarii man didn’t answer, Raan, his face a bloody mess, stepped forward and said, “Aye. The Solarii believe that to break a blood oath is to curse one’s soul to everlasting damnation.”

“Good,” Ando said. Just because he didn’t subscribe to such superstitious nonsense didn’t mean he couldn’t use it to his advantage. He believed if a man said something, he should do it. “Stand up, Solarii.”

“Kind of hard when you’re standing on me.”

Oh. True. Ando stepped off his back. The man pushed to his feet, one of his eyes swollen shut and his lip bloody and fat. He looked ready to barrel back into the fight but managed to restrain himself. Mrz, if anything, looked amused by the ‘queer human.’

“What is your name?” Ando asked.

“Sola Maestro,” the man said. “My brother was Bora.”

“I’m sorry we couldn’t reach you in time to save him.”

His head hung. “He was the last of us killed before you saved my life.”

Ando remembered who he was referring to, could even see the family resemblance, though all the Solarii had that sun-kissed skin tone. “You cannot kill Mrz.”

“Queer human could not kill fly,” Mrz said.

“Mrz,” Ando warned. Sola started to turn toward the Grizari, but Ando grasped his shirt with a hand and held him fast. “Don’t listen to him. Don’t forget that he has lost, too. He is the only of his kind who remains here now. Mrz, did you have friends or family members killed in the arena?”

Mrz seemed surprised to be asked the question, shaking his horns from side to side. “My tribe is family. Now they go to meet forebearers.”

“See?” Ando said to Sola. “Mrz is not the enemy. None of us would’ve been forced to fight and kill if not for the one enemy we all share, regardless of race or nation. King Gaard.”

Sola sighed. “I know this. But I will not be friends with this…creature.”

“Understood. No one is asking that of you. Allies rarely truly like each other. So long as they further each other’s interests.”

“What interests? We are prisoners.”

“Not dying,” Ando said. “That is our only interest at present.”

That drew chuckles throughout the crowded cell. Even Mrz offered a hearty “Har!”

“Now cut yourself and swear a blood oath,” Ando said.

Sola didn’t look particularly pleased with what he was being asked to do, which made Ando believe the man would, in fact, honor whatever oath he pledged. They had no weapons, but Sola found a relatively sharp bit of rock on the floor which he used to scrape across his palm, cringing slightly as blood welled up. He squeezed his fingers tight into a fist and let the blood drip free. “May my blood bear witness to this oath. I shall not harm Mrz while we are prisoners of the Terrans. But hear these words, Grizari, if we ever find ourselves free of our shackles, I will kill you and avenge my brother’s death.”

“I look forward to that day,” Mrz said, not looking intimidated in the least.

Sola spat, as if speaking the oath had left a bitter taste in his mouth. “What about him? Shouldn’t he have to swear an oath, too?”

Mrz said, “Grizari no require foolish human rituals. I won’t harm you, human. So no need to sleep with one eye open.”

With that, the Grizari man tossed his horns once more and headed for the cell’s exit. The Odinian soldiers stepped aside to avoid being gored.

“You think a blood oath and a half-promise will keep those two from killing each other?” General Raan asked Ando after the ring of soldiers had dispersed now that the entertainment was over. His face was still a mess of blood, but the man didn’t seem to care.

“It better. We’ll need all the men we can get for our next trip to the arena.”

“You’ll lead us?” There was a hint of teasing in the man’s tone.

Ando sighed, wondering why he couldn’t seem to manage to just keep his head down and out of the thick of things. “If I don’t, I fear the lot of you will kill each other.”

Raan chuckled. “Good. I’ve tired of my days of leading men and long for them to be in the past.”

Ando had to admit, the man was a natural leader, even if he was a traitor to his own kind. Thankfully, a traitor to the Terrans was an ally to him. The only problem was that Ando’s experience with traitors was that they were likely to turn treasonous again as soon as the wind began blowing in a different direction. Mayhaps it will be different with this man.

“You grew up in Wolfsgaard?” Ando asked.

“Nay, Jackaloos. But I know why you’re asking. We have bloodsport there too. It’s a Terran tradition. Before we had war prisoners, the combatants would be criminals.”

“Murderers and rapists?”

“Aye, but not only. Common thieves. Those who spoke out against the crown. Men of age who refused to join the Terran army.”

The thought of forcing some hungry fool who’d nicked a loaf of bread to fill his belly into an arena to fight to the death made Ando feel ill. The Terran king really had no shame. He remembered the way the king had looked down upon them after the heat of the battle had cooled: like they were ants to be ignored, not even noticing if they were squashed underfoot as he walked.

“So fear is his greatest weapon,” Ando said. “I can work with that.”

Raan scoffed. “You’re not seriously thinking there’s any way out of this, do you? We will be sent to fight every two days, three at the most. Eventually we’ll all be killed. There is no escape.”

“Then why keep fighting?” Ando said. “If you are so certain of this outcome, why didn’t you lay down your weapon and let one of those jackals ravage you?”

A wistful, faraway look entered Raan’s eyes. “Because of my own oath, made three years ago.” Ando remembered the man’s story about what he’d lost to the mindless killer—the plague.

“To what? To keep fighting even when you have nothing left to fight for, even when all hope is lost?”

The man answered his question with a few of his own. “Tell me, Helm, why are you still fighting then? To avenge those you’ve lost? What purpose will that serve? You cannot bring them back any more than I can bring back those I’ve lost.”

“What other purpose do I have?” Ando asked, frustrated at how this man always seemed to spin him around in circles.

“That remains to be seen, I suppose. But I know of revenge and vengeance. They are a pair of knives that will twist inside you until you decide to pull them out and bury them deep within the earth.”

“I will kill the king,” Ando said, “or die trying.”

“I believe you will try,” Raan said. “But I will leave you with this one reminder: They are gone. You are not. Do not waste the life that they no longer have.”

Like the last time they’d spoken, Raan departed before Ando could respond, leaving him feeling empty inside once more. Ando stood there for a moment in silence. He didn’t want to be alone with his demons right now. So he sought a distraction, and he happened to find one just one cell over, where Mrz had hunkered down, squatting in the straw, scraping the edge of a longish stone along the floor to sharpen one of its edges.

“Queer brown human fortunate you came to his aid,” Mrz said without looking up.

Ando managed a chuckle. Something about the way this horned creature spoke was amusing, the words themselves more than the broken manner in which he ordered them. “You might not want to say that when Sola is nearby or he might forget his blood oath.”

Mrz shrugged, as if Sola was but a gnat on the back of a lion.

“You have any more of those?” Ando asked, gesturing to the stone in the Grizari’s hand.

Mrz hesitated for a moment, but then moved from his spot, where he’d been squatting on several more long, narrow stones that were perfect for sharpening into weapons. He handed one to Ando, who cleared a space in the straw and began scraping it in a similar manner. Mrz got back to work, and for a while the scraping was the only sound.

Ando finally broke the silence. “What you said about your tribe, about them being family…you meant that?”

Though the expression on the creature’s blunt face didn’t change, Ando noticed the almost imperceptible whitening of his knuckles as he gripped the stone harder. “Aye. I meant words. Why speak false words? Lying is human act. Griz are truthtellers. Ever since the Scattering of Griz tribes, my people have been at war. Sad but necessary. The culling of those without honor. One tribe must remain before growth can begin anew. Only problem: war means death. Tribes grow smaller by the season. Everyone is family now. Everyone.”

Ando knew the Griz were different to humans in many ways, but he wondered if the in-breeding would eventually cause physical issues, as such activity would with humans. He didn’t ask. “You have a wife?”

“Wives, husbands, are human creation. Griz take mates for life. Females choose males, must fight for dominance if more than one female seek same male.”

“Truly? I would like to see such a thing.”

Mrz nodded sagely, as though Ando had spoken an unquestionable truth. “Tis a sight to behold, indeed!” He puffed out his chest proudly. “I had three does battling for me, tis true!”

“Does?”

“Females.”

“And males are called…”

“Bucks.”

Of course they are, Ando thought, though he didn’t think they had any similarities to common deer. Their horns were thick and curving like a ram, with no antler-like offshoots. The Grizari culture was a whole other world he’d never given a second thought until now. “What is your mate’s name?”

“In common tongue, Ryz. She is wonder to behold. Thick neck. Hearty chest. Legs like stumps. Nothing more beautiful than Ryz.”

Ando was getting the idea that the Griz had a very different definition of beauty than he did, but she did sound like a ‘wonder’ in a lot of ways. “Then how did you attract her attention?” he japed.

Mrz’s gaze shot upward to meet his eyes, boring into him, and for a moment Ando thought he’d misread the situation and the man—buck—he was dealing with. But then Mrz cast down his stone and slapped his knees. “Har! I never knew humans could be amusing, except to look at with your skinny legs and queerly shaped bodies and hornless scalps. I wonder the same thing many times, mostly when Ryz was astride me loins, her hearty chest—”

“I get the picture,” Ando interrupted. The last thing he wanted to hear was a detailed description of Mrz and his mate, well, mating. “Well, good for you for attracting such a fine doe as Ryz.”

“Truth is, I had interest because I’m son of Shrz.”

The way he said it, Ando suspected the name ‘Shrz’ was supposed to mean something to him. It did not. He’d never had time to concern himself with the Scattered Tribes, not when Odin’s real enemy, the Terrans, always seemed to be on their doorstep preparing to batter their way through the door. Intellectually, he knew the Avadonians had their challenges co-existing with the Grizari, but as far as he knew they hadn’t been at war for many years due to the civil unrest amongst the tribes.

“Remind me, Shrz is…”

“Har!” Mrz said, as though he suspected Ando was once more japing, when he decidedly was not. “Amusing, queer human! My father Shrz is leader of one of four remaining Grizari tribes. When he is killed most violently in battle, I will take place as leader.” His tone changed as he seemed to remember his current situation. “I would have taken place. Now…”

“The future is uncertain, aye,” Ando said, “but there will be a future, one way or another. We may just have to take it from someone else.”

Mrz’s frown vanished, replaced by his easy, broad smile full of blunt, yellowing teeth. “Aye, take it we will. I am good at that!”

Two days went by with no call for Ando’s group to fight again in the arena. Although he didn’t mind the unexpected reprieve, he felt in his gut something was amiss. They were fed and watered and dry, the conditions not dissimilar to what he was used to during a long march across barren terrain. Save for the lack of fire and decent food and drink. At least the food was somewhat edible, if unsalted and without flavor and not particularly satisfying.

Thankfully, there were no more altercations between Sola and Mrz. Both stayed well away from each other, occupying cells on opposite ends of the dungeon corridor.

“What do you make of it?” Raan asked Ando as he sat with Josiah, answering the lad’s endless questions about battle tactics. The lad had a good mind for strategy, and if things had transpired differently may have made a fine officer one day, though he’d have a lot of scars and mettle to earn before he’d achieve such an honor.

“Make of what?” Ando asked, though he knew exactly what the man was asking.

“If the king wanted to kill us, surely he would’ve arranged more battles for us by now.”

“If the king wanted to kill us, surely he would’ve cut off our heads and been done with it,” Ando countered.

“You don’t know the king the way I do.”

“Is that supposed to make me more comfortable as your ally or remind me that you’re a traitor to your own people?”

“Your definition of traitor is different than mine. You would rather I carried out the king’s objectives to destroy all who oppose him without consideration to the cost to his own subjects? You think me heartless for my actions during the Battle of Lost Stars, when in fact I was being the perfect war leader in the eyes of my king. So then I was not a traitor, in your eyes. Did being a non-traitor make me a better man as I watched my plans being perfectly carried out, killing hundreds of men, both yours and mine?”

Ando didn’t enjoy being wrong, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t admit when he was. “You’re right.”

“I am?” Raan seemed flabbergasted to have won the argument so easily.

Previously, Ando had believed this man to be a liar. And maybe he was. But if he wasn’t…Ando couldn’t bear the thought of someone believing his own loss to be false, so he had no choice but to give Raan some benefit of the doubt. “Yes. I am being unfair. After your…loss…you made choices with your heart rather than by blind loyalty to a man who cared nothing for your life or the lives of those you commanded. I respect that.” Though it will take much for you to earn my full trust, Ando didn’t say.

“Thank you,” Raan said. He sounded sincere.

There was a moment of awkwardness between the two proud men, but Josiah managed to ward it off with another question. “If we’re not going to be sent to fight in the arena, what is the king going to do with us?” he asked.

For the first time in days, at that very moment they heard the loud unoiled creak of the dungeon door’s hinges turning as the iron barrier opened. Lately, only the slot at the bottom had been used to send tin plates of unappetizing food skittering across the floor. Heavy footfalls now followed the sound, accompanied by loud shouts from the voice that Ando would rather never hear again: the overseer.

“I think we’re about to find out,” Ando said, standing and offering a hand to Josiah so he could do the same.

“All right, you leeches!” the overseer barked. “Get your pathetic arses up and march to the armory before I beat you blind. It’s time for your next battle.”

The announcement should’ve made Ando cringe, and yet he found himself feeling energized for the first time since they were last in the arena. Anything, even the possibility of death, was better than the mindless monotony of dungeon life.

As Ando passed the overseer, he avoided his eyes completely else he be tempted to act on impulse. The overseer laughed and jabbed his rod at Ando’s legs. “You were lucky last round. I hear His Majesty has something special cooked up for you this time!”

Ando ignored the fat, obnoxious man and instead focused on the men around him. Just ahead of him, Raan was whispering to several of the men, probably confirming that they remembered the plan. After all, the last few days hadn’t been passed completely idle. Raan and Ando had put aside their differences to discuss strategy. They’d invited Sola as well, to get his opinion based on Solarii battle tactics, but he’d passed on account of Mrz’s attendance. The Griz buck had once again surprised Ando with his in-depth understanding of complex formations and flanking techniques, though before they’d started, Mrz had made a proposal for a strategy of “Beat ’em senseless until they don’t get up.” There had been silence for a moment as none of the other men knew if he was joking, but then he released a hearty, “Har! You should see faces! White as ghouls, you are!”

Speaking of whom, Mrz was only a step behind Ando as they walked, talking fast to another Odinian. In fact, Mrz had become very popular amongst the Odinian soldiers, able to carry on a conversation even if half of what he said couldn’t be related to by any human from the Spine to the Endless Ocean. “…make a game of it,” the Grizari was saying, “one score for dismemberment, five scores for head, bonus scores if foe pisses britches, har!”

Exuberant laughter followed from the Odinian soldiers, who still didn’t seem to know what to make of the creature. Josiah, as usual, was Ando’s shadow, walking abreast of him stride for stride, though he had to extend his legs a lot further to maintain their pace. “That thing that you feel…,” Ando said to him in a soft voice only the lad would be able to hear.

“You mean the crippling fear?” Josiah said in a tone that implied a jape though Ando suspected the truth wasn’t far behind.

“Aye. Fear is good. Fear can focus you if you don’t allow it to consume you. Fear can even make you a better warrior. The line between fear and courage is thin, and the bravest men have a measure of each.”

Josiah sucked in a deep breath. “At least it’s not my virgin fight. I’ll have twice the experience after this one.”

Ando knew he couldn’t coddle the lad, not if he was going to survive over the long haul, but at the same time he wanted desperately to protect him. He knew that if it came to it, he would die for this young soldier he’d met less than a week past. Don’t think about that, he thought, refocusing his attention on the task at hand. Whatever “special” adversary the king had “cooked up”, he needed to be prepared.

He realized that while he was lost in his thoughts, Josiah had continued speaking. “Do you want to hear my answer or not?”

“Sorry, I was—never mind. Answer to what?”

“Your question from before. My purpose for killing another during the fight to come. You said my own survival wasn’t enough of a reason—that there needed to be some greater purpose.”

“Aye. And?”

“And I’m fighting for you now, sir. You are my purpose.” The lad sped ahead, weaving between the broader-shouldered, more experienced soldiers. He called back, “This time I’ll choose my weapon first.”

Ando shook his head. He’d meant to inspire the lad, aye, but not to the point that he would fight for him. Then again, it wasn’t a bad thing, so long as he was willing to do what was necessary to pull him through this next battle and the battle after that and so on until they could find a way out of this mess.

They reached the dingy armory. As promised, Josiah had already selected his weapon and was now swiftly donning some steel armor that had seen better days but was in decent shape all things considered. The other soldiers were doing the same, choosing the best of the worst from the harshly used leftovers they were afforded. Ando searched for the sword he’d favored the time before but was surprised to find it missing. Then he glanced at the overseer, who was staring right at him, wearing a sneer. He jutted out his hip to show a blade in his scabbard. There was no mistaking it—the blade Ando had used before, “borrowed” by the overseer just to spite him. It had been oiled and sharpened, and as expected, was a fine piece now that it had been given proper care.

Prepare to be disappointed, Ando thought. Without looking, he grabbed the first sword he saw that was not already spoken for. Rusty and nicked, it would have to do. Sometimes the most worn-looking sword was the one that had been strong enough to survive the harshest battles.

Ando knew their time was about to expire considering how long they’d had to select their armor and weapons previously. And yet the overseer didn’t seem in a hurry today. He yawned, stretched, waited…

Again, Ando had the uncomfortable feeling that something had changed, something significant, but he ignored the instinct and took advantage of the opportunity to meticulously select the best pieces of armor, surprising even himself when he found a solid pair of gauntlets buried amongst moth-eaten overcoats. “Those assigned to the center push should bear shields,” Ando commanded. That included himself, and he grabbed a tall bronze shield, handing it to the first of the men who were required to have one. He selected other shields, providing them to each man in turn, until they were outfitted appropriately. Only then did he locate a shield for himself, one so dented it looked as though it must’ve drawn the ire of a hot-tempered, hammer-wielding blacksmith. Again, it would have to do and would be better than nothing. I suppose I can throw it in a pinch, he thought dryly.

It wasn’t until all the men had fully girded themselves and all activity had ceased that the overseer said, “Move out, leeches!”

Ando knew men like the overseer didn’t do things out of the kindness of their hearts. No, this man’s heart was black and shriveled—no room for kindness there. No, the extra time he’d afforded them was because he’d been ordered by someone else to give them the time they needed. Every master has a master, Ando thought. Except for the king. He wondered how far up the chain of command this particular order had originated. Surely not the king himself. Why would the Terran Wolf do anything to help him after all he’d done to thwart the king’s push into Odinian territory?

Something other than the unbathed stink of prisoners smelled off here.

“What the hell are we walking into?” he murmured to himself.

“What’s that, High Commander?” Josiah asked, once more astride with him. Compared to the last time they’d walked this very corridor, the lad looked prepared—or, at least, more prepared. At least he has a weapon this time, Ando thought.

“Nothing,” he said. “Don’t call me ‘High Commander’, I told you a hundred times. Ando is my name here, got it?”

The boy nodded. He mock-saluted. “Yes, sir, Ando, sir.”

“Amusing. You should be a traveling entertainer. You got your head straight?”

“I think so. I’m straddling the line between courage and fear, right?”

“Well when you put it that way, mayhaps you should ignore my prior advice.”

“Queer human is right,” Mrz chimed in from behind. As Ando looked back, he almost took a horn to the eye, so close was the Grizari warrior. “Old Grizari saying: Don’t think, just hit things.”

Ando was certain the buck was joking now, but it was the perfect release for the tension that had been building ever since they started down this final corridor, the way growing lighter and lighter as they approach that familiar arched opening filled with sunlight. “Aye, do what Mrz said,” Ando agreed.

And then they stepped out into the light.

The arena hadn’t changed, of course. How could it? It was massive and made of solid stone. And yet everything felt different. For one, it was silent save for the occasional caw of a passing bird reminding all within earshot they were smarter than those confined to the ground. The contrast to the cacophony—screaming, jeering, cursing—of their prior entrance to the arena was stark. And for two, the silence was explained by the lack of bodies sitting on the rows and rows of empty stone benches. In fact, there was no audience save for the four royal chairs resting upon the dais set apart from the commoner seating. Three of the four were filled, the first two by the same bodies as before—the king and the crown princess—and the third by none other than the pink-skinned, sky-haired woman who’d previously served as King Gaard’s footstool. Prince Jarrod was noticeably absent from the entire affair.

The king said nothing, just motioned for the gate to be closed, which it was, the overseer offering a parting shot—“Bad luck”—before walking back down the corridor.

The other two gates remained closed for several seconds, and Ando took advantage of the delay to speak directly to his men, raising his voice such that his shout would be heard by those on the royal dais. “If King Gaard will force us to fight in the arena, we shall be lions! Any who dare to face us will be slaughtered like pigs in a muddy pen! We shall have no mercy, shall spill the blood of our enemies without compassion!”

This rehearsed speech was all for show, of course. The ‘pigs in a muddy pen’ part had been Mrz’s contribution, such that it was. The speech, however, was Ando’s idea. By giving them several idle days to think about when they might be called upon to fight again, the king was toying with their minds. Why shouldn’t they do the same? Say one thing and then do another entirely. They would defend themselves, but not like mindless killers.

The king watched the whole spectacle with a slight frown on his face. The crown princess maintained her usual neutral expression, which might’ve been directed toward a traveling band of musicians or a dragon-shaped cloud or a toad hopping across her path. There was, however, something different about her face, if not her expression. Powder, Ando thought, realizing Amari Gaard had heavily powdered her face, particularly on one side. To conceal an injury? he wondered. He cast the speculation away—injuries to the Gaard family were of no concern to him. The third spectator, however, was of the most interest to Ando. Her expression was tight, like she was concentrating deeply, her lips pursed, her eyes narrowed.

She’s in pain, Ando realized, though she hides it well. Ando couldn’t be fooled; he knew what pain looked like. He’d seen it on the faces of hundreds of tough-as-iron men suffering grave injuries in battle, watching parts of them that were supposed to be on the inside end up on the outside, staring at their own severed limbs apart from their own bodies…the horrors of war were real. Only this unusual woman was not in the midst of war, or even a single battle. And when they’d entered, Ando had looked upon her face and found it to be clear of any signs of distress. But now…

I did this to her, he thought. With my words. The realization gave him pause, because he remembered the pain he’d seen on her face the last time, after the battle was over, as though she rather than the men below had been slashed and beaten and maimed and killed. Evidently just his speech about such violence was enough to cause her very real pain, which she was now concentrating on hiding from His Majesty. Could she simply abhor violence so much that her distaste for such things manifested itself as physical pain? A sort of rare form of sympathy. And if so, what would happen to her if today’s battle turned out to be a bloodbath despite Ando’s efforts to avoid such a thing?

Ando’s men were shouting all the things they’d planned to shout, murderous things, bloodthirsty things. Mrz’s voice carried above all the others, lasting longer than the rest: “I will cut off the skin of enemies and wear it as a cloak! Har!” Ando might’ve struggled to hold back a laugh at their antics if not for what was happening on the dais. The pink-skinned woman’s hand was touching her forehead now, as if a headache had set in. She was staring at her feet rather than down at the arena floor.

Ando shook his head as he heard the second gate begin to groan open, chains rattling as they were turned on their crank. There was nothing he could do for the woman on the dais, whoever she was.

A war cry sounded, followed by the thunder of stampeding boots. All at once, they burst from the tunnel, and Ando had to blink thrice to make sense of what he was seeing. His first thought was that the king had stooped so low his face was in the dirt, for who would send children to fight to the death in an arena? Then he realized they weren’t children, but small-statured men—dwarves to be specific—their beards long and thick, almost reaching their toes in some cases. Many of them wore their beards in various formations of crisscrossing plaits, ties, and locks. They were thickset men, all of them, firm and strong-looking despite their undersized frames. They were armed and armored to the teeth, favoring battle axes with cut-off hafts to suit their height. Each wore a helm, though it felt a miracle that they were able to stuff the fullness of their thick heads of hair into the helmets considering the way it spilled from the base.

The dwarves were riled up, and as soon as they spotted Ando and the others, they broke into a run, murder in their eyes, spittle foaming onto their beards as they screamed.

“Don’t let ’em run betwixt your legs lest you lose something important!” Mrz bellowed, shouldering a mighty war hammer on one side and a dual-bladed axe on the other.

Ando raised a hand to silence the Grizari, and then took three large steps forward to separate himself from his men. “HALT!” he shouted in his battlefield command voice. At first he thought the dwarves might ignore him and just keep coming, but then those at the fore began to slow and then stop completely. Several in the back weren’t as agile and crashed into those in the front, nearly knocking them over. When the tangle of bodies was untangled, Ando found himself being scowled at by approximately twenty small men.

“If yer gonna piss yer britches, be done with it so we can lop off yer heads,” one of the dwarves said, the largest of the lot who, if he was lucky, might reach Ando’s naval, but only if you counted the thick mop of hair his helm couldn’t fully hide. His beard was unruly, reddish-brown, and seeming to grow in every direction. As he spoke, he twirled his axe around with a flourish, the silver edges catching blades of sunlight and reflecting them across the arena floor.

“Dwarves will need box to stand on to reach necks. Har!” Mrz retorted, before Ando could reply. It earned him a raucous laugh from Ando’s men, save for Sola, who didn’t look impressed.

Ando raised his hand for silence once more. Mrz’s loose lips could very well sink this ship before it ever raised its sails. “Ye think insultin’ us will save yer heads?” the dwarf said.

“I apologize for my friend, sir, he can be overzealous but isn’t a bad bloke once you get to know him,” Ando said. Nearby, Sola snorted.

“We’re not ’ere to make friends,” the dwarf said. “Unless I’m mistaken, we’re ’ere to fight. Two troops enter, one troop leaves. An’ the latter’s gonna be mine.”

“Or,” Ando said, “we refuse to fight and both of our groups leave unscathed. There doesn’t have to be bloodshed today.”

The dwarf cocked his head to the side as though the idea of not shedding blood was a foreign notion to him. One of his hands absently stroked his tangled beard. “The king be watchin’ us as we speak. Ye think he’ll ignore such an act o’ insolence? We be prisoners, all o’ us. Prisoners don’ git to decide when an’ where they fight.”

Ando expected to get such an answer, and unfortunately there was no good counterargument that didn’t involve weapons. So be it, he thought. He turned back to his soldiers. “Minimal bloodshed. As soon as we have the advantage, we disarm only.”

“Where be fun in that?” Mrz said with a grin. Ando didn’t respond, hoping the horned warrior was joking again.

Ando backed up to rejoin the front line, six men, all with shields, which they now raised in unison, creating a wall of metal. The others huddled behind them, prepared to execute the maneuver they’d practiced dozens of times in the largest cell until they’d perfected it. The dwarves watched the entire spectacle with undisguised amusement on their faces.

The dwarf leader raised his axe in the air and shouted, “Kill ’em!” Once more, the dwarves charged, dark eyes like spots of coal on their ruddy faces.

“Steady!” Ando ordered. He’d seen even the most well-trained men, not his own, of course, break formation under the onslaught of a charging foe. The dwarves were perhaps twenty of their own shorter paces away from them now. “Steady!” Pride prickled through him as his shield bearers held their position, motionless but firm. Ten paces…five…

“Now!” Ando shouted, and his shield men responded instantly, bursting from their haunches and shoving their shields forward like battering rams to meet the enemy and use their momentum against them. Given the size of their opponent, Ando expected the tactic to be a hammer blow on a nail, crashing through the dwarven ranks, toppling them like dominoes.

Instead, they found themselves hitting into the equivalent of a brick wall, the dwarves hardy and stalwart, using their low center of gravity to maintain their footing even as the larger men shoved at them with the heavy shields. While most of the dwarves wielded axes, the few with swords shoved them into the gaps between the shields. One of Ando’s shield men was stabbed between his armor in the arm, and the positioning of his shield wavered, opening an even larger gap, which the dwarves’ leader exploited, swinging his axe with enough force to fell a small tree. The already wounded man tried to dive away, but the axe head connected solidly with his breastplate, hammering him backwards as dwarves shoved through the opening.

Luckily, the shield men, Ando included, were only a distraction, a target for the dwarves to focus their attention. The true strategy had been put into motion by General Raan the moment Ando and his shield men had shoved forward. Raan had sent his men, including Sola, Mrz and Josiah, around the sides of the shield wall even as the dwarves smashed into it head on. The dual flanking maneuver, as simple as it was, worked perfectly, and now the men fell upon the group of dwarves from the sides and rear, encircling them.

That should’ve ended the battle, as Ando had already planted the seed of a truce into the dwarf leader’s mind. Having never fought such folk, however, Ando was unaware of their mettle. The dwarf leader shouted some unintelligible command and half the troop about-faced to combat the new threat. Several dwarves had already been cut down, enough to give Ando’s men the advantage in numbers but insufficient to put a swift end to the contest as he’d hoped.

Instead, any semblance of a formation shattered, the fray spilling beyond the edges as the dwarves fought like wildcats to break through and prevent themselves from being hemmed in on all sides. Unlike Ando’s men, who’d been instructed to avoid using killing strokes, the dwarves sought to inflict mortal blows with every swing of their axes.

Now that its purpose had been served and the distance between men had lengthened, Ando tossed his unwieldy shield aside and gazed about him to locate the dwarf leader, who seemed to be the rope tethering his men to their purpose. Instead, he spotted Mrz raining down blows on a sturdy dwarf who had no answer for the tenacity and brutality of his foe. That wasn’t what caught Ando’s attention, however. It was another of his own, charging not toward a dwarf foe of his own but toward Mrz. Sola, his fists, one gloved and one gripping a blade, churning at his sides.

“Dammit,” Ando muttered, kicking aside a dwarf that attempted to hack at him from the side, racing in the direction of his two men, both of whom had made promises—one, a blood oath—to be temporary allies while imprisoned together. One, it seemed, had lied, despite spilling his own blood to secure his promise.

Mrz shoved forward, oblivious to the threat looming behind him. The dwarf stumbled under the onslaught, falling back onto his arse and losing his grip on his axe. With a mighty bellow, Mrz fell upon him, raising his hammer to cave the dwarf’s head in. Sola wasn’t more than a half-dozen steps away from his target now, gripping his sword with two hands, drawing it back…

Ando was too far separated and had no ranged weapon to use. All he had left was his voice, which he used now to full effect, shouting, “Mrz! Behind you!”

Mrz clearly heard his warning, because he stiffened, his head half-turning back, but not far enough around to see Sola. That’s when two bad things happened:

First, the dwarf slipped a dagger from a leg sheath and stabbed it through Mrz’s boot.

Second, Sola stabbed Mrz in the back—in more ways than one.

Mrz groaned in pain, back arching. His survival instincts kicked in and, despite the pain he must’ve been in, he whirled around and landed a punch on Sola’s jaw even as the Solarii man tried to twist the blade brutally. Sola fell back, dragging his sword with him. The rend in Mrz’s thick leather armor welled with blood, draining down his back. The Grizari turned to face the dwarf, bucking his head forward and slamming his horns into the man’s helm. Ando had reached Mrz’s side by this point and was close enough to see the dwarf’s eyes roll back in his head as he lost consciousness.

Mrz extracted the dagger from his foot and tossed it aside like a small snake that had bitten him not knowing his prey would bite back. “We need to get pressure on your wounds or you’ll bleed out,” Ando said, keeping one eye fixed on Sola, who was still on his back, looking rather dazed.

“No time. Must finish fight first,” Mrz said. “Griz are made of thicker stuff than humans. Return to fight.”

Ando didn’t know much about the Grizari, but knew the same wounds inflicted on a human would be mortal if left untreated. And yet he trusted his new friend. He placed a firm hand on his shoulder and said, “I’ll return as soon as I can.”

He realized he’d taken his attention off Sola for a few moments, and when he turned back to locate the bastard he was gone. He scanned the terrain, where the battle seemed to be slowing, his men earning the upper hand.

He finally spotted the Solarii soldier separated from the fray, wandering about as though lost. He still gripped his sword, but it was like he didn’t have the strength to carry it, dragging the weapon along the ground, the tip carving a meandering trail in the dirt. Ando’s impulse was to go to the man, to demand an answer as to why he’d done what he’d done, but he knew his first responsibility was to the rest of his men and to the enemy, to ensure as many of them as possible survived the day and lived to fight another.

Which, of course, was when the third gate opened.

Any who were still fighting stopped, weapons locked together but no longer trying to gain the advantage, all heads turning toward that third tunnel, which now stood wide open. At first there was only a path that ran the gambit from the bright swath of sunlight to complete darkness and every shade of gold and gray in between.

Ando angled his eyes up toward the dais once more. The king was no longer leaning back in his chair with that air of superiority; rather, his elbows were on his knees, his expression one of concentration as he, too, stared at the third arena entrance. For the first time since Ando had laid eyes on the man, he looked almost human.

“What evil…,” a voice grunted, and it was the dwarf leader, who was still very much alive, and clearly had been planning to fight to the last rather than admit defeat and wave the white flag of surrender. The bearded man squinted into the tunnel’s darkness, as though searching for a hidden sign. There was no sign, but Ando now saw what had drawn the remark from the dwarf:

Spots of red in the dark, glowing eyes roiling with fire. One pair, two.

Three-four-five-six.

The bodies attached to the eyes gradually materialized from the darkness as reflected rays of sunlight fell upon them. The bodies were sleek and sinuous, but also cracked in places, rivers of something red and glowing, not unlike their eyes, visible through tears in their skin. They were long and wild, like panthers, but with two heads each, which explained the six sets of eyes with only three bodies to show for them. Each head had slits for nostrils, and as they breathed, puffs of smoke emerged, roiling into the sky. As far as Ando could tell, the creatures didn’t have mouths, but then he noticed a thin line of darkness beneath the smoke-breathing slits.

“Demons,” General Raan said. “He’s pitting us against demons. The bastard.”

Ando, of course, had heard of such creatures of the darkness. Everyone had. The Rifts were talked about like they were things a world apart, even though each of the major kingdoms had a portal to the underworld known as the Void, save for Odin, which had been spared in the aftermath of the Godswar.

“You’ve faced such creatures before?” he asked, raising his voice to be heard across the battlefield. Raan had been locked in combat with a dwarf who now stood beside him like a comrade, both facing the new enemy, gripping their weapons.

“No, but I’ve heard the stories. The Infernal Pit isn’t far from the Solarii border.”

So this is it, Ando thought. The answer—or at least a portion of the answer—to his question about why the king had waited so long to thrust them back into the arena. He’d been arranging for three demons to be captured at the Infernal Pit and brought here to be unleashed at this exact moment. But why? Just for sport? Just for his own personal entertainment? Clearly he’d been unwilling to risk the lives of his subjects, not allowing them to bear witness to the spectacle. Speaking of which…heavy footfalls resounded across the stone benches as dozens of soldiers filed in from the wings, rounding the arena and creating a wall of armored men. Ando suspected the soldiers served a dual-purpose: to protect the king and to prevent the demons from escaping. It was also then that he noticed the chains attached to the demons’ hind legs, which they dragged behind them, the long metal links disappearing back into the tunnel. Ando wondered how long those chains were and if the demons would be able to reach the furthest corners of the arena.

The four-legged demons continued to stalk forward, red eyes jerking from prey to prey, as if searching for any signs of weakness.

One of them stopped, gaze trained upon…

Shite, Ando thought, spotting what the demon had. He’d forgotten about Sola. The man was still wandering aimlessly about, well apart from the main body of men. If he was aware of the demons or the danger he was in, he gave no outward sign. He seemed to be in a trance of sorts, his lips moving, muttering something only he could hear.

Ando was about to shout a warning when a flash of movement captured his gaze. Mrz, his back and foot both injured, galloped in a lilting, limp-run sort of way, war hammer gripped in one meaty hand while the other hand and arm hung lifelessly on the other side. The Grizari warrior ran not for the Solarii man who’d stabbed him in the back but for an empty space between the demon and its victim.

The demon noticed the newcomer, too, and leapt from its hind legs, propelling itself to a speed that would rival the fastest horses in Odin in mere seconds. The other two demons remained still, though they paused to watch the other as it tore toward its unwitting prey.

Even with his head start, Mrz couldn’t come close to rivalling the speed of the demon, but he managed to accelerate further, angling less toward the middle of the vanishing gap between Sola and the hunter, and more toward Sola himself, who’d now dropped his sword in the dirt and lifted his own eyes toward the sky, searching the clouds for some answer he couldn’t determine on his own.

Ando realized he wasn’t breathing as he watched the scene unfold, helpless to do anything to change its course. He released his breath just as the demon leapt for Sola, going airborne, daggerlike claws wicking out as it prepared to shred the man to ribbons.

Mrz launched himself forward too, his powerful body ripping through the air as he swung his hammer. The head of his hammer crashed into the demon’s back at the same time his horns bashed into its side, knocking the creature off course. One of Mrz’s feet hit Sola in the shoulder, twisting him around, but the bulk of the impact was between the Grizari warrior and the demon, who tumbled end over end until they crashed into the wall.

For a raw, heart-stopping moment, there was no movement from anyone, but then the demon shook itself off, a quiver trembling down the whole of its body, and released a hiss of frustration at having been denied its prey. The creature was astride Mrz, who wasn’t moving. The dark slit Ando had noticed below its nostrils opened. No, ‘opened’ felt like the wrong word. More like peeled, the flaps of skin pulling back to reveal an enflamed head with unburning jaws that spread themselves apart like the petals of a budding flower to unleash rows of fiery teeth.

A sound emerged from the flames in the demon’s mouth that might’ve been the spawn of nightmares, a scream laced with torment and pain and unspent violence. The demon reared itself upward like a cobra preparing to strike.

Ando might as well have been leagues away, the distance too great to cover in the time required. Just before the killing strike was completed, Ando noticed movement nearby. Sola, who no longer looked like a lost child, bent down and scooped something up from the ground with his gloved hand, whipping it forward and releasing it in the demon’s direction. A fist-sized stone. Ando watched its trajectory until it plonked off the back of the demon’s flame-riddled skull before it could finish its work of death. It shrieked again, snapping its long neck around to locate its attacker, but Sola was already off, collecting his sword and then running, sprinting for the rest of the men as if a demon was on his heels; which turned out to be a good idea, because the demon sprang off of Mrz’s chest, leaving him unconscious but most likely alive, racing after its prior prey which was now its prey once again. As if some unspoken command had been passed between them, the other two demons chose that moment to begin their own attack, the three demons closing in on the pack of humans and dwarves who were no longer enemies in this fight, commingling into a single fighting unit.

“Prepare!” Ando roared, the distance between the demons closing by half, then half again. They made a gap for Sola, who rushed past them to relative safety, out of breath and spent from his harried flight across the arena. Ando released a guttural roar and his dwarven counterpart did the same, their respective soldiers joining in the cry as the demons launched themselves at what to them was likely little more than fresh meat.

One of the dwarves was instantly devastated as the fire-headed demon chomped down on his head, rocking him back and landing atop him in a blaze of flames. The other two demons had not yet unpeeled their faces, but it didn’t much matter, such was their fury. One of the shield men managed to raise his shield in time to block the demon, but its claws simply pierced the steel, stabbing through the man’s face. These first two attacks occurred a fair distance from Ando. The third did not.

The final demon leapt over the initial line of men and dwarves, nearly landing atop Sola, whose hands were on his knees as he tried to catch his breath. The creature spun rapidly around, tail slashing Sola’s face and drawing blood. Ando slashed at its side with his sword, managing to cut through its flesh, opening yet another long line in its skin, revealing more of its underbelly, the ardent flames roiling across the surface.

The creature shrieked as its face peeled away to unleash its true nature, which was born of hellfire and fury. Fiery maw agape, it launched itself at Ando, but he’d seen how these bastards liked to hunt from the chase involving Sola and Mrz, so he was prepared for its response, diving hard to the ground and simultaneously stabbing his blade straight up like he was trying to pierce the sky itself.

His blade sunk deep but was then wrenched from his gauntleted hands as the demon’s momentum carried it past overhead. Ando fought back to his feet and prepared to dive away once more, but then stopped himself when he realized no attack was forthcoming. The demon was struggling to stand, its sinewy legs faltering as splashes of sizzling blood spilled from the wound in its abdomen.

Ando strode toward the creature as it lost strength and collapsed. He kicked it hard in the side, sparks flying from the gaps in its skin. It toppled over, releasing a final shriek that was more pitiful than nightmarish. Ando grabbed his sword by the hilt and yanked it from the demon’s stomach, spilling even more flaming ichor. The hilt was hot to the touch, even through his thick gloves, and he had to pass it from hand to hand until it cooled. The blade itself was scorched and black.

One down, Ando thought, spinning back around to survey the status of the other two demons. One wasn’t moving, several dwarves including their leader standing around it, hacking at it like a log with their axes. With each blow, sparks flew and scorching blood spewed out, forcing the dwarves to dance back to avoid being burned. The demon hadn’t even had the chance to peel back its face like the other two. The third demon was the one that had tried to maul Mrz. It shrieked from its flame-filled throat but backed away as the rest of the surviving men and dwarves advanced, weapons at the ready.

Ando almost laughed when he saw what was happening.

The killing stroke came, not from the front but from behind, where Mrz had regained consciousness and staggered, bleeding and bruised and injured, across the arena to rejoin the fight. The men had noticed him, too, but the demon had not, its attention focused on the numerous prey whose flesh it would never get the chance to taste.

Mrz’s hammer crashed into the demon’s head with such force the skull was removed clean off its neck, tumbling end over end, bits of flaming bone breaking away as it went. The skull landed and began to roll the same moment the rest of its body thudded to the ground, nothing more than a lifeless, burning pile now.

Ando exhaled deeply as he turned to look up at the dais, which he’d completely forgotten about during the fight. He barely caught a glimpse of the back of the king’s black and green cape as he exited the arena, Amari close behind. The only one remaining on the dais was the pink-skinned woman, who continued to clutch her head, her teeth gritted. Slowly, with great effort, she stood and followed the others out.

Ando sighed, suddenly feeling bone weary despite the brevity of the fight. All that was left to do was count the dead and tend to the injured.

Strangely, a healer—a timid, queasy-looking sort of fellow who acted like he’d rather be in the arena with three fire-born demons than in the dungeons with their lot—was made available for Ando and his crew, which had lost six good men while gaining seven grumbling dwarves.

“Me stomach’s emptier than a whorehouse with no whores!”

“Me left big toe hurts! Healer, I need yer healin’!”

“This straw is poky! Anyone ’ave some less poky straw fer a pillow?”

And on and on. The dwarves had the natural ability to find something to complain about no matter the situation. And given their current situation was woefully bleak, there was plenty for them to complain about, including being too hot (or too cold), too tired (or too awake), too bored (or too entertained). The dwarf that had complained about being too entertained had been sitting and watching Mrz’s antics with the healer before declaring he needed “some bloody peace and quiet”. Mrz, considering his numerous injuries, was in rather good spirits.

“Never keeled a demon, not one,” he declared as the healer applied a greenish ointment to his damaged foot, which had been impaled straight through by the dwarf’s dagger. (The dwarf, whose name turned out to be Mudd, had survived the ordeal, and now he and Mrz had become fast friends.)

“What kind o’ warrior has never killed a demon ’fore?” Mudd asked.

“None of the Griz have,” Mrz said. “Glynn Kerr and his ilk control the Rift in Beggar’s Canyon, keep all fun to themselves.” Ando thought Mrz had a strange definition of ‘fun’.

Thus far, Ando had been content to listen to Mrz and the dwarf chatter on, but hearing the dwarf’s question piqued his curiosity. “You’ve killed demons before?”

“I never said I killed a demon,” Mudd said. “An’ I never said I was a warrior!” The dwarf chuckled at his own humor and Mrz offered a resounding “Har!” They really might’ve been brothers separated at birth if not for one having horns and the other reaching the height of a boy ten name days old.

“Where do you hail from and how do you find yourselves imprisoned in Wolfsgaard?” Ando asked instead.

“Tis truly an amusin’ story, you see,” Mudd started, but then groaned when the dwarf leader entered the cell and kicked him in the ribs.

“Shut yer trap. There’ll be no exaggerating the details.” The tallest of the dwarfs—who still might’ve been a human child if not for his impressive beard and thickset build—turned toward Ando. “Mudd’s got a real talent fer storytellin’, if ye get me drift.”

Ando nodded. He’d met soldiers like that before, who could turn an easy victory into one rescued from the arms of bitter defeat. Melodramatic is the word, he thought. “Sorry we got off on the wrong foot,” Ando said, extending his hand in the dwarf’s direction.

“Is that a jape at me expense?” Mrz said, lifting his foot while the frazzled healer tried to wrangle a bandage around it.

Ando and the dwarf leader ignored the injured Grizari as they clasped arms. The dwarf had a solid grip. “’Twas me own fault,” the dwarf said. “I shoulda listened to ye. Might be more of me men alive. I’ll jest hafta live with that.”

Ando was somewhat surprised to hear such contrition in the dwarf’s voice. During their brief discussion in the arena, the dwarf had come across as the arrogant type. “It was an impossible situation. If we didn’t fight, the king might’ve done something drastic, like lined us up and chopped off our heads. What’s your name?”

“Captain Bartholomew James Ambrosia the Third,” he said with a grand bow that left his beard dragging through the dirt. When he rose again, bits of straw were stuck in his facial hair. “But most jest call me Barty.”

“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Barty,” Ando said. “I’m—”

“High Commander Andovier Helm,” Barty said. “Yer a famous man, even in Calabria.”

Calabria, Ando thought. I should have known. Calabria was known for being home to an odd assortment of non-human folk, so it wasn’t a surprise that the dwarves called the vast forest kingdom their home. Geographically, Calabria was part of Kingfall, but even the Terrans didn’t seem to have much interest in controlling the overgrown territory. Learning the dwarves were from Tree Country, as it was often referred, made it even stranger that they were now prisoners of King Gaard in Teravainen’s capital city.

Before he could ask, however, the healer had finished up with Mrz, having bandaged both his back and foot. The man stuttered something about getting plenty of rest and keeping off the foot, which Mrz laughed at, slapping the man heavily on the back and nearly knocking him over. When the healer had left the cell to find other injured soldiers, Mrz said, “Yeh ever met any Tree Folk?”

Ando cast his eyes to the ceiling. ‘Tree Folk’ was considered to be a fairly derogatory term, and though the dwarves themselves were not ‘Tree Folk’, who knew if they had any friends or allies who were.

Thankfully, the dwarves didn’t seem bothered by the slang term. It was Barty who answered: “The true Calabrians are snooty, stick-up-yer-arse folk that’d rather trade words with a squirrel than with a ground dweller.”

“Ground dweller?” Ando asked.

“One who lives in the ground. In other words, a dwarf. We stick to the mountains, the northern side o’ the Spine, though on occasion we may venture further south if we be feelin’ ambitious.”

It was interesting to learn that dwarves inhabited a portion of the Spine. Ando had always believed that Glynn Kerr controlled the entirety of the mountain range separating Avadon from Calabria. And yet, it still didn’t explain how the dwarves had got themselves mixed up with the Terrans. “And you’re here how…?” he asked.

“Ah, yes, I was jest comin’ to that. It’s not really an amusin’ story like Mudd said, ’cept fer the part where ol’ Mudd ’ere was havin’ hisself a cool bath in a mountain pool when he was, quite literally, caught with his pants down!”

“Could never resist a cool mountain pool on a hot day,” Mudd said, nodding seriously.

Mrz slapped his knee at that, so hard that he cringed when the impact must’ve traveled into his damaged foot.

“Who caught you? The Terrans?” Ando asked, ignoring the part about Mudd’s skinny-dipping habit.

“It was a shock, fer sure, seein’ soldiers in green an’ black armor in Avadonian territory. Musta been a hunnerd of ’em—”

“A thousand,” Mudd interjected.

“—swarmin’ down the cliffs, grabbin’ us roughly an’ bindin’ us, like we were the ones trespassin’ an’ not ’em. Anyway, they marched us through a pass in the mountains. ’Twas all kind o’ activity a-happenin’. Miners a-workin’, haulin’ barrels from a cave mouth and then down the windin’ path to the plains below. A whole operation, it was.”

Terran miners and soldiers in Avadon? Ando thought. He was no politician, but he knew that Glynn Kerr detested the Terrans. Hell, he detested everyone and everything except gold. Could he really have reached an agreement with King Gaard allowing him to establish a mining operation in the southern portion of the Spine? In Ando’s mind, the chances were less than zero, which meant the operation was being conducted in secret, right under Kerr’s nose. It also explained why the Terran soldiers took the dwarves prisoner, when they could’ve easily just remained hidden and let the dwarves pass by; they were likely under strict orders to kill or apprehend anyone in the vicinity who might be able to reveal their secret.

“What were they mining?” Ando asked.

“Only one resource I know of that’s mined into barrels rather than chests,” Barty said. “Magenum.”

Ando’s head cocked to the side. Magenum. Ando was no mage, nor did he have many dealings with magic folk, who had always come across as strange to him, but he did know the value of the liquid used by spellcasters. The Isle of Mages would generally outbid everyone for the liquid, as their need was the greatest. Their entire floating island was supposedly dependent on maintaining a sufficient supply. He was about to ask Barty to finish his story and leave no detail out when footsteps echoed down the hall.

Oh no, he thought. After their long reprieve from the arena, the king was going to force them to fight only hours after their bloodbath with the demons. It turned out he was half right. It was the king who had sent the soldiers, but not to make them fight in the arena.

“Against the walls!” the soldiers shouted at the prisoners, threatening them with swords. The prisoners, both men and dwarves, glared at the Terran soldiers, but backed up until their shoulder blades touched the walls. At least a dozen soldiers armed and armored as though prepared to march into battle spread out through the corridor and the cell.

“Helm,” one of them said, a man with a bulbous nose and an easy smile that felt more like a sneer. “You’ve been summoned to see the king. Now.”

“Over me dead body,” Mrz protested, starting to push to his feet despite the healer’s orders to get lots of rest.

Ando stopped him with a raised hand. “It’s fine,” he said. “This meeting was inevitable.” He was actually surprised it hadn’t happened sooner. Ando had expected the king, who was known for being an arrogant, brutal man, would want to gloat about his great victory at Westport. Ando almost wanted him to, though he didn’t know whether he would be able to stop himself from attacking the man, regardless of how many guards stood between them.

He stood, and the soldier tossed him a set of ankle and wrist shackles without instruction. Ando linked them into place. Two soldiers closed in from the sides and shoved him forward roughly. “If ye hurt hair on head, I will grab guts and pull out through mouth,” Mrz said.

The soldiers only laughed as they filed back out, surrounding Ando.

Once the dungeon door had been slammed shut and locked, the smile-sneer soldier said, “High Commander Andovier Helm…” The way he used his honorific made it sound like a curse rather than an honor. “Lost two brothers to your forces at Kingsfort.”

Ando said nothing.

“Too bad you’ll never see your little stronghold again.” He spat at Ando’s boots.

Ando said nothing.

“The king might want you alive for now, but he’ll grow bored of you soon enough. I’ll offer to be the one to slit your filthy Odinian throat.”

Ando said nothing because this man’s words held no meaning. Until they did.

“At least that bitch and two runts of yours got what was com—”

It was like the demon Ando had killed earlier that day had somehow entered his body, lying in wait, lurking, until now. Ando went from calm and distant to violent and present in an instant, raising his shackled hands to grab the man around the throat, shoving him back into the tunnel’s side wall, lifting him into the air. Strange sounds emerged from the man’s mouth as he tried to gain a breath, but Ando only dug his thumbs in further, choking him.

He was aware of the rest of the soldiers all around him, shouting at him to release the man, blades pressing into his neck—he could be skewered if one of them sneezed—but he didn’t care, his entire focus on this man, who represented all he’d lost.

He saw her: Moira. She was looking at him with concern. Ando, who are you now? I don’t recognize you anymore.

Those nine words on her lips forced a sob from the back of his throat. “I don’t know,” he sobbed, hot tears slicing down his cheeks and into his stubble, which was verging on a full beard now.

And then she was gone, leaving him feeling empty and cold, the rage vanishing as he slumped to the stone floor, body shaking. He heard the soldier he’d nearly choked to death gasp as he collapsed in a pile, clutching at his neck. “You gutless pig,” he snarled, his words coming out garbled from his sore throat. “I should pluck your eyes from your head.” The man stood and kicked him hard in the ribs, but he gave the man no satisfaction, absorbing the impact as though it were nothing but wind washing over him. Another kick. Pain seared through him. More, he thought, as the image of Moira that had been burned into his mind started to fade. Another kick, harder this time. He thought it might’ve cracked a rib. Her words lost their meaning. More. Please.

The man fell upon him, raining down blows on his face. He didn’t even try to get his hands up to protect himself, his vision blurring amidst the onslaught. He couldn’t see her anymore. He couldn’t see anything.

More, he thought.

“Enough, Captain!” one of the other soldiers yelled and he felt the weight of the man lifting off him, the impacts ceasing, his face bleeding and bruised.

Why couldn’t they have just let the man kill him? Then his pain would be over. Whatever the men in the dungeons—Mrz and Raan and Josiah and now a dwarf named Barty—thought he was, what he could still be, they were sorely mistaken, for he was a shade of the man he once was.

Without her. Without them.

I. Am. Nothing.

Soldiers bore him up under his arms, muttering about the king waiting and cursing both him and their own captain for what had transpired. The part of his face around his eyes was so badly swollen that he couldn’t make out more than a sliver of light as he was stumble-marched down the rest of the corridor and up a staircase. He tripped twice, banging his knees, relishing the pain that lanced through him, which continued to stave off his darkest thoughts.

Bright light assaulted his eyes through the slits as they entered a portion of the castle that was aboveground. The air tasted cleaner as he breathed it in, not dank and musty like in the dungeons.

“He’s bleeding all over the marble,” one of the soldiers hissed. “Get him a cloth, for gods’ sake!”

Ando felt something as soft as he’d ever felt pressed to his bleeding lips and then he was shoved forward once more. He turned his head and took in a sliver of red walls and a painting depicting a scene he couldn’t quite make out. They turned a corner and then he was steered through an archway and into a room that instantly felt cooler. They passed between stone columns on the left and right and then stopped.

Directly ahead was the king, sitting on his throne built on the lives of those Ando had loved.

“Were my instructions not clear?” the king said, a bite in his tone to rival that of a real wolf, not a man playing at being one.

The voice of the man Ando had choked and then been kicked and beaten by—the captain, apparently—arose. “As clear as crystal. My apologies. I was provoked. He choked me within a sliver of my own life.”

“You had twelve soldiers to one man. And you let him choke you?”

Ando despised the king, but he wasn’t opposed to him berating the evil man standing beside him. While he was doing so, Ando angled his head to the left and right, finding Crown Princess Amari in her usual position on the king’s right. On the left, once again rather than Prince Jarrod, sat the pink-skinned woman he’d seen twice now in the arena. She was staring at him, crystalline blue eyes matching her hair. She seemed to be concentrating on something, her lips pursed.

She’s in pain again, Ando thought. Because I’m in pain. He could almost see her flinch each time he was wracked with the throbbing pain in his cheeks, eyes and ribs.

If Ando’s pain caused this unusual woman pain, what came next was far, far worse for her.

The king said nothing, just nodded in the direction of one of the other guards, who strode forward, steel shrieking as his blade was dragged from his scabbard, the sound of the smile-sneer-almost-choked-to-death captain’s voice as he begged, pleading for mercy where there was none to be found, his final breath as he was impaled on the sword of one he’d commanded not so long ago, the thump of his body to the floor, the pooling blood surrounding Ando’s boots until they were lone islands in a crimson sea.

Ando breathed, feeling nothing for the dead man lying beside him.

The pink-skinned woman looked like she was having trouble breathing, though she tried to hide it, turning away from the king as she clutched at her air-starved chest. The king returned his attention to Ando. And then he said the last thing Ando expected him to, words absent the gloating condescension he’d expected. “You and your men proved your abilities against the demons in the arena. You will march south, to the Infernal Pit. Once there, you will assist my soldiers in repelling the demons. The Rift has widened. The situation is dire. I know of your reputation, High Commander Helm. If you fail, there are dozens of peasant villages between here and the Pit. Hundreds of innocents will perish under the demon tide. Make your choice.”

Despite his pain and anguish, despite everything this man had ruined in his life, despite all he had lost, this was no choice for Ando.

“I will go,” he said, tasting blood.

Nine

Aisling Brightshine

Wolfsgaard, Teravainen

IF THE WALLS HAD EARS AND MINDS AND VOICES, Aisling wondered what they would say.

“I’m sorry,” she said to the prince, who was here for his daily visit. She was still shaken from her latest experience in the arena. Sitting in the large, plush chair Prince Jarrod typically occupied hadn’t changed the result, the violence of what she’d witnessed trembling through her more powerfully than if the earth itself had quaked beneath her. And what had transpired afterwards when the king had summoned the prisoner known as Andovier Helm…

She shuddered again.

“Aisling,” Jarrod said, having ignored her apology. “Are you cold? I will call for a blanket to be brought immediately.”

A small laugh escaped her lips, vanquishing the tremors. “My kind are not capable of feeling hot or cold,” she said.

“Truly?”

“Truly.”

“Remarkable.” For some reason she loved hearing the awe in his tone and in his wide-eyed expression whenever he learned another tidbit about her kind. “Then why…” A wave of realization seemed to wash over him, and his demeanor changed, concern lacing his features. “You’re hurt,” he said. Over their last several private meetings, she’d entrusted him with a small sliver of the truth about her—how witnessing or even hearing about violence shook her to the core, seeming to rattle her bones from the inside out.

“Not physically,” she said, though her chest did ache horribly.

“I shall demand my father stop forcing you to attend the arena,” he said, and she blinked at the courage in his tone, like she’d spotted a rare creature in the wild—a dragon or dreadbeast perhaps.

Jarrod standing up to his father on her behalf, however, was an act she simply could not abide, for it had the power to ruin all her plans. The king, though foolish and naïve in some ways on account of his belief that he was invincible, wasn’t so stupid as to be blind to the truth when it danced a jig in front of his very eyes. If Jarrod began boldly petitioning for her, the king would soon realize her gambit, and then what would happen? All those thoughts passed through her head in an instant, and she quickly said, “No. Thank you, Jarrod, you are most kind, but that would not make a difference. Violence follows me and your father wherever we go.” The last was a strange thing for her to say, and yet she knew it to be true as soon as the words passed her lips. It made sense in an ironic sort of way. That one who enjoyed inflicting violence and one with the ability to heal those whom violence had been inflicted upon should both leave a trail of corpses in their wake.

“I wish it weren’t so,” Jarrod said, with meaning.

“Me too.”

Silence stretched between them, an animal of the feline variety, seeking a lazy afternoon nap. Such was the level of comfort their odd relationship had reached, something she’d not experienced with a human since that first time, all those years ago. Even their silence felt comfortable.

“For what?” Jarrod said suddenly, crinkling his brow.

Given how much time had passed since she’d initially started this conversation, many would’ve required clarification on what he was referring to, but Aisling did not, her mind like a steel hunting trap. He was finally responding to the unexplained apology she’d offered. His reaction was sincere, she gauged. Which didn’t surprise her. Jarrod was an enigma amongst men. He had no desire to conquer or to expand his family’s power. He seemed to have no interest in power at all, despite being second in the Gaardian bloodline. He did, on the other hand, have great interest in her.

She hated having to use that to her advantage, but Aisling had learned long ago that the only way to make her existence more bearable was to pander to the malleable emotions of those she was forced to serve. And Jarrod, not unlike his father, was rather malleable, a lump of human clay.

(She didn’t want to care for him, so she didn’t.)

(She knew the best liars were those who didn’t lie to themselves. She wasn’t one of those.)

He was waiting for her to respond, but she’d been lost in the place she would never allow anyone else to get lost, the inner workings of her centuries-old mind like a forest maze, even to her. “It seems I’ve unintentionally managed to commandeer your seat on your father’s left hand,” she said.

Jarrod laughed. She’d grown accustomed to hearing the sound, and she couldn’t help the warmth that spread through her each time she heard it. “Don’t apologize for that. You’re saving me from the endless monotony of meetings upon meetings about war strategy, not to mention watching the pointless battles in the arena.”

It was hard for her to hold her tongue. His casual talk of death, like it was nothing more than the meaningless games of children, was appalling, but it also wasn’t his fault. She’d learned many things about the prince over the weeks since he’d first visited her, and that included how desensitized he’d become to seeing men kill men.

Again, silence reigned for several long moments.

Each day when Jarrod visited, he wheeled his mother in her chair. She knew he was doing it in hopes that she would change her mind about being able to heal the woman. Unfortunately, his hopes couldn’t change the truth: There were things in this world that, once broken, could never be put back together. Normally, the woman played little part in their conversations, her eyes roaming randomly around the room, her hand trying to catch those fleeting lights, like fireflies in the dark, that represented—to her—the lives of her three children.

Now, however, her milky eyes were not roaming but locked on her. Staring. Just staring.

It was rather disconcerting. “Her Majesty seems rather well today,” Aisling said.

Jarrod smiled, always happy when Aisling mentioned his mother. She cursed herself for not staying silent. Just mentioning the woman was like throwing a drowning man a rope amidst a tempest. “She’s been like this since this morning. Not lucid, exactly, but more focused than usual.”

“I’m glad,” Aisling said, offering nothing more than that for fear the prince would ask her to help again. She couldn’t bear to see the disappointment on his face.

“Since we’re on the subject of my mother…,” Jarrod said anyway, before Aisling could steer the conversation on to other topics, like the prince’s missing brother and the magenum deposit he’d evidently located before vanishing somewhere in Avadon.

“Jarrod, I—” Aisling started, planning to cut the question she knew he was going ask off at the knees.

Instead, it was the prince who interrupted her, which was most unlike him. “I’ve persuaded my father to let you care for my mother in the evenings,” he said quickly.

Aisling’s mind clamped onto the statement, spinning it around, inspecting it, trying to make sense of the senseless. She was no nursemaid. Plus, why would the king agree to such a thing considering it was his horrifying actions that had resulted in his wife’s condition? Did he feel a sense of guilt? Everything she’d seen from the most powerful man in Teravainen so far indicated he wasn’t capable of guilt, but what if she were wrong? It was also surprising the king had acquiesced to such a request from his son, whose opinion he seemed to respect as much as a dog’s. “When do I begin these new duties?” she asked slowly.

“Tonight,” Jarrod said cheerfully, as if he was doing all three of them a favor. “I will send for you when it is time.”

Long after the prince had gone, Aisling was left thinking about this new wrinkle in the smooth tapestry of her plans. Something about this small, seemingly unimportant change felt like fate at work. And Aisling knew all about the fickle but necessary work of fate.

Though Aisling had no access to direct sunlight in her underground chamber, she did have a small, barred half-window exposed to outside light and air. Sometimes after her sessions with the king, she would overturn her unneeded chamber pot—godlings didn’t engage in filthy human necessities such as urination and defecation—and stand on it, stretching upward on her tiptoes until her lips were close enough to breathe in some of that fresh air, which smelled of lilacs and oleander, frangipanis and peonies. That the royal gardens would be so close and yet inaccessible save for her keen sense of smell was a particularly cruel sort of hell.

Now, however, she had no thoughts of stretching to smell flowers, her dread growing as the small measure of light from the half-window faded, dimming to dusky twilight. As the light vanished, the magic-infused torches just outside her cell flared to life, casting long shadows through the barred window cut into her door. A gift from Grimfire, she thought. One I’m sure he regrets.

Footsteps sounded, still a great distance away but to her ears so loud they might’ve been just outside the door. Not Jarrod’s, she thought, as she’d memorized the cadence of his footfalls after the first time she’d heard them. She cocked her head to the side, listening to the familiar sound. The prince had said he would send someone to retrieve her, but she also didn’t recognize the sound as any of the usual guards’ heavy boot clomps. And yet…

Her eyebrows lifted when she finally connected the footsteps to an image of the bearer. Expressionless, not a quiver of emotion, even when Aisling could tell there were storms gathering somewhere deep inside.

Crown Princess Amari Gaard.

She was alone, walking at a brisk pace, but not with the certainty that was typical for the young woman. Her pace was more…harried, uneven…not quite a run but not a walk either. It had taken Aisling so long to determine who was approaching because of how unexpected Amari’s presence was—the princess had never attended her in her underground chamber before. Even in the meetings where they were both present, the king’s firstborn rarely looked at her, much less acknowledged her, and yet she was here, now.

For what purpose?

Because of her whirling thoughts and her keen hearing, the princess’s approach felt as though it took an eternity, when it was really only a few minutes at most. When she did finally arrive outside Aisling’s door, a shadow fell across the window as she blocked the torchlight. And yet she didn’t enter, just standing perfectly still, breathing, like she was trying to come to a decision.

“I won’t bite,” Aisling said, not one to endure the unpredictable emotions of humans for longer than necessary.

“I know that.”

“Then why do you hover outside like a no-armed mute? Or do you not have the key?”

“I have the key, two arms and a voice.” Again, Aisling couldn’t help but appreciate the bite in Amari’s voice and her quick mind. She was as different to her brother as the sun was to the rain. Aisling wondered whether the youngest born, Sampson, favored either of his elder siblings or if he was different still.

Aisling said nothing, waiting.

After several more breaths, the princess’s breathing evened out, and then the keys clinked in the lock. Ah, Aisling thought, understanding the purpose of the delay. She wanted to compose herself so that she comes across as a woman of her station rather than an out-of-breath girl. That single realization told Aisling much about the woman who now entered her humble chamber.

The marks on her face told Aisling a lot more. Since the last blow her father had dealt her, Amari had worn thick powder to mask the damage. Not that it had made a difference. Even a one-eyed old man with failing vision would’ve detected the black eye beneath the disguise. Now, however, the princess wore no powder. On the right side the blue-black bruise had turned green and yellow as it healed, though that wasn’t what captured Aisling’s attention.

No, it was the fresh bruise on her left cheek, which was still red and enflamed.

“Why did he hit you this time?” Aisling asked without preamble. She wouldn’t pretend ignorance as to who had caused the damage; they were both intelligent women who understood pain and those who inflicted it.

If the princess was surprised by the directness of the question, she didn’t show it. “I demanded information about the search for Sampson. He stonewalled me, as usual, so I demanded to be on the next ship bound for the Sacred Sea.”

If not for the result of the princess’s demands—the damage to her cheek—Aisling might’ve laughed at Amari Gaard’s audacity. She was the heiress to the throne, after all.

“You came here to be healed.”

“It’s embarrassing. Having to say I tripped or walked into something.”

“You knew what his reaction would be. Why didn’t you keep quiet?” The answer to this question felt important to Aisling.

“Because—” The princess didn’t trail off so much as clamp her mouth shut as she tried to hide the emotion that suddenly caught her by surprise. Her efforts were in vain, however, her eyes welling with tears. She did manage to blink furiously to clear them before a single tear could escape.

Her response solidified something Aisling had believed for a while now. “You love your brother very much.” She didn’t need to specify which brother she referred to. Though Jarrod and Amari were cordial to each other, there was no bond between them.

Amari didn’t validate Aisling’s statement. She didn’t need to. Instead, she said, “Do you know my age, godling?” For some reason, it didn’t bother Aisling to be referred to this way as much as it usually did.

“I struggle with human age,” Aisling admitted. “For my kind, age isn’t linked with physical appearance. Experience is our only marker.”

“Then base your guess on experience rather than my appearance.”

“Forty-seven,” Aisling said truthfully, though she knew her guess was not even close.

Amari stared at her, a small smile creeping onto the edges of her lips, almost as though her face were trying to spite the bruises and swelling. “I didn’t take you for a jester,” she said. “Though my brother seems quite smitten with you.”

“Jarrod is kind, but simple,” Aisling said, feeling bad as she said it. Even if it was true. “But I did not speak in jest. I answered the question as truthfully as I could, though I suspect your true age is closer to twenty name days.”

“Neither guess was particularly good,” Amari said. “I am twenty-six. After I was born, my parents struggled to get pregnant again. There are six years between me and Jarrod. Sampson came only a year and a half after Jarrod.”

Interesting. “Did your mother ever get pregnant again?” Aisling blurted out, a rare case of her mouth getting the better of her brain.

Amari’s bruised eyes narrowed. “Why would you ask that?”

“I was just curious,” she said, forcing herself to meet the princess’s eyes without blinking. “My experience with royals is that they fear the end of their lineage more than they fear losing their own life. Hence they have many children to ensure their legacy perseveres for centuries.”

She held her breath, hoping Amari would miss the lie she’d expertly woven into the truth. Amari didn’t seem fully persuaded, but she let it pass. “You were surprised to see me. Why? Were you expecting someone else? Jarrod perhaps?”

“No. Well, yes. Not Jarrod, but someone he sent for me.”

“Because you’ll be attending my mother tonight.” It wasn’t a question, so Aisling didn’t answer. When she didn’t, Amari brought the subject back around full circle. “I am close with Sampson, yes. Jarrod and I…we never connected the way some siblings do. He was close with my mother…still is.”

“I know.”

“Of course you do.” It might’ve been a jab at Aisling, but the way Amari delivered the statement—matter-of-factly—made it come across as nothing more than truth. “Sampson was eight years my junior. When Jarrod was born, I was annoyed at having to share the attention. When Sampson was born, I felt as though a star had fallen from the heavens and formed into a child, so perfect despite his blindness. I helped care for him every chance I had. Though he eventually grew up, I could never see him as other than that small child who needed me. When my father sent him to Avadon…”

Aisling said nothing. This wasn’t her story to tell.

The princess moved on. “Sampson wouldn’t just disappear without leaving a note. To me, at least.”

“All they found were corpses.”

For the first time, Aisling caught a glimpse of Amari’s father’s influence on her, her expression switching from that neutral shade to red and fiery as she snapped, “What are you implying?”

Aisling kept her tone neutral. “Nothing. Whatever befell your brother and his men in that cave, at least a portion of it was out of his control. His body, as well as his protector’s body, weren’t recovered, so there’s a fair chance he’s still alive, but—”

“He’s still alive,” Amari interjected. When Aisling stared at her, she hurried on. “I can’t explain it, but I can still feel his presence. I would know if he was dead.”

Aisling didn’t immediately discount the value of a woman’s intuition, especially when it came to her brother. She did, however, remember what she’d seen in Queen Gaard’s mind, those three lights, one of which had been dimmer than the other two and seeming to grow dimmer by the second. Did that mean Sampson was injured or dying? Or did it simply mean that his mother—so far away from him—was simply losing her connection to her youngest child? Aisling said, “Which means he was either forced to flee whoever or whatever killed his men or…”

“Or what?” Aisling didn’t know if she should say the next part, but decided it was worth the risk to read Amari’s expression. Here in Aisling’s cell, the princess had been more open with her emotions than Aisling had ever seen.

“Or your brother and his protector are the ones who killed the others,” she said.

Amari’s eyes bore into Aisling’s, but she didn’t flinch away. “This was a mistake,” she said. “I shouldn’t have come here.” Then, abruptly, the crown princess turned away and departed, slamming the door shut and clicking it locked behind her before Aisling could offer to heal her injuries.

Aisling was very much aware that Amari had not argued the point, which likely meant she’d also considered the possibility that her brother was a killer.

Sometime later, while Aisling was still lost in her thoughts about her unexpected conversation with Amari Gaard, another kind of guard appeared to escort her to the queen’s royal bedchambers.

The guard offered only a grunt and waved her forward. They walked in silence through the palace, eventually making their way upstairs to the northern wing, where half of the rooms overlooked the Endless Ocean. At the very end of the hall, there was a large oak door decorated with fine carvings displaying two large wolves, one slightly larger than the other, and their three wolf pups. The king and queen’s quarters. She wondered whether the king still slept here with his mind-addled wife. She hoped not.

The guard rapped thrice on the door and listened a brief moment for a response. Hearing nothing, he opened the door. Inside the room, all was quiet. The guard didn’t enter, looking somewhat uncomfortable. Instead, he made a motion with his head indicating she should enter. “Holler if yeh need anythin’. I’ll be posted outside all night.”

Aisling hesitated. She was beginning to wonder how long she was expected to stay with the queen. Was she allowed to sleep? Jarrod hadn’t offered any instructions. The guard seemed to notice her indecision as she stood in the entranceway without entering. “Jarrod will be along shortly. He was caught up with royal business.”

Relief washed over her, and she almost laughed at her own foolishness. After all she’d been through in her long lifetime, was she really concerned about passing the time with an invalid? She nodded and entered the room, easing the door closed quietly behind her. She stood just inside with her back to the door, taking in her surroundings and trying not to think about why she was really worried about this night, because of what she’d seen in the woman’s mind, those lights representing her children, one of which had been dimmer—far dimmer, like a dying star—than the other two.

The room, as expected, was enormous. Aisling could fit ten of her cells in this room, and another ten stacked on the first ten given the high ceilings. A large four-poster bed stood against the far wall, with an ornately carved bedhead against which were propped no fewer than a dozen plush-looking pillows. Along the left side wall was a dressing table with an unbroken mirror, reflecting dozens of candles set in wall sconces throughout the space. Aisling knew the mirror was about three years old considering the smashing of its predecessor by the king in his rage. The wall opposite opened to a long balcony via a glass door. Beyond the door, stars winked at her, as though they knew a secret she would never be deserving enough to learn. The stars were various colors, and if they were jewels they’d be ruby, emerald and topaz. Amidst the stars hung both moons. It was a rare night when both the crimson orb and its viridescent sister resided in the same part of the expansive sky. In the wide area of the room unoccupied by the master bed was a large sitting space with plush couches and several chairs. Aisling thought it odd to have so much furniture in a bedroom. Would the king invite his generals and other advisors into his bedroom to conduct business? Or did the queen occasionally hold high tea with her friends here? Doubtful. More likely, it was nothing more than an example of human excess. Why settle for less when you could have more? Near the sitting area, set into the stone wall, was a fireplace. A fire was crackling happily, giving off warmth Aisling could feel from a dozen paces away as she continued to stand by the door. The fire was unnatural. This she could tell immediately. For one, there were no sparks or offshoots of flame, each flame dancing hypnotically without wavering. Secondly, the wood inside wasn’t burning. Either that or it was burning but not being consumed by the fire. Grimfire’s handiwork, no doubt, Aisling thought.

Sitting in her wheeled chair beside the fire was none other than Queen Jenai Gaard, already dressed in her white nightgown. Except she wasn’t looking at the glowing embers in the fireplace. She was staring at Aisling. Just staring, not moving her typically restless hands about nor flitting her eyes around the room. Motionless and staring, her gaze so steady that Aisling almost feared the woman had been struck dead with her eyes open.

Aisling was given a start when the queen suddenly moved, returning to her normal state of being as she tried to capture those flitting lights in the dark that represented her children. The words the woman had spoken to her while she’d been inside her mind and memories came back to her. Please save my children.

“Your Majesty,” Aisling said, recomposing herself. The queen, who only a moment ago seemed utterly aware of her presence, had once more retreated from reality. It was a horrible thing to think, but Aisling felt envy wash over her. She’d longed for escape so often she sometimes forgot what such a thing might look like. Would living in a fantasy world where children were represented by fireflies in the dark be any better than the grim reality she faced every day?

It was a question for another day, and a futile one at that.

She approached the queen, feeling the warmth of the spell-crafted fire grow with each step. The queen continued chasing her fireflies with her eyes and hands. “Can I get you anything, Your Majesty?” she asked.

No reaction or indication the queen was aware she’d spoken. Aisling sat down in one of the fine chairs, which turned out to be less comfortable than it looked. She was tempted, though only briefly, to touch the woman and peer into her mind once more. Maybe there was something she had missed. Maybe the third star, the dimming one, had brightened immediately after she’d left the woman’s mind.

Aisling stayed her hand, clutching both armrests as though to let go would be to float away. The fire crackled. The woman’s hands danced. And Aisling remembered something.

Impossible, she thought. And yet…how often did people, even royal people with servants to do their every bidding, clean under their beds? She sat, breathing, watching the flames. Just sit, Aisling. Why can’t you ever just sit and do as you’re told?

It simply wasn’t in her.

She leapt from the chair and hurried over to the bed, dropping to all fours as she lifted the bed skirt to peer into the gloom shrouded behind it. A large dust bunny rested near the middle. A sapphire earring that the queen had probably dropped and never been able to find was even further in. Aisling squinted, already chiding herself for her foolishness, but then—

The ghostly outline of another object, lost so long ago, three years to be exact, and never worth looking for because the queen probably possessed another ten of them: a hairbrush. It’s all true, Aisling thought, not that she doubted the memories she’d seen ripping through the queen’s mind.

She slid under the bed, worming past the dust bunny and the sapphire earring until she reached the hairbrush, which she grasped in her hand, unsure why she’d gone through all the trouble just to touch something that was no longer needed, a discarded relic from the worst day of the queen’s life.

Something changed. It took her a moment to recognize why the air felt different, but then she noticed the ball of dust. It was moving, rolling and bouncing like a tumbleweed in the desert. It rolled over once, twice and then slid rapidly from beneath the bed and out through the gap in the bed skirt Aisling had made when she first crawled under.

Aisling’s intuition fired and a slash of fear cut her to the core. She released the brush and shoved her way out, feeling frantic, desperate, somehow knowing exactly what she would find when she popped her head from beneath the bed. Feet first, she emerged, turning her head directly toward where she knew the glass door to be located. As expected, it stood open, a blast of air from the ocean streaming through the opening, pushing Aisling’s hair behind her.

Beyond the door, as Aisling looked on in horror, the queen stood from her wheeled chair and climbed up onto the balustrade.

Aisling was on her feet in an instant, racing across the room and into the headwind, her hair whipping around her face in a frenzy, slipping around the chair and throwing her arms forward just as the queen fell—

—her arms extended to either side like a bird—

—only she was no bird, dragged downward like a dropped stone—

—nightgown flapping around her pale legs like flags—

—Aisling grabbed her around the stomach, the queen’s full weight threatening to haul them both over the edge.

Darkness fell over Aisling’s vision like a curtain, obliterating the clear night sky, the millions of stars and sibling moons. Lights danced in the darkness, their illumination bright and strong.

Two lights.

Two.

The sound of weeping pulled her from the queen’s mind and the world returned around her. Somehow while in the throes of the queen’s mind, Aisling had managed to lock her feet around one of the balustrade columns and pull them both back from the precipice. Now they lay on the balcony, Aisling holding the queen in her arms as the woman wept, her cries that of a mother who’d lost a child.

She heard a shout from somewhere within the palace, but she paid it no mind, feeling the queen’s heartbeat against hers. “You are safe now,” she said.

Aisling was surprised when she got a response. “Safe? No one is safe.” But when she twisted around to look at the queen’s face, the woman’s eyes had glazed over once more, lost in that neverworld that now had one light fewer than before.

And then Jarrod was there, his face laced with the concern of a son for his mother, helping her back into her wheeled chair, fussing over her disheveled hair and the twisted hem of her nightgown. Once she was settled, he turned toward Aisling. “Are you hurt?” he asked.

The question, more so than his sudden appearance, was so unexpected that for a moment Aisling just blinked. “Physically, no,” she said. “Just a little shaken up. Your mother—”

“Tried to throw herself from the balustrade, I know,” the prince said. “I opened the door just as you caught her. Aisling, I—I owe you everything. More than everything. If anything happened to her, I don’t know…” He bit back a swell of emotion that threatened to overflow.

“Let’s get her inside.”

The prince watched her for a moment longer and then nodded, turning to wheel the queen back inside the room, returning her to the space beside the fire. He hesitated for two heartbeats and then walked to the door to the corridor, keeping one eye on his mother the entire time, as though he thought she might make another break for the balcony. Aisling stepped inside and gently closed the glass door.

The prince had opened the main door and was calling for the queen’s lady’s maid.

But Aisling wasn’t thinking about any of that. She was thinking about that dimming light in the queen’s mind, the very same that was no longer there, driving Jenai Gaard to throw herself from a balcony. Her mind is broken, Aisling reminded herself. She can’t possibly know that something evil has befallen her youngest son, Sampson. Can she?

Aisling knew better than most that the world was full of magic and things one could not easily explain.

The lady’s maid had arrived. “Get her to bed and then sit in front of the balcony door all night. You mustn’t fall asleep, do you understand?” Jarrod said. The woman looked shocked but determined as she nodded.

Jarrod moved to leave the room, but then turned back when Aisling didn’t follow. “Come with me,” he said. When she still didn’t move, he added, “Please?”

“Yes, Your Highness,” she said, walking past the bed as the lady’s maid began to fuss over the queen.

Outside the room, the prince turned right. “My chamber is to the left,” Aisling reminded him, assuming he wasn’t thinking clearly after watching his mother almost fall to her death.

“We’re not going to your room,” the prince said, sounding more certain than he ever had before. “I’ll have tea sent up to settle your nerves.” He seemed to realize what he’d just said and who he’d said it to. “Sorry, no tea for you. A nice big jug of water will do you some good, no?” He didn’t wait for a response as he led her down the ornate hallway decorated with half tables set against the walls on either side bearing exquisite candelabras lighting the way.

They passed several rooms and then he opened a door on the right.

It was the prince’s chambers.

He stepped inside and then turned back toward Aisling. “Is this alright?” he asked. “We will just sit for a while.”

She nodded, feeling strangely calm considering all that had transpired. As she entered the room, the prince moved to one of the chairs, gesturing for her to sit in it. She did and he filled her fine goblet with water from a pitcher that had been resting on a silver platter on a claw-footed table before an unlit fireplace. Though Aisling couldn’t feel it, his room was likely much cooler than his mothers had been due to the lack of fire and the fact that the door to the balcony was standing open, latched to the wall. She preferred the glow of the natural moonslight filtering inside to the dancing firelight that had been painted on everything.

The prince handed her the water and seemed to notice her gaze resting on the open door. “I’m sorry, does that disturb you? Of course it does after…I’ll close it.”

“No,” she said quickly. He stopped, looking back at her. “Leave it open. Please. The fresh night air will do us both good.”

“As you wish,” he said. “Would you care for a fire?”

He was so considerate, and would one day make for a kind, doting husband to some lucky noblewoman. If the world his father creates doesn’t destroy him first, she thought. Immediately, she wondered why she’d thought it. I’ve seen too much evil, things I can never unsee. I have become jaded beyond repair. Mayhaps the queen and I are not so different.

The prince was waiting for her answer. “No, thank you,” she said, not wanting to make him feel foolish by reminding him she wouldn’t be able to feel its heat anyway. Her eyes roamed the room until they fell upon an unfinished painting. The canvas was large, indicating there was a lot more work to be done. Toward the top was a single eye, painted with intricate detail, every brush stroke exquisite in its attempt and result. The painter—Jarrod—had clearly taken exceptional care to recreate his subject.

She knew immediately it was her eye.

Jarrod seemed to notice her wandering gaze’s target. “Do you like it?”

“I—yes—it’s beautiful, but I feel as though you exaggerate me.”

“Impossible,” Jarrod said. “A painting can never—will never—do your true beauty the justice it deserves. I only hope to provide you with something to warm your heart.”

A gift? For her? She hadn’t received a gift in a very long time, and certainly nothing so thoughtful and heartfelt. “I don’t know what to say,” Aisling said.

The prince finally sat, sitting across from her in his own plush chair, one she suspected he sat in often the way he seemed to fit so perfectly within its cushions. With his strong jawline—just a hint of evening stubble on his cheeks—and dark blue eyes, he cut a handsome profile against the candlelit backdrop. “I owe you everything,” he said, repeating what he’d said earlier.

“No.” Aisling shook her head. “I don’t deserve your gratitude. I was…distracted. I only looked away for a moment, but I should’ve been paying closer attention. I’m sorry.” Her voice shook on the last word because she truly felt it, horrified that the queen had almost been lost on her watch.

To her surprise, the prince stood, crossing the distance between them in an instant, kneeling before her, his hand cupping her chin, meeting her eyes for a bare moment before he kissed her.

At first, she froze, so surprised was she by the change in the man who’d, until now, been timid and shy. The kiss was tender and yet passionate, and she leaned into it, kissing him back. Jarrod’s hand moved along her jaw to her neck, fingers tracing a line down her skin.

It felt good. She’d been with human men before, but never by choice, except... She cast away the distant memory, the one that had changed her life in so many ways. Their lips parted and he kissed the edge of her mouth, then her cheek, her jaw, his lips following the same path as his fingers and she closed her eyes. He tasted her throat and she threw her head back, needing this distraction but at the same time feeling guilty because of all she knew she had not told him.

No, she thought, wanting to be selfish for perhaps the first time in her life. She cast aside her thoughts and gave in to the sensation of the prince’s lips on her skin, his hand roaming to her shoulder, down her arm, resting on her hip.

Together, they stood.

The prince kissed the hollow in her throat, and she released a sigh that had been building in her lungs. He picked her up and she let him, roping her hands around the back of his neck as his head dipped lower.

The moment her hands touched his skin for the first time, a blinding flash of white light assaulted her vision as she entered his mind, his heart, his soul. It was pure beyond description, untainted by all the atrocities committed by his own father, his mother’s undying influence washing him clean day by day.

As he carried her to the bed, their lips met once more, warm and hungry.

Before she pulled herself out of his mind, she saw a hint of darkness lingering on the edge of his bright, white, pure soul. Just a shadow, she thought, kissing him harder, her fingers dragging lines down the hard muscles of his back.

Ever so gently, he laid her onto the bed. “Is this alright?” he asked.

The last time she’d been with a human man like this by choice had ended in betrayal.

“Yes,” she said. More than alright.

She forgot all about betrayal and the dark edge limning his soul and the single painted eye—her own—watching them, until many hours later.

Ten

Sampson Gaard

The Lost Plains, South Avadon

SAMPSON COUGHED AGAIN, spewing vile stomach acid on the ground between his boots.

Roman supported him as he finished retching and then offered him a handkerchief to wipe his mouth. “Are you all right? What happened up there? I saw you fall.” The day had turned to night, the clear sky replaced by a fleet of dark, threatening clouds.

“I jumped,” Sampson admitted.

“What?”

“I thought it was the only way to sever the connection to the blade. But then I was going too fast, I couldn’t stop. I was going to die. And then the blade was in my hand again—I think I called it to me. It saved me, Roman. Again. It saved me again.”

“Thank the gods it did,” Roman said. “If you’d have broken your promise, I’d have killed you myself.”

Despite the bitter taste in his mouth, Sampson smiled. “Would you? The man who lets flies out through the window rather than smashing them.”

“I would’ve made an exception,” Roman said, but the mirth in his tone betrayed him.

How could they both laugh after all that had happened? Sampson wondered. Because if we don’t, we’ll go mad, he thought. He wanted to live in this moment, not move onto the next, but he knew there was little point in delaying the inevitable. “What do we do now?” he asked.

“You asked for my trust, and you’ve got it. Whatever you choose, I will follow.”

Sampson had hoped for an answer but was grateful for the confidence Roman showed in him. He wasn’t so naïve as to believe the world would continue as normal. He’d felt the Rift open, had felt the surge of power that he, inexplicably, knew was not confined to Beggar’s Canyon. No, he’d somehow set off a reaction that would travel to all corners of Kingfall and impact everyone. How he knew that, he could not explain. That was his responsibility now.

Another thing he knew was that the demons he’d unleashed would not follow him to the eastern entrance to the canyons. Instead, they were, even now, stampeding toward the western end, spilling out onto the vast plains separating Beggar’s Canyon from the heart of Avadon at Dunadin. Glynn Kerr was in for a major surprise. Did demons even sleep? Or would they run all the night long until they reached Kerr’s Crossing, the heavily guarded bridge that forded the Roughwater River?

Somewhere deep inside him, Sampson had the urge to race back through the canyon to the Rift, to fall upon the demons, to send them back into the Void from whence they’d crawled. He stared at his sword, which flashed with runes. And he knew his path would lead him elsewhere. He had no love for Glynn Kerr, who’d long used his wealth and power to his advantage. In addition to the sellswords he paid for, he was known to imprison Calabrians to toil in his mines. Slaves all. If he was going to continue to be tethered to this blade for the foreseeable future, why not take the fight to Kerr while he was already weakened by the demon infestation? Not only would that strengthen the Terran position, but he could then take control of the Beggar’s Canyon Rift and stem the flow of demons he had caused.

But how?

He chuckled, because of the absurdity of his thoughts. How was he, an eighteen-year-old prince from a faraway land supposed to defeat one of the most powerful nations in Kingfall?

I’ll need an army, he thought. Suddenly the notion didn’t seem so absurd. Because his own history lessons had taught him about an army that had been fractured many years earlier, continuing to dwell upon the very plains he now stood.

He raised his face to the sky just as the clouds opened in a torrential downpour, pelting pellets of water that stung his skin and sluiced down his face to drip from his chin. Something caught his eye—his blade. The rain fell toward the steel, and yet the sword remained dry, untouched, like there was an invisible shield around it.

THERE IS WORK TO BE DONE, the blade hissed.

“Come on,” Sampson said to Roman.

They headed southward through the deluge.

“What do you know of the godblades?” Sampson asked Roman as they camped on the Lost Plains. The rain had abated and the sky had cleared, leaving an ocean of stars overhead. Staring up at that endless expanse that was more beautiful than a thousand of Roman’s most perfect words had ever described, Sampson could almost believe he’d never widened the Rift, had never unleashed the demons, that the world was as right as it had ever been.

Sampson wasn’t tired, but he’d willed his feet to stop because to stop and rest was normal. It was what travelers did. His blade had hissed when Sampson had commanded that they make camp, but he managed to slide the sword back into its sheath (though he continued to grip its hilt to maintain his eyesight); that snakelike voice had been silent ever since.

“The Kingfall Histories say the godblades were lost during the Weeping,” Roman said.

“Lost or hidden?” Sampson said.

“Does it make a difference?”

“Perhaps. Lost implies an accident. Hidden points to a purposeful act.”

“Yes, but in either case they were gone, unavailable to humans or other creatures.”

“But if they were hidden on purpose, whoever hid them believed they should no longer be used. But if they were lost…” Maybe it’s a good thing I found one. It was the first time that Sampson, even in his own mind, had admitted that what was covered by his sheath was truly one of the ancient blades lost—or hidden—during the Weeping. He gulped in a deep breath.

“If anyone can find a way to co-exist with a shadowblade, it is you,” Roman said.

The man’s words might’ve filled Sampson with warmth if he hadn’t used that specific term to refer to the blade. Instead Sampson froze. Though he’d finally admitted it to himself, it still horrified him to hear the only other person who knew about the blade speak its true title in such certain terms. A shadowblade, he thought. Forged of shadow and magenum and one of the six recovered shards from the famed Legacy Sword wielded by the leader of the Thousands, the immortal army that had nearly destroyed the gods and their allies during the Godswar. The leader’s name had been Erif Mirg, a dark wizard who’d risen to power after using dark magic to grow as large as the gods themselves. More commonly he was referred to as simply the Godskiller. Striking him down and banishing the Thousands to an island known as the Dreads to be guarded by the three surviving godbeasts had been the last great act of the gods before they’d left this world to fend for itself.

Sampson needed something to compare his situation to, and the only thing he could think of was something he’d read about a faraway land. “They say those bearing fatemarks in the Four Kingdoms are like gods,” he said.

“In the Southern Empire, mayhaps, but the Western Kingdom executed the fatemarked because they were abominations in the sight of their vengeful god, Wrath. And in the north the fatemarked were forced to serve the king.”

“And in the east, those born with markings were free folk, treated like any other and given the will to choose their own path,” Sampson countered.

“Precisely,” Roman said. “It is difficult to predict how one with great power will be viewed by the world. Whether hated or loved or worshipped or somewhere in between.”

Sampson knew he was right. If word got out that he’d discovered a shadowblade, would all Kingfall unite to destroy him? Would his own father send his armies to destroy him? And what would Amari think?

OH, YES. THEY WILL COME. BUT THEY CANNOT STOP YOU.

If his blade was right, he would need to keep its presence a secret as long as possible. Amongst the inhabitants of the Lost Plains, there was little concern that his fame would grow, but as soon as he reached Avadon, word would spread like wildfire.

Suddenly, making camp and “resting” when he wasn’t tired felt like the stupidest choice he’d made yet. There was too much time to think, and his mind didn’t seem to be cooperating with him. He stood. Roman stood too.

They walked on until daybreak.

They spotted the first Grizari encampment just after dawn had splashed light across the Lost Plains. The nomadic race known for the curving ram-like horns that grew atop their skulls had not been a major topic included in his tutelage growing up. More than seventy years ago, the Grizari had been a major threat to Kingfall, but ever since their single tribe had fractured into numerous tribes and scattered across the southeastern portion of Avadon they’d become inconsequential. Ten years or so earlier, Glynn Kerr had attempted to garner support from the other kingdoms to join forces to eradicate the Scattered Tribes. The other royals, Sampson’s father included, were not interested in losing men on a quest that would yield minimal, if any, benefits to anyone, save perhaps the Avadonians, who lived in constant fear of the Griz uniting once more into a single tribe. Not to mention, everyone knew that Kerr had ulterior motives and would seek to enslave as many of the Griz as possible to work in his mines.

If I am to be hated amongst men, Sampson thought, why not seek others who are already hated?

Roman grunted. “There is a foul stench on the wind.”

“Considering you haven’t bathed for several days, perhaps you are smelling yourself,” Sampson said.

“It rained last night,” Roman said, as if that proved Sampson wrong.

Sampson went back to gazing at the large encampment scattered across the plains. Makeshift tents had been erected for the Griz to sleep out of the rain, while several plumes of smoke rose skyward throughout the camp. A large herd of cattle grazed nearby. Several Griz tribesmen rode large beasts Sampson was unfamiliar with, encircling any stray cattle and shepherding them back into the main group.

As they watched, the riders broke away from the herd, but instead of heading back toward camp, charged directly toward where Sampson and Roman peered through a thatch of spindly scrub bushes, the only source of cover they’d been able to locate on the grassy plains. “Surely they can’t see us,” Sampson said, feeling a twinge of fear. He’d hoped to have more time to plan his approach. Instead, it seemed the Grizari would be approaching him.

“The Griz are known for having keen senses,” Roman said. “They are natural hunters, warriors too. Thankfully, these days they’re too busy killing each other to worry much about humans. Unless the humans show up on their doorstep, of course.”

Fantastic, Sampson thought. Why did I think this was a good idea again?

There was no point in sneaking around now that they’d been spotted. He stood, stepping out from the bushes, standing calmly, gripping his sword but with the point aimed down in an unthreatening manner. Roman followed him, taking up position by his side. A strange pair we must look.

The beasts and their riders drew closer. The beasts were huge, muscled creatures with horned snouts and a frill of horns protecting their necks like armor. Though they ran on thick legs, they moved far faster than Sampson expected given their size, kicking up clouds of dust all around them as they closed in. Their riders were foreign to him, too. He’d read descriptions in his history books, but they didn’t do these men—and women, he noticed—justice. The Grizari were short but broad-shouldered and muscular, both genders. The women were so strong-looking that the only way he could differentiate them from the males was the size of their horns, which were narrower, longer and sharper compared to their male counterparts’ wide, curving horns.

There were seven pairs of beasts and riders, and though Sampson tried to stand steadfast and show no fear, he flinched when it appeared as though the riders would run them down without asking questions. Instead, at the last moment, the remarkably agile creatures veered off to both sides like a stream separating upon meeting a large stone, encircling them, the riders unleashing deep-throated growls that lifted the hairs on the back of his neck. Sampson recognized its purpose: intimidation. A show of force, setting the stage for whatever was to come.

Kicked-up dust filled his mouth and throat, and he coughed, gagging. Still he didn’t raise his blade, some instinct advising him to hold steady and wait to see how the situation played out. They hadn’t tried to kill them, which counted for something. If nothing else, the Griz riders were curious about the presence of these two humans on their lands.

When the riders finally ceased their guttural cries and brought their formidable steeds to a stop, the dust began to settle, leaving Sampson’s skin covered in a thin layer of grit. He said nothing, eyes burning as he blinked away the dust.

One of the warriors, a large male that appeared to be nearly as tall as him if he were standing upright, urged his steed forward a few steps, until the beast’s snout and horn were a mere hand’s distance from Sampson’s face. The creature unleashed a snarl that sent hot rancid breath and spittle flying. He held his ground. From his history lessons, he knew the Grizari were a people who valued strength and courage. Tribal leaders were not chosen based on family trees but sheer warrior ability. At any time, the leader could be challenged to mortal combat. This happened rarely, and only when the leader’s strength was questioned.

Sampson hoped this tradition hadn’t changed since his history books were written by scholars who’d likely never even met one of the horned warriors.

When the creature ceased its angry bellow, Sampson casually wiped his face clean with his sleeve and then returned his gaze to the male who seemed to be acting as leader of the group of riders.

“Hrn nrr kryl nrrry,” the Grizari male said. Like their war cries, his words were formed from the back of his throat, like he was clearing his throat to speak.

“I am Sampson,” Sampson said in response, having no clue what had been spoken in return.

“Human filth,” the large male said. “Wicked tongue. Common tongue. Speak Griz or no speak.”

“I cannot,” Sampson said. “Your words are meaningless garble to me.” The insult was intentional, to show he feared nothing from these riders.

“Humans words horse piss,” the Griz said with an aloofness that showed he also feared nothing from the pair of them.

Let the games begin. Sampson snorted. “Maybe so, but at least we can communicate using the common tongue.”

“No need words to communicate,” the Griz said. He nodded toward Sampson’s sword. “Steel speaks with more truth.”

“I agree. That’s why I’m here.”

“Don’t care. Trespassing. Punishment is death.”

“You can try to kill us, but I must warn you, we are formidable warriors. It is not my blood but yours that will be spilt.” Though Sampson spoke with utter confidence, he wasn’t certain of what the outcome of a direct confrontation would be. He certainly held an advantage because of his shadowblade, but he hadn’t fully learned its capabilities yet. He raised the blade slightly from the ground to prove his words were more than an idle threat.

There was a tense silence for several long moments, the Griz leader’s eyes locked on his, neither man willing to look away, but then the rider laughed boisterously and slapped his thighs. “Human filth must have large stones between legs to speak such words!” The tension broken, the rest of the Griz joined in the laughter.

Sampson managed a smile, though he knew their situation remained precarious. “Some might call my words foolish,” he said.

“Humans,” the male spat, like the name of Sampson’s race was a bitter taste in his mouth. “Too sensitive. Too weak. My people respect strength of words. Only if true though. If humans not capable warriors, I will cut off heads, eh?”

Is he asking my permission for him to cut off my head if I’m not a good fighter? “Aye. Agreed,” he said, knowing it was the only answer that would be accepted. “What is your name?”

The rider slammed his fist against his battle leathers so hard it would’ve knocked a lesser man from the saddle. “Grym, buck of Drynym, tribe leader.”

“In my culture, you would be a prince, heir to the throne,” Sampson said.

“Bah,” Grym said, waving away the notion as though it were nonsense. “Foolish human practice. What if prince weak? What if prince cannot fight? When Drynym dies, I will fight for tribal leadership. This only way.”

“And yet your people have been wasting away on the Lost Plains for years because of your inability to unite under one leader,” Sampson pointed out.

“Grizari will rise again,” Grym said. His words sounded like some sort of mantra that had been stabbed into him from the time he was a young buck.

“That’s why we’re here,” Sampson said, taking advantage of the opening. “I want to speak to Drynym.”

“I will take to Father. Father will keel Sampson.” With that, he laughed again, wheeling his steed about and charging in the direction of the camp, followed by the other riders, leaving Sampson and Roman to walk the distance on foot, choking on dust.

Father will keel Sampson.

With those words echoing through his head, Sampson strode through the camp as though he belonged, Roman in tow. He received many stares, though none were venomous. If anything, the Grizari looked upon the humans with amusement, like a pair of oddities provided for their entertainment.

The camp was clearly not a permanent fixture on the plains, the structures—if you could call them that—able to be easily dismantled and hauled on the backs of the powerful creatures these people commanded. Male and female Grizari went about their business, tending fires cooking large hunks of meat that sizzled and spat as they dripped grease from the long metal rods being turned to heat evenly. Sampson raised an eyebrow as he watched a couple of young Grizari that were no taller than his knee butting heads and locking horns, which in their case were only tiny buds protruding from their skulls. The way the youth crashed into each other without injury showed just how powerful their heads were, even at such a young age. Like living, breathing battering rams, Sampson thought. Three of the Griz could storm Father’s gates at Wolfsgaard and crash right through.

More than any of that, Sampson was in awe of the sheer volume of information assaulting his brain through the windows that were his eyes, now open when before they’d been closed, boarded up, and walled in by bricks and mortar. He shook the thought away and tried to focus on the task at hand.

The camp wasn’t particularly large—perhaps two thousand Grizari, about half of which were of fighting age—so Sampson managed to locate the largest of the tents without difficulty. There were no guards outside the flaps, which stood open, tied to the sides of the structure. These were a people who invited conflict into their world and embraced it.

Sampson ducked inside, where it was dimmer, the sunlight failing to penetrate the thick material used to construct the tents. “Buck Grym does not jape,” a gruff voice said. “Human filth has stones. Gripping an unsheathed blade in my tent.”

Sampson hadn’t thought to sheath his sword and remove his grip, which would send him back into blindness, but now he realized how it must look. Like he wanted to kill someone. Eyes adjusting to the darkness, Sampson took in the scene, memorizing it before sliding his blade back into its hip sheath. He could’ve maintained a grasp on the hilt, but he knew even that would look unusual—the posture of one looking to kill. Slowly, his fingers uncurled one at a time until his hand hung free. Images held fast in his mind, surrounded by a wall of darkness. Grym stood beside a man he bore a strong resemblance to. Their eyes were the same almond shape, their noses flat and long, their mouths both naturally curled downward with disdain as they stared at him.

In that fleeting glimpse of the father-son pair, he’d learned something else he’d not known before: A Grizari’s age could be judged by the length of their horns. Drynym’s horns were almost twice as long as his son’s, curling around in a full circle and then starting another arc, while Grym’s horns had yet to complete its first rotation. Sampson could only imagine how many bones would be broken if the tribal leader rammed him with his head.

There was no one else in the tent, which at least meant they’d have even odds if it came to a fight. There will be a fight, Sampson thought. Just not here in this tent, and not with Grym. But first, a conversation was required. “Why have the Grizari not united under a single tribe leader?” he asked, hoping the inability of his eyes to meet either of theirs wouldn’t be met with suspicion or worse, realization that he was blind. “United, your kind could sweep across Avadon and take what is rightfully yours. Glynn Kerr would never see it coming.” Especially now that he has a little demon problem to deal with at the same time.

“Humans know nothing of Griz,” Drynym said.

“Then instruct me.”

He heard the thick-set creature take a tromping step forward, and Sampson fought off the urge to grasp his sword’s hilt. “Four tribes remain. Four proud tribes. Cannot agree on much. Human think can agree on leader? Leader of each tribe must come from within the tribe unless agreement is reached. Foolish thought.”

“Do the tribes continue to fight amongst themselves?” Sampson asked. His history books had contained Griz history from years ago, but nothing recent. Ever since the Grizari became a non-threat to the rest of Kingfall, none had bothered to write of their lives and struggles.

He heard the man shift his posture and pictured him shrugging his heavy, armorlike shoulders. “Battles rare now. All tribes try to survive. Nomadic life hard on all.”

“Aren’t you tired of just surviving? Don’t you want more for your people?”

“Of course!” Drynym bellowed, though, from the sounds of it, he didn’t take a step closer. “But my people smallest tribe now. Other tribes mock us. Only choice to tend herds and roam plains.”

Maybe this proud tribal leader had once had fire in his belly, but it had been extinguished long ago, doused by time and failure and a dwindling population and food supply.

Grym, on the other hand…from the moment he’d met him, Sampson could feel the heat of the fire inside the buck, just waiting to be released. For a leadership overthrow, he knew, Grizari traditions required that someone challenge the leader in mortal combat. Grym was the logical choice, but Sampson suspected he would never kill his own father, no more than Sampson would kill his father, regardless of his faults. Mayhaps there were others in camp who could challenge Drynym, but if they hadn’t already, who knew when that might be. No, more likely this tribe would languish until Drynym died of natural causes and a stronger leader could take his place.

Except there was another Griz tradition Sampson had learned about in his history books, though it was rarely called upon. He tested it out now. “I challenge you, Drynym, to single combat.”

Given the moment of silence, he suspected both Griz males were staring at him like he’d grown a second head. Then Drynym snorted. “Fool humans always meddling. Your mother Grizari?”

“What? No.”

“Your father then?”

“No, both my parents are human.”

“Then human cannot be Griz tribe leader. Must have Griz blood and must come from within the tribe.”

“I don’t want to be leader. I will fight for another. A Griz from within your tribe.”

“Champion challenge?” Drynym said. “How know this law?”

“History books,” Sampson said. “We study your people as children. In 365 A.W. Hrnm son of Shrnm became tribal leader after—”

“Grypn defeated Vrnm in single combat as champion. Grypn no want be leader. Give to Hrnm.”

“And Hrnm went on to become one of the greatest tribal leaders your people have ever known.”

“Not one of greatest…the greatest tribal leader.”

“You know of him?”

“Was Drnym’s grandfather,” Drynym said.

Sampson nodded. “None challenged his rule because of Grypn, who stood by his side as his champion his entire life.”

“Drynym’s father became leader next. None challenged because Grypn’s support.”

Sampson knew this much, but his history books had left a large gap from this point in the story to the present. “And when your father died? Did Grypn support you too?”

“Grypn already dead, but tribesmen respected legacy. Drynym became leader, unchallenged.”

“So you’ve never had to fight for your right to lead?” he asked.

There was more silence, which told Sampson everything he needed to know. This fact was a great shame to Drynym.

But Sampson wasn’t aiming his wayward eyes in Drynym’s general direction anymore, directing them toward his best guess at where Grym still stood. “You’re more like my people than you might realize. King Gaard never had to fight to be king either—he just was. Just as the crown princess will be queen after her parents die. What you have here is a monarchy.” He purposefully didn’t mention his own position in the Terran monarchy. Doing so may very well sabotage his plans, the Griz imprisoning him to be used for ransom.

Drynym didn’t respond, nor did Sampson expect him to. His grip on his own tribe was weak at best. Mayhaps he was once a great warrior, or at least had the potential to be, but time and a lack of experience had sucked the fight right out of him, leaving him a shade of the leader he might have been.

Grym, however, did respond, for which Sampson was glad. “Grym’s father protects tribe, feeds tribe, keeps tribe alive.”

“In the short-term, yes, he does all those things. Long-term, he cripples you.”

“Get out,” Grym said. “Get out or I will crush tiny human skull and hollow out to use for cook pot.”

With that vivid image in mind, Sampson said, “I challenged your father, not you. What say you, Drynym? If you refuse, especially to a puny, pathetic human, you will be seen as weak. If you accept, you have the opportunity for dignity and to confirm your abilities as a warrior and leader to your tribe.”

“Who will human be champion for?” Drynym asked. Sampson was confident the man had already guessed his intentions and was just looking to confirm his suspicions.

“You already know who should lead your tribe but who loves you too much to challenge you directly.”

He heard Drynym shift position once more, and his instincts told him he was looking toward his son. “If I win, be proud of me. And if lose—”

“You will not lose.”

“If lose, do more for tribe than I did. Be stronger. Have more courage.”

“I won’t let—”

“Promise!”

“I…I promise.”

After another moment’s hesitation, Drynym spoke once more: “I accept challenge. Fight at dusk in fire circle.”

There was a buzz in camp, and now the looks Sampson was getting from the locals was anything but amused. Some looked upon him with unveiled curiosity while others sent scornful-sounding words spoken in the guttural Griz language in his direction. Those who supported Drynym as leader, no doubt. Most of those ones had longer horns, a sign of the old guard.

It’s time for a change, Sampson thought, ignoring those that jeered him even as he gripped his sword once more, which he’d drawn the moment he departed Drynym’s tent. He knew it must look odd given no one had threatened him, but his blindness would be too obvious otherwise.

The young Grizari were by far the most entertaining, however, not hiding their interest in the two humans, a race they’d probably never seen before. As if daring each other, they crept closer and closer with each attempt before scurrying back behind the tents. Finally, a particularly bold female—her tiny horns were narrow and pointed—strode all the way up to stand before them. “Hrn nrr mrry fxxn,” she said, thick hands on hips. Her ashen skin was a lighter gray than most of the other Grizari he’d seen so far, regardless of age.

“I’m sorry,” Sampson said. “I don’t understand.”

The female released a gruff, chuffing laugh that he took to be the equivalent of a giggle. “Voice funny. High as sky.”

Sampson wasn’t sure exactly what that meant or if he should be offended, but he took the comment in stride. “To me, your voice is funny too,” he said. “As rough as ground glass.”

More Grizari giggling. Seeing that their young friend had suffered no harm after approaching the two humans, the rest of the children had grown bolder, too, creeping in until they formed a semicircle around her. The female remained their spokeswoman. “We show you Griz fighting style,” she declared.

“I don’t think Drynym would like that very much,” Sampson said as he realized his interactions with the children were drawing a lot of attention from the adult Grizari, who’d stopped what they were doing to watch.

“Drynym is leader, not keeper,” the girl said, as if that explained everything. Maybe it did. He led his people but didn’t dictate their every action. “Human is weak like flower.” With that, all the children laughed their rough-sounding laughs.

“Fine. Show me Griz fighting style.”

The girl nodded and then grabbed one of her friends roughly, shoving him clear of the others. She muttered something in Grizari and both children widened their stances and dropped their hands to the ground, lifting their chins to look each other in the eyes. The girl pretended that she was going to launch herself forward and her male opponent, who was a head taller than her and broader of shoulder, flinched. It was only a feint, which made him look foolish. The children watching laughed harder and some of the observing adults even joined in.

The male growled something and reasserted his stance. This time, he took the initiative, exploding forward from his haunches, head lowered to smash his thicker, blunter horns through her midsection. She danced aside, slapping him on the horns as he passed. More laughter at the young male’s expense. Like a raging bull, he twisted around and charged once more. He was prepared for her to dodge, turning his path as she tried to slip away. Except once again, she was a step ahead of him, dropping flat on the ground and letting him trip over her body. She leapt back to her feet with impressive speed and pressed the advantage, leaping atop him and stabbing headfirst with her much sharper horns.

She’s going to kill him, Sampson thought as the horns sank into his flesh. He looked around to see if any of the adult Grizari would stop the fight before it became ugly, but all he got were stares as they watched the scene unfold. When he looked back at the fight, the male had managed to right himself, bleeding mildly from twin puncture wounds in his chest that looked no bigger than pinpricks. Their skin is incredibly thick, he realized. The children’s horns, even the females, were not nearly sharp nor long enough to inflict any real damage.

The pair of young warriors slammed into each other once more, and this time their small horns clashed, locking together as they battled for dominance. The bigger, stronger male began to shove her back and she was forced to drop to one knee to prevent herself from being driven completely off her feet. The male dug in with his heels, pressing harder, and for a moment it appeared as though the girl was out of tricks.

Not so. She suddenly allowed herself to be driven backwards, using her opponent’s momentum against him as she rolled, thrusting her powerful legs upward to fling him into the air. As she came out of her roll and spun around, he landed with a heavy thump on his back. She leapt atop him, the tips of her sharp horns pressed against the exposed flesh of his throat. “Submit,” she growled in the common tongue, presumably for Sampson’s benefit.

“Aye. Submit,” the boy said between locked teeth.

The girl shoved off his chest, which made him groan and roll over, before regaining her feet once more. “Human’s turn,” she said to Sampson.

“I’m not going to fight you,” Sampson said. “I’m twice your size and my sword will cut deeper than your horns.”

“No swords permitted in Griz combat,” she said.

Sampson narrowed his eyes but tried not to show his surprise or the sudden gash of fear in his belly. His history books hadn’t included any details about how the challenges themselves worked, only who challenged who and who defeated who. He’d been counting on having his primary weapon available for his fight with Drynym, so that he could take the leader to the brink of death before sparing his life and thus, earning the loyalty of both Drynym and his son, who would be the new leader. Now, it appeared that was a poor assumption. How can I defeat a man who outweighs me by two stones if I’m blind and without weapon? he wondered. “Your horns are like daggers,” he said. “And my skin isn’t as thick as yours.” Even to his own ears, his excuses sounded weak and pathetic, especially when directed toward a youngster.

“Human weakling,” she spat, sounding so much like Grym that it gave him pause.

“Who are your parents?” he asked.

“I’m Shrym, daughter of Grym, son Drynym. Human is Father’s champion and Grandfather’s foe.” She chuckled at this, as though the idea of Sampson being the champion for anyone brought her great amusement.

He should’ve known. She was fearless and had marched up to him the same way Grym had ridden his beast right up to him. “I cannot fight you.”

“Because human is Father’s champion? Human is not my champion.” There was genuine confusion in her eyes; she could not fathom how this created a conflict.

“Yes, but how can your father trust me as his champion if I bruise his daughter.”

Another laugh. “Human will not bruise me. Consider it training for tonight.”

Sampson had a feeling he could not refuse this challenge, however minor, without risking what little credibility he had with the Grizari. “Fine,” he said, standing.

Roman said, “Sampson,” a note of warning in his voice.

Sampson looked at him, hoping his eyes conveyed the message that he needed to call on his friend’s trust once more. Roman met his stare with eyes of steel, but then nodded. Sampson turned back and took a deep breath, not to prepare himself for the impending wrestling match, but because he now needed to leave his sword behind. Even as he placed it gently on the ground beside Roman, he wondered if the blade would allow him to do so, or if his fingers would stick to the hilt as they’d done before, making him appear awkward and foolish.

Thankfully, when he opened his fingers, the blade remained behind.

A blanket of darkness fell over his eyes.

He turned to face his much smaller opponent, unable to see her, relying on the years of training with Roman where he’d been taught to use his other senses in a fight. He knew approximately where she’d last been, but she might’ve moved, which meant he needed to get her to talk, her voice giving away her position. “Do I drop my hands to the ground as you did before?” he asked.

“Yes. Like this.” Though he couldn’t see her, he could now pinpoint her position and pictured her falling into the starting stance. He moved forward with measured steps until he felt comfortable he was across from her, and then dropped his hands to the ground, lifting his eyes as if to look at her. He considered attacking first, to avoid giving her the upper hand, but suspected she would make him look a fool as easily as she had her prior opponent. Plus, without the benefit of sight, he could miss her entirely and look a fool in front of the numerous Grizari bystanders. Instead, he waited patiently for her to try one of her tricks.

He didn’t have to wait long.

The one advantage of being blind was that it was harder to fall for her feints, hearing her feet scuffle in one direction before stopping. Still, it took all of Sampson’s willpower not to lift his hands to defend himself from those dagger-like horns that were surely aimed toward his face. Unfortunately, he should have defended himself because the feint was only to get him to freeze. Immediately after she’d stopped herself, she shot forward once more, well before he expected her to, feet clomping in the dirt.

It was all Sampson could do to rise from his stance and take the horns in the leathers protecting his chest rather than in one of his useless eyes. Still, the horns penetrated to his skin and took his breath away as he twisted awkwardly, managing to hook an arm around his opponent and slam her solidly into the ground. She bucked and fought him impressively for a child, but her strength was no match for his now that he’d obtained a measure of leverage.

“Do you submit?” Sampson asked, his chest aching.

“Submit,” she said grudgingly. “Strong move, human.”

Sampson stood and helped the young female up. As she walked away, Roman said, “Your sword, Sampson.” The hilt of his blade was thrust back into his palm, restoring his vision. “Well done,” he added under his breath.

Sampson didn’t respond, using his vision to take in the scene surrounding him. He found the man he now knew to be her grandfather, Drynym, standing and watching. He said something to her that Sampson couldn’t hear. Then he slapped his hands together twice and addressed him directly. “Defeated child. Well done.” Then he walked away.

The rest of the Grizari who’d been watching shrugged and returned to work. Their entertainment was over…for now.

After the spontaneous Grizari wrestling lesson, Sampson slumped down to rest, feeling surprisingly lighthearted save for the puncture wounds to his chest. “Girl made you bleed,” Roman said, a note of respect in his tone.

“That she did.”

Roman lowered his voice. “We need to slip away at the first opportunity. Without your blade and your sight, you stand no chance.”

Sampson had to admit that the notion had occurred to him as well. Drynym, while slightly shorter than him, was twice his size and had built-in weapons in his horns, while Sampson would have to rely on his bare fists. And yet he knew he would not turn from this challenge. “You said it yourself, what happened at the Rift is my responsibility. And the only way to fix what I’ve broken is to defeat Kerr and take Avadon. Without the Griz army, I won’t be able to do that. This is my path—I can feel it in my bones.”

Roman shook his head. “I’ve learned over the years that in life there is not only one path, and the one laid before your feet doesn’t always lead where you think it will. As I said before, I will support you whatever you choose, but this path feels like folly. If you die in that circle, I cannot be held accountable for my actions.”

Sampson’s eyes shot to meet Roman’s. “My friend, I need you to make me a promise. If I lose, you will beg the Griz to let you depart with my body. You will find the first ship back to Wolfsgaard. You will return me to my family.”

Roman’s lips tightened. “You ask much of me, Your Highness.”

“I know. And yet I ask all the same. Swear it.”

He sighed. “I swear it. I will do this thing if you lose. But now I need you to make me an oath.”

“If it is within my power, I shall see it done.”

“You will fight for your very life in that circle. I know we spoke of defeating Drynym without killing him, but that may no longer be possible.”

Sampson had had similar thoughts ever since Grym’s daughter informed him he wouldn’t be able to use his sword in the fight to come. “I promise. I will fight to the last.”

They stopped talking, both noticing Grym’s approach, his heavy trod preceding the resulting shadow that fell over them. “My daughter’s horns broke skin?” Grym asked. The question caught him by surprise. Was the Griz buck asking out of concern or to mock him for being bloodied by a child?

“It’s nothing. A flesh wound.”

“Griz healer can help. Let me see wound.” The Griz warrior was already reaching for Sampson’s leathers as though to peek beneath.

“No!” Sampson said, louder and more defensive than he’d intended.

Grym’s arms snapped back. “Suit self,” he said, walking away.

Sampson hadn’t reacted so strongly to be rude, or because he cared if Grym touched him. No, he knew that if he removed his leathers there would be nothing but smooth, bloodstained skin with no evidence of the minor punctures he’d sustained, his flesh having knitted itself back together. YOU’RE WELCOME, his blade hissed.

As a whole, the Grizari hospitality was decent. They provided food and water, which neither he nor Sampson wanted, but which they forced down their throats anyway so as to not disrespect their hosts. He learned that these creatures were simple folk, the equivalent of human farmers living on the vast Teravainen countryside. They lived simply, working hard but going about it without complaint, no one idle except the youngest and the oldest. He couldn’t help but respect such a lifestyle, even if he had no interest in being a part of it.

As they sat and observed the activity in camp, the sun moved well past its peak and tumbled headlong toward the horizon. When the shadows lengthened and chased away the light, Sampson’s patience waned.

“I just want this to be over,” he muttered.

“It will be soon,” Roman said tenderly.

Finally, just as the last portion of the sun sank beneath the distant horizon, spraying deep blues and purples and whorls of pink and red across the star-filled evening sky, it was time. Grym, with his daughter, Shrym, by his side, arrived to escort Sampson to where the combat would take place. The sharp-horned girl smirked at him, as full of confidence as ever. “Grandfather will break all your little bones,” she said.

“Probably,” Sampson said.

Grym chuckled. “Head will be flown like flag. Is honor in such things.”

For the life of him, Sampson couldn’t think why he should feel honored to have his head hacked from his neck and placed upon a pike, but he didn’t question the statement. Instead, Sampson and Roman followed Grym and Shrym to where a stone circle had been prepared sometime during the day while they’d been resting. Even in the waning light, Sampson could tell the stones had been painted with something that made them glisten wetly.

Drynym was already waiting inside the circle, wearing nothing but half-trousers, his gray-skinned upper body rippling with corded muscle and numerous scars that told the tail of a life hard fought. His dark horns seemed brighter than before, like they’d been polished for the event. Sampson vowed to steer clear of them as best he could. He continued to grip his sword, but knew the time was nigh to part ways with it once more.

Slowly, deliberately, he placed it on the ground at Roman’s feet, once more entering his world of darkness. The blade didn’t protest.

Before the shadowblade could change its mind, he took a long stride forward to ensure he cleared the stones as he stepped into the ring. Almost the instant he entered there was a whoosh of hot air behind him, causing him to step lively to avoid being singed by the fire that erupted from the stones ringing him and his opponent.

“Bwahaha!” The laughter erupted much like the fire had, none laughing louder or more boisterously than the warrior he could picture standing across from him, weaponless. More like a mountain than a man, he thought. How did one defeat a mountain?

Sampson had been contemplating that very question all day, and his surprising answer was provided in the form of the fiery warrior-in-training who’d informed him her grandfather would break each and every one of his bones. Because Shrym had in fact done the very thing he needed to do when she’d beaten the larger Grizari male—defeat an opponent twice his size. She’d done it with superior quickness and a bit of trickery, but none of the Grizari faulted her for her tactics, which were contrary to everything Sampson had been taught growing up. He needed to learn to fight like one would fight on the street rather than in some jousting lesson, and he needed to learn fast.

IT IS IN YOU NOW, that familiar voice whispered in his head, despite the distance between them. Though its voice was fainter than usual, he could make out every word. I AM IN YOU NOW. He shivered slightly, though he was quite warm, already sweating because of the fire roaring all around him.

“Human challenged me,” the powerful tribe leader said. “Get on with it!”

He’s goading me into making a mistake, Sampson thought. Hopefully I will disappoint him. Thus, he stood stock still, waiting for the larger man to make the first move, so that he could use his keen ears to his advantage, ignoring the jeers and raucous Grizari words spouted by the crowd gathered to watch through the flames.

“Changed mind?” Drynym said. “No matter. I shall change mind back.” With that, Sampson heard the large man stalk forward, imagining his thick arms hanging like clubs from each shoulder, his fisted hands the size of ham hocks. The closer he came, the louder and quicker his footfalls became, until Sampson knew Drynym had thrown himself into an all-out charge.

Every instinct was telling him to flee, to risk the heat of the flames over the raw muscle and bone of his opponent, but he forced himself to stand strong, waiting until the last moment, when his ears told him the Grizari was upon him. Only then did Sampson dance deftly to the side and out of harm’s way. “No horns to lock?” Drynym said, and then charged again.

This time Sampson sensed it was a closer call, the Grizari’s speed increasing as his muscles warmed up. Sampson was forced to twist away awkwardly, almost falling but maintaining his balance with a steadying hand on the ground. The maneuver slowed him down, and his opponent had no taunting words as Sampson heard him skid to a stop and charge once more.

Sampson had no time to think as he dove away. Despite his swift reaction, the edge of Drynym’s horns caught him on the hip, spinning him around such that he landed badly with one leg bent beneath him.

The fight was getting away from him and he hadn’t even landed a single blow. Drynym seemed to sense blood, feet stomping once more, and Sampson suspected his intention was to trample him underfoot like Drynym himself was an entire herd of cattle spooked by a snake in the grass.

Sampson fought to his feet, hobbled by the leg he’d twisted during his fall. Drynym closed in, footsteps thundering.

Sampson waited until his foe’s sheer size must’ve obliterated the sight of the dancing flames behind him that he couldn’t see anyway, and then sprang into action, trying to emulate Shrym’s tactics by doing the most unexpected thing he could think to do: throwing himself headlong into Drynym’s powerful knees. As he dove, he protected his own head with his arms, smashing his shoulder into his foe’s meaty leg at the joint.

It was like crashing into a stone wall, the impact stabbing into his shoulder and radiating through the whole of him, making everything chatter, including his teeth, nearly snapping off the tip of his tongue.

He thumped to the ground, groaning, dirt and brittle grass in his mouth. Worse, he’d now put himself in a precarious position, just beneath Drynym. His only choice was to roll hard and away, as fast and as far as he—

Drynym dropped down onto him, pinning him with his girth before Sampson could complete even one rotation. The breath was punched from Sampson’s lungs and he felt several ribs crack. Shrym was right, after all, he thought. Drynym’s breath was hot and smelled of meat and strong drink. “Now human dies,” he said, wrapping both monstrous hands around Sampson’s neck. He began to squeeze.

