The next morning, when Asha entered the meeting tent, she ran straight into Jas. His eyes, rimmed in dark lashes, widened at the sight of her. Recovering, he smiled, fisting his hand over his heart in greeting.
“You look well this morning, Asha.”
His kindness startled her. After all, she’d pulled a knife on him just last night. And most people upon meeting the Iskari were not so quick to smile at her.
Torwin stepped in behind them. “Sorry we’re late. We . . .” At the sight of what was clearly the middle of a meeting, he stopped.
A dozen people looked up from the roughly hewn log benches. Dax stood in the center, pouring tea.
The sight of it jarred Asha. Serving tea was a slave’s task. But here was her brother, the heir to the throne, holding the brass teapot high in the air as liquid gold streamed in an arc, filling the circle of glasses with frothy, steaming tea.
Before the Severing, under the old ways, the master of the house always served the tea.
Dax stopped pouring to stare at Asha’s clothes. Which were actually Torwin’s clothes. The daughter of the dragon king was wearing the clothes of her husband’s slave.
Her face flamed as she realized how it looked. But she was surrounded by strangers—draksors, scrublanders, skral—so she said nothing. She didn’t look at Dax, whose stare burned up her skin, just ducked past a wordless Jas and filled the empty spot on the cushions next to Safire, who shot her a curious look.
Dax’s stare turned to a wordless question, which he fixed on Torwin. Torwin, who was supposed to be leaving.
Avoiding eye contact, Torwin filled in a gap on the other side of the circle, as far from Asha as he could get, sitting between Roa and a woman Asha recognized: the blacksmith who’d forged her slayers. The blacksmith nodded to her. Asha nodded back.
Safire broke the awkward silence, continuing as if they’d never been interrupted. “Aren’t we forgetting something?” She tossed a throwing knife from hand to hand. Its sharpened steel edge broke the light into countless colors that went skittering across the tent. “There’s a law against regicide, in both the old age and the new.”
Asha thought of the last three scrublander assassins who’d tried to take her father’s life. Remembered the blade hacking at their necks beneath the blazing midday sun. Remembered their heads falling to the stones with sickening thuds. Dax had been sitting right next to Asha, watching it happen.
She thought of Moria, centuries earlier, kneeling on those same stones, resting her head on that same bloodstained block.
The law against killing kings was an ancient, sacred law. It couldn’t be circumvented.
If Dax killed their father, he too would lay his head on that block.
And Asha would have to watch.
“You can’t be thinking of killing the king,” she said.
“We can’t take the throne if your father lives,” Safire said. Essie, Roa’s silver-eyed hawk, perched on the leather patch on her shoulder. “Not officially.”
Asha stared at her brother. “But if you kill him, your life is forfeit.”
“A detail we have yet to work out.” Dax set down the tea and served the first cup to Roa. She took it stiffly, not meeting his gaze, as if still vexed from their argument. But the moment Dax turned to pour the next cup, she looked up, watching him with her dark brown eyes.
“Let me help,” said Asha.
Dax shook his head. “I don’t want you anywhere near Firgaard when this starts.”
“I don’t need to be near Firgaard.”
He gave her a puzzled look.
“We can use the dragons,” she said. “The king won’t expect an attack from the sky.”
A murmur rose around her as everyone exchanged nervous glances.
“If the dragons are on our side,” Asha continued, “so is the Old One. Any draksor in the city still devoted to the old ways will be with us.”
Dax shook his head in disbelief. “You—the girl who’s made it her life’s mission to hunt dragons into extinction—now want to recruit them? The dragons hate us, Asha. How can you possibly think of bringing them to our side?”
Her eyes fixed on the silver collar resting against Torwin’s collarbone. “I know a way.”
Dax waited, looking skeptical. He was right to look skeptical. Asha didn’t actually know—not for certain. But according to Shadow, the dragons turned on the draksors because they enslaved the skral. So if the draksors set them free . . .
“You’ll have to prove your motives are true. Prove you’re not just hungry for the throne.”
“And how do I do that?”
Asha’s gaze cut to Torwin. His attention fixed on the bone ring encircling his smallest finger. His hands shook, ever so slightly, as he twisted it back and forth. He must have retrieved it while she slept.
“Break the collars of every skral in this camp,” she said.
Torwin’s gaze lifted to her face.
“And the moment you seize the throne, break the collars off those still in the city. It must be the first thing you do.”
Her brother looked at her as though he no longer recognized her. She didn’t blame him. Not so long ago, she’d thought that if the skral went free, they would finish what they came for.
