Asha spent the days before the weapons caravan arrived calling dragons. Torwin found her a dozen riders—mostly draksors and scrublanders, along with two skral. Asha raised an eyebrow when he brought the skral boys forward and Torwin shrugged. “You asked for riders. I found you the best.”
Asha told the old stories aloud and out of earshot, high above the tree line. She didn’t want them poisoning those in the camp, the way they poisoned her brother and her mother.
More than this, ever since the night of her binding, she’d noticed Torwin’s hands shaking. He was thinner than he had been, and there were dark half-moons under his eyes. When she asked him about it, he attributed it to exhaustion.
But Asha couldn’t shake the feeling that it was more than that.
So she called dragons alone, keeping the stories far away from Torwin and the camp, then passed the dragons off.
Torwin paired dragons to riders, showing them how to seal their links in flight. He recruited Asha’s former seamstress, the skral girl whose name was Callie. Her task was to sew coats, gloves, and skarves to protect the riders from the elements. But it was a lot of sewing, and if she was going to finish in time, she needed help.
At dusk on the third day, Asha found Torwin alone in the riders’ tent they’d erected high in the valley. He sat hunched in the light of a lamp, sewing the sleeve of a coat. It was still strange to see him without his collar. Her eyes often caught on the scars across his collarbone, hinting at where it used to rest.
But Asha did as Dax suggested. She kept her distance.
There was so much work to do and such limited time to do it in, it made avoiding Torwin easy. Despite spending the day in close proximity, they rarely spoke. And at the end of the day, when Torwin waited to walk her into camp, she shook her head and told him to go on without her. She still had work to do.
At meetings, she wedged herself between Safire and Dax. When Torwin sought her out at dinner, she fell into a conversation with Jas, who was endlessly curious and easy to talk to. When Torwin inserted himself into these conversations and it became clear that Jas valued his opinion, Asha sought out someone—anyone—else.
Sometimes, in the middle of the day, she felt him watching her. Sometimes, when she turned her back on him at dinner, she caught a glimpse of the hurt in his eyes. Like he knew what she was doing, and he was going to make it easy on her.
And why wouldn’t he? He was leaving.
Soon he stopped waiting for her. He stopped trying to sit next to her. He stopped seeking her out.
It hurt Asha’s heart.
So when no one was looking, she started watching him. From a distance, she saw his hands move with gentle reverence over dragon flanks, showing the riders how to calm their mounts and conquer their fears. He taught them various combinations of clicks that could make a dragon launch or turn or drop on command. He taught them everything he knew, until the spaces beneath his eyes grew even more hollow.
She watched him with Callie, the seamstress, as the two skral bent over her designs. Watched the way Torwin motioned with his hands, pointing out what he thought wouldn’t work or what might work better. Whenever he smiled his crooked smile at Callie, something in Asha broke a little more. She found herself comparing Callie’s smooth face to her own. The girl was pretty as a desert dawn. She was a skral, just like he was. Maybe Torwin would take Callie with him across the sea instead.
Back at camp, Callie and Torwin played music together with a handful of others. Asha didn’t dare follow them, but sometimes she lingered out of sight, sharpening her already sharp axe while she listened to the sounds of Torwin’s lute weaving with the sounds of Callie’s reed pipe and a scrublander’s hand drum, waiting for his unfinished song . . . only it never came.
If you want to keep him safe, you must keep him at a distance.
But now, after days of avoiding him, here she stood, alone with him in the riders’ tent.
Taking a deep breath, Asha crossed to the desk piled high with cut leather and carded wool. It was Callie’s desk. Her tools—knives, needles, charcoal, thread—were arranged in neat little rows. Beside the desk, on a rough-hewn chair, hung Asha’s wool mantle.
“Where’s Callie?” she asked, keeping her voice steady as she lifted the mantle and swung it over her shoulders. The walk back to camp was a cold one.
He didn’t look up from his work. “That’s the first time you’ve spoken to me in two days.”
Asha’s fingers paused on her tassels. “What do you mean?”
“Come on, Asha.” He glanced up at her. The lamplight caught in his hair, making it gleam. “We both know you’re avoiding me.”
That might be true. But Asha had watched him introduce Callie to Shadow, showing her where the dragon liked to be scratched—right below the chin. She’d watched Callie linger at the tent entrance two days in a row now, waiting to walk him back to camp, and he always went with her.
“What about you?” she whispered.
He lowered the needle to his lap. “What about me?”
You’re giving up on me.
It was ridiculous, of course. She needed him to give up.
Asha tied the tassels around her throat. “Never mind.”
As she made for the tent entrance, she heard him say, “Safire’s right. You’re stubborn as a rock.”