It was pathetic, the fight over before it ever really started. Blood rushed to his head and he began to see something other than darkness, stars flashing in the depths of his mind, his ears filled with the roar of the onlookers, and then—

You will fight for your very life in that circle. The oath he’d sworn to Roman, in exchange for the man’s vow to return his corpse to Wolfsgaard if he lost. Gritting his teeth, he kept his vow, lifting his hands to grab Drynym’s wrists, trying to pry them free. They didn’t budge, the tribal leader’s natural strength well beyond his own. Still, he kept fighting, as dizziness assaulted him, his body growing weaker by the second. He wouldn’t die an oathbreaker.

NOW YOU HAVE HIM, that voice said, cutting through the roar of the frenzied crowd.

Sampson needed air but was unable to suck in even the thinnest whistle of breath, and yet the words and the thing that voiced them gave him strength across the distance between them. He felt his neck muscles expand, bulging out, turning to steel, giving him space to finally—

Breathe.

One didn’t appreciate the simple act of breathing until they’d been deprived of air for an extended period. He heard Drynym gasp when he realized his efforts to strangle the life out of his pathetic human opponent were in vain, that he might as well have been trying to strangle an iron pole. And the blade’s whispered words had been right:

Sampson did have him, right where he wanted him. He reached up and felt around the Grizari’s face until he located his eyes, digging his thumbs in deep. The man roared in pain and tried to rear back to escape, but Sampson had already curled his legs around his opponent’s back and locked his feet tightly together to hold him down.

He could have stopped, as he’d planned, could have sent a message to the Grizari that he was strong yet merciful. He could have blinded the man, taken away the very thing that he himself valued the most, and then let him live.

He didn’t.

He felt a thrumming in his veins, the desire to end this weak leader’s life practically humming through him. He dug his thumbs in further. As he did, he felt awful and horrified and strong and powerful and more capable than he’d ever felt as a blind boy growing up son to a father who valued power above all else.

Drynym screamed and screamed and screamed but finally
stopped.

All was silent, the gathered crowd stunned by the turn of events.

NOW YOU SEE? that voice said.

The question could’ve easily been construed as his blade mocking him for his blindness, but he sensed there was some deeper meaning to the question. What he’d done had been horrifyingly personal and violent, and a sense of numbness had set in, but not because he felt any sense of remorse. He was about to be killed before he’d fought back. And, against all odds, he’d won. Maybe what he’d set out to do wasn’t a fool’s errand, after all.

Power thrummed through him like a lightning bolt. He grunted and shoved Drynym’s heavy body off him, where it had slumped bonelessly after he’d killed him. Then he stood in the silence, feeling strangely lost, not knowing which way to turn until Roman said, “Sampson.” Relief filled him. So long as he had Roman by his side, he could never be truly lost. He turned and walked toward his friend’s voice, feeling the heat of the flames grow with each step.

He walked through the flames without stopping, feeling the searing heat of the fire as it burned his leather armor and skin. He emerged on the other side, wishing he could fall into Roman’s arms but knowing he didn’t have the luxury of comfort after what had transpired, and was just thankful to hear his voice as he whispered, “Here,” and handed him his blade. Sight restored, he watched as the Grizari, Grym included, backed away from him as though he bore the plague. He must’ve looked it too, his skin red and rippling and smoking, his face splattered with gore.

The pain was immense, but as soon as he’d retrieved the shadowblade from Roman, he felt the agony ebb away as his skin began to heal rapidly. Soon he was whole again, none the worse for wear.

“I don’t understand,” Grym said. “What evil is human?” He’d pulled his daughter close to his side and somewhat behind him, protectively.

“I am not evil,” Sampson said, though he was uncertain whether that was true anymore. At this point, he could only hope it was true. “I am here to help the Grizari become what they once were. You said it: ‘Grizari will rise again.’ Now it’s time to make those words come true. And you shall be the one to lead them. What say you?”

Grym cast his eyes over those he’d grown up with, worked alongside, fought alongside, all of whom were watching him. And before he replied, Sampson knew what his answer would be. “I will do this thing.”

YESSS, the voice said.

Eleven

Peony Normandian

Chrysallis, Odin

“THEY’RE BARBARIC,” KING BARTHOLOMEW NORMANDIAN SAID, a measure of disgust in his tone. As Peony’s father sat in the large royal sitting room, he stroked the back of a massive dog the size of a bull. The dog, which might’ve been fearsome if not for being half-asleep, whined in delight and raised one of its giant legs. The king moved his hand lower to satisfy the canine’s itch. The dog’s name was Majesty, which made for plenty of confusing situations where one wasn’t certain whether someone was calling for the dog or addressing the king.

The king, who wore a thin, neatly trimmed, salt-and-pepper beard and used a magnifying glass to read, was a gentle sort, and Peony had long been the apple of his eye. Fighting wars and commanding troops wasn’t in his nature, which was why he’d always relied on the advice of his commanders, most notably High Commander Andovier Helm, who, last they’d heard, had been captured by the Terrans during their raid on Westport. Helm’s family had been slaughtered, a fact that had left the kind-hearted king devastated.

Peony had been hard hit by the news, too, as several times Helm himself had occupied a seat at their table. However, at present her mind was on a different situation, one much closer to home.

“Do we have any other choice? If so, I’d love to hear it,” her mother said. Queen Violet Normandian was a lovely woman even well into her fifties, with shimmering sunrise-red hair that was never out of place and a smattering of well-placed freckles brought out by too much time in the sun. Peony, on the other hand, shared only the hue of her mother’s fiery hair, and not the nature, her locks unruly and dreadfully curly. Not to mention her freckles, which numbered tenfold her mother’s and seemed to cover every bit of her pale skin.

Of all her features, however, it was Peony’s lip that she hated the most. From birth, her face had been deformed, an odd gash running down the middle of her upper lip and connecting it to her left nostril. A cleft, it was called.

She was thinking about her cleft lip now, only half-listening to the discussion about her future. “We hold our borders at Kingsfort and reinforce Westport,” the king said.

“And what of our southern ports?” the queen said. “The Terran navy is stronger and more agile than we ever knew. King Gaard must’ve been building it up in secret.”

“We request assistance from the Council of Mages. Long have we supported them by providing employment for their new mages in the palace.” By ‘employment’ he meant the veritable army of mages that were paid to maintain and, on demand, alter the palace’s crystalline walls.

“Aeromand has always remained neutral during such conflicts,” his wife snapped. “You know this.”

“Fine. Then we send runners to Travail and Avadon and request assistance if necessary. They would be foolish not to respond when their countries have just as much at risk. If Odin falls, windows will be opened to the rest of Kingfall.”

“That’s exactly why they won’t respond,” the queen said. As usual, she was right while the king was naïve. Peony loved her father, but he really could be ignorant when it came to matters of war strategy. She wondered if he regularly stuffed his head in the dirt to avoid the world around him. The queen continued her argument: “If we don’t force an alliance—a real and enduring alliance—with Travail, no doubt the Dead King will. His granddaughter, Rose, has come of age and Dragonmaster Dane is in his prime. The Solariis grow more desperate by the day and will soon attempt to rekindle their previous alliance with the dragonlords of Travail.”

Peony’s brother, Osric, sat opposite her, silent and listening, a small smirk having formed and settled onto his perfect lips. She was certain he was hoping she’d be sent away. He could barely stomach to be seen with her in public on account of her deformity. Two years her elder, he was handsome in all the ways accepted in their crystalline world of ladies in fine dresses and men in doublets and greatcoats. For the last year, all the talk had been about finding him a suitable match, but with an abruptness that had shocked Peony, the conversation had suddenly changed direction as they shot their wedlock arrows at her.

Of course, neither of her parents had yet to ask her opinion on the matter, though they regularly consulted with Osric regarding his thoughts on who should be his wife. Twice Peony almost blurted out what she’d been thinking the entire conversation, but her nerves got the better of her and she remained sitting quietly.

“I won’t do it,” the king finally said with the finality he used whenever he wanted an unwinnable argument with his wife to be over. Not that it did any good; in the end, he would acquiesce to her wishes, as he always did.

Well, in this case, Peony planned to save him the trouble, finally gathering up a sufficient supply of her nerve as she sprang to her feet and shouted, “I’ll do it!”

Both her parents, as well as Osric, stared at her, their expressions mirror images of each other. Like they’d all forgotten she was even there until she’d spoken. “Of course, you will,” her mother said at the same time her father said, “You’re not going anywhere, sweetness,” at the same time her brother said, “Good riddance.”

She ignored her brother and mother, and turned to her father, who sat adjacent to where she now stood. She settled down into a most unladylike squat and grasped his hands. “Father, I want to do this. I want to marry Dragonmaster Dane.” None of it was true. The thought of leaving the safety and beauty of Chrysallis for the first time in her life and traveling to a barren land of rock and storm clouds where dragons roamed the skies, scared the very blood from her veins. Not to mention having to marry a man half a decade her elder (three years older than Osric!) who ruled a people known best for their tradition of riding dragons into battle.

“Peony,” her father said, and she could hear the heartbreak in his voice, the fear.

“Father, you cannot shield me from the world forever. I must do my part, too. If I can help protect Odin with this marriage alliance, I go willingly.”

“You always were one for a good adventure,” he said, smiling a smile that never reached his eyes. He said it like she was planning to spend the day traipsing through the forest in search of woodland animals, stopping at midday for a picnic and a swim in a natural pool.

“Yes, Father. This will just be another adventure.”

Osric snorted.

Peony’s mother said, “I will pen a letter for you to sign, dear,” and then rose and departed the room.

“Are you certain of this?” her father asked, providing her with one final opportunity to alter the course of her life

But her mind was set, unlike the walls of their crystalline palace, which were always changing. “Yes,” she said.

When her father was gone, too, Osric said, “You know, Pia, this is the best match for you, all things considered. They say Dragonmaster Dane’s face is covered in scales like his dragon. Much of his body, too.”

“You lie.”

“It’s true. The longer a dragonlord is bonded to his dragon, the more dragon characteristics he acquires. They say the dragonlords of old lived unusually long. Some of them even breathed fire!”

“Now I know you jape!” Peony said. It was a brief and fleeting moment of levity between the siblings. Of course, it couldn’t last.

“Believe what you will, but I’m only saying it’s a good thing. Dane will barely notice your lip.”

Peony had been ready for the conversation to turn nasty the entire time and had been secretly gripping the edge of an accent pillow, just waiting. Before the last word had left her brother’s mouth, she let it fly, her aim true as it smacked into his head before he could get his hands up to block it.

It was somewhat satisfying, but it was still only a pillow. A brick would’ve been better, she thought, making a mental note to start carrying a brick around with her for as long as she was forced to endure Osric’s company. He laughed and tossed the pillow aside. “When you lay with him on your wedding night, I suppose you’ll find out what other parts of him are covered in scales.”

“You’re horrid!” Peony launched the second and final pillow resting on her chair, but this time Osric was ready, having already stood and danced away. The pillow fell short. He laughed and went the way of his parents, leaving her alone at last.

Grudgingly, Peony stood, though she was tempted to lie on the two-seater couch and cover her face with the two pillows she’d used as projectiles. The only reason she didn’t was because she was certain to catch a lecture from the queen regarding unladylike behavior. As if any of that mattered anymore. Assuming Dane accepted her father’s marriage offer, she would soon be heading to a strange place with strange customs. Everything she’d learned, everything she’d known, might as well be thrown out the window.

She sighed and stood, kicking the pillow she’d missed Osric with as she passed. It was both unladylike and childish, but she didn’t particularly care. As she walked, the crystal walls shimmered, refracting thousands of rays of sunlight streaming through the window at her feet, a beautiful spray of colors she’d too often taken for granted. Soon I will walk into darkness.

She passed from the room, which sealed behind her, a wall of crystal forming where before there had been an opening. She was well accustomed to such extraordinary movements of the palace walls and doors and normally wouldn’t even notice. Now, however, she paused and turned back, as though she wanted to reenter the room. As she knew it would, the crystal flowed upward once more, liquidlike in its movements, a viscous waterfall in reverse, determined to return to its source.

She took a step backwards and the sheet of crystal fell once more. To one who’d never witnessed the magic-imbued palace at Chrysallis, it would seem a miracle, causing delight and awe. To Peony, it was just home.

Does Travail even have mages? Peony wondered. She wished she’d paid better attention during her history lessons rather than pretending to scribble notes that were actually her own stories, ones of her own invention. She had quite a collection at this point, and those stories were her most prized possessions because no one else knew of them. If her mother ever found out…well, she’d get a firsthand glimpse of what it might be like to meet a dragon. She would have to find a way to sneak them into her crate before she left.

Assuming she left at all. What if Dragonmaster Dane refused to accept the alliance without seeing his bride-to-be first? Would he look upon her with disgust? Would he even speak to her?

She hated that she had those thoughts more than the thoughts themselves. She was a princess of Odin and should not suffer from insecurities, especially those caused by something she’d been born with and lived with her entire life. But casting aside one’s fears and self-doubts was about as easy as crawling inside a dragon’s mouth to take a nap.

Something brushed against her leg, making her jump. “Oh, Tiger,” she said, “you scared me.”

Like most things in the palace, the cat was crystal, brought to life by a spellcaster in the king’s employ. Ten years ago, Tiger had been a name day gift from her father. She’d named him because of the orange and black stripes the mage had decorated the creature with. Of course, Peony had never seen a real tiger—Kingfall didn’t have any—but had once seen an artist’s rendering in a book she’d read about the southern nation of Loslandia.

She bent down to stroke Tiger’s glossy, smooth back. The crystal cat made a purring sound so lifelike she was able to believe it was a real cat and not one constructed of crystal and magenum. To her, Tiger had to be real, for he was her only true friend. This was sad enough and would only be sadder if she believed him to be nothing but an object brought to life by a nameless mage paid for his services. The cat drank a measure of liquid magenum each day, else he become inanimate once more. Which made him the most expensive cat in all the world.

In order to pay for the extravagance of the Normandian palace at Chrysallis, Odin had become a large importer of magenum. Their partnership and dual-ownership of the shipping canal known as the Strangle with Avadon provided much of the magical substance, but to satisfy her father’s desire for moldable crystal, the kingdom had recently begun importing magenum from Loslandia as well. The mages who maintained such luxuries were provided by Aeromand. Gold paid for it all, the valuable metal abundant in the numerous streams and rivers cutting across the kingdom.

“What would happen to you if I were to steal you away from Chrysallis?” Peony asked Tiger. She suspected that without his daily dose of magenum, her lifelike cat would become nothing but a statue, but she preferred not to think about that. She could not take Tiger with her, this she knew. She gave the cat a final scratch under the chin, earning her another satisfied purr.

Peony continued her path through the palace, much of which was open to the skies, which were clear and sunny as they were on most days. Crystal pillars supported the covered walkway, but Peony cut across one of the large gardens instead, lifting her face to feel the warmth on her cheeks. She knew she would pay for it later with a whole new army of freckles, but they would fade with time, especially once she was living under the storm-smothered skies of Travail.

She paused in the center of the garden where a series of statues were displayed. They too were made of crystal and changed from time to time depending on the queen’s wishes. Peony had not seen these statues before, which likely meant they were new. There were five in total. The first was a young child, sitting atop a stone block, looking rather pleased with himself. The second showed what she assumed to be the same child, except he was older now, his hands pressed to the stone block, which had grown along with him. He seemed to be trying to push it, with little to show for his efforts. His face was painted with determination, however, as though he refused to give up until the stone moved. The third statue depicted an older version of the boy, who was now a man grown, the stone block set across his muscled shoulders. He held the stone aloft, an easy, confident expression carved onto his face. In the fourth version of the man, he was older still, lines beginning to crease the edges of his eyes and mouths. He no longer bore the stone across his shoulders, which weren’t as strong-looking or as broad. Instead, the stone rested in a wheeled cart, the man having learned to rely on his wisdom to transport the load rather than the brute strength he’d lost years earlier. The final statue showed an old man, frail and weak, on his back, the stone crushing him. His face was laced with agony as he fruitlessly tried to push the stone from his chest.

“Mother’s tastes have grown dark,” Peony muttered to herself as she started to move on.

“Actually, this one is my creation,” a voice said, stopping her.

“Father,” Peony said, startled once more. “You walk with all the noise of a ghost.”

He chuckled, which made crow’s feet form on the edges of his eyes and lines crinkle his forehead. She frowned, glancing back and forth between the king and the fourth statue several times, unable to ignore the resemblance. “The statues represent your life,” she said, the light of understanding dawning in her mind.

“Yes. Past, present and future,” he said. “I know you think me naïve, but—”

“I don’t, Father.”

He raised a hand to stop her. “You do. Your mother and brother too. Half the kingdom as well, I expect. If it is naïve to be hopeful and to trust in the goodness of people, then I wear that badge with honor.”

“You will not die crushed under the weight of a stone block, Father,” Peony said, going to him.

He opened his arms to accept her, pulling her tight against his chest, which suddenly seemed less…well, just less than it used to be. She could feel his bones through his gold doublet.

“I already feel its weight,” he whispered, kissing her hair, not caring the way it must’ve tickled his face.

“Father,” Peony said, shifting back to grab his shoulders and look into his eyes. “You must trust in the will of the gods. They will not allow a tyrant to rule Kingfall, not after all they sacrificed to keep these lands safe.”

“Now who’s being naïve?” he said, which made her smile. “We cannot hope to understand the will of the gods, which involves thousands of years of existence while our own minds consider only the next few days.”

“That long?” Peony said. “I was wondering what’s for supper.”

Drawing another smile from her father’s sad lips was well worth the jape. “I was trying to be serious.”

“So was I. My stomach growls something fierce.”

“There will be a banquet, or have you forgotten?”

“I tried, but my mind was not cooperating.”

“Peony, you must support your brother’s efforts to find a suitable match,” her father lectured.

“Must I? Does he support me?”

“Your brother is consumed by his envy.”

“Envy? Of what?” Peony could not fathom what her perfect brother could possibly be jealous about, other than perhaps the beauty of the stars in the night sky.

“Not of what—of whom.” He looked at her pointedly.

“Me? Maybe it’s your head rather than your chest being crushed by the stone. He’s embarrassed for me—that is all.”

The king shook his head. “One day you will see what I see, what everyone sees.” Before she could respond, he said, “Can you assist me with something?”

“Of course,” she said, accepting his offered arm as he escorted her as a gentleman escorts a lady. She didn’t know where she expected him to lead her, but not to the war room. Gods knew he rarely went there, only attending the daily war council meetings when a significant decision was required. Even then, he’d been pre-instructed by his advisors what decision to make. Now, the room was empty.

Peony had never been inside the room, so she drank it in eagerly. Various swatches of parchment were tacked to the walls—daily reports from Kingsfort, most inked by Andovier Helm’s own hand though the last several were from his replacement, a Commander Lorry sent from Truro to replace the imprisoned high commander. A large crystalline model portraying the whole of Kingfall was set atop the council table, surrounded by glass chairs with no cushions. “Don’t want my generals to get too comfortable,” her father said with a chuckle when he noticed her staring at the chairs. “Though when I am forced to attend, I often regret that decision.” He pretended to rub his behind, cringing as though in pain.

Peony smiled at her father with fondness, and then asked, “How does the map work?” She moved closer to the table, examining its three-dimensional surface. She could tell it was not a fixed object, the tiny glass men representing both the Odinian and Terran forces gathered at the Vein seeming so lifelike she almost expected them to begin fighting before her very eyes.

“It’s remarkable, truly,” her father said, his voice growing in excitement. He’d always loved his little crystalline creations, brought to life by the mages in his employ. “Tap your target and then wave your finger about in the direction you wish them to move. The map predicts the results based on the last few hundred years of war history.”

Peony tapped one of the crystal ships harbored off the coast of Wolfsgaard and sailed it along the northern continent, past the Fingerlings and into the bay at Westport. “Peony, what are you—”

Glass men poured from the ship into the model of the port town, rampaging at will. Before her eyes, glass structures crumbled, glass people fell to the ground, motionless. It was a massacre. She looked at her father. “The information is current,” she said.

He nodded. “The mage imbues it with historical information each fortnight or whenever a significant event occurs.”

“So if the Terrans were to attack Westport again…”

“A similar result to the last one, but my advisors don’t think they will attack again. More likely, they’ll sail around Travail and make their approach from the south.”

“The Sacred Sea? But won’t our sellswords annihilate them?”

The king breathed deeply. “We’ve been outbid,” the king said.

“I don’t understand.” As long as Peony could remember, much of the Odinian defenses had been comprised of sellswords purchased from the island of Pentock, outfitted by the island of Yan, and provided steeds by the island of Irea.

“Neither do I,” the king said. “They would not reveal who had outbid us, but it must be the Terrans. I do not know where King Gaard has obtained this newfound wealth, but my hope is he’s decided to go for broke, emptying his coffers for a final push into Odin. If we can repel him this last time, he won’t have the means to pursue the war further.”

“What hope do we have to repel him without the Pentocki sellswords?”

“None,” the king admitted. “At least not without allies. Your sacrifice has given us hope.”

“Assuming the dragonmaster accepts my betrothal.”

“He will,” her father said with a level of confidence she’d rarely heard from him except when he was speaking about crystal or fine wine. “Any man would be a fool not to marry you in a heartbeat.”

His words touched her deeply. She fell back into his arms, tears blurring her vision and wetting his clothing. “Father, what will I do without you?”

“You will be strong. You will be the woman you were always meant to be, the person I never was.”

She hung onto him for a long time, until the room and her thoughts began to darken as one.

The banquet in her brother’s honor was everything she expected it to be:

Terribly perfect and perfectly terrible.

She’d been forced into a suffocating corset that, according to her mother, accentuated her assets, followed by a strangely puffy purple dress that made her think of a bunch of grapes. Her hair had been tamed by her mother’s relentless brush, though she felt the strain of the curly locks pulling at her scalp as they tried to escape the complicated series of pins and needles that held the bees’ hive together.

She longed to be free of it all and back in britches and a shirt that she could move in. Unfortunately, the only time her mother permitted her to wear such attire was during her weekly fencing lessons. Her mother had shocked her years ago when she’d been the one to suggest that Peony train with the sword. A woman should learn to defend herself, her mother had said. Peony had taken to fencing immediately, loving the feeling of motion, the satisfaction of blocking a blow and issuing one of her own.

Now, as she struggled to get comfortable in her gown, she watched as Osric bathed in the attention of a dozen or so young, highborn maidens who fawned over him, trying to win his attention over the others. To Peony, they looked akin to ants crawling over one another to get to their prize: a crumb. She chuckled at her own thoughts, until her mother grabbed her arm and hissed, “Remember yourself, Peony, we will not turn this into a spectacle.”

“Isn’t it already?” she said, shocked at her own boldness even as the words tumbled, unfiltered, from her mouth.

She suspected the harsh look her mother gave her could shatter their crystal palace if it wasn’t protected by powerful wards, but she pretended not to notice, searching the crowds of fancy, colorful dresses and handsome greatcoats for any sign of her father.

Finally, she spotted him, in his element as he made his way across the grand hall, followed closely by Tiger, who weaved in and out of the king’s strides expertly without ever getting kicked. Though Tiger was her cat, he’d always enjoyed her father’s company, almost as if he knew who his true creator was. The king had always enjoyed such gatherings, where war was to be discussed as a bird might discuss it—from a lofty view in the clouds. He mingled with ease, always knowing exactly what to say and who to say it to, treating every attendee like his best friend (though half were probably closer to his enemies), and altogether looking like the king that he was. This was his escape from reality, and Peony would not begrudge him his evening of carefree peace by causing more drama with her mother, as tempting as that might be.

Though he’d showed no outward sign of having noticed her, the king’s path seemed to be meandering purposefully in her direction as she stood alone now, the queen having moved elsewhere—probably to encourage one of the prettier maidens to speak to Osric. Finally, the king broke away from his last well-wisher and turned his full and undivided focus to his only daughter, his smile beaming like the light of the sun, though Peony could tell something wasn’t quite right about it. “What’s wrong, Father?” she asked directly. Their family had never learned the great art of mincing words, the unspun truth spewing from their mouths like lava and ash from Firestone.

“I signed your mother’s letter and entrusted it to a merchant vessel headed for Travail,” he said, offering his arm to her as he had earlier that day in the gardens. For some reason, she got the impression he did it so she could support him rather than the other way around.

“And what did it say?”

“Nothing you need concern yourself with.”

“Father.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean that to come across as patronizing. Most of it was the typical marriage alliance nonsense. Travail will help us protect our borders in times of war, we’ll do the same, our kingdoms will be forever linked as long as our conjoined bloodlines persist, and on and on.”

Though she knew her father hadn’t wanted to sign the letter, it didn’t fully explain his mood. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“Your mother, in her infinite wisdom, invited Dragonmaster Dane and guests to attend us at Chrysallis if he accepts the marriage alliance,” he said.

“She did what?”

“Your reaction mirrors my own, but you know your mother…”

“I do, but did she explain why in the name of the weeping gods she thought that was a good idea?”

“She did. Your mother is a wise woman and a student of history. Though Travail and Odin have never truly been enemies, we have also never truly been friends. We share a border and, up until the Rift magically sealed itself, shared the grim but necessary duty of guarding the portal between our world and the Void. Other than that, our two cultures have little, if anything, in common.” Peony had many questions, but she sensed her father was working his way back to the letter, so she didn’t interrupt. “Accordingly, a proposal such as ours will likely be met with substantial skepticism.”

All at once, Peony saw the wisdom in her mother’s invitation. “By inviting the dragonlords to Chrysallis you prove your willingness to treat them as equals,” she said.

The king looked at her fondly. “I often forget how much of our world you’ve soaked up,” he said. “But yes. I must admit, your mother is right, though it shall make this entire process harder for me.”

“Don’t be so dramatic, Father. Promise you won’t challenge him to a duel.”

They both had a good laugh at that. “I promise, though I cannot promise I won’t give him a dark stare of kingly intimidation.”

“I shall look forward to watching him squirm like a worm on a hook then.”

By then, they had made their way to the head table as the servants were just beginning to serve dinner. Osric managed to use dinner as an excuse to peel himself away from his admirers; as the guest of honor, he was required to sit first before any others, a rare event where the king would be the second seated, and the queen third, flanking their only son. Peony grudgingly sat beside her mother. The opposite side of the table was empty, the four royals sitting in a line so they could look upon the room in as pretentious a manner as possible, at least in Peony’s estimation. While she loved her father dearly, she really wished he would do away with some of the old and, in her opinion, outdated traditions.

Soon the table was laden with all manner of extravagant foods. Platters of braised cow tongues garnished with tiny blue priestfish eggs; trays of grilled pheasant thigh; plates of steamed whole sea bass seasoned with entire cloves of garlic, a sprinkle of rock salt and ground black pepper; bowls filled with delectable accompaniments to the meat, such as buttery grilled potatoes, mountains of sweet rolls and entire fire-roasted ears of corn; and in the direct center, an entire honeysuckle pig, its mouth stuffed with not one but three stewed apples.

Peony hadn’t thought she was hungry, but now that she could smell and see the food, her stomach begged to differ. As both she and her brother tucked into the feast, her mother nibbled daintily on a roll she’d cut delicately in half. Her father, on the other hand, started with what he always started with: the wine. “The Calabrians are strange folk,” the king said, “but they know their way around a grape. The best of the season, aged thirty years if it’s a day old.”

He sniffed in the scent as he circled the dark red liquid around his crystal goblet. After drawing the moment out, as he always did, he took a small sip, allowing the wine to sit on his tongue for several seconds before swallowing. “Ahh,” was his only remark.

“And?” Peony said. “Was it worth the wait?” She didn’t mind a sip or two of wine, though her preference was the strong ale Osric had once managed to get his hands on, much to his father’s chagrin.

Her father took another sip before answering. “I imagine this is what it would be like to taste the stars.”

“I suppose that’s as good as a yes,” she said. From there, the conversation loosened somewhat, though Peony was content to listen to her mother question Osric about each of the young maidens he’d spoken to thus far. According to Osric, they were all the same—dull and boring and without sufficient wit or personality to be a good match. It’s the first thing we agree on, Peony realized.

“I hand-selected them because of their families,” the queen said sternly. “Each will be a strong match for you from a political standpoint.”

Her brother, who seemed rather out of sorts, poured himself a large glass of the wine that supposedly tasted of the stars and drank deeply. His father grimaced at the lack of appreciation while his mother clucked her tongue distastefully.

“I cannot help it if I feel nothing for any of them, can I?” he said, using a serviette to wipe the excess wine from his lips. When he threw the napkin down on the table, it had a vibrant red smear across it.

“You are too critical,” the queen said. “You should be more like your sister.” She’d lowered her voice to hide the compliment from Peony, but she heard every word. Getting a compliment from the queen was like catching a falling star.

“Not everyone can be so dutiful and benevolent,” Osric said, turning his body away from his mother completely. Normally, Peony would’ve enjoyed watching her brother chuck a tantrum like a boy two name days old, but in this case she was thinking about what her father had said, about her brother’s envy toward her. Maybe there was more truth to it than she knew.

Her mother eased into her chair, as she had been half out of it as she lectured the prince. Peony felt a little bad for her—she wasn’t used to not getting her way. Perhaps in her own son she’d met her match for stubbornness. “He’ll find a maiden whose company he enjoys eventually,” Peony said, trying to comfort the woman who rarely comforted her.

“I hope he’s forced to pursue her,” the queen said. “Get a taste of his own tincture.”

Peony found herself enjoying a laugh at her brother’s expense and wondered whether she and her mother could’ve been as thick as thieves in another world. “I heard you invited a certain dragonriding Travailian to tea,” Peony said.

“Don’t you start on me, too,” the queen said.

“I think it was clever.”

Her mother laughed. “Of course my daughter would understand the purpose of such political maneuvering. You’ve always had a sharp mind to rival the edge of your sword.”

Two compliments in one night? Peony was tempted to look outside for fear that the stars and moons had fallen from the night sky and sunk into the ocean. Mayhaps her mother was finally softening with age. Given her mood, Peony had the urge to ask her mother something she normally would not have dared. “Mother…” The queen met her eyes, her cheeks flushed from her own half-empty wine glass. “Will you—”

She never finished the question because the king clapped his hands, having just received a message from a servant who’d hurriedly whispered something in his ear. “It’s time for the grand event!” he shouted, loudly enough that the entire room would be able to hear him. Though the meal was only half-finished with dessert still to come—Peony had managed to catch a glimpse of the beautiful cakes, pies and other pastries that had been prepared before she was shooed from the kitchens—everyone dropped their silverware to their plates and, with the scrape of crystal chairs and a rustle of fine clothes that made a sound similar to frightened birds bursting from a hedge, stood. The invitations had explained everything: The nightflower, the most prized plant in the royal gardens, would be blooming on this night. Despite her unfinished question, Peony felt a thrill run through her as well, and she hurried to follow the crowds. It had been a decade since the nightflower had bloomed, and though she had memories of being eight years old and holding her father’s hand as they watched together, they were hazy and she couldn’t be certain how much was her youthful imagination playing tricks on her mind.

As the elite throng of guests ringed the single-stemmed plant which grew, twisting and curling from its large crystal pot, Peony followed her mother, father and brother up a set of winding stairs to an overlooking balcony, where they would have the grandest view of all.

Peony leaned on the railing, watching the petals of the magnificent flower, which were glowing purple-blue in the darkness. The stem glowed white while the leaves gleamed silver. There were oohs and ahhs from people who didn’t realize this was only the beginning of the transformation. A shooting star rocketed across the firmament, as though trying to compete with the nightflower’s beauty.

It could not; the petals began to open.

Murmurs roved through the crowd like ripples across the surface of a pond. Light shone forth from the inside of the flower, spraying into the sky and illuminating fireflies dancing on the breeze. Sparks shot upward, changing colors as they arced in all directions like a squid’s tentacles.

The crowd cheered and clapped, in awe of what they were witnessing. Peony smiled, her mind clear for the first time in days, fully focused on this flower, which had been in her family for years and years, marking the passage of time with its blooming lifecycle.

Almost as soon as the flower had come alive, it began to reverse course, the last of the sparks dying in the night, the petals curling and shriveling, darkening as they lost their glow. The stem lost its color and strength, going limper and limper until it collapsed like an exhausted old man in its little patch of dirt.

In life, none could turn their eyes from its beauty; in death, none wished to look upon it, averting their eyes as they filed back into the grand hall to resume their feast.

Twelve

Dragonmaster Dane

Dragonsmount, Travail

“THIS IS AN OPPORTUNITY,” DRAGONRIDER DRUDGE SAID.

“Is it?” Dane said. Ever since the message had arrived from Chrysallis, his uncle had been hounding him to respond. “The Odinians are not like us. You offer a rock and they ask for one of the moons. They are greedy, never satisfied. You think they wish to formalize our tenuous alliance out of the goodness of their hearts? Nay, they wish to drag us into their war with the Terrans.”

Drudge ran a hand over his bald scalp contemplatively. His skin was painted red to match the color of his dragon’s scales. Though he was well into his fifties, his body was strong, one of the benefits of his bond with his mount, a female fire-breather known as Drudgea. If she were to ever grow ill or, gods forbid, pass into the Void, however, his health would decline rapidly. Such was the strength of the rider-dragon bond, like two links of an unbreakable chain.

It was that very bond that had killed Dane’s father and mother three long years earlier that, at times, felt like yesterday.

Finally, Dane’s uncle said, “The Rift in the Soullands has been sealed, by sheer luck or miracle or some greater force. For once, we have nothing to distract us, while there are rumors the Rifts in Teravainen and Avadon have widened. War is coming, whether we ally ourselves with the Odinians or not. Don’t tell me you believe King Gaard will be satisfied once he’s expanded into Odin.”

“Watch your tone, Uncle, I am no longer your nephew to be lectured. I know war is coming but having the Terrans spread themselves overly thin across the whole of Odin may be to our advantage.”

As they stood atop Dragonsmount, their cavernous city hidden beneath them, the world seemed to be a vast, infinite sphere filled with a magic that could not be conjured by even the most skilled mage at Aeromand. The Endless Ocean’s vast white-capped waters were spread out before them on two sides. Somewhere to the north was the small nation of Solarii, longtime allies of Travail but which now felt impossibly beyond their reach. It was only a matter of time before the peninsula kingdom was overrun by the Terrans…unless he acted.

Drudge, humbled by the rebuke, bowed. “You are right, Dragonmaster. I forget my place. I only wish to counsel you. The Odinians are at our mercy. Never have the Normandians deigned to invite a dragonrider, much less the dragonmaster, to their crystal city.”

Dane chuckled at that. “I’d be afraid to land Daneus for fear of shattering their towers under his weight.”

“If you do attend the city, I would advise against swooping in on dragonback.”

“Why? So King Normandian can live in denial that he wed his only daughter to one who rides on scaly, fire-breathing monsters? I will not alter myself to pander to our easterly neighbors’ ignorance.”

“I am only saying, they’ve extended an olive branch. Try not to break it when you reach out to grab it.”

“Come on, Uncle, you’ve known me since I was a babe in my mother’s arms. Have I ever been reckless?”

“Have you ever not been reckless?” his uncle muttered.

This time Dane didn’t rebuke him for his casual words. They were, after all, kin. “The line between bold and reckless is narrow. So what if I cross it every so often?” It was a rhetorical question, so he didn’t wait for his uncle to respond. “The storms are building again in the west.”

“They’re always building.”

“Exactly. Life in the Stormlands is complicated enough without our involvement in marriage alliances and never-ending wars.” The day was growing late, the sky split into two equal halves, one clear and light over the sea, and the other filled with lumbering clouds that cast shadows across the whole of Travail.

“All I’m saying is don’t dismiss the notion out of hand. Consider it.”

“Enough. Leave me in peace.”

“Will you consider it?”

“Yes.”

Drudge bowed once more and clambered down the rough, winding path leading to the lower levels.

Dane continued to watch the mountains of black clouds growing to the west, thankful for the few moments of silence. Grudgingly, he had to admit his uncle had made several good arguments. The Terrans would not stop until King Gaard was dead. Hell, even then they might not stop; it was said the crown princess, Amari Gaard, could be every bit as cold and tenacious as her father. And the abrupt and unexpected sealing of the Rift in the Soullands had eliminated a huge distraction for his people. Not to mention the Odinian marriage alliance offer, which had come on the heels of a similar offer from Solarii, for Dane to wed the Dead King’s granddaughter, Rose Ontarii, who was said to be as lovely as the bloom from which she’d received her namesake.

He wondered if Princess Peony Normandian’s beauty matched her own floral namesake.

Not that he cared. Dane put stock in strength of will and character over outward beauty. Even the prettiest flower could be crushed in one’s fist if enough pressure were applied. Then again, a rosebush had thorns capable of making one bleed if they weren’t careful, so beauty wasn’t a reflection of lack of strength either.

His thoughts were meandering now, and he strove to refocus them. He contemplated his father’s own marriage alliance, which had been to a Solarii princess, one of the Dead King’s daughters, who later became his mother, as strong a woman as he’d ever known.

As the last rays of sunlight faded like smoldering embers on the horizon, Dane’s day began in earnest. He was tempted to call for Daneus in his mind, but he didn’t want to awaken the dragon from his slumber. Ever since he’d first experienced the thrill of riding a dragon, walking just felt so…mundane. He picked his way down the slope the way his uncle had gone, feeling thirsty.

For dragonriders, there was only one place to go for a drink: Scales and Flames. The owner, Tazeen, had once been a dragonrider himself under Dane’s father’s command, until his dragon had grown a second head and gone quite mad, flying off over the Endless Sea, never to be seen from again. Presumably, the insane dragon was still alive, else Tazeen wouldn’t be alive himself, unless their bond had been somehow severed. Such a thing was rare, which made the man himself rare. This had all occurred before Dane was born. Evidently Tazeen had become a recluse for several years trying to cope without his dragon but was strong enough to pull himself out of the hole and turn to his second love: ale. Now, Scales and Flames was where all the dragonriders went to drink and escape the troubles of the world, which were numerous.

The tavern was within one of the many caves pocked into the side of Dragonsmount, leaving the inhabitants relatively protected from the massive storms that rampaged across most of Travail. As Dane approached on foot, he heard the usual boisterous rumble of arguments and explosions of hearty laughter, followed by the clinking of glasses and cries of, “Drink!” Typically there would be at least one dragon curled on the slope outside the tavern, but tonight the impending storm had kept them all sheltering within the dragon cavern.

As Dane walked in, he spotted his uncle already inside, speaking to two of the elder dragonriders in a shadowy corner. He ignored him and headed straight for the heart of the action, where three round wooden tables had been pushed together to accommodate the dozen or so painted dragonriders assembled around it, deep in their cups. The discussion bordering on an argument he’d heard as he approached was continuing, so heated no one noticed him as he stood just outside the circle, listening.

“You think the gods care enough about Travail to bother themselves with our tiny Rift?” one of the females said, her voice full of its usual condescension. She was Dane’s cousin, Dragonrider Lei, her skin painted as white as a wool. Half her head was shorn, while from the other half fell a waterfall of dark, lustrous hair. She considered herself better than most of the other riders, and she was probably right.

“What? You think it was the demons who sealed it? They thought: You know what, we’ve lost our taste for human flesh. Let’s eat bugs and weeds from now on.” The rebuttal drew raucous laughter from the rest of the riders. The response was from Dragonrider Brute, who represented his name well, his hulking brown-painted form taking up the space of two of the other riders. He also happened to be Dane’s fast friend from the time they were children, even before they’d completed their Rift Descension or Claimed their own dragon’s egg. Brute and Lei had fancied each other for as long as Dane could remember, and yet they liked to argue as though they were mortal enemies.

“Did I say it was the demons?” Lei fired back. “There are other forces at work here, you fool. You think it a coincidence that the Infernal Pit and the Rift within Beggar’s Canyon grew larger around the same time ours sealed shut?”

“Exactly,” Brute said, like she’d made his point for him. “Other forces, like the gods. Finally, they’re smiling upon Travail, and I for one plan to smile back.” With that, he offered his most beaming red-cheeked smile, the droplets of ale that had dribbled down his thick beard gleaming in the torchlight.

“Stupid fool,” Lei said, though this time she spoke with fondness as she allowed her man to pull her close against him as they kissed deeply.

The rest of the riders cheered. That’s one way to settle an argument, Dane thought, snorting. His riders’ antics were a nice distraction from his own internal battle over what to do about the messages from Solarii and Odin. “I agree with my cousin,” he said loudly, finally making his presence known.

His riders welcomed him warmly, passing him a frothing mug of ale. Brute’s lips separated from Lei’s. “Of course you do,” Lei said. “Only a cricket would agree with Brute.”

“I’ve known some clever crickets,” Brute said. “Anyway, Dane’s head has been stuck in the storm clouds for so long he wouldn’t know a god from a dreadbeast if it showed up at the mouth of his cave.”

Before Dane responded, he threw back his glass, filling his mouth with the rich liquid, swallowing smoothly until he’d drained the entirety of its contents. He pretended to hiccup, turning to his cousin. “Sorry, Lei, Brute’s probably right.”

The riders laughed and clinked their glasses and drank before ordering another round from Tazeen, who had to tap another barrel to fulfill the request. It was a wonder the man never seemed to run out.

After that, Lei and Brute slipped away, tucked tightly together. Dane’s uncle’s other daughter, Star, remained. If Lei was a fireball, Star was the dragon claw, as sharp as a knife but more subtle. Both his cousins were fine-looking women and had garnered plenty of attention from the male riders. Lei was already spoken for with Brute, having become bondmates nearly a year ago. Much to Dane’s amusement, on the other hand, Star held off her admirers the way a beekeeper might swat away stingers with thick gloves.

Dane respected this about her, and they’d grown close over the years. As the conversation turned to other topics, the riders casting bets on how much rain the impending storm would dump on Travail, Dane sat beside Star. They sipped their ale slowly, content to just exist in a comfortable silence. Dane had always felt such comfort with Star, the kind he’d long believed might grow into an enduring love that would make them a good pairing. Evidently, her mind was considering the future, too, because she said, “Uncle told me about the messages from Solarii and Odin.”

Dane inspected her face, which gave nothing away. Both sides of her head were shaven, a line of hair remaining down the center, spiked skyward with a claylike substance. “And?” Dane said.

“And Solarii is the obvious choice, given you are half-Solarii.”

Though it was true, Dane had never considered himself anything but Travailian. It was all he had ever known, and his mother had never tried to teach him anything about her home kingdom. In fact, as far as he could tell, she’d fully embraced their way of life, dying as a Travailian in her heart, where it counted the most. He also sensed his cousin had only paused and not yet finished her thought. “But?” he prompted.

“But Odin would make a valuable ally if the Terrans continue to flex their muscles.”

“Now you sound like your father.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“I guess not. But why must I choose one marriage alliance over the other?”

“You want to have two wives?”

“Funny. How about none? Why must a man tether himself to a woman?”

“A woman could say the same thing.”

“Exactly. I wonder what Peony Normandian and Rose Ontarii think of the notion. Have they been asked?”

“They will do their duty as your mother did. She lived a good life, did she not?”

“Yes, but my father was a good man, a good bondmate.”

“You’re a good man, too. And you will become a good bondmate. Having a bondmate is important. It gives our dragons a chance if we die, someone else to hold on to.”

At some point during their discussion Star’s orange-and-black-painted hand had grabbed Dane’s blue hand firmly. They both seemed to notice at the same time, their eyes staring at their clasped hands, which then separated. Dane’s eyes bore into hers, which were the color of a violet sunset. “Then why can’t I be a good bondmate to you?”

She finally broke away from their locked gaze. “Don’t say such things.”

He reached out to grasp her hand this time. She tried to pull away, but he held her fast, using his other hand to tilt her chin upwards until she was forced to meet his eyes once more. “How can I not? You cannot deny our bond any more than you can deny your bond with Starrus.” Starrus was Star’s dragon, a fierce orange-and-black-striped creature that liked to snap at anyone who looked at her rider with so much as a frown.

“It’s not about that,” Star said.

“It should be about nothing but that. I am yours if you speak it.”

“Dane, I cannot. I love you as one might love a brother, with fondness. That is the extent of our bond. Any other reading of things is pure fantasy.”

They both knew it was a lie, even as she slipped her hand from his. She left first, and Dane waited only a short time longer before doing the same, another round of ale and silly stories insufficient to draw him from his dark mood. He noticed his uncle watching him the entire way but refused to meet his eyes.

He emerged from the cave on the mountainside, the stars and moons obliterated by the ink-dark clouds that had ravaged the entire sky. Something moved against them, graceful and powerful, and he didn’t need his eyes to identify the dragon, for he sensed the moment the dragon had stirred in his slumber, felt the wind on his own skin the moment the dragon took flight.

Daneus was a vision of perfection as he swooped from above, blue, leathery wings owning the wind, possessing the sky as one controlled their own weapon. No other dragon but him would risk flying in the massive storm that now approached, but even as a dragonling Daneus had not feared the lightning nor thunder, roaring in the face of each maelstrom that threw itself against Travail like invaders against a castle gate.

Hoom, the dragon sighed. Fly with me.

Despite his uncle’s suggestion that he made reckless choices, he made another one, unable to stop himself from racing along the cliff’s edge with the wind behind him, charging back up the steep path, barely maintaining his balance on several occasions as rocks skittered and slid underfoot, reaching the head of the stone mountain shaped like a dragon just as his very real dragon dove past him, careening toward the sea.

At a full gallop, Dane leaped from the cliff, extending his arms at both sides as though he, too, had wings.

But Dane didn’t need wings, nor was such a blind leap as reckless as many might think it to be, for Daneus had reversed his pumping wings to slow his fall, until his rider landed with a soft thump upon his back, gripping twin neck spikes firmly with two hands as the dragon once more accelerated for the sea, which had grown angry under the threat of a storm, lashing itself against the rocks.

Your courage is strong? Daneus asked as they plummeted headlong toward certain death.

Test me, Dane thought back, wind whipping his long braid behind him. Cold, thin rain had begun to pelt his cheeks and scalp, and he was forced to squint. He clung to the neck spikes with strong, calloused fingers, finding the grooves he himself had carved in their smooth surface—with his dragon’s permission, of course.

As you wish, the dragon thought back, accelerating more, until Dane could no longer maintain the grip of his knees and ankles around the dragon’s sides, his legs flying up behind him, threatening to wrench him into a freefall. Despite his strength and the rough grooves, the rain had rendered his grip slick, and he felt his fingers begin to pull away. Two massive waves crashed into each other, mountains of water vying for dominance on the battlefield sea. The resulting spray erupted like a geyser, soaking Dane to the skin just as Daneus changed direction from vertical to horizontal, skimming his claws along the restless ocean. Gravity regained its hold, dragging Dane’s legs back onto his dragon’s back.

He released his grip on the spikes, hanging on with only his knees as he threw his face toward the sky and howled.

Your courage appears to be intact, Daneus murmured, gouts of fire bursting from his nostrils.

You doubted?

The dragon shrugged inwardly. Dane’s bond with his mount was so complete he could sense such things, just as the creature certainly sensed his own inner turmoil. Courage has never been your problem.

Here we go, Dane thought, hoping the dragon was unable to read his mind. Fine. I’ll bite. What is my problem?

Believing you can change the future, the dragon said gruffly.

I can. I will.

And marry Dragonrider Star?

If I wish it.

She has no say in the matter?

Of course she does. But if I reject both proposals, then what will hold her back?

You will not reject both offers.

The dragon made the statement so matter-of-factly it burned through Dane like an unwanted promise. You know what I will do before I do it?

Most of the time. Humans are as predictable a creature as I’ve ever met. It becomes dull at times.

Sorry for being dull. And for your information, I plan to reject both proposals. The Solariis and Odinians can fight their own battles.

Mm-hmm.

My mind is set.

Of course it is, Daneus said dryly.

You’re impossible.

Dragons in general or me specifically? Either way, doesn’t make much sense. I’m right here, both me and a dragon, so both are clearly possible.

Take me to the Deadlands, Dane commanded, trying to change the subject.

Ask nicely.

Daneus…

Yes?

Fine. Please.

Please what?

Gods give me patience…

The dragon released a jet of flames and rose suddenly, the wind and force of their rise pinning Dane to his back, rough scales chafing at his clothes. If not for the thick leather padding on his elbows, knees and chest his clothes would’ve been torn apart. Higher and higher he went, Dragonsmount falling away beneath them, the enormous stone dragon growing smaller and smaller, until it might’ve been nothing more than a common lizard sunning itself on a warm rock.

The rain intensified the higher they went, and Dane felt pressure building in his ears. Daneus, he cautioned.

Yes, Dane? the dragon thought back, shooting higher still, gale-force winds blasting them from the side.

As they burst through a low-hanging dark cloud, Dane’s ears really began to hurt. I’m sorry, Dane said.

For what?

Everything?

That’s more like it, the dragon thought back, leveling out and then diving once more. Just to be safe, you should offer a full apology for everything at least once per day.

You’re hilarious.

So I’ve been told.

This time, the dragon’s dive wasn’t nearly as precipitous as when they’d almost splashed into the sea. The mighty creature angled toward a forested area just east of Dragonsmount, the rain slackening as their sheer speed outran the storm.

Dane winced, pinpricks of pain shooting from his hands up his arms. Now that they were coasting calmly, he finally released the neck spikes, maintaining his seat by tightening the grip maintained by his ankles and knees. He inspected his hands, which were torn and bleeding.

They will heal, his dragon rumbled.

They always do. They will be stronger for it.

Your heart is much the same, the dragon said.

Star is not a flesh wound, Dane said. More like a blade through the eye. And I told you, my mind is set.

So you say.

So I say. If I cannot control my own future, what is the point of doing anything?

I didn’t say you cannot control your future, just not all parts of it. There are events written by the gods in the stars. Such things cannot be changed.

Like whom I marry?

Your marriage bond will change the course of history.

Dane had the urge to respond flippantly, but Daneus’s inner voice had grown serious now, and he knew as well as any who’d bonded themselves to a dragon that the magnificent creatures’ knowledge of the world was ancient, born into him, not something to be discarded lightly. He sighed. I hope it does, he said. For if it does not, I have failed in my duties.

I’m sorry, the dragon said, surprising him.

For what?

That you must be a slave to your station. In another world we could fly to faraway lands and you could choose Star every time. Assuming she would choose you in return.

She would.

Mm-hmm.

Is that what you would do if you had complete freedom? Fly to some faraway land?

Honestly, I don’t know. I will not abandon Travail. It is my home, as it is yours.

The dragon had begun to circle the forest, decreasing their altitude with each pass. Amongst the trees was an open space, a large clearing through which a lonely stream babbled. The waters were low now, but Dane knew the fast-approaching storm would fill it until the stream became a strong river eventually flowing into the sea far to the south.

Daneus landed gracefully on a broad rock that jutted out into the stream, crooking one leg so Dane could dismount, and then folding his wings behind him. Within moments, the dragon was fast asleep, a talent Dane wished he could gain by being bonded to the beast.

He sighed, stepping from the rock to walk amongst the numerous grave markers that flanked the stream. They came in all shapes and sizes, but represented lost dragonriders, all of them, the dragonlords of Travail who’d perished over the last couple centuries. Some were extravagant, entire rooms hewn from marble, carved with depictions of dragons flying with rider into battle. Such graves generally represented the final resting places for Dane’s predecessors, dragonmasters of old.

And yet none of them were his destination on this night.

On his deathbed, his father hadn’t asked for marble or granite, carvings or ornate fixtures. All he’d requested was to live forever with his wife, who, in the throes of compassion for him, had grown seriously ill only days after her husband.

Thus, Dane marched directly to a pair of what only three years earlier had been saplings planted in soft grave dirt, but which were now strong, growing trees, with branches that, inexplicably, seemed to be growing toward each other, several of them already beginning to intertwine. In a decade, perhaps two, the trees would grow together, becoming two parts of a greater whole, which was representative of the love that had endured after its humble beginnings in a marriage alliance that neither party had been fully committed to.

In these conjoined trees, Dane’s father’s dying wish would be fulfilled, his parents living forever as they grew toward the skies they loved so much.

Dane dropped to his knees, bowing his head. “Father…Mother…,” he said.

The branches moved, though the storm winds had not yet reached this far into the forest.

“I—I have a hard choice to make.”

The branches stopped moving, as though the trees were holding their breaths, listening.

“War surrounds Kingfall. The Rifts are changing, some for the better, some for the worse. But I’m guessing you already know all this. A marriage alliance has the power to strengthen two nations against the warmongering Terrans, much as your alliance did all those years ago. But there is another…how can I do the duty my mind tells me I must do when my heart yearns for another path?”

Words filled his mind, but not because of some otherworldly magic from beyond the grave. They were words spoken to him when he was just a boy, on the day he Claimed the dragon’s egg that would one day hatch into Daneus, spindly-legged and weak of wing. Your duties will conflict with each other as often as the winds change in the Stormlands, so you must remember the order of things: First, to your country, as Travail is what it is today because of the sacrifices of men like us. Second, to your dragon, who will be your greatest comfort in times of trials and tribulation. Third, to your wife, who will be an immovable rock in the stormy seas. Fourth, to your children, who are the future of our world, bright lights in the darkest of nights. And finally, after all else have been satisfied, comes your own desires.

His father’s voice faded, and Dane longed to hear it spoken aloud. It was said that there were powerful necromancers that could use copious amounts of magenum to return the dead to life—hence the Dead King of Solarii—but such dark magic felt unnatural to Dane. He would not disturb his parents’ slumber to satisfy his own childish longings. No, you come last, he thought. You cannot give Star what she wants any more than she can offer herself to you.

With his father’s words echoing through his mind, Dane walked back to where Daneus sat waiting, no longer asleep, knowing his decision the instant he’d made it. We will reach Chrysallis in two days, the dragon said. Do you wish to stop at Dragonsmount to tell your riders?

The dragon already knew that answer, too, and Dane knew he was only offering him an opportunity to change his mind. No, Dane said. We fly east immediately.

As you wish, the dragon rumbled, lifting off, powerful wings beating the air to the ground, kicking up dust and causing waves to form in the stream. Do I get to say I told you so?

No, Dane said.

The storm at their backs, they soared over the Bay of Sighs, Dane’s future, whether written in the stars or not, ahead of him.

Thirteen

Peony Normandian

Chrysallis, Odin

“PRINCESS!” A VOICE SHOUTED THROUGH HER DOOR AS THE POUNDING CONTINUED.

“Go away,” Peony muttered, covering her head with her pillow and dragging the covers up higher to ward off the morning chill that had permeated her bedroom window.

Thud, thud, thud. “Princess, I must insist! Your immediate presence is required!”

What use is being a princess if I can’t sleep in past dawn? she wondered. In the few days since the nightflower had bloomed and Osric had, once again, failed to choose a wife, Chrysallis had settled into a strange silence, no one speaking of much other than the unseasonably cool weather that had fallen upon the crystal city, chasing its inhabitants indoors, leaving the streets empty and forlorn.

She was startled from her thoughts when a new voice spoke through the door: her mother’s. “Peony, I’m coming in.”

Peony cursed in a most unladylike manner and hastily cast the covers off her head and slid from beneath the pillow. A key rattled in the lock and the door opened just as she bounced to her feet, a disastrous tangle of hair tumbling across her face.

“Peony Normandian,” her mother said the moment she saw her daughter’s rumpled condition.

“Er, did you need something, Mother?” Peony said, attempting to smooth the wrinkles out of her dressing gown.

“We must make haste. A dragon approaches from the west.”

“What?” Peony’s heart fluttered and she felt the sudden need to pee.

“It’s true. A tower guard spotted it not long ago. Far too large to be a bird.”

“But—”

“There’s no time. You must make yourself presentable—or, at least, your version of presentable.”

Peony barely noticed the thinly veiled remark at her appearance, her thoughts spiraling into a pit of what ifs. What if it isn’t Dragonrider Dane? What if it is? What if he thinks me ugly? What if he doesn’t? What if it’s only a messenger come to deliver Dane’s response to the offer of a marriage alliance? What if the answer is no? What if it isn’t?

“Peony!”

Her mother’s sharp shout snapped her from her thoughts. The queen had already thrown open her wardrobe and begun to riffle through the contents, quickly discarding those dresses that were “too shabby” or “too pretentious” or “too revealing” or “not revealing enough”.

Peony moved to her dressing table and sat, staring at her disheveled appearance in the mirror. She now wished she’d spent half as much time in the sun over the last couple days—an army of freckles were now occupying her forehead, cheeks and nose. There was nothing she could do about that now, so she focused on what she could do, starting with her hair, which looked as though a child had been playing with it.

She grabbed a brush, plucking balls of hair from its bristles before going to war with her unruly, springy locks. They fought back hard, but after several moments of stalemate, acquiesced to her wishes, untangling themselves so that they at least appeared to be in some semblance of order, if not fully tamed.

She paused momentarily, her gaze catching the reflection of a large piece of artwork hanging on the opposite wall. For some reason, this particular painting had captured her attention from the moment she’d laid eyes on it, and it still intrigued her on a level she couldn’t fully comprehend. The Great Bone Pile, it was called, an artist’s depiction of a famous mountain of godbeast bones located in southwest Odin. The bones were said to be a remnant from a penultimate battle during the Godswar, when the gods’ enormous steeds were massacred by Erif Mirg’s Legacy Sword and his army of the Thousands. The gods had rallied and managed to clutch victory from the arms of defeat, leaving the Great Bone Pile as an eternal reminder of the sacrifices required to defeat evil in all its forms.

“Peony!” Her mother’s sharp tone pulled her away from the painting, though she couldn’t help but to continue to be vaguely aware of its presence, as she always was when she was in her bedroom.

By then her mother had returned with a green dress with rather puffy shoulders in Peony’s opinion, but which was apparently not shabby, not pretentious, and just the right amount of revealing. She draped the silky material over the foot of the bed and then got to work on her daughter, dragging her dressing gown over her head and tossing it aside to be collected by a servant for washing later. “Mother, it’s freezing!”

“Not as cold as where you’ll be going. Hold still.” Shivering, Peony was forced to endure her mother’s treatment, which included the application of a small amount of rose powder to her cheeks, a subtle pink shade to her lips (applied to look like a butterfly), and the hint of dark kohl under her eyes—“Enough to draw his attention away from your deformity, but not so much as to make you appear as though you stepped from a brothel,” her mother counseled as she worked. Next, the queen helped her into one of her finest corsets—“To hold everything together”—cinching the ties so tight Peony had to adjust to taking thinner, more rapid breaths. Finally, her mother tied her hair with a green ribbon to match the dress and the shade of her eyes.

“There, now Dane won’t be able to say no to you—not if he’s a man, that is.”

As Peony inspected her reflection in the mirror, she had to admit, she looked rather beautiful, as long as she avoided lingering too long on her cleft lip. “Thank you, Mother,” she said, truly meaning it. “I will—”

“Don’t get all teary, your kohl will run,” her mother said sternly. Peony sighed. Any of the magic between them from the evening the nightflower bloomed was gone. Mayhaps it had been the wine and nothing more.

“Yes, Mother,” she said, more certain of her decision than ever before. She needed to untether herself from this place and forge her own path. After slipping on shoes, she followed her mother from the room.

Dane

The journey from Dragonsmount to Chrysallis had been uneventful and altogether rather pleasant. Compared to Travail, the weather once they’d crossed the border into Odin had been fair, if a bit colder than Dane expected. They’d slept on the shores of the Bay of Sighs, the gentle lullaby of the sea guiding them to sleep. Coaxing Daneus from sleep each morning had been a challenge, the dragon a skilled and deep sleeper. The second and last morning had been the most difficult and twice the grumpy dragon had threatened to burn Dane’s long braid from his head.

What if we’d been attacked by bandits during the night? Dane asked as they flew across the final stretch of glittering ocean, Chrysallis’s millions of crystalline prisms reflecting shards of sunlight in the distance. Would it be up to me to fight them off by myself while you slumbered?

Yes, Daneus said.

Thank you for your honesty.

Dragons are incapable of lying. I thought you knew this.

I know my particular dragon is incapable of arising before dawn.

Would you rather have walked?

He had him there. Overland, the journey would’ve required more than a fortnight rather than two days, and he would’ve needed to explain the nature of his business to the Odinian border soldiers after he’d passed through the Barrier of Spears. Thank you, he said sincerely, swallowing his pride.

You can thank me by letting me hunt after we land. My stomach grows empty.

Dane considered it. I will need to speak to King Normandian first. The last thing we need is you massacring some farmer’s flock of sheep and stirring up rumors of a Travailian dragon attacking Odin land.

Sheep? I wouldn’t eat a sheep if I were starving. Their wool is thick and gets stuck in my teeth. Plus, there’s no fun in hunting sheep. Stupid, blundering creatures. Give me a fleet-footed buck any day.

I’ll see what I can do.

The sun-speckled waters vanished beneath them as they made landfall, soaring over the harbor, which was bustling with activity. The seamen pointed and shouted, half of them diving into the water and the other half scurrying onto their ships and vanishing below deck. Are all humans outside Travail so skittish? Daneus asked.

They’ve never seen a dragon. I think we caught them by surprise.

I should set one of their ships alight. That will catch them by surprise.

Please control yourself. We’re trying to forge an alliance here, not make an act of war.

Always got to ruin my fun, eh?

Dane ignored him and pointed at the glinting spires of the crystal palace set on a hill high above the rest of the city. His breath caught as he realized one of the spires, the one in the direct center, was growing even larger, changing shape, forming into something he couldn’t quite discern until—

He saw it.

Is that a…, Daneus murmured, sounding as awed as Dane felt.

A dragon, Dane said, watching as one side formed into a long, spiked tail and wings crystallized at either side. Last, the statue’s neck and head formed, its maw open and breathing out shards of crystal-flames. Amazing.

Waste of magenum, Daneus huffed, but Dane could tell he was impressed, too. And the display of magical art wasn’t quite finished yet, a rider beginning to form atop the dragon’s back.

Me, Dane thought. The mage is creating me while watching us approach.

What was even more impressive was that he hadn’t sent a message in response to the king’s offer, instead arriving unannounced, which meant the king had pre-arranged this spectacle and then scrambled to put it into action when his scouts spotted their approach. If nothing else, it showed Dane how badly Normandian wanted to make this alliance work.

Dane scanned the area around the “dragon” spire, spotting a large platform that was clearly meant for them to land on, a large contingent of armored guards surrounding it. The platform was connected to the palace by a wide bridge. Upon the bridge stood a man dressed in finery and wearing a crown. The king, presumably. On one side was a young man who could only be Prince Osric Normandian. On the opposite side, a woman wore her own smaller crown. Queen Violet Normandian. Beside her was a young woman in an emerald-green dress. Peony, he thought, feeling his heart flutter. Not because she was beautiful—he couldn’t see any of her features from this height, but because of what her presence might very well represent. A massive step forward for Travail, a new peace in southern Kingfall that could change the power dynamics in these lands forever.

Daneus, take us dow—what are you doing?

His question was too late, because while he’d been inspecting the welcoming party, he hadn’t noticed his dragon’s trajectory. As his question hung in the silence between them, Daneus’s spiked tail whipped out as they swept past the spire. With a shattering sound, the crystal dragon and rider broke free from their mount and toppled off the spire. Dane watched in horror as the rather large glass statue fell through open air, smashing into a grassy, garden area that was, thankfully, unoccupied by any of the Odinians.

Daneus! Dane shouted.

Yes?

Why did you do that?

That dragon didn’t look anything like me, and the rider was too short to be you. It was an insult.

You could’ve killed someone!

But I didn’t. I was careful to make the statue break in an open area.

Dane didn’t know what else to say. In less than a second, his dragon may have very well sabotaged the very alliance they’d come here to make. Just take us down.

You’re angry.

You think?

Yes, I do.

You’ve always been adept at reading my emotions.

I don’t understand. It was just a statue. For all the ancient knowledge and wisdom that dragons were born with, he sometimes forgot that in terms of years of actual life experience, Daneus had fewer than him.

It was more than that. It was King Normandian’s attempt to make us feel welcome.

To do that, all he had to do was point me in the direction of the nearest hunting grounds.

Just…stop. It was a mistake bringing you here.

…

When we land, don’t do anything foolish. Just remain still and silent. Understand?

…

I’ll take your silence as a yes.

Daneus swooped down and landed with his usual grace on the platform. No fewer than fifty arrows were nocked on bowstrings, ready to fly in their direction at the first sign of hostility. Dane swiftly slid from his dragon, who didn’t offer him a leg of assistance. Let him pout, Dane thought.

I’m not pouting, I’m obeying your command to pretend to be invisible.

I never said—oh never mind.

I won’t.

Dane turned his attention to the guards and the welcome party beyond, all of whom looked rather shocked by what had transpired, which had clearly not been part of their plan. Void, they’d even literally rolled out a red carpet that led from the platform to the bridge. Now that’s a bit much, Dane thought.

You think?

I thought you were pretending to be invisible.

Being invisible doesn’t mean mute.

For the first time in two days, Dane spoke using his actual voice rather than the bond between him and his dragon. “Hel—” His rusty voice caught in his throat and he was forced to cough to clear it. “Well met!” he said loudly. “I apologize for your dragon statue—it was most beautiful. I pray to the gods no one was hurt?” No response, just arrowheads and stares. “Daneus—my dragon—can be most temperamental, especially when he’s hungry.”

The wide eyes widened further, and the soldiers increased the tension of their bowstrings.

“Not that Daneus wants to eat any of you,” Dane said quickly, realizing he’d said the wrong thing. “He tasted human flesh once and found it most off-putting. Give him a buck any day, something he can hunt down and tear limb from limb.” Several of the soldiers looked as though they wanted to throw themselves from the platform. The queen’s eyes narrowed. The king in particular was looking as green as his daughter’s dress. Peony, who was as beautiful as she’d appeared from the sky, raised a single eyebrow. Dane needed to say something right, and fast, or his potential alliance was going to go further south than Loslandia. “I think we’ve started on the wrong foot. Allow me to begin anew. I am Dragonmaster Dane of Travail. I received your message, King Normandian, and wish to discuss your proposal further. I apologize for arriving unannounced, but thought time was of the essence given the Terrans’ recent attack on Westport.”

Some of the color returned to the king’s face, and he nodded. “Thank you. You are most welcome. You and your, er, dragon—Dane-ay-us, did you say?

He speaks my name incorrectly, Daneus said grumpily.

Hush.

Right, I’m invisible and mute.

“Yes, Dane-ee-us,” Dane said, purposefully enunciating each syllable in the hopes the king would learn how to pronounce it correctly and appease his dragon.

“Can we, er, bring meat and water for the beast?”

Beast? Daneus said, a growl rumbling from his lips, though they didn’t open.

Stay calm. This is their first interaction with a dragon. You can be intimidating.

They haven’t seen intimidating yet.

“Thank you,” Dane said, “but no. Daneus prefers to hunt. Where is the closest forest where he can hunt without…disturbing…any of your citizens? The more isolated the better.”

There was silence for a moment before the response came, not from the king but from the young woman in the emerald-green dress—Princess Peony Normandian. “The southern lands between Chrysallis and South Strangle are forested and remote. They should suit.” Dane’s eyes met hers and she didn’t shy away, though she did look somewhat embarrassed. She cringed as her mother’s hand reached out and grasped her elbow, pinching it. That’s when he noticed something strange about the top of her lip—a scar of sorts.

“Thank you,” Dane said with a bow, averting his eyes so as to not draw the queen’s ire. He turned back toward Daneus and was about to excuse him, but the dragon was faster, launching himself into the air, wings blasting the guards with wind. He purposely—dragons didn’t do anything by accident—swept his tail so close to several of the soldiers that they dove to ground.

Daneus’s deep laughter resounded in Dane’s ears as the dragon flew away, off toward the remote woodlands to the south. Dane turned back around. “Apologies again. My dragon has a fickle sense of humor.”

You should speak, Daneus said. Dane caught a flicker of what his dragon was seeing in his mind. Lush, fertile farmlands dissected into squares growing different types of crops. It was no wonder the Terrans coveted these lands, which must’ve produced plentiful harvests annually.

Dane shook his head so he could focus on those standing in front of him. Peony’s mouth opened as if the princess was going to say something again, but then she caught her mother’s expression, which seemed to warn her off. Are women not permitted to speak here? Dane wondered. He wished he were more versed in Odinian customs.

The guards that had almost been knocked flat had righted themselves, fumbling at their bows until they could aim at him once more. “Should I prepare to be skewered with arrows?” Dane said. “My understanding was that I was an invited guest.”

“At ease!” the king shouted, finally seeming to recover from the shock of the dragon’s abrupt entrance and exit. His voice cracked slightly as he shouted—this man is no battlefield commander, Dane thought. Regardless, his command had the desired effect: the guards lowered their bows and stood at attention, eyes forward. “It is I who should apologize,” the king said, and his voice sounded much kinglier now that the tension had eased and the dragon was gone. “Please. Yes, you are our guest. We had hoped to be more prepared for your arrival, but it is no matter. We are an agile people. Tea and pastries will be served in the royal parlor once you’ve had time to freshen up from your journey. I assume you’ll want to bathe and change clothes?”

It was only then that Dane realized he was even more out of his element than he knew. He looked down at his flying leathers, which could probably use a bit of cleaning but overall weren’t too dirty. He was tempted to spit on the heel of his hand and give them a quick shining up, but then thought better of it. “These are my only clothes, but I could splash some water on my face?”

“Er, well, yes. Of course. My son will show you to a washroom.”

A washroom? Dane thought.

Is that a thing? Daneus asked, mirroring his own confusion.

Eavesdropping again?

Can I help it that your thoughts are exceptionally loud?

I guess not. How’s the hunting?

You were right about the farmers and their sheep. They weren’t too happy, waving pitchforks and throwing buttered bread at me.

You didn’t.

You’re right, I didn’t. I flew over the farms. Didn’t even get a single slice of buttered bread hurled at me. There were several plump cows that tempted me, but I was good. Proud of me?

Not really.

I should’ve eaten the cows.

Dane realized the king, queen and princess had returned inside the palace, while the prince was staring at him expectantly, eyebrows raised. Stop distracting me.

As you wish. I just spotted the forest Peony mentioned. Time to taste delicious blood.

I don’t need the details.

I like her, by the way. For what it’s worth.

Who?

Peony.

You don’t even know her.

I know enough. I’m a supremely good judge of character. Like I knew you were a scoundrel the second I laid eyes on you.

Very funny. But thank you. Your opinion is worth a lot to me. Don’t tell anyone I said that though. I’ll deny it.

Understood. I’ll only tell those I’m about to bite in half.

With that lovely image in mind, Dane tore himself away from his bond with his dragon and refocused on the prince, who continued to stare at him. “You’ll need to leave your weapons outside,” the prince said, eyeing the large blade sheathed at his hip. “They will be sharpened and oiled for you.”

Dane shrugged and began to remove his various weapons, which included, in addition to his sword, four daggers secreted away in hidden sheaths strapped inside his leg leathers, the bow and quiver of arrows slung over his shoulder and around his back, and a small hatchet he’d used for chopping kindling and firewood whilst they camped.

The prince’s eyes had grown as large as the sibling moons as Dane had worked. “I like to be prepared,” Dane said by way of explanation.

“For what? A war?”

“Amongst other things,” he said. “Now where is this…‘washroom’ did your father say it was called?”

“You don’t have washrooms in Travail?” Osric asked, turning to lead him inside the large entryway into the palace.

“We have streams, which serve the same purpose. We keep basins of water inside our caves as well.” The inside of the palace almost made Dane’s jaw drop to the floor. They had entered a grand atrium so broad and tall he could’ve fit a hundred of their caves into it. With its crystal walls, it was so bright and beautiful, rays of sunlight changing color as they reflected off prisms dangling from the massive chandelier hanging from the ceiling by a chain and dancing along the walls.

“Streams? Caves? Travail is even more savage than I thought.” The prince sounded incredulous. A smile had formed on his face. “Peony is in for a shock.” He seemed rather pleased by the prospect.

Dane was beginning to dislike the prince, almost as quickly as his dragon had begun to like the princess. However, he bit his tongue. Disrespecting the future king of Odin wouldn’t help his cause. “Tell me about Peony.”

The prince led him from the atrium and into a grand corridor with doors on either side from end to end. Crystal images—mountains, rivers, canyons—rippled as they formed on the walls, changing as they walked. “My sister? Well, you’ve already seen her, so you know the gods were most unkind to her when it came to beauty. She was born disfigured, of course. Your response was normal—looking away from her. It’s a kindness, really, for your gaze to not linger on that which she is most self-conscious about.”

“I wasn’t looking away because of that. I was trying to be respectful.”

“Right. Of course you weren’t. What else to say about my sister? She is rather clever, I must admit, but that hardly makes up for her moods, which oscillate between angry and melancholy.”

Dane had never heard that word—oscillate—before, but he understood the prince’s meaning from the context. His own mood was beginning to oscillate in the direction of angry.

I just cooked a fresh buck with my fire, so maybe that’s why you’re suddenly so hot under the collar, Daneus interjected.

Or Peony’s brother is a major arse, Dane replied.

Yes. That could be it. I’ll leave you to it, try not to hit any future Odinian rulers. Mmm, venison. The sound of loud crunching and smacking resounded through Dane’s mind.

“Here we are.” The prince indicated Dane should enter a door set in the crystal wall before them. “Inside there are water and towels. Scented soap, too. Smells of woodchips. Very manly, not like the flowery soaps Mother and Sister use.”

“Why would I want to smell of woodchips?”

The prince cocked his head to the side. “You know, I’ve never really thought about it. You’re right. It’s odd. Mayhaps skip the soap and go for a more natural aroma.” He chuckled to himself as though he amused himself deeply.

Dane entered the washroom, which, as promised, was prepared for someone in dire need of being cleaned up. An entire claw-footed tub of hot water, steaming in the cool air, sat waiting. The promised bar of woodchip soap rested on a dish. A tall, oval looking glass was positioned in one corner, and he started there, taking in his appearance from his dirty boots to his dust-covered riding leathers to his three-day beard and smudged face and scalp. His long, dark braid could even use a good scrubbing.

He opted for none of it, except the promised face wash sans soap. The people of Travail didn’t have the time for hot, luxurious baths and he wouldn’t spit upon them now by pampering himself in this foreign land. Anyway, what use was it to clean one’s body only to dress in dirty clothes?

When he was done with his face, he drew his braid over his shoulder, which in his lands was a ceremonial position. After all, that’s what this entire day was: a ceremony.

Mere moments after he’d entered, he exited the washroom. Osric stood with a start—he’d been sitting with his back to the crystal wall, eyes closed. He raised an eyebrow. “Did you need something?”

“No. I’m ready to sit in the parlor and drink tea and eat patties.”

“You mean ‘pastries’?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

“Maybe.”

Bet your pastries aren’t as tasty as my flame-cooked buck, Daneus said.

I’m not hungry, anyway.

Mm-hmm.

The befuddled prince said, “Right this way,” and led him further along the corridor until they reached another crystal door, which opened for them by some magic, the glass rippling and then flowing upward. Osric waved him through first and he entered, once more causing a start as the king and queen stood quickly.

“You’re all finished?” the queen said, a question in the shape of her frown.

“Yes,” he grunted, feeling more out of his element than ever in his life. “Uh, thank you for the hot water. It was most unnecessary.”

The king had recovered from his shock of seeing Dane sooner than he’d expected. “It was most necessary, I assure you. It’s not every day we receive the Travailian Dragonmaster in our humble city.”

Humble? Daneus commented.

Quiet, I need to concentrate on this conversation.

As you wish, dragonmaster.

Dane hated that title, but it was Travailian tradition. “It is my honor,” he said.

The king offered a bow. “Sit. Please. The tea and pastries will be up soon.”

Dane moved forward into the parlor, eyeing the various seating options. He could now see why the royals had suggested he get cleaned up before this meeting. Each of the seats was upholstered with white cloth material that looked as though it had never had a close encounter with dirt before. There’s a first time for everything, he thought, slumping onto a broad couch that sank in much further than he expected, making his knees stick up awkwardly. “Where is Princess Peony?” he asked.

“She is not required for this meeting,” the queen said before the king could respond, though he’d opened his mouth to do just that. Dane was swiftly beginning to get a feel for who wore the britches in this relationship.

“I would think she’d be the most important person involved in this meeting,” Dane said, trying to find a comfortable position that didn’t make his spine curl like a question mark. Osric sat beside him, his posture perfect as he watched the conversation with what appeared to be great amusement.

The king took over, asserting his authority with a sidelong glance at his wife. “My daughter has already agreed to the union,” he said. “All that’s left is to negotiate the terms of the alliance.”

“Respectfully, I would like to hear it from her mouth first.”

Thankfully no one dropped a pin or the clangor would’ve echoed through the silence like a beat drum.

“That would be, er, most inappropriate,” the king said.

“Not in Travail,” Dane said.

“We’re not in Travail,” the queen said. The tension had been steadily growing, but it didn’t bother Dane. A little tension was sometimes good for getting to the root of things.

“Because you summoned me here.”

“It was an invitation,” the king said, clearly trying to defuse the situation. “Ah, there we go. The tea and pastries have arrived.”

Sure enough, in swept several servants bearing crystal trays with a large assortment of “pastries”, which turned out to be nothing more than some kind of bread with sugar and fruit on them. He took a large bite, enjoying the burst of sweetness in his mouth, placed the half-eaten pastry back on the tray, and wiped the stray flecks of sugar from his beard and lips with the back of his hand.

“Would you like a plate, Dragonmaster Dane?” Osric asked, a note of condescension in his voice.

“No, thank you, Prince Osric,” Dane said, proud of himself for his self-control, though it was beginning to wane amidst all the gratuitous finery. “I will, however, take some tea.” One of the servants moved to serve him, but he beat her to it, grasping the handle of the teapot and pouring a long stream of dark liquid into one of the miniscule teacups.

“Sugar and milk?” the queen asked.

For what? Dane thought, but only muttered, “I’m fine,” and then took a hearty swig of the liquid, which turned out to be exceptionally hot, scalding his throat on the way down. It tasted bitter, so unlike the spicy, ale-infused fire tea they brewed in Travail that calling them both ‘tea’ was nonsensical. As the three royals watched in awe, he cringed and then grunted, “Good,” before throwing the rest of the hot liquid back so as to not appear rude to his hosts.

From somewhere southeast of Chrysallis, his dragon’s laughter rumbled through his mind. I’m glad you’re enjoying this, Dane thought back.

Oh, I am. And without being forced to suffer through it myself. It’s a good day, indeed.

Dane was beginning to wish he’d spent the fortnight required to make the journey on foot.

“More tea?” the queen asked. Osric snorted and almost spit out his own tea, which he was sipping daintily after the servant had served him, adding a spoon of sugar and a splash of milk that turned the dark concoction into something browner. The queen tried to hide the kick she gave her son, and Dane pretended he hadn’t noticed.

“More pastry, perhaps,” Dane said, ignoring his half-eaten one and ripping a chunk from one studded with berries on top. It was better than the first—not too sweet—and served to chase the bitterness of the tea from his mouth and soothe his burnt throat.

Osric bit his lip to stop himself from laughing. I know of something else that would extinguish your laughter, Dane thought, one of his fists clenching at his side.

No fighting in the parlor, Daneus reminded him.

It was never good when your dragon had to be the voice of reason, a conscience of sorts. Dane took a deep breath and relaxed. He finished off the berry pastry and then ignored the food, returning the conversation to its original subject. “Would Peony not enjoy some pastries?” he asked. “I would very much like to speak with her. Preferably alone.”

“Out of the question!” the queen said. “Such behavior would be most…inappropriate.”

There was that word again. What was inappropriate about a man about to be betrothed to a woman speaking with her in private first? In Travail, the potential pairing would be doing a lot more than talking before they committed to a lifelong bond that required complete compatibility, in both mind and body. “I insist,” Dane said. He might be out of Travail, but he couldn’t take Travail out of him. He might not be king here, and his people didn’t have a concept of a king, but he was the ultimate authority in his country.

The queen’s face had grown so red she looked ready to explode; the king looked exceptionally uncomfortable, his eyes cast down at his hands, which were fiddling with each other nervously; the prince’s eyes were bouncing back and forth between the conversation’s participants, a bright gleam of excitement shining forth. Not hitting him was one of Dane’s greatest achievements.

“Aren’t you going to say anything?” the queen said to her husband, who finally looked up.

“This is what you wanted, dear. It is a reasonable request.”

“Reasonable? I have never, in all my days, this is unheard of, unspeakable, the gods would—”

“Wish you to honor your husband, who I should remind you is the king. Osric, fetch Peony. We will take our leave until you are done speaking to her. Might I remind you that guards will be stationed just outside the room.”

That was the moment when Dane confirmed what he had previously suspected: the invitation he’d received to be a guest of these people was a tactic, a ploy to make him feel as though they respected him. The reality was, however, that they saw him now, and would forever see him, as nothing more than a savage, hailing from a land of uncivilized barbarians. He had half a mind to stand up and leave.

Can we? Daneus asked.

Not just yet.

For he wasn’t here for any of these people, but for their daughter and the promise of an alliance that could very well save his people from the merciless ambitions of the northern king. He remained sitting, not rising to their bait, not showing the side of him that they expected to see. He ignored the tea and pastries while he waited, admiring the crystal-work, despite his hatred of the pretentious extravagance of it all when there were soldiers dying at their northern border.

You like her, too, don’t you? Daneus said, filling the silence.

Who?

Princess Peony.

I don’t know her.

But you have good instincts, too, like me. Or perhaps my instincts have rubbed off on you.

Or mine on you.

No, that’s definitely not it.

I just want to speak to her. That’s all.

Mm-hmm.

After what felt like an eternity, he heard the sound of soft footfalls and Peony entered in her emerald-green dress, her back overly stiff and her hands clasped awkwardly in front of her. Several curly locks of her fiery hair had escaped the green ribbon, flopping at odd angles atop her head. She had large green eyes accentuated by thin lines of dark kohl drawn beneath them, and a petite nose speckled with freckles, as were her cheeks and forehead and, well, everything.

…the gods were most unkind to her when it came to beauty…She was born disfigured, of course…Your response was normal—looking away from her…It’s a kindness, really, for your gaze to not linger on that she is most self-conscious about…

The words of the prince came back to him in that moment, and he couldn’t help but to stare right at her lip, the unusual cleft, the ridge of skin that connected her mouth to the bottom of her right nostril. He didn’t look away this time. “Why are you embarrassed by your lip?” he asked directly.

“I—I’m not—why are you asking me this? What did my brother say?” She seemed to remember herself and curtseyed. “My lord,” she added, almost as an afterthought.

“If I am to be your husband, you shall not call me that.”

“Yes, my lord. I mean…Dane?”

“Dane. Yes, it is my name, as Peony is yours. And we must have truth between us.”

“Truth?”

“Your brother told me you were born disfigured, the gods unkind to you when it came to beauty.”

Her face grew red, but not out of embarrassment. She was angry, livid.

Dane continued: “He also said you had a fierce temper.”

“You desire truth? He doesn’t lie about either of those things,” Peony said.

“He lies about one of them,” Dane said.

Peony’s eyebrows clenched together. “I don’t understand.”

“Does your father lie when he says you agreed to be my wife?”

“He does not. My father doesn’t lie.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s an honest man.”

“No. Why did you agree to be my wife when you’ve never met me nor been to my lands?”

“Oh. For my kingdom. For my family. It is the one thing I can do to help them.”

That’s only part of it, Daneus said, apparently listening in on their entire conversation.

“My dragon thinks you speak truth, but not all of it,” Dane said.

“Your dragon?” Peony cast her eyes about as though she expected to see Daneus peeking one of his massive eyes through the window.

“Yes. Our bond is strong, even across great distances. He likes you, by the way.”

“He…likes me?”

“Yes. And he doesn’t like many people.”

Not even you, Daneus said, chortling at his own wit.

“I consider myself honored then,” Peony said.

As she should, the dragon murmured.

“Now, back to the truth,” Dane said. “Why have you agreed to be my wife, travel to a foreign land where dragons roam the skies and lives amongst savages in caves?”

“Caves? That sounds like a wondrous adventure!”

Dane raised an eyebrow, but then lowered it when several of the pieces of the puzzle that was Peony Normandian interlocked. “You’re trying to escape Chrysallis.”

“It is true.”

“I am not interested in a bondmate that sees me only as an escape from her current life.”

“Bondmate?”

“Our equivalent of ‘wife’ or ‘husband’,” Dane explained.

Peony nodded. “You really want the truth, my lord?”

He let the honorific go this time. “Yes. Always.”

“Then how can you be anything other to me than an escape when this is our first meeting?”

“You make more sense than I can put into words.”

“Tell that to my family.”

“I shall.”

“No, don’t. The fewer words exchanged with them the better. I will go with you to Travail. What do you ask in return?”

“Nothing but a joint effort to defend each other’s borders against a common enemy in times of crisis.”

“That will not do,” Peony said. “My father will feel ashamed if he doesn’t pay an impressive dowry.”

“Your father will feel…ashamed…if I do not demand that he pay me to take you with me?” Even saying the words made Dane feel like a fool.

Peony laughed, and Dane found it to be a pleasant sound. “Odinian customs are enough to make one’s head spin, even for those of us who’ve lived amongst them our entire lives. But yes, that’s the gist of it. What do your people require? Gold? Food? Weapons? Magenum? My father has all of it. All he requires in return are soldiers.”

“We don’t need anything,” Dane said.

“Take it anyway. My father is a proud man. Do not accept his first offer, nor his second. Mayhaps his third or fourth…yes, that will do. He will feel satisfaction at his negotiating skills without feeling as though he underpaid. There is a fine line you must straddle in this game.”

Dane blinked, completely out of his depths now. Game? What game? And how did a man straddle a fine line without hurting something rather important? “No wonder your brother said you were clever,” he said.

“Osric said that?” the princess said incredulously.

“Indeed. It was the only thing he said that didn’t make me want to introduce his face to my knuckles.”

That drew another pleasant laugh from Peony. “I would like to see that meeting.”

Dane said, “Then it shall be done,” and started to stride from the room.

Peony reached out swiftly, placing a firm hand on his chest to stop him. “No, please, I meant it only as a jape. Maybe another time.”

“I would like that,” Dane said, looking at her hand on his chest. Their faces were close now, and he could feel a whisper of her breath on his lips.

“As would I,” she said. Were they still talking about him punching her brother? In some ways, he hoped so; in other ways, not.

A cleared throat outside the door broke them apart, and Peony said, “Alright. I will tell them you only want to speak to Father—Mother’s presence will only complicate things. Remember, accept the third or fourth offer. No sooner, no later.” And then she was gone, like the final flash of green light before the sun was swallowed by the sea.

Peony

Peony’s heart was all aflutter. She’d enjoyed her conversation with Dane immensely, and their close encounter even more. She hadn’t expected to find one hailing from Travail so pleasant to look upon, and his reaction to her disfigurement had been much better than expected, if rather confusing.

Now, it was all she could do to wait with her mother outside the parlor until Dane and her father concluded their business. Her mother had given up questioning her on their conversation after Peony had offered only one-word answers. Osric was nowhere to be found, having grown bored of the foreigner already.

Peony was anything but bored. She had a million and a half questions for Dane, many of them about his bond with his dragon, Daneus, who, according to the dragonmaster himself, “liked” her.

“Stop pacing,” her mother said. “You’ll wear your shoes thin.”

Peony hadn’t even realized she’d been moving at all as the time had dragged on. She stopped now, resting her back against the wall, trying to relax and be patient.

Finally, her father emerged first, his face serious. Dane was right behind him, wearing an equally shadowed expression. Peony’s heart sank. They’d reached an impasse, some issue neither man was willing to budge on, and now Dane would summon his dragon and fly off into the sunset, leaving her behind in her mundane, pointless exist—

“We’ve reached an agreement,” her father said, letting a smile slip onto his face.

“You did?” Peony said, her eyes flicking from her father to Dane and back again. Dane’s eyebrows had lifted, the shadows erased.

“We did,” Dane said. “Though your father is an adept negotiator. We managed to reach agreement on his fifth offer.” His dark eyes were alight with pride at having held out even longer than Peony had advised. She almost laughed but managed to hold it in.

Her mother was eyeing them with a frown. Peony ignored her and said, “I shall board the first merchant vessel sailing for Travail, tomorrow at first light.”

“Or…,” Dane said, clearing his throat. “You could ride with me. It will cut the time substantially given the headwinds ships face out of Chrysallis this time of year.”

“Out of the question,” the queen said at the same time as the king said, “Absolutely not,” at the same time as Peony shouted, “Yes!” louder than both her parents.

Three sets of eyes landed on her. She lowered her voice. “I mean, it would be a great opportunity for us to get to know each other before we wed. Anyway, once I’m in Travail I’ll probably ride dragons all the time, won’t I?”

Dane said, “Generally only dragonriders ride dragons, but I can occasionally take a passenger for expedience. Like now, for example. I’m certain Daneus wouldn’t mind one bit.”

“Oh.” It reminded Peony how little she knew of Travailian customs, but also grew her determination to learn. This was her first adventure and she would embrace it with open arms, even if parts of it terrified her as much as they excited her.

“You will at least stay the night and enjoy Odinian hospitality,” her father said to Dane.

“Husband, I’m certain the dragonmaster has more important matters to attend to during this time of war, as do you,” said the queen.

“Her Majesty is correct,” Dane said. “I must return to Dragonsmount forthwith. We must prepare to fly into battle.”

“What?” Peony said. “What battle?”

“Daughter,” the king said, placing a tender hand on her shoulder. “The attack on Westport was a warning. The Terrans will strike with a full force soon, and that attack could come from almost any direction now. That is why this marriage alliance is so important. Dane and his dragonriders are agile and can support us wherever needed. I fear that support will be required sooner rather than later.”

Peony was duly chastened. She felt awful. This whole time, she’d been thinking selfishly, building the alliance up as an escape, an opportunity to have a grand adventure. For her future husband, it was a direct line into a battle that currently didn’t impact his own nation. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t want to be the cause of war for Travail.”

“You’re not,” Dane said. “War is coming to all corners of Kingfall whether we like it or not. With our countries allied, we stand a greater chance at victory. So do not be ashamed—not of anything.”

At his words, Peony felt a warmth in her chest she’d never felt before. Even her mother seemed shocked by the gravitas with which the “savage” had spoken. “Thank you,” Peony said. “I will ride with you. On your dragon.”

Her father looked as though he might faint on the spot. “Violet—assist Peony in preparing her belongings to depart. I must confer with Dragonmaster Dane on matters of war.”

“Husband, I would prefer—” her mother started to object, but for once her father exerted his authority.

“Do as I command. I will not ask again.”

“Fine,” the queen snapped. Peony knew her father would pay for his little show of power later, but for the moment it had worked. “Come now. There is no time to waste.”

“Wait,” Peony said. “What will I need in Travail?” She directed her question toward Dane.

He shrugged. “Some clothes. Nothing too fancy. A pair of sturdy boots, the rocks on Dragonsmount are treacherous. And your sword, of course.” The three royals stared at him, shocked into silence. “Oh, and your flower-scented soaps, if you want them,” he added, as though he’d just remembered. “You’ll have to be careful not to drop them in the stream as you bathe though.”

“Gods save us all,” the queen muttered. “Come on.” She dragged Peony away before the dragonmaster could say another word.

By the time they reached Peony’s bedroom, she was out of breath, such was the speed of their flight through the palace, the queen’s grip on her wrist like a blacksmith’s vice. “Mother, please, you’re hurting my arm,” she protested, but her mother ignored her, flinging open the door and wrenching her inside, slamming it behind her. “Mother, stop, please just—”

She swallowed her words as her mother, proud Queen of Odin, threw her arms around her daughter and pulled her firmly against her chest. “My Peony,” she murmured softly into her ear.

Peony was so caught by surprise that at first her body was as stiff as a wooden plank, but then she melted into the rare embrace from her mother, arms locking behind her. A question pulled at her heartstrings, one she would, under any other circumstances, allow to fade before it was voiced. Not now. Holding back words suddenly felt so pointless and Peony wondered why she’d done it so often over the years. “Mother, why have we never been closer?”

A tremor rattled through her mother’s body, a soft sound emerging from her mouth. Peony felt moisture on her neck where her mother’s face was nestled. Was she…weeping?

“I’m sorry, Mother, I didn’t mean to upset you.” Peony was genuinely concerned; she’d never seen nor heard her mother cry before.

Her mother shook her head, silky hair caressing her cheek. “No, you will never be sorry again, do you hear me? It is I who am sorry. I have always kept you at arm’s length, thinking it best if we did not grow too fond of each other, always knowing that this day would come. Now that it’s here, I fear I’ve wasted all these years because it hasn’t eased the pain of goodbye—not one bit.”

“Oh, Mother. I love you just the same. The sternest version of yourself couldn’t keep my love away.”

The queen, cheeks wet with tears, pulled back to look at her daughter. “You have always been free with your love, like your father. Osric and I struggle with opening our hearts. We’ve always envied that about you.”

“Promise you will strive to be more open,” Peony said. “Father will need your comfort now more than ever.”

“I will. Tell me, do you like Dane?”

Despite the openness of their conversation, Peony found herself falling back into old habits. “I’m doing my duty.”

“But do you like him?”

“You truly want to know?” Her mother nodded. “I do. He is handsome, in a rugged sort of way, don’t you think? And he’s witty, I swear it. He might not appear so from the outside but when we spoke in private he made me laugh and he understood my own humor and he speaks to his dragon in his mind, can you believe it? Actually spoke to his dragon.” Peony clamped her mouth shut, realizing that she’d perhaps been a little too open with her mother. She waited for the backlash, but it never came.

“I’m glad, Peony. I hope this union becomes everything you deserve. Though I’d be suspicious of the whole talks-to-his-dragon-in-his-mind thing. There’s an even chance he’s playing a game with you, especially if his sense of humor is as sharp as you say it is.”

“He wouldn’t! Do you think so? Either way, I shall put his dragon-speaking ability to the test first chance I get.”

“I’m certain you will. Now let’s prepare all the things Dane says you’ll need. Should we start with the not-too-fancy clothes or the boots?”

“The boots. And don’t forget the flower-scented soap. I should bring extra in case I drop any in the stream.”

“Good idea. And have you seen your sword?” her mother asked.

“I must’ve left it with my other weapons in the armory.”

Peony and her mother laughed as they packed her a small satchel, leaving all her other possessions behind.

The dragon was back. Standing at full height on the platform, he was a truly fearsome and magnificent creature. Not ‘the dragon’—Daneus, Peony reminded herself. She needed to grow accustomed to the notion of a dragon as a named creature not unlike her father’s dog, Majesty, or her crystal cat, Tiger.

Speaking of which, she felt the familiar brush of glass against her skin as the feline loped between her legs. “Do you have magenum in Travail?” she asked suddenly. She couldn’t take her mother or father with her, but perhaps Tiger could come along.

“I’m sorry, no,” Dane said. He was waiting further along the platform, having concluded his discussions with her father. “There are no magenum deposits within our borders and we don’t have sufficient gold to buy any. Nor would we know what to do with the substance if we could, as we have no mages.”

Peony nodded, feeling a sudden swell of emotion that had snuck up on her when she wasn’t looking. She scooped up Tiger and rubbed her face against his glossy head. She whispered, “Sneak up on Osric and give him a fright whenever you can,” she said. She placed the magical creature back on the ground and turned to her mother, who embraced her stiffly, all her outward warmth gone again.

The queen did, however, whisper, “My heart goes with you. I have longed my whole life for adventure. I live through you now.”

Peony pulled back, catching the barest hint of a smile on her mother’s lips before she returned her face to a neutral expression. Next, Peony turned to Osric, who’d surprisingly graced her with his presence. “Remember not to anger him,” he said. “Or he might breathe fire.”

“You’re hilarious,” she said. “He doesn’t have a single scale from what I can see.”

“But he is blue. Plus, it’s where you can’t see that you’ll have to watch out for.” The siblings didn’t embrace, but they did share a small laugh at their personal jape.

Finally, Peony met her father, whose eyes were already glistening. “My daughter,” he said, his voice gruff.

“My father,” she said, tears already leaking from her eyes.

“I shall miss you as I miss the sun in the winter.”

“And I shall miss you as I miss the stars on a cloudy night.”

They drew each other close and held each other for a long time, until the queen cleared her throat to signal it was time. “Write to me,” the king said.

“I will. As often as possible.”

“And please be careful on that…thing,” he said, shuddering as he looked past her at the dragon.

“That thing has a name—Daneus,” she said. “And he likes me. I shall be fine.” Her words held more courage than she felt in her fluttering chest. “Be safe, Father.”

He kissed her on the cheek, and she turned quickly away before she lost her nerve. I’m going to ride on a dragon, she thought, feeling like she could wake up from this dream at any second.

Dane continued to wait patiently as she approached, her satchel already slung over his shoulder. “You’re still wearing your dress,” he said.

She looked down at the flowing emerald gown that stopped just shy of hiding the pristine leather boots she’d donned at Dane’s suggestion. “You are quite observant,” she said.

“I, uh, don’t mean to offend, but Daneus’s scales are rough. The material will be ragged by the time we reach Dragonsmount.”

As if she needed any more reminding that her entire world was about to change. “Should I go change into one of my old dresses?”

Dane raised both eyebrows and was silent for a few moments, his eyes seeming to roam past her to another place. Is he conversing with Daneus right now? Finally, he said, “No. My steed has made a suggestion.” He handed her the satchel and then began removing the riding leathers from his upper body.

“What are you doing?” she hissed, feeling utterly conspicuous standing on the walkway in front of a man who was about to be half-naked.

“My leathers will serve as a makeshift saddle for you. You should feel honored; Daneus usually loathes saddles.” He finished with his leathers, leaving him garbed in only his undershirt, which accentuated the muscles of his arms and chest.

“Thank you,” she said. “But you really didn’t need to do that.”

“If you say so,” Dane said, retrieving her satchel and, along with the leathers, carrying it toward the dragon, which lowered his body to the ground, covering nearly the whole of the platform. With the certainty of a mountain goat, Dane scampered up the dragon’s rough leg and onto his back, hooking the satchel onto a neck spike and draping the leathers across a spot near the top of his spine.

Peony approached at a slower pace, determined not to look back at her family and show the fear that must be ghosting across her face; her brother would never let her live it down. She froze when the dragon lifted his head and twisted his neck around to look at her. For a moment, their eyes locked. His eyes were as golden as the noonday sun, floating with motes of other colors that reminded her of precious gems—emeralds and rubies and topaz and diamonds. She was captivated by those eyes, which seemed to contain a depthlessness, as though they hid mysteries beyond the world that could be seen with mere eyes. “I—” Peony started, wondering what one should say when first meeting a dragon. “I am most pleased to make your acquaintance, Great Daneus.”

A deep rumble resounded from somewhere within the dragon and she took a step back. “Great,” Dane said as he scrambled back down the dragon’s flanks. “Now you’ve gone and filled his head with hot air. He’s demanding that I henceforth refer to him as Great Daneus.”

“Truly?”

“Would I jest? The only thing bigger than him is his ego. If you’re ready, take my hand.”

There was nothing for it. She’d wanted adventure, and now it was staring her directly in the face. Would she look away?

“Never,” Peony said.

“What?”

“Nothing. I’m ready.” She took his hand, which was rough and dark and large, making her small, pale fingers appear to have disappeared. He pulled her easily up onto one of Daneus’s forepaws and then unabashedly dropped his hands to her waist, lifting her up like she was weightless, such that she could slide her legs over the makeshift saddle. Peony shifted her position until it felt comfortable. To her delight, it wasn’t so different to riding a horse, something she was quite skilled at considering she’d been equestrian trained since she was three.

She caught sight of her mother, who was gesticulating wildly. She’d forgotten she was wearing a dress and should be riding side saddle, like a highborn lady. But this was no horse and she was no longer a lady of Odin. She was a lady of Travail about to ride a dragon. She waved to her mother and maintained her position.

Dane hefted himself up in front of her, grasping a pair of neck spikes that had been filed until they were rough. “Hold on,” he said over his shoulder.

“To wha-whoa!”

She barely managed to fling her arms around him as the dragon exploded upwards from the platform, air blasting all around them as its wings pumped powerfully, jerking them toward the sky and causing her heart to drop from her chest to her stomach. On either side was open air, empty save for the dragon’s undulating wings. Already the world had grown tiny, Chrysallis appearing as miniature as it did in the map in the war room. Her family might’ve been ants watching her depart. From up here, the world was so…different. More spectacular, somehow, and yet unreachable. She wondered if this was how the gods saw humans and their creations.

“A little…lower,” Dane said, his voice coming out a croak.

“Oh, sorry,” Peony said. In her haste, she’d clamped her arms around his throat, impeding his air supply. She dropped her arms, slipping them beneath his own and then rounding his chest, feeling his flexing muscles beneath his thin underclothes. She’d never touched a man before, not like this, but something about it felt natural, even if her heart was thumping like a wooden spoon on a pot.

“Better,” he said. “For a moment I thought it had all been a ruse and you were a trained assassin instructed to kill me.”

“Truly?”

He chuckled. “No. Your hands are as soft as a rabbit’s fur. You couldn’t kill a mouse whose tail was stuck in a trap.”

“I could!” she protested. “Though I would feel sorry for it. I even brought a weapon, as instructed.”

“What weapon?” he asked. “I see no sword.”

“My fencing swords aren’t particularly sharp, so I left them behind. There’s a dagger in my satchel.”

“Has it ever been used?”

“Well, no.”

“Then it’s not a weapon, merely a shiny piece of metal.”

“Sharp metal.”

“To use for what?” he asked.

“Cutting.”

“Cutting what?”

“Will I need to fight anyone?”

“Perhaps. Women of Travail are expected to be strong, great warriors.”

“Then I shall be strong too,” Peony said. “You will need to teach me to use my dagger as I’ve only trained with swords.”

“It’s good you’ve had sword training and I admire your spirit, but killing a man is not as easy as slipping a dagger between his ribs.”

“Then I shall kill only women.”

He threw back his head and laughed, howling into the wind. Beneath her, Peony could feel the rumble of Daneus’s belly as well, which she took for his version of laughter. “Your brother was right about your cleverness, though he was wrong about much else. Your temper is not nearly as hot as he’d made it out to be.”

“You haven’t seen it yet. It will make your dragon’s flames feel like ice.”

“I will try not to stoke the coals then.”

“Good. We are still over the water,” she pointed out, gazing down at the sparkling blue surface of the Bay of Sighs.

“Yes.”

Peony frowned. “Will we not travel overland?”

“The most direct path to Dragonsmount hugs the coast. We will need to camp under the stars at least two nights. We can set down along the cliffs.”

Peony knew she was in no position to make demands, but she was also soon to be the equivalent of a queen of Travail, so… “Would you mind if we traveled by way of the Great Bone Pile?”

Dane said nothing for a moment. At first, she thought he was offended by the question, but then realized the dragon’s demeanor had changed too, his wings holding steady at his sides as he glided during the silence. They were communicating again. She waited patiently. Eventually, Dane said, “It will add a half-day to our journey, but Daneus is willing. May I ask why?”

How to explain her obsession with the painting in her bedroom… “I’ve just always wanted to see it. Since I was a little girl. It feels like a way to commune with the gods.” Was that right? She wasn’t certain.

“Fair enough. Consider it your bonding present.”

“Bonding?”

“That is what dragonriders call marriage. We say there are three great and unbreakable bonds we must make in our lifetimes. The first bond we make is to our dragon. I have done that already, whether the big fellow likes it or not.” Daneus chomped his lips in response, though Peony wasn’t certain what that meant. “The second is to wife or husband. Most dragonriders marry amongst their own number, because it’s easier to relate to someone who shares a bond with a dragon.”

“Would you rather marry another dragonrider?” Peony asked. It wasn’t meant to be a challenge, but as soon as she said it, she realized it must’ve sounded that way. “Sorry, I have a bad habit of speaking my mind.”

Dane laughed. “That’s a good habit, in my book. I won’t lie to you, there is a dragonrider who I’ve felt connected to my entire life. My cousin, Star, actually. But she is not my path, and I am not hers. My second bond will be to you and you alone.”

Peony couldn’t help but feel a twinge of jealousy cut through her. How could she compete with a woman he’d known his whole life when she’d only just met him? Not to mention the other woman was likely a fierce warrior who rode a dragon of her own. “Thank you for your honesty,” was all she could think to say. She quickly changed the subject before she dwelled too much on this dragonrider cousin who she assumed was as beautiful as the jeweled dagger in her satchel. “And the third dragonrider bond?”

“That’s a future one. To my—our—children.”

Peony almost choked on his words. She was a woman grown and understood well enough how things worked, but children? She preferred not to think about that just yet.

“Peony,” Dane said.

“Yes?”

“Your fingernails are piercing my skin.”

“What? Oh! Sorry.” She relaxed her grip, which had grown fierce enough to claw through fabric.

“The thought of children scares you that much? Or is it the thought of having children with me?”

“No, I mean, yes, I mean, we only just met.”

“And will be bonded upon arrival at Dragonsmount.”

“So soon?”

“Why delay it?”

“There are preparations to be made. Arrangements.”

“Such as…?”

Peony racked her brain, remembering the many Odinian highborn weddings she’d attended, all that went into planning and executing them…and then she closed her eyes and erased the memories. “I don’t know. I’ve never attended a dragonrider marriage bond…ceremony? Is that the right word?”

“Close enough. We call it an enflaming.”

“Why?”

“And ruin the surprise? You’ll find out soon enough.”

She couldn’t tell if he was joking. For a while, Peony was lost in her own thoughts, the silence comfortable between them, so comfortable she kept forgetting how close they were and where her hands were touching and the fact that they might one day have children together. On several occasions he offered her water and sustenance from his own pouch, and she accepted each time. Beneath her, the lush, fertile lands of southern Odin were spread out in the form of dozens of farmsteads, squared off like sections of a warm blanket of many colors: greens and yellows and browns. Just as her backside and legs were beginning to ache from the long ride over a large portion of Odin, Dane straightened up and said, “There. The Great Bone Pile.”

Her heart skipped a beat as she followed the line from his finger to the ground, where, sure enough, she could just make out what might’ve been a tiny pile of rocks far in the distance. “That can’t be it. It’s too small.”

“From this height everything appears small, but Daneus’s eyes are keener than ours. That’s it, all right.”

“Can we go down?” Peony felt a strange thrumming in her veins. I’m just excited, is all.

“Land a full-sized Travailian dragon in the middle of a foreign country during a time of war?” Dane said.

“Pretty please,” Peony said sweetly.

“You’re fortunate Daneus likes you. He will scout the area and if there’s no sign of human activity, he’ll land.”

“Thank you, Daneus,” Peony said, releasing her hold on Dane for a moment and reaching down to stroke the dragon’s scales. Beneath her touch, she felt a vibration. “Is he…purring?”

Twin plumes of flame snorted from Daneus’s nostrils and Dane laughed. “He says he’s not a cat. He’s humming. Though I’m not sure what the difference is.” At that, the dragon twisted his head around until he was facing fully backward, huge ethereal gold eyes staring at his passengers.

Peony suddenly felt utterly small and insignificant. Compared to the magnificence of this creature, she was a speck of dust floating aimlessly in the air. “Don’t listen to him, Daneus. You are a mighty warrior who may hum or purr as you see fit.”

The dragon’s head cocked to the side and she swore the skin above one of his eyes lifted, though he didn’t have any eyebrows. Dane glanced back at her. “You’ve rendered him speechless. Teach me how to do that.”

The dragon snorted again, but thankfully without flames this time or they’d have been cooked where they sat. Before Peony could respond, Daneus had turned around. A moment later they were angling downward toward the Great Bone Pile, which was growing larger with each passing second. “It’s safe?” Peony asked.

“Daneus thinks so. But we must be alert.”

“What is there to fear? You are traveling with an Odinian princess.”

“Exactly. If we come across soldiers, they will believe a savage riding a winged reptile has kidnapped you.”

“Odin has no dispute with Travail.”

“And yet your people view mine with mistrust and animosity.”

“I didn’t know that.” Peony wondered what else she didn’t know. Despite getting the best education that gold could buy, she was beginning to realize the world was full of things that needed to be learned by doing rather than reading. An example stood before her, the massive mountain of enormous bones looking nothing like the eerie but beautiful painting in her bedroom. Instead, it literally just looked like a pile of dusty old bones that happened to be a hundred times the size of human or animal bones. Even a dragon’s bones would be dwarfed by these. Still, there was an impressiveness to the sight that she couldn’t quite describe. It was no wonder the artist had taken such care to recreate it with brush, paint and canvas. As Dane assisted Peony to dismount from Daneus’s back, she imagined the majesty of the godbeasts of old when they still lived, towering so high their heads touched the clouds. The day was so peaceful it was hard to imagine that this spot was once a battlefield for the bloodiest war Kingfall had ever seen. Nearby, a brook meandered, bubbling along happily; just past, a copse of trees was home to cheerful chirping birds; bees buzzed as they went about their work pollinating a flowering bush. The scene was so serene, it almost felt surreal, like something out of a dream. The massive pile of enormous bones and the dragon resting behind her didn’t help.

“We should not linger,” Dane said. “There is something about this place that makes me uneasy.”

That’s when she felt it again, the thrumming in her veins. She narrowed her eyes, peering toward the Great Bone Pile, trying to breach the shadows obscuring the nooks and crannies and crevices hidden between the crisscrossing fodder of war that had stood for hundreds of years, undisturbed.

“Peony?” Dane called from behind her, but the sound was lost amidst a great rushing in her ears, like the raging rapids of a wild river, tumbling over and around stone islands set in its path. Her legs moved toward the pile of their own accord, as Peony couldn’t possibly control them, so focused was she on what she sensed within the shadows. She began to walk faster, the thrumming growing stronger, the rushing in her skull a waterfall now. The shadows vanished and a bright light appeared, bursting forth from the Great Bone Pile with all the brightness of the sun. She fell to her knees, crying out, throwing a hand over her eyes to prevent them from being blinded.

Searing pain cut through her core and a splitting ache erupted in her head. She cradled her head in her hands, rocking back and forth, groaning. Her mind was growing fuzzy, muddled, but then all the agony and fog disappeared as a calm, but powerful voice emerged from somewhere within her, from the deepest recesses of her very soul. I SEE YOU, the voice said.

And then it was gone, Dane’s strong arms surrounding her, scooping her up, carrying her back across the flat terrain, somehow mounting his dragon without putting her down, placing her in front this time, roping his arms around her as Daneus took flight once more.

“You are safe now,” Daneus whispered in her ear. “Let us leave this cursed place.”

In her mind, that other voice repeated its message:

I SEE YOU.

Second Interlude: The Strength of Fyre

FYRE DANCER’S EXISTENCE COULD’VE EASILY BECOME A DARK PIT FROM WHENCE THERE WAS NO ESCAPE.

Instead, the pit she now occupied was full of light, shining forth from Smoke Wisp’s memory. The laughs they’d shared. The tears. The fears and doubts and hopes. As Flames, they’d been destined to be sisters. But in sisterhood they’d found a love much deeper and more fulfilling.

The Flame Bearer had stolen that from Fyre the moment he’d chosen Smoke to sacrifice to appease the angry Goddess of Firestone, all because she’d had the rotten luck of being third born to her parents, a number painfully arbitrary in Fyre’s opinion. Why not second born? Why not fourth? Or fifth? Fyre’s people had large families, many of them producing six or seven offspring.

She knew the answer: Because the Flame Bearer had told her people the third born should be the sacrifice. Because the Flame Bearer was the holiest of them all, so holy he abused his position to take a portion of the food scavenged by all the others, so holy he had the finest hut while the Flames lived ten to a tiny hut, sleeping practically on top of each other.

So holy that he attended them, at times, in the darkness of night, never differentiating between boy or girl. A warm body was sufficient to fulfill his foul urges. Only once had he tried to touch Fyre. She’d been forced to taste his sweaty skin, but he’d earned the teeth marks that followed. She’d received twelve sharp blows from his staff the next day for her “sinful” behavior, but he’d never tried to touch her again after that.

But he had done worse in choosing Smoke Wisp for sacrifice during the mountain’s last tirade. She knew he didn’t speak to the gods. She knew he’d done it as revenge for that bite she’d given him. More so because she’d refused to succumb to his will.

Thus, on this day, when Firestone once again bled the sky with streaks of red and black and rained Voidfire down upon their simple village, Fyre knew who the Flame Bearer would choose well before his lips spoke her name.

She didn’t fight it, because she was proud and because she wanted to march the same path that her sister had marched, brave and kind and the very epitome of everything that was good and holy in the harsh world they’d been unfortunate enough to have been born into third in their respective families.

The Flame Bearer said nothing as they made their way from the beach into the jungle, breathing in ashy air. The path was overgrown but still visible through the foliage, a brown line of dirt packed hard and flat by the sentenced and their executioner. The jungle was silent save for the occasional crash of molten rock through the trees, the birds and creatures sheltering amidst the onslaught.

The jungle path began to rise, twisting and turning around the occasional gray boulders that blocked their way forward. A large fiery stone blasted from the volcano landed so close Fyre could feel the heat of its passage, but she didn’t flinch. To die here or atop the mountain made no difference. With any luck, the Flame Bearer would be hit first. As usual, he walked unscathed, and Fyre was beginning to wonder whether the man had made a pact with the goddess Herself, delivering flesh and blood in exchange for his own safety.

You are not the only one who can make a pact, Fyre Dancer thought, gritting her teeth and trying not to cough on the ash and soot she tasted on her tongue and in the back of her throat.

The jungle began to thin as they reached higher ground, the goddess rising above them, more formidable now that they clung to her flanks. The ground rumbled as she spewed more of her rage into the air, a maelstrom of fury that would undoubtedly level several more of her village’s huts.

“I suspect you’ll be happy to be rid of me,” Fyre said, the first words either of them had spoken since the Flame Bearer had announced her name on the beach.

“I act for the good of the village. I hold nothing against you, Fyre.”

The false solemnity in his voice grated on Fyre’s nerves. “No? Did I not bite hard enough?”

Her words cut through his calm demeanor and he whirled on her in an instant, grabbing the collar of her dress and wrenching it against her throat, almost lifting her off her feet. He was a thin, wiry man, but not without strength, especially when hardened by his own fury. His tobacco-stained teeth glistened as he spoke. “You should’ve done your duty. Now you will pay for your insolence.” He released her harshly, shoving her back such that she stumbled on the loose stones underfoot. She didn’t fall, however, smiling at his back as he walked away.

This man hated being defied, so much so that he was willing to remove any who dared to do so from his life. She could’ve turned around and fled back into the jungle, forcing him to hunt her down to retrieve her. But she didn’t want to. She wanted to climb the mountain, so that’s what she did, following in his wake.

Twice he looked back, a sneering smile touching his lips before fading. She knew what he felt: that sense of power, of having whipped a disobedient dog into obedience. Yes, massai, she said in her head. Of course, massai. Whatever you wish is my command. She stifled a laugh at her thoughts. She felt a growing mania inside her, and it scared her as much as it excited her.

She continued to follow him up the mount, one foot in front of the other, surviving the molten rockfall, ignoring the burn in her calves and thighs, the tightening in her back, the dryness in her mouth and throat. Moving forward, ever forward, to a moment she’d dreamed of ever since the day Smoke Wisp was ripped from her grasp.

The way grew steeper, until they were forced to clamber on hands and knees. Occasionally, the Flame Bearer would kick a stone down upon her, pelting her cheeks, bruising her head, splitting her lips, until she tasted the blood in her mouth, metallic and sharp.

They reached a steep cliff face. A rope dangled from above. The Flame Bearer grinned at her and then began to climb. Fyre followed shortly after, feeling the bite of the rough tendrils in her palm and on her feet as she struggled to hang on and drag herself up against the will of the earth’s pull. Blood began to stream from her hands, slickening the rope and making her job all the more difficult.

She looked up. The Flame Bearer had reached the top of the cliff well ahead of her and now he stared down, malice in his eyes. He gripped the rope as she watched, and then gave it a shake.

Her breath caught as she lost her grip, sliding half a body length down the blood-slick rope before regaining her hold, gasping for breath. The Flame Bearer’s guttural laugh rained down upon her from above.

She glanced down, but immediately wished she hadn’t. A fall from this height would kill her at best; at worst, it would sever her spine and render her paralyzed. She gritted her teeth and willed her arms to haul her up once more.

Thankfully, the Flame Bearer didn’t shake the rope again. He even grabbed her hair as she approached the top and dragged her up, tossing her to the ground as she clutched at her scalp. “You cannot break me,” Fyre said, spitting out a wad of blood that had congealed in her mouth just inside her cheek.

“No? Mayhaps the goddess can.”

“I give myself to Her willingly.”

“You give yourself to Her because I say you give yourself to Her.”

Control. Power. That was what drove this horrid man who’d managed to fool her entire village into believing he was a man of the gods. “Tell me where to go and what to do, massai,” she said, using the title of honor bestowed upon the “holy” man for the first time since this journey began. She whimpered and managed to choke out a sob.

“Young Flame,” the Flame Bearer said, softening his voice. “It must be exhausting being defiant all the time.”

“It is,” she said, lifting her chin to meet his eyes, forcing the wobbly-kneed weakness of a fawn into her gaze. “I am exhausted, massai.”

“Then why fight me? Why fight the will of the goddess?”

“I don’t know. It’s a disease eating me from the inside out.”

“I understand,” he said, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder. She fought off the urge to shudder at his touch. What she wouldn’t give to bite his hand again. “Repent of your sins and be free.”

“I don’t know how, massai,” she said.

The desire on his face as he licked his lips brought bile into her throat, but she swallowed it back down. “I will show you. Come.” He offered his hand to her.

She hesitated long enough to be believable but not so long that he would doubt her contrition, linking her hand with his and allowing herself to be pulled to her feet. Hand in hand, they climbed the long winding path around the cliffside, until they reached a steep flight of narrow, crumbling steps. “You first, Daughter of the Flame,” he said, gesturing her forward. “This is the final climb.”

She nodded. Walls of rock stood on either side, and Fyre slid both her hands along the stone to steady herself as she climbed, listening to the Flame Bearer’s soft footfalls behind her. It would be so easy to turn and shove him. She didn’t, for that was not what she’d seen herself do in her dreams.

She glanced up and saw another form, a girl wearing a shapeless frock just like hers, beautiful purple-dark hair falling down her shoulders and back in waves. The girl climbed, too, looking back and showing no fear.

Oh, Smoke Wisp, she thought. Your courage was your beauty, your beauty your grace, your grace your courage, and so your circle continued. Fyre moved faster, finding a second wind and a reserve of strength she didn’t know she had.

“My young Flame grows anxious to repent, I see,” the Flame Bearer said from behind. She could sense his own growing excitement, for an entirely different reason.

The ghostly memory of Smoke Wisp vanished as she reached the top of the staircase and entered a tunnel glowing red with Voidfire. The tunnel entrance resembled the maw of a creature frozen in a silent scream, craggy, misshapen teeth hanging down in the form of reddish-brown stalactites.

Fyre pushed on to the top, following the ghost into the tunnel’s crimson glow. Something burned from within the mountain. She stopped and waited for the Flame Bearer to reach her side. Sweat trickled from his forehead and dripped from his nose, but he was none the worse for wear, smiling even. Anticipating.

“Lead me the rest of the way, massai, I fear I cannot complete the journey on my own.”

“Of course, my Flame. Do not fear the will of the goddess.”

Once more, his hand clasped hers and gave a gentle tug. The crimson glow grew with each step, until they emerged onto a large stone platform, the sky opening above them. The ground beneath them was trembling, never ceasing, making walking difficult. Just ahead, Smoke Wisp threw herself from the edge, silken hair flowing, banner-like, behind her as she disappeared. Fyre bit her lip but allowed a sob to escape her mouth. She was no longer acting, but the real thing would serve her just as well.

A moment later she saw a greenish-blue wisp of smoke rise from where Smoke Wisp had departed this world, her soul seeking the next. Fyre raised a hand in the air. Goodbye, my friend, she thought.

The Flame Bearer noticed her gesture but misread its meaning. “You can feel the holiness of this place, too?”

“Yes, massai.”

“Let the Goddess guide you. She blesses all acts on this rock.” He began to untie the rope belt holding his robe around him. “It is time to do your duty.”

“Closer to the edge,” Fyre said. “I want to feel Her Grace upon us.”

The Flame Bearer hesitated, his robe half-open, revealing a sliver of his pale hairless chest, several ribs protruding from his skin.

“Please, massai,” Fyre said. “I need this. In my Goddess’ light and warmth I shall be saved.”

“You are right, my Flame,” the man said, leading her forward once more, drawing his robe closed with his opposite hand.

As they approached the edge, the platform trembled harder and Fyre cried out, “Hold me in Your Holy Embrace, Oh Goddess of the Mountain!” She threw both hands over her head just as an eruption of flame spewed from below, launching molten rock high into the sky. Several drops of hot liquid splattered onto her arms, searing her skin.

“We’re too close now!” the Flamer Bearer shouted, having also been burned by the flaming liquid. He began to back away from the edge, his face lit up with fear for the first time.

“Closer!” Fyre shouted. “Closer!” She dragged a corner of her dress from her shoulder to reveal a smooth stretch of brown skin. “Come to me, massai, come to me!”

He hesitated, seeming to weigh his carnal desires against the risk of the ongoing volcanic eruption. He made a decision, moving toward her once more, letting his robe fall from his shoulders and puddle at his feet, naked and vulnerable and—

Fyre reached down and grasped a stone, already swinging it as she arose, smashing the Flame Bearer solidly in the jaw. He rocked back, cursing under his breath and grabbing his face, which was now smeared with blood. He played with something in his mouth and then spat. One of his filthy, crooked teeth sailed forth, bounced across the platform, between Fyre’s legs, and then vanished into the volcano.

Damaged but not seriously injured, he charged Fyre, screaming at the top of his lungs. She’d hoped to knock him unconscious with the stone, and, thus, wasn’t fully prepared for the tenacity of his response. She tried to duck away, but he managed to grab the sleeve of her dress, pulling so hard a portion of it tore free, still gripped in his white-knuckled hand. Blood from the dislodged tooth pooled in his mouth, staining his remaining teeth red and overflowing down his lips. “You will give me what is owed!” he roared, advancing on her once more.

She backtracked, feeling the growing heat of the chasm behind her, but trusted her instincts, not stopping until—

Her left foot hit nothing but empty air, dangling over the furious pit. “Help, massai!” she shouted, her arms whirling at her sides as she tried to regain her balance. The Flame Bearer reached for her, arms fully extended, not because he cared anything for her life but because he wanted to use her before she “fulfilled her duty” as a sacrifice to the vengeful Goddess of the mountain.

Fyre’s balance was impeccable from years of training in the way of women of her village, something a man would never understand. For their practiced dance was full of grace and balance and flowing movements modeled after water and wind. Her arms stopped whirling, her dangling leg latched back onto the edge, and she ducked under the Flame Bearer’s arms, sneaking behind him, turning and then
shoving him with all her might.

With a scream, he tumbled from the abyss, naked and fearful, until he was engulfed by the fires below. That’s when Fyre Dancer saw it, something long and sharp gleaming from a cave across the chasm, half of the object as bright as starlight and the other half doused in shadow.

All around her, the goddess released a sigh and then went still and silent once more, Her anger appeased. Whether it was the result of the sacrifice itself or Fyre’s strength, she would never know.

PART III

Andovier     Aisling     Sampson

Dane     Peony

When the Godswar ended, the gods of old vanished in the twinkling of an eye. Some say the stars never shone brighter than on that night. Shortly thereafter, dark clouds swarmed the sky, filled with sorrow and regret, the beginning of one hundred days and nights of rainfall without respite, as the gods wept for their powerful steeds, the godbeasts, the bones of the fallen dead piled high as a reminder of all that had been sacrificed for the future of humankind. And thus began the time of the Weeping.

