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CHAPTER

Twenty-Eight

N EEMA SLEEPS. A boat anchored in calm waters after long hours at sea.

We had planned to pay her a dream visit, the usual nightmare of blood and terror, the beat of portentous wings, we are coming, we are coming , be much afeared Neema Kraa . She would have woken drenched in sweat, gripped with a sense of existential dread, it would have been highly dramatic. But Neema has slipped far beyond the realms of dream into a deeper sleep. We cannot follow her there. So we watch her from the bed post. She lies sprawled in the middle of the mattress, sheets kicked away in the heat, wearing an embroidered nightgown Benna found for her. Her favourite white linen gown, drenched in Dragonscale, is lost to the ocean, floating off on adventures of its own.

Slow, peaceful breaths.

Not long now . She is almost ready.

Those we honour with our friendship must be introduced gradually to our magnificence. A dream here. A vision there. A giddy rush of high, thin air. The faint brush of feather on skin.

Transmogrification is another way we prepare our friends for our arrival. For example: the book tucked under Neema’s pillow, the one she found in the tombs. Tales of the Raven . That is us, in disguise—at least, a tiny fragment of us. It has lived with Neema for months, perched on her bookshelf. A shame, a terrible shame, that it happens to be such a worthless fragment, such a stupid and pathetic piece of us, peck out its eyes . But even we have to admit that the hopeless thing has performed its function to the letter. And we have been very, very delighted to be rid of it for a while, what a holiday that has been from its profoundly enervating presence.

We are stretching our wings, preparing to fly off home when the door to the bedchamber opens, and a shadow-figure slips inside. Silently it moves, more spirit than person, towards the bed.

An assassin.

Our beak opens in alarm. What if Neema is not sleeping, what if she has been drugged like Gaida? Death by pillow, such an inglorious end. Hopping down on to her chest, we give her a sharp peck, right in the middle of her forehead.

Wake up!

Neema stirs, sighs, and sleeps on.

Wake up, wake up!

Nothing.

We turn to confront the intruder.

Ruko Valit.

He has stopped at the foot of the bed, head tilted to one side. Listening.

Those who have learned to hone their senses can sometimes feel our presence, especially in the dark. The Tiger warrior cannot see us, but this much he intuits: we are here. We are watching. We are not happy.

“Who’s there?” he murmurs. Curious, not afraid.

Opening our wings, we cry fiercely:

We are the Raven.

Ruko cannot hear us, but he catches a distant echo of our message. Lifting his hand he draws a sign of the eternal eight in the air between us. Peace. Appeased, we snap our wings shut and hop back to our perch on the bed post. Respect, that’s all we demand. Recognition of our magnificence. Offerings. Love. Fear. Trembling awe. Worship. Shiny things. Blood sacrifice, some of us very much enjoy blood sacrifice. Truly, we ask for so little.

Neema is rising from her deep sleep, a diver swimming up for air. From here, we can reach her. We send her a vision of Ruko standing at the foot of her bed. Waft the scent of him through the air—his sweat, the trace of oil in his thick black hair, the healing ointment he rubbed into his bruises after his fight with Katsan.

There. That should be warning enough. Now wake up .

Neema woke, and opened her eyes. “Fuck the Eight!”

Ruko Valit was standing at the foot of her bed, exactly as he’d appeared in her dream. The same scent, lingering in the air between them. She was too angry to think about that because seriously, what the fuck was he doing here? Groping for her tinderbox, she lit the lantern by the bed. “You scared the shit out of me.”

“I said we would speak again.”

She tightened her nightrobe and swung out of bed. “You do not have my permission to be here.”

“I’m here to talk. You have no reason to fear me—”

“I will be the judge of that,” she snapped.

For once, Ruko faltered. “I… Yes. Of course.”

“Wait there.” Neema pointed to a footstool in the corner.

Ruko padded across the room and sat down. The footstool was tiny, he looked ridiculous with his knees up to his nose, which was exactly why she had sent him there.

She stepped behind a screen to tug on some clothes, tired limbs protesting, then poured herself a slug of her favourite Ketuan whisky, Tears of the Dragon.

“It’s not wise to drink before a fight,” Ruko said.

Tomorrow’s schedule had already been posted under her door when she returned to her apartment. Neema would face Tala on the platform—the first fight of the day. It could have been worse. It could have been Ruko. She took a large swig of the whisky, to spite him.

Annoyed, Ruko got up from the stool and took a step towards her.

“Stop.” Neema stretched out her arm. “No further or I’ll scream. Stop! My assistant is in the room next door.”

“Your servant will not hear you.”

Benna. Neema felt the floor tilt under her bare feet. “If you… if you’ve touched her—”

“She runs a fake errand on your behalf.” His eyes glittered—the Tiger warrior was amused. “Contrary to rumour, I do not kill everyone in my path.”

“You snapped a man’s neck for disturbing your meditation.”

“He was a Fox assassin.”

She sat down on the edge of the bed to recover, and took another sip of whisky. “They sent someone to kill you.”

Ruko shrugged. Of course—why wouldn’t they? “We compete for the throne, not a Kind Festival ribbon.”

“Rosette,” she corrected him, on reflex. “Did you never win one?”

