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  They seemed to have two arrows in their quiver—hit-and-run horsemanship and a wild, melee style of fighting. Neither would work well in the flatlands, which was where Lyss intended to fight.

  It seemed she spent much of her time as referee, settling endless arguments about who should command a given unit. The desert warriors tended to choose their commanders by acclamation, and so their officers could change day to day. That might work in a band of twelve, but not in a salvo or a brigade.

  “You can make the first choice,” she said, since she didn’t know the soldiers very well, anyway. “After that, I’ll make any changes that are necessary. This is not a popularity contest.”

  “But what if the officer is no good?” one of the warriors said. “What if he favors fighters from his own city? What if they get first choice of the women and the spoils?”

  “Then you’ll need to bring that to me,” Lyss said, thinking, Next, we need to talk about women and spoils.

  “But why should you bother yourself with that?” the soldier persisted.

  “Because that’s my job,” Lyss said. “Because I can’t ask for a show of hands on a battlefield to figure out who I should be talking to today. Because all of the units need to work together.” Eventually, she resorted to the time-tested response, “Because that’s an order.”

  The empress approved. “You can’t reason with them,” she said, “and you don’t have to. Just command them to obey. If they do not, kill them.” Celestine’s eyes narrowed as she read resistance in Lyss’s face. “There is no place in my army for the slow, the stupid, or the scrupulous, General Gray. Even less so among my officers. I have waited four long years to regain my legacy. Help me do that, and you will be richly rewarded. Fail, and I will reshape you into an instrument I can use.”

  The meaning of that was clear enough.

  Gradually, Lyss embedded her surviving Fellsian officers into the mix. She began by having them drill small groups of bloodsworn in standard military commands and maneuvers. Eventually, she assigned her experienced officers to command larger units of cavalry and infantry.

  It was easier than she’d expected, because sometimes the newcomers were perceived as more impartial than the enemies and rivals they knew. Also, more and more of the new bloodsworn came from the wetlands, mostly from the Fells. It broke Lyss’s heart to see men and women she’d commanded back home show up wearing Celestine’s purple aura, their faces hungry with an insatiable need. Each time a new group arrived, she had to steel herself against the possibility that she would encounter someone like Sasha Talbot or Char Dunedain among the “recruits.”

  I wish there were a way to help them, Lyss thought. She began reading everything she could get her hands on about blood magic—which wasn’t much. Celestine had looted an entire library of books from Deepwater Court, brought it here to her capital, and shelved it in her new palace. There it remained undisturbed until Lyss began pulling books down and poring through them. She found nothing about blood magic, or magemarks, or anything else useful.

  Eventually, she mustered the courage to ask the empress about it.

  “That’s not your concern,” Celestine said, instantly defensive. “I do what I have to do. I use the gifts I’ve been given.”

  “I’m not criticizing you,” Lyss hurried to say. “In fact, we practice a kind of blood magic in the queendom.”

  That piqued Celestine’s interest. “Really?” she said. “I’d not heard that.”

  “There’s a blood ritual that binds the—that binds members of the Queen’s Guard to her. I was curious whether this was something similar.”

  “Perhaps so,” Celestine said, looking pleased. “After all, the Realms were settled by peoples from the Northern Islands centuries ago.”

  “Is there anything that will modify the bond? Or undo it?” Lyss knew this was striking perilously close to the bone.

  The empress recognized the threat. “General Gray, if you are hoping to shatter the bond of loyalty between me and my bloodsworn, you are doomed to failure,” she said, scowling.

  “Your Eminence, I see evidence of their devotion every day,” Lyss said. “I was merely hoping that something could be done to address their lack of independent decision-making skills. You’ve said that is a problem, and I agree. I’m looking for a solution.”

  “Best watch your step, General,” Celestine said, eyes narrowed. “If you solve that problem, I’ll no longer have a need for you.”

  “Understood, Your Eminence,” Lyss murmured.

