by Dan Allen
between chewing on some potent-smelling jerky and passing exorbitant amounts of gas—was that Trinah’s mother had been the one who braved the ice caves to reach Erdal in mid-winter to ask Toran for help after the Nots clans had invaded their northern realm.
Beyond that, Reann was left to wonder—and worry. She went to the roof. It was the only place she could be alone, avoid work, and not run into Verick.
She stepped onto the flat roof with its short stone perimeter interspersed by battlements, feeling the hot sun on her back as the summer breeze tickled her legs. She took a deep breath and walked to the edge, looking out over the valley below.
“Not one for crowds?”
Reann whirled around, her hands pressed against the bulwark.
Verick had stepped from the shadows and now stood between her and the stairwell.
Reann shook her head.
Verick walked closer and leaned back against the same section of rock.
Reann desperately wanted to run. He could throw her over the edge. It wasn’t safe.
Verick ignored the hot afternoon sun on his black trousers, hat, and waistcoat. The only bit of non-black fabric on him was the white of his shirtsleeves—gold cuff links and buttons ever in place.
Compared to an oppressive black suit, Reann was glad her silken dress offered some access to the breeze.
“You’re wearing a dress,” he said after a tortuous pause.
“Yes,” Reann answered. She looked down and then up at Verick’s distant eyes. “Do you like it?” she asked, relieved to no end that the conversation was not about what had happened a few days before at night by the aviary, or questions about her loyalty to him.
He glanced at her again and said, “It will do.”
As far as compliments went, Reann had heard better from Ret, who generally compared things to the animals he worked with. Even a devil like Verick could recognize a gorgeous dress when he saw one.
That was the last straw.
Trying not to sound miffed, Reann said, “Have you practiced your speech for the ceremony?”
Verick just gave her a look he might have reserved for overcooked turnip greens and changed the topic. “You spent some time with the Furendali guest.”
“Yes.”
“Well?”
Reann shrugged. “Trinah is not very talkative. I must have gotten a whole ten words out of her in the first ten minutes.”
“And?”
“Difficult,” Reann said. Her feet tried to shift away, but she forced them to stay where they were. She couldn’t afford to look like she was afraid and hiding something. “I . . . thought I might learn more. Honestly I couldn’t get her to talk about matters of family and relations with Erdal, Toran’s first war against the Nots, or anything interesting.” She’d been practicing that lie in her head all day.
“What did she talk about?” Verick asked.
“Dogs . . . and food,” Reann said.
Verick gave a half smile and a breath of a laugh, looking utterly dashing with one foot crossed in front of the other and an elbow leaning against the battlement. But the strange feeling that had swept over her when she first met him now only passed in glimpses before being swallowed in the fire of Reann’s desperate anger. Verick had threatened her. He was using her. It only made her more determined to not tell him that Trinah was Toran’s heir.
And he didn’t even say I look beautiful in this dress.
Hours later at the ceremony, Reann sat between Trinah and Verick, feeling short, slight, and put off.
The ceremony began with a long round of introductions, which gave way to anecdotes and banter back and forth amid the well-to-do and generally overweight traders. There were representatives from all the realms: tanned, exotic Montazi traders in leather and linen; hardy fur-clad Furendali; well-dressed Serbani from the southern coast; charismatic Erdali; and the quiet, mysterious Dervani from the west deserts in their flowing robes. The ceremony location rotated each year, and the master of ceremonies noted that the last time it had been held in the citadel, Toran had presented the award.
After the formalities, the master of ceremonies, a very wide trader who probably needed his own barge to get around began his introduction of the recipient. “For services above and beyond the call of duty, for bravery and courage and fortitude, for actions of valor and generosity, and above all, for benevolence to traders and the several villages of the Furendal—”
“Oh, get on with it,” Trinah mumbled under her breath.
“Seconded,” Verick said.
They exchanged a pleased glance.
Reann frowned.
“For missions of mercy—reminds me of that fellow we honored a few years back. What was his name?”
“Speaking of missions of mercy,” Verick whispered.
“I’ll need your sword,” Trinah followed seamlessly, “quick and painless.”
The two chuckled—they honestly chuckled in the middle of a solemn ceremony, with Reann between them, feeling increasingly like a little sister.
“To present the award, we have with us,” the master of ceremonies looked to his agenda and read, “the distinguished Lord Verick of—well, he’s Serbani, isn’t he? How about a cheer from our southern traders?”
The five Serbani traders in the room beat their tables with their mugs. Verick stood, tugged his vest over his sword belt and stepped forward.
The change in the mood was palpable, like an executioner’s arrival at a dinner party. Trinah enjoyed it best of all, the deadlier the better with her it seemed. She had worn her spiked wristbands despite Reann’s verbatim quotations about etiquette from Bennion’s Compendium itself. A formal gown with spiked bracelets . . . honestly.
Verick placed his hands behind his back. He did not smile.
“Rise, Trinah of Evernas, or shall we say, Lady of the North.”
The usually boisterous crowd refrained from cheering at her pet name.
Trinah stood and stomped to Verick. She faced him, not the crowd—him.
