The problem with returning to the palace four days before her wedding was that the moment Asha stepped through the outer courtyard, she ran the risk of being seen. And if she were seen, she could be summoned.
So Asha was not surprised when she heard someone call, “Iskari!” It was a slave girl. One who worked for the palace seamstresses. “You’re late for your fitting.”
“What fitting?”
“Your dress fitting.”
Asha frowned. Right now she needed fresh hunting clothes, not a fancy dress.
“It’s your wedding dress, Iskari.”
It was like walking into a trap, one laid just for her. Because at that exact same moment, Jarek stepped directly into her path.
Asha stopped dead.
“I did remind you,” the slave said.
Jarek eyed the bundle of armor beneath her arm, then the kaftan she wore. A kaftan that clearly wasn’t hers. She watched him thinking behind his eyes, pondering her strange attire, wondering why she would be carrying dragon-hunting gear but not wearing it. Trying to piece things together but missing bits of the puzzle.
Asha suddenly wanted nothing more than to be hidden away in her room, being measured for a dress. Before he could question her, she brushed past him.
“I’m late for my fitting.”
Jarek reached to grab her, but she stepped away quickly.
“Have you seen Safire?” he called.
Asha stopped. She turned to find a smirk marring Jarek’s handsome face.
“Neither have I,” he said.
Asha turned her back on the commandant. Despite the panic swelling inside her, despite the ice at the base of her spine, she kept her steps measured and calm.
As soon as she turned down the corridor, she started to run.
She didn’t go to her room. She went to Safire’s, which was empty. The door had been fixed—Asha had asked a slave to swap it with a stronger, newer door from a room down the hall—and there was no sign of any struggle. Everything was in its place.
Asha checked the sickroom next.
Empty. Empty and smelling like fresh-cut limes.
“Please, Iskari, this will go much faster if you hold still.”
Her arms ached and the stitched gash in her side bloomed with pain. She’d been holding still and straight for what seemed like days as the slave girls worked, pinning the delicate fabric where it was too loose and marking it where it was too tight. It was getting harder to keep still with her wound throbbing and her mind humming with worry.
It might be a trick. Jarek knew, better than anyone, how to upset her. He might have mentioned Safire just to unnerve her.
Asha gritted her teeth at the pain in her burned hand. She’d left her fireproof gloves on to keep it hidden. Forcing her outstretched arms to stay perfectly still, she turned her attention back to the slave before her. The one who’d come to fetch her.
“You can lower your arms now, Iskari.”
The slave turned away to mark something down. Relieved, Asha did as she said. The other two slaves turned to put away their pins, leaving Asha an unobstructed view of the mirror. Her dress shimmered like sunlight on the sea—which Asha had swum in long ago, on trips to Darmoor with her mother. The port city was surrounded on three sides by a vast expanse of salt water.
The long, petal-shaped sleeves were slit at the elbows and fell past her wrists. Embroidered flowers entwined themselves around her collar. There were two layers: gold underneath and white on top. From the waist down, the wedding dress flared out in shimmering layers of fabric so light, they felt like seafoam.
It was the prettiest thing she had ever seen.
It did not suit her.
The delicate elegance made her scar stand out even more than usual. The mottled, discolored skin ran from the right side of her forehead down to her ear and jaw and continued past her throat and shoulders, disappearing beneath the neckline. The rest of it hid beneath the fabric where no one else could see it.
Jarek’s slave had seen it, though. He had seen all of her.
The thought sent hot shame rushing through her.
The slave girl returned with a bolt of gold fabric, severing Asha from her reflection. “Can you raise your arms, Iskari?” she asked, holding a soon-to-be sash up to Asha’s waist.
Asha raised her arms.
The moment she did, a scream shattered the calm.
Asha and the slave girl looked to the door, where two soldats burst in without knocking, their steel morions askew.
“There’s a dragon in the city, Iskari!”
The slaves before her trembled in terror.
Asha slid the top layer of her dress off easily. The bottom layer was another matter. Jarek had this dress made to his exact specifications: the buttons were minuscule, climbing up the back, making it physically impossible for the wearer herself to undo, ensuring that only her husband could get her out of it on their wedding night.
Another show of dominance. Another form of control.
“Get this thing off me!”
Three slaves moved toward Asha at once. Their quaking fingers fumbled the buttons as more screams erupted. The heavy, rhythmic thud of soldat boots echoed down the halls. Asha didn’t wait for the slaves to stop their fumbling. She grabbed a hunting knife from where it hung on her wall and placed it in a slave girl’s hands. “Cut it off me.”
Wide-eyed and terrified, the girl took the knife. Asha turned around. The room fell to silence as the knife ripped through the delicate fabric and the dress loosened around Asha’s shoulders and ribs. If they noticed the linen bandages wrapped around her torso, they said nothing.
The moment she was free, Asha pulled on leggings and a thin hunting shirt, then buckled on her armor. She grabbed an axe with a jeweled handle from the wall, given to her by her father on her last birthday. Ornamental until today, but still sharp as the day it was honed. She tucked it into her belt, laced up her boots, and went to find the dragon she thought she’d left behind.