“I did not.” The question seemed to unsettle him. Childhood memories. He prowled the room. “I hear you suspect my abbess.”

Rivenna Glorren had refused to meet with Cain, despite his imperial pass. Let the Hounds arrest her—she would not answer to a Scartown Scrapper. Cain had laughed and talked to the servants instead. “She has no alibi for last night. She had access to the Blade of Peace. Why did you leave it in your rooms?”

Ruko ignored the question. “Gaida was no threat to me.”

“But Katsan is. Her grief distracted her today.”

Deep scorn. “I do not need to cheat to win the throne.”

“Your abbess could have arranged it without your knowledge.” Neema gestured expansively at Ruko with her glass of whisky. “The golden warrior with his golden blood line. Destined to rule over us. She’d do anything to smooth your path.”

“Abbess Glorren is a woman of profound, unshakeable faith. She believes in Yasthala’s curse, without question. She would never use the Blade to take a life.”

“Gaida wasn’t killed with the Blade.”

Ruko stopped prowling, and stared at her.

“It was staged to look that way, but that’s not what killed her. She was stabbed after she died.”

Ruko closed his eyes briefly. An invisible weight lifted from his shoulders. “Thank the Eight.”

“You believe in the curse too?” Neema was astonished. “The Return of the Eight? All that…” All that nonsense?

Ruko wasn’t listening. He seemed dazed by the good news. Disarmed by it. He slid to the floor, his back against the wall.

She’d never seen him like this. A chink in his armour. “Would you like a drink?” she asked, on impulse.

Ruko lifted his brows in surprise, but didn’t say no. She poured him a shot and he took a sip, then settled the glass at his side. That was it—the extent of his revelry.

She joined him on the floor, cross-legged. The room had a new rug thanks to Benna—no holes, or stains or mouse droppings. Neema brushed her fingers across it, enjoying its quality. “I read a lot of reports, as High Scholar. More than I needed to,” she confessed. “Curiosity. Your abbess has a reputation for removing her enemies with poison. Nothing proven, all very subtle, but…

Gaida was poisoned. Or drugged, at least. We’re not sure yet.” She looked at him, chewed her lip. “But you suspect someone else. That’s why you’re here.”

Ruko didn’t answer. He watched her intently as she worked it through.

“You snuck out to the Ox orchard last night to meet someone. They told you to leave the Blade behind—and you were so desperate to see them, you agreed.”

His face spiked with anger, then turned blank.

“Sunur said you were holding a piece of paper.” Neema mimed the size with her hands. “May I see it?”

For a second she thought he would refuse. Then he reached slowly beneath his tunic and took out the Order of Exile.

Neema held it in both hands like a sacred text. This was why he had visited its twin in the archives yesterday—not to admire it, as he’d said, but to authenticate this one. To match the hand. And that was why he had called Neema over at the opening ceremony and pressed her— Was the death witnessed? Was it confirmed? Because this Order was supposed to remain stitched to Yana’s body, even after death. Left to disintegrate and disappear, until no trace was left.

Neema stared blindly at the words she had copied out so dutifully eight years ago. The Raven’s Wing ink was still the same intense purple-black, thanks to the Dragonspell woven through it. The paper had not fared as well. In the lantern light she could see the holes pierced in each corner, where the Hounds had stitched it into Yanara’s skin.

She took a breath, fighting the sick feeling in her stomach. “You were waiting for her , last night.” Yana. “You thought she sent this to you.”

“It came with a note, telling me when to meet, and where. It was her hand, her voice.” He shook his head, knowing this to be impossible. “I could have sworn…”

“Do you have it with you?”

“No.”

In the centre of the Order was a neat rectangular hole, where Shal Worthy had cut out Yana’s name. He’d described the moment at the end of his report. Yana was still weak from an infection she’d picked up on the road. Six weeks they’d been delayed, in a village on the edge of the Dolrun Forest. Shal had recognised the painful irony—watching Yana fight for her life under the villagers’ gentle, attentive care.

When she was strong enough to walk again, he’d marched her away to her death.

He and two members of his squad took her across the border into the poisoned embrace of the forest. After a mile or so they’d stopped. Shal had chained Yana to the dank forest floor. She’d whispered in his ear as he worked. “Sergeant Worthy, please don’t leave me alone, not yet. Please stay with me a while.”

That’s when he’d cut her name from the Order with his pocket knife. His hands were shaking; the blade slipped. It nicked the skin above her heart.

“Press a little deeper,” she told him. “It would be a mercy.”

He’d turned away then, to hide his tears.

They left her water, but no food. There were no wolves in Dolrun, no large predators of any kind to give her the blessing of a swift death. The forest itself would claim her in the end. It killed anyone who lingered too long.

The last words Shal said to her, were the words demanded of him by the ritual of Exile.

“Yanara Valit, traitor of Orrun. You exist no longer.”

They’d waited ten days before returning. The Dragon had taken her, Shal wrote in his report, but not as swiftly as I’d hoped. We could see that she had suffered greatly.

“Your sister died in Dolrun,” she told Ruko.

His dark eyes were empty. “Yes. I know.”

Neema held the Order out for him to take back, but he refused it.

