Page 19

Fennor urged a twisting Senaria toward the docile mare Hakon held—not so docile, as the animal danced to the side and snorted.

The stable master pressed a knobby hand against the mare’s withers and whispered softly.

Senaria planted her heels and refused to move.

Her face had paled as realization hit. Getting on the horse meant going with her enemies.

Disappearing into some distant place where she’d be without friends or resources. No way to get back.

For an instant, sympathy pricked, but a delay would gain nothing. The priests were cunning and within a day’s ride from the Black City. More threats lurked within the stakewall, and the longer we waited, the more we risked the unexpected.

I swung into the saddle, scooped my arm around Senaria’s waist, and dragged her in front of me.

As a precaution, I tied the mage chain to the saddle, since holding her the entire time was impossible.

There was no trusting her alone, either.

She’d throw herself off the horse, given how angry she was.

The horse leapt into a gallop. Fennor was quick to follow, with his men and the riderless mare in tow. We exited a side gate behind the stable, with ten miles of open ground to cover before reaching the sandstone escarpments that would hide our location.

With each hard mile, I paid a price. Senaria’s body pressed against mine despite her efforts to maintain a separation.

Even with the sun rising higher in the sky, the air stayed in the deep nighttime chill.

We were far enough to the north that, with the storm and the time of year, the desert air wouldn’t warm until midday.

Her skin felt cold. The thin clothes she wore offered no protection, and with my arms wrapped around her, each savage tremor that hit her hit me as well.

My jaw clenched. When it was safe enough to slow the horses, I asked, “Will you wear the clothes I have in the saddlebags?”

“No,” she hissed, staring straight ahead, her thigh muscles straining as she fought the shivering. “I would rather freeze to death than let you use me for some debt that isn’t mine.”

I bent close to her ear and said, “Dead or alive—it doesn’t matter to me.”

Her breathing grew agitated. “You’re an arrogant ass for a king.”

“The Draakon is like a king—not the king.”

“A thousand pardons, oh righteous almost king.” She stared hard at the sandstone cliffs edging the canyon.

Was this the authentic Senaria, the Senna Nikias knew?

The girl who thieved to feed her brother, then fell under the king’s control?

Who lied to herself about what she did so that she could continue doing it, not for power, but to protect the brother she loved ?

Was this the girl who fed Bogo and wanted to return him to his kind?

The little vagrant squeaked, but at least he was cooperating.

Even though he was young, he’d bonded to her—an act that would play in her favor—and I wouldn’t have to chase him down.

Bogo would follow where she went. One small gain, since he wasn’t thrilled with me, telling him what to do.

I was his first experience with a draakon, and he’d not been around other dragons to know how to behave.

I wasn’t sure how Senaria would react when she realized her deformed bat was a stunted dragon. She’d dedicated herself to the conviction that dragons did not exist. But he’d grow soon enough once I got him back to the Faded Lands. She’d have no choice then but to believe.

Her fingers had curled around the saddle horn.

The faint hum of the mage shackles mixed with the steady thud of the horses, the tack jangling, the creak of shifting leather.

The scent of her clung to my skin. When we reached a junction between two canyons, I reined the horse to a halt, waiting for Fennor to bring up the mare.

Sliding to the ground, I yanked Senaria from my horse and pushed her onto the mare, securing the mage shackles to her saddle while she glared.

“The mare will go where I tell her,” I warned. “It won’t matter if you’re sitting in the saddle or dragging along the side.”

“A dragging anchor always pulls the ship off course.”

I considered that option. She could drag like an anchor, get a mouthful of sand. I’d let the horse scrub the defiance out of her so I didn’t have to do it.

The idea had merit. Fennor’s men had gathered around, their horses stomping impatiently. All of them kept a wary eye on my face, on the tension in my shoulders, and kept their opinions to themselves.

I ignored them, refusing to think about Hakon’s destiny remark while I checked the balance of her feet in the stirrups. Double checked the girth strap now that her weight was in the saddle.

She said, “I could kick your face right now.”

