There was a long-standing tradition in Firgaard: whenever a dragon was killed, its head was presented to the dragon king. It was Asha’s favorite part of a hunt. The triumphant entry, the awed spectators, and most of all her father’s look of pride.
Tonight, though, a bigger, older dragon roamed the wilds beyond the city walls and Asha was restless, itching to sink her axe into its heart.
Soon, she thought as she and Safire stepped into the arching entrance of the palace’s largest courtyard. Music drifted out like smoke. The sound of a lute whispered beneath the brassy trumpet and the quick, driving beat of the drums.
Before entering the courtyard, out of habit, Asha checked her cousin for fresh bruises and found none. Instead, Safire seemed to glow in a pale green kaftan embroidered with honeysuckle flowers.
“I thought you hated those,” Safire said, gesturing to Asha’s silk gloves. They were a foreign style. Jarek bought them almost a year ago for Asha’s seventeenth birthday.
She did hate them. They made her hands sweat and always fell down her arms, but they kept her burn hidden.
Asha forced a shrug. “They went with the kaftan.”
A kaftan that had been waiting in a lidded silver box by her bed. Yet another gift from Jarek.
“Right,” said Safire, guessing at the real reason. “Just like the boots.”
Asha looked down to her feet poking out from under her hem. In her hurry, she’d forgotten to exchange her hunting boots for her gold slippers. She swore under her breath. Too late now.
Bronze lamps blazed along the galleries of the courtyard, their colored glass drenching the dancers in glittering light. In the center, a wide basin full of water stretched across the court, its calm surface glimmering beneath the starry black sky.
Normally the galleries were boisterous and the lush low-lying sofas full as people sipped sweet tea and gossiped in luxury. Not tonight. For a celebration in honor of the heir’s return, after a month away, the galleries were abandoned and the courtyard was crammed with draksors talking behind their hands and glancing toward the empty sofas.
Safire spotted the reason first.
“Look.” She pointed to where strangely dressed guests clustered together beneath the gallery, eyeing the draksors out in the court as if they expected an ambush. The draksors beneath the open night sky wore brightly colored kaftans or fitted knee-length tunics, decorated with complicated embroidery and delicate beading. The guests beneath the gallery wore much plainer garb. Cotton sandskarves were wrapped loosely around their shoulders, and their curving blades were sheathed at their hips.
“Scrublanders.”
Enemies in the heart of the palace. In the home of the king they’d tried to kill on three separate occasions.
What was Dax thinking?
For a group of people as committed to the old ways as the scrublanders were, they seemed surprisingly willing to defy their own god and ignore the age-old law against regicide. It was one of the only ancient laws her father allowed to remain. Rooted in the myth of the goddess Iskari, who’d tried to kill the Old One, the law declared that anyone who dared take the life of the dragon king or queen was condemned to death. Which meant every scrublander who tried to assassinate Asha’s father was knowingly committing suicide the moment he acted.
Safire called her name, drawing her out of her thoughts.
“Yes?” said Asha, turning.
“Hmm?” Safire was drinking in the scene, counting every scrublander and estimating which were the most highly trained and which were the most likely to have extra weapons hiding in their clothes. It was the first thing Safire did whenever she entered a room. It was second nature. A survival instinct.
“You just called my name,” said Asha.
“No, I didn’t.”
Asha looked back through the archway and into the shadowy corridor beyond, then to the soldats standing straight as spears along the walls. There was no one else nearby.
Before Asha could question it further, a chilling hush fell over the celebration. The music ground into silence. Asha knew the reason before she even turned back.
The Iskari had been sighted.
Best get it over with.
She stepped out from under the arch and into the court.
Every pair of eyes fixed on her. Asha felt the weight of their stares like she felt the weight of her own hideous heart beating in her chest. Some as angry as sharpened daggers, others as frantic as cornered animals. Asha stared back.
One by one, gazes dropped to the floor. One by one, people parted for her, carving a silent passage straight to her father, who met her dark gaze from across the court.
At his side stood a young man dressed in gold, an almost mirror image of the dragon king: curly hair, warm brown eyes, and a hooked nose that had been broken twice. Both times were his own fault.
The young man was Dax, Asha’s older brother.
But something was wrong.