Look away, Reann willed, still angry at Verick and not enjoying the way Trinah just gazed at him with her Furendali-style, closed-lip smile.
“I hereby present you with this award.” He handed her the medallion of honor with its red ribbon, which she draped over her own her neck.
Reann shook her head in dismay.
There was an awkward moment where they ought to have embraced or shook hands. They just looked at each other.
Reann began clapping. The traders joined in and soon the place was awash with mug thumping, boot stomping, and whistling.
Trinah and Verick exited immediately while Reann sat and fumed. Nobody had excused her. When the ceremony finally turned to the business of arranging the next meeting, Reann excused herself.
She had hoped Trinah would be an ally, someone to make plans with, her hope for the future, but she was rapidly becoming a royal nuisance. Verick’s attentions were not on the table.
Reann honestly loathed him for threatening her, but that didn’t mean anyone could waltz in and laugh with him in the middle of a speech and make eyes with him in a solemn ceremony. For one thing Verick had never apologized or shown any remorse, and for another, he hadn’t even complimented her on her dress, which was drawing almost as much attention as Trinah’s at the ceremony.
Verick had no right to receive fawning attention from someone like Trinah. He hadn’t earned it and neither had Trinah.
Being a future queen had nothing to do with it.
Leaving the meeting unexcused was mildly embarrassing, but not as much as flirting, which she had decided she was willing to try in order to wrest Verick’s attention from Trinah. She didn’t want him finding anything more about her.
But how would she get his attention away?
Would she stoop to flirting?
Flirting with him?
She was horrified at the idea. How could she? He had threatened her, grabbed her, and totally ignored the fact that she looked beautiful—the first two being the most important and the third being there because women like Reann did not forget.
As she searched the castle library for the pair, she realized she wasn’t quite sure she knew how to flirt. Reann imagined the way Carena wagged herself in front of the village boys, sticking out her chest and tossing her red hair when she laughed and doing blatantly immodest things like putting her leg up on a chair!
She felt ill. Perhaps she could stick out her chest a little, arch her back, run her hands down her dress . . . Guardians save me. Reann was already blushing when she reached the rooftop to look for the pair.
They weren’t on the rooftop or at the armory—she thought for sure they would be looking at weapons. She called for Ret from outside the stables—she wouldn’t set a foot in there in her dress—promising him her breakfast if he checked for them in Trinah’s tent. He grudgingly ran out the castle and all the way around the outer wall and back.
From the look on Ret’s face as he returned, Reann could tell it hadn’t gone well.
“You didn’t say anything about a wolf being in there. It almost bit my head off!” he bellowed.
So they weren’t at Trinah’s tent. They didn’t know about the loose door in the dungeon. Not the stables. Not the aviary, the armory, or the library.
Reann drew a breath of shock. The upstairs bedroom! She hadn’t relocked it. No . . . not a bedroom . . . They could be doing anything in there. Anything but talking, she argued to herself, would be fine. But all the other options perturbed her even more.
She raced up the stairs, a new and strange feeling of desperation fueling her as she turned around the corner into the corridor with the “mistress” room, as it was sometimes called.
Reann slowed.
There was a light inside and the door was slightly ajar. Reann opened it carefully, fear awash with a confusing blend of feelings.
Verick had his sword pointed at Trinah, who had broken the arms and legs off a hat rack and wielded it like a spear.
“Come at me once more—I’ve got your strategy all figured out,” Trinah said in a devilishly playful voice.
“Excuse me,” Reann said, sounding a little too much like a mother reminding children about table manners.
The two turned from what looked like some kind of sparring match.
“Is there anything you need, sir, lady?” Reann followed, in her most servile pleasant voice.
“Not presently,” Verick offered, breaking the awkward pause. He sheathed his sword. “I thank you for your company, Trinah. I should retire and give you your rest.”
“The sun sets altogether too early here in the summer,” Trinah replied with a smile.
Reann had a burning desire to stick her tongue out at Trinah, a thought that horrified her.
Verick bowed and turned out of the room.
At least he didn’t smile.
Reann followed him as he turned into the corridor that ran along the north castle wall. “Any luck?” she asked when they were alone.
Finally.
“Dogs . . . and food,” he said. “What did you learn from the other traders?”
“They were all . . . busy,” Reann said. It was true they were busy, but she probably could have cornered a sloshed trader and gotten everything he knew down to the details of his last will and testament had she not been so totally preoccupied with the Trinah problem.
As they descended the north stairwell to Verick’s room, the lord offered his arm, slowing to accommodate her long dress. Reann took his arm, feeling like she was betraying herself. She took her hand off the moment they reached the bottom of the stairs.
Pausing outside his room, Verick said politely. “Thank you, Reann. It was . . . an agreeable evening.”
Reann wanted to ask if being with Trinah was what made it agreeable, but not wanting to hear the answer, she said in her most matter-of-fact voice, “Do you like her?”
Verick smiled. “Why, I do believe you are jealous.”
