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  “Should King Gerard’s brothers have trusted him?”

  “Why should she trust us?” Lila said. “I’m unreliable—ask anyone.” The last thing she wanted was to be held accountable for failing at a job she didn’t want in the first place.

  “You saved her son’s life at Oden’s Ford. Then you managed to bring him back from Ardenscourt. That must count for something.”

  “That was totally different,” Lila said. “To be honest, Adrian got himself into trouble in Ardenscourt. Then got himself out of it.”

  “Hmm.” Shadow studied a document, brow furrowed, obviously trying to ignore her.

  Lila refused to be ignored. “So the only reason she picked us is that we weren’t on the council before?”

  Shadow grunted, put the papers aside, and opened a book.

  “Your father could do it,” Lila said. “Or your grandmother.”

  “My father is on his way to the Alyssa Plateau to help with the war effort. Willo Cennestre never leaves the uplands these days.”

  “They shouldn’t have sent everybody out of the capital, then,” Lila said. “She’d have more people to pick from.” She knew she was being unreasonable, but being reasonable had never been her strong suit.

  “Lila, she said she wanted some younger people on the council. People in our generation, who have the most to lose if the queendom is destroyed.”

  “Maybe she just wants somebody to blame if it goes wrong,” Lila said, trying to ignore the voice in her head that said, Is that the problem? That you don’t want the blame for the collapse of the queendom?

  Shadow finally gave up and slammed his book shut. “Look, why are you so determined to persuade me to leave with you? I can understand if you have hard feelings against your father and the queen. If you don’t want to stay, then leave.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Lila said, eager to wade in.

  “I can understand why you resent the fact that your father abandoned you and your mother to be with Queen Raisa—”

  Lila didn’t remember drawing her knife, but the next thing she knew it was at Shadow’s throat and he was gripping her wrist with both hands, their noses inches apart. His hands were warm and sinewy, the palms calloused.

  “Don’t be stupid,” he said. “Don’t forget, my mother was the best knife fighter in Ragmarket.”

  “Then why is she dead?” Lila shot back unforgivably.

  “I don’t know,” Shadow said. “But she is, and your mother’s dead, too, and we both have to deal with disappointed fathers.”

  “Don’t put words in my mouth. Anyway, Dancer isn’t disappointed in you,” Lila said. “Not like—”

  “Not like Captain Byrne? Do you really think he’s disappointed in you?”

  “Of course he is. I’m not like Simon. He was the one who inherited that Byrne self-sacrificial trait. Simon should have been the one to live. I have never fit into this family, and I don’t know why I have to be shoehorned in now.”

  “Be honest. You’re disappointed in your father, too.”

  “My father’s a saint,” Lila said, rolling her eyes. “Why would I be disappointed in him?”

  “Parents and children always disappoint each other,” Shadow said, “because we don’t get to choose. We’re stuck with who we get. No matter who our parents are, we can always think of some way they don’t measure up. It’s even worse for them. They feel guilty about a child’s shortcomings because they’re responsible—partly, anyway.” He let go of Lila’s arm and sat back. “You feel guilty because you survived and Simon didn’t.”

  Lila stowed her knife away. “Who the hell are you, and what have you done with my friend Shadow?”

  “It’s always easier to tell other people what to do than to fix yourself. Would you have been better off, after your mother died, being neglected at court?”

  “It seems like he could have—”

  “Remarried? Would you have liked that? So you could live with your stepmother and both complain about being ignored?”

  “Like I said. Don’t put words in my mouth,” Lila snapped.

  “If anyone puts words in your mouth, it should be me.”

  What the hell does that mean? Lila thought. “He didn’t have to neglect us. Other people find a way to balance what they—”

  “Or were you better off living with your aunt and uncle?”

