They hadn’t spoken a word since they made their way to the end of the tunnel. Which was fine with Asha. She didn’t need to talk.
When they stepped out into the moonlight, the soft whoo of an owl greeted them. Asha breathed in the cool night air just as the slave abruptly stopped. His arm shot out and Asha walked right into it. She was about to push it away when, in the cedar forest ahead, she saw what made him stop: two pale, slitted eyes peered at them through the darkness.
Asha let out a shaky breath.
Shadow dragon. So the hunters hadn’t found it.
“Keep walking,” she told him.
“What?”
“You’ll see.”
Asha moved into the cedars. Out of sight, the dragon crept along beside them. Above the hush of the wind, Asha could hear its bulk brushing against the leaves. Could hear the soft click of its scales rippling as it moved. Asha kept walking until the trees grew thicker and closer together, following the sound of trickling water. At the small stream, Asha stopped. It smelled like wet earth. Crouching down into the grass, she peered into the trees where the dragon stalked, staring back at her, wondering what in all the skies she was supposed to do now.
The slave sat down next to her, his eyes wide, his body shivering.
“I said you can leave,” she told him, sitting too and curling her arms around her knees. “I’m not going to stop you.”
“Do you know what the punishment is for freeing a slave?”
Asha knew.
“The loss of a hand,” he said, in case she didn’t.
Asha shrugged. They’d have to prove it was she who did it.
And she needed only one hand to kill Kozu.
“Steer clear of the hunting paths,” she told him. “They start here, in the lower Rift, and go west, toward the breeding grounds. If you stay east, you might make it to Darmoor.” But that was a very long walk on foot. And the Rift was a wild, dangerous place. The chances of his making it, alone, were slim.
He must have known this, because he said, “I think I’ll stay right here for now.”
Asha looked at him.
He reached for a long strand of esparto grass, twisting it around his fingers. “There’s a dragon in there.” He nodded toward the trees up ahead while plucking two more grass strands. He wove these together, fashioning a kind of braid. “And since you happen to be a dragon hunter, I plan to stick with you until it’s either dead or gone.”
“Unfortunately for us both,” Asha muttered, “neither of those outcomes is forthcoming.”
“What?” He looked into the trees where the dragon crouched, then back at Asha. “Why not?”
She sighed. The air heaved out of her in a rush and she fell back into the grass, looking up at the moon: a mere sliver of red in a black sky.
“I can’t kill it,” she whispered. “I wish I could. But I—” She shot him an embarrassed look. “I’m supposed to protect it.”
The slave peered down at her, blocking the sliver of moon. “But you’re the Iskari. The king’s dragon hunter.”
“If it dies,” she said, looking up into his face, “the Old One will punish me.”
“The Old One . . . ?” He raised an eyebrow. There was a hint of mockery in it. “Iskari, you’ve killed hundreds of dragons. Did he punish you for any of those?” He planted one hand just above her head, leaning in closer.
Too close.
Asha’s pulse quickened. She ducked out from under him and rose to her feet. Putting all her focus back on the dragon in the trees, she sloshed through the spring. If she could catch it, maybe she could tame it. And if she could tame it, maybe she could teach it not to follow her into the city.
She felt it in the trees, crouched and ready to spring away. She approached slowly. Cautiously. When she was mere steps away, she slowed even more. Clicking gently, she mimicked the noises dragons made in an attempt to coax it to her.
The dragon vanished into the darkness.
“Great! Go!” she shouted, picking up rocks from the spring bed and, one after another, chucking them into the trees. “I hate the sight of you!”
When she ran out of rocks, she said, without looking at the slave across the stream, “It followed me all the way to the palace, but doesn’t let me come closer than that.” Turning, she thrashed through the shallow water, kicking her helmet on her way back to the slave. “So how am I supposed to keep it from harm?”
His gaze ran up and down her.
“Honestly? If I were a dragon, I wouldn’t come anywhere near you either.”
Asha looked where he was looking: from her armor to her boots to the helmet at her feet. She picked up the helmet, studying it. Everything she wore was made from the skins of dragons.
The slave reached for her helmet. Asha’s grip on it tightened.
He tugged the helmet out of her hands anyway. “Trust me.”
Fear rippled through her as she remembered how it felt as a child to stand armorless before Kozu.
The fire rushing toward her.
The screams trapped in her throat.
Her flesh burning away.
With her helmet tucked under his arm now, he stepped in close. Close enough to reach for the buckles of her breastplate. Holding her gaze, he began to undo them.
Asha’s heart raced and her breath came quick.
“Definitely not,” she said, stepping away.
“Fine.” He set down the helmet at her feet. Taking off his sandals and rolling his pants up to his knees, he sat next to the stream and slid his bare feet into the water. “Maybe by morning you’ll have scared it away entirely and I can be safely on my way.”
He kicked at the water with his feet while his hands remained planted on the bank.
Asha stood alone in the moonlight, staring down at herself.
What was she afraid of? If the dragon wanted to kill her, it would have done so already. Wouldn’t it?
Asha started undoing buckles and taking off pieces of armor. The burn on her axe hand hurt as much as ever. She unbuckled the slayers from her back, then shrugged them off and dropped them next to her armor. The night air rushed up her hunting shirt and across her bare arms. Crouching low, Asha began unlacing her boots. One by one, she slid them off.
In her bare feet, with the esparto grass brushing against her knees, Asha felt . . . unsheathed. The wind tugged at her hair. The night air kissed her scarred skin. She’d thought standing armorless before a watching dragon would make her feel vulnerable and exposed. And she did feel those things. But she felt something else too.
Unfettered.
Wild.
Free.
Without a single thing to protect her, she moved past the slave, through the stream, and back into the trees—toward those slitted eyes. She heard the anxious swish of a forked tail as she approached.
Three steps. Then two. Then . . .
The dragon fled.
Balling her hands into fists, Asha growled. “It didn’t work!”
The slave’s dark silhouette moved toward her. But Asha walked right past him, back through the cold water of the stream, shivering in the night. What a mistake this had been.
When she stood over her pile of armor, though, she no longer recognized it. It looked more like the discarded skin of a lizard and she couldn’t bring herself to buckle any of it back on.
“I’m wasting time,” she said, thinking of Kozu prowling the Rift somewhere. She should be hunting him down, not trying to tame this senseless beast. There were only four more days until her binding night. Four more days before Jarek took her to his bed.
Her eyes stung at the thought. Asha pressed her palms against her forehead and crouched down in the grass.
A shadow fell across her. “He’s a wild creature, Iskari. And you’re a hunter. You can’t expect him to come when you call. You have to earn his trust.”
Asha looked up at the slave’s silhouette. “So what do I do?”
“You wait,” he said. “You let him come to you.”
The moon was waning. Asha couldn’t wait.
But maybe she didn’t have to. How many times in the past year had she lured a dragon to her? Too many times. The thought of it made her stomach clench. If she lured this one to her, the slave would know she’d been using the old stories. She was still the same corrupted girl who’d brought disaster upon her people.
But then, who cared what the slave knew?
Sinking back on her palms, Asha took a deep breath and began.