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Ridha’s toes curled in her boots as all types of animal bones spilled over the stonework. Vertebrae, ribs, femurs. Rabbits, rats, birds. Most were boiled clean, but a few seemedfresh.
The witch gaped at the skeletons on the floor, showing cracked and yellowed teeth.
“A storm comes,” he hissed before drawing a ragged, shallow breath. It whistled strangely.
Dyrian furrowed his red brow. “Yes, it does.”
“No—here,now,” the witch muttered, fumbling for words. He pointed to the bones, his finger trembling. Behind him, the raiders tightened in warning, even fearless Lenna. Many hands went to many weapons.
The witch rounded on his chief. “Sound the drums.”
“What storm is coming?” Dyrian demanded.
Ridha watched the chief, trying to understand. But the woman only loosed her bow and ran for the great doors at the end of the hall. Without thinking, Ridha matched her steps, until she found herself hurtling out into the cold air and dying sunlight. The others followed, thundering in their wake, both raider and Vedera. The bone witch wailed somewhere back in the hall, crying out in Jydi. Ridha could not understand but heard his terror all thesame. It echoed in every mortal around her, their beating hearts suddenly louder than any war drum.
She passed Lenna, lunging up the steps to the ramparts above the Kovalinn gate. The fjord stretched out in front of her, reflecting the streaking rays of the sun as it dipped behind the eastern mountain range. It flashed orange and red, a bloody mirror between perilous cliffs. First she looked to the slopes.An avalanche?she wondered, searching for any sign of cold, white death.Has the ice closed in?But the waters remained as they were hours ago, clear enough for ships.
“What is it?” she demanded, as if the frosty air would answer.
Chief Lenna fell in alongside her, her bow already raised, an arrow to the string. Her piercing eyes stared, not at the fjord or the mountains, but at a sky brindled with fiery clouds.
“Dryskja!”Lenna yelled, her arrow pointed up.
Below, the raiders howled a battle cry and clanged their blades, thumping their feet against the packed earth of the gateyard. The Jydi roar echoed down the fjord, rattling between the mountains until Ridha felt it in her teeth.
The princess knew little of true fear. Until now. It felt like a knife in her stomach, a wound leaching away her resolve.“‘Dryskja’?”she asked, a scream caught in her throat.
Lenna shot an arrow without blinking. It climbed a hundred yards into the sky, disappearing into a cloud. Ridha followed its path, her Vederan eyes narrowed. Her blood ran cold.
A shadow moved in the sky, behind the clouds, too swift to be a storm, too dark to be anything else.
In the heavens, something roared, loud and deep enough toshake the wooden wall beneath Ridha’s feet. The princess of Iona nearly fell, her legs going numb.
Beside her, Lenna dared not take her eyes off the sky as she nocked another arrow. The shadow swooped overhead, closer now but still not out of the cloud bank.
“Dragon,” she snarled.
6
Death’s Mirror
Corayne
At first, Corayne thought it was a mirage. It would not be the first she saw after two weeks in the dunes, a hazy image of the sea or a camel caravan. But they were still miles from the coast, and there were no trade routes through this part of the Great Sands. There were no villages to visit, no goods to collect or sell in this part of the Ward. Nothing but golden sand and jeweled sky.
And now the tent, a perfect midnight blue, planted below the horizon like a night-blooming flower. Corayne squinted through the slanting shadows of dusk, trying to make it out. She wasn’t the only one. Dom stood in the saddle, his Elder eyes fixed ahead, with Sorasa alongside him. He muttered something to her and she tightened her jaw, her black-rimmed eyes going wide.
“What is it?” Corayne asked, but the thunder of hooves swallowed up her voice.
She didn’t mind. It was the wrong question anyway.
Who is it?
The answer came, obvious even to a pirate’s daughter on the wrong side of the sea.
The Heir of Ibal.
As they rode closer, Corayne realized thattentwasn’t the right word. She did not know what to call it, this stretch of canvas the size of a small village. It looked like many tents raised together, connected by intricate passages like alleys. Each was the same shade of beautiful blue, the color of Ibal’s flag, the slanted roofs embroidered with silver moons and golden suns. A flashing dragon perched on the highest point of the tents, its wings spread wide, its long tail curling around the tent peak. The setting sun flashed off its bared teeth. All of it was hammered gold.