“There’s a reason most contenders leave their loved ones at home. They are a distraction. Even in death.” His jaw tightened. “I think my mother sent it. I think she killed Gaida to frame me.”

“You may be right,” Neema said, though she thought there might be more to it than that. Ruko did not know that Yasila had met with Gaida the afternoon before the murder.

They both stood up. Neema drained her glass. It was very late, or very early, depending how you looked at it.

“You will arrest her,” he said. A statement, not a question.

“I need more evidence. I’ll interview her tomorrow.”

“Don’t go alone. She hates you.”

“I know.” Looking back through her notes, after her talk with Vabras, Neema had found a connection, a line between the dots. Gaida was not the only one who had been targeted last night. Ruko was tricked. Shal was poisoned. And she had been drugged. Ruko, Shal, Neema. All three of them had played a role in Yanara Valit’s exile. And now, it seemed, someone was punishing them for it. Who had more claim for revenge than Yasila?

“Does your mother have access to Dragonscale oil?”

Ruko froze. “Why do you ask?”

She told him what had happened to her, missing out the bit where she broke into the throne room, and met Cain, and killed all the fishes in the imperial fish ponds. She still felt bad about that. “It raged through me, like a fire.” She ran her fingers up her arms, hugged her shoulders. “I’ve never felt anything like it. As if I’d been possessed by this part of myself I didn’t even know existed. I felt this absolute, crippling need to act out my deepest desires, and forget the consequences. Not like this,” she rolled the dregs of her whisky in its glass. “It didn’t weaken my inhibitions, it burned them to the ground. Does that make sense?”

“Yes,” Ruko said. “It does.” And then he told her about his mother and the Dragons, and why they had never punished her for escaping them.

“That’s… horrifying,” Neema said, when he was finished.

“My mother is a very dangerous woman. You should thank the Eight you are so well protected.”

Neema’s brow furrowed. “I am?”

“The Raven watches over you, Contender Kraa.”

“Oh right, the Raven.” She pulled a polite face.

“I hope I don’t kill you on the platform. You may be of use to me, when I am emperor.”

And with that he left, as silently as he had come.

Neema picked up Ruko’s barely touched glass of whisky and crawled back into bed with it. Benna had replaced the old, dubious mattress and pillows with brand-new ones, and ordered fresh linen sheets that smelled of sunshine and lemons. She knocked the whisky down in one. Who needs the Raven , she thought, blasphemously, when I have Benna Edge to look after me? May the Eight bless her, and remain Hidden.

Lying on her back, she felt a sharp stabbing pain in the middle of her forehead. A mosquito? She swatted the air.

Nothing.

Odd.

She turned over on her side, snuggled against the pillow and fell straight back to sleep.

Our patience is remarkable.

Two hours until dawn. We scratch our neck vigorously with a claw. Strut along the wooden bed frame, plack, plack, plack, plack. Back again. Plack, plack, plack, plack. Too late to fly back to the Hidden Realm, no point to it. Fox will have slunk in and slunk out again by now, with its nightly report. An incoherent, rambling mess, no doubt. Fox finds it hard to focus unless we are there to help. Pull on its tail, Raven , Ox would say. Get it back in line.

Two more hours until dawn.

Plack, plack, plack plack.

Plack, plack, plack, plack.

We could write down the story.

The book. Its voice is faint, muffled by the pillow.

Shut up.

Yes, shut up, who asked you?

Stupid thing.

Wretched thing.

We have a much better idea.

We could write down the story.

Excited, we tug the book (protesting) out from under the pillow and open it flat with our claw. Consider the empty page with one eye, and then the other. Dip our beak in the inky sheen of our magnificent blood and begin.

Yasila and the Dragons

One day in the late summer of 1497, Lord Eyart Majan said to his wife, “My dear! Look how calm and bright the sea is this morning! Let us sail to Three Ports and have lunch on the sand.” And the Princess Marana agreed because she loved her husband, and was very bored.

“Tell the servants to make a picnic,” said Lord Eyart. “I shall run and fetch our daughter.”

“Yasila is too young for such a long trip,” his wife replied. “She will only get sick and cry. And it might be nice, just the two of us—”

“Nonsense,” her husband replied.

And so they headed down to their yacht, Lord Eyart carrying his daughter on his shoulders. Little Yasila was scarce eighteen months old, with pudgy hands, and plump cheeks, and her indigo-black hair was tied up in a tiny bun on top of her tiny head, with a sweet yellow ribbon to honour her parents’ Guardian, the Monkey.

The captain of the yacht took Lord Eyart to one side and warned his master that sailing to Three Ports was not wise, not today. He said the sea might look calm but things could change rapidly; he’d heard reports of a violent storm on the way. He suggested instead an excursion to a sheltered bay close by. It would be a pleasant trip and they could stay close to the coastline.

Eyart said, “I have promised my wife a picnic on the beach at Three Ports.”

The captain said, “But my lord—”

Lord Eyart reminded the captain who owned the yacht, and paid for its crew. He said, patting the captain’s shoulder, that he had no desire to destroy a man’s life, but he expected his orders to be obeyed, without question.

The captain set sail for Three Ports. As the crew pulled up the anchor Princess Marana brushed a drop of water from her face. “I think it’s raining, dearest,” she called to her husband.