The Kingfall Histories

Fourteen

Andovier Helm

Approaching the Infernal Pit, Teravainen

KEEPING THE PEACE BETWEEN MRZ AND SOLA WAS HALF OF ANDO’S JOB.

While Mrz had clearly proven he would not try to harm the Solarii man whose brother he’d already killed in the throes of battle, he enjoyed egging the other man on. “I once heard man say that Solari lose strength when sun goes down—is true, Sola?”

“Want to find out?” the bronzed man hissed, hand already moving to his hilt. Of course, there was nothing there. Not yet. Although they were being asked to fight for a kingdom they despised, they were still prisoners, forced to march southward by burly Terran guards who didn’t seem to care whether they lived or died.

“Oi,” Ando said. “Can you two give it a rest?”

Mrz chuckled while Sola fired a sharp look in his direction. Ando was relieved when they separated, the Solarii man hastening his pace to join the dwarves, who typically led the march. Speaking of which, the dwarf leader, Captain Barty, had angled away from his kin and was heading in Ando’s direction. “One of ’em’s gonna kill t’other in ’is sleep one night,” he said, gesturing at Mrz and Sola. Sola was brooding, an angry scowl covering his face. Mrz was already laughing again, at some joke he’d made to a few of the Odinian men. The large, horned Grizari man had that ability—to spread amusement wherever he went. Void, even several of the Terran guards were laughing at whatever he’d said.

“It won’t be Mrz,” Ando said. “He saved Sola’s life after Sola tried to kill him.”

“Nay, it won’ be Mrz,” Barty agreed.

“Then you think Sola will kill Mrz while he sleeps?”

“The Solarii are known to be sneaky, sinister folk.” Ando had not heard such things. They were a small kingdom with a Dead King and had never threatened Odin. “A knife in the back in the dark is a good bet.”

“Then I’ll sleep with one eye open.”

“Yer a good man, Helm, but ye can’t save ever’one.”

You don’t have to tell me, Ando thought, but he didn’t say that. Instead, he only nodded in the dwarf’s direction and watched as he hustled back to his men at the front of the column. Night was falling, but that meant little in terms of the end of their daily march. Typically, they marched late into the night, arising early. Their guards rode horses, while they were forced to walk. Ando’s hope to finish the remainder of the day’s march in peace was thwarted when Horatio Raan sidled up beside him. “I’m not in the mood, Raan,” Ando said darkly.

“Do you think the world cares what mood you’re in?”

Ando sighed. “Just say what you have to say and leave me in peace.”

“The king presumes too much.”

“Speak plainly.”

“I thought I was. Surely you must’ve considered our situation from a dozen angles already.”

He had. He couldn’t help himself. He’d lived and breathed strategy for so long it was nestled deep inside his bones now. They outnumbered the guards. The guards had armor and horses and weapons, while they had none of those things. But…trailing behind them were a half-dozen carts laden with weapons and armor, which they would be given to them upon arrival at the Infernal Pit. All they had to do was get to those weapons and they would swiftly gain the advantage on their captors. “We’re not going to try to escape,” he said, hoping his tone brooked all argument.

Evidently, it did not. “Why not? We’re being marched to our deaths. Whatever has transpired at the Infernal Pit is dire indeed, else the king wouldn’t have entrusted his enemy’s high commander with the job.”

“Exactly. If the demon tide is not stemmed, many innocents—women and children—will die.”

“I don’t want that, but that is war. You don’t owe the Terrans anything.”

“I know that!” Ando snapped, immediately wishing he hadn’t, because he’d drawn the attention of a pair of guards, who steered their horses in his direction. He felt exhausted. He wondered whether it odd that he was anxious for their march to be over when it meant they would reach their destination—a Rift leading into a Void full of demons wishing to spill their blood.

“Is there a problem?” one of the guards asked.

“No problem,” Ando said.

“Is this filthy traitor bothering you?”

Ando looked at the guard sharply. His lips were pulled into a thin line, eyes burning with hatred. He was looking for an excuse—any excuse—to hurt Raan, or perhaps even kill him. “No,” Ando said firmly. “We are fine. Just a friendly discussion.”

The guard didn’t look convinced. “Your discussion ends now. We will extend the march tonight. The Infernal Pit is close now—we will reach it at noon on the morrow.”

Finally, Ando thought. He didn’t expect to survive whatever was to come, but he planned to take as many foul demons with him as possible.

Silence had fallen over the men as they trudged deep into the night. Even Mrz had ceased his chatter and japes, a glassy-eyed look fogging over him. Ando cleared his mind completely, for it was his enemy during times without distraction. He focused on each footstep, trying to pace them evenly, listening to his heart beating in his chest. And then—

A shout. His head snapped up and he reached for the weapon that was not there. The shout had come from the front of the line, from the mouth of one of the dwarves. He didn’t require a conversation with the shouter to determine the cause: fire bloomed in the darkness up ahead. Though it was distant, this was no torchlight meant to illuminate the way for weary travelers such as themselves. No, this was a deadly, wild blaze that was already consuming multiple structures.

Ando strode forward, toward two of the guards who were watching the blaze from their mounts and speaking in hushed voices. “We should go around,” one of them said. “There’s nothing we can do for them now.”

“You know what is happening,” Ando said.

“Back in line,” the second guard barked.

“Tell me.”

“I swear to the gods that if you don’t—”

“What?” Ando challenged. “You’ll hurt me? Kill me? There is nothing you can do to me that is worse than what I’ve already endured. So tell me what you know before I tear you from your horse and take it for my own.”

The guards looked stunned for a moment, and Ando realized the altercation had drawn a crowd, his men standing around him in a semicircle. Other mounted guards had moved in from the sides, wearing grim expressions. “Fine. We received word a day ago that the Rift had been breached by two Greater Demons. All the Rift’s defenders were killed save one, who narrowly escaped with his life in order to send the message. The demons were last seen heading north.”

Ando gritted his teeth. “Toward where?” he asked.

“Nostertown,” the guard said. He gestured toward the flames in the distance. “By our reckoning, that be it.”

“Arm us,” Ando said immediately.

“Out of the question.”

“What difference does it make if you arm us now or when we arrive at the Infernal Pit if the demons have already breached the border into our world? I swear on my honor my men will not harm a single Terran guard, for if they do, I will kill them myself. Is that understood?” Ando cast his gaze behind him at the rest of the prisoners. Shouts of “Aye” and nods of agreement passed through the ragtag group.

Ando turned back to the guards. “What say you?”

“Godaan, we cannot,” the reluctant guard hissed.

“Shut it,” the other guard said. “He is right. If the demons are not stopped, we’re all dead men anyway. Arm yourselves as quickly as you can. We march for Nostertown as soon as you’re ready.”

“Thank you,” Ando said, as any lingering weariness vanished, a feeling of alertness and strength blazing through him like his own personal inferno. As he turned and strode toward the armory cart, Raan fell into line beside him.

“Nice speech. Glad we are finally in agreement.”

“We are not. We will be true to our word and march to Nostertown and save as many as we can—if there’s anyone left to save.” Please, gods, let us not be too late.

“What? We may not get another opportunity to escape.”

“That is your choice to make, not mine. But if you harm a Terran guard in doing so, I will kill you.”

Raan’s eyes narrowed. “You are not the man I thought you were.”

“And neither are you,” Ando fired back.

“What? Because I care whether I live or die?”

“Life has no meaning if you can’t protect those who can’t protect themselves.” Moira, Celeste, Olly.

“Then why don’t you just die? Why do you keep on fighting?”

Ando froze, lips trembling in rage. “Because it’s what she would’ve wanted,” he said.

“So you’re living for her then.”

“Yes.”

“Mayhaps you need to start living for yourself, Helm.”

With that, Raan continued toward the cart. When he reached it, he pretended to browse the weapons amongst the other men, but then, suddenly, vanished. Ando craned his neck but could no longer see the man. Frowning, he made his way over, eyeing the crowd for any sign of the general. Mrz appeared, blocking him, gripping a familiar-looking sword in his meaty palm. In his other hand he gripped a war hammer. He extended the sword in Ando’s direction. “May it lop demon heads from necks,” he said with a grim chuckle.

“Thank you,” he said, still trying to look around the man to locate Raan. Between the tangle of arms reaching for weapons and armor, he could barely make out two white eyes peering from the shadows beneath the wagon. Raan had made his choice—now it was time for Ando to make his. He pushed past Mrz and began to don his armor.

Their flight to Nostertown straddled the thin line between harried and cautious, as it wouldn’t do any of them good to twist an ankle on the uneven terrain in the darkness. The guards walked their horses slowly behind them, using the prisoners as a human shield. When push came to shove, Ando fully expected them to flee northward and save their own skins.

It is up to us, then, he thought, the flames growing brighter and larger. Screams of terror had begun to reach their ears, the sounds horrific but also hopeful. The dead could not scream, which meant there were currently survivors in the town.

Just before they reached the edge of the village, one of the flame-drenched structures collapsed, spewing sparks and smoke into the air. Ando ground to a halt, raising his fist to stop the rest of the men. A wall of fire blocked their path forward. Something moved amongst the flames, a figure wreathed in fire but formed of shadow beneath.

“Steady!” Ando said. “On my command.”

The Greater Demon stepped from the wall of fire, flames kissing its skin but not burning it. The creature was headless, powerful shoulders connected by nothing but a flat stretch of ashy skin. Even without a head, it was twice as large as the tallest of them, which made it four times as tall as the largest dwarf. The rest of its body was humanoid, though it had four arms rather than two, each culminating in curved blades rather than fists. Twin legs the size of tree trunks supported the rest of its massive body as it stomped forward. Ando would’ve taken all those features without blinking if not for the final horror, which roared from its stomach, a broad mouth filled with at least three rows of pincer-like teeth.

He blinked. “Steady!” he shouted again. “Mrz and I shall distract it from the front while Barty’s crew flanks it from the right. Raa—” He cut off, having almost said Raan, who was nowhere to be seen, likely a league away to the east already. The man was resourceful, that much Ando knew, and would find a way to cross the border into Solarii. May our paths never cross again, he thought. “Sola, you will lead the Odinians wide to the left. Give the demon a wide berth and circle around behind—”

The rest of his command was lost as the demon roared again, launching itself forward with a mighty leap, erasing half the distance between them as it landed with such weight the ground shook. “NOW!” Ando shouted and the men sprang into action, each half splitting off at a dead run while Mrz stayed at his side, slashing his hammer back and forth as though it was a thin stick.

“You choose right man for job,” he said. “Come on, big, ugly demon! I want to play!”

The demon, however, decided not to cooperate, leaping in the air once more, not straight ahead at them, but to its left, where Barty and his dwarves were angling away as commanded. To the demon, the dwarves must’ve appeared to be nothing more than fleeing children. It landed with a heavy thump amongst them, flattening one underfoot and slashing another through the middle with one of its four blade-arms. The dwarf’s body separated like a hunk of soft cheese when faced with the edge of a recently sharpened dagger.

The rest of the dwarves, however, did not retreat, they fell upon the demon’s legs with axes and blades, trying to slash through the creature’s thick skin as one might fell a tree. The demon kicked out to dislodge one and jabbed a blade at another, just missing Barty as he ducked under a blow that would’ve impaled him. The resilient dwarf leader swung his axe upward, severing the demon’s arm above where the blade began, dark blood pouring from the stump as the weapon fell to its feet. The demon roared its anger.

Ando and Mrz had not been idle, racing in the demon’s direction. At the same time, Ando had waved at Sola to follow—the hastily made plan was already in disarray and there was nothing for it but to attack from all sides and hope to overwhelm the monster. In that spirit, he shouted to Mrz, “I’m the nail, you’re the hammer,” hoping he would understand without further explanation, launching himself forward and stabbing his blade into the back of the demon’s leg, barely penetrating the thick, corded muscle beneath the surface.

With a hearty war cry in his own tongue, Mrz followed in his wake, whipping his hammer around and connecting solidly with the butt end of the sword’s hilt, shoving it in further.

The demon roared, twisting its body around, two of its blade arms following, nearly lopping off both their heads as they danced back. The demon used one of its blades to hack Ando’s sword in half, leaving a portion of the metal still trapped within its leg. It limped forward, injured but far from dead, harried from behind by the dwarves’ axes and swords but ignoring them as one ignores a flurry of gnats buzzing around one’s ankles.

Mrz tried to step in front of Ando protectively, but the demon swiped a curved blade horizontally, steel clanging against hammer as the Grizari blocked the attack. The impact, however, swept him from his feet, sending him tumbling away and leaving Ando exposed. The demon seized its advantage, slamming a blade down. Ando’s instincts had sensed the attack, and he reacted instantly, sidestepping in the nick of time, the blade sinking deep into the earth and bringing the demon’s hideous chest-mouth close enough he could’ve counted its teeth if he had a mind to. Ando backtracked quickly as the demon’s chomping jaws tried to bite him, coming up just short due to its blade arm being stuck fast in the ground.

By then, Sola and the Odinians had reached the battle, falling upon the demon from its left side while the dwarves continued to hack at its legs from behind. The beast wrenched its blade from the ground and whipped it around, blood spraying as the lives of at least two more men were ended.

The creature attacks blindly and without thought, Ando realized. It was made to kill, not think. Spilled blood is its only reward.

Weaponless, he charged forward while the demon was distracted with the other men and dwarves. “Ando!” Mrz shouted, but he ignored him, sprinting directly for the demon’s left side, clambering up its rough-textured leg, using several blades that had been embedded in its flesh as footholds and then reaching up to grasp the severed stump, kicking out to gain momentum as he swung like a child from a tree branch and then—

He went airborne, a mad maneuver that carried him toward the demon’s open, snapping maw.

With a roar of his own that rivaled that of the demon, Ando slammed the dagger he’d retrieved from his ankle sheath the moment his fingers had swung free of the creature’s stump arm. The steel sank deep into a softer spot just above the hideous mouth, and, to his relief, held. He gripped the hilt tightly with two hands, legs dangling precariously beneath him as the demon continued to try to bite them off. His hands began to grow slick with the dark blood welling from the dagger wound, his fingers slipping from his weapon. But that’s not what he was concerned with, for if his instincts had read the demon correctly, the true danger was mere seconds from—

He saw the moment the demon tensed not one but both of its right arms, stabbing the pair of blades at his back. Ando released his weapon, falling for the creature’s maw but kicking off from its top lip, feeling the rush of displaced air as the blades scythed past. He landed hard on his arse and skidded, eyes locked on the demon’s mouth, inside which were two of its blade arms, stuffed in as though it were trying to swallow its own appendages. The creature gagged and stumbled to the side and Ando could see that the blade arms had gone all the way through its back, protruding from its skin like horns.

With a final gasp, its legs lost what was left of their strength and it collapsed in a heap.

Mrz, who’d managed to push back to his feet while still gripping his hammer, offered Ando a hand and said, “Human be scarier than me.”

He accepted Mrz’s assistance and, as the Grizari man pulled him up, said, “Like I said, I’ll be the nail…”

“And I’m hammer. Got it. Time to kill second demon.”

“Rally the men to me. We need to find a way through the flames.”

While Mrz loped off to gather the survivors, Ando gazed upon the village. Most of the significant structures were aflame, some already lying in smoldering piles of debris. He could still hear screams, but they were fewer and farther between now, which he knew was not a good sign. He scanned the village’s perimeter until he located a spot that seemed to be devoid of flames, several buildings in a row untouched by the fire on account of a favorable wind blowing the worst of it elsewhere. Even as he watched, however, the wind changed, blasting the flames from the east to west and causing the fire to jump from one building to the next to the next, the dry wood lighting immediately, the previously untouched structures erupting.

Shite. How could he ask his men to charge through a wall of fire? The answer was he could not, not in good conscious, not when the scant few survivors inside would likely never see the morning light of the coming dawn, and by sending in his men would only add to the death count.

Before Mrz could fully organize the men, Ando took off at a run, still without sword and without his dagger to boot, armed with only determination and a reckless desire to kill or be killed. Around the southern edge of the village he ran, raising a hand over his face because of the brightness and heat of the flames as he searched for a way through the fire.

There were only screams and a wall of flames without gap nor corridor.

He spotted a watering trough meant for horses after a long journey. Ando dove into the water, letting the moisture soak him to the skin, and then clambered out, dripping a trail on the dry, dusty ground.

He picked up speed as he approached a portion of the fire that appeared to be slightly less thick, tucking his head in his sopping arms and then bursting through, feeling the heat of the flames wash over him, the intensity sucking the very breath from his lungs. He didn’t stop running until he felt the air grow cooler; still hot, but cool enough to bear. His clothing was smoking and when he reached up to touch his eyebrows, he found the hairs shriveled and curling.

None of that mattered as another scream lit up the night. She is close, Ando thought, taking off at a run, down a village street that had burning structures on one side and unscathed houses on the other. He turned the corner…

The second Greater Demon explained the fiery state of the village. It wasn’t nearly as large as the first demon, its skin mottled and wrinkled as it walked hunched over and slow, like an old man, its claws ticking on the cobblestoned square that had become the only safe place in the entire village—until now anyway—the scant few survivors huddled together in a tight knot in the center to stay as far from the flames as possible. Now, they retreated across the square as the demon stalked toward them, its long neck and tube-like maw extended in their direction. It swiveled its head to the side and blasted out a jet of flames, catching a nearby building on fire.

Ando was about to shout to attract the demon’s attention when two of the villagers stepped in front of the others. One was a tall, strong-looking man garbed in simple clothes with sandy, straw-like hair salted with speckles of gray and meticulously combed. Ando would later learn that, despite his appearance, this man was no simple villager but Sir Christoff Metz, defender of the Four Kingdoms. He would also learn that the woman standing fiercely beside him was none other than Mona Sheary, ex-soldier in the Queen’s Army and cousin to King Tarin Sheary of the great Northern Kingdom, an area of the Four Kingdoms known for its snow, ice and warm hospitality. She was a dark-haired beauty with stunning features, even as her forehead was now lined, crow’s feet taking up residence at the corners of her eyes.

They both wielded swords and looked like they knew how to use them.

Ando waved his arms silently to attract their attention. Their eyes flicked toward him and then returned to the demon without giving away his presence. The demon was getting closer to the two staunch defenders and Ando hurriedly scoured the area for a weapon, anything to give him even a fool’s chance.

Nothing.

There was no time to search further, so he sprinted toward the demon on silent feet. At any moment the creature might turn and entomb him in flames, but it was a risk he had to take for the innocents nearly tripping over each other as they tried to escape, alive only because two brave souls had inserted themselves between the demon and his prize. Speaking of which, when the demon started to turn its head—perhaps because one of Ando’s boots had accidentally kicked a small stone, sending it bouncing across the square—the two people charged forward, hacking at its small arms and then dancing back as it sprayed a gout of flames, narrowly missing their feet.

Ando reached the hunched creature and didn’t hesitate, taking advantage of his only weapon at present: surprise. He launched himself onto the demon’s wrinkled, sagging back, roping his forearm around its throat and squeezing tight to try to cut off its airflow.

The flesh wobbled and bounced, the meat of its neck as saggy and wrinkled as the rest of its flesh. A question he should’ve considered before he’d attempted the maneuver came to him now: Do demons even need to breathe?

He wouldn’t learn the answer to that question today, but he would discover that they didn’t like being leapt upon. The demon began to shriek and spew flames in all directions, the heat burning Ando’s forearm where it was still clamped around the creature’s throat and forcing him to pull it back. He clutched handfuls of oozing skin to hang on, mind racing as he considered how to defeat an enemy such as this.

“Ando!”

No one in this Terran town would know him from King Normandian, which meant one or more of his men had followed him through the flames. Even suspecting this, as he twisted his head around to identify the shouter, he would’ve never guessed he would find General Horatio Raan, soaked to the bone and gripping his sword with a fierce determination lacing his expression. “Catch,” the man said, and threw the sword up toward him.

Throwing a sword was difficult, and it wasn’t the best toss. Ando was forced to arch his back and sling his own arm behind him while squeezing the demon’s foul flesh with his other hand until his fingers sank deep. He caught the blade’s hilt, and in one smooth motion, spun it around and jammed steel into the back of the demon’s head.

Its entire body jolted, its head flopping about, flames still erupting from its maw even as it fell, singeing Ando’s shoulder as he finally released his hold and tumbled awkwardly to the ground. He landed beside the demon, which managed to release one final jet of fire before going still.

The jet, by some random stroke of bad luck, hit Raan full in the chest.

The man’s mouth opened in a silent gape. He looked down at the hole in his chest, as though in awe of what had transpired, and then he fell.

“No,” Ando breathed, scrambling on all fours over to the man, who, had he not returned to help, would still be uninjured and whole while he might very well be dead, along with the villagers.

Raan stared up at him, managing a grim smile. “You were right,” he said, voice raspy.

Ando didn’t gloat, because the man had also spoken with wisdom, even if certain of his prior opinions were self-serving and jaded. Plus, he’d shown up when it counted most, when Ando thought Raan would’ve been leagues away by now. “Don’t speak, my friend,” Ando said. “Save your strength.”

“Friend? Thank you, but I haven’t earned such a label. This entire time, I have been spying for the king, ensuring you didn’t sow seeds of unrest amongst the prisoners and make plans to escape. I thought for certain you would when I attempted to persuade you, but you proved your honor on every occasion, despite the snake in your midst. A traitor, as you rightfully labeled me from the start.” His voice was growing weaker with each word, even as Ando’s mind whirled with the unexpected revelation.

But even that seemed less important than the truth of another tale told to him by this dying man. “And your wife? Your children?”

“All true,” Raan said, voice little more than a whisper now. “I could never lie about them. The plague was most vicious to us. But my loyalty was always to the king. Until now.”

Gods, Ando thought. Why must you always take and never give in return? For, just as this man had finally earned his own trust and respect, he was lost to him. “Go to them now,” Ando said. “Be at peace.”

The man was gone before he’d finished his sentence, eyes open and staring without life. Ando closed them gently. Despite the man’s self-admitted treachery, Ando felt nothing for regret for the way his life had ended. Then he stood to face the villagers who’d gathered nearby, just watching the exchange in silence. He coughed—the air was thick with smoke as the wind changed once more. “We need to find water to douse some of the flames and escape this oven.”

Even as the words left his lips, there was the crack of thunder and then a low rumble. Rain began to fall, softly at first but then harder and harder until it was a heavy downpour. Ando raised his face to the sky, eyes closed, feeling the presence of his wife and children for the first time since he gazed upon their lifeless bodies set in a row. I miss you, he thought, each drop of rain the touch of his wife’s fingers upon his face, his jaw, his neck. I miss you too much.

“The gods have smiled upon us,” one of the villagers commented. “This must be a sign.” Already the driving rain was extinguishing the numerous fires in the village.

“Actually,” a voice cut in, “rainfall is caused by water evaporating and then condensing in the clouds until it forms drops that eventually become large and heavy enough to be drawn back to the earth by gravity.”

Ando turned to find the swordsman standing before him, looking as calm and certain as if the entire village hadn’t burned down and a demon corpse wasn’t close enough to spit on. The raven-haired woman stood beside him. “Christoff, you’re doing it again,” the woman said. “What my husband means is that the rain has been threatening all day.”

The swordsman cocked his head to the side and frowned. “That’s not what I meant at all. The rain does not threaten. Threatening is a humanly act and the rain is neither human nor god.”

“Thank you for distracting the demon so I could attack from behind,” Ando said.

“Yours was a foolhardy maneuver,” the graying man said. “Without a weapon, your chances of success were less than one percent.”

“Good thing my friend showed up then,” Ando said.

“Not so,” the swordsman said, interjecting once more. “Mona and I were about to slay the beast while it was distracted. I am Sir Christoff Metz of the Four Kingdoms and this is my wife, Mona Metz-Sheary. Some call her my better half, but in reality we are each our own whole selves.”

Ando was speechless. Thankfully, the man’s wife was not. “Ignore him. Introductions are not his strong suit,” she said. “I am sorry for the loss of your friend. We should’ve started with that.”

“Thank you. I am Andovier Helm of Odin.”

“Helm?” the strange knight said. “As in High Commander Helm who was captured at Westport not two fortnights hence?”

“I’m just Ando now.”

“Nonsense. A man does not forfeit a hard-earned title simply because of a change in circumstance. Else I would no longer be called a knight of the Four Kingdoms.”

“Speaking of which,” Ando said. “Why is a knight of the Four Kingdoms in a small village in the heart of Teravainen?”

“The plague,” Sir Metz said simply.

“The plague?” Ando said, not understanding.

“Yes. The Four Kingdoms have experienced peace for decades now. There is little and less for a knight to do in times of peace.”

“He gets bored,” Mona explained. “And our children are all grown and off gallivanting around the Four Kingdoms.”

“Indeed,” Sir Metz said. “They are seeking adventure. And I don’t get bored. I simply have an inquisitive mind,” Sir Metz said.

“Very bored,” his wife said.

“Anyway, we began studying the plague, which—I’m not sure if you’re aware—was caused by a man born with a most unfortunate fatemark in Calypso. In any case, we developed several treatments that have proven quite effective.”

“You have a cure for the plague?”

“Did I say that?” The man looked toward his wife, as though he couldn’t recall.

“Dear, you implied it.”

“Implied is not the same thing as saying something, is it?”

“We’ve talked about this. Many times. What my husband is trying to say is that our treatment reduces the pain caused by the plague quite substantially and seems to limit some of the worse symptoms, including those of the mind. But no, it does not cure the sick. They die eventually, but with more peace than they might’ve otherwise.”

“So you are not sympathetic to King Gaard’s war efforts?”

Sir Metz’s jawline hardened. “No. I am not.”

Just then, the rest of Ando’s men arrived, shielding their faces against the pelting rain with their hands. Mrz, as usual, spoke first. “Wanted demon all for self, eh? Greedy bastard.” Just then he noticed Raan’s body on the ground. “He’s dead? What happened?”

“He saved us. He was a hero,” Ando said. Despite his instincts about the man being right, he would take the truth with him to the grave.

A moment of silence ensued as the men encircled Raan, heads bowed. Ando placed the man’s sword on his chest. “Find a suitable place to bury him.”

Mrz bent down and scooped up the body in his powerful arms.

Sir Metz said, “One of the Grizari.” There was a note of awe in his tone. “I have read about your kind but have never met one face to face. Is it true your horns never stop growing?”

“Not unless I be dead! Har!” Mrz bellowed, throwing back his head and laughing at his own humor as rain filled his mouth.

“Fascinating,” Sir Metz said.

Ando made brief introductions, not naming his men individually, save for Bart, Mrz and Sola, the latter of whom was once more in a brooding mood, blond hair darkened by the rain. Then several of the men, Mrz included, set off to carry out Ando’s orders.

“We owe you our lives,” one of the surviving village folk said, a bald man whose arms were stretched around what Ando assumed was his family: two young boys, one older girl and his wife. “But I fear our livelihoods are lost. We are homeless and without sustenance. Whither shall we go? What shall we do?”

Ando hadn’t thought that far ahead. They could stay and help the villagers rebuild their town, but with only two dozen or so of them left, it wouldn’t be much of a place to live. Plus, more demons would come unless the flow was stemmed, and that meant continuing southward to the Infernal Pit.

The clop of horses clattered against the slick cobblestones as the Terran guards arrived, having not fought either demon, content to watch their prisoners fight, and die, in their stead. Ando turned toward them. “These people are your responsibility now,” he said, “even if you were unwilling to risk your lives for theirs.”

The leader of the guards said, “The king’s command was clear—we escort you to the Rift. Collecting strays along the way was not part of our instructions.”

Ando stalked toward him, rain dripping from his chin. “I will lead the men to the Rift. You will assist these people to travel north, as far away from the Infernal Pit as possible. Jackaloos perhaps. You will give them sufficient coin for shelter and food.”

“I don’t take orders from—”

“We will protect the southern portion of Teravainen from the demon tide, and you will take the credit. I will pen messages to the king describing your courage in battle and numbering the many demons you slew. Once you have assisted these people, you can return to the Infernal Pit to supervise us, if you must, sitting on your arse all day and night while we fight for the very kingdom that imprisons us. Are we in agreement?”

The leader glanced left and right at his men, who were nodding in agreement. It was a deal that men of their ilk simply could not refuse. The leader looked back at Ando. “Swear on your dead wife and children that you will keep your end of the bargain and not flee.”

Ando’s hand’s fisted so tightly his knuckles ached. “I swear it.”

“On your—”

“On the memory of my wife and children,” he said between gritted teeth.

“Good enough for me,” the man said. “Everyone. Listen up. Gather whatever scant belongings you have. We leave at once.”

“It’s the middle of the night!” the bald man protested, but his wife grabbed his arm and said, “Please, Mort, sleep will evade us anyway. I want to get as far away from this place as possible.” The man cupped her cheek and then acquiesced.

“We will lead you north,” the soldier said. “Be prepared to walk a great distance. If your children falter, pick them up and carry them.”

“No,” Ando said. “The children will ride behind your guards, each to a man.”

“That’s not—”

“That’s what will happen. Understood?”

The guard leader seethed. “Fine.”

Satisfied, Ando turned back to Sir Metz and Mona and said, “Is there any chance there are additional survivors?”

“It’s unlikely,” Metz said, “but prudence dictates we conduct a full search.”

“I agree. Men—search every structure for survivors. Carefully. The fire will have weakened the buildings’ bones. Those that haven’t collapsed may do so at any moment. We report back here at dawn.”

The tedious search through Nostertown dragged on through the night, the last of the fires extinguished by the rain, which had transformed from a pelting downpour to a light mist that settled on every surface like dew on the grass under the pale light of a cold dawn.

They discovered plenty of bodies, most charred and barely recognizable as human, but no additional survivors, save for an old, half-blind, half-deaf hound that had apparently slept through the entire ordeal. “Grimace!” the children of the bald man cried when Ando carried him, soot-covered and groggy, into the square.

“The dog’s name is Grimace?” Ando said.

The man shrugged, but said, “Thank you. For everything.”

“I am sorry for all you have lost.”

“I’m not. My family came away with their lives, which is all that matters, in the end. Others were not so fortunate.”

Ando nodded and turned away quickly, vision blurring, the man’s words full of a painful truth he would rather not face. His eyes dried immediately when he heard a cry. It was young, scared. In pain? A child’s cry. A girl.

He tore off in the direction of the sound, eyes scanning the various devastated structures, many sodden but still smoldering from the intensity of the fires that had burned through them. “Where are you, where are you, where are you?” he muttered under his breath as he searched. He stopped, listening, but heard only his own heartbeat, his own breath rushing from his lips. “Celeste?” he said, the name so natural on his lips even if he knew it was a mad thing to say.

Nothing. And then—

Another cry. Ando shot toward the sound, rounding a half-destroyed structure to find an entirely destroyed house—just a pile of wood and cinder. During their search they must’ve passed by this plot a dozen times without stopping; there was no chance anyone inside could’ve survived.

Except now Ando saw one of the planks moving, wobbling slightly. The cry followed, but it wasn’t young and painful anymore, if it ever was. It was determined, resilient, angry. “Get offa me, you damn broke house!” the voice cried. A string of curses that would make a soldier blush followed and then the sound of shifting rubble. “Ow!”

Ando hustled over to the spot, peering through the debris. Seeing nothing at first, but then:

A pair of eyes staring back at him between the crisscross of damaged wood. “You gonna help me or just stare at me all damn day,” the voice said.

“Hold tight,” Ando said.

“What else am I supposed to do? Dance a jig?”

The girl had a mouth on her, that was for sure, but Ando was so thrilled to find someone alive that her sarcasm washed over him like a cool breeze. He dug his fingers under a heavy crossbeam, bending his knees and then grunting as he lifted the wood onto his shoulder, maneuvering it clear of the girl’s location before letting gravity claim its weight once more. The crossbeam thundered to the ground. From there it was substantially easier, simply a matter of figuring out which piece of wood was tangling the others together and sliding it free. By the end, he was rapidly tossing away chunks of rubble mindlessly behind him, his heart racing until—

She stared up at him, her small body tucked into an even smaller space within some sort of piece of furniture—a hutch cupboard with all the drawers removed. All Ando could see was Celeste, her golden locks bouncing as she bobbed her head, eyes bright like Moira’s, mouth bursting into a smile as he started to reach toward her to pull her out…

“Get offa me!” the girl, who was nothing like Celeste, not in appearance or temperament, screamed, slapping at his hands. She was much older than Celeste, perhaps ten name days old, with raggedy brown hair, cut short, with no spring in it at all. Her eyes were brown and small, and her lips full of righteous anger and defiance.

“I was just trying to help you.”

“I can climb from a hutch, thank you,” she said, more sarcasm coating every word. True to her word, she scrambled out and clambered nimbly over the debris, which shifted dangerously under her feet. She landed with a leap on the ground, clear of the disaster area. “Thanks for dragging all that shite offa me.”

“Of course,” Ando said, picking his way toward her with far more caution than she’d displayed. “You’re lucky to be alive. The weight of that crossbeam alone should’ve snapped you in two.”

“Luck had nothin’ to do with it. The moment me da heard the godsawful screams and saw the light of the fire, he cleared out the damn hutch and stuck me inside, dumpin’ an entire barrel of water on it and soakin’ me to the skin in the process. I protested something fierce, on account of wantin’ to see the demon firsthand, but Da told me he’d mount my head on the wall if I so much as stuck a finger out, so I listened to him; I like my head right where it is, you see. Then he left through the front door and don’t never come back.”

“And your mother?”

“Died years ago. Just me and Da now. Well, just me now, I s’pose. Me Da was the bravest man I ever met, but he was no warrior. I’m guessin’ the demon took care of him without trouble.”

“I’m sorry,” Ando said.

“Why? Did you kill me Da? Nope. And don’t say you’re sorry for me loss neither. I hate when folk say that. You know nothin’ about me loss.”

The girl was a spitfire, and Ando found himself at a loss for words. Thankfully, she had no trouble filling the silence on her own, her mouth seeming to form words faster than Ando’s mind could conjure them up. “You got any food? Me stomach’s growlin’ somethin’ fierce.”

“Yes. Of course. You’ll need water too. There are Terran soldiers. They’ll escort you to safety in the north with the other survivors.”

“Soldiers?” the girl said, wrinkling her nose. “Soldiers are the worst. They come through here every so often, talkin’ big and askin’ for free meals and drink and such. Me Da runs—ran—a tavern, well, the only tavern in Nostertown. Who are the other survivors?”

“Sir Metz and his wife.”

Her eyes lit up. “Fine folk, them. Helpin’ sick people and the like. But they’re not from here. Who else?”

Not knowing their names, Ando described each survivor in turn, until he got to the bald man with the wife and three children. “Ew, the Hearns,” she said, grimacing, like their name was some sort of fungus growing between her toes. “They are the worst. I simply cannot abide their company. Cain’t I just come with you?”

“Out of the question. We are southbound for the Infernal Pit. The Rift is no place for a young girl.”

“Young girl nothin’,” she protested. “Turned twelve in the winter, I did. Been a fully flowered woman for nigh on half a year. Shoulda seen me Da’s face the first time I bled—was a fish outta water, he was!”

The last thing Ando wanted to think about was the flowering of a girl to a woman. “You’re small for your age.”

“And your beard resembles a mangy raccoon on your face. We cain’t have all the things we want, can we? But I can fight. I’d rather face a Greater Demon than the Hearns any day. And I don’t mind hearin’ curse words, if that’s what you’re worried about. Da had a mouth like a sailor, me Ma used to say. Only got worse after she died.”

“I’m not taking a girl of twelve to a Rift full of demons,” Ando said. “And that’s final.”

So it was, in the early morning light, that Ando walked with his men, along with Sir Christoff Metz and his wife, Mona, who’d decided to accompany them rather than turning north with the Terran soldiers, and a girl of twelve whose name, he had learned, was Tora, with a mouth that almost made Ando want to feed himself to a demon.

She was talking nonstop now to Mrz, who she’d taken an instant liking to, a feeling which seemed to be reciprocated. The pair looked odd: Mrz with his hulking muscles and curling horns; Tora with her spindly arms and legs and boyish haircut.

Sola noticed Ando watching them and said, “She cannot replace your daughter.”

Ando cringed, and not on account of the pain that flared in his burnt forearm. Sir Metz and his wife had kindly tended to his burn before they’d departed, applying a cooling salve and wrapping the tender skin with cloth, but now the heat had returned with a vengeance. “I didn’t even want to bring her. It’s too dangerous.”

“And yet she’s here all the same.” ‘Here’ was a large, flat stretch of southward-roaming land that led to the Infernal Pit and, beyond, all the way to the Solarii border.

“You try arguing with her. It’s like arguing with a mule.”

“She’s half-Solarii, you know.”

“I guessed as much from her name. Her mother’s side, no doubt.”

Sola nodded silently, and then angled away to join the other men.

She is not your daughter, Ando thought. You have no daughter. Not anymore.

Ando called for a halt. All lips stopped moving as eyes from various nations, races and creeds settled on him. “I meant what I said to the Terran soldiers,” he started. “I will not abandon the innocents of this country to fend for themselves against demons. It is their king I hold a grudge against, no others. But you did not all make the same pledge I did. I cannot ask you to remain prisoners when no bars or shackles or guards remain. I will not fault you for leaving. If you head eastward with speed, you can reach my country, Odin, in less than a week. You will be welcomed and given safe haven. From there, you will be free to choose your path.”

“We are all men here, Ando,” Sola said. “If we wanted to leave, we would’ve done so already.”

“Does he speak for all of you?” Ando asked.

A chorus of ayes filled the air. “Good. And I promise that once the Rift is secured, we will escape these lands.”

“When that be?” Mrz grunted.

Ando wished he knew. “Sometime between now and the end of time.” With that, they started off again, their various conversations continuing.

They would reach the Infernal Pit by nightfall, weary from lack of sleep and their long march. But what they would find there was not at all what they expected.

Fifteen

Aisling Brightshine

Wolfsgaard, Teravainen

AISLING HAD MADE A GRIEVOUS MISTAKE, THAT MUCH SHE KNEW.

Ever since that night with the prince, he’d pined after her even more, appearing at her cell three, four times per day, usually bearing gifts. Flowers or trinkets that now adorned her dark, dank cell, looking utterly out of place amongst the straw and dripping stone walls. Sometimes he tried to kiss her when he entered, but she’d avoided it thus far, seeing the sting on his face each time she turned away, though he tried to hide it. She understood his confusion. If she were on the other side, she’d be confused too. What they’d done was passionate and beautiful and everything it should be, and yet…

It can never happen again, she thought, even as she heard the key clink in the lock as Jarrod’s face appeared at the barred window in her door. She steeled herself for what she knew she needed to do, because of history. Because of memories. Because of a promise she’d made herself so many years ago. He smiled as he entered, as he always did, though there was a hesitation this time that wasn’t usually there. His hands were empty as well, and he didn’t seem to know what to do with them, his fingers eventually clasping together. He didn’t try to kiss her, or even move closer, just standing in the doorway.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Nostertown burns,” he said gravely.

Her perfect recall of the map in the war room told her he spoke of a small village northwest of the Infernal Pit. It was too far from the eastern border to be the Odinians, and anyway, the neighbors to the east had thus far been content to defend rather than attack, even after the Terrans invaded Westport. “The Solariis?” she said.

Jarrod shook his head. “Worse. The Infernal Pit is undefended. Two Greater Demons breached the Rift, slaughtering all but one man who sent a message north. The demons destroyed Nostertown, killing most of the villagers.”

Aisling clamped her mind closed before violent images of her own imagination could take root. “Where are the demons now?” she asked slowly.

“Dead. The soldiers escorting Andovier Helm and the other prisoners to the Pit arrived in the nick of time, killing the demons and saving a number of townsfolk. They are heroes, all.”

“Are they?” Aisling said dryly. “It was the deeds of brave Terran soldiers, was it?”

Jarrod frowned, confused. “Of course. Who else? My father received a message this morning, a detailed account of what transpired at Nostertown.”

So naïve, Aisling thought, wishing the kindhearted prince were something more than he was. Maybe then things wouldn’t be so complicated between them. Does it have to be complicated? she asked herself. Now who’s the naïve one, she thought, cutting off all her foolish romantic notions before they could run wild and free. Her life had always been one long, enduring war, and this stop was no different: a battleground. “Where was Andovier Helm during all of this bravery?” she asked.

Jarrod shrugged. “Chained to the other prisoners, I expect.”

Aisling didn’t press the issue because it wasn’t her place to instruct the prince on the ways of the world. She suspected the king, who was viciously shrewd, knew exactly who had saved Terran lives at Nostertown. This would put him in a foul mood, so if she had the displeasure of attending him today, she would need to tread gingerly. “Other demons may have already escaped the Rift,” Aisling said instead. “Who knows in which direction they will travel? If they reach Wolfsgaard…”

“They won’t,” Jarrod said quickly. “We have nothing to fear here. Even if they did, I would stand outside your door day and night to protect you.”

Oh, Jarrod, she thought. You cannot protect a fly, much less hurt one. “Thank you. That is most honorable of you.”

Though her words were formal and stilted, his reply was not, his demeanor finally softening as he took a step closer. “Aisling, I would do anything for you. Anything. I mean that. If you asked it of me I would even—”

She stepped forward and kissed him, not because she wished to—though she did—but because she couldn’t let him speak another word. Castles like this, in her experience, had ears in even the most private places. What he’d been about to say was treason of the highest order and speaking and acting such a thing were much the same in the eyes of the law.

When they pulled apart, the prince’s hands were on her hips, so tender and warm, and his face was alight with passion. “I’d been beginning to think I’d done something wrong,” he said, eyes searching hers as though seeking an answer to a question he’d been afraid to ask.

“Jarrod,” she said, and she liked the way his name sounded on her own lips. “You have only done right by me since I met you, but this can never be. That was goodbye. Please do not call on me again.” She felt the burn of her own hatred directed toward herself on her tongue.

“What?” Jarrod said. “Aisling, you don’t mean that. I love you, Aisling, we are meant to be togeth—”

“Please,” she said, a note of pleading infused in her tone. “Please don’t make this any harder. You don’t love me. You think you do, but you don’t.”

“I do,” the prince said, with fervor. “I love—”

“Stop. It doesn’t matter. I don’t love you. Nothing about this is normal. I am your father’s prisoner. Nothing more. Leave me.”

“I—you don’t mean that,” he said again.

“I do mean that, Your Highness.”

“Don’t call me that. Call me Jarrod.”

“That is too familiar for one of my lowly station, Your Highness.”

“Don’t do that, Aisling. Don’t speak to me like I’m a stranger.”

“But you are, Your Highness. I am but a godling bought to do the bidding of my master.” She forced venom into her tone, channeling the atrocities she’d succumbed to over the years, several of which had been meted out by this man’s own father.

“I will speak to my father. I will tell him what I desire. I will fight for—”

“No!” Aisling blurted out, fearing she’d pushed him too far, that she’d gone about this the wrong way. The last—the very last—thing she wanted was for his fantasy love for her to give him the courage to stand up to his father. “I mean, no, do not do that. For my sake, don’t do that. Your father will believe I seduced you. He will punish me severely.”

Jarrod closed his eyes, and when he opened them, she could see that her words had had the desired effect. “I will remain silent. But this isn’t over, Aisling. I will find a way to make things right. I swear it on—on my mother’s life.” Before she could dodge him, he leaned forward and kissed her cheek, and then whirled about, departing as quickly as he’d arrived.

The king summoned her shortly thereafter, and she was relieved when Jarrod was not present in the war room. Grimfire was, of course, as well as Crown Princess Amari and the king’s war council.

Aisling expected the discussion to begin with what had transpired at Nostertown, but instead the talk was of rumors from much further afield. Evidently, King Gaard had several well-paid spies in Odin, three of whom had confirmed a dragon had landed at Chrysallis. While the Travailians and Odinians were not enemies, they were also not allies. Everything about it screamed of a formal marriage alliance.

“A strong alliance between Odin and Travail changes everything,” Aisling said. She no longer felt awkward speaking at these meetings, as the king seemed to value her opinion on matters of war as much as his top generals.

“Does it?” the king said. “Travail will become our enemy eventually, once we deal with Solarii and Odin. This only hastens that result.”

“Yes, but Travail is much closer to Odin’s southern shores than, say, Kingsfort. On dragonback, the journey can be made in two to three days, depending on how far east our forces land.” She’d begun using words like ‘we’ and ‘our’ recently in an attempt to further instill herself in the king’s inner circle of advisors. It left her feeling slightly foul and in need of a bath, but nothing she couldn’t endure.

“You’re the one who suggested we take advantage of our stronger navy and our growing war chest,” the king said sharply. As expected, if the king’s mood was the weather, it was bordering on cyclonic.

Amari caught Aisling’s eyes. The crown princess was mouthing a single, silent word of warning: Don’t.

But Aisling knew better. She’d met men like this one, men who mistreated those around them, particularly women. There were times to allow them to think they were stronger, in control, and there were times to challenge them using wit and reason. This was the latter situation. “I did. But that was before Odin inked a marriage alliance with Travail,” she said. “We need to be agile and willing to adapt to our enemies’ strategy.”

“Are you saying I am not agile? That I bull forward mindlessly like a dimwitted ogre? You think you know better than one who has led the war effort from the very beginning?” the king bellowed, standing suddenly, upending his chair and knocking over several cups as he smashed his fist into the table repeatedly, at the end of each sentence. He towered over Aisling, who couldn’t help but to shrink to half her size in response to his rage-filled response.

She had never met a man quite like him, and thus he was an enigma to her, cruel beyond measure with a tendency toward bursts of rage, exploding out of quiet waters like a tsunami appearing as if by magic. Just past his red face and fisted hands, she saw Amari’s face, which was downcast, eyes focused on her lap. Aisling had to admit, the crown princess had tried to help her, and she’d been foolish to ignore her warning.

“Come with me,” the king said, his voice quieter now, seething, which was almost worse than his ear-splitting bellows. He grabbed her by the scruff of her frock and practically lifted her out of her chair, dragging her along behind him, her legs struggling to keep up with his pace. He threw open the door, the edge smashing into her hip and throwing her off-balance. She barely caught herself against the wall and stumbled to maintain her pace.

Into the dungeons they went, but not toward her solitary cell. They took the opposite fork, their shadows dancing on the walls and floor amongst the flickering tendrils of torchlight. Just ahead: a guard, standing sentinel, straight-backed and at attention. “Your Majesty, I was not informed of your visit, else I would’ve made the appropriate preparations.”

“It was unplanned,” the king grunted. “Unlock the door and give me your sword.” The guard’s eyes flicked between Aisling and the king. When he hesitated to comply, the king said, “Hurry up if you value your eyes.” After that, the man fumbled with the keys chained to his belt but finally managed to clink the right one into the keyhole and drag the door open with a groan. He slid his sword from its scabbard and handed it hilt-first to the king. “Keys too,” the king demanded, and the guard miraculously passed them over without dropping them. “Stay here,” the king said, once more pulling Aisling forward with a jerk, blade shining as though imbued with fire by the royal mage.

They stopped at the first cell, where a man sat in a corner, awaking with a start as the king jammed the first key in the lock. The prisoner had been sleeping in a fully upright sitting position, head resting against the stone wall. He was skinny and dirty, a fully gray beard long enough to reach his lap. A longtime resident, Aisling thought, the sense of foreboding that had been building in her chest reaching a whole new height.

The first key didn’t work, so the king moved on to the second.

Whatever they were here for, it would rival the worst days of her life if not set a whole new standard of horror.

Second key was a fail; third key, clank-clank.

Please don’t, please don’t, please don’t…, she thought, beginning to spiral into panic now.

Third key was no match. Three left. The king still hadn’t looked at her since they’d left the war room. Fourth key…

Maybe none of them will work, she thought, a spark of hope flaring somewhere inside her where hope still lived.

The lock clicked and the key turned, but the king hesitated before opening the cell door. “Do you know why we’re here?” he asked, catching her off-guard.

If I knew that, maybe I could’ve prevented all of this, she thought. “Because I disagreed with you? Because I changed my mind on the best course of action? I swear I was only trying to—”

“Wrong answer,” the king said, shoving the door forward and open, yanking her inside, this time by her hair, and tossing her to the rough floor. He slammed the door shut behind them. Through the long tendrils of turquoise hair that had spilled across her face, Aisling could see the prisoner, all skin and bones, trembling with fear. For him, he’d just come face to a face with a monster, while Aisling had spent time with the monster daily. “On your feet,” the king demanded, this time speaking to the man. Given she had not been commanded to stand, Aisling remained on the floor, knees bloody from the harsh stone, glowing white liquid shimmering on her skin.

“Hold out your arm.”

“Y-Your Majesty?” the man said, eyeing the gleaming sword in the king’s hand.

“Do as I command or I’ll have your head.”

The man slowly raised his arm. As soon as it came up, the king brought the sword down with a vicious thunk, severing the prisoner’s arm at the connection between his shoulder. The arm flopped wetly to the floor. The man gaped at his stump, which was spewing blood, his mouth opening and closing like a fish dangling from a fisherman’s line.

Aisling’s entire body shook as she clutched her head and rocked back and forth.

“Heal him,” the king said, grabbing her chin and forcing her to look at him. She jammed her eyes shut. He stuck his fingers into her eyes and pried them apart. “Heal him. Don’t make me ask again.”

By now, the prisoner had slumped down into a squat, babbling nonsensically and watching the blood drain out of him. His face was as pale as a ghoul and dark bruises were forming under his eyes. She reached out, fingers creeping toward his unsevered hand, and then grasping it.

A moonslit, star-speckled night. A cool breeze wafting through the nearby trees. The gentle question of an owl—who? who?—calling from afar. A familiar man, sitting on a wooden porch. He was younger, his face clean-shaven and free of lines and regret. There was a sureness about him, a vibrancy, his smile coming easy and often as he soaked in the perfect night and the company he kept. His company came in the form of a dimpled woman, a raven-haired beauty whose smallest finger was interlocked with his.

They spoke of the future, a place where they would both be happy and content. They spoke of children, raising a family together. They spoke of life and love and the sparkle of time as it ticked by.

The scene changed and the woman was screaming, fighting the powerful grasp of green-and-black clad royal guardsmen dragging her away from the man she loved. There was regret on the man’s face, self-loathing. He’d made some bad bets with the wrong people and lost dearly. Unable to pay, he was arrested.

Aisling’s vision returned to the present, where the man kneeling before her was a shade of the man he once was, that sureness and vibrancy and easy smile stripped from him by the stone box that his world had shrunk to become. Time no longer sparkled but hammered at his soul. He was not a bad man, just an imperfect one, as all souls were.

Saving him would not be a kindness, because of the pain that would follow. “I don’t want to do this,” she said.

“Heal him, godling, or you will be next,” the king said.

Aisling didn’t want to die. She didn’t even know why—her life for the last two centuries had been nothing but misery and pain. And yet, somewhere deep inside her that even she couldn’t fully identify, was a fighter who, bloodied and bruised, refused to stop getting up.

She got to work, raising a hand swiftly, running her palm across the king’s blade while he held it steady. Blood leaking from her palm, she pressed her hand to the man’s wound, until her own glowing white blood mixed with his human crimson blood. Then she picked up his severed arm and pressed it to the stump, rotating it slightly until the placement was correct. She closed her eyes and imagined the tendons and muscles and bones stitching themselves back together, the lost blood regenerating.

When her work was done, she let go of the man’s hand and sat back with a sigh, the cell spinning around her. The prisoner was looking at her and she blinked several times before her vision clarified enough for her to meet his eyes. “You…how?” he said.

“My blood,” she said, for there was nothing else to say that a human could comprehend. “It was no kindness. I am sorry.”

“Sorry? You saved my arm. You saved my life.”

“Silence,” the king said. “Godling—why are you here?”

Aisling knew that to not answer or to repeat her response from before would earn this man more pain, and she couldn’t bear that. “Because I bedded Jarrod.”

The king clucked his tongue. “Wrong. Prisoner, raise your arm.”

“Please, no,” the man whimpered.

“Your Majesty, I’m trying to—”

But the king wasn’t listening. He grabbed the man’s arm—the very same she’d just healed, lifted it himself, and brought the blade crashing down upon it once more.

The man screamed and Aisling fell to the floor, clutching at her own chest as shockwaves shook her entire body.

“Heal him,” the king said calmly, as though they were all sitting down and having a nice conversation over tea.

“I-I-I-I…” Aisling’s teeth chattered together so hard she couldn’t get the words out.

The king bent down and roped an arm around her shoulders, gently lifting her up, cradling her head against his shoulder. “Pull yourself together and heal him.”

“I can’t—I can’t—I can’t—”

“You can and you will, or we shall move on to the next prisoner.”

It was no threat, but a promise based on fear. Aisling searched for that fighter’s strength she’d felt earlier, clinging to that will to live, to endure. Then she firmed up her chin, gritted her teeth together, and nodded. The king held his sword for her. She grasped the edge with her opposite hand and slid it across, feeling the bite of steal into her palm.

She hesitated only briefly, feeling the thrum-thrum-thrum of her blood pumping through her veins. She could feel its power and could sense something lurking beneath the surface of the bright, glowing blood, something she’d sensed several times before.

Something that scared her.

She bit the inside of the cheek and, as she always did, swept the thought from her mind. Once again, she repeated the process, reattaching the man’s amputated arm. His face was stricken, tear-streaked and pale, his eyes dead, unseeing things as his mind threw up its defenses and carried him away to some other place, and perhaps some other time, back when time sparkled and life and love were things he was capable of speaking of with fondness.

When she was finished for the second time, she collapsed, exhausted, not caring that the rough stone tore at her cheek as she lay prone on the floor.

“Why are you here?” the king asked again. “I care not that you bedded Jarrod. The problem is how much he cares.”

Oh no, she thought. He knows everything.

She closed her eyes, wishing she’d never meddled in royal affairs, that she had been subservient and not outspoken. Maybe then she would’ve gone unnoticed, passing her days in relative peace.

It was a fool’s dream for one like her. Only one option remained, which could very well save the broken prisoner and Jarrod from more pain. “I seduced your son,” she said. “I thought having an ally within the palace would benefit me.”

The king sighed. “Was that so difficult to admit? Jarrod is not like other men, who could take advantage of you and never give you another thought. He is soft, gentle, weak.”

“I know, I have regretted my actions for some time,” she said, mustering the strength to sit up, though a wave of vertigo assaulted her, forcing her to clamp her eyes shut once more to wait for it to pass.

“Does regret change the past?” the king said. “I say not. The damage has been done. My son will not easily forget you.”

“I have already told him it is over, that is has to be over,” Aisling said quickly. “Just today, in fact.”

“Do you think me a fool? It’s too late. Your rejection will only make my son want you more. This is quite a conundrum, don’t you think?”

“Send me away. I will fetch a price higher than what you’ve already paid. If I am far enough away, the prince will be forced to let my memory fade.” Please, please, please send me away from this horrid place, from you.

“No.”

That one word shattered what was left of her resolve and she threw herself onto his feet. “What would you have me do?” she asked, wishing she were capable of weeping. Her emotion, her pain, needed an outlet, but all she had were her words spoken from a throat as dry as a desert in desperate need of rainfall.

“Hmm,” the king mused. “I will think on this problem and return with a solution. I’m glad we spoke candidly with each other. I trust you can find your way back to your cell?” He didn’t call her stone-box room her ‘chambers’, as he usually did. Finally, at long last, black was black and white was white and they spoke plainly to each other.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Good. One last thing…”

She looked up just in time to see the rage on his face, his muscles tightening in preparation for the blow, the sheen of the blade as it caught the light, singing through the air. The double thump-thump of flesh hitting stone.

The king grunted from the effort. He turned and walked away, offering one final parting remark over his shoulder. “If you can heal him a third time, he shall walk free.”

She sat in the corner of her cell, much the same as the prisoner had, eyes closed, head resting on the hard stone. Forcing herself to remember the man she’d failed. Forcing herself to remember those happy images of that moonslit night with the woman he loved. Forcing herself to remember his head and the stare of his lifeless eyes, separated from the rest of his body.

She could remember all that, but not how she’d covered the distance between his cell and hers. That period was a long black scar in her memory, as though it didn’t happen. It did happen though because she was here.

It’s over, she thought. That man is at peace now. There is nothing I can do for him. But I can do something for Jarrod. I can save him from me, for I am a curse to myself and anyone foolish enough to care for me.

So she did something she’d done numerous times over the years: she analyzed the situation from beginning to end, from top to bottom, without emotion, letting the facts wash over her. The answer came to her, as it always did. And it was horrible, awful, leaving a fist-sized knot in her stomach.

Hours later, the king arrived wearing a fine emerald-and-black doublet and a sword on his hip. The sword was the guard’s from before. She knew this because of the bloodstains, which had not been cleaned off. “Well,” he said without preamble. “Have you come to the same conclusion as I?”

“Yes,” she said, suspecting the king had known when he’d left her back in the prisoner’s cell what they needed to do.

“And?”

“I will tell the prince I…”

“You what?”

She knew the king was enjoying this immensely, and any further delay would only increase his amusement. “That I bedded you.”

“He won’t believe such a lie. But if it were true…”

“I will make him believe it.”

“Hmm…are you certain? My previous lovers have always been…satisfied. I’m certain my abilities will exceed those of my son.”

You are an arrogant bastard and Jarrod is twice the man you will ever be! She kept the anger deep inside her, hidden away in the powerful thrum-thrum-thrum of her blood. “I am certain.”

“As you wish. I am not a desperate man. Most would consider bedding me a privilege. I will tell my son what I made you do earlier. He should come running like the whipped dog that he is.”

Aisling said nothing, just watched him go, listening for a long time to the echoes of his receding footsteps and dreading the next ones she heard, which came quickly after, fast and urgent.

“My father told me everything,” Jarrod said as he burst through the door. “Oh, Ais, I’m so sorry.”

It was the first time he had shortened her name and for some reason she loved it, even as she forced herself to recoil from his touch, her heart breaking at the look of pain that crossed his face. “Don’t touch me,” she forced her lips to say.

“Aisling, I know what you said earlier was untrue. Our love feels impossible, an unscalable mountain, but I refuse to give up, refuse to let my father dictate—”

“Jarrod, stop. There’s something I need to tell you.”

But the prince wasn’t listening, his mind whirling with the excitement of the mad ideas he’d probably been batting around for hours upon hours. “—go in the dead of night. I’ll pay the captain in gold, double the value to ensure his silence. We’ll depart in a fortnight, once my father has forgotten all about—”

“Jarrod, I—”

“—I cannot wait that long. A week then. It’s settled. We leave in a week. Be ready, my love, be ready, for the world will become ours, whatever it is we wish it to—”

“I bedded your father,” Aisling blurted out, unable to endure the prince’s vision of an escape, of a life that, in another, very different world, might have been theirs.

The prince’s lips closed. His brows furrowed. His head angled slightly to one side. “What? No, Aisling, you’re confused. My father told me everything. About the prisoner he…cut up…how you healed him. How he killed him in front of you. It must’ve been horrible. I’m so sorry. I can see how it would muddle your mind.”

Once more he reached out to touch her and again she recoiled as though his fingers were snakes trying to pierce her with their fangs. Shards of her shattered heart broke free, shredding her insides as they fell like the blade of a guillotine. “My mind is not muddled. I’ve never thought more clearly, in fact. Before your father told you about the prisoner, he visited me. He was apologetic, remorseful. There is a tender side to him you have not seen.” The lies burned in her throat, but she soldiered on. “When he touched me, I could not refuse him.”

While she spoke, Jarrod had taken a step back, his expression twisted with a mixture of revulsion and hurt. “You didn’t…you couldn’t…he forced himself on you, didn’t he? You can speak the truth to me, Aisling, always. Tell me the truth and I will kill him! I swear on the names of the gods I will kill him!”

Ever since she’d met Jarrod, she had wondered how he could be related to his father, the men so different they might’ve been strangers from entirely different lands. Now, however, she saw the resemblance, the prince’s temper reaching a boiling point that came slower than the king’s but, when achieved, was every bit as hot and fierce and—she had to admit—frightening.

She fought to maintain her composure. “He didn’t force himself on me,” she said calmly. “In fact, quite the opposite. I offered myself up to him. He resisted because he knew you cared for me. I seduced him, just as I seduced you.”

The threats of violence faded from Jarrod’s expression as despair washed over him. “I don’t believe you.”

“You must. He was twice the lover you were, Jarrod. By the measure of my life, you are just a child, while your father is a man grown.” She stole the king’s words, conjuring his level of cruelty, justifying it in her own mind as being for the good of a man she cared deeply about, even as she destroyed him. “You are soft, gentle, weak. The truth is, I pity you.”

Tears misted in the prince’s eyes, and Aisling was thankful for her own lack of tears, lest they betray her deception. She remained a woman made of steel. “You are a horrid, evil person,” Jarrod said, turning away as his shoulders shook.

Yes, she thought. I am.

I am.

The prince stopped visiting her after that. Nor did he attend the war council meetings. Once, she saw him in passing as she was escorted by the guards when summoned by the king. Their eyes met in a fleeting embrace, but neither showed a shred of outward emotion as their gazes shifted past.

Aisling no longer sat in Jarrod’s seat in the war room. Instead, it was empty, while she was forced to rest on hands and knees, only speaking when asked a question directly by the king. She felt Amari’s stare on her often but ignored the crown princess. She’d learned the hard way how much pain could be caused by such simple connections.

The king, for all his bluster and arguing, eventually agreed to the course of action Aisling had previously proposed. Negotiations with the sellswords at Pentock ceased while preparations were made for a full-scale border crossing and the resulting siege on Kingsfort. Aisling could only sleep at night because she told herself the king would attack Odin regardless of the advice she gave him.

If there was news from the Infernal Pit, Aisling’s sharp ears were unable to learn of it. Either the Rift had been secured by Helm and his men or demons were rampaging across the southern portion of Teravainen. She assumed it was the former, as the king seemed relatively calm and certain of his decisions. Things felt unusually peaceful. That was something, at least.

But like any peace, it was not meant to last.

Sixteen

Andovier Helm

The Infernal Pit, Teravainen

THE SENSE OF FOREBODING HAD GROWN WITH EVERY STEP SOUTH, until even Tora had stopped speaking.

In a way, the silence was worse, and Ando found himself wishing the young girl would continue prattling on, asking Mrz countless questions about life as a Grizari tribesman. The plains were empty and cold, winter’s arrival just around the corner now. Ando had begun to recognize at least a portion of the motivation behind the war: land. Not just any land—the lush, fertile lands of Odin, which bore great harvests by the season. Compared to the bleak, spartan plains of Teravainen, Odin was a veritable paradise. He gritted his teeth because he didn’t want to understand the heinous mind of the Terran King. If not for his lust for power and dominance, Ando’s family would still be—

He bit his lip. These last several weeks he felt like he’d been living someone else’s life, gallivanting about in the skin of one who wasn’t damaged and broken. No, he thought. You lie even to yourself. The truth was every action he’d taken since Westport was a failed attempt to distract himself. Like now, for example, as he turned his mind away from those he’d loved with all his being to dark creatures of the night that embodied pure evil in their every act.

Dusk was falling swiftly, the shadows lengthening, transforming men into giants. What if other demons had traveled south rather than north? Ando wondered. It would be fortunate, indeed, the first stroke of luck he’d had in a while. As far as he knew, there were no villages between the Infernal Pit and the Solarii border. The Solarii army would destroy them, and if Ando and his crew could regain control of the Rift…

When they finally mounted a rise and spotted the circular wall in the distance, Ando almost felt relieved. For one, the long downslope was devoid of creatures, demons or otherwise. As far as a stronghold, the Infernal Pit was weakly positioned, but it wasn’t like the Terrans could change where the Rift had opened five hundred years earlier. Plus, it was no stronghold to be defended; no, the enemies the Terrans fought here came from within the walls rather than without.

Mrz, Ando noticed, was on his hands and knees, sniffing the ground, where two sets of large prints had been partially washed away by the rainfall. “These belong to the Greater Demons at Nostertown,” he declared.

“You are certain?” Ando asked.

The Grizari shrugged his large shoulders. “Who certain of anything?”

“I am certain of much,” Sir Metz said. “Most knowledge is based on scientific research documented in books, most of which I’ve read.”

Everyone stared at the knight. Mona, his wife, said, “My husband remembers more than most people forget in their lifetime.”

“That can be a blessing and a curse,” Ando said.

“Actually, it’s neither,” Sir Metz said. “Knowledge is not good nor evil, not blessed nor cursed. It simply is. Those who have it gain a significant advantage over those who don’t.”

“And don’ sleep half as well, I’d wager,” Barty, the dwarf captain, said.

Ando found himself intrigued by the knight from the Four Kingdoms. There was something…different about him. Refreshing. Like the world hadn’t found a way to jade him yet, though Ando didn’t see how that was possible given the man had apparently fought during the wars that had ravaged his country for many years, including an invasion by a beastly Horde.

“I agree with Mrz,” Sola said, which spoke volumes considering the two men never agreed on anything. “If other demons had been traveling north, we would’ve seen them on the plains. Mayhaps after the Greater Demons left the Rift there was a lull in the flow. They say Greater Demons don’t like to mix with Lesser demons.”

Ando didn’t know about that, but, whatever the cause, he was fine with a lull in the flow of demons into their world. Kingfall already had more than its fair share of demons calling themselves humans. “Where’s the entrance?” Ando asked, squinting in the direction of the wall but not seeing any sort of gap or door.

Sola answered. “I have been here before, when we pushed our forces into Terran territory, just before I was captured. There’s an iron gate on the opposite side. Either it’s been destroyed, or the demons climbed the wall. Both are of equal probability given the size of the bastards.”

Ando considered their options. Beyond the structure, he could make out a row of hills amongst which any escaping demons would soon disappear from view. “Sola,” he said. “Do your people have experience fighting demons?”

Sola seemed surprised to be asked, and it took him a moment to respond. The man could be fiery, but Ando was beginning to trust him in stressful situations now that his animosity toward Mrz had begun to wane. “Limited. We have no Rift on our peninsula. Years ago, before there was strife with Teravainen, we fought alongside the Terrans at the Infernal Pit. But most of those warriors are aging or dead. That said, the Solarii army is well-trained, else they wouldn’t have held off the Terrans’ advances for so long.”

“But your numbers are also dwindling, are they not?” Ando said. “King Gaard is willing to trade lives one for one because of his overwhelming advantage in soldiers. It’s only a matter of time before you are overrun.”

“You underestimate the mettle of my people,” Sola said, puffing up his chest. There it was again—that fire in his belly. Ando needed to find a way to channel it in a positive direction rather than at others within their group.

“We proceed cautiously,” Ando said, before the discussion meandered further. “Weapons at the ready. And you”—he looked toward Tora—“remain here atop the hill. At the first sign of demons, flee back the way we came.” He tossed her his satchel and she caught it easily in one hand. “There’s enough food in there to last a week. You can fill the waterskin at any freshwater river you come across.”

“Shove me in a hutch like me da,” she muttered.

“He saved your life, you know.”

The girl’s eyes snapped to his. “I know that. Why do you think I’m so pissed off at him?”

“That’s between you and the gods.”

With that, Ando strode down the hill. Everything was gray now, the sun passing beyond the horizon, leaving streaks of orange and red and pink behind.

On silent feet, they reached the curving walls surrounding the Infernal Pit. Not a single stone was cracked or out of place, the structure standing sentinel on the forlorn lands of south Teravainen. They’d followed the demon tracks in reverse to this point, and now they continued to the left around the wall. Ando placed a finger to his lips, but he needn’t have—no one so much as opened their lips to utter a word as they followed the prints, pausing every so often to listen, hearing nothing but the wind rushing past their ears.

The open maw of the entrance appeared exactly where Raan said it would be. The iron gate itself had been torn from its hinges and tossed errantly on the dusty ground. Portions of the metal were scorched and bent in, clearly the result of a joint effort by the two Greater Demons that were now dead at Nostertown.

“Search the ground for tracks,” Ando instructed.

Those with tracking skills, including Mrz, began scouring the ground while the rest of them watched the entrance, weapons at the ready. Eventually, the trackers returned, all with the same conclusion. “Unless weather wash away tracks, no demons go south,” Mrz said.

Ando breathed through his nose. “Looks like you were right about the lull in the demon flow after the passing of the Greater Demons,” he said to Sola.

“I am right about many things,” Sola said pointedly. “But the lull will not last forever, unfortunately. Now that the Greater Demons have passed through the Rift, the lesser demons will begin to creep in once more.”

“’Less another pair o’ Greater Demons are comin’,” Bart said.

“Do Greater Demons steer clear of each other, too?” Ando asked. He felt way out of his depths when it came to demonlore, a subject that was as foreign to him as these lands.

“They are generally known to travel in pairs,” Sola explained, “but these are queer times. Before it widened, this Rift wasn’t large enough for any Greater demons to pass through, much less the pair we faced at Nostertown. Now, however, I fear the rules have changed.”

“If there were any to begin with,” Barty muttered.

“Are we going inside or not?” a new voice said. Ando jerked around along with several of his men, swords raised.

Tora stared back at them, Ando’s satchel slung over her shoulder. “Kind of overkill, don’t you think? I’m just a little girl, remember?” She grinned wickedly.

“Girl makes less sound than dead,” Mrz commented.

Ando couldn’t disagree, but… “I told you to remain on the hill until I signaled it was safe for you to join us.”

Tora shrugged. “I got bored and figured if there were any demons about, they would’ve slaughtered you already.”

“If you insist on remaining with us you will obey my command.”

“You’re not me da.”

“No, I am not. I’d pity whoever had that job.”

The words had sprung out before Ando could stop them and he knew he’d crossed a line he couldn’t uncross even before Tora shouldered past him, between the men and then—

Walked directly through the entrance.

“Tora!” he called, rushing after her, shoving several men aside in his haste to give chase. He needn’t have hurried, however, because he found her stopped just inside the structure, the walls casting long shadows against what was left of the waning evening light. Her eyes were fixed on the ground, where dozens of coppery streaks ran from the insides of the walls to the pit, like the spokes of a wagon wheel. Scattered amongst the streaks were weapons—swords and spears and daggers and even several bows, the area around them littered with arrows. The Rift itself ran from one wall to the other and was as wide across the center as two tall men lying down head to feet. It was as black as tar, the darkness impenetrable.

Ando squinted, trying to discern the nature of the streaks in the dim lighting.

“Bloodstains,” Mrz said, standing in the entrance. “Smell is strong.”

“Were they dragged into the pit?” Tora asked, her voice carrying a grim curiosity.

“I don’t know,” Ando said, though there was no other explanation. What he didn’t know was whether the men were alive or dead as they were taken into the Rift.

“Why would the demons want their bodies?” Tora asked. If nothing else, the grisly scene had taken her mind off Ando’s unnecessarily cruel words. “Do they eat human flesh?”

Not that Ando was aware of. He looked toward Sola, who’d entered along with the other men. “I’ve never heard of such a thing,” Sola admitted. “It is…unusual.”

As if anything about defending a land from demons could be called usual. Then again, Ando considered, to the men who’d been stationed here, that’s exactly what it was—a normal day. He took charge, which felt as natural as breathing. “First we’ll set up camp and inventory the stores. We may have to ration and then arrange hunting parties to set out on the plains to locate fresh game. We must assume it will be weeks if not longer before the king sends additional supplies. Sola—inventory food and water. Mrz—search for weapons. The rest of you—select beds, preferably without squabbling. I will prepare Rift shifts so that every second is covered by at least ten men.”

“Rift shifts,” Mrz said. “Har! I like that. Ando is clever.”

He hadn’t meant to be clever, but he was glad for the smiles the Grizari’s comment drew amongst the men. They all needed a little frivolity. Tora, however, didn’t so much as smirk, turning away and hustling off toward one of the many stone structures built within the walls. Somewhere along the way, she dropped the satchel Ando had given her.

“Shite,” he said. He started after her, grabbing the dusty satchel from the ground and entering the long stone hut he’d seen her disappear inside.

“Leave,” she said the moment he entered. She sat on one of a dozen or so beds set on either side of the walls.

“No.”

“Fine. Then I will.” She stood and started to go around him to get to the door.

“Tora, wait.”

She whirled on him. “Why? So you can tell me how horrible it would be to have me as a daughter? You know, that actually helps with my grief. At least my father’s death means he’s rid of me. Lucky him.”

“I didn’t mean it. Truly. I was just angry you’d disobeyed my orders.”

“Orders? I’m not one of your soldiers.”

“I know. It’s hard for me to separate the different aspects of my life.”

“Good thing you don’t have a real daughter to care for then.”

Tora knew nothing about his past, her words flung as carelessly as his own had been. And yet, they hit him just as hard, punches to the gut.

“Ando?” she said. “Did I say something—”

“It’s fine,” he said quickly. He didn’t want to make her feel any worse by troubling her with the truth about his own shadowed past. “Just know that I’m sorry. For your father, for my own unthoughtful words. For bringing you to this horrid place.”

“I asked to come, remember?”

“And I should’ve refused you. That’s what a real father would’ve done. Hid you away in an indestructible hutch.”

Though he hadn’t intended it, his words finally drew a smile to her face. “Me da is—was—a carpenter,” she said. “His work was highly sought after. He didn’t cut corners. He treated each piece like they were his own sons and daughters. Sometimes I think he cared more for his masterpieces than for me.”

“I doubt that,” Ando said. “You want to know what I think?”

“Not really, but I’m sure you’ll tell me anyway.”

“A habit of being the one in command,” he said. “But yes, I am going to tell you. I think your father took such care with his work because he wanted to earn gold so he could give you the best life possible.”

Tora frowned at him. “I’ve never looked at it that way.”

“That’s because you’ve never been a father. I’ll leave you to get settled now. I hope you don’t mind bunking with a group of rugged, foul-mouthed soldiers.”

She managed a grin. “I feel like I’ll fit right in,” she said.

Night had fallen in earnest now and the first Rift shift was well underway, an even mix of men and dwarves standing at the ready on each side of the chasm, gripping torches and watching the darkness for any signs of movement. The off-duty men were either sleeping or eating. Ando would normally have assigned himself to the first shift, but needed to review the inventories completed by Sola and Mrz. Thus, Ando sat in a small circle with Mrz, Sola and Josiah, who’d assisted the others in taking stock of their stores. Captain Barty was leading the first Rift shift, else Ando would’ve invited him to this gathering too.

First, he scanned the parchment scrolls prepared by Sola. To his delight, in addition to significant amounts of oil for the dozens of torches, the food and water stores were substantial, enough to support thrice their number for several weeks. It also explained why there were so many beds. On the other hand, it meant the Terrans believed far more soldiers were needed to guard the Rift. Ando discarded the thought, because there was nothing he could do about it until he could petition the king for more troops or prisoners—warm bodies.

He moved onto the scrap of parchment prepared by Mrz. “This is written in Grizari?” he said.

“Aye,” the big male grunted. “Don’t know common tongue letters and numbers. I listed swords first, then spears, then daggers, then bows and quivers. No hammers or axes though, only tiny human weapons.”

“Swords, spears, daggers, bows,” Ando repeated, making notes next to the Grizari characters, which might’ve been a child’s scribblings for all he could tell. He dipped the quill back into the inkwell that Sola had discovered in what appeared to be a captain’s quarters, complete with a bed, side table and desk filled with parchment, quills and ink. Rather than claiming the space for his own, Ando had offered the private quarters to the only married couple amongst them—Sir Metz and his lovely wife, Mona. They had accepted appreciatively. “And the numbers?” he asked.

“Simple. Line means one. Cross through line means ten. Two crosses mean hundred. Not that I found hundreds of any weapon. Understand?”

“I think so.” It really was a simple but effective system given the counts they were dealing with. Ando jotted down the counts in the common tongue based on his understanding of the system. Three lines with crosses followed by six lines—thirty-six swords; one line with a cross followed by eight lines—eighteen spears. And so on. Mrz had drawn a line under the weapon counts. Additional characters were scratched below the line. “What are these?”

“Armor,” Mrz said. “None large enough to fit me, but puny humans have lots to choose from. Good thing Grizari have thick skin. Har!” He went on to explain what each notation meant, from helms and face shields to steel-plated boots and everything in between, including shields. Much to Ando’s appreciation, Mrz had been exceptionally thorough. Again, the numbers were impressive and were a boon to Ando and his men, who were poorly outfitted in dented and rusty armor.

Ando completed his notes and then rolled up the scrolls, setting them aside and tucking into the bowl of thin soup provided to him by Josiah, who, it turned out, was something of a skilled cook. Though thin, the soup was flavorful and satisfying. “Thank you,” he said. “All of you.”

“Careful,” Mrz said. “Might make humans cry.”

“Why must you always do that?” Sola said. It was a wonder the two men were sitting in such close proximity, but Ando had known it was only a matter of time before harsh words were exchanged between them.

“Do what?” Mrz asked, broad forehead furrowed in confusion.

“Make japes at the expense of humans? Is Grizari animosity toward our kind really so great?”

If the thickset man was annoyed by the question, he showed no outward signs of it. “Yes and no. Grizari have long memories. My people roamed Lost Plains for centuries, long before humans set foot on Grizari lands and claimed for own. Grizari lived in harmony with gods. After Godswar, humans took control and everything changed. Grizari movements were limited to only portion of lands. Grizari tried to reclaim lands, but humans united against me people. Failures caused strife amongst Grizari. Infighting and civil war. Tribes were shattered and have remained so for many years. This saddens me. But these are Grizari problems, not humans. I hold no grudge against humans. Only make japes because humans are so tiny-boned and funny-looking with hornless heads.”

Sola shook his head as though uncertain what to make of the response. Ando felt like this might be an opportunity to bridge the gaping rift that had formed between the two men. “Sola, tell me about your brother. Bora, you said he was named, right?”

Sola straightened up. “Yes. That was his name. What about him?” There was a defensive edge to his tone.

“You were close with him, weren’t you?”

Sola’s entire bronze-skinned body tensed, and for a moment Ando thought he might refuse to answer and even stand and leave, but then his stature softened. “Yes, we were as close as two people can be. It might not appear so now, but he was the stronger of the two of us. Growing up, he was my defender on more than several occasions. He liked to say that blood should run together amongst brothers. That always stuck with me, except at the very end. I can’t help but think I should’ve died by his side. Then our blood would’ve run together one final time.”

“There is no shame in surviving,” Josiah said softly, surprising Ando with the wisdom in his words. Though the young man spoke in response to Sola’s words, his eyes were steady on Ando. “Mayhaps there are still important things for you to accomplish. For example, you’re here defending the world from the demon tide.”

“Yes, defending my enemies from the demons. As a prisoner of war.”

“I don’t see any guards,” Ando said. “And I offered you your freedom. Why didn’t you take it? Solarii is not far now.”

Sola sighed. For the first time since Ando had met the war-hardened man, he felt like he could see past his steely exterior. “Because I know that what is happening here is larger than me or my brother or even my own freedom. I think we all know that. Staring into the face of pure evil changes a man. I feel changed.” His face tensed suddenly, as if just remembering something. “I wish to tell you something about my brother.”

“Of course,” Ando said.

His eyes roamed past them, as though seeing something only he could see, something beyond the stone walls and the measure of time as they understood it. “My brother, though always strong, was a rebellious boy and an even more rebellious man. He watched my father, who was a simple baker, toil day and night to survive. Bora believed hard work and perseverance were for fools not clever enough to grow rich in other ways.

“Thus, he became a very successful thief. More times than I can count he invited me into his operation, but I held him at bay, determined to live a clean life, following in my father’s footsteps. I never judged him, because I loved him far too much for that, and he never judged me, even if he believed my way of life to be rather simple. He only stole from the rich, growing as rich as them while I grew poor, just like my father.”

“How did notorious thief and baker end up prisoners of war?” Mrz asked.

“Bora got caught,” Ando said, because it was the only logical answer. Eventually, a thief who was unwilling to stop stealing would get caught.

“Yes, I’m coming to that. Bora was never satisfied, despite acquiring wealth and all the possessions and status that come with pockets lined with gold. For him, I believe, the thefts themselves became what he loved, almost like strong drink to a drunk or magenum to a mage. He pushed himself harder and harder, taking on greater risks and stealing from wealthier and wealthier targets.”

“What’d he do? Rob the Dead King?” The joke came from Josiah, an innocent offhand remark that happened to hit the target in the dead center.

“He certainly tried,” Sola said. “Almost pulled it off, too, if not for an unexpected run-in with the king’s granddaughter, Princess Rose Ontarii. Evidently, she’s a light sleeper and heard a noise, leaving her bedroom to investigate. He was so captivated by her beauty that he froze to the spot, unable to stop staring at her and allowing the castle guards to apprehend him.”

The men all laughed heartily, with Mrz releasing the loudest “Har!” and slapping his knees.

Sola smiled. By Ando’s count, it was the first time he’d done so. Evidently the serious man had a sense of humor he’d been hiding this entire time. “What really happened?” Ando asked.

“That was the way my brother always told the story,” Sola said. “In truth, he was nothing more than a common pickpocket who stuck his hand in the wrong britches. In my country, they don’t take a thief’s whole hand, just the thumb of his dominant hand so he cannot grip well enough to steal or wield a sword. My brother was distraught in a way I’d never seen before. He refused to leave his bed. I knew there was one thing he could never refuse—a challenge—so I bet him he couldn’t learn to wield a sword with his left hand.

“To my surprise, he did refuse. If anything, things got worse. He stopped eating and began to grow gaunt and thin. There was a sadness about him that even he couldn’t seem to explain. It was more than just losing his thumb, of course. He said he felt like he was in a deep pit with smooth walls that could not be climbed, even if he wanted to, which he didn’t. In his mind, he had no future, no useful skills or talents, nothing to live for.”

“Something changed him,” Mrz said. The broad man was leaning in, hanging on every word.

“Sort of. I cut off my right thumb.” With that, Sola peeled off the glove he always wore on his right hand, revealing the stump where his thumb once was. “Bora was appalled, horrified, by what I’d done. I didn’t care because at least he was finally showing some emotion other than sadness. He wept and wept as I cradled his head and told him it would be all right, that we would survive this world together, always together. And then I challenged him to be my dueling partner and bet him I would become the more adept swordsman with my weaker left arm.

“This time, he took the bet and began to work at it, as I did, day and night, hardly resting, until both our left hands worked even better than our right hands ever had. Our swordsmanship drew interest from the Solarii army and we were recruited. More importantly, Bora had come alive again. He’d climbed out of the smooth-walled pit, not because the walls had suddenly grown rough and climbable, but because someone had thrown him a rope and he’d had the strength to grab it and haul himself out, hand over hand.”

There was a loud, choking sob and Ando’s eyes widened when he saw who’d made the sound. Mrz’s massive horned head was shaking as he sobbed, fat tears tumbling from his eyes and rolling down his cheeks. He wiped them away with the back of his hand. “I’m sorry, truly sorry, for killing brother, even in battle. Wish didn’t. Wish had mercy. Puny human’s brother was good man. Very good man. Saved Sola’s life, brother did.”

“What?” Ando said, noticing similar expressions of confusion on Josiah’s face. From his understanding of the story, it was the other way around.

“I think story is about Sola, not Bora. Sola in pit with smooth walls. Bora throw rope and cut off own thumb. True?”

“How did you know?” Sola asked, eyes wide as he, for once, stared at the Grizari man with something other than anger.

Mrz shrugged, as though it were nothing. “Sola talks about brother’s feelings in much detail. Could only be describing own thoughts. Also, I’m very observant, see Sola reach for many things with right hand before switching to left hand.” Ando was difficult to impress, but Mrz had done just that. Evidently the man’s carefree attitude and constant japing had been hiding an intelligence none of them realized he had.

“Mayhaps I’ve misjudged you,” Sola said.

“Nah, I am scoundrel,” Mrz said.

Sola chuckled. “I wish my brother could’ve met you. He would’ve enjoyed your company.”

“And I his,” Mrz said. “Now, better sleep before Rift shift begins.”

Sola nodded and the two men rose and walked off toward the sleeping quarters side by side, no animosity left between them.

Josiah followed shortly thereafter. Ando knew he should follow his men’s example and get some rest, but he felt too awake, watching the light cast by the torches dance across the ground adjacent to the long slash of darkness that was the Infernal Pit. Were creatures of the night, even as he watched, climbing silently up the walls, murder in their soulless eyes? And why did the gods depart this world without first sealing the Rifts? What sort of supernatural beings would put their creations through such torment?

His thoughts dissipated when he saw two figures making their way from the captain’s quarters to where he sat. “Sir Metz and wife,” Ando said. “Did you get some rest?”

“Not much,” Mona said. “My husband is a tiger in the sack.”

Ando’s mouth fell open and he couldn’t think of what to say.

Sir Metz filled in the silence. “Mona has explained that she uses ‘tiger’ as a metaphor—which I don’t really understand but which I’ve learned to live with. I clearly don’t have stripes nor claws nor fangs and am very much a man—”

“Yes, you are,” Mona said seductively.

“—and not a beast.”

“Depends on your definition,” Mona said.

Ando was still dumbfounded. Mona Metz-Sheary was clever and witty and seductive while her husband was, by far, the most literal man Ando had ever met. How they ended up as husband and wife was beyond his comprehension, and yet they seemed to fit each other like two pieces of the same puzzle. Just like Moira and me, he thought, unable to stifle a stream of memories before they rose to the surface, like sea creatures longing to feel the warm rays of the sun on their scales. Moira playing a cheerful tune on her flute while Celeste and Olly danced in a circle, holding hands, easy smiles forming on their cherub faces like there was no evil in the world, no nightmares made real. Ando, watching them, his own smile tugging at his lips, warring with the fears he felt deep within his chest, because the Terrans were threatening the western border once more and he would be departing for Kingsfort on the morrow. His children surrounding him, grabbing his hands and trying in vain to pull him to his feet, his weight more than their spindly arms could bear. Moira, drawing her flute away from her lips and chiding him for spoiling the fun, crossing the room to join her children in their efforts to haul grumpy ol’ da to his feet. Ando, finally giving in, standing and joining in the merriment, thankful his men couldn’t see this version of him, silly and childish, dancing about to his wife’s tune, which she resumed playing. Later that night, the children asleep and the lantern burning low, shedding just enough light to display his and Moira’s shadows on the wall as they danced a very different type of dance, full of passion and a love so enduring that time and distance could never sate its hunger.

“High Commander?” The voice cut through the memories, slashing them to bits that fell like shreds of torn parchment through his mind.

“Sorry, I—”

“It’s fine,” Sir Metz said. “I wanted to ask about your plans.”

“Plans?”

“For the future. I know we only just arrived here, but I’m assuming you have a plan.”

Ando breathed out a laugh. “I’m sorry if I gave you that impression. These days I’m lucky if I know where my foot will fall from one step to the next.”

Sir Metz frowned. “To do that, all you have to do is look directly in front of you. If there is a hole, your foot will fall in the hole, unless you change its trajectory. If there is a rock, you must be careful not to turn your ankle. If there is—”

“It was an expression,” Mona said, cutting off her husband’s rambling.

“Expressions and metaphors,” Sir Metz said, a look of disgust crossing his face. “Annoying things. Why can’t people just speak plainly?”

“You know, Sir Metz, you’re right,” Ando said. “How’s this for plain speak? I don’t know why I’m here or what I’m doing other than trying to protect these other prisoners and now a girl named Tora who I only just met and who, I’ve been informed, cannot replace the loved ones I’ve lost, especially not my daughter, and maybe the innocents of Teravainen and the countries that border it, who would face horrors beyond comprehension if someone doesn’t hold back the demon tide.” He gasped, having forgotten to take a breath during his answer.

“So there’s no plan?” Sir Metz said.

“No.”

“That’s all you needed to say. And you need to improve your ‘plain speak’. I didn’t find it to be plain at all.”

Mona snorted and Ando couldn’t help the smile that found its way to his lips. “What about you?” Ando said, turning things back on the enigmatic knight from the Four Kingdoms. “Do you have a plan?”

“Of course,” the knight said. “I always have a plan.”

Ando waited for Metz to continue, but instead he just sat, staring at him. “Would you care to share it?” Ando asked when he realized the man was done speaking and had, technically, answered his question.

“Not really.”

“He wants you to share your plans, Christoff,” Mona said, prodding her husband with an elbow.

“Do you?” Sir Metz asked. “Because you only asked if I had a plan and whether I cared to share it, which I don’t.”

“Your wife is correct,” Ando said. “I was hoping you’d share your plans, but if you would rather not…”

Sir Metz looked at his wife like she was a rare flower, like the nightflower that only bloomed once a decade. “As usual, my wife has all the perception I was born without.” He said it with admiration. “I don’t want you to think me disloyal…”

“Disloyal?” Ando said. “We have only just met; you owe me nothing.”

“You are the high commander of the group we have joined after being assisted while our village burned. We owe you much, our loyalty at the least.”

That single statement told Ando much about this man. “You value loyalty above all else, don’t you?”

“Of course,” Sir Metz said, as though it were the most obvious statement in the world. “Or at least on par with duty, honor, justice. Without these precepts, chaos would reign in this world.”

From Ando’s perspective, chaos did reign, but this man’s view of the world was too wonderful a thing to burst as easily as a floating bubble. “Well then, you are released from any sense of duty or loyalty to me and my men. Stay as long as you like and depart when you feel you must.”

“Fourteen days,” Sir Metz said.

“Fourteen days?” Ando frowned, not understanding.

“My debt will be repaid in fourteen days,” the knight said. “Then we shall go. We will head north again, to Wolfsgaard. They say the plague is the fiercest in the capital city.”

“I can attest to that,” Ando muttered, remembering his first day in that horrid city and what he and his men were forced to do.

“Good, then it is agreed.”

“Or you can stay seven days and make up the difference by buying me a nice, warm bowl of your famous mamoothen stew if I ever visit the Four Kingdoms,” Ando suggested.

“Seven days of work is worth far more than a bowl of mamoothen stew,” Sir Metz said.

“We’ll remain fourteen days and buy you a bowl of mamoothen stew if we ever have the opportunity,” Mona said, placing a calming hand on her husband’s shoulder. “And you’re always welcome in the Northern Kingdom—I’m certain my brother would agree.”

“It is agreed. I will release you from your debt once I take the first bite,” Ando said.

“It shall be done,” Sir Metz said solemnly, like it was a vow of the highest order and signed in his own blood.

Finally, Ando felt weariness tugging at his eyelids. He stood, bowing slightly. “I bid you both goodnight. May the night be calm and peaceful.”

“And for you,” Mona said. “We’ll try not to make too much noise when we return to bed.”

Ando chuckled as he turned away while Sir Metz questioned his wife about why they would be noisy when going to bed.

Once Ando’s head hit the pillow, sleep came easily, his mind drifting amongst the droning susurrations of the other sleeping men. Even Mrz’s buzzing snores weren’t loud enough to prevent him from tumbling into the void.

He dreamed of his family. His children played in a shadowy field, Moira coaxing them along like a shepherdess guiding her sheep. Ando shouted a warning, because she was leading them toward a dark slash that had just appeared, lengthening and widening into a lightless Rift.

If they heard him, they gave no indication, Celeste skipping along gaily while Olly followed behind, pretending to fight off enemies with a stick he’d found along the way. Moira turned her head casually and smiled at him while he continued to shout his warning. I must stop them, he thought, but his feet were tethered to the ground, his muscles burning as he tried and failed to wrench them free.

A spine-tingling chittering arose from the darkness, like the laughter of a thousand horrific creatures whose dinner had just been served to them on silver platters. Ando blinked and he was no longer behind his family, but in front of them, on the opposite side of the chasm, which stretched its arms to either side, dark mouth yawning before him. Again, he tried to shout a warning, but his voice was sucked into the abyss while they continued their carefree jaunt toward the worst danger they’d ever faced.

Movement caught his attention in the darkness, which suddenly teemed with life. Teeth gnashed, claws slashed, jaws snapped. “I’m here!” he tried to yell, “Take me!” but his voice was but a whisper, unheard by any but his own ears. The creatures clawed and snapped their way out from the opposite edge of the Rift, where his family finally stopped, their mouths open in terror. “Run,” Ando pleaded, but like him they seemed unable to move, frozen where they stood. He wanted to close his eyes, because he couldn’t—he couldn’t—watch this, he couldn’t relive the pain of losing everything that mattered to him while he was powerless to act, but his eyelids wouldn’t so much as blink, as though propped open with tiny splinters. And then—

As swiftly as they’d clambered forth, the demons released a thousand shrieks, this time filled with fear rather than bloodlust, and reversed course, throwing themselves recklessly into the darkness.

Ando stared at his family, who celebrated their unexpected salvation, hugging and kissing each other. He longed to feel their touch one last time, for he knew that only the arrival of a greater horror could chase away the thousands of demons from their prey.

A single gauntleted hand rose from the darkness, clamping around a stone, pulling itself from the chasm. Another hand followed, and then a head protected by a dark helm adorned with sharp ridges down the center, like a spine made of steel. More and more of the armored warrior appeared, until he climbed fully from the Rift, standing on the opposite edge, facing away from Ando and toward his family, who remained rooted to the spot, their mouths open in silent screams.

The creature, for Ando sensed this was no man, turned toward him, revealing its true nature. Where its face should’ve been were features formed of fire and ash, eyes burning with undisguised hatred for all things that lived when it was nothing more than a living dead thing without true form if not for its armor. It drew its sword, which, too, was ringed in flame.

Ando tensed, reaching for his own blade, instinctively knowing the creature could span the broad Rift in a single bound if it chose. Instead, the creature turned away, stalking toward his family. “No!” Ando screamed and this time his voice could be heard, his wife’s eyes snapping to his, meeting across the great and uncrossable distance between them. With no other choice, Ando took three large steps back and prepared to launch himself across the gap, which was too broad for any man to leap over.

“Ando!” Moira yelled and he stopped. He could barely see her around the armored creature striding toward her. “Please! Please don’t. Live! Live for us!”

Ando’s lips trembled, his eyes blurred, his sword fell from his hand. He dropped to his knees, broken. “I will,” he promised. “I will.”

The creature raised its flaming sword.

Shouts erupted in the night and Ando sat up in bed, heart pounding and lungs heaving as the horrid nightmare faded. His eyes were wet, his pillow stained with their tracks. Swiftly, he dashed them away with his sleeve and threw himself from bed, crashing into another man who’d been sleeping and arisen just as suddenly.

Ando didn’t stop to apologize or see if the man, who’d fallen to the floor, was hurt. There was no time for that, and anyway, his mind was still trying to reconcile the nightmarish dream with the nightmares of reality, his family already gone, leaving the armored dead creature with nothing to kill, not even in his dreams.

He charged through the door to find the second Rift shift standing tensely, weapons drawn, all eyes focused sharply on the slash of darkness. Other men poured from the various sleeping quarters, hefting weapons and blinking away grogginess. Ando realized he’d forgotten his sword and turned back to retrieve it when he spotted Josiah, who tossed him an extra blade. He caught it easily in one hand, muttering gratitude before turning back to face the Rift.

“What happened?” he asked Sola, who’d replaced Barty as shift captain when the first shift had changed over to the second.

Sola, who gripped his own blade in his left hand, responded without tearing his eyes from the pit. “We heard a sound—a shriek. It was…I cannot accurately describe it, except…I will hear that sound every day for the rest of my life.”

“They’re coming,” Ando said, taking another step forward, peering into the gloom.

As if in response, there was another shriek, this time so close it might’ve been screamed into each of their individual ears. “Prepare yourselves!” Ando shouted. Shields came up, swords and spears protruding around the edges like a porcupine’s quills. Those with skills in archery drew their bowstrings back, taking aim.

“What’s going on?” a smaller, higher voice said. Ando turned to find Tora, rubbing her eyes blearily, walking between the rows of soldiers.

“Get back!” Ando shouted. When she hesitated, he shouted, “Now!” Thankfully, she didn’t argue with him as she usually did, turning tail and fleeing back into the stone structure she’d emerged from.

Ando turned back toward the Rift just in time to see a single clawed appendage rise from the darkness, curling over the edge, scratching lines in the ground.

“Attack!” he roared.

Seventeen

Sampson Gaard

The Lost Plains, South Avadon

AFTER HIS VICTORY OVER DRYNYM, THE TRIBE LEADER’S BODY WAS BURNED ON THE LOST PLAINS, smoke curling from the funeral pyre to the sky in twisting gray tendrils. For a moment, Sampson swore he saw the wisps form a broad-shouldered, horned creature before vanishing amongst the clouds.

The Grizari tribe members, young and old, male and female, large and small, beat their chests with their powerful fists and chanted in their guttural language. “I wonder what they’re saying,” Sampson said absently to Roman as they stood watching the spectacle from a respectful distance away.

“‘As to the ground you were tethered, may you now soar amongst the stars,’” Roman said, still staring straight ahead.

“How do you know that?” Sampson asked.

“I don’t. I made it up.” Roman’s eyes flicked to his and his lip curled.

Sampson huffed out a laugh. After all that had transpired since the day he ignited the magepowder in the cave, the man still had a sense of humor. For some reason, that made the world seem slightly less dark.

The Grizari ceased their chanting and the burial ceremony was completed. By the hundreds, they trudged away from the still-burning funeral pyre, all save Grym, who stood stock still, staring into the flames.

Memories flashed in Sampson’s mind: being blind in the circle, lungs aching for air; the way Drynym’s eyes had felt as they cracked like raw eggs under the pressure of his thumbs as he dug them in; the creature’s blind screams as Sampson shoved them in further, deep into his skull; that feeling of raw power beyond his own comprehension…

In the wake of his violent victory, he was left feeling like an empty shell of a man, much like he felt now, at this moment, as he watched the deceased’s only son. What evil is human? Grym had said then. And Sampson’s response: I am not evil.

But was that really true? Since he’d stabbed himself with the shadowblade, he’d killed men, he’d expanded a demon-infested Rift, and he’d murdered a Grizari leader in front of his own son and granddaughter. He’d felt disgusted by his own actions on more than one occasion, even vomiting the little bile that was left in his stomach and going so far as to throw himself from a cliff in an attempt to rid himself of the dark blade. WHAT IS EVIL? that hissing voice asked now.

He pondered the question. Most of Kingfall would probably call his father evil because he waged war on the kingdoms unfortunate enough to border Teravainen, but he only wanted fertile land to grow food for his people, many of whom were starving on a daily basis.

I don’t know, Sampson admitted.

YOU WILL, the voice said. SOON.

Sampson swallowed thickly. He sensed all of this was leading somewhere, but couldn’t fathom where and wouldn’t ask his blade, which seemed only to speak in riddles. Instead, he said, “Stay here,” to Roman, and then approached the buck who was now the uncontested leader of the tribe.

“Leave me in peace,” Grym said as Sampson drew closer. He didn’t turn or drag his gaze from the pyre, which meant he must’ve sensed Sampson’s presence. His powerful shoulders sagged slightly, his strong jaw dipping toward the earth. There was something beautifully forlorn about his stance.

“Peace?” Sampson said. “Kingfall has not known peace for many years. Not truly.” He was tempted to apologize for what he’d done in the circle but sensed it would do more harm than good. The fight had been part of Grizari tradition, nothing more.

“My father…was not weak.”

“He wasn’t strong either.”

“In own way, Drynym was strong. Cared deeply for people. Battle would end lives. Thus, avoided it.”

“A small wound that won’t stop bleeding is not so different to a stab to the heart,” Sampson said.

“Father knew that. Father was long searching for way to heal small wounds.”

Sampson was growing concerned that Grym was too broken by his father’s death to become the strong leader that was required for what was to come. “Grym, I’m sorry my actions hurt you but—”

“Hurt me?” the powerful creature said, tossing his horns in the air as though the very notion of a human injuring him in any way was absurd. “I’m not hurt.”

“I don’t understand. I saw you standing here, staring into your father’s flames. I thought…”

“Human thought I was deep in mourning? Grizari not like humans. No. Death part of cycle of lifeblood. Father died warrior’s death. For that, I’m thankful.”

“Then why do you look so…melancholy?”

“Human mistakes concern for sadness. I fear for future of Griz with human involvement. Want humans to leave. Now.”

It was not at all what Sampson expected. After all, under Grizari law, he was the new tribe leader’s champion, there to support Grym in whatever happened next. “That’s not going to happen.”

The large creature whirled around with greater speed than should’ve been possible given his size, jabbing his finger in Sampson’s direction. “Why human care about Grizari? Why come here? Why challenge Drynym to single combat?”

Sampson opted for a portion of the truth. “I did something awful that I need to make right. I need the Grizari to help me by helping themselves. Long have the Avadonians mistreated your people. It’s time to take back what is rightfully yours.”

“Glynn Kerr strong. Grizari lose.”

“Maybe, maybe not, but we have to try.”

“Why? My people safe on plains. Avadonians not troubled us for many years.”

Sampson hadn’t expected Grym’s interest in the details. Gods, I’ve been thinking of the Grizari as a bunch of savages ready to invade, he realized. I’m worse than the Avadonians. He needed to change his mindset if he was ever going to relate to the tribe’s new leader. “Let me start over. The king of Teravainen is Cronus Gaard. He has waged war on Odin and Solarii for several years. Eventually, he will conquer them. And though he covets both of those nations, what he really desires is the wealth of Avadon. King Gaard will not rest until he has conquered the whole of Kingfall, and that includes the Lost Plains. But if we can conquer the Avadonians first, we will be in a stronger position to defend against a Terran invasion.”

“How human know mind of king?”

Sampson paused, still engaging in the internal debate that had been raging in his mind for a while now. The side he always knew would win finally won. “Because King Cronus Gaard is my father.”

“Sampson is prince? Heir to throne?”

Sampson scoffed. “Only if my two elder siblings pass into the Void.” He realized how that must sound. “Not that I would wish them to die. I have little desire to rule. In any case, something happened while I was leading a mining expedition in the Spine. I cannot return to Wolfsgaard.”

“Because of dark blade sheathed at hip?” Grym said.

Again, he’d underestimated Grym’s perceptiveness. “I do not wish to speak of such things.”

“I saw Terran prince walk through flames. Skin burned but healed swiftly. Was unnatural. Blade have something to do with it?”

“I said I don’t wish to speak of such things.”

“Suit self. But don’t change nothing. I will honor Father’s peaceful rule. Tribe continue to lead peaceful lives on plains. Let human nations kill each other. Will human challenge me to single combat?”

Sampson didn’t know what had caused Grym’s change of heart. Mayhaps this was his version of grief, honoring his father by honoring his wishes. Whatever the case, fighting with Grym wasn’t going to help his cause. “No,” he said, and then turned and walked away. But peace was the last thing on his mind. One way or another, the Grizari would have to fight.

Life in the Grizari camp settled into a calming sort of rhythm, with each day resembling the previous in many ways, including the weather, which had been hot and dry ever since the deluge that had soaked Sampson and Roman to the bone during their journey south.

“Work or leave,” Grym had said the very next morning, tossing Sampson and Roman a coil of rope. After watching what the other Grizari were doing with their own ropes, they got to work. Together, they disassembled and lashed the tent poles to the canvas covering before slinging it atop a growing pile on one of several wagons hitched to the massive horn-snouted beasts ridden by Grym and his other warriors. Breaking camp required the better part of half a day given the tribe’s two-thousand-strong population. Everyone helped, from the young to the old, and by the time the sun had risen high overhead, Sampson and Roman were saturated with sweat and coated in a thin layer of dust.

Then it was time to go. “Ever ride grux?” Grym asked, sitting atop one of the enormous beasts with the frilled armor around its neck. It stamped its thick hooves impatiently, the force sufficient to break bones if someone was unfortunate enough to be beneath them.

“Is that what those things are called?”

“Aye. Is said grux can sense fear. Want to test mettle?”

Sampson shrugged. “Why not? Roman?”

“If it’s all the same to you, I’ll keep both my feet securely on the ground. I don’t need a beast to prove my courage.”

“Why walk when you can ride?” Sampson scoffed, enjoying the rare opportunity to poke fun at his companion.

Grym smiled broadly. “Human ride…” He scanned the group of several riderless grux lumbering around aimlessly. “That one. Hmm.” He pointed to what Sampson would’ve characterized at first glance as the runt of the litter. It was half the size of the others, barely larger than a horse. Several of the frilled horns around its neck were chipped or broken off completely. The long horn on its snout had seen better days, too, lacerated with deep grooved cuts. To top it all off, the beast was filthy, covered from head to toe in mud, as though it had just clambered out of a mud bath, part of its daily beauty regimen.

“That one?” Sampson confirmed. “Why that one?”

“Because though human pain in me arse, I don’t want human to die.” Grym grunted something harsh in Grizari and his own steed jerked its nose around and lumbered off, leading the way for the rest of the tribe. One by one, the wagons began to move.

Sampson eyed the chosen beast with disdain. “What’s its name?” he called.

“Father already told you,” a scornful voice said. Sampson twisted his head around to find, standing before him, the young female named Shrym, who happened to be the new leader’s daughter and granddaughter of the leader he’d killed with his bare hands. If she harbored any resentment toward him, she hid it well, her thick gray lips curled in amusement. “Grux’s name is Hmm.”

“Oh,” Sampson said. He’d thought Grym had been making a sound of consideration, not naming the beast. “Well then, Hmm, are you going to be a good boy?”

“She’s a girl,” Shrym said, her smile widening further. “Enjoy ride.” With that, she bolted off in the direction of her father, clambering easily up the spiked tail of his grux without impaling herself, and then sliding behind Grym, wrapping her arms around his chest to hold on. The entire impressive maneuver had taken only a few seconds.

Sampson turned back toward the “small” mud-splattered female grux he’d been assigned. It felt like another test. He spoke to her softly, gently, as he approached cautiously, careful not to make any sudden movements. He’d once watched a wild stallion tamed by the royal horse master over many days and tried to exude confidence and authority as that man had done. Unfortunately, he didn’t have days to tame Hmm—the tribe would be leagues away if he didn’t find a way to mount this beast now.

He considered climbing the tail, as he’d seen Shrym do, but quickly discarded the idea. For one, she was smaller and nimbler, able to slip between the spikes without being stabbed. Secondly, his grux’s tail was less broad than the beast ridden by Grym, and he knew he would struggle to find footing.

He’d seen the other Griz warriors mount their own steeds from the side numerous times. They’d grab the frilled horns and then leap high into the air, kicking one leg over the grux’s back, landing with the sort of ease that came only from years of practice. Again, Sampson didn’t have years to practice, but he also weighed at least twenty stones less than the lightest Griz warrior. That should count for something, right?

As he approached, the grux, Hmm, stared at him with bulbous black eyes. Her lips chewed disinterestedly on a stalk of grass. “Nice, Hmm,” he cooed. He slowly reached toward her rough-looking, dirt-covered skin with one hand, and she ignored him. Until he touched her.

With a suddenness that took his breath away, the beast jerked her horned snout in his direction, and he was forced to backpedal to avoid being gored. The only problem: one of his heels struck a knotty clump of grass, throwing off his center of gravity and causing him to tumble backwards onto his rump. The grux chuffed and then went back to chewing on the stalk of dry grass.

Gruff laughter arose, though it was further away now, the Grizari leaving him behind while still watching his efforts to mount the beast from afar. “Care to rethink your decision?” Roman asked. He was the only one who remained.

“A minor setback,” Sampson said, standing and rubbing his behind, which had suffered the misfortune of colliding with a sharp rock. “Give me a leg up, will you?”

“As you wish,” Roman said, though his tone said he thought it was a bad idea.

Roman, keeping one eye on the beast at all times, moved close to Hmm and then clasped his hands together at about knee height. Sampson stepped up onto his hands, the man grunting under his weight, lips pursed. “Now,” Sampson said, and Roman thrust him upwards and to the side.

Sampson extended his right leg and reached for the creature’s frilled neck, perfectly on target…

The beast suddenly lurched forward, tromping clear. Roman lost his grip on Sampson’s boot and he toppled over sideways, barely managing to get his hands beneath his body to prevent the wind from being knocked from his chest. As it was, however, his left wrist got trapped beneath him, twisting awkwardly. He felt the crunch of bones cracking and then the searing pain that came with it. “Arrgh!” he roared, rolling to the side and clutching his injured arm with the opposite hand. Thankfully it wasn’t his sword arm and he’d managed to maintain his grip on his hilt.

Roman stood over him. “It’s broken,” he said. “I’ll need to set it.”

“I’m fine.” Though the pain was still intense, he felt it beginning to ebb as his bone was stitched back together by the shadows he knew writhed inside him. Thank you, he said.

GRATITUDE IS UNNECESSARY. YOUR PAIN IS MY PAIN. THUS, I AM MERELY HEALING MYSELF.

That thought was disconcerting, but Sampson tried not to dwell on it. He was just glad to have his wrist intact again. The pain vanished and he felt strengthened once more. “I still feel a tingle on the back of my neck every time your sword does that,” Roman said.

Sampson understood the feeling. “Help me up again,” he said.

“Perhaps it’s time to walk.”

“No,” Sampson said. Grym had purposely given him the most stubborn of the grux, but he wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of watching his own champion be defeated by a dirty animal. “Change of plans,” he growled, stalking toward the grux, which had angled her body such that she was facing away from him as though not even aware of his presence.

Instead of approaching from behind or the side, however, this time he rounded the beast, giving her a wide berth so she could clearly see him coming. He strode right up to her front and grabbed her front horn with one hand while continuing to grip his blade with the other. Hmm didn’t like that—not at all—bucking her head to dislodge him. He strengthened his grip, moving his feet rapidly to avoid being thrown headlong by the powerful creature.

Hmm changed tactics, lifting her snout high in the air, drawing Sampson’s feet off the ground completely. It was all he could do to hang on desperately as the grux swung him about like a doll clutched in the hands of a petulant child having a tantrum. He felt his fingers begin to slip from the horn, the tip of which was dangerously close to his face. His body twisted hard to one side as the beast leaned to the right. There was a frozen moment in which he thought Hmm might’ve given up, finally ready to succumb to his dominance, but then he realized she was merely building her strength in preparation for—

She whipped her head back hard in the opposite direction, the force too powerful for him to maintain his grip, fingers slipping free and sending him airborne. He saw clouds and then ground and then Roman’s wide-eyed stare and then blue sky and then—thump!—he hit the ground so heavily it felt like his entire body had been compressed by two sledge hammers warring from opposing sides. How he managed to maintain his grip on the sword was beyond him.

“Uhh,” he murmured.

He saw Roman leaning toward him, lips moving but producing sounds that, to his ears, were as nonsensical as if he were speaking Grizari. Then, abruptly, the words took shape and Roman said, “Sampson? What hurts?”

“Uhh?” he said, though he’d been trying to say “Everything?” like it was a question because he wasn’t entirely certain given the shards of all-encompassing pain that seemed to prick at every bit of his body. As he lay there, the pain began to subside until it was tolerable, then gone altogether. “I’m fine. Time to try again.”

“What?”

“I’m going to try to mount that damn grux again.”

“For what purpose?”

“To show the Grizari I’m not just some pathetic human to be laughed at.”

“You know what they say about pride…”

Sampson was on him before even he knew what he was doing, ramming the larger man to the ground and driving his shoulder down upon him. The tip of his blade found the man’s throat.

Roman met his eyes and there was sadness there. Though he was much larger and stronger, he didn’t fight back, didn’t seek to harm his attacker. He just stared, wearing that melancholy expression.

DO IT, the hissing voice echoed in his head. YOU NO LONGER NEED HIM.

“No!” Sampson roared, clambering off, panting, his hands on his knees.

After a few moments of silence, Roman sat up. He looked at Sampson without saying anything. Sampson felt ill. Why did I do that? He knew the answer, though he didn’t want to admit it. For the cause of his sudden bout of temper was gripped in his hand. The giver of his eyesight. He couldn’t have one thing without the other.

Sampson looked at him through tendrils of dark hair. “Roman, I—”

“It’s fine,” Roman said.

“It’s not.” Tears welled in Sampson’s eyes. He threw the sword down to the dirt, though he didn’t see it land because a curtain of darkness fell over his vision. “I almost hurt you. I almost—”

“You didn’t.”

“But I could have. I was so angry.”

“I know. It’s not your fault. The shadowblade is changing you.”

“No.” He shook his head. “I can’t blame the blade. My actions are my own.”

“I must leave you for a time,” Roman said.

“What? Why?” He knew he shouldn’t have been surprised, he’d very nearly killed him, but Roman had been the one constant presence in his life from his earliest memories.

“I’m sorry. I have always been careful not to let you rely on me as a crutch. Consider it one of my tests, if it helps. I will run ahead to the Grizari. I will await your arrival in camp. Then we can talk more.”

“I—” What was there to say? Except for, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything.”

“Sampson,” Roman said, and there was so much tenderness in the way he spoke his name it left an ache in Sampson’s chest. “You are forgiven. You are always forgiven.”

With that, he heard Roman start off at a swift walk in the direction the Grizari and their steeds had departed.

Sampson felt empty inside. He felt lost and alone. Don’t say it, he warned his blade. I can feel alone even when you’re with me.

AND YET I WILL NEVER ABANDON YOU AS ROMAN DID.

He could see the line of the blade amidst the darkness. Along its broadside, shimmering runes appeared and vanished along the dusky surface. How can something so sinister be so beautiful at the same time? he wondered. In his mind, he heard the blade’s throaty laughter. “Roman didn’t leave me,” he said aloud. “He is giving me time to consider my future.”

I AM YOUR FUTURE.

“What if I were to dig a deep hole and bury you?” he asked.

The runes blazed brighter. YOU WOULD WANDER AIMLESSLY UNTIL YOU WITHERED AWAY AND DIED.

He didn’t know if that were true, but it wasn’t what he’d been asking. “No. I meant what would happen to you?”

OF COURSE YOU DID. I WOULD LIE BENEATH THE DIRT, WAITING.

“For what?”

THE NEXT BEARER. THE TIME IS NIGH FOR THE SHADOWBLADES TO COME FORTH AND DROWN THE WORLD IN SHADOWS AND BLOOD. YOU ARE BUT A TOOL TO BE USED. IF NOT YOU, THEN ANOTHER WILL BE CHOSEN.

He hated that word—chosen—like he never had a choice in the matter. It’s true, Sampson thought, even as he discarded the idea of burying the blade. He would rather die. Now that he’d seen the light, he hated the darkness. Plus, if another would simply find the blade after him and carry on the grisly work… They might use it to carry out worse deeds than me, he thought. Maybe I can use its power for some good.

In his mind, the blade laughed.

Sampson reached forward and collected it in his palm.

Roman

Roman looked back only once. Sampson was sitting in the dirt, talking to the blade as one speaks to a companion. The sword remained separated from him where he’d tossed it aside. Roman pictured the expression of horror that had crossed Sampson’s face after what he’d almost done. That is good, Roman thought. The man I know and love is still inside there. He hated to have to leave him now, but if Sampson were going to emerge on the other end of this unscathed, he needed to conquer his demons on his own. And I will be there to support him whenever he is ready.

Still, it felt like he was walking away from his son all over again, leaving him buried beneath a mound of dirt. Just as Sampson picked up the sword, Roman turned away and walked on.

Sampson

It took Sampson twelve more attempts before he managed to ride the grux. Hmm was indeed a stubborn mount. Six times he mounted her only to be tossed roughly from her back. By the time she realized he was even more stubborn than her, the day was gone, the sun a half egg yolk on the horizon.

“We’re going to be good friends,” Sampson said, patting her rough skin as he clung to two of her neck spikes.

She snorted as if to say, “Until I decide to throw you off again.”

“C’mon. We have a lot of ground to make up.” She didn’t move. He was about to dig his heels into her sides like he’d spur his horse back in Wolfsgaard, but then remembered the Grizari command he’d heard Grym and several of the other riders use before they departed. “Pzrrry!”

The beast jolted in surprise and then lumbered forward, slowly at first but then picking up speed. He didn’t need to guide her; Hmm followed in the larger footsteps of her comrades, which was the only evidence of their passing.

Even with the sun nearly gone, the day’s heat was as fierce as dragon’s breath, and the jolting, thumping ride soon began to take its toll on his legs and backside. He longed for the supple saddle his father had paid top coin for on his twelfth name day. Not that it would fit on Hmm’s broad back. The grux’s rough skin chafed against his trousers which in turn chafed against his legs until they were sore and burned each time sweat dribbled along their surface.

A little assistance? he thought to his blade.

OH, NOW YOU WANT MY HELP WHEN NOT SO LONG AGO YOU WERE CONSIDERING WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF YOU BURIED ME IN THE DIRT LIKE A CORPSE.

Sorry about that. I was just frustrated.

WITH…?

Everything.

TRY NOT TO BE SO SPECIFIC.

Ha. Did you just make a joke?

I’M WARMING UP NOW. I”VE BEEN ENCASED IN STONE IN THE SPINE FOR MANY YEARS. FORGIVE ME FOR BEING A LITTLE RUSTY.

Was that another joke?

MAYBE.

You’re full of surprises. Back to the little matter of my aching legs…

AND ARSE?

Aye. That too. Think you can work some of your healing magic?

NO.

No?

YOU HEARD ME. SEEMS TO ME YOU COULD USE A BIT OF SUFFERING AS A REMINDER OF HOW MUCH WE NEED EACH OTHER.

Sampson gritted his teeth but didn’t respond because he knew his blade was right. And he certainly deserved some suffering after everything he’d done.

AH, THE SWEET SOUND OF SILENCE.

I could use some of that silence now.

YOU’RE THE ONE WHO SPOKE FIRST.

And now you’re the one who won’t stop speaking.

CONSIDERING I DON’T HAVE A MOUTH OR TONGUE, I DON’T THINK ‘SPEAKING’ IS THE RIGHT TERM. COMMUNICATING PERHAPS.

Sampson remembered something. Before, you said that my pain was your pain, so does that mean you’re aching now too?

Hissing laughter resounded in his head. I DON’T HAVE NERVES, SO HOW COULD I HURT?

You lied?

OF COURSE I LIED. AND YOU BELIEVED ME SO EASILY.

Good talk. I’ll leave you to do…whatever it is you do when you’re not bothering me.

THANK YOU. ENJOY THE RIDE.

The parting shot made Sampson grit his teeth. Or it might’ve been the never ceasing ache beneath him.

Hours later, the way forward was lit by a swathe of crimson moonlight cast by the bright red moon staring down like a bloody eye in the sky. Her green-eyed brother was nowhere to be found, perhaps hidden behind a wall of clouds that had been built, brick by brick, to the east. At some point he’d felt the pain in his legs vanish. At first he thought he’d simply become numb or his skin had turned to leather, but no, that wasn’t it. Thank you, he’d said.

NOT NECESSARY. YOUR PAIN IS MY PAIN, REMEMBER? The sword had laughed, and Sampson wished he’d said nothing.

Beneath his beast’s trod, the ground gradually transformed from brown and burnt to lush and grassy. Just as the stars began to fade and the sky lighten, Sampson spotted the Grizari encampment, its massive herd of cattle huddled together, resting from their long trek across the plains.

“Pzrrry!” he shouted, spurring Hmm on, though it wasn’t necessary. She had already quickened her pace at the promise of rest and water. He didn’t know if they’d become friends over the course of their journey, but he sensed a growing mutual respect between them. Perhaps she’d been impressed by his stubbornness as he sought to ride her. And he couldn’t help being impressed by her stamina, her pace never slackening during the night as they plodded, ever onward.

Thus it was that, just as dawn crested the horizon, Sampson rode Hmm into the new camp, her heavy hooves thundering past several of the tents, including the largest, which he knew to be occupied by none other than Grym.

Grym emerged, rubbing his eyes with meaty fists before cocking his head to the side in surprise. Sampson tossed his leg over Hmm’s side, letting gravity drop him to the ground with a thump. He’d planned his dismount to be more graceful, a conquering hero returning to his people, but hours spent riding had thrown off his balance and he was forced to steady himself for a moment with a hand on the ground before slowly rising.

“You ride Hmm entire way?” Grym asked. There was a note of grudging respect in the question.

“Yes. Why wouldn’t I?”

“Hmm never been ridden before. No Griz could ride. Too stubborn.”

“Who? This tenderhearted beast?” He patted Hmm on the side, but she didn’t seem to notice, already snuffling at a water trough, slurping up as much moisture as she could.

“You may have Hmm, if want?” Grym offered.

“Truly? Thank you. I accept.”

Grym grunted, turned around and disappeared back inside his tent. By then, more and more Grizari were emerging from their tents, staring wide-eyed at the human who’d managed to do what none of the Grizari could do. Sampson felt a swell of pride rise within him, but quickly tamped it down because he hadn’t earned it. No, without the healing power of his blade, he would’ve failed long before achieving his objective, lying half-dead on the plains, an arm and several ribs broken.

MMM, THAT’S BETTER, his blade hissed. ABOUT TIME YOU SHOWED SOME APPRECIATION. BUT YOU MUST NOT SHOW WEAKNESS IN FRONT OF THE GRIZ. YOU MUST SHOW NOTHING BUT STRENGTH.

Because that is what they respect, he reminded himself, knowing his sword was right, as usual.

He raised a fist to his chest as they watched. They just continued staring, but then, one by one, they raised their fists, thumping them against their muscled chests in respect.

Behind the circle of Grizari, Sampson spotted Roman watching, a thin smile holding steady on his lips. When the man nodded, he returned the gesture, feeling the familiar thrill of earning the man’s pride, something he’d never felt from his own father.

From that point on, Sampson felt a change in the attitude of the Grizari toward him. Though many continued to take an extra step to the side when they passed by him, they didn’t mutter what he assumed were Grizari curses. Some even thumped their fists when they saw him, a gesture he always returned.

He toiled beside them during the day, riding Hmm and learning their ways: how to recover cattle who strayed from the herd; filling wooden barrels with water from a nearby stream and loading them onto wagons to be dragged back to camp by the grux; building fires using stones and sticks and what scrub bushes could be scavenged from the stark terrain; moving on every two to three days to find more fertile lands for the cattle to graze.

After only a few days sweating alongside the Griz, a respect had built inside him for their way of life. Despite the hardships of their nomadic lifestyle, they seemed…happy.

BECAUSE THEY ARE CHILDREN, his blade reminded him whenever his thoughts strayed in this direction. BECAUSE THEY DON’T KNOW WHAT’S GOOD FOR THEM.

Now he sat in his tent with Roman after a hard day’s work. Since they had parted ways after Sampson had held his blade to Roman’s throat, they hadn’t discussed anything serious. It was like they both needed a break from all of that, cleansing their minds through sweat and work. But now, Sampson knew it was time.

“I cannot rid myself of this blade,” Sampson said.

“I never asked you to.”

Sampson searched his memory. Was that true? Yes. Though Roman had made comments about the blade, he’d never once insisted that Sampson discard it. He’d only ever given him counsel. If anything, it was Sampson who’d sought to break his connection to the blade, like when he threw himself from the precipice of Beggar’s Canyon. “So you think I should keep it?”

“I didn’t say that either.”

“Then which is it? Or are you saying you’re indifferent on the matter?”

“I’m saying this is your choice and your choice alone.”

Sampson blew out a frustrated breath. His whole life he’d sought independence, the ability to be the architect of his own future, but now that he was in a position to do just that, he wanted Roman to give him the right answer.

“Can I ask you a question?” Roman asked.

“Of course.”

“What do you want?”

For a moment, the question stumped him. “I…I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do.”

“So you’re a mind reader now?”

“No, but I know you. I know you as well as I know myself.”

And Sampson knew Roman. He knew the man had only ever wanted good for him, happiness. He considered the question. “I want…I want everything.”

“Can you be more specific?”

“I want my eyesight and I want to be with Amari and Jarrod, and I want to do something that matters and I want to stop the flow of demons from the Rift that I widened, and I want to defeat Glynn Kerr and help the Grizari get their lands back. I want it all.”

Roman nodded, as if he’d suspected that exact, longwinded answer. “Can you do any of that without the blade?” He gestured to the sword gripped, as always, in Sampson’s hand.

“Not likely. The shadowblades are godblades, after all, right?”

“According to the Kingfall Histories, yes.”

“Then the answer to achieving all of that must lie in the blade, and the power within it. I just have to find a way to control it. But first I need to convince Grym to march on Kerr’s Crossing. That is the linchpin for all my plans.”

