“Go upstairs and clean yourself, Arlais,” the boy ordered.
“I already told you I don’t take orders from you, mummy’s boy,” she snapped.
The boy didn’t respond. He simply stared at her with cold grey eyes until the girl threw up her hands. “Fine!”
She stormed off, and Gwenvael, now standing near Elina, murmured with pride, “The boy has eyes just like his mum.”
“And her intelligence, thankfully,” Bram muttered.
“Not everyone can be as smart as me, dear Uncle Bram.” Gwenvael’s smile never seemed to fade. It, like the male’s handsomeness, seemed to go on and on. Endlessly. Elina didn’t know if she found that annoying or enrapturing. “Although I don’t know how my daughter can think she’ll take over any kingdom when she can’t seem to focus on one thing at a—oooh.” He reached down and picked something up off the ground. “Look! A gold coin.” He blinked. Glanced off. “What was I talking about?”
“Focus,” Bram said.
“Ahhh, yes. Focus.” He was silent for another moment. “What about focus?”
The boy who’d helped the girl up now moved toward them, but when he was close, Gwenvael suddenly opened his arms wide.
“Son—”
The boy immediately stopped and held both hands up as if to ward the dragon off, his head slightly turned away. “No,” he said flatly.
“But—”
“No. We discussed this. You promised my mother.”
“But I’m your father—”
“Not by my choice.”
“—and I love you.”
“Not as much as you love yourself.”
“Can you blame me?” Gwenvael demanded. “I am perfection.”
The boy focused on Elina’s table mate. “Uncle Bram . . . ?”
“I’ll talk to your mother, Var. But you know I can’t promise anything.”
“Talk to your mother about what?” Gwenvael asked, finally lowering his arms. He began to slip the coin into a pouch tied to his sword belt, but stopped and focused on Elina. “I’m sorry. Do you need this because of your impoverished state?”
“Gwenvael,” Bram chastised
“Father,” the boy chastised.
“What?” the golden-haired one asked Bram and the boy. “It was a fair question. She’s one of the poor barbarian hordes of the Steppes. This meal is probably the first she’s had in years.”
“Elina,” Bram said, “I am so sorry.”
Elina shrugged. “He is decadent, imperialist Southlander dog. He could not survive in our beautiful but harsh lands. But such pretty face as his would be made use of by many of our warriors.”
“Wait,” Gwenvael asked, still grinning at her. “What did she mean by that?”
“Guess,” the boy told him before training those shrewd slate-grey eyes on her. After a moment, he said in her native tongue, “May death find you well this day, beautiful lady.”
Shocked to hear a lazy Southlander speak in any language but his own, Elina grinned and replied, “And may death find you very well, young lord.”
“I had heard one of the mighty Daughters of the Steppes was in our lands, but I had no idea it would be one so beautiful.”
“As smooth as worn stone you are. Did you learn that from your father?”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Where did you learn my tongue?”
“I study many languages. Yours is harder than most and I am still . . .” He struggled for a moment. “. . . learn cow.”
Elina smirked. “Learning. You are still learning. Cows have little to do with it.” She shook her head. “But you are very good. I am impressed.” Which was something Elina rarely was.
“Thank you.” He gave a small bow. “I am Unnvar, son of Dagmar Reinholdt, also known as the Beast of Reinholdt—”
Elina smiled and said, “I always knew the Beast was not a man. Only a woman can strike that kind of fear.”
“—Grandson to Northland warlord The Reinholdt, and Dragon-Human Prince of the House of Gwalchmai fab Gwyar.”
“In all that barbarian banter,” the golden one said, “I did not hear my name.”
“And you won’t,” the boy flatly replied before turning back to his uncle and returning to his Southland tongue. “Talk to my mother as you promised, Uncle Bram. My patience”—he glanced at Gwenvael—“wanes.”
With a smirk, Bram nodded. “Understood.”
“Thank you, Uncle Bram. Lady Rider.” Sidling around Gwenvael to avoid another hug attempt, Elina guessed, the boy walked out.
Gwenvael focused on Bram. “You going to tell me what’s going on?” he asked.