“Nonsense,” said Eyart.

The storm broke an hour later. Black clouds, grey seas, waves crashing down on the boat like a giant’s fist. Rain so thick it was a fight to breathe through it. Wind so strong it ripped the sails from the masts. Bolts of lightning split the sky like illuminated screams. The sailors dropped to their knees in prayer, sure that the Last Return was upon them. Only the captain kept his head, shouting orders through the howling wind. “For Eight’s sake, take your wife and child below,” he yelled at Lord Eyart, and Lord Eyart did as he was told.

Nothing to be done but to ride out the storm. And everywhere, danger. North, they would be dashed against the rocks. East, they would be lost to the open ocean. South was unthinkable. Due west was their only chance for safe harbour.

The storm had other plans. South it drove them, south and south-west.

To Helia, island of the Dragons.

Only six survived the shipwreck. The captain, two crew, Lord Eyart and his princess, and the baby Yasila. The storm spat them out like a bad taste on to a narrow strip of sand, on the far eastern tip of the island. All the rest were drowned.

When the storm had passed, the Dragons arrived. Three of them, on the headland above the sand. Their leader was a slight, narrow-boned white woman, not much taller than a child, with waves of red hair that trailed across her face and down her back. She wore a silver diadem with an emerald fixed in the middle of her forehead.

She stared in silence at the survivors. There was no pity in her pale amber eyes, and no comfort. “The sea brings us treasures,” she said.

Lord Eyart stumbled to his feet. His fine clothes were ruined, and blood streamed from a gash in his leg. “Jadu,” he said, pressing his hands together in a Monkey salute. “Servant of the Dragon. Pray forgive our trespass. My name is—”

“We know who you are,” Jadu said.

Yasila began to cry in her mother’s arms.

Jadu frowned at the noise. “Only the Chosen may set foot on Helia.”

“The tempest winds drove us here,” Princess Marana said, holding her daughter close. “We had no choice.”

The emerald on Jadu’s forehead gleamed, then faded. “No choice? Lord Eyart. Did your captain not warn you of the storm? Did he not beg you to abandon your trip?”

Eyart fell to his knees. He knew the punishment for his arrogant mistake. “Mercy,” he cried. “Please, I beg you… My wife, my child… They are innocent.”

Yasila began to wail even louder.

Jadu muttered something beneath her breath, and drew a sharp line in the air.

At once, both Eyart and his daughter fell silent. Little Yasila’s eyes widened in shock, as she found she had no voice, no voice at all. She clutched at her mother’s dress in silent terror, fist bunching the ruined silk.

Marana rose to her feet with as much dignity as she could muster. “Jadu. Dragons. You have your ways and they are different from ours. Cold are the hearts of the Chosen, though they are lit by fire. But know this. My daughter and I are direct descendants of Yasthala. My husband is a Lord Eternal of the Majans. If you take our lives, Orrun will be forced to retaliate. Do you seek war with your great neighbour? Do you dare test the patience of the Eight? They will not spare Helia when they Return. All will be destroyed, in blood and fire.”

A tense silence. The emerald eye sparked again into flame. Jadu’s lips parted in surprise. Whatever was happening, she seemed to be resisting. The jewel burned brighter, so fierce she gasped in pain. “Your Servant hears you,” she hissed.

Slowly, the light faded.

When Jadu spoke again, she did not conceal her displeasure. “Yasthala saved Helia when she stopped the Return. We shall release you in her memory—on two conditions. First, you must swear an oath, never to speak of what happened here today. For we are Dragons, and our mysteries are precious to us.”

The princess swore on the Eight. Jadu released Eyart’s voice, and he did the same. “And the second condition?” he asked, meekly.

Jadu gave a thin smile. “We shall keep one member of your family here as hostage.”

The couple exchanged a distraught, tender look. They loved each other dearly, and were rarely parted. “For how long?” Marana asked.

“For ever.”

“Then I shall stay,” Eyart said at once. “This was my fault, and so it is my burden to bear.”

“That is well spoken, Lord Eyart,” Jadu acknowledged. “But we spare your family in Yasthala’s name. It must be one of her blood who remains. Princess Marana. We will accept you, or your daughter. The choice belongs to you, and you alone.”

Now it was the princess who sank to her knees. She hugged Yasila to her chest. “No. There must be another way.” But even as she begged, she knew there was not.

“Choose,” Jadu said, not unkindly. This pain was known to her. All Dragons are taken from their families against their will.

The princess kissed the top of her daughter’s head. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. And then, in a louder voice. “Dragons. I leave my daughter in your care. May the Eight forgive me.”

“And remain Hidden,” Jadu answered. What was done, was done.

“Marana, no!” Eyart cried out in horror.

“I have my reasons,” said the princess, and spoke no more.

When Yasila’s parents were gone, Jadu lifted the abandoned child from the sand, and held her out at arm’s length. “I suppose I had best return your voice,” she sighed, and did so.

Yasila cried so hard for her mama that she hurt her throat.

Jadu handed the bawling parcel to one of her companions. “Let us pray the Dragon chooses her, in time. What a miserable curse it would be to live here among us, UnChosen.” Tugging the pretty ribbon from the little girl’s hair, she threw it to the wind. There were no families here, and no mementoes.