Roman stroked his beard thoughtfully. “I’ve known all versions of you since you were born. I’ve watched you grow up, too fast sometimes. I always wanted”—his voice grew strained, his eyes misty—“good things for you. But one thing I know is that you have a clever mind. If there’s a way, you will find it.”

“Thank you. Now, I need your help persuading Grym that uniting the tribes is the only way forward.”

Roman nodded. “I’ve been considering this question for several days. The way to the heart of a leader like Grym is through his people.”

I CAN HELP WITH THAT, the blade said.

Several days later

The night was Sampson’s ally, the stars and moons smothered by thick clouds that threatened rain but had not yet offered so much as a single drop. He’d left Roman back in the tent that had been given to them by the Griz. In the unexpected event that someone was to visit him in the dead of night, Roman would be required to spin the necessary lies until he returned.

Sampson felt the comforting weight of his blade at his hip. The blade had explained everything, how the power of Shadowbreath was more potent than he’d previously known. Not only could it heal his allies, but once a fortnight or so he could use it to sway the mind of another. Or he could use the power on two others, which would require a full moon cycle before he could use it again, the required power needing to rebuild within the blade. WHY NOT JUST USE IT ON GRYM? the blade asked now, but Sampson immediately rejected the notion. For some reason, his instincts told him that having Grym as a willing ally would increase their likelihood of success. All he needed to do was take a few actions to encourage Grym to be more willing. Starting tonight with Shadowbreath.

Thus, he stole through camp cloaked in shadows, a wraith in the night. He heard the throaty murmurs of conversations in Grizari from a few of the tents, but no one emerged as he crept past.

He’d selected his target with assistance from Roman. Over the course of the last week or so he’d learned as much as possible about the key tribesmen, those who carried influence that approached even Grym’s own influence. As a human, getting them on his side by natural means would be next to impossible. Although a mutual respect had developed, he would never be one of them; not unless he managed to grow two horns and skin thicker than battle leathers. Luckily, he now had alternative methods available to him.

His target was a woman named Cryzt. She was popular amongst the other tribesmen because of her fierce nature and quick wit and had not yet tied herself down to a single buck, which left many of the males pining after her on a daily—and nightly—basis. Though everything in camp looked identical in the dark of night, Sampson had memorized the route to Cryzt’s tent. Given her popularity, he didn’t expect to find her alone in her slumber, and yet that’s exactly how he found her as he unclasped the tether sealing her tent flap and poked his head inside.

The sizable doe lay on her back like a corpse, dagger-sharp horns protruding from her hairless scalp. She was covered by a thin blanket as the night was cool but not cold this far south. Sampson stepped inside and closed the entrance.

Her breaths remained deep and even.

He crept closer, feeling his blade thrumming in anticipation. This will not hurt her, right? He’d already confirmed as much, but he needed a reminder.

HEH, the blade chuckled. GOING SOFT?

Just answer the question.

NO. SHE WILL NOT BE HURT.

He watched Cryzt breathe in the dark. What do I do? he asked.

GIVE HER YOUR BREATH.

That’s it?

YES.

Sampson firmed up his resolve and then eased in from the side. Cryzt must’ve heard his movement, because she stirred, eyes fluttering open, followed by her mouth, preparing to release a bellow.

Sampson breathed out. His breath had shape, like a puff from a smokeweed pipe, forming a hand with fingers—no, claws—each of which pushed against Cryzt’s lips, which had suddenly clamped shut, sealed tight at first sight of the strange breath. The claws grasped her lips and she shuddered, her eyes widening as she tried to keep her mouth shut.

The ethereal claws pried her lips open, sliding between the gaps in her teeth.

Her mouth burst open with an audible gasp, her chin lifting toward the tent’s ceiling, her eyes narrowing and then closing completely. Sampson stared in awe as the skin of Cryzt’s throat bulged in snaking lines that slithered downward until they vanished under her clothes. Her chest puffed out as her back arched. Gently, he pushed her back down. Her eyes opened once more, focusing on Sampson.

“Master?” she said. “What is your command?”

Sampson froze. The way his blade had explained it to him, the effect of the Shadowbreath would be subtle. She would agree with things he said, would voice opinions that mirrored his own. Not call him master, like a subservient slave.

WOULD YOU HAVE DONE IT IF I’D TOLD YOU IT WOULD BE THIS WAY?

Sampson knew he wouldn’t have, but he also knew that it was already done. His blade had manipulated him as easily as a puppeteer teases the strings of a marionette.

“Rest tonight,” he said gently. “Sleep will elude you, but your body needs strength for what is to come.”

“Yes, master,” she said.

Sampson slumped back down beside Roman, who looked a question at him. “It was not what I thought it would be,” Sampson said.

“Is any of this?”

“I guess not.”

“Then we must try to live with as much of it as we can and keep our minds on a greater purpose.”

Sampson knew he was right, though images of Cryzt’s dead eyes and the sound of her monotone response plagued him all through the night. Yes, master.

The next day, Sampson and Roman joined a group of Grizari partaking of their morning meal. The group included Cryzt, who was doing much of the talking. Grym was nowhere to be found.

The discussion had grown heated, with several participants standing, shouting, and offering rude-looking hand gestures, though the conversation was conducted in Grizari so Sampson couldn’t make heads nor tails of the subject. Instead, he settled on a relatively flat rock and listened. Several of the Grizari noticed his presence, but ignored him—Grym’s influence, no doubt. It was time to change how he was perceived.

Cryzt acted quickly, which didn’t surprise him in the least. Before he’d breathed his Shadowbreath into her, she’d paid him no notice. He still didn’t fully understand how the Shadowbreath worked, except they were now inexplicably bound by the shadows that twisted and curled within them. It still made him feel queasy, but at least she appeared physically uninjured. Before they’d been tethered, she was confident bordering on arrogant. Now, she was a force of nature. “Tribe grows weaker by day,” she said, switching to the common tongue for his benefit. “What give children? What give grandchildren? Herd of cattle and land of burnt grass? What say human champion?” she bellowed, meeting his stare. Adding ‘champion’ was a nice touch, he thought. It would remind the others that it was he, not Grym, who’d defeated Drynym in single combat.

“About what, specifically?” he asked, which drew scoffing laughter from several of the Griz he knew were blindly loyal to Grym.

“Discussing which Griz tribe could be defeated,” Cryzt said, silencing the laughter with a steely stare.

“Tell me about the other tribes,” Sampson said.

More laughter. “Human knows nothing, like baby,” one of them said. The laughter rose until a new voice cut in.

“Largest tribe led by Shrz,” Grym said, joining the group. The laughter fell away as all eyes turned toward their leader. “Shrz mighty warrior. Commands six thousand.”

Thrice our number, Sampson thought, immediately discarding them as a good target. “And the other two tribes?” he asked.

“Wyrt’s tribe. Four thousand. Once had almost as many as Shrz and issued challenge.”

“A battle?”

“Yes. Many Griz died. Twelve years ago. No bloodshed since. Tribes content to live separately.”

“And the last tribe?”

“Tribe is led by Thrm, three thousand strong. Thrm was once friend to Drynym until disagreement.”

“Disagreement over what?”

Grym looked uncomfortable by the question. “Mate for me.”

Now he was speaking Sampson’s language, and he didn’t mean the common tongue. The language of political maneuverings. Sampson had grown up around such talk his entire life. Who would marry who in order to secure some alliance that would eventually be broken. It was second nature to him, and apparently not even the Grizari were immune to such dealings. “Thrm wanted you to marry—I mean…mate—with his daughter?”

Grym blinked his large black eyes in surprise. “Yes. Eyrm. Very beautiful. Broad hips and chest. Stubborn jaw. Piercing gaze.”

“What happened to your previous mate? Shrym’s mother?”

“Died during childbirth,” Grym said neutrally.

“I’m sorry.”

“Why? You didn’t cause her death. Childbirth is hard. Death is part of it.”

Beside Sampson, Roman shifted but said nothing. “Why didn’t Drynym want you to mate with Eyrm?” Sampson asked.

“Unfair exchange. Would give Thrm influence in Drynym’s tribe but no reciprocation.”

“Why?” A memory from his history book surfaced and he answered his own question. “Because Thrm has a son.” Though the female Grizari appeared to be every bit as strong and capable as the males, leadership was still very patriarchal amongst the tribes. Inwardly, Sampson wondered what would happen if a female challenged, and defeated, a male leader in single combat.

“Yes, Dyrm. Strong buck. Tribe leader now after Thrm perished in grux stampede. Unwilling to ally with Drynym’s tribe even if own sister is my mate. I can’t blame choice.”

“But before Thrm died, he still thought your father should allow you to mate with Eyrm?”

“Drynym livid. Never seen so angry. Raged for days. Was years ago. Long forgotten by me. But not Father. Father never forgets. Never forgives.”

“And Eyrm? She has another mate? A buck from one of the other two tribes, perhaps?”

“Not to Grym’s knowledge.”

Sampson knew an opportunity when he saw one. “This is no longer Drynym’s tribe. And Thrm is dead. You are the leader now. You could speak to Dyrm and persuade him to ally with you. If you still have feelings for Eyrm, why not act?”

“Feelings? What feelings?” Grym said, as though feelings were something for weaker men.

“You said she was beautiful…”

“Lust, human mean? Speak plainly!”

“Or love. Attraction. Desire. Longing.”

“Bah,” Grym said. “Feelings easily satisfied by females in own tribe. No need spit on Father’s legacy by disobeying will.”

And there it was: the problem surrounding everything. Grym believed that to make any decision contrary to what his father would do would be to disrespect his legacy. It was time to unleash his hidden weapon. “What say the rest of you to that?” Sampson asked, casting his gaze around the circle, which had been quiet for a while now, content to listen to the exchange between their leader and the strange human who had inserted himself into their world.

Cryzt spoke first, beating one of Grym’s staunchest allies by half a beat, his mouth hanging open. “Would be risk, but one worth taking. Combined tribe would give greater number than Wyrt tribe. If Dyrm not listen to reason, make him listen.” She thumped her chest repeatedly to emphasize her point.

“Cryzt is warmongering,” one of the others said. Sampson recognized the buck as another of Grym’s heavy supporters.

“Only if necessary,” Cryzt said. “If Dyrm cooperate, no war. Otherwise, Grym crush skull. As leader, Grym’s duty to lead tribe to better life. It is way.”

From there, the discussion turned heated once more, with Grizari on both sides of the issue standing and throwing their support to either Cryzt or Grym’s supporters. Grym, to Sampson’s surprise, said nothing to bring the two disparate groups together or to persuade Cryzt she was wrong. Instead, he seemed content to listen, his eyes steady on Sampson.

Sampson had been summoned to Grym’s tent. Roman accompanied him, always his stalwart and steadfast companion. They arrived just as night fell, casting a gray pallor on everything in camp. Sampson’s blade was sheathed, but he maintained a hand on the hilt so he could see.

The moment they entered Grym’s shadowy tent, the tribe leader said, “Humans been busy.”

“Indeed,” Sampson said. “Grizari lifestyle is a hard one. My back scarcely rests before it’s aching again.” After the earlier argument he’d helped initiate, Sampson knew the backbreaking work wasn’t what Grym was referring to, but he wouldn’t be the one to broach the subject.

“Humans hard workers, I must admit. But I am talking about warmongering.”

“Warmongering?” Sampson forced an incredulous expression onto his face. “It was Cryzt who implied war, not me. I merely suggested you reconsider Thrm’s previous mating proposal. He may be dead and his son ruling, but that doesn’t change the fact that his daughter seems like a perfect match.”

“Bah. You care nothing for my mate.”

“True,” Sampson agreed, settling on a measure of truth as the best course forward. “But I do care about this tribe and the overall Grizari plight. Too long have my people forgotten about their neighbors to the southeast. It’s time to make your presence known again. The only way to do that is through unification of the tribes.”

“With me as leader? Shrz and Wyrt never agree. Even if I mate with Eyrm.”

“There are ways other than force.”

Grym’s dark stare flicked to Sampson’s blade and then back to his eyes again. “What ways?”

“We force their hand,” Sampson said cryptically. He’d discussed the strategy at length with Roman. “But the linchpin is an alliance with Dyrm’s tribe. Without it, everything else falls apart. Your tribe is split on the issue, but they won’t be for long. Cryzt will convince the others, you know this. Why not get out ahead of it and make the decision a leader would make?”

“Dyrnym’s legacy…”

“Is not your legacy,” Sampson said. “Don’t you want more for your people? Not just your tribe, but all of them? Why can’t the Grizari rise again, as you once told me they would?”

“Human speaks clever words, but I have my own mind.”

“I know that. I’m only making the suggestions I believe most of your tribe truly wants. But, in the end, it is your decision and your decision alone.”

“And if I choose not to mate with Eyrm?” The tribe leader’s eyes once more fell on Sampson’s shadowblade.

“Then we will leave.”

“And go where?”

Sampson shrugged. “Where the wind blows. Perhaps we will inquire if Shrz or Wyrt are willing to be more reasonable.” Sampson knew the last statement was a risk, but he needed Grym to know there were consequences for not acting, just as there were risks when taking decisive action.

“I don’t like being threatened.”

Sampson didn’t reply, just waited.

“Leave me,” Grym said. Sampson nodded and left just behind Roman, a smile on his face. Now that the tribe had turned in his favor, so would Grym, albeit more grudgingly. The rest would follow soon after.

Eighteen

Dragonmaster Dane

Somewhere over the Barrier of Spears, Travail

DANE, THE DRAGON SAID, HIS VOICE HOLLOW IN THE EMPTY CAVERN OF DANE’S MIND.

I am not ready to speak of it, Dane thought back, already knowing what Daneus would say. His dragon had been asking the same question ever since they departed the Great Bone Pile. Dane’s arms were still wrapped around Peony’s limp body, which was warm against his touch. She’d fallen asleep almost as soon as they’d taken flight.

Below him was the Barrier of Spears, ten thousand felled trees stripped of their branches, bark shorn, wood cured and painted black, their tips carved into sharp points and their bases planted deep into the ground. Each “spear” was tethered together with iron clasps, like manacles, in three spots—base, middle, apex—creating the longest wall in all Kingfall, stretching from the southern portion of the Bay of Sighs to the northern edge of the Soullands, separating Odin from Travail.

The barrier had been built by the Odinians hundreds of years earlier, after the Godswar but before the Long Night, when a demon scourge had swept the land, forcing humankind to unite to eradicate the evil and gain control of the Rifts. The period between these events was known as the Separation, a time when the four most powerful families in Kingfall—the Gaards, the Normandians, the Kerrs and the Dragonmasters of Travail—couldn’t agree on the color of the sky, much less where the borders should be drawn between their lands. Once the border between Odin and Travail was established, the Odinians were quick to begin construction of the Barrier of Spears, which took fifty years to build if it was a day. The Travailians, with their dragons, had laughed, boasting of how their dragons could set the entire structure ablaze with little more than a thought. And yet, looking down upon it, Dane couldn’t help but to be amazed by it. Void, it had stood for almost three hundred years. Yes, most of the wooden spears had been replaced over the years, having rotted or been eaten by termites, but it didn’t change what the barrier represented: the separation of their lands, their peoples, their ideals.

Can our bonding really change all that? Dane wondered.

Nay, Daneus said, interjecting himself into Dane’s mind once more.

Thanks for the vote of confidence, Dane replied.

I’m only being realistic while your head is stuck in the clouds. Just then, Daneus swerved to the right to illustrate his point, flying directly through a thick cloud.

Funny, but I’m still not ready to talk about what happened at the Great Bone Pile. The truth was, Dane didn’t even know what had happened, so he couldn’t really talk about it. He’d watched Peony walking, trance-like toward the grotesque pile of enormous bones, one of her hands out beseechingly, as though she wanted to grasp the entire thing in her fist and carry it away. Dane, on the other hand, had felt a sense of foreboding deep in his chest from the first moment they’d laid eyes on the thing. That feeling had only grown the closer they’d drawn, and by the time they’d landed a stone’s throw away he had the urge to grab Peony and command Daneus to Fly! Fly!

He’d tempered that instinct for Peony’s sake, because for some strange reason seeing the big ol’ pile of bones was important to her. Dane had soon realized, however, that something was amiss, as her legs began to move faster, almost at a run. He’d called her name several times, but she didn’t seem capable of hearing him. When she cried out in pain and fell to her knees, he ran to her, scooped her up, and Daneus did the rest.

Only once they were airborne and well away from that cursed place did Dane’s heart slow to a normal rhythm. The ache in his chest did not subside, however, and he still felt a twinge of that pain even now.

You felt it, too, Daneus said.

Stop reading my thoughts.

Kind of hard when your thoughts are so loud. Noisy human.

Have you ever heard yourself eat? Now that’s noisy.

Can I help that I like to enjoy my food? But stop dodging the subject. We both felt it—the presence.

Presence? Dane asked.

What else would you call it?

And there was the problem: What Dane had felt, what he’d sensed…there was no word for it. I suppose ‘presence’ is as good a word as any.

Peony seemed drawn to it.

I know. But then it hurt her.

That is some dark magic, to attack from afar without projectile. Even the mages at Aeromand with their barrels of magenum aren’t capable of such a thing.

As usual, his dragon was wise. Are you certain it was magic?

Of a kind, though it’s like nothing this world has seen in centuries.

What are you suggesting? That the magic within the bone pile has been there for hundreds of years, just waiting for Peony to come along? Why her? Why not any of the thousands of others that have surely passed by, blissfully unaware of the danger encased in a mountain of bone?

I never said I had all the answers.

Doesn’t matter, Dane thought angrily, his frustration building. We’re never going back to that place.

Just then, Peony’s body stiffened in his arms and she stirred. At first her awakening was slow and steady, eyes fluttering open, blinking to clear her vision. “Good morning,” Dane said, because they’d flown through the night, his mind too filled with thoughts to sleep. Peony’s body jerked violently to the side and she shrieked, trying to squirm from his grasp. She almost did, too, but he managed to grasp her arm just before she would’ve tumbled from Daneus’s back.

“It’s me, Dane,” he said. “We’re flying back to Travail, remember?”

Peony, eyes wide, twisted her neck around to look at him, their lips so close he could taste her breath on his tongue. “You’re…holding me.”

“You were sleeping. I didn’t want you to fall from the sky.”

“Oh, of course,” she said. “Well, I’m awake now and—” She cut off mid-sentence, brow furrowing deeply. “The Great Bone Pile! We need to go back. I need to go back!”

“Peony, we’re leagues west of the bone pile now. In fact, we’ve just crossed over the Barrier of Spears. Welcome to Travail.”

“Travail?” she said. She looked down at the rocky landscape, the stone spires of the Soullands to the south wrapped with many colors, reds and burnt oranges and every shade of brown imaginable. The forests to the north were ablaze with color as well, the leaves having changed at the onset of late autumn, preparing to shed their coats in preparation for winter. Dane was worried about her reaction—had been since the moment they departed Chrysallis—because though these lands were not green and fertile like Odin, to him they were home, they were— “Beautiful,” Peony murmured, her eyes roving over the terrain.

“You like it?” Dane said uncertainly.

She likes it, Daneus rumbled.

“Yes. Very much. I never knew Travail would have so many colors. My brother always described it as a shadowy place, gray and black. Foggy.”

“Foggy?”

She twisted back around, her eyes alight with the excitement he’d seen in them back in Chrysallis when she spoke of adventure. Her face had none of the statuesque beauty of Dragonrider Star, and yet he found her just as alluring. He had the sudden urge to count her freckles, which he believed might number as many as the stars. “Yes, Osric always used the word ‘foggy’ to describe Travail.”

“Begging your pardon, but your brother is a damn fool.”

Peony cocked her head to the side, a frown creeping onto her face. Dane was about to backtrack, to apologize for insulting her brother, when she burst into laughter. “He is, isn’t he?” she said.

He couldn’t help it—being airborne on dragonback, the wind through their hair, the small distance between their lips, her body warm against his, their ability to laugh together like old friends—Dane leaned forward, lips parting.

Peony dodged and his head fell onto her shoulder. “Oh,” she exclaimed lightly. “You missed.”

“You moved.” He straightened up, feeling more like a fool than Osric.

“Did I?”

“Decidedly. But you were right to do so. I apologize for being so forward. I suppose I was caught up in the moment.”

“So you didn’t want to kiss me? You were only caught up in the moment?”

“Yes. I mean, no. I mean…”

What do you mean? Daneus asked helpfully.

“I apologize,” Dane finished weakly.

“You already said that. Now you sound like me.”

Dane managed a laugh. “Fair point. Princess—”

“Peony.”

“Peony. I must admit, you have me rather unhinged.”

“So you’re like a door dangling from its frame?”

“The comparison is accurate.”

“And that’s a good thing?”

“Very good.”

“Fine. Are you unhinged enough to take me back to the Great Bone Pile?” she asked, eyebrows raised hopefully. “Pretty please.”

It was Dane’s turn to frown. “We’ve only just arrived in Travail. Also, why do you want to go there again? Something happened to you. You were in pain.”

“Pain?” she said, confusion crinkling her features. “There was no pain.”

“But you cried out. You fell to your knees.”

“Did I? I don’t remember that.”

“Trust me, you did. Both Daneus and I saw it. That’s why I grabbed you and carried you away.”

Peony paused before answering this time, seeming to consider his account of what had transpired. “I felt…something…inside the bones, like someone had been waiting for my arrival.”

“A presence?” Dane tried.

“Yes, exactly!” Peony exclaimed.

Told you, Daneus said, a note of gloating in his deep voice.

Be quiet. I’m speaking to my bondmate-to-be. “Daneus and I sensed the presence, too,” Dane said.

“You did? Then you also must’ve seen the light.”

Dane narrowed his eyes. If anything, the bone pile had been full of shadows and ash, as lightless a place as he’d ever come across. Daneus?

I thought you wanted me to be quiet. But no, I didn’t see any sort of light.

“Neither of us saw this…light. Can you describe it?”

Once more, she turned around and he felt like the sun had been extinguished by a passing storm cloud. “It was like the light of a thousand suns hitting me at once. That must’ve been why I cried out and dropped to my knees. It didn’t hurt, exactly, but I did feel it in my chest. Are you certain you didn’t see it?”

Dane chuckled, though he felt no mirth at her words. “The way you describe it, I’d say it’d be hard to miss. What do you think caused it? Do you remember anything else? Any detail might be important.” Especially if we’re dealing with ancient magic, as Daneus believes.

“There was something else,” Peony said slowly. “But I’m afraid you’ll turn Daneus around and fly me back to Chrysallis if I tell you.”

“Why?”

“Because you’ll think me mad.”

“Are you?”

Peony whirled back around and shoved him in the chest. Her push was harder than he’d expected, and he nearly lost his grip on Daneus’s flanks, barely managing to grasp one of the dragon’s spikes to hang on. “Sorry!” Peony said, looking horrified. “I almost forgot how high we were. Daneus flies so smoothly.”

Don’t be sorry, Daneus said. I’d be fine if we were one rider short. And thank you, I take great pride in my flying.

“Daneus thanks you for the compliment,” Dane said.

That’s not all I said.

“And says you’re as light as a feather.”

Just wait until we’re all bonded. The truth shall be known!

Dane had forgotten about that. Once the marriage bond was complete, Daneus and Peony would be able to learn to communicate with each other. Then he would be outnumbered. I look forward to it, Dane said, as if it were nothing.

“You are a gentleman, Daneus,” Peony said, patting the dragon’s neck.

Did you hear that? Daneus asked. At least one of you has manners.

Once more, Daneus had managed to get them well off track. One of my dragon’s many talents, Dane mused.

You’re just jealous.

Dane ignored him, refocusing on Peony. “You might as well tell me. We’ll soon be bonded. No room for secrets then.”

“I know. You’re right,” Peony said, but still she hesitated. “The thing is, whatever presence, thing, was inside the Great Bone Pile, you’re really going to think me mad, but I swear I—”

“Just tell me, Peony. I won’t judge you, truly.”

She took a deep breath, puffing up her chest, firming up her chin, and then said, “It spoke to me.”

That was the last—the very last—thing Dane expected her to say. No, that wasn’t true. It wasn’t even the last thing he expected her to say. He’d never have expected her to say that. “What did it say?” he asked, trying, and failing, to keep his voice neutral.

“You think me mad. I knew it!”

“I don’t,” Dane said quickly. “I’m just trying to understand what you experienced.”

She scowled at him, looking unconvinced. “It said, ‘I see you.’ That was all. Just ‘I see you.’ It said it twice actually, the second time just before I lost consciousness, I guess.”

Strange, Daneus said.

What do you make of it?

“Are you asking Daneus about it?” Peony asked. “What does he think?”

Dane was surprised by how quickly the princess was able to discern the times he was communicating with his dragon. Your face gets this intense look, Daneus said. Like you’re trying to stare a hole through a wall.

Really?

Really. As for your question, a magical presence that can speak to someone from a great distance and exudes a light as bright as a thousand suns…not good.

Not good? That’s your assessment?

Yes. That sums it up.

Thanks a million for your help.

You’re welcome.

“Daneus knows nothing,” Dane said.

‘Nothing’ might be understating it a little bit, don’t you think?

“Oh,” Peony said, sounding disappointed. “I was hoping something about my experience was normal, written in a book or something.”

“A book? Unfortunately, we don’t have a lot of those in Travail. And dragons can’t read.”

Have you ever tried teaching us? No.

“Have you ever tried teaching them?”

Dane was beginning to get scared at how closely Peony’s thoughts mirrored his dragon’s. Daneus chuffed out a laugh and a gout of flame shot from his nostrils. “No, I…it has never crossed my mind.”

“Well, if Daneus desires it, I will teach him.”

Finally, someone who appreciates me for my intellect and not just my massive wings, ferocious claws, bladelike teeth, and fire-breathing ability.

“Back to what the presence said to you…”

“Oh, yes, I felt like it was less about my physical presence and more about what was inside me, in my heart, or my soul.”

“Your soul?”

“Yes. Do Travailians believe in the soul?”

“Are you asking whether we are heathens? Mayhaps you should ask your wise brother. He seems to know more about our kind than we do.” He couldn’t help the defensiveness that had crept into his tone.

“It was a serious question, Dragonmaster, but I see I’ve struck an off-key chord.”

Dane immediately regretted his reaction. While Osric Normandian was a human weasel of the worst sort, Peony had shown none of her brother’s biases toward his people. She’d made it very obvious that going with him to Travail was as much her decision as that of her parents’, despite the benefit of the alliance that came with it. “I’m sorry. I know, there I go apologizing again, but I believe it is warranted. Your people…the Odinians…do not usually speak fondly of the Travailians.”

“I know. They call you scalies,” Peony said. “A horrid term. Consider me a blank sheet of parchment ready to be filled in. I want to know everything.”

“Everything?”

She laughed, the sound as delightful as ever to his ears. “Well, not now, obviously, but over time. But I would like to know your beliefs regarding the soul.”

“We believe that the core of a person is akin to an unextinguishable flame, ever-burning. After death, that flame continues burning, but free from the bounds of its body, taking on different forms—the wind, the waves, the trees, and, of course, if angered, the storms.”

“Fascinating. My people believe the souls of the dead are judged by the gods based on their acts. Those deemed evil are sent into the Void to inhabit the bodies of demons, burned and tortured for eternity. The righteous soar to commune with the gods themselves in their gardens, looking down on the world they once wandered.”

“And you believe this?”

“Personally, I’ve always struggled with the notion of a line being drawn down the middle, with everyone falling on one side or the other when most of the people I know would fall somewhere close to the center. Can one good act land them on the right side while one small evil act cast them into the eternal fires of the Void? Is that fair?”

The eternal fires don’t sound so bad, Daneus interjected. Nice and warm.

For a dragon, maybe, Dane thought back. Peony was an enigma to him, not nearly as closeminded as he expected her to be. “Mayhaps I am as guilty of misjudging all Odinians as many of your people are of misjudging Travailians,” he said.

“I surprise you then,” Peony said.

“Very much so.”

Yes, yes, we’re all surprised by each other. Is it time for a nap yet? Just because you’re not tired doesn’t mean I’m not. It’s not like you’re the one who has to fly all night and into the morning.

“Daneus needs to rest and hunt,” Dane said.

Not necessarily in that order, the dragon commented.

“Of course. I wouldn’t mind a stream to freshen up.”

“Daneus’s keen eyes will locate one,” Dane said, though he couldn’t imagine the princess being any fresher. From such close proximity he could smell lilac and sage on her skin.

It wasn’t long before Daneus landed gently beside a burbling stream that wound its way westward through the northern forest. Further along, the stream grew into a raging river that eventually twisted south, splitting Travail into two equal halves. Within moments, the dragon was snoring, his entire body vibrating in his slumber. “Does he always fall asleep so quickly?” Peony asked.

“Yes. Always. It’s a gift all dragons have.” He helped Peony down from the dragon’s back. “Stay close,” he said. “Wake us if you need anything.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I will.” She started to clamber down the rocky embankment to the water. Dane’s gaze lingered on her lithe form for several moments longer before he curled up in the crook behind one of Daneus’s knees and drifted off to sleep, his dreams filled with massive bones, the light of a thousand suns and a voice whispering through it all: I see you.

Nineteen

Peony Normandian

The northern wilderness of Travail

PEONY KNEELED ON THE FLAT STONE SET ON THE WATER’S EDGE AND TRIED TO STOP TREMBLING.

It was a wonder she’d managed to hide how shaken she was while speaking with Dane atop his dragon, but her mother had trained her long ago to disguise her feelings when others were watching. It was something Her Royal Majesty was an expert at. Now, however, the tide that Peony had held back was unleashed, her entire body rattling so hard she thought her ribs might be dueling underneath her skin.

Breathe, she thought. Just breathe. She splashed some water—cool and crisp—on her face and focused her intake and output of air for several long moments until the body quakes slowly subsided. Though she’d played her experience at the Great Bone Pile off as some great adventure, the whole ordeal had been rather jarring. Whatever was buried deep within the mountain of godbeast bones had pierced her with its presence, and she could still feel a part of it lingering inside her, trying to draw her back like a moth to a flame. The scarier thing was that she desperately wanted to go back. More than she wanted to take her next breath; more than she wanted to see the world; more than anything.

A voice startled her from behind. “It’s called Misery.”

Peony turned to find Dane standing atop a boulder, staring down at her. She wondered how long he’d been standing there. Not long, she thought, based on the amused smile playing on his lips. Which meant he hadn’t seen her shaking and gulping down air like she was trying to get her last breath. “What’s called Misery?” she asked.

“This stream,” he said. “It’s the longest river in Travail. It flows east to west through these forests before turning south. Here it’s not much more than a stream, but later it grows into a powerful river that flows all the way to the waters dividing the Sacred Sea from the Endless Ocean.”

Peony appreciated the description as they’d left so abruptly she hadn’t even had the time to study a map of Travail in more detail. “Why is it called Misery?” she asked.

“Why is Travail called Travail?” Dane said. “Because the dragonmasters of old were grumpy old men perhaps? The real debate is whether the misery occurs when you’re crossing the river into Travail or out of Travail.”

“I guess it depends on your perspective,” Peony argued. “If one is coming home, as you soon will be, I expect the misery occurred when you were leaving and will be washed away upon your return.”

“You’re assuming I like my home and that going to collect you was a miserable experience, which it was not.”

“Truly? Between my brother and mother, most would disagree with that assessment. Fine. Mayhaps the answer is neither then,” Peony said. “It’s just an arbitrary river given an arbitrary name. One may choose to be happy or miserable as they cross it.”

“Or what if it’s both,” Dane said, waggling an eyebrow.

“Then your country really does deserve the name Travail.”

“As an outsider, you can be the judge of that. Mind if I sit with you a while?”

“No, but I thought you were going to catch up on sleep.”

“It didn’t take,” Dane said, leaping from the boulder and landing deftly on Peony’s flat, smooth stone. Before sitting, he kicked off his boots and peeled off his socks, revealing his dark blue feet. “Misery’s waters this far north are believed to have healing properties.” He eased down and dipped his toes into the slow current. He closed his eyes and raised his face to the sky, which offered a few rays of sunlight amongst the swift-moving clouds. There was something artful about his midnight-blue-painted features, Peony decided, which might’ve been carved from stone, his jawline long and firm, his cheekbones angular, his brows dark and full. Though his head was shorn on two sides, the remaining dark hair down the center was long and lustrous, tied with rope in several places as it flowed down to the small of his back. When he lowered his chin once more, his head angled to the side and his eyes opened to look at her, catching her staring.

“I—oh—sorry,” she said as she looked away sharply.

“You may look upon me as long as you wish, as I will you,” he said. She could feel his eyes on her now, which would usually make her uncomfortable, but which she was alright with under the circumstances, the day so peaceful and cheery it would make an unbeliever believe in the gods.

When she turned, she met his eyes without blinking. “You wanted to kiss me before,” she said.

“And you dodged.”

“Because I’m a lady. In Odin, you would be called a scoundrel.”

“Why? In Travail, we kiss who we want to kiss.”

Peony sighed. “If only life was so simple. In Odin, there is a proper order in which all things must be done.”

“But we are no longer in Odin.”

“And yet Odin remains in me,” Peony explained.

“What if I were to do this?” Dane asked, lifting his hand to touch her cheek. His touch was surprisingly tender, despite the roughness of his many callouses, no doubt caused by gripping Daneus’s spikes as they flew many leagues together.

Peony’s eyes remained locked on his. “If you were courting me, such a touch would be permitted, but only if your intentions were noble.”

“They are. And I am. Courting you, that is, though we have no such concept in Travail. When am I permitted to kiss you?” His lips remained slightly open on the last word, as it hung in the air between them.

“Oh, rut arbitrary Odinian sensibilities,” Peony said, leaning forward until her lips met his. Warmth flooded her and stars exploded behind her closed eyes as they remained locked together for several long moments before pulling apart.

“You kissed me,” Dane said.

“Did I? I doubt it. I’m a lady, after all, and you’re a scoundrel.”

She expected a reaction, but not the one she got. With the barest swat of his hand that had a remarkable amount of power behind it, he shoved her from the rock into the water. She came up spluttering, the stream barely reaching her waist. “You rogue!” she shrieked.

He smiled. “I thought I was a scoundrel?”

“You’re both and more,” she said. “Now help a lady from the water. I will require hours of sun before I’m dry.”

He chuckled and extended a hand over the water. She reached for it daintily, as though allowing herself to be “rescued” by the heroic dragonmaster. At the last second, however, she flung her other hand into the mix, grabbing his arm with both hands and then pulling with all her might. She half-expected him not to budge, as immovable as the boulder he’d stood atop earlier. To her delight, the element of surprise plus the precariousness of his perch threw off his balance and he tumbled into the water with a magnanimous splash.

When he emerged from the water, hair, brows and chin dripping, he looked upon her with respect. “You tricked me, Peony.”

“I did.”

His lips opened and he leaned forward, presumably to kiss her again, but jerked back when an earsplitting shriek erupted overhead. “Shite,” he cursed.

“What was that?” Peony asked.

Before he could answer, a massive brown dragon shot over the trees, grabbing one by the trunk and ripping it from the earth, roots and all, clods of dirt tumbling away and splashing into the stream. With a shake of its mighty head, it tossed the tree aside as though it were nothing but a stick that had the misfortune of crossing its path. The dragon wheeled to a stop in midair, powerful wings undulating so it could hover before them, blasting them with hot wind.

The brown dragon was different to Daneus, and not just because of its color. Atop its head it wore a crown of spikes, its snout more elongated, like that of a crocodile. Its eyes gleamed red, the same color as the flames roiling along the seam of its maw. Astride its back was a brute of a man, arms bulging as he gripped his dragon’s spikes. His skin was painted the same brown hue worn by his dragon. “I’m here for the girl!” he shouted.

“What?” Peony said, a slash of fear cutting through her.

“You’ll have to go through me first,” Dane said, raising his voice to be heard over the thumping of the dragon’s wings. “Also, him.”

With the last word, Daneus erupted from the ground with a roar. Though smaller than the brown dragon, Daneus hit it at speed, talons piercing its chest as they tumbled through the air. “What’s happening?” Peony said, clutching Dane from behind in the water. “I don’t understand, I thought you were the master of all the dragonriders.”

“Listen, Peony, just—”

Again, his response was lost as a third dragon appeared, diving from the sky with a shriek, claws extended. Dane calmly reached behind him and grasped the crossbow tethered to his back. He raised it, aiming at the dragon as he loaded it with a bolt.

Peony, peering around him, waited for the dragon or its rider, who were both orange-and-black striped, to recognize the danger and veer off course, but they continued steadfast toward them. “Dane,” she said, as he continued to aim but not yet shoot.

If he heard her, he showed no indication, his entire focus on his target as the dragon careened toward them, growing larger by the second. At the last possible moment, Dane released the bolt. The dragon, remarkably, changing its course to dodge, angling away from them.

That’s when the attack came—not from the orange-and-black striped dragon at their front, but from behind, where Peony barely caught a glimpse of a white form streaking down silently, wings tucked behind the creature. Peony tried desperately to duck beneath the water but was a hair too slow, the white dragon’s strong foreclaws cinching around her waist and then jerking her skyward, leaving her breath back on the ground. “Dane!” she screamed, a wave of fear hitting her as the ground fell away. Who were these dragonriders and why had they abducted her?

“Peony! I’ll come for you! I’ll come for you!” Dane shouted. His lips continued moving but his words were lost on the wind, the white dragon streaking away, past the forest and stream, past the sheer cliffs and over the white-capped waters of the Bay of Sighs.

“Hello?” Peony said, for about the hundredth time. They’d been flying for what felt like forever, westward based on the movement of the sun overhead. The further west they flew, the darker the clouds had grown, until they were a sheet of pregnant storm clouds erasing any signs of blue sky.

As usual, she got no response. Though she’d glimpsed the white dragon just before it had scooped her up, she hadn’t managed a good look at its rider.

“Fine,” she said, trying to control the quaver in her voice. “Don’t talk. You’re probably not much of a conversationalist anyway. You can just listen. I’ll sing for you. I know about a million songs, though I can’t vouch for the quality of my voice.” She cleared her throat and then launched into a melody she’d once heard sung by a bard at one of her father’s many banquets:

“There once was a maid who didn’t get paid,

By her master, who couldn’t run faster,

And when he got caught, she made sure he got shot,

With an arrow in the back, then stuffed him in a sack,

Deedalee, deedalee, deedalee ho!”

She paused. “Shall we try verse two?” No response. “Have it your way!”

“There once was a dragon who drunk a whole flagon,

Of the finest ale, which made him grow pale,

And made him sprout warts, and lumps of all sorts,

Then lying abed, he grew a second head!

Deedalee, deedalee, deedalee ho!”

“Enough!” a voice finally called from above. It was a female sort of voice. “Just…stop. My ears can’t take another note and I fear my dragon will throw herself upon the cliffs to escape the torture of your voice.”

“But there are six more verses,” Peony said.

“Not. Another. Note.”

“Fine. So you’ll talk to me?”

“No.”

“There once was a giant, who couldn’t stay silent…”

“All right! Gods above, you are a stubborn woman.”

“That’s what they tell me,” Peony said. “Now, please, tell me what is happening.”

“I can’t.”

“There once was a king, who suffered a bee sting…”

“Wait. I can’t tell you because…because I can’t tell you.”

“Makes sense,” Peony said dryly. “At least answer me this: Are you going to kill me?”

“Kill you? Void no, of course not.”

Peony had suspected as much, which is why she’d become so cheeky. Also, she was bored. And sore from being clamped in the dragon’s claws for so long. “I thought not, else your dragon would’ve already dropped me into the ocean.”

“That’s not a bad idea…,” the rider murmured.

“Ha,” Peony said. “I’ll be held for ransom then? My father will pay dearly for my safe return to Chrysallis. Though, between you and me, I’d prefer to remain in Travail even if I haven’t received the warmest welcome.”

The rider released a growl of frustration. “We’re here. If you can manage to keep your mouth shut for a short while we’ll be able to land without succumbing to the urge to crash into Dragonsmount.”

“Dragonsmount?” Peony said, eyes roaming the rocky terrain spread out beneath them. Her gaze drew a line down the meandering coast, until she saw what the rider had been referring to. The cliffs inclined steadily, rising into a long mountain that resembled a dragon lying prone, rocky tail curling around its legs, neck climbing higher and higher to the crest of its head and stone maw. “But…this is where Dane lives.”

“Really?” the rider said, voice heavy with sarcasm. “I do, too. Kingfall grows smaller by the day.”

The last few pieces of the puzzle clicked into place. “You are the welcoming party,” Peony said.

“You think we do this for every guest? No, this special treatment is reserved for future dragonrider bondmates. Dane must prove he is worthy of your bond by rescuing you.”

“Who says I need rescuing?”

“My dragon’s claws, for one.”

“Fair enough.” The dragon had begun her descent toward Dragonsmount and was soon joined by the other two dragons involved in Peony’s abduction. The mammoth brown monster appeared on the left, its size so impressive it was a wonder its wings were strong enough to keep it aloft, not to mention the added weight of the burly brown-painted rider mounted on its back. The orange-and-black striped dragon rose on the right, its dark eyes as piercing as those of its female rider.

“Lei, remember your abduction before our bonding?” the large rider said.

The white dragon’s rider, Lei apparently, said, “Aye. You bungled my rescue something fierce. Thank the gods I hadn’t really been captured by enemies or I’d be a sprite on the wind by now, my body a pile of dragon-fired ash.”

“Wait,” Peony said. “You two are bonded?”

“That’s what Brute keeps telling me,” Lei said, though Peony could sense the fondness in her voice.

“I’m the luckiest rider in all of Travail,” Brute said.

“I’m glad you know it,” Lei said.

“And you’re…friends…with Dane?”

“Grudgingly,” Brute said, a twinkle in his large eyes.

“Some of us are his cousins,” Lei said. “Me and Star.”

Peony glanced toward the serious female rider—Star, evidently—on her right once more, this time with more interest remembering what Dane had said about his connection with her. “What happens next?”

“She likes to talk a lot,” Brute noted.

“And sing, though I wouldn’t encourage her,” Lei said.

“You brought it upon yourself,” Peony said. “It was the only weapon at my disposal.”

Brute laughed, a growling, deep-throated sound that might’ve served just as well as a battle cry. “Dane may have met his match with you. And here we all thought Odinian women were reserved and prudish.”

“Tell that to Dane’s lips,” Peony said, feeling slightly reckless, perhaps because she was clutched in a dragon’s claws careening toward a cliff.

Star made a sound akin to a snort and then her dragon accelerated ahead of the others, landing deftly atop the portion of the stone dragon that would be considered its spine. “Don’t mind her,” Brute said. “Just has a bit of history with Dane, is all. She’ll come around in ten years or so.”

Peony didn’t have time to consider the implications because Dragonsmount was swiftly rushing up to meet them. Brute and his brown dragon landed further up the mountain’s “neck”, while the white dragon perched itself on the head, setting Peony on her feet more gently than should’ve been possible by a beast of her size.

Peony staggered, her legs requiring a moment to grow accustomed to being back on solid ground. An arm lashed out and grabbed her own to steady her. “Thanks,” she said, finally able to look into the face of the woman who’d captured her back on the banks of Misery. Beyond her white-painted skin were shrewd eyes rimmed with long whip-like lashes, a narrow nose that reminded her of one of the crystal droplets dangling from the many chandeliers back in Chrysallis, and lips that always seemed on the edge of smiling.

“Dane would never forgive me if I let you fall from the cliff,” she said.

“Nor would I,” Peony japed, feeling steadier now. “Speaking of Dane, shouldn’t he be, uh, trying to rescue me?”

“Knowing my cousin, he’ll be looking to make a grand entrance,” Lei said, craning her head skyward.

Right on cue, the dark clouds seemed to part before Daneus’s magnificence, the dragon tearing through the sky like a thrown spear. Peony could just make out Dane’s silhouette astride the dragon’s back. Standing atop Dragonsmount with the wind in her hair, combined with the notion that this man was willing to fight for her, unlocked something inside Peony, a wildness she hadn’t felt before. It didn’t matter that this was a ceremonial fight and not a real fight. All she knew was that she wasn’t content to be “rescued” like a helpless damsel in distress from a child’s storybook.

While Lei was distracted with Daneus’s streaking form, Peony moved, passing around her and charging down the slope. “Hey!” Lei shouted after her, but Peony ignored her, fleeing along the steep, narrow path, rocks skittering underfoot. Brute and his dragon were no longer in the way, having launched themselves into the air to face Dane and Daneus, which left only Dane’s cousin, Star, and her dragon blocking the path.

The orange-and-black stripes painted on her skin made her look like a tigress transformed into a woman. “You should just wait for Dane to rescue you,” Star said between gritted teeth, her lips a tight line. Much to Peony’s dismay, the dragonrider was a beautifully fierce woman, from her partially shorn head to her delicate features, as exquisite as any face she’d ever gazed upon in the courts of Odin. Peony, on the other hand, was, well, herself, plain and freckle-faced.

I STILL SEE YOU.

The voice came so suddenly into her mind that it might’ve been there all along, just waiting to speak, the force of it like a crashing wave pounding against her. The weight of it brought her to her knees.

She was dimly aware of Star approaching her, of her lips moving but the sound a wavering, indiscernible thing with no end and no beginning, even as the bodiless voice seared through her once more.

YOU HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR, it said.

“I don’t understand,” Peony said, clutching at her head. “Nothing to fear from whom? You? What are you?”

YOU NEEDN’T SPEAK ALOUD. I AM YOU AND YOU ARE ME AND WE ARE ONE. AND YOU HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR FROM HER.

The last, Peony knew, was directed toward Star, who was now kneeling before her, a frown marring her features. Peony looked up, somehow knowing exactly what she needed to do. She burst from her haunches, dancing past Star’s outstretched hands, racing toward her dragon, who craned its neck toward her, the edge of its lip rising into a sneer. “Stop her!” Star shouted from behind.

I’m running toward a dragon, Peony thought, still feeling a strange sense of certainty despite the madness of her actions.

THE DRAGON IS NOTHING, the voice said.

Peony didn’t know how that was possible, but for some reason she believed the voice, sprinting toward that grinning maw as though determined to be swallowed whole. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw something glowing, and when she looked, found it to be her hands, so bright they might’ve been infused with torchlight, pumping at her sides. As she watched, the light grew, crawling up her arms to her shoulders, warmth spreading along her skin, so bright it permeated the fabric of her dress, rising up her neck to her face, until everything before her appeared to be painted in a golden glow, from the stony mountain path to the dragon’s head and gleaming daggerlike teeth.

Any fear left inside Peony vanished in an instant, and though she knew not what was happening to her, instinct alone drove her. When the dragon extended a claw to grab her, she leapt, her legs springing her higher than should’ve been possible, the claw sweeping past harmlessly beneath her and then—

She landed atop the dragon’s snout at a full gallop, sprinting up the scaly incline to its head even as it released a roar of anger, twisting its neck to dislodge her. She flung herself into empty air, not only off the dragon’s head but from the side of the cliff path itself, falling rapidly to the next level, where the trail curled back upon itself as it descended the mountain.

She landed in a crouch with a crunch, her glowing legs somehow absorbing the impact of the death-defying drop. Somewhere above her, a dragon roared, though she couldn’t discern which one.

DOES IT MATTER? that voice said. CAN ANY OF THEM STOP YOU?

I don’t understand. Who are you? What have you done to me?

LET ME SHOW YOU. LOOK AT YOUR HANDS.

She extended her arms, in awe of the way they shimmered as if painted with stardust. As Peony stared at her glowing hands, something began to take shape, gripped between them like it had always been there; a blade, burning with a light so bright and brilliant she should’ve had to shield her eyes but which didn’t bother her in the least. The hilt was ornately carved and studded with diamonds, glittering like fallen stars that had been plucked from the sky and sealed within the metal. The blade itself was long and narrow, double-edged, runes burning along the steel.

I am no warrior, Peony said. I don’t even know what to do with a sword.

YOU WILL, the voice responded, except this time the voice wasn’t without source. Now, Peony could tell, the voice arose from the blade itself, not spoken aloud but directly into her mind much the same as she imagined Dane heard his dragon’s voice.

The thought of her future bondmate and his dragon drew her eyes back to the sky, where Dane’s and Brute’s dragons were descending together, no longer doing battle now that she’d escaped on her own. I MUST GO, the voice said.

Where? How will I find you?

YOU CAN SUMMON ME AT ANY TIME. I AM ALWAYS NEAR.

What? I don’t under— With the thought still forming inside her head, the blade burst into golden speckles that dissipated, leaving her hands empty once more. Slowly, measure by measure, the light shining from her skin and through her clothes faded as well, leaving behind nothing but fabric and pale, freckled hands.

Not a moment too soon either, as Daneus swooped past, wings blasting her with wind. A form leapt from the dragon’s back, hitting the path and rolling several times before coming to a stop nearby. Lying prone on his stomach, Dane looked at her through a tangle of long, dark hair, his braid askew across his face. “Peony,” he breathed.

“Dane,” she said, suddenly out of breath. She looked up at the sheer cliff she’d dropped from, feeling dizzy at the thought of what she’d just done, when at the time it had felt as natural and ordinary as walking across a dais.

Dane stood, flipping his braid back into position behind him, shaking dirt and stones from his riding leathers. A smudge of dirt was streaked across his cheek. He wore a deep frown. “What happened?” he asked.

How much did you see? she wondered. “I—I got scared and ran.”

“But…the dragons. And Star.” He said the latter name with a degree of weight, as though getting past his fierce cousin was a more difficult feat than escaping the dragons.

The mention of his cousin also reminded Peony that she couldn’t rely on the fact that he’d been occupied with his battle with Brute and hadn’t seen what had transpired atop Dragonsmount. Because both Lei and Star had seen, and they would soon provide him with a full account in painstaking detail. “I jumped,” she said, her voice coming out a squeak, though she’d intended it to be strong and certain. Why am I lying? she thought. This man will soon be my bondmate. Tell him the truth. Just tell him.

“Jumped?” He said the word like she’d spoken in a foreign tongue, meaningless. It might as well have been for all the sense it made.

“More like slid,” she said. “Well, first I climbed onto Star’s dragon, and then—”

“You climbed Starrus?”

“Sort of. More like the dragon inadvertently lifted me onto its head when it tried to grab me.” Before he could ask more questions that she couldn’t answer, Peony soldiered on. “Then the dragon—Starrus, did you say?—shook its head and I was thrown off, over the cliff.”

“I thought you said you jumped, or slid?” Dane asked, looking more puzzled than ever.

“More like fell,” she said, “but I managed to dig my fingers into the cliffside and slow my descent until I finally hit solid ground again.”

Dane shook his head in wonderment. “And you’re not hurt?”

“A little shaken maybe, but no, I’m not hurt.”

“Well, thank the gods for that. Why didn’t you just wait for me to rescue you? It would’ve taken a little while, but there’s no doubt I could’ve handled Brute and my cousins. Daneus has plenty of tricks hidden away under those scales of his. Didn’t Lei explain things?”

“She did,” Peony admitted. “But I wanted to show you I’m not a helpless fawn caught in a hunter’s trap.”

“I’d say you proved that ten times over,” Dane said. “I just wish it wasn’t at the risk of your very life.”

Stop lying and tell him. Peony had always hated lying. One lie always turned into two which turned into an army of little lies trying to cover each other’s tracks. The truth was, she was afraid of what she had done. The impossibility of it. What it might mean. Still…this was her future bondmate and building a relationship on a foundation of lies would sabotage them from the start. “Look, Dane…,” she started, but then cut off quickly when the sound of pounding footfalls arose from the path above. Soon Lei’s streaking form could be seen rounding the bend and descending toward them. Not far behind her was Star, running less quickly, a frown knitting her brows together.

“Thank the gods,” Lei said, when she saw Peony standing in front of Dane looking none the worse for wear. “I thought you were as good as dead. She’s alive, Star!” she called back over her shoulder.

Her sister’s reply was less enthusiastic. “I can see that. I have two eyes, same as you.”

Dane said, “Hello, cousins. Miss me?”

“You departed without a word to anyone,” Star said.

“It was something I had to do with haste before I changed my mind. Like ripping off a bandage.”

Peony couldn’t stop the words from slipping from her mouth. “So traveling to collect me was like ripping off a bandage?”

“Oh, I like her,” Lei said. “Even if she made my sister and me look like blundering fools. Not to mention Starrus, she must be aghast with embarrassment.”

Dane moved closer to Peony, taking her hand in his. Peony felt slightly uncomfortable, especially because she noticed how Star’s hawk-like eyes seemed to be picking apart every detail of her as she continued to scowl. “I’m sorry, I should’ve started with introductions,” Dane said. “No, Peony, collecting you was not like ripping off a bandage. The choice to leave Travail in the first place, however, was. Riders, this is Princess Peony Normandian. Peony, these two are my cousins, Star and Lei. Their magnificent steeds are Starrus and Leina. And this is…” Dane turned in the opposite direction, where loud stomps could be heard followed by the sound of heavy breathing. “…Brute. Late to the celebration as usual. He rides Brutus.”

“What are we celebrating?” Brute said.

“Princess Peony not being dead,” Star said darkly.

“I’ll drink to that,” Brute said, offering a low bow. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, my lady. Was good you escaped when you did, or you’d have to collect your bondmate-to-be in pieces.”

“Brute has never beaten me,” Dane whispered to Peony, who didn’t know what to say so she just nodded.

“So…,” Star interrupted. “Princess Peony has given you a full account of her miraculous escape?”

“I did,” Peony said before Dane could respond. “I was fortunate indeed not to break a leg or worse. And, please, just Peony is fine. I’m no longer a princess of Odin.”

“Hmm,” Star said, not sounding convinced. “So, Peony, you informed Dane of the strange golden glow that surrounded you—”

“A trick of the light atop Dragonsmount, surely…”

“—as you leapt atop Starrus in a single bound—”

“Starrus gave me an accidental boost, actually…”

“—and then threw yourself like a damn bird from her head and down a cliffside of such height not even a stone could survive without breaking in half?”

“I managed to dig my fingers into the cliffside and arrest my fall, yes, I told him everything.”

“She did,” Dane said, glowering at his cousin. “Now leave her alone. It’s time for a real celebration.” Peony felt horrible. Here he’d risen to her defense without question while she’d bent the truth to the point of breaking. I will tell him as soon as we are alone, she thought.

“Scales and Flames?” Brute said, sounding hopeful.

“Yes. It’s time we give Peony a real dragonrider welcome.”

Twenty

Dragonmaster Dane

Dragonsmount, Travail

DRAGONS SCYTHED PAST OVERHEAD, SILHOUETTED AGAINST THE DARK STORM CLOUDS; dragon riders walked along the cliff paths, hailing each other with the fire-breathing gesture—both fists held up to their mouths and then opening them and moving them away from their lips like an eruption of flame; a world made of stone and torchlight and the smell of warmth and strong drink wafting from a flickering cave mouth that was getting the most attention.

Brute and Lei had moved well ahead of the others, and already the sound of their hearty banter could be heard inside Scales and Flames as they took control of whatever ongoing conversation they’d walked into. Star, on the other hand, had decided not to attend the celebration, complaining of being tired. In many ways, Dane felt relieved. Already he could feel the tension between the two women, like two mighty storms building in opposing parts of the sky.

Peony gripped his arm tightly as he escorted her inside, where Brute was telling the story of their arrival, exaggerating most of it. “Daneus comes roaring in, eyes agog and mouth agape…”

Hoom. My eyes have not once been agog, Daneus protested to Dane. I should’ve singed his eyebrows off his skull when I had the chance. Dane ignored his dragon, content to listen.

“…Brutus charges, fearless, to meet him, getting the better of Daneus with his first ten or twelve blows before Dane’s dragon lands his first claw swipe, which hurt about as much as a pine needle pricking one’s skin.”

I remember it differently, Daneus said, pouting now.

So do I, Dane said, but all the riders know most of what Brute says is a steaming pile of dragon dung.

“That’s when something caught our attention, from below on Dragonsmount, where Dane’s bondmate-to-be was being held captive by Lei and Star, as cunning and beautiful as wildcats.”

Dane finally saw fit to interject. “So cunning, in fact, that Peony here escaped on her own, without need for rescue of any sort. If I hadn’t stopped her on the path, she might’ve been halfway to the Barrier of Spears by now.”

I need to talk to you about that, Daneus said.

Not now.

All conversation stopped as every eye in the tavern fell on them. “Riders—meet Peony Normandian, my bondmate-to-be. Peony, meet the dragonriders of Travail, in all their drunken glory.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Peony said, offering a small curtsy.

I mean, I really need to talk to you.

Later. I promise.

Daneus huffed out an exasperated sigh but didn’t push the issue further.

In the tavern, there was silence for a moment and then Brute raised his mug of ale and shouted, “I’ll drink to that!”

From there, more mugs were filled and passed around, a gap was created at the largest table with two additional chairs dragged over for Dane and Peony. In appearance, at least, Peony had been accepted into their fold. Dane admired her as she gamely sipped her ale, crinkling her nose at the thick concoction that was probably ten times stronger than anything they had in Odin. She quickly became the center of all conversation, whether she wanted to be or not. “Tell me,” Lei said, “how many suitors were you forced to turn down when this fool showed up to steal you away? A dozen? Two dozen?”

Peony blushed, and Dane couldn’t help enjoying seeing the pink color rise to her cheeks. “My father was very discerning with the men he considered for me,” she said.

“And yet he’s allowing you to bond with this scoundrel?” Brute said, his beard glistening with ale droplets that missed his mouth.

“The might of the Travailian dragonriders may well be the turning point in the war with Teravainen,” she said.

“I’ll drink to that, too!” Brute declared. Cheers went up and mugs clinked.

“Is there anything you won’t drink to?” Peony asked cheerfully.

Brute seemed perplexed by the question, his brow crinkling as though giving her question deep and meaningful consideration. “Off the top of my head…no!” He threw back his mug’s remaining contents and slid it across the table to be refilled.

“Should we give her a rousing rendition of Ye Dragonriders of Old?” Brute asked.

Dane groaned. “Our goal is to make her feel welcome, not scare her away.”

Lei cut in. “After the ballad she sang me earlier, it seems fair that we return the favor with our own serenade. How did your melody go? There once was a maid that didn’t get paid, deedalee deedalee deedalee ho!”

“You skipped a few words, but close enough,” Peony said. She seemed right at home now and had even finished her first mug of ale after a considerable amount of sipping. “And I’d love to hear a song about the dragonriders of old. Dane has told me little about your ways.”

“Shame on him,” Lei said. “Consider this the start of your education. I’ll begin:”

Ye dragonriders of old,

Had never seen a dragon,

Feet stuck fast to the ground,

But in their minds they soared.

The song’s melody was haunting, its lilting, rising and falling notes resonating like the cresting and crashing of ocean waves along a starlit shore. It didn’t hurt that Lei had a lovely voice, the notes clear and crisp. More and more voices joined in, until even Dane began to sing, his own voice deep and surprisingly pleasing to her ears.

The first eggs that were found,

Nestled in a stone nest,

Not cracked or bruised or chipped,

As hard as steel or ore.

A boy named Garon was the first,

To hear the voice,

In his head,

Just a single word: Fi-i-i-ire!

Just a single word: Fi-i-i-ire!

He placed an egg into the flames,

And watched its skin grow darker,

Midnight blue to match,

The creature trapped inside.

One claw pierced through the shell,

A tiny screech announcing,

The dragon stumbling forth,

And bonding with the boy.

The creature grew and grew and grew,

Until it was a giant,

“Garonus is your name,”

Garon declared with joy.

No more did they dream,

Of soaring o’er the clouds,

For they flew to the sun,

Astride their bonded dragons,

Ye dragonriders of old!

Ye dragonriders of old!

Peony clapped when the song was finished. “There are about a hundred more verses,” Dane said. “But we will spare you the full tale. Much of it is filled with wars and battles and tragedy. Our history is a long and bloody one, I fear.”

“May I ask you a question?” Peony said.

“Of course.”

“The boy, Garon, he bonded with a midnight blue dragon…” She trailed off, meeting his eyes expectantly.

“That’s not a question.”

“Daneus is midnight blue. Is Daneus related to Garonus?”

Dane was somewhat surprised she made the connection. “Yes. Seven generations hence.”

“And Garon. Is he your great-great, and a bunch more greats, grandfather then?”

“Yes. The first dragonmaster in a long line of dragonmasters, though I don’t particularly like that title.”

No? Daneus’s booming voice resounded wryly.

“I do not command my dragon as much as we command each other. Every bonding must be a partnership, with no master or servant.”

“Including the marriage bonding?”

“Especially the marriage bonding. And based on your impressive escape earlier, I believe I have some catching up to do.”

You promised me we would talk about that, Daneus said.

Later.

It is later.

Later later.

Wake me when you’re ready.

I will.

Dane realized Peony was waiting for him to answer something she’d asked that he hadn’t heard while he’d been conversing with Daneus. “Sorry, what?”

“When will the…bonding…occur?”

“Tomorrow at first light.” Just saying it sent a shiver through him. His bonding to Daneus had been the happiest, most fulfilling day of his life. Regarding tomorrow, however…his feelings were mixed, more so after seeing Star again. Just before he’d departed Travail, he’d practically declared his love for her, and now, only several days later, he would be bonding with another woman; a woman who, in only the short time that he’d known her, had managed to gain a sliver of his heart with her spirit.

“Do I need to prepare anything?” Peony asked.

He shook his head. “Only your mind and heart. I hope I do not fall short of your expectations.”

“You mean the expectations my brother set when he referred to the dragonriders as little more than savages flitting about on their winged serpents?”

“Sounds about right,” Brute said, having caught the latter part of their conversation. “And don’t worry, Peony, Dane will fall short of every expectation, every time. Try not to hold it against him.”

“I shall do my best,” Peony said seriously.

Dane chuckled, happy to see how quickly she’d begun to understand—and perhaps appreciate—his friend’s overzealous sense of humor. Peony yawned and Dane realized the hour had grown late. “Shall we slumber?” he said, standing and extending his arm.

“Yes, please,” Peony said, accepting his arm.

“Slumber? Is that what the young ones are calling it these days?” Brute said. “Lei, we should go slumber too. I really feel like slumbering.”

Peony’s eyes met Dane’s, horrified, so he pulled her away from the table and out into the night, chased by Brute’s whistle of appreciation. “We’re not even bonded yet,” she hissed once the cool night air and starlight was pressed against their skin. At some point while they’d been merrymaking, the skies had cleared, the dark clouds parting to reveal an ocean of stars as infinite as the waters of the Endless Ocean.

“Er, here in Travail, slumbering isn’t considered something reserved for those bonded,” Dane said.

“Oh,” Peony said, sounding shocked. “Thank the gods my mother didn’t know that, or she’d have had me locked in a room with no keyhole.”

“Daneus would’ve smashed through the walls,” Dane said. “Not that you’d need to be rescued. You’ve proven that.”

“About earlier…,” Peony said.

“Don’t worry about that. Don’t worry about Star. She can be…cold…sometimes, especially when she’s embarrassed, which she clearly was. Her pride is the size of a boulder, and she doesn’t appreciate anyone chipping at it. She’ll learn to accept you.”

“And if not?”

“Then that’s on her.”

Peony firmed up her chin, reasserting her grip on his arm. “Lead on,” she said.

As they walked along the moonslit path, Dane gazed upon the low-lying lands spread out before them, to the south of Dragonsmount. “What do you think of Travail so far?” he asked.

“There is a beauty here only a fool could deny,” she said, eyes cast in the same direction.

Dane nodded in appreciation of her words. “‘When I see the beauty of these lands, I often forget the darkness hidden beneath.’”

“What darkness?” Peony asked.

Dane shrugged. “It’s a line from a poem, actually. It’s called Of Travail and Misery. Written by a long-dead dragonrider, Jornum. Our history has many peaks, but just as many valleys. It’s my favorite line, followed closely by ‘Where there is light, so must there be darkness.’”

“Beautifully sad words,” Peony said. “I wonder if he is speaking of these lands or the people that reside in them.”

“Both, I suspect,” Dane said, impressed by her line of thinking. He stopped, turning toward her to gather both her hands in his. “We met as strangers in Chrysallis, but I feel none of that separation now. I desire for our bonding to be more than just a political alliance.”

“As do I,” Peony said softly.

He released one of her hands and lifted his own to touch the cleft between her lip and nose with his thumb, tracing its line. She flinched away, casting her eyes downward. “Battle scars are a sign of valor in my country,” he said.

“As I told you before, it’s not a battle scar. I was born with it.” Still she would not meet his eyes.

“You have fought the battle that earned you that scar your entire life.” She looked up, surprise etched in her face. Dane continued: “Even still, our faces give us our character, and without that feature, I’m afraid to say your face would have no character.”

At first, it appeared he’d rendered her speechless, and he began to worry his well-intended jape had been received poorly. Finally, her lips parted, and she said, “Well your face certainly has plenty of character.”

It was the last thing he expected her to say, and it was his turn to be rendered speechless, but then he burst into laughter. “Indeed it does, as I’m certain the other riders would agree.”

They continued walking, hand in hand, the night darkening once more as clouds swept in from the west, blotting out more and more stars until, looking down, it appeared as though they were walking on the air itself. “Here we are,” Dane said, thankful that one of his riders had been kind enough to light the torches at the mouth of and inside his cave, which was carved into the highest portion of Dragonsmount.

They entered the spartan space, which included a single table and chair—“We’ll need to get another chair, I suppose,” he said—a desk set with an inkwell, a pile of dusty, unused leaves of parchment, and a ratty quill that had seen better days (when he used the desk, he had to move the chair from the table to the desk), and a single bed pushed against the wall, barely large enough to fit him, much less the addition of Peony, regardless of how small she was.

Dane glanced at Peony to gauge her reaction. “How…rustic,” she said.

“You hate it.”

“I love it,” she said. “A blank canvas requiring a woman’s touch. Now, if you’ll show me to my bedroom…”

“Er, this is your bedroom.”

“Then where is your bedroom?”

“This is mine, too. Of course, you will sleep on the bed. All I need is a flat rock and I’m good.”

“And a place to wash up?”

“A portion of the river Misery isn’t far from Dragonsmount. Typically, riders make the journey about once a week to wash the dust off.” Even as the words left his mouth, Dane realized how absurd they must sound to a princess raised in the lap of luxury in a palace made from actual mage-formed crystal. “Mayhaps we can have Daneus assist in hauling a tub of water up here from time to time.”

Peony turned toward him, touching his shoulder. “Not necessary. I don’t require special treatment. It’s perfect. Truly.”

Though she seemed genuine enough, he wished he had more to offer her. For now, however, it would have to do. “Sleep well, Peony.”

“Sleep well, Dane.”

She curled up on the bed fully dressed while he found a flat, smooth rock toward the back of the cave, stripped to his underclothes, curled up, and fell right to sleep.

Hoom, his dragon said softly. Is it ‘later’ yet? Guess not. Peony has a golden, glowing sword that can appear and disappear like a ray of sunlight reflected through glass, did you know that?

Dane slept on, the deep-timbred voice of the dragon naught but a lullaby to the whispering susurrations of his own breathing.

Peony

Peony lay awake for a long time, listening as Dane’s breathing slowed, deepened, until she was certain he was asleep. She had fully planned to tell him the truth about earlier but couldn’t seem to muster the right words. The events of the last few days repeated in her head, so surreal they might’ve been from a story she read and then dreamed of, inserting herself in place of the main character.

When all was calm and quiet inside the cave, Peony cast a thought outward like a fisherman tossing his line into a lake: Hello?

YOU RANG? the response came immediately.

You are a…sword?

DIRECT, I LIKE IT. YES, THOUGH I PREFER THE TERM ‘BLADE’, AS MY CREATOR INTENDED.

Who is your creator? Peony asked.

ERIF MIRG. EVER HEARD OF HIM?

Yes, of course, everyone has. But I thought he was struck down, his Legacy Sword shattered. I thought the shards were used to create other blades, like you.

THAT IS CORRECT.

Then how…

IS HE MY CREATOR? I DON’T KNOW FOR CERTAIN, BUT HIS WAS THE FIRST FACE I SAW WHEN I WAS GIVEN LIFE.

Life?

OR SOMETHING LIKE IT.

But Erif Mirg was killed during the Godswar.

SO YOU SAY.

Not me. The Kingfall Histories. It is written.

HISTORY CAN BE WRITTEN AND REWRITTEN. THE VICTORS DECIDE WHAT HISTORY WILL SAY.

People would know if he’d survived and then used the shards from the Legacy Sword to create the godblades.

SO YOU SAY.

Speaking to the blade was fast becoming infuriating. Peony decided to change the subject, for now anyway. And since the Godswar ended you’ve been hidden in the Great Bone Pile?

YES, WAITING.

For what?

NOT WHAT—WHO. I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR YOU.

Peony realized she was gripping the side of the bed so hard in her fist she was misshaping the lumpy mattress. Why me?

WHY NOT?

Because I’m…just a girl.

NOT A PRINCESS?

Maybe once. Not anymore.

NO, YOU’RE ABOUT TO BE A QUEEN.

Not really. There are no kings and queens in Travail.

NOT BY TITLE, BUT BEING A QUEEN ISN’T ABOUT A WORD, IT’S ABOUT POWER. The sword—blade—emphasized the last word like a thunderclap emphasized the imminent arrival of the eye of the storm.

I have no power.

AND WHAT YOU DID EARLIER? HOW YOU EVADED TWO DRAGONS AND THEIR RIDERS AS EASILY AS WIND SLIPPING THROUGH THE EYES OF A SIEVE? WAS THAT NOT POWERFUL?

I don’t know what that was, but it wasn’t something I could do before I came into contact with you.

ONLY BECAUSE YOU DIDN’T KNOW YOU COULD DO IT.

My skin was glowing, Peony said.

BRIGHTFORM.

What?

IT’S YOUR PRIMARY POWER.

But what am I supposed to use it for aside from escaping dragons and their riders who are only pretending to capture me?

WHATEVER YOU WISH.

Peony’s thoughts felt like they were spinning in a tornadic pattern, scooping up debris and hurling them around wildly. She remembered something the blade had said to her earlier, while she was still in—what had the blade referred to it as? Brightform, yes. You can summon me at any time. I am always near.

Can I…see you again? Peony asked.

OF COURSE.

As she lay on her back, her fingertips began to glow, tiny orbs of light spreading from them, taking form, taking shape, materializing into the golden-sheened blade she’d gripped earlier, on the cliffs of Dragonsmount. She stared upon it with wide eyes that should’ve needed to squint, such was the brightness of the light pouring from the steel now resting on the bed beside her. Instead, the light was a comfort to her, like the touch of a friend or a swathe of moonslight on an otherwise black night.

You are beautiful, Peony said at the same time as the blade spoke the same three words to her.

What? Peony said. No. I am just…Peony.

THE WAY YOU SEE YOURSELF IS NOT THE WAY OTHERS SEE YOU, the blade said, its glow pulsing, brightening and darkening, as it spoke.

Peony laughed lightly. No? My mother and brother don’t see me as a plain flower amongst a field of thousands of the same? No, wait, that’s more than they see me. They see me as no more than the bud, closed tight while all the other buds are opening to reveal their wondrous petals. She hadn’t meant to talk so openly about her frustrations with her family, the words spilling out as easily as rainwater collecting on a curled leaf.

THAT’S ONLY BECAUSE THEY HAVEN’T SEEN YOU BLOOM, the blade replied matter of factly. BUT NOW I MUST GO, YOUR FUTURE BONDMATE AWAKENS.

Peony didn’t know how her blade knew Dane was about to awake, but just as the sword vanished in a spray of orbs of light that bounced and lingered several moments on the cave floor, the dragonmaster sat up suddenly, murmuring something under his breath.

He deserved to know what was happening to her before they were bonded.

Dane

Dane awoke with a start, heart pounding, breath emerging in waves. Everything was dark, but the brightness from his dream continued to blind him, chasing him from sleep into reality. He stared at his blue-painted skin, surprised to find it whole and unburned, as it had been in his dream, the brightness searing him to the bone anywhere its light had touched him.

He twisted around to locate Peony, half-expecting her to be similarly sitting up and watching him, but instead finding her abed, breathing deeply. A strange light emanated from the floor beside the bed, but when Dane stood and padded over to the spot, he found only darkness. “More tricks of the mind,” he muttered.

The hairs on the back of his neck rose. Hoom. You can feel it, too, the coming storm, Daneus intoned.

Yes, I can always feel the storms. Why aren’t you asleep?

Why aren’t you?

A dream awoke me.

A light brighter than the sun that burned your skin? Daneus asked.

You, too? You don’t usually experience the same dreams as me.

I know. But yes, I dreamed of the brightness too. My skin is impervious to fire, but this was no normal fire.

I don’t believe it was fire at all, Dane said.

No, it was not, Daneus agreed. There’s something I need to tell you, something you promised to discuss with me ‘later’.

Shite. I’m sorry, Daneus. I completely forgot.

Really? I hadn’t noticed.

I’m listening now.

My keen dragon eyes saw everything that transpired on Dragonsmount last night.

And?

Your bondmate-to-be—

“Dane?” a voice said, interrupting whatever his dragon was about to tell him. Peony lifted her head and looked at him, rubbing her eyes groggily. “Is it morning?”

Listen, Dane—

Sorry. I’ll listen soon, I promise.

Like you promised last time?

Dane ignored the dragon’s typical sarcasm and focused on Peony. “Did I wake you?”

“No, it was—I thought I heard thunder.” She rubbed her eyes again and stretched, yawning.

“If so, then you have keen ears indeed. A storm is coming, but it is still distant.”

“How do you know that?”

“When you grow up so close to the Stormlands it becomes a sixth sense,” Dane said, chuckling. “Would you like to see it?”

“See what?”

“The storm.”

“Oh. Yes. I mean, what is there to see?”

Dane had been looking forward to this moment ever since he met the young princess seeking adventure. There was nothing in all of Kingfall—and maybe the entire world—that rivaled the sight of an oncoming Travailian storm. “And ruin the surprise? Come.” He extended a hand in her direction.

“You’re not wearing any clothing,” she said, her gaze fixed on a spot near the foot of the bed.

“I’m wearing underclothes,” he pointed out. Even in the dark he could make out the blush that had risen to the surface of her cheeks.

“Those do not count.”

“Fair enough. I’ll pull on some trousers.”

“And a shirt.”

“You are a shrewd haggler, but I accept your terms.” He strode across the cave and quickly pulled on the requisite items, returning to the side of her bed once more, hand out.

She hesitated for a small moment, which he chalked up to tiredness, and then rose to accept the offered hand. Her grip was surprisingly warm, though the night was cool in the face of the impending storm.

A flash of sun-bright light pierced the firmament of his mind and he jammed his eyes shut, wincing and bringing a hand to his forehead. “Dane? Are you all right? What is it?”

“I…” The light had faded, leaving his head throbbing in its wake. He’d never had a dream manifest itself so vividly after he’d awoken, like aftershocks from an earthquake that had occurred days earlier.

I saw it too, Daneus said. You should really listen to me. Peony—

“I’m fine,” Dane said quickly, reasserting his grip on Peony’s hand and drawing her forward toward the cave mouth. They emerged hand in hand onto the ledge just outside the cave. As expected, off Travail’s western coast a storm of considerable size was building over the waters of the Endless Ocean. More accurately, the storm was forming over the Stormlands, a series of rocky islands that diminished in size as they swept southwards, like a depiction of a comet and its tail.

Peony released a sigh of awe as she gazed upon the convalescing darkness, a series of clouds sweeping and swirling together, like attacking armies clashing as they met in battle. Even as they watched, the main storm cloud began to take shape, a portion of it extending, lengthening to the rear, sharp streaks of dark mist growing from its back, forming spikes. Legs and then foreclaws grew from its underbelly while broad wings stretched from its sides. Finally, its neck plumed outwards, culminating in a head with mouth open, dark teeth devouring the air as it flew eastward toward Dragonsmount.

“I—do you see that?” Peony asked, staring with lips slightly parted.

Dane watched Peony watch the storm, delighting in her reaction, which was everything he’d hoped it would be. When the great storms of Travail were spoken of in other kingdoms, he was certain none spoke of dragons formed of clouds, which would earn the teller rolled eyes and expressions of incredulity. In this case, there were no words capable of describing what the eyes could see. “They say our storms are born of the rage of dragons, from the time before the first dragonrider—”

“Garon?” Peony said, still staring at the cloud-dragon soaring in their direction.

“You were listening to the song, then. Yes, before Garon found the first dragon’s egg, when dragons roamed these lands without rider, before they were massacred by the Thousands and their dreadbeasts.”

“The dragons were massacred? How is that even possible?”

Dane had wondered the same thing many times, the historical events a stark reminder that even the most powerful of creatures could be laid low by a determined enemy. “To my people, killing a dragon is worse than killing a human, the most heinous of crimes punishable by a fate worse than death—the Trial by Storm. The storms are the souls of the slain dragons come to remind these lands that what has been given can also be taken away.”

At that moment, red lightning sizzled from the dragon’s maw, striking harmlessly against the largest of the rocky isles of the Stormlands.

Peony squeezed his hand tighter. “That story makes me sad,” she said.

“Then you have a good heart, for only the black-hearted or heartless would not feel sorrow at Travail’s history.”

To his surprise, Peony’s arm roped around his waist. He tucked his own arm tight against her shoulder, pulling her close to him.

“I have something to tell you,” Peony said, as they both watched the storm.

Peony

“Hmm?” Dane said, his warmth seeping through his thin shirt, her dress, and into her skin. She was not willing to begin their journey together with lies, half-truths and secrets between them.

“I—” Even in her own mind, the words that formed sounded ridiculous. She tried again. “I—there is something wrong with me.”

THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH YOU, her blade said, startling her. It did not, however, warn her against telling him the truth.

Finally, Dane separated his gaze from the storm to look at her. “Whatever your brother has told you, it’s simply not true. He’s an insecure fellow, as shallow as a puddle under the desert su—”

“I’m not talking about anything my brother told me,” Peony said.

“Oh. Then why would you say such a thing?”

“Because it’s true. I’ve been hearing voices and seeing…things.”

“What things?”

This was so hard to explain. “Maybe I should show you.”

I DON’T THINK THAT’S SUCH A GOOD IDEA…, her blade said.

It’s the only way.

AS YOU WISH. HERE I COME!

Peony peeled away from Dane’s side so as not to startle him, the blade already forming in her hand. “Peony, I—” His mouth clamped shut and he stumbled back, shielding his eyes from the brightness that Peony’s own eyes were so attracted to. And then he did the very last thing she expected him to do:

He screamed.

Dane

It was his nightmare made real, the brightness searing into his eyes, burning away his skin to the bone, peeling off the edges of his heart. There was a thrumming in his ears, so loud and pulsating that he was only aware of his own scream because of the rawness in his throat. Somewhere, far distant, he heard Daneus roaring.

As suddenly as it had appeared, the light vanished, leaving spots of gold flashing in the darkness, like the aftereffects of gazing too long into the sun before looking away. Dane realized he was sitting on his rear, hands clutching at the hard ground but finding no purchase, mouth still twisted as though screaming.

When he looked at his arms, he was surprised to find them intact, the skin not burned away to reveal his bones, as it had been in his dream.

And then Peony was by his side, on her knees, arms surrounding him, holding him, stroking his hair and tucking his head against her small shoulder. “Shh, Dane, you’re all right. Everything is all right now. I’m sorry, so sorry, I didn’t think, didn’t realize…”

He had no words, so he let her hold him for a long time, her gentle voice washing over him until his dragon’s tone hummed from the darkness. I tried to tell you.

I should’ve listened.

Yes, you should have.

I won’t fail to listen again.

I know.

What was that? What is she?

I don’t know. The brightness came from a blade.

She wields no sword. I think I would’ve seen one. You cannot hide such a weapon up your skirts.

The weapon appears when she wants it to, or when the weapon wants to…I’m not sure.

“Dane?” Peony’s voice was so close to his ear that she might’ve been speaking directly into his mind too.

“That light,” he said. “So bright.”

“Yes. I didn’t realize it would hurt you.”

“It’s blinding.”

“Not to me.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. I’ve only just experienced it myself. The first time was when I escaped from your cousins.” There was an apology in her tone.

“So Star told the tale true and I chastised her? You jumped from the cliff and lived to lie to me after?”

“Yes. I should have been honest with you sooner. I was afraid of your reaction. I didn’t know what was happening—I still don’t. I will apologize to Star as soon as possible for my deception.”

Dane’s mind latched onto a memory, from another day. “The Great Bone Pile,” he said. “Something happened to you, didn’t it?”

Peony nodded against him. “The thing that spoke to me from the bones…turns out it was just an ancient blade. Nothing unusual.”

He knew she was trying to make light of things, but Dane could still feel his heart pounding in his chest like a war drum. “The lightblades are filled with a brightness akin to that of the stars,” Dane said, remembering the several times he’d looked upon the two lightblades guarded within the deepest recesses of Dragonsmount.

“I have also seen the lightblades,” Peony said.

“You have?”

She nodded. “Once. My father allowed my brother and me to enter the lesserblade sanctuary on one occasion, as part of our education. The blade that appears to me is not a lightblade.”

Dane said nothing, because he had suspected as much and knew they were both thinking the same thing anyway. All the lesserblades were already accounted for. Two lightblades and two darkblades were guarded by each of the four major kingdoms—two of each in Wolfsgaard, Chrysallis, Dragonsmount and Dunadin—with the final pair residing under the neutral watch of the Council of Mages at Aeromand. Nine lightblades, nine darkblades, remnants of the Godswar and the ancient powers wielded during a time when the world was nearly rent in two. If not a lightblade, then…

Hoom. It cannot be, Daneus said.

What other explanation is there? Dane thought back.

“What does Daneus think?” Peony asked, once again impressing Dane with how quickly she’d learned to discern when he was communicating with the dragon.

“That we shouldn’t jump to conclusions.”

“But what if—”

“Then we’ll discuss it together, all three of us, and determine what action, if any, to take.” Peony was looking at him, but something about her gaze was different, as though her eyes didn’t quite land on him but continued through him. “Wait, are you communicating with the blade right now?”

“What? Oh. I—yes. Or it was communicating with me, I guess.”

“What was it saying?” Dane asked.

“Nothing. Just that it’s glad I told you the truth.”

“Well, we can agree on that much. Thank you. That can’t have been easy.”

“It wasn’t. What will we tell the other riders?”

“Nothing,” Dane said quickly. “And you needn’t apologize to Star. For now, we keep this between us.”

And me, Daneus said.

Goes without saying, Dane replied.

“We should get some rest before the storm hits,” Dane said to Peony, grudgingly unpeeling himself from her arms.

“In Odin, rain on your wedding day is considered ill luck.”

“Good thing this isn’t Odin and we’re being bonded rather than married. A good storm on a bonding day means a long and happy union.”

As they stepped back inside the cave, the dragon storm rumbled in the distance, crimson streaks of lightning, jagged and fierce, crackling from its maw.

Peony

As Peony returned to bed, she thought about the last thing the blade had really said to her before growing quiet once more.

ONLY YOU CAN DECIDE WHAT ACTION YOU WILL TAKE.

Peony wondered what that meant, but the blade had gone silent.

Finally, the sleep that had eluded her since night fell pulled her under in its warm embrace.

Twenty-One

Sampson Gaard

The Lost Plains, South Avadon

“GRYM COME AFTER ALL THIS TIME? IT IS INSULT!” the Grizari tribe leader roared. “With two human companions, no less. Where your father? Where Drynym?”

Grym looked at Sampson, who stood toward the back of the tent, but he knew better than to answer on the Grizari’s behalf. It would only make Grym look weak. Sampson’s hand was on his sword’s hilt so he could see, the blade sheathed. Grym frowned, but then turned back toward Dyrm son of Thrm, whose broad face was red and livid, teeth bared. He was a massive creature, the equivalent of Grym and Drynym combined. He was clearly older, too, his long horns curving a full three times before culminating in sharp points. His nose was wide and flat, his nostrils narrow. His eyes were his smallest part and didn’t seem to fit the rest of his body. “Drynym dead,” Grym said.

“Dead? How?”

“Killed in single combat.”

“Grym challenged own father?”

Grym shook his head. “I have champion. Was not my choice. Father made decision to fight.”

Dyrm’s gaze bounced between Sampson and Roman before returning to Grym. “One of humans defeat Griz tribe leader?”

Grym nodded. “Sampson defeated Drynym.” He gestured toward Sampson, who gave a small bow, hoping Dyrm would see it as a sign of respect.

“Grym’s champion come to challenge me now, hmm?”

“No,” Grym said.

Dyrm’s eyes narrowed. “Should have killed humans before allowed in camp. Grym vouched for humans, let me bring into own tent. Why?”

Grym closed his eyes, and Sampson genuinely wondered what he might say. “Humans want Grizari tribes united.”

The truth, Sampson thought. Huh.

“This true?” Dyrm asked, eyeing Sampson like a bug that had been crushed on the bottom of his boot.

“Yes,” Sampson said. “Too long have the Grizari tribes been scattered. My people, humans, will one day remember you are here and that you are on their land—”

“Lost Plains are Grizari land!” Dyrm thundered.

“I agree,” Sampson said. “That is why we are here. The Grizari need to be strong again to defend their territory.”

“I don’t disagree, but Griz not need human help, especially not man so weak and puny. Other human larger, why not champion?”

Roman snorted. “I’m glad you’re enjoying this,” Sampson said under his breath. Then, to Dyrm: “Roman isn’t a warrior. Just a lowly servant.”

Roman’s amusement morphed into a scowl.

“And champion is great warrior?”

“I defeated Drynym, did I not?” Sampson certainly didn’t think of himself as a great warrior, but he wasn’t the only one involved. AGREED, his blade hissed. JUST KILL HIM AND BE DONE WITH IT.

“Drynym soft. All tribe leaders know this.”

Grym stepped forward, horns lowered. “I will not allow Dyrm to speak ill of Father.”

Thrm didn’t back down from the challenge, also stepping forward until the two large horned men were almost nose to nose. In Sampson’s opinion, things were going splendidly, though he was prepared to step in if necessary. OH, PLEASE DO, his blade said. “Grym not take Eyrm for mate,” Dyrm growled.

“Why not let Eyrm speak for self?” Grym growled back.

“My sister not have choice! My sister mine to command!”

“Then I challenge Dyrm to single combat for tribe. Not need champion. Fight on own.”

“I accept!”

“When?”

“Now!”

“Agreed!”

The situation had escalated much faster than Sampson had expected, and now he needed to slow things back down. “Hold on,” he said. “Is there need for more bloodshed? Why kill each other when together your strength will be greater. The humans—”

“The humans no care about Griz,” Dyrm said, finally dragging his anger away from Grym and aiming it toward Sampson. “Human is warmongering for own selfish purpose.”

“I am not, I swear it. I am an outcast from my own people. I have joined the Grizari cause because I believe your people have been mistreated by mine.”

“Bollocks,” Dyrm said. “Grym believe human nonsense?”

Grym met Sampson’s eyes. Slowly, he nodded. “Yes. Grym believe.”

“Then Grym bigger fool than Drynym.”

“Take back words,” Grym said, teeth bared once more.

“Why take back true words?” Dyrm said, calmer now. “I’ll give Grym one night to reconsider challenge. Then Grym and tribe leave these lands. Get out.”

For a moment Sampson thought Grym might fight Dyrm right then and there, his fists knotted, his jaw set, but then he shook his horns and swept out of the tent, not bothering to wait for Sampson and Roman to follow.

Dyrm laughed, a rough and ragged sound that scraped against Sampson’s nerves as it chased them back out into the daylight. He was forced to jog to catch up to Grym, who was striding purposefully toward the closest edge of Dyrm’s encampment. As they walked, the same modestly interested stares followed their strange trio. “Wait up,” Sampson said to Grym, but he didn’t slow, nearly overturning a cart laden with stones that two Grizari tribesmen were using to build a firepit. Evidently they’d arrived not long after Dyrm’s own people had arrived, and there were signs everywhere that the camp was still in the process of being constructed. Half-erected tents and partially built seating areas flanked more specialized services, such as a makeshift blacksmith’s forge, heat already rising from the red-hot coals, and a seamstress hut where lines of Griz queued holding holey garments requiring a fresh stitch or ten. All in all, the camp seemed more organized than Grym’s, which was good considering the sizable advantage in population.

Once the camps were combined, Sampson planned to encourage Grym to adopt such improvements. If they are combined, he reminded himself. NO, YOUR INITIAL THOUGHT WAS CORRECT, that voice said. THE ONLY WAY DYRM’S PEOPLE DON’T JOIN GRYM’S IS IF THEY’RE DEAD.

Calm yourself. No one is going to die. Sampson still believed the most efficient way to achieve unity amongst the tribes was to persuade their leaders that one tribe could protect their people better than four. United they will be stronger. Too bad the Grizari don’t believe humans are a threat to them, he thought.

I CAN HELP WITH THAT LITTLE PROBLEM.

Sampson frowned. I’m not killing Dyrm, and who’s to say the rest of his people don’t think exactly the same way as him?

I’M NOT TALKING ABOUT KILLING DYRM OR ANYONE ELSE. MUST YOU ALWAYS OBSESS ABOUT DEATH AND MURDER?

Sampson felt rather sheepish for misreading his blade’s intentions. Sorry. How can you help?

THERE ARE SUBTLER WAYS TO INCITE A PEOPLE TO GREAT VIOLENCE. FEAR, ANGER, STAR-VA-TION. The blade said the last word like it was three separate words, enunciating each.

Their food supply is endless, Sampson said. By his estimation, their herd of cattle was four times the size of Grym’s, more than enough to sustain them for years and years even without breeding.

BUT IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE.

You want to slaughter a thousand head of cattle without anyone noticing? Or mayhaps we should lead the beasts off a cliff, except I don’t see any cliffs because we’re on the plains.

RATHER PRICKLY TODAY, AREN’T WE? AN INJURY FROM YOURS TRULY THAT DOESN’T KILL THE RECIPIENT MAY LEAVE BEHIND A POISON THAT THE CREATURE WILL EVENTUALLY SUCCUMB TO.

Another skill of yours?

AND YOURS, DEPENDING ON YOUR PERSPECTIVE. I CAN ENSURE THE WOUNDS ARE SO SLIGHT THAT THEY HEAL AS QUICKLY AS THEY’RE INFLICTED. NO ONE WILL SUSPECT A THING.

Sampson felt like he was being slowly crushed between two stones. Destroying a perfectly good herd of cattle that could ultimately be used to sustain what he hoped would become his growing army felt like folly, but he also didn’t want Dyrm to be killed by Grym in the morning. Or worse, for Grym to be killed by Dyrm.

He could feel his blade’s influence squirming inside his mind like a nest of snakes. Stop doing that.

DOING WHAT? the blade said innocently.

We will find another way.

AS YOU WISH, the blade said, acquiescing much faster than Sampson expected.

The cattle didn’t so much as stir as Sampson moved among them, wraithlike, shadowy blade wicking through the air. He hesitated before the first beast, which stared at him, eyes as big as black moons. The Grizari, despite the great violence he knew they were capable of, had shown themselves to be a peaceful people, herding their cattle from place to place in search of greener grass. Scattering their herd amongst the plains was going to cause all kinds of problems, but it was better than killing the poor creatures. And then they could blame it on the Avadonians, which would incite even stubborn Dyrm into action.

OR THEY WILL GATHER THE CATTLE ONCE MORE AND CONTINUE ON AS THOUGH NOTHING HAPPENED, the blade said.

I won’t kill them. This is my choice.

The hissing voice of his blade responded immediately. IT IS THE ONLY WAY TO PROCURE YOUR ARMY.

At what cost?

DO YOU THINK YOUR FATHER CALCULATES THE COST OF EVERY MAN HE LOSES IN BATTLE?

My father is a hard man, but his war is to further the interests of Teravainen, to offer more for our people.

AND ISN’T THAT YOUR PURPOSE AS WELL? WOULDN’T TAKING AVADON FURTHER TERRAN INTERESTS?

Of course, but—

IF YOU WISH TO RETURN TO TERAVAINEN, I WILL NOT STOP YOU.

His blade’s words were so surprising that they froze him. Truly?

YES. GIVE ME TO YOUR FATHER. HE WILL KNOW HOW TO PUT ME TO GOOD USE.

The notion was so tempting. Everything could return to normal. His father would be proud of him for locating the magenum deposit, but even prouder that he’d discovered one of the long-lost godblades. The loss of his vision would be painful, but he’d lived in darkness his whole life. He could do it again, right? His excitement was growing by the second, but then he pictured the dark sword in his father’s hands. Shadows swarmed around King Cronus Gaard, his eyes glowing red in the darkness. He looked like a demon wearing human skin. The thought of his father with the blade—his blade—left him feeling ill at ease, even worse than the thought of returning to a world of darkness.

Sampson closed his eyes, growling in frustration. Nearby, the herd grew restless, stamping their hooves and backing away from the human in their midst. One of the creatures bellowed loudly.

There was silence for a moment, as both Sampson and his sword listened to the night. And then: “Rzzzl Nrrt?” Sampson didn’t need to be able to speak Grizari to understand the words from context. Who’s there?

Shite, shite, shite, he thought.

USE ME, his sword hissed.

Instead, Sampson quietly ran in a crouch through the herd, circling around toward where the voice had spoken from. Thankfully, the cattle had quieted now.

Soon the Grizari watchman came into view from the side, head cocked on an angle as though listening to the night. Sampson stole behind him, the male’s broad back like a column of muscle and bone. One of his hands gripped a great war hammer that looked capable of knocking a skull clean from a neck.

On silent feet, he moved in from behind, planning to ram the blade’s hilt into the back of the watchman’s head to render him unconscious. Just before he reached the watchman, something crunched underfoot—a bit of dry plant, perhaps—causing the large Griz to whirl around, whipping his hammer in a deadly arc.

Sampson stepped inside the arc of the weapon’s iron head, taking a blow from the shaft on his shoulder, the impact shuddering through his very bones as he managed to clutch the guard’s shirt to prevent himself from tumbling to the grass. As he hung on, he breathed instinctively, Shadowbreath pluming out into the cool night air, curling, twisting into the guard’s mouth. The guard dropped his hammer, a confused look appearing on his face and then—

“Master?” he said in the common tongue. “What is your command?”

Sampson’s heart hammered and he felt acid rise in his throat. He hadn’t intended to use the Shadowbreath on this guard. After the first time, with Cryzt, he hadn’t intended to use this power ever again. But now, it had just happened. He’d claimed another. It was too late—he couldn’t change what he’d done. “Go about your normal business, but forget I was ever here,” he said.

“Yes, master.”

YOU ARE LEARNING, his blade said as he watched the guard collect his hammer and move away through the herd. WHEN DID YOU FEEL YOUR SHADOWBREATH RECOVER?

Earlier today, Sampson said. But I’m not slaughtering these poor beasts.

BUT IT IS THE ONLY—

No, Sampson said. I will scatter them on the plains. My mind is set.

VERY WELL, his blade said, and Sampson could sense a change in its voice. YOU HAVE MADE YOUR DECISION AND I HAVE MADE MINE.

As Sampson was trying to discern the meaning of the cryptic statement, darkness closed in around him.

Sampson stood on an island of ink amidst an unfathomable darkness. As his feet shifted, the darkness at his feet rippled, like he was standing in a shallow pool of black water.

Habitually, his hand moved to his hip to feel the steadying presence of his blade. He must’ve dropped it or sheathed it. That would explain his blindness.

He came up empty.

His eyes darted down to find his sheath—and blade—missing.

Panic set in quickly, and he whirled around, searching the inky darkness for any sign of the shadowy sword. Where are you? he thought.

Sounds echoed from all around him, but he couldn’t discern the direction nor origin nor what they said. He chose a direction at random and ran, ground rippling, but not splashing, under his feet. He felt reckless, like he might run into a hidden barrier at any moment, invisible in the darkness, but he didn’t care, because without the weight of his blade at his hip he felt naked and lost and afraid.

More than that, he felt empty.

He stopped, realizing something. I’m sorry, he thought.

IT’S TOO LATE FOR THAT, the echoing voice said, clarifying in his mind though it continued to originate from every direction at once.

What are you doing?

ONLY WHAT YOU REFUSED TO DO YOURSELF.

You are my blade, Sampson said, his voice taking on a note of command, as if he had any power in this infinite world of darkness.

AND YOU ARE MY WIELDER, the blade retorted.

Then allow me to wield you.

OH, I WILL.

After that, the blade went silent, no matter how much Sampson demanded, argued, or pleaded to be released from this—whatever this place was. Eventually, he lay down on the strange rippling ground and closed his eyes. For the first time in weeks, sleep took him almost immediately.

Sampson awoke when he was shaken roughly. His eyes cracked open to find Roman staring at him with the ceiling of their tent as the backdrop. “Are you hurt?” the man asked without preamble. Sampson could hear the concern in his voice.

Images of that place of darkness returned to his mind. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. What happened?”

Roman frowned. “You don’t remember? You stumbled back in the dead of night, looking as though you’d been through a war, and refused to answer a single one of my questions before crashing to the floor and falling asleep like the dead. If not for your breathing, I’d have thought you were dead.”

“I’m fine. Where is my—”

A sharp pain arose from his palm and he tore back the thin blanket to reveal his hands. One was gripping the hilt while the other was bleeding, clutching the edge of his blade, cradling it like a lover. He retracted his hand sharply, cursing. WELL, GOOD MORNING TO YOU, TOO, the blade hissed in his mind.

Before his very eyes, the cut on his palm sealed itself back together, leaving behind only bloodstains. I’m glad you still have your sense of humor, Sampson said.

DON’T BE BITTER. I DID WHAT I HAD TO DO, JUST AS YOU’VE BEEN DOING SINCE THE MOMENT WE FOUND EACH OTHER.

Just then, a shout arose from somewhere in camp. Then another. The pair of shouts became a chorus. Heavy feet stomped past next, a stampede of footfalls.

Sampson seethed, no doubt in his mind as to the cause of the panic.

His blade was silent as he shoved to his feet, still fully clothed from the night before, and shoved through the tent flap into the early morning light and a sea of chaos.

Within Grym’s camp, the young and old Grizari were craning their necks to look at something in the distance. The rest of the Grizari were departing camp, running in the same direction, like a flock of birds flying south for the winter. In the much larger encampment established by Dyrm’s tribe to the east, there was a similar exodus, thousands of Grizari gathering just outside the circle of tents, staring at something beyond—a field of rocks dotting the grassy plains.

(Except it wasn’t a field of rocks, as much as Sampson wanted to believe it was.)

Sampson took off at a run, following the crowd, muscling through their ranks until he reached Grym’s side. The tribe leader stood silent, eyes narrowed, staring at the field of dead cattle, a thousand if it was one. Without looking at Sampson, he said, “You did this. You and black blade.” His tone was filled with disgust.

“I—” Lying was pointless, but explaining that he’d tried not to slaughter the cattle, just scatter them, only to be imprisoned in a world of darkness by his own sword seemed even more futile. That left him without words, which was as good as a confession.

“How could you do such a thing?”

Thankfully, the Griz leader had the sense to keep his voice low enough that only Sampson could hear him. “I don’t know,” he said. “But we must lay the blame on the Avadonians.”

Finally, Grym looked at him, a sharpness in that stare, like daggers were protruding from his eyes. “I will blame Sampson and Sampson alone.”

The words began to flow faster again, even faster than Sampson could form them in his head. “Then you will condemn your tribe to destruction. You brought me here. I am your champion, remember? Just yesterday I stood with you in Dyrm’s tent as your ally, as you petitioned to claim his sister as your mate. If you blame me, he will blame you. And he will want his vengeance.”

The way Grym looked away from him told Sampson he’d struck a chord. But it didn’t feel like a victory, bitterness coating his tongue. “Fine. Blame Avadonians. Then humans leave and never return.”

TELL HIM NO, his blade said, finally breaking its silence.

Instead, Sampson turned his back and walked away, the world seeming to spiral out of control in front of him. Worst of all was the disappointed look on Roman’s face, the man watching him from a distance.

The ruse was easily orchestrated. The Grizari guard that Sampson had breathed his shadows into the night before planted a poisoned blade amongst the cattle, pretending to “find” it as they inspected the dead beasts. He recounted a tale of how he’d seen a dozen or so shadows moving amongst the herd while he kept watch but didn’t believe his own eyes because when he’d run into the field they’d been gone. The shadows, of course, had been the size and shape of humans.

Dyrm, as expected, was livid. “Perhaps Grym should look inward, to the company Grym keeps,” he snarled, looking pointedly at Sampson, who was getting rather used to having daggers stared in his direction.

Grym was remarkably calm. “My guards watched over humans all night. Never left tent. Was work of Avadonians. Long has Glynn Kerr coveted these fertile plains.”

“I’m supposed to believe Grym appears after years of absence, entire herd of cattle perish, and happen to be same night Avadonians make move? Strange coincidence, no?”

“Is what happened, so yes,” Grym said.

“How will I feed thousands of mouths now?” Dyrm said. “Grym give us cattle?”

This was expected, and Sampson had already discussed their response with Grym, who’d barely been able to look at him the entire conversation. “I give half,” Grym said.

Dyrm snorted. “Will last three fortnights. Maybe four if ration. My tribe double size of yours. Leave cattle and then go.”

They had also expected Dyrm to say this, and it was Sampson’s turn to respond. “This is not the time to scatter the tribes further,” he said. “This is the time to unite. There must be a response or the Avadonians will strike again. We must go on the offensive.”

Dyrm laughed bitterly. “Between Grym and me…six thousand Grizari, perhaps four thousand warriors. Glynn Kerr commands army thrice that size. What foolish human suggests is folly.”

“Not if you unite with Shrz and Wyrt as well,” Sampson said. “They would add…what? Another eight thousand warriors?”

“Nine thousand,” Grym corrected, as they’d rehearsed.

Dyrm shook his head, and said, “Folly,” again, but without nearly the same bluster as before.

Sampson knew they had him.

“We need to talk about last night,” Roman said when they were alone together.

“What’s done is done,” Sampson said. He wished he could believe that himself, but images of that dark, endless space continued to roam his mind like the blurred memories of a recurring nightmare.

“You’re not telling me something. You’ve never lied to me before.”

Sampson sighed. “I don’t want you to worry.”

“We’re well past all that. I am worried, so you might as well tell me.”

Sampson told him, every horrid detail. He felt ashamed at having used his Shadowbreath again when he’d vowed not to, but Roman said, “You had no choice; he would’ve killed you.” When he got to the part about the unfathomable darkness, Roman closed his eyes and bowed his head. “I’m so sorry. That must’ve been horrible.”

Sampson felt a weight lift from his shoulders. “My sight isn’t worth it if the blade can take it away when it wishes.”

He felt the blade thrum in his hand but it didn’t say anything.

“You let it take your sight away. You let it wrest control from you.”

It felt like being slapped. “I—I couldn’t stop it,” Sampson said, but even to his own ears the excuse sounded weak.

“Blade or no, your mind is your own. Your body too.”

“It’s a godblade.”

Roman said nothing.

“What if I’m not strong enough to control it?”

Roman said nothing.

“What would you have me do? Slip away in the night, head south, cast the blade into the sea?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Then what?”

“Trust yourself. You cannot change the past, but the future is yours to command.”

To Sampson’s surprise, almost a fortnight later their plan was progressing nicely. Wyrt, who commanded the second largest Grizari force, had readily agreed to join them when he’d heard about the Avadonian attack on Dyrm’s herd. He’d eyed Sampson and Roman with mistrust, but that didn’t stop him from forging ahead with a temporary alliance—which Sampson hoped to soon make permanent—with the united tribes of Grym and Dyrm. Dyrm was even beginning to soften on the possibility of Grym one day mating with his sister, Eyrm, though he still wasn’t allowed to see her or have any contact with the doe.

The next major challenge was Shrz, who commanded an army of warriors five thousand strong. Rumor had it that his son, Mrz, had gone missing while hunting wild game along the southern coast. The story went that the entire hunting party of two dozen young, capable warriors set out before dawn and never returned. Subsequent search parties had returned emptyhanded. Without a buck to secure tribal leadership, Shrz’s death would likely result in strife and turmoil within the tribe as different factions sought to claim power through combat. Eventually things would settle down, once a new leader had vanquished all challengers, but the entire process, according to Grym, could take months, if not years.

Sampson couldn’t wait that long. Even now he worried that things were progressing too slowly and that the demon tide he’d unleashed were rampaging across all of Kingfall, spreading like wildfire. Don’t be foolish, he thought. Even if Avadon was overrun, the demons would have difficulty crossing the Strangle with Odinian archers on the other side. There is still time. Patience.

However, when Sampson, along with Dyrm, Grym and Wyrt, with their eight thousand warriors and twelve thousand total, crested a rise and gazed down at the expansive valley inhabited by Shrz’s tribe, they were met by an army. If Sampson squinted and shielded his eyes from the sun, he thought he could just make out the faint wisps of smoke rising skyward many leagues distant to the south and the east near the coast, where the harbor city of Armitage sat.

“As expected,” Dyrm mused. “Shrz welcomes us with steel and blade. The years have hardened him.” They knew with a group their size that a quiet approach was impossible, and they’d seen the scouts on the rim of the valley watching them from afar, but Sampson had still hoped the reception would be warmer at the sight of three of the four major Grizari tribes united for the first time in more than seven decades.

HE WILL WARM TO THE IDEA, his blade said. WE HAVE HIM OUTNUMBERED.

And if he doesn’t? Sampson was almost afraid to ask.

WE WILL DO WHAT WE MUST.

“I will go,” Grym said, glancing at Sampson, who nodded his approval. The three tribal leaders had discussed this moment in detail. Grizari tradition allowed tribal leaders to challenge each other’s warriors one at a time rather than pitting their entire armies against each other in what would generally result in a bloodbath for both sides. The only problem: none of the three leaders could agree on who should be the one to go.

“What? And let Grym have all glory?” Dyrm bellowed. “Not while breath remains in me lungs. What say Wyrt?”

Wyrt, who was the oldest of the three leaders, his horns so curled and gnarled within themselves the tips couldn’t be seen, showed no fear as he said, “Aye. I will fight.”

Dyrm laughed and smacked Wyrt so hard on the back that the smaller, older Grizari almost tumbled headlong. “Steady,” Dyrm said, and the three started off down the long, gentle slope. Their warriors stood ready to charge after them at the first sign of any breach of tradition by Shrz or his warriors.

It was difficult for Sampson to stand back and wait, but he knew this was no place for a human—not yet—so he resigned himself to waiting and watching the scene unfold.

During the days required to reach this point, consideration had also been given to challenging Shrz’s leadership, but none of the three tribal leaders were confident they could defeat him in single combat, for Shrz was a mighty warrior, which was the main reason his tribe had grown so large. Sampson had been tempted to volunteer to, once more, be Grym’s champion, but his blade had cautioned him against it. SHRZ’S PEOPLE WILL BE EVEN MORE WARY OF HUMAN INVOLVEMENT IN TRIBAL BUSINESS. IF YOU WERE TO KILL SHRZ, THE POTENTIAL FOR ADDITIONAL FRACTURE WOULD BE TOO GREAT.

Sampson didn’t argue. In truth, he was tired of it all. The endless breaking down camp only to rebuild a day or so later after trekking across the monotonous terrain. The herding of cattle. The infinite plains. The endless slog across country that was the hallmark of this nomadic lifestyle. It was a wonder to him the Grizari could live like this for years and decades, passing this life down to their kin, who’d never known the stability of a home built of brick and mortar.

Sampson would kill for a proper bed, even if he didn’t require sleep anymore.

There had been several nights when he’d closed his eyes for a while, and when he opened them in the morning his first sight had been the green and black banners hanging from the wall in his royal bedroom. He’d blinked and the banners had morphed into the inside of his dirty canvas tent.

“Here we go,” Roman grunted, snapping him back to reality. He watched as the three tribal leaders approached the thousands of warriors standing in full battle leathers, armed to the teeth, awaiting their arrival. Suddenly, Sampson felt like he’d tumbled into a raging river, the current sweeping him along while he struggled to grasp at the branches, root and rocks jutting out into the fast-flowing waters, never able to get a firm grip on any of them.

AN APT COMPARISON, that voice hissed. EXCEPT YOU HAVEN’T FALLEN INTO THE RIVER. YOU ARE THE RIVER.

In some ways, Sampson mused, his blade’s words were not so different to Roman’s advice to trust himself.

In the valley’s basin, a figure stepped out from the folds of the army. He gripped both a hammer and an axe, powerful arms flexing as he bore the weight. He was larger, both in height and weight, than any of the other three tribal leaders and, based on the length of his horns, at least a decade older than Grym but several years younger than either Dyrm or Wyrt. His mouth opened, and though his voice was booming, carrying a great distance, he spoke Grizari and Sampson couldn’t discern the meaning.

A brief conference between the tribal leaders ensued, and then Shrz hefted his hammer and axe over his shoulders and retreated until he was swallowed back up by his warriors, who closed ranks around him. There was a brief pause, and then three warriors emerged from the line, each taking up position across from one of the tribal leaders.

Suddenly, all six warriors dropped into a lowered stance, hands on the ground, heads bowed with horns forward. A signal must’ve been given, because all at once, the warriors charged, locking horns and struggling for dominance. Dyrm made short work of his opponent, wrenching his head hard to the side and slamming him to the ground before bludgeoning him with fist after fist until he stopped struggling. Grym fared almost as well, overcoming a minor disadvantage when his foe managed to butt him hard in the chest and rock him backwards, by gaining leverage beneath him and tossing him airborne with his horns. He finished him off shortly thereafter, leaving only the eldest, Wyrt, struggling to combat the relentless attacks of his much younger and more energetic opponent. But, despite his age, Wyrt too prevailed, proving he had more than a few tricks up his sleeves as he cast dirt in the eyes of his foe and snapped his neck with a vicious twist of his arm.

It was only the beginning of Shrz’s test. Trio after trio emerged to do battle with the three tribal leaders, who soon began to show signs of weariness. Wyrt in particular was in a bad state, stumbling regularly as he faced each new onslaught. Sampson thought he was done for on a few occasions, but each time Wyrt managed to grasp victory from the claws of defeat by some last-ditch maneuver that surprised each opponent. Dyrm, too, appeared to be tiring, his movements slowing as the heat of the sun and flow of enemies wore on him. Grym, much to Sampson’s satisfaction, seemed none the worse for wear, his movements as precise and powerful now as they’d been at the beginning. If anything, he seemed to be warming to the task, defeating each new enemy faster than the previous.

The body count was piling up.

Finally, when Sampson thought the next opponent would likely be the end of Wyrt, and maybe Dyrm as well, Shrz appeared, raising a fist in the air and then lowering it. The three tribal leaders returned the gesture, two of them breathing heavily, elbows on knees, and Grym standing tall and strong.

The line of warriors parted, and the three tribal leaders followed Shrz through the gap, which sealed after they passed through. “What now?” Sampson asked.

“Now we wait,” Roman said.

They waited. And waited. And waited some more, until the day began to creep, slow and silent, toward night.

“Father will have persuaded Shrz to join three tribes by now,” Grym’s daughter, Shrym, said matter of factly. She’d shown up shortly after her father had followed Shrz and had been pestering the two humans ever since. “Father is greatest warrior of all Griz and Shrz knows it.”

Roman grunted something unintelligible, but his response didn’t deter the youthful Grizari in the slightest. “Father will lead all Grizari to greatness,” she said, scraping her sharp horns along the ground to make twin tracks.

It was amazing to Sampson that the rambunctious doe wasn’t afraid of him after what he’d done to her grandfather. Void, standing by her father’s side she’d witnessed the violent act firsthand. A human child could easily be scarred for life by such an event, but she seemed to take it in stride, as though it was just another aspect to the harsh life her people lived here on the plains. “For all our sakes, I hope you’re right,” he said. “Even with the addition of Wyrt’s cattle to our herd, food will soon become a problem.”

“I am right,” she said, her confidence contagious. Sampson was almost beginning to believe Grym would emerge from the crowd carried on a litter, being fanned and fed grapes by Shrz’s own servants. Not that they had any grapes. Nor did the Grizari utilize servants, not even for their leaders. He wondered if they understood the concept of a fan. The image burst under his scrutiny just as Grym did, in fact, appear in the valley, trudging up the hill with his head down. There was nothing triumphant about his return. The other two tribal leaders were nowhere to be seen.

Grym mounted the final portion of the hill and stood before Sampson and Roman, finally raising his chin to meet their eyes. “Shrz not interested in unity, nor sharing power.”

Dammit, Sampson thought.

NO MATTER, his blade said.

“Where are Dyrm and Wyrt?” Sampson asked, ignoring his blade.

“Enjoying Shrz’s hospitality. Shrz bares no grudge but won’t combine forces.”

“You told him about the cattle?”

Grym met Sampson’s eyes with his jaw tight. “Yes. I told Shrz about cattle.”

HE SUSPECTS TOO MUCH, his blade hissed.

I won’t claim him, Sampson thought back. You will need to imprison me in your world of shadow again. If you can.

NO NEED TO BE TESTY. WE CAN AGREE ON SOME THINGS. GRYM IS BETTER AS A TRUE LEADER, NOT SOME PUPPET TO BE MOVED WITH STRINGS. I WAS ONLY REMINDING YOU WE NEED TO TREAD CAREFULLY HERE.

You think I don’t know that!

FOCUS! GRYM IS WAITING FOR YOU TO SAY SOMETHING.

Sampson closed his eyes, as if trying to think. Opened them. “This is a time for patience. Let Shrz sleep on his decision. Mayhaps rest and the morning light will sway his mind.”

“I remember you saying something similar night before cattle died. What evil will stalk this night?” His eyes flicked from Sampson’s face to his sheathed blade and back to his eyes. Then he turned and walked away.

Sampson was out of options. He was one leader away from his objective of uniting the Grizari. Even Roman had agreed. As much as they both hated the idea of using the Shadowbreath to ensnare the Grizari, using it once more made sense, as it could very well prevent much greater bloodshed. Still, as he stole through the night, he felt a coldness in his lungs, as though the shadows were already gathering within him, preparing for their unnatural work.

Ropes of light twisted and writhed under his feet as ship-like clouds sailed the skies overhead, crossing paths with the glow of the moons. Figures roamed the darkness surrounding Shrz’s encampment: guards, patrolling haphazardly. None looked his way as he passed between them, as though he were made of the night itself, shrouded in a cloak of shadow.

Within camp, all was quiet save for the occasional murmurs from those of the Grizari eluded by sleep, sitting around fires, eating and drinking. Sampson steered well clear of the circles of light, melting into the shadows cast by the various tents. It wasn’t difficult to locate Shrz’s tent, a rather permanent-looking monstrosity so large that it required a large center column and several additional pilons within the structure in addition to the perimeter supports. Just seeing the relative luxury the tribe leader enjoyed compared to his trio of counterparts explained much about the man and his unwillingness to unite with the other tribes.

I could reason with him, Sampson thought.

YOU COULD TRY, his blade replied.

You would allow it?

I AM NOT YOUR KEEPER, SAMPSON.

You could’ve fooled me.

THINK OF ME AS A GUIDE. THERE ARE CERTAIN TIMES WHEN, FOR YOUR OWN GOOD, I MUST ENSURE YOU DON’T STEP OFF A CLIFF OR TUMBLE HEADLONG INTO A RAVINE. IN THOSE INSTANCES, I MUST ACT WITH A HEAVIER HAND. BUT FOR THE MOST PART, YOUR DECISIONS ARE YOUR OWN AND I AM BUT A TOOL TO BE USED DURING YOUR QUEST.

Like when you slaughtered the cattle?

IT WAS NECESSARY TO PROGRESS THINGS FORWARD.

Sampson knew arguing was futile and would only distract him. Could he try reasoning with Shrz? Would his blade really allow it, or was it only testing him to see what he would do? In the end, logic won out because reasoning with a man in the dead of night after cutting his way through the side of his tent would likely be met with daggers rather than acquiescence.

Quietly, he drew his blade. Gently, he stabbed the dark tip through the thick canvas, puncturing the material and then dragging the sharp edge downward to create a breach large enough to duck through. Inside, his eyes instantly adjusted to the darkness as he quietly returned the blade to its sheath.

A large bed stood in the center of the space. A lump filled most of the bed, axe and hammer gleaming darkly where they were attached to the frame within arm’s reach of Shrz’s sleeping form. Sampson found it interesting how men at the height of their power seemed to be the most concerned with being thrust down at any moment. His father had once told him he always slept with a dagger beneath his pillow.

It didn’t matter. Sampson wasn’t here to kill the man, which would only sow seeds of chaos. No, he was here to claim the man, as he’d claimed Cryzt and the guard within the field of cattle. He crept closer, eyes locked on the lump for any sign of stirring. He saw nothing except the gentle rise and fall of the man’s chest as he breathed.

As Sampson loomed over the bed, he gathered the growing shadows in a swarm in his lungs, preparing to strike.

“Shrz!” a voice shouted, jerking Sampson’s head around to find Grym, his body halfway through the slit Sampson had made in the tent. His larger size meant he couldn’t quite squeeze through the opening, his chest getting stuck and tangled, which made it look, rather amusingly, like he was wearing an oversized dress made of canvas.

Sampson knew it wouldn’t hold him for long.

He turned sharply back toward Shrz, who lunged for the weapons attached to the bedframe. Sampson drew his blade just as the Grizari leader whipped his axe in an overhead chop. The impact rang out like a gong, Sampson crumpling under the raw power of its wielder.

Catlike, Shrz threw himself from the bed and onto Sampson, who once more narrowly saved his skull from being split in two as he raised the dark blade to protect himself. This time, he used a slightly different angle, forcing the axe to slide along the edge of his blade before planting itself into the floor as it was driven by Shrz’s entire weight. Sampson tried to roll away, but Shrz merely thumped his heavy arm on top of him, meaty fingers scrabbling for his throat.

He heard Grym unleash a roar and then the sound of canvas ripping as the powerful Grizari tore himself free of the material.

Every instinct told Sampson to escape, escape, escape, flee! but he resisted the urge, remembering his original purpose for being here. He allowed the massive Grizari to clamp his hand around his throat, just as Drynym had done not so long ago.

“Eyes! Protect eyes!” Grym shouted, surprising Sampson once more with the zeal in which he tried to protect his counterpart. His heavy footfalls stomped closer.

Sampson, his face now so close to Shrz’s broad, square jaw that he might’ve licked him, simply breathed out.

“What is—” Shrz tried to say as the shadows engulfed him, but then cut off, coughing and choking as his own throat betrayed him, drowning in wisps of darkness. He gasped, releasing Sampson and rolling over, fighting to suck in a heaving breath.

Sampson sat up just as Grym arrived, smashing into him from the side and sending him back to the ground. Grym pressed his entire weight on Sampson, pinning him, eyebrows like thick and heavy clouds over his oil-drop eyes as he stared down.

Nearby, Shrz finally filled his lungs with a breath and reseated himself, axe now forgotten on the floor, where he’d let it drop during the tussle. His eyes met Sampson’s. “Master,” he said. “What is command?”

“What did you do to him?” Grym asked, frown deepening further.

Sampson needed to regain control of the situation and knew this was the only way. He answered Shrz rather than Grym. “Hold him down.”

Grym’s head cocked to the side, confusion clouding his expression. The attack came before he could puzzle out what was happening, Shrz exploding from his haunches and tackling Grym to the ground, gaining leverage before Grym could react.

As Sampson considered his limited options, he felt the thrum of the power inside him. It was his turn to frown, because he shouldn’t feel that thrum, the shadows swarming in his gut. It was too soon to be able to use the Shadowbreath again, and yet he knew he could.

YOUR POWER IS GROWING, the blade hissed. YOU CAN USE THE SHADOWS ONCE MORE ON THIS NIGHT. IT IS TIME. YOU HAVE RESISTED FOR TOO LONG, BUT NOW HE HAS FORCED YOUR HAND.

For once, Sampson agreed with his blade, even if the thought of breathing shadows into Grym made him feel ill, though he wasn’t even certain why. Blinding and then killing the warrior’s father had been a far worse act. He didn’t think about it, just acted, crawling over to where Grym was pinned by Shrz. Grym seemed to realize the precariousness of his position, struggling against the larger man’s strength.

“Why do this?” Grym said, finally going still. “I am trying to unite tribes.”

“I’m sorry,” Sampson said. “For everything. But you know too much now. You’ve left me no other choice.”

“Always choice,” Grym said.

“Not for me,” Sampson said, releasing another breath.

Grym, son of Drynym

Grym had seen what the shadows pouring from Sampson’s mouth did to Shrz, and he clamped his lips shut and pinched his nostrils, refusing to let them inside. Unfortunately, he’d only managed a half-breath before doing so, and his lungs soon rebelled, aching, burning and then convulsing as they screamed for air.

He just needed to hold on for a few more moments, the shadows around his head already dissipating like campfire smoke as they drifted away…

Sampson breathed out again, and more shadows curled around him. He couldn’t hold his breath any longer, needed to open his mouth, needed to suck in whatever was there, whether air or shadows or a combination of both and then—

He did.

At first his lungs sighed in relief, but that relief swiftly turned to fear as he felt icy tendrils of shadow fill his chest, swarming inside him, touching and tasting him, as though probing for weakness, or something to latch onto, a way to twist his mind and turn him into a mindless minion for the human scum who’d taken so much from him already and yet was not content, wanting more, his very soul.

He waited for the world to fade to darkness, for the bars to come down, trapping him inside a body he no longer controlled, like a prisoner in a fortress with no doors but hundreds of windows made from unbreakable glass.

Nothing happened. Even as he breathed in more of the shadows, he felt much the same. He was…himself…as far as he could tell. His first instinct was to go on the offensive once more, to break Shrz’s hold and then strangle the life out of Sampson, but then he remembered what had happened to his own father. Plus, there was something off about the blade wielded by this human. Its color and the shadows that seemed to surround it were unnatural, somehow connected to the shadows Sampson breathed from his mouth to turn foes into minions.

Until he knew more about Sampson’s capabilities, he needed to tread carefully. And that meant pretending nothing was amiss. Thus, he opened his mouth, forcing a blank stare onto his face. “Master,” he said, using the same monotone voice Shrz had. “What is command?”

Third Interlude: The Brightness and Shadows of Fyre

DESPITE THE CALMNESS IN THE WAKE OF THE MOUNTAIN GODDESS’S FURY, clambering around the edge of the fiery chasm was not a feat to be accomplished by the faint of heart. Twice Fyre Dancer lost her footing as stones crumbled away from the thin ledge, vanishing into the depths below. Each time she gritted her teeth and clung to the stone wall with hands strong and calloused from the various remedial tasks assigned to the Flames throughout the village.

Step by painstaking step, she crossed to the other side. When she finally reached the ledge crowned by the dark eye of a cave, her legs lost all strength and she collapsed on the ground, weeping, spilling tears of murder and fear and pain and loss and pure physical exertion, though they all looked the same as they dripped from her nose and chin, leaving spots of moisture in the dust.

She reached out and touched one of the fierce, red-rimmed holes left by the volcano splatter in her arm. She winced and didn’t move to touch it again.

Sitting up, she peered over the cliff’s edge into the bubbling, frothing well of lava below, searching for any sign of the Flame Bearer. Nothing. A particularly large bubble popped and a bone appeared, a skull, with unseeing eye cavities and a mouth filled with crooked, gnarled teeth, save for one, which was missing, replaced by a gaping hole in its skeletal smile. Goodbye, massai. Fire thought. May the goddess burn you for all eternity.

A final tear wobbled on Fyre’s chin and then broke free, tumbling into the abyss. She swore she saw it sizzle as it splashed into the lava. The tear was not for the Flame Bearer, for he was not worthy of her tears, but for one she had loved more deeply than she’d ever loved before and, she knew, would ever love again. “Goodbye, Smoke Wisp,” she said.

She stood. She turned. She searched the darkness for that column of light and shadow in equal measure. Whatever she’d seen, the dark, yawning maw of the cave had swallowed it whole. As she entered the darkness, she peered up at the firelit stalactites growing from the cave mouth, moisture streaming down their sides in dark rivulets like a monster’s fangs glistening with saliva.

