He angled his head, watching her with that unrelenting intensity. “A great deal can happen in three weeks.”
Nesryn made herself keep her shoulders squared, chin high. “Even so, at the end of it, I must return to Antica.”
Sartaq nodded, though something like disappointment guttered his eyes. “Then I suppose the ruk in the aerie will have to wait for another rider to come along.”
That had been a day ago. The conversation that left her unable to look too long in the prince’s direction.
And during the hours-long flight this morning, she’d snuck a glance or two over to where Kadara sailed, Sartaq and Falkan on her back.
Now Kadara swung wide, spying the final tower far below, located on a rare plain amid the hills and peaks of the Tavan Mountains. This late in the summer, it was awash with emerald grasses and sapphire streams—the ruin little more than a heap of stone.
Borte steered Arcas with a whistle through her teeth and a tug on the reins, the ruk banking left before leveling out. She was a skilled rider, bolder than Sartaq, mostly thanks to her ruk’s smaller size and agility. She’d won the past three annual racing contests between all the clans—competitions of agility, speed, and quick thinking.
“Did you pick Arcas,” Nesryn asked over the wind, “or did she pick you?”
Borte leaned forward to pat the ruk’s neck. “It was mutual. I saw that fuzzy head pop out of the nest, and I was done. Everyone told me to pick a bigger chick; my mother herself scolded me.” A sad smile at that. “But I knew Arcas was mine. I saw her, and I knew.”
Nesryn fell silent while they aimed for the pretty plain and ruin, the sunlight dancing on Kadara’s wings.
“You should take that ruk in the aerie for a flight sometime,” Borte said, letting Arcas descend into a smooth landing. “Test him out.”
“I’m leaving soon. It wouldn’t be fair to either of us.”
“I know. But perhaps you should, anyway.”
Borte loved finding the traps hidden by the Fae.
Which was fine by Nesryn, since the girl was far better at sussing them out.
This tower, to Borte’s disappointment, had suffered a collapse at some point, blocking the lower levels. And above them, only a chamber open to the sky remained.
Which was where Falkan came in.
As the shifter’s form blended and shrank, Sartaq did not bother to hide his shudder. And he shuddered once more when the fallen block of stone Falkan had been sitting on now revealed a millipede. Who promptly stood up and waved to them with its countless little legs.
Nesryn cringed with distaste, even as Borte laughed and waved back.
But off Falkan went, slithering between the fallen stones, to glean what might remain below.
“I don’t know why it bothers you so,” Borte said to Sartaq, clicking her tongue. “I think it’s delightful.”
“It’s not what he is,” Sartaq admitted, watching the pile of rock for the millipede’s return. “It’s the idea of bone melting, flesh flowing like water …” He shivered and turned to Nesryn. “Your friend—the shifter. It never bothered you?”
“No,” Nesryn answered plainly. “I didn’t even see her shift until that day your scouts reported on.”
“The Impossible Shot,” Sartaq murmured. “So it truly was a shifter that you saved.”
Nesryn nodded. “Her name is Lysandra.”
Borte nudged Sartaq with an elbow. “Don’t you wish to go north, brother? To meet all these people Nesryn talks of? Shifters and fire-breathing queens and Fae Princes …”
“I’m beginning to think your obsession with anything related to the Fae might be unhealthy,” Sartaq grumbled.
“I only took a dagger or two,” Borte insisted.
“You carried so many back from the last watchtower that poor Arcas could barely get off the ground.”
“It’s for my trading business,” Borte huffed. “Whenever our people get their heads out of their asses and remember that we can have a profitable one.”
“No wonder you’ve taken so much to Falkan,” Nesryn said, earning a jab in the ribs from Borte. Nesryn batted her away, chuckling.
Borte put her hands on her hips. “I will have you both know—”
The words were cut off by a scream.
Not from Falkan below.
But from outside. From Kadara.
Nesryn had an arrow drawn and aimed before they rushed out onto the field.
Only to find it filled with ruks. And grim-faced riders.