Asha halted and looked back. Safire was talking about her? To Torwin?
That stung.
“Safire can eat sand.”
His mouth quirked up.
She shouldn’t have looked. If she hadn’t, she might have left.
But if she’d left, she wouldn’t have noticed the hunch of his thinning shoulders or the way his hands shook a little too hard as he worked. He looked wasted, there in the lamplight, with a half-sewn coat spread out across his lap and extra needles and thread on the rug beside him. He looked the way her brother had, before the revolt.
Fear gnawed at her insides.
But I’ve been so careful. Why is this happening?
Asha loosened the tassels around her throat. She stepped back into the tent, letting the mantle fall from her shoulders as she sank down next to him on the woven grass rug. Leaning across his lap, she grabbed a needle and thread, taking stock of his symptoms and trying to match them with her mother’s.
Rapid weight loss, unnatural exhaustion, tremors . . .
Maybe she should keep him away from the dragons entirely. Dragons told stories too, in their own silent way. Maybe, somehow, they were the cause. . . .
“Do you even know how to use that?”
His question startled her out of her thoughts. It was the same question she’d asked herself about him and the arrows, down in the pit. Asha met his gaze with a glare.
“How do you think I made all my armor?” she said, threading the needle and setting to work on the other sleeve.
When his knee fell against hers, she looked up to find him smiling. Something sparked inside her. She shouldn’t have, but she let her leg relax against his. Just this once.
They worked in weary silence. When they finished attaching the sleeves of one coat, they moved on to the next one. Halfway through, Torwin started humming that mysterious tune. But by then, Asha was having trouble keeping her eyes open.
When Torwin noticed, he took the needle from her. “Time to sleep, fiercest of dragon hunters.”
Asha was too tired to correct him: she didn’t hunt dragons anymore.
She didn’t want to be the Iskari anymore.
Asha pressed her palms to the rug, about to rise and make the long trek back through the woods, to the tent she shared with Safire, when Torwyn touched her hand.
“Stay.”
She shook her head, avoiding his gaze. “I can’t.”
“Asha.”
Her name tugged at her. She looked up to find his eyes warm and feverish. He looked so fragile tonight. It worried her.
She looked away. “Fine. I’ll stay until you finish the coat.”
A small smile tugged at his mouth.
“Wake me when you’re done,” she said, curling up on the rug beside him and closing her eyes. A heartbeat later, he pulled her mantle over her. A heartbeat after that, a dream rose up to claim her. A dream about her namesake, the goddess Iskari.
Much later, Torwyn set aside his needle and thread and stretched out beside her. Asha woke. She turned to find him on his back, elbows crooked, hands cradling his head as he stared up at the canvas tent ceiling.
With her dream echoing in her mind, she forgot about the danger.
“Torwin?” she whispered.
He turned his face toward her.
“Do you think the goddess Iskari hated herself?”
It wasn’t the question he expected. She could tell by the way he sucked in a breath, like she’d elbowed him in the stomach.
“I think . . . ,” he said after a stretched-out moment, his gaze intent on her face, “I think the goddess Iskari was forced to be something she didn’t want to be.”
That wasn’t any kind of answer. Asha was about to say so when he went on.
“Iskari let others define her because she thought she didn’t have a choice. Because she thought she was alone and unloved.”
He turned on his side, propping himself on his elbow and looking down at her.
“The first time I heard them call you Iskari, I hunted down her story. I didn’t care about the danger or the law. I found an old beggar in the market who was willing to tell it to me. And, Asha, when I heard it, it didn’t sound like a tragedy to me.”
“Of course it’s a tragedy.” Asha frowned up at him. “She dies at the end. She dies all alone.”
“But is that the end?” His mouth turned up at the side and Asha felt herself soften beneath him. “I don’t think it is. What of Namsara? He goes looking for her. The sky changes seven times before he finds her. And then, when he does find her, he falls to his knees and he weeps. Because he loves her. Because she was never as alone as she thought she was. She was never just life taker. To him, she was sister. She was precious. It’s a love story, Asha. A tragic one, to be sure. But a love story, still.”
Asha studied his much-thinner face above her. The line of his jaw. The curve of his mouth.
“Does Iskari hate herself?” His voice shifted into something tender. “Of course she does.” He said this like he was only just realizing it. Like Asha’s question had forced the realization. “I used to get angry with Namsara for letting it all happen. I used to get angry with Iskari too for living out the role she’d been forced into. For never once trying to be something else.”
Torwin brushed aside a strand of Asha’s hair, tucking it behind her scarred ear.
“I got angry with Iskari for never looking around her. To the ones who loved her. To the ones who could save her.”
“But no one can save her.”
“How do you know? She never lets anyone try.”