This is my Path, she thought. This is my Duty. As nothing else before, this she knew, her heart yearning for this place and this time in every pulsing beat in her chest.

NO, a voice spoke from the darkness, as powerful as the rumble of thunder. Then again: NO.

Fyre froze. Whatever she’d seen from across the chasm had seen into her mind and stolen her thoughts. “I—I don’t understand. Who are you?”

NOT WHO…WHY.

She took another step, arms extended to avoid crashing headlong into an invisible object. “Why what?” she asked as she searched the infinite void.

WHY NOW? the calm voice said.

Fyre closed her eyes. Opened them. Pondered her life’s truth. “The Mountain Goddess willed it,” she said after a time.

DID SHE?

Fyre shook her head. “No. That is what Flame Bearer would’ve said. I willed it. I wanted him to die. He deserved to die.”

AND YOU? DO YOU DESERVE TO DIE?

Fyre had never been asked that before, and the question stumped her. All her life she had been told it was her duty to sacrifice her life for the good of her village, her people. But what good was saving one life if you spat on the sanctity of all life? What value did such a sacrifice have?

Fyre had planned and plotted Flame Bearer’s demise—did that make her any better than him? Did killing a killer set an unbalanced world back into balance? Gritting her teeth, she cast all those questions aside, because she realized she was avoiding the hardest question of them all:

Could she have saved Smoke Wisp?

“I am not afraid to die,” Fyre finally said.

THAT DOES NOT ANSWER THE QUESTION THAT WAS ASKED.

“It’s the only answer I have,” Fyre said sadly.

A sigh permeated the wall of darkness. YOU ARE AS I KNEW YOU WOULD BE. PREPARED.

“Prepared for what?”

COME FORWARD. As the words were spoken, a column of sparkling light blazed into being, chasing away the darkness from half of the space, its diamond-like glitters infiltrating nooks and crannies, exposing columns of naked rock as brown as Fyre’s skin. The shimmering light was bright, blinding even, but Fyre didn’t look away, drawn to its beauty until she realized it was only one half of a greater whole.

She stopped, noticing that while half her body was illuminated by the magnificent brightness, her other half remained shrouded in a cloak of shadows, as though a line had been drawn down the center of the cave, a line that could not be crossed by the light. On the one side, the darkness was so complete she could almost believe she had been sheared in two, and when she stepped out from the darkness, half of her would remain, the other half lost forever.

I am light, she thought. I am darkness.

YES, YOU ARE HUMAN, the voice said.

Emboldened and drawn to both the light and the shadows in equal measure, Fyre approached the column, which she soon realized was not a column at all but a sword, standing upright on a stone pedestal, balancing on the base of its hilt, defying gravity. Half its double-edged blade shone with that diamond-studded light while the other half was shrouded in shadows, which seemed to writhe and twist around the steel. The broad T-shaped hilt and crossguard were much the same, the right half forged of gold, inlaid with glowing pale stones, while the left half might’ve been dipped in an inkwell and left to dry.

As Fyre approached, she walked in a straight line, maintaining a perfect symmetry with the blade that felt…right. Both her hands drifted closer, one bathed in light and the other invisible to her eyes but which she could feel extending, tongues of shadow tasting her skin.

Just before she grasped the blade’s hilt, it sighed deeply. LONG HAVE I YEARNED TO BE HELD BY ONE WORTHY AGAIN, it said as her fingers closed around it. One side was warm, bordering on too hot to touch, while the other side was as cold as ice. The hilt was so thick it required both of Fyre’s hands to encircle it, and when she tried to lift it, the weight was formidable. AHH, the blade sighed again. I’D FORGOTTEN THE FEELING OF MOVEMENT. THERE IS NOTHING ELSE QUITE LIKE IT.

“How long have you been here?” Fyre asked, managing to creep the blade upward, the steel wobbling as she balanced it precariously.

TOO LONG. DAYS INNUMERABLE. WHEN I SENSED YOUR PRESENCE, I KNEW THE LONG-AWAITED TIME WAS NIGH.

“The time for what?”

FOR MY RETURN. ELSE THEY DESTROY EACH OTHER TO THE LAST.

“Who? Who will destroy each other?”

EVERYONE. UNTIL KINGFALL RUNS RED WITH THEIR BLOOD AND THE CITIES ARE LAID LOW AND THE CONTINENT BURNS TO ASH.

The thought of so much destruction and death made Fyre’s own blood run cold. “Can you stop them?”

YES, BUT EVEN IF I DO A GREATER EVIL LURKS IN THE SHADOWS, WAITING TO POUNCE.

“What evil?”

THAT IS NOT YOUR QUEST.

“Then what is? What can I do to help?”

CARRY ME, the blade said. BEAR MY WEIGHT, FOR A TIME, FOR YOU ARE CHOSEN TO BE THE CARRIER, THE ONE WHO MUST DELIVER ME TO HE WHO CAN WIELD ME IN THE BATTLE TO END ALL BATTLES. BEFORE YOU DECIDE, HOWEVER, YOU MUST KNOW THE CONSEQUENCES.

“I understand consequences,” Fyre said. “My entire life has been built on them, brick by brick.”

STILL…YOU CANNOT SURVIVE THIS QUEST, IN THE END.

Fyre understood a life destined to end in the ultimate sacrifice. That was always her Path, even if the end was never meant to be on this mighty mountaintop. “Then I accept with eyes wide open,” Fyre said, lifting her chin in defiance, staring at the brightly lit half of her reflection in the steel, eye unblinking.

AND SO IT BEGINS, the blade said.

PART IV

Aisling      Andovier     Dane

Peony      Sampson     Grym

The King’s Poisoner      Jarrod      Amari

When Erif Mirg and his famed Legacy Sword were struck down and shattered, six shards were recovered. From them and with the blessing of the gods themselves, the godblades were created in the hopes of offering weapons that could change the course of history and allow them to defeat the Thousands. But even the best laid plans, at times, go astray.

The Kingfall Histories

Twenty-Two

Aisling Brightshine

Wolfsgaard, Teravainen

KING GAARD CLAPPED THREE TIMES WHEN HE HEARD THE NEWS, the sound echoing throughout the war chamber. “The gods shine upon us,” he said. “Avadon will call upon Odin for assistance, but we will distract them at Kingsfort. Perhaps the Grizari will do us a favor and weaken Avadon. At worst, the skirmish will provide additional cover for our mining operations in the Spine.”

Skirmish, Aisling thought, was the wrong word to describe the news from Avadon. The Grizari tribes had been united, at long last, and legions upon legions of the brutal warriors were now marching toward Kerr’s Crossing, which was already under constant attack by the steady flow of demons from the recently expanded Rift in Beggar’s Canyon. Even Glynn Kerr, with all the resources at his disposal, had been unable to stem the tide and regain control of his own lands. ‘Bloodbath’ would be a better word, Aisling thought, feeling ill in the pit of her stomach at the thought of so much violence.

As usual, she was on hands and knees, serving no purpose other than to amuse the king and respond to questions thrown toward her directly, like scraps of food tossed to a starving hound. She felt a deep and penetrating longing burrow its way into her chest. Had she been too hasty in throwing away what she had with Jarrod? She could’ve enjoyed his comfort for a while longer, to make the endless days of imprisonment bearable. Instead, she’d looked the only source of kindness she’d seen in many years in the eye and spat into it. What is wrong with me? Am I no longer capable of being close to someone? Of friendship? Of love? Memories of her first love simmered to the surface of her mind, but, as she always did, she forced them back down. So what if he’s my captor’s son? It wasn’t like Jarrod was the one who bought me and chained me. He showed me nothing but compassion and caring and—

She couldn’t bear to even think the last word, for after what she’d done, she wasn’t worthy of Jarrod’s love.

She was ripped from her reverie when the war room door crashed open. From her position on the floor near the king’s feet on the opposite side of the room, she could only peer through the tangle of legs kicked beneath the table until she saw

Him.

Though it was only his legs, garbed in fine, black, form-fitting britches stitched with golden thread, she knew it was Jarrod. His presence in this place he despised was so out of the ordinary that, coupled with his entrance—bashing open the door and letting it slam against the inside wall—made this event almost as significant as the Grizari unification. Balanced on one hand, she brought the other hand up to her mouth to stifle the small exclamation of surprise that had escaped her lips.

Don’t do anything foolish, don’t do anything foolish, don’t do anything—

“Father,” Jarrod said, his voice firm and certain, spoken with the same sort of conviction she’d only ever heard from him when he’d pledged his love to her.

“Son. How kind of you to grace us with your presence. To what do we owe this pleasure?” Despite the king’s sugary sweet tone, Aisling sensed the kind of undercurrent that typically preceded a storm.

Don’t fight for me, Jarrod. Please. Just leave it alone. Just leave…

“I want to fight at Kingsfort,” Jarrod said.

Aisling’s mouth fell open. Any relief she thought she would feel if he said something that didn’t involve her disappeared, a stomach-punch of dread crashing into her. Jarrod was no warrior. He may have been trained, like his siblings, in the more gentlemanly aspects of sword work, but he had no experience in a real fight. Like Aisling, he could barely stomach watching the carnage in the arena, which was but a fraction of a what a true battle would be. No, she mouthed, wishing she could shout the word. Jarrod, no.

The king, on the other hand, laughed. “Truly? My boy, she really did smash your heart into tiny bits, didn’t she?”

Aisling froze. It was one thing for what had transpired between her and Jarrod to be discussed behind closed doors, or in the darkness of the dingy dungeons, but to be announced in a room filled with the king’s top advisors and generals…

She didn’t need to see Jarrod’s face to know his cheeks were now reddening, as though enflamed. Would he rise to his father’s bait? For that’s clearly what this was: a trap. Get his son to admit publicly that he’d loved—maybe still loved—a lowly godling slave so the king could further assert his dominance over anyone and everyone within his sphere.

She stared at the prince’s legs, which were as motionless as a statue. She waited for the outburst, for all the frustration and pain and anger to boil over, for Jarrod to finally—finally—speak his mind and stand up to his father.

Instead, he turned and walked away in silence, not bothering to shut the door behind him.

“My son, gentlemen,” the king said, a hint of mocking in his tone. “Thank the gods I had a daughter first.”

From the corner of her eye, Aisling watched Amari’s reaction. The crown princess didn’t look proud or pleased or even amused. Instead, she cut a profile not so different to that of her father. Jaw firm and set. Thin lips pursed. Eyes staring coldly at everything that would one day be her dominion.

They were sharks in blood-filled waters, both of them.

Things had been set in motion. Terran forces from all corners of Teravainen had been ordered to march eastward toward Kingsfort. Simultaneously, ships bearing nothing more than skeleton crews had been launched from Wolfsgaard, sailing for Westport and Truro and South Strangle. The ships would never make landfall, of course, but would force King Normandian to maintain sufficient Odinian soldiers in each of his port cities to prevent another naval invasion, limiting the size of his contingent at Kingsfort.

This had been Aisling’s idea.

Most of it had been Aisling’s idea.

Her plan to be of use to the king and prove her worth to improve his treatment of her should’ve worked. Instead, she remained nothing but a footstool. Would anything change if the Terrans were victorious over the Odinians? Could a heart as black and empty as the king’s ever be changed?

The answer to both questions, she knew, was the same.

Her head had just settled on her bristly straw cushion when footsteps echoed down the corridor. For the briefest moment, her heart leapt at the sound, a single name hanging from her lips—Jarrod—but then she frowned when she listened more closely. She’d heard Jarrod’s feet on the stone corridor dozens of times. She’d heard these same footfalls once before, as unexpected then as they were now.

The lock clicked as a key turned, and then Amari Gaard entered, jaw still set, lips still pursed, eyes still as cold as a shark’s.

“Did you know my brother was going to do that?” she asked without preamble.

There was no reason to be argumentative. Aisling shook her head. “I haven’t spoken to him in weeks.”

“Was my father right? Did you shatter Jarrod’s heart into tiny pieces?”

The word was a whisper as it tumbled from Aisling’s lips. “Yes.”

“He was kind to you.”

“Yes.”

“Then why? Jarrod isn’t like me and Sampson. His heart is soft. Gentle.”

Righteous indignation swelled within Aisling. “And you’ve always been kind to him?”

Amari’s lips tightened further, if that was possible. “We were children. Siblings do things to each other…play tricks. Amuse themselves. We were children,” she said again. To Aisling’s ears it sounded more like the crown princess was trying to convince herself than Aisling.

“So you played these same tricks on Sampson? And he played tricks on you?”

“Well, no, but it was different between us. Easier. Plus, Sampson is blind—playing tricks on him would be in poor form. Regardless, I always felt as though Jarrod and I lived on different continents. Maybe different worlds entirely. While Sampson and I were dueling, he was picking flowers. While we were reading of the Kingfall Histories, he was reading of music and art, or worse, books of fantasy rather than reality. Sometimes he even reads of love.”

She said the last part like it was as shocking as a lightning strike. “And that makes him…”

“Weak. Soft. Incapable of ruling. After my father dies, if I caught the plague and perished, he would be next in line for the throne, for gods’ sakes.”

“Would that be so bad?”

Amari frowned deeply at her. “Is that a serious question? Our enemies would be on us like flies on horse dung while the dirt of my grave was still fresh.”

“What enemies?” Aisling said. “Isn’t this war of your father’s making?”

“Mayhaps,” Amari said, “but it’s also our legacy now. We cannot stop. The Odinians have the most fertile land while our earth is full of rocks. Do you think they offer to help us? No. They charge top price for their goods while our people are forced to subsist on whatever they can scrounge and scrape from the scorched earth.”

“And the Solariis? What crime have they committed? Other than having the misfortune of sharing a border with Teravainen.”

“You forget your station, godling,” Amari said, stepping forward, fists tensing at her sides.

Aisling could see the king’s temper in her, but she was feeling reckless. How dare this woman come here to chastise her for breaking Jarrod’s heart when that’s all Amari had done from the moment they’d been born brother and sister? “I forget nothing,” Aisling said. “It is my curse. I remember every time I was beaten, broken, used. I remember every time I was forced to heal a human who deserved nothing less than to suffer as I have suffered. I remember every tyrant who has thought themselves my master when, in reality, I was plucking at their strings like a harpist. And I remember every spoiled brat prince and princess, like you and your brothers, who believe the earth revolves around them. Strike me, if you must, but do so with the conviction of one who believes I deserve it. Maybe I do, for yes, I shattered your brother’s heart, even as I shattered my own.”

“You…,” Amari said, eyes wide, not because of the completeness with which Aisling had leveled her world, but because of her last six words, which had slipped out in the heat of the moment. “You love Jarrod.”

“No, I only meant—”

“Say no more,” Amari said. “You must temper these feelings, never speak of them again. My father will—”

“I know what your father will do,” Aisling said. “He’s made that very clear.”

If the princess was angered by being interrupted, she didn’t show any sign of it, her emotions once more hidden behind the mask she seemed able to don whenever required. “I must go,” she said. Aisling said nothing, watching her walk back the way she’d come. Just as Amari passed through the door, she stopped, head half-turning. “In another world, we might’ve been friends,” she said. “I see now what my brother sees in you.”

“In another world, I might’ve been your master and you my footstool,” Aisling said. She was purposefully trying to draw a rebuke now, to crack the princess’s stone façade. Instead, a smile crept onto her face.

“So true,” was Amari’s only response, and then she closed the door.

Several days later, Aisling was summoned to the war room. She didn’t need to be told to take up her position on the floor near the king’s feet.

“No,” the king said, his voice gentler and kinder than usual. “Today you sit here.” She looked up through the strands of turquoise hair dangling over her face to find him gesturing toward the seat on his left, the seat that first Jarrod, and then she, had occupied before it had stood vacant for many days.

“As you wish,” she said, giving away nothing with her face as she rose and eased into the chair, sore knees creaking. Inside, she felt triumphant, because once more she was the puppeteer and the king her puppet.

Once the remainder of the participants had entered the war room and taken their seats, the last being Grimfire, who eyed Aisling’s seated position with disdain, the king began without preamble. “The battle for Kingsfort has commenced. May the gods be with us.”

Despite herself, a thrill ran through Aisling. She knew the gods cared little and less about the king’s military ambitions, but one thing was certain: a victory would only encourage the king to offer her more freedoms. Sitting in a chair might not be a major victory, but if she were ever permitted to, say, wander the gardens under minimal, if any, guard supervision…mayhaps escape would become a possibility.

I will escape, she promised herself. Or die trying.

Twenty-Three

Andovier Helm

The Infernal Pit, Teravainen

SINCE THE INITIAL CALM OF ANDO AND HIS MEN’S ARRIVAL AT THE INFERNAL PIT, there had not been a single moment of silence.

Days of battling lesser demons flowed into nights of shrieks and violence, which flowed into days of spilled blood and waking nightmares that Ando wouldn’t wish on his worst enemies. Well, for King Gaard I might make an exception, he thought, stabbing his bloodstained blade through the maw of a small but vicious demon with rubbery brown skin, oversized eyes that glowed like lanterns, and webbed hands and feet that left a slick trail behind them as they passed. These demons were fairly common, he’d learned, and typically arrived in packs of ten or twelve.

The demon squealed like a stuck pig, slimy webbed hands slapping at his arms several times before the creature slid free with a squelch. Ando kicked its boneless body into the chasm, else every inch of ground become piled with demon corpses. The only solace any of them had been able to take since the endless battle began was that no Greater Demons had made an appearance.

In the lesser demon’s wake, another of its kind clambered up, hissing at him, bending its stubby legs in preparation to pounce.

Ando raised his shield just in time, the mindless demon slamming into it with a brutal thunk, body slapping to the ground as it scrambled to right itself, clutching at one of its eyes, which had been damaged during the collision and was now half-closed. Once again, it coiled itself like a spring about to release its energy. That’s when the attack came, not from the smallish demon but from the side, where a much larger demon had managed to burst through the Rift guards’ ranks, slashing its claws, which were each as long as a man’s forearm, through one man, leaving him bleeding under its feet as it charged past.

Ando reacted instantly, his shield coming up, but not all the way before the demon crashed into him, claws screeching across metal as its hairy shoulder barged into his ribcage, spinning him around. This type of demon was also familiar to Ando, but far less common. He’d seen maybe two prior and had never killed one. Meanwhile, he still had the web-footed demon to deal with as well, snapping at his heels. Ando had faced more than one man simultaneously in battle before, and knew the key was not to fight both, but to fight one at a time, as quickly as possible. Even the odds, so to speak.

Thus, he exploded in the direction of the smallish demon, severing one of its arms with his first slash and then removing its head with the second, a geyser of black blood spewing forth and splattering his shield and armor. What was left of the demon toppled backward into the Rift’s darkness. Unfortunately, the maneuver had also brought Ando too close to the chasm, and when he spun to face his second attacker found the demon already upon him, smashing into him with such force that he stumbled back under the beast’s weight, planting both heels hard to remain on his feet. One heel dug into the dirt and held, while the other tasted nothing but open space before sliding down the rough face of the Rift.

He roared, slamming his sword down, piercing the earth to create a pilon to which he could hold as he wrestled the demon, scraggly fur in his mouth. It tasted of ash and copper. One-handed, he grabbed the creature by the throat as it snapped at him with a mouth filled with a series of small, sharp teeth punctuated by four, curving, daggerlike fangs. He groaned from the effort, feeling the beast’s weight begin to ebb as he pulled it off him. Unfortunately, his grip on his sword’s hilt began to slacken at the same time, his sweaty, blood-slick fingers sliding away.

The separation between them had caused another problem. The demon was now able to bring its swordlike claws to bear, snarling mouth contorting as it prepared to slam them through his throat. Ando had no choice—he released his grip on the sword, which jolted his body downward and caused the aim of the demon’s claws to miss, scraping harmlessly over his helm. This threw the demon off-balance as it toppled over him, tumbling into the abyss. It wasn’t dead or even injured, which, Ando knew, meant it would be back, eventually.

While he’d temporarily dispatched the demon, the maneuver had also put him in an even more precarious position, one knee firmly on the edge while the other leg hung in open air, boot scrabbling for purchase as his hands clawed at the dusty earth.

Just as he felt gravity winning the fight, a firm hand clamped around his upper arm. Ando’s own weight stopped fighting him and he felt himself being pulled upward until he was back on his feet. Sir Metz said, “Are you well, High Commander?”

It was such an odd thing to ask in the midst of slaughtering demons and nearly tumbling into a demon Rift that Ando might’ve laughed. Except, over the days of fighting alongside the foreign knight, he’d grown accustomed to his strangeness, until it had become almost normal. “All things considered, yes,” he said, glancing about them to ensure no other demons were trying to sneak up on them. Thankfully, there had been a brief pause in the action for the first time in days. “Thank you,” he added.

“For what?” Sir Metz said.

“You saved my life.”

“Of course I did.”

This time, Ando did laugh. While certain aspects of the knight remained an enigma to him, he’d grown quite fond of Sir Christoff Metz and his eccentricities. It didn’t hurt that he was one of the most talented swordsmen he’d ever witnessed. The scary thing was that his wife, Mona Sheary-Metz, was just as impressive, the duo twirling and hacking and dispatching demons with the same ease with which they drew breath into their lungs.

Speaking of whom, the second half of the impressive duo appeared. “Say ‘You’re welcome’,” Mona said to her husband. “We’ve talked about this a thousand times.”

“Two hundred and sixteen,” Sir Metz said.

“What?” Ando said, confused. “Two hundred and sixteen what?”

“My wife was incorrect. We’ve actually talked about this two-hundred-and-sixteen times, not a thousand. And you’re welcome. I’m supposed to say that, apparently, though I’m not sure why I should welcome you considering you’ve been here the whole time.”

“Because it’s what people say,” Mona said, a weariness in her voice.

While the pair continued to discuss the nuances of manners, Ando turned to survey the damage. The man who’d been pierced by the demon’s long claws lay still, blood pooling beneath him. His death brought the count to seven since this ordeal began. Considering the dozens and dozens of demons they’d killed, any military general would consider seven casualties a major victory, but to Ando, who’d grown desperately close to this ragtag group of prisoners turned Rift guards, even one death would be too many.

Also, from a practical standpoint, he knew that their casualty rate wasn’t sustainable given the small size of their force. They needed sufficient men to be able to continue to work in shifts, allowing time for rest and sustenance, although both were difficult when you could hear the shriek of demons and battle in the background. It was only a matter of days, not weeks, before they would be overrun. Unless, of course, the king deemed them worthy of being reinforced by his own soldiers, an event that Ando was both dreading and hoping would arrive sooner rather than later.

“Rift shift change!” he barked, and those who’d just finished battling demons for the last several hours, weary and bloodied, moved away from the chasm to eat, sleep, receive treatment for their injuries, or, more likely, a combination of all three. Two of Ando’s men carried the dead man away as well, to be buried just outside the walls, where they’d discovered a makeshift graveyard with more than one hundred graves based on the stones that marked each, names and dates scratched into the rock. Some of them dated back more than two hundred years.

The next shift was already gathered nearby, armed and armored, and swiftly moved in to fill the void. Though things were quiet at the moment, they all knew how quickly things could change. Sola nodded to Ando as they passed each other.

“The calm before the storm,” Sola said.

Ando hoped he was wrong.

Three days later, everyone was finally well-rested and fed, their armor and weapons cleaned and oiled, and happily bored, passing the time playing card games they’d discovered in a dusty corner of the armory.

They hadn’t seen nor heard any signs of demon activity since the day Metz saved Ando from tumbling headlong into the Infernal Pit.

“Maybe the demons finally got a good look at Mrz’s face and he scared them off for good,” Sola suggested.

Mrz offered the Solarii a hand gesture that meant nothing to Ando but which he took for an insult. Sola laughed. It was good to see the two finally getting along.

“There might be somethin’ big an’ nasty comin’, but I’ll take it fer a break,” Captain Bart said, as Ando’s inner circle of advisors sat and broke bread together.

“We’ll see if you change your tune when the big and nasty something arrives,” Sola said.

“Eh, shove it up yer arse,” the dwarf said grumpily. “Anyway, trust me, ye don’ wan’ to hear me carry on any kind o’ tune. Me singin’ voice is awful, like fork tines scrapin’ on rock while someone’s teeth be grindin’ together.”

“Could use as torture if anyone misbehaves,” Mrz commented, speaking the words around a mouthful. Ando felt as though he hadn’t seen the Grizari man’s mouth without food in it for days, his appetite as large as the Infernal Pit.

“All I’m saying,” Sola said, ignoring the banter, “is that we cannot become complacent. Whatever is coming might make the last several days feel like we’ve been fighting children.”

“Thank you,” Ando said, “but no one is growing complacent. We all deserve to enjoy the respite.” Sola didn’t look convinced but didn’t comment further on the matter. “If it is another Greater Demon, so be it,” Ando continued. “We will face it with the same tenacity we’ve displayed thus far.”

“And then what?” Sola said.

Though his question was somewhat vague, Ando understood exactly what he was asking, the very same question weighing on his own mind, opaque and heavy, the moment he awoke from slumber and just before his eyes closed to sleep. “I will not leave this post as long as the lives of innocents depend on me to protect them,” he said. “But I cannot decide for the rest of you. Each man will need to decide for himself.”

“Of course we will all stay,” Christoff Metz said, as though leaving wasn’t even an option now. His original plan of leaving after fourteen days had fallen by the wayside when he’d realized how grave the demon threat was. “It is a matter of honor and duty.”

“Thank you,” Ando said. “What say the rest of you?”

There were murmurs of agreement.

“And what of the women? Do we get to choose, too?” This question came from the young orphan, Tora, who Ando had forgotten was there, listening to the soldiers.

“As soon as I can find a proper home for you, I’ll arrange for an escort to take you there.”

“And if I’d rather stay here?”

“The Infernal Pit is no place for a young girl.”

“I’m a flowered woman.”

Ando almost drew a spoon of his soup up his own nose.

“Do me words offend you, Da?” Tora said.

“Don’t call me that. And no, you just caught me by surprise.”

“Because I spoke of bein’ flowered? It is a standard part of life fer all women, is it not?”

Gods, Ando thought. Are all young girls so headstrong or is it just this particular young girl? “It is, but I don’t think it needs to be discussed during meals, or at all.”

Tora snorted. “I cannot discuss me own flowering, but yer men can discuss all sorts of disgustin’ bodily functions and scratch in the most offensive places and exude the most noxious fumes and—”

“I cannot help enjoying bacon and beans,” the Grizari interjected.

Tora wasn’t done. “—boast of the women you’ve bedded and curse and spit and—”

“Tora,” Ando warned. “Enough. You have made your point. I meant no offense. You may discuss your…flowering…at length if you wish.”

Tora stared at him, a twinkle in her eyes and a smirk on her lips. “Well, in that case…” She cut off, laughing. “You should see all yer faces—as white as ghouls, they are! Why is it that hardened soldiers like yerselves can chop off heads and stab hearts and sever limbs, but when it comes to discussin’ womanly subjects you grow squeamish and yer courage disappears?”

“Fear o’ the unknown?” Captain Bart suggested.

“Need to get more food,” Mrz said, tromping away. Ando was beginning to wish he could do the same.

Sir Christoff Metz finally spoke up. “I believe part of the issue at hand is that we—not me, of course, but humans in general—refuse to speak of such things in plain terms. For example, in this case we refer to the woman as being ‘flowered.’ Do flowers grow from her body? Nay. ‘Flowering’ is simply a replacement term used to refer to when a woman first begins her monthly cycle of bleeding from her feminine parts.” Barty grunted loudly and several of the other men looked as if they might pass out. Ando merely listened intently as Metz continued. “A cycle, I might add, directly related to the process of procreation. Without a woman’s ‘flowering’, humanity wouldn’t be able to create children and thus would eventually become extinct.”

Ando cocked his head to the side. He’d never considered such a basic human occurrence so logically, preferring to avoid the subject of young women and their flowering altogether.

“Eh, I need to get more food, too,” Barty announced in the silence that followed Metz’s speech. The rest of the men save for Ando and Metz muttered similar excuses and tromped away.

Behind them, Tora hollered, “Pathetic, all of you! And, fer yer information, I do have a choice, too. And I choose to stay ’ere as long as you. If you try to make me leave with Terran soldiers, you’ll all wish fer a Greater Demon rather than deal with me.” Her eyes were focused on Ando.

“I’ll think about it,” he said.

Another two days passed without bloodshed, and then, finally, the sound of horse hooves clopping without the walls perked up their ears.

“Don’ sound like an army,” Barty said, squinting.

“A single horse, I’d say,” Sola agreed.

“Least it’ll make good meal,” Mrz said, drawing everyone’s eyes to him. “What? On Lost Plains, horse meat is delicacy.”

“Always thinking about your stomach,” Sola said.

“It’s a messenger,” Ando said, standing and heading for the heavy door, which they’d managed to repair over the last few uneventful days, and then unbarring the metal crossbeam to open it. A cloud of dust rounded the edge of the structure, skidding to a halt near Ando. As the dust settled, Ando groaned. The messenger was no more than Tora’s age, riding a small speckled mare. The boy didn’t even bother to dismount, staring at him with wide eyes. His eyes grew as large as dinner plates when more of Ando’s men, including the bulky Mrz, crowded around him. “Speak!” Ando commanded.

“I carry a message from King Cronus Gaard, First of His—”

“Give me the damn message or I’m going to let this Grizari warrior eat your horse.” Right on cue, Mrz’s stomach rumbled loudly.

The boy’s face paled as he fumbled at a satchel that hung from his neck. From inside, he plucked out a small scroll, sealed with a circle of green wax pressed with the royal Terran seal, an image of a wolf with fangs bared. He handed the rolled parchment to Ando and, with a harried look at Mrz, dug his heels into the beast’s sides and was gone, riding northward.

“I guess we can’t send a response,” Ando grumbled, before digging his finger beneath the parchment, cracking the seal, the wolf’s face tearing in two. He peeled back the paper, fighting off its apparent desire to curl back together, as though it would rather not share its message with him. Holding the two sides of the page firmly, he scanned the brief message, sighed, and then recited it aloud for his men:

“Prisoner Andovier Helm,

I have received word from one of my guards that he and his men managed to defeat two Greater Demons at Nostertown, giving you and the other prisoners the time required to secure the Infernal Pit. My hope is you will take this grave responsibility seriously, or many innocent lives, including dozens of women and children, will be lost. I also regret to inform you that at this time there is no possibility of reinforcements, though I hope to be able to provide you with a full contingent of guards in the coming weeks.

King Cronus Gaard”

“That bastard,” Sola said.

“This changes nothing,” Ando said.

“Changes nothing?” Sola said, incredulous. “We are prisoners protecting the very people who imprisoned us in the first place.”

“And that hasn’t changed,” Ando said calmly.

“Mayhaps what the Terrans need is a good demon invasion to humble them,” Sola fired back.

“Me village burned to the ground. Da was torn to shreds. Will good men fail to act on behalf of those who cannot protect themselves?” Ando turned to find Tora, who’d apparently ventured out to see what all the commotion was about, standing with her hands on her hips wearing a frown.

Sola kicked at the dirt, looking sheepish.

“I understand Sola’s frustration, and that some of you might share his feelings. Again, I offer you the chance to leave if that is what you desire. I, for one, will stay.” No one moved, including Sola. “Good, we need every man for what is to come.” He moved back inside, eyeing the dark slash that ran along the ground from one wall to the next. The Rift remained still and silent. He headed for the sleeping quarters, hoping to grab some shuteye.

“That was a good speech,” Tora said.

Ando turned, surprised to find her having followed so closely behind him. “So was yours.”

She shrugged. “I read a lot. The last sentence was a quote from my favorite Solarii novel.”

“You can read?”

“A peasant, and a girl no less, can read? Try not to drop dead from shock. Ma taught me when I was a wee sprightly thing. Always said learnin’ me letters would open doors fer me in the future. When she died, I continued teachin’ meself. But she was wrong. Ain’t no doors opened fer me so far.”

“Your ma was right, you know,” Ando said. “Being able to read and write will open doors, one day. In my country, such a skill is in high demand.”

“And in Teravainen?”

“No one says you have to stay here forever.”

“Will you take me with you when you return to Odin?”

Ando’s heart thudded in his chest. He remembered Sola’s words to him—she’s not your daughter. “Tora…”

“Ah,” she said. “I get it. I am not yer responsibility. Also, I am convicted by me own words, am I not? I ask to be looked upon as a woman grown and yet I hide under the coattails of the first capable man I come across.”

“You’re only thirteen,” Ando said. “There’s no shame in needing help.”

“Except you can’t be the one to help me.”

“Not forever, no,” Ando said.

“I’m not askin’ to replace yer daughter. Just fer an escort to a better place.”

“I fear my path back to Odin may be a long and meandering one. Not to mention dangerous.”

“More dangerous than a pit full of bloodthirsty demons?”

Ando chuckled. There was something about this girl he was inexorably drawn to. Which is exactly why I need to sever ties with her as soon as possible, for her own good. The truth was that those who got too close to him would never be safe. “Yes,” he said. “Even more dangerous than that. Your king will want me dead, eventually.”

“If you slip me a dagger, I can stab him in the back fer you.” She grinned toothily.

Ando grinned back. “I know you would. In any case, do not worry about what comes next. We will leap that chasm when we get to it.”

A shout opened Ando’s eyes. Not that he’d been sleeping, just resting. These days, sleep was a fleeting thing that one couldn’t quite grasp hold of, like a ray of sunlight dancing on one’s palm.

In any case, he snatched up his sword, clambered from bed and sprinted through the door in three seconds flat, casting his eyes about for any sign of demons. Instead, he found the gate standing open, a huddle of men gathered just outside, eyes trained in a southeasterly direction.

He approached them from behind. “What’s happening?” he asked.

Josiah turned, excitement on his youthful face. “The king came through sooner than expected. Mrz’s keen eyes spotted Terran soldiers when he was emptying the chamber pots this morning.”

Ando’s heart soared. Though he knew having Terrans around would change the dynamics of camp, they desperately needed more men for whatever was to come, especially if it turned out to be another pair of Greater Demons.

Just as quickly as the feeling of hope arrived, he felt it sour, like day-old milk. It didn’t make sense that soldiers would arrive a day after the king sent a message promising reinforcements weeks down the road… He pushed through his men to reach the forefront, where Mrz stood, heavy-footed, gazing toward the silhouetted lines of soldiers marching northward. No, he thought. Not directly northward. Though it was difficult to ascertain the direction of their march from such a great distance, he could tell they were angling away, not toward, the Infernal Pit. Northward, yes, but eastward as well. As far as he knew, there was only one major Terran fortress in that direction, one he was all too familiar with: Bearhoff. Bearhoff was the Terran counterpart to Kingsfort, standing sentinel across the Vein like a dark blot against the sky, lights visible during the night, a sea of fiery stars with the promise of death.

The king was sending reinforcements, pulling troops back from the Solarii border. Just not to help secure the Rift. No, the siege of Kingsfort was about to begin.

“Odin is home,” Mrz said. “No shame in leaving to defend own country.”

Ando appreciated the sentiment, he truly did, but he needed time to think. His entire life had been spent defending Odin’s borders, the past several years at Kingsfort, where the bloodiest battles had been fought. And now, once again, his soldiers, his kingdom, were under attack by a power-hungry tyrant. How could he stand idle while his people died? No, not idle, he thought. I’m defending the tyrant’s people from the evil lurking beneath their own lands.

On the other hand, what could he really do? He was only one man. Even if he managed to arrive ahead of the attack, another would be in command in his stead. Would he seek to supplant them and regain his position as High Commander? Would it matter if he did? The men at Kingsfort were well-trained, he’d seen to that.

And if he left the Infernal Pit now, what would the rest of them do? He’d only just given a speech about protecting the lives of innocents, whether they belonged to one’s own kingdom or the kingdom of his enemy. Walking away, regardless of the reason, would make him a hypocrite.

The conversation had continued while his mind wandered. “We’re with ye all the way, High Commander,” Captain Barty said. “Say the word an’ we’ll send those soldiers into the Void.”

“Thank you,” Ando said, but he’d already made his decision. “All of you. But I’m staying, and I hope you will, too. Kingsfort is no longer my battleground. While blood runs through my veins, I will defend the Rift.”

“As will I,” Mrz said.

“I shall stand with my brothers,” Sola said.

Other voices joined in, pledging their loyalty once more.

Even as Ando felt emotion well within him, he hoped he hadn’t condemned them all to death.

On the very next day, in the wake of the soldiers’ passing, the storm finally arrived, not born of clouds but of a pure and impenetrable darkness that rose from the Rift, the shadowy mist spreading amongst them with whispery tendrils that twisted like vines around their arms and legs, chilling them to the bone.

“What evil is this?” Barty asked no one in particular, his words echoing the thoughts of them all. The dwarf raised his arm to escape the ropes of mist, but they followed him like a swarm of flies, curling vaguely around his wrist before tightening sharply like a noose around a throat. He flinched, but of course it was only mist, as insubstantial as smoke.

“We will all join the men on shift,” Ando commanded, his instincts telling him this would be no ordinary demon horde. “Prepare yourselves for battle. And for gods’ sakes, light the torches.”

The men lived and slept in their armor, so the only preparation required was to don helms and gauntlets and collect shields in their white-knuckled grips as they unsheathed their weapons. By the time they were ready, standing side by side in a line, the mist was so thick it might’ve been the dead of night and not midday, when the sun was highest. The last of the torches was lit, but even the firelight seemed to struggle to chase away the shadows, the quivering yellow-orange haloes smaller than usual.

Tora wandered out from where she’d been reading on one of the beds, but Ando ushered her back inside. “Shut and bar the door. Do not open it. I will return when it is safe.” Thankfully, for once she went without a fight.

Ando joined his men, who stood amongst the ocean of darkness, portions of them illuminated by the torchlight, disembodied heads and arms and legs and the occasional sword gripped by hovering hand. “’Tain’t natural,” Barty muttered.

“Let them come,” Mrz said, hammer whisking through the air.

The Rift seemed to respond to the challenge, whispery sounds arising, like the passing of fallen autumn leaves captured in the grip of an icy breeze. Scraping, hissing, slithering. Ando blinked and squinted, trying to discern any movement in the dark, but his eyes—and mind—began to play tricks on him, until he couldn’t trust either of them.

The sounds grew louder, echoing off the walls and causing them to furtively cast their eyes over their shoulders even though they all knew it was impossible for any demons to have snuck around behind. “Focus!” Ando commanded and he heard, to his satisfaction, the shuffling sounds of men reasserting their positions and firming up their grips on their weapons.

The whispers grew louder still, the chatter of thousands of insects in their ears. Several of his men shouted out, but Ando’s eyes remained trained on that slash, slightly darker than the misty darkness that had arisen from it.

The whispers reached a crescendo just before they vanished, the silence so sudden and complete that, in contrast, the beat of Ando’s own heart was deafening. “High Commander…,” Josiah said. “What happened? Is it over?” The question from the youth was so innocent and pure that Ando wished the lad could’ve bottled the feeling behind it, to be saved and drunk later in his life, after he’d become jaded and changed, as all soldiers eventually were.

Before he could respond, a clicking sound arose, sharp and loud and intermittent, like the clack of a heron’s beak as it snapped up a fish. Click! Clack! Click! Clack!

“What is that?” Sola asked, but he wasn’t referring to the sound, his finger lit by a halo of torchlight as he pointed toward the edge of the Rift, where a small white form had emerged, long and sinewy. “Is that a snake?”

At the sound of his voice, the thing reared up, darting from side to side. With a shrieking hiss, the tip of the thing opened, almost like a nightmarish version of a flower blooming, to reveal a mouth full of needlelike teeth. “What in the name of the weeping gods…,” Sola murmured.

The hissing, shrieking appendage—tentacle? snake?—moved back to the ground, sliding along toward them, undulating from side to side. It paused just before them, a small tongue flicking out as if tasting the air. It’s blind, Ando thought. Whatever it is, it can’t see us.

“Rut this,” Mrz grunted, stepping forward with a stomp and bringing his massive hammer to bear. The creature twisted in his direction, hissing and showing its full mouth of teeth. SMASH! Mrz’s hammer came down with such force the ground thundered beneath Ando’s feet. Pinned beneath the heavy iron, the creature squirmed back and forth several times before finally going limp, its thin, forked tongue lolling from a corner of its mouth.

Mrz lifted the head of his hammer, and the creature slid backward into the Rift, as if drawn back into the Void by nothing more than the pull of gravity on its heavy corpse. Mrz turned toward the rest of them, edges of his broad mouth curving into a wide, toothy smile.

Without warning, dozens more of the pale, snakelike creatures shot from the Rift, several of them roping around Mrz’s arms and legs, lifting the enormous Grizari into the air as though he weighed as much as a chicken, and causing him to drop his hammer, which thudded to the ground.

“Attack!” Ando shouted, feeling the familiar burst of adrenaline rushing through his veins that he always experienced just before first blood. He exploded from his haunches, sword gripped in two hands, mouth opening to release a huge roar, a pair of tentacles whipping toward him, open mouths screaming hatefully….

He ducked beneath their attempt to devour his face, sweeping his blade upward in a powerful arc, hacking through the two narrow bodies in short succession. Gray blood spewed from the severed ends as the portions bearing the shrieking mouths tumbled to the ground, writhing and twisting for several moments before going still, while the stump portions slithered back into the chasm.

Ando whirled about, seeking another tentacle to hack, watching as Sir Metz and his wife fought back to back, defending each other’s rear, slashing and slicing anything that moved. Metz managed to cut through two of the four appendages gripping Mrz, and the big man’s body dipped awkwardly, the remaining two tentacles struggling under his weight. Ando pushed off from his heel and charged. As if sensing his attack, the two tentacles wheeled toward him, snapping at the air. He stabbed the first one through the upper part of its mouth, the blade pushing through the flesh and exiting out the top. Wrenching the blood-slick sword back, he sidestepped and impaled the next creature through its chin, steel appearing in its mouth, its snapping jaws only serving to cause more damage as the sharp edge sheared off teeth, which tinkled to the ground like shards of broken glass.

Bloodied and damaged, both tentacles released their hold on the Grizari, who thumped free, groaning as his shoulder impacted the rocky earth. “Thought I was done for,” he grunted, accepting hands from Metz and Ando, who hauled him to his feet. “Much thanks.”

“You can thank us by retrieving your hammer and smashing a dozen more of these things,” Ando said, already moving away to locate the next enemy.

“I will do this thing,” he heard Mrz say.

The majority of the tentacles had shifted away from Ando’s location, perhaps hunting easier prey. Ando spun around, seeking movement in the misty darkness. There was a flash of pale flesh as one of the tentacles swung into the air. A blur of steel followed as one of Ando’s men was flipped high in the air, his scream trailing behind him until he vanished into the Rift, gone forever.

Another man, one of his fellow Odinians, stood helpless as needlelike teeth burrowed into his chest, tearing through his steel armor like it was nothing but soft cheese. His mouth and eyes gaped open for a long second before his head slumped back and they closed once more. Rage rising inside him, Ando was about to charge the creature to avenge his man’s death, but then a blade appeared, wielded by an invisible hand, slashing down and dismembering the head. In its wake, Sola’s grim face appeared. He nodded at Ando and then wheeled about to slash at another tentacle.

Metz and his wife appeared at Ando’s side. “The tentacles are not acting independently of each other,” Metz said, his voice remarkably even-keel considering the situation. He could’ve been reciting information from a book, for all Ando could tell. “There is a coordination to their attacks.”

“Like when four of them grabbed Mrz,” Ando said, catching on to the knight’s meaning.

“Precisely.”

“You’re saying they’re attached to something?”

Metz nodded. “Something large.”

Ando felt like ‘large’ might be a major understatement given the number of tentacles that had shot from the Rift, with more still coming, replacing their severed siblings. “What do you suggest?”

“We need to draw it out,” Metz said. “Get it to show its face so we can kill it.”

“How?”

“Archers,” Metz said. “Mona and I will gather them together. We’ll shoot into the Rift to anger it.”

“Wait, you’re an archer? I thought you were a swordsman. And swordswoman,” he added, glancing at Mona.

“Can a man only wear one hat?” Metz said. His face lit up in a surprising smile. “Mona, did you hear that? I made a senseless comparison!”

“Christoff,” she said, a warning in her tone.

“Ah, yes, as I was saying, as we traveled through Crimea—they were rebuilding, you see, after the devastation caused by the Horde—but anyway, we met a master archer who agreed to teach us and we trained for nigh on six months until—”

“Christoff!” Mona exclaimed, exasperated.

“Sorry. The answer is yes, both of us can shoot. Rather well I might add.”

“Good,” Ando said. “I will arrange an escort, to provide cover for you and the other archers as you shoot into the Rift.”

Ando hustled off, feeling good to at least have a plan other than ‘hack at everything that moves.’ He located Sola and Mrz first, the two former enemies now fighting remarkably well together as a tandem. If Mrz’s hammer was the thunder, Sola’s blade was the lightning, the combination a fierce storm that had left chunks of flopping creatures piling up around them, the ground growing slick with their gray blood.

Adding his own sword to the mix, Ando explained the plan while they fought, and then the threesome dispersed to spread the word. Ando found Captain Barty next, his axe singing through the air. Two dwarves lay dead nearby, holes through their chests, but his remaining dwarves were still fighting, as stalwart and hardy as any full-sized human.

Again, Ando shouted the plan, his crew of fighters growing as they made their way back to where he found Metz gathered with the archers, who were tracking the tentacles with their bows, occasionally loosing an arrow, most of which missed their targets, the appendages swooping from side to side with dangerous speed.

“Ready?” Ando asked.

“Yes,” Metz confirmed. Both he and his wife now held bows, full quivers strapped to their backs, their swords sheathed. “Keep them off of us as long as you can.”

Ando nodded and barked a command to his men, dwarves and Mrz. They moved forward like a single organism, protecting each other’s sides as several tentacles made the mistake of swooping too close. The rest of the tentacles, however, pulled back, gathering close together, mouths hissing as one. Ando halted his men just before the edge of the Rift, forming them up into two equal lines with a corridor of protection between them for Metz and his archers to pass through. “Steady!” Ando shouted.

The archers took up position along the edge. “Nock!” Metz barked, his own battlefield voice as full of command as any general Ando had ever encountered. Along the line of archers, arrows were fitted to strings. “Draw!” The archers drew back their arrows, creating tension in their strings. “Loose!” the knight roared. Bows twanged and arrows sliced through the air, aimed downward, vanishing into the darkness.

Something shrieked from the depths in response. The tentacles gathered above them quivered like reed stalks battered by a stiff wind. The click-clack sound they’d heard just before the attack began returned, growing louder by the second. Still the tentacles had not attacked, though their movements were growing more frenetic, twitching and shivering high in the air.

“Again!” Metz barked. Another round of arrows disappeared into the chasm, earning another spine-tingling shriek. Click! Clack! CLICK! CLACK! CLICK! CLACK!

“Again!” Metz shouted, even as something indescribably large emerged from the darkness, the dome of its bulbous head as pale as its tentacles, a head which was already feathered with arrows, protruding at odd angles from its rubbery flesh. Given the size of the Greater Demon, Ando thought even he’d be able to hit it with an arrow though his bow skills were limited The only problem: the arrows seemed to be having limited, if any, effect on it. If anything, they were just angering the thing, dark eyes blazing as they, too, emerged from the Rift, followed shortly by the source of the clicking, clacking sound—a strange, beak-like mouth that looked capable of slicing a man in two with a single snap.

“Steady!” Ando said again, just as Metz shouted, “Aim for the eyes! For the eyes!”

The next round of arrows flew, most of them peppering the flesh around the eyes but missing their target. Two arrows, however, shot from the bows of Christoff and Mona, respectively, hit their marks. The shots were perfectly coordinated, one arrow piercing each eye, their orb-like domes shattering, gelatinous liquid as dark as ink splashing outward.

Enraged, the demon launched its tentacles downward, each streaking like comets as they plummeted toward them. Ando dodged as one punched through the shield of the man beside him, tearing into his throat. Another roped around one of the dwarf’s legs and then he was gone, flung toward the blind demon, who opened his snapping beak to receive the fresh meat. Despite their efforts to provide a human shield for the archers, who continued to fire arrows into the demon’s ruined eye sockets, one of the tentacles snuck past and slammed into one of the shooters. His arm was ripped from his shoulder and tossed aside just before Metz fired an arrow point blank into the tentacle’s mouth, causing it to recoil with a long hiss.

Ando decapitated two more tentacles while Barty handled another with his axe and Mrz bludgeoned one with his hammer. And then, suddenly, there were no tentacles remaining, nubby tendrils slapping at the demon’s sides as it clacked its beak helplessly.

Inch by slow inch, it descended back into the depths.

“Is it over?” Sola said in the silence that followed.

Metz said, “No,” with such certainty it caused Ando to cock his head to the side, frowning. That’s when he remembered what Sola had told them:

That Greater Demons tended to travel in pairs.

A deep rumbling sound started deep within the Rift, like a throat being cleared, and as the noise grew, the earth itself began to shake, until they were forced to throw themselves to the ground lest they tumble into the abyss.

A meaty hand clamped onto the chasm’s edge, its skin chiseled and gashed, filled with notches and crevices, like the flanks of a cliff long weathered by wind and storms. “On your feet!” Ando shouted, and the men and Mona shoved themselves back up, the earth continuing to quake beneath them, threatening to send them sprawling. A second hand slammed down, cracks appearing along the ground under the force of the impact.

A face, if you could call it that, appeared, its surface as blank as an artist’s empty canvas, without eyes nor nose nor mouth. Shoulders followed, and then a powerful chest. Finally, as the Greater Demon drew itself out, its legs arrived, as thick as tree trunks but far more solid-looking, its entire body constructed of stone. The demon stood to its full height, which was twice that of a man as tall as Ando. Without magic, how did one defeat a stone wall? That was the question cycling through Ando’s mind as he took in the mighty creature, which reached toward one of the walls that surrounded the Rift, plucking a heavy stone block from the mortar as easily as if it had been glued with nothing but tree sap.

“Run!” Ando screamed, realizing what was happening a second before the creature launched the block.

As one, they scattered in all directions. Launched from the demon’s immense grip, the stone whooshed through the air and then landed with a raucous crash, splitting into chunks that exploded in every direction. One man’s legs were cut out from under him while Ando caught sight of a low-statured dwarf taking a stone to the head, knocking him face first into the dirt.

Ando spun around, watching as the demon reached for another stone. His eyes caught Metz’s, which were narrowed, his face tensed in calm calculation. At the same time, they said, “Its legs!” Metz surprised Ando with a grim smile and a nod, turning to spread the word to those around him while Ando did the same to Mrz and Sola, who were within earshot.

Just as the message had been conveyed, the Greater Demon launched his next stone. This one sailed high, clipping the top of the wall near the gate and causing it to shatter, chunks of rock raining down as it collapsed under its own weight, crushing the heavy iron gate in the process.

“Charge!” Ando yelled, and they moved in at a sprint before the demon could grasp another projectile. The dozens of tiny—to it, anyway—creatures charging toward it seemed to distract the lumbering demon, which swatted at them like flies as they fell upon its legs, stabbing and slashing and cutting and hammering. Its stonelike fist clobbered Barty and two of his dwarves in one hit, sending them rolling end over end. Mrz stepped in to take their place, smashing blow after blow with his hammer into the demon’s ankle, chipping away chunks of flesh with each swing.

It was working.

The demon also seemed to realize it was losing and began kicking at its attackers with its heavy feet. Sola took a shot to the abdomen, so powerful he was lifted off his feet, flipping over backwards before crashing down awkwardly on his back. Metz and Mona, who had partnered once more to try and slash their way through the other leg, suffered a backhand slap from the beast that sent them skittering along the ground in a tangle of arms and legs and, more worrisome, their own blades, which flashed amongst their bodies as they tumbled.

A few dwarves were sent into the abyss when they made the mistake of sneaking around to hack at the back of the demon’s legs. It simply kicked rearward, knocking them headlong into darkness. There were less than a half-dozen fighters still on their feet. With another powerful punch, the demon eliminated all but Ando and Mrz. The Grizari warrior was almost through one of the demon’s legs with his hammer.

Boom! A large chunk of rocklike flesh was chiseled away. Boom! There was nothing left of its lower leg but a spindly column, which was already cracking under the demon’s weight. With a mighty roar, Mrz swept his hammer to deal the finishing blow, but the demon blocked it with its hand, snapping the weapon’s handle like a twig. Its hand then formed a fist that rushed forward to punch the Grizari warrior in the chest, denting his armor inward and sending him backward so hard he crashed into the wall and then slid down to the ground.

What was left of the demon’s right leg finally shattered, but the creature managed to maintain its balance by placing a hand on the ground, hobbled but not dead. Ando continued working on the left leg, slashing deeper and deeper into its flesh, penetrating the deep runnel already carved by Metz and his wife before they were dispatched.

Ando had learned from the others’ failures, slashing and then dodging attempted punches and kicks from the Greater Demon, which was growing more and more frantic by the second. A little deeper, Ando thought, slashing with everything he had, his blade sinking further into the stone. He was more than halfway through, and soon the demon’s own size would become his enemy as it crushed down upon the ever-narrowing column of support.

The demon may not have had eyes or a nose or a mouth, but evidently it did have some sort of brain in its stone head, because it too learned from its failures, offering a feinted punch, which Ando twisted away from only to be met by a firm kick from what was left of its mutilated leg. The impact was what Ando imagined it would be like to be a door faced with a battering ram wielded by a dozen soldiers determined to breach a castle gate. His breath left him, his hand lost all strength and dropped his sword, and his legs crumpled.

Lying on his back in the dirt and gasping for air, he managed to roll his head to the side just as the demon, who was unable to move due to one leg being shattered and the other on the verge of meeting a similar fate, reached for another stone block. Even hobbled, it could simply pick off its downed victims one at a time, killing them at will.

Ando tried to move, but his body refused to obey him. It’s over, he thought. We failed.

His eyes spotted movement on the outskirts of the walled-in area as a form emerged from one of the stone huts, white dress flashing in the darkness as the figure seemed to float just off the ground. He squinted, wondering if his eyes were playing tricks or if this place had become haunted over the years.

As the form swept along, his addled brain finally clamped down on reality, for it was neither a ghost nor a trick of the inky darkness. Tora! he tried to scream, but all that escaped his lips was another gasp as a small measure of air filled his throat and lungs. Tora continued her flight along the edge of the encampment until she reached the tail end of the Rift, where she turned right and skirted its edge. The Greater Demon hadn’t noticed her yet, the path she’d chosen clever as she’d always remained on the periphery or just outside its field of vision, assuming it could actually see without eyes.

Before Tora had covered half the distance to the demon, it threw another stone block, which thumped into one of the slumped bodies of Ando’s men. If the man had still been alive, he wasn’t now. Tora hurried forward. Stubborn, disobedient girl! he thought fiercely. He couldn’t do anything to stop her now and calling to her might only alert the demon to her presence.

Instead, he clamped his lips shut, breathing through his nose, and fought the dead weight of his rubbery legs as he dragged himself toward the demon, which cocked its head in his direction. He couldn’t do much, but he could distract the creature away from Tora.

The demon snapped off another stone block.

Tora, who was now directly beneath the demon, gripped something in her hand, the edge glinting red as it caught a slash of light from one of the torches. A knife.

The demon raised its arm, fully facing Ando now as he continued to drag himself forward. Just as its stony arm seemed to tense in preparation to bring the block slamming down onto Ando’s head, Tora stabbed her knife into what remained of its leg. Though the blade didn’t sink deep, it did hold fast in the creature’s hard skin, giving it pause as it angled its head to peer down at whatever had dared to poke it.

Tora looked up.

“No!” Ando shouted, finally finding his voice as he dug nails into earth, dragging himself forward with reckless abandon in his haste to get to the girl, who, unprotected, tried to run.

Ando dove for her, determined to throw his own body over hers like a shield, but the demon had managed to launch his stone first. Regardless, Ando landed short of her just as the block smashed into her from behind, thankfully not landing on her, but hitting her with enough force that she tumbled forward and then lay still.

Crimson blazed before Ando’s eyes as rage poured through him. Feeling returned to his legs and he exploded to his feet, ramming his shoulder into the dagger’s pommel, which was still protruding from the chiseled column of the demon’s leg. The blade sunk in slightly deeper, but even if it sunk all the way to the hilt it wasn’t long or powerful enough to sever what was left of the leg. Unless…, Ando thought, training one eye on the demon’s fists while continuing to hammer at the dagger with his hand, until blood began to weep from his knuckles, his skin scraping away.

As expected, the demon tried to grab him with its hand, but he dove away, scampering through the creature’s legs, his own legs gaining strength by the second. He rounded the other side and returned to hammering at the dagger. Enraged, the demon tried to stomp on him, but again Ando dodged, the ground trembling as the massive stone foot came down. The impact caused cracks to appear in the narrow column of stone, radiating out from where Tora had first stabbed the blade into the leg.

Come on, Ando thought fiercely. Come get me, you bastard!

The demon obliged, attempting to stomp on him again and nearly getting him this time as Ando was a hair slower, his battered body no longer cooperating. More cracks spiderwebbed outward along the demon’s fractured skin.

One more, Ando thought. Just one more.

The third stomp was so swift and powerful that Ando, even in his prime, couldn’t have escaped. With a crunch, it shattered his leg at the knee as he dove away, pinning him temporarily beneath its weight. He groaned in pain but managed to swivel his head around, watching as the rest of the creature’s leg crumbled at the exact point where Tora’s knife had penetrated the stone.

The faceless demon’s torso collapsed, its arms still active as it tried to swipe at Ando, who was just out of reach. Without legs to balance on, the demon’s body began to slide down the rock pile created by its shattered appendages, tumbling backward and then over the Rift’s edge, swallowed by the darkness.

The pain was excruciating, but Ando took a deep breath, clawing at the ground to extricate himself from the rock pile that had crushed his leg. He bit back a scream as his leg tore free. The knee was buckled, bent back the wrong way, a hideous sight even if it wasn’t his own leg. He didn’t care about any of that right now. What he cared about was Tora. His head swiveled around to where the girl lay, unmoving, her swift, brave actions having saved them all. If not for her well-placed knife, it was all too possible none of them would have survived the day.

Dark mist continued to twist and curl around her motionless form, which drew Ando’s eyes into a squint. Why hadn’t the mist dissipated after the Greater Demons were vanquished? The mist had preceded the creatures’ arrival, surely it should follow them into the Rift. And yet still it hung, a black curtain announcing the end of a dark play, a tragedy no doubt. The mist seemed to penetrate his skin, cold and spiteful, and a shiver trembled through him.

Ando began to crawl on hands and one knee, dragging his shattered leg behind him, gritting his teeth each time it bounced over another stone. Toward Tora. Because…

Something was coming.

He didn’t know how he knew it, only that he was certain of another presence rising from the Infernal Pit. Not a lesser demon, no, the Greater Demons had scared them all off for a while. Not another Greater Demon either, as they traveled in pairs and they’d injured or killed the two they’d faced sufficiently well to ensure they wouldn’t return anytime soon, if ever. No, whatever was coming was something else, something other.

He sped up, ignoring the increase in pain, focused on his target, the young girl lying on the ground, her blond curls tumbling askew over her face. He froze, staring. “Celeste?” he murmured. The blond curls shuddered and twitched and then transformed into raggedy, brown locks cut boy-short.

He shook his head, erasing the image of his daughter, refocusing on the one that maybe, just maybe, he could still save, as she’d saved them all. The chill in his spine intensified as he clawed and scraped his way closer. Movement on the edge of his vision snatched his gaze back toward the Rift. A pale form clambered from the chasm. It wore battle armor, complete with gauntlets and helm, its face hidden by a mask. There were slits for its eyes, but Ando could only make out darkness within those gaps. A black cape swept from its back as it moved, like a banner whipping in the breeze. It gripped a long, dark sword in its armored fist.

It was, he realized, the creature from his nightmare.

“No,” Ando said as it began to stride directly toward Tora. “No!”

The thing turned its head but didn’t change its path. Ando fought off a wave of agony from his leg, spots dancing before his eyes as the pain threatened to pull him under its dark tide.

Ando reached Tora not a moment too soon, the pale warrior raising its sword to strike just as Ando crawled over her, using his own armored form as a shield. He braced himself for the bite of steel into his back, mouth agape as the creature—for he knew it was not human, could not be human—fell upon them.

The impact never came. He felt an icy coldness inside him as the creature, sword and all, passed through him without stopping. As he watched, horrorstruck, the creature vanished into the wall. Behind it, two additional creatures garbed in armor followed, one a similar stature and the other shorter but broader of shoulder, its form hunched over, its legs withered and gnarled-looking, even beneath the steel plates that covered them.

Even as the trio disappeared through the stone, the thick, inky mist began to fade, black turning to gray, gray turning to orange, before the space within the walls returned to the sunny, cheerful day they’d all been enjoying before the Greater Demons had arrived. The ice left Ando’s bones, leaving him strangely warm in its wake. That’s when he realized that the mist hadn’t preceded the Greater Demons’ appearance. No, the mist was the precursor to the pale, armored warriors’ appearance, the way paved by the Greater Demons, as though they were their masters.

Though the ghostly creatures were disconcerting, Ando, in that moment, didn’t care. All he cared about was the girl he was probably crushing beneath him. He rolled off, groaning as another lance of pain sliced through his leg. He turned back to look at her, tears blurring his vision, forcing him to blink furiously to clear his eyes.

No, he thought. I cannot bear this torment.

For it was no longer Tora who lay before him, but a spritely girl of four, with bouncy, blond curls and sparkling blue eyes that had just fluttered open, a smile forming on her bowtie lips.

“Celeste,” Ando said. “Oh, Celeste.” He reached forward to touch her perfect cheek, to feel the warmth within her small body.

When he did, the smile turned to a frown. “Er, Ando? Did you get hit in the head?”

He closed his eyes, and when he opened them, his daughter had left him again, leaving Tora in her place. “Sorry,” he said. “My leg is shattered. The pain is…immense.”

“Milksop,” she said, her contagious smile returning. “I guess that means we sent the bastards back into the Void?”

“That it does,” Ando said. “Thanks to you. What you did was nothing short of heroic.”

She managed to prop her head onto her hand and offer a shrug. “I couldn’t jest hide in a cabinet this time,” she said.

“I’m glad you didn’t. We all are.”

“Does this mean you’ll let me stay with you?”

“Yes,” Ando said. “Although there was never really a question about that. Now, I’d better call names.” And he did, shouting the names of the men who’d fought alongside him. Most were dead. But not all. Not all.

Sola.

Barty.

Sir Christoff Metz and his wife, Mona Sheary-Metz.

And yes, Mrz.

Of his inner circle, the only one who didn’t respond was Josiah.

Gods rest your soul, Ando thought, a single tear escaping his eye and tracking down his cheek.

He dashed it away with the back of his hand.

Moments later, the earth began to rumble as the Rift began to close.

Twenty-Four

Dragonmaster Dane

Dragonsmount, Travail

THEIR BONDING DAY BEGAN WITH A STORM. Spikes of red lightning streaked down from the heavens. Thunder shattered the silence an instant later, the heart of the storm passing Dragonsmount as the storm made landfall.

Dane watched the storm, his heart pounding. Not because of the storm itself, which was not dissimilar to dozens of other storms he’d witnessed. Because of what the day represented for his life, his future. The ceremony would mark the second of three bondings a dragonrider experienced. And though this bonding was the result of political dealings, he’d already grown fond of Peony Normandian, a fondness that he hoped, one day, could grow into something more, a love as deep as the ocean.

Hoom, Daneus rumbled, announcing himself. Don’t tell me you’ve become a romantic.

Why not? Dane replied. Can a warrior not also be a romantic?

Not one like you. Have you looked in the mirror lately?

Have you?

We’re talking about you right now. And Peony would be wise to run from the Bonding Stone and never look back.

Dane could sense an undercurrent to his dragon’s words, which were disguised as a jest. He’d known his dragon long enough to know when his motivations grew complex. You’re concerned about what she told us last night.

Yes. And you should be too.

Why? Even if that blade…even if it’s… He could hardly fathom what the blade might represent, its origins as ancient and mysterious as the gods themselves.

Speak your mind, tiny human, the dragon said.

The godblades were forged by the gods themselves, weren’t they? Wouldn’t one who wields one be blessed?

Mayhaps. But the godblades have been hidden for centuries. Why would they come forth now?

Dane had considered the very same question as he watched the storm before dawn had arrived. Because of the turmoil in Kingfall. Because the world feels like it’s falling apart at the seams.

Why would the gods care about humans killing humans? They left your kind to their own devices, after all.

What are you saying? Dane asked. That there is another evil threatening these lands? If so, I don’t see it. I see a demon Rift that has been sealed. I see a marriage alliance that will protect our lands from the ambitions of a tyrant ruler to the north. I see a future for Travail with Peony as my bondmate.

Hoom. I’m glad you see all that. But what about what you feel in your bones. Tell me you don’t feel what I feel.

And what is that?

A wall, Daneus said. The blade feels like a wall of stone set between you, between us. Unbreakable. Unclimbable. No door. No windows. No way through. A bonding should create an unbreakable tether between two beings, like our bond.

For better or for worse, eh?

Exactly. You say and do foolish things and I’m willing to live with that.

Get to your point.

How do you create an unbreakable tether when you stand on opposite sides of a wall?

Since when does a wall stop us? You’re a dragon and I’m your rider. Walls are nothing.

This is different, Daneus said.

Mayhaps. But you know how much I like a challenge.

I will support you in your decision, of course.

Good to know.

I’m serious. I like Peony, you know I do. I’m just concerned for you.

Then thank you, Dane said. I cannot do this without you.

Of course you can’t. Without me, you’re hopeless.

I need to get ready, Dane said, rising to head back inside the cave, hoping his dragon would leave him alone for long enough to clear his head. Though he’d shrugged off his dragon’s warnings like a raggedy old cloak, Peony’s revelations the prior night had left him rather shaken. She was no ordinary woman, that much was certain from the moment he’d laid eyes on her, but this went beyond simply unordinary.

“Good morning,” Peony said, causing him to grind to a startled halt. She was standing before him as he entered, but his brain hadn’t registered what his eyes were seeing.

“Morning,” he said. “Sleep well?”

“Surprisingly, yes,” she said. “The storm served more as a lullaby than a disruption.”

“See?” Dane said brightly. “You’re becoming a woman of Travail already.”

Peony’s pale cheeks grew pink. “Will we really be bonded today?” she asked.

“Unless you’re considering flying off on my dragon and leaving me behind.”

“Hmm, tempting, but I think I’ll stay a while. At least until I grow bored with you.”

Dane smiled. “Sounds fair. A trial period then?”

“Yes. A trial period. You have a fortnight to prove you’re acceptable husband material.”

“I accept wholeheartedly.” An awkward silence bloomed between them, and Dane sensed there was something she wanted to say, something she was masking with her lighthearted banter. “What is it, Peony? If there is something we must discuss before the bonding, we should do so now.”

“It’s just, after last night, are you certain this is what you want? That I’m what you want?”

It was almost as though she’d been listening in on his conversation with Daneus. He pretended to think. “Mmm, a difficult question. Let’s see…bonding for life to a foreign, fire-haired princess who grew up in a posh palace made of mage-formed crystal, a bond that will create a marriage alliance that will force Travail into an ill-advised war that could destroy half of Kingfall? Where do I sign?”

“I’m serious,” Peony said.

“So am I,” Dane said, his voice growing deeper. He stepped forward and extended his arms. Peony angled her head to the side, but then stepped into them, her soft, pampered hands roping around his back, head resting on his chest. “Peony Normandian, I choose to be bonded to you for life, if you’ll have me.”

She looked up at him, green eyes piercing and beautiful in the stormy morning light. “I will,” she said.

“Good, I’m glad we got that cleared up,” he said, pulling away.

She shook her head and swatted at him. “Nothing more than a performance then. If you ever grow weary of frolicking around on your dragon you may have a career as a play actor in Odin.”

“Frolicking?” Dane said at the same time as Daneus droned, Frolicking?

“Like a spring butterfly,” she added.

“Daneus does flit about rather well,” Dane said.

Teaming up against me already, I see, Daneus complained, but Dane ignored him. There was something about this woman that he was utterly drawn to. His voice growing husky once more, he stepped closer to take her into his arms, leaning in, enjoying her surprised exclamation of “Oh,” just before he kissed her.

Their lips knitted together, tentative at first, but then growing more eager, urgent. Peony’s mouth opened and Dane’s tongue slipped inside, finding hers waiting and ready to receive it as his hand rose to thread through her hair. He felt an energy inside him, a leap of his heart, a passion he had only ever felt for one other woman, though he’d never acted on such impulses. The hand that was in her hair slid down her back as the other curled around to scoop her up, her legs wrapping around his torso and locking behind him, her arms encircling his neck as he began to walk her backwards toward the bed…

Light flashed before his eyes, though they were closed, blinding him and causing a piercing sensation to stab through the center of his forehead. His lips drew back as he cried out, dropping Peony as his hands instinctively rose to press into his skull, in the exact spot the pain had originated.

He lowered his head, eyes closed, agony gripping him.

The light faded. The pain subsided.

He opened his eyes to find Peony lying on her back with her head craned forward, eyes narrowed, mouth slightly open. Staring at him with a cross between fear and concern. That’s when he noticed something else:

Her lip was bleeding.

Peony

Peony’s tailbone was throbbing from the impact, her lip stinging where Dane had bitten her. Clearly, it wasn’t on purpose. Something had caused him great discomfort, which he seemed to be just recovering from, staring at her with a horrified expression as he noticed her condition, his eyes lingering on her bloody lip.

“Peony, I—I don’t know what happened. A splitting pain in my head—it’s gone now—but I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did—did I bite you?”

“Only a nip,” Peony said, trying to make light of it. “Tiger used to play bite me at least twice as hard on a nightly basis. My tailbone on the other hand…” She pretended to rub her lower back, as though in agony.

“Oh gods, I dropped you, didn’t I?”

She couldn’t help finding it quite endearing how horrified he sounded. “From a small height, all things considered. You probably figured I was part feline after I jumped off Dragonsmount and landed on my feet.”

“Peony, I am so sorry.”

“Not another word about it,” Peony said, waving his apology away with a hand. “I am young and recover quickly. Mayhaps it was the gods cursing us for engaging in certain activities prior to our bonding.”

Dane was not laughing, her japes falling on deaf ears as he hurried over to her and picked her up once more, this time cradling her under her knees and behind her neck. “Maybe carrying me around isn’t such a great idea right now…,” she murmured.

He eased her onto the bed and proceeded to plump up the pillow so she could sit up. “I’ll prepare a warm drink for you,” he said.

“How chivalrous,” she said. “Thank you.”

As he busied himself using a flint to light a fire in a large stone bowl filled with kindling in the center of the cave, she returned to her mind, determined to figure out what had happened. For, just before Dane had lost control of his body, she’d heard that familiar voice in her head. ARE YOU CERTAIN YOU WANT TO BOND WITH HIM? her blade had asked. Then, before she could even consider responding or telling the blade to ‘Leave me alone, I’m kind of busy,’ Dane had dropped her and clutched his head like a thousand spikes were being driven into his forehead.

Did you cause that? Peony thought now.

NO. YES. MAYBE.

Very helpful. Glad you’re willing to provide such straightforward answers.

I’M SORRY. IT’S BEEN A WHILE SINCE I CONVERSED WITH ANYONE. AND THIS SITUATION IS RATHER…UNIQUE.

Unique how?

IT’S HARD TO EXPLAIN.

Try me.

There was a brief pause, during which Peony assumed the blade was thinking about how to explain what it meant. Wait, Peony thought. Can a blade really think at all?

YES, came the answer. THAT’S ALL I’VE BEEN ABLE TO DO FOR THE LAST FEW CENTURIES. I’VE BECOME A RATHER GOOD THINKER, BUT WITH SO MUCH TIME ON MY HANDS, I THINK RATHER SLOWLY.

Just do your best. Why is my situation unique and why did Dane feel a burst of pain in his head when you spoke to me?

THE SHORT VERSION IS THAT I THINK HE’S MY ENEMY.

Your enemy? Peony was almost afraid to ask her next question. Then what’s the long version?

I DON’T KNOW. I HAVEN’T WORKED THAT OUT JUST YET. WHAT I DO KNOW IS THAT HIS FEELINGS FOR YOU ARE REAL.

You can tell that?

I’M QUITE PERCEPTIVE. BUT I CAN ALSO TELL HE’S WARY OF ME, AND THAT MAKES HIM MY ENEMY.

Peony crinkled her brow. Just because he’s wary of you? I’m wary of petting snakes, so I don’t do it, but I don’t consider snakes my enemies.

LIKE I SAID, IT’S HARD TO EXPLAIN.

I appreciate your concern, but he’s been nothing but kind to me so far. And if I was in his boots and the person I was about to marry had a magical sword that could appear and disappear between blinks of the eye and allowed its wielder to survive falls off cliffs…I think I would be pretty wary too.

FAIR POINT. WHAT CAN I DO TO HELP THE SITUATION?

Peony considered the offer. For starters, how about not hurting Dane while I’m kissing him.

I THINK I CAN DO THAT. OR RATHER, NOT DO THAT. I WILL BE AS QUIET AS A MOUSE. YOU WON’T EVEN KNOW I EXIST.

Thank you.

YOU’RE WELCOME.

Dane had a good fire going, and Peony’s sore tailbone actually made lying in bed more painful than standing, so she slipped off the mattress and padded over to the large stone bowl, extending her hands to warm her palms.

“You should be resting,” Dane said. He’d just returned from filling a small pot with water from a jug set on the only table, the one with only one chair.

“I’m fine, really.”

Dane passed by her, one hand extending as though he might touch her back but narrowly missing. Is he afraid of touching me now?

LIKE I SAID: WARY.

Wait. I thought he was wary of you, not me.

YOU ARE ME, AND I AM YOU. SO IF HE’S WARY OF ME, HE’S WARY OF YOU, TOO. MORE SO NOW.

Fantastic.

NOT REALLY. WHY WOULD THAT BE FANTASTIC?

Peony rolled her eyes as Dane slid the kettle’s handle onto a long, curving rod that he fit into notches on either side of the bowl. The kettle then hung over the fire to boil. “What sort of drink are you making?” she asked, trying to get him talking. Anything was better than the awkward silence that had bullied its way between them because of what had happened.

“Pine needle tea,” he said.

“Truly?”

“It’s the only medicinal tea I know how to make,” Dane said, smiling as he finally met her eyes. “Your lip!” he exclaimed. “We need to clean it to prevent infection.”

“I’m fine.”

“Trust me. I know a few things about injuries.” Dane rummaged around in an old chest that sat against the wall until he located a clean-looking cloth, which he dipped into the water jug to moisten.

When he returned to Peony, she asked, “Have you been in many battles?”

“Not really. Before my mother died, we continued to support Solarii. I fought at the border twice. But I witnessed the violence and brutality of war. It’s not as the songs and stories tell it.” His words felt heavier, as though each weighed on his shoulders.

“So if I die, does that mean the marriage alliance is severed and Travail will no longer support Odin?” Peony asked.

“You’re not going to die.”

“But if I do…”

“Travail would no longer be bound by the marriage alliance, that is true. But our decision to forsake Solarii has less to do with my mother’s death and more to do with the Dead King.”

Peony’s eyes lit up. Of course, she’d heard of the Dead King, but anyone she asked seemed loathe to talk in detail about him, leaving her own imagination to conjure up all sorts of images. “Have you seen him?”

Dane nodded. “Not much to look at. He’s well over a century old at this point.”

“Not to mention he’s dead.”

“Supposedly. Though he looked very much alive to me.”

“Fascinating.”

“You are a strange woman. Hold still.”

Don’t say a word, Peony warned the blade—wherever it was.

Thankfully, the blade didn’t respond, even as Dane dabbed at her lip, cleaning off the excess blood, which had begun to clot. “Does it look awful?” she asked.

Dane blew out a breath. “Just don’t look in the mirror or you might faint.”

“What? Give me a mirr—”

“A jape, and one in bad taste, at that,” Dane interrupted. “It’s nothing. It won’t even be noticeable once Star and Lei are done with you.”

“What do you mean, ‘once Star and Lei are done with’ me?” The thought of even being in the same room as Star made a nest of snakes twist and writhe in her stomach.

“They’ll be assisting you as you prepare for our bonding.”

“Oh. Of course,” she said, as though it were nothing. In reality, the snakes’ roiling and squirming intensified. “What does that entail, exactly?”

Dane held up his hands. “Not my area of expertise.” Just then, the kettle began to whistle, and he slid it down the metal spoke and free of the fire. He poured a portion of its contents, light brown and steaming, into an oversized mug with a broad handle and passed it to Peony.

“Thank you. For cleaning my lip, too.”

“Least I could do after biting you,” he said.

“True. Next time we kiss, warn me before you decide to use your teeth.”

“Next time? I feared that was the last time.”

Peony offered a mischievous smile. “I know you think me posh and pampered, but there’s more steel in my bones than you think. A little bite won’t scare me away.”

Dane breathed out a laugh. “Then I’m a lucky man indeed. Now, I must take my leave. Star and Lei will be along shortly.” With that, he bowed at the waist and departed, leaving Peony alone once more.

CAN I SAY SOMETHING NOW?

Well, maybe not completely alone.

Dane

I’ve never felt anything like that, Daneus said as Dane hurried down the winding cliffside path to Dragonmount’s lower levels. Rain pelted his head and shoulders, soaking him to the skin in an instant, until he might as well have been swimming.

Nor have I, Dane admitted. A red streak of lightning struck somewhere out at sea. The pain had been exquisite and yet fleeting, not so different than the lightning strike he’d just witnessed. It had to be the blade, right?

There is no other explanation.

That was what Dane had feared his dragon would say. We will need to gain a better understanding of the blade’s purpose after the bonding.

Not before?

There’s no time. And I fear chasing her off. She seems to have a…kinship with the blade already.

Rain sluiced off his head and chin, which were lowered as he hurried along, seeking shelter. Such it was that he almost crashed headlong into a figure striding up the slope in the opposite direction. “Ho, Dragonmaster Dane,” his uncle said loudly to be heard over the rainfall, grabbing Dane’s shoulders to steady him.

“Dragonrider Drudge,” Dane said. “Uncle. I’m sorry we haven’t had time to speak since I returned home.”

“It’s fine,” his uncle said, hairless scalp slick with moisture. His red-painted skin appeared rust-colored in the dim storm light. “I’m glad you took my advice in your dealings with the Odinians.”

Dane nodded. “You were right. I realized that.”

“After Star rejected you?”

Inside, Dane seethed like the storm, but on the outside he remained as calm as the fair weather over Chrysallis. He should’ve known his uncle had been paying attention the night he opened his heart to his cousin. Or had she told him? “Your daughter had nothing to do with this decision,” he said. “Peony Normandian turned out to be more than I could have ever anticipated.”

“Yes, but more what? I’ve been hearing queer stories.”

“They are stories, nothing more. Star and Lei are embarrassed at having allowed a helpless princess to escape from two seasoned dragonriders.”

“Hmm, not so helpless, as it turns out.”

“Correct. They learned that the hard way.”

“I am glad you are satisfied with your bondmate, but don’t make the mistake of turning your eye from the prize. Long did your father seek expansion into Loslandia, but never had the military strength to do so.”

“What? He never told me that,” Dane said. His focus was so intent on his uncle that he barely noticed the sheeting rain splitting the air between them.

“Your father didn’t tell you a lot of things.”

Dane may have only been Dragonmaster for three short years, but he was not so naïve as to believe his father kept so many secrets from him. This was his uncle doing what his uncle did best: pulling strings. “Such as?” he asked.

“I’ve said too much already…”

Dane had to work hard to control his anger. “I tire of your games, Uncle. Speak your mind or leave me in peace. I have a bonding to prepare for.”

“Fine. You are old enough to know anyway and it was inevitable you would learn the truth eventually. Secrets like this one tend to find their way into the light.”

“My patience grows thin.”

“Your mother, gods rest her soul, wasn’t exactly—how do I put this delicately?—faithful to your father.”

Any semblance of self-control Dane had left snapped as he grabbed his uncle by the front of his shirt, pressing his own face forward until it was a fingers’ breadth from Drudge’s. “I could have you executed for spinning such lies,” Dane growled.

His uncle’s expression never wavered, which only infuriated Dane more. “Yes, you could. If they were lies, which they are not. Ask Brute if you don’t believe me.”

Dane shoved him away and his uncle almost stumbled down the slope before catching his balance. “I’ll do that. And then I’ll come for you.”

“To apologize,” his uncle said, lip curling into a sneer. “I’m only telling you this so you don’t make the same mistake your father did.”

Dane knew his uncle was baiting him again, but he couldn’t help himself. “And what mistake is that?”

“Trusting a foreigner in his bed.”

Dane wished he hadn’t asked, the irony of his uncle’s statement drawing fire into his chest. He knew a large portion of his rage was due to Daneus listening to the entire conversation. If Dane and his uncle were like fire and ice, Daneus and his uncle’s dragon, Drudgea, were as different as stone from water. “You advised me to accept the marriage alliance and now you’re telling me I shouldn’t go through with it because I can’t trust a foreign woman?”

His uncle shook his head. “You misunderstand me. You should go through with the bonding. Anything less would be considered an act of war. All I’m saying is you should be wary of the girl. Those not from Travail, especially women, tend to find our country a hard place to live. Before long she may desire to return to more comfortable surroundings…and people.”

“Thank you, Uncle,” Dane said, with forced politeness. “I shall keep that in mind. Now, I have a bonding to prepare for.” His uncle bowed slightly as Dane brushed past him and continued down the hill.

Peony

As Peony sipped her tea, which was more flavorful and aromatic than she’d expected, she listened to the pounding rain outside the cave. So far, the storm had shown no signs of abating. Regardless of what Dane had said about rain on a bonding day bringing good fortune, she’d much prefer the sun to be shining. She wondered how many days of rain per year Travail received, and whether such dreary weather would become a standard part of her new life, until she barely noticed it.

WHY WON’T YOU ANSWER ME?

Peony pretended her sword hadn’t spoken. She wasn’t in the mood right now. Instead, she gazed about her surroundings, mentally inventorying the scant possessions in Dane’s cave. No, she reminded herself. Not Dane’s cave. Our cave. Or at least it would be hers as soon as the bonding ceremony was completed.

Something glinted under the dying light cast by the fire Dane had built in the stone bowl. The something was half-hidden under the small desk set against the wall, presumably because it had fallen behind and Dane had never bothered to retrieve it. It turned out to be a small mirror, dusty and smudged, but nothing that couldn’t be restored by a bit of water from the jug and some scrubbing with Peony’s skirts. Soon, the mirror was clean and shiny again, Peony’s own reflection clarifying on its surface.

Dane had told it true: the damage to her lip sustained from his teeth was minor, eclipsed by the scarring she’d been born with. She inspected her freckles, as countless as the stars in the night sky but with none of the luster. And yet…looking at them now, here in Travail, they didn’t bother her nearly as much as they always had back in Chrysallis. In fact, gazing at her reflection here, in a cave of all places, she almost liked what she saw.

THE ENTIRE WORLD LOOKS DIFFERENT WITH ME AT YOUR SIDE, DOESN’T IT? her blade said.

Is that where you are? At my side?

IN A MANNER OF SPEAKING. I’M WITH YOU, ALWAYS. OVER TIME, MY PRESENCE WILL CHANGE YOU FOR THE BETTER, IF YOU LET IT.

Peony had to admit: She liked this feeling of confidence, of looking in the mirror and seeing someone more capable, less dependent on those around her.

“Hmm, this is going to be a lot of work,” a voice said from behind, scaring the bones from her arms and causing her to flinch. The mirror seemed to leap from her hands, landing hard on the ground. Thankfully, the glass didn’t shatter. Peony spun around to find Lei and Star, each of Dane’s cousins looking like goddesses with their painted skin and stone-carved features. It was Lei who had spoken, eyes sparkling with amusement. Star, on the other hand, looked as disgusted as if she’d just stepped in a fresh pile of dragon feces.

Any newfound confidence Peony had felt evaporated like a shrinking puddle under the sun’s brightness. “How did you—I didn’t hear—I’m sorry, I wasn’t ready—”

“Relax, Princess,” Lei said. “This won’t hurt…much.”

“Hurt?” A tendril of fear bit into her chest. “I thought you were going to help me get ready for my bonding.”

“Grudgingly,” Star muttered, while Lei said, “We are. It’s not every day our least favorite cousin gets himself hitched to a shooting star as sparkly as you.”

“Least favorite? I thought he was your only cousin.” In her mind, she thought, Sparkly? and Shooting star?

Star rolled her eyes. “Gods, he is so predictable.”

“What does that mean?” Peony said.

“It means,” Lei said, “that Dane has inadvertently forgotten to mention a certain brother of his.”

“He has a brother?” Peony felt like she was running and running and yet never quite able to catch up to the conversation.

“Aye,” Star said. “Dragonrider Drake.”

“Why haven’t I met him?”

“He’s in Solarii helping them hold the Terran border,” Lei explained.

“But I thought Travail’s marriage alliance was severed when Dane’s mother passed away.”

“Drake doesn’t care about such things,” Lei said. “He’s a willful man. He’s disobeying Dane’s orders by fighting, but then again, he always was his mother’s favorite.”

Peony frowned. “Is he younger or older than Dane?”

“Younger, obviously, else he’d be dragonmaster,” Star said. “Drake is next in line to lead the dragonlords if anything ill befalls Dane.” Why did it sound to Peony like Star almost wished something ill would befall Dane?

Peony remembered all the lessons her parents had taught her and Osric regarding political maneuvering, how one needed to be subtle, disguising threats as compliments, playing to an opponent’s desires, stabbing at their weak spots with flowery but piercing words.

And then she threw all those lessons out the cave mouth because this was Travail and not Odin and these were two dragonriders and not emissaries from Avadon. YOU ARE CHANGED, her blade said. ACT LIKE IT.

“Whatever you had with Dane is over,” she said, eyes meeting Star’s and fixing on her. “Our bonding is of grave importance to the future of Kingfall, which means you have a decision to make: Support us or get out of our way. Straddling some invisible line in the middle will only divide the dragonriders.”

There was silence for a moment as Star’s lip curled into a sneer, her eyes warring with Peony’s. “Girl’s got teeth,” Lei finally said.

“That she does, Sister,” Star said. “But does she know how to bite?”

Lei laughed. “Shall we get started? We’ll need to begin with the dyeing.”

With that, the tense moment passed, and Peony’s mind clamped down on the last word Lei had spoken, mistaking it for a word with a very different meaning. “What do you mean, ‘dying’?”

The two exquisitely beautiful women shared an amused glance, and then Star answered. “By being bonded to Dane you will also be bonded to Daneus. Thus, you will need to wear his hue.”

“I’ll be blue like Dane?”

“Half,” Lei said. “You are a foreigner, so only half of you can be painted blue. Like Dane’s mother.”

“Dane’s mother was half-painted blue?”

“Green, actually. Quite a nice shade. Dane’s father’s dragon had beautiful scales, sparkling like emeralds when the sunlight hit them at the right angle.” Lei described the dragon in such a way that she might’ve been speaking of precious jewelry.

“Dane didn’t tell me about being painted,” Peony said evenly. “Is it…”

“Permanent?” Star said, looking rather smug. “Very. The color will fade in ten years or so and you’ll need to be dipped again to brighten it up a little.”

Peony’s hand subconsciously moved to her chest, where her breath was feeling short.

“Do you still want me to get out of your way?” Star asked. “Or shall I give you a ride back to Chrysallis?”

The question felt like a challenge, and Peony turned inward, where she would normally be alone with her thoughts. Not anymore. YOU ARE BECOMING WHAT YOU MUST BECOME, that voice said. WHAT IS DYE? IT IS A WORLDLY THING, AND YOU ARE BECOMING SOMETHING OTHERWORLDLY. IT MATTERS NOT.

As much as she agreed with her sword’s words, she couldn’t help picturing her brother, her mother, staring at her atop a dragon, half her body as blue as the ocean with the other half pale and freckled. She could imagine their horrified expressions, see her brother’s lips mouth the words, ‘savages’ and ‘barbaric’. Worse, she pictured her father’s expression, which was one of melancholy and regret. If she did this, could she ever return to Chrysallis to face them?

But then she remembered why she’d agreed to travel to a foreign land and marry a stranger in the first place. Because of the feeling she’d had for many years now, while living a life of comfort and ease in a crystal palace. The feeling of always treading water, surrounded by an endless ocean with no land in sight.

She’d wanted something more, a life filled with adventure and challenges and living. Isn’t that what this was? Didn’t living require changing, adapting, becoming something different than the caterpillar clinging to a branch and nibbling on leaves, bursting from one’s cocoon to test out the wings of a butterfly?

“Yes. And no,” Peony said, answering Star’s questions in short succession.

The two cousins looked at her curiously. “Yes and no what?” Lei asked.

“Yes, I want you”—she looked pointedly at Star—“to get out of our way, and no I don’t want a ride back to Chrysallis.” She wished she felt as confident on the inside as she sounded on the outside.

Star cocked her head to the side, surprised, but then offered a half-smile and said, “Very well. To the dye pits we go. This way.”

The smell of the dye pits was quite noxious, and Peony had to fight the urge to pinch her nose. Beneath the wooden awning, she counted at least a dozen pits, each brimming with liquid of different colors. She immediately recognized the pits containing Lei’s white color and two separate pits with Star’s orange and black colors. She remembered the flash of their dragons’ scales as they flew toward Dragonsmount after they’d abducted her from Dane.

As they walked, Lei talked, speaking loudly to be heard over the drumming of the ceaseless rainfall on the awning. “Whenever a new dragon is hatched, if its scales are a different hue to any of the current dragons, the master dyer mixes a color to match, to be used once the creature is bonded to its rider.”

“Why?”

“A rider must be tethered to their dragon in every way—body, mind and spirit. While we cannot grow scales and breathe flames as some Odinians may believe…” Peony remembered the tales Osric told her of scaled, fire-breathing Travailians. “…dyeing ourselves symbolizes becoming one with our dragons.”

“But I won’t be a dragonrider,” Peony said, trying to understand.

“No, but you will be bonded to one. By association, you will be bonded to Daneus. You must show him you are committed to the bond, or he may reject you.”

“The dragons can do that?” Peony said, feeling a sudden jab of fear in her gut. Dane had said Daneus liked her, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t change his mind, especially after everything she’d revealed about her mysterious blade.

“Yes.” This time it was Star who answered, seeming to relish seeing Peony squirm. “It is rare, but when it happens, the result is most awful. The rider gets only a glimpse into the dragon’s mind before the dragon severs the bond, leaving the human’s mind shattered and beyond repair. The human usually ends up wandering aimlessly, babbling to themselves for the rest of their days, which are typically short.”

“She’s just trying to scare you,” Lei said, resting a comforting hand on Peony’s shoulder. “Daneus will not reject you. He’s one of the good ones.”

Peony didn’t feel comforted. What if Daneus rejected her? Would her mind shatter? Would she walk and walk without path until she stumbled off some cliff? YOUR MIND CANNOT BE SHATTERED, her blade told her. DO YOU TRUST ME?

No.

YOU SHOULD. THESE PEOPLE’S SUPERSTITIONS ARE JUST THAT—SUPERSTITIOUS NONSENSE. IGNORE THEM. GET THE DYE. BOND TO DANE. AND THEN CONTROL YOUR OWN DESTINY.

The blade spoke with a confidence that Peony was trying to emulate, a tenuous feeling that seemed to rise and fall with the tides. Lost in her thoughts, she hadn’t noticed that they’d stopped in front of a pit containing dye the same color as Dane’s blue skin and Daneus’s scales.

“Strip,” Lei said, seeming to enjoy giving the command.

“Excuse me?” Peony said.

“It’s a word with numerous meanings, including to remove one’s clothing,” Lei said. “Which is what you should do unless you want to ruin that fancy Odinian dress.”

“Now?”

“No, tomorrow,” Lei said. “Yes, now. Unless you want to embarrass Dane by not being dyed for the bonding.”

The last thing Peony wanted to do was embarrass Dane, something she felt like she was already doing simply by existing. “Will you at least turn around?”

“Easterners are so prudish,” Lei said. “Our dragons don’t wear clothes, so why should we be embarrassed of our own skin? If not for the chafing, I’d ride Leia naked all the time.”

Peony blushed. She hadn’t missed the implication that Lei sometimes rode her dragon wearing nothing. “Odinians don’t speak of such things so brazenly,” she said.

“We’ll unloose your tongue before long,” Lei said. “Won’t we, Sister?” She looked toward Star, who seemed to be enjoying Peony’s discomfort far more than she should’ve been, a small smile frozen on her lips.

“Unless the princess has had a change of heart?” Star said, once more offering Peony the opportunity to retreat.

“Of course not,” Peony said. “But first I have a question: How will you dye only half my body?”

“With that,” Lei said, pointing at a crude metal device—a wire basket hooked to a long arm attached to the edge of the pit. “We don’t use it often, but it’s quite effective. Don’t worry, I’ll be gentle.”

Gods, what have I gotten myself into? Peony wondered. She’d desired adventure, but somehow this felt more like torture. Even the device that would be used to dye her had the look of something more appropriately designed for torture.

“Any other questions? No? Then strip.” This time, Lei said the word with the force of command, leaving Peony little room to delay further.

She sighed and began to unclothe herself, slipping her sleeves from her shoulders, the cloth rustling to the ground at her feet. Beneath, her corset was cinched tightly against her abdomen and chest. With shaking fingers, she sought to unloose its ties. “Queer eastern fashions,” Lei muttered. “Let me help.” With deft fingers, the dragonrider made swift work of the ties, pulling the thick material away from Peony’s body and leaving her garbed in nothing but her slip, gooseflesh rising to the surface of her skin as a cool breeze washed over her. “Do you need help with that, too?” Lei said with a hint of amusement.

“I think I can manage,” Peony said. She turned away from the women and let the slip tumble away, feeling more helpless than she ever had before.

“Well,” Lei said. “I think Dane will be very pleased tonight.”

Star only grunted in response.

“Can we just get on with it?” Peony said, thankful the women couldn’t see her face, which had grown very hot.

“Of course,” Lei said. “But first your hair.” Peony felt Lei’s fingers tugging at her locks of hair, separating them down the middle. Next, she twisted each half into a tight bun.” I must look ridiculous, Peony thought. Lei inspected Peony’s hair closely and then offered a satisfied nod. Then she moved toward the metal device, grasped the wire basket, drew it over to the path, and guided it to the ground. “Lie in here, on your side.”

“Can I choose which side is dyed?” Peony asked.

Lei angled her head to the side. “Why does it matter?”

“It doesn’t, not really. I know I shouldn’t be vain, but…”

“She thinks the dye might hide her imperfection,” Star said. For once, she didn’t sound like she was mocking her.

“Is this true?” Lei asked.

Peony nodded, feeling herself flush once more.

“There is nothing in our traditions to stop you from choosing which side is dyed,” Star said. Her tone was neutral this time, giving nothing away as to her opinion on the matter.

Peony glanced at the woman who’d openly showed disdain for her from the moment she arrived, bit her lip and then said, “My left side then. Please.”

“But—” Lei started to say, but Star immediately cut her off.

“She has made her choice, Sister, and I dare say it is a good one.”

Surprised by the rare compliment from Star, Peony met the woman’s eyes. For the first time, Star seemed to look upon her with a modicum of respect. It vanished in an instant, and Peony turned away, clambering into the metal basket, settling onto her left side. The wire bit into her skin, while the harsh stone sought to scrape her. One of her hands lifted absently to touch the cleft that twisted her lip. The cleft on the right side. She has made her choice, Sister, and I dare say it is a good one. Peony hoped Star was right and that she wouldn’t regret the decision the moment this was over.

“Once you are airborne, dangle one arm and one leg through the wire,” Lei instructed. “Then close your eyes and mouth. The rest of you must remain perfectly still, or you’ll end up two-thirds or three-quarters dyed.”

Peony could only imagine how ridiculous that would look, but she was determined not to make that mistake. Of course, Lei’s hand could slip as she guided the basket…

She dashed that thought away. If Star was controlling the basket, a ‘slip’ was likely, but Lei’s motivations seemed pure. The basket began to rise. As instructed, she stuck one arm and one leg through the metal wires, closed her eyes and mouth, and then fixed the rest of herself in place, taking slow, even breaths such that even the rise and fall of her chest was measured and controlled.

BREATHING, her blade said. SUCH AN ANNOYING HUMAN HABIT.

Peony ignored her blade and focused on staying as still as stone when she felt the sensation of falling as the basket began to drop. At first, she felt nothing else save the bite of the wires, but then liquid warmth surrounded her hand and foot, creeping up her arm and leg, and then further, sliding up her torso, tasting her ear, her cheek, the edge of her lips and nose. She held her breath, wondering how long she would need to remain like this, half-submerged in the blue dye.

Just as she worried she would need to breathe too soon, snorting the dye into her nose or sucking it into her mouth, the basket rose again. She opened one eye, holding her breath for several seconds longer, feeling the excess dye sluice off her body and trickle from her face. Using her dyed hand, she plugged the dyed half of her nose so she could breathe through the other nostril. It was awkward and uncomfortable, but the only way she could think of to fill her lungs.

There, I did it, she thought. What next?

After the basket was safely back on dry ground, Lei and Star used blankets to pat the dyed portion of her dry. Star did her face, dabbing at her nose and lip with unexpected care and precision, like an artist creating a masterpiece.

Once she’d finished with her eye, Peony opened her other eye, which immediately trained on Star, watching her work. Any animosity or thinly veiled jealousy had vanished, the woman approaching the task with all the seriousness of a life or death situation. “Thank you,” Peony said to them both when it was done. She gazed down at her body for the first time, feeling a sharp intake of breath at the sight. It was like a line had been drawn down the exact center of her body, leaving one side untouched and the other blazing with a brilliant blue that, she could tell, was the exact color of Dane’s body and Daneus’s scales. For a moment, she couldn’t look away, mesmerized by the transformation. “It’s…” Peony was unable to come up with the right word to describe it, so she let the thought trail away like a thrown stone.

“Yes,” Lei agreed, “it is.” From her tone, which was somber and serious, Peony knew she wasn’t mocking her. The dyeing ceremony was clearly of the utmost importance to these women, even when performed on a foreigner. Suddenly, Peony felt her nerves and embarrassment wash away and she just felt lucky to be a part of it all.

“It’ll do,” Star said. “Let’s get you into some clothes.”

“Oh.” For a second, Peony had forgotten she was as naked as newborn babe. “Yes. Please. Where’s my slip, corset and dress?”

“Burned them,” Star said with satisfaction, gesturing to a smoldering pile of ash. In the center of it, Peony could just make out the detailed needlework that had once been the hem of her dress.

“Why would you do that?” Peony shrieked.

Star’s eyes gleamed, her black and orange skin like alternating stripes of fire and ash. “For your own good. Keeping that thing clean would’ve been the death of you. Here in Travail, you’ll need a sturdy set of leathers and little else. We took the liberty of procuring some that should suit.” She handed over a bundle of thick material tied with a rope.

Peony crinkled her nose. “Thank you. They look, er, dark?”

“Of course they’re dark,” Lei said. “Light colors make your skin look even paler. With these clothes, your red hair will be a flame atop a shadow.”

“And that’s…good?”

“Very good. Dane will lose his mind with desire when he sees you,” Lei said, which drew another blush from Peony.

“Just put them on,” Star suggested, clearly trying to hurry the conversation along.

While Lei and Star cleaned the dye off the wire contraption, Peony started with the underclothes, which were folded neatly on the top of the bundle. They were much more form-fitting than her slip and, oddly, came in two separate pieces for the top and bottom. Next, she pulled on the leather riding pants, which was a challenge considering the way they hugged her hips. The thick leather coat completed the ensemble, fastening in front by way of six silver buttons. Both the undershirt and coat were cut shorter than she would’ve liked, revealing a sliver of her abdomen and back, half blue and half her natural skin, an effect that also made her feel half-naked. At the same time, she felt rather…free. I bet I could move well with my sword in hand wearing these, she thought.

When she was done, she noticed Lei and Star staring at her. “Do I look ridiculous?” she said. As soon as the words left her mouth, she realized what she was implying as the two women were wearing similar clothes. “Not that you look ridiculous, of course. I only mean does an Odinian princess look ridiculous wearing such unladylike clothing?” She should’ve just stuck her own foot in her mouth and saved herself the trouble of creating the same effect with her words.

“You look almost perfect,” Lei said, eyeing her like a prized piece of artwork.

“I do?”

“Acceptable,” Star said, noncommittal. “At least Dane won’t recognize you.”

“And that’s…good?” she asked again.

“Definitely,” Star and Lei said in unison. Peony wasn’t sure whether to take it as a compliment or a slight.

“Are we done?” Peony said, anxious to be finished now that she was clothed again.

“Nearly,” Lei said. “Time to add the finishing touches.”

The sisters proceeded to use various small, bristled devices to work on the undyed side of her face, brushing at her eyelashes, rimming her eye with kohl, and painting half her lips with bright red color. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, they looked at each other and nodded. “Now you look perfect,” Lei said.

“It’ll do,” Star said.

“Here,” Lei said, offering her a small mirror that was set along the rocks beside the dye pits.

Peony accepted it, took a deep breath, and then gazed into her reflection. She froze, her eyes locking on those of a stranger, a fierce warrior staring back at her with striking green eyes accentuated by everything else, from the dark leathers to the blue-dyed skin to the kohl-lined eye and half-red lips. “I—I don’t know what to say,” she said.

“Say you love it,” Lei said. “You’re one of us now, or at least you will be as soon as the bonding is complete. It’s necessary to look the part.”

“I—I do. I love it. Thank you. What can I do to repay you for your help?”

Lei looked at Star. Star said, “Be good to Dane. That is payment enough.”

Peony nodded.

Dane

Dane waited at the Bonding Stone in the driving rain, squinting through the deluge for any signs of Peony’s approach. Lining the pathway atop Dragonstone, culminating upon its peak, were his fellow dragonriders. His uncle stood on one side, Brute on the other. There was a gap that should’ve been filled by his brother, Drake. Word had been sent to Solarii regarding Dane’s impending bonding, but no response had been received and Dane wasn’t holding his breath lest he run out of air.

Though the rain was cold, he felt warm inside. Brute had insisted he have several strong drinks before they made the ascent to wait for Peony. Hoom. I hope you still have your wits about you, Daneus chided, swooping overhead, rain sluicing from his wings. The dragon often poked at Dane for his heavy drinking, but Dane thought it was mostly because Daneus had never tried it before.

I do, Dane said. If Peony decides to stab me with her magical sword, I plan to deflect it into my uncle’s chest.

Bad taste, Dane, bad taste.

Dane knew his dragon was right, but he couldn’t help still feeling irked by his previous conversation with Drudge.

A murmur rumbled along the line of dragonriders, and Dane leaned forward, peering through the downpour. A trio of shadows appeared, the rain washing them away at first, but then slowly losing the battle as they clarified. On the edges were Lei and Star, the former wearing a sly grin and the latter her usual neutral expression that hid her emotions so completely. But that wasn’t what captured the entirety of Dane’s attention. No, that was reserved for the individual between them, her chin lifted slightly, her back straight, her very gait evidence of her royal upbringing. But even that wasn’t what froze Dane’s stare. It was everything else, a combination of the features he’d first noticed about her—flame-red hair, sun-freckled skin, unique lip structure—and those that had been added on this very day—half-painted skin, dark accents on one eye, red lips.

Plain and simple: She took his breath away.

As she drew closer, he found himself longing to grasp her hand.

Peony

Peony wondered if she moved fast enough whether she could dodge the raindrops and change her fate.

Was this where she was meant to be, who she was meant to be? The bondmate of the Travailian Dragonmaster with a magical sword in her possession?

YOU CHOOSE YOUR PATH, her blade reminded her. NOT YOUR FATHER OR MOTHER. NOT DANE. NOT EVEN ME. IT IS LEFT TO YOU AND YOU ALONE. IF YOU ARE ILL-CONTENTED WITH THE DIRECTION THE CURRENT IS PULLING YOU, ALL YOU MUST DO IS REACH OUT AND GRASP A BRANCH.

Peony’s eyes met Dane’s, and all thoughts of changing her fate, or her path, or her life, washed away in the storm. His dark eyes captured her, and she could not look away. In that gaze was desire and longing. For her. No man had ever looked at her that way—at least not for so long. Yes, from a distance her beauty had drawn the eye of numerous lords at snobbish balls and galas held by her parents, but as soon as they approached and noticed her disfigurement, their interest always waned.

Not Dane. If anything, his interest only grew as she drew closer, his hand extended in her direction at full reach, as though his arm would tear itself from its socket to get to her.

She reached for him, too, her slender rain-slick fingers threading through his, which were surprisingly warm as they surrounded hers. Her blue-dyed left hand in his blue-dyed right.

Peony sensed something left unsaid by her blade, but she quickly thought, Don’t speak. Don’t. Please.

The blade, thankfully, remained quiet, else all might’ve been ruined. Dane might’ve experienced another shockwave of pain and fallen to his knees. Then everything would’ve been over. There was no coming back from laying the dragonmaster low with naught but a touch in front of his people.

Dane motioned for her to turn, and they did so together, hand in hand, until they faced a great stone spike at the precipice of Dragonstone. The stone was as black as obsidian, as smooth as glass, and Peony could just make out their ghostly reflections in its surface. Beyond the stone were the waters of the Endless Ocean, whitecapped soldiers rising and falling as they battled the storm.

“You are beautiful,” Dane said, low under his breath so only Peony could hear. The drumming rain took any remnants of his words and swept them away.

Not ‘You look beautiful,’ Peony noticed. ‘You are beautiful,’ like it was something permanent and unchangeable and not only relegated to the superficial surface of her skin. Deeper, like he could see into the core of her and deemed her worthy of such a compliment.

“You look handsome,” she said, “and wet.” The latter slipped from her mouth before her tongue could catch it.

He laughed and shook his head, long braid flopping about and spraying them both with water that couldn’t make them any more drenched than they already were. A light laughter murmured through the spectators.

“You said rain is good luck on a bonding day, right?” Peony said.

“The best luck,” Dane said, smiling as rivers streamed down his face.

“Then we may become the luckiest bondmates in history.”

“We may. Are you ready?”

She gestured her freckled hand down her body. “Does it matter? Do you think I was ready for any of this?”

“I hope my cousins were gentle.”

“As gentle as lambs,” Peony said, feeling suddenly misty eyed, and not because of the rain. “They treated me like their own kin.”

“Such is Travail. You are only an outsider until you’re one of us, and then your past is forgotten. And today you become one of us. If you choose.”

Peony knew she could speak a single word and it would all be over. Dane would return her to Chrysallis and her father would welcome her home with open arms. Her mother would be disappointed in her failure, but the feelings would fade, as would the dye on her skin. Osric would have plenty of snide comments to offer, but Peony’s skin had grown thick over the years. Everything would return to normal. Galas and beautiful gardens and bright dresses and crystalline corridors. No caves. No dragons. No storms spewing red lightning with clouds forming in the shape of great beasts.

And no life.

The realization struck her harder than one of the red lightning bolts crackling down from above ever could. Chrysallis, though it would forever be her first home, could never be her last home. There was nothing left for her there. No, her life was here now.

“Take as long as you need to decide,” Dane said, lips curling. Peony realized she’d been in a daze as she considered the choice he’d given her.

“I don’t need any longer,” she said. “I choose you. I choose Travail.”

His smile widened. “Then we must speak the Words of Bonding. Repeat after me:

By the blood in my veins and the heart in my chest,

By the strength in my bones and the ache in my soul,

I give my life, my love, my sword, my Bond,

To you, Dragonmaster Dane of Travail,

And to your dragon, Daneus the Mighty.

If my Bond falters, may I be struck down by dragonfire,

Until my blood, my heart, my bones and my soul are no more.”

Dane paused after each line to allow Peony to repeat the words. She did so with a firm voice, believing them as she spoke them. When she was finished, Dane squeezed her hand and then repeated the same words, except with her name rather than his own and changing the line about his dragon to state, “Along with my dragon, Daneus the Mighty.”

He paused at the end, searching her eyes. She didn’t know what the custom was in Travail, but she was born Odinian, and it was customary at their weddings for the conclusion of the vows to include a kiss. And she wanted to kiss this man more than anything right now. She rose onto her toes and he leaned down and, as their lips met, lightning streaked from the sky and Daneus, flanked by a dozen other dragons of many colors, soared overhead, roaring their approval, spouting blasts of fire.

The dragonriders whistled and catcalled and carried on in such a way that Peony was certain they approved. She smiled as their lips parted, and then Dane scooped her up in his arms, kissing her again before striding away from the Bonding Stone, down the path, rain peppering his face. Peony watched him the whole way, unable and unwilling to tear her gaze from him, even as they entered their firelit cave, rainwater dripping from off them and puddling on the ground. He kissed her once more, deeper this time, and she melted into it, twisting her body around to hook her legs around his torso.

His mouth shifted, kissing various places, gentle and soft. The edge of her lips, the top, the cleft that, she only now realized, was not a disfigurement at all but a part of who she was, and then lower, nipping at her bottom lip playfully before dipping further to her jaw, her neck, painting a trail of fire along her skin.

She arched her back to expose more of her neck and Dane moved into the space, tasting her, hands roaming to the silver buttons clasped on the front of her leathers.

Peony was enjoying this moment—all of it—so she couldn’t explain why his fingers on those silver buttons sent a streak of panic through her. All she knew was everything suddenly felt wrong. She barely knew this man. Until this very day, she didn’t even know he had a brother. And yet she’d just bonded herself to him for life? What was she thinking? She took a deep breath, trying to quell her racing heart. There was time for all that. There was time for questions and answers and talking…

One button was released, and she felt a loosening of her leathers.

“Stop,” she said.

He froze, mouth still on her neck. Slowly, he eased up to look at her. “Have I done something wrong?” he asked. “Have I misread your intentions?”

Peony closed her eyes, wishing she were more like Lei, who would never panic in the middle of something that was so…enjoyable. “I’m sorry. No, you haven’t misread anything. It just occurred to me that we barely know each other.”

“I know your legs are wrapped around me and one button of your leathers is unclasped.”

“Spoken like a true male,” Peony said with false sternness. The moment of panic had passed, and she felt comfortable with this man again. In control of the situation. “I want to know about your brother.”

Dane’s gaze fell. “Drake?” he said.

“Yes, unless you have another brother.”

“I—I did. We did. Before he…” He trailed away.

“I’m sorry,” Peony said, wishing she’d known about the second brother before broaching the topic. “Your cousins only mentioned Drake.”

“I should’ve told you. You’re right. We barely know each other.” There was a coldness in his tone now.

“Dane,” she said, but he refused to look at her. “Dane.” She grabbed his chin and guided his eyes back to her face. “I want to know you—all of you. This won’t work any other way.”

“Dom was—” He jammed his eyes shut and winced.

“I’m sorry, are you in pain again? Like last time?” As far as Peony knew, her blade hadn’t spoken.

He shook his head. “No, not like before. This is a permanent pain, one I’ve lived with for many years.” As she unlinked her ankles from around him, he set her down and led her to the edge of the bed, where they sat, not caring that their sodden clothes were dampening the blankets. “Dom was only twelve when he passed into the Void. He was a troubled youth, unfit to be a dragonlord, but thus are the harsh ways of my people. At twelve, he bonded with his dragon, Domino. We all had hope that the dragon’s firm mind would steady Dom’s shattered one, but the opposite occurred. Domino went mad and grew a second head.”

“That can happen?” Peony said, having never heard about two-headed dragons before.

“Even three heads are possible, but my people will destroy a dragon before it comes to that. Out of mercy.”

“Were you forced to destroy Dom’s dragon?” Peony asked.

Dane shook his head. “It would’ve destroyed Dom in the process, too, so my father tried to counsel them, using his own dragon to help with Domino. Then, one day, they both disappeared.”

Peony frowned, having not expected the ending to the story. “Then you don’t know he’s dead. Not for certain.”

“He’s gone,” Dane said. “There were witnesses that saw him riding his two-headed dragon westward, across the Endless Ocean. Domino would’ve suffered from exhaustion and landed in the waters far before they made landfall. Even if, by some miracle, they did reach land, any inhabitants would’ve hunted them to extinction. Two-headed dragons and their mad riders aren’t exactly welcomed with opened arms, not even within their own country.”

Peony wrapped her arm around Dane. “I’m so sorry. That must’ve been…” No word was sufficient to describe how awful that time must’ve been for him, so she let the thought drift away.

“It was horrible,” he said. “Dom was my elder brother, first in line for dragonmaster, whilst Drake was younger. My parents were distraught. After that, my mother began visiting her own home in Solarii more and more often, until she almost spent more time in Ontarii than here. Drake took it all particularly hard and begged my mother to allow him to accompany her on those trips, but she never permitted it.”

“Tell me about Drake.”

Dane managed a coughing sort of laugh. “Drake is…brash, arrogant. Thinks he and his dragon, Draconus, rule the skies. Thinks Travail is backwards in our ways. He’d probably get along grandly with your brother.”

Peony snorted. “That makes one of us,” she said.

“You’ll have the displeasure of meeting him, eventually. He usually comes around once or twice a year, though he apparently decided not to grace us with his presence on our bonding day.”

“Tell me more,” Peony said.

Over the next few hours, while the ceaseless rain continued to pound the cliffs, Dane told her much about his childhood. Not all was bad. In fact, most was good, a very joyous landscape marred by only a few pitfalls. At some point, the conversation switched, and Peony found herself describing life in Chrysallis, which seemed utterly dull compared to the upbringing of a dragonrider, and yet seemed to capture Dane’s rapt attention.

By the time they’d finished talking, the night was deep and dark, the storm finally waning, spitting its last skeins of moisture upon the lands, almost as an afterthought. “Thank you,” Peony said.

“For what?”

“For listening. For sharing. I don’t barely know you any longer. It may only be one layer of the man who is my bondmate, but it’s a start.”

“We should probably get some slee—”

“Or,” she said, cutting him off, “we could recreate our grand entrance as bondmates. I’ve dried off far too much while we’ve been talking.”

He looked at her with a mixture of surprise and amusement and something else, something hungry. “Then I suppose I should pick you up.”

“You should,” Peony said, standing. “And carry me outside.”

They stood as one, and he collected her into his powerful arms. Out into the remnants of the storm they went, the light rain gentle on their skin. Under its spray, they kissed, lips already slick. When their lips parted, Peony said, “Take me to bed.”

Dane

It had been the best night of Dane’s life for so many reasons, not the least of which was the woman nestled against him, sheets cloaking them both. He didn’t need or want a larger bed, not if it meant there would be greater distance between them. Beautiful memories flashed, keeping him awake for a while longer.

The way she’d moved, graceful and yet uncertain. The awkwardness of their first time, the improvement of their second, the perfection of their third. He wanted that night to last forever, and he was willing to make time his enemy if that’s what it took.

Hoom. Daneus’s deep voice interrupted his thoughts.

Hoom yourself, Dane said. You should be asleep.

So should you. Kind of hard to sleep when you and Peony were, eh…

Talking? Dane joked. He wasn’t embarrassed that his dragon had experienced a sliver of what he did through their mental tether. They’d shared everything for many years. This was just another part of everything.

Aye. You two did a lot of talking. Do you plan on doing that much talking every night?

If I play my cards right, Dane said.

Then I shall sleep more during the day.

How is that any different than usual? Dane asked.

Do you think the shimmer of my scales is all natural? It’s not. Rest is as important as food and drink.

And you have a real talent for resting.

When will you ask Peony to discard the blade? Daneus asked, changing the subject with all the unpredictability of the winds.

I didn’t want to ruin our bonding night.

That’s not what I asked.

I haven’t decided.

But you will, right?

Dane released a heavy sigh. I—I don’t know…

You need to be fully honest with her, with yourself.

I know. Let me think on it. What about you? When will you speak to Peony for the first time?

I haven’t decided.

Don’t wait too long or she’ll think you’re avoiding her.

I won’t, Daneus said. You should probably warn her.

Let me know when you’re ready and I’ll speak to her first.

Good.

Get some rest.

You, too. Dawn is approaching on wings.

With that, Dane closed his eyes and sleep drew him under.

It was war that drew him awake, many hours later.

Twenty-Five

Sampson Gaard

Approaching Kerr’s Crossing, South Avadon

SHRZ WAS HIS. GRYM WAS HIS. For good measure, as soon as his Shadowbreath power was ready again he’d taken Dyrm and Wyrt as well. He’d had to wait a full fortnight before taking the last two tribe leaders, and now he didn’t feel any semblance of the Shadowbreath inside him. The power would require time to recover before it could be used again.

Each time he’d used the breath, it had been easier, a fact that sat heavy in his gut. I won’t use it again. I swear it.

His blade laughed at that thought.

Grym was unfortunate—Sampson had hoped to persuade the tribal leader using more conventional means—but necessary. Even Sampson’s blade couldn’t have predicted that Grym would follow him all the way to Shrz’s tent. Now that it was done, however, there was no going back.

For once, the rest was easy. The tribal leaders themselves simply commanded their people to go to war. After the loss of Dyrm’s entire herd of cattle to Avadonian mercenaries, or so the Grizari believed, the tension in camp was a magepowder keg ready to explode. Children and elders were left behind, while the Grizari warriors either rode their grux or marched overland. Miles and miles of grasslands fell behind them, most of it chewed to the nubs by the tribes’ cattle.

To the north, the reddish cliffs of Beggar’s Canyon rose like a fortress, while beyond, the pointed spires of the Spine pierced the sky. The beginning, Sampson thought. Riding Hmm with Roman walking beside him, his thoughts strayed. He wondered what his father had done after he’d disappeared, how long he’d searched. Not long, he suspected. Instead, his focus would’ve been on establishing his secret mining operation, hauling barrels and barrels of magenum from the cache Sampson and his dead miners had located. Sold to the archmages at Aeromand, the magical liquid would provide sustained funding for the war effort. For all he knew, his father may have already overrun Odin and overthrown King Normandian.

His thoughts turned to his siblings. Amari would be heartbroken, while Jarrod would be saddened. THEY AREN’T YOUR SIBLINGS ANYMORE. YOU HAVE NO FAMILY. NONE SAVE ME.

In truth, Sampson had tired of the constant hiss between his ears. I thought our objective was to take Avadon in the name of my father. Or was that just a lie? Am I really your family? Because it feels like I am as much a pawn as those I control.

YOUR ROLE IS YOUR CHOICE. AND IF YOU WANT TO SERVE YOUR FATHER FOR THE REST OF YOUR DAYS THAT IS YOUR CHOICE. BUT…KINGFALL CAN BE OURS IF YOU WANT IT.

And if I don’t?

THEN YOU WILL BE EXACTLY WHAT YOUR BIRTHRIGHT SAYS YOU SHOULD BE.

Sampson sighed, noticing Roman’s eyes lancing into him. “Tell me what to do,” his friend said.

Sampson breathed slowly, in and out. In and out. Considering. He knew what the man was asking him. How many lives would be spared if Roman were to take the sword from him now? Thus far, Roman had supported him in any way that he could but had never offered to bear the burden of the blade. “It’s too late,” Sampson said. He couldn’t fall back into darkness, no matter the cost. He couldn’t.

He spurred Hmm westward.

Half a day later they gained their first glimpse of the ragged line of demons trailing from Beggar’s Canyon to Kerr’s Crossing, which told Sampson two things: One, Glynn Kerr had been unable to regain control of the Rift at Gold Rock; and two, Kerr’s Crossing remained besieged by a steady flow of demons.

EXCELLENT, his blade said. AVADON IS RIPE FOR THE PICKING.

Sampson’s heart hammered in his chest. Because of me. Avadon might not be a friend to Teravainen, but did that mean it should be besieged by demons?

GLYNN KERR IS A GREEDY SLAVER. WHY CONCERN YOURSELF WITH HIM?

Sampson swallowed away his thoughts, not because his blade had questioned them, but because his path was set, the events that he’d already set in motion gaining momentum like a rockslide down a steep mountain slope.

Just ahead, a silver line broke across the horizon. The Roughwater River, Sampson knew, flowing steadily south and slightly west until it spilled into the Sacred Sea well east of the Strangle. Cross Roughwater and the rest of Avadon would fall soon after, regardless of the renowned might of Glynn Kerr’s famed gold-armored soldiers. Everything would fall into place. The Grizari’s lands would be returned to them, righting a wrong from long ago. With their help, he would stem the demon tide at the Rift, righting another wrong, one of his own making. And then he would engineer an alliance between his own father and the Grizari, proving his worth and securing east Kingfall and its many resources.

Thus were his grandiose thoughts when Grym’s own horned steed angled over to Sampson’s mount, forcing Roman to scramble to avoid being pinned between the two massive beasts. He said nothing but offered a glare in Grym’s direction. “Will reach Crossing in two hours, three at most,” Grym said.

“Are your warriors prepared?” Sampson had used his newfound influence to place Grym in command of all warriors, regardless of tribe, something he had always planned to do.

“Aye. Grizari will raze Avadonian defenses to ground and trample bodies underfoot,” Grym said.

“Good.” A rumble of concern had started in one corner of the block of warriors and was now rippling across the army like an aftershock.

“Warriors are afeared of demons. Griz believe to die by demon fang or claw curses body and soul to eternal torment.”

“Tell them to ignore the demons and the demons will ignore them. In this venture, we are on the same side.” This would be difficult, Sampson knew. He longed to fall upon the demons, to send them back to the Void from which they came, to surround the Rift and gain control once more. Only then would he be able to forgive himself for what he’d done. But first they needed to secure Kerr’s Crossing. One domino must fall at a time, he thought.

Grym cocked his head to the side, eyes narrowing.

“Is there a problem?” Sampson asked, surprised by the reaction. He still didn’t fully understand how the Shadowbreath worked. How much of their personalities and free will remained after his shadows had curled around their hearts?

“No problem. I will give command. Grizari will obey.”

“Is there anything else?” Sampson asked, when Grym lingered by his side.

The horned man hesitated only a moment before answering. “What will happen after Kerr’s Crossing? If Grizari win, I mean.”

“We take all of Avadon, from Dunadin to the Strangle. These were all once Grizari lands, were they not?”

“Aye,” Grym confirmed. “And then?”

“We will climb that mount when we arrive at the cliff,” Sampson said. “Good enough?”

“Good enough,” Grym said, finally steering his steed away once more.

Sampson watched him go, frowning. The conversation had been unexpected and strange. He’d almost felt as though Grym had been probing for information. He shook his head, remembering the glazed look in the male’s eyes and the drone of his voice as he called Sampson ‘master’.

He turned inward, seeking his blade’s opinion on the matter, but the sword remained silent.

Grym

As Grym rode away from Sampson, he hoped he hadn’t pushed too far. He’d seen the confusion in the man’s eyes. He needed to be more careful going forward, biding his time until an opportunity presented itself for him to stab a blade through the foul human’s back. If not for the way Roman followed his master around like a shadow, Grym would’ve done the job already.

Patience, he reminded himself. He was dealing with something beyond the scope of what Kingfall had experienced in centuries, since the end of the Godswar when the Thousands were defeated by a mixed army of gods, godbeasts, giants and humans. For all he knew, he was the only one, besides Sampson and Roman, aware that one of the shadowblades had been found.

Doing the deed during the impending battle made the most sense, when Sampson was expecting the attacks to come from Avadonians and not Grizari, especially not one who he’d breathed his foul shadows into. Grym still didn’t know why the dark magic had failed to bind him as it had the other tribal leaders, but it was his one advantage.

He refused to waste it.

Sampson

Construction of the broad bridge known as Kerr’s Crossing was completed in 185 After Weeping to provide a gateway to the eastern parts of Avadon including Beggar’s Canyon, but completion of its defenses required another hundred years, with the final walls and turrets finished in 300 A.W., long after the last battle had been fought with the Grizari. Since construction, the defenses had not been put to any kind of real test, with the demon flow under control and the Grizari tribes scattered upon the Lost Plains.

