In Dawn and Darkness

by Kate Avery Ellison

  You can find more information about Kate Avery Ellison’s books and other upcoming projects online at http://thesouthernscrawl.blogspot.com/.

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  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  My family, for your loving support. You are all wonderful.

  My mom, for telling just about every person you meet about my books.

  My mother-in-law, for reading everything I write pretty much as soon as it releases.

  Our wonderful babysitter for taking good care of my baby while I scribble stories. You do good work and you help me keep my sanity!

  H. Danielle Crabtree, for editing skills and general awesomeness. We’ve worked on a lot of books together, and your dependability is a gift.

  Everyone who messages me, tweets me, or emails me to tell me about reading my stories. I appreciate it so much. Oftentimes these notes come in the middle of a particularly frustrating day spent wrestling with story and characters, and the reminder that others care about these books gives me a boost of energy and determination.

  Read the first chapter of A Gift of Poison, the story of the dragon girl Briand Varryda, available now in paperback and ebook format!

  CHAPTER ONE

  BRIAND VARRYDA WASN’T stupid when it came to staying alive. In fact, it could be said that self-preservation was her best quality. So when she laid down her winning hand of cards—saw the twitch of his shoulder as the soldier across from her reached for his knife—she didn’t stick around to see if he’d throw it or not. She just grabbed her winnings and ran.

  “Grab her,” the soldier snarled, leaping up as Briand ducked between two hulking guards and ran to the doorway of the inn. “That little thief took my last copper!”

  Briand paused for a split second in the doorway. She’d left her bag at the table.

  A knife embedded in the frame beside her head with a thwack. She slipped through the door and outside into the night.

  The air was crisp with a hint of autumn, and the stars glittered like wet river stones against the purple-blue sky. But Briand didn’t stop to look. She went over the railing and into the alley below, dropping to the ground with the grace of a cat. The coins in her pockets rattled faintly.

  “She went over the balcony!”

  Briand darted down the street and across the shadowy market streets as the soldiers struggled after her, their shouts echoing in the darkness. Her shirt and trousers—men’s clothes—fluttered in the breeze as she turned down a second street. Ahead, at the top of the hill above the city, her uncle’s castle swung into view.

  A quick glance over her shoulder confirmed that her pursuers were gaining.

  Briand reached the steps that led to her uncle’s house. Around her, the city slept. Moonlight danced on curved roofs and across the newly cobbled roads, painting them garish and strange in the dark shadows. Stone dragons guarded the gates, mouths open in silent snarls. She used the lower jaw of the right dragon as a foothold as she scrambled up the wall. Her fingers scraped against the stones as she slithered over the top and jumped to her feet, now darting across the wall and onto the ramparts where archers paced in times of war. Below, the bailey yard was just a pit of blackness, punctuated with little points of firelight where the soldiers kept warm.

  Just a little farther. A little more and she’d be safe.

  Briand allowed herself the luxury of glancing back at her thwarted pursuers. They were still straining to see her in the darkness, and she had to imagine the rage on their faces because the shadows were so deep at the west side of the wall, but she had a good imagination.

  Now, with any luck she’d simply slip back to her quarters before anyone inside realized she was gone.

  A hand seized her hair, jerking her through the door and onto the sandy floor of the west bailey. She squirmed, gasping as pain burned through her scalp, one of her swinging fists connecting with a stubbly jaw. Her assailant threw her down and stepped a giant foot on her leg to hold her in place, ignoring her howl of pain.

  “Well, you’re slippery as a bloody knife,” he said, rubbing his face where she’d hit him. “But we’ll see how much fight you’ve got in you after Ammon and the others catch up with us.”

  “Let me go, Tibus.” She could hear the soldiers shouting again, this time in triumph. They’d seen her be snatched, and they were coming down the stairs. She wriggled, trying to get free and failing. “Please.”

  “I should let you learn a lesson or two tonight.”

  Briand froze in panic.