That night, Asha had a nightmare.
She dreamed she stood in the shadows of the dungeon and before her loomed an iron door. Horrible sounds came from behind it. Sounds of the shaxa tearing at someone’s back. Sounds of bones being snapped. Sounds of a body contorting in terrible ways.
And through it all, she heard a voice, begging.
No . . . please, no. . . .
When the begging turned to screaming, she realized that she knew the owner of the voice. And because she knew him, she threw herself against the door. She pounded it with her fists. She searched for the key—only there wasn’t a keyhole. There was no way to get in.
She couldn’t save him. Couldn’t free him.
Could only listen while they killed him.
Asha woke in a sweat, breathing hard. Someone stood over her, silhouetted by the sun shining behind him. With the nightmare lingering on the backs of her eyelids, she bolted upright. Panic flared through her. Jarek. Jarek was here. She turned to find the carpet empty beside her. Torwin was gone.
“Asha.”
Asha scrambled up and away. Her back hit the makeshift desk full of Callie’s tools, which scattered and fell. She ran trembling hands along the floor, searching for something to use as a weapon.
“Asha.”
That voice.
It made her stop. Her breath scraped out of her lungs, loud and ragged. She looked up. Squinting through the sunlight, she found her brother crouching beside her.
“You’re all right. You’re safe.”
Her surroundings shifted, no longer tainted by the nightmare. Her brother’s voice brought clarity and vision. Dax stared down at her, cloaked in a gray mantle with a mud-stained hem. His dark brows drew together over eyes full of concern. Beyond him, the canvas walls were bright with morning sunlight. The still-burning lamp sat on the rug next to a half-finished flight coat.
“Where’s Torwin?”
Very carefully, Dax said, “Being tended.”
Asha’s heart jolted. “Tended?”
“A group of draksors and skral saw you come in here with him.”
Asha’s mouth went dry.
She remembered when Torwin had first brought her to New Haven, the way the Haveners looked at him when he said her name aloud . . . as if he didn’t have the right.
She remembered the warning Dax had given her: There are just as many skral who won’t think twice about hurting him simply because of the way he looks at you.
She struggled to her feet. Cold morning air rushed against her skin, making her shiver.
“Where is he?”
Dax looked as if the sight of her pained him. “I told you this would happen. I told you to keep your distance.”
Safire strode into the tent then, her eyes sweeping the premises before coming to settle on Asha.
“Saf,” she pleaded. “What’s happened?”
“Come on.” Safire slid an arm around her shoulder. “I’ll bring you to him.”
“When you didn’t return to our tent, I went looking for you,” Safire explained as they strode through New Haven. “Halfway up the valley, I found a group of Haveners in the woods, cursing someone curled on the ground, feeding kicks into his gut and back.”
Safire swept aside the flap of a small tent. From inside, Asha heard raised voices.
“They tried to break his leg, but I stopped them.”
Inside the tent, Asha found a row of cots, a dirt floor, and . . . a shirtless Torwin reaching for the bundle of clothes Callie held behind her back.
“The physician said you need to rest!” Callie’s index finger sliced the air, pointing to the cot.
“Give me my shirt,” Torwin snarled. His hair was damp with sweat and his eyes seemed strangely hollow.
“Get in the cot!”
He was about to shout something back when he noticed the newcomer. At the sight of her, the fight rushed out of him.
“Asha.”
Torwin looked her over, as if checking her for wounds. When he didn’t find any, he shook away the relief in his eyes and turned back to Callie.
“I’ll stay if Asha stays with me.”
Callie shook her head in disbelief. Giving up, she marched right past Asha and out of the tent, taking his clothes with her.
In spite of everything, Torwin smiled a victorious smile, just for the scarred girl standing in the entrance. It made Asha wonder if he even noticed the way Callie was around him. If he had any inkling at all.
Thinking of Dax’s warning, she said, “I just came to make sure you’re all right.”
Torwin moved toward her, a little stiffly. He was obviously hurt, his leg in particular.
“I can’t stay,” she said, stepping back. “This is what happens when I’m near you.” She forced herself to turn, to head for the entrance. “I’ll see you tonight. At the—”
“They gave me a sleeping draught.”
Because you need to rest, she thought, fingers reaching for the tent flap.
“Do you know what it’s like, being trapped inside nightmares all night?”
Asha faltered.
“Nightmares . . . about you.”
She didn’t turn back. Just stared at the tent flap, where Safire waited on the other side.
“They’re always about you,” he whispered.
The words wrapped around her heart and squeezed.
Torwin reached for her wrist, his fingers gentle. Asha let him turn her. Let him draw her in close. When she didn’t pull away, his forehead fell against her shoulder, as if Asha—only Asha—was the balm for a hidden wound.