Asha saw it through the arched windows as she ran through the corridors of the palace. Young and lean, the dragon flew into view as the city below descended into screaming chaos. The bright sun silhouetted its form.
The second time it flew into view, she knew its forked red tail and the curve of its head.
As she ran through the outer court, leaving the sun behind, it flew into view a third time. This time, she recognized its pale, slitted eyes. They were the eyes staring down at her last night when her killing blow was intercepted.
Elorma’s words rang through her mind:
You must keep it from harm.
Soldats ran past Asha shouting contradictory orders of “Get to the roof!” and “Get to the street!”
In the case of a dragon in Firgaard, a soldat’s first priority was to the city. Palace soldats were instructed to abandon their posts and either make for the roof with arrows and spears—things that could take down a dragon—or head to the narrow, winding streets to make order of the chaos.
The street was the most dangerous place to be with a dragon on the loose.
Asha ran with them out of the palace and into the street, where carts lay overturned. Merchant stalls stood abandoned. As people ran in every direction away from the dragon, half trampling one another, soldats tried to keep people calm, corralling them into their homes.
A few braver ones stood on rooftops with the soldats, loading slings with shards of glass, stones, and bits of broken bone. The dragon roared when the projectiles hit. Asha thought he might retaliate, but instead, he rose higher and flew toward the Rift.
Asha followed him to the north gate.
The wall came into view, shielding the mountains beyond. Soldats stood straight as columns along its dusty ramparts, all staring up at the shape in the sky. Jarek had doubled their presence after the last big raid of the slave quarters, when weapons were found hidden in cupboards and pots, shoved beneath mattresses, and tucked into bed frames.
On the ground, half a dozen soldats stood in a line, blocking the gate. Asha slowed at the sight of them.
“You don’t need to go out there, Iskari. The commandant already sent out hunters.”
Asha’s hand tightened on the handle of her axe. What would happen if Jarek’s men killed the beast?
Asha remembered her paralyzed arm—punishment for misusing the Old One’s first gift and disobeying the command that accompanied it.
She needed to stop those hunters.
“Open the gate.”
Beneath their steel brims, the soldats exchanged glances.
“We’re under orders not to open it, Iskari.”
Asha frowned. “Orders from who?” Surely not her father.
“From the commandant.”
“Do you serve Jarek or do you serve the king?” Asha’s thumb slid across the sharpened edge of her axe. “Because it was my father who gave me this task, to hunt down each and every dragon”—she pointed to the shadow in the sky—“including that one.”
They didn’t answer her. They didn’t have to. Their silence was a clear indication they followed the king’s orders . . . until those orders conflicted with their commandant’s.
Asha prickled with unease. It was just as she feared. “Open the gate.”
Over their shoulders, the dragon dived down into the Rift—where hunters waited to kill it.
“Open it!”
Nobody moved.
“Asha,” growled a voice.
Fire flickered through her. She spun to face Jarek, who was coming at her like a storm. His official crest—two interlaced sabers—blazed across his chest.
“Tell them to open it,” she demanded, pointing her axe edge at the gate.
Jarek stepped right up to her, his gaze boring into her. It was one of the reasons people stood in such awe of the commandant: he didn’t fear her in the least.
“Tell me where he is,” he said, “and I’ll consider it.”
He.
The slave.
Why did he seem so important to everyone around her?
She thought of his callused fingers stitching up her side by candlelight. Thought of his knee, so near her own, as she told him about her nightmares.
Asha shoved all thoughts of him down deep and glared up at Jarek.
“Isn’t it your duty to find and catch criminals? Perhaps if you stop interfering with my tasks, you will more quickly accomplish your own.”
His eyes flashed at her.
“Five hunters have a head start on you, Asha. One of them will take it down.”
“You and I both know I can kill that dragon long before the others,” she growled. “I am the Iskari.”
He grabbed her arm, squeezing until it hurt, showing just how easily he could overcome her, Iskari or not. He would overcome her, once they were bound. Once there was no one to stop him.
She couldn’t let that happen.
He leaned in close. “It’s my duty to keep you out of danger, Iskari.”
Asha’s eyes filled with fire. The fire filled up her vision, turning everything red-hot.
Didn’t he understand?
“I am the danger!” she said.
Jarek nodded to a nearby soldat.
Bristling, Asha watched the soldat slide a ring of keys out of his pocket. Watched him step through a door in the wall. It led up to the ramparts, she knew. Jarek kept a few small cells there, for suspicious travelers seeking passage through the gate.
When the soldat emerged, he had Asha’s cousin in tow.
The hood of Safire’s mantle crumpled around her shoulders. Her left eye was swollen shut, ringed by a purplish-black bruise, and her lower lip was split down the middle. The hem of her clothing was stained red, and from the way she kept her arm tucked against her hip, it hurt her badly.
The sight of Safire beaten was a knife in Asha’s heart.
This was what happened when you didn’t give Jarek what he wanted.
The dragon beyond the walls would have to wait.