  Lila gathered her thoughts. “I loved my aunt and uncle, and now they’re gone, too. I should have been there, instead of babysitting a runaway prince. I should have saved them, or died with them, or—”

  “We’re more alike than you realize. I’m of mixed blood, like you. It’s always harder for us, because we’re always choosing one tradition over another, one point of view over another, one parent over another. I may not be a mage, but I’m an uplander. So I believe in magic. It’s built into me, so that I feel the connection with this land every single day. So, I thought, that’s who I am. All I wanted was to climb up high—to leave the flatlands behind. I thought I could escape to the uplands with Aspen and ignore my Southern Island blood, the fight with Arden—all of that. Instead, I was fighting at Queen Court—with Lyss—when Aspen was murdered.”

  Lila sat on the edge of the cold hearth, her rage leaking out of her like wine from a punctured skin. “You had no way of knowing what would happen,” she said.

  Shadow ignored this platitude. “After Aspen was killed, I wanted to ride straight to Ardenscourt, track down the king and the general, and cut their throats. I didn’t care if I died doing it.” He looked up at Lila. “Do you know who kept getting in the way? You. And Lyss. You kept thinking up things I needed to do before I died like a martyr. It was really annoying. By the time I extricated myself, Speaks to Horses—Ash—got to King Gerard ahead of me. He managed to do the deed and survive.”

  There’s still the empress, Lila thought. You could help me kill the empress.

  “To be honest, I was lying to myself,” Shadow said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The thing is, I could have gone after King Gerard. It wasn’t like you were keeping me prisoner. I really think I could have gotten to him, too. It’s easy to kill a person if you’re willing to die for the privilege. But if I killed the king of Arden, and died, I wouldn’t be there for Aspen’s family, either. That would be like a double betrayal.” He looked sideways at Lila. “Anyway, it’s hard to plan anything when you’re drunk all the time.”

  “Ah,” Lila said. “Well, I suppose . . .”

  “When I found out Gerard was dead, I spent some time with Speaker Jemson. It was either that or drink myself to death. I couldn’t understand how Aspen could be dead, and Gerard could be dead, and there seemed to be nothing to show for it. The war goes on, and Jarat hasn’t been much of an improvement over Gerard, and now we have the empress to contend with. I felt like life was a massive joke on us.”

  “So he told you to accept it, that it must be the will of the Maker, right?”

  “No, he didn’t say that.” Shadow thought a moment. “He said that all we can do is make the best decision possible in that moment. Then move on. Because we can’t know how a different choice would play out, it makes no sense to beat ourselves up over what looks like a bad choice in retrospect.”

  “A speaker said that?”

  Shadow nodded.

  Lila had heard a lot about the speaker of the Old Church, but she’d never spoken directly to him. In her experience, the church was in the business of guilting people.

  “He also said that it’s easier to predict the benefits of intervening to save something than the consequences of destroying something you perceive as evil.”

  “You lost me there.”

  “Let’s say you don’t like snakes, and you decide to exterminate them, only to find that you are overrun by rats. Or you assassinate a king, to find out that the new king is even worse. Only the Maker can follow each path out to the end, so we should be cautious when we do things—like killing—that canno
t be undone.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “So instead of feeling guilty about what I’ve lost, I’ve decided to focus on what I want to save. When I looked around, I decided it was this queendom, and its people. And I couldn’t do that if I was drunk all the time. So I quit.”

  “What if you have to kill a few people to save the queendom—is it okay as long as the goal isn’t the killing but the saving?” That came out more bitterly than Lila intended.

  “You asked what happened, and I’m trying to answer you. We’ve all had losses in this war—including your father. So—what do you want, Lila? What do you want to save?”

  “It’s too late,” Lila said. To her mortification, her eyes were filling with tears.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Every time I try to hold on to something, it slips through my fingers. I wanted to save my mother. She died anyway. I wanted my father to pay attention to me. He ignored me. I wanted to take over my aunt and uncle’s business. It’s destroyed, and they’re dead.”

  “Your father’s still alive,” Shadow said. “And he’s reached out to you.”

  “The only reason he’s interested in me now is because I might be useful to the queen.”

  “Haven’t you been listening?” Lila had managed to get Shadow to raise his voice, which was something.

