by Dan Allen
Reann shook her head. “No, I’m fine.” A chill crept over her. “He’s just trying to—”
“Trying to what?” Ret asked.
“Trying to figure out a land dispute,” Reann rehearsed. She was sick at herself for lying to Ret, sick at Verick for killing that poor thief and threatening her, and sick at the thought of what she had done to hide his crime. She wanted Ret to leave and stop reminding her of it. She wanted to scream.
“So he killed a man over a made-up land dispute,” Ret said doubtfully. “What has he got you doing that’s so important?”
Reann wanted to grab Ret and hold him and cry on his shoulder. She wanted to run away. But she had to keep it together or else he would be sure that something was wrong and keep pressing. She only had a few weeks and Verick was her best chance.
Reann focused on her laundry folding, pained by every forced motion of pretended indifference.
Ret reached for the door handle and turned it slowly. “It just hurts when you find out your friend’s loyalties aren’t what they used to be.” He turned and left the room. He was running by the time he reached the stairs.
The pile of laundry had somehow doubled in size.
Ranger stared.
“I didn’t mean to,” Reann said.
The cat yowled.
“Fine, you can go if you want.”
The orange-brown cat headed for the door.
Alone, Reann fell back on the pile of laundry. “It’s impossible.” Reann thought about dodging him, about never going back to the library again. He wasn’t paying her, after all. She could even run away, but something inside her wouldn’t even allow the thought of crossing him. He had killed without a second thought.
But he valued Reann—or at least he needed her.
And she needed his clues. They had made progress together. Reann was closer than ever to finding an heir . . . to finding a future that wasn’t folding other people’s laundry.
I’m not a servant.
Reann’s reason for finding an heir, be it the Furendali girl, the Montazi boy, or another was clear. And she had only three weeks before she could no longer pursue it.
What was Verick’s?
“Perhaps no good reason,” she whispered.
Verick wanted the heirs for a reason that was all his own, a reason he would kill for.
I have to find an heir first, before he kills me too.
Chapter 10
Montazi Realm. Neutat.
Terith squinted into the falling sun as he gazed out over the ruins from the steam vent. Huge boulders hurled by the explosion had left flattened corridors through the forest greenery. Remains from the megalith of Neutat littered the tops of trees. Broadleaf plants were riddled with holes. Sap oozed from mortally wounded fruit trees broken in half by debris from the blast.
He tried to wipe the sweat from his forehead, but the elbow below the scorpion sting refused to bend more than a few inches. He only managed to smudge dirt across the corner of his forehead.
He was leaving Neutat with no idea how his people would fare in his absence—and only Tanna and Werm to oversee the salvage operations. Nobody had heard from the last patrol. He had no idea when, if ever, the next patrol would go out. One thing was certain. He needed help.
He would ask Ferrin for help, they had all agreed. But the request to reassign riders to the border would come on the eve of the most important challenge in decades. He wasn’t hopeful.
The brutal thought stabbed Terith. He couldn’t compete, and someone else would win the challenge.
Lilleth was lost. His future was falling out of control.
Is this what Lilleth saw? Was this the end of our relationship?
Terith set into a beleaguered jog up the trail, heading to Ferrin-tat, the one place in the world he didn’t want to be, the place where he would personally witness another rider choosing Lilleth.
Pert.
The very thought made him nauseous.
The night hike into the upper megaliths passed in the usual blur of waking dreams and near misses. Every time his foot slipped an inch on a rope bridge, Lilleth’s words seared his mind.
Not the deep!
It was mid-morning with the sun shining over a blanket of fog in the deep when Terith approached the megalith of Ferrin’s capital. He passed a sleeping guard and stepped onto the bridge, legs weary and wobbly. He had come fifteen miles in the night, with only a little water at a few shallow springs.
Terith moved hand-over-stubborn-hand across the bridge. It was decorated with streamers and flowers welcoming challengers and spectators for the race. He was so weary that only after his hands and feet moved did his brain realize he was still going ahead.
When at last he reached the courtyard of Ferrin’s enclave, he collapsed. His vision swam ahead of him, until the thought that Pert might be watching struck him with enough force to push his body up. He stood shakily as Enala rushed up to him.
“Father, come quick! Something has happened to Terith.” Her hand set on the taut muscles of his arm and flinched back in fright. “He’s bleeding!”
“I’m not . . .” Terith protested weakly as the courtyard filled with curious guests and servants.
“What is all this about?” Ferrin’s imperious voice brought immediate silence.
“Neutat is . . . destroyed,” Terith said. His hand shaded his forehead as little lights sparkled in his vision.
Enala, who still had Terith’s dragon-wing cloak tied over her shoulders, kept her arm wrapped around his waist like a mother dragon protecting her offspring. Only Terith gave no indication that he wanted to be coddled. “He’s hurt, Father,” Enala said. She gestured to his shirt and arm stained with the hawk’s blood Tanna had used as a mild remedy for the scorpion venom.
“I’m not hurt.”
“He’s been stung.”
“What happened?” Ferrin asked evenly. “Was there an attack? Where were the patrols?”