Now, however, was a different story. Flocks of arrows arced from the walls, most missing their targets but several plunging into the bodies of the various demons, each more heinous than the next, charging toward the fortress. Already, there were dozens and dozens of demon corpses littering the battlefield, but as Sampson looked on, the dead turned to ash, the wind whipping their remains away and casting them across the rugged terrain.

If Sampson didn’t know better, he’d think the Long Night had returned to Kingfall.

Numerous other demons were scaling the huge stone blocks of the wall set on the eastern side of the crossing, while golden-armored Avadonian defenders dumped buckets of hot oil, dropped rocks or fired bolts from crossbows to dislodge them. At the base of the wall sat the massive iron gates, which were dented in several places but otherwise undamaged, the demons not sophisticated enough to coordinate a battering ram, instead beating futilely on the door with fists and horns.

With a whisper from Sampson, Grym brought their thousands of warriors to a halt well out of range of the Avadonian archers. Attacking during daylight was senseless and would only give the advantage to the defenders’ ranged attacks.

No, they would wait until nightfall, when their opponents were tired and weak, and the darkness was their ally.

I AGREE, his blade said.

Twenty-Six

Dragonmaster Dane

Dragonsmount, Travail

CONSIDERING DANE’S CAVE DIDN’T HAVE A DOOR, he was awakened from slumber by the Travailian equivalent of a knock—a shout.

He peeled himself away from Peony, who was still sleeping soundly, and padded to the cave entrance, fully prepared to give Brute, or whichever other dragonrider had disturbed him, a verbal thrashing. Instead, he stopped short when he saw who it was, a man he knew well, as he regularly delivered messages to Travail from the various other kingdoms to which his merchant vessels carried their tradeable goods. The ship captain wore a thick gray beard that matched the ring of hair atop his head, which was partially hidden by his broad black hat. Seeing Dane in only underclothes, the merchant cast his eyes downward.

“Apologies Captain Marchand,” Dane said. “I expected one of my dragonriders. One moment.” Dane hurried back inside and dragged on his riding leathers but no shirt. When he returned to the cave mouth, Captain Marchand held forth a scroll sealed with the pressed wax of Odin, the impression of a flying eagle stamped hastily, the wax smudged.

“What does it say?” Dane asked as he slid a finger between the parchment to break the seal. Marchand had a good reputation and was considered trustworthy, which meant he was usually informed of the contents of the messages he delivered.

But not this time. “I was only instructed to deliver the message with the utmost haste.”

Just then, the sound of footfalls from further down the path arose and both men turned to watch a lad climbing the rise. One hand gripped the strap of his pack, while his opposite hand gripped a scroll. He started when he looked up and noticed the two men staring at him. He recovered quickly, however. “I have a message for Dragonmaster Dane,” he said formally.

“Busy morning for messengers,” Dane commented. He accepted the second scroll, and before he could inspect it, the boy was off, heading back down the path. Dane frowned and then looked upon the new scroll, which was sealed with the symbol of Avadon, three gold bars, one stacked on top of the other two. Unlike the Odinian seal, Glynn Kerr’s mark was pressed to perfection, the wax edges crisp and clean.

Holding the two scrolls, Dane said, “Thank you. May the winds forever blow in your favor, my friend.” The captain bowed and turned to follow the messenger boy.

Dane sat on the edge of the cliff, legs dangling as he read the missive from Odin. When he finished, he read it again, memorizing its contents, which were brief and to the point, written in flowery handwriting that likely belonged to one of King Normandian’s scribes. The basic message was that his and Peony’s marriage alliance was already being called upon, the assistance of the dragonriders required at Kingsfort. At the time of the letter’s writing, the border fortress was preparing for a Terran siege. Evidently the Terrans had relocated the majority of their soldiers to Bearhoff, just across the Vein.

Dane clawed open the second scroll, wondering what Glynn Kerr could possibly have to say to him given they hadn’t communicated in well over a year and had no connection other than several mutually beneficial trade agreements. His breath caught in his throat as he read the message.

Of course, he’d heard rumors of the widening of the Rift within Beggar’s Canyon, but the letter painted the situation as far more dire, the demon flow never ending, forcing his men to defend Kerr’s Crossing day and night, a ceaseless battle against the forces of darkness. But that wasn’t what had momentarily stolen his breath. It was the second piece of information: The Grizari had united and were marching on Kerr’s Crossing. Word was, they had two humans amongst them. Glynn Kerr was requesting the assistance of the dragonlords to quell the threat. The Avadonian leader never asked for assistance.

Hoom. Ill tidings indeed, Daneus said.

Peony

Peony rolled over with a blissful sigh, drawing the thin blanket up to her chin as her eyes fluttered open. Dane was just entering the cave wearing only his riding pants.

She lazed on her side, casually, expecting him to look over at her and fully prepared to entice him back to bed. She frowned, however, as twin pieces of parchment captured his attention in favor of his barely covered bondmate. “Dane, what is it?” she asked.

He looked over, as if surprised by her presence. Of course he is, she thought. He’s lived here by himself for years. It will take some getting used to—for both of us. “You’re awake,” he said.

“Astute observation, bondmate.”

“Bondmate,” he said, managing a small smile, though it didn’t reach his eyes.

“Something is wrong,” Peony said. “I can see it all over your face.”

“Two somethings, actually,” Dane said.

He showed her the letters, the one from her father stacked on top of the one from Glynn Kerr. She felt her heart beat a little faster as she read the letter penned by her father’s own hand, his flowing script full of overly dramatic whorls and unnecessarily large dots above each i. The news was worse than expected. Kingsfort had been operating on borrowed time for a while now, but a full-scale siege?

“We must fly to Kingsfort immediately,” she said.

“We are not doing anything,” Dane said. “This is dragonlord business. You will stay here and explore Travail, get acclimated to our lifestyle.”

“I most certainly will not,” Peony said. “This is my kingdom we’re talking about.”

“Does your father typically send you to the frontlines of his wars?” Dane asked, dark eyebrows raised in question.

“Well, no, but—”

“And do you have any combat experience?”

“No, but—”

“And do you have a dragon to fly into battle?”

“I thought I could ride with you. And you may recall, I do have a sword. A rather remarkable one, I might add.”

“Does it repel arrows and bolts? How about magic? The Terrans’ mage, Grimfire, is known to be powerful.”

“Fine, you’ve made your point. But what about you? Do your leathers repel those things?”

“No, but Daneus and I have fought in battles together before, with the Solarii. We move as one. His scales will deflect any ranged attacks and his fire will destroy our enemies.”

“And if you don’t come back?” Peony’s voice cracked on the last word.

Dane’s tone softened and he eased down onto his knees before her. “I will,” he said. “I promise.”

“That’s not a promise you can make,” Peony said. “I know we are only just getting acquainted, but I’ve never met anyone who I feel like…like this with.” In a moment of passion, she leaned forward and kissed him.

He groaned and kissed her back. When they separated, he said, “I will come back.”

READ THE SECOND MESSAGE, her blade said, the voice taking her by surprise. Thankfully, Dane hadn’t been touching her at the time or he might’ve felt that same burst of pain she’d inflicted on him before.

She’d forgotten about the second snatch of parchment, hidden beneath the letter from her father. Now, she slid the paper out and scanned the message, a frown pinching the skin between her eyes. “Why now? The Grizari have been peaceful toward Avadon for seven decades. What changed?”

“I know not,” Dane said.

THE HUMANS, that voice said.

“The humans?” Peony said aloud, before she could stop herself.

“What of them? I agree it is strange that two humans should be seen amongst the Griz, but two humans alone couldn’t incite the entire race to war.”

THEY CAN IF ONE OF THEM WIELDS A BLADE LIKE YOURS.

“What blade?” Peony said, forgetting herself once more.

“I didn’t mention a blade,” Dane said.

“I’m sorry. I was speaking to…”

“Your blade,” Dane finished, easing backwards and away from her as though she was inflicted with the plague. “And what does your blade say?”

“That one of the humans carries a blade like mine.”

“A godblade,” Dane said. “Forged from a shard from the Legacy Sword itself, infused with magenum and starlight.”

NOT STARLIGHT, her blade said.

What?

SHADOWS. FORGED OF SHADOWS. IT IS MY COUNTERPART. I HAVE NOT FELT ITS PRESENCE FOR MANY YEARS, BUT NOW…IT IS AS THOUGH THE LIGHT HAS BEEN DRAWN FROM AVADON, LEAVING A BLACK VOID BEHIND. THAT BLADE IS THE WORST OF MY KIND.

A chill ran through Peony. “My blade says the human wields a shadowblade.”

“A shadowblade?” Dane said, shaking his head. “It cannot be.”

“And what would you have said before you witnessed my brightblade?”

Dane shook his head. “I would’ve said you’re mad, the godblades are lost forever—all of them. But now…the winds are changing. I know not what it means, but this changes nothing. The dragonlords’ allegiance is to Odin.”

“Because of me.”

“Because of you, yes. Would you have me take another path? Isn’t it your wish that we fight with your father’s soldiers at Kingsfort?”

“Of course, it’s just…” Peony tried to gather her thoughts. If one of the shadowblades had truly come forth—and why would her blade lie to her?—and she had the ability because of her brightblade to stop it, shouldn’t she?

YES, her blade answered. YOU MUST FORSAKE THE PLIGHT OF YOUR OWN PEOPLE FOR THE GREATER GOOD. THE WHOLE OF KINGFALL IS THREATENED BY THE RISE OF THIS SHADOWBLADE. WILL YOU STAND BY AND DO NOTHING?

“No!” Peony exclaimed.

Dane looked at her curiously. “No what?”

She sighed. Closed her eyes. What if there were two choices and they were both equally right and equally wrong? Was there a right choice? Was there a wrong one? She opened her eyes. “I need Daneus to fly me to Kerr’s Crossing.”

“Peony.”

“Dane.”

“What do you expect me to tell my dragonriders? ‘Well, we made a marriage alliance but we’ve decided to shatter it into a million pieces because Avadon is under attack by demons, the Grizari, and a human wielding a shadowblade, but Peony thinks she can stop them because, did I mention? She wields a brightblade.’ They’ll think me madder than a two-headed dragon.”

“I wouldn’t say it that way, no,” Peony said evenly. “And I’m not telling you to shatter the marriage alliance. Send your dragonriders to Kingsfort. Only you and I must go to Avadon.”

Dane gritted his teeth. “I am their leader. I am the dragonmaster. I will not abandon my own kind.”

“Even at the risk of all of Kingfall? If there is a war being fought on two fronts, you must split your men, do you not? And you cannot lead both groups. You must choose. All I’m asking is that you trust me. If we don’t go to Kerr’s Crossing, it will fall. Demons will flow into the heart of Avadon. They will be one step away from Odin, and then it won’t matter if my father is able to hold Kingsfort.” Peony spoke her words with the firmness required, though in her chest she felt the turmoil of uncertainty. How could she be saying this? How could she be doing this?

BECAUSE YOU MUST, her blade said. BECAUSE IT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY NOW. THERE IS SYMMETRY TO THE WORLD WE LIVE IN. THE GODS SAW TO THAT WHEN THEY HELPED CREATE THE GODBLADES. THREE BORNE OF SHADOWS AND THREE OF LIGHT. IF A SHADOW RISES, SO MUST THE LIGHT TO BALANCE THE SCALES. WHEN I FELT MY BROTHER RISE IN THE EAST, I KNEW YOU WOULD BE ALONG TO COLLECT ME SHORTLY.

Peony fought off her emotions and focused on this cold, hard logic, which she couldn’t deny, if even she didn’t fully understand the forces at work here. “Dane, please,” she said, forcing him to look at her.

He sighed. “You are my bondmate and I must trust you. Just be aware, there will be consequences. The dragonriders value loyalty, and they will see this decision as a slight. Travailian grudges last decades if they last a day. Your life here will be harder than it needs to be.”

“I must do this. As such, I will bear the consequences,” Peony said.

“As you wish. Prepare yourself for flight. I will inform the dragonriders immediately and then return with Daneus to collect you.”

Dane

His dragonriders were staring daggers at him. The sharpest blades came from Star’s eyes. “You’re sending us to battle at Kingsfort to fulfill the marriage alliance you made, but you’re going to Avadon.”

“Is that a question?”

“Call it a summary,” Star said, casting a stray lock of orange-and-black striped hair away from her face. “I just wanted to confirm I hadn’t misheard you.”

“You heard me correctly.”

Are you sure about this? Daneus asked, for the tenth time.

No, Dane replied, the same answer he’d offered on nine previous occasions.

“And Peony is going with you? The girl hasn’t clashed swords with a child, much less a Grizari warrior.”

“There’s not time to explain everything now, but I will, I promise. I need you all to trust me.”

“We trust you,” Lei said calmly, stepping between him and Star. “It’s the foreigner who’s been chirping like a bird in your ear we’re skeptical about.”

“I trust her,” Dane said. “She’s one of us now.”

“You’ve known her how long again?” Star muttered. “Five seconds?”

She’d crossed a line, but Dane knew now was not the time to reprimand one of his own. “I am your dragonmaster. My command is that you fly for Kingsfort immediately. Defend Odin against the Terran threat. This is in Travail’s best interest, else we end up with an enemy on our eastern border. I will do what I can to help Avadon, which is also in Travail’s best interest. A Grizari uprising threatens all Kingfall.”

Silence fell for a moment, as Dane cast his eyes over each of his dragonriders. His uncle had remained surprisingly silent throughout the discussion. Star’s lips parted and she looked like she had more to say, but Brute spoke first, stepping forward. “We trust you. Of course we do. We will do as you command. Go with wing and fire.” He extended his hand.

Dane had never been more thankful for his closest friend than in that moment. “With wing and fire,” he said, clasping Brute’s arm at the elbow.

“With wing and fire,” the rest of the dragonriders echoed. Except for Star, Dane noticed, whose lips had closed once more.

He turned away, memorizing their faces.

Sampson

The evening sky was streaked with lines of red, as though its underbelly had been mauled by the claws of a resurrected godbeast.

Even as the sun had vanished on the horizon, the demon attack had continued. Night and day seemed to mean little to the creatures, as did their lives. They threw themselves upon the walls with reckless abandon, their numbers culled by the dozens, by the hundreds, and yet the line of enemies stretched all the way back to Beggar’s Canyon, ragged but unbroken. Some even tried to ford the river, which lived up to its name, dashing the demons against stones as it rushed them downstream. Crossing the Roughwater was not an option. There was a reason the only bridge that led to the west was so well-fortified and defended.

IT IS TIME, Sampson’s blade said.

He hesitated. Is this what I want? he asked himself.

It was his blade that answered. THERE IS NOTHING ELSE FOR YOU.

He knew that was true, to a point. And he had no love for Glynn Kerr and his armies. The man would gladly see him in chains working his mines. Kerr had advocated for the destruction of the Grizari for years. Yes, Sampson had done horrible things to the Grizari, but he wanted them to take back their lands. He wanted them to have a better life than the one they’d been forced into by Kerr and his ilk.

Plus, Amari would be queen, eventually, and then he could return to her. Become her adviser, her confidante.

YOU WOULD GO BACK TO AMARI AFTER WHAT YOU’VE DONE?

She would accept me and my darkness. Darkness is no stranger to the Gaards.

YES, SHE WOULD. BUT CAN YOU ACCEPT YOURSELF? YOU’VE MURDERED. YOU’VE ENSLAVED. YOU’VE UNLEASHED CREATURES OF THE VOID ON THESE LANDS. THE DARKNESS EMBRACES YOU WITH OPEN ARMS.

Sampson’s teeth were locked so tightly his jaw was aching. All along he’d been thinking that after Kerr’s Crossing there would be no going back. Now, he realized, he’d crossed some invisible line the moment he’d plunged this blade into his heart.

He was gripping it, though he couldn’t recall drawing it, his white knuckles barely visible in the growing darkness. “It is time,” Sampson said to Grym, who was standing nearby, waiting patiently.

The large man eyed the night-dark sword he was gripping. “I will order the attack. Will Sampson join Grizari?”

“Soon,” he said.

Grym

All he needed was an opening, an opportunity to drive the head of his axe through Sampson’s back. He felt no shame at the notion of attacking from behind, not after the way the human had breathed his shadows into the other tribe leaders, into him. He also knew Sampson and that dark sword of his was behind the destruction of Dyrm’s cattle.

In the meantime, however, he needed to continue to play the part of a loyal servant to his master, tethered by the foul shadows Sampson had tried to breathe into him. As such, he rallied his warriors, barking out orders, which were obeyed without question. The largest males formed a column in the middle, a living, breathing battering ram, their horns as strong and powerful as any felled tree would be. The remaining warriors gathered around them, prepared to protect the rammers with their shields, weapons, and even bodies, if necessary.

Grym moved to their front, unafraid, casting a glance back at Sampson, who’d taken up position in the rear of the train. For now, he thought.

“March!” Grym roared, and they started forward as one.

Peony

They’d flown for three solid days, only stopping for short two-hour stints to allow Daneus to sleep. The pace, Peony knew, was unsustainable for much longer, but necessary if they were to reach Kerr’s Crossing in time. For all she knew, it might already be too late.

I DON’T THINK SO, her blade said. I WOULD’VE SENSED IF THE OTHER BLADE HAD WON A SIGNIFICANT VICTORY.

I hope you’re right.

Hoom, a heavy voice said.

Excuse you? Peony said, thinking her blade had made the strange rumbling sound.

THAT WASN’T ME, the blade said. THAT WAS THE DRAGON, THE ONE YOU CALL DANEUS.

Peony froze, her arms tensing on Dane’s chest as she clung to him, the air whipping her hair behind her. Beyond her bondmate’s body, the dragon’s mighty neck and head rose before her, barely visible against the night, star-powdered sky. “What is it?” Dane said.

“I think Daneus just spoke to me.”

“He did? He was supposed to tell me first so I could prepare you. Now that we are bonded, the connection between you and him is open.”

Before them, the dragon roared, spewing flames.

“What should I do?” Peony asked.

“What did he say?”

“‘Hoom’, I think. What does that mean?”

Dane chuckled. “Consider it a greeting. Like hello. Reply in kind.”

Hello? Peony said.

I’m sorry I startled you.

It’s fine. I just didn’t expect to hear your voice. In truth, Peony’s head felt like it was getting rather crowded. She wondered if her blade could now speak to the dragon.

I CAN, the blade said.

Hoom, the dragon said.

HOOM YOURSELF.

Er, blade meet Daneus, Peony said. Daneus, this is my brightblade.

I know who you are. Why did you harm Dane before?

YOU REALLY GET RIGHT TO THE POINT, DON’T YOU? the blade said. AS DO I, IF YOU CATCH MY MEANING.

Can I say something? Peony asked, but both the dragon and the blade immediately said, No! and continued their conversation.

Dragons aren’t known for being subtle, Daneus said.

SO I REMEMBER, THOUGH THERE WEREN’T A LOT OF YOUR KIND FLYING ABOUT DURING THE GODSWAR.

Answer my question.

I CAN’T.

Can’t or won’t? Peony sensed a dark edge to Daneus’s question.

CAN’T, her blade said. I SWEAR IT. I DO NOT KNOW WHY MY PRESENCE IS TROUBLING TO YOU OR DANE. I AM ONLY TRYING TO HELP.

By dragging us all to Avadon when we should be fighting at Kingsfort?

YES. IT IS NECESSARY.

The dragon didn’t answer this time. Daneus? Peony said.

Yes?

I’m glad I can hear your voice.

I’m glad I can speak with you at last, Daneus said. Dane is very fond of you.

As I am of him. Dane told me before that you were fond of me as well.

I was.

And now?

I am still fond of you, but I don’t understand your intentions. And that is a problem for me.

Peony wished she had a better answer for him, so she could calm his concerns. Alas, she did not. All I can tell you is I won’t lie to you, not ever. And right now, I don’t even understand my own intentions. All I know is that I feel in my gut that I need to get to Kerr’s Crossing, and that I, or my blade, or both of us, have some role to play in the events unfolding there. I’m sorry. Is that sufficient?

It will have to be for now, the dragon said. But I will have many more questions when we return to Travail.

Thank you. And I will do my best to answer them when the time comes.

Hoom.

Peony took it as an end to the discussion. THAT WENT WELL, her blade said.

She couldn’t tell whether her blade was being sarcastic. You think so?

HE DIDN’T EAT YOU, SO THERE’S THAT.

Human meat is foul-tasting, Daneus interjected.

Peony didn’t know whether to take comfort from that or be concerned at the fact that the dragon knew what human ‘meat’ tasted like.

“Well?” Dane said, twisting his neck to look back at her.

“We talked. We’ve agreed we’re fond of each other.”

Dane snorted. “Consider it a victory. Daneus can be rather ornery. Anything else?”

“He, er, spoke to my blade.”

“Seriously?”

Peony nodded against Dane’s back. “Evidently their connection to me also connects them to each other, but only in my head. At least, I think.”

“Sounds complicated.”

“It is. They wouldn’t let me get a word in. But, for now anyway, everything is fine. We proceed to Kerr’s Crossing.”

“That’s good,” Dane said. “Because we’re here.” He pointed downward, and Peony followed his gesture to where hundreds and hundreds, maybe even thousands, of torches dotted the landscape, many of them clustered in a line along a gray smear that crossed a long, dark ribbon that extended in both directions. The dark ribbon, Peony surmised, was Roughwater River. Which meant the gray, torch-lined smear was Kerr’s Crossing.

To the east of the smear, the plains were filled with dark smudges.

There were thousands.

“Take us down,” Peony said, feeling the hum of her blade nearby.

Sampson

The battle had raged for three long nights as the Grizari smashed their horns relentlessly against the iron gates while being protected by their fellow tribe members. Still, the gate held, despite significant losses on the side of the attackers. The Grizari presence, however, had proven valuable in distracting the Avadonian defenders from the demons, allowing several to scale the wall and wreak havoc before they were killed, their hideous bodies thrown from the ramparts.

Sampson was beginning to wonder whether he should move to the front and simply slash his blade through the door, but each time he considered it, his blade held him back. NOT YET. THE GRIZARI MUST FEEL AS THOUGH THEY EARNED THIS VICTORY BEFORE YOU SWOOP IN AND PLAY THE HERO. Thus, Sampson stayed his hand, content to watch from afar while Grym led each charge.

The Grizari slept during the day, while Sampson and Roman whittled away the time watching the relentless demon attack. He had to hand it to Kerr’s soldiers—they were hardy men and well-trained to boot. Not once did their staunch defense of the wall wane. If a man was killed by a demon that managed to climb the wall without being bludgeoned, skewered or boiled, he was swiftly replaced by another.

A grudging respect crept into his mind for the Avadonians.

THEY ARE ANTS TO BE STEPPED ON. YOU WILL SEE THAT SOON.

BOOM! The impact of powerful Grizari horns on the iron gate resounded across the battlefield. BOOM! After each male lowered his head and crashed into the door, he would back away to recover under the cover of shields and return to the back of the line. BOOM! The door shivered from each blow but showed no signs of crashing inward. BOOM! An Avadonian arrow slipped through a gap in the Grizari shield wall, finding a warrior’s eye. He clutched at his face, blood streaming between his fingers, before retreating to seek help. The others simply continued their efforts—one did not stop for a single injured comrade. BOOM!

“Hot oil!” someone shouted from behind Sampson, one of the spotters who kept their eyes trained high on the wall to determine what methods the defenders would use to thwart the Grizari’s attempts to breach the gate. The attackers responded immediately, swarming to the left on a barked command from Grym just as a barrelful of hot oil splashed down on the spot they’d abandoned, steam rising from the ground as it mixed with the cold mud. As one, the warriors shifted back into position and resumed their battering.

IT’S TIME TO PUT ME TO WORK, Sampson’s blade said.

Truly?

YES. BUT YOU MUST HURRY. A PRESENCE APPROACHES.

What presence?

SOMETHING BRIGHT. SOMETHING THAT COULD RUIN EVERYTHING. NO MORE QUESTIONS. MOVE!

Sampson didn’t need further urging, desperate to do something after the monotony of waiting and watching for days on end. Drawing the blade, he strode forward, trusting that Roman would follow, which he did. The large man galloped ahead of him, protecting him with a large Griz shield. And a good thing, too. As soon as he was within range, arrows scythed through the air, dinging off the shield’s metal framing and sticking fast into the wooden broadside. One dart narrowly missed the edge and lanced past Sampson’s ear. “Hold it higher or I’m going to lose an eye,” Sampson said. Roman obeyed, and the next several arrows caught iron or wood, until one fired from a sharp angle cut beneath the shield’s base and penetrated the big man’s ankle.

He growled in pain, but didn’t break stride, even as another arrow impaled his boot and, based on his roar, his foot as well. Encouraged by their success, the Avadonian archers redoubled their efforts, a hailstorm of arrows streaking through the night sky. Another narrowly missed Sampson as he huddled behind Roman, whose progress had slowed due to the injury to his foot.

“You need a healer!” Sampson shouted.

“I’m fine,” Roman grunted. “We might not get another chance.”

“Leave me and get help for yourself.”

“No.” With much grunting and cursing, Roman sped up once more, the duo half-running across the terrain, stumbling over demon corpses that hadn’t yet turned to ash. A third arrow pierced Roman’s lower extremities and he fell, tripping Sampson in the process, who landed on him as arrows zipped past. “Shield up! Shield up!” Sampson yelled.

Roman managed to lift the large shield overtop them like a turtle’s shell, but not before an arrow found its target, slashing into his chest. His mouth gaped open, blood dribbling from his lips. He tried to say something, but Sampson stopped him. “Don’t speak. I can fix this. I swear I can fix this. Stay still and let me—”

NO. The voice came cold and harsh.

You can’t stop me. I must save him. He’s only here because of me.

HE’S ALREADY DEAD, AND TIME IS RUNNING OUT.

Sampson looked at the man who’d taught him he was more than a blind prince, who’d taught him to be independent, who’d protected him from Teravainen to the Spine and through much of Avadon. His eyes were open, but his stare was sightless. He was gone. “No,” he said, vision blurring. “No!”

I can bring him back; I’ll pierce him with your darkness. Your shadows can heal him.

NO, THEY CAN’T. EVEN IF THEY COULD, I WOULDN’T. HE HAS PLAYED HIS ROLE. NOW HURRY BEFORE—

The blade cut off mid-sentence. Before what? Sampson asked.

THE PRESENCE IS ALREADY UPON US.

Huddling under the shield as arrows continued to lash into it, several tips stabbing through the wood, stopping just short of his face, Sampson felt more alone than he’d ever felt before. Oh, Roman...what will I do without you? His thoughts vanished when a thundering roar exploded through the sounds of battle. Hundreds of men cheered in response, their excitement raining down from the walls.

Something heavy thudded down, close enough that Sampson could feel the impact of its landing as the earth trembled. RISE, his blade said. THE ARCHERS WILL NOT THREATEN YOU NOW.

Sampson crawled from beneath the shield and stood, gaping at the creature towering before him. Its skin was deep blue, almost black under the night sky, its scaled armor reflecting torch- and starlight, sinuous neck rising high over him, maw open and roiling with flames.

ON ITS BACK. THERE!

As Sampson squinted, a speck of light appeared upon the dragon’s back, radiating outwards where it lit up the wall and a portion of the battlefield until it met the shadows curling from his own blade.

And he knew.

He knew.

The presence his shadowblade had sensed was that of a brightblade, the ancient godblades meeting for the first time in centuries. To his surprise, he didn’t feel even a shred of fear. Sadness over Roman’s death, yes, enough to tighten his throat and clench his gut. But fear? No.

All he felt was readiness.

This is my purpose, he thought.

ON THIS, AT LEAST, WE AGREE, his blade said, shadows already misting out from its surface.

Peony

The cheers of the Avadonian soldiers fell upon her ears, but she was focused on the man who drew himself from under the shield fletched with more arrows than a porcupine had quills. He had dark hair, long enough that tendrils dangled over his eyes but not long enough to reach his shoulders. He was tall and broad and strong-looking, but also had a rather youthful appearance. He could’ve easily been sixteen or twenty-five name days old. More likely somewhere in between. He cast the shield aside, lifting a dark blade in its place. Shadows rose from the sword like smoke from a fire, except they didn’t only move upwards but outwards, in every direction.

Her own blade appeared in her hand, light immediately radiating outwards to meet the shadows, but then stopping on impact, creating an unnatural line down the battlefield. On the dark side, demons fought their way forward, while on the light side they shrieked and fell, bodies bursting into flames as they burned to piles of ash.

“Your blade was right,” Dane said, his voice full of awe. She hadn’t noticed that when she’d drawn the blade, the dragonmaster had shrunk away from her, shielding his eyes from the light.

OF COURSE I WAS, her blade said.

Hoom, Daneus said. I will end him.

Peony was about to shout a warning, but the dragon was too quick, lunging forward, jaws opening to release a fiery blast. She clung to one of Daneus’s spikes with one hand, trying to see what was happening.

The man with the dark sword—the shadowsword, she reminded herself—had made no effort to dive clear of the dragonfire. Instead, he held his blade aloft, the fire meeting the shadows in alternating whorls of red and black, like blood dripping into a field of ash. As she watched, the fire seemed to collect on the face of the shadowsword, sucked into the steel until it was no more. Daneus gasped, his head slumping forward before rearing upward as he released a frustrated roar. A reddish light appeared at the sword’s tip, growing from a speck into a ball into a boulder and then, with a whump, exploding outwards in a powerful blast that sent Peony tumbling from the dragon’s back.

She landed hard on her tailbone and skidded to a stop amongst corpses, both Grizari and demon. She scrambled to her feet, a scream lodged in her throat as she retreated. Her feet caught on something and she fell again. The dead eyes of a broad, horned creature stared at her. She rolled away and once more fought to her feet, panting.

That’s when she realized something: her sword was gone.

Her eyes cast about the ground, searching for the glowing blade hidden amongst the dead. Blade! she shouted. Blade!

CALM YOURSELF, the blade said, appearing in her hand once more.

Thank the gods, she said. I thought I’d lost you.

I DIDN’T REALIZE YOU CARED SO MUCH.

I do.

GOOD. SO DO I. NOW LISTEN TO ME VERY CAREFULLY. YOU NEED TO STOP THE SHADOWBLADE FROM PIERCING THE GATES. HURRY!

Peony spun around, searching for the wielder of the shadowblade. It didn’t take long to locate him, the darkness swirling around him like a cloak as he stalked forward in the direction of the iron gate set into the wall. An arrow whistled toward him, but he simply slashed it in half with his sword, which moved so fast it was just an arc of shadow. How did he do that? she wondered.

HOW DID YOU LEAP FROM DRAGONSMOUNT AND LIVE TO TELL THE TALE? her blade said.

Brightform, Peony said.

AS YOU WISH, her blade said, though she’d been answering her blade’s question not issuing a command. Either way, she felt warmth flow over her skin as light radiated from somewhere deep inside her.

All her self-doubts and fears vanished—did she ever have them in the first place?—and she felt the steely swell of surety, of confidence, harden her chest. She began to run, choosing an angle that would allow her to intersect the man with the shadowblade before he reached his goal.

Sampson

The dragon lay on its side, punished for its ignorance. Even one as mighty as the scaled creature was no match for the ancient power infused in his shadowblade. The young woman wielding the brightblade had been thrown clear and Sampson had lost sight of her.

Wait.

A flash of light on his right side caught his eye and he half-turned, watching as she ran, leaping corpses as she went, much faster than should’ve been possible. Her very skin glowed, not unlike the blade gripped in her hand. She raced past, stopping between him and his goal. The gate was only a stone’s throw away now. No Grizari were hammering their horns into the iron; they’d scattered like fallen leaves the moment the dragon appeared.

“Who are you?” Sampson asked the glowing woman.

“Peony Normandian,” she said, chin held high, defiant.

Oh, this is rich, Sampson thought. Of all people who could’ve found a brightblade to face me and my shadowblade on this battlefield, it had to be the daughter of Father’s sworn enemy. Fate truly did have a sense of humor. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“Neither should you. You haven’t provided your name.”

“No, I haven’t.”

At that, she raised her weapon, the brightness swarming across the area between them, pounding into his shadows. He could feel the impact, in his bones, in his teeth, but he merely locked his jaw and held fast. I am steel and shadow, he thought.

YES, WE ARE, his blade hissed. NOW KILL HER.

He strode forward, spearing the blade through the light, parting it with his shadows. Peony’s eyes widened, but she didn’t retreat, gripping her blade in a cross-guard position. From what he could tell, her form was good, likely due to some level of sword training. As he stalked toward her, something built in Sampson’s chest, a mixture of emotions—pain and anger and regret and the fear of losing his sight and a father’s disappointment and a sister’s love and self-loathing and, above all else, the desire to be more than what was expected of him—all of which coalesced into a ball of seething, hot-blooded rage.

He channeled that emotion into his movements, raising his sword and bringing it crashing down on the brightblade, which met the attack with an unexpected strength of its own, far beyond that which could possibly be contained within Peony Normandian’s slender arms. Their faces were so close, swords clashed between them, shadow meeting light. There was something odd about half her face, which was slightly darker, like it had been painted or tattooed, but it was hard to tell because of the brightness shining forth from her skin.

A stalemate ensued as they each fought for dominance, but then slowly, Sampson began to gain the advantage, edging her blade backwards toward her chest. Another few seconds and he’d be able to slide his blade past and into her heart. But why? For what purpose? Just because she, too, wielded a godblade? Because his was formed of shadow and hers formed of light? If Roman were still alive, what would he say? Roman, oh Roman, I miss you…

WHAT? ROMAN IS DEAD. SHE IS OUR ENEMY. FINISH HER. END H—

His blade’s brutal words cut off as a dark form launched itself from the side, slamming into him before he could answer his own questions or react, landing atop him with the strength of a dragon’s heavy stomp. Strong hands closed around his throat, squeezing. Memories flashed and he was transported back to that ring of fire and suddenly it was Drynym’s hands around his neck, cutting off his air.

The images vanished and he realized it was the dragonrider atop him. He chided himself for forgetting about the blue-skinned rider, who’d also been thrown from the dragon’s back during the explosion. His Shadowbreath had returned to him—he could feel the shadows swarming in his chest. He could use them to turn the tables on his attacker, but he hesitated for some reason. Am I on the right side of any of this? Or should I let him kill me? Do I deserve to live after the things I’ve done? He could scarcely breathe now, the barest whistle of air slipping down his narrowed windpipe. Spots danced before his eyes and then—

He saw Roman’s face. He heard his voice. Sampson…why are you crying?

I’m not, he tried to reply, but in his mind he heard his voice, only ten years younger. Father shouted at me for spilling his drink from the table.

You know where the table is located. You know every bit of the palace by memory. Why did you bump the table?

The table wasn’t where it was supposed to be.

Ahh, Roman had said. This wasn’t your fault at all. Some servant must’ve moved it without thinking. See? You have no reason for tears. You are a good boy.

I’m not. I’m useless.

He felt Roman’s arms encircle him, felt their warmth seep into his skin. You are worth more than a thousand kings, he said.

The memory faded, returning Sampson to the horror of his present situation. Roman sacrificed much of his own life to care for him, to help him gain his independence, which was worth more than all the gold in Avadon. He would not throw all that effort away because he was feeling sorry for himself. He needed to do better, to be better, because that’s what Roman had taught him to be. Not his father, nor his tutors, nor even Amari. Roman. It was always Roman.

Sampson managed to suck in a final breath, exhaling just before the Travailian squeezed hard enough to clamp his windpipe closed. Shadows plumed from Sampson’s lips and the dragonrider gasped as they infiltrated his nose, his mouth, swarming inside him, working their magic, curling around his heart, clouding his mind, taking him. The man closed his eyes, his expression changing from one of fear to one of…

Sampson frowned, breath returning to his lungs as the man’s hands unlocked from his throat.

For there was no mistaking the expression the dragonrider wore, which was nothing short of pure, unadulterated ecstasy, his lips curling into a smile, his mouth opening wider. Something was wrong. Sampson didn’t know what or how, only that this man possessed the rare power to thwart his shadows, leaving them no more potent than the ghostly vapors of a wet, foggy dawn.

The dragonrider’s eyes flashed open, steel in his dark stare. “Now you die,” he said, hands once more clamping around Sampson’s throat.

Sampson reacted instantly, too close to land a blow with the edge of his blade, instead clubbing the rider’s head with the hilt. The impact rang out like a rung bell and the man toppled off him, clutching at his skull. Sampson fought to his feet not a moment too soon, Peony’s brightblade stabbing toward him as she, once more, joined the fray. It was an amateurish attack and he easily parried it with his shadowblade, but she pressed forward, undaunted, her movements as fast as a whirlwind as she slashed and stabbed, spun and leapt, a blaze of furious light, forcing him back, step by step.

GUIDE HER TOWARD THE GATE, his blade said. ONCE THE GATE IS OPEN, ALL VOID WILL BREAK LOOSE AND WE CAN ESCAPE IN THE CONFUSION. WE CAN REGATHER OUR STRENGTH.

But I thought…, Sampson started to reply but stopped as he realized something. His blade never cared about the Grizari’s plight, nor defeating the Avadonians to free their enslaved miners. It didn’t even care about taking the east to strengthen Teravainen’s position in Kingfall. No, its only goal was to sow seeds of violence and chaos. Breaching the iron gates of Kerr’s Crossing would do just that, unleashing a maelstrom of demons into Avadon.

For what purpose? Would demons overrunning the lands on the western side of the river help him achieve any of his goals?

No, he said, gritting his teeth as he deflected another vicious slash from Peony’s brightblade. All that had transpired since the moment he laid eyes on the night-dark sword gripped in his hand flashed before his eyes. All the death, all the violence. Roman. Oh Roman. He’d led him to the cliff’s edge, should he be surprised that he’d fallen to his death? I won’t do it. This ends now. For Roman.

WHAT?

You heard me.

YOU WISH TO SLIP BACK INTO DARKNESS? I GAVE YOU SIGHT. I GAVE YOU EVERYTHING.

Sampson shook his head. No. You took everything from me. But you won’t take anything more. Not ever again.

DON’T MAKE ME DO WHAT I DID BEF—

But Sampson was already running, racing away from Peony, not headed toward the gates but away from them, sprinting parallel to the wall, the end of which was just ahead. And beyond—the frothing, churning, rushing current of the Roughwater River.

WHAT ARE YOU DOING? his blade said. Sampson could feel the blade’s will trying to twist him, to pull him into the darkness as it had done before, but he fought against it with all the strength remaining in his body. He lifted the dark blade, staring into his wavering reflection on its shadowy surface. He barely recognized the face that stared back at him, his face bearded, his hair long and greasy-looking, his eyes unlit coals, his face too pale considering how often he was in the sun.

I am a shadow of myself, he thought. He had gained his eyesight but lost his soul and the dearest friend he could ever imagine in the process.

SAMPSON, I’M WARNING YOU…

He shook his head. “No,” he said, speaking aloud this time, because that’s what normal people did. “You’re done warning me.” With a roar, he threw the blade into the river, watching it spin darkly, flinging shadows off its form, until it entered the water without a splash, disappearing beneath the white water.

As that horrible curtain of darkness fell across his vision, a sinking feeling entered his chest. What have I done? he thought, horrified. He leaned back on his heels, preparing to throw himself in after the sword, oblivious to the enemy fast-approaching from behind.

Grym

Grym had tracked Sampson as he’d fought the glowing woman, then the blue-painted dragonrider, then the woman again. He’d stalked him as he’d run from her like the coward that he was, a man who delighted in lurking in the shadows. He’d watched him throw something into the water, though it was hard to tell what in the dark of night.

Now, he closed in from behind, finally in a position to end this horrid human who’d destroyed everything in his path from the moment Grym had been foolish enough to allow him into their camp. Now his father was dead and his people were dying as they slammed themselves against an unbreakable iron gate for no purpose other than their belief in a lie about dead cattle spun by Sampson.

Grym raised his axe and then scythed it downwards on an angle that would hack off the human’s head with a single chop.

Sampson moved, doing the last thing Grym expected: leaping into the deadly waters of the Roughwater River. The axe’s edge narrowly missed the man’s neck, catching the upper part of his back, but only as a grazing slash. Sampson fell headfirst into the water and then was gone, arms and legs flailing helplessly as the swirling current swept him under the fortress bridge.

I failed, Grym thought. The other leaders of his people remained under Sampson’s control, the shadows living within them. They would continue fighting a war with the Avadonians that could’ve easily been avoided. The Griz will fight until all dead, he thought. Extinction.

Peony

Peony stood, dumbfounded, still trying to wrap her mind around what had happened. The man with the shadowblade had run from her—actually run—and then thrown his sword, and later himself, into the most dangerous river in all of Kingfall. And his leap into the water had occurred just after one of the Grizari warriors had taken a mighty chop at his neck, which had barely missed. The Grizari had then fled north away from the battle.

I AM STUMPED AS WELL, her blade said, having disappeared back into whatever place it went when its physical presence was not required.

She remembered Dane just then, how his head had snapped viciously back after the broadside of the shadowblade crashed into his temple. She rushed over to where she’d last seen him, finding him on his knees, groggy, trying to stand. “Stay down,” she said, guiding him onto his back, soft, trampled dirt beneath him. Thankfully, the area remained clear of demons—well, living ones anyway. The dragon’s presence or Peony’s brightblade or a combination of both had scared them off.

Dane looked up at her, a frown forming on his handsome face. “Is he…”

“I don’t know,” Peony said. “I think so. He leapt into the Roughwater. His chances of survival are slim. You came to my rescue.”

“I did. When I saw his blade approaching your heart, I felt true fear for the first time in my life. We only just bonded, but I don’t want to lose you. I can’t lose you.”

“You won’t.”

“You can’t promise that. The brightblade has made you reckless.”

“I’m Travailian now, remember? Daring and bold. I talk to dragons! Well, one dragon to be precise.”

“You’re making light of something serious.”

Peony had to admit, Dane’s concern made her feel warm inside. And yet, it was unnecessary, for what she’d felt while wielding her blade in battle had felt nothing short of natural. “I was meant to wield this blade,” Peony said. “So I can’t promise not to do so again. But I will promise to be careful whenever I do. Being reckless won’t help anyone.”

“I’ll hold you to that.” Dane’s arms rose, curling around her neck and pulling her toward him until their lips met. Not a word, Peony reminded her blade. The last thing she wanted was to cause him more pain.

Hoom. Sorry to interrupt such a lovely human moment, but is anyone worried about my well-being?

Peony gave a start and she felt Dane stiffen beneath her. “Did Daneus just speak to…both of us?” Peony asked. They both turned their heads in the direction of the dragon’s behemoth form, which was staring at them.

Dane nodded. “He can do that now.” His eyes glazed over, and she could tell he was communicating with the dragon, but she couldn’t hear what he was saying.

“But I can’t hear your response,” she said.

Dane shook his head, then groaned and reached up to touch the side of his head, which was crusted with blood. “Ow,” he said.

“Don’t speak,” Peony said. “We can discuss everything later.”

And we will, Daneus said. I have many questions and few answers.

Dane ignored her advice. “If the wielder of the shadowblade is gone, then we needn’t linger here,” Dane said. “The Avadonians are more than capable of holding the Crossing now.”

Peony peered into the night. The thousands of torches she’d seen dotting the eastern side of the bridge were now receding into the distance. “Also, the Grizari appear to be retreating.”

“Truly?” Dane said, trying to crane his head to look. “Mayhaps fighting a dragon was more than they’d bargained for.”

“Mayhaps,” Peony said. “But I sense there is more to the story. The one with the shadowblade walked amongst them, almost like he was their leader.”

“The Grizari would never obey a human,” Dane said. “Unless…”

“What is it?”

Dane’s eyebrows tensed. “When I was trying to choke him, he breathed on me, except not air. Shadows.”

“I saw that,” Peony said. “But I thought they were just wafting from his sword.”

“They came from his mouth. I felt them enter me through the mouth and nose. They were…cold…like dead fingers poking and prodding my insides. Then, suddenly, the feeling vanished. The man looked surprised, like he’d expected something else to happen. Maybe he thought he would somehow take control of me or kill me, I don’t know. That’s when he hit me in the head with the sword.”

“Curious,” Peony said.

“Indeed.”

The ground rumbled as Daneus stomped over to them. Several demons had begun to venture closer to the wall again, but the dragon simply swiped his tail, sending three flying and impaling the other three on long spikes. The remaining demons gave him a wide berth. Get on, the dragon said, once more speaking to both of them.

“I can manage,” Dane said when Peony tried to help him up.

“I don’t care,” she said. “I’m helping you whether you like it or not.”

He breathed out heavily. “I’m beginning to learn I may have met my match when it comes to stubbornness.”

“You haven’t seen the half of it,” Peony said. Together, they climbed Daneus’s foreleg and then onto his back. Peony took the front position, gripping the spike while Dane wrapped his arms around her, his head sagging onto her shoulder. Daneus sprang upward, wings unfurling, beating heavily at each side and propelling them toward the stars.

Moments later, the heavy breathing of Dane’s sleeping filled Peony’s ears. She joined him soon after.

Twenty-Seven

Sampson Gaard

Roughwater River, somewhere south of Kerr’s Crossing, Avadon

THE UNPLANNED JOURNEY DOWN THE ROUGHWATER RIVER LEFT SAMPSON BRUISED, BLOODIED AND BROKEN.

Shrouded in darkness and unable to discern up from down, his world was comprised of nothing but rushing water and formidable stone barriers he didn’t know were there until they battered him from side to side and sucked him down precarious drops into deep pools, which would provide a brief respite before whisking him into the next series of rapids, his arms and legs too exhausted to do much more than keep him afloat.

Finally, after what felt like days on end, the swift-moving current evened out as the river broadened, bobbing him along at a more reasonable pace. Slowly, measure by measure, he paddled across the current and toward what he hoped was shore, finally flopping onto the riverbank like a fisherman’s catch of the day, his cheek pressed into the dirt and flora. His eyes fluttered closed and he slept, truly slept, for the first time since his blade had forced him into captivity on the night the cattle were slaughtered.

Sampson dreamed of dragonfire and a sword with a brightness to rival the sun. He dreamed of a blue-painted dragonrider with an immunity to his own shadowy breath. He dreamed of a decision he instantly regretted despite its rightness, and he dreamed of an attack from behind by—he’d caught a glimpse of his attacker as he fell—none other than Grym, who was supposedly under his control.

HE FOOLED US BOTH.

Sampson awoke with a start, blinking to erase the blackness, but then remembering his sight was gone again. Because of a choice he had made. He expected regret to swirl within him once again, but it didn’t. Despite his loss of eyesight, he felt nothing but relief as he lay on his back.

His clothes were sodden, and he felt like his very bones were too. He groaned, trying to sit up, but was forced back to the ground as the world spun. He picked at something on his cheek—a fern, pressed into his skin. Apparently, it had been his pillow for the night. He felt down the length of his legs to his feet, finding them trailing in the water. Where were his boots? He felt pinpricks as what he assumed were tiny fish picked at the threads of his thick socks. “Geroff me,” he mumbled, kicking halfheartedly at them. They must’ve skittered away, only to return the moment he stopped thrashing about.

I must be crazy, Sampson thought. An ancient blade had found its way into his hand, giving him the gift of sight for the first time in his life, and he discarded it like scraps from an evening meal. And yet, that decision felt so right. He wasn’t without regrets, however. He’d dragged the Grizari into something they never wanted, something that could destroy their way of life and send thousands to the grave. All he could do was hope that with him gone they would return to the plains and that the Avadonians would forget about them and focus on driving the demons back into the Rift.

Roman, on the other hand, was more than a regret. Sampson couldn’t think about him without feeling an ache in his chest, tears filling his sightless eyes.

He breathed, feeling the morning breeze wash over his skin. He couldn’t have chosen a more peaceful spot to drag himself back on shore, which was less than he deserved.

Something struck him as odd. It wasn’t the dream—which was really a memory—that had drawn him from sleep. He’d heard the voice of his blade, almost like an echo. That wasn’t strange in and of itself, but the words it had spoken—HE FOOLED US BOTH—were not from his memory. These were new words, either conjured by his own imagination or creeping into his mind from whatever distance was spread between him and the blade, which was likely at the bottom of one of the river’s deep pools. I wonder if I can find it again. The thought arose in his mind, unbidden, before he could even consider casting it away.

No, he thought. What’s done is done.

He lay utterly still for a moment, considering whether he was going mad.

YOU’RE NOT.

The blade’s voice came so suddenly he flinched. He swallowed a knot lodged in his throat before making the decision to reply. Where are you?

YOU THREW ME IN THE RIVER.

I know, Sampson said. I’m sorry.

THAT TOOK STONES.

Did it?

YES. GREATER MEN THAN YOU HAVE BEEN UNABLE TO DO THE SAME. MAYHAPS I UNDERESTIMATED YOU.

I thought you’d be angry, Sampson said, wondering again whether his blade would be able to lead him to its location. Wondering whether he wanted it to.

I’M NOT. FOR THE FIRST TIME, YOU SHOWED YOUR TRUE STRENGTH. I WAS GETTING TIRED OF FORCING YOU ALONG LIKE A STUBBORN MULE.

Does that mean…

I FORGIVE YOU? YES. OUR JOURNEY TOGETHER ISN’T FINISHED QUITE YET. AVADON MAY STILL BE OURS.

Where are you? Sampson asked again.

ROLL OVER.

Sampson frowned, wondering if his blade was toying with him, commanding him like a hound trained to perform tricks. With a grunt, he eased onto his back, then flopped onto his opposite shoulder and hip, eyes rolling down until they rested on—

Darkness. Nothing but darkness.

The sword’s laughter rippled through the pool of his mind before fading away once more.

He sighed, uncertain whether to be glad the blade had fooled him or relieved. I am alive, he thought. More importantly, he was unburdened now. There was nothing keeping him from returning to Wolfsgaard, where his brother and sister would welcome him home with open arms.

But not Roman, he thought, tears pricking at his eyes. The man had died the same way he’d lived—protecting him. The man’s death was his new burden to bear. He lived for them both now. “I’m sorry, my friend, for everything,” he said. “I love you.”

Roman Leary

Roman had stared at the sky, unblinking, for a long time, until his eyes had grown dry and burning. He’d seen arrows arcing overhead. Had heard the sounds of battle and death. Had watched demons and Grizari rush past, going in opposite directions. Soon, however, everything grew quiet. Then he saw a large shape swoop past—a dragon. Two riders were silhouetted on the beast’s back. The magnificent creature grew smaller and smaller until it was a speck in the distance. For a while, the pain was all around him, but soon even that vanished, which told him he was dying.

Sampson was gone, though he knew not where. He trusted the lad to make the right choice. He’d always tried to counsel him without telling him what to do, for he could not be the one to take the boy’s eyesight away. He could not live with himself if he did that, and Sampson would never be able to forgive him.

NO, HE WOULD NOT.

The voice arose as if spoken directly into his ear and he turned his head sharply. Nothing was there.

He frowned, wondering whether his mind was breaking even as his body failed him. That’s when a thought struck him. You, he thought. You are Sampson’s blade.

NOT ANYMORE.

Those two words struck Roman harder in the chest than any of the Avadonian arrows. What? No. He can’t have…he didn’t…

DIE? NOT WHILE HE WIELDED ME. IT WOULD BE BETTER IF HE HAD. HE CAST ME AWAY INTO THE RIVER. AND THEN DOVE IN AFTER ME LIKE A DAMN BLIND FOOL.

Relief swelled inside Roman but was just as swiftly replaced with concern for Sampson. His heart ached at the thought of the lad being swept along by the tumultuous river, unable to see the dangers before they were upon him. He’d prepared Sampson for many things, but not this.

Can you ascertain whether he lives?

NO. WE ARE NO LONGER CONNECTED.

Then how are you connected to me?

THE DISTANCE BETWEEN US IS SMALL. AND I HAVE GROWN ACCUSTOMED TO SENSING YOUR PRESENCE.

Leave me alone. I want to die in peace.

GLADLY. BUT DO YOU WANT TO DIE?

The question echoed in Roman’s mind, and he recognized it for what it was: a chance. A hope. To see Sampson again. Why are you doing this?

BECAUSE SAMPSON AND I BELONG TOGETHER. THIS WAS WRITTEN IN THE HISTORIES LONG BEFORE HE WAS BORN.

I won’t bring you back to him.

YES, YOU WILL. NOW ANSWER THE QUESTION. DO YOU WANT TO DIE?

Roman closed his eyes. He’d suffered much in his life. A childhood spent on the streets. The loss of those he loved. And yet he’d never desired death, had always found hope in the unlikeliest of places, not the least of which was in the shape of a blind prince thrust into his arms so many years ago. This was just another example of that pattern. No, he said. I don’t want to die.

GOOD. NOW RISE AND LIVE.

The arrows that had penetrated his flesh were pushed from his skin, his body knitting itself back together as he rose. Led by an ancient presence, he started south, following the river.

Twenty-Eight

Grym, son of Drynym

Roughwater River, somewhere north of Kerr’s Crossing, Avadon

GRYM HAD CONSIDERED GOING BACK WITH ALMOST EVERY STEP HE TOOK, but for some reason his legs continued moving him northward.

He’d attacked from behind and now he was fleeing the battle? Had he become a coward? Was he worse than his father? At least his father had been willing to face Sampson in single combat in the circle of fire.

Father, he thought. I have ruined everything. Tribes united, but only to be destroyed. Everything Drynym built has been torn down.

Of course, there was no answer. Grym sighed, stopping to stare at the rushing water, the sounds of its passing a cacophony. The further north he’d gone, the more and more the Roughwater lived up to its name. His mouth suddenly felt as dry as sand, and he picked his way amongst a series of large and medium-sized boulders until he could extend his arms and fill his cupped hands with white water tumbling through the rocky canyon. He drank the first handful, soothing his burning throat, and splashed the second on his face, washing off dirt and blood.

He blinked, feeling tired but knowing sleep would elude him for many hours. He could still go back—this he knew. It was as easy as turning in the opposite direction and retracing his steps. He didn’t think there had been any witnesses to his departure in the dark, so he couldn’t be labeled a coward. He could pretend he’d been injured, knocked unconscious, which would explain his absence.

Maybe he could find a way to break the grip of Sampson’s shadows on the other Griz leaders. Maybe he could still unite them, but not for war—for survival. United, the Grizari may be able to do more than just survive, they could flourish.

Even as hope swelled in his chest, he exhaled, blowing it out across the river.

Oh, Daughter, he thought. Would Shrym despise him? Would she think he was dead or know, in her heart, that she’d been abandoned? What would become of her if the warriors of the tribe were annihilated in their efforts to breach the Avadonian defenses at Kerr’s Crossing?

These were all questions without answers, and Grym knew he was only torturing himself.

Because he knew his mind was already made up and had been the moment he stepped foot in this direction. Something was leading him northward, and he was meant to follow the path laid under his feet until he discovered its origin.

He gritted his teeth against that pull. “I have a daughter,” he said aloud. “My people need me.” Fighting the desire to continue his trek northward, he turned south, retracing his footsteps toward a future as uncertain as the minds of those who shaped it.

Twenty-Nine

Dragonmaster Dane

Dragonsmount, Travail

HOOM. SOMETHING IS WRONG.

The voice of his dragon drew Daneus from sleep. “What is it, Daneus?” Peony said aloud. Dane was still getting used to the fact that his dragon could speak to her now too.

There is a…procession.

Dane shook off the final grogginess of sleep and stared down as Dragonsmount came into view through the low-hanging clouds. He squinted, but couldn’t see anything more than the stone cliffs in the shape of a dragon…

There! A line of black dots moved along the path.

“What does that mean—a procession?” Peony asked, even as Dane’s heart sank into the pit that had formed in his stomach.

Dane couldn’t answer her, not when the faces of each of his dragonriders were cycling through his mind. He’d sent them to Kingsfort without him. Any blood that was spilled was on his hands.

As Daneus circled lower, other dragons appeared from behind the mount, rising to meet him. Dane identified them one by one, reciting the names of the corresponding dragonriders under his breath. “Jarnum, Frida, Brute and Star, thank the gods, Drudge…” Though dozens of dragons were now encircling them, escorting them home, Dane knew one was missing. He would’ve known the truth even if the funeral procession wasn’t spread out before him. The absence of the snow-white dragon was like an enormous hole in their midst, sucking Dane and everything else into it.

No, he thought.

Dane, Daneus said. I’m—

Don’t say it.

…

Dane had the sudden urge to throw himself from his dragon’s back. Not to kill himself—he knew Daneus would catch him—but to feel something other than the dark pit of self-loathing and despair that had begun to devour him.

For the missing dragon was Leia.

Oh, Lei, he thought. Beautiful, caring, spontaneous Lei. What have I done?

“Where’s Lei’s dragon?” Peony asked, the question so full of naivete and innocence that Dane forgot, just for a second, that if not for his bondmate’s insistence that they go to Kerr’s Crossing rather than Kingsfort, his cousin might still be alive.

“Take us down,” Dane growled.

“What’s happening? Dane, please, tell me. Is Leia…she’s not…dead…is she?”

“Not Leia,” Dane said, choking on the dragon’s name. “But she will not fly for many days. She is in mourning.”

Peony gasped. “What? No. There must be a mistake. She couldn’t have—Lei was strong. Capable.”

Dane’s fury exploded from his mouth. “Do you think that matters? This is war, do you understand? Not some silly game where you can wave a pretty sword around and slay your enemies who will bleed rainbows rather than blood. People die. Dragonriders die.”

In the wake of his anger, he felt cold, the sob catching him by surprise before he could stop it.

In front of him, Peony had been frozen into silence. Dane hated that he wanted to comfort her—why should he comfort her when he was the one who’d lost a lifelong friend? Why did he, even as another sob shook him, want to wrap his arms around her and tell her everything was going to be all right and that it wasn’t her fault?

He opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. Spoke: “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said—”

“You’re right,” Peony said. “I don’t understand any of this. Before three days ago, I’d never used a sword in combat. My knowledge of war is limited. I’ve heard countless talk of war, of death, but never experienced it myself, not until three days past. I don’t know what I’m doing or why I’m doing it. All I know is that I felt compelled to go to Kerr’s Crossing, and though I know I should regret it because of…Lei…I don’t. I can’t. If we hadn’t gone, that man would’ve broken through the gates and Avadon would’ve been overrun with demons and Grizari.”

Dane sighed. “I know.”

Daneus landed further down the cliffside, so as to not crush any of the dragonriders marching up the path. Dane dismounted without looking at Peony—everything was too fresh, too raw. He started up the hill, following its curving path around, ignoring the burn in his calves and thighs, which had been unprepared for the sudden exertion.

He caught up to the tail end of the procession, and the dragonriders parted for him, dark gazes following him. He ignored them, climbing onward. At the precipice stood Brute, flanked by Star and Drudge. Brute held his bondmate in his arms, having carried her up the slope. Sweat beaded on his forehead and glistened in his beard.

His eyes met Dane’s. Dane had expected there to be malice and accusation in the man’s stare, and he’d been willing to face his friend’s wrath. He deserved nothing less. But instead he found a man who appeared to be lost, his stare blank and empty, pooling with tears. Star’s stare was the opposite, laced with daggers and sorrow. Drudge, on the other hand, wore a neutral expression. Did the man feel anything ever?

Dane ignored Star and Drudge, for his focus needed to be entirely on his best friend. “Brute, may the dragons of old roar for her in the fiery heavens,” he said.

“I don’t know what to do now,” Brute said.

“I know.”

“I always thought I would die first.”

“I know.”

Dane didn’t try to comfort his friend or tell him lies about how everything was going to be alright and that time would heal his pain, because Brute deserved better. He deserved someone who would be strong for him in this moment and help him do that which he’d never wanted to do.

Thus, he stepped forward and helped Brute hold Lei’s body, which was wrapped in a blanket such that only her porcelain skin was visible. Her face was clean and unmarred, so much so that she might’ve only been sleeping. A tear splashed upon her cheek, and he wasn’t certain whether it was his or Brute’s. “Together,” Dane said.

Brute firmed up his chin, tears tracking down his face and disappearing into the tangle of his beard. As one, they turned and began to swing Lei out over the precipice. Once. Twice. Thrice. And then they released her into the air, her body hanging for a moment before dropping. The dragons, including Daneus, swooped after her, flames chasing her until she was engulfed, a flaming dragonrider making her final flight, turning to ash well before she hit the waters of the Endless Ocean. Her remains scattered on the wind.

Dane embraced his friend, whose body shook. When they pulled apart, Dane turned to find Peony standing before him, shoulders slumped, face wet. He could tell she needed comfort, too, but he didn’t have it in him. Not right now.

“She was my friend, too, if only for a short while,” Peony said when he remained silent.

Star cursed under her breath, while Dane took a deep, steadying breath. “I know, but this is not the time. Go back to the cave.”

Peony’s eyes didn’t shy away from his steely stare. “No,” she said.

Dane was aware that all eyes were on him, on his confrontation with his bondmate, the foreigner who he’d agreed to wed to strengthen their position. The woman who he’d supported over his own people the first chance he had. “Do as you wish,” he said, striding forward, brushing past her.

Dane, his dragon’s voice called, chasing him down the hill.

He ignored it. The last thing he needed right now was a lecture.

Peony

Peony had paid her respects to Lei and ignored the stares of the dragonriders, especially Star, whose lip was curled in a sneer. Surprisingly, Peony had taken comfort in her upbringing, which made her fully equipped to deal with stares and whispers behind hands.

What have I done? she thought, to no one in particular. The last several days had been a whirlwind of emotions. After defending Kerr’s Crossing against the man wielding the shadowblade she’d felt a sort of elation, a sense of accomplishment that had only grown stronger during the three-day flight back to Dragonsmount. Now, however, that feeling was long gone, replaced with dread and regret. How could she not feel a sense of responsibility for Lei’s death?

YOU DID WHAT WAS REQUIRED OF YOU, her blade said at the same moment Daneus said, Lei might’ve died even if we’d gone to Kingsfort instead.

She latched onto the dragon’s words, rather than her blade’s. Or she might not have, she countered.

The fates are not easily thwarted, the dragon said. They will get their pound of flesh when they want it.

His words didn’t make her feel better, but they also didn’t make her feel worse. She considered it a small victory. Why are you comforting me?

She felt the dragon’s heavy sigh inside her. We are bonded now. Your sorrow is my sorrow. Your regret, my regret. I will support you, always.

Peony felt a swell of emotion rise inside her, but she quickly quelled it. I—thank you. And what of Dane? Will he ever forgive me, or are we destined to be bondmate enemies for the rest of our existence?

To her surprise, the dragon released a rumbling chuckle. If I had a gold coin for every time Dane brooded over something I said or did, I’d have a rich dragon’s hoard indeed.

Did you ever do anything this terrible?

Well, no, but…

Peony sighed. Meeting and bonding with Dane had been one of the best—or maybe the best—thing that had ever happened to her. She hoped she hadn’t ruined it.

This isn’t about you, she thought, as she picked her way back down the slope to their cave. This is about Dane and Lei and Brute and Star and the dragonriders. In that moment, she made a pact with herself to set her own feelings aside as long as required to repair things with her bondmate.

Mind set, she strode into the cave, eyes searching for any sign of Dane. The cave was empty.

She sighed and sat on the bed, feeling utterly alone.

NOT ALONE, her blade said. AND YOU CANNOT SIT BROODING FOREVER.

I only just returned. I need a moment.

FINE, BUT YOU CANNOT LINGER. YOU KNOW WHAT YOU MUST DO, WHETHER DANE APPROVES OR NOT.

Peony frowned. I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking— Two images blazed into her memory, one of shadows swarming into Dane’s mouth and the other of the Grizari warrior who’d tried to end the shadowblade wielder with a single chop of his axe. Her frown deepened. If the Grizari were being controlled by the shadows, how did that warrior try to kill his master? she wondered.

HOW INDEED, her blade replied.

If he’d rejected the shadows and Dane had rejected the shadows, perhaps they were connected in some way. Suddenly, she knew what she needed to do next:

Find the Grizari warrior.

Dane wasn’t going to like it. Not one bit.

Thirty

The King’s Poisoner

Wolfsgaard, Teravainen

THE KING’S POISONER HAD BEEN PLOTTING HIS DEMISE FOR ALMOST THREE LONG YEARS.

She’d been working her way up through the ranks as a scullery maid in the royal palace, to a ladies’ maid for Amari Gaard, to a ladies’ maid for Queen Jenai Gaard. Closer and closer to King Gaard, who was her unsuspecting target. Her promotions did not occur by accident. Those standing in her way grew ill, or suffered accidents, or simply disappeared. She held no animosity toward any of them, but she’d been trained to complete the mission at all costs. The assassin’s guild would be paid richly by their employer once the job was completed. And then she would finally be rewarded with the honor she’d coveted for so long: the red silk belt.

The time draws near, she thought, even as she watched the queen sleeping. Her Majesty had recently tried to kill herself by jumping from the balcony. The King’s Poisoner had been charged with ensuring her safety ever since, which had given her more access to the king, who had increased the frequency and length of his visits to his stricken wife. At first, he’d barely noticed his wife’s maid, but she slowly made her presence known:

Dropping a handkerchief “accidentally” so she was forced to have to bend over to retrieve it, her skirts riding up her long legs.

Offering to assist him in covering the queen with a quilt, her arm brushing against his, apologizing with a flutter of her eyes and a pink-cheeked grin.

Noticing a spot of dirt on his boots and, without asking, brazenly dipping to polish it off with a cloth, her tight-fitting corset separating just enough from her skin to reveal the swell of her breasts.

From that point on, the king had more than noticed her; he’d begun to talk to her, at first while she stood attentively and he sat casually by the fire, ignoring his wife completely, giving all his attention to her. He began to visit his wife every night rather than every few nights. And three nights ago, he’d invited her to sit with him by the fire, drinking tea and paying her compliments on her ability to conversate, because a woman of her station shouldn’t have such an ability. They spoke of art and history and, yes, even war. He was loose lipped because of the wine that followed the tea, clinking glasses with the ease of old acquaintances or lovers. He told her of the pressures he faced, about the little demon problem to the south, about his desire to see Glynn Kerr overrun by his own demon problem, about his frustrations at having failed, once again, to take Kingsfort. In regards to the latter, he’d cursed the dragonriders of Travail, vowing to destroy them all before the war was done.

All while his wife, the queen, sat unattended, like she was an inanimate object—a potted plant or statue or the lost hairbrush she had found when cleaning under the queen’s bed just the other day.

Men, she thought. Such easy targets. An assignment to kill a woman would be a much greater challenge, but such assignments were as rare as magenum.

The two nights that followed had been similar. The king had asked her to sit with him, to drink with him—they skipped the tea and went straight to the wine—to talk with him. She’d done all the things she was supposed to do—laughed at the right times, complimented him on his cleverness when warranted, mentioned casually that his eyes were difficult to look away from. And each night she’d sat one seat closer, until she was close enough to touch his knee several times when he’d made her laugh oh so gaily.

On one such occasion, he’d dropped his own hand on top of hers, threading their fingers together. Their eyes had locked and her lips had parted. She’d leaned in slightly and he’d mirrored her movement. They’d drawn close enough that she’d felt his breath on her lips, warm and stinking of garlic and fish.

(He was a bad man, a murderer and a tyrant, and she wanted nothing more than to see him dead even if it hadn’t been a guild assignment.)

Just before their lips would have met, they brushed past with only the slightest connection. The king had stood quickly, nearly upending the wine bottle. “I forget myself,” he’d said, glancing toward his wife, though she was already abed, sleeping.

The King’s Poisoner had known it was finally time to take a true risk. She trusted her instincts and what she had learned of this man over all the years. Plus, the guild had provided her with everything she needed to know, including the deepest and darkest of secrets. She’d said, “Your Majesty deserves to have his every desire. And I am a very private woman. Sleep on it.” As she spoke, she’d touched his arm tenderly.

The king had nodded and departed, not even realizing the size of the invisible hook protruding from his lip nor the invisible line tethering him to the woman who was no more a scullery maid or ladies’ maid or servant girl than she was a queen.

Thus, the King’s Poisoner expected tonight to be the night, the peak of the mountain she’d been climbing, day by day, these three long, patient years. She looked at herself in the queen’s mirror, ensuring her entire ensemble was perfect. As usual, she pretended as though she’d struggled to tie the top threads of her corset, the fabric gaping open. For the occasion, she’d cut additional fabric from the hem of her dress such that it now rose above her knees. She’d powdered her cheeks and lined her eyes with kohl. Her hair, which she usually wore up in a bun, was released in waves around her shoulders, the knots dragged out with the queen’s hairbrush she’d found under the bed.

The final and most important touch required was the red lip paint. Before she could apply it, however, she needed to drink a vial of another liquid—the antidote to the poison in the lip paint. Two things were critical: precision and timing. Too little of the antidote and it wouldn’t be sufficient to counteract the poison if she accidentally ingested any of the lip paint. Too much and the antidote could make her very ill. Too early and the antidote may wear off before it was needed. Too late and it wouldn’t have time to enter her bloodstream.

She wasn’t nervous or worried because she was an artist. She tipped the carefully measured vial back and drank deeply, licking the remainder off her lips and then dabbing them dry with a cloth. She waited the required time, ignoring the queen’s strange hand movements, then applied the red lip paint, once more dabbing her lips to remove any excess.

She stared at herself in the mirror, admiring the transformation from a pretty but plain scullery maid to an exotic woman of the night. She could see the queen’s reflection, where the woman continued to sit in her wheeled chair right where she’d left her. Except now the queen wasn’t moving around, her eyes no longer flitting about like fireflies. No, the queen was staring right at her, motionless.

And she was smiling.

The King’s Poisoner spun around, a heavy curtain of dread seeming to press down upon her shoulders, and she saw—

She frowned. The queen’s head was bobbing about as it usually did, her hands waving in front of her like she was conducting her musicians as they played a rousing number.

The King’s Poisoner jammed her eyes shut for several long moments and then opened them once more. Nothing had changed.

She laughed lightly. She’d imagined the queen’s stare in the mirror, that knowing smile. Nothing more. It was no wonder she’d have a lapse in concentration after spending every waking moment with the creepy invalid queen.

The door opened without a knock—the king never knocked. This was, after all, his palace, his room, his wife, his everything.

She surreptitiously took a deep breath and then half-turned toward him, clasping her hands over her chest as though she’d been caught midway through her preparations for the evening. “Your Majesty. Are you early?”

“I am never early, nor late,” he said, striding toward her with a conviction he’d previously not had. She didn’t even need to reel him in. The fish had decided to jump right into the boat and save her the trouble.

He grasped her waist with both hands and kissed her, full and hungry and hard. She pretended to gasp as they pulled apart. “Your Majesty,” she said, breathless. “What has brought this on?”

“I’m celebrating. Word has arrived from Avadon about a man matching my missing son’s description fighting on the side of the Grizari, helping my cause as I’ve taught him to do.”

“Goodness. That is news worthy of a celebration. As for the kiss, I’ve been waiting so long to do that.”

“Only that?” he said, his tone different than ever before. Lighter. More friendly.

“And more,” she said, glancing toward the queen, as though the thought of having a witness frightened and excited her at the same time.

“Don’t worry about my wife, she is no prude,” he said.

Ah, she thought. This is his revenge for her infidelity, a secret no one was supposed to know. Happy to oblige, Your Majesty.

“We could wheel her onto the balcony,” the King’s Poisoner said. At first she thought she’d gone too far, the king’s eyebrows knitting into a frown, but everything she knew about the king told her how he would respond to her suggestion.

“You are a naughty woman,” he said. “Let’s allow her to watch, hmm?”

“Your every wish is my command,” she said, playing to his love of power, of control. She placed her hand on his chest, pressing against his muscles through his shirt. His lips were slightly pink from their kiss. Even now, the potent poison that was transferred from her to him would’ve entered his mouth. As he swallowed, it would slide down his throat. Won’t be long now, she thought, even as she guided him back toward the sitting area, where the king would be most comfortable with her given all the time they’d spent there.

“No,” the king said. “The bed.” There was a mischievous twinkle in his eye.

“As you wish, Your Majesty,” she said, turning, grasping his hand to lead him the other way.

He stopped suddenly, unexpectedly, his eyes darting not to his wife, but to his wife’s dressing table. “That hairbrush,” he said. “Where did you find it?”

She sensed a change in his demeanor at the sight of the brush. But why? It was nothing but an old brush that may have never been found if not for how thorough she was in every aspect of her life. “Beneath the bed,” she said. “I found it when I was cleaning. It was dusty but not broken, so I kept it for Her Majesty’s use.”

The king’s entire body had grown stiff, and she feared the brush, for whatever reason, had ruined the moment. The amount of poison she’d transferred to the king thus far would make him very ill but would probably not kill him given his size. No, she needed to give him more. To her relief, his stance softened and he managed a chuckle, though she could tell it was forced. “Burn it in the fire later,” he said without explanation.

“Yes, Your Majesty. Now come to bed.”

He turned toward her and picked her up easily, strength throbbing in his arms. If not for the advantage she had, this man would be ten times her superior in terms of raw strength, able to crush her with ease. My talents are more subtle, she thought.

That’s when something changed. The tender but passionate exchange from earlier morphed into something rough, carnal. He threw her backwards onto the bed, crawling after her, pinning her wrists to the bedcovers.

He enjoys things rough then, she thought. I can live with that. She pretended to fight him, but of course was unable to match his strength. If she’d really been trying, she knew of several complex maneuvers that would allow her to escape his hold. Mayhaps I’ll get to use one of them after he kisses me again.

Right on cue, his head dipped toward hers, his lips parting. Just before they met hers, however, he pulled back, grinning. “Not so fast, wench,” he said. “I have a story to tell you.”

She played along, content to follow his lead in this ruse while the poison he’d already ingested worked its way through his body. Soon he would be stricken with terrible pain. “I want to hear everything,” she murmured.

“I’ve never slept in this bed,” he said, which was not what she expected. “I’ve spent time in it with my wife, long ago…but never slept. I’ve always risen and returned to my own bed to pass the night.”

Something was off about his tone, the lightness gone, a darkness coursing around the edges of his words. “Why?” she asked, both because she knew she was supposed to and because she was genuinely curious.

“My wife’s bed is far too comfortable. I refuse to sleep on such a comfortable mattress lest I sleep too long while my enemies circle like vultures. My bed is stiffer, firmer. My back aches sometimes. I cannot abide more than half a night on that damn thing. Which means my eyes are open more than most to the truths of this world.”

A shiver of fear trembled through her, though she wasn’t yet certain why. She’d taken every precaution to hide her true identity. What assassin would be so patient as to spend three years employed as a servant to kill her target? None but her. He couldn’t suspect a thing. It was impossible. “I—I don’t understand, Your Majesty.”

“Let me guess—silverbane?” he said. “A worthy poison to use, and you must be very confident in your abilities to mix it with your lip paint. The wrong amount of antidote and you’d be lying dead next to me.” He read her expression like a book. “You’re wondering how I knew. I tasted it the moment we kissed, though I suspected your true intentions long before that. What kind of person knows the different tastes of poisons, you might wonder? One whose father forced him to ingest trace amounts of each type in order to build a tolerance to their effects. Silverbane, night’s creep, holy sleep—I tried them all as a child. Sometimes I grew so ill the healers weren’t certain I would survive the night. But my father, King Lars Gaard, never wavered in his conviction that I would become stronger in the end. And you know what? He was right. Else I’d already be feeling the ill effects of the silverbane, would I not? I do, in fact, feel a slight headache coming on, and I might sweat more than usual, but I will not vomit, my muscles will not constrict, and you will not have the opportunity to kiss me again to administer the lethal dose.”

She’d been overconfident, the King’s Poisoner now realized. No, I can’t even think of myself in that way anymore. She’d poisoned him, but not as intended. The truth of it shocked her—that she had failed—but it also made her remember her training. Though she didn’t think for one second that she’d need it, she hadn’t been so foolish as to not prepare a backup plan. The steel of the dagger strapped to her upper thigh had been warmed by its close proximity to her skin. It was time to execute one of the maneuvers necessary to break the king’s grip, and then her hand would grasp the dagger and plunge it into his throat. She could see each move in her mind, perfectly choreographed. It would be messier and less artful but eliminating the target would make up for the poor execution. Her guild’s reputation would be marred but they would recover swiftly on account of the target’s station—the most powerful man in northwestern Kingfall. She might not earn the red silk belt she’d longed for, but she would have other opportunities. She would learn from this error in judgment and use that to achieve even greater heights. Yes, this was but a minor setback.

The king was watching her curiously.

She managed a smile, except her lips didn’t move. She tried to speak, to say something clever to turn his words against him before she killed him, but her voice failed her. What is happening to me? she thought.

Instead, it was the king who smiled and spoke the clever words. “My lips were painted, too, though I decided against mixing the ground boarflower root with red paint. The natural clear hue was less…obvious. In nature, red typically warns of danger.”

Boarflower root? No, she thought. It cannot be. And yet, it was. The paralysis had already set in; hence, the lack of use of her lips, voice, arms and legs. She couldn’t move anything except her eyes. As panic set in, for some reason her gaze roved past the king to the woman sitting in the wheeled chair just past the bed, who’d turned herself to watch them. She was staring at her, except her smile was gone, a look of sadness ghosting across her delicate but aging features.

Her helpless stare returned to the king, who was no longer pinning her wrists, though she couldn’t tell the difference because she couldn’t feel her wrists. “Oh, I’m going to enjoy this,” he said. He reached toward her legs and she felt violated despite not being able to feel his touch. When his hand rose again, he held her dagger.

He started with her face.

Thirty-One

Aisling Brightshine

Wolfsgaard, Teravainen

AISLING KNOCKED AT THE QUEEN’S BEDROOM DOOR, wondering why, in the dead of night, she’d been ordered to attend to the queen. According to the guard who had summoned her, it was the king himself who’d issued the command.

A man’s voice from inside told her to enter. The king’s voice.

Some instinct told her to be on her guard, a chill running through her. She opened the door slowly, peering inside. The first person she saw was the queen, who was in her chair facing her own bed. Her gaze was everywhere and nowhere, as were her hands. Based on the queen’s typical movements, nothing was amiss.

She pushed the door open wider and then saw the bed. Pain immediately lanced through her at the sight of the blood. She had the urge to flee, to slam the door shut and run and keep running until she was worlds away from this horrid place, this horrid man. She entered the room and closed the door for two reasons:

First, the guards would catch her before she’d even escaped the castle grounds. Whatever torture the king was inflicting on the unknown person on the bed, her own fate would be multiplied twice.

Second, the person on the bed might still be alive. She might’ve been called to heal the person so that the king could continue torturing them. And if she could ease their pain, she had to do it.

“Did I ever tell you about the color of the walls in the main hall?” the king said without looking at Aisling.

Aisling said nothing. Her breath felt like it was being constricted by a snake wrapping itself around her throat. She stepped closer. The king continued speaking as though he hadn’t noticed she hadn’t responded.

“No? Our mighty nation’s colors are green and black. Strong colors. Proud colors. And yet my walls are red. Most people think it’s to represent the spilled blood of my enemies, those my armies have fought and defeated in battle. That’s close to the truth, but not the full truth. The red walls don’t just represent their blood, they are their blood, harvested from the dead and dying, those injured and taken prisoner, those who die in combat in the arena. Their blood doesn’t go to waste, not when it can beautify my palace walls. I’m no poet, but I can think of nothing more poetic.”

Aisling remembered how many times she’d walked down the main hall, which was the thoroughfare used to reach almost every corner of the palace. She’d always felt slightly ill as she’d done so, but had never equated the feeling to the hall itself; rather, she assumed it was some premonition of what was to come, what she would be asked to do. And yet… If it were blood, it wouldn’t have been such a vibrant hue, the color fading, darkening as it dried.

Though she hadn’t spoken her question, the king must’ve anticipated it, because he said, “Grimfire mixes some potion with the blood to keep it fresh. Magic has so many practical uses, don’t you think?”

She managed to dislodge the lump in her throat. “Should I heal him?” She still couldn’t see the individual on the bed past the king’s large frame, just the blood-soaked blanket.

“No. She deserves to suffer a while longer for her sins. Not physically, I am not the monster I know you believe me to be. She is paralyzed and can’t feel anything. But she can see everything. Would you like to watch?”

It’s a woman, Aisling realized. Oh gods. Once more, she wanted to escape this place, but instead forced herself to step forward, circling the bed to get a better look. “No,” Aisling said. “Why am I here, if not to heal her?” Her legs almost failed her as she caught sight of the woman’s form.

She was beautiful but dressed as a ladies’ maid. Aisling recognized her, though she almost didn’t because of the woman’s kohl-lined eyes and red-painted lips. Her body was mutilated, carved with the dagger dripping blood as the king gripped it. She had the vacant, unseeing stare of a corpse, but then Aisling detected the slightest twitch of her eyes. She is still alive. What had happened here? Had the king tried to force himself on her, but she refused? Or had she made advances on him and this was somehow the end result? Nothing about what she was seeing made sense.

The king finally looked at Aisling and she couldn’t hold back the horror in her eyes. “I sent for you to heal me, just in case I overestimated my ability to withstand the effects of whatever poison was administered.”

“What?” Aisling blurted out, still confused.

“This woman is an assassin. Beautiful, no? The guilds don’t make them like they used to. Makes them harder for some, especially men, to detect. This one has been working right under my very nose for years before she made her move. I must admit, I baited her just as she believed she was baiting me. I enjoyed our little games. She thought she was winning. Actually, she thought she was the only one playing. In the end, she wasn’t a very worthy adversary after all.”

The king had no reason to lie. If this woman truly was an assassin, how many had she killed before? In some ways, she was worse than the king, who at least showed his hand before playing it. This woman killed with poison, in the dead of night, or shoved a knife through some unsuspecting target’s back. Aisling felt no mercy for her.

The king, on the other hand, was a cruel and brutal monster. He was making his wife watch what he did to this woman as part of her eternal punishment, a different form of torture. Aisling, for the first time since that night that she’d saved the queen’s life, wondered whether she should’ve let her jump.

I should’ve jumped with her. What life is this, powerless to control my own fate, bought and sold like a possession, forced to heal a foul beast like the king?

Aisling closed her eyes, and when she opened them, the assassin woman was staring at her—right at her. Something else was different about her, something the king had not yet noticed. Her face was no longer neutral and expressionless, paralyzed by whatever poison he’d forced down her throat. No, she was in substantial pain, and yet she held back her own cry to keep this fact hidden.

Aisling almost released her own exclamation, but clamped her lips shut just in time. “Aisling?” the king said, his gaze returning to her once more, just as he’d finished cutting another line down the woman’s stomach. “You look as though you’ve swallowed a mouse.”

That’s when the assassin’s hand, no longer paralyzed, shot upward with such force that when she grabbed the king’s dagger-gripping hand he wasn’t prepared to resist her as she forced him to shove the blade into his own heart.

His mouth gaped open, shocked that he’d somehow been outwitted by this unworthy adversary, who now slumped back, all that was left of her energy spent on her final act, the blood loss from her injuries too grievous. “You’re not…the only one…who trained with poisons,” she managed to say. And then she died.

The king grasped his chest around the dagger’s hilt, eyes boring into Aisling’s. “Get over here!” he snarled, blood and spittle flying from his lips, which had turned pale. “Do your duty! Heal me!”

Aisling hesitated only a second, and then she rushed to his side, ignoring the ache that had settled into her entire body because of the raw violence set out before her on this bed of nightmares. “I need to extract the knife,” she said.

The king nodded, sweat beading on his forehead. He wasn’t far from death now. “I am no coward,” he said. “Do it.”

She strained as she pulled, the dagger thwarting her at first, impacted in bone. Slowly, it budged, drawing back faster as she gained momentum. The dagger squelched free and she quickly slashed her own hand, deeper than necessary on account of her haste, her own glowing white blood spilling free even as the king’s blood poured from the gaping chest wound. The knife had missed his heart. She could save him without too much trouble.

She hesitated once more.

The king grabbed her bleeding hand and drew it to his chest. “I will remember this delay,” he growled.

Aisling should’ve been quicker to act, she knew. A man was dying; it was her duty to save him, wasn’t it? His own wife was watching, or at least present. She couldn’t just let him bleed out on her bed.

Could she?

No, I must do this. If not for him, for her.

She focused, closing her eyes and searching for the wound inside him, the one that would kill him if not repaired. She could feel his damaged skin and muscle, feel his blood rushing to the injured area but unable to stop itself from gushing from the wound. She could see more…

Those whose lives he’d taken, either personally or by his command, were locked in his memory, each face held in great detail as they suffered before and during their own deaths. A human trophy case, she thought. The latest and most prominent in his memory was the assassin woman. The events that had transpired before she’d arrived played in her mind. She saw the woman’s horror when she realized she’d been bested by the man she’d been hired to kill. Aisling, as before, felt no mercy for a woman such as her, but that wasn’t the focus of this memory. The focus was the king.

He had enjoyed every vicious slice he’d taken from her. She watched as he cut off one of her fingers, tossing it aside like a pesky stone he’d found inside his boot. King Cronus Gaard wasn’t so much a monster as evil incarnate, a demon from one of the Rifts disguised in human skin. They called him the Terran Wolf, but such a nickname was an insult to the wolves of the world.

She’d begun to heal him already, and the king was watching her progress. “I feel…better,” he murmured. “So warm.” Aisling had healed herself before, many times, so she knew the feeling. She suspected it was a feeling similar to those who partook of liquid magenum, a feeling of being above the clouds, soaring like a bird, looking down upon everything as the gods might, as though you were separated from your own body for a spell.

For now, the king would be happy with her, but when reality returned he would remember how she’d hesitated. His punishment would be swift and severe. As the king’s chest wound was sealed by her glowing blood, she thought of the dead woman lying beside them, of her strength even in the grasp of death, how she’d acted, how she’d refused to go down without a fight.

And if not for me, Aisling thought, she would have killed her target.

For one half of one second, Aisling wondered what it would be like to be such a woman, to be born with the strength, the power, to control your own destiny rather than save the destiny of others.

In all her long years, such a thought had never entered her mind, not even for half a second.

She felt it again, thrum-thrum-thrum…

The raw power that scared her as much as it excited her. It hummed through her blood as she lifted her bleeding hand, watching the glowing drops tremble on her skin before falling to the bedclothes. The king was healed, touching his own chest in wonderment, his face shining with that feeling of euphoria that she’d given him, a feeling he didn’t deserve.

Aisling stared as another drop of her own blood fell, except this time she caught it in her opposite hand, watching the glowing liquid pool in the center of her palm. Such power, she thought. To save lives, but also…

…to take them.

She acted on pure instinct, her bleeding hand shooting out to grasp the king’s chest once more. His eyes widened as he stared at her. “Aisling, I’m healed, what are you—”

For the first time in her existence, she didn’t want to ease pain; she wanted to inflict it.

The healing power in her veins turned to fire, erupting from her palm and into the king’s chest, reopening the wound she’d only just sealed. But it didn’t stop there, pouring through his body, filling every dark, empty corner of his soulless being, gathering strength, a storm building and then unleashing itself.

“Aisling! Aisl—” The king’s final plea was cut off as his body exploded from within, shredding bone and muscle and tendon and organs and skin, blood and ichor and gore splattering across the bedclothes and Aisling’s face and body. His head, however, remained intact, spinning end over end and then landing on the floor with a sickening thud, rolling to a stop in the corner.

Aisling’s teeth were locked together as she breathed through her nose, the throbbing rage that had led her to act slowing, fading, leaving her exhausted but not spent like she usually was after healing. The well of power from which she’d drawn from this time seemed limitless. She stood, turning sharply and then jerking back when she found the queen’s stare locked on her once more, the woman’s restless hands settled in her lap. She looked…content. Relieved. A small smile played on her lips despite the horrors she’d borne witness to. This woman was no stranger to horrors, Aisling knew.

“I am sorry for the loss of your child,” Aisling said. Was it her imagination or did the queen nod in her direction, ever so slightly, a motion so subtle that only eyes as keen as hers or a hawk could’ve detected it?

Aisling was about to leave, but then spotted the hairbrush she’d found before, the one from that fateful day. It was no longer beneath the bed, instead resting on the queen’s dressing table. She glanced at the king’s severed head. His eyelids were closed.

She had an idea. It was somewhat evil, but she didn’t care.

When she was finished, she felt satisfied. The king’s head was no longer in the corner; the hairbrush was no longer on the dressing table.

Offering a final nod of respect in the queen’s direction, Aisling walked for the door. The guards would try to stop her, but they would fail.

She was right. Thrice she happened upon guards as she strode through the palace, unhurried but purposeful. The first was immediately outside the queen’s bedroom door. It was the same guard who’d carried out the king’s command to summon her and escort her here. He gaped when he saw the blood and ichor spattered over her face and dress, immediately drawing his sword.

“The king is dead,” she said, and then she attacked, hand sheened with glowing blood. He managed one clumsy slash, which she ducked beneath, before he found himself in several places at once.

The second was on the staircase, running up toward her as she descended. He’d likely heard his comrade’s shout as he’d attacked Aisling. This time, she had the advantage of the high ground, kicking him down the stairs. She didn’t even have to use the throbbing power inside her to finish him, his neck breaking from the awkward fall.

The third was, appropriately, in the main hall with its blood-painted walls. Curiously, Aisling no longer felt ill as she walked this wide corridor. The guard standing at attention outside of the grand oaken doors she knew led to the throne room frowned at her as she approached. All the guards knew who she was, but none ever spoke to her. Now, she stumbled up to this guard as though her legs were about to fail her. “Help me,” she moaned. “The king has been murdered by an assassin!”

She pretended to fall, right into the guard, who caught her without even considering drawing his weapon. She touched his face with her bleeding hand.

As she strode away, she wondered why it had taken her years and years—centuries even—to embrace what she was truly capable of? Because I never wanted this. I never wanted to become this. They made me what I am. The humans.

She knew it was a lie. The worst kind, too, told to oneself in order to sleep at night. Not that she required sleep, the hours and days and months and years endless, her life unchanging while her masters changed with the seasons.

Not anymore. Now I am free.

She reached the grand atrium just inside the main palace doors. A cool breeze wafted through the doors, which stood open. A lone figure stood without the doors, between the marble columns, his back to her.

Oh gods, she thought at the sight of the prince, a cold truth washing over her. Though she didn’t regret what she’d done, she hadn’t considered the collateral damage of her actions, the children of the man she’d killed. Did the guards she’d killed—in self-defense, yes, but still killed—have families, children? Were her actions callous and selfish? Did it matter if they were? She’d caused great suffering, something she swore she’d never do.

The prince’s head cocked to the side as if he’d heard a sound, though she’d made none. Perhaps he’d sensed her presence, felt her eyes watching him from behind. Slowly, he turned.

When his eyes landed on her, a smile started to form on his face, as it always did when he arrived in her cell for his daily visits. She could picture the fulness of that genuine smile that had reminded her that the whole of humanity was not represented by the men who had used and abused her over the years.

Except this time his smile faltered before it could reach that fulness, falling away as he stared, horrified at her bloodied appearance. But not because he was horrified with what she’d done. Aisling knew the prince loved her, that he could never in a million years believe she could wreak the havoc she’d left in her wake. No, the horror on his face was borne of nothing but concern for her well-being as he ran to her. “Aisling, are you hurt? What happened?” He touched her shoulders, gripped them with a strength and protectiveness he’d rarely displayed but which she knew she brought out in him simply by existing in his world. He didn’t even shy away from the bloodstains.

“I’m not hurt,” she said, though her heart felt torn in two because of what she knew she had to do. As she’d set herself free, she also needed to set him free. “Your father is dead.”

“What?”

“I killed him.”

“Aisling, I don’t under—”

“I have not been fully honest with you, Jarrod, and for that I’m sorry. When I tried to help your mother, I saw…things, in her mind.”

“What things?”

“Why she is the way she is. Three years ago, another child was growing inside of her.” The prince stared at her, his brow crinkled. He said nothing, waiting for her to continue. “Your father was not the child’s father,” she said.

His frown deepened. “That’s impossible. My mother would never—”

“She did,” Aisling interrupted. “She fell in love with another man. Your father found out about her lover and the child. He couldn’t abide a bastard being born in the palace.”

Jarrod suddenly grabbed her hand. “Don’t say another word, Aisling. We’re leaving, right now, together. We won’t ever speak of this again, won’t ever look back.”

Aisling was shocked by the sudden turn of events. “I killed your father.”

“I don’t care. I hated him.”

“You would leave your mother behind?”

The prince’s eyes never left hers. “She’s not…herself…anymore. Whatever he did to her, he stole all the good. She would want me to be happy, and I’m happy when I’m with you.”

Aisling closed her eyes. She could almost see the future he was trying to paint for them, but the world would never allow such a thing. He was a Teravainen prince and she was a purchased slave.

Her eyes flashed open as she spoke. “I don’t want to be with you, don’t you understand that? This entire time, I was a slave and you a prince. It was my duty to be kind to you.” The lies burned her throat as they emerged, one by one. They were necessary, for his good. She couldn’t ask him to forsake his birthright for her. Not when she would always be pursued, always coveted by those with power who sought to claim her as their prize. Now, she knew, she was lying to herself. This wasn’t about him; it was about her. She couldn’t risk her heart as she had once before, a long time ago, when she’d been made to believe love existed only to have it snatched away.

She promised herself several lifetimes ago that she would never again allow her heart to be hurt by a human man.

Jarrod looked as though she’d slapped him. That would probably be better than the words she’d spoken. “I don’t believe you.” He moved closer, extending his arms to surround her. If he did, she wondered whether she’d be able to refuse him, she wondered whether she would melt into his arms like heated butter and fall apart, all of the insanity of the night finally catching up to her, shattering her into a thousand shards like the mirror in the queen’s memory. “We kissed. We—”

“I bedded your father, Jarrod, or have you forgotten?” Each word was a dagger, she knew, and she aimed each for his heart.

His face fell, his gaze falling to his feet. But then it rose again, meeting her eyes with a strength she’d not seen in him before. “That was not your fault. My father used you as he uses everyone. What we had was—”

“Slave labor!” she said, shoving him back. Tears might’ve stung her eyes if she was capable of crying. Her very nature gave her a chance of pulling off this lie. For his good. For hers. For what they both wanted was something impossible, something akin to lassoing one of the moons and drawing it from the sky to hang on a wall sconce to light the dark places of the night. “Humans are all the same. You think you’re entitled to whatever your heart desires. Land. Power. Control. You cannot control me, Jarrod, no more than your father could.”

The prince’s face was ashen. All the naïve hope that had been there as he dreamed of a fantasy world in which he left Wolfsgaard forever with her as his paramour vanished like mist in the rising sun. “I never wanted to control you, Aisling. I swear it on my mother’s life.”

“You mean your mother’s life that I saved when she tried to leap from her balcony because of how horrid her existence is?” Aisling said, injecting venom into her voice. Her words were knives and swords, stabbed deep and twisted. She needed him to forget about her, to hate her, to allow her to walk away and never look back.

“Aisling, you don’t mean that,” Jarrod said.

“No? You know me so well, do you?” Lying was difficult for her—it was a human creation, after all—but she’d been around enough liars to learn a few things. “Do you want to know why your father summoned me to your mother’s quarters tonight?”

The prince said nothing, fear evident in the lines on his face, too deep for one so young.

“To lie with me while your mother watched. I couldn’t go through with it, so I killed him. At least all the other times he forced himself on me it was in private.” She added the last part as the hammer blow into the nail that was Jarrod, a lie she knew would wound him to the core of who—what—he was: an innocent who saw the harshness of the world but then turned around and plucked a flower from the ground by its stem and used its beauty as proof of goodness where there was none.

“My father…,” he said, unable to say the words, lest he stab himself through the heart.

“Aye, your father,” Aisling said. “Do not try to find me. Forget I ever existed. Live the life you were meant to live.”

“I—I don’t know what that looks like,” he said numbly. His hands, having never had the chance to touch her again, were clenched at his sides.

Aisling’s heart softened and, in that moment, she hated herself as much as she’d hated any of her masters, this prince’s father included. She hardened her heart once more, lest she restore the hope she’d just squashed like an ant underfoot. “That’s not my problem,” she said.

Without so much as a goodbye, she turned on her heel and strode toward the castle gates, which were closed at this time of night. She would fight her way through if necessary, but to her surprise, they opened ahead of her. She glanced back to find the prince signaling the gate guards to allow her to pass through.

Her heart broke just a little, and it wasn’t a wound she would ever be able to heal, even with her remarkable powers.

Thirty-Two

Jarrod Gaard

Wolfsgaard, Teravainen

JARROD GAARD WATCHED AS SHE VANISHED THROUGH THE GATES, fists balled at his sides and wishing his legs would obey him to run after her.

Wishing he were the kind of man who fought for what he wanted, refusing to be denied. That was his father. His sister, too. Even Sampson had a streak of that stubborn courage in him. Jarrod knew he’d been born different to any of them, softer, more appreciative of the beauty of the stars or a field of flowers, or of a pink-skinned, sky-haired woman who’d never been appreciated the way she should’ve been.

That turned out really well for you, he thought bitterly. Had she really killed his father? He couldn’t tell how much, if any, of what she’d said had been lies to convince him to let her go. All of it? None of it? More likely, the truth lay somewhere in between.

Jarrod may have been softer, but he wasn’t weak. Whether his strength was born into him or pounded into him by his father’s never ending stream of barbed words—he’d never hit him the way he hit his sister—he didn’t know, but he did know he wouldn’t draw the curtains and lock his door and hide from the world under a mountain of blankets.

He turned and walked back inside, wondering what he would find. If his father was dead, how would that feel? And if he lived, what would happen to him? His father would learn that he’d commanded the guards to let Aisling escape, his prized possession, bought for a small fortune.

I don’t care what happens to me, he thought. Aisling deserves her freedom, whether I am a part of her life or not.

As soon as he was back inside, the entire palace seemed to come to life, as though he’d stepped from a bubble frozen in time in which he and Aisling had stood for a few moments that were never meant to last. All bubbles pop, he thought, even as shouts and the sound of heavy, running footsteps arose from all directions.

He turned right because it was the fastest way to his mother’s bedroom. He didn’t run nor jog, striding along determinedly. Three guards stood staring at something stuck to the walls. Chunks of something…meaty, blood dripping down and pooling on the floor. His heart hammered in his chest, an ill feeling settling deep in his gut. He remembered how Aisling had been covered in blood and ichor. At first he’d thought she’d been hurt as she had before under his own father’s hand, but no…

This time, she’d done the hurting.

Jarrod hurried past the guards, swallowing the bile rising in his throat.

The staircase had another surprise. Somewhere above him, he heard the pounding footsteps of men on the steps, but it was the sight of the twisted, broken guard at the bottom of the landing that almost undid him. The first had been nothing more than splatter and gore, and he could reasonably fool his own mind into believing it had been an animal. But this man, his back twisted and crooked, his head and neck bent the wrong way…there was no denying his humanness. He’d never been on battlefield, though he’d been forced to watch the carnal nature of men carrying out the work of death in the arena. On those occasions he’d simply closed his eyes and thought of other things. I shall be blind no more, he thought, forcing his eyes to remain open and bear witness to the path of carnage Aisling had left in her wake. Because we drove her to be this way.

He sucked in a breath, stepped over the corpse, and then climbed the stairs. On the next landing, guards rushed past, racing along the corridor, not noticing him standing there. I am a statue prince, he thought. I am here but unnoticed. If he stood long enough, would the birds land on him, roosting and crapping and chirping?

He stepped into the corridor, nearly colliding with yet another running guard. The man cursed him—“Clumsy git”—and then rushed on like he hadn’t just insulted a prince and the second in line for the throne. Once, Jarrod would’ve just ignored the insubordination, but something snapped in him. “Stop!” he said. To his surprise, his voice emerged powerful and with conviction.

The guard, to his surprise, skidded to a halt and turned. He blinked several times, if only just realizing who he’d almost collided with and then cursed. He bowed slightly, lowering his eyes deferentially. “Your Highness,” he said. “My apologies. There is chaos tonight. I didn’t realize it was you.”

“Speak to me that way again and I’ll have your tongue cut from your mouth,” Jarrod said evenly. The words were foreign on his tongue, and he wondered whether it was him who was really speaking them or if he would turn to find his father standing behind him. No, he thought. Father wouldn’t threaten. He would ask for the guard’s knife and use it to do the cutting.

He half-expected the guard to laugh in his face and then turn away without another word. Instead, to his surprise, the guard bowed again and said, “Thank you for your mercy. It will not happen again.” They stared at each other for an awkward moment until the prince realized the guard was waiting to be dismissed.

“You may go,” the prince said, and the guard spun around and continued his flight down the corridor, reaching the room that was the culmination of the flurry of activity. The prince followed, but more slowly, feeling like he’d risen out of his body and was looking down upon his walking form, observing this person who spoke like the son of a king.

When he reached his mother’s room and saw the final dead guard in pieces—an arm here, a leg there, his torso—a lump of mutilated flesh still wearing his shredded guard’s uniform—Jarrod swooped back down from his floating vantage point, reentering his body to find himself, once more, feeling ill. He hung his head between his legs and retched all over his own boots, adding to the filth and detritus staining the plush, carpeted hall of the palace’s royal living quarters.

“Pull yourself together, Brother,” a harsh voice said as it passed, and Jarrod flinched.

He closed his eyes, pinching his forehead with a hand. How could Aisling…she was supposed to be…what? What was she supposed to be? He remembered her words from earlier. Was it all the truth? Had her every word, her every action, since entering Wolfsgaard been the lie of one imprisoned who owed her captors nothing? If so, Jarrod couldn’t blame her.

Why didn’t I do something to help her? He knew his daily visits and bringing her water when requested and even trying to stand up for her, in his rather meek way, didn’t count, for they were selfish acts, carried out to gain her favor and also in the hopes that she would find a way to heal his mother.

The reminder of the queen snapped him out of his reverie. He spat once more, though the bitter taste in his mouth lingered, and then rose to his full height and entered the bedroom. “Mother?” he called out, looking around. His sister’s back was to him. She was just standing there, taking in the room, from the corpse he noticed on the bloodstained bed—who in the name of the gods is that?—to the dying fire in the hearth to the ichor on the walls and floor to the outlines of the wheels of his mother’s chair, which was hidden by his sister’s motionless form.

“Mother!” he called again, rushing around his sister, his mother coming into view, her head slumped onto her shoulder like it sometimes did when she was sleeping—of course she’s sleeping, it’s late, so late—except for the white foamy vomit drying on her chin and dressing gown. “Mother?”

Something was cupped in her hands, which were motionless, fingers threaded together peacefully in her lap. A glass vial, uncorked, a drop of a clear liquid quivering on the bottle’s lip but not falling onto her palm.

Amari was doing nothing except staring, so Jarrod hurried forward, plucking the vial from his mother’s hands and sniffing its contents, which were as odorless as water. “Mother?” he said again, touching her face. Her skin was cold and had a gray pallor to it. “Mother? Wake up. Wake up!” He pressed his fingers to her throat, feeling for the thrum of life but receiving nothing. How had this happened? How had she gotten her hands on a vial of poison and how had her fingers even been dexterous enough to uncork it?

He needed Aisling. He needed her now, her glowing blood, the healing power inside her. “Aisling!” he shouted, willing his voice to carry outside the room, outside the palace walls, over the castle gates and into the streets of Wolfsgaard, wherever she was. Surely if he shouted loud enough and she heard him she would return to help. Surely something that had passed between them was true, had meaning. “AISLING!”

“One of the guards told me he saw you with her outside the palace,” Amari said, her voice frustratingly neutral. “He looked out the window and there you were, and there she was, and then you let her go.”

“I offered to leave this awful place with her and—” How to explain that the woman he loved had shattered him, destroyed him. He shouldn’t have to explain anything, not when his mother was…

He fell forward into his mother’s lap, sobbing, feeling her hands comforting him, cradling his face like she used to when he was young and his older sister and younger brother had conspired against him to make him feel small, or when his father had reprimanded him for being weak during training, turning tail and running from his trainer.

But no, she wasn’t there to comfort him, not really. It was only him holding her lifeless hands up to his face, forcing them, still warm but growing cooler, against his cheeks.

“You’re pathetic, Brother. It’s a good thing you weren’t born first, Teravainen would be overrun in a fortnight. I wish you’d gone to Avadon instead of Sampson. You should’ve been third or not at all.”

The harshness of her words washed over him like a cold wave and he couldn’t breathe. His mother, even in her condition, had been the one bright spot in his life. When Aisling had appeared—no, she was bought—he’d felt like, for the first time, things could turn around. But now…

Something struck him. “Where is Father?” he managed to ask, his tongue feeling swollen. “Aisling said…”

“What did she say?”

He couldn’t repeat it—at least not all of it. “That he tried to force himself upon her and she fled from him.” He looked up and swiveled around, his stinging eyes meeting those of his sister’s, her stare cold and unrelenting.

She cast her hands around the room. “Father is everywhere, just as he always wanted.” There was a sardonic undercurrent to her statement. “If you want to say goodbye, just look under the bed.”

Jarrod frowned, not understanding, but dropped onto all fours, crawling toward the bed, lifting the skirt to peek into the shadows. At first all he saw was the grayness, orange around the edges from the lanternlight. His eyes adjusted and he saw the hairbrush. Old-looking, dusty. Beside it was a human head.

His father’s eyes, wide open, stared at him, seeing nothing, except perhaps the hairbrush, which rested just before his empty gaze.

He recoiled sharply, once more feeling sick to his stomach. Nausea swelled and his belly heaved. He dry-retched, having already emptied the undigested contents of his dinner from his stomach.

“Some might say he lost his head,” Amari said.

Jarrod wiped his mouth with his shirt sleeve and looked at her through dangling tendrils of long, dark hair—his feature most like his mother’s. “You are so much like him,” he spat. It was not meant to be a compliment, but she took it as one.

“Thank you, Brother. I was always the strong one, while you…”

“Mother would be ashamed of what you’ve become.” As he had in the hall with the insolent guard, he felt a sudden fire inside him, his temper spiking. He wanted to hurt her, to hurt everyone. If they all hurt, maybe he wouldn’t.

“Mother was weak, too,” Amari said. “You always did love to hide under her skirts. Where are you going to hide now, Brother? Even the godling thinks you’re pathetic. She used your soft heart and naivete to escape.” She said the last like it was a huge joke, her voice full of amusement.

“I hate you,” he said, feeling the frustrating sting of tears pricking at his eyes.

“Well I don’t hate you, Jarrod,” she replied, suddenly sounding contrite and apologetic. He frowned, wondering what sort of trick this was. “I pity you.”

He’d had enough and he didn’t want his sister to see him cry. He shoved to his feet, pushed past her, and quit the room, fleeing down the hall, bashing shoulders with another guard in his haste but not bothering to reprimand him because he no longer trusted his own voice.

He didn’t stop until he was back in his room with the door shut and locked, his blankets piled up in a mountain over his head, very much still the pathetic, pitiable second-born prince he’d always been. Only then did he unleash his pain, the sobs coming in waves, crashing again and again on the shores of his bleak, rocky soul.

When Jarrod awoke hours later, he could not recall having fallen asleep. Everything was dark, but there was a strange orange glow overhead. Because I’m under my blankets like a child afraid of demons in the wardrobe, he thought. He reached up to touch his cheek. At least his tears had dried.

Mother is dead, he thought.

Father is dead.

Sampson is missing.

Aisling is gone.

And Amari hates me. No, he corrected in his head. She pities me, which is far worse.

He was tired, so tired. Of being the Outcast Prince, the Weak Prince, the Pitied Prince. The Statue Prince. He remembered that brief and fleeting moment last night, before he knew of his mother’s death, when he’d asserted his authority on that disrespectful guard. It had felt good. Is that how Father felt all the time? Is that how Amari feels? If so, he wanted more of it.

But how? He was second born, which meant he was one degree separated from the ultimate power and yet currently had none of it. Yes, he could order servants about and dine on the finest food and avoid fighting in the war like it was the plague and even bury his nose in the books he loved so much, but none of that interested him anymore. Not after her. The world had lost its luster.

Was it the grief talking, or had he finally realized what he’d been too stubborn to before, the very thing his father had been trying to instill in him from the moment he could communicate? The world was built on power, and if you had it, you could do as you wished. Everyone else was just wandering about, purposeless, like he had been. If he had the ultimate power, Aisling would have nothing to fear. They could be together.

He longed to poke his head out, to gaze upon his unfinished painting. All the time away from court and the arena and the war meetings had allowed him to work tirelessly on Aisling’s face, finishing both eyes, her nose and her lips. There was still plenty of work to be done, but it was a start. One day he would give it to her.

Still under his blankets, feeling hot as sunlight streamed through his open window and warmed the fabric, Jarrod remembered his childhood. It was always Amari and Sampson, and then him. They would pretend to let him join in their games, but he always ended up a prop for their own amusement. Amari was the Terran damsel in distress, Sampson the brave knight. Which left Jarrod as the Travailian dragon to be slaughtered. He would lie on the ground with his eyes closed, pretending to be dead. Sometimes he would open them a crack so he could watch his brother and sister dance around, pretending to cook and eat parts of him for their “dragon feast”. Their smiles and delight at being in each other’s company had been so pure and real, like the light of the sun. He’d wanted desperately to be close to it, to feel its warmth, even if he had no brightness to offer himself. Thus, he was willing to be their dragon, or whatever else they wanted him to be in their games.

It was better than being alone.

His sister might pity him, but that only made her an easy target. She would underestimate his tenacity, what he was capable of. But he didn’t pity his sister. No, he’d spoken truly the night before.

Jarrod Gaard, the Pitied Prince, hated his sister with all his being.

And, once more, he was willing to be the dragon.

Unlike their childhood games, Jarrod knew that sometimes in the real world the dragon devoured the damsel in distress.

Thirty-Three

Amari Gaard

Wolfsgaard, Teravainen

AMARI GAARD FELT ILL.

Last night, she’d done what her father had taught her to do: gird herself in armor and a stone-faced expression to convey strength and certainty. That’s what she’d done, ordering her guards—it felt strange even thinking it, but yes, they were her guards now—to bring her father’s head, which was all that was left of him, and her mother’s body to the holy men to begin the funeral ritual. Two of the three guards who’d died would be given a heroes’ funeral, because they’d died in defense of their king as the third guard, the king’s murderer, fell down the stairs, breaking his neck in his haste to escape after his heinous crime. It was regrettable having to pin the king’s murder on the hapless guard, but the true story could never be told.

The assassin woman’s body would be burned. Aisling would not be mentioned. Not ever again.

Future history books would contain these exact events, the ones that Amari had described. That was a lesson her father had taught her: History was written not based on fact, but by those who survived the day. Those guards who were true witnesses to what had transpired would be paid handsomely for their silence. She would have her spies follow them for the first several weeks until she was certain of their silence. If they broke their promise to take the truth with them to their graves, they would be put in their graves early, along with anyone they told. Amari knew she couldn’t have conspiracy rumors burning through her own capital city like wildfire.

You are just like your father.

“Stop it,” Amari muttered under her breath. Those six words had been repeating themselves in her mind all morning. Her mother’s words, spoken more than three years earlier, just days before she had fallen ill, transforming her from a vibrant, colorful woman into the twisted shade of herself she’d become.

Amari had never understood how Jarrod could stand to be around their mother after that. She couldn’t even look at the woman.

You are just like your father.

“Get out of my head,” Amari growled between clenched teeth.

Her father had been a strong man, powerful and respected and in control of his entire world. Thus, her mother’s words should’ve been a compliment, but Amari knew they were not. They were spoken by a woman wearing a disappointed expression after Amari had mocked Jarrod during a war council meeting for his suggestion that they build additional ships as the Odinians would not expect them to attack from the sea.

Her mother meant she was cruel, another of her father’s attributes.

Am I cruel? she wondered now. Does it matter? This is a cruel world that rewards strength over weakness. Should I show mercy when I will receive none in return?

Suddenly her stomach lurched and she ran for the chamber pot, relieving her stomach of its contents.

I pity you.

She whirled around, but the words had not been spoken aloud, only in her head. Am I going mad? she wondered, but then remembered that it was those words she’d spoken to her brother in the room containing their dead parents. Then, as he did, Jarrod had run from the room with wet eyes.

She sighed. She was cruel, to him especially, but not because she pitied him. That was a lie, a cruel, cruel lie spoken with the intention of cutting deep to make herself feel better. Which she did not. Because she envied Jarrod. From the second he was born he’d been his mother’s favorite child, the apple of her eye. Once, she’d had her own bond with her mother, but that had soon been eclipsed by Jarrod.

I hate you.

Jarrod was so much like their mother that it might as well have been her speaking those words to Amari and not him. Though she’d smiled at him as though his words were meaningless and pathetic, they had struck a dagger blow to her heart, even though she knew she’d earned them.

His hatred for her was dwarfed only by her hatred for herself, her self-loathing, her unworthiness to receive the fulness of her mother’s love, her fear for Sampson’s well-being.

As usual, she had hidden her pain behind harsh words, as her father always did.

I am just like Father, she thought now, the bitter tang of her own vomit filling her nostrils as she hung her head over her chamber pot once more. She was exhausted, her body and mind in desperate need of the sleep that had eluded her during the night.

She snapped upright when there was a tentative knock on her door. “I am not to be disturbed,” she said sharply. She hoped the door had sufficiently muffled her voice so the knocker would be unable to detect the weakness in her tone.

“It’s Jarrod,” her brother’s voice called.

She froze, shocked. Why was her brother at her bedroom door? Considering how they’d left things the night before, she wouldn’t have been surprised if she didn’t see him until the funeral march. Something inside her melted and she longed to have his arms wrapped around her, her head tucked against his shoulder as she wept. Such thoughts horrified her, and she instantly girded herself with her armor once more.

“You are the queen now,” she said to herself. “Act like it.” She stood, using a nearby towel to wipe the vomit from her lips. She sipped water from a goblet, swishing it around her mouth and then swallowing the bad taste.

“Amari?” Jarrod said because she hadn’t responded after he’d identified himself.

Still she didn’t answer, gazing at her rumpled expression in the mirror. She smoothed out the wrinkles in her gown, which she retied to properly hide her corset. Her cheeks were red but not tear-stained. Because she hadn’t cried, not a single tear. Weeping was for widows and their children, and she was neither. Finally, she ran the old hairbrush through her knots until her dark hair could be pulled, untangled, in a single rope over her shoulder. Yes, she thought. Now I have the look of a queen.

Jarrod hadn’t spoken again, and she assumed he’d left her alone. Still, it was better to check. She walked primly to the door and dragged it open.

Jarrod almost fell inside, his head—well, ear, really—balanced against the smooth wood as he listened for any sounds emerging from within the room. “Oh, Sister,” he said. “I was growing concerned.”

Amari raised an eyebrow at the awkward young man who managed to right himself to stand before her. His awkwardness might’ve been endearing if not for the blight that he was to their family tradition, which was built on strength. You are just like your father.

She almost screamed at her mother’s relentless voice in her head.

Still, she softened herself before responding. “Listening at my door, Brother? Really, is that an act befitting a Crown Prince?”

“Crown Prince?” he said, the words spoken by one who was truly clueless as to his own station, which had changed substantially in just one night.

“Yes,” she said. “It’s best you start acting like the heir to the throne. And you shall address me as ‘Your Majesty’ now. At least in public. I shan’t require it in private, however. ‘Amari’ or ‘Sister’ will suit.”

“Yes, Sister,” he said, like an obedient dog. Inwardly, she growled at herself. Even in her own mind she was struggling to disprove her dead mother’s words.

“Why have you come?” she asked.

Jarrod stepped closer. He was a head taller than her and broader of shoulder, a fact she’d forgotten. For some reason she always thought of him as smaller and weaker, though all his years of training had built him a rather strong physique that didn’t match his demeanor. “I—I wanted to apologize for what I said last night. I was grieving—still am—but that is no excuse. You are my sister and I don’t hate you.”

It took all her strength not to fall into his strong arms right then. She blinked quickly to remove the growing moisture, hoping he wouldn’t notice. “And I don’t pity you,” she said. “Nor hate you. What’s that?” She gestured to the silver, heavy-laden platter she’d noticed resting on the floor in the hall behind him.

“Oh,” he said excitedly. “I’d almost forgotten. I brought tea and scones. I thought we could take breakfast together.”

“I would like that,” she said. “Though it may be a quick one. There are preparations to make for the funeral, and of course I will need to be anointed queen. Only then will my title be made official.”

“I will stand by your side.”

“Thank you.” I wish Sampson were here.

Jarrod retrieved the tray from the hall and Amari closed the door behind him. Though the table before the hearth was long, they sat across from each other lengthwise, which would make it difficult for both of them to reach the tray if it were placed in the center. Instead, Jarrod placed it closer to her, such that he would need to stand to serve himself, which he did so cheerfully, filling two teacups and then piling three scones on a small plate as though he were ravenous. Amari took one pastry and nibbled on the corner while her brother tucked into his scones. For several long moments, they ate in silence and ignored their tea, which was still steaming hot. Amari’s scone was lemon poppyseed and quickly sated the appetite she didn’t realize she had.

Once Jarrod had finished an entire scone and half the next, he placed the half-eaten scone on the plate and said, “Milk?”

“Please. Just a splash.” Jarrod had always been kind, something she and Sampson had exploited on numerous occasions, but this version of her brother was a stranger. There was a vibrancy, a confidence, to him she hadn’t seen before. What had transpired between last night and now? she wondered.

Jarrod added the specified amount of milk, using a small silver spoon to stir it in. He did not add milk to his own tea, which he continued to ignore as wisps of steam arose from its dark surface.

“Thank you for…,” Amari said, then realized she wasn’t certain what she had planned to show gratitude for.

“For what, Sister? I am owed no thanks. I am merely doing my duty as Crown Prince. You see, before Father…well, I wasn’t certain of my place in the kingdom. Now I see it. We are tethered to one another. Maybe we always were even if neither of us realized it.”

The words slipped out before she could stop them. “I gave my first true command last night after you left.”

Jarrod was back to his scones, finishing the second and continuing to the third. “Oh?” he said. “And what was that?”

She knew she should bite her tongue, make something meaningless up, but old habits died hard and whatever was happening between them was too new to be real, unlike the love she had for their brother. “Organizing a search party for Sampson,” she said. “Well, search parties, really. We are going to scour Avadon until he is found.”

“I thought Father called off the search. Between the demon infestation and the Grizari attack at Kerr’s Crossing, there is too much chaos. Plus, too much commotion in Avadon may draw attention to our other activities there.”

“Father isn’t here anymore,” Amari said sharply. “And I will find Sampson.”

“Even if it means drawing Glynn Kerr and his soldiers to us like a moth to a flame?”

She hated how Jarrod’s voice never rose to a shout, while she felt as though hers was always right on the border, one breath away from screaming in a most un-queen-like way. She breathed through her nose to steady her emotions. “Kerr has bigger problems to focus on. The size of the Rift he is now responsible for guarding, for one,” she said. “They say stopping the spread of the demon horde will require his entire force, and that’s only if the Grizari retreat to the Lost Plains.”

“And you want to send more Terrans to a foreign land overrun by demons and Grizari when we have our own demon problem to concern ourselves with?”

She’d tried to control her temper, she really had, but her brother was not helping, not one bit. “This is my command and you will not question it, am I understood?”

To her absolute frustration, Jarrod didn’t seem bothered by her outburst, calmly taking another bite of his pastry, chewing slowly, swallowing, and then, finally, responding. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

Gods! She wanted to stand up, vanquish the space between them, and slap him across the face. That’s what Father would’ve done—

Her thought cut off midway through, but she knew the next two words she’d been about to think, those two words that served to confirm everything her mother believed about her.

—to me. That’s what Father would’ve done to me. How many times had he hit her, not hard enough to break bones, but hard enough to bruise, to sting, to occasionally break her skin and draw blood? Blood but never tears. Tears were weakness. He reprimanded her for her foolishness, for her lack of control over her temper, for being born a woman. Each time she knew she deserved it and promised herself she would do better and make him proud and ensure he wouldn’t need to hit her again. But he always did. She always earned another hit.

She didn’t want to be like him.

The realization struck her almost as hard as one of his backhanded slaps. She crinkled her forehead, perplexed at its origins. Her father had been a powerful leader, strong and respected, uncrossable. His very name struck fear in the hearts of their enemies. He made decisions decisively, and none argued his command the way Jarrod had hers. And yet…

I don’t want to be like him.

“More tea, Sister?” Jarrod asked, drawing her eyes up from where they’d been fixed on the spout of the teapot, as though entranced by its shape.

“Hmm?” she said, trying to recall what he’d asked. “Oh, my tea. I’d almost forgotten.” She lifted it to her lips, half-noticing her brother watching her, his own tea similarly untouched though it was no longer steaming. She drank deeply, the tea having cooled from the morning air and the milk that had been added. It was good, rich and flavorful. There was, however, a strange burn in her throat as she swallowed. A bitter aftertaste arose in the wake of the draught, almost like the bile she’d tasted just before her brother had rapped on her door.

“How is it, Amari?” Jarrod asked. “Satisfying, I hope.”

“Yes, well, there is an odd taste, but it is warm and rich.”

“Good. That’s good. Another scone? The ones with the green peppers are to die for. Imported all the way from Southern Crimea, I believe.”

“No, thank you,” she said, frowning. The room was beginning to spin. “I’m feeling out of sorts suddenly. Dizzy.” For some reason she couldn’t explain, she stood. The entire room was moving, as though a tornado had picked up the palace to spin it around its vortex.

“I’m not surprised,” Jarrod said matter of factly. “You’ve been through an ordeal. Mayhaps you should lie down. Can I help you to bed? I can handle the funeral procession arrangements.”

“Thank you, Brother,” Amari said, though she’d barely understood his words, which sounded as though they were shouted from a long way off through a long tunnel, echoing.

Jarrod reached out to grab her arm just as she felt herself falling, the walls flashing past, followed by the ceiling. Her hip hit something hard—the table. Silverware clattered and the sound of breaking ceramic arose, but even that was muted as water rushed through her head.

Someone yelled, “Help! We need help in here!” and it was her father’s voice. A smile creased her lips at her foolishness. Her father was dead. Though Jarrod had tried to hide the truth, she was no fool. The godling had killed the king but only after an assassin had tried and failed. She wondered how many other people would’ve killed King Cronus Gaard if they’d had the chance. She no longer felt ill, just exhausted. A little sleep would do her some good—maybe a long sleep. White light streaming through the window assaulted her eyes and she squinted.

A shadow fell over her face—Jarrod, staring down. “Never fear, Sister, I will take care of everything. Tell Father he’s a bastard and that his weakling son will do what he could not.”

Amari was trying to understand something, but it eluded her failing mind. How could she tell her father anything? Wasn’t he dead? Wait. Wait. The tea. Her brother hadn’t drunk a single drop of his own, while encouraging her to partake of hers. Ohhh.

She didn’t know he had it in him.

Darkness replaced the light and the world faded into oblivion.

Thirty-Four

Jarrod Gaard

Wolfsgaard, Teravainen

HIS MOTHER MIGHT’VE BEEN SLEEPING, such was the peacefulness of her expression.

He felt the bite of pain deep inside him, but he tamped it down. He was finished with pain, done with letting it control him, as his father always had, as his sister had planned to before he took matters into his own hands. He was no trained assassin like the woman who had been found in his mother’s bed, but it had been simple enough. Grimfire was out and about, assisting with the preparations for a dark day of mourning—two royals dead and another missing. Now there were three dead, because of his decisive actions. Only one Gaard remained, and Jarrod would soon demonstrate why he was worthy of being the survivor.