“Over and over again, I watch them hunt you down.” He shuddered. “And I can never stop them.”
She looped her arms around his neck, holding him tight, the way her mother used to do in the face of her own nightmares.
“I’m right here,” she said, pressing her cheek to his. “I’m safe.”
Asha ran her fingers through his hair, trying to soothe him. But her fingers caught. And when they came free, a sick feeling coiled like a snake in her belly.
Very slowly, she pulled her hand away. Stepping back, out of his arms, she stared down at her hand.
A thick clump of his hair lay in her palm.
The past rose up before her. Asha suddenly remembered stroking her dying mother’s hair. Remembered the way her fingers caught the dark strands coming out in clumps.
Asha choked on a startled sob. She raised her eyes to Torwin’s thinning face.
“No . . . ,” she whispered. But Torwin only stared at her, confused.
A fierce and desperate anger swept through her.
“Are you telling the old stories?”
He frowned at her, his confusion deepening. “What?”
“The stories!” she demanded, her hand closing around his hair. “Are you telling them?”
He shook his head no. “I don’t know them well enough.”
“Then it must be the dragons.” She started to pace, tried to think. “I’ll get someone else to train the riders. You can stay in the camp. . . .”
He reached for her. “What are you talking about?”
Asha let him take her hands in his trembling ones, stopping her pacing footsteps.
She looked down at their interlaced fingers. His were flecked with freckles, hers were hardened with scars. He still wore her mother’s ring.
The ring.
It was the same ring Asha’s mother wore on her deathbed, carved and given to her by the dragon king. The dragon king was always carving things out of bone for his wife to wear.
It should have been burned with her other possessions, but it wasn’t. Her father kept it. And then he gave it to Dax.
Dax, who shared all their mother’s symptoms . . .
. . . until he gave it to Asha.
But Asha had only worn it a day before giving it to Torwin as a promise. And Torwin had been wearing it ever since.
Now he too was showing signs.
Father carved it out of bone, she thought. Why would . . . ?
A story flickered in her mind. A story about a queen who poisoned her guests with dragon bone ash. The slaves found the guests dead, their bodies like hollow shells.
The horror of it dawned on her. Asha grabbed Torwin’s wrist, needing to get the ring off.
“Ouch! Asha, you’re—”
She twisted, then pulled hard.
The ring came free.
Asha had spent eight years hunting dragons. She knew how to bring one down. Knew how to skin one. Knew what all the various parts could be used for.
And she knew one thing most of all: when someone was burned by dragonfire, the only thing strong enough to draw the toxins out was the poison of dragon bone. But used alone, in small amounts, it was just as deadly as dragonfire, slowly leaching the body of life.
As she stared down at the ring, Asha thought of the queen who had killed her enemies by putting a pinch of dragon bone ash in their food at night. The ring on Asha’s palm—the ring her father made for her mother—was made of that same deadly substance.
“He murdered her,” she realized aloud. “And then he tried to kill Dax.”
Torwin stared as if she were speaking an unknown language.
“Come with me,” she said, taking his hand in hers.
Torwin obliged, letting her lead him out of the tent.
She found Dax and handed him the ring. With Torwin looking on, Asha explained: it wasn’t the stories that killed their mother. It was the ring. And maybe more than that. Everything their father ever carved for his wife to wear, Asha was willing to bet, was made out of the poisonous dragon bone. It only seemed like the stories killed her, because that’s when the symptoms started.
Thanks to the eavesdropping slaves, everyone knew the dragon queen had been telling her daughter the old stories. Everyone knew she was committing a criminal act.
“And what better way to prove the stories were wicked than with the death of a storyteller?”
Dax stared at her, his jaw hardening, his hands turning to fists. She could see the thoughts churning in his eyes. The pieces of a puzzle coming together.
“What if it wasn’t just one storyteller?” he whispered, as if to himself.
Asha frowned. “What do you mean?”
“If the old stories were never deadly,” he said, looking at her, “what killed the raconteurs?”
Or rather, who killed them?
The question unearthed something in Asha.
She thought of a certain tapestry hanging in her father’s throne room. Of the woman who was queen at the time of the Severing. A queen who needed to prove the Old One had turned against her people.
“You think our grandmother poisoned the storytellers?”
Dax said nothing. He didn’t need to.
The world spun.
If the stories were never poisonous, if they never killed anyone, then they were never wicked. Which meant Asha was never wicked for telling them.
Not only had the dragon king turned his daughter against Kozu, the Old One, her own self . . . he had killed her mother. And then he had tried to kill her brother.
He’d tried to strip Asha of everything she ever loved. Which made her new purpose sparklingly clear: she would do the same to him.