My jaw tightened. “You can try.”

“And to think I felt sorry for you. I should have let you drown.”

“I wouldn’t have drowned.”

She gritted her teeth. “No wonder Orm cursed you. I’ve never met a bigger liar.”

“You’re right about one thing,” I agreed. “I am cursed by Orm because of you.”

“Me?” The horse snorted as if she’d tightened the reins clasped in her hand. “How am I the enemy?”

“How was I?”

There would be time for explanations later.

We were still in the king’s realm, closer to the Wall, but the mage priests had decades to learn the area.

They left behind traps, magic triggered by the wrong energy—by creatures that did not belong, or groups of men, fewer than the trading caravans but more than a single hunter.

Nor were the falcons the only mage-guided creatures hunting for us.

Hakon had warned about the night flyers—vicious, two-legged wyverns, driven by instinct and blood.

Dragons were intelligent and reasonable when they weren’t enraged.

But the smaller wyverns required magic to function beyond mere predators.

Magic wielded by mage priests who sacrificed everything and everyone to protect their secrets.

I spoke to Fennor. The orders were simple. We would separate. He’d be the distraction while Senaria left with me to finish what had to be done.

We would meet near the Night River, cross into the Faded Lands. Where the dragons waited.

Senaria was punishing me with silence now.

Frustration seethed as the hours passed and nothing worked for her, not her magic or her resistance.

I was sure the earlier impulse to set me free was an acid eating into her soul.

But the constant state of aggravation had to be exhausting.

Her back was stiff enough to break. Untidy pale hair spewed from the braid, and the bruised light in her eyes meant she hadn’t been sleeping well. That wouldn’t change.

The mare trudged along beside my horse. For the last hour, Senaria held on through the exhaustion. Her head would dip and bob. She’d jerk upright. I waited for the moment when her grip relaxed on the reins. Her shoulders caved in and I growled, “Don’t fall!”

Senaria juddered upright. “You said dead didn’t matter.” Her fingers re-tightened, and she stared at the tree-covered hills in the distance. “Where are we going?”

“Into the mountains. ”

“Since I can see them, that part is too obvious, even for you.”

I sighed. “We’re going into the Tannis Mountains because there is something I have to do.” Something she caused and would have to face.

Her chin jutted. “Why did we separate from your band of jolly felons?”

“The red priests like more than one quarry to chase.”

“So you can torture me all by yourself?” She shuddered, then rubbed at her right temple. “You’re as bad as the priests.”

“Are those mage shackles painful? I can increase the power if they aren’t.”

Senaria straightened in the saddle. Her height was nowhere close to mine, but she stared at the curse tablet around my throat as if she wanted to set it on fire. “If you could have removed the shackles at any time, why didn’t you?”

“You needed to be in control. And I needed to get close to you.”

“Walking up to the castle gates, knocking on the door, wasn’t on your list of options?”

My grip on the reins tightened. “Would your precious king have allowed me inside?”

“As one king to another? No—because you’re an almost king. Far more creative to get yourself captured.”

She shifted her weight, causing the mare to miss a step.

“Who came up with the tie-me-to-the-wall idea?” she asked. “Lure the king into sending the silly girl? Then we can all go to Deimos. Get lost in a storm and have rebels ram the ship, maroon everyone, drag me across the Plains of—”

She groaned when I ramped up the pain in the shackle magic, but I wanted to end her tirade, and she should consider herself lucky. Any other person who provoked me the way she did would have had those shackles at full strength hours ago.

I moderated my reaction though, because if I caused too much discomfort, Senaria would radiate her alarm to Bogo and he would try to protect her. I didn’t want to risk hurting the fledgling.

“Those men in the tavern,” she hissed when the magic eased. “They recognized you, didn’t they?”

“They were having a bit of fun once they realized there was no real danger.”

“So the grand parade to the bedchamber and the demand for a show meant nothing?”

“Men in the Black City are starved for entertainment,” I said, as if she was a nagging child dragging at my patience.

