Chapter Seven
A hand over her mouth woke Brannie up. She had her blade out and pressed against Aidan’s throat before she realized who he was.
He was on top of her, his weight holding her down. And strangely, she didn’t mind. It felt kind of nice, but she didn’t have time to think about that too much. Because Aidan’s expression told her something was very wrong.
It was morning. The two suns up outside the stables. The nearby horses in the other stalls restless.
Brannie listened beyond that, ignoring the sounds she recognized to focus on what was more strange to her.
She heard it. Muffled sounds coming into the small courtyard. She closed her eyes and listened harder. Yes.
Muffled hooves. The Daughters of the Steppes muffled their horses when they were planning a late-night attack.
She motioned to Aidan, her index and middle finger together, waving forward twice.
He nodded and slipped off her. She grabbed the unimpressive sword of the guards Keita had killed the day before and got to her feet.
Aidan was already gone, disappearing into the stables to make his own way out. He didn’t make a sound, but that was his way. Unlike the Mì-runach that she’d known over the years—her cousin Éibhear included—Aidan didn’t go screaming into battle, covered in dirt and blood and cutting down all those in his way. He didn’t choose a time to move like a jungle cat as his brethren did. Instead he moved like that at all times, whether in battle or merely walking down the road toward town. Often striking the killing blow before his enemies knew they were under attack.
Standing outside the stall she’d slept in, Brannie briefly thought about the two other Mì-runach down at the end of the large building. She decided against waking them. No matter how injured they still were, they would go out of their way to join the fight, if there was one.
Then again, how often wasn’t there a fight when someone muffled their horse’s hooves?
Brannie walked to the doors and eased one side open just enough to be able to look out. Her lip curled.
They were Zealots. One of the squads Salebiri had been sending out to scorch the land, Brannie guessed, based on the way their cloaks were singed at the edges. Some even had burn scars on their hands and faces, as if they hadn’t moved away from the flames they’d begun fast enough.
There were about twenty, all human from what she could tell.
It still shocked Brannie to no end that there were dragons who’d involved themselves in this foolishness. Insane. Why devote one’s self to a single mad god when there were so many nicer ones to choose from?
Five more Zealots came from inside the castle, pushing the royal family out into the courtyard. Keita was not among them, so Brannie could only hope that her cousin’s skill at survival had kicked in and she was hiding somewhere safe.
A priest was helped down from his horse and, with a beautiful smile and missing eyes, he spread his arms wide and cheerily called out, “May your sight shine bright, Lord Breeton-Holmes! Salutations and great joy to you!”
Lord Breeton-Holmes didn’t answer. The poor man was so terrified, all he could do was stare blankly at those who’d invaded his tiny home.
It wasn’t like Breeton-Holmes was a danger to anyone. He had no army. Showed no sign he wanted to be anything more than a royal with a small castle and shiny horses that were basically useless for any kind of real work. But for the last few months the Zealots had been attacking these small royal estates and forcing the inhabitants to either join their cause—usually by sacrificing at least one eye—or suffering greatly for choosing to stay loyal to their own gods and to Annwyl.
But Brannie wasn’t about to let that happen to anyone on Annwyl’s lands and definitely not to humans who had offered them food, protection, and healing.
She cracked her neck and lifted her weapon, ready to attack, when she saw Keita step out of the safety of the castle.
“Greetings, my one-god-loving friends!” the little idiot called.
Brannie gritted her teeth. “What is wrong with her?”
“What is she doing out there?”
Jerking at Uther’s voice behind her, Brannie ended up gritting her teeth again. Damn Mì-runach. She hated when they snuck up on her.
“Don’t do that,” she growled at him.
“Learn to hear better,” Uther chastised. And she briefly thought about slapping him. Not hitting, just slapping. Until he cried like a babe.
“What’s going on?” Caswyn asked, coming up behind Uther.
“Why are you up?” she asked. He still looked weak but much better than he had the night before.
