“I-Iskari.” Her head bowed low. Thick, blackened hands trembled as they clutched a long bundle of dyed cloth to her chest. “Th-these are for you.”
Slaves running errands for their masters slowed all around her. Asha felt their watching eyes. The blacksmith kneeling in the middle of the street drew too much attention.
“Get up.”
The blacksmith shook her head and raised her hands higher.
“Please take them.”
Asha glanced from the top of the blacksmith’s head to the shape of the long bundle wrapped in soot-smudged linen and secured with rope. A familiar shape. The hair on the back of her neck rose.
Asha took the bundle, burned hand and all. The moment the weight of it sank into her palms, she knew exactly what lay within.
“I worked through the night and finished at dawn,” the blacksmith said. “The Old One himself told me how to fashion them.”
Asha went rigid. She looked to the doorways and second-story terraces on the walls around them. When her gaze fell on any watchers, they withdrew behind teal or yellow curtains or wooden lattices.
Asha pulled the bundle close to her chest. “Did anyone hear you forge them?”
The blacksmith kept her eyes on the cobbles. “I often workthrough the night, Iskari. If they heard, it would not seem unusual.”
“Don’t speak of this to anyone.”
Without raising her eyes, the blacksmith nodded. Stepping around her, Asha left the woman kneeling behind her and clutched the bundle tight all the way to the gates.
The soldats at the gate didn’t give her trouble, but Asha heard their grumbled words as they unlocked the heavy iron door.
Where were her slaves?they wondered.And hadn’t she just returned from a hunt?
The Iskari always hunted with an entourage of slaves. Today, though, she was alone and heavily armored, with her hunting axe at her hip. Going into the Rift on her own, merely a day after her return, sparked suspicion.
They may have wondered where she was going, but the soldats didn’t stop her. Because Asha was the Iskari.
That wouldn’t keep the news from reaching Jarek, though.
Let it.Asha hardened against the thought of him as she moved deeper into the trees, following the hunting paths.When I return with Kozu’s head, Jarek will no longer be my concern.
Still, she moved quickly. In case anyone meant to follow her.
Asha hurried through the rattling esparto grass. The cedars croaked and hushed around her. If she was going to call a dragon—if she was going to call the most dangerous dragon—she needed to put as much space as possible between her and the city. She needed to right the wrongs she’d committed, not repeat them.
In the late afternoon, she climbed the sun-bleached cliffs of the lower Rift, looking back the way she’d come, ensuring the walls of the city were far and small in the distance. She laid the blacksmith’s bundle on the rock before her, untying the cords and pushing back the fabric.
Twin blades greeted her: black as night, elegant as slivered moons. Their hilts were made of bone inlaid with iron and gold. And there was a second bundle. Asha unwrapped it to find a shoulder belt and scabbards. She strapped on the belt and sheathed each slayer, one after the other, so they crisscrossed against her back.
Now for the treacherous part. She had only six days to track and kill Kozu. Asha couldn’t afford to waste time. Kozu had been seen in the Rift. If she told an old story here, it might draw him to her.
But which one would the oldest and wickedest of dragons want to hear? One about himself? One about Elorma, the First Namsara?
Asha broke away from the hunting paths, heading into the pines and hacking at clinging vines that blocked her way. As she pressed on, Asha drew a story up from her depths. Like a bucket hoisted from a well full of poison instead of water.
Asha opened her mouth to tell it when she stumbled out of the trees and onto a rocky outcropping.
A lean beige dragon lay curled around itself, blending into the shale as it soaked up the heat of the sun. Beyond it, the Rift dipped into a valley of lush green growth around the river snaking through it.
Asha froze as the dragon swung its head to look at her. The smoky stench of it hit her in the face. Its horns had barely come in, making it an adolescent. Judging by its muted coloring, it was female.
This dragon clicked dangerously as it curled its body around to face her. Younger dragons were more prone to aggression. More prone to fighting than fleeing. This dragon was no exception.