  “I’ve been listening,” Lila said. “I just haven’t heard anything to change my mind.”

  “You were the one trying to change my mind, remember?” He raked his hand through his hair. “Look,” he said, “I don’t know exactly how the binding ceremony works, but I know enough about it to tell you that Captain Byrne doesn’t have a choice. The queen will always come first, because that’s how the magic works.”

  “Why are you defending him?”

  “Is that what I’m doing?” Shadow shook his head. “No. I’m trying to give you permission to forgive him, because he’s the one you have left.”

  21

  FLEDGLINGS

  Despite the cold, Lyss was sweating and breathing hard by the time she made it to the top of the mountain. The backpack full of supplies she was carrying didn’t help. She’d brought more than usual, because it had been two weeks since she’d been able to slip away long enough to visit the mountain aerie.

  Weapons, armament, and other ordnance flowed in from all down the Desert Coast. Every few days, ships arrived with more captives, more fodder for the bloodsworn army. Reprovisioned, the ships returned to the Seven Realms packed with Lyss’s half-trained soldiers.

  Lyss tried to persuade the empress to let her hold on to them a little longer. It was not in her nature to spend soldiers recklessly—even enemy soldiers.

  “They’re not ready,” she argued. “They need more time, more conditioning, more practice with weapons.”

  “They are unflaggingly loyal and fearless,” Celestine said. “That, with the training you’ve given them, will have to be enough.”

  Was that to be her role—to train soldiers and send them off to slaughter and be slaughtered? She found herself begging for a command that would take her home.

  “Let me lead them, at least,” she said. “Officers shouldn’t send soldiers into battles they are not willing to fight themselves.”

  “Ah, Captain Gray,” the empress said. “That time will come. Right now, you are too valuable to me here.”

  Lyss was learning that being valuable was a double-edged sword. It kept her alive, but it also kept her away from home. Either that, or the empress suspected that her commander would find a way to betray her if she went back to the wetlands.

  When she arrived at the high ledge that housed the dragons, there was no sign of life. The sulfurous scent that Lyss had come to associate with their home had all but dissipated. The cleft the dragons used as a latrine had not been visited lately, and the bones of previous meals had been picked clean by scavengers who wouldn’t have dared to venture into the dragons’ lair had they been present.

  Scalp prickling with worry, Lyss forced her way around the rockfall, past the brush obscuring the mouth of the cave. There was no sign of life, no evidence that the dragons had been there in the past few days. They’d left the stones behind—the stones Cas was using to teach the hatchlings to carry extra weight.

  “Jenna!” Lyss called, stepping over bones as she made her way to the back of the cave. “Cas? Slayer?”

  The only answer was the echo of her voice returning to her. Had something happened to the flight of young dragons? Had they moved to the ledge Lyss now thought of as Bosley’s Leap? Had they been discovered and killed? Had they finally broken through the Boil and winged away to the Dragonback Mountains on the mainland? Had Jenna given up on her mission to kill the empress?

  Had they abandoned her?

  Lyss’s backpack hit the floor of the cave with a dull thud as she fought down despair. She shouldn’t have stayed away so long. Her interactions with Jenna and the dragons had given her hope during a dark season. Now she felt more alone than ever.

  “Scummer!” she shouted, and, again, her voice echoed back. Scummer, scummer, scummer, scummer . . . gradually dwindling until it faded away. Lyss considered leaving a few items in the cave, in case they came back. In the end, she hefted the backpack over her shoulder and emerged into the fresh air.

  She heard a faint cry, as if from far away, that made her skin prickle again. Some instinct caused her to look skyward in time to see a speck hurtling toward her that was rapidly growing larger. She stared at it for one heartbeat, two, then dove to one side as a dragon landed with a clatter of scale and claw on rock.

  She’d thought it was Cas, but when she rolled to her feet, she saw that it was Slayer—significantly bigger than the last time she’d seen him. Not only that, he was wearing the leather fittings and tack that belonged to Cas.

