by G. A. Aiken
Talwyn shrugged her shoulders, glanced off, shuffled her feet.
Annwyl had never seen her daughter appear awkward before. It was disconcerting. “What the hell’s wrong with you?”
“Well, I just thought . . . ya know.”
“That is not a full and complete sentence,” Annwyl informed her daughter. “I know we taught you better.”
Talwyn took in a breath and Annwyl debated backing away from her. Was she planning to attack her again? Annwyl didn’t know.
“Talwyn, just spit it out. You’re irritating me.”
“I thought . . . instead of going back to Brigida’s with Talan and Rhi in a few days . . . I’d stay here for a bit.”
Now Annwyl did step back, her eyes narrowing on her daughter. “Why?”
“I thought perhaps I could train with you.”
Annwyl’s eyes narrowed more, her every nerve on high alert at what her daughter might be planning. “Why?” she asked again.
“Look, you’re the first to say war’s coming.”
“Of course war’s coming.”
“And while Talan and Rhi have their magicks to manage during battle, I will be the one leading the troops. You know it. And I know it. And the best one to learn that skill from, shockingly . . . is you. And, of course, Daddy.”
“Of course.”
“But he’s dragon and I’m not. Not fully. Not like Auntie Ghleanna or Branwen. I’ll be on the ground, fighting with other Abominations, to stop Salebiri and the Chramnesind cult. And I think I’d best learn how to do that from you.”
Annwyl snorted. She couldn’t help it. “You expect me to believe that you—you—will take orders from me? Really?”
“You forget. I spent years with the Kyvich witches. And I followed orders. Quite well, actually. Never got lashed once for disobedience.”
“How did you manage that?” Annwyl asked. And even she knew her tone was taunting.
“Just give me a chance, Mum.”
“I kicked your ass and now you want me to teach you how to not let it happen again? Is that it?”
Talwyn had the good sense to cringe a bit. “Kind of.”
Stepping close to her daughter, Annwyl slapped her hand against the side of Talwyn’s neck and yanked her close.
“Good,” Annwyl told her. “Because everything I’ve done—and everything I plan to do—I’ve only ever done for you and your brother. To keep you alive. To keep you strong.” Annwyl moved her hand to the back of Talwyn’s neck and rested her forehead against her daughter’s. “No matter what you think, you spoiled brat, you and your brother mean everything to me. Everything. Never forget that.”
Talwyn swallowed, her eyes blinking quickly, as if she fought back tears. She finally gave a small nod and Annwyl stepped back.
“Now come,” she said, turning away from her child. “War’s coming fast, and we have a lot of work to do to get you ready.”
Annwyl led her daughter to a place a good distance from the castle and out of sight of most. As they cleared a few boulders, Talwyn stopped, reaching out to grab Annwyl’s arm, her face pale, her eyes wide in shock and panic.
“Mum . . . Mum . . . Mum . . .” she kept muttering as she stared.
“Stop that,” she ordered her daughter. “You sound like an idiot.”
“But . . .”
Annwyl gestured with a wave of her hand. “Talwyn, this is Mingxia. Eastland goddess of war and love.”
The goddess smiled, her mouth revealing row after row of fangs. “You can’t have one without the other, I’m afraid.”
“My daughter wants to train with me.”
The goddess’s tiger-shaped dragon’s head turned and she studied them for a moment.
“Hhhmm,” she said, dark eyes unreadable.
The goddess’s long dragon body rose up without benefit of wings, impossibly long whiskers floating around her. The winds rose, surrounded Mingxia, and when they were gone, she stood before them as a human Eastland woman in leather armor with many weapons on her person.
She walked around a still-stunned Talwyn, sizing her up as she’d once done to Annwyl.
Mingxia circled her once, and when she stood in front of her again, she pulled her sword from its scabbard and held the scabbard up before Talwyn’s face, letting her eyes settle on the intricately embossed steel.