“We wish you no harm,” Jadu told her, as they passed through the gates of the monastery. “But do not look for love or kinship from us. Your mother spoke truth. The fire burns hot but we are cold.”

That is how Yasila came to live on Helia. As for the captain, and the two surviving members of his crew, no one would fight wars for them. They were burned alive for trespass, in the usual way.

Afterwards, the Dragons sailed Lord Eyart and Princess Marana back to the mainland. Eyart refused to speak to his wife on their long journey home. He would not even look at her. If he had asked her, she would have told him about the child she was carrying. About the terrible, silent calculation she had been forced to make on the sand. Had she stayed, two lives would have been lost to the Dragons, instead of one.

When the couple reached their estate, they told the story that the Dragons had ordered them to tell. Their boat had been destroyed in the storm. All lives lost, save for their own. No one doubted it. They could see the grief etched into Lord Eyart’s face, the bold, fresh strip of grey in his hair. And the princess, pale and trembling.

Marana spent a restless night alone in her chamber, plagued with bad dreams. When she woke it was to pain, and blood, far too much blood, soaking the bed sheets. And she wept, and wept, and cursed the Eight for their cruelty.

Some days later the couple sat down to dinner, facing each other across a long table full of untouched dishes. It was the first time they had spoken a word to each other, since the storm.

Lord Eyart said to his wife, “I am ready now to hear your reasons.”

And the princess, who was still bleeding, said to her husband, “I have none.” She would not burden him with more loss.

Lord Eyart pushed himself up from his chair. “To think that I loved you,” he said.

The next morning, they found his shattered body at the base of the west tower.

The Dragon Island of Helia is no place for young children, it is not designed for it.

The Dragons fed Yasila, and clothed her. Grey clothes, the colour of mourning. They gave her a comfortable room, and taught her how to read and write and do her sums. She was not allowed into the Hidden Library where the spell books were kept. But she was free to roam the island as she pleased. It didn’t matter what she saw or heard. Whether she was Chosen or not, Yasila would live and die on Helia, and take its secrets to her grave.

Perhaps you were expecting cruelty and spite. Perhaps you imagined they starved her, and kept her in rags, and forced her to sleep in a kennel with the dogs. No, no. The Dragons did not hate Yasila. They were indifferent to her.

On her ninth birthday she was brought before Jadu. They walked together through the Servant’s dry and dusty gardens, past succulents and spiked grasses, gnarled rosemary bushes and weathered fig trees. Yasila had come to appreciate the land’s bleached, desolate beauty. It was the only home she could remember.

She had also learned to hold her tongue in Jadu’s presence. She remembered nothing of the storm, the shipwreck, her parents. But she remembered having her voice stolen from her. She would rather choose to keep silent, than have silence imposed upon her.

Jadu was holding a plain wooden staff. She lifted it up in both hands, to admire its quality. “I carved this from the wreckage of the ship that brought you here. So much loss creates space for the fire. The more loss, the more power.” Golden flames flickered over the staff. She murmured something, and the flames were gone. “A great cave of emptiness lies within you, Yasila. I had hoped it would make you a suitable vessel for the Dragon. Its fire would have raged inside you like a furnace. But you have not been Chosen. There it is. The ways of the Dragon are mysterious, and must not be questioned.”

They walked on, feet crunching on the shingle path.

“Your life, such as it is, will continue as before,” Jadu said. A thought occurred to her. “Do you sew?”

“Yes,” Yasila said, after a moment’s shock. She had no memory of being asked about herself before. “I can also—”

Jadu put a finger to her lips. Quite enough of that. She studied the child, pale amber eyes fringed with pale lashes. “This is the last time we shall speak.”

Summoning her courage, Yasila said, “May I ask you one question, Servant Jadu? Before you go?”

“If you must.”

“Why did my mother leave me here? Why did she not send me home with my father?”

“Your mother kept her reasons to herself.”

“Did she not love me?” Yasila asked, her heart aching.

But Jadu was already walking away. Do not ask Dragons about love.

Every light casts a shadow. Bears are deep thinkers, but prone to melancholy. Foxes are adventurous, and are often reckless with it. A steadfast Ox can turn stubborn. Loyal Hounds can be blind to the faults of those they serve.

Dragons hold within them great power. They are Chosen. That makes them proud. Condescending. We are Dragons—high we soar above the earth, deep we swim beneath the waves. Jadu never considered that Yasila could be a threat to her. What, that fleck of ash floating on the wind? That smudge of grey?

For the next seven years Yasila explored the island, the monastery, the miles of tunnels and vaults hidden below ground. She listened as the Dragons—unguarded—spoke secrets that had never escaped the walls of Anat-pyrrh. She watched them perform their ceremonies, she learned their incantations, she pieced together their history. And she made a friend, one friend. His name was Pyke, and he was as lonely as she was, because he was destined to become a Visitor—to leave Helia and spend his days travelling the empire. Even here among the Chosen he was kept separate, in preparation for a solitary life on the road.

No one thought their friendship might be dangerous. But two very lonely, unloved children who find solace and kinship in each other? Oh, you should not underestimate that kind of magic. It can burn through the world like Dragonfire.