Sartaq sighed, shoulders slumping. But Borte shoved past them, cursing filthily as she kept her sword out—indeed an Asterion-forged blade from the arsenal at the last watchtower.
A young man of around Nesryn’s age had dismounted from his ruk, the bird a brown so dark it was nearly black, and he now swaggered toward them, a smirk on his handsome face. It was to him that Borte stormed, practically stomping through the high grasses.
The unit of rukhin looked on, imperious and cold. None bowed to Sartaq.
“What in hell are you doing here?” Borte demanded, a hand on her hip as she stopped a healthy distance from the young man.
He wore leathers like hers, but the colors of the band around his arm … The Berlad. The least welcoming of all the aeries they’d visited, and one of the more powerful. Its riders had been meticulously trained, their caves immaculately clean.
The young man ignored Borte and called to Sartaq, “We spotted your ruks while flying overhead. You are far from your aerie, Captain.”
Careful questions.
Borte hissed, “Be gone, Yeran. No one invited you here.”
Yeran lifted a cool brow. “Still yapping, I see.”
Borte spat at his feet. The other riders tensed, but she glared at them.
They all lowered their stares.
Behind them, stone crunched, and Yeran’s eyes flared, his knees bending as if he’d lunge for Borte—to hurl her behind him as Falkan emerged from the ruin.
In wolf form.
But Borte stepped out of Yeran’s reach and declared sweetly, “My new pet.”
Yeran gaped between girl and wolf as Falkan sat beside Nesryn. She couldn’t resist scratching his fuzzy ears.
To his credit, the shape-shifter let her, even turning his head into her palm.
“Strange company you keep these days, Captain,” Yeran managed to say to Sartaq.
Borte snapped her fingers in his face. “You cannot address me?”
Yeran gave her a lazy smile. “Do you finally have something worth hearing?”
Borte bristled. But Sartaq, smiling faintly, strolled to his hearth-sister’s side. “We have business in these parts and stopped for refreshment. What brings you so far south?”
Yeran wrapped a hand around the hilt of a long knife at his side. “Three hatchlings went missing. We thought to track them, but have found nothing.”
Nesryn’s stomach tightened, imagining those spiders scuttling through the aeries, between the ruks, to the fuzzy chicks so fiercely guarded. To the human families sleeping so close by.
“When were they taken?” Sartaq’s face was hard as stone.
“Two nights ago.” Yeran rubbed his jaw. “We suspected poachers, but there was no human scent, no tracks or camp.”
Look up. The bloody warning at the Watchtower of Eidolon rang through her mind.
Through Sartaq’s, if the tightening of his jaw was any indication.
“Go back to your aerie, Captain,” Sartaq said to Yeran, pointing to the wall of mountains beyond the plain, the gray rock so bare compared to the life humming around them. Always—the Dagul Fells always seemed to be watching. Waiting. “Do not track any farther than here.”
Wariness flooded Yeran’s brown eyes as he glanced between Borte and Sartaq, then over to Nesryn and Falkan. “The kharankui.”
The riders stirred. Even the ruks rustled their wings at the name, as if they, too, knew it.
But Borte declared, loud for all to hear, “You hear
d my brother. Crawl back to your aerie.”
Yeran gave her a mocking bow. “Go back to yours, and I will return to mine, Borte.”
She bared her teeth at him.
But Yeran mounted his ruk with easy, powerful grace, the others flapping away at a jerk of his chin. He waited until they had all soared into the skies before saying to Sartaq, “If the kharankui have begun to stir, we need to muster a host to drive them back. Before it is too late.”
A wind tugged at Sartaq’s braid, blowing it toward those mountains. Nesryn wished she could see his face, what might be on it at the mention of a host.
“It will be dealt with,” Sartaq said. “Be on your guard. Keep children and hatchlings close.”
Yeran nodded gravely, a soldier receiving an order from a commander—a captain ordered by his prince. Then he looked over to Borte.
She gave him a vulgar gesture.