It took seconds for Talwyn to throw her arms up to block her eyes and fall to the ground, trying to shield herself from what she’d seen. It had taken Annwyl far longer to see what Mingxia had wanted her to see: a full battle come alive in that scabbard. A full battle that she was suddenly a part of, on a magnificent steed, slashing and killing as she rode into the fight.
In fact, the only reason Annwyl’s vision had ended was that Mingxia had grown bored and pulled Annwyl out of it.
Talwyn, however, had panicked.
“It seems we have much work to do with this one,” Mingxia noted. She held out her hand, and Talwyn seemed to force herself to take it. The goddess helped her to her feet.
“She’s powerful, your daughter. She saw me in seconds, even though I didn’t reveal myself to her. So, once we get this one up to speed, you two together will be a mighty thing to be feared among the enemies of your world.”
“Good,” Annwyl said, cracking her neck and pushing her stunned daughter out of the way. “Then let’s get started.”
Lady Ageltrude sat in a thick wooden chair, staring out over the night sky. This was her own private place. Her husband had made it for her. This place on top of the keep. He knew how much she loved heights and how important her privacy was to her.
Sadly, only her husband and his soldiers understood the importance of privacy to her.
“Auntie?”
She sighed. “What?”
Her niece came through the door, closing it tightly behind her. She plopped on the ground in front of Ageltrude the way a man would, her back against the short wall, her long legs stretched out in front of her.
“What is it?” Ageltrude asked when her niece didn’t speak.
“What are we going to do?”
“Do about what?”
“They lost him, didn’t they? But he’s not dead. And you said—”
“Don’t remind me,” she quickly cut in, “of what I said and what I didn’t say. My memory is perfect.”
“But you said losing Egnatius would be worth it if he brought us—”
“Again, I know what I said.”
“But we don’t have him.”
“Yes. And my favorite priestess is also dead.” Ageltrude glanced off and muttered mostly to herself, “She had such a high tolerance for pain.”
“How are we supposed to find it, if we don’t have him? You said he was the key. You said if we didn’t have him, we at least had to be sure he was dead. You said—”
She let one of the appendages her god had given her slide out of her back, across the ground, and around her niece’s neck, choking her until she stopped talking. Ageltrude also may have waited longer than necessary, until the youngster’s face turned blue, but she really wanted to get her point across.
When her niece was moments from passing out, Ageltrude released her.
“Are you done?” she asked.
Hands around her throat, her niece nodded, eyes wide in panic.
“Good. Now listen well.” She stood and walked to the wall, standing beside her niece, and staring down at the valley before her. “If there’s one thing I know well, it’s how Gaius Lucius Domitus thinks. He’s weak. Like his worthless sister. But determined.” The wind picked up and she knew a storm was rolling in. “And if there’s one thing he wants more than anything . . . one thing he’ll never stop until he gets . . .” She turned and looked down at her niece, the wind pulling the hood off her head, her iron-colored hair spilling out around her shoulders.
Ageltrude, once called Vateria, pressed her hand to her chest. “It’s me.”
PART TWO
Chapter Eighteen
E
ight months later . . .
They locked themselves away behind their thickest doors deep inside their temple. And they stayed inside even after the cries of battle started. They stayed inside when someone banged on the door, begging for help. They stayed inside when blood began to seep beneath the door. They stayed inside even when a cold, brutal silence abruptly descended.
It wasn’t until they knew the suns had come up that they finally unlocked and opened those thick, protective doors.
Their most priceless items remained. Gold statues of their chosen goddess. Silver chalices they used for rituals. Jewel-encrusted clothes they wore during ceremonies remained untouched.
But there was that long line of blood leading from the protective doors, through the temple, and ending up outside.
Together they followed that line until they reached the stairs. That’s where they stopped. Some of the acolytes looked away. Others vomited. Even more dropped to their knees, arms raised, thanking their goddess for protecting them through the night.
But their priestess . . . she knew. It hadn’t been a goddess who’d come to her early in the day to warn her to hide behind those thick doors before suns-down.