  “Where are the others?” she asked. “Is everything all right?”

  He extended his head toward her, displaying his toothy dragon smile, then spread his wings, scales on edge—an invitation for Lyss to climb aboard.

  “Are you sure?” Lyss said. She’d never seen Slayer carry a passenger before.

  Slayer slapped his wings on the ground. The message was clear. Quit stalling.

  Backing up a little to gain momentum, Lyss ran up the dragon’s wing, using the raised scales for better footing. She managed to plant a hand on the saddle before she lost speed. Pulling herself up, she swung her leg over the dragon’s back and settled into place. Slayer’s back was narrower than Cas’s, so easier to grip with her knees. She worried, though, about her inability to communicate with the dragon in the same way as Jenna did.

  Slayer looked back over his shoulder at Lyss, to make sure she was seated, then launched himself from the edge of the cliff.

  “Blood and bones!” Lyss shouted, followed by, “Hanalea the warrior!”

  They soared out over the sea, almost to the margins of the Boil, where the winds buffeted and tumbled them. Then Slayer turned inland, over one shoulder of the dormant volcano. She could see other, smaller islands surrounding Celesgarde, most shrouded in a murk of sulfurous fume and mist.

  Lyss could feel Slayer’s shoulder muscles working beneath her arms as he accelerated, gaining altitude, before he swept out over the harbor itself.

  Below, she could see two tall ships at the quays. One was disgorging dazed and stumbling captives into holding pens. Some still wore the uniforms of the Fells, torn and bloodied. Others had been fitted out with random replacements.

  “Damn,” Lyss muttered.

  The other ship was onboarding bloodsworn soldiers in the uniforms Lyss had devised and insisted they wear.

  Hopefully, that will make you better targets, she thought. Then was horrified at herself, which aptly illustrated the split within her.

  That was when Slayer folded his wings and plunged toward the harbor below.

  “Slayer! No! Stop!” There were no reins, of course, but Lyss wrapped her arms around the young dragon
’s neck and pulled, making a futile attempt to aim him skyward. Looking down, she could see tiny figures on the deck of one of the ships, pointing, their faint shouts reaching her ears. With that, Slayer thrust out his wings to slow their descent, all but flinging Lyss off his back. He closed his claws on the top of the mainmast and ripped it free, snapping lines and sending the crew down on their stomachs, covering their heads with their hands. Lyss flattened herself along the dragon’s back, trying to blend in.

  Wings beating frantically, Slayer struggled skyward, still clutching the mast, trailing lines and canvas behind them like an awkward sort of bird that intended to build a nest from ships’ rigging. Arrows clattered against Slayer’s sides, reminding Lyss that she wasn’t as well armored as he was. Heart pounding, she pressed herself against the dragon’s hot scales, praying she hadn’t been spotted. Attacks by dragons weren’t unusual; attacks by dragons carrying passengers—that would draw unwelcome notice. Fortunately, it wasn’t easy to get a clear view or take a clear shot through the trailing rigging.

  Lyss guessed that the mainmast was not only heavy, but it required the young dragon to gain altitude quickly in order to avoid tangling it in the equipment and rigging at dockside. He tried once, then circled around again, exposing the two of them to more fire from the ground.

  “Let it go,” Lyss said. “Please, Slayer. There’ll be other ships.”

  Finally, Slayer decided to give up his prize. He circled over the second ship and let go. It plunged straight through the deck, and ended standing upright, like a fourth mast. Relieved of the weight of the mast, they rocketed skyward, out of range.

  Lyss, clinging like a tick, felt Slayer’s exhilaration pounding into her. Saw the ground through the dragon’s eyes—incredibly sharp and seemingly close enough to touch. Images bled into her, vivid and packed with emotion. She ricocheted between her own terror and the dragon’s joy.

  Was this what Jenna meant when she described listening to dragons?

  Soon, they had the flank of the mountain between them and the harbor, and Lyss quit anticipating the arrow point penetrating her flesh, striking against bone.