  If Lyss hated this constant verbal sparring, she despised the weekly tournaments that the empress held between bloodsworn soldiers. Celestine would choose the players or, worse, demand that Lyss make the selection. Sometimes the empress would choose two women to fight, or a mixed pair, or three against three. In one case, she blinded two soldiers, and then set them against each other. She found their struggles amusing.

  Lyss, Breon, Samara, courtesans, and any other officers or ships’ captains in port were forced to watch from the terrace. Servants delivered food and drink as the carnage went on. Celestine loved to wager on the outcome, and award prizes to the winners. The losers, of course, were carried off the field in pieces. Even the “winners” were often maimed beyond repair.

  Each spectator dealt with the tournaments in his own way. Breon kept his pipe close and passed the time in a fog of leaf. Tully Samara joined in the fun with a will, cheering on his favorites and calling out Lyss for her lack of enthusiasm.

  Lyss was no stranger to bloodshed, of course. There’d been no need for tournaments back home because everybody had plenty of practice on the battlefield every summer. She suspected that this might be a message for Celestine’s reluctant commander—a graphic illustration of the consequences of failure. See? This could be you!

  Lyss sat through several of these grisly “tournaments,” grim and silent, until the day the empress sent two twelve-year-olds onto the field. They bowed before the empress, a little awkwardly, and turned to face each other, weapons in hand.

  If this was a test, Lyss failed it. She abruptly stood, threw down her napkin, and stalked from the terrace.

  “General Gray!” the empress called after her. “I did not give you leave to go.”

  Lyss spun around to face her. “Forgive me, Your Eminence, but I have other things to do.”

  “So do we all,” Celestine said, “but I asked you to be here.”

  “I do not find this entertaining,” Lyss said.

  “This is not being put on for your entertainment, General,” Celestine snapped.

  “Then what purpose does it serve for me to be here?”

  Celestine seemed to be at a loss for a second. “It is not your place to question my decisions,” she said.

  “I am not questioning your decisions,” Lyss said. “If you find it amusing, by all means, enjoy. I will better serve you by putting my time to a different use.”

  “What if it serves me to have you stay?” Celestine said, her voice brittle with rage.

  Lyss set her feet, knowing that this might be the end of the Gray Wolf line.

  “If you require me to stay, then I will put a stop to this.” She gestured toward the two young soldiers. “That would hardly serve you, since you find it entertaining.”

  The empress slammed her cup down on the stone table with such force that it chipped the tabletop. She gestured to her bloodsworn guards. “Seize her!” she cried.

  Two of them moved in on either side of Lyss, gripping her arms. She did not resist. She was aware of the others on the terrace, watching, wide-eyed. Except for Samara, who was staring into his cup, a faint smile on his face.

  Celestine stripped back her sleeve, sliced her forearm with her dagger, and allowed the blood to drip into the cup to mingle with her wine. Then she stalked across the terrace to stand in front of Lyss.

  She thrust the cup under Lyss’s nose. “And if this is the alternative?”

  Lyss breathed in the perfume of wine mingled
with the metallic scent of blood.

  “That would not serve you, either, Your Eminence,” she said, meeting Celestine’s eyes. “You have no shortage of bloodsworn soldiers. What you need is a commander.”

  For a long moment, they stood facing each other.

  She has to follow through, Lyss thought. I’ve confronted her in front of an audience, like a fool.

  If she forces me to drink that, I just might spew it all over her.

  Then, all at once, someone shoved between them, knocking the cup from the empress’s hands so that the contents splashed onto the pavement. The cup bounced several times before it rolled off the terrace and onto the field.

  It was Breon. He stood between Celestine and Lyss, both hands raised, shaking his head. It was the best he could do, since his voice had been taken from him.

  “Get out of my way,” the empress said.

  Breon didn’t budge.

  “Do you dare defend her against me? Your own sister?”

  Breon shook his head again.

  “He’s looking out for you, Your Eminence,” Lyss said quickly. “He understands that you are disappointed and angry, but he knows that I can serve you better as an officer than as a soldier.”

  Breon nodded eagerly, taking hold of Celestine’s hands.