Asha glanced at Torwin.
She didn’t think that anymore.
The blacksmith spoke up suddenly, her voice ringing like a hammer on an anvil. “I can remove every collar in this camp by nightfall.”
Asha nodded at her, then turned back to her brother. “All I need are riders, and you can count dragons among your arsenal.”
“I’ll find them for you,” said Torwin.
Asha met his gaze. Very quietly, she said, “Does this mean you’re staying?”
He looked away. “Just . . . until the wedding. That will give me enough time to find you riders, and train them so they’re flight ready.”
Asha bit down on the smile creeping across her lips.
In the silence that followed, Safire’s knife flashed as she tossed it one final time, then sheathed it in her boot. “Well,” she said, “I guess that’s settled.”
To aid him in his plan, Asha told Dax about her secret tunnel beneath the temple. They decided the scrublander army would wait outside the city wall with Roa while Dax, Jas, Safire, and a few other Haveners—what Dax called his group of rogues—took the tunnel into the city, then ran to the north gate. There they would hold the gate open long enough to let the army in. Roa’s hawk, Essie, was the signal. Dax would take the bird into the city and, once the gate opened, let her fly.
After the city was secured, the dragon king imprisoned, and Dax sat on the throne as regent, things would begin to change. His union with Roa would fix what was broken and bring peace back to draksors and scrublanders. The skral would be free to choose. They could remain in Firgaard or seek out new lives elsewhere.
When the meeting ended and Asha went to follow Safire out of the tent, Dax halted his conversation with a scrublander girl and called for Asha to wait.
The tent emptied, and Dax leaned against a map of Firgaard unrolled across the table. His hands cupped the edge of the rough wood as he looked his sister up and down.
“You disappear with him last night and then reappear wearing his clothes?” He motioned to the shirt and trousers she wore. “Think about how that looks.”
Asha crossed her arms over Torwin’s shirt and raised her chin. “Would you prefer I still be standing in my binding dress?”
He made a frustrated sound. “You’re the daughter of the dragon king.” He pushed himself off the table. “And Torwin is . . .”
Beneath me. Forbidden.
“A skral. And while most draksors in this camp are friendly with skral, there are many who aren’t. And there are just as many skral who won’t think twice about hurting him simply because of the way he looks at you.”
Asha’s arms fell to her sides.
“In this camp and beyond it, if people think you care about him, they’ll use him to hurt you. To make you do things you don’t want to do.”
“I fell in the lake,” she said. “Torwin gave me dry clothes. He was just being kind.”
“Asha,” Dax said. As if he were the adult here and she were the child. As if he’d just caught her in a lie.
Asha scowled. “What.”
“You—you of all people—know how these stories end. I don’t want either of you getting hurt.”
Unable to look Dax in the eye, Asha stared over his shoulder at the canvas walls of the tent, lit up by the morning sun.
“Lillian wouldn’t have died if Rayan hadn’t pursued her,” Dax said. “If he’d put her safety first, above his own selfishness, they’d both be alive today.”
And Safire wouldn’t exist.
The mere thought of it broke her heart.
Dax stepped toward her. “If you want to keep him safe, you must keep him at a distance.”
Asha dropped her gaze to her bare feet. Her slippers were probably washed up on the shore by now.
“I know,” she whispered. “I’m trying.”
Dax sighed. He reached for Asha’s shoulder and gently squeezed, making her look up into his face.
Whatever his affliction had been, it was receding, if not gone altogether. His eyes were starry again and he was putting weight back on, easing those sharp edges he’d developed. He was almost back to his regular handsome self.
But there was something still tugging at Asha. This plan of his was a sound one: getting into the city, seizing it with the help of the scrublanders—it could work. But as for the throne . . . as long as their father lived, no one would consider Dax the dragon king. Dax could lock their father in a prison for the rest of his life, but as long as the true king lived, he was the rightful ruler of Firgaard. Not Dax.
Their father had to die. And Dax wouldn’t leave a task as dire as this to someone else. He would consider it his responsibility.
Yet the ancient law against regicide was unbendable. If Dax killed the king, Dax too would die. And if that happened, who would rule Firgaard?
Roa was a scrublander. No draksor would submit to her solitary rule.
Asha was the former Iskari, hated and feared by her people.
Safire was half skral and an abomination in the eyes of Firgaard.
That left . . . no one.
Dax couldn’t die. He needed to rule. But if he couldn’t die, then he couldn’t kill the king.
Which meant someone else had to.