  Tibus took another look at her and reconsidered. “Although it’s their own fault if they don’t have the sense not to play Dubbok with you. I warned them. They didn’t listen, did they?”

  “I won it all fair, I promise...” She quieted liked she’d given up, and then she jerked against the pressure of his foot when he relaxed it, trying again to catch him off guard and escape. No such luck, however. Tibus was as strong as a steamboat.

  After a moment of deliberation, he reached down and grabbed her wrist, hauling her up to her feet. “Come on, then. I won’t leave you to the soldiers, whelp.”

  “You’ll let me go?”

  “No, I’m taking you to the steward,” he said.

  Tibus was sometimes her friend, so she couldn’t believe he was doing this to her. She twisted in his grip. “No!”

  “Yes.” He marched her forward. Briand braced her feet, but he just kept moving.

  “Tibus,” she gasped as he dragged her across the yard. “I’ll— I’ll give you all my winnings for the night if you’ll let me go!” It was a sacrifice. It was the best offer she had—and she’d planned to use those coppers to get a sheath for her new knife, a small one she could strap around her ankle, but...

  All she could see was the bounce of his curls as he shook his massive head. “Can’t bribe me, missy. I’m too well-paid by your uncle.”

  “Hang him,” she muttered.

  Tibus only chuckled appreciatively under his breath.

  “I’m sure he returns your sentiments.”

  She was sure he did. She was the rock in her uncle’s shoe that he could never shake loose.

  “Maybe if you appeal to his softer feelings, the steward won’t tell your uncle about this.”

  She would have laughed if she weren’t still struggling. The steward felt about her the way he’d feel about a snake wrapped around his boot.

  Tibus pulled her across the sandy ground of the west bailey to the steward’s quarters, located beside the barracks.

  A few of her uncle’s men rose from their places beside the fires, jeering as Tibus brought her back like some prized monster he’d wrestled from the forest. The soldiers who’d chased her had joined them, and they called to her from the fireside.

  “Not running so fast now, girl.”

  “Caught like a rabbit!”

  “Wait till the steward gets hold of you.” This was a particularly gleeful taunt. She’d taken this fellow’s last copper, she remembered now. She glared at him, but his words made her white with fear. She hoped it was too dark for him to see it.

  “I know a punishment for her—make her tend the kitchen fires for a few weeks!”

  “Maybe she’ll finally fall in,” someone muttered.

  That last barb about the fires was the cruelest. She couldn’t hide the shudder that gripped her when she heard it, either. They saw her flinch, and the group erupted in rowdy laughter. She turned her face away and straightened her back.

  “Shut up, all of you!” Tibus shouted, kicking at anyone who wandered too close. “Go back to your games and your wine.” To her, he said under his breath, “I got nothing against you, Briand Varryda. And lords know you’ve had a rough time of it, and the soldiers are a bunch of cads. But you’ve been causing too much trouble.”

  She f
ixed him with her eyes, giving him the look that always made her uncle freeze and pass a hand over his face. “You must do your duty, then.”

  Duty. It was an ugly word in her mouth, and she spat it out like a curse.

  Tibus looked away, grumbling. Her bright green eyes—witch eyes, some said—had that effect on them all.

  They reached the door to the steward’s chambers. Tibus lifted one massive fist and knocked. He didn’t lessen his crushing grip on her wrist. She dangled at his side like a captured rabbit.

  “Yes?” The muffled voice from within sounded irritated.

  “Excuse me, sir,” Tibus said. “There’s been a disturbance. Pieter’s niece—”

  It was all he got out of his mouth before the door was wrenched open, and her uncle’s steward stood there glaring at them. The words “Pieter’s niece” were always enough to catch his immediate attention, for he’d learned they might be followed by the words “stolen horses” or “knife fight” or “complete pandemonium.”

  Briand wanted to shrink behind Tibus, but she forced herself to stand straight as the steward leveled his gaze at her the way some men might point a sword—to ensure obedience.

