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“No one discounts that you have served the kingdom mostadmirably.” The lord regent’s tone turned ingratiating, and it took everything in me not to cut him down. My fingers curled into a fist that itched to lash out and connect with his smug face. It wasn’t the way, though. Not here. In my life, in my world, violence was the answer to most problems. Here the answer was talk. Lies. Currying favor.

I’d just arrived and I couldn’t wait to get back home.

The lord regent feigned politeness, said the right words, but the sincerity was not there. His smile did not meet his eyes. I was not accustomed to anything less than deference, and this man’s smug face needled my skin.

As did that of the young bastard watching me from where he stood across the room, his brown eyes bright and alive with loathing, his mouth an unforgiving slash of lips within his beard.

We had not been introduced, but he wore the regalia of an officer... and a scowl. He did nothing to disguise his aversion toward me, and I could almost respect that. I would take that any day over the fake smiles and empty praise the lord regent was sending my way. I supposed I should appreciate his lack of artifice. I lifted a mocking eyebrow at him, enjoying the ruddy flush of his features.

“Most admirably?” I echoed mildly, wondering if I was the only one who heard the patronizing ring to that.

The king’s smile wobbled a bit. He’d heard it.

The lord regent’s gaze narrowed slightly. “We do appreciate all your efforts,” he answered rather forcefully, willing me to... what? Believe him? Feel flattered?

“Oh? Well. That is a relief,” I replied with exaggerated enthusiasm, popping a grape into my mouth and chewing with casual slowness. “I shudder to think how you would view me if I did anything less than hold the northern border time and time again.”

I let my words hang in the air. Not a threat. Precisely. But something they could turn over in their minds... as I was certain they would.

Arkin was the first to finally speak, unsurprisingly. He led withhis sword into every fray, even when the battle was one waged with words. “Indeed. If not for our defenses, three thousand warriors from Veturland would have successfully invaded last spring. Another king would be sitting where you are right now.” My vassal gestured—his thick fingers shining with the juice from his pear—to where King Hamlin sat. Trust Arkin to cut to the heart of it.

The lord regent’s smile vanished, the lines of his narrow face drawing tighter. His eyes glittered, but he could not deny the charge, because it was true.

“And if that weren’t enough,” Arkin went on to say, “there are the raiders in the Crags. Those bastards can fight.” This he said with a heavy exhale, shaking his head at the thought of them. He looked to me for confirmation.

“Good fighters,” I confirmed with a single nod, sweeping a disgusted glance over the guardsmen in the room. They would not survive a confrontation with them.

The raiders occupying the Crags didn’t number in the thousands, but they were a bloodthirsty lot. Highly skilled and ruthless and impossible to track. I knew. I had tried, and I was the best tracker in the Borderlands. My father had made sure of that. It was baffling. They were as elusive as smoke.

The king cleared his throat. “Our gratitude to you”—his gaze flicked to Arkin—“and all the border lords cannot be properly expressed.”

“Perhaps it should be demonstrated, then,” I suggested evenly with a lift of my eyebrow.

The king looked uneasily between his adviser and me, aware that he’d walked himself back into the matter at hand.

Silence fell.

I placed another grape in my mouth, rolling it over my tongue as I waited for the king to speak, taking pleasure in his obvious discomfort.

He knew why I was here. Everyone knew. I had not minced my words. One of his daughters would be mine. He could not afford to lose my fealty and still hold this realm together.

I crushed the grape between my tongue and the roof of my mouth. Chewing, I reached for another—and stopped.

My skin snapped with sudden awareness. The fine hairs on my arms vibrated. I scanned the chamber, quickly searching faces and reading nothing in those expressions, no hint of alertness, no hint of danger—and I was an expert at ferreting out threats. It was what I did. How I had survived for this long. My skin pulled and tugged with an awareness that I could not explain.

It was as though someone had entered the chamber and joined us, and yet no door had opened. No one had stepped inside. I stared at the same people as before. Except I felt a new gaze upon me. The scrutiny of someone I could not see. Could only sense. Feel.Taste.

Compelled by an invisible string, I stood from the bench and moved through the room. Walking the perimeter of the well-appointed chamber, I skirted furniture, my fingers grazing the back of a brocade-upholstered chair, the massive desk situated in front of a stained-glass window, a tapestry-covered wall, seeking, searching the space that suddenly crackled with heat and the energy of an impending storm.

The others exchanged glances, no doubt wondering at my strange behavior.

“My lord?” the lord regent asked, a hint of annoyance in his tone. “Is anything amiss?”

I ignored him. Angling my head, I listened, the whoosh of a heartbeat in my ears, thumping out a rhythm faster than my own.

I stopped before a painting of the final battle of the Threshing. The Hormung had taken place a century ago. My father’s grandfather had been there. He had led our armies to victory that day, turning the tide in the war against dragons. The casualties in that battle were innumerable on both sides, but the dragons’ losses were far greater. Devastating. After the Hormung, the end was just a matter of time. The few remaining dragons that had not been slain were hunted down. The stragglers were systematically rooted out, rounded up, and eliminated. No dragon to be seenagain... except once. One time. An extraordinary, singular occurrence eighty years after the Hormung.

I continued to stare at the painting—into that night sky lit by dragon fire, countless winged creatures twisting and writhing in death spins over the armies of men, the dark, jagged outline of the Crags a looming shadow in the background. It was a remarkable work of art, in dark blues and fiery hues of red, gold, and orange.