“You can’t expect me to lie around when danger is near.”
“I expect you to not undo what the healer has accomplished, idiot.”
“You must be better,” Uther joked. “She’s back to abusing you.”
“You both make it so easy,” she muttered, looking back. That’s when she caught the horrifying sight of Keita . . . gesturing to Brannie to come out.
“What is she doing?” Brannie demanded.
“I think she just . . . revealed our location to the enemy.” Uther shook his head. “Would she really do that?”
Brannie sighed. “Probably.”
“Why would she do that?”
“We’re dragons,” Brannie explained, pushing the doors all the way open. “She probably thinks we could just burn them all to death. So why hide?”
“If we shift now or unleash our flame, all the humans die. Including her precious royal friends.”
Brannie glanced at Uther. “You have no idea how sad it is to me as a Cadwaladr to know that my cousin is even more stupid than you two.”
* * *
Aidan stayed hidden on the roof of the stables until Keita looked right at him and, with a smile, told him to come down.
Now he had no chance. Zealots with bows aimed arrows at him until he jumped down to the ground.
He’d never thought Keita could be so stupid . . . but she was. She was that stupid.
Aidan stood by a seething Brannie. He thought it was best if he stayed close to her to prevent her from killing her cousin. Because he only had to look at her face to see that’s exactly what she was planning to do.
“Now see?” Keita said to the priest. “We’re all friends here. No need to lie or hide things. Yes?”
“Your honesty is a true blessing, my lady. My god will be happy to have you on our side.”
“Oh, I’m sure he will. I am absolutely delightful.” Keita pressed her hands to her face. “But the eye thing . . . I can’t do that. My eyes are just too beautiful. As is my face. Actually, everything about me is beautiful. To destroy that for some god I could not care less about seems absolutely ridiculous, don’t you think?”
The priest’s handsome smile never wavered. “Trust me, my lady, your other choice is even less attractive.”
“Is it?” Keita asked, her head tipped to one side, her hand abruptly pointing at one of the Zealot guards standing near her.
The guard coughed and blood shot out of his mouth and down his chin. Seconds later, blood flowed from his eyes—he still had both—and his nose.
The priest, although physically missing his eyes, still had a sight provided to him by his god.
“What have you done, witch?”
“Me? A witch?” Keita smiled at that. “No, no. I am lacking that skill. But tell me . . . did you enjoy the water from the stream you rested by last night?”
Brannie stomped her foot. “Keita!”
“What? It will wash away soon enough.”
“You hope!”
“Can your chastising wait, O’ flawless one?” When Brannie looked away from her cousin’s gaze, Keita went on. “Now . . . where were we? Oh, yes! The death of your guards.” With a flip of her wrist and a flourish of her arm, she gestured to the guards once more, who began dropping like dead trees. Some fell right over. Others dropped to their knees first and then landed facedown. Blood poured from every orifice and the royals backed away.
“You shouldn’t be here for this,” Keita told the royals. She handed Lord Breeton-Holmes a sealed parchment. “Take this directly to Dagmar Reinholdt. She will take good care of you. And thank you, my lord.”
“Of course, my lady.” He rushed his family back into the castle and Keita sent their few guards to saddle the horses from the stables so they could get on the road right away.
“Now,” Keita said once she had the Breeton-Holmeses on the move, “back to you, priest.”
“I drank that water . . . why am I—”
“Still alive? Because I know from my studies that all your priests and priestesses partake of the Sinnoch root. It helps with your mystical sight. It also is a natural protection from the poison I used. It stops the toxin from killing you. So while your guards may be dead, you have as long as I allow you to live.”
No longer in good humor, the priest snapped, “What do you want, woman?”
“Information, of course. What else do you think I want?”
The priest suddenly looked around. “You brought us here on purpose.”
“Of course, I did. You’re all so fucking predictable with your shit-loving god, it wasn’t really hard.”