  Kael was perhaps the youngest steward ever to command the castle, but he was also without a doubt the most feared. She heard stories whispered about him in the kitchens and on the ramparts, how he could kill a man without a sound, how he had dissenters flogged mercilessly. Now the young man stood before them, not much older than her cousin, Bran, slim but with the look of lean muscle to him, his thin face cold and without expression as he looked at them both over the tops of his reading glasses. Most of the serving girls in the castle said he was handsome, giggling about him as they worked, but Briand thought he was fearsome. His black hair was gathered away from his face, and his sharp gray eyes were frosty as he scanned them both, taking in the situation.

  Tibus waited. The men behind them waited too, shifting restlessly. No one dared make a sound with Kael’s cool gaze on them all.

  The steward tapped one hand against his leg. “Well? Come in, unless you want to keep standing here for the whole bailey to stare at.”

  Grunting, Tibus stepped over the threshold, yanking her along. She stumbled, pitching forward onto the soft carpet that covered the floor. She stuck out her other hand to break her fall, and then glared up at them both.

  The steward’s quarters were normally as plain as the rest of the original keep of the castle, but Kael had made efforts to improve them. The fire in the grate blazed and snapped. Drawings of airships and steamboats were tacked behind the oak desk, and embroidered tapestries covered the walls, providing color and warmth. Bri also suspected the images on the tapestries, which showed dragons disemboweling unlucky knights, served a third purpose of instilling the proper fear into those who were dragged before the steward for punishment. She stared at the lush green and gold pattern of the carpet.

  “Well, what happened?” the steward asked, going to his desk. He spoke with the air of a weary martyr, but she wasn’t fooled. He was angry at the intrusion, and he was hiding it behind a pretense of simple annoyance.

  She shifted nervously.

  The steward took his glasses off, folding them carefully and sliding them into a pocket on his vest. He propped both feet up and folded his hands behind his head. Beside his booted feet, Briand saw the remains of a late-night dinner and a pile of parchments. A mechanical curiosity, a timepiece or other, sat half-dismantled on the desk, cogs and other bits of metal scattered across the wood as if the steward had been in the process of examining them when Tibus had knocked, even though the night was late and the fires burned low.

  He never slept, it seemed.

  Tibus cleared his throat and gave her a little shake. “This wretched girl—”

  “Not you,” the steward said to Tibus. He looked at Briand. “Why have you been dragged in to see me? Have you been climbing the west tower again? Or were you stealing bread like the last time?”

  “Dubbok,” she managed.

  “Gambling is reckless, irresponsible behavior.” The steward’s voice was sharp. She dropped her eyes.

  “The losers chased her across the ramparts and over the wall. She climbed up one of the dragon statues.” Tibus’s voice had just the barest hint of admiration now. Bless him. She wondered if the steward heard it too.

  “Ah. No wonder they call you Catfoot,” the steward remarked.

  “I won it all fairly,” Bri said. She tried to pull away from Tibus, and after a faint nod from the steward, the big guard let her go. She rubbed the place where her arm ached.

  The steward lifted one eyebrow, as if telling her to continue.

  “It’s not my fault they’re idiots,” she continued. “And sore losers. They tried to run me down and persuade me to give it all back. With their fists, that is.” She lifted her eyes from the carpet and looked straight at him, trying to look calm and brave and innocent. Scratch that, innocent was too much to hope for. Brave, then. But her stomach was jumping like a hooked fish, and her legs shivered.

  “No,” the steward agreed, tipping his head to the side and lacing his fingers together beneath his chin. “It’s not your fault that they don’t know how to lose gracefully, and I’m not going to make you return what you’ve won—although I think your uncle would disapprove of your actions as much as I do.”

  Relief filled her, sweet and heavy. Was there mercy in this man?

  “I am going to lock you in the dungeon though.”

  Her heart sank to her feet.

  The steward smiled once, a hard smile, and waved at Tibus to take her away.