His easy charm instilled his allies with confidence. His unpredictability kept his enemies constantly tottering off balance. He had been known as a hedonistic ne’er-do-well before this week. Allies and enemies alike were stunned at his sudden competence, and Mershayn exploited their uncertainty like an expert swordsman finding the weaknesses in his opponent’s guard. Bands couldn’t have planned it better if she had tried.
Now, she dared to hope that Mershayn actually could rally this kingdom to war in time. She didn’t know when Zynder would be considered overdue to report to Avakketh, but she did know that a week was stretching it. Bands was on alert for any signs of a dragon impersonating a human. That might be Avakketh’s next step: to send a spy to find out what had become of Zynder. But Bands had seen nothing suspicious so far. She kept her well-known human shape so that, if a dragon had shapeshifted and walked the palace halls, he or she would be drawn straight to Bands. But so far, nothing.
Now that Mershayn was installed, she must turn her attention to her second task. Medophae. The defense Bands had planned would slow her god, but she could not best him. Only a god could kill another god. She needed Medophae.
Or possibly Tarithalius. He wasn’t a paragon of reassurance, but the god of humans might choose to fight Avakketh if the mood took him. At the least, a war between dragons and humans would be fascinating to Thalius.
She paused on that, thinking. Most likely, Thalius was here already, lurking in Teni’sia as a sailor stinking of fish, a mischievous street urchin, or some garrulous guard. Thalius derived great pleasure from his perpetual masquerade, appearing as the unknown warrior who turned the tide of a battle or as the mysterious scribe who delivered crucial information to an indecisive king. Yes, he was likely here somewhere. Unfortunately, she couldn’t count on him to help. If she was to effectively brace Avakketh, she needed Medophae.
Despair snuck through her defenses, and the whispered thought Zilok has already killed him... rose in her mind. She calmed her thumping heart. No, Medophae was alive.
She looked at the stars overhead, felt the chill breeze lift the tiny hairs on her arms. She drew a clean breath and exhaled, let that doubt flow out of her.
There was always a way. She must continue to think and act until she found that way. Medophae was alive. That was a simple fact until she had evidence that—
She felt the shift in the threads, the use of GodSpill. Hope and fear thrilled through her.
She recognized the subtle finesse, the meticulous grace of the manipulation of the threads. Zilok Morth coalesced behind her. Was he testing her? No, it was simply in his nature. Why approach an enemy from the front when you could approach from behind?
Stilling her tumultuous thoughts, Bands freed her mind for action. The time for contemplation and worry was over. The time for action, for intelligence, was now. She couldn’t afford to trip over her own concerns when fencing with Zilok. She needed to look for opportunity. The two of them had circled each other for centuries, throwing minor threadweavings against each other during Zilok’s schemes and Medophae’s retaliations, but they had always been like spears glancing off shields. They had never engaged in a full threadweaver battle. Zilok was powerful, but so was Bands, and neither knew which was the strongest. She suspected Zilok, like her, wasn’t in a hurry to have that duel. But Zilok knew, as did she, they must inevitably clash. Perhaps today was that day.
“Have you come to gloat?” she asked, holding perfectly still. She didn’t turn to face him, letting him know that she need not see him with her eyes to know exactly where he was. His glowing spirit showed like a figure of knotted blue threads in her threadweaver’s sight. The centuries of the Devastation Years, when Amarion had been bereft of GodSpill, had not dimmed him. He was as solid and powerful as ever.
“You assumed I would come at all?”
“You always do.”
“I wouldn’t want you to think I am predictable. Shall I leave?” he asked.
She let the silence stretch. He had found her. He had come to threaten, torture, manipulate, or perhaps even to get something from her. He would not quit it until he got what he came for.
Bands desperately wanted Medophae’s location, or at least an indication he still lived, but her need was a weapon in Zilok’s hand. If he could force her to show emotion, he would use that weapon against her. She could almost feel his longing to see her weakness, but Bands was a dragon. She had a patience that Zilok Morth could not comprehend.