Yasila was so far beneath the Dragons’ interest, they didn’t notice when she finally escaped the island. What they missed—several days later—was their precious store of Dragonscale oil.

All Dragonscale is rare. But this was the rarest and most potent form of all, gathered deep within the Dolrun Forest. To travel so many miles into that poisonous realm meant certain death. Those who collected the fungi for the Dragons were either desperate or already dying, and took the money to secure a future for their loved ones. For every three who went in, only one survived long enough to make the journey back.

Once the supply of fungi had been dried and shipped to Helia, the Dragons soaked out the pungent oil and imbued it with spells. It was then left to age for decades in stone bottles. The oil gave the Dragons the focus they needed to cast their strongest spells. Without it they were vulnerable. It would take decades for them to prepare a new batch of equal potency.

Yasila knew this because Pyke had told her. “It is our greatest treasure,” he said. And she had stolen it all.

Helia was not completely cut off from the mainland. The Dragons kept themselves informed of imperial affairs. Yasila knew exactly where to go when she arrived. Not to her mother. Not to the empress. She took the Great North Road to Samra and there presented herself to the city’s dashing young governor, Andren Valit.

In a grand room that had seen better days they sat alone before a large stone hearth. The day was mild, but Yasila was cold, missing the heat of Helia. Andren saw this and called a servant to light a fire, and bring a shawl for his guest. It was the first time in over fourteen years someone had thought of Yasila’s comfort.

So much the Tiger warrior gained, from that one small act of kindness.

She told him her story, and what she wanted from him. When she was done, he asked, “Why me?”

Yasila had long rehearsed this meeting. “Because you are rich and powerful enough to protect me,” she answered. “With the courage and skill to negotiate on my behalf.”

“And because the empress would send you back to Helia,” Andren said.

She smiled, pleased that he was so shrewd. This too was why she needed him .

“What do I get in return?” he asked.

“My hand in marriage. And with it, my fortune.” She let her gaze rest on points around the room. The cracks in the marble statues, the faded wallpaper. The Valits were wealthy, but Samra City had been neglected for centuries. It would take more than one fortune to return it to its old glory. And this, she knew, was Andren’s great dream.

He rubbed his beard, considering. “The Princess Marana is alive and in good health, by all accounts. It may be many years before you inherit.”

Yasila made a flicking motion with her hand, pushing the problem to one side. “She sacrificed her only child to save herself, then played the grieving wife and mother. If the truth comes out, the whole world will hate her for it. Her reputation will be ruined.”

“Not to the point of death,” Andren said, mildly.

“You must visit her on my behalf. Tell her I will keep her secret. In exchange she must surrender her title and fortune, and enter the House of Mist and Shadows.”

“You don’t want to see her yourself?”

“I do not.”

Andren rubbed his beard again, dark eyes gleaming. He would not make his final decision now—a Tiger does not leap without looking. But already he was calculating the benefits and opportunities of such a match. “Should we come to terms,” he said, “I will not marry you at sixteen. It is too young.”

“Then we shall wait until you are ready.”

“And you should know, Yasila, that I am in love with someone else. Rivenna is my—”

“That concerns me not,” Yasila replied, hands folded neatly in her lap.

So Andren arranged a meeting with the Dragons and negotiated a truce. Once a year, Yasila would send them enough Dragonscale oil to cast their magic and protect themselves. In return, they would swear a binding oath not to harm her. “You kept her hostage, now we do the same with your precious drug,” he said, with a grin. He liked a neat arrangement, and he enjoyed having control over people of such immense power as the Dragons. He could see how unhappy it made them.

“If she speaks a word of this—”

“Peace, peace,” Andren said, with an easy laugh. “All she wants is to get married, and have children, and forget about you.”

And the Dragons believed him, because it suited them.

Princess Marana wept with joy when Andren came to visit her at the Majan estate. “She escaped? My Yasila is free?”

She dropped to her knees and thanked the Eight for answering her prayers.

Andren did not need to persuade her to give up her fortune, and take the grey cloak of the penitent. Whatever her daughter wanted of her she would do. Wherever she must go she would go. “Would she see me once, before I leave?” she asked.

Andren’s silence was his answer.

“I understand,” Marana said, in a soft voice.

“I can give her a short message,” he offered.

The princess thought for a while. Perhaps if she explained her reason… But it was so long ago now, and she could give no proof, for she had told no one about the child she had lost. “If I said that I loved her, would she believe me?”

“Probably not,” Andren admitted.

“And it might upset her.” Marana paced for a moment before the window, rubbing her hands. “Tell her I am sorry,” she decided. “And that I will pray for her happiness and good fortune. You will be good to her, Lord Andren? You will keep her safe?”

He promised he would do his best.

They married two years later. Andren was twenty-eight, Yasila just turned eighteen. She wore a sea-green dress, delicately embroidered with silver flowers. It caused a stir. Sea-green and turquoise were colours reserved for the Chosen. It was considered bad luck for anyone else to wear them. “I am a child of Helia, raised by Dragons,” she said, when a guest challenged her. “It is my right.”

Did Andren love Yasila? Not as he loved Rivenna Glorren. But she intrigued him, those dark currents only he saw, swirling beneath her immaculately calm surface. “My wife is an enigma,” he said, on their wedding day. “I shall enjoy exploring her mysteries.”