After a month in the scrublands, Dax looked far less like his usual lighthearted self: eyes full of mischief, a smile that melted girls from across the room, and fists that seemed to find fights. That boy had been replaced by someone else. Someone tired and thin and . . . muted.
Asha left Safire behind. This was as close as her cousin came to the dragon king. As the child of Lillian, the former dragon queen’s slave, and Rayan, the former dragon queen’s son, Safire’s survival was a miracle. She had been allowed to live, never mind grow up in the palace where the forbidden union had taken place. The king’s grace alone allowed her to set foot inside this courtyard, but his grace only extended so far. Safire would forever stand outside the circle of her own family.
Asha stepped up to her father’s side. She threw Dax a concerned look before the trumpeted arrival of four of her hunting slaves. They brought forward the dragon’s head, displayed on an ornate silver tray. The yellow, slitted eyes were lifeless now, and the tongue lolled out the side of its mouth. It was a mere shadow of the fierce thing it had been.
Asha’s injured hand blazed at its closeness. She gritted her teeth. To combat the pain, she imagined the head of Kozu on that platter. Which only made her long to be free of the court walls, hunting him down.
And then: someone called Asha’s name again.
She turned, searching the crowd. Everyone she made eye contact with looked away. As if looking Asha full in the face would call down dragonfire.
She listened and watched, but the caller kept silent.
Am I hearing things?
For a half a heartbeat, panic sparked inside her. Maybe her treatment had been too late. Maybe the dragonfire’s poison had already found its way to her heart. How mortifying that would be, to die of a dragon burn before her father’s entire court.
Asha shook her head. It wasn’t possible. She’d treated the burn in good time.
Maybe the stories are finally taking their toll. Poisoning me the way they poisoned my mother.
But Asha was meticulous about checking for signs. And so far, there hadn’t been any.
Her father commended his Iskari on her kill. He gave his usual speech on the danger and treachery of dragons, who had once been their allies before turning against their riders during his mother’s reign. He gave this speech after every kill. Which was why Asha was only half listening until he reached for her gloved hand—her burned hand—and she nearly cried out at the pain of it.
With his grip firm, the dragon king drew a flinching Asha out before him, giving the visiting scrublanders an example on which to feast their eyes.
“You see what they did to my daughter? This is what happens when you treat with dragons.” He let go, no doubt thinking of the day the city burned. Of the day Jarek brought back Asha’s charred body. “My Iskari has devoted her life to hunting down these beasts, and she won’t stop until the very last one is dead. Then, and only then, will we have peace.”
He smiled down at her. Asha tried to smile back, but found she couldn’t. Not with her burned hand right under his nose, flaring up in pain, proof of the old story she’d told aloud.
When the dragon king dismissed her hunting slaves and the music rose once more, Dax stepped up to Asha, smelling like peppermint tea.
“My fearsome little sister.” He grinned at her and Asha noticed the deep creases beside his mouth. Creases that hadn’t been there before he left. “Did you see what I brought home with me?”
He nodded in the direction of the scrublanders. As if anyone could miss them.
“Not quite as impressive as a dragon. . . .”
He wore his favorite tunic, one that came to his wrists and ended just above his knees. White scrolling embroidery lined the collar and the buttons down the front, offsetting the shimmering gold silk.
Gold for a golden-hearted boy, Asha thought.
Normally this garment fitted Dax perfectly, showing off his strong shoulders and tall form. But now it hung loose off his wasted frame. His normally starry eyes were dull as stones.
The stress of the scrublands, not to mention the long journey back across the desert, had obviously worn him out. The sight of him, so thin and tired looking, reminded Asha of someone, but she couldn’t think who.
“You missed the introductions,” he said, studying her the same way she studied him.
“I had things to do.” Like hide the evidence of my treachery.
“Do you want to meet our guests?” he asked, taking the cup of wine offered him by one of the serving slaves.
“Not really,” Asha said, refusing a cup from the same slave.
“Great!” said Dax. “I’ll introduce you. . . .”
Warily, Asha followed her brother through the throng until he stopped abruptly in front of someone. When he stepped aside, a young woman stood before them. She wore a finely spun cotton dress, the color of cream. The girl pushed back the sandskarf hooding her face, revealing clear, dark eyes and the proud lift of an elegant chin. On her gloved and fisted hand perched a hawk as white as the mist that gathered over the Rift in the early morning.