“No.”
The golden one raised his arms as if he were about to argue the point, but they fell limply at his sides.
“I know I should care more but . . . eh.” Then he walked off, leaving the Great Hall.
The other male, who wore those pieces of glass, dropped several books onto the table before sitting across from Elina and Bram. He was a very handsome boy. A Northlander by the look of him. Broad of shoulder, thick of neck, pale of skin; but he appeared smarter than most Northlanders. Much smarter.
“What do you think, Frederik?” Bram asked him.
“About?”
“About whether your aunt will allow me to take over Var’s education?”
“I don’t know. Var is her saving grace. But he wasn’t blessed with her patience. Especially where Gwenvael is concerned.”
“And my nephew takes so much patience,” Bram sighed.
Elina pointed at the younger man. “Are you dragon, too?”
“No.”
“Your aunt? Is she dragon?”
“No.”
“But the golden one . . . ?”
“Very dragon.”
Elina took a breath. “So the rumors are true. Dragons and humans . . . they can create the baby.”
“As my aunt has shown in true Northlander style . . . they can create many of the baby.”
“The Abominations grow in number then?”
Panicked, the two males looked around desperately, eyes wide. When they saw no one, they focused back on Elina and leaned in.
“You shouldn’t use that word,” Bram quickly, but quietly, explained. “It’s not a good idea.”
“Both queens take it personally,” the younger male added.
“Do not see why. There is no shame to being scourge of gods.”
Bram waved his hands. “No, no, no. No scourge. No abominations. These are not good words to use when discussing the offspring of dragons and humans.”
“Words. You Southlanders worry so much about words.”
“You don’t worry about words?”
“I love words, but I know they are just . . . noise. To ignore truth that sits in our face. Like angry cat about to claw.”
Bram glanced at Frederik. “Well . . . I have nothing pressing to run to at this moment. So please, Elina Shestakova . . . tell us about this truth.”
Shrugging . . . that’s exactly what Elina did.
Chapter Nine
Gisa held the flower bud in her hand and focused all her inner magicks toward getting the flower to bloom. It had taken her teacher five minutes to make the bloom happen. . . . Gisa had been staring at this bloom for near on an hour.
She hated this. She’d rather be in battle training. She was good at battle training. Good at battle, which was important for the Kyvich witches. They were warrior witches. They didn’t do one or the other, but both.
Sadly, even though Gisa had the warrior part down, she was still struggling with the witch part.
Then again, as she glanced around at the other students, she discovered she wasn’t the only one struggling.
“You got it yet?” Fia whispered.
“Nah. You?”
“Nope. Think we’ll really need to make flowers bloom during a battle?” she asked.
“Doubt it,” Gisa whispered back.
“And yet,” their teacher su
ddenly announced, “once you learn to control nature, you can use it to your advantage during a battle with sword-wielding soldiers.”
Gisa and Fia glanced at each other. Their teacher had her back to them and was a good fifty feet away. How had she heard them?
She looked at them over her shoulder. “So even if it bores you, work on it.”
Gisa went back to the flower she held, again trying her best to get it to bloom when Fia tapped her ribs with her elbow. When Gisa looked at her, Fia gestured with her chin.
She saw Princess Talwyn of the Southland kingdoms standing a few feet away from the group of Kyvich, her arms crossed over her ample chest, her long hair in warrior braids, her powerful legs braced apart, her attention seemingly far from what was going on right in front of her.
Princess Talwyn was an anomaly among the Kyvich. First off, she was a royal. The Ice Lands had warlords, but not a lot of princes. None that lived long anyway. She had also not been taken from her family at birth. All Gisa knew was the Kyvich. She’d been taken from her mother’s home near the Western Mountains when she was barely three months old. Some of her Kyvich sisters had been taken earlier than that, others no later than five or six years old. But the royal hadn’t come to the Kyvich until she was ten winters and eight. She involved herself in all training, battle and magicks, and yet she never seemed part of the Kyvich. She never seemed like one of them.
Their teacher turned, suddenly noticing that Talwyn wasn’t paying her the least bit of attention.
“Princess Talwyn . . . care to join us?”