Seeing the mix of curious, pitying, and spiteful eyes all around, Terith answered, “No, steam vent.”
Ferrin’s face clouded at the mention of the accident that had claimed the life of Lilleth and Enala’s mother. He looked at the gathering crowd. “We’ll discuss this in private.”
Behind the closed door of Ferrin’s conference chamber, after recounting the explosion and the evacuation, Terith finally sat against one of the large decorated cushions surrounding the walls of the round bored-root chamber. He mumbled apologetically, “Forgive me, my Lord,” as he buried his head in his hands to ease the dizziness. “We can no longer defend the border,” he said directly. “The patrols are in disarray.”
“Terith, I depend on you. This is no small matter.”
“I know, sir. But my people have limits. The soldiers have families.”
“We all have families!” Ferrin shouted. “Everyone in the Montas has a family.”
“Then let them help the refugees from Neutat.”
Ferrin stroked a mustache comprised of a few long hairs twisted together that curled around the corners of his mouth. “I shall send riders to shore up that section of the border as soon as the challenge is complete.”
“But—”
Ferrin lifted a hand. “There is order to the things we do here, Terith. I must consider the spirit of the people. The challenge is as much a necessity as the food we eat and the air we breathe. I think you of all people would understand that.”
Terith gave a small nod.
“Then what are you to do about your candidacy in the challenge?”
“I forfeit,” Terith said at once. “My loyalty is to my people. They need my help.”
“And what of your loyalty to me and my family?” Ferrin demanded, speaking of his unwed daughters, both eligible.
“My dragon fell,” Terith confessed.
“The others fled. I—I can’t compete.”
“How is this possible? Was there not time to rescue your dragon? Is it not as important as any of your people are? Surely villagers cannot defend the border as well as a dragon rider.”
“I did save her. I rode Akara and used the awakening to rescue Werm, just before the explosion. He wouldn’t be alive if not for Akara. But the explosion stunned Akara. She fell into the deep. I caught the ivy and was rescued.”
“The dragon was stunned—and not you?” Ferrin said.
“I was in the light of the awakening.”
“Indeed. That’s a nasty scorpion sting. I can see you’ve been to the deep.”
Apparently, he had heard something of Lilleth’s vision.
“Nearly,” Terith corrected. “Nearly to the deep.”
Ferrin breathed a weary sigh. “You always find a way to make my life more complicated.” He waved the back of his hand to Terith. “Get some rest—or at least pretend to be tired so my daughters will have an excuse to dote on you and I can get some work done.”
“Yes, sir.”
He stepped from the chamber and walked down the hollowed-out corridor, as he turned toward the exit, his chest collided with a rock-solid obstacle—Pert.
“You dropping out or not?” the beady-eyed thug said with a cruel curl of a grin on his lip.
“Yeah,” Terith said, meeting his wild gaze defiantly.
“Too bad.”
“Why should you care?” Terith said with a boldness his physical condition didn’t back up.
“I’d rather beat you fair, so everyone knows it as well as me that you can’t hold a candle to my power.”
“You mean so everyone knows that you’ll kill to get what you want?”
Pert blew air out his squat nose and looked around with his small, dark eyes as if gathering laughs from his nonexistent posse. “He talks tough.”
“You bring shame on the Montazi,” Terith said.
Pert put a finger in Terith’s chest and pushed him off balance as he stepped past. “You’re the son of a whore, Terith. And you’ll die like the bleeding-heart runt you are.”
The awakening flared near the edges of Terith’s consciousness. He held his breath to keep it from coming.
Pert sneered. “Go ahead. Take a swing. It’s your suicide.” He gave another snort of a laugh as he turned his back on Terith.
Terith waited for a full minute in the tunnel. Anger raged like flames on troubled water, but the undercurrent was doubt and disappointment.
He climbed up out of the ivy stem tunnel and into the covered terrace in the courtyard. A volley of questions came at him from nobles, servants, and villagers—anyone who had kin in Neutat.
“How many died?”
“Did you see Mayat or Sherel? Are they safe?”
“What happened?”
“Was there a landslide?”
Terith raised his hand to call for silence. His blood-soaked arm stopped their mouths.
“It was a steam explosion.”
Another barrage of questions erupted.
“Nobody died,” Terith barked defensively. “I got everyone to safety.”
Except my dragon.
He pushed his way out of the crowd. Turning the corner, he ran into the other two people he desperately didn’t want to see.
Lilleth and Enala stood in the path, both in high-heeled sandals with white leather ties that wrapped around their ankles and calves. Equal in height, Lilleth’s earth-tone hair complemented Enala’s airy blonde. The two, with their dragon-hide skirts, made a formidably imposing barrier.
They had on their “business” looks, Lilleth with her arms crossed and Enala with a fist on her hip. Either girl he could have handled alone, but together, there was going to be trouble.
“Where are you running off to so fast?” Enala asked.
“I’m going back to Neutat,” Terith said, trying to sound as congenial as possible to avoid provoking the riled girls. His clenched jaw and doubled fists told another story. “There’s no help for my people here.”