Yeran only winked at her before he whistled to his ruk and shot into the skies, leaving a mighty breeze behind that set Borte’s braids swinging.
Borte watched Yeran until he was sailing toward the mass of the others, then spat on the ground where his ruk had stood. “Bastard,” she hissed, and whirled, storming to Nesryn and Falkan.
The shifter changed, swaying as his human form returned. “Nothing down below worth seeing,” he announced as Sartaq prowled over to where they had gathered.
Nesryn frowned at the Fells. “I think it’s time we craft a different strategy anyway.”
Sartaq followed her gaze, coming close enough to her side that the heat from his body leaked into hers. Together, they stared toward that wall of mountains. What waited beyond.
“That young captain, Yeran,” Falkan said carefully to Borte. “You seem to know him well.”
Borte scowled. “He’s my betrothed.”
CHAPTER
38
Though Kashin might have been loath to push his father in public or private, he certainly was not without his resources. And as Chaol approached the sealed doors to the khagan’s trade meeting, he hid his grin when he discovered Hashim, Shen, and two other guards he’d trained with stationed outside. Shen winked at him, his armor glinting in the watery morning sunlight, and swiftly knocked with his artificial hand before opening the door.
Chaol didn’t dare give Shen, Hashim, or the other guards so much as a nod of gratitude or acknowledgment. Not as he wheeled his chair into the sun-drenched council room and found the khagan and three golden-robed viziers around a long table of black polished wood.
They all stared at him in silence. But Chaol kept approaching the table, his head high, face set in a pleasant, subdued smile. “I hope I’m not interrupting, but there is a matter I should like to discuss.”
The khagan’s lips pressed into a tight line. He wore a light green tunic and dark trousers, cut close enough to reveal the warrior’s body still lurking beneath the aged exterior. “I have told you time and again, Lord Westfall, that you should speak to my Chief Vizier”—a nod to the sour-faced man across from him—“if you wish to arrange a meeting.”
Chaol halted before the table, flexing and shifting his feet. He’d gone through as much of his leg exercises as he could this morning after his workout with the palace guard, and though he’d regained movement up to his knees, placing weight on them, standing …
He cast the thought from his mind. Standing or sitting had nothing to do with it—this moment.
He could still speak with dignity and command whether he stood on his feet or was laid flat on his back. The chair was no prison, nothing that made him lesser.
So Chaol bowed his head, smiling faintly. “With all due respect, Great Khagan, I am not here to meet with you.”
Urus blinked, his only show of surprise as Chaol inclined his head to the man in sky-blue robes whom Kashin had described. “I am here to speak to your foreign trade vizier.”
The vizier glanced between his khagan and Chaol, as if ready to proclaim his innocence, even as interest gleamed in his brown eyes. But he did not dare speak.
Chaol held the khagan’s stare for long seconds.
He didn’t remind himself that he had interrupted a private meeting of perhaps the most powerful man in the world. Didn’t remind himself that he was a guest in a foreign court and the fate of his friends and countrymen depended on what he accomplished here. He just stared at the khagan, man to man, warrior to warrior.
He had fought a king before and lived to tell.
The khagan at last jerked his chin to an empty spot at the table. Not a ringing welcome, but better than nothing.
Chaol nodded his thanks and approached, keeping his breathing even while he looked all four men in the eye and said to the vizier of foreign trade, “I received word that two large orders of firelances have been placed by Captain Rolfe’s armada, one prior to Aelin Galathynius’s arrival in Skull’s Bay, and an even larger one afterward.”
The khagan’s white brows flicked up. The foreign trade vizier shifted in his seat, but nodded. “Yes,” he said in Chaol’s tongue. “That is true.”
“How much, exactly, would you say each firelance costs?”
The viziers glanced among one another, and it was another man, whom Chaol presumed to be the domestic trade vizier, that named the sum.
Chaol only waited. Kashin had told him the astronomical number last night. And, just as he’d gambled, the khagan whipped his head to the vizier at that cost.
Chaol asked, “And how many are now being sent to Rolfe—and thus to Terrasen?”