It had, however, been a woman. Made of muscle and sinew and a few scars. There was no pity in those eyes that the priestess could see. At first, the priestess thought the whole thing a trick. A trick to get her to leave their temple’s precious treasures untended for anyone to take them. Sell them. Make more than a few pieces of gold.
Now, as she stared out over the organized carnage left behind, she realized that the coldness in those eyes had not been for her or her goddess. But for the men who had come here, the mark of Chramnesind branded into their chests.
It was through those marks that spears had been rammed, pinning the men to the ground, on their knees, lifeless heads lifted toward the suns.
The priestess’s second in command ordered the others to release these men from their vile ends, but the priestess stopped that order.
“You want us to leave them here? Like this? Defiling our temple?”
“They’re not defiling our temple. They’re outside our temple. Have the blood inside cleaned up now, but we’ll burn the bodies later.”
“Why would we do that?” she asked.
“So the world can see that in the Southlands whom one worships is still a protected choice.”
“They did steal,” one of the acolytes pointed out. “The ones who did this.”
“I saw nothing missing.”
“That barrel of apples we just picked . . .”
The priestess, who was very tall, moved in close to the acolyte and glared down at her. “Really? They saved our lives and our temple and you’re bitching about gods-damn apples?”
“I’m just saying,” she replied, “they could have asked.”
“I swear,” the priestess sighed out, heading back inside. “You people.”
Kachka tossed another apple core to Zoya—she liked apple cores, which Kachka thought was disgusting, but to each her own—while Kachka pulled two more apples from her travel pack. She gave one to her horse and ate the other.
They still used the Southland horses that had been given to them eight months ago. They managed pretty well considering their size. Although they had to take frequent breaks or the horses became bitchy.
“So where are we off to now, Kachka Shestakova?” Zoya asked.
They were very close to the Western Mountains that separated the Southland territories from the Quintilian Provinces. Kachka chuckled to herself thinking about just showing up at the fancy palace of the Rebel King. What would his royal family think?
“I don’t know,” Kachka finally replied in their language. “We’ll have a better idea once Tatyana gets back from that town we passed.”
“We should have gone with her,” Ivan complained. He complained a lot now that Zoya had stopped hitting him when he did so. “Stayed at a pub for the night.”
They all stopped and looked back at him.
“I can’t be the only one who likes a nice soft bed. I can’t be!”
“I hate the beds here,” Zoya replied, walking off with her horse right behind her. It was the biggest horse the queen’s stables had and was feared by almost all her soldiers, but he had immediately adored Zoya. Of course, she always treated horses and other animals much better than she treated men. “They are too short for me unless the pub caters to the dragons.”
“Everything’s too short for you, Zoya,” Marina pointed out.
“I know!” she replied gleefully. “I never have to go up on my toes. I see all just from here!”
Yelena pointed. “Tatyana’s returning.”
Kachka’s cousin rode up to them, reining in her horse when she reached the Riders. “I tracked a group of travelers to a nearby town. Their boots and scabbards were in that fancy style of Annaig Valley. I’m guessing they’re Chramnesind followers.”
“That’s rather blatant,” Marina noted.
“What worried me,” Tatyana went on, “was that they disappeared without a trace into the surrounding forest right by the base of the mountains. Their tracks just ended.” She pulled out her water flask. “I know of at least three monasteries on the other sides of those mountains.” She took a long drink before adding, “But that’s no longer your queen’s territory, Kachka. It belongs to the Rebel King.”
“So?” Kachka tossed her apple core to Zoya before mounting her horse. “Take me to where the tracks end. We’ll decide what to do from there.”
“What is there to decide, comrade?” Zoya asked. “We hunt them down and kill them.”
“It’s not the queen’s territory,” Tatyana said again.
“And it could be a trap, Zoya,” Marina added.
“So? I am tired of this sneaking around. Let’s confront them head-on. I am ready!”
“But you’re so good at being stealthy.”