  Blessedly, that seemed to give Celestine the cover she needed to stand down. The empress looked down into Breon’s face, then pulled him into her arms, stroking his hair.

  “Very well,” she said. “If it means that much to you, I will let this go.”

  Breon looked over Celestine’s shoulder, meeting Lyss’s eyes. And then, unmistakably, he winked.

  Lyss mouthed, Thank you, so weak with relief that only the bloodsworn’s grip kept her upright. The busker’s intervention had saved her, but she knew it wouldn’t work a second time.

  8

  DRAGON DAYS

  Jenna sat cross-legged, her back propped against a stone outcropping, skinning a rabbit she’d caught in a snare. Though her friend Cas made fun of Jenna’s attempts at hunting, she was proud of her snare and her rabbit. Anyway, these days, as the dragon grew larger, he could eat an entire sheep on his own. Two entire sheep, with no leftovers.

  Besides, she preferred her meat cooked—just a little—and she didn’t like getting wool or fur in her mouth. Hence the skinning.

  It was still light out, but the shadows were lengthening. Soon the sun would dive behind the western mountains and night would come down like a stooping dragon.

  While she worked, she sorted through her worries. Their mission had become more complicated since they’d met Alyssa Gray, Adam Wolf’s littermate—his sister, she amended. Cas continued to express reservations about their new friend.

  She doesn’t know dragons.

  “That’s understandable,” Jenna said. “You’re the first one she’s met.”

  I talk to her. She doesn’t listen.

  “She doesn’t know you’re talking to her. Work with her.”

  She should work with me.

  “Once she hears your voice, she’ll be able to find it again.”

  She looks at me like I’m going to eat her. Smells like prey. The dragon looked at Jenna sideways. It makes me want to take a bite.

  “Don’t bite her, Cas.”

  Lyssa was a wolf like her brother. Jenna had known that since the first time she’d laid eyes on her as she stood, sword in hand, ready to do battle.

  Wolf is hiding something.

  “I know,” Jenna said.

  Alyssa Gray was seething with secrets, but she was giving away more than she knew. When Jenna gripped the commander’s hands, images slid through her mind—a much younger Adam and Alyssa, dressed in elaborately stitched clothing, holding hands, watching a funeral procession, both weeping. Captain Gray, singing and stomping and playing a basilka, the stringed instrument common in the Realms.

  We are children of the north.

  Alyssa Gray, kneeling in a snowy, cobbled street, cradling the body of a young guardsman. Wearing the spattercloth of the northern army, charging, howling, at the enemy. Gray, in a fancy gown, dancing—dancing with the lieutenant who’d attacked her on the ledge. Gray, surrounded by wolves, wearing a simple circlet on her head.

  It shouldn’t be surprising that Alyssa was Adam Wolf’s sister. She was as full of secrets as her brother.

  Jenna, of course, was keeping her own secrets. For instance, she’d not mentioned the magemark, or offered an explanation as to why she had an affiliation with dragons. The wolf couldn’t reveal what she didn’t know.

  It made Jenna’s head hurt, trying to figure it out. It didn’t help that she was worried about Cas. They’d flown across the Indio, following Celestine’s ship, meaning to end the empress’s hunt one way or another. They’d followed her all the way to her capital in the Northern Islands, to find it protected by a fierce wall of wind and weather. They’d managed to get through it, but Cas’s left wing had been damaged, and one of his legs badly sprained in an ugly crash landing in the mountains.

  During the weeks following, the dragon had begun to recover from his injuries, his wing function improving, his flights in the uplands of the islands longer and higher and farther.

  In the past week or two, however, Cas’s steady progress seemed to have stalled. His limp returned, and he seemed to struggle to get off the ground. It was almost like he was pretending to be more disabled than he really was, because he’d fly off in the mornings and not return until late in the evening. Where was he spending his time? Could a dragon who spoke to her mind-to-mind have a secret life?

  “You’re not stealing horses from the empress’s horse-line, are you?” Jenna had said. “Remember, we agreed—no more than one a week. We don’t want them to come up here looking for us.” The longer they stayed there, the greater the risk that they’d be discovered by someone other than the empress’s commander of the armies.