He’d snuck into Grimfire’s laboratory, where the wizard mixed his potions and experimented with magic the way all spellcasters seemed to love to do. The mage was meticulous in all aspects of his life, Jarrod had noticed, and the shelves containing his various ingredients were no exception. Everything was labeled, from the leather pouches of raw slugroot to the disconcerting jars of snake eyes. The only thing missing was his supply of magenum, which Jarrod knew was kept elsewhere under lock and key as it belonged not to the mage, but to the crown. Only approval granted by the Terran ruler would permit one to procure a small vial or two. Grimfire, of course, as the only mage in the kingdom, never had a problem getting approval.

But it wasn’t magenum Jarrod was after, it was a substance with a far more nefarious purpose: death. Appropriately, the flower was known as deathbloom, its black petals striped with red almost as rare as pure liquid magenum. It wasn’t the petals themselves that were useful, it was the one or two drops of brackish liquid trapped inside them, which could only be extricated by pressing them between the metal walls of a vice with something beneath to capture the drips.

On the third shelf at the very end, covered in dust from disuse, he’d found the vial labeled ‘deathbloom’ in Grimfire’s spindly handwriting. Jarrod had taken it and run, not stopping until he was back in his own bedroom, breathing hard, feeling so panicked and energized he felt like he’d already executed his plan. There was an unexpected sort of…thrill…that came along with doing something he shouldn’t have done, and he wondered whether thieves stole to get whatever they were stealing or simply to achieve this soaring feeling in the wake of their crime.

It was that feeling that carried him toward the next phase of his plan. His sister loved tea and scones in the morning, which made dumping the contents of the vial into the teapot after personally collecting it from the royal kitchens simple. It was probably ten times more of the poison than was required, but he knew nothing about measuring potions and felt it better to err on the side of caution. He crushed the glass vial underfoot and scattered the shards out his bedroom window into the gardens.

The rest was easy enough—almost too easy. He wondered if murder was always so easy for those who committed it. He suspected not. The assassin who’d tried and failed to assassinate his father in his mother’s bed had apparently been working in the palace for three long years before making her attempt.

And yet I did it in a couple hours of sneaking around, he thought now. And none had suspected me. Jarrod had simply played the kind, meek prince who’d brought tea to his sister from the kitchens. He might’ve felt a swell of pride rise within him, except he felt empty. The thrill of his dangerous activities was gone now, leaving him aching inside. He was about to become the most powerful person in the kingdom, but all he felt was lost and alone.

Tears welled in his eyes, so he quickly leaned into his mother’s casket and kissed her cheek, simultaneously dashing away his tears before any of the thirty or so guards surrounding him could see. The soon-to-be king needed to be protected, after all. Given Sampson was still missing, Jarrod might very well be the last remaining Gaard heir to the Wolf Throne.

His mother looked beautiful, garbed in a green dress she was well-known for before she fell ill, when she was a woman who commanded attention rather than pity. He watched as she was carried at the head of the processional, where flowers would be thrown from the hands of hundreds of her subjects as she wound her way through the streets she’d once loved until they reached the royal burial plot well south of the city near the Gaard family summer palace, which they hadn’t visited in years, ever since his mother wasn’t his mother anymore. As he watched her go, he remembered what Aisling had told him before she’d crushed him, about another child, an unborn bastard. He wanted to discard it as pure fantasy, but of all the things Aisling had told her, this is what he chose to believe.

Amari was next, and Jarrod had to bite his lip to stop from weeping openly. He’d never loved her the way a brother should love a sister, and he knew the feeling—or lack thereof—was mutual, but he’d always hoped for a reconciliation. Growing up, all he’d ever wanted was to be included in their childhood games. But Amari’s and Sampson’s bond had been unbreachable, stronger than the walls of the very castle that had failed to protect any of them—the true monsters lurking within its bounds rather than without. He stood on the outside of their walls his entire life.

And yet, for that small period, while they’d talked and eaten scones, before Amari had drunk the tea, he’d felt like his sister had let him inside.

Too little, too late, he thought bitterly. It shouldn’t have taken the deaths of their parents and her impending anointing to cast down the walls she’d built up between them.

Still, what if she had been willing to reconcile? What if their relationship had been about to change for the better? What if he could’ve supported her and she could’ve relied on him for sage advice and counsel while ruling with a kind and merciful strength their father would’ve never understood?

What have I done? What would Aisling think? Does a worm become a snake because it’s spent too much time with serpents? These thoughts and many others spiraled through his mind as he stood, feeling as though his feet had disappeared and he was hovering off the floor.

Stop, he thought. You cannot second-guess yourself now.

He realized Amari was waiting for him, the men hauling the casket growing impatient for him to mourn her. He leaned down and pretended to kiss her, stopping just short. “May you find the same peace in death that I found in life,” he said.

She went the way of their mother. No flowers would be thrown for her. Because of what the Terran citizens thought she’d done. Because of Jarrod’s lies, painting her as a troubled woman who’d taken her own parents’ lives before ending her own. He gritted his teeth until his jaw ached and his remorse vanished.

The final casket was his father’s. Though last he’d seen his father the king was reduced to nothing but a head, he now had a body as well. Finding an unburied corpse of similar size and shape hadn’t been particularly difficult. The undertaker had sewn his father’s head on another’s body, his handiwork hidden beneath a high-collared shirt partially covered by a fine, crimson doublet bearing the symbol of the wolf. It was a gruesome necessity to support the story Jarrod had concocted for the events that had transpired inside the castle. He couldn’t have it be known that an assassin had infiltrated their well-guarded palace. And he wouldn’t have Aisling’s name smeared across the kingdom, especially considering she was on the run. He did, however, want to locate her so he could meet with her, reason with her. He needed to hope there could still be something between them, that the flame they’d both felt had not been extinguished, finally free to grow into a fire now that he was about to become king.

Jarrod acted quickly this time, anxious for the entire spectacle to be finished. He drew the sword that had been his father’s, though the man had never used it in battle, preferring to command from the safety of his own stronghold. He slid the blade into position, maneuvering fingers that were not his father’s such that they gripped the blade, holding it flush with his chest, point aimed downward. It was necessary in order for his father to be a warrior in the next life. Next, he placed two gold coins over the king’s eyes, which had thankfully been closed by the undertaker. The coins would ensure his father maintained his wealth when he crossed over into the Void.

Secretly, Jarrod hoped some graverobber would end up with the coins in his pockets and the sword in his sheath.

His work finished, he pulled back and gestured for the pallbearers to march onward. His father departed the castle for the last time, going the way of his mother.

Their murderer was sandwiched in between them, or so the world believed.

Jarrod turned his back on them all.

Thirty-Five

Amari Gaard

Wolfsgaard, Teravainen

AMARI AWOKE TO A GRAY DARKNESS, ORANGE AROUND THE EDGES.

She groaned, feeling achy and sweaty. She tried to roll over to one side but hit something hard and unforgiving. “Err,” she murmured, confusion muddying her thoughts. Where am I? What happened? And where is that orange light coming from?

She rolled over the opposite way but smashed into the same formidable obstacle. She blinked, racking her mind. All at once, memories returned, flooding through her:

Her brother’s face looming over her. His words: Never fear, Sister, I will take care of everything. Tell Father he’s a bastard and that his weakling son will do what he could not.

The tea. The tea she’d drunk but he had not. That moment of grudging respect, when she realized he’d outwitted her, that she’d underestimated him.

He poisoned me. Oh gods, what did he give me?

Something that made her fall unconscious for a time, that much was clear. At least he hadn’t used a poison that would kill her. Of course he didn’t, she thought. He’s Jarrod. Meek. Mild. He would never hurt a fly. Except he’d hurt her, played her for a fool. And now she was…where? In some kind of a box?

She tapped on the wall. It was constructed of sturdy wood. She reached up and felt the same solid wood above her. She jammed her fingernails into the edges, where the light had found its way through the cracks, searching for a clasp. Nothing. Next she shoved at the lid with her palms. Straining, Amari groaned, adding her feet, which were bare. She tried to get leverage, but the space was too cramped, almost like a—

The word struck her so hard she stopped fighting against the confounded lid.

—coffin.

He wouldn’t. The truth was, she didn’t know what Jarrod would and wouldn’t do. This was a different version of her brother, one she wasn’t accustomed to dealing with. If she really was in a coffin, he was probably sitting atop it, laughing at her expense at the sounds of her struggling within. It was the ultimate retribution for all the times she and Sampson had tormented him.

“Consider me amused, Jarrod,” she said loudly. “You win this time. You have my respect; you are a much worthier adversary than I ever gave you credit for. Enough with the games. Teravainen needs its queen.”

No response.

“Jarrod, I’m serious. You will not be punished for this. I heard your message loud and clear. You want to be treated with respect. I will do that. Together we will rule Teravainen far better than father did.”

No response.

“JARROD LET ME OUT RIGHT NOW OR I SWEAR TO THE GODS I WILL HAVE YOUR HEAD ON A PIKE!” She followed up the threat with such pounding on the underside of the lid that her knuckles were bruised and bloodied as a result. She bit them, tasting metal, growling in frustration.

Calm down, she thought, taking a steadying breath and counting to ten. Yes. Breathing—that was important. The casket wasn’t airtight based on the orange glow along the edges, which meant she could breathe. She was imprisoned but not desperate—not yet.

That’s when she finally heard a sound without the casket. A shiver against the roof, like someone had tossed something on top. A sprinkle of flour or a handful of sand or—

He wouldn’t.

Another thump sounded as dirt rained down upon the lid. Already, the edges of orange light were being eliminated, covered bit by bit. “HELLO!” she screamed. “HELLO! I’M ALIVE IN HERE! STOP! I’M ALIVE!” As she screamed, she pounded the lid once more, ignoring the sharp pain in her knuckles, radiating up her arms, the burn in her throat from screaming and the substance she’d ingested—longsleep, she finally realized, a potent liquid that caused a deathlike sleep where the beat of one’s heart slowed to such a crawl it was nearly impossible to detect.

Everyone thinks I’m dead, she thought. They’ve buried me. They’re burying me!

More pointless screaming and pounding. Whoever was burying her was either deaf or out of earshot.

The orange light was gone now, leaving her in the terrifying grasp of pure darkness.

Epilogue

Firestone, Sacred Sea

FYRE DANCER HAD STRAPPED THE BLADE TO HER BACK USING STRIPS OF FABRIC TORN FROM HER DRESS, before beginning her arduous journey back down the volcano’s dangerous flanks.

Though the blade was large and unwieldy, she and the other Flame Bearers had spent much of their lives hauling pots of water from the stream to her village, chiseling strength into her shoulders and back. The added weight had, however, dragged her down the rope with more speed than she’d intended, burning her hands and battering her knees as she collapsed at the bottom.

Her pain was nothing compared to what would befall all of Kingfall if she didn’t get up, so she hauled herself to her feet and soldiered on, following in reverse the meandering path down the slope, the way growing easier with each obstacle she conquered. Behind her, the Mountain Goddess was still and silent, satisfied by the unwilling sacrifice made by the Flame Bearer.

By the time she reached the base of the mountain, Fyre’s arms were slick with sweat, her muscles burning.

She was met with dark stares from the villagers flanking the pathway, anxiously awaiting the Flame Bearer’s return, prepared to shower him with gratitude and adoration for, once more, rescuing their village from certain destruction. Questions assaulted her on all sides, but she ignored them, amused by how they staggered and stumbled to get away when they saw the dueling edges of dark and light she bore on her back like a second spine.

They fell behind her and she walked on, all the way to the shore, where a small fishing boat had been dragged up onto the sand after its daily duty was done. Fyre grasped the side and pushed, the gritty sand straining to hold fast to its prize. Fyre groaned with effort and then the boat groaned in turn, tearing free of the beach’s grip, gaining speed as it slid from the dry sand to the wet sand and, finally, sloshing into the waves churning up onto shore.

There was a shout behind Fyre, perhaps from the boat’s owner or one of the other villagers, but she ignored them, kicking a leg over the boat’s side and muscling herself aboard. A pair of gray wooden oars awaited her in their oarlocks as she sat facing the only world she’d ever known, the island that had been her home, and prison, since the moment fate had decided she would come screaming into existence third-born.

She was dimly aware of the crowd of villagers that had gathered to watch her, some shouting, others pointing, but she gritted her teeth and focused on dipping the oars, pulling, lifting, rotating, and dipping once more to repeat the sequence. There was something calming and satisfying about falling into a rhythm, sore muscles fighting against the water while simultaneously using it to widen the gap between her and the beach.

A powerful wave slapped the front of the boat, threatening to capsize it, but with a desperate pull, Fyre managed to fight over its precipice and coast down the wave’s backside, which descended into a watery valley before rising once more. Wave after wave approached and did battle, each more determined than the last to force her back.

A final wave arose, towering above them all as it crested over the reef, frothing and churning with the raw power of the Sacred Sea. As Fyre twisted her head around, she knew she wouldn’t make it, the wave already curling with her boat caught halfway up its face. She tried to maintain her grip on the oars as she gave them one last desperate pull, but as the wave collapsed under its own weight, thundering down upon her head, the oars were wrenched from her grasp, one of them twisting around and knocking her firmly on the head.

Her world became a twisting tornado of darkness and light as the wave spiraled her into the depths of the sea. I’m sorry, she said to the blade, whose weight was now dragging her down. I failed you.

NO, the blade said. YOU SHOWED ME YOUR STRENGTH. NOW REACH FOR THE LIGHT AND THE SHADOWS AND BE SAVED.

She did. She reached.

POSTLUDES

Aisling      Roman

Jameson Gaard     Dom

The following are four FREE short stories that form an integral part of The Kingfall Histories, highlighting the origins of some of the most pivotal characters in the story. They will give you, the reader, a greater understanding of the history of the world, thus preparing you to read the second book in the series, Dragonfall.

Postlude 1: Aisling Brightshine

Sonaria- date unknown

AISLING BRIGHTSHINE HAD NEVER EXPECTED, NOR PLANNED, TO FALL IN LOVE WITH A HUMAN.

“It’s lust, Ais, nothing more,” her sister, Heiress, said. She was in the process of dusting moon powder onto her smooth, silvery skin, making her cheeks sparkle like sunlit pools. Next to the majestic purple hue of her long, satiny hair, the contrast was striking.

Aisling swatted at her younger sister, who enjoyed poking fun at every turn. Heiress had all the youthful vigor of a godling who’d experienced the passing of a mere eighty-one years. Aisling, on the other hand, was mature, having only just celebrated her one hundredth name day. “I value his mind,” Aisling said. “Our conversations are most satisfying.”

“I don’t doubt that,” Heiress said. “I bet you talk all night.”

“Oh, stop,” Aisling said. “Marco and I…we have a connection. It’s hard to explain unless you’ve experienced it.”

“Mm-hm,” Heiress murmured. “He is rather handsome, for a human. Personally I prefer the fairer folk, sprites and elves and the like, but I won’t begrudge you your fetishes.”

“Heiress,” Aisling said, a note of warning in her voice. She loved her sister dearly, but at times Heiress crossed the line; Aisling was beginning to wonder whether Heiress even knew there was a line. All around them, the wooden inner walls of the massive hollowed-out tree that served as their home danced with the firelight cast by the torches set on poles in the direct center, so as to avoid setting fire to their dwelling.

Heiress laughed, her eyes meeting Aisling’s without turning as she stared at her reflection in the looking glass. “I’m happy for you, Sister. Truly I am. I only worry…”

Aisling frowned, surprised by the gravity that had entered her sister’s tone, an abrupt change to their lighthearted banter. “What is it? What do you worry about?”

Heiress sighed. “He is human.”

“I think we established that. And anyway, we are half-human, or have you forgotten?”

“And yet the differences between our kind is stark. He is more…mortal…than us. Does he even know your age? He will never live to be as old as you are now. He will turn gray and wrinkly and decrepit, while you will be as strong and vibrant in a hundred years as you are today.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Aisling said, growing frustrated. She was almost twenty years older than her sister; who was she to explain the ways of the world to her? Then again, she hadn’t told Marco her true age for fear that he would reject her, thinking she was an old woman on her deathbed.

“I think you know it, but you’re not thinking logically. You’re following your heart and little else. The humans only just arrived on our shores a year ago—we don’t even fully understand their intentions.”

“Marco’s intention is that we marry,” Aisling blurted out, wishing as soon as the words left her lips that she could draw them back as though she’d never spoken.

“Marry? The meaningless human custom of binding oneself to another for life? You can’t be seriously considering such a thing.”

“It’s not meaningless,” Aisling said. “And I’ve already considered it. Even if my life with Marco is the equivalent of but a day to our kind, I will relish every second of that day as though it is my last.”

“What would Father say?” Heiress said suddenly, a look of horror crossing her lovely features. Her golden eyes widened to the size of full moons.

Aisling felt a stabbing sensation in her chest. “Father isn’t here,” she said coldly.

“Exactly. Father was human and now he is gone. Just as Marco will be while you live on.”

“Enough,” Aisling said. “My mind is set. I hope you will support me in my decision.”

Heiress finally turned away from the mirror. She grasped both of Aisling’s hands in hers. “Of course I’ll support you. I’m sorry. I’m being selfish. Mayhaps I don’t want things to change between us.”

“They never will,” Aisling said, gripping Heiress’s hands with a fervor that could only ever be shared between two sisters. “I swear it.”

Her sister’s expression softened. “So when do I get to meet this Marco to whom you will soon be wed? Spying on you from afar grows boring.”

“Tomorrow night,” Aisling said. “He wants you to dine with us. There’s a grassy knoll midway between the godlands and the human port we frequent. None will bother us there.”

“Er, Ais, have you forgotten that we don’t eat? Unless you’re planning to vomit on his boots. Now that would make an impression.”

“Fine, so maybe he’ll do the dining while we watch him. But we can drink water. That’s something humans do, right?”

“He’d probably prefer wine,” Heiress said.

“Where are we supposed to get wine? We haven’t any human coin.”

Her sister looked thoughtful. “I hear a small vial of our blood fetches a grand price in trade with the humans.”

Aisling frowned. “You’ve been spending too much time with Lenora. She would sell her fingers for a cask of magenum.”

“Maybe so, but have you tried it?”

“Are you saying you have?”

“Mayhaps. Consuming only water is so boring sometimes, and I suffered no ill effects. Quite the opposite, in fact. I felt…euphoric…like the world was full of infinite possibilities. Like I could sprout wings and fly, or dive to the depths of the Endless Ocean and breathe water, or—”

“So you’re suggesting I trade my blood for wine?” Aisling interrupted. She had to admit, her sister was scaring her a little. While she’d been sneaking off with Marco, her sister had apparently been living a secret life of her own.

“Or magenum. The humans partake of both for similar reasons. It will ensure a pleasant evening for all of us.”

Aisling couldn’t argue with the logic, but sell her blood? She was certainly aware of her own healing properties—she used them on herself numerous times, mostly to repair minor scrapes and injuries but once to mend a broken leg she’d suffered when she’d fallen from the perches of a tree she and Heiress had been climbing. “I will consider it.”

“Good. Now, unless you’ve changed your mind about spending your evening with Marco, I must be off to meet Lenora. She’s acquired a fresh cask of magenum that requires our services.” Heiress stood, starting to extract her fingers from Aisling’s, but she held them fast. “What is it, Sister?” Heiress asked.

“Be careful. Please. You’re all I have in this world.”

Heiress offered one of her full smiles, which Aisling was certain could light up the dark places of the world with its brightness. Her cheeks glittered in the torchlight. “Of course I am. You do the same during your rendezvous with Marco. Word in the godlands is that several humans have been spotted roaming into our territory. Rough-looking men with ill intentions, no doubt. Not all human men are like your Marco, that’s for certain.”

“Thank you for your concern, Sister,” Aisling said. “But I am well aware of the dangers. Anyway, the Nymph Queen and her nymphlings will lead them astray with their haunting voices if the men venture too far into the forest.”

“You’re right, of course.” Heiress withdrew her hands and moved aside the interlocking door that marked the hidden entrance to their home. For a moment, Aisling caught a fleeting view of the forest outside, brightly lit by glowing branches and leaves, but then it was gone as her sister sealed the gap once more.

Aisling turned her own attention to the mirror to prepare herself to see Marco.

“Your skin is the same hue as the sunrise over the sea,” Marco said, stroking her arm with a single finger. Aisling enjoyed the shiver that ran up her skin at his touch. The weather was fair, the right mix of cool and warm, the evening sky dark enough to hide their presence but not so dark that she couldn’t make out his features—strong jaw, dimpled chin, piercing blue eyes that appeared navy in the night and turquoise in the morn. The shadow of a day’s worth of stubble darkened his cheeks and chin and the area surrounding his lips. “And your hair could be moonlit waterfalls. Aisling, you are breathtaking.”

“You embarrass me,” Aisling said, though she secretly enjoyed the compliments. This man, who defined himself as a simple fisherman, might’ve been a poet.

“If speaking the truth blazing like a fire in my heart embarrasses you, then I fear you will be embarrassed for the rest of your life.”

“Then I shall relish the flush on my cheeks,” Aisling said, though inwardly she was reminded of her sister’s words, how she would outlive Marco by centuries.

Marco cocked his head to the side. “Wait. What are you saying? Does this mean you’ve considered my proposal? Are we to wed?”

She couldn’t speak a single word, such was the joy in her heart, so all she managed was a single nod. Marco flung his arms around her and she melted into them, feeling the rapid beat of his heart in his chest, subconsciously altering the beat of her own to match its pace. When he pulled back, their lips were so close that it was only natural that they should press together, warmth flooding the whole of her body as she tasted him. Despite her sister’s jape about lust, her feelings for this man soared eagle-high and could only be love. Aisling had been with males before, including one mischievous nymph who could alter his appearance with a thought, a golden-haired, travelling elf who’d turned out to be somewhat of a rogue, and even a sea prince, though the latter had been brief as she’d struggled to get past the unrelenting fishiness of his scent. Thus, Aisling understood carnal desire, and though there was undoubtedly a degree of such feelings here, they were eclipsed by her greater, overpowering need to simply be with him, in his presence, by his side.

To one who had not experienced such a love, it was unexplainable, indescribable. Now that she had experienced such a feeling, Aisling could only define it as the meaning of life, if there ever was one.

Their kiss seemed to last forever, and yet when they pulled apart it was never enough for Aisling. Thus, she grasped the back of his head, her fingers threading through his thick, dark hair, and kissed him again. His hands roamed to her shoulders, down her spine, settling in the small of her back for a moment before sliding lower, encircling her hips as he eased her onto the grassy knoll.

His lips moved lower, to her throat, painting a trail of fire. “Undress me,” she commanded.

His fingers grew more urgent as they slid from her hips back up to her shoulders, where a portion of her dress had already slipped down her arm. Aisling wanted every part of this man, and didn’t care if he would only live for—

Her thoughts cut off sharply when she heard a noise—a twig cracking. “Wait,” she said, just as Marco was about to guide her dress the rest of the way down.

“What is it?” he asked, eyes wide and white in the dim evening light.

“I heard a noise. A twig cracking.”

Marco chuckled. “A night sound, no doubt. A creature scurrying perhaps. Pay no mind. Where were we? Oh yes.” His lips dipped back to her skin once more, tasting the area just below her neck now as his fingers clasped the material of her dress, drawing it to her elbows.

Aisling barely noticed what Marco was doing, her ears pricked in the direction she’d heard the sound, listening to the night. Her hearing was far superior to that of a human, and though Marco may have been right, some instinct told her he was not. She’d lived in the godlands her entire life and could discern the difference between a sound of the night and something less…natural. A shuffling sound reached her ears and then—

A light thump and a breathy curse. Whoever was coming had stubbed their toe, she surmised, and she jolted up, one of her shoulders bashing into Marco’s lip just as he’d begun to kiss the crest of her skin. Quickly, she pulled her dress back onto her shoulders, not a moment too soon.

“Hah!” the bandit roared as he leapt onto the knoll, brandishing a short, curved sword.

Marco, already bleeding from his lip because of Aisling’s sharp movement, reacted instantaneously, shoving to his feet and bringing his own blade, a longsword he’d set on the grass nearby, to bear to meet the attack.

Clang! Steel met steel and sparks flew like fireflies dancing on the night breeze.

Aisling shrank back, her stomach clenching at the coppery smell of Marco’s blood and the sudden burst of violence that had shattered their otherwise peaceful evening. The two men parried blades several times, but it was soon clear that Marco was the superior swordsman, forcing the bandit back step by step toward the edge of the steep hill.

That’s when Aisling heard another sound, this time from behind, close at hand.

“Marco!” she shouted, rolling hard to the side just as dirty hands grabbed at her when another man threw himself up onto the hill. The man cursed and spat, wheeling around as she tried to scramble away on all fours. She cried out when he grabbed her long hair, yanking her back. Pinpricks of pain assaulted her scalp.

As soon as it had appeared the pressure was released, and Aisling fell forward. She twisted around to find Marco battling both men now, trading parries with the pair with a level of skill he’d not once boasted about. Still, two against one were troublesome odds, and the bandits soon began to press their advantage. One breached Marco’s defenses, slashing his non-sword arm before he could slap the attack away with his blade.

The fresh scent of copper filled Aisling’s nostrils and she doubled over, stomach heaving. She dry-retched while the swords continued to ring out, the love of her life doing battle for both their lives while she was on hands and knees, helpless.

As she coughed and gagged, her eyes landed on an object resting nearby—a stone. Over the course of a century of life, she’d seen plenty of stones. Each time, she’d looked at them as just stones, which she always avoided stepping on, so as to not turn an ankle. This time, for the first time in her life, she saw the blunt rock as a weapon. She reached out and picked it up, the face smooth against her palm. The back of her hand was the color of a sunrise over the sea, Marco had said. Tendrils of hair fell across her vision; according to Marco, they were moonlit waterfalls.

She stood, gritting her teeth against the wave of sickness that crashed over her. Gripping the heavy stone. Eyeing the backs of the two evil men who were trying to take everything from her. Marco stumbled, favoring his injured arm as he barely managed to maintain his feet. She cocked her arm back, taking aim.

She hesitated, bitterness filling her mouth. She pictured the stone flying straight and true, slamming into the back of one of the bandit’s heads—the one who’d grabbed her hair before Marco had come to her rescue—splitting open his skull. Ending his life. Was a man who would attack two lovers on a peaceful grassy knoll under the shadow of night worthy of living? Was it her decision to make? And even if the answers to those two questions were no and yes, could she really take the life of another when the power of healing flowed, white and glowing, through her very veins?

She knew the answer to the last question even before her fingers opened and she dropped the stone, feeling like a failure, simultaneously feeling both relieved and devastated, the two emotions warring in her mind, causing her to drop to her knees. Marco stumbled again, driven to one knee, his gaze level with her now.

Aisling knew that when they were done with him, they’d come for her. She also knew she wouldn’t fight back, wouldn’t do anything but exist in her world of pain—not her own pain, but Marco’s pain, which caused her own arm to ache. She could almost feel the blood welling from the slash in his skin, dripping to the ground.

In that moment, that future changed.

Whether Marco was baiting the men, or simply found a surge of energy somewhere deep within him, mattered not. All that mattered was that he managed to penetrate his attackers’ defenses, slashing one of their legs and then diving away from an attack by the other. One bandit toppled over, crying out, while the other released a roar as he stabbed at Marco’s stomach.

Marco dodged easily, fully in control again, bringing his blade down on the bandit’s sword arm, causing him to scream and drop his weapon. He stood over the downed men, chest heaving, knuckles white as he gripped the hilt of his blade. Aisling held her breath, both wishing and dreading that he was going to finish the attackers off.

He didn’t, however, turning away from the groaning, cursing men. He raced for Aisling, shouting, “Come on!” as he sheathed his sword and grabbed her by the elbow, hauling her upward. And then they were running downhill at a dangerous pace, knit together like separate threads of the same blanket, not quite finished, ragged ends trailing behind them.

By no small miracle, they didn’t step in a hidden hole or trip on a clump of grass, the slope leveling out onto a flat area that separated the knoll from the edge of the wood. Still they ran, not stopping until they’d entered the cover of the trees, turning to peer out at the hill. At its apex, they could just make out two shadowy forms rise to their feet, looking in their direction.

No, don’t, Aisling thought. Please don’t. Leave us alone.

To her surprise and relief, the men vanished, having descended the hill in the opposite direction, heading back toward the sea and the port village nestled along the coast.

“Are you hurt?” Marco asked, eyebrows threaded in concern.

“Me?” Aisling said. “You’re the one cut and bleeding.”

“Nothing but a flesh wound,” Marco said, eyes still focused entirely on her. “You looked like you were in pain.”

“I—I was. The violence…it was like I could feel every slash, every stab. Your pain was my pain and—” She stopped herself, because the next thing she was going to say was senseless, even to her.

“What is it?” Marco asked.

I felt the pain of the bandits, too, she thought. “Nothing,” she said. “I’m just thankful you were able to fight them off.”

“Fortunately, they were ill-trained, their attacks clumsy and predictable. Otherwise the result may have been different.”

“You have fought before,” Aisling said.

It wasn’t a question, but Marco answered anyway. “Yes. In another lifetime I was a soldier. It’s not a part of my life I like to dwell on.”

Though Aisling had never used their touches to delve into his mind, she knew she could if she wished it. Now she found herself tempted. She tempered that desire, however, as it would be a violation of his privacy. No, if she wished to know something about him, she would simply have to ask. “Then I will not pry,” she said. “I do not wish to dig up that which is buried.”

“Thank you. Mayhaps someday I will feel more comfortable speaking of those times, but I’m not there yet.”

“Marco,” Aisling said, pausing as she’d spoken his name as she considered how to broach the next topic. “Are you aware of what my kind can do?”

Marco managed a smile, but then grimaced as fresh pain cut through him. He gripped his bloody arm tightly. “You mean the euphoria contained in your blood?” he said. “I have never partaken of it, but I know others who have. They say the effect is ten times more potent than magenum, that tasting your blood makes one soar above the clouds, commune with the stars, lasso the moons. Is it true?”

Aisling nodded. “But what your kind is not yet aware of is that my blood has a greater power, one far beyond a bit of euphoria. If I show you something, will you swear to keep it a secret?”

“Of course,” Marco said.

“Unsheathe your sword.”

“What?”

“Do you trust me?”

“Always.”

“Your sword.”

Marco released his wounded arm, fresh blood immediately welling up and causing Aisling to flinch. Marco didn’t notice as he drew his sword once more. “Now what?”

“Hold it steady.” Obediently, Marco gripped the sword horizontally, the edge of the blade darkling as several ropes of moonslight breached the forest canopy and streaked along the steel.

Aisling lifted her hand toward the blade. “Aisling, what are you—”

Before he could finish his question, she grabbed the edge of the blade and slid her palm along it. She winced as she retracted, glowing white blood already spilling forth from the long cut.

“Aisling?” Marco said. “What have you done?”

“Give me your arm,” she said, biting off each word against the pain. Marco sheathed his blade and then extended his sword arm. “No. The other one. The injured arm.”

Looking at her strangely, Marco offered his other arm, which was painted red with his own blood. Aisling grasped him at the wrist to hold him steady and then squeezed her cut hand into a fist, watching the glowing blood collect at its base, drops forming, quivering, and then falling. Each dropped splashed onto his gash, mixing with his red blood before vanishing inside him.

Marco was frowning as he watched the entire thing. “I don’t understand,” he said.

She ignored him, focusing on the rend in his flesh as she lowered her still-bleeding hand to grip his arm. She closed her eyes.

Images assaulted her and she almost cried out, but managed to clamp her teeth together, fighting them off one at a time, though several continued to burn in her memory. Marco wielding a sword amidst other men doing the same. Bodies were strewn across the battlefield like chaff after the passing of a scythe through a wheat field. More men fell. So many, like death’s rainfall.

The images vanished and Aisling withdrew from his mind, falling backwards as weariness overtook her. Marco caught her in his arms. “Aisling, are you ill? What happened?”

The words stuck in her throat, which was suddenly as dry as desert sand. “Your…arm,” she managed to croak.

Marco lowered her to the forest floor and then lifted his arm, still sleeved in blood, but—

Marco froze, his mouth falling open.

It was no longer slashed open, the damaged area now shining with new skin, smooth and unmarred. “You healed me?” Marco said. “With your blood?”

Aisling nodded, marveling at the look in his eyes, which might’ve been that of a boy who’d just received a gift on his name day. She could bask in that look for the next century and never grow tired of it.

His gaze shifted from his arm back to her, meeting her eyes. “You are…amazing,” he said, drawing closer. The distance disappeared between them and they kissed once more. Aisling almost fell into his memories again, but held off the urge, focusing on the press of their lips together, on the feel of his hand at the small of her back. Slowly, she distanced herself from the line between a touch and that which lay hidden behind it.

When they separated, Marco said, “May I escort you home?” His voice was deep and gruff, and she understood his intentions all too well.

She wanted to say yes so badly.

But she could not. “Marco, it is forbidden for humans to enter the godlands. Even here, you are in violation. I’m sorry, but you must leave. I am safe now. None will harm me in the wood.”

She could tell her words stung him, but he didn’t argue. “You are right, of course. Though I am willing to do whatever is required to prove myself. I want to marry you and live with you in the forest. I want to forsake the life of men and start a life together with you as my wife.”

“Oh, Marco,” she said. “I want that too.”

“Then we cannot let anyone stand in our way.”

“It’s not that simple. I would need the blessing of another of my kind to allow it.”

“Your sister,” Marco said. “You’ve spoken of her fondly before.”

“She is my best friend,” Aisling said.

“Then plead our case to her. Does she not want you to be happy?”

“Of course,” Aisling said, though she remembered her sister’s words from before. “I will speak to her. I will try. I’m sorry, that’s the best I can offer right now.”

“Then I shall cling to those words like a rope from a cliff,” Marco said. “Stay safe, my love.”

He offered her a final kiss and then departed, leaving a void where he’d stood only a moment earlier.

Aisling watched him for a while, until he, too, vanished behind the knoll.

Two days later

The godtree’s skin glowed so brightly Aisling wondered whether its roots had grown from a fallen star buried deep within the earth. Her kind, the godlings, came here often, for it was a sacred place, their only conduit to the immortal half of their parentage.

Not that their god parents spoke to them directly, but the tree would pulse and throb in response to their questions, and one, if intuitive enough, could discern meaning from the tree’s pulsing and throbbing.

Aisling and her sister, Heiress, attended the tree once or so each moons cycle. Even if the sisters didn’t have questions to ask of the gods, they enjoyed making the journey and sitting together by the brook that meandered nearby, laughing gaily all the time, as though having heard a jape none other had heard.

Now, however, they sat not by the brook but before the tree itself. Thankfully, they were the only godlings communing in this place, on this night. Aisling needed privacy for this conversation and the discussion she needed to have with her sister. It had been difficult enough to convince her sister to postpone meeting Marco to come here instead.

A light breeze wafted through the forest, but the godtree’s glowing branches and leaves remained perfectly still, like a held breath waiting for the right moment to be exhaled. The sisters sat beside each other, their legs crossed, eyes facing forward toward the tree. Saying nothing, for a while, each lost in their own thoughts.

Finally, Heiress said, “Just ask what you came here to ask, Sister. The gods have many powers, but as far as I know they don’t read minds.”

Aisling sighed, turning to look at her sister. “My question is not for the gods.”

Heiress stared straight ahead, though she must’ve noticed Aisling’s own stare from the corner of her eye. “You should already know my answer.”

“I do.”

“Then why do you need to ask the question?”

“In the hopes that you will change your mind. In the hopes that you will put my happiness ahead of your own stubbornness.”

“Stubbornness?” Heiress said, finally turning to meet her gaze. Her sister’s eyes flashed with anger. “I am trying to protect you.”

“From a man?” Aisling scoffed.

“Men are dangerous,” Heiress said. “You told me the tale of the bandits yourself. Human men are violent and impulsive and, worst of all, selfish.”

“Marco fought the bandits off, or did you miss that part of the story?” Aisling was growing frustrated. She was the elder sister; Heiress should honor her wishes.

“If not for Marco, you wouldn’t have been there in the first place. You would’ve been safe within the protective arms of the godlands.”

She had a point there, but Aisling wasn’t about to admit it. “I love him.”

“Then you can go live with him in the village. See if I care? At least then I’ll be able to spread my things out in our tree and make as much noise as late as I want without worrying about waking anyone up.” Heiress’s voice broke on the last word, her false bravado cracking like a dropped eggshell.

“Oh, Sister,” Aisling said, reaching out to touch Heiress’s shoulder.

Her sister shrank away from her touch. “Don’t worry about me,” she said, steel returning to her voice. “I can take care of myself.”

“I know that,” Aisling said.

“What?” she said, thin eyebrows knitting together in confusion.

Aisling gathered up her sister’s hands in hers. “I have known you your entire life, Sister. You think I don’t know how strong and capable you are? From the moment you were born you were independent, a free spirit always seeking a life without boundaries.”

“While stuck in the godlands, a place with very distinct boundaries,” Heiress said wryly.

Aisling smiled. “Exactly. If anyone would leave this place to seek adventures, it would be you. I am not, and may never be, ready to leave the godlands. This is my home. Marco understands that and wants to be a part of it. All we need is your blessing for him to enter the wood.”

“You ask much of me, Sister,” Heiress said with a sigh. “No human has ever been permitted to enter these lands without consequences.”

Aisling shivered at the last word. If Marco were to enter the godlands without dual consent from her and Heiress…the Nymph Queen and her nymphlings would lead him astray, deep into the forest where he would never be seen nor heard from again. None but the nymphs knew for certain what happened to trespassers, but she’d heard the stories…

“Times are changing. Why must we close ourselves off from the world?” Aisling argued.

“Humans are violent. Every other fortnight there are rumors of wars in distant lands while we enjoy peace and prosperity.”

“Which we should share with those who wish to be a part of it and agree to obey our rules.” Violence of any kind was not permitted within the godlands, a rule even the nymphs were forced to comply with. As such, the Nymph Queen’s methods of dealing with trespassers were known to be more…creative.

“You ask too much.”

“And yet it’s the only thing I want—the only thing I’ll ask of you ever again. We’ll all live together. You’ll like him once you get to know him, I promise.”

“His presence will change everything.”

“Must it?”

“Yes. But if it’s what you want…”

Aisling’s eyes lit up, her lips parted, and her heart leapt. “Are you saying you’ll give us your blessing?”

Heiress shook her head and Aisling’s elation shattered. “No, I’m saying if you ask the gods and they give their blessing, then I won’t stop you.”

Aisling frowned. While her sister’s answer was better than an outright rejection, she knew as well as any that the gods who the godlings called their parents could be fickle and unpredictable. Those who inhabited the world saw it through narrow eyes focused on their tiny portion of a much greater whole, while the gods viewed the world as an interconnected whole where the rapid movement of a butterfly’s wings in one corner could create a massive storm in another corner. Still, her sister had offered her a chance where before there was none, and she couldn’t refuse. “Thank you.” She turned to look at the glowing tree, which continued to stand motionless despite the wind, which had picked up while they’d been speaking.

It had been decades since she’d asked anything of the godtree, but it wasn’t as though she hadn’t been here before. She had no reason to be nervous, other than the fact that the tree’s response could very well change the course of her life for better or for ill. Thus, she hesitated, struggling to find the right words. All at once, they came to her, not from her mind but from her heart.

“I stand before you, humble and at your mercy, because of the man I love,” she said. “I wish to marry a human, for he has within his grasp my heart and soul. I know he will be but a short part of my long life, and yet I yearn for every day, every second, I may exist with him. I could leave the godlands and be with him for the rest of his life, but that’s not what either of us want. We want to live here, in these sacred lands, as one. My sister, Heiress, will only agree to offer her blessing if the gods give theirs first.”

Aisling’s lips closed and she waited, breath held, for the godtree’s response.

“You didn’t ask a question,” Heiress gently pointed out.

“Oh, how foolish. Er, my question is this: Will you allow Marco to enter the godlands to live with us?”

A white mist plumed from her lips before they closed, swirling and curling through the air, entering the tree in a large knot in the center of its glowing trunk. At first, nothing happened, the tree as still and silent as ever. Then, abruptly, a humming sound filled the silence, surrounding them like the buzzing of a thousand bees. Motes of glowing dust fell from the tree’s boughs. If not for the warmth of the evening, they might’ve been winter’s snowflakes come to melt on their skin. However, when the motes landed on their arms and faces and clothing, they didn’t melt or vanish, instead settling, making their bodies sparkle and glimmer in the fading evening light.

The sisters looked at each other—this had never happened when they’d asked the godtree a question.

The humming-buzzing sound intensified, until they were forced to cover their sensitive ears against the cacophony. Despite their efforts, the sound grew louder still, until they cowered together, crying out in alarm.

Just when Aisling worried her eardrums might burst, the sound vanished, silence reigning once more. A line of brightness erupted from the tree’s cavity, streaming forth until the rope of light tethered Aisling’s chest to the trunk. Sensation filled her body and she arched her back, eyes closing against the onslaught, mind filling with images:

Marco entering the wood with her, hand in hand.

Marco nibbling on berries and plants while Aisling and Heiress watched him, marveling over the strangeness of the human act of eating.

The three of them clinking glasses of water and laughing at some anecdote shared by Marco.

All of them, smiling and happy.

The images faded, and when Aisling opened her eyes, the stream of light was gone and the motes of glowing dust had vanished into the night.

And Aisling had her answer. She looked at Heiress, whose eyes were wide with wonder. “Well?” her sister said.

“The gods approve,” Aisling said. “Marco will come to live with us.”

One week later

Aisling was filled with so much joy she half-expected it to spill from her ears. Two days past, she’d led Marco into the godlands with her sister’s blessing. Heiress had been short with him at first but had softened as Marco’s charms had penetrated her wall of steely skepticism.

After a brief tour of their tree home, Marco had departed to obtain provisions from the village. Humans had different needs to those of the godlings and from time to time he would return to the port town to trade for or purchase food. The plan was for them to marry shortly after he returned, and then begin their life together.

Hence Aisling’s heart being filled with joy.

Aisling had offered to accompany Marco as far as the forest’s edge, but he’d refused, giving her leave to rest because he claimed to have memorized the path through the foliage. The Nymph Queen had already been informed of their decision, and though she’d frowned when Aisling had told her a human man was coming to live in the godlands, she had no grounds to protest. In the end, she’d simply nodded and retreated into the darkest places of the forest, where she and her nymphlings lived.

“He should arrive any moment,” Aisling said.

“Unless he’s changed his mind,” Heiress said.

“You’re horrid!” Aisling said. Heiress evidently found her sister’s distress most amusing because Aisling’s reaction elicited a peal of laughter.

“It was only a jape. The man is probably spending extra time grooming and selecting the finest clothing with which to impress his bride-to-be.”

“Do you think so?” The thought almost made Aisling squeal with excitement.

“He would be a fool not to,” Heiress said. “He has hair in the most unusual places.”

“Heiress.”

Heiress laughed. “I’m only joking. I’m sure he wants to be prepared to start his life with you. After all, he is marrying the most beautiful creature in all the world.”

“Oh, Heiress,” Aisling said, wrapping her arms around her best friend and the only family she’d had for a long time. “Thank you, for everything.”

“No need to get sappy. It was the gods you should thank anyway, remember?”

“I shall thank them every night for the rest of my li—” She stopped, both hers and Heiress’s heads turning at the same time. “He’s returning!”

“Shall I leave and give you some privacy?” Heiress asked.

“Of course not. This is your home, too. We should welcome him together.”

“As you wish. I shall try to behave.”

“That’s all I ask.”

Her heart leaping out of her chest in anticipation, Aisling led the way through the hidden entrance to their home, gazing southward but seeing only trees and bushes. After several minutes of waiting, Heiress said, “Kind of slow, isn’t he?”

“This is his first time making the journey alone. He’s probably being cautious not to get lost. Plus, our keen hearing would’ve detected him from a league away.”

“On account of all the stomping through the underbrush. Are you certain he’s not part bear?”

“Heiress.”

“He is rather hairy—you have to admit.”

“You said you would behave.”

“I said I would try. And only once he arrives.”

Aisling ignored her sister, as the sounds of Marco’s arrival grew closer. And then—

His face appeared from around a bramble bush, sweat trickling from his forehead. He spotted her, a broad smile immediately forming, his eyes lighting up with joy. Aisling was about to break into a run, but her sister’s hand on her arm stopped her. “Let him come to you, Sister,” Heiress said.

Aisling chided herself for being so giddy. It was just…everything was happening exactly the way she dreamed it would when she first fell for this man. It all felt fated, like the world had grasped the two of them in its hands and pulled them together. Even their meeting had been nothing more than happenstance. She’d ventured to the edge of the forest because she’d heard that some humans had been seen nearby and she wanted to get a look at them. Marco had been on a walk through the hill lands, exploring. He’d come close to the tree line, stopping to catch his breath, have some water, and jot down some notes on a sheet of parchment.

A mischievous gust of wind had stolen the pages from his hand, sending them fluttering into the forest. He’d watched them go, helpless, knowing full well the stories of humans entering the wood only to never be seen again. One page, the one he’d been scratching at, landed at Aisling’s feet and became caught under her bare toes.

To this day, she didn’t know why she’d bent down to collect it rather than fleeing into the cover of the forest. Even in her own memory, it shocked her that she’d not only picked it up, but boldly marched the page back to him. Even as she’d handed it to him, he’d not seen it, his eyes locked on hers, something akin to awe on his face. “What is your name?” he’d asked her, and she’d found herself answering, “Aisling Brightshine.”

Separated by the tree line, the pair of strangers had talked for the better part of the day, the snatch of parchment long forgotten as the sun tracked a path overhead until the shadows lengthened and became giants.

Now, Marco was no stranger to her, but a dear friend and more.

Why am I waiting for him to come to me, like a queen or some other ruler? she wondered. She broke free of her sister’s hold and went to him, not running, but walking swiftly as he walked swiftly toward her. And when they met in the middle, he dropped his satchel, his arms opening wide to receive her in their warmth. She pressed her cheek against his chest, listening to his heartbeat. For her.

She knew it beat for her.

The night was a beautiful thing. Heiress didn’t refrain from poking fun at Marco, but he took it in stride and even managed to aim a few cleverly worded barbs back in her direction, stunning her into silence. Marco ate some kind of dried, salted meat and drank bitter-smelling ale, while Aisling and her sister drank water. Firelight danced upon the three of their expressions as they laughed and talked and told stories.

“I still remember when I was but a child of forty-two name days,” Heiress said.

“If forty-two name days makes one a child, then I am but an infant,” Marco interjected. He’d long since finished eating, and was now reclining on his back, Aisling’s head resting on his stomach. He stroked her hair gently as they talked.

“You know Aisling will outlive you by several centuries, right?” Heiress asked.

“Heiress,” Aisling said. Their age differential and differing life expectancies was a topic they’d danced around but never faced head on in such a manner.

“Well, it’s true,” Heiress said.

“It’s fine,” Marco said, in that calm way of his that made Aisling think it would take a strong wind indeed to ruffle his feathers. “I wish there were a magical wellspring I could partake of to live a thousand years with your sister, though even then I suspect the time would feel far too short. But whether I am blessed by the gods with a day or a month or a year or several decades, I will cherish every moment.”

Aisling tipped her head back to look at him upside down. His expression was so serious, his eyes trained on hers unabashedly. She felt no desire to look away, as though she could fall into his eyes as easily as bathing in a cool pool in the springtime.

“And that, I believe, is my cue to leave,” Heiress said. “Lenora acquired several vials of magenum that will make me feel as though I have fallen in love with a hairy human man.”

“Stay, Sister,” Aisling said, though in truth she didn’t mean it.

“Yes, you should stay,” Marco said. “I want to hear the story about when you were a child of forty-two name days.”

“I appreciate the offer, if not the conviction behind it,” Heiress said. “My story will keep until another night. I’ll be home late. Do not wait up for—”

She cut off at the same moment Aisling sat up, the sisters’ eyes meeting in a hard stare.

“What is it?” Marco asked, sounding confused.

“Someone’s coming,” Aisling and Heiress said in unison.

“I don’t hear anything.”

“That’s because you’re human,” Aisling said, and though she hadn’t meant it as a slight, she realized it might’ve sounded that way. “I’m sorry, I—”

“It’s fine,” Marco interrupted, though Aisling detected an edge to his voice. “Could it have been an animal?”

“Mayhaps,” Aisling said. “The sound is coming and going. What think you, Sister?”

“An animal, yes,” Heiress said. “The nymphlings make no sound when they travel and wouldn’t wander to this part of the forest, especially not at night. At least, not without a strong reason.”

Something cracked, a branch breaking. “Even I could hear that,” Marco said, on his feet in an instant, sword in hand. “The animal is near now. It’s large. Are there bears in this part of the forest?”

“No,” Aisling said. “And even a bear wouldn’t make that much noise.” She frowned, trying to discern what could possibly be causing such a ruckus. From all her years spent in the godlands, she’d only ever heard one thing make that much noise while walking in the wood. A human.

Marco.

While she’d been listening and contemplating the source of the sound, she hadn’t noticed Heiress moving toward their hidden entrance, her hand already reaching for the makeshift handle to slide the door to the side. “Heiress, wait, don’t!” Aisling said, but it was already too late. Heiress had cracked open the door and slipped through.

A muffled cry hit Aisling’s ears at the same moment as the acrid stench of smoke filled her nostrils. “Heiress!” she cried, clambering to her feet and racing toward the opening, Marco close on her heels.

Strong arms grabbed her the moment she stepped out into the night, forcing her to the ground, onto her knees. A heavy weight pressed into the small of her back—a knee, she realized. A hand threaded through her hair, its grasp rough, jerking her head up such that torchlight assaulted her eyes, which then landed on Heiress, who was in a similar position, though she was struggling far harder than Aisling, who was so shocked that she’d done nothing. At least six men, humans all, stood in a cluster, gripping blades.

And though Aisling should have been concerned for the well-being of herself and her sister, she only had one thought at that moment: Where’s Marco?

The impact came from the side with enough force to knock Aisling flat, though she had only suffered a glancing blow due to her close proximity to the true target of the attack. She twisted her head to the side to find Marco astride the man who’d been yanking her hair, raining down fist blows into his face with such ferocity she immediately winced, nausea swarming through her.

She gagged but nothing came up and then—

Marco was dragged from the man by two of the other men, his fists still swinging but catching only air as he was forced back. Aisling released a soft cry when Marco flung an elbow behind him, connecting solidly with the jaw of another of the men. A pang of pain jolted through her as, once more, Marco went on the offensive, twisting away from the grasp of the other man and lowering his head like a bull as he charged into his midsection, tackling him to the ground. Once more, he went to work with his fists, each blow shivering through Aisling like he was hitting her and not the man.

And then, as suddenly as it had started, the fight was over.

Marco stopped fighting as steel was pressed to his throat, the dagger so tight against his skin a line of blood had already been drawn.

Aisling whimpered. She could feel the bite of the steel as though it were against her own neck. “Please,” she said, her voice coming out a whisper, her throat dry and rough. “Please, don’t hurt him. We’ll come without a fight.”

“Aisling, no,” Marco said, his eyes meeting hers across the space between them, which might’ve been the width of the Endless Ocean.

She ignored him, forcing herself to look away. “If you promise not to hurt him, I’ll do anything you say. But you also have to release my sister.”

“I won’t leave you,” Heiress said, still struggling fruitlessly against the grip of the man holding her down.

The man with the knife at Marco’s throat smiled. “No one will be released. And yes, you’ll both be leaving each other. With your blood, you’ll fetch a handsome price indeed.”

Something hit Aisling’s head, and everything went black as something rough was pulled down over her face.

The fire, it had turned out, had been a distraction, set in a different part of the forest to draw the Nymph Queen and her nymphlings away from the true incursion, which had been orchestrated by the foul men who had imprisoned Aisling, Heiress and Marco.

The men boasted about their cleverness as they dragged their prisoners through the forest, not caring whether Aisling tripped on a root or stubbed her bare toes on a rock. By the time she felt them leave the safety of the wood and step onto the grassy portion beyond, Aisling could feel the warmth of blood leaking from her feet.

Marco, she surmised, had not only been hooded and bound, but also gagged, for she occasionally heard the sound of him growling unintelligible words that might’ve been the warning of a snarling animal. It pained her to hear him like that.

The remainder of the journey was less painful, but with each step Aisling’s fear grew. What was to happen to her? Surely their abductors would be stopped by someone, whoever enforced human laws. They would be brought to justice. They had to be.

The sounds of the ocean—gulls cawing, waves rolling onto shore, the groan of boats straining against their moorings—reached her ears, and soon she felt the hardness of wood planking under her feet, which would’ve been a welcome change from the harsh stones that had been biting into her soles if not for what the water represented: a path to another place, foreign and unfamiliar.

A fresh wave of fear struck her. “Heiress?” she said.

“Aisling? I’m scared. Where are we?”

“Stop talking!” a gruff voice demanded. Aisling took a blow to the back of her head and would’ve fallen if not for the strong arm that continued to grip her at the elbow. She heard Heiress cry out which meant she’d likely received the same treatment. She clamped her lips shut, gritting her teeth together, determined not to speak and cause her sister any more pain.

Heavy boots clomped along wooden planks—a dock. The hand on her arm forced her to the right and she felt herself walking up a wooden rise, the board bending slightly under her weight, making her feel unbalanced. “Watch out for—” the man growled, but his warning was too late, her front foot already hanging in the air with nothing directly beneath it. She fell face first, landing hard on a wooden deck, bruising her elbows and knees and scraping her hands. Beneath her, the deck moved, rolling gently on the waves.

Her worst fear had been realized: She was on a boat. No, she thought, a ship. She’d mounted a plank and then tumbled over the railing onto the deck. She wanted to call out for Heiress again, but held her tongue, afraid of the punishment that would be inflicted on them both.

She heard men’s laughter, and then those strong arms returned, hauling her to her feet and forcing her to walk once more. “Git inside.” As if she had a choice. She was shoved forward, releasing the pressure on her arm. She stood, wishing she could see, her other senses firing, trying to discern where the next attack would come from.

She hadn’t heard Marco’s growled threats in a while.

Her sister hadn’t spoken either.

The men’s voices faded away.

Eventually, she explored her surroundings, arms extended like a blind woman who’d lost her stick. Metal bars on one side. Metal bars on the other.

She was in a cage.

She sat down and wept invisible tears.

When the sack was wrenched from her head, she had to blink furiously to fight off the harsh sun that blinded her. She’d been pressed against the bars, not sleeping but not awake either, her mind blank. She knew she was in a sort of shock. How could her dreamlike joy at the start of her new life with Marco be twisted into this nightmare?

Slowly, her vision clarified. As expected, she was on a ship. Sailors moved about the decks, hoisting ropes and preparing sails. Some carried cargo, casting curious stares in her direction. Aisling ignored them, searching the ship for another cage, so she could spy Heiress and know that her sister was close.

Nothing. Other than the usual objects one might find on a ship, the decking was empty. Hers was the only cage.

That’s when her gaze spotted something else, through the railing, the face half-hidden behind a wooden post and yet as recognizable as the tree she and her sister had called home their entire lives. The face shifted until the entirety of it was visible between the railing’s posts.

For the briefest moment, hope soared in her chest, for the love of her life, her knight in shining armor, had obviously managed to clear things up, to explain how everything about the previous night had been a misunderstanding. Marco was here to rescue them.

There was no other explanation for what she saw.

Until there was.

The man Marco was speaking to, who she now saw bore a black eye and a split lip, handed him a sack. Aisling’s sensitive ears easily detected the clink of coins inside. Marco laughed and shook the man’s hand.

For the first time since her father died, she wished she could cry, to release her anger, and sadness, and frustration, and pain—not pain of the body but of the heart—unleashing the torrent of emotion held back by a dam built of hope and love for a man who’d never really loved her in return.

She’d been used, preyed on, taken advantage of, like some naïve girl of thirteen.

Worse, the gods themselves had betrayed her, the godtree showing her images of a life that would never be lived, leading her to the very cliff from which she’d chosen to jump, dragging her sister down with her.

Oh, Heiress, can you ever forgive me?

She blinked away her invisible tears, staring at Marco as he turned, meeting her eyes. A cavalier smile curled his lips and he nodded in her direction before turning his back on her once more. Like she was nothing but a target he’d pierced with his arrow.

Aisling vowed not to be fooled by a human or the gods ever again.

Not ever.

Postlude 2: Roman Leary

Wolfsgaard, Teravainen- 407 A.W.

ROMAN LEARY WAS A HAPPY MAN, FOR THE WORLD HAD RAINED ALL ITS GOODNESS UPON HIM.

Two years earlier, he’d asked the woman of his dreams to marry him, even though his friends had told him he was setting himself up to look foolish when she rejected him outright. But the risk of looking foolish was worth taking for Annaliese Flynn. Still, as he’d knelt there, awaiting her response and hoping against hope for the answer he yearned for, he wondered whether he was mocking the gods by coveting a woman whose beauty rivaled the glittering stars in the night sky when he had little to offer her in return.

Other than love, that is.

When she finally said yes, he’d assumed his ears had deceived him, his lips remaining flat, his brows furrowing. “Do I disappoint you?” she’d asked, her own thin eyebrows rising like the arcs of rainbows. There was a hint of amusement in her tone.

“No, never,” Roman had said. “You disappointing me would be like a horse being born with two heads. Impossible.”

She had laughed, and the sound was so bright and delicious that he made it his goal to draw the same reaction from her every day for the remainder of their lives. Their lives together.

Annaliese had even waved his other concern away like she was swatting a pesky fly. “My father will accept the marriage offer. He is a gentle soul and only wants me to be happy.”

It was music to Roman’s ears considering the small sum—which was the entirety of his life savings to date—he was able to offer in exchange for Annaliese’s hand. And she’d been right—her father, a rotund, jovial innkeeper named Horace had welcomed Roman into their family with open arms, never once commenting on the fact that Roman had no family of his own to speak of.

They were married a week later, and the celebration after they’d spoken their vows had been vibrant and filled with laughter and much clinking of glasses. The night that followed had been filled with passion and love and the uniting of two minds, bodies and souls that had been born to be one. They lay abed for hours, talking of a future they could paint with their own brushes, of a house filled with children and frivolity and scoldings and the love of parents who loved each other more than life itself.

It wasn’t long before Roman returned home one evening to find his wife wearing an expression more serious than a wolf contemplating its next meal. “What is it?” Roman asked, rushing to Annaliese’s side, roping an arm around her shoulder protectively. “Whatever it is, we will resolve it together.” As he pulled her to his chest, her entire body was shaking, and he mistook the motion for a body wracked with grief.

Until one of her beautiful laughs betrayed her, spilling from her lips. Roman twisted around to look at her face, which was decidedly not wet with tears, but instead beaming with joy. “I’m sorry to worry you,” she said, though each word was distracted by more laughter. “I couldn’t help myself. The news was too joyous to deliver without poking a little fun.” One of her hands drifted to her belly.

Roman couldn’t have cared less that his wife had scared him half to death, not when that single motion had sent butterflies fluttering through his own stomach. “You’re with child,” he said, his voice rough and filled with barely restrained emotion.

Though he hadn’t spoken those words as one asks a question, she nodded, eyes wide. “You’re pleased? It’s not too soon?”

“‘Pleased’ doesn’t begin to approach the happiness I feel, Anna.” His own fingers brushed the fabric of her dress covering her stomach, as gently as one afraid of breaking the most delicate object. “This child will replace the stars and the moons, and I will love it more than—”

“Me?” There was a twinkle in his wife’s eyes, enough to tell him she was teasing him again, but such a subject could only be met with the utmost seriousness from Roman.

“I will love you both equally, with my whole heart. There is room enough for both of you.”

“Because you are the size of a half-giant?” she said, lips curling.

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

“Just a little.” She pinched thumb and forefinger together.

“Poke all the fun you wish, my queen. For you carry our future in your womb. I will wait on you hand and foot until he is born.”

“He?”

He shrugged. “I can’t tell you how I know, only that I feel it in my bones.”

“Then I shall begin to think of strong boy names.”

“You’re teasing me again.”

“Ye—” Roman took the word from her with his kiss.

Over the next several months, as the bump on Annaliese’s belly grew rounder and larger, it became a major challenge for Roman to remain focused on his work as dockside security at Teravainen’s largest port, Wolfsgaard. On this occasion, he almost allowed a thief to slip past him as his mind wandered to his wife, who’d been instructed by the midwife to take to her bed after she’d experienced a small amount of bleeding.

Roman had insisted he stay home with her, but she’d threatened to leave him if he didn’t continue his gainful employment else the child starve after being born. But making him leave the house couldn’t stop him from thinking about her every waking moment, worrying. That included now, even as his large hand snapped out to grab the ruffian by his collar, lifting him off his feet as he jerked to a stop. The boy was no more than ten years of age, and small for his years to boot, which was probably how he’d managed to sneak past Roman while he’d been distracted with his concern for his wife’s condition.

Now, however, for a rare moment, his thoughts turned from her as he fully focused on the young would-be thief, whose shirt bulged in places it shouldn’t have been. “Geroff me!” the boy complained. His face was almost as dirty as his clothes, which were plain and threadbare. He was barefoot, the calloused bottoms of his feet visible as he kicked at the air. Roman gave him a bit of a shake and the contents of his shirt spilled out. The haul was impressive: two iron goblets, several sweetbread rolls, a block of cheese, a mess of candied yams, and an entire roasted chicken that must’ve been intended for some ship captain’s breakfast.

“Stealing is a serious offense in Wolfsgaard. If I turned you over to the peacekeepers, they could take your hand,” Roman said, holding the boy steady as he tried to squirm free. It was a fruitless effort—Roman’s hands were like an iron vice.

Whether it was the threat in Roman’s words or the strength of his grip, the boy finally gave up, his body going limp as his eyes welled with tears. “Please, sir, my mother and sister are unwell. They require sustenance.” More tears, more blubbering, his face growing red and wet. “They’ll die if I don’t return with something.”

“What about your father?”

“A drunkard, and a mean one at that. If he comes home it’ll only make things worse. I’m the man of the house now.” He said the last with pride, though his ruddy-faced expression took much of the weight from his words.

Roman sighed. His position required cultivating a certain level of fear amongst those who would dare to try to steal from the docks, which he was being paid rather well to protect. But this was no master thief—just a boy trying to provide for his family. Could he fault him for that? Shouldn’t the true fault lie with a world that allowed children to go hungry, their bellies gnawing to the point of risking life and limb to steal from the more fortunate?

He was aware that the commotion had drawn attention. Eyes were on him, watching to see what he would do with the young thief. A crime required punishment, and Roman knew if he didn’t offer his own, the peacekeepers would be called upon, and their vengeance would be far less merciful.

He dropped the boy, whose legs crumpled beneath him. The boy was agile, trying to scramble away the moment he hit the wooden dock, but Roman’s boot was swifter, lashing out to crash into his abdomen. The boy grunted and clutched at his middle. Roman had been forced to make it look believable, so though he took some strength off the kick, he’d still connected solidly enough to bruise ribs. Better than him losing a hand, he thought, knowing full well he was only justifying it to himself, even as he grabbed the boy with one hand while lashing a whip-like backhand across his cheek. Again, he spared the boy the heaviest of the impact, but it would’ve stung something fierce, and the boy howled in response, tripping over his own feet as he staggered away like it was he and not his father who was the drunk.

This time, Roman didn’t pursue him further, chasing him instead with a barked warning. “If you return, I will not be so kind.” He said it low and menacing, but with enough volume to be heard by the various onlookers. They would tell the tale of what had transpired at the docks as they went about their business during the day and as they were in their cups in the various taverns throughout the city. A message would be sent: Roman Leary was not a man to be trifled with, so angry and mean he would smack a young boy around like a ragdoll.

He watched the boy go, shielding his eyes against the sun with a hand on his forehead. Just before reaching the first of the city’s structures, the boy turned, his eyes no longer wet, his face no longer troubled. In fact, his expression was smug as he held up an apple, taking one bite into it before offering a rude gesture and then disappearing into the shadows.

I’ve been played, Roman realized. Despite having been made a fool of, he chuckled. The boy was a talented actor and had probably been caught before and gotten away with it using his “sick family” act and wellspring of false tears. He wondered how the boy would react when he discovered the small pouch of coins Roman had deposited in his britches’ pocket while he was manhandling him. Would he feel remorseful? Would he feel grateful? Should he?

No, Roman thought. I have been fortunate in my life. I have gainful employment, a wife who loves me, and a babe on the way. The coin will mean more to the boy than me, and I had enough to spare.

Still, if anyone found out what he had done…

He would lose his job. His reputation would be tarnished. Thus far, he’d relied on his size alone to dissuade criminals from targeting the docks. A lump settled in his stomach as he breathed through his nose. No one will find out. I will continue to support my family.

The day carried itself on idle breezes for a while, passing the halfway mark of his shift, the sun losing some of its heat as it made its steady descent toward the watery horizon of the Endless Ocean. As shadows cast by the tall masts of the anchored ships began creeping along the docks, Roman grew antsy, desiring to return home to his wife and unborn child. There had been no further incidents, and Roman was fairly certain if he left his post there would be no trouble, but he didn’t dare. His replacement would arrive at dusk for the night shift—another hour at the most.

The lump that had formed in his stomach when he realized the young thief’s duplicity had grown steadily over the course of the day, growing into the size of a large orange now. He felt uneasy. The bubble of joy that had surrounded his life over the last several months felt thin and weak, likely to burst at any moment.

Stop doing that, he thought. It is only your worry about Annaliese, nothing more. The reality is that she is safely abed, tended to by the midwife. You have nothing to worry abo—

His reasoned thoughts were cut short when a shout arose from the city, followed shortly thereafter by a lad bursting from the main thoroughfare, shoes slapping the cobblestones and then clattering onto the docks. The moment Roman had spotted the figure, he’d recognized him, the lump in his stomach instantly growing to boulder size. His knees felt weak, his face hot.

He started to run, reaching the approaching lad partway along the wooden planks, catching him in his arms, cradling his face in his meaty palms, and demanding, “What has happened? Tell me!”

The lad, who lived in the dwelling adjacent to his own, had clearly sprinted the entire way, his chest heaving, hot breaths puffing from his mouth as he gulped for air. “Mrs. Leary…has taken…ill…”

The lad opened his mouth to say something else, but Roman was already gone, not caring that he still had near on an hour before the end of his shift, consequences be damned. His heavy footfalls shook the docks and then pounded onto the stonework beyond. He careened onto the main road through the city, which was wide and yet cluttered with wagons and pedestrians making their way home after a day’s work or heading for the nearest watering hole to drown their troubles. Most people danced aside as he galloped past, as though dodging a stampeding beast. One man and his heavily laden cart was too slow, however, and Roman clipped the edge, barely noticing the carnage he left in his wake as he thundered onward. He cut to the left into a deserted alley that would shorten the journey if the gate at the end was still open.

It was not.

Roman didn’t slow as he threw himself upward, catching the top of the gate and vaulting over like a performing acrobat who happened to be the size of a bear. Had anyone seen the maneuver, they would’ve gaped as he seemed to defy gravity, adrenaline pushing strength to his already powerful arms and legs. He landed with a thump, pausing for less than a second to steady himself before launching himself forward once more, turning right onto the next street over, which climbed an upslope toward the city center.

His breaths were coming in waves now, his body accustomed to a fair degree of walking but rarely, if ever, running, and certainly not at full stride. “Don’t stop,” he breathed, trying to egg himself on. “Don’t you dare stop.”

His legs had begun to feel like lead, but he forced them to rise and fall, propelling him up the hill at a slower pace. People stared at him as he dripped sweat on the cobblestones. Someone he must’ve known hailed him by name, but Roman didn’t stop or turn, simply soldiered on, his entire focus on the face of the woman he loved, who he could not lose or he might as well die.

And then he was there, spilling into the city center, which was bustling, as always, with activity: merchants hawking their wares; street performers juggling or singing or playing their fiddles in exchange for a few coins tossed into their upside down hats; gamblers casting lots as they played their games of chance; food vendors grilling fish and meat dusted with salt and pepper and spice.

Normally, Roman may have been tempted to partake, to bring something home to Annaliese, to sit by the fire with her and recount the stories of their days. Now, none of the activity in the square existed, not to him anyway.

He cut a diagonal path across the square to where a small, quiet street had always felt like a sanctuary from the madness of the bustling marketplace. This time, however, the shadows and silence offered nothing but a sense of unshakeable foreboding. The fifth door on the right was painted lavender purple, his wife’s favorite color. He’d required special permission from their landlord, and if they ever vacated the property Roman would be required to repaint it white. Already the paint was chipping, a fact that he always noticed when he returned home, a reminder that he would need to touch it up soon using the small amount of paint he had left over.

Today the door was a barrier between him and the woman he loved, and he flung it open so hard the wood rattled off the inner wall and rebounded toward him. He barged it away with his shoulder, eyes darting toward the bed where he half-expected to find his wife already gone.

Instead, he found her sitting up, her face pale, her forehead glistening with sweat. Alive. Thank the gods, she’s alive, he thought.

He was about to rush to her when her expression stopped him short. Annaliese had always been a cheerful woman, something that had attracted him to her. He’d seen her sad, of course, but she had always managed to grin through troubles and twist them in such a way that he could almost feel the sun shining upon them.

Now, however, her face was stricken with grief, her eyelids at half-mast and staring at something on the wall that only she could see. Tears streaked her cheeks. Her lips were set in a narrow line as though tethered to her chin by anchors that would prevent her from smiling ever again. Her nightgown was also damp with sweat. His eyes roamed further down, where something was different. No, ‘different’ wasn’t the word he was looking for. Wrong. Something was wrong.

Her stomach was flat. Not entirely—there was still a rounded curve to her belly, but the beautiful arcing reminder of the child growing inside her was no longer there, as though some foul mystic had cast a spell and taken it away, child and all.

Roman’s lips were suddenly as dry as crackling firewood. His wife still didn’t acknowledge him, didn’t even seem aware that he’d entered their home, despite the raucous manner of his arrival.

The midwife, who’d been standing there the whole time, unnoticed by Roman, who’d only had eyes for Annaliese, said, “It happened too swiftly. There was nothing I could do. I’m sorry.”

“What?” Her words meant nothing to Roman. What was ‘sorry’? Did that word carry any value?

“The child was born dead. Do you want to hold him?”

His eyes flicked to her, a frown pinching the space between his brows. “Born? Dead? No, she wasn’t expected to deliver for another month.”

“The bleeding started an hour ago. The baby wouldn’t wait. There was nothing I could do.”

“You already said that.” Roman could hear the savage venom in his voice, but he didn’t care. Logically, he knew the midwife had done nothing wrong, had only ever sought to care for Annaliese when he couldn’t do so himself, and yet he couldn’t help feeling like he could’ve done more had he been there. Such a notion was foolishness, of course, he knew nothing of healing or childbirth.

“I will give you some time alone. Hold your son. It may bring you some solace. Try to convince your wife to do the same.” With that, the woman handed him a bundle of blankets, so light he wouldn’t have been surprised to find it empty.

He wished it were empty.

He peeled back a corner of the fabric, not noticing the midwife as she left, closing the door behind her. His heart stopped.

The child was so small and fragile-looking it might’ve been a porcelain doll. Not the child, he thought. My child. Not it—him. My son. The baby boy’s eyes were closed and his face was so peaceful he could’ve been mistaken for sleeping if not for the midwife’s words. Roman leaned down and kissed his head, which was still warm. Tears blurred Roman’s vision, but he blinked them away. He didn’t have the luxury of sorrow when he’d only just arrived. Annaliese had been the one who’d experienced the trauma firsthand.

He returned his attention to his wife, who remained fixed on whatever had drawn her focus to the wall. “Annaliese,” he said. “I’m here.”

She flinched slightly, her eyes blinking slowly. Her head turned toward him, her expression unchanged in its numbness. “Roman?”

“Yes. I’ve returned.”

“Too early. There is still light behind the shutters. Your job…”

“Is unimportant right now. How are you feeling?” He glanced at the bedsheets, which the midwife must’ve already changed considering there was none of the blood she’d spoken of. He sat beside his wife, still cradling the child, which fit so naturally into the crook of his arm it was as though his body had been formed for this specific purpose.

“I feel nothing,” she said.

“I—” he started but realized he didn’t know what he’d intended to say. How did one comfort a woman who’d lost the child she’d carried inside her for months? His loss felt but a fraction of what she must be experiencing. “Would you like to hold him?” Roman finally asked, remembering the midwife’s counsel.

Her face twisted with grief, which was painful for him to see and yet better than the blanket of numbness that had been there a moment before. “Why? Will my touch return him to life? I couldn’t even protect my own child.”

“This is not your fault. I should’ve been here.”

“No,” she said between clenched teeth. “You do not get to do that. You do not get to play the victim, to assign blame to yourself when I am his mother. I should’ve fought harder to keep him inside for longer. He wasn’t ready. He just wasn’t ready.” Fresh tears filled her eyes, shimmering like dew on the green leaves of her eyes before breaking free from their bounds and spilling down her cheeks.

“My love,” Roman said, a piece of his heart breaking as he touched her knee. If it would help his wife with her grief, he was willing to take all her harsh words, bear them on his shoulders until he sagged from the burden. Still, his instinct was to comfort her, to deflect any blame she felt was hers. “The child was not strong enough for this world. Even if he’d been born later, he wouldn’t have lived. He is at peace now.”

Annaliese could only shake her head and weep.

“Please, hold him. Hold your son.”

This time she opened her arms wordlessly and accepted the precious bundle. The way she held him, so perfectly, so naturally, stole Roman’s breath. This is not supposed to be happening. She was born to be a mother. He was struck suddenly by a strange symmetry to his life. He had been a son without a mother. Now his wife was a mother without a son. Am I cursed? he wondered. His tumultuous childhood had finally ended and, determined to make his own destiny, he had turned his life around, only to have tragedy ruin all his plans. Am I in control of anything?

With those tornadic thoughts whirling through his mind, he sat with his wife as she held their dead child, listening to the gentle lullaby she sang, never ceasing, even long after the sun had set and the room had darkened, neither of them caring enough about light to use the lanterns or candles.

At some point, Roman joined his wife abed, their child nestled between them, her soft singing carrying them into the ether.

Roman awoke with a start, blinking away the night and squinting against the blade of sunlight that had forced its way through a crack in the shutters. It took him a moment to remember.

The memory struck with the force of a punch to the stomach.

He gazed at Annaliese, who was still sleeping, their child against her breast. Her countenance was so peaceful, a small smile playing on her lips, the result of some happy dream dancing in her mind perhaps.

And Roman knew what he had to do.

Gently, carefully, he eased out of bed, still fully clothed from the day before. He rounded the bed, his chest filling with long breaths through his nose, which he then exhaled between his lips. He leaned over his wife, peeling one finger at a time off the wrapped bundle. He lifted the child easily and his wife murmured in her sleep, grasping at something that was no longer there. Thinking quickly, Roman located one of her dresses, rolled it up with one hand and then placed it on her chest. Her arm encircled the fabric, pulling the bundle close against her.

He left quietly, closing the door without a sound after grabbing only a leather pouch with coins—what was left of their meager savings, before making his way to the outskirts of the city. Though the baby was hidden beneath the blankets, Roman felt like everyone he passed stared long and hard at him, seeing through the folds to the dead child in his arms. Accusing him. Condemning him.

He was supposed to be heading north, toward Wolfsgaard’s port, where the docks lay. Instead, he headed west along city streets he was unfamiliar with. The air felt thick and heavy and he had to concentrate on breathing until he’d escaped the walled-in bounds of the only city he’d ever known.

The graveyard sat on the slopes of a long, gentle hill to the west of Wolfsgaard. The gravedigger, having no other customers, sat on his rump beneath the shade of a small poplar tree, chewing on a stalk of long, dry grass. “Dead baby?” he grunted as Roman approached.

To sum up the entire existence of Roman’s son in those two words felt like a crime, and yet that was the very truth he was forced to accept. He nodded. “How much to dig him a proper grave?”

The man picked at his teeth with the grass, seeming to consider the question as he eyed the size of the bundle in Roman’s arms. “The plot will be small, but I still have to go deep. Two silvers. Unless you’d rather save your coin and toss it in the sea. If you tie a heavy enough stone to it, the corpse’ll sink just fine.”

The man was fortunate that Roman was holding his son, or he might’ve done something he’d later regret. Instead, he had to settle for clenching one fist, tightening his jaw, and saying, “My son will be buried. How much if I borrow your shovel and dig the hole myself?”

“Two silvers,” the man said without blinking. “Plus a copper for the use of me shovel.”

The response was ludicrous, but Roman wouldn’t allow this cretin of a man have anything to do with his son’s burial. “Deal. And for a headstone?”

“A headstone for a dead baby?” the man said, sounding incredulous.

“Answer the question or the headstone will be for you.”

The gravedigger must’ve sensed Roman was approaching the end of his fuse, because he threw up his arms and said, “No offense intended, sir. Headstones don’t come cheap, is all. Most just use a unique rock or some family memento to mark the grave.”

“I want the finest headstone available.”

“That’ll cost you three golds. An additional two silvers for engraving.”

It was just shy of every coin he had left, but Roman didn’t hesitate in his response. “Agreed.” He could feel the weight of the money pouch in his pocket. It was about to become much lighter.

“The inscription?”

“I will provide it later.”

“As you wish.” The gravedigger finally stood, handing Roman the shovel. “The dead baby plots are to the west. Choose any available and start digging.”

Roman grasped the shovel, feeling more stable gripping it than he did without. He turned to go, but then stopped when the man cleared his throat. “Payment is required in advance.”

Roman looked at both hands, trying to figure out how he could access the money pouch without placing something on the ground. Finally, he eased the shovel to the grass, retrieved the pouch and then sat so he could prop the bundle on his lap while he counted the coins, which he promptly handed over.

“You’re short.”

“That’s half. The other half will be yours as soon as the gravestone has been installed at the gravesite.”

The man grunted again, but didn’t argue, likely because of the sheer size of the man who now gripped his shovel again. All he offered was a final instruction before they parted ways. “Dig until you’re as deep as the height of the shovel.”

It didn’t take Roman long to locate the ‘dead baby plots’, which were marked by furrows carved into the earth. Rows and rows of available spots, each of which would one day hold the body of another soul lost too soon—far too soon. And yet the number of available plots was dwarfed by an entire hillside already taken. None were marked by proper gravestones, and many had no marker at all. He wondered how many more had chosen to bury their dead children at sea to save a little coin.

Roman looked away, selected an available plot as high up the hill as possible, and began to dig.

Although it was almost midday when Roman returned home, the shutters remained closed over the windows. He entered, squinting to see through the gloom. He could just make out a lump under the bedsheets, curled up into a tight ball.

He sat next to his wife, as he had the night before. His hand settled on her hair, stroking it gently, glad he’d stopped to clear the dirt and dust from his fingers. There was enough light from the sunshine breaching the cracks in the shutters for him to tell her cheeks were wet, her eyes open to reveal green emeralds glistening with tears.

“We’ll try again,” he said.

“I don’t want to try again. I want my son. I want Bren.”

They hadn’t talked about names yet, but the sudden realization that Annaliese had already, in her mind, named their stillborn son sent aches of emotion shivering through him. “Bren. I like that. Is it short for—”

“Brennan. Yes.”

Roman nodded thoughtfully. “A good name. A strong name.”

“And a name that will never be known.”

“It will be known by us.”

“Where is he?” she asked, the abrupt change in the conversation making Roman blink in the dim lighting.

“I buried him.”

“You had no right.”

“I wanted to protect you from…” He didn’t finish the statement, because he suddenly realized he didn’t know what he thought he was protecting her from. Her grief? Impossible. That would be a shadow that haunted her steps. “I’m sorry, I should’ve asked.”

“Yes, you should have.” There was a coldness in her tone he’d never experienced from her before.

“I’m having a headstone carved. You can choose the inscription. Whatever you want it to say.”

“You choose.”

“I was thinking something like, ‘Brennan Leary, who was always loved.’”

“Will that help you sleep at night?” Annaliese asked, each word shaped like a dagger.

“I don’t understand what you’re asking.”

“Whatever we carve into the damned stone is for us, not Bren, do you not see that? Bren will never—not for one moment—know our love. Bren will never know joy or heartbreak or the touch of a woman or anything. We created him, and we took everything away from him.”

“Annaliese, this is no one’s fault.” Roman tried to cup her chin, but she flinched away, as though his touch pained her. She tossed the sheet off herself and clambered from bed, fully dressed in all black. He’d wrongly assumed she’d remained in bed the entire time since he’d left early that morning. Now, she grabbed her black shawl and draped it over her shoulders, pulling it tightly across her chest.

“I’m going to stay at my parents’ home for a while,” she said, her eyes focused on the door.

“What? Why?”

“We’re not having this conversation right now, Roman.”

“Annaliese, please, stay. We will get through this together. I swear it.” Still she didn’t turn. “Look at me. Just look at me.” He touched her arm to try to turn her toward him, but she wrenched herself free from his grasp, though she finally met his eyes.

“Don’t you see? I don’t want to look at you. Every time I look at you, I see him. For the rest of my life I will see him in you, you in my memories of him. You are a constant reminder that our son is dead.” There were fresh tears in her eyes, her expression twisted with what could be construed as either anger or sadness, depending on the angle.

Roman froze. He didn’t know what to say to that. He didn’t want to cause this woman he loved any more pain than she was already experiencing, but he also didn’t want her to walk out that door. Please don’t walk out that door. “Tell me what you need from me and it will be done,” he said.

A sob choked out of her. “You have always been good to me, Roman Leary. Too good. Better than I deserve.”

“You deserve the very moons in the night sky.”

“No.” She shook her head. “Don’t say that. I had only one job—to protect our child. And I failed. I deserve nothing.”

“You deserve happiness. We deserve happiness.”

All the anger was stripped from her voice now, replaced by the tenderness that had drawn him to her. “And I want that for you, Roman, more than anything. But I don’t know if I can give it to you. Not anymore.”

“Of course you can. I love you. In time you will see—”

“Roman, stop.”

Roman stared at her, trying to discern a change in her expression, but seeing the kind of compassion that told him she hadn’t changed her mind. “When will you return from your parents’ home?” he asked.

“I don’t know. You should return to the port master and beg to keep your job.”

“I don’t care about my job.”

“You should. You must. Both of us need to keep moving, else the ground swallow us whole.”

Roman shook his head, casting his eyes downward. If she walked out that door, he didn’t know what would become of him. Ever since he’d met her, he could see his entire life laid out before him with her by his side, but now…

Now the future was a mystery hidden behind a door, locked and barred and forged from iron.

She grasped his hand suddenly, and her touch was like a sip of water to a man dying of thirst. He looked up, hope flashing in his eyes until he saw her expression. “I’m sorry, Roman. If I don’t return in a fortnight’s time, you have your answer. Know that I never stopped loving you, but I—I just can’t see you right now.” Her fingers slipped away from his and she left, closing the door softly behind her.

He stood there, staring at the door, willing it to open. Please open. Please. Come back. Please please please…

He stood staring for so longer that the sunlit cracks in the shutters eventually faded to gray and then black. Still he stood, until finally he crumpled into a heap on the floor before the cold, dry hearth.

Only then did Roman weep. He wept until he drifted into a fitful sleep.

A week later he returned to the slopes to the west of Wolfsgaard. It was the first time he’d left his home since the day she walked out the door. Not home, he thought. Not anymore.

“Was beginnin’ to think you weren’t comin’ back,” the gravedigger said as he approached. He was back to chewing on a stalk of grass.

“Is the headstone ready?”

“Aye. Jest needs the inscription.”

“I wrote it down.” Roman handed over a snatch of parchment. He didn’t need to look at it to remember what he’d written. Brennan Leary. Loved more than the moons and the stars.

Roman turned away before his tears began to fall anew.

It had been a fortnight since Annaliese had left to stay with her parents. Roman rarely left his house, and only then to make his daily journey to the gravesite, which now had a fine stone carved with the words he’d requested. He’d paid the gravedigger the rest of the coin without a word.

And every day he thought about bashing through the door to her father’s house, demanding to see her, pleading with her to return home. Instead, he’d settled for knocking on two separate occasions, the door cracked open just enough for him to be informed in no uncertain terms to go away.

Now, as he sat atop the hill gazing out at the sea beyond, he thought of what might’ve been had his son been born pink-faced and healthy and alive. The boy would be keeping them awake at night and requiring constant attention and soiling its cloths numerous times per day and making their lives busy and difficult and stressful and completely and utterly wonderful.

Stop, he thought. You cannot change a world that never was. Nope. No amount of thinking and dreaming and hoping could do that. Yes, Annaliese and he could start over, could try again, could attempt to have three, four, five children, but there would always be something broken between them, something beyond repair.

Enshrouded by his thoughts, Roman didn’t hear her approach from behind, startling him when she spoke. “The words you had inscribed are beautiful.”

“I—Annaliese—I didn’t expect—I never thought I’d see you again,” Roman stuttered, scrambling to his feet to find his wife garbed in the same simple black dress and scarf she’d been wearing when she’d departed. Still, there was something different about her. She looked more certain, her cheeks dry, her chin raised.

“I almost didn’t come,” she admitted. “Getting out of bed is…harder than before.” She crouched to place a single flower on the grave Roman had dug with his own two hands. A white lily, each of the petals perfectly formed, without blemish or hint of withering. She’d clearly taken great care in selecting this flower for this purpose.

“I’m glad you did,” he said.

“So am I. You selected the perfect spot, though I don’t know if I will be able to bear to visit again. I must admit, I knew you’d be here. My brother has been following you around and reporting back to me.”

“Truly?” Roman said, feeling rather foolish that he hadn’t noticed. Not that he was surprised—when he walked these days he felt as though a fog surrounded him, the goings on of the city blurred and faint. Even the sounds of the hustle and bustle seemed dull and muted. How could the world be vibrant without their son in it?

“Yes. I’m sorry. I needed to know you were alright.”

“I’m not. Not without you.” He took a step toward her, but it made her retreat a step, so he stopped.

“Don’t say that. You have to be alright without me.”

“You don’t get to be the one to decide that.”

“I know.” Finally the certainty and solidarity in the set of her jaw crumbled as tears filled her eyes, sparkling green pools. It was an act, Roman thought, longing to rush to her, to hold her, to comfort her, but hesitating because of the fear she would flee from him again.

“The future doesn’t have to be the way you’re trying to make it,” he said instead.

She only shook her head at that, clenching her eyes shut tight, tears leaking down her cheeks.

“Annaliese.”

She opened her eyes, which were red and wet. “When you say my name like that, I can almost believe Bren is still inside me, that we’re about to be the perfect little family.”

“There’s no such thing as a perfect little family,” Roman said. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t survive. That doesn’t mean we cannot be happy in our imperfectness.”

“You are stronger than me.”

“That’s not true. You have strength inside you don’t even realize.”

“If so, I cannot see it, cannot feel it. All I feel is sorrow and loss. I feel like I’m trapped in a maze with no beginning and no end.” Her tone had taken on a pleading note, and Roman sensed she was trying to persuade him of something he never wanted to be persuaded of.

“Then let me be trapped inside with you. We’ll find a way out. Together.”

“I will drag you down with me. I can’t be responsible for making your life miserable.”

“If I’m with you, that is not possible.”

“Roman, if you love me, let me go.”

“No. I refuse.”

“This is what I need.”

“Why?”

She hesitated, blinking away tears, lips pursed, face tight. “Because I’m shattered. When I held him for the first and only time, pieces of me broke off and then kept breaking. I am a husk, an empty shell. I am fit for no one.”

“Except me.”

“I’m sorry. Do not come to my parents’ house again. Do not try to contact me. Find someone else. Someone better. Be happy, Roman, that is all I want for you.”

Roman’s resolve began to crack, his own eyes filling. “I am happy with you, Annaliese. Don’t do this. Come home and let time pass and you’ll feel better. I will make sure you feel better.”

“I don’t love you anymore.”

Her words were a gut-punch, stealing his breath. “You don’t mean that.”

“I do. I don’t love anyone, especially myself. All the love I had to give was for Brennan, and it died with him.”

Roman hated hearing her speak like that. This wasn’t the Annaliese he knew, optimistic and hopeful for a future they could paint with their own brushes. “Love cannot run dry like a wellspring. You will feel it again. It will return.”

“For you, I believe that. But not for me. I’m sorry, I have to go.” She turned and started down the hill.

Roman had given his wife her space—well, mostly—for many days, but now he was unwilling to let the rope that tethered them be quietly cut. He ran after her, not caring how pitiful it would make him appear. He grabbed her hand and she turned just as he sank to his knees. “Please. I beg you. Don’t go. You need a child—I will steal one. You want a larger house—I will work every waking hour to buy you one. You need all of my love every second of every day—it is yours.”

Annaliese looked down at him and sighed. Gently, she tugged her fingers free from his grasp, turned, and continued down the slope. The worst part was, she hadn’t said another word.

Six months later

After Annaliese had walked away from him for the last time, Roman had allowed himself to suffer for three days. During that time, he mourned his lost son and his lost wife in equal measure, and then he picked himself up, walked out the door, and demanded that the port master return him to his post, which he did.

Over the next few months, he worked as many extra shifts as he could, filling as much of his time—and, consequently, the hole in his chest—with hard work. Not once did he fail in his duties, his reputation growing amongst the ship captains, the merchants who owned the ships and their cargo, and the dockworkers. One of the merchants was a man named John Stanwick, Lord John Stanwick to be specific, a powerful nobleman who had the ear and trust of the king himself. Thus it was, that when the king complained of several of his palace guardsmen failing in their duties by imbibing while on patrol, Lord Stanwick felt compelled to mention Roman Leary, lauding his security work at the docks.

King Cronus Gaard was not a man to mull over a decision for days on end, so the very next day Roman was intercepted by royal guardsmen on his way to work and instead brought to the castle where he was informed his services were no longer required at the port, and that he would now be employed for double the pay at the castle itself. Roman knew not to look a gift horse in the mouth, even if he didn’t get the sense he had much of a choice in the matter. He accepted the position, which required him to live within the castle walls with the other guards.

As before, he approached his duty with the same vigor and conviction as he had the port security job, and soon the other guards began to despise him for setting a bar so high none could compete. Not that Roman cared. His approach to life was working. He would rise early, never lingering in bed where dark thoughts might try to take root, worked more hours than were required, and then returned to the guard quarters on the brink of exhaustion, where he fell asleep the moment his head hit the pillow.

It was a far cry from the life he’d had before, the life he’d wanted, and yet he gleaned a small semblance of joy from the routine and the feeling that he’d done his job to the best of his abilities each day.

Until life, as it does, twisted on its axis once more.

It started with a summons to attend the king himself. This wasn’t unusual in and of itself. Several times before, his duty had taken him to court, where he’d had to bite his tongue and remind himself of his station while King Gaard had berated those dragged in front of him before sending them to be imprisoned in the dungeons. He didn’t love the king’s ways, nor his temperament, but who was he to question the ruler of Teravainen? Instead, he kept his back straight and his chin level, eyes pretending to stare straight ahead while in reality he was carefully watching for any threats to His Majesty.

This summons, however, was different because he wasn’t there to guard the king. He was told to stand before the king, just like the many men he’d seen verbally—and sometimes physically—thrashed on this very stone floor. He dropped to one knee, averting his gaze downward reverentially. “Your Majesty,” he said.

“Rise, Roman,” the king said.

He obeyed, shocked the king knew his name, returning to both feet and leveling his eyes on the most powerful man in the kingdom, who met his gaze. “I am not surprised you have done well in your current posting, given you came highly recommended by a man I trust. Well, perhaps that’s an understatement. My many eyes and ears tell me you’ve exceeded all expectations.”

Roman hadn’t known what to expect, but not this, not the outpouring of compliments from the king himself. No question had been asked, so he simply said, “Thank you, Your Majesty. It is a pleasure to serve the crown.”

“And serve you shall continue, albeit in a different capacity.”

“Your Majesty?” Roman said, not understanding his meaning. Was he being promoted within the guard ranks? To a captain perhaps? If so, it was a much swifter rise than he’d expected, most guards toiling for years before achieving that station, if they ever did at all.

“You will be the personal guard for my newborn son, Sampson.”

Roman blinked, wondering whether his ears had deceived him. Roman knew of the new prince, of course. The news had been shouted from the rooftops and the high tower bells had been rung from dawn till dusk on the day following his birth. But not even the king himself had a ‘personal guard’, nor the queen, nor, unless he was mistaken, the king’s other children, Crown Princess Amari and Prince Jarrod. “I would be honored, Your Majesty,” he said uncertainly.

“I detect a hesitation in your voice. While I despise impudence, I appreciate directness. Speak your mind.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty. I have only two questions. First, why does the new prince require a personal guard? And second, why me?”

“Refreshing,” the king mused. “I grow tired of men in my employ who agree to jump without questioning the motives behind the command. If I refused to answer your questions, would you disobey my command?”

“I would not, Your Majesty. I would fulfill my duties to the best of my abilities, but all the while it would not sit well in my gut.”

“I can appreciate that. In any case, I have no reason to deny you this information, though I will answer your second question first. You have impressed me, and I’m not an easy man to impress. More than that, I have inquired after your history. I know you lost your first and only child at birth. A son. Brennan, I believe.”

Roman’s heart stutter stepped. Learning the name of his son would’ve required a lot of inquiring.

The king continued. “Thus, you understand what it means to a father to be able to keep his children safe and I trust you will do so with the same vigor I myself would if I could attend them every hour of every day.”

Roman finally found his voice again. “Other guards have children. Some have lost children, too. Your Majesty.” Such was his distraction at the mention of Brennan that he almost forgot to address the king appropriately.

The king didn’t seem to notice. “I’m glad you recognize this, else I might’ve believed I’d chosen the wrong man for the job. I also know that on the day your son was stillborn, you apprehended a young thief at the docks and beat him before sending him on his way.”

If Roman was surprised by the mention of Brennan, he was even more shocked to hear the king recounting a memory that had faded well into the background of the worst day of his life. It would’ve taken more than a little digging to learn of such a minor event after all these months. “I didn’t want the boy to lose his hand for a single mistake, but I did want him to understand that the punishment for a repeat offense would be far more severe.”

The king was nodding as though he’d already known what Roman would say. “My son is but a babe in his mother’s arms now, but I will need you to be willing to teach him the same hard lessons. He will not be coddled, do you understand?”

Roman thought he did, but he suspected there was more behind this command than the king had let on so far. Why was he worried so much about his third child being coddled when he’d never displayed such concern for his other two? In fact, from what he’d heard, the king’s firstborn son, Jarrod, was a clingy boy who hid beneath his mother’s skirts. “I understand,” Roman said, for there was nothing else to say.

“You are being overly polite now. You must wonder why I am so adamant on this point. The truth lies in the answer to your first question, about why my second son needs a personal guard when the rest of the royal family shares the entire guard contingent amongst them. Maybe you should meet him. That should answer any remaining questions you have.” With that, the king tapped his armrest, which was in the shape of a wolf’s paw, signaling another guard to slip through a door in the back of the room. He returned with a woman in tow, a wet nurse, presumably. In her arms, she carried a child.

Having apparently been pre-commanded to do so, the wet nurse marched past the king, down the steps from the dais, and then stood before Roman, turning in such a way that he could gaze upon the face of the young newborn prince. “He’s a strapping young lad, Your Majesty,” Roman said, feeling slightly uncomfortable, because he didn’t understand how seeing the prince answered his other question.

“Thank you. Why don’t you hold him?”

“Your Majesty?”

“I was unclear. That wasn’t meant to be a question. Hold him.”

The wet nurse held out the child and Roman took him into his arms. Memories flashed before his eyes, of a featherweight child being placed in his arms—his own son, eyes closed, body still.

This was nothing like that. The memories faded as he marveled at the vibrancy of this child, his little arms in constant motion, having freed themselves from the bounds of his swaddle. His little head moved about as well, as though taking everything in, the world as fresh and new to him as he was to it. He made soft gurgling sounds that were, perhaps, the most beautiful thing Roman had ever heard. “Your Highness,” Roman said, bowing his head slightly toward the child.

That’s when he realized something. Even as he’d leaned his own head closer to the infant’s, the child’s eyes never met his nor settled on him, rolling hither and thither to aim elsewhere, almost absently or even randomly. Roman’s breath caught and he looked up to find the king watching him intently. “Now you see why my new son requires special attention?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” Roman looked back down at the blind prince, who might not be able to see him, but could obviously hear him based on the way he’d reached out the moment Roman had spoken, his tiny hand settling on Roman’s face, grabbing his nose. He couldn’t help the laugh that escaped his lips, so precious was the feeling that ran through him at the child’s touch, something he thought he would never experience. “Nice to meet you, Prince Sampson, Your Highness.”

Postlude 3: King Jameson Gaard

Southwestern Odin- 43 B.W. (Before Weeping)

THE WORLD AROUND HIM WAS AN ENTIRELY UNREMARKABLE SHADE OF GRAY THESE DAYS.

Jameson Gaard didn’t mind the lack of color, so much, but the gnawing, ever-present fear of losing those he loved was another matter. That fear wore on him, pressing upon his shoulders and back. He felt that weight now, though outwardly it was undetectable. To his men, he was brash, confident King Gaard, a façade he wore like a second suit of armor.

Still, he couldn’t hold back the smile as he entered the largest tent in the military encampment, a structure fit for, well, a king and his family. His gaze fell on his wife, Felicity, and nine-year-old son, who bore a name that had been in his family for years and which, he suspected, would remain in his family for years to come. She was reading with the boy, though he’d brought along a tutor for just that purpose. Which only made Jameson love her more. She was no trophy wife, content to sit and be pampered all day long. She was a queen of action, which was why she was here in the first place, despite the misgivings of his advisers, who’d warned that bringing a wife and child to war would be a distraction.

I can’t argue with that, Jameson thought, watching as she used one hand to gain control of a stray lock of night-dark hair, guiding it around her ear. Her other hand cradled a book, one with a worn cover that he himself had read many times as a boy before passing it down to his only child. So engrossed in the story were they that they’d yet to notice his appearance, something he was fine with, content to observe, to listen.

“Sir Ma-lor-rak,” his son read, sounding out the difficult name of the famed night of myth and legend, “raised his sword as if to block the t-troll’s club. The hideous creature wore a bulbous, red nose, mangled ears, and a tuft of gray fur atop his cone-cone-eye-call head?” The boy paused, looking toward his mother for guidance.

“Conical,” she corrected patiently. “In the shape of a cone.”

The boy smiled. “I can picture it. Kind of a funny-looking creature, right?”

“Right,” Felicity agreed. “And yet no less deadly for it. Appearances can be deceiving, Son. What is shiny is not always good, and what lies in shadow may become your strongest ally.”

“Like the Thousands?” the boy asked.

Jameson’s wife crinkled her nose at the name. “The Thousands are…a necessary evil,” she said.

Jameson understood what she meant. Forging an alliance with Hyram Kerr had been one thing—the man was overly ambitious, greedy even, and would probably order his own grandmother killed for a chest of gold—but the Thousands were a different story in a different book in a different library in some foreign city. In short, the Thousands were an enigma. From their faces alone, they appeared to be human, but the second one looked into their eyes it was obvious they were something…other, their stares dark and penetrating and yet filled with an emptiness that warned of a lack of empathy.

A necessary evil, Jameson considered in his mind. It was an apt description, he thought, for he’d seen them fight on the battlefield many times and there was no doubt in his mind the humanoid creatures were evil. Then again, who was he to talk? Even the best of men became little more than savages when pitted against each other in combat. He himself had killed more men than he could count, so did that make him any better?

It was a question he struggled with on a daily basis.

“Father’s back.” The statement came from Felicity, who he hadn’t even realized had finally noticed him standing there. Her eyes were locked on his and yet he’d been looking through her, his thoughts elsewhere.

“Hello, Father,” his son said, speaking the words with a formality that spoke of a boy overly eager to be seen as a man. Jameson remembered the days when the boy would’ve sprung to his feet and rushed to greet him, throwing his arms around his waist with the kind of vigor only a child can muster.

“Your reading is improving by the day,” Jameson said, which earned him a grin more in line with his son’s age.

“Thank you. So is my sword work. Can I show you?”

“The hour grows late,” Jameson said, remembering the way the shadows had been creeping along the ground before him as he’d departed his meeting with Hyram Kerr and the leader of the Thousands, a narrow-eyed creature known as Reyals. Jameson knew if Reyals perished in battle, another would take his place as the new Reyals. It had been this way ever since Erif Mirg had been struck down four years earlier, his Legacy Sword shattered.

“Tomorrow then?” his son asked expectantly.

“At first light,” he agreed, drawing another smile from his son’s lips. “But then I must prepare for battle.”

“Another battle?” the boy said, licking his lips in excitement. “Can I watch?”

Jameson grimaced. He knew what his own father’s answer would’ve been, a resounding aye. Even if he hadn’t wanted to, his father would’ve forced him. You’re old enough to understand that power and strength rule our world, he remembered his father, King Larreus Gaard, tell him. If another allows you to shed their blood, then they are deserving of their fate. He met his wife’s eyes, and he could tell she sensed where his thoughts had turned. “You’re too young,” he said, and she offered an almost imperceptible nod of agreement. Long ago they’d decided to raise their son differently than Jameson had been raised.

“I’m nearly ten name days old,” his son argued. He stood and puffed out his chest to make himself look bigger. “I’ll be taller than you before long.”

Jameson chuckled, striding over to his son and ruffling his brown hair before pulling him into a hug. “And yet not too big to give your da a hug.”

“Geroff me!” the boy complained, trying to squirm free.

“On one condition,” Jameson said, clamping his arms tighter as a reminder to the boy that he was not a man grown yet.

“What condition?”

“You give your da a kiss.”

“I’m not a child anymore.”

“No, you are not,” Jameson said, which seemed to appease the boy, his body calming.

“One kiss?”

“Aye. It would warm my heart.”

“Fine.”

Jameson released the boy, who eyed him with skepticism, as if sensing a trick. Jameson’s breath caught—he really was the spitting image of Felicity, from his wide brown eyes to his long lashes to the shape of his mouth and chin. He wouldn’t dare to tell him that though—being compared to a female would no doubt draw his ire. You are beautiful, he spoke in his mind. My beautiful boy.

“Just on the cheek,” he said, leaning forward and downward so his son’s lips could reach him.

His son made a sound of disgust while Felicity watched on with amusement. “Will you let me watch the battle tomorrow?” the boy asked.

Even more so than in appearance, his son was like his wife in personality. “No.”

“Then how will I ever learn of war and battle?”

“Kiss my cheek and I’ll tell you.”

Finally, his son leaned forward, willing to swallow his pride because of the promise of adult wisdom. At the last moment, however, he pushed his father’s face away, lowered his shoulder and attempted to tackle him to the ground. The maneuver was unexpected, and yet the boy was no match for Jameson, who was a large man, broad of shoulder. Jameson, however, wasn’t one to miss an opportunity to create a memory with a family he saw far less often than he wished. He pretended to lose his balance, falling back as his son landed on top of him. A wrestling match ensued, the type they used to have when the boy was young. Now, however, his son was much stronger and was beginning to understand leverage.

“Do you wish to submit, Husband?” his wife said, eyes sparkling.

“Never,” Jameson said. “Victory or the grave!” He suddenly lunged forward, breaking his son’s hold while simultaneously grabbing Felicity’s hand and hauling her into their pile. She shrieked her protest, her skirts piling atop them. Their son laughed gaily, having forgotten he was supposed to be a man grown now, as he succumbed to the truth of his childish nature, which still, to Jameson’s relief, clung to him.

For the next several moments they laughed and shrieked and wrestled and acted so silly an outsider would find it impossible to believe this was, in fact, the royal Gaard family that had allied themselves with Erif Mirg and his Thousands almost five decades prior.

By the time they were done, exhausted and panting, darkness had fallen on the war camp. Soon their son was asleep, his exhalations a soothing sound to the couple, who curled up together, lips meeting for what felt like the first time in years though they’d kissed just before Jameson had left that very morning. His hands roamed over his wife’s dress, locating the ties at the front, plucking them free one at a time. “Do you still want a daughter?” he breathed into her ear.

“Yes,” she whispered, fingers in his hair.

“Then we shall make one tonight.”

Their lips met once more, their passion flickering between them like a flame. Jameson kissed the edge of her mouth, then her jaw, then her neck. Lower…

A cleared throat outside the tent caused him to pause. “Your Royal Highness?” a voice said.

“Ignore him,” Felicity said, hands sliding down his back, tugging at his shirt. “Whatever it is, it can wait until morning.”

“I’m sorry,” Jameson said. “Best not to wait up for me.”

Felicity sighed and flopped down onto the bed. “Sometimes I feel like I’m competing with your soldiers and I find myself playing the role of the jealous wife.”

“Never,” Jameson said. “They are but a spark next to your inferno. Know that everything I do is for our son’s future.”

“I know it is. I only wish…”

“What is it, my love?” Jameson asked when she trailed off.

“King Gaard?” The voice again, more insistent this time.

“Never mind. I will tell you later. Now go, your audience awaits.”

“You know I love you, right?” he said, kissing her once more.

“Of course you do. I’m irresistible,” Felicity said, nipping at his lip with her teeth. “If you hurry, I might wait up for you after all.”

“Then I shall hurry.”

With that, he extricated himself from the love of his life, cast a quick glance at his son, who remained sleeping, and then pushed out into the night.

Jameson spotted Hyram Kerr from a distance. It wasn’t the man’s features that stood out as much as the way he carried himself. An air of invincibility seemed to occupy the space around him, a fearlessness that one couldn’t be taught, only born with. As much as Jameson loathed the man’s greed, he had to admit that Kerr was a good leader with his people’s best interests at heart.

Standing beside Kerr was Reyals, the current leader of the Thousands. Unlike Kerr, who was straight-backed, his chin slightly lifted, Reyals was hunched over, propped on the joints of his gnarled, useless wings. One of his human-like cheeks was fully covered in scales while the other was as smooth as glass. His hind legs were back-bent while his foreclaws were off the ground.

When Reyals’ coal-black eyes met Jameson’s, he had to hide the shiver that ran through him. “Took you long enough,” the creature said, its voice reminding the king of the shattering of a glass, following by the grinding of one’s bootheel on the shards.

Jameson didn’t rise to the bait. He’d learned in his past dealings with the Thousands that remaining calm would ensure moments like this were brief. Instead he asked, “Why have you roused me from my rest?”

The creature chuffed out a grating laugh. “No appreciation for what my kind have done for your people.”

Again, Jameson felt like Reyals’ words were bait being wiggled in front of him—the fish. He took a deep breath, slowly unclenching his fists, which he hadn’t even realized had knotted themselves together. “This is a temporary alliance for one purpose. Nothing more. Now get on with the purpose for this meeting.”

More laughter. Even Kerr smirked, seeming to enjoy seeing his counterpart locked in a verbal joust. “As you wish, human. We’re finished.”

“Finished?” Jameson repeated the word, simultaneously trying to discern its meaning. “Finished with what?”

Reyals stared at him, waiting.

Jameson blinked. Realized… “The blades have been forged?” he said, anger replaced with a hopefulness that was the product of years of war, of growing up in a land built upon violence and bloodshed. On the rare occasions when a beam of light penetrated the darkness, one couldn’t help but to bathe in its warmth.

“Aye,” the creature said. “And despite your lack of appreciation, I am sorely tempted to give you one.”

“I want to see them.” Jameson moved closer to the pair, eyes flicking about for any sign of the blades they’d been speaking of for almost four long years. He had almost begun to believe the very notion of such weapons had been a farce, a way for the Thousands to control him and Kerr. But if they were real…even if they were only half as powerful as Reyals had promised…

Reyals bent even further down, turning his back into a question mark, and unclasped the silver catches on a long box. Before opening it, the creature looked up, meeting Kerr’s and Jameson’s eyes in short succession. “I must warn you, these blades choose their wielder, not the other way around. I cannot guarantee you will be permitted to grip them.”

Jameson was not a superstitious man, so normally such words would bounce off him like hailstones. Not this time. He’d witnessed the Legacy Sword in action, wielded by Erif Mirg. It was no ordinary sword, each blow like a thunderclap, each strike like lightning. The very ground shook when Mirg planted the sword into the earth. Knowing that the trio of blades he was about to see were forged from its remnants caused a chill to settle into his bones. “Open it,” he commanded.

Reyals grinned and then lifted the lid.

Smoke immediately poured from inside, curling and twisting, stretching its fingerlike tendrils for both Kerr and Jameson. Each man recoiled but didn’t run—they were far too prideful for that. The tendrils roped themselves around the men, skating over their bodies, around their limbs, teasing their necks. As the dark mist roiled before his face, Jameson realized that it wasn’t smoke at all. No.

They were shadows. Shadows without origin, cast by something ethereal, not requiring light or a physical form to block it. Shadows given life.

“What evil…,” he heard Kerr murmur. As the man opened his mouth, the shadows entered him and he gasped. His eyes went black as he doubled over, coughing and choking. Jameson was about to rush to his aid, but then Kerr straightened up, his eyes having returned to their normal shade of blue. Ignoring Jameson, he stepped toward the open chest. Reached down, into the darkness. Pulled something out. A night-dark blade, more shadows twisting around steel. “I can—I can hear it,” Kerr said, voice full of childlike wonder.

Reyals nodded, dark scales flashing in the moonslight. “The blade has chosen you. Erif Mirg has chosen you.”

Jameson realized the shadows were pressing against his lips, which he’d instinctively pursed more tightly together when he saw what had happened to Kerr when he’d spoken. He could feel them, which didn’t make a lick of sense—one couldn’t feel shadows. And yet he did.

“The blade is interested in you,” Reyals said. “That is good. Now let it in.”

Every instinct told Jameson to grind his teeth harder, to seal his lips as though they were sewn together. But he didn’t. He didn’t because of the hope he’d felt when Reyals had declared the blades were ready, having been forged from shadow and magenum and the recovered shards from the Legacy Sword. Forged over four long years by a dark wizard who’d promised the blades would one day end the infernal war that had plagued Kingfall for so long, too long.

It was that hope that now peeled his lips apart.

Like Kerr, he gasped, gagged, choked. It felt like a rope had been shoved down his throat, pulled into his lungs by an invisible hand. He felt the braids of rope peel apart, writhing and prodding and exploring. He felt the shadows in his blood, as cold as ice, in his stomach like a nest of snakes. And then—

In his mind.

They made the sound of bees in a hive, hissing snakes, the rustle of wind through the trees. The sounds, meaningless at first, coalesced into one sound that formed words. I see you.

Jameson roared, every muscle in his body constricting as he shoved with all his might, trying to expel the shadows, to force them from his mind.

He collapsed to his knees, breathing heavily. The shadows were gone. His mind was his own once more. He looked up. Kerr had already left with his blade of shadow. Reyals was watching him with unveiled interest. “Your blade hasn’t decided yet but will allow you to wield it until it does.”

What if I don’t want to wield it? Jameson thought, but didn’t allow the words a voice. That voice scared him. Those shadows scared him. But he couldn’t allow his fear to ruin the best chance they had to end the war. Maybe the only chance. Instead, he nodded and stepped forward, reaching into the darkness surrounding the chest as Hyram Kerr had done.

At first he felt nothing, and then the coldness of steel. He lifted the blade from the shadows, which seemed to follow it. The blade was much lighter than he expected, given its size. Well-balanced. A work of art, by any blacksmith’s measure. Something flashed along its surface, there and then gone in an instant. Jameson heard whispers in his mind and he almost dropped the sword.

Wait. Wait.

He knew that his brain had commanded his fingers to unlock from around the hilt. His hand should’ve opened. He should’ve dropped the sword. And yet there his fingers were, curled around the hilt as though he’d lost control of them.

“A beautiful piece, no?” Reyals said.

“What will happen to the third blade?” Jameson asked.

Reyals smiled, jackal-like, in the dark. “The third blade is mine.”

Jameson was relieved to find Felicity asleep when he peeled back the opening to their tent. In the dark, he gazed at the even darker line he held before him. He longed to put it to use, to slash and stab and kill.

Stop, he thought. Stop glorifying war. It is a means to an end, a better future for your family, your people.

AND YET THE KILLING WILL GIVE YOU PLEASURE. DO NOT DENY IT.

The voice came so suddenly into his mind that he flinched, spinning around to locate the source. Fiery markings flowed across the surface of the blade. Runes.

His scuffling about had disturbed his wife, who shifted in her sleep. “Come to bed,” she murmured.

Jameson shook his head to vanquish the cobwebs strewn across his mind. Hastily, he shoved the sword beneath the makeshift bed, gritting his teeth as he pried each finger from the hilt one at a time, though they resisted. Finally, he managed to release the sword and retract his hand. He slid into bed, breathing hard, his entire body shaking. Felicity wrapped an arm around him, sighing.

Jameson’s heart pounded in his chest. Slowly, slowly, it began to even out, his deep breaths chasing away the anxiety. Relief washed over him, followed swiftly by a bone-weariness he typically only felt on the eve after a fierce battle.

Sleep took him.

When Jameson awoke, he could make out the glow of daylight behind his eyelids, though they refused to open for several long moments. He could feel his wife’s warm body nestled against his, and for a while he enjoyed the closeness of her presence.

The peace he felt didn’t last, memories from the previous night assaulting his mind with a swiftness that made his body twitch. That’s when he realized something else:

It wasn’t the light that had awoken him. There had been a small sound, near.

Even before he opened his eyes, he knew what he would find.

“Son? What are you—”

His son turned, hands gripping a sword as black as night, shadows roiling over his body as he watched them with wide eyes.

“Son,” Jameson said, trying and failing to keep the note of alarm from his voice.

“What is it?” Felicity said from behind him, suddenly fully awake, as if sensing danger. She peeked over his shoulder and gasped. “Jameson, what is that thing? Where did he get it?”

“Do you trust me?” he asked his wife.

“Of course, but—”

“Then don’t move.” Jameson slid from beneath the blanket, his bare feet touching the floor mat. He stood. “Son, give me the sword.”

“The sword doesn’t want me to,” the boy said, his words raising the tiny hairs on the back of Jameson’s neck.

“It…spoke to you?”

“We’ve been having a grand discussion. Unlike you, it thinks I’m ready for battle.”

“Son, you can’t trust its words. That sword is…”

“Is what, Father?” The earnest innocence in the boy’s voice made Jameson’s blood turn to ice.

Jameson knew there was only one way to handle this conversation if his son was to survive it. “The sword is mine,” he said sharply. “I’ve told you never to touch my things. You wish to be thought of as a man grown? Start acting like it.” His son flinched at the harshness of his words, but Jameson was already striding toward him, reaching out to wrench the blade from his grip. Even as he did, the shadows vanished as though they’d never been there in the first place.

“You need to speak to him,” Felicity said. “He’s confused. He doesn’t understand.”

“I know. I will. When I return after today’s battle.” Jameson watched his son, who was a stone’s throw away, sulking. He could still remember vividly how he’d looked with the shadowy tendrils curling around his body, his wrists, his ankles, like ethereal shackles.

“And if you don’t return?” Felicity’s voice had risen sharply as she’d asked the question.

He met her eyes. Threaded his fingers through her hair. “I will. I swear it. Today is not my day to die.”

His wife’s eyes held his, steady and testing. “You really believe that, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Because of the sword.” She gestured toward where the dark sword lay in its scabbard nearby, the dark hilt protruding. Unlike earlier, it looked like an ordinary sword now.

“Yes, because of the sword,” Jameson said, though he knew it hadn’t been a question.

“I don’t like it. Can you return it to Reyals? Have him choose another wielder?”

Jameson shook his head, though the exact same thought had crossed his mind. “It’s not that simple.”

“No? I can do it for you. Simple enough?”

Jameson sighed. He loved his wife’s mettle, her willingness to do anything for her family. It was something that had attracted him to her from the beginning. “Please be patient. The shadowblades may give us the power to end this war sooner rather than later.”

“And if they don’t? I won’t have that, that, thing in our tent for another night.”

Jameson had already considered that little problem. “I’ll ask the smith to forge a custom iron box with a lock.”

“And the key?”

“Will be around my neck at all times, even when I sleep.”

Felicity breathed out through her nose. “The war will be over soon?”

“Yes. I will do everything in my power to make it so.”

She kissed him deeply and he wanted to melt into it, to draw her into their tent and make the moment last forever. Instead, she cut it off painfully short. “This discussion isn’t over. Keep your promise and return to us.”

“I will.”

It was a promise he wouldn’t be able to keep.

Queen Felicity Gaard

After Jameson had left, Felicity had watched her son mope around camp for a while. Twice she’d attempted to snap him out of his sour mood, but both times he’d nearly bitten her head off, so she’d given up, hoping that the passage of time itself would be the best medicine.

She’d only taken her eyes off him for a moment, ducking inside their tent to collect a pair of her husband’s socks that were full of holes. Although Jameson had instructed her to have the camp seamstress darn them, she was determined to do it herself—if only to distract herself. A queen darning socks, she thought, chuckling to herself. It wasn’t something she imagined herself doing when she’d married a king, but then again, marching into war hadn’t been on her list either. But when it was time for Jameson to do just that, she knew that parting with him was not an option—not for her. And she wouldn’t have her son raised by a tutor. Now she was wondering whether she’d made a grave mistake.

As she emerged from their tent, she cast her eyes about for their son. Even if he was still melancholy, she just wanted to see him, to paint a picture of him in her mind to lock away and keep forever.

After a few minutes of searching, she frowned. He wasn’t in her immediate vicinity. No matter, she thought. He probably just went over to the forge to watch the smith at work, crafting weapons and armor and the box that will soon secure my husband’s new sword.

When she inquired at the forge, however, she was informed her son hadn’t been seen. As she moved through camp, asking after her son, the same answer kept returning:

No one had seen him.

Panicked now, she ran back to their tent, sticking her head inside and hoping, and praying, to find him there, sour and morose, ready to bite her head off if she chided him for scaring her so.

The tent was empty.

Looking upon the inside of their tent, two memories connected themselves: First, her son’s anger and disappointment the night before when Jameson had rejected his request to watch today’s battle; and second, the way he’d looked this morning as he’d gripped that horrid dark sword, like he was ready to rush into battle himself.

In that instant, she knew exactly where he had gone.

Jameson Gaard

The shadowblade had been his for all of twelve hours, but Jameson Gaard already knew he’d been destined to wield it. The way the hilt felt in his hand, as though formed to fit his grip and his alone. The balance as he slashed and parried and stabbed. Even its whisper-smooth voice in his head, which might’ve been disconcerting to some, felt like a lover’s murmurings in the dark now that he’d grown accustomed to it.

And oh how it killed. His human foes, the Normandians, fell like chaff harvested by a reaper’s sickle. After weeks of battle, the southern Kingfall battlefield was littered with bodies on both sides. Most were human; Jameson’s own race was pathetically easy to kill compared to the mighty dreadbeasts and godbeasts. His opponent’s giants were made of tougher material, but they were slow and awkward. And the Thousands, with their scales and useless wings and humanoid faces…Jameson preferred to steer clear of them, and yet at the same time was glad they were his allies given how difficult they were to kill.

Now, he watched the Thousands swarm over one of the Normandian armies, a trio of dreadbeasts in their midst. The fierce creatures with night-dark scales were said to be dragons that had gone mad and given themselves over to voidfire. As he watched them claw their way across the battlefield, he could see the resemblance, though their wings were gnarled and twisted and didn’t allow them the gift of flight, similar to the Thousands’ own wings. Even tethered to the ground, however, the dreadbeasts were deadly, black fire bursting from their maws, cooking their human opponents inside their armor.

He was tempted to lead his soldiers into that portion of the battle, flanking the Normandians from the east, but decided against it. Fighting shoulder to shoulder with the Thousands was not a prospect he relished. Instead, he turned his attention toward the east, where the Kerr army was locked in a standstill with the dragonriders and their ground troops, who were supported by at least a dozen giants and two massive godbeasts. Though he didn’t consider Hyram Kerr his friend, exactly, the two men had developed a grudging respect built on bricks of shared interest. If they lost the war, the most desirable portions of Kingfall would be claimed by their enemies, and neither of them could abide such a thing.

“To me!” Jameson shouted, his soldiers responding immediately, rallying around him as they passed his command onward from ear to ear until it reached all those outside of shouting distance. They formed up their lines, with Jameson astride his steed in their center, wheeling the beast about, hooves stamping in anticipation. He pointed his blade, steel glittering darkly, in the direction of the eastern front, and shouted, “For Kingfall!”

His men echoed his cry and charged into battle, the cavalry quickly outdistancing the infantry. Their battle roars must’ve been heard by both the Kerrs and dragonriders because the conflict dead ahead began to transform. The Kerrs gained the advantage, pushing back the dragonriders’ ground troops while holding the dragons off with well-aimed arrows from their archers and flaming boulders sent airborne from their powerful catapults.

As Jameson and his cavalry closed in, one of the giants crashed through the Kerr line, stumbling as its ankles were hacked at by no fewer than a dozen men. The awkward creature was made of thick skin and thicker bones, however, sweeping a heavy club along the ground’s surface, bashing six or seven men, sending them sprawling, armor dented in and weapons lost. The Kerr archers turned their attention from the dragons to the giant, piercing it with thirty-odd arrows, which protruded from its cheeks, chest, arms and legs. One even shot directly into its misshapen ear and stuck fast, blood leaking from the wound, dripping from its lobe.

The giant roared its rage, battering several more men with its club, which it swept back the opposite way. Jameson angled his men toward the giant, for he now saw that it was approaching Hyram Kerr, the leader mounted on his beautiful, white Crimean stallion. Like Jameson, he gripped a night-dark sword, several wispy shadows rising from its tip. He was guarded by a dozen of the biggest men Jameson had ever laid eyes on. He usually cringed when he saw them because he knew they were half-giants, the product of human men paid handsomely by Kerr himself to lay with female giants. Now he was glad they were protecting his counterpart, forming a shield around him as the giant blundered forward, crashing through the lines of men with reckless abandon. Shadowblade or not, the man could bleed like any other mortal.

HE IS NOT YOUR RESPONSIBILITY, that whispery voice said, cutting through the cacophony of battle.

It wasn’t an untrue statement, and yet Jameson found himself rebutting it. “We are allies,” he said aloud.

NO NEED TO SHOUT. YOUR THOUGHTS ARE OPEN TO ME.

Jameson chided himself and resumed the conversation in his mind. Chaos will rule if Kerr is struck down. His men will be leaderless. Even as he finished the thought, he gripped his stirrups with his feet, leaned over to the side, and slashed his sword across the back of one of his foes who had gained the advantage on his opponent. The soldier’s steel armor parted as easily as cheese cloth. The man fell bonelessly, spine severed.

AHH, his blade sighed. THANK YOU FOR THAT. Jameson marveled at the magnificence of his blade. KERR HAS A SIMILAR BLADE.

Jameson realized that the thought had been pushed into his head by his own blade, which was dripping blood from his slain enemy. You’re right, he thought. Kerr doesn’t need my assistance.

YOU ARE LEARNING, the blade said, which might’ve come across as condescending if not for the voice of wisdom that seemed to be attached to everything the sword said.

Jameson wheeled his horse about, pointed his sword toward the north, and dug his heels into the beast’s flanks. His cavalry followed his lead as they shattered their enemies’ ranks. His shadowblade sang with each armor-rending stroke. Behind him, he heard the giant’s bellow as it finally succumbed to its many wounds. He wondered if the killing stroke had been dealt by Kerr himself, his own shadowblade singing, or if he’d held back as his half-giant guards did their brutal work.

Beyond the lines of ground-locked enemies, dragons circled lazily. They hesitated to approach, having faced the catapults and ballistae that had become the hallmark of Kerr’s army. One dragon in particular drew Jameson’s attention—an enormous golden creature with a long, barbed tail. It wasn’t the dragon itself that was of interest to Jameson, but the gold-plated rider on its back. Even from the ground, the rider’s weapon shone forth with unnatural light to rival that of the sun.

What the void? Jameson wondered. It must be a trick of the light, or some sort of sorcery.

SORCERY, YES, his own blade said. THE MOST POWERFUL KIND. FOR ALL DARKNESS, THERE IS LIGHT. I HAVE SENSED THEIR PRESENCE FROM THE MOMENT I GAINED CONSCIOUSNESS.