“I’ll die before I—”
“You came in contact with an Eastlander not too long ago,” she cut in to the priest’s declaration. “Three weeks ago specifically. You met him in a pub and followed him out later that night. What happened after you followed him?”
The priest smirked. “I’ll tell you nothing. Have your”—he glanced at Brannie—“manly thugs—”
“Hey!”
“—do their most evil. I can withstand anything.”
“Can you?” Keita asked. She winced a bit. “I guess I should have mentioned. The root you eat nightly for your sight. It will keep you from dying. It will not, however, keep you from the brutal pain.”
* * *
Once the Breeton-Holmeses made their hasty exit, Keita had Aidan drag the priest into the castle and leave him in the middle of the floor, far from weapons or anything he could use to kill himself. While the man screamed and writhed in utter, devastating pain, Keita sat at the main hall table, her feet up on the wood, a chalice of wine held in one hand.
When the priest wasn’t screaming and begging for an end to his misery, Keita yawned and sipped from her chalice.
It became so bad and went on for so long that Brannie had to leave for a bit so she could hunt down some fresh meat. It—thankfully—took a while before she found game worth the effort.
She had the animals skinned and put on the spit by the time the priest finally reached his breaking point.
Standing close enough to stare down at him but not close enough to be grabbed, Keita asked the same question she’d been asking for hours. “What happened to the Eastlander you followed out of that pub?”
“We . . . we tried to take him,” the priest, covered in sweat and his own blood, vomit, and excrement, panted out. “But he fought off my guards . . . and disappeared . . . into the forests.” He reached out for her but even her bare feet were too far from his fingers. “Now please. Please . . . end it.”
“Don’t evade, priest. You followed him out of that forest. To where?” He shook his head, trying to fight, but there was nothing left but his suffering. “Answer me, priest,” Keita said, her voice almost soothing. “Answer me or I will enjoy watching you suffer for days.”
He curled into a ball. “We followed . . . followed him to about ten leagues ... leagues . . . northeast of . . . Port . . . Cities.”
“And?”
“And . . . he suddenly . . . disappeared just when . . . we got . . . got close.”
Keita smiled. “That was very good.”
She turned from him and walked back to the table. Once she was again situated in the chair, her feet up on the table, a chalice of wine in her hand, Brannie asked, “Well . . . ?”
“Well what?”
“He told you what you wanted. Aren’t you going to finish him?”
“No.” Brannie, disgusted, stood, but her cousin snapped, “Sit down, Branwen.”
Without really thinking about it, she did. “Keita—”
“I don’t want to hear it, Branwen. Unless you’ve actually seen their idea of a cleansing . . . I don’t want to hear anything.”
“I’ve seen their cleansings,” Brannie told her, clearly remembering finding rows of those who refused to take Chramnesind as their one and only god. Staked to the ground in the kneeling position, molten silver poured into their eyes so they were frozen in sparkly horror. It had been one of the most appalling sights Brannie had ever been forced to witness and the first time during a nighttime battle break that her and Izzy had ended up so drunk they couldn’t even stand.
“Then I don’t know what we’re arguing about, cousin.”
“Just because they’re bastards, doesn’t mean we have to be.”
Keita’s eyes rolled all the way to the back of her head. “You are such a goody two-claws.”
“Can we eat outside?” Uther asked. “Or in the stables? I just don’t think I can eat with the sound of his screaming.”
Keita gawked at the Mì-runach. “What kind of dragon are you?” she asked.
Uther shrugged. “A nice one.”
She let out a sigh. “Fine. If your fragile sensibilities can’t handle a little screaming—”
Before she could finish, Caswyn was up and across the room. He cut off the priest’s head midscream and the silence was . . . amazing.
Pointing the sword at Keita, Caswyn accused, “I thought you were some prissy little royal princess. But you are—”
“Lovely? Divine? Bold and sassy?”
“Vile.”
Keita shrugged, sipped her wine. “That, too.”