“And the kiss wasn’t really to shut them up, was it?”

“A necessary evil to settle you down.”

She fought to keep her emotions steady, but she was fragile and on edge.

She reminded me of the glass dolls I’d seen in Thales years ago.

Expensive toys sitting in a store window, made for children who could not play with anything so delicate.

A frivolous gift from wealthy parents too absorbed in their own needs, who picked up the first pretty bauble that caught their eye.

The memory made me curious about her parents, her family life. How empty it had been .

Senaria revealed nothing more, remaining silent until we entered another slot canyon, one with rock art, and when her power brushed past me like tears on a midnight breeze, I turned around.

She’d reined the horse to a halt in front of a drawing etched into the stone, weathered from centuries of exposure. One of men walking with dragons.

“My father drew this image in his journal, a little book he kept hidden. He showed it to me.”

From the shaking in her voice, she was far away, lost in a memory. I asked, “What did he tell you about it?”

“He said the drawings were hundreds of years old, carved into rock by people who believed in myths. It was something historians preserved because that was their job, but I shouldn’t believe in dragons because they didn’t exist.”

“If you shouldn’t believe in dragons, why show you the drawing?”

“He was making a point about why I had to stop asking about my mother. He’d never talked much about her, other than her name.

Anoria, and how I’m named after her in some secret way.

But she was dead, he said, and he was getting married again.

Revna was going to be my new mother, and Anoria had to be a myth, like the drawing, if anyone asked.

Someone who never existed. So I said I’d try to have a new mom, and I ran out into the garden. ”

She dragged in a breath like she’d forgotten how to breathe.

“I was crying, and that’s when Bogo showed up.

I started talking about how I didn’t want a new mom, but I had to keep it secret, and he might have understood because…

just being wi th him comforted me. Like he’d be my secret, too.

Each time he hopped toward me, I heard a word in my head.

It sounded like Bogo , and I thought it was his name. ”

She twisted the reins in her hands as if she imagined plaiting them into a braid.

“Childhood is so innocent, isn’t it? My father came out to find me.

Bogo was there, and my father ordered me to stop talking to him or encouraging him.

Bogo was dangerous, he said. I shouldn’t feed him or tell my friends.

That was huge. No talking about anything.

He moved us after that and Bogo stopped coming for about a year.

Then he found me again, and I kept it a secret. Only Nikki knows. And now…you know.”

She sucked in another breath. Her entire body shuddered. “Bogo isn’t a deformed bat, is he?”

“No,” I said.

“I suspected when you fed him.” Her smile was quick, tense, while she stared at something on the ground.

“I wanted to deny it. But when he took the food, I sensed his excitement. It bubbled out of him and I felt bereft. Like you were taking something from me.” Her gaze stirred, rising to meet mine.

“I hated you for it. I still hate you for it, Kion Abaddon. Draakon of the Faded Lands. The almost king.”

The mare shifted her weight, confused by the signals Senaria sent with her twitching feet and the tight, restraining grip on the reins.

“So tell me why you’re there and I’m here,” she continued. “In the middle of the frontier, while we reminisce about the mysteries in the world and pretend everything is fine when, clearly, it isn’t. ”

“Bogo is a fledgling dragon,” I said. “His growth has been stunted because he’s been trapped in the Southern Lands for twenty-one years with no way to get home.”

“Why can’t he get home?” she asked, her jaw rigid, her face whitening.

“Because you called him through the Wall when you were five and he couldn’t find the way back.”

“And how did I call him?”

“With the magic you use and call mercy.”

She stared at her restless fingers. “Are you here to show him the way home?”

I nodded, my horse swinging around so that I faced her. Ready to cut the mare off if she bolted.

“Why do you need me?” Senaria asked.

“He bonded to you instead of other dragons, so he goes where you go.”

“I can’t go to the Faded Lands.”

“You have no choice.”

She bared her teeth. “I will not leave Nikki. I will not do that.”

The air hummed as I ramped up the magic in the mage shackles until she tumbled forward and fell from the mare.