Page 52

The dragon had a scent, like a cool breeze coming in from the forest: pine trees and the unique fragrance of ice on the air.

Tentatively, the dragon opened his mouth and blew a stream of cold across my forehead. Frost crackled across my skin, immediately making me want to jerk back, but I held still.

The dragon tilted its head, then leaned forward again, blowing harder as its ice covered my eyes. The world around me turned hazy and blue.

I blinked rapidly, trying to clear my gaze.

The dragon blew one last time, fiercer, and I could feel it in my bones, feel it on my skin. Then, the dragon pushed my shoulders, dropping down to the ground. I blinked, raising my hand to touch my cheek.

Chunks of ice fell away in my hands, landing on the carpet and soaking in, melting immediately. I didn’t feel any of the numb signs of frostbite.

The dragon sat on its hindquarters, its head tilted as it stared at me. I didn’t need animal speak to know what it meant. The expression on the dragon’s face was too pitiful, too sad, too full of regret for a wrong that it had no part in making.

It could not heal me.

Standing, I went to the table, picking up one of the plates of food and taking it back into Tallu’s secret room. I left it for the dragon, closing the door behind the animal. Tallu would have to lock it, but we still had time. A small amount of time.

“You cannot speak to me, can you?” I asked the ravens.

Terror blinked at me, his voice rising to a crow as he spoke rapid-fire.

I understood none of it. Shaking my head, I looked out the window.

“I cannot understand you anymore. Whatever they did to me, it took away my ability. You should go. Be safe, please .”

The ravens would understand me even if I could not understand them.

With reproachful looks, the birds leapt to the window one by one, flying out into the palace beyond. Then I was alone, my thoughts no help to me.

Animal speak was not so important as all that. Yes, it had defined my life up until now. In the Silver City, hawks and falcons rather than servants carried messages. Ferrets and stoles were the best spies when they pretended to sleep on owners’ laps.

My father’s wolf, Spoiled Brat, had been more of a mentor to me than my own father. But I could still survive without animal speak, even as the wound of it choked me, making me gasp from the pain of missing it.

I had felt this way before, though. I had felt this way when I had my blade against Tallu’s throat. When I had thought I would kill him.

Was that the only way I knew how to love something? By desperately yearning for it, missing it when it had disappeared?

And what did that mean about me and Tallu? That I loved him?

The thought of it choked me, but it made sense. More sense than anything else. It made sense of why I had not killed him, why I had yearned for his touch, even when that touch should have been poison to me.

Even now I wanted him, the strong man who had chosen peace. The boy who had been faced with horror and chosen to tear the world down rather than turn into his father.

Tallu. Tallu. Tallu. His name was a drumbeat in my chest. My heart couldn’t function without it.

I buried my face in my hands. By the time my vision had cleared, it was almost time to wake him. I stood, checking underneath my eyes with my thumbs. Dry.

I swallowed, straightening my shoulders, grimacing a smile. I could do my job without my magic. Animal speak was a boon, not a requirement for an assassin.

I crept to the bed, settling on the mattress. It was stuffed so well that even when I sat on it, Tallu barely stirred.

His dark hair curled over his forehead, contrasting with his copper-dark skin. In sleep, the skin next to his eyes relaxed, and the tension in his forehead was finally gone.

It revealed him to be a much younger man than he usually seemed, and I wondered if we had met and there had been no war, if the Imperium had been peaceful, could we have been friends? Could we have been lovers?

Or was it only because of who we were—who his family had made us become—that we had found each other?

Tallu blinked, a sweet smile pulling at his lips when he saw me.

“How long have I slept?” he asked, his voice gravelly.

“Not long enough.” I raised my hand, hesitating for only a heartbeat—a single thrum of Tallu —before smoothing his curls away from his brow. “What do we do now?”

“I will have to hold court. Give them the official story.” He pinched his nose, the smile disappearing from his lips. “Two enemies in one night’s work. And yet, it was not worth it.”

“My magic for the man who would raise warriors from the dead?” I raised my eyebrows. “That seems worth it to me. You were smart to link them—Kacha and Maki.”

“I only did it because you had the idea first.” Tallu raised himself onto his elbow, lifting his hand to cup my cheek. “We are almost done with this. Miksha will come around. And if she doesn’t, I will make her see reason.”

“Tallu,” I started but then faltered. What would I say if he told me he was expendable? He already had once, and it had nearly driven me to carelessness. I would not give him the same fault when both of us needed to have our heads. “Let us get ready.”

But we had run out of time. The lock to his room clicked open at the hour, and before it had even finished, Asahi and Sagam were both inside the room, their swords half-drawn. I held up my hands in the universal signal of surrender.

“No harm came to him last night, unless you count lack of sleep,” I joked.

Neither Dog found it funny, and I let my own smile fall away when they were followed by four more Dogs.

Tallu sat up, letting his hand linger on the back of my neck before he allowed himself to be swept away by his servants.

As they stripped him and dressed him in imperial finery, he said, “Court in half an hour. And I need a list of anyone who tried to visit either of the generals last night.”

A servant rushed out of the room with the news.

After they finished with him, Tallu’s servants dressed me in dark colors, the stitching on my jacket in thread of pure silver.

One of them presented me with a circlet made of silver to match the thread.

It was not as grand as the gold one on Tallu’s forehead, patterned to look like overlapping leaves.

Closing my eyes, I bent my head and let the servant put it on my forehead. The metal was cool, and it felt like manacles. What would my mother say if she saw me wearing it? What would Eona? say?

Tallu extended his hand, a servant pushing rings shaped like dragon heads up his fingers, their mouths open over his knuckles.

“What does my court whisper?” Tallu asked.

For a moment, no one spoke. Then the nearest servant glanced at the Dogs, and Sagam stepped forward.

“They say that you might be the first in your line to achieve your prophecy. They say that even High General Saxu is now afraid of you.” Sagam’s voice held none of the wry humor it usually did.

He bowed his head. “They say that in the Blood Mountains, you acquired some of their magic—that you speak truth that no one would dare say aloud.”

“I don’t know. Last night, he only spoke truths that the generals themselves had already written in correspondence—or spoken when they tried to kill me.

” I raised an eyebrow at Tallu. “It appears more people should read each other’s letters, if that is all that is necessary to perform ‘magic’ in the Imperium. ”

Tallu exhaled sharply. He glanced at me. “Are you ready?”

“If I say no, do I get to catch up on some of the sleep we are both missing?” But I placed my arm on top of his when he offered it up, and we left the safety of the emperor’s quarters.