“These slayers can only be used to make wrongs right.”
“What?”
Still grinning, he said, “You and I will see each other again soon, Asha.”
And then he melted into the darkness.
Asha called after him, but Elorma was already gone. The fire flickered out. The cave was fading fast now, twisting away until the walls of the cavern rushed in to swallow her.
Asha stood alone in the dark, with stories buzzing in her ears and the hilts of holy weapons gripped hard against her palms and a bad feeling prodding at her ribs.
What have I done?
She dropped the sacred slayers into the dirt.
Six
Just before dawn, Asha woke to the smell of orange blossoms.
The night’s chill lingered. Gathering her wool blanket around her, Asha sat up and pushed aside the sheer veils of her canopied bed, squinting through the twilight that cast her room in shades of blue. She scanned the wall opposite, where her favorite weapons hung in neat rows from floor to ceiling. Mostly axes and knives. The occasional hunting dagger. And her wooden wasters—weighted weapons for sparring with Safire.
There were no curving, night-black blades.
Asha closed her eyes and exhaled.
Just a dream.
Asha held up her bandaged hand. She pulled back the linen to reveal blistered skin. She could still flex her fingers, though the pain of it made her dizzy. If she could flex her fingers, she could wield her axe once the skin healed. And until then, there was always her other hand. Because all that mattered now was finding Kozu as quickly as she could.
Once she killed him, she wouldn’t have to hide anything anymore.
“Tell me one thing... ,” said a familiar voice.
Asha’s gaze snapped to the sill of an arching window, where a shadow perched.
“Whydid that dragon breathe fire?”
Safire jumped down from the sill and shoved aside the sheer veils of the bed. She didn’t bother avoiding Asha’s eyes. Not here, in private.
“It’s been fifty years since the Severing,” said Safire. “Fifty years since the stories disappeared.”
Fifty years since the dragons stopped breathing fire.
Except for Kozu, the First Dragon, who was the wellspring of stories. Who didn’t need one told aloud in order to set a city ablaze.
Safire grabbed a match from the bedside table and lit the candle there. Instead of answering her cousin, Asha deflected. “Have you been here all night?”
“I’m asking the questions,” Safire said, turning and grabbing Asha’s wasters from the wall. “Now get dressed. We’re going to the roof.”
“Saf, I can’t today. My hand...”
She lifted her bandaged hand, realizing as she did that someone had slid off her gloves. Fear jolted through her. Whoever had done it would have seen the bandage.
Did they see what was beneath it?
“Do you think Jarek will go easy on you because you have a burned hand?”
Asha looked to her cousin. Safire met the Iskari’s gaze. Her eyes blazed in the light of the candle.