Asha stared at the bird. It stared back with eerie silver eyes.
This girl was a scrublander.
Instinctively, Asha stepped back. The girl didn’t notice. She was too busy staring at Asha’s scar.
“This is my sister,” Dax told the girl. “The Iskari.”
As he spoke, he stroked the hawk’s white breast with the backs of his fingers. They were clearly acquainted, because the bird nuzzled his hand with the crown of its head.
“Asha, this is Roa. Daughter of the House of Song. Her brother couldn’t be here, but he so wants to meet the infamous Iskari. I promised I’d bring you with me next time.”
He winked, knowing how she’d feel about that.
Asha had no desire to ever set foot in the scrublands. They were flat, dull, and impoverished—or so she’d been told. Worst of all, scrublanders were still devoted to the old ways. It made her wonder how in all the skies Dax enticed them here, to the secular capital they hated.
Asha loved her brother, but he wasn’t exactly a diplomat. The only reason he’d been sent to the scrublands in the first place was to get him out of the city. He’d picked a drunken fight with Jarek’s second-in-command, who fell from the roof and broke his spine. It caused a huge scandal and increased tensions between the king and his army.
But Dax collected scandals like trophies. He was always picking fights. Or gambling away money from the treasury. Or flirting with the daughters of all their father’s favorite officials.
The heir was an embarrassment, and the king’s patience was wearing thin. So he sent Dax to deal with the scrublanders, and told Jarek to accompany him. The king knew his commandant—who was furious at the loss of his second-in-command—would keep his son in line.
Roa pressed a tight fist over her heart in scrublander greeting, but her gaze remained fixed on Asha’s scar.
“The Iskari herself,” she said, in a voice like honey and thunder. Her fist uncurled and fell back to her side. “Dax says you can take down a dragon with your bare hands.”
Asha would have laughed—but the arrival of a young man interrupted her. As his shadow fell across them, Asha’s stomach clenched.
Jarek.
It was he who’d caught and put to death all three scrublander would-be assassins. He who’d ended the last slave rebellion. He who Asha would bind herself to by the time the red moon waned.
Unless she killed Kozu first.
In the presence of the commandant, Dax was reduced to a mere boy. Jarek towered over him. He stood square and strong, like the foundation of a mighty fortress. His silk shirt stretched across his broad chest, revealing just how solid he was.
Asha looked to Roa and found her eyes narrowed on the commandant.
It wasn’t the usual reaction. Usually, Jarek’s flawless physique made him impressive and alluring to women. But Roa seemed . . . on edge.
While Jarek eyed the heir to the throne and his new scrublander friend, his arm snaked around Asha’s waist, tucking her against him like a dagger or a saber, squeezing her hip until it hurt.
Jarek was one of the few who dared to touch her.
“Making friends, Asha?” He smelled sour, like alcohol.
She knew better than to squirm away or give any hint he was hurting her.
“Dax was just introducing me to—”
“We’ve met.” Jarek’s attention turned to the cut of Asha’s kaftan, his gaze consuming her. Like she was a goblet of wine. “You found your gift, I see.”
Asha stared into the space between Dax and Roa, her gaze settling on a collared slave serving tea beneath the gallery. She held the brass teapot high in the air, letting the golden liquid arch elegantly as the cups filled with froth.
Jarek leaned in close. “Tell me. Do you like it?”
He knew the answer to his own question.
Compared to all the other kaftans in the courtyard, which were elegant and modest, Asha’s was a spectacle. Oh, it was finely made. It probably cost a soldat’s monthly wage—which was nothing for Jarek, whose father left him a bulging inheritance.
This kaftan was a luscious shade of indigo. Its thin layers shifted around her like sand, contained only by a wide sash tied tight and high around her waist. If Asha had to guess, she’d say he’d bought it in Darmoor, her father’s largest trading port. But the kaftan was made for beautiful, desirable girls. Not scarred, horrifying ones.
It was the neckline, which plunged, and the translucent material that insulted her most. It allowed Jarek to see too much of her. But the last time she’d refused a gift, Safire got hurt. So Asha wore it.