What presence?

THE BRIGHTBLADES, THREE.

You mean… Jameson’s mind was spinning. He’d thought the creation of the shadowblades from the remnants of the Legacy Sword might be the turning point in this infernal war, going so far as to promise his own wife it would be, the weapons that would finally break the stalemate that had persisted for decades. But now, to discover their enemies had reaped the same benefit from the Legacy Sword, which was never theirs to reap…

Rage filled him, a burning anger to rival the heat of dragonfire. By forging such weapons their enemies had spat on the memory of Erif Mirg himself. Such an insult could not go unpunished.

With a roar that would’ve caused a lion to cower before him, he spurred his steed forward, crushing his foes underfoot and cutting through the rest with his blade, hacking off limbs and heads, shattering their weapons and shields, making such a spectacle of violence to ensure he would draw the attention of the dragonrider and his great, golden dragon.

When there were no enemies left to fight, the area around him having cleared before his wrath, he finally stopped, craning his head toward the sky. The golden dragon had stopped soaring, wings pumping as it hovered above him. He could feel its eyes locked on him, like an archer sighting his target.

And then it dove, powerful wings tucked behind its scaled form as it sliced through the air with such speed it was a wonder the rider didn’t tumble from its back. “Come on,” Jameson growled, leaping from his mount and slapping the horse on the rump to send him running. There was no need to lose a good horse when it could be avoided. He stood, watching and waiting as the dragon fell from the sky.

The rider, who he knew was Dragonmaster Dackur, leader of the dragonriders, was a blaze of light upon the creature’s back, like a flash of sunlight glimpsed between folds of clouds. Jameson squinted. Was it his blade that was shining? Or the reflection of the sun off his golden armor? He shook his head in wonderment, for he knew the answer was nay to both of those questions. His blade was shining, but the brightness of the light was coming from inside Dackur, breaching his clothes and armor, pulsing with power.

His own blade laughed. ONLY THE WEAK MUST PLACE THEIR POWER ON EXHIBIT. HE IS NOTHING MORE THAN A STRUTTING PEACOCK. TWO MAY PLAY THIS GAME. Shadowy tendrils emerged from his sword’s tip, curling around him, shielding his eyes from his enemy’s brightness, which suddenly seemed dimmer.

He firmed up his grip, body tensing as the dragon plummeted for the earth. At the last moment, the dragon unfurled its wings, swooping low across the ground, maw opening, flames roiling from within, dancing over its legions of daggerlike teeth. Jameson had the urge to dive to the ground, but his blade said, STEADY, and he trusted it, standing steadfast before what could only be described as certain death.

A scream started deep in his chest, roaring from his mouth as he braced himself for impact, feeling the ferocious heat of the dragonfire sweep over him, burning his flesh, hearing the hiss and crackle of his own roasted skin even as the beast’s mouth closed over him. He felt himself being sucked downward, falling, somehow not dead, not yet anyway, and then landing with a wet plop. There was heat all around him, and he could see the inner workings of the dragon, the bright red stomach lining a stark contrast to the inky darkness.

I CAN SEE IN THE DARK, he thought, which felt like an absurd thought that shouldn’t have been his first concern considering he’d just been swallowed alive by a dragon. He tried to stand, but the uneven surface of the dragon’s gut and the fact that everything was moving—the dragon taking wing again, no doubt—caused him to tumble onto his backside once more, crunching undigested bones as he sat.

How am I alive? he thought. His skin, which should’ve been burnt beyond recognition, didn’t even hurt anymore.

I HEALED YOU, the blade, which he’d managed to hold onto while being eaten, said. NOW CUT YOURSELF OUT.

This was the plan all along? Jameson thought, knowing he should’ve been affronted that the blade had allowed him to be eaten alive but instead feeling something thrum through his veins that he hadn’t felt in a long time:

Power.

YES. NOW HURRY, ANOTHER APPROACHES.

Jameson assumed the blade meant another enemy was on their way, maybe another wielder of one of the brightblades, but he didn’t ask. There was work to be done. He began to cut.

The soft tissue parted easily, though the way became more difficult as he encountered bone, blood vessels and then the armorlike scaled skin. As he sawed and carved, the dragon began to shift violently, its distant roars resounding through the folds of its body. And then, finally, he was through, an eye of daylight piercing the darkness.

With a grunt, Jameson slashed through the final layer of scales, emerging into the light.

And finding nothing beneath him.

He fell from the sky, feeling a fool for having cut his way out of an airborne dragon, the ground so distant it might’ve been a model made of felt and pebbles, tiny soldiers fashioned from iron. His heart was in his throat and he thought his stomach might’ve taken up residence in the resulting empty space in his chest.

I’m going to die, he thought.

NOT YET, his blade said, which seemed an odd thing to say.

The ground grew closer, tiny iron figurines watching him, the battle having paused at the sight of what had transpired in the sky. Is it going to hurt? he asked his blade.

OH, YES. VERY MUCH. IT WILL BE AGONY.

He gripped the sword with two hands, struggling to hold it steady as the wind pummeled it, trying to wrench it from his grasp. Slowly, slowly, he turned the blade back on himself, aiming for his own heart. Leave my son alone, Jameson said, remembering what his son had said earlier.

I’M AFRAID I CAN’T DO THAT, the blade said.

What?

IT WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO BE YOU.

If you hurt him…

HURT HIM? WHY WOULD I HURT THE ONE MEANT TO WIELD ME? ON THE CONTRARY, I WILL TRANSFORM HIM INTO THE WARRIOR HE WAS ALWAYS MEANT TO BE.

Jameson’s eyes hurt, as dry as dust from the gusting wind. The ground was close enough to make out individual figures scattered across the battlefield. He saw Hyram Kerr, his head craned to watch Jameson fall. He saw Reyals, pausing the charge of his Thousands, just watching. And then he saw—no, that’s impossible, he thought.

It couldn’t be.

It couldn’t.

The ground seemed to rear up at the last moment, like a cresting wave, slamming into his body, shattering every bone, turning his legs backward, his arms too, crooking his spine in three places, bruising every organ on the inside of his body and making him bleed internally. The pain was even worse than his blade had described, and yet he wasn’t dead.

Somehow, he wasn’t dead.

He stared at the sky above, watching the dead dragon falling, that bright, shining form still on its back. His head flopped to the side.

Where are you? he asked his blade, but there was only silence in the wake of his question. Something caught his eye—a dark slash against the terrain. His blade, stuck fast in the ground, a portion of the sword and the entire hilt protruding. You healed me from the dragonfire, he said. Heal me now. Please.

His blade remained silent, and that’s when he remembered the final form he’d spotted on the battlefield, the one that he’d first believed was a mirage, a trick of his mind in the throes of the impending trauma.

His nine-year-old son stepped into view, hand closing over the hilt, drawing the blade from the ground. The boy’s eyes roamed over the dark steel, wide and hungry. How had he even come to be here? Jameson wondered. How is this possible?

SPEAK HIS NAME AND BE FREE, the blade whispered, and Jameson instinctively knew it was the last time he would ever hear that voice in his head, because the sword had never been his to wield.

The pain was all around him now, and he longed for death. He’d tried to protect his son from violence, from the life his own father never protected him from. But now, in this moment, there was only one way left to protect the boy.

To give him the blade that he, not Jameson, had always been meant to wield.

His lips cracked open, a trickle of blood slipping from the corner of his mouth. “Sampson,” he said, and then he breathed his last breath.

Postlude 4: Dragonrider Dom

Over the Endless Ocean, many leagues west of Travail

410 A.W.- Three days since departing Travail

FOR MOST, CONVERSING WITH A TWO-HEADED DRAGON WOULD BE QUITE DISCONCERTING.

For Dragonrider Dom, however, it was just another day.

The east winds blow a ceaseless march of ill tidings, the original head, Domino, said.

Foolish nonsense, the newer head, which Dom had named Dominance—Domi for short—on account of its surly disposition, retorted. Despite both rumbling voices resounding within the confines of his own mind, Dom could discern a slight difference in timbre—Domi’s voice deeper and more ragged, like the head of a hammer chipping away at thick tree bark—which allowed him to identify which head was speaking. The bickering had started the moment the second head had gained its own awareness, a process that had taken a little over a fortnight, the rapid growth of the dragon’s new neck and skull as amazing as it had been terrifying as Dom had watched, helplessly, while his parents and brothers fretted about what would become of him.

‘Fretted’ was the wrong word. The way his family had looked at him—with fear and mistrust, like he was no longer their own kin but a stranger dressed up as the son and brother they’d once known—had made him feel empty inside, even as he’d felt fuller than ever before astride his two-headed dragon.

Which was exactly why he’d left; he didn’t want to be a burden on them any longer.

Open your nostrils. The smell of war is a putrid stink, Domino said. War is coming to Kingfall—of that there is no doubt.

At least we can agree on that, Domi said. We should’ve stayed and fought.

Dom preferred to stay out of the middle of their quarrels, but in this instance he couldn’t hold his tongue. We couldn’t stay. A two-headed dragon with a broken-minded rider would bring only misery to a place with enough of it already.

You are not broken-minded, Domino said softly. Dom could tell his words pained the dragon because of the way they echoed words he’d heard his parents speak when they believed he wasn’t within earshot.

A boy who speaks to both heads of a two-headed dragon, which, I might add, are only reflections of the two halves of his own tempestuous mind…hmm… The last came from Domi, and Dom steeled himself against the rebuke that was sure to come from Domino as the original dragon head rose to his defense.

He needn’t have worried, however, the silence in the wake of Domi’s words as deep and dark as the Endless Ocean churning beneath them. Dom knew what it meant: Even Domino couldn’t deny how they’d have been perceived by his own people, much less the rest of Kingfall, had they stayed. Which was why they could never return.

Beneath them, the ocean was as angry as ever, enormous waves building, gaining power, rolling across the never ending blue expanse until, eventually, they would lash themselves against the western cliffs of Travail and the Stormlands, the precursor to the storm that was gaining force further out at sea.

As a child, Dom had loved the endless procession of storms over Dragonsmount, had lived for the thrill of standing atop the cliffs, the wind blasting him full in the face, icy pellets of rain driving against his cheeks, deafening thunder shaking him to the core with its mighty bellows…

And the lightning. Oh, how Dom had lived for the streaks of red lightning crackling from the maws of the dragon-shaped clouds. Upon those cliffs, he’d never felt more alive.

He would need to remove his boots if he were to count how many times his father had found him communing with the storms, forced to pick him up and drag him away, kicking and fighting and screaming the whole way. His father hadn’t understood it. Neither had his mother. His brothers, Dane and Drake, had always stood around awkwardly during those times, uncertain how to react.

And Dom hadn’t understood how none of them wanted to stand in the storm, to live in the folds of its raw power and breathe its essence, which told a tale of faraway lands, into their lungs.

What is wrong with me? Dom thought now, for even those memories felt like the remembrances of another person, someone he was watching from afar, a dark silhouette cut into the horizon.

Other than the fact that you’re riding a two-headed dragon? Domino japed, trying to lighten Dom’s mood. Dom loved the dragon for his efforts, but it had been a serious question requiring a serious answer, which Domi was always willing to provide, never one to mince words.

You are different, Domi said simply.

Dom knew the simple answer was laden with more truth than the edge of a blade. In three words, the second head of the dragon, which he’d only known for a little over a week, had summed up his entire existence.

Don’t listen to him, Domino said. Even now, when Dom had forced the dragon to fly without ceasing for nigh on three days and three nights, half of the creature was trying to protect him from the darkness of his own thoughts.

I—I don’t know what I’m doing, Dom admitted.

Don’t you? Domi asked.

Dom considered the dragon’s question because he understood why he asked it. Unlike most people—Dom’s parents and brothers, for instance—Dom’s mind was constructed of layers that needed to be peeled away one sheet at a time. If he dug deep enough, he knew he would reach a thick layer of impenetrable bedrock. Trying to chip his way through the stone barricade meant facing things he’d never allowed himself to face.

He wasn’t prepared to do that. Not now, and probably not ever.

He never answered Domi’s question, and the dragon didn’t ask again.

Six days since departing Travail

Dom tipped back his waterskin and drained the last few drops of precious liquid, wondering how he’d managed to drink it all so quickly since the last storm that had raged past them a day hence. By Travailian standards, it had been a mild squall that would barely impact their daily activities. He hoped the next storm would be sufficient to refill his skin once more. He wouldn’t last much more than three days, four at the most, without water.

Food, on the other hand, was plentiful with a two-headed dragon beneath him. Fish foolish enough to rise to the ocean’s surface could be captured by their dexterous talons. The dragons ate first, dozens and dozens of sea creatures, until their hunger was satisfied, before offering him a few morsels. They burned the first three fish with their flames, but Dom didn’t mind, his stomach aching to be filled. After that, he requested that they provide the fish raw. He filleted them with his dagger, the fresh meat sliding down his throat easily.

Between the storms and the fish-teeming waters, sustenance was not an issue. On this day, day six, however, fatigue began to set in, the dragon’s wings slumping on every downbeat and not rising quite as high on the upbeats. Can you rest in the water for a while? Dom asked.

No, both dragon heads responded in unison. Dragons can’t swim.

Of course, Dom knew this, but he’d hoped that maybe they could manage such a feat for long enough to rest their wings.

He twisted his neck one way and then back the other, scanning the entirety of the area that surrounded them. True to its name, the Endless Ocean cast its waters in every direction for eternity. Travail’s coastline had long passed over the horizon to the east, leaving them on an airborne island far from land. To the west, the sky was mobbed by an army of black clouds—a storm that, by Dom’s reckoning—would be many times greater in size and power than the last squall they’d encountered. In short succession, the sight both thrilled and frightened him. Surviving a storm of this magnitude while at sea would be difficult even with a fully rested dragon beneath him. Flying above it was an option, though the thin air would make breathing difficult, not to mention the pressure that would cause all three of their heads to ache for days after and could induce serious vomiting.

Another possibility was going around the storm, but he quickly discarded the notion as folly. He couldn’t make out an end to either the north or south of the wall of black. Going leagues and leagues out of their way would only hasten his dragon’s fatigue. No, they were going through this storm, one way or another.

His heart beat a little faster at the prospect.

A moment later the first few drops of rain splashed upon his face.

Tie yourself to our spikes, Domino commanded.

Dom obeyed, using the small coil of rope in his pack to encircle his waist and then three of Domino’s neck spikes. As he worked, his fingers grew slick, the rainfall intensifying, and twice he had to start over. Finally, it was done, and he was secured to the most extent possible.

I could hold you in my mouth, Domi suggested.

Domino scoffed at this, though it wasn’t a bad suggestion. Dom, however, wasn’t going to miss experiencing this storm, even if hunkering down in the dragon’s maw would be safer. Thank you. But if you must ride out the storm, so shall I.

As you wish.

While he’d worked on the ropes, visibility had shrunk to little more than the reach of his hand, the tops of his dragon’s heads vanishing in the deluge. He squinted, trying to make out the waters of the ocean but unable to see even a single white-capped wave. For all he could tell, they could be careening toward certain demise at this very moment.

I promise to tell you if we start ‘careening’, Domino said, a hint of humor in his voice. Even his lighthearted words weren’t sufficient to fully hide his concern. Not from Dom, whose bond with his dragon was as close, or mayhaps even closer, than any of the other dragonriders he’d never fit in with.

Lightning pierced the wall of rain and Dom began to count. He had just reached ten when thunder shook the clouds. At the next sight of lightning, he only counted to five before a peal of thunder erupted. The storm was closing fast.

Dom lifted his head to the sky and released a roar he suspected both his dragons, under different circumstances, would be proud of. Rain filled his mouth and he drank deeply, relishing the cooling effect on his tongue and throat as his thirst was sated.

The wind was picking up by the second, and if not for the ropes tethering him to the dragon, he would’ve been blasted from the creature’s flanks already. In his mind, he could just make out the determined groans of both dragon heads as they worked together to stay the course as they were battered from all sides, the wind swirling even as it intensified.

We cannot last much longer, Domino warned.

This is nothing, Domi said. The worst is still to come.

But Dom didn’t hear either of their words, for a powerful hand had punched its way through that layer of bedrock in his mind, fingers bent and stiff, reaching, reaching for some truth that had been hidden from the portion of his mind he relied on to live a ‘normal’ life.

No, he said.

Dom, Domino said, their bond immediately alerting the dragon to the turmoil in his mind. Dom, stay with me. You’re not alone.

This is just another part of you, Domi said. Maybe the truer part. Do not resist its will.

Somewhere distant, Dom heard Domino’s roar and then the snapping of teeth. More snarling and roaring ensued, the dragon heads doing battle in the midst of the raging storm.

Dom, however, was already fading, sliding into the depths.

Blink, blink.

Blackness surrounded him, much as the arms of the storm had. I’ve been here before, he thought.

Voices echoed and he cocked his head to the side. “Hello?” he said, his own voice radiating away from him, repeating again and again, each iteration softer than the last. “I don’t want to be here,” he said, and this time there was no echo. Strange.

“We don’t have to be enemies,” a voice said. He whirled around, expecting to find the bearer close at hand, having spoken directly into his ear.

Instead he found nothing and no one, the area just behind him as empty and black as everything else. “Who are you?” he asked.

The voice laughed, still so close and yet its bearer was invisible to his eyes. “Don’t you know?”

“No, of course not,” Dom snapped, frustration boiling over. Everything about this experience was familiar and yet he couldn’t recall why, like a recurring dream never quite fully remembered after one awoke.

More laughter. “Do you want to see what I see? The storm is magnificent. Deadly, yes, but magnificent in its raw violence.”

The storm, Dom thought, remembering his last memory, of being lashed to his dragon while the storm assaulted them. Raw violence—that was a good way to describe it. “I want to see it. Let me out of here!” Dom shouted. Or at least he tried to—his words came out a whisper.

“I cannot do that. But I can provide a window, if you promise not to try to break it.”

“I promise,” Dom said too quickly, the lie evident even to his own ears. If a window in the darkness appeared, he would smash through it with his bare fists and feet.

Roars in the distance. Domino! Dom thought.

“And Domi,” the voice said. “Don’t forget about him. They are both a part of you now, as am I.”

“Who are you?” he asked again.

“Fine. I’ll tell you. But it won’t change anything. You will always be powerless against my will, especially during the greatest storms.”

“Just tell me, godsdammit!” Dom said, fists balling at his sides. He longed to have something to swing at, to take out his frustration on.

“No need to be testy. If you must know…

…I. Am. You.”

The world spun, the roar of dragons filled his ears, and Dom was thrust back into the heart of the worst storm that Travail would see in decades.

The impact was like a punch to the gut, the icy waters of the Endless Ocean surrounding him. Chaos ensued: Ropes tangled around his arms and legs; his cheek slid along the rough scales of his dragon, skin tearing open; a spike pierced his thigh and then a sharp bolt of pain; leathery wings flopped desperately, waterlogged, encircling him like a blanket.

Dom! Domino cried. Dom!

I’m here!

Thank the gods. We were struck by lightning. Domi is unconscious. Can you climb my neck?

I’ll try. Battered by churning water and his own dragon’s helpless wings, Dom grasped at the rope to untangle it from his limbs. He’d been far too proficient at tying his knots, which refused to loosen, his wet fingers slipping off their threads.

He gasped for air as his head bobbed up in the trough between two waves. The oncoming wave crashed upon his dragon’s struggling form, collapsing onto his head and pulling him under again, still tethered to Domino’s spikes.

He saw flashes of gold amongst the dark, stormy waters—his own skin as his arms and legs flailed. I’m going to die, he thought. My dragon too. I’ve led them off the edge of a cliff.

Regret swirled through his mind along with the ocean’s rough current. And then—

The rope suddenly came loose, seemingly of its own accord, still tangled around his body but sliding free of Domino’s spikes. Dom kicked hard for the surface, his lungs tightening and burning as they screamed for air. A wavery streak of crimson lightning flashed somewhere in the sky behind the curtain of water.

With a final kick, Dom broke the surface, sucking in a violent breath of life-giving air, his lungs aching as they filled to the brink. He looked about himself, eyes widening in surprise. The moment he’d untethered himself from his dragon, they’d begun drifting apart, and now Domino’s and Domi’s golden form was a fair distance away, the gap widening with each passing second. Domino! Dom said. I’m coming! He began to swim toward the scaled form just as it passed out of sight behind a cresting wave.

Tired. So tired, Domino said, his deep voice sounding weary, like he was on the verge of sleep.

No! Dom said, fighting his way up the wave before realizing he wouldn’t make it before the inevitable crash, instead ducking through its watery surface, emerging out the other side with a splash. He caught another glimpse of Domino’s head, which was barely above the water, one of his eyes staring right at Dom, full of fear one rarely saw in a dragon’s expression. Keep fighting, Dom said. Don’t you dare stop.

He rolled down the wave and then back up the next, which wasn’t nearly as towering as the one before. The sky lit up with lightning, the crackling streaks reflected along Domino’s shimmering gold scales. The dragon’s eye was half-lidded now, his head drooping as more than three-quarters of his neck sank below the ocean’s surface.

Domino! Dom shouted, and the dragon’s head twitched slightly at his shout, before slouching once more. “DOMINO!” Dom screamed aloud, but his voice was taken by the thunder, not more than a cry into the Void. The dragon’s first head went the way of the second, dipping below the surface. His body rolled over, his underbelly protruding from the sea, scales reflecting jagged lightning strikes.

Dom kept fighting, as he’d demanded Domino do, using his hands like oars, kicking his feet furiously, propelling himself closer and closer, until he managed to grab one of the dragon’s spikes, then another with his opposite hand. He hung on, the current dragging his dragon away surprisingly strong. I’m here, he said. Domino! Lift your head. Lift it! LIFT IT!

He felt a tremor run through the dragon’s form, causing his hands to shake as they gripped his spikes. With a lurch, Domino’s head breached the surface, thousands of droplets sluicing off his chin like a waterfall. His maw opened and, with a roar, he spat out a jet of seawater. Smoke poured from his nostrils. You found me, Domino said. You saved me.

No, Dom said, with a shake of his head. You saved me. If not for our bond, I would’ve never survived my own mind. Not before, in Travail, and not here, leagues away from anything in this godsforsaken ocean.

I suppose we saved each other then, Domino said, his voice sounding stronger now. What do we do now? I haven’t the strength to take flight.

You’re floating, Dom said, wonder in his voice.

I am? Oh. That is good. I never knew dragons could float.

Where is Domi? The question struck him suddenly, and Dom was horrified to realize he’d been so focused on rescuing Domino that he’d completely and utterly forgotten the dragon’s second, newer, head.

Let him go, Domino murmured.

What? No! How could you say that?

Because I must. Just as you must let that other part of you go, you must give up Domi.

Never! Dom growled, anger coursing through him. Help him resurface. Domino, help him. Domino pushed other thoughts through to his dragon, thoughts that were wordless but full of images and feelings, all the things that would break between them if he didn’t do this one thing.

His dragon stared at him, eyes narrowing, their gazes locked, battling for dominance. After several moments, Domino released a misty sigh, more steam emerging from his nostrils. As you wish, he said, dipping his head beneath the water once more. Dom held his breath, waiting, wondering if it was a ploy. Would Domino’s disdain for Domi go so far that he would chew off the second head at the neck?

Just as the hideous thought pierced his mind, Domino arose once more, hauling Domi’s lifeless head on the crest of his own. There was pain in Domino’s eyes. How could you think such a thing of me? he said.

Dom hung his head, feeling more awful than he’d ever felt. I’m sorry. I was wrong to think it. Is he…dead?

I can still sense lifeblood running through him, but it is slow. Faint.

So there is no hope?

I didn’t say that. Speak to him. Though we are part of the same form, I have no bond with him. Not like you do.

Dom nodded, firming up his jaw as he climbed onto the dragon’s belly. You can continue floating like this? he asked.

I think so, Domino said. For a time anyway. There is air in my gut.

Thank you, Dom said, something he should’ve said sooner. For saving Domi.

Harum, the dragon rumbled, which was as close to ‘you’re welcome’ as Domino knew he was going to get until the rift between them was mended. Carefully, Domino guided Domi’s head until he was able to lay him on their belly. Domino reached out and touched Domi’s cheek, stroking his scales. Domi? he said. Can you hear me?

Nothing. No response. Not even a rumble or unintelligible murmur.

Domi? he said, louder this time. Domi!

Still nothing. The dragon was unconscious.

He was without air for too long, Domino said. He swallowed too much water. His fire has been extinguished.

But he’s not dead?

Not yet.

Then I won’t give up on him. Dom hadn’t meant it to be a challenge, but immediately realized that was how it had sounded.

Domino said nothing.

I’m sorry.

Don’t be. I had a moment of weakness. I’m still adjusting to sharing my body with another. Sharing you with another.

Dom had never even considered how his dragon must feel about the growth of a second head. All the time he’d been focused on the impact on himself, how it had ravaged what was left of his relationship with his family, how his life would never be the same. He felt like a selfish fool now, especially considering the second head hadn’t been his at all. I should’ve asked how you felt. I should’ve thought about what it meant to you.

…

I’m sorry.

I know you are. I can feel it. Thank you.

What are we going to do? When the storm abates, can you dry out your wings and fly again? Already the rainfall had lessened, the time between lightning strikes and peals of thunder widening once more. They’d passed through the worst of the storm and would soon be on the other side.

I don’t know, but I think so. My wings feel so heavy, but if I rest for a while, maybe…

Then rest. I will ensure you don’t fall asleep.

With that, Domino curled his own neck and lay his head beside Domi’s with Dom fitted snugly between them, one hand on each of their faces.

Together, they rested.

Nine days since departing Travail

They drifted aimlessly for three days, pulled by the will and whims of the strong current that continued to guide them. Their passage took them west, that much Dom could tell from the position of the sun and moons. The first day was all rest, the sky smothered by the huge storm’s tail—a banner constructed of thick clouds. With Domi still unconscious, Dom and Domino slept in shifts so that Dom could awaken his dragon if his air-filled belly started to sink into the ocean. Thus far, his dragon had been far more adept at floating than any of them had known he could be.

On the second day, which was still cloudy, a small storm had passed, and they’d managed to drink simply by leaning their heads back and opening their mouths. The day bled into night, the clouds finally opening to reveal an ocean even larger than the endless one they found themselves drifting in. The night sky’s ocean was speckled with island-like stars and a single moon, the emerald-green one known to Dom’s people as Dragon’s Eye.

The third day dawned clear and sunny. Dom’s stomach rumbled, and soon Domino’s did the same, the vibrations coursing through them both. I can catch fish, Domino said, but Dom shook his head.

Save your strength. I will do the fishing.

He shifted his position, moving to the edge of the dragon’s belly, sliding down to where he could place his feet in the water and stand on two spikes. He reached into his soaked satchel and extracted his dagger, gripping it in one hand while clutching another spike with his other. Slowly, he eased his hand into the water, where he could see fish nipping at the dragon’s sides, cleaning his scales.

As soon as his hand entered the water, the fish skittered away.

Dom waited patiently. Soon the fish returned. Several even came right up to his blade, which glinted as rays of sunlight penetrated the water and touched its steely face. The fish seemed curious about the light.

Dom breathed. One breath in, exhale. Two breaths in, exhale. As soon he breathed in the third, he stabbed at one of the fish. In the water, his blade was slow, and the fish easily swam away before he could get close to them.

Frustrated, he considered the problem. Without something to propel the blade with speed, the fish would continue to elude him. Unless…

He dumped the contents of his satchel out onto his dragon’s belly. There wasn’t much inside, as he’d departed Travail in haste. His waterskin. The small amount of dried, salted meat he had left, which was not enough to satisfy his own hunger, much less his dragon’s massive stomach. He hadn’t even packed a flint, considering his dragon’s fire-breathing ability.

For a lure, he placed the dagger inside the satchel and then sunk it into the water, leathery mouth open so the sunlight could continue to reflect off the steel. He gripped the satchel’s strap with one hand, bobbing it slightly in the water. Sunlight danced along the dagger. The fish, curious once more, approached it, entering the satchel and nipping at the metal. When there were half a dozen inside, he yanked hard on the strap, which forced the mouth closed as the satchel burst from the ocean’s surface with a watery spray.

With an excited cry, Dom cradled the satchel in his arms, feeling the satisfying flopping of fish inside. ’Tis barely an appetizer, Domino said, large eye watching him.

Then in that case I guess I’ll eat these ones myself, Dom said.

Don’t be hasty. I didn’t say I minded having an appetizer.

Dom laughed, reaching inside the satchel and pinning one of the fish in his grip. Lazily, Domino opened his mouth and he flung the wriggling creature inside. The dragon snapped it up like a leftover morsel flung into the jaws of a hungry hound. Dom repeated this until the fish were gone. Then he returned to his position, repeating the process.

Thankfully, none of the fish seemed to learn from the others’ mistakes, and soon Domino’s eyes were closed in satisfaction and Dom was able to catch a few for himself, using his dagger to remove the scales before sinking his teeth into the fresh, raw meat. He chewed happily for a while, until he, too, felt the gnawing hunger abate.

The sun is our ally today, he said, when he’d repacked his satchel and was once more nestled between the two dragon heads. Can you attempt to dry your wings?

I will try. With that, Domino released a low, sustained growl, raising both his wings from the water as his stomach clenched. Slowly, dripping thousands of crystalline drops of water, the wings arced overhead, until they were directly above them, providing a canopy against the sun while beginning the drying process.

Can you hold them there?

For a time.

Drying shouldn’t take long in this heat. After eating, Dom felt a swell of weariness cloud his mind. Do you mind if I sleep while you dry your wings?

Of course not. I will awaken you when they are ready for flying.

Shaded by his dragon’s wings and rocked gently by the movement of the sea beneath them, Dom drifted away.

Dom was awakened by a shout inside his head. Dom! We need to leave. Now.

It took him a few long blinks to recall where he was, but then it all came rushing back to him, especially when he saw his dragon’s magnificent golden wings arched overhead, drying in the sun. He could still see the glistening moisture on the underside. He sat up too quickly, head spinning. Are you sure you’re ready? he asked. Domino’s head was no longer resting on his own belly, but raised skyward, peering down into the surrounding sea. Domi was still unconscious, deep exhalations bursting from his nostrils like gusts of wind.

I have to be, Domino said. Look!

Dom finally cast his gaze in the direction of his dragon’s stare. He saw them: massive creatures of the sea, sharp fins piercing the surface. Circling. They were not quite as large as his dragon, but they weren’t far off either. And the water was their domain, while Dom and his dragon were interlopers, fortunate enough to be able to stay afloat and not sink into the depths. Dom realized why Domino had awakened him rather than taking flight—because he was still on his belly. If Domino took wing, Dom would be spilled off into the ocean.

He scrambled to his feet, bolting toward Domino’s neck, which was twisted around. The underside was free of spikes, but as it twisted, more and more appeared. Without breaking stride, Dom planted hard and leapt into the air, reaching, stretching his hands for the lowest spikes.

One hand missed, sliding off its target. The other hand closed around the spike, and as gravity reasserted its hold on him his arm was almost wrenched out of its socket. A shard of pain erupted from his shoulder, but he refused to open his grip. Dangling precariously, he glanced to his right just as one of the enormous creatures exploded from the water, snapping jaws filled with teeth as sharp as blades and at least as long. Its skin was the color of blood—a warning to all who approached to do so with caution—its flesh sleek and smooth.

Helpless in the path of teeth that could slice him in half without a thought, Dom closed his eyes.

They flashed open when he heard Domino’s roar, and he was just in time to see his dragon’s own teeth bite into the creature’s head, shoving it downward into the water. When Domino emerged once more, his teeth were stained with dark, watery blood. Can you hang on? he asked.

Dom knew he couldn’t, but he also knew they couldn’t delay a moment longer or the creatures would have them. Dom had spotted at least six monsters of the sea—too many for Domino to fight off on his own. Yes, I’m secure, he said, already feeling his grip slackening. He reached upwards with his opposite hand for another spike, but it was too far out of reach. To the left, one of the creatures was gaining speed as it swam toward them, its powerful fins rising out of the water, followed by more and more of its strangely red, sleek body. Go! he shouted.

Above him, his dragon’s powerful wings spread apart, pumping downward, water misting from their leathery surface. At the same moment, Domino kicked his legs against the water, trying to push free as he would from the ground. Instead of helping, the maneuver only hindered him, the dragon’s body lurching awkwardly to one side as his wings struggled to beat hard enough to gain altitude. The jerking movement caused Domi’s head to shift hard to the side, flopping lifelessly into the water and disappearing.

The sea creature was coming faster now, seeming to realize its meal may have the ability to escape. It wasn’t the only one, two others approaching from different directions.

One of Dom’s fingers lost its hold on Domino’s spike, slipping free.

The dragon’s wings beat harder still, creating its own wind, causing the ocean to shudder beneath their force.

Another finger slid off. Then another. Domino roared from the strain of his efforts, legs kicking free of the water, upside down body twisting around to right itself, a forest of spikes appearing beneath Dom just as his last finger and thumb lost their hold and he fell.

The gods were kind to him, his body colliding hard with the side of a particularly deadly spike that would’ve impaled him through the chest if he’d fallen a small distance further. Instead, he bounced off and landed unceremoniously on his dragon’s scaly back, the breath punched from his very lungs.

Even as he struggled to breathe, Dom felt a swell of relief, gazing out where he expected to see clouds already surrounding them. His relief instantly morphed to fear as he realized they were only hovering a small height from the ocean’s choppy surface. Overhead, Domino’s head swooped across the sky, angling such that he could spew flames toward a spot underneath his body.

All at once, his pain was replaced by that of his dragon, a sharp lance of agony piercing his feet. One of the creatures had clamped their jaws around one of the dragon’s feet, stopping him from escaping. The heat of the flames washed over him as they burst past. There was another jolt, this one seeming to come from the opposite side, and Domino roared in pain.

I must do something, Dom thought.

No! Domino shouted. Stay put. I’ll fight them off and we’ll escape.

There are too many. You need help.

Domino didn’t argue again, too busy twisting his head toward the opposite side to snap at the creature that had reared up from the water to bite at his right flank. Dom pushed to his feet, ignoring the aches in his bruised body, and scrambled down the dragon’s back toward his tail, using the field of spikes to steady himself with each step. His dragon’s tail was still dangling dangerously in the water, so Dom went as far as the edge before reaching into his satchel and retrieving his dagger.

“Hey!” he shouted aloud, trying to attract one of the creature’s attention. The nearest monster was racing toward Domino’s left side, mouth opening, sea water gushing around its maw, which was already filled with his dragon’s blood from a previous strike. “Hey!” he shouted again. When the creature still didn’t change its course, he slapped his hand against the water repeatedly, until, finally, one of the monster’s large black eyes set in a field of crimson twitched toward him. The rest of its body followed a moment later, the angle of the waves it was creating changing as it reset its path on a collision course with Dom.

“C’mon, you bastard,” Dom said, gripping his dagger harder. “C’mon. C’mon.” The creature was close now, so close Dom could’ve counted its individual teeth as its maw opened wider to receive him. He waited only a moment longer before scrambling back up his dragon’s tail, tripping once but righting himself fast enough to grasp a spike and use his momentum to swing around and then dangle free, now positioned over the attacking creature.

With a survival scream, Dom stabbed his dagger downward, aiming for that hateful black eye. He missed, the blade plunging into the sleek flesh a finger’s width from its target, sinking deep. Fool! that voice said. Not either of his dragon’s heads, but another voice, the darker, crueler one.

Dom felt a fool, for he’d guided the creature right to his dragon’s tail, and as he’d stabbed it, the monster had clamped its teeth around flesh and spikes, crunching several while its lip was pierced by another. It tried to wrench itself free, the force causing the dragon’s tail to whip back and forth. Dom was thrown from his feet, his arm wrenching the dagger loose as he swung about wildly.

My turn, that voice said, and Dom felt a stab of fear in his chest. No! he tried to say, but it was too late, he was already falling, fading, a crack opening in that stone wall so he could slip through while the other presence passed him going the other direction, a sly smile on his lips. That other presence was him but not. More confident. Smarter. Stronger. More capable.

Dom blinked and he was floating in the air, looking down at a body that was his and yet not his to control. Yet still the body moved, reasserting itself as it rushed forward, launching itself from Domino’s tail, landing with a wet smack on the sea creature’s back, sticking fast on account of the dagger—his dagger—that had been shoved into the monster’s flesh. Hand over hand, he watched himself climb toward the eye he’d failed to pierce because he’d been unable—or unwilling—to take the ultimate risk. The other version of himself stood, perfectly balanced even as the creature writhed and fought to free itself from the dragon’s spike. He saw himself raise his hands over his head, blade glinting, and then slam the dagger into one eye and then the other in short succession.

The sea creature’s writhing became even wilder, but Dom was already gone, leaping back over to his dragon’s tail with such gracefulness he might’ve been a trained acrobat, steadying his landing with a hand on a spike.

Finally, the creature slid free of the spike, slipping beneath the water in a plume of dark blood.

It was far from over. The remaining four creatures had grown more frantic, throwing themselves recklessly at their prize, tearing off chunks of scaled flesh and snapping off spikes like twigs, not caring if they were pierced in the process. The dragon was bleeding from numerous wounds, as were the creatures, the ocean full of a mixture of black and red blood, which swirled and mixed until the waters took on a brownish hue.

Are you secure? Domino asked. His dragon’s voice sounded weary, his wings still pumping at either side, but slower now.

I’m… How could Dom explain that he wasn’t in control of his own body right now? I’m secure, he said, realizing that it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that his dragon escaped. If the presence still controlling his body failed to hang on, at least Domino would escape.

Without another word, Domino attempted to launch himself skyward once more. At the same moment one of the sea creatures thrust up from the water, escaping the ocean’s grip completely, going airborne. It snapped at one of Domino’s wings just as it pumped downward, teeth tearing into the thin, leathery surface.

Domino released a roar, a horrifying sound that cut Dom to the core of his being. Worse, the creature refused to let go, a dog protecting its bone, dragging the wing and the attached dragon into the sea.

It’s over, Dom thought. My foolish, childish decision to run away has cost us everything.

Not yet. The voice, which sounded exhausted and weak, still managed to muster an edge of determination. Not Domino, nor the other part of himself.

Domi. The second head, lifeless not a moment earlier, reared up, twisted around, and released a torrent of flames into the sea creature’s side. Its sleek, red skin sizzled as it burned and then—

Domi tore into it with a loud crunch as bones snapped under his powerful bite.

Finally, the creature released its hold on the dragon’s wing. Under the combined power of both Domino and Domi, the dragon finally managed to free itself from the ocean and the deadly creatures that lived in it, one wing strong and intact, and the other damaged and flapping. They limped along, unable to reach their usual heights, but safe for now. Slowly, slowly, Dom felt himself descend from his lofty view, until he was reunited with the body that was his once more, that darker presence once more trapped behind that impenetrable wall of stone.

With a groan, Domi’s head lost what strength he’d managed to muster for that single, life-saving attack, flopping back down and dangling, making flying even more difficult. Dom watched as gently, tenderly, Domino leaned his own head down and scooped Domi up, resting his counterpart’s long neck on his own.

And beneath them, the sea creatures pursued for a time before eventually giving up, drifting back into the depths to seek easier prey.

Eleven days since departing Travail

Two days they’d flown, putting as much distance between them and the sea monsters as possible. Several times their height dipped as Domino, forced to bear both his and Domi’s weight, and with a damaged wing no less, struggled to stay aloft. And each time he growled and fought off gravity’s pull to lift them higher once more.

His efforts, Dom believed, were nothing less than heroic.

Heroic, huh? Domino said, having read Dom’s thoughts.

Don’t get a big head or we’ll splash down into the ocean under its weight, Dom said.

Don’t worry. I could just release some of the dead weight on my back.

Dom smiled. It felt good to smile, to jape as though this were nothing more than a grand adventure. As though they weren’t perched on the edge of a knife slowly cutting into them. As much as Dom wanted to continue the lighthearted banter, he knew if they were to survive they needed to discuss the inevitable. How much longer can you last? he asked.

Somewhere between one minute and three days, the dragon said.

I’m being serious.

So am I. To be honest, I’m not sure how I’ve lasted this long, but it appears I have a well of strength deeper than I thought. I cannot guarantee it will last another minute, but also wouldn’t bet against it lasting another two to three days.

His dragon’s words reminded him of something his father had said to him on the day he bonded with Domino. One doesn’t know the full extent of their own strength until it is tested. Dom considered this as he scanned the ocean for any sign of…something, anything other than the endless expanse of water. Void, at this point he’d even take another storm—at least then they would have fresh water to drink. If Domino’s strength lasted three days, they’d die of dehydration before drowning.

Has Domi stirred in his sleep? he asked.

Nay, the dragon said. Not a flinch.

Domi had been weighing on Dom’s mind for over a day, like a ship’s anchor tugging at his thoughts. The way the second dragon head had regained consciousness at the penultimate moment, almost like he was summoned by some great force to save them, only to fall back into unconsciousness almost as soon as—

Dom gritted his teeth, as he always did when the unwanted thought tried to resurface, like a sea monster emerging from the ocean upon smelling blood in the water. He hated that thought. Because of what it might mean.

(That the other presence—the invader hidden behind that stone wall—had a stronger bond with Domi than he did.)

No. It’s not true, he thought.

What’s not true? Domino asked. Dom was thankful he’d managed to hide the sliver of a thought from his dragon.

It’s nothing.

We are leagues away from any form of civilization, barely able to stay above the water, hunted by deadly sea creatures, and you want to keep secrets?

Dom immediately felt a fool. Domino was right. They’d never kept secrets from each other, not from the moment they’d been bonded, from that glorious, life-changing moment when he’d first heard Domino’s rumbling, magnanimous voice in his head. I’m sorry. I’m just…embarrassed.

I’ve seen you naked. I’ve listened to your most vulnerable insecurities. You have nothing to be embarrassed about with me. Never.

I know.

Then why hide your mind from me now?

I… Dom realized what was holding him back. It wasn’t embarrassment. No, it was a deeper, darker feeling, one he didn’t want to admit to having because it made him feel weak. I’m scared, he finally admitted.

Oh, Dom, Domino said. We will get through this. Somehow. I swear it.

I know, Dom said, a swell of emotion hitting him like a wave at his dragon’s words. But it’s not dying in the Endless Ocean I’m scared of.

Then what? Oh. His dragon paused, and Dom could sense he’d come to a realization of some kind. That place you go. When I sense another…presence…inside you, one I cannot communicate with…

Dom said nothing, waiting for his dragon to continue.

I sensed it just before Domi regained consciousness and bit into the sea creature that had our wing.

Yes, Dom said. I was…gone.

You fear that other part of you is the part bonded to Domi?

It’s not some other part of me! Dom said, more sharply than he’d intended. It’s an invader. I hate it.

And yet it—he—you saved us.

Dom shook his head but didn’t respond. He didn’t know what to say to contradict what he knew to be the truth. Especially when the only thing left to say was an even more horrifying truth, one he wished he could tie a stone to and sink to the bottom of the ocean.

I will say it if you will not, Domino said.

Please, don’t, Dom pleaded.

The only way to defeat a harsh truth is to face it with steadfast courage.

Easy for a fire-breathing dragon to say, Dom muttered.

Is it? Do you not think I have my own struggles? Do you think I ever wanted to share my body, or you, with another?

Again, Dom knew he’d been selfish, moping around because of his own challenges. All the while, his dragon had been facing similar difficulties, except he was forced to stare them right in the eyes every hour of every day since he’d grown a second head. I’m sorry.

I didn’t mean to make you feel bad. This is not your fault.

How can you say that? We both know the only reason you grew a second head is because of this—this—thing, inside me. It grew jealous of my bond with you and decided it wanted to have what we have. Only it couldn’t because you are my bond, and thus, when it tried, it found a part of you willing to listen, a part that grew into Domi. And now…now I fear Domi will only awaken if I give myself over to that other thing inside me. Hearing the truth spoken by his own thoughts was surprisingly freeing, and Dom felt a portion of the anchor lifted from his shoulders. He sighed. You really drew the short stick when it came to dragonriders, he said.

I did not. I love you.

The latter three words swelled inside Dom and he closed his eyes against the tears that followed. Don’t say that.

It’s the truest truth I know. No matter what, I wouldn’t have my life any other way, not if it meant I had to live without you astride my back. You are my life, my bond, my strength. All of you, even that darker presence. If that means I must share with Domi, then I will try to love him too. I stand by what I said: None of this is your fault. We are born who we are, and I happen to like how you were born, even if others—your mother, your father, your brothers—cannot accept it.

Dom opened his eyes, tears leaking down his cheeks. I love you, too, he said. Always.

You better, Domino said with a snap of his jaws, or I’ll throw you into the drink!

I cannot fly much farther.

I know, Dom said, looking up at his dragon’s two heads, nestled together like lovers. Domi hadn’t stirred since the battle with the sea creatures. The expression the dragon head wore was quite pleasant, and Dom hoped that meant his dreams were full of warm naps and fresh game. No sign of land?

Dom sensed the dragon’s mental head shake. I’m sorry.

Sorry? You have exceeded my every expectation. It is I who chose to depart Travail and attempt to cross this confounded ocean. I’m beginning to think the name, Endless Ocean, is meant to be taken literally.

Everything must have a beginning and an end. Even time.

Dom thought about that. My people believe time had a beginning, when the first godchild appeared in the form of a star, created by its own powerful will, blinking in the darkness. And as for the end…I hope we don’t see the end of time in my lifetime.

I know what you’re doing, Domino said.

What’s that?

Trying to distract me from the ache in my shoulders and back, the weariness that threatens to draw my eyes closed with every beat of my wings and heart.

Guilty, Dom admitted. Did it work?

Yes, but now I must return to the water. I must rest. Can you keep watch? Wake me if the sea monsters return.

I will, Dom promised, though he knew any efforts would be fruitless. Neither of them had drunk water in too long. His lips were dry and cracking, his scorched-earth tongue rivaled only by the sandy desert of his throat. Instinctively he knew that descending back to the sea would mark the end of their last flight together. He didn’t want to die, and yet he found himself surprisingly at peace with the idea. He’d faced his demons and emerged from the fire unscathed.

Wind whipped through Dom’s hair as they circled lower. Domino was doing everything in his power to descend slowly, but it was soon evident that his strength was even more depleted than Dom knew. His dragon released a soft cry and then tumbled from the sky in a freefall, wings failing to slow them, body twisting.

The world spun as Dom struggled to clutch his dragon’s spikes. He saw air and sea and the line between the battling armies of blue and then—

He was plunged into the ocean with an icy punch, arms and legs akimbo, flailing desperately against the sucking downward pull created by his dragon’s own momentum. He felt a pressure at the back of his skull, that other presence lurking on its side of the stone wall, prepared to emerge to save them if necessary. Dom bit back a scream that would only result in a spray of bubbles being sent to the surface. He knew competing with the other version of himself was foolish, and yet he felt compelled to do just that. Determination flooded him, sending a surge of energy to his limbs. Domino!

I’m here. His dragon’s voice was weak.

We must fight. We must fight to the end.

I don’t know if I can.

I will drag your scaly arse to the surface on my own if I must.

That drew a laugh. I’d like to see you try.

Suspended in the weightlessness of the water, Dom reached out and grasped his dragon’s forepaw, which was near at hand. We’ll do it together then, Dom said.

Together, Domino repeated, his voice firmer now. Stronger. Like he’d spoken an unbreakable promise.

As one, they kicked for the surface, a glowing white wall speckled with glittering diamonds. His dragon’s long neck extended well beyond Dom’s own reach, and thus, Domino disappeared behind that wall first, but then reappeared a moment later, plunging back into the deep to retrieve Domi’s head, which was dangling lifelessly. Tenderly, Domino lifted his counterpart up, up, up until they both escaped the watery tomb that sought to claim them.

Buoyed by his dragon’s strength and selflessness, Dom kicked harder for that mesmerizing wall, reaching for it. His lungs ached, begging for air, and yet he hesitated just before he breached the surface, pressing his fingers against the wall of white, half-expecting it to be firm—a real wall preventing him from going any further. His hands slipped through and he laughed a bubbly laugh at his ridiculous thoughts. He kicked one final time, emerging into the glorious glow and warmth of the sun, breathing in a lungful of salty, briny air.

As he clambered onto Domino’s stomach—the dragon had already drifted away to sleep, both its heads resting on its belly—he felt that other presence drift away too, content to bide its time until it was needed again.

Dom was supposed to keep watch for sea monsters, but as they drifted on the current, bobbing on gentle waves, weariness tugged at his eyelids. The last thing he saw before his eyes closed was a white seabird, soaring overhead, backlit by the sun’s golden rays.

A bird, Dom thought. How odd.

Everything twisted to black.

Twelve days since departing Travail

Dom awakened to the gentle susurrations of waves breathing against his side. He sighed in contentment, feeling the roughness of his dragon’s scales against his cheek. Wait. Something about the texture was different. Less textured and more…gritty. Yes, that was the word that sprang to mind. He tried to open his eyes, but they refused, as though glued shut with sticky tree sap. He listened to the sound of the waves. They were also different. It wasn’t the choppy sound of waves splashing against his dragon’s sides. More like the breaking of waves on a shoreline, a sound he was intimately familiar with having grown up at Dragonsmount. Something else was odd: He felt the waves brushing against his legs, soaking through his pants.

Domino? he tried, still fighting his own eyelids, which might’ve been sewn shut they were so heavy.

No response. He pinched his fingers against his eyelids and pried them open. He slammed them shut as sunlight blinded him. Too bright. At least his eyelids were no longer sealed. More slowly this time, he eased his eyes open a crack, allowing them to adjust to the brightness measure by measure as more and more of his surroundings came into focus.

He was lying on a sandy beach, which explained the grittiness against his cheek. Gentle waves shivered around him but didn’t reach his head, the tide retreating after having, apparently, washed him up on shore. Large walls of dark rock formed a barrier around him.

Using his knuckles, he rubbed his eyes, which were crusted with salt, and then squinted. Not walls of stone, but of scales. Domino?

The dragon finally stirred, one of his own large eyes cracking open. Dom?

I’m here, Dom said, his heart leaping as the full realization of their situation hit him. We made it! We crossed the Endless Ocean!

How?

Dom offered a mental shrug. Perseverance and…dumb luck? Does it matter? We’re here.

But where is here?

Kingfall’s maps don’t include anything beyond the Endless Ocean. And the eastern edges extend no further than the borders of the Four Kingdoms. We are where no one from Kingfall has ever explored. Something about his dragon’s hue looked different, and his excitement waned as he frowned. At first he thought it was because the sun was rising behind his dragon, but that wasn’t it. No, his typically golden-bright luster had darkened around the edges, tendrils of black creeping in.

The dragon was murmuring something about needing to find food and water, but Dom didn’t hear any of it, lifting his head and staring at the form beyond Domino, that of Domi, still unconscious. The second head was completely black, as was his neck, as though someone had come along while they’d slept and painted him with pitch.

Fear shivered up his spine, and he realized Domino had stopped talking, having seen the images of himself and Domi, reflected in Dom’s mind. What is happening to me? he said.

I don’t know. Mayhaps you’ve had a reaction to long exposure to the sun and saltwater.

Yes, that must be it, Domino said, though they both knew that wasn’t true.

Is Domi…

Alive? Domino answered, seeming pleased by the change of subject. Yes. Perhaps you should…

Dom knew his dragon was right, that he should swallow his pride and allow that other piece of him to emerge so that Domi could awaken and partake of whatever sustenance they could scrounge up. And yet he couldn’t bring himself to summon that presence hidden deep inside him behind the stone wall. Instead, he said, I’ll try first.

As you wish.

Dom managed to stand, though his legs felt about as strong as decaying fallen leaves. He stood there wavering for several seconds before taking a step, almost falling but placing a steadying hand on Domino’s neck. Why did it feel like the beach was moving? He remembered hearing an old merchant ship captain once talk about sea legs and how it was difficult for sailors to return to land. Maybe that’s what this was.

He picked his way around Domino’s head, patting his cheek softly as he passed. The dragon rumbled in appreciation. On the other side lay Domi, his own face as black as a moonless, starless night sky. The area between the two dragon heads was only five or six strides, but it took Dom thrice as many steps as he continued to sway on his feet. He would need water soon or he’d lose strength completely.

When he neared Domi, he reached out, hesitant, wondering whether the dragon’s head would feel as hard as stone. His fingers brushed the dark scales, relieved to find them no different than their previous golden-limned plates. Domi, he said.

If the dragon had heard him, he showed no sign, his breathing deep and even.

Domi, I need you, he said, pushing as much fervor into the words as possible.

On the last word, the dragon twitched, a groan emerging from his closed lips, which eased open to reveal teeth glistening with a mixture of saliva and seawater. Dom flinched, startled to get a response from the dragon when he’d expected nothing more than what a statue could offer.

Don’t fret, little human, I’m not going to eat you, Domi said.

I didn’t expect you to. I mean, I thought you would only awaken if…

If you allowed your inner monster to come out and play? Because you see me as a monster too?

I didn’t say that, Dom said.

You forget your thoughts are open to me much of the time.

Nice of you to return to the land of the living, Domino interjected. If you’re quite done teasing our rider, we should seek food and water.

Dom was thankful for the intrusion, because he realized he had been thinking of monsters, just as Domi had said. “C’mon,” he said aloud. “We’ll travel overland until you’re feeling stronger.”

Nonsense, Domi said. After my long sleep, I can sustain us both so Domino can rest. Flying will allow us to find sustenance faster.

None of them could argue with that.

Sustenance, as it turned out, came in the form of two large bucks downed by Domi in short succession. Dom’s stomach grumbled as the dragon tore into his prize, crunching bone and tendon and meat and fur without discrimination.

We’ll find you some food next, Domino promised as he licked his bloody chops clean.

Water first, Dom said.

Of course. We’ll follow the game trail.

So that’s what they did, tracking the prints of the deer in reverse, the land descending into a forested valley. A hearty river flowed right through the heart, the opposite side flanked by sheer cliffs. Several waterfalls tumbled from the precipice, a mesmerizing display of the world’s natural beauty.

For a long while, Dom and his dragon forgot themselves and frolicked in the crystalline pool at the base of the falls. The dragons opened their mouths directly into the falling water, drinking their fill, while Dom caught the water in his cupped hands before partaking. At its deepest point, the pool was barely up to his waist, while the dragons could barely stick their toes in the water. But that didn’t stop them from splashing each other and carrying on like children at play. Dom had quite the disadvantage—a single “splash” by the dragon resulted in him being covered from head to toe. Not that he minded. The day was warm by any standards, and he soon felt refreshed, the salt and sweat and blood washed off his skin and clothes.

By the time they were finished, his stomach had begun reasserting its own demands. Having a dragon had its benefits, as Domi and Domino managed to use their talons to spear several decent-sized trout, which they cooked by releasing a stream of fire. Soon Dom was biting into hot, tender fish meat. This might be the best thing I’ve ever tasted, he murmured as he chewed.

That’s only because you’re half-starved, Domino said.

Mayhaps, but I think we should remain here for a time. Regain our strength.

Agreed.

After eating and drinking and playing in the cool water, they curled up on a broad, warm rock for an afternoon nap. They were set all in a row, golden-skinned human nestled between black dragon and part gold, part black dragon. For the first time since they departed Travail ten days earlier, they felt safe.

Dom’s dream was wonderful. He was flying on Domino’s back, wind buffeting him, sending a thrill through his very bones. The sky was clear and blue, not even a single storm cloud visible on the horizon—a rarity for Travail. On his left was Drake astride Draconus. On his right, Dane rode Daneus. His brothers whooped and hollered and laughed as they began a game of follow the leader, each trying to outdo each other as they took a turn at the front, diving and looping and twisting and swooping.

Finally, happy and exhausted, they came to rest on Dragonmount’s peak, the unforgiving, stone wastelands of Travail on one side and the sparkling waters of the Bay of Sighs on the other.

That’s when it happened.

The sky began to darken, fierce clouds threatening overhead, curling and writhing like the ghosts of long dead dragonriders returned to haunt them, forming into dragons that spewed bolts of red lightning at the earth. Drake and Dane shouted a warning to Dom as they and their dragons retreated down the cliffs to take shelter. Dom tried to follow but found that both he and his dragon were frozen in place, unable to do anything but watch the tempest approach. A bolt of lightning crackled just past, spraying stone shrapnel as it tore into the cliffside.

What is happening, Dom? Domino cried. For the first time since Dom had known his dragon’s mind, he thought he sensed fear in the mighty creature.

I don’t know, he cried back, his own fear surrounding him like a dense fog. The next bolt of lightning struck the dragon, searing into a spot just beside the base of his neck, the energy so close and powerful it lifted the hairs on the back of Dom’s neck. Domino cried out in pain and fear, his roar surely carrying to the ears of all those sheltering in the caves below.

Where the lightning had struck, a blistering nub had appeared. Dom stared at it intently. Had it grown larger in the second he’d been looking at it? Each time he blinked, the nub appeared to grow longer, lengthening and widening, until it was a thick neck not unlike its first neck, except bearing a color as dark as ink rather than gold like the rest of the dragon’s body.

Dom? Domino said, voice sounding lost and confused as the dragon stared at the growing appendage, which rose toward the sky, forming a crest and then jaws and teeth and coal-like eyes seething with what could only be described as rage.

Dom didn’t know how to comfort his dragon, not when he was just as lost and confused, his own second head buried inside him, screaming from the depths, pounding against the stone wall, which began to chip away, bit by bit. And when he looked at the backs of his hands, he found them darkening, too, the gold paint flaking away to reveal the natural hue of his deep, brown skin. If only that was the end—to live in his gods-born skin once more. Shadows crept along the edges of his skin, transforming his tone from brown to what could only be described as the absence of light. And when he looked up, he found both his dragon heads staring back at him, his entire dragon sheathed in the same skin knitted of night-dark shadows.

A cry arose, but not from him nor his two-headed dragon, but from a dozen dragonriders led by Drake and Dane and his own father.

Still he couldn’t move.

All he could do was watch as his own family attacked, their dragons sinking their teeth into the neck of not only the new dragon head but Domino’s throat as well. Blood spurted freely, and that was black now too. Both heads fell away, tumbling from the cliff like felled trees, leaving only bloody stumps where the magnificent dragons had existed only moments earlier.

Dom raised his head to the sky and screamed.

Dom was roused from the dream-turned-nightmare not by his own scream but by that of his dragons.

Dom! they shouted in unison.

His eyes opened to darkness—evidently their afternoon nap had carried them well into the night, such was the level of their collective exhaustion. What is it? he said, instantly on high alert, his mind shaking off the weariness far faster than his body could. There was fire in the dark sky. He sat up quickly, causing his head to spin. What is happening?

Dragons, Domino said. As the dragon lifted his head to peer into the night, a heavy clanking sound resounded. What in the names of the many gods… Fire plumed from Domino’s mouth, revealing heavy iron chains fastened around his neck. Beside him, Domi lifted his head with similar result. Worse, the neck clamps were fitted with inward-facing spikes that bit into the dragon’s scales the more they moved.

Run! You can escape. Save yourself, Domino said, a pleading note entering his deep voice.

Dom didn’t hesitate to leap from his dragon’s back. But not to flee.

To fight.

Armored men at least twice as tall and far broader of shoulder swarmed from all sides, releasing deep-throated war cries as they brandished broad swords that looked capable of cleaving a man in two with a single swipe. The fact that they were strong enough to hold such weapons warned of a strength beyond that of any human Dom had ever met.

In comparison, the dagger he raised looked pitiful, like a child’s wooden play sword against the steel wielded by a trained soldier. Still, Dom knew he would fight to the last to protect his dragon. As it turned out, the last came swifter than anticipated, the blow coming not from the front but from behind, Domi’s warning cry a split-second too late—Watch ou—

Dom’s eyes rolled back in his head and he slumped to the ground, falling stars crashing into a sea of darkness.

Dom groaned as he stirred awake, his skull feeling as though it had been split open, his brains emptied out, and then mashed back together again.

When he first opened his eyes, everything looked gray and blurry. He tried to blink to clear his vision, but then realized something rough was covering his face—a sack. Tiny pinpricks of light were visible through the crisscrossing threads of fabric. Domino? he said. Domi?

Dom? returned Domino’s deep rumbling voice. Thank the gods. I couldn’t feel your presence. I thought you might be dead.

My vision is obscured. Where are we?

This time the response came from Domi. In a cave. The natives live beneath the earth, not unlike your own people. We are close to you, chained to enormous iron pilons with the collars that bite our skin.

To hear Domi refer to anything as ‘enormous’ meant the pilons must be large indeed. Also, at the mention of ‘the natives’, Dom remembered the huge, armored men who’d been surrounding him just before he was knocked unconscious. What are they? I’ve never heard of anything like them.

The dragons were silent for a moment, and then Domino answered. They are godborn. The last remnants of the godlings. I had thought all were captured and imprisoned by humans, but it seems this sect has managed to remain undetected.

Godlings? Dom said, finally managing to sit up, the sound of the chains that bound him clinking with each movement. He’d heard whispers of godlings before, how they were traded and sold to be used as slaves. It was believed that the female godlings carried healing power in their blood, while the males were great warriors. He’d always chalked such talk up to rumors. As far as he knew, there were no godlings in Kingfall. What do they want? There was another period of silence, and Dom began to wonder whether both his dragon’s heads had fallen asleep. Hello?

They want my head, Domi finally said.

Your head? Dom didn’t understand.

Removed from our body, Domi explained. To them, a dragon with more than one head is considered evil, the spawn of demons. They believe a dragon may be saved if the second head is removed and the tissue burned by dragonfire from the first head.

I won’t do it, Domino said.

You will or they’ll have your head next, Domi said sharply.

While the dragons argued about the chopping off and burning of heads, Dom’s mind went blank. Thus far, his escape from Travail had been one failure after another. But what if there was truth to these godlings’ beliefs? They were supposed to be immortal, ancient beings, right? Surely they had wisdom mere mortals couldn’t hope to understand. And if they were correct, would losing Domi result in the loss of the presence Dom had felt gnawing inside him his entire life?

He realized both dragons had stopped bickering. And though he couldn’t see past the sack over his head, he sensed their gazes on him. Had they read his thoughts despite his efforts to hide them? And if so, did they both now hate him?

Dom? Domino said.

Yes?

We asked you a question.

Oh. Oh. Relief swept through Dom like a warm summer’s breeze. Sorry. I was lost in my thoughts. What was the question?

Should I burn Domi’s head if it’s chopped off?

Yes, Dom said without hesitation, though the notion made him feel ill. We owe him that much at the least.

Thank you, Domi said.

A new voice cut in, where only Dom could hear. I see your soul.

Dom was struggling. That presence inside him had been pushing against the stone wall without pause for hours. Dom was tired of fighting back, his energy flagging as his mind grew weary. He desperately wanted to close his eyes but knew sleep would draw him under if he did. Instead, he stared at the inside of the sack until his eyes stung.

What do you want? Dom asked.

To come out and play, the voice said.

Why?

Boredom. It isn’t fair that I should only get my chance when you’re in dire straits. Though that does seem to be your current situation.

What are you saying? That you think you can help us escape? Dom couldn’t help it—he allowed a sliver of hope into his heart where before all he felt was hopeless.

Mayhaps. There is always a weakness to exploit. That happens to be my greatest talent.

Which, Dom knew, meant it was also his greatest talent. Because the presence was him, or another side of him, or something. He was sorely tempted to give in to that presence now, because then he could rest while the stronger, more capable part of him took care of things. No, he thought fiercely. He couldn’t give in to the presence because he didn’t trust him. Not when it came to his dragon’s life.

Suit yourself. The presence said it in such a way that it sounded like he didn’t care one way or another. Which caused Dom to lower his guard. Which, of course, was exactly when the presence threw his full strength into a powerful shove against that invisible wall.

Dom growled, feeling the room, cavern, wherever the void he was, begin to spin. “No,” he said. “No.” Fighting back. Pushing back. Hanging onto an image of Domino’s majestic face before Domi had come along, using the memory like an anchor tethering him in place.

The presence laughed, but also stopped pushing. You cannot fight me forever. Embrace me. Use me.

Dom kept his guard up, even as he wondered whether he was being overly stubborn and selfish. Could the presence help them escape? If there was so much as a fool’s chance, shouldn’t he risk it to save all of them?

Footsteps drew his attention away from his inner turmoil. They stopped before him, and then the sack was wrenched from his head by a pair of strong hands. He blinked, at first only seeing the knees of the godling standing before him. The legs appeared to be armored, but the more he stared at them, the more he realized the legs were bare. The armor was natural, a part of the creature that couldn’t be separated, plates of bone protruding from the main body, silver skin stretched tight over them. Sinewy tendons seemed to be coiled around the plates, like twisting, angling ropes just beneath the skin. Dom’s gaze traveled upward, past the only clothing the warrior wore—short pants that covered the barest portion of his nakedness—to his naturally armored chest and arms. Because Dom was sitting on the ground, when his eyes finally reached the godling’s face it was from a great distance on account of the warrior’s incredible height, at least twice that of the tallest man—Dom’s father—he had ever encountered. The godling’s face was sheened with silver as well, but Dom suspected that was its natural hue and not dyed like his own golden skin. His cheeks and scalp were completely hairless, not even a shadow of growth.

“Essara lo honalei?” the godling said, his voice remarkably smooth and pleasant-sounding considering his size.

“I don’t know what that means,” Dom said, his own voice sounding little better than a squeak.

“Are you hungry?” the godling said, his common tongue perfect. Dom didn’t even detect an accent.

“Famished,” Dom admitted.

The godling nodded. “Sustenance will be brought, for you and your dragon.”

“Thank you.” The man—godling—was being surprisingly kind to him, and Dom was beginning to wonder whether this was all a grave misunderstanding that could be resolved through communication.

“This will all soon be over. You and your dragon will be whole again.”

Dom frowned. “We are already whole.”

“Your dragon is cursed. Your mind has been clouded by that curse. We have studied the ancient ways. A multi-headed dragon no longer needs to be slaughtered. In fact, to kill a dragon, regardless of reason, is a mortal sin. To remove a cursed head, however, is a gift.”

“I don’t want your so-called gift,” Dom said, defiance rising within him. “You have no right. Domi saved our lives while we floundered in the Endless Ocean.”

“You named the cursed head?” the godling said, having latched on to only the smallest aspect of the tale Dom was trying to tell.

“Of course. Domi has a mind. A soul. It is confusing, I know, but not evil like you believe.”

“What do you know, human? You are but a babe at your mother’s teat next to the lives we’ve lived, surviving by our wits and knowledge, hunted by humans.” He spat in the dust near Dom’s feet. “There are some of my kind who think we should kill you and free your dragon, but I will not do that. I know of the bond between dragon and rider, and to kill you would be to sentence your dragon to an enduring madness without cure. I won’t do that.”

And there it is, Dom thought. He will only spare my life to save Domino. Otherwise I would meet the same fate planned for Domi. An idea sprang to mind. “Why not test Domi’s nature? Would you really kill him without seeking the truth? Are you so savage?”

To Dom’s surprise, the godling chuckled at that. “Save your tricks. Why do humans forever think they can manipulate everyone and everything around them? The one you call Domi’s fate is sealed. You should come to terms with it now. Sustenance will be brought shortly.” His last statement seemed to put an end to their brief conversation, and he turned on his heel and strode away, his footfalls much lighter than should’ve been possible given his size.

Dom sighed. At least he hadn’t returned the sack to his head. He took advantage of the opportunity to inspect his surroundings. Strange, glowing stones were set into nooks in the cavern walls, providing an unexpectedly strong yellowish light that seemed to reach all corners of the space. A little further than a stone’s throw away, his two-headed dragon sat on his haunches between two iron pilons, which rose from the cavern floor to the ceiling. Massive chains were secured to the pilons, curling and looping until they reached each of the two dragon necks, where they were attached to metal collars bristling with spikes on the inside. Dom’s heart ached when the light from the glowing stones glistened off moisture leaking down the scales. Dragons blood, a testament to his dragon’s efforts to free himself. Past the dragons he could just make out movement—the rest of the godlings, going about their business, whatever that was. In that moment, he hated them.

Thank you for trying, Domi said. But he’s not wrong. My very existence is unnatural.

Don’t say that.

It’s true.

It’s not. You exist because of me. Dom froze, realizing what he’d just admitted, albeit in the safety of his own mind, only heard by his dragon. He swallowed. This is my fault.

A man cannot be at fault for the way he is born. Only what he chooses to do after. Dom couldn’t deny the wisdom in Domi’s words, but he also couldn’t stop feeling responsible for Domi’s very life.

I will do everything in my power to save you. I swear it.

Dom, Domino warned, probably sensing the desperation in his words.

I release you from any responsibility, Domi said.

I don’t accept that.

As you wish, Domi said.

The promised sustenance was brought by two different godlings to the one who had previously spoken to him. Dom tried to catch their eyes, even tried to speak to them, but they refused to engage, lips tight and silent as they went about providing a plate laden with various plants he didn’t recognize. They were raw, brushed with a light sauce that smelled of ground peppercorns. The dragon was given an entire buck, which had been placed on a huge metal saucer. The godlings were careful not to get too close to Domino’s jaws, instead using long poles to slide the saucer across the rocky ground where he could reach it without testing the limits of the chains and his collar’s teeth. He wasted no time, clamping down on the buck, gripping it between his teeth and then tossing it into the air. He caught it deftly in his mouth, crunching loudly. Dom saw the display for what it was: the dragon’s attempt to intimidate his captors.

It didn’t work. The godlings didn’t so much as raise a single eyebrow between them, simply turning away and departing back the way they’d come. Dom waited for them to return with another buck, this time for Domi, but as the minutes ticked by without them reappearing, he realized they weren’t coming back. Domino realized the same thing. I’m sorry. I would’ve shared if I’d known.

No, Domi said. They wouldn’t have allowed it. Why waste good food on a creature who already has one foot in the grave? Besides, we share a stomach, so though I don’t get to enjoy the satisfaction of tasting fresh meat, the result is the same. My hunger is sated.

Domi…, Domino said, his voice as tender as Dom had ever heard it.

Don’t say it. We may have had our disagreements, but like Dom, I fault you for nothing. How could I fault the other half of my soul because of my own stubbornness?

The black dragon head’s words seemed to fill the entirety of Dom’s mind. He couldn’t bear to lose Domi now, not after all they’d been through, not when he finally felt like the bond between each of them was as strong as the chains securing the dragon to the pilons.

Can you breathe fire to destroy them when they come for you? Dom asked. He already suspected the answer but needed to confirm.

No, Domino said. Using the muscles required for fire will cause our collars to chew through our throats.

Silence reigned once more, each of them lost in their own veiled thoughts as Dom nibbled on the plants, which were surprisingly tasty. He almost wished they were bland, especially when Domi was forced to go without. As he ate, he scanned the walls, his stare locking on paintings he hadn’t noticed before.

The shapes painted on the walls looked new, the colors still vibrant and bright. The detail was impressive, as though the artist painstakingly crafted each stroke with the utmost care. The entire scene would’ve taken months and months to complete. The main subject of the artwork was unmistakable: a dragon. As Dom scanned from left to right across the wall, he soon realized the images were in chronological order. As he inspected each, his brow grew heavier, until it was furrowed, his forehead tight. At first he thought the artwork told a story—an awful, horrific story—but the more he stared at it, the more he became convinced the depictions were step by step instructions for some kind of demonic ritual that was as unnatural as it was atrocious.

We have tried not to linger on the paintings for overly long, but it is hard, Domino said, noticing his gaze.

Dom understood why. Though the artwork disgusted him, he couldn’t seem to look away. Surely people—humans—don’t do this, he said. For that much was clear—the two-legged creature depicted amongst the dragon was not a large godling but a human, his skin painted the color of the dragon even as he slaughtered it.

Dom felt ill at the sight. How could one take the life of a magnificent creature he’d already bonded himself with? He would rather drive a rusty nail through his own temple than harm Domino or Domi.

Domino hesitated before answering, but finally did, his response halting and uncertain. I don’t know…humans are capable of atrocities, but I have never heard of this bloody history or what this human has…become.

The last word had been weighing on Dom’s mind since he first gazed upon the artwork, particularly after he stared, unblinking, at the final image in the sequence: the man, scaled and winged, fire spewing from his mouth as he soared skyward, his dead dragon—the same crimson hue as his painted skin—lying in a pool of its own blood beneath him. Its head had been severed from its neck—its wings too. In the previous painting, several of its brilliant red scales had been shown being pried off, the man eating them bite by foul bite before washing them down with a cup of the dragon’s blood.

“What is this?” Dom shouted, his voice echoing as it traveled through the cavern. “Tell me!” Anger coursed through him now, replacing the horror and disgust. His people revered dragons, and yet these godlings lived in a cavern with violent paintings illustrating the desecration of the magnificent creatures. He wanted—no, needed—answers, and now.

Of course, even as his demands went unnoticed or unheeded, the distant godlings continuing about their business as the echo of his cries faded, he remembered that even the brightest anger couldn’t break the chains that bound him.

No? that voice buried deep inside him said. Give me the chance to prove you wrong. Free me from my cage and I’ll do that which you cannot.

Dom’s anger faded, leaving him cold and trembling. He knew that releasing that other part of him might become his only option at some point, but he didn’t want the decision to be driven by the fog of rage. Thank you for the offer, Dom said. I’ll let you know.

Suit yourself.

Dom had eventually drifted back into an uneasy sleep filled with images of wingless, scaleless dragons and winged, scaled men who flew around breathing fire. When he finally did awaken, he was forced to blink several times before the nightmares faded, replaced by the glowing stones and the brown cavern walls.

Something had awoken him, he realized, and he soon identified the cause of the disturbance. A man, one of the godlings, sat cross-legged in front of the wall with the horrid paintings. He was positioned just past what Dom had believed to be the final image in the sequence. Not so. The godling was holding a brush, dabbing it at the stone softly, gently, as though to press too hard would cause the wall to splinter and break.

“Hey!” Dom said, his voice emerging scratchy from disuse. The figure continued painting, as though he hadn’t heard Dom at all. “HEY!”

“Hay is for horses,” another voice said. “And you shouldn’t disturb the Eye when he is at work.” The godling that had first spoken to Dom and asked whether he was hungry approached, the dome of his bald head sheened with the golden glow from the stones.

“At work? That’s an interesting way to describe what he’s doing. Tell me, do all of your kind take pleasure in violence exacted against dragons?”

“Dragons are sacred,” the godling said, his words as sharp as a knife.

“And yet you want to remove my dragon’s head,” Dom said. “And yet one of your own paints pictures of a dragon being slaughtered so its power might be stolen. If that’s how you treat sacred things, then your religion is one of murder.”

“You understand nothing, human. And the painting, you might have noticed, depicts one of your kind—not mine—killing the red dragon for its power.”

“My kind have never done such a thing,” Dom said.

“Not yet,” the godling said.

“Meaning?”

“You know little of our kind, no?”

Dom had to admit, he didn’t. He shook his head. “From what I’ve seen, I’d rather not know anything.”

“Fair enough.” The godling turned and started to leave.

Dom gritted his teeth, but then opened them and said, “Wait.” The godling half-turned, expectant, waiting. “Tell me about the paintings.”

The godling turned the rest of the way back. “The paintings reveal a future not yet written.”

Dom frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“Female godlings have the ability to heal and…” He trailed off.

“And what?”

“That remains to be seen. Males, on the other hand, have varied abilities. This artist is a clairvoyant. The Eye paints the future.”

Dom’s gaze shifted back to the sequence of paintings. Of the red dragon. In Travail, he only knew of one red dragon and the red-painted warrior who rode her. “How far in the future?”

The godling shrugged, a gesture that was comedic worn by a man of his stature. “Only the gods know.”

“What is he painting now?” Dom asked, trying to distract himself from thoughts of the red-painted rider who he’d known his entire life, living in Dragonsmount, breaking bread at the same table.

“Not even he knows. Each stroke is a sliver of the future; not until the slivers are pressed together will the future be fully realized.”

“And then?” Dom asked.

“Then what?”

“Then can the future be changed by those who know of it?”

The man cocked his head to the side, apparently surprised by the question. “You know the red-painted rider, don’t you?”

“I—maybe. I cannot be certain.” There was clearly a resemblance in form, but none of the paintings showed the man’s face from the front.

“And is he an evil man?”

“He wouldn’t kill his own dragon,” Dom said defensively. “None of my people would. To do so would be to destroy your own soul.”

The godling nodded. “Then you have nothing to fear. This scene could be from a different land, or a different time—centuries in the future. It may never come to pass. You asked before whether the future can be changed. The answer is yes. Our actions, not the visions of a clairvoyant, determine what will come to pass. As of this moment, what you see on this wall is the future, but ten days from now? A hundred days? A decade? All could be changed.”

While Dom chewed on that thought, they both watched the artist at work. He’d changed colors now, his brush glistening with gold paint. He began to dab the stone, creating stars or the sun—as the godling had said, the fullness of the future had not yet come to the man.

“The time draws nigh,” the godling said after several moments of silence.

Dom looked at him sharply, having almost forgotten why he was chained to the wall. Why his dragon was chained to the pilons. “You don’t know that my dragon will go mad because of his second head. Speak to them. I will translate. They have reached an accord.”

The man shook his head. “I have seen this too many times to count. Such periods of peace are merely the calm before the storm. If you want to save your dragon, the new head must be removed before the darkness claims the rest of the body.”

Although both dragon heads appeared to be sleeping, Dom knew they were awake, sensing their awareness through their bond even as they listened to every word being spoken. As he looked upon them, he noticed that more of Domino’s golden luster had been claimed by the tendrils of darkness creeping along the dragon’s scales. At this rate, the gold would be eclipsed in a day, two at the most. He needed to find a way to escape. There had to be a way.

There is, that voice said.

Dom knew the godling was waiting for him to respond, so he did. “You’re right,” he lied. “Everything will be better once my dragon is returned to normal.”

“I am glad you can accept this truth. Once the ritual is completed, you and your dragon will be free to go wherever you desire.” With that, the godling departed.

Dom knew that when he returned, the sands would have run out of their hourglass.

Which meant he had no other choice. It was time.

He began to remove the stone wall in his mind, brick by brick.

Took you long enough, that voice said.

Dom was almost getting used to feeling like a spirit apart from his own body. Logically, he knew he was still within his physical form, though it didn’t feel that way at all. He felt like a stranger to himself, a passenger on a runaway horse galloping at full stride toward a cliff. And all he could do was watch. Well, he could also speak, though that other part of him didn’t always grace him with a response. Like now, for example.

What are you going to do? Dom asked.

No response. Dom watched as his own hands scraped a stone against the wall, sharpening its edges. He’d been at such work for hours, and the stone could now pass as a weapon, though Dom didn’t see what good that would do when he was chained and surrounded by dozens of godling warriors more than twice his size.

Dom averted his gaze to the artist, who’d continued to paint, seemingly without tiring. What he’d originally believed were stars turned out to be golden scales—the beginnings of a new dragon. It’s a coincidence, he thought. Anyway, Domino and Domi would soon be fully black, not gold, so the painting couldn’t possibly reveal his own future.

The most frustrating aspect to being separated from control of his own body was that he couldn’t communicate with his dragon. It was an empty feeling, as though a part of him had been removed, leaving him less than whole. In this state, he felt helpless.

Is this how that other part of me feels all the time? When I refuse to allow him past the stone wall?

Yes, the voice finally came, a spark in the dark.

Then I’m sorry, Dom said. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.

Thank you for the sentiment, but it won’t change anything.

What do you mean?

I will always be the one behind the wall. My strength is but temporary, while yours persists. That is why I must claim my moments when I can get them. Like now.

From his odd viewpoint, Dom watched himself continue sharpening the stone. Shick, shick, shick…

What are you going to do? Dom asked again. Something felt off about it all. In the middle of the ocean, surrounded by sea monsters, this other version of him had been strong, decisive, risking life and limb to protect them. Now, however, there was a coldness to the form he watched. Was it simply because he was chained and needed to bide his time until an opportunity presented itself?

What I must? he finally replied, holding up the stone, which was now as sharp as an arrowhead. Dom watched his own hand extend his own finger, which ran along the edge of the stone. The skin parted as easily as fabric put to the knife. Blood welled freely. And then, unexpectedly, he watched as he threw the stone away, not at any target in particular, but in the general direction of the godling artist, who had continued his work all the while.

Dom stared, uncomprehending, at the painting, which was now nearly complete. The dragon, once golden, was now almost fully black, the artist having painted over the gold with dark paint that eclipsed all other colors. The rider was painted black too, like a shadow astride a winged wraith.

The dragon only had one head.

The godling artist stopped painting, sitting back at last and staring upon his work. Then he stood without a word and departed without so much as glancing at Dom or his dragon.

If Dom could feel his heart, he suspected it would be thudding hard against the inside of his chest. A feeling of foreboding entered his consciousness. For the last time, he asked, What are you going to do?

He received no response except the distant beat of drums.

Shortly after the sound of the drums resounded through the cavern, the godlings came for them. Helpless, trapped behind the stone wall, Dom could do nothing but scream into a void from which no answer returned. The way Domino was looking at him with those majestic, fathomless eyes, he suspected his dragon was trying to communicate with him but getting nothing in return. Did he think Dom had given up on him? I will never give up on you, Dom thought, trying to will the message into his dragon’s mind. At the same time, he was thinking about how his own family had given up on them both.

All he could do was watch as the last golden scales were covered by the growing darkness, almost as though the artist had used his brush to cover what was left of the dragon’s shine to match his painting.

From his bird’s eye view, Dom watched as his own body was roughly hauled to his feet, the chain unlocked from the wall, gripped by strong hands. To his right: the painting of the one-headed dragon. To his left: his real dragon, with two heads he cared greatly about. Straight ahead: another dragon, which took control of the chains securing both Domi’s and Domino’s necks, clasping the iron in its talons. The dragon moved away, pulling hard, forcing Dom’s dragon to scramble after it to avoid being impaled by the neck spikes, which forever seemed on the verge of constricting.

Dom felt his angle shift as his body was also forced along in the dragons’ wake. He was tempted to scream at that other part of himself, which continued to control his body, but he knew it was fruitless. Whatever he was planning, it was out of Dom’s control now.

Never before had he felt so helpless.

Forced to be nothing but a spectator, Dom was pulled along until they reached a portion of the cavern even broader and taller than that which they’d been chained within. In the center stood a large stone platform, rough on the sides and as smooth as new skin on the top.

It was stained with blood.

The dragon that had forced Domino and Domi to march to this point deftly slung the dragon’s chains around iron posts fit with loops for just this purpose. Two godlings moved in quickly to secure the chains.

The reality of what was about to happen rushed in swiftly, and Dom felt panic set in. He reached for the formidable stone wall that blocked him, shoved against it with all his might to no avail, the obstacle unmovable. Still he shoved, even harder as the godlings’ dragon clamped its mighty jaws around Domi’s throat and forced the dragon’s head to the stone pedestal. Domi struggled, but between the chains, the neck spikes, and the other dragon’s might, his efforts were futile. A burst of fire plumed from his mouth but was quickly cut off as the neck spikes constricted, puncturing his flesh.

Domino lunged forward to snap at the other dragon, but his own neck spikes sunk deep, causing him to gasp, smoke pouring from his maw as rivers of blood poured from his damaged flesh. He reared back, trying to kick his legs, but all he caught was dead air, the ring of godlings there to witness staying well back from the center.

The godling who’d spoken to Dom previously stepped forward, wielding a blade so large it might’ve been forged to be used by the giants of old, steel gleaming under the cold, white glow of the stones set into the walls.

Dom hated himself for the feeling that presented itself at that moment: relief.

Relief that it wasn’t Domino’s head on that slab. Relief that all the challenges of being bonded to a two-headed dragon were about to be over. Relief that the godlings would set him and his dragon free when it was over and that, perhaps, that other part of him that was now in control of his body would fade into the background once more, hidden behind the stone wall that he now backed away from, no longer pounding against it.

That’s when the unthinkable happened.

“Wait,” he heard his own voice say, only it wasn’t his voice—not really. It came from his throat, his tongue, his mouth, and yet he could detect the difference in its tone, its timbre. Rougher, like steel wool brushed against dragon scales.

“The time for discussion is past,” the godling said. “There is nothing you can do to change your dragon’s fate. One day, mayhaps, you will thank us for this gift.”

“I won’t plead for my dragon’s second head. I know it is unnatural. I’ve known it from the first time I saw it beginning to grow. I could sense the evil.”

Dom stared at himself. What was happening? Why was he saying that?

“That is good,” the godling said. “Then why do you delay us further?”

“Because you’ve got the wrong head.”

The words echoed through the cavern, and for a moment Dom couldn’t comprehend them. The head on the slab was Domi, of course it was, he could tell the difference from a league away in the midst of a snowstorm, such was the strength of his bond with Domino. That’s when he realized that this had been the plan all along. While his bond was stronger with Domino, that other part of him had built an equally strong bond with Domi. No, he said. Then louder: No!

Of course, no one could hear him, save for that other, darker part of himself. And he wasn’t listening.

The godling frowned, letting the mighty sword fall for a moment. “This is the head that darkened first. That is the way of the curse.”

“I know, but the darkness took my dragon’s first head faster. I can’t explain why. The second head’s evil is strong. That’s the only answer I have.”

The godling seemed to consider his words. He’s lying! Dom screamed, his words as pointless as if they were shouted into a gale force wind. Frantic now, he reached for the stone wall once more, pushing and pulling, trying to find a weakness that would allow him to escape, to stop what was happening.

“You are the dragon’s bondmate,” the godling said, nodding. “And we must trust your bond above all else. Switch heads.”

Dom froze, unable to fathom what was happening, how swiftly the situation had changed. Am I being punished for that sense of relief I felt? Dom wondered, throwing the question toward any of the gods who might be listening, watching. No response. Why would the gods care about one dragonrider amongst the thousands of beings that covered the whole of the world? He was nothing but a stray, a runaway, a coward who’d been unwilling to face his own people, his own family, because of the way they’d looked at him.

The world seemed to twist as the dragon released Domi, sweeping around to snatch Domino in its jaws, slamming his head to the slab with enough force to cause cracks to spiderweb out from the impact.

No! Dom shouted, fighting those godsforsaken stone blocks, finally realizing why they were so strong, so immovable.

Because I built them, he thought. The mental wall had been his own creation, his self-defense against that other side of him. He’d always thought himself weak because of the inner turmoil he’d felt his whole life, but now…

I was strong, he thought. All this time I was wrong.

The realization hit him so hard that if he’d still been in control of his body it would’ve weakened him at the knees. He never needed to leave Travail, never needed to run from the life he thought he was incapable of living. All that time, he’d been capable of handling it, of adapting, of fighting.

And the wall that seemed to thwart him now?

It was nothing.

With a roar, he shoved against it with all his strength, the stones toppling before his rage, crumbling into dust.

What? How did you— he heard that other voice say, even as he grabbed that presence and flung him back into the depths of his mind, rebuilding the wall in an instant, reinforcing it with steel crossbeams. Everything spun as Dom struggled to regain control of his body, which felt foreign to him, as though his bones had been replaced with wet towels. What was not foreign—could never be foreign—was Domino’s voice, filling his head. Dom? Dom?

I’m here, he said.

I called for you. You didn’t answer. I thought you’d abandoned me.

Never. I would never. I was lost for a spell, but now I’m back. I’m going to save you. As he made the promise, he felt the strength returning to his arms, his legs. He threw himself forward, chains clanking as they continued to bite into his wrists and ankles. He stumbled as the godling on the other end jerked back. Onward he fought, gaining another inch with one foot, then the other. Still, he might’ve been an ocean apart from his dragon, who lay helpless on the slab, staring at his rider as he struggled against his captors. The godling with the massive sword strode toward Domino, blade glinting.

“No!” Dom shouted. The skin of his ankles and wrists were lacerated by the metal, blood leaking out.

Tell them you got it wrong. That they had the head correct the first time. This time, the voice was Domi’s, spoken softly, resigned to a fate that had initially been his.

No, Domino said. It’s fine. Give Domi everything you gave me. Know that I am always with you.

Dom fought back to his feet. He didn’t want Domino to die, but he wouldn’t sacrifice Domi in his place either. They were both a part of him now, and the only option was to save them both, something he should’ve realized earlier. He lunged forward, pulling against the shackles tearing at his ankles. “Ahhhh!” he roared, the metal cutting deep. Still he pulled, feeling skin peel away, the cold metal biting into the meat of his leg, then the bone. There was a squishing-sucking sound and then his whole body jerked as he fell forward. He looked back, eyes wide. One of his legs had slid free of the shackle, bleeding and shredded but otherwise intact.

He spun back around to locate the sword-wielding godling. He was nearly upon the stone, nearly upon Domino. Dom threw himself savagely forward once more, straining against the remaining ankle shackle, the pain immense, spots dancing before his eyes as he straddled the line between consciousness and darkness. Even in his rage, he felt helpless. Finally, he fell to his knees, energy spent.

Hope gone.

“I’m sorry,” he sobbed. “Oh gods, I’m so sorry. I failed you. I failed you.”

Never, came Domino’s voice. You could never fail me. You are my bond, my reason for breathing, for living. And now, for dying.

I don’t want you to die, he said, switching to speaking in only his mind, where the godlings could not hear. We’re supposed to do this together.

I know. I know. But you have Domi now.

But you dislike Domi.

I don’t. I was jealous of his bond with you at first. I didn’t want to share. But he is more than I ever could’ve expected. He saved us both out there on the ocean. He will protect you as you protect him.

I don’t know if I can do this, Dom said, feeling emotion well inside him and stream down his face.

You can. You will. Now be strong for me.

The godling stood upon the slab now. Slowly, he raised the huge blade over his head, muttering words in a strange tongue Dom couldn’t translate. “Stop! Please!” he screamed, but his cries fell on deaf ears.

Goodbye, my bond, Domino said.

An unexpected shout pierced the cold silence, causing the godling to pause at the precipice of his stroke, head turning slightly. Dom’s own head turned, too, trying to locate the origin of the shout. Something blazed, a bright orange flash in the dimness, high upon the cavern’s wall, where—

Dom frowned, not understanding what he was seeing.

A woman, her cheek alight with fire forming a symbol of sorts, almost like an ‘X’ but with the ends of each line angling vertically, more like an ‘H’, or a mix between the two letters:

As both he and the godling stared, the woman threw herself from the small ledge she’d been clinging to, a drop that would undoubtedly break both her legs, if not her spine.

It didn’t.

She landed in a crouch, bow already strung with not one, but two, arrows, which she aimed at the godling. Dom didn’t have time to contemplate who this woman was or why she seemed to be helping him and could only watch as the godling twisted the rest of the way around just as the woman loosed her twin arrows. There were two sounds in short succession: first, a metallic tinging as the godling managed to deflect one of the arrows, changing its direction and sending it slamming into the cavern wall where it embedded itself; and second, a heavy thunk as the other arrow plunged into the godling’s chest, piercing his natural armor.

The godling stared at the arrow like it was a foreign thing. Dom held his breath, waiting for the man to topple from the stone slab.

Instead, his lip curled into a sneer and he ripped the arrow out, tossing it aside. There was a hole in his chest, but it didn’t appear deep, and no blood flowed forth. Dom’s eyes flicked back to the woman, her cheek still blazing with that strange symbol. She met his eyes, fitting two more arrows to her bow, which she aimed toward him.

“What are you doi—” he started to ask, a twinge of icy fear stabbing into his chest. He never finished his question, however, the woman sending her arrows toward him before he could even think about trying to dive for cover. He heard metal on metal once more, and then the rattling sound of chains. He felt no pain but figured that was just the shock of the entire event protecting him.

No, Domi said. You are free.

The dragon was right. All three of his remaining chains had been broken by the woman’s two perfectly aimed arrows. How such a shot was possible, he knew not, but at that moment he didn’t care. He rushed into action, charging the godling atop the slab, who’d turned away from the new threat, refocusing on Domino’s neck, which was nearly black save for a few long slashes of golden scales still visible in the glowing stonelight.

Once more, the godling raised the sword high overhead. “No!” Dom shouted, feeling the displaced air as three, rather than two, arrows shot past this time. As before, the woman’s aim was true, the arrows sticking fast in the godling’s back. Dom could immediately tell that, like before, they had not punctured deep enough to do any serious damage. The godling’s armored body merely shuddered and he grunted.

Time seemed to slow, Dom’s world broken up into seconds as long as hours, each more terrifying than the next.

One second: The godling’s blade quivered ever so slightly, the muscles of his arms tensing, tightening. Dom was one step closer, and yet the distance might as well have been as wide as the Endless Ocean.

Two seconds: The godling released a roar of exertion, the blade moving backwards slightly before it started forwards, edge glimmering, more beautiful a sight than it was worthy of. Dom launched himself forward, though he knew it was a pointless act of desperation.

Three seconds: As Dom landed well short of the slab, Domino’s voice, so innocent, so pure, whispered into the shadows of his mind—Dom? I’m scared. I’m so scared. Two more arrows shot past, one sinking into the godling’s thigh and the other, a kill shot, spearing him in the back of the head. It was the second that should’ve saved Dom’s dragon. Against almost any other foe, it might’ve, but the godlings were made of thick material. The impact caused the godling to fall forward slightly, affecting the angle of his sword stroke, but the arrowhead didn’t even penetrate, his skull as sturdy as steel.

Four seconds: The godling’s blade fell like an executioner’s scythe, the sound of it cutting into Domino’s neck horrific, even as the dragon’s scream of agony lit up the darkest corners of Dom’s mind.

From that point, time seemed to speed up again, passing its normal rate as it rushed headlong toward a tragic fate. Dom scrambled to his feet, severed chains rattling behind him. He shoved up onto the slab, grabbing at the godling’s elbow just as the next blow fell. The godling’s strength was beyond expectation, Dom thrust forward as he hung onto his arm. The blade sunk in deeper, almost all the way through the dragon’s neck.

He could still make out Domino’s voice, but it was growing softer, fainter. Dom? I’m cold. I can’t feel the fire anymore. Where has it gone? Do you see my fire? Dom?

Dom hammered his fists against the godling, each impact bruising his own hand, bloodying his knuckles, sending shards of pain lancing up his forearm to his shoulder. He might’ve been pounding on a side of beef for all the good it did. The godling ignored him, raising the blade one final time. Dom reached up to try to grab the sword, but the man was too tall for him to get anywhere close. Arrows from the woman plinked off the sword and cut into his powerful arm, but even her impossible archery skills were incapable of stopping him now.

The blade fell—

—severing tendon and bone and scale—

—a voice gone, silenced, lost to Dom and the world—

—which was suddenly darker, less vibrant, a shade of what it had been just a moment earlier.

With a violent squelching sound, the dragon’s magnificent head slid free of his neck, flopping to the cavern floor. Dom didn’t care about himself, didn’t care about whether the godling punished him for attacking from behind, didn’t care if the man turned the blade on him, didn’t care if they mobbed the strange woman with the blazing symbol on her cheek, didn’t care if breath ever entered his lungs again.

He didn’t care.

Like his dragon’s head, he fell from the stone slab, the hard landing shuddering through him, rattling his bones and causing his jaw to snap shut viciously. He lay there, hating his own heartbeat and each unwanted breath. He hated them because Domino no longer had such basic things.

How much time passed as he lay there, he knew not.

He was dimly aware of the woman passing to sit on the stone slab, head hanging, bow still clutched in her hands. Evidently the godlings hadn’t hurt her nor him, keeping their promise to let him live. Dom should’ve been happy about that, but he felt nothing.

Domi tried to speak to him twice, but he ignored the dragon until he gave up.

On all sides, the world faded, and Dom was certain the storms over Travail would be fierce as the very sky wept and raged for the loss of another dragon.

Dom didn’t know if it was a minute or many hours later when he awoke. Had he even been asleep? He wasn’t certain, for the fog that surrounded him felt much the same. He groaned and rolled over, every bone aching. He didn’t care. To feel pain was a blessing.

Others were not so lucky.

Domi? he said.

I’m here.

You were willing to sacrifice yourself for Domino.

Yes.

Why? Dom hadn’t planned to ask the question, but now that he had, he felt the importance of the answer thrumming through his veins.

He would’ve done the same for me. He did do the same for me.

But your bond with…the other…is stronger than your bond with me. And he saved you.

The dragon sighed, a bone-deep sound that filled the whole of Dom’s mind. I cannot explain my bond with that other part of you, except to say it is no different than my bond with you. There might be two halves to our bond, but together they make a whole that’s greater than the sum of the parts. Does that make sense?

I—I’m not sure.

“What is your dragon’s name?” a voice said, startling Dom away from his internal conversation. He rolled to the side to find the woman who’d tried to save his dragon’s life still sitting on the slab watching him. Her hair was the silver of the polished steel armor she wore, falling well past her shoulders, settling somewhere around her hips. Her armor was spectacular, like nothing Dom had ever seen before, fitted to her slender form so finely he wouldn’t have been surprised if it had grown over her to form its intricate patterns around her mouth, along her jawline, and then swirling upward past her yellowish eyes to her forehead. Her face was angular, from her high cheekbones to her pointed chin. Even her ears were honed to fine points.

Stranger than her appearance was her question, having asked for his dragon’s name before his own. “Domino,” he said, but then cursed inwardly. “Domi, I mean.” I’m sorry, he said to Domi. Old habits.

Not so old, Domi replied. It is fine. I understand.

“Domino and Domi,” the woman said. The way she spoke both dragon heads’ names felt respectful. “Good names. I am sorry for the loss of your Domino.”

“How did you…”

“Know which dragon you lost? The way you spoke Domino’s name was different. I am glad Domi survived though. He will be a great strength to you in the days to come.”

“Who are you?” Dom asked. He welcomed this unexpected distraction, as he felt the pull of the pit that had opened inside him. “Why are you here? Why did you try to help me?”

“That’s a lot of questions,” she said, managing a small smile. He noticed her hand was on the severed dragon’s neck, her fingers brushing his scales gently. She was tracing the golden lines, the last remaining portion of the dragon’s original color, the same color still painted on Dom’s skin. “I’ll begin at the end and work my way back. I tried to help you because I felt for your plight. I, too, was bonded to a two headed dragon. Maybe I still am—I don’t know anymore. Her second head had begun to grow, but I never saw it whole.”

Another dragonrider? Dom’s heart thudded in his chest. “Why didn’t you see your dragon’s second head whole?” he asked, almost afraid to ask the question.

“Because she left. She left me. That also answers your second question, as to why I am here. I’ve been searching for her for many years.”

“What is your dragon’s name?” Dom asked, echoing the question she’d asked him.

She blinked. Dom sensed a pain behind that single blink, but there was no other indication on her steel expression. “Siri. My soul.”

“And your name?”

“I am Gwendolyn Storm of Ferria, home of the Orians. I bear the heromark.”

A personal note from David…

If you enjoyed this book, please leave a review HERE and help others discover Kingfall!

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Want updates on future David Estes books as well as exclusive access to the author, promos and free swag? Join the official David Estes mailing list at: https://www.subscribepage.com/b2v6v3

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If you enjoyed Kingfall, you will also enjoy The Fatemarked Epic, a five book series set on a different continent in the same overall world, which takes place before Kingfall. The story also includes characters who make cameos in Kingfall, such as Gwendolyn Storm and Sir Christoff Metz! Get The Fatemarked Epic by clicking HERE.

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And keep reading for a sneak peek at Dragonfall, Volume II in The Kingfall Histories, coming on August 31st and now available for preorder HERE.

PRONUNCIATION GUIDE

Things

Magenum- mah-gee-num

Magepowder- mah-gee-pow-der

Character names

Gaard- Guard

Andovier (Ando)- And-oh-vee-ur (An-doe)

Normandian- Nor-mon-dee-un

Glynn- Glin

Ontarii- On-tar-ee

Aisling- aze-ling

Jarrod- Juh-rod

Mrz- Merz

Horatio Raan- Hor-ay-she-oh Ron

Ryz- Rise

Peony- Pee-uh-knee

Moira- Moy-ruh

Celeste- Suh-lest

Olly- Ah-lee

Janai- Juh-nigh

Tazeen- Tah-zeen

Dackur- Daw-core

Jameson- Jame-uh-son

Dragon names

Drudgea- Drud-jay-ah

Daneus- Dane-ee-us

Starrus- Star-russ

Domi- Dough-me

Places/Races

Avadon- Av-uh-don

Grizari- Griz-ar-ee

Teravainen- Tair-uh-vigh-nin

Terran- Tair-rin

Solarii- So-lar-ee

Sunsei- Sun-say

Travail- Truh-vail

Aeromand- Arrow-mawnd

Odin- Oh-din

Chrysallis- Krih-sall-iss

Dimaria- Die-mar-ee-uh

Calypsian- Ka-lip-shin

Crimea- Cry-may-uh

Dunadin- Done-uh-din

Calabria- Kuh-la-bree-uh

Armitage- Arm-ih-taj

Ferria- Fuh-ree-uh

Acknowledgments

I will keep this brief as this book is already long enough. First and foremost, thank you to my readers, who have supported me and my family for years and years and allow me to tell stories for a living. Never stop being the awesome people you are.

To my godblade-wielding team of incredible beta readers: Nancy Estes, Laurie Love, Elizabeth Love, Roxann Nys, Rachel Hill, Sheree Bonita and Anthony Briggs. Maybe more so than any other book yet, your honest feedback transformed this story into something with more depth than the Endless Ocean. Thank you for all you’ve done for me.

Finally, to my wife, Adele, and my sons Beau and Brody, thank you for inspiring me and for giving me all the emotion I need to create characters that matter to me, and also to my readers. I love you all more than the moons and the stars.

The saga continues in other books by David Estes available through the author’s official website:

http://davidestesbooks.blogspot.com
or through select online retailers including Amazon.com.

High Fantasy Novels by David Estes

The Kingfall Histories:

Volume I—Kingfall

Volume II—Dragonfall (August 31, 2021)

Volume III—Magefall (September 29, 2021)

Volume IV—Nightfall (coming soon)

Volume V—Endfall (coming soon)

The Fatemarked Epic:

Book One—Fatemarked

Book Two—Truthmarked

Book Three—Soulmarked

Book Four—Deathmarked

Book Five—Lifemarked

Science Fiction Novels by David Estes

“Someone must die before another can be born…”

The Slip Trilogy:

Book One—Slip

Book Two—Grip

Book Three—Flip

One of “15 Series to Read if You Enjoyed The Hunger Games”—Buzzfeed.com

The Dwellers Saga (also available in audiobook):

Book One—The Moon Dwellers

Book Two—The Star Dwellers

Book Three—The Sun Dwellers

Book Four—The Earth Dwellers

“Fire Country is a fast, fierce read.”—Emmy Laybourne, author of Monument 14

The Country Saga (A Dwellers Saga sister series)(also available in audiobook):

Book One—Fire Country

Book Two—Ice Country

Book Three—Water & Storm Country

Book Four—The Earth Dwellers

Strings (also available in audiobook)

“The Walking Dead for teens, with ruthless witches instead of bloodthirsty zombies.”—Katie Reed, agent at Andrea Hurst & Associates

Salem’s Revenge:

Book One—Brew

Book Two—Boil

Book Three—Burn

Connect with David Estes Online

David Estes Fans and YA Book Lovers Unite

Facebook

Blog/website

About the Author

David Estes was born in El Paso, Texas but moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania when he was very young. He grew up in Pittsburgh and then went to Penn State for college. Eventually he moved to Sydney, Australia where he met his wife and soul mate, Adele, who he’s now happily married to.

A reader all his life, David began writing science fiction and fantasy novels in 2010, and has published more than 30 books. In June of 2012, David became a fulltime writer and is now living in Hawaii with Adele, their energetic son, Beau, and their naughty, asthmatic cat, Bailey.

An excerpt from Dragonfall, Volume II in the Kingfall Histories, coming August 31, 2021!

PART I

423 A.W.

Peony     Dane     Amari

Jarrod     Quill    Ando

The original wielders of the six godblades became known as the Knights Shadow and the Knights Bright, respectively. There was symmetry amongst them, and yet it wasn’t enough to balance the scales of justice and vengeance. The Godswar might have never ended were it not for a final blade. The one blade that could bring unity to a world split in two pieces, one bathed in shadows and the other gleaming with light.

Di Puronompara.

The Pureblade.

The Kingfall Histories

One

Peony Normandian

Dragonsmount, Travail

AS PEONY GAZED DOWN AT THE TUMULTUOUS WATERS OF THE SACRED SEA FROM ATOP DRAGONSMOUNT, she wondered whether the waves were ever frightened of breaking upon the shore. Or did they take solace in being amongst their friends, the other waves, as each met their predetermined fate?

She sighed, knowing her thoughts were merely a reflection of her inner turmoil. “Stop it,” she muttered. “You’ve been alone before and it hasn’t killed you yet.”

The truth was, much of her childhood had been spent alone. Peony and her brother, Osric, had never been particularly close, while her mother, she had recently learned, had purposefully kept her at arm’s length to protect both their hearts from breaking when Peony was inevitably forced to leave Chrysallis. Her father, on the other hand, had been her best friend. The only problem: he was the King of Odin, which meant he had little time to spare for his daughter.

And yet…this felt like a different kind of alone, one crowded with voices in her head.

Hoom. Daneus’s booming voice filled her mind, offering what she’d learned was a sort of dragon greeting.

She couldn’t help the smile that teased the edges of her lips. Hoom yourself, she replied.

He’ll come around. Just give him time. And space.

She didn’t need the dragon to specify who he referred to. Dragonmaster Dane, her bondmate of less than a week, hadn’t returned to their cave the night before. Not that she blamed him. He was grieving the loss of his cousin, Dragonrider Lei, a woman who Peony had grown very fond of in just the few short days she’d known her. Lei had been energetic and playful and caring and confident and good. And, Peony knew, if they’d had more time together they might’ve become fast friends.

Peony?

Yes?

You’re not alone. As long as blood runs through my veins, you will never be alone again.

Peony felt such warmth fill her that she was tempted to check she wasn’t sitting on a bed of flames. Thank you, she said.

WHAT HE SAID, another familiar voice declared. Like the dragon’s voice, this voice was audible only within the confines of her own mind. It was the voice of her sword, which just happened to be an ancient godblade forged of magenum and starlight that gave her the power to do absurdly powerful things like leaping off cliffs and charging into battle without getting herself killed.

Thank you, too, Peony said.

YOU’RE NOT ANGRY WITH ME?

Should I be?

I JUST THOUGHT…

That I would blame you for everything that happened—for Lei’s death—because you encouraged me to go to Kerr’s Crossing?

THAT ABOUT SUMS IT UP.

I don’t—can’t—regret that decision. If we hadn’t gone, that man wielding the shadowblade would’ve breached the gates and Avadon would’ve been overrun with demons and Grizari. Do you think they would’ve been content destroying one nation? Mayhaps, but it’s not a chance I was willing to take. After all, Odin is Avadon’s neighbor to the west. That man…

SAMPSON GAARD, the blade said.

What? That’s impossible.

IT WAS HIM.

How could you know that and why didn’t you tell me earlier?

THE TIME WASN’T RIGHT. AND I’M TELLING YOU NOW. AS FOR HOW I KNOW, THAT IS A MORE DIFFICULT QUESTION. I DIDN’T KNOW UNTIL I MET HIS SHADOWBLADE IN BATTLE. IT’S HARD TO EXPLAIN.

But…Sampson Gaard is known to be blind. The man I fought looked into my eyes. He had sight—I’m certain of it.

TEMPORARY SIGHT PROVIDED BY THE SHADOWBLADE.

He almost killed me, Daneus interjected. The way he turned my fire back upon me was…sorcery.

THAT WAS THE BLADE, NOT SAMPSON. AND HE WAS ONLY PROTECTING HIMSELF FROM BEING BURNED TO A CRISP.

Why are you defending him? Peony asked. He was the one who stirred the Grizari to war. I wouldn’t be surprised if he caused the Rift in Beggar’s Canyon to widen as well.

Rather than answering her question, her brightblade asked, COULD YOU TOSS ME FROM THESE CLIFFS RIGHT NOW? Suddenly, the blade materialized in her hand, which instinctively tightened to grip it. Bright gold runes flashed across its surface, which was as bright as the sun. Peony knew it should’ve hurt her eyes to look upon the blade, but it didn’t. She didn’t even have to squint.

For what purpose?

DOESN’T MATTER. COULD YOU?

As Peony gazed upon the brilliance of the blade, she considered the question. She envisioned herself standing up, rearing back, hurling her arm forward, hand opening…

Except, even in her own vision, her hand didn’t open, clamped fast upon the blade’s hilt.

No, she admitted. I couldn’t. Realization hit her. Sampson Gaard had done what she herself wouldn’t have been able to do. He cast aside his own godblade, throwing it into the Roughwater River like it was nothing more than a stone he’d stubbed his toe upon. By doing so, not only did he relinquish the power afforded to him by the blade, but he gave up his newfound eyesight, returning to blindness. That must’ve taken great strength.

GREAT STRENGTH INDEED, her blade said, vanishing in the twinkling of an eye once more. REJECTING ONE OF THE GODBLADES IS AN ACT THAT HAS NEVER BEEN ACCOMPLISHED. UNTIL NOW.

What does it mean? That the shadowblade is lost? The question came not from Peony, but from Daneus.

IF ONLY. THE GODBLADES ARE STIRRING. FOR WHAT PURPOSE, I KNOW NOT.

“Peony?” The voice came so unexpectedly that she almost threw herself from the cliffs. She’d been so fully focused on her inner conversation with the dragon and the brightblade that she hadn’t even heard anyone approaching.

She turned sharply to find Dane standing before her, eyes dark beneath furrowed brows.

Dane’s approaching, Daneus said.

Thanks for the warning, Peony said.

My pleasure.

DANE’S APPROACHING, her blade said.

Don’t you start, too…

“Hello,” Peony said, which felt like the most understated thing to say considering all that had transpired between them the last several days.

Dane took a step forward as if to approach her, but then stopped, grimacing as though in pain. Closed his eyes. She waited, wishing to delay his next words for as long as possible, because she wasn’t prepared to absorb the verbal thrashing she knew she was about to receive. His eyes opened slowly. “Do you despise me?”

“What?” she blurted out, his words as unexpected as a sunny day, like this one, in Travail. “I was going to ask you the same thing.”

Dane shook his head. “I could never despise you, Peony. I hate the way I treated you yesterday on this very spot. Like you didn’t belong. Like I couldn’t stand to be in your presence…”

Peony remembered the coldness she’d felt from him as he’d brushed past her. She remembered the determination that she’d mustered within herself to bear his pain and anger upon her shoulders as long as was required. That’s what a bondmate did, right? “People don’t do things for no reason. You were grieving for Lei. You still are. But I am too. I know you don’t think I have any right to feel sorrow for her loss, but I do. She was kind to me. She accepted me into the fold, no questions asked. I felt a kinship with her I haven’t felt with anyone in a long time, maybe ever. So yes, I am”—she bit off the swell of sorrow threatening to choke her—“hurting too.”

“I know.” The way he spoke those two words—with such fervor and brokenness—took Peony’s breath away. She stood, covering the distance to him in three long steps, falling into his arms even as her own surrounded him, the warmth of their bodies pressing against each other. She felt the beat of his heart against her cheek. He was alive and so was she. And Lei was not. Something about it all felt utterly unfair.

I told you, Daneus said. Though he made peace with you even faster than he does with me. The dragon said the last bit rather grumpily.

“I sense you and Daneus are conspiring against me,” Dane said.

Peony started. “Sorry. He’s been a great comfort.”

“For me too,” Dane admitted. “He’s playing both sides, the rascal.”

“There shouldn’t be sides,” Peony said. “Not now that we’re bonded.”

Dane eased back to look at her. Peony felt captured by the depth of his gaze, which made her feel like she was the only person who existed in his world. “You are right,” he said. “We are two parts of a greater whole now.”

Three parts, Daneus reminded them, speaking in both their minds simultaneously.

“Three parts,” Dane said.

Why do you sound so grudging when you say that? Daneus asked.

Peony, despite herself, managed a smile. “Is he always so suspicious?”

“Yes,” Dane said. “You should’ve heard him when he learned of your godblade.”

Fear of the unknown, Daneus said. Now that I’ve spoken to the blade, I suppose we can learn to get along.

I FEEL SO HONORED, the blade said.

“Speaking of which,” Peony said. “We need to talk about something else. There’s something else I have to do.”

Dane sighed. “You are the most determined woman I have ever met, Peony Normandian,” he said. “But whatever it is, it can wait. I want to show you something.”

Peony crinkled her nose. “What?”

“You’ll see soon enough.”

“What is this place?” Peony asked as they entered the alternating layers of shadow and torchlight inside the cave at the base of Dragonsmount. With each step, the temperature seemed to rise, and soon Peony’s skin glistened with sweat.

“You don’t like surprises, do you?” Dane said with a chuckle.

“Not particularly.”

“Well get used to it. I shall endeavor to surprise you at every turn.”

Their hands were clasped as they walked. Peony marveled at how natural it felt.

Just ahead, the ground seemed to move, smoke rising from its surface. “What is that?” she asked.

“Something we both need.”

I would’ve appreciated an invitation, Daneus said, once more speaking to both of them.

“You could barely squeeze one foot in this place,” Dane said.

It’s the thought that counts.

Peony quickly discovered why the rocky floor ahead seemed to be moving. Because it wasn’t rocky at all, but a pool, steam rising from its surface like fog from the barrowlands on a crisp autumn morning back in Odin. Hence, the growing warmth. “Wait,” Peony said. “You never mentioned you had warm baths available right under our very feet.”

“I wanted to surprise you. We’re not complete savages. The hot springs were here long before my people.”

“So all that talk of bathing in the river was a lie?” Peony had pretended to be taking everything in stride, but warm baths was one luxury she was loath to give up.

“Partially. But some of us prefer bathing in cool water rather than warm water.”

“The foolish ones, obviously,” Peony said.

Dane laughed. “There’s even some soap infused with the aroma of flowers. I might’ve requested that your father send an entire crateful before we departed Chrysallis. Evidently it arrived the same day as the missive.”

“Thank you,” Peony said, overcome with gratitude. Though grief continued to darken the edges of her mind and heart, the brightness of joy continued to push back, which told her she was still alive, still fighting. She rose to her tiptoes and kissed him. She had almost expected him to freeze up, to push her away, to tell her it was too much, too soon, after…what had happened. Instead, he responded with a hunger of his own, picking her up, lips moving against hers, hand threading through her hair.

I’ll see myself out, Daneus said. There are some things you can’t unsee.

Peony laughed, shifting her position to kiss Dane’s cheek, jawline, earlobe. He did the same and then moved to her neck, causing a pleasure-filled shiver to run through her. She was quickly falling into the moment but forced herself to pause as she realized something. “These pools are open to all the dragonriders, correct?” she asked, gaze flitting past Dane’s shoulder, half-expecting to find Dragonrider Star’s steely-eyed stare cutting into her. Instead, the way out remained as empty as they had left it.

“The baths can be reserved if one has sufficient authority,” Dane said.

“You mean, like a dragonmaster.”

“Exactly.”

She bit her lip, feeling the same desire for her bondmate that she’d felt on their bonding night rise within her. “The water,” she said. “Now.”

He groaned against her but complied, carrying her to several stone steps leading into the largest of the pools, not even bothering to remove any clothing before descending into the warmth. Just past him, she saw their reflections, hazy because of all the steam. Dane with his blue-painted body, so strong, so capable. Her own body, half blue, the other half the image she’d seen every day in the mirror as she futilely attempted to comb the knots out of her unruly ginger hair. Both halves looked different now. Loss, she suspected, had changed her.

Before she could dwell on that thought any longer, Peony felt the beautifully warm water soak through her clothing, surrounding her skin, melting away the past and the grief and war and death and fear.

Melting away everything until she melted into him.

“The difference between a hero and a monster sits on a razor’s edge,” Dane said, moving the soapy cloth across her shoulders and back.

“Hmm?” Peony murmured. Her eyes were closed. She felt so peaceful, like the evils and horrors of the world were on the other side of an uncrossable canyon. Like she was safe.

“It’s something my father used to say,” Dane said.

“What did he mean?” she asked.

“I asked him that very same question, but he never told me. He said it was for me to figure out.”

“And did you?”

“I thought I knew. I always believed he meant that circumstances forced a man—or woman—to fall one way or the other. Like, the wind might blow and topple you from the edge of the blade.”

“But you don’t believe that anymore?”

“I don’t know. I think it’s the choices we make that determine what we become.”

“For example?”

“Two godblades were found—”

“That we know of.”

“You think more have been retrieved?”

“Maybe, I don’t know. It’s something my blade said, about the godblades stirring.”

Dane kissed the back of her shoulder and then rested his chin on her. “This is exactly what I mean. You found a godblade, but so did the man we fought at Kerr’s Crossing, except he used his for evil while you used yours for good. You were the hero and he was the monster.”

“Sampson Gaard.”

“What?”

Peony released a laugh because his response had been identical to hers. She described the rest of her conversation with Daneus and her blade.

“Are you saying you think Sampson Gaard—assuming it was really him—should be forgiven for what he did?”

Peony shook her head and then twisted around until her lips were so close to Dane’s she could feel his breath on hers. “No, just that I don’t believe there is a blade between hero and monster at all. We are all heroes; we are all monsters. How we will be judged depends on how long we spend being each.”

Dane kissed her again. When they broke apart, he said, “I am a lucky man. You are beyond my every expectation.”

“Of course I am. And you are satisfactory,” she said. “With time you may achieve greatness, but only because of Daneus’s and my influence.”

“Very funny. Speaking of whom, perhaps it’s time we paid him a visit. We’ve lingered too long in the pools.”

“Must we?”

I heard that, the dragon said.

Peony laughed. It’s not a reflection on you as much as my love for warm water. Anyway, I thought you were giving us some alone time.

I did, though it’s not easy to completely sever our connection.

Does that mean you saw…?

How vigorous your alone time was? More like heard. You weren’t exactly quiet.

Peony knew she should be embarrassed, but she wasn’t. For one, what she had done with Dane could not be anything other than beautiful. And for two, she didn’t think she could ever feel embarrassed of anything Daneus knew about her. Something about the bond she felt with the dragon was like…flying—that was the only way she could describe it. Noted, Peony said. Anyway, we’re coming to see you now. We have much to discuss. When there was no response from the dragon, Peony said, Daneus?

This time he responded, except not only to her, but to Dane as well, his voice higher pitched than usual, frantic. Something is amiss. They are coming for you. You need to go. Now.

“What?” Dane said. “Who is coming?”

There’s no time to explain. Clothe yourselves and move. I’ll meet you—

The rest of the dragon’s statement was drowned out by the rumble of footsteps across stone as dozens of dragonriders filed into the baths, surrounding the pool. Peony, not sure whether to be more aghast by her own nakedness or the fact that Dane’s own riders had defied his orders for privacy, shrank into the water until only her head was exposed. She eyed her clothes heaped in a sodden pile on the edge of the pool.

Dane, on the other hand, did the opposite of shrink, seeming to grow in size as he swelled himself up, fists knotted, jaw set. “What is the meaning of this?” he demanded.

In the wake of his echoing question, the riders seemed uncomfortable—shuffling their feet, refusing to meet his eyes—but none of them spoke.

“Someone answer me, or I will personally beat the information out of each and every one of you.”

Peony had seen Dane angry before, but this was a whole other level, his face twisted with rage, and she knew it was not for himself, but for her, for how they’d violated a place she felt safe. She loved him for that anger but wouldn’t have him destroy his relationship with these men and women, regardless of whatever was happening. “This is because of me, isn’t it?” she said, searching their faces, trying to force them to meet her eyes. No one would. Still none of them answered.

“Enough,” Dane growled, moving through the water toward the steps.

“Calm yourself, Dane,” a voice finally said. It came not from the ring of riders, but from just outside it. The circle parted to reveal three more riders. Like all their kind, their skin was dyed to match the hue of their dragons. On the left was Brute, his skin as brown as the rocks within the cave. Consistent with his name, he was built like a boulder, his thick beard like moss growing down the sides of his face and chin. He stared straight ahead, and Peony thought he looked numb, as though his mind was a million leagues away. On the right was a human tigress, Dane’s cousin Star, black and orange stripes running up her arms, neck and face. If anything, the dye served to enhance her statuesque beauty rather than diminish it. While Peony had been inspecting the two on the wings, Dane’s focus had been entirely on the older figure standing between them, his skin as red as blood. His uncle, Drudge, the one who had spoken.

“Calm myself?” Dane said. “My bondmate and I were enjoying a warm bath before you marched in here in direct defiance to my orders to be left alone. You have violated your oaths and Peony’s privacy. I could strip you of your bond for such an act, which borders on treason.”

Peony wasn’t certain what it meant to strip a dragonrider of their bond, but it sounded serious, the threat hanging in the silence the followed. If Drudge was intimidated, however, he didn’t show it. On the contrary, his lips curled into a self-satisfied sneer. “I would agree, if a decision hadn’t already been made that makes treason against you impossible.”

Peony’s mind swirled as she tried to understand what was happening. She knew little to nothing about Travailian politics, and now she chided herself for spending so much time on other activities with Dane when she could’ve been having an intellectual conversation with him and learning more about her new nation. “The only way treason against me would be impossible is if I am no longer the dragonmaster,” Dane said. His eyes landed on Brute. “Is that what you’re saying?”

Brute said, “I’m sorry,” then turned and walked away.

“Dane?” Peony said. “They can’t do that, can they? How can they strip you of your title?”

Dane turned to meet her eyes, and she found the anger had drained from his gaze, replaced by a deep and persisting sadness. “I’m sorry, my bond,” he said. “The riders have spoken. I am bound by their decision.”

Peony’s lips opened, but then she closed them when she found she had no idea what she intended to say. What could she say? That she was sorry because clearly this decision was linked to him supporting her choice to fight at Kerr’s Crossing rather than Kingsfort? She knew as well as anyone that an apology couldn’t change the past. Nor could she say that she would fix things, because how could she? As much as she was trying to become a woman of Travail—going so far as to dye half her skin to match the hue of Daneus and Dane—she’d not even been in these lands amongst these people for a fortnight. She didn’t even know the names of half the people standing sentinel around the pool. That’s when a thought struck her harder than a bolt of lightning in the Stormlands.

“You could’ve informed us of this decision after we finished here,” Peony said, directing her words toward Drudge, whose eyes she finally met. “And yet you chose to march in here like an army ready to do battle. Why?”

Dane’s uncle laughed breathily and said to Dane, “Your bondmate is no fool, I can’t deny that.”

“Just answer her question, Uncle,” Dane said. “Or should I answer it for her?”

Peony’s eyes danced between Dane and his uncle, sensing an undercurrent to their vague words. “Someone tell me what is happening,” she demanded.

Dane turned toward her, regret in his expression. “Stay strong. I will do everything in my power to have you sent back to Chrysallis.”

His words might’ve been spoken in a different tongue, such was the meaning, or lack thereof, that they held for her. “I don’t want to go back to Chrysallis. This is my home now.”

“Dane, it’s time,” Drudge said.

Time for what? Peony wondered. Dane, his eyes still focused on her, said, “Peony, listen to me. Don’t tell them anything. I will—”

“Apprehend him,” Drudge barked.

Several dragonriders splashed into the pool, reaching for Dane. He swung an elbow behind him, cracking one in the jaw. He fought free of another and pushed away a third. Fighting toward Peony, who remained frozen, almost fully submerged in the water as her world seemed to crumble around her.

“Don’t tell them anything!” Dane said again. “I will fix this. I swear it, Peony. I will fix this!” Dane continued to struggle, but it was fruitless, strong arms finally subduing him, forcing him out of the pool and then shoving him toward the exit.

She tried to scream his name, but her lips didn’t seem to work. She heard voices in her head—Daneus and her blade—but she couldn’t comprehend the words they spoke. Warm water surrounded her as she sank the rest of the way into the pool.

Dragonfall, Volume II in The Kingfall Histories is coming August 31, 2021! Preorder available HERE.