Everyone assumed he was talking about sex. There was much fanning.

He wasn’t not talking about sex. Andren was handsome,

Yasila was beautiful. There was an attraction. But he wanted more.

“Tell me about Helia. Tell me about the Dragons.”

Glimpses, she gave him. Hints. Andren was too preoccupied to notice how much she was holding back. Empress Haven was suffering from poor health. In a few months she would host a Festival of the Eight, to find her replacement. The Tigers had chosen Andren as their contender. He was expected to win by some distance. The empire was already preparing for the rule of the Golden Tiger of Samra.

On the day Andren set off to the Tiger monastery to focus on his training, Yasila told him she was pregnant. He was thrilled by the news. “Imagine,” he said, as he kissed her goodbye. “In a few months I shall be an emperor and a father.”

But he did not win the Festival. He lost to Bersun—a Bear warrior who had made it plain he did not want the throne.

Andren was many good things, back then.

But he was a very bad loser.

That dress , people said.

In the middle of the Festival, Yasila gave birth to twins. Ruko and Yanara. Andren thought it was a sign of good luck. He was wrong. He lost the final Trial to the Bear contender. A few days later, Emperor Bersun removed Andren from his post as Governor of Samra and ordered him to return to his estate. “I don’t like him,” Bersun said. Not behind his hand, like a normal politician. Out loud, in front of the whole court.

Two years of house arrest. Five more rebuilding his position, slowly gaining the emperor’s trust. Damping down all the things Bersun did not like about him—his charm, his wit, his confidence.

Such patience, the Tiger stalking its prey through the long grass. Such patience, such focus, such will. Seven years he planned and schemed and waited.

For nothing. For nothing! The month of the Tiger, 1523. Andren Valit’s ruined corpse, blood spilling down the white marble steps. Yasila, a widow at twenty-seven, pregnant with their third child. She should thank the Eight, people said later.

That baby saved her life.

The twins were born in a palace. Their sister was born in a prison cell.

It was a cold winter’s evening, month of the Fox, when the Visitor came for the Valits.

They had been moved to a modest apartment above a tailor’s workshop, in a rundown grid of Armas. No title, no fortune, no friends. Some of the neighbours were kind, some cursed them and spat at their feet. Twice they had come home to find the place ransacked. It might have been the Hounds, or it might have been done for sport. When the door burst open that night the twins jumped to their feet, ready to fight.

Their mother remained seated at the table, eating her soup.

Visitor Pyke was dressed for the road in a thick cloak and fur-lined boots. He brought a swirl of snow in with him, and a bitter wind. “Where’s the oil?” he said, striding into the room.

Ruko, nine years old and small for his age, blocked his path. “Get out,” he yelled, and shoved the Visitor in the chest.

With a bored expression, the Visitor broke the boy’s arm, and threw him out of the way.

“Ruko!” Yana shouted, and ran to her brother.

Yasila finished her soup.

“The oil,” the Visitor prompted. And then, when she did not reply, “You have three children. I will kill them all if I must.”

Yasila moved the empty bowl to one side. “That will not be necessary,” she said, and gestured for him to sit down.

The two childhood friends faced each other across the table. The Visitor’s dark amber eyes began to gleam softly, lit by an inner fire. A reminder, in case she needed it, of his power.

“Yanara,” Yasila said, still holding the Visitor’s gaze. “Tea for our guest.”

Yana left her brother’s side, and approached the table. Her hand was steady as she poured the tea. She had never met a Dragon before, but she had listened to her mother’s stories. Never show fear before them, Yanara. Ten years on the road in all weathers had whittled the Visitor’s body, he was lean but tough. He smelled as though he had not bathed for several days—his grey, receding hair slick with grease, a rasp of stubble on his cheeks.

From the other room, a series of hiccuping cries. Baby Nisthala, half awake. Yana looked to her mother.

“She will settle,” Yasila said.

The cries grew softer, and petered out.

“Your baby sister teaches you a lesson, Ruko,” Yasila said to her son, her eyes never leaving the Visitor. “She will wake rested from this night. Whereas you shall have weeks of pain.”

Ruko, huddled in a corner nursing his arm, stifled a sob.

“He was trying to protect us,” Yana said, defending her twin.

“There is no courage in fighting battles you cannot win.”

“Indeed,” said the Visitor. You would not tell from his countenance, but he was growing impatient. These domestic matters, these children. He was used to walking into a home and taking what he wanted. The families, if they were wise, offered no protest. No tea, either. He had not spent this much time in someone’s home since he was taken from his own family. It was stirring old, unsettling memories.

Yasila knew this, of course. She had stalled him for this very reason. She smiled. “The Dragons swore a sacred oath not to hurt me. Would they curse themselves to break it?”

“That promise does not extend to your family,” the Visitor replied. “You will hand over the oil and return to Helia. In exchange, we shall spare the lives of your children. They concern us not.”

“You think I am vulnerable, now that my husband is dead.”

“We know it.” He picked up his tea and drank. “You belong to us, Yasila. We do not give up our treasures, however trifling.”

Yasila watched him drink for a moment. Then she lifted a hand from her lap, and chanted a few words under her breath.