“You look like a goddess.”
Asha went rigid. His gaze made her want to disappear. She longed to move through this crowd unseen, gather her armor and her axe, and hunt Kozu down this very moment.
Instead, she said, “You should have seen me earlier: covered from head to toe in dragon gore.”
Jarek was not put off. He stepped in closer, careful not to turn his back to her brother and the scrublander. The commandant never turned his back on a threat.
“Dance with me.”
Asha stared once more at the slave pouring tea. “You know I don’t dance.”
“There’s a first time for everything.” Jarek’s grip tightened, allowing him to easily maneuver her away from her brother and his scrublander friend.
“Hey. Sandeater.” Dax grabbed the sleeve of Jarek’s shirt. “She doesn’t want to dance with you.”
Jarek’s eyes flashed. He shoved Dax. Easily.
The heir stumbled into Roa, spilling his cup of wine over them both. Roa’s lips parted in shock, her hands fluttering to the maroon stain seeping through her creamy linen dress.
“Excuse us.” Jarek smirked, forcing Asha into the crowd, toward the music. As he did, Asha glanced back over her shoulder and caught a glimpse of Roa’s narrowed eyes.
“I haven’t seen you in a month,” Jarek said in her ear. “I buy you a dress three times the price it’s worth. Now it’s time for you to do as I ask.”
Asha was about to repeat her refusal—more clearly this time—when that voice returned, calling her name. She didn’t look. She knew she’d find no one there. And besides, where would she look? The voice called to her from a hundred directions at once.
Asha. Asha. Asha.
It reminded her of a story. . . .
She forced the thought out of her head as Jarek dragged her onward, closer to the music. He pulled her into him, locking his arms around her waist so their bodies aligned. So she could feel his desire—hard and prodding.
Feeling sick, Asha turned her face away. She shouldn’t have. It was dangerous to show weakness in front of the commandant. But after ten days of hunting in the Rift, Asha didn’t have any energy left for games.
“I don’t dance,” she said again, pressing her hands firmly against the black silk of his shirt, trying to force space between them.
“And I don’t take no for an answer.” His hands tightened around her. His eyes seemed too hungry tonight. Like a starved animal.
Asha looked away, over Jarek’s shoulder, right into the freckled face of his slave. The skral stood in a semicircle of musicians at the center of the courtyard, their backs to the calm water of the wide basin.
While Jarek spoke, Asha watched, spellbound, as the slave’s fingers moved like spiders across the strings of his worn, pear-shaped lute. His eyes were closed in concentration, as if he’d gone somewhere else entirely, somewhere far away from this courtyard.
Sensing her gaze, the slave opened his eyes. At the sight of the Iskari staring him down, his fingers fumbled the strings. He recovered quickly, then looked to the man holding her captive. That dreamy, faraway look vanished, replaced by a scowl as dark as a storm cloud.
“Are you listening to a word I’m saying?” Jarek asked.
He sounded so far away.
For the last time that evening, the call rang out. Her name on the wind. Only this time, it echoed through the whole courtyard.
Surely, everyone can hear it, Asha thought.
But when she looked around, draksors danced and laughed and sipped their tea, oblivious.
Something was wrong. Asha could sense the wrongness buzzing in her bones. She needed to get out of here.
Asha wrenched herself from Jarek, who wasn’t expecting this kind of answer and let go more easily than usual. She stumbled, tripping over dancers as she did, and the music screeched to a halt.
The call drummed in her ears. Beat in her blood. Pushed out everything else.
Asha, Asha, Asha.
It made her dizzy. When she looked up, the eyes of Jarek’s slave were staring into hers.
Look away, she warned. But the sunset sky was rolling down now and the courtyard floor was rolling up and when Asha closed her eyes to make it stop, she felt herself sway . . . and then fall.
The slave caught her before she hit the ground.
With the room spinning around her, Asha pressed her cheek against his chest, willing it to stop.
This is what happens when you tell the old stories aloud.
It made her think of her mother—whom the stories killed. But as the darkness seeped in, it wasn’t her mother’s death that Asha remembered. It was the way it felt to be held by her.
It felt just like this.
“I have you,” said his voice at her ear. “You’re all right.”
The last sound she heard was the steady thump of a heart beating against her cheek.