She waited, saying nothing, and was rewarded.
“I find your game curious,” he said. “And so I came to see what you are about.”
“My game?" Her words were bait on a hook. The longer he stayed, the more certain she was that he wanted something, and that was like gold in her hand.
“Your grand revolution in Teni’sia. The instatement of the Bastard King. You’ve done a breathtaking job, I’ll grant you. Of course, you have plenty of practice in building empires. Are you also building another hero? Will you coach this one along as you coached the Wildmane, sand his rough edges, and polish him? A hundred years from now, will you have the minstrels singing praises of the Bastard King?”
And that was Zilok’s bait, dangled for her. He was trying to draw out her emotion, trying to see how her heart constricted at the thought of Medophae in Zilok’s claws. Zilok was implying that any hero would do for Bands, that Medophae was unimportant as an individual, only as a purpose.
This was the tricky part. What to tell him? What to show?
“I am preparing,” she replied.
“So cryptic. You were always soft-spoken about the big things. But for you, I’ll bite. What are you preparing for?”
“Why have you come, Zilok?”
“Are you simply going to talk to me with your back turned during our entire conversation? Some might consider that rude.”
“If you wanted to talk to my face, you would have appeared in front of me.” She didn’t turn around.
“You’ve not asked about Medophae. Did I hit the mark? Is Mershayn your new hero? Could you be that fickle? Has the Bastard King captured your heart as well as your attention?”
“You didn’t come here to return Medophae,” Bands said.
“I’ve come to help you.”
“I see.”
This time, he stayed silent. It was typical of Zilok to banter with his prey; he’d done that for as long as she’d known him, but something was off here. His rhythm lacked its usual elegance. He seemed...in a hurry, but that made no sense whatsoever. He already had what he wanted most: Medophae as his prisoner, helpless. If Zilok wanted something from Bands, his best play was to wait her out. Yet here he was, engaging her. What urgency could drive Zilok to be in a hurry?
“You’ve wrested this kingdom from Grendis Sym,” Zilok finally said. “My former ally. I’ve come to congratulate you, and, as a favor from one threadweaver to another, to tell you that I will stay clear of Teni’sia. I will honor that you have become this kingdom’s protector, and won’t try to take it from you.”
“You think I’m trying to protect this kingdom?”
He hesitated.
“Then you really don’t know.” She paused contemplatively. “Surprising.” Vast information about a multitude of subjects went hand-in-hand with the name Zilok Morth. He was a threadweaver from the Age of Ascendance. He had the ravening thirst for knowledge, the same thirst that possessed every threadweaver, and he’d had hundreds of years to accumulate that knowledge. There was no greater insult to Zilok than to imply he didn’t know something.
His reply was silence.
“You have not felt it, then?” she pressed.
“There have been many changes in the lands. To which do you refer?” His tone was flat.
“A dragon stalked the halls of Teni’sia until very recently,” she said. “You didn’t notice?”
Again, silence.
“Do you remember the strange lights over the mountains the night you took Medophae?” she contin
ued. “Or were you so preoccupied with your revenge that you missed the larger picture?”
“Did one of your fellows come south to free you from your gem prison?”
“He came south to kill me. I killed him instead.”
Zilok hesitated again. There wasn’t a record in human history where dragon fought dragon. Not in any of the legends passed down verbally, either. That was because dragons didn’t brawl with one another. They followed the will of their lord god, Avakketh. If one dragon killed another, it was not a fight, but an execution performed by the elites, and only at the express command of their god. Zilok wouldn’t know about the elites, but he knew about the rest. No doubt he was putting together all the pieces in a flashing instant.
“And here I thought all the surprise had gone out of my life,” he said, and she could tell that he was aching to ask questions.
“Wait and watch.”
“You think Avakketh is coming south,” he said.