The Visitor moved to put down his cup and found that he could not.

Shock, then annoyance. His amber eyes burned, as he sought the spell to free himself. It did not work. He could not move, could not speak. He was held fast to his chair.

“‘Only the Chosen have the power to cast spells,’” Yasila quoted, in a mocking voice. Her eyes remained fixed on the Visitor, but she was speaking to her daughter, standing between them at the table. “The Dragons have told this lie for so long, they have come to believe it. But we all have a spark buried within us, Yanara, waiting to catch fire. We all have a loss. From the darkness comes the light.”

The Visitor was waging a war inside himself, trying to shake off the spell. And for his efforts? A ripple, on the surface of his tea.

“It is true, the magic does not flow so easily for us,” Yasila said. “It has taken me many years to perfect this one spell.”

She chanted again, like a jailer tightening a prisoner’s chains. Now I bind myself to thee eternal… A common betrothal verse, sung in every temple in the land. Yasila had stumbled upon this secret by chance, as a child. She did not need to break into the monastery’s Hidden Library and steal a spell book. All she needed was a song, old as the Ketuan mountains, passed down from generation to generation.

An old song. Some Dragonscale oil. And years of patient practice.

“The benefit of focusing on one spell,” she said to Yana. “In time you become its mistress. Visitor Pyke is proficient in many forms of magic, but what use are they, against my singular power?” A smile. “This is the fatal flaw of the Dragons. They hoard a thousand treasures, and know them not.”

Yasila rose from the table. Her fine wardrobe had been taken from her as punishment for her husband’s treason.

But she had learned how to sew on Helia and whatever Yasila set her mind to, she accomplished. She had bought a bolt of muslin at the local grid market and dyed it sea-green. Her long black hair was plaited with silver ribbon. The muslin was of poor quality and the ribbon was cheap, but she looked like a mythic queen as she walked across the room. Like Empress Am, summoning her Huntsman.

She lifted a box from a shelf and brought it to the table.

“I knew Jadu would send you, Pyke. My old friend. You helped me escape, and now she commands you to bring me back. Restoring her precious balance.” Yasila opened the box and took out a glass vial with a silver stopper.

The Visitor, caught by the binding spell, let out a suppressed groan. The year’s supply of Dragonscale oil.

“Yanara,” Yasila said. “The tea.”

Yana freed the cup from the Visitor’s fingers and brought it to her mother.

Yasila removed the stopper and added a drop of oil. “Give this to your brother. It will distract him from the pain.”

She moved down the table and perched in front of the Visitor. She studied him for a long, quiet moment—the changes time had wrought upon his face. And then she raised the vial, and emptied it over his head.

He gave the faintest tremor, as the oil soaked his hair and streamed down his face, into his unblinking eyes, his half open mouth. Down his stubbled cheeks and neck, seeping into his skin.

She waited for the drug to take effect. Such a high dose, it did not take long. She could see the terror in his eyes, of what he might reveal. The secret, the yearning secret buried deep within. When she was sure it was safe, she murmured a few words from a parting song. So I send you on your way… Enough to unbind his tongue, but hold the rest of him still.

“Speak,” she said, softly.

He tried to fight it, but the drug compelled him. “I love you,” he said, in an anguished voice. “I have always loved you.” He struggled again to stop himself, but it was no use.

His confession, so long suppressed, poured out of him like water. “My only wish is to be with you, to protect you. To make you happy. Yasila. My Yasila. Do you love me in return? Do you love me? There were times on Helia, I thought… but we were so young. Say the word and I am yours. I am yours, entirely.”

She laughed at him. And then she bound his tongue again.

A tear spilled down the Visitor’s frozen cheek.

Yasila told Yana to fetch a bowl of water, and a cloth. “And a knife,” she said. “The small one, we use for chopping vegetables.”

Yana did as she was told.

Yasila soaked the cloth. “All these years I’ve waited for you, Pyke.” She washed the Visitor’s face, rinsing away the oil, the dirt, the solitary tear. “If you had come to me with an open heart, I could have loved you. We might have shared our days, and our nights. You may think on that, if you wish, for the rest of your life. What we might have had.”

A second tear fell from the Visitor’s eye.

Yasila picked up the knife. “Tell Jadu, we are protected. Tell her, if she threatens my family again, I will hunt down her Visitors, bind them, and kill them. Then I will find every Chosen child, and I will do the same. Every one. She will lose a generation of Dragons to this small blade.” She placed a hand to the side of his face, lacing her fingers in his hair. “A message. So she knows I am in earnest.”

And with her free hand, she carved her initial into his cheek.

When she was done, she let him go. Cleaned the blade and returned it to its drawer. Looking out of the window, she saw him battling his way through the blizzard, cloak billowing against the wind, hand cradling his wounded face. For a second she felt a violent urge to bind him again, run down the steps to the street below and… what, Yasila? What then?

She waited and the feeling passed, as feelings do.

She sensed Yanara’s eyes on her back. Inwardly, she checked her posture, but there was nothing to correct. She was as she should be.

Without turning she said, “This is what a mother does for her children.”

The next time she looked out of the window, the street was empty, and the snow had covered the Visitor’s tracks. It was as if he had never been.

So ends the story of Yasila and the Dragons.