Another number. Chaol let the khagan do the math. Watched from the corner of his eye as the khagan’s brows rose even higher.
The Chief Vizier braced his forearms on the table. “Are you trying to convince us of Aelin Galathynius’s good or ill intentions, Lord Westfall?”
Chaol ignored the barb. He simply said to the foreign trade vizier, “I would like to place another order. I would like to double the Queen of Terrasen’s order, actually.”
Silence.
The foreign trade vizier looked like he’d flip over in his chair.
But the Chief Vizier sneered, “With what money?”
Chaol turned a lazy grin on the man. “I came here with four trunks of priceless treasure.” A kingdom’s ransom, as it were. “I think it should cover the cost.”
Utter quiet once more.
Until the khagan asked his foreign trade vizier, “And will it cover the cost?”
“The treasure would have to be assessed and weighed—”
“It is already being done,” Chaol said, leaning back in his chair. “You shall have the number by this afternoon.”
Another beat of silence. Then the khagan murmured in Halha to the foreign trade vizier, who gathered up his papers and scurried out of the room with a wary glance at Chaol. A flat word from the khagan to his Chief Vizier and the domestic trade vizier, and both men also left, the former throwing another cold sneer Chaol’s way before departing.
Alone with the khagan, Chaol waited in silence.
Urus rose from his chair, stalking to the wall of windows that overlooked a blooming, shaded garden. “I suppose you think you are very clever, to use this to get an audience with me.”
“I spoke true,” Chaol said. “I wished to discuss the deal with your foreign trade vizier. Even if your armies will not join us, I don’t see how anyone can object to our purchase of your weapons.”
“And no doubt, this was meant to make me realize how lucrative this war might be, if your side is willing to invest in our resources.”
Chaol remained silent.
The khagan turned from the garden view, the sunlight making his white hair glow. “I do not appreciate being manipulated into this war, Lord Westfall.”
Chaol held the man’s stare, even as he gripped the arms of his chair.
The khagan asked quietly, “Do you even know what warfare is?”
Chaol clenched his jaw. “I suppose I’m about to find out, aren’t I.”
The
khagan didn’t so much as smile. “It is not mere battles and supplies and strategy. Warfare is the absolute dedication of one army against their enemies.” A long, weighing look. “That is what you stand against—Morath’s rallied, solid front. Their conviction in decimating you into dust.”
“I know that well.”
“Do you? Do you understand what Morath is doing to you already? They build and plan and strike, and you can barely keep up. You are playing by the rules Perrington sets—and you will lose because of it.”
His breakfast turned over in his stomach. “We might still triumph.”
The khagan shook his head once. “To do that, your triumph must be complete. Every last bit of resistance squashed.”
His legs itched—and he shifted his feet just barely. Stand, he willed them. Stand.
He pushed his feet down, muscles barking in protest.
“Which is why,” Chaol snarled as his legs refused to obey, “we need your armies to aid us.”
The khagan glanced toward Chaol’s straining feet, as if he could see the struggle waging in his body. “I do not appreciate being hunted like some prize stag in a wood. I told you to wait; I told you to grant me the respect of grieving for my daughter—”
“And what if I told you that your daughter might have been murdered?”
Silence, horrible and hollow, filled the space between them.
Chaol snapped, “What if I told you that agents of Perrington might be here, and might already be hunting you, manipulating you into or out of this?”
The khagan’s face tightened. Chaol braced himself for the roaring, for Urus to perhaps draw the long, jeweled knife at his side and slam it into his chest. But the khagan only said quietly, “You are dismissed.”
As if the guards had listened to every word, the doors cracked open, a grim-faced Hashim beckoning Chaol toward the wall.
Chaol didn’t move. Footsteps approached from behind. To physically remove him.
He slammed his feet into the pedals of his chair, pushing and straining, gritting his teeth. Like hell they’d haul him out of here; like hell he’d let them drag him away—
“I came to not only save my people, but all peoples of this world,” Chaol growled at the khagan.
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