  One a week. The dragon gazed at her with wide-eyed innocence.

  Well, she thought, I’ll have to take his word for it. There’s no way I can track a dragon in flight.

  All she could do was hope that soon he would be ready to partner with her in their mission. As he put it: find the nest, kill the hatchlings, steal the hoard.

  They would get their revenge on Empress Celestine, destroy her capital, and then return to the Seven Realms, where, Jenna hoped, she might find Adam Wolf Gray, or whatever his real name was. She hoped that she could persuade Cas to carry Alyssa Gray back to the wetlands. That wasn’t going to happen unless Cas grew to trust the wetlander, or, at least, to tolerate her. There was nothing more stubborn than a dragon with a grudge.

  When the rabbit was skinned, Jenna mounted it securely on two crossed sticks, butterflied so that it would cook quickly.

  Jenna scented the wolf girl before she materialized out of the trees. As usual, she wore the garb of the empress’s soldiers. As usual, she was a bit out of breath, which meant that she’d run straight up the mountain with a bulging pack on her back.

  She was a strange girl.

  “Lyss,” Jenna said. “Sit. Have rabbit.” She stopped, cheeks flaming, suddenly aware of her stripped-down speech. Before long, she’d be spitting flames along with her words. “I was just about to cook a rabbit. It shouldn’t take long. I hope you’ll have some.”

  Lyss sat on the ground across from Jenna. “Where’s your—where’s the—where’s Cas?” she said, scanning the mountainside. The wolf girl still struggled to remember that Cas did not belong to Jenna, but was her equal—a friend and partner.

  “He left this morning and I haven’t seen him since,” Jenna said vaguely. “I imagine he’ll be back before too long.” She set the rabbit on the grate (courtesy of one of Lyss’s previous trips) over the fire and wiped blood from her hands with a rather stinky piece of leather. It was easy to forget the niceties of civilization when you spend all of your time with a dragon.

  “Ah.” Lyss put the pack between her knees and began to fuss with t
he buckles.

  Jenna eyed the backpack greedily. Over the past two weeks, Lyss had been up and down the mountain nearly every other day, bringing supplies and foodstuffs that could not be foraged on the top of a mountain in this miserable place.

  Lyss was rummaging through the backpack, pulling things out, and naming them before she set them aside. “Rags. Saddle soap. Leather needle and thread. Salt. Pepper. Field remedy kit, including willow bark, aloe, maidenweed, ginger, tay, and some others. Brick of sugar. Block of cheese. Ground cloth and stakes. Dried cherries. Two pounds walnuts. Ale. Wine. Iron skillet.” She looked up. “I could not find dried grapes anywhere.”

  Jenna shook her head, amazed. “I don’t know how you managed to find all that, and how you carried it up here in one trip. Thank you.” The scent of roasting rabbit wafted to her, and she resisted the temptation to rip the meat from the bones before it was fully done. Lyss was not by any definition fragile, but after their initial meeting, Jenna had no desire to reinforce the notion that she had one foot in the dragon camp.

  When the rabbit seemed suitably charred, Jenna pulled it from the fire with her bare hands. Lyss flinched, then tried to hide it.

  Jenna ripped free a joint for herself, the juices dripping onto the ground, and extended the rest of the rabbit toward Lyss, who pulled off a hunk of meat and took a bite.

  “What’s going on in town?” Jenna said, chewing. “Has the empress asked what happened to the male who attacked you?”

  “The . . . male?” Lyss said, brow furrowed. Then her confusion cleared. “Oh. Bosley. I reported him absent from morning report, and ordered a search of the city and the harbor area. We finally concluded that he either got drunk and fell into the harbor and drowned, or was carried off by a dragon.”

  “Do you think anyone will come hunting for him?”

  “Not if I have anything to say about it,” Lyss said, wiping her hands on some leaves. “I’ve tried to convince everyone that it’s too dangerous up here.”