Zoya mounted her horse, the animal grunting a bit as she settled into her saddle. “Unlike my sisters, I’m very delicate and small. That gives me an edge.”
Nina Chechneva, who hadn’t spoken a word in two days for no other reason than she simply hadn’t felt like it, shook her head. “No,” she said to no one in particular before riding off. “I can’t with you, Zoya Kolesova. I just . . . I can’t!”
Zoya watched the witch ride off before asking the others, “She can’t what? She says that around me a lot, and I have no idea what it means. What can she not do, Kachka Shestakova?”
Didacus Domitus scrambled up the hill, pushing himself to run fast. As fast as his human legs would take him.
He knew who these dragons were. Why they were here. What they wanted. He knew. He’d heard the rumors. The tales coming from all over the Empire.
That his cousin Gaius Lucius Domitus had been hunting his “treacherous” kin down like dogs. And even more horrifying, he’d been using the vilest of the Southland dragons to help him. The Mì-runach. The most hated and feared of the Dragon Queen’s soldiers.
And then there was that female. He knew that female from reputation alone. The dreaded Branwen the Awful, a captain in the Dragon Queen’s Army. It was said her cackle had rung out as Didacus’s cousins were put to the spear, the sword, or the cross.
It was that heartless female chasing him up the hill right now, while the Mì-runach took down the soldiers who had once been loyal not only to Didacus but to the mighty Overlord Thracius, rightful ruler of the Empire and Didacus’s beloved uncle.
He’d sworn on his uncle’s bones that he would destroy his treacherous twin cousins himself, but even he had to admit he’d underestimated not only the Rebel King but that sister of his. His cousin Vateria should have killed the little bitch when she had the chance, but they hadn’t foreseen what a force the pair of them together would be.
Didacus reached the top of the hill, ready to shift to his natural form so that he could fly to safety, but just as he made it over, something slammed into him, tackling him to the grou
nd.
Big hands pinned his shoulders down and Didacus looked up into the only eye Thracius had left the Rebel King.
“Hello, cousin,” Gaius said to him, grinning.
“Bastard!”
“Now, now. Tone.”
Panting, Branwen the Awful reached the top of the hill, her blood-covered blade out and ready.
“Want me to take his head?” she asked like she was asking if the king wanted tea.
“No,” Gaius said . . . much to Didacus’s horror. “I have a few questions for my cousin.” Gaius leaned in, leering. “Let’s get reacquainted, dear Didacus. We have so much to catch up on, don’t we?”
Then, the big bastard reared his head back while lifting Didacus up and—
After head butting his cousin until he passed out, Gaius released Didacus’s leather jerkin and let him drop to the ground.
“What do you think this one will tell us that the others didn’t?”
Gaius stood, rubbed his nose. “Didacus was a favorite of Thracius. Loyal to him unto death. If anyone knows where to find Vateria . . . he will.”
“You really hate her.”
“Can you blame me?”
Brannie shook her head. “Not really. I just want to make sure you’re not becoming what me mum calls ‘obsessive.’ She says obsession is the one thing that will weaken any warrior.”
“She’s right. But I promised my sister. I owe her Vateria’s head on a platter.”
Gaius kicked his cousin, watching him roll down the hill toward the Mì-runach, who were busy finishing off the few soldiers who’d been traveling with him.
It had been a good decision he and his sister had made. Sending Gaius out with the Mì-runach and Branwen the Awful. Brutal warriors, all, there was never a fight they backed away from. Nor did they question where they were going or why. The most Gaius got was Brannie asking him his logic behind certain tactical choices, but she was always up for the ride. He really liked that about her.
Before they’d left the Provinces, Gaius had had the royal blacksmiths fit them all with special armor. It vaguely resembled that worn by his centurions but not enough to make them stand out. They looked like soldiers for hire who made decent coin from their exploits. And, more important, their armor, like their weapons, grew with them. If they shifted to human, their armor shifted with them. And when they shifted back to dragon, it went with them also. That way, they never had to worry about losing their armor if they suddenly had to go from human to dragon.