“There’s no reason for Avakketh to send an elite into Amarion, except as a prelude to war.” She deliberately threw out the word “elite” again for him to chew on. His threadweaver’s insatiable mind would want to know what that was, and every little tidbit that distracted him was a benefit.
“And he wants you dead because of what you know about dragon culture,” he said. “Their weaknesses. And you side with the humans. You hold great and dangerous knowledge in your pretty, human-seeming head.”
There it was. He’d dropped his line in the water. He wanted her knowledge, something she knew that he didn’t. Her own mind gnawed at that, wondering what it could be. It was something arcane, almost certainly. He might be the superior threadweaver between the two of them, but she had lived longer. Did he seek a spell that had been performed before his time? Some threadweaver technique he wished to master that only she might know about?
“My knowledge doesn’t belong to Avakketh anymore. It’s free to humankind and any who would ally with them in this war.” Take it, Zilok. Pick it up.
“Clever,” he said. “It is refreshing, matching wits with you again. Yes, I have a curiosity about something. You might know a little about it.”
She turned to face him at last. Usually, Zilok preferred projecting himself to mortal eyes as he had looked when he was in his fortieth year of life. But this time, he was just two blue flames in the shapes of eyes, hovering at head height above the snowy path of the garden. That told volumes. He’d been in some kind of fight, and it had diminished him. Had Medophae done this to him?
No, she suddenly knew that wasn’t the case. If Medophae had done this, Zilok wouldn’t come to Bands for help. In fact, that he had come to her at all strongly indicated that Medophae was alive. Zilok had spared him, for now at least. Yes, that made sense. In Zilok’s mind, he’d see Medophae’s continued existence as a reason for him to deserve help from her. And that would open up the gate in his mind, allowing him to seek her out.
She spoke her thoughts aloud. “You spared him.”
The burning blue eyes narrowed. “Yes.”
“Then I will help you, if I can.”
“I won’t give him to you,” he said.
“What is your question?” she asked.
“The Crown of Natra,” he said. “What do you know of it?”
Bands’s eyes widened before she could stop them. Her mouth opened to respond, but she realized she didn’t know what to say first.
“What did you do?” Her mind raced. She had met Natra, the Breather of Life, twice in her life, long ago when she was barely more than a hatchling, just before Natra disappeared from the lands forever. But Bands would never forget the crown at Natra’s brow, with its tall, rough-hewn crystals, and she would never forget what Bands’s mother had told her about it. The crown was how Natra controlled the other gods. It could take the power of any god and use it against them. And none of the gods would steal it because it had some horrible curse on it.
That was how Zilok had defeated Medophae. Somehow, he’d unearthed the Crown of Natra. It was impossible to contemplate, but then, it wouldn’t be the first impossible thing that Zilok Morth had done.
“Where is he?” she asked.
“No.”
She turned and began walking toward the castle, hoping that she was playing this right. Everything balanced on a knife’s edge. He needed what she knew, but she would never willingly give him the key to such power as the Crown of Natra would give him. That would make Zilok a god. And she needed Medophae to fight Avakketh, but Zilok would never let him go. She couldn’t finish this negotiation on a whim. She had to have time to think.
“‘Never trust a dragon...’” Morth said as she walked away.
“‘...unless you are a dragon,’” she finished the old saying, pausing on the snowy path and looking over her shoulder. “Obviously, I’m the exception to that rule,” she said. “And you’ve tampered with something that’s eating you. I will help you, but I need to do some research.”
“Smoke and mirrors,” he said. “I know these games. All you care about is the return of your lover.”
“Come back tomorrow.” She walked away, and this time she didn’t stop.
Zilok did not call out to her again.
14
Mershayn
Mershayn slumped against the wall beneath the arched window of his sitting room. His sword lay across his lap, nestled in its scabbard.
You and Collus. You were the only friends I ever really had. And now you’re what’s left. My one, true friend....
He grabbed the cup at his side, missed the handle, and tipped it. He snatched the cup before it fell, spilling only a drop.