“You have only been here a half hour,” Lilleth said with her usual calmness. “Help will come.”
Terith shook his head. “This whole trip was a waste of time.”
“What’s wrong with you?” Enala demanded.
“He’s seen Pert,” Lilleth said. “You can see it in his eyes.”
“Yes, well, you can see it in his eyes,” Enala said. “All I see is somebody trying to run away.”
“From what?” Terith said defensively.
“From us, for one thing,” Lilleth said.
“From the race,” Enala added, “and from Pert.”
“I’m not trying to run away,” Terith said, “I’m helping my village.”
“Well you aren’t any good to anyone dead. So you’re going to get some rest,” Enala stated.
“I’m not—”
“Terith,” Lilleth said resolutely, “you’re coming with us.”
“Why—what are you—let go of my arms. Hey—you can’t pull my trouser strings. That’s cheating. What—seriously. I should get back to Neutat.”
“Nuh-uh.”
“Sorry. Can’t let that happen.”
The girls let go of his arms and crossed theirs. They stopped in a shaded clearing near the second guesthouse on the lower terrace. “Now that you’re here, we can’t let you leave,” Enala explained. “Pert would win.”
“Look, my people need me right now. And even if they didn’t, I can’t race. In case you didn’t hear, my dragon is dead.”
Lilleth looked at him pleadingly. “Terith, any of the other riders would lend you their dragon and forfeit if they knew it meant you could beat Pert.”
“Yeah, until he threatened them,” Terith said. “Besides, my moves are dangerous. I can’t do them without Akara.”
“The race isn’t until tomorrow,” Lilleth spelled calmly. “You have time. Now put your head away and give your heart a chance. You have to believe you can do it.”
Enala leaned closer. “What? Are you afraid? I thought fear was impossible for a rider.”
“How about this?” Terith huffed. “Lilleth looks into my future. If Pert wins, I go home.”
“It doesn’t work like that,” Lilleth said.
Enala turned a fiery expression on Terith. “If you aren’t going to even try, even for our sakes, then maybe you aren’t a worthy champion anyway.” She glanced at her sister, who nodded.
An uneasy silence fell over the shade trees, reaching all the way down to where their roots embedded in the great ivy stems.
“Terith, you have a chance,” Lilleth said. “Guardians as my witness, I want you to be the man to fix all the wrongs in this place. But the world doesn’t revolve around you.” She spoke with stinging intensity Terith had never heard before. “And you aren’t that man . . . yet.”
Her next words came on the gentlest whisper the air could carry. “If you want to convince me that you are everything that I hope you can be, you have to prove it.”
“Likewise,” Enala followed, brushing a strand of hair out of her face.
Terith swallowed. His heart beat heavily and echoed in his hollow chest, but his head nodded.
What did he have to lose?
His life? It was already gone.
“I . . . I’ll get some rest. Then I’ll go to the keep and see what I can find, but don’t get your hopes up. I’m still a tall rider on a little dragon. I haven’t much of a chance.”
“You must not lose,” Lilleth said, her voice ringing with a measure of raw, natural power, as if trying to hold back her awakening. “Everything depends on it.”
“I don’t get it,” Terith said, turning away from the desperate look in her eye. “Last time I was here I wanted to race more than any
thing, but both of you wouldn’t have me risk it. Now, when I haven’t got a whisper of a chance, you won’t leave me alone until I swear I’ll do whatever it takes to win.”
Enala took a watchful glance behind Terith and nodded. Lilleth looked over her shoulder as well and then moved closer. “Pert has the dark awakening.”
“The dark—the what?”
Lilleth clapped a hand over his mouth and Enala squished his cheeks together between her thumb and fingers. “Quiet.” She checked behind for anyone else on the trail and spoke barely above a whisper. “There is a different kind of awakening.”
Terith tried to imagine what sort of nonsense Enala had invented and passed on to Lilleth to pull off with a straight face. “You mean bonding or something like that?”
“Of course we aren’t talking about that,” Enala said quickly.
“There is a permanent awakening,” Lilleth explained, “but the knowledge of it was decreed to die. To even speak of it . . .” She put her hands over her mouth, as if she didn’t dare utter the words.
Enala wrapped her arms around her as if suddenly chill. “We aren’t supposed to know—no one is.”
“Know about what?” Terith wondered.
“If you kill a Montazi,” Lilleth said, forcing the words out of her mouth as if they were poison, “while he’s in the awakening, it is possible to bind whatever forfeited life force they have to you—I don’t know how it’s done. I don’t even want to know.”
“So it’s like having a double awakening?”
“More like being alive and dead at the same time,” Lilleth said. “Since you’re in both places, here and the place beyond, you can’t be killed. The extra life force awakens you to danger. It strengthens you.”
“It haunts you,” Enala added, “drives you to darkness.”
“It sees without eyes,” Lilleth said.
“It can strike at a distance, like a phantom’s hand,” Enala said, “strangle you or . . .” Enala, looking suddenly ill, didn’t finish the thought.
Terith shook his head. “Wait. You think Pert somehow—”
“Not think. We know,” Enala said.
