The two guards standing between Asha and the queen exchanged glances. “My queen... she’s dangerous.”
Roa arched one elegant brow. “Shall I repeat myself?”
Both guards paused, not sure how much they could test their new queen. Finally, they shook their heads and stepped aside.
“And you.” Roa nodded to the graying guard at Asha’s side.
Obediently, he let go of Asha’s arm and moved away. A heartbeat later, Asha stood alone before Roa.
With every pair of eyes watching her, the dragon queen bowed to the criminal before her.
“Kozu circles the city, night after night, searching for you. Yearning for his Namsara.”
Murmurs and gasps rippled across the courtyard. The hair on Asha’s arms rose.
Her? TheNamsara? The lifebringer?
Impossible.
Asha had spent her life killing things. She was hated and feared. She was theIskari. The very opposite of what Roa thought.
“You’re mistaken,” said Asha, staring down at the bowing queen. “My brother—”
“Your brothersays you know the old stories better than any of us.” Roa rose from her bow. “Which means you knowwhothe Old One sends to mark his Namsara.”
Asha’s lips parted. The stories glittered in her mind. She sifted through them.
The Old One sent Kozu to Nishran. Just like he sent Kozu to Elorma. Just like he sent Kozu to...Asha. All those years ago.
She’d thought it was her wickedness that called to Kozu as a child. Just like her wickedness allowed her to tell the old stories without being poisoned by them.
But the stories weren’t wicked. And neither was Asha.
The proof was right there in the stories: Kozu was the mark of a Namsara. And Asha was Kozu’s rider. She had the link to prove it.
Even if all of that were true, Asha had spent her life hunting dragons and trying to eradicate the old ways. She was no Namsara.
Roa took a step closer, and the court hushed.
“There are other marks, are there not?”
Asha thought of Nishran. The Old One gave him the ability to see in the dark so he could find the enemy’s camp. Just like the Old One gave Elorma the gift of a hika—a girl who saved the city from an imposter king.
Just like the Old One gave Asha gifts to accomplish the tasks he set before her: slayers, a dragon, the ability to be unburned by fire.
She’d been trying so hard to suppress the stories, she’d been so consumed with her hunt for Kozu, she hadn’t put it together. All those years ago, when she’d gone into the innermost caveafter her mother’s burning...
“The Old One waschoosingme?” she whispered, staring into Roa’s eyes.
But what of Elorma? If she was the Namsara, Elorma would have told her.
Except... wasn’t that what he’d been doing all along?
I am the Namsara.
She hardly dared to believe it.
Roa’s eyes shone as she lifted the fire-like flower from behind her ear. Seven bloodred petals curled back on themselves as a yellow stamen dropped pollen, flecking the petals with orange. It was the same flower mosaicked into the sickroom’s floors. The same flower carved into a temple door.