I’m so fast. Did you see that? Fast enough to become king and lose myself, lose my brother, lose Ari’cyiane, lose everything I love at the same time. So...very...fast.
He downed the rest, refilled it from the keg of Cirienne lager Lady Mae’lith had given him at his coronation, which sat with him against the wall. He didn’t stop after two cups, didn’t stop after four.
My lovely Lady Ari’cyiane...
He kept seeing the look of pure loathing she’d given him. Once, her smile had been his to feast on, to warm him in his quiet moments.
What is the point of being king if everyone you care about hates you?
He had left the window open to the chilly air. A cold breeze ruffled his hair, tickled the back of his neck, but he ignored it. With a grunt, he stood up, catching his sword and keeping his cup from spilling.
Masterful work, swordsman.
The voice in his head took on the accent of the swordmaster who had instructed him when he was ten years old. Master Debarc had been a once-great master swordsman from Buravar who made his living teaching out-of-the-way country lords who didn’t know—or didn’t care—about his reputation as a drunk. But the man had been the most natural swordsman Mershayn had ever known.
Any idiot can memorize footwork, Master Debarc would say. Your reflexes are your ally, your gut feeling is your captain. A real swordsman feels the fight like a dance. He hears his legs and arms speak to him with the voice of the gods. Your head serves you before the draw, but once your blade leaves its scabbard, cut your own head off, as they say. Listen to your arms and legs in the fight, swordsman. Listen to your heart. Never to your head.
“Arms and legs,” Mershayn said, flicking his wrist and throwing the ale into the air in a thin column. He focused, following the ribbon of suspended ale and scooped it up neatly in the cup as it dropped. Another little drop escaped, dotting the floor. “Not drunk at all, see?” he said to no one, looking out the window. The moon was obscured by overcast, but Mershayn guessed it was just after midnight.
He shivered and pushed himself away from the window, went into his bedroom and opened his wardrobe. He needed a cloak, but his old, faded green cloak had been taken away. Instead, he had the ridiculous royal thing Lord Balis had given him with its thick, black fur trim.
I’m a king now. I have a fancy cloak. That’s wh
at I have. I have no sweet praises of adventurous ladies, no soft fingers to run through my hair. No kisses for me. I have a dragon taskmistress and a humorless dead woman for an advisor. I have a fancy cloak and cold women. That’s what I have now. Huzzah.
He set the cup on top of the wardrobe and threw his sheathed sword into the air. As it sailed up, he hooked the cloak with two fingers, yanked it from the wardrobe and flung it over his shoulders. The cloak flared out impressively, settled perfectly, and he caught his sword by the middle of the scabbard before it hit the ground.
Masterful work, swordsman.
Mershayn deftly retrieved his cup of ale and left his bedroom, then headed for the door, an idea forming. Yes. He was going to take his fancy doublet and his fur-trimmed cloak down to The Barnacles. He was going to drink by the docks until he fell down on the wet stones, far away from this palace, far away from where anyone knew who he was—
A voice came from the window. “Do I know you?”
Mershayn spun like a spooked cat. His hand jumped from sword scabbard to hilt, and he twitched his wrist. The scabbard rang as it slid off the blade and hit the floor with a clatter. Ale spilled on his fancy cloak, but his sword came up, ready.
Mirolah stood in front of the tall, arched window, naked as the new snow. That monstrous beast of a dog stood at her side, his back easily as tall as her shoulder. The grotesque dog—its teeth had to be as long as Mershayn’s little finger—let out a soft sound like a cross between a howl and a growl, then sat down. His pink tongue lolled out, and he panted.
“By the gods,” Mershayn spluttered. “Mirolah!”
Her eyes were no longer the dark brown they had once been. They swirled with rainbow colors—no whites, no iris, no pupil.
“That is my name?” she asked. The monster beside her whined. Then, she nodded. “Yes. That is my name.”
“By the gods, I thought you were dead.” He came toward her. “We looked for you, but there was nothing. Just...blood on the rocks.”
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