“I am what?” Reann said, horrified that Verick would accuse her of feeling anything for him other than spite. Seventh hell. She wished the wall would just fall on her. But this was her chance to draw him away from Trinah. She would have to take it. Everything in her body screamed out in protest as she stepped to block Verick’s doorway.
She smiled, her hands clasped together, and doing her best to look charming in her light blue, floor-length silk gown. “If I admit I’m jealous,” she said softly, “then you should admit that I was the most beautiful girl at the ceremony today.” She smiled demurely, with her weight on one foot, shifting her hip to one side.
It was true. Only a liar could deny it.
Verick gently took her upper arms, lifted her off the ground, moved her aside, unlocked the door, and stepped into his room.
“That doesn’t count,” she said as she began to shut the door, intent on getting the last word.
“There is more to Trinah than dogs and food,” Verick said, just before Reann finished closing the door. “It would do you well to notice such things and not just read books. She has an unhealthy degree of determination, as if she can’t live with herself if she is not risking her life to rescue someone. Toran had a similar trait. Such subtle indications could reveal an heir where other clues fail.”
“Indeed,” Reann said, feeling like gravy had just been poured on her hair. Quickly she followed by saying, “I know many people whose personalities are quite the opposite of their parents.”
“Indeed. And what would that make your parents?” Verick chuckled at his joke as he pushed the door shut and latched it.
Reann stood stunned. If she thought she were clever, then she had just called her parents imbiciles. If she thought of her parents as daring or dashing, she would be admitting that she was frightened and homely. She took a step, turned back, and spoke into the door crack. “They were lucky!”
She imagined a smile crossing Verick’s lips. Leaning against the stone wall outside Verick’s room, feeling the cool of it seep through her thin dress, Reann closed her eyes and logic resumed command of her senses.
What am I doing?
She was playing a dangerous game with a dangerous man and the fate of a kingdom.
She knew Trinah was Toran’s first heir. She had what he wanted. He had clues she needed.
How far would she go?
Chapter 14
Ferrin-tat, Montazi Realm.
Clad head-to-toe in stifling thick leather, Terith opened the latch on Akara’s makeshift cage. The gate crashed open as Akara shot out and barked a “chit-chit-chraaa!” that sounded off the cliff walls. The fanged face of the shrieking dragon was only a few feet from Terith, and it looked as though it meant to tear him apart or devour him.
“Hungry?” Terith asked.
Akara flung her wings outward, stretching them over twenty feet in length. She inspected the bat-like skin flaps under her arms and then gave two gale-force beats as she took to the air. A veteran of several summer campaigns against the Outlanders, Akara had twice the strength from training of any of her nest mates and was deadly fast in battle, the pinnacle of her species.
Terith watched as Akara winged out over the deep. She was a magnificent dragon, but she would not be enough against the larger velra. His mind raced, running over his options and willing Tanna to show up soon.
Akara slowed to poke her head under some leaves on the far side, only a hundred feet away. In other spots, the canyon was even narrower, though its depth could not be seen through the swirling mist of fog a hundred yards below that obscured the deep.
With a thrash, Akara emerged from under an ivy leaf that was almost as large as she was, her jaws dripping with red ivy
fruit juice. The greens of her hatchling scales were all but gone now. The five-year-old was streaked with brilliant yellow, rapidly approaching the solid gold of a queen that would signal her virility. After that she would mate and leave to the sacred plain every dry season along with the other nesting pairs—unless she were kept captive by a rider.
After a few minutes, Akara stopped feeding and simply glided on thermal drafts.
“Time to see how well you remember.”
Terith pulled down his mouthguard and whistled a sequence of notes: one to signal the target search, the second a dive, and the third a climb.
Akara’s head bounced three times, heeding each instruction. A hundred yards below, a stone bridge crossed the chasm, barely visible through the fog. Akara folded her wings and dove. The speed of the descent was incredible. In only five seconds she was pulling up, leveling, and gliding under the fog-shrouded bridge and then—she didn’t emerge. Terith spied a glint of green and the thrash of another pair of wings. “Dral!” Panic surged up. Without fire, she was helpless against the predator dragon that had ambushed her from under the bridge. Terith sprinted along the edge of the cliff, arms and legs pumping, heart and soul refusing to believe he would lose her now after surviving so much.
Twenty yards later he leapt. Without a second thought, he plummeted over the edge. Wind whipped his face. The ivy leaves draping the canyon walls blurred at the edges of his vision as he hurtled past. Free falling into the abyss, he pulled the two outer rings of his cloak and hooked them into his boots. Seizing the other two metal rings between his hands, he stretched his arms outward.
The cloak popped into an airfoil behind him. Terith arched his back, turning downward momentum into a diagonal dive.
The foggy deep rushed up with open jaws.
Beneath him, the dral emerged on the side of the bridge, trapping Akara against the stone between its strong green wings.
As the stonework rushed toward him, the awakening lit Terith’s senses, slowing the world. With all the force he could muster, he bent his arms and legs forward, bending the chute into an air brake. He snatched both daggers from his calf sheaths and sliced the dral’s wings top to bottom as he rocketed past.