Without turning around, Talwyn replied, “No.”
Gritting her teeth, the teacher picked up a flower bud and held it out to the princess. “Perhaps you can at least attempt the spell and—”
Before their teacher could finish her sentence, Talwyn—her back still turned—waved her hand once in the air and the bud in the teacher’s hand bloomed into a beautiful, healthy flower.
Shocked, the teacher stepped back, the flower still in her hand, still blooming. Then the stem began to grow, extending, wrapping around the teacher’s fingers and palm. Their teacher finally dropped the flower, but the stem was now attached to her hand and steadily winding its way around her arm and up toward her shoulder.
“I have to go,” Talwyn announced to no one. Of course, none of them were actually shocked. They’d never really thought she’d be spending the next thousand years living among the Kyvich until she died in battle and was honored the Old Way.
What did surprise everyone was when she looked over her shoulder at Gisa and Fia and asked, “Want to come with me?”
Gisa and Fia glanced at each other, then looked behind them to see if she was talking to someone else.
“Oy. You two. In or out?” the royal pushed, not really sounding like a royal.
“You don’t even know our names,” Fia said.
“Isn’t that something I can learn . . . eventually?”
Frowning, Gisa and Fia kept staring at Talwyn until they heard a scream.
Gisa watched in horror as the stem from that small flower—now nearly the size of a ten-year-old tree trunk—covered most of their teacher’s body, dragging her to the ground. The other students were trying to help, desperately cutting at it with their swords and daggers or trying to pull it off with their hands.
“Come on,” Talwyn said with a toss of her head. She walked off, assuming, it seemed, that Gisa and Fia would follow.
“We’re not going, are we?” Fia asked.
“I . . .” Gisa shook her head. “I feel a pull,” she finally admitted. “As if somehow our lives are with her rather than here.”
“Perhaps she cast a spell to make us feel that way.”
“Perhaps.” Gisa studied Fia. “Do you feel she cast a spell?”
“No.”
Again, they glanced at their teacher. She was now pinned to the ground, the stem digging into the soil around her, trying to drag her down with it.
That was power. Gisa knew that much. Power and strength poured off Princess Talwyn like sweat.
“She’s hated,” Fia noted.
“That’s true.”
“Which means wherever she goes, battle and mayhem are sure to follow.”
“Excellent point.”
Together they jumped up and followed after the royal. As they ran, they could still hear their teacher and the other Kyvich struggling with whatever Talwyn had cursed them with.
They caught up with Talwyn quickly, finding her standing and waiting by her horse. A breed of horse given to her by the Kyvich. The only horned horses with burning red eyes that any of them knew about other than undead demon animals from one of the hells.
Standing beside Talwyn’s horse was the dog Talwyn had been given by the Kyvich as a puppy. The dog was another horned beast that would charge into battle beside the Kyvich witch that had trained it from nine weeks old. Every Kyvich received a horse and dog when she turned sixteen.
But before Gisa could think too much about the horse and dog she’d be leaving behind by going with Talwyn, she saw that both her horse and dog and Fia’s were also there—waiting for them. The blankets they used on their horses instead of saddles already rested across their backs along with packed travel bags.
“We don’t have much time,” Talwyn said as she mounted her horse. “That flower won’t distract the Elders long and then they’ll be coming after me.”
“How did you know we’d agree to come with you?” Gisa asked.
The royal shrugged. “I just knew.”
Then, without another word, she turned her horse and charged off.
Confused and wary, Gisa and Fia stood their ground another minute or so until they saw that the stem from that damn flower was now spreading throughout the forest like wild vines. They could hear the calls from the other Kyvich, as they hurried to stop whatever magicks Talwyn had unleashed.
“Well?” Fia pushed.
With a deep breath, Gisa walked to her horse and mounted him. Fia did the same and, together, they set off after Princess Talwyn.
It would be hours before they both realized that they had no idea where the hells they were going.
Chapter Ten
Celyn woke up with his headache gone and feeling much less cranky. Yawning, he sat up, scratched his scalp, and looked out the window. The suns had gone down and his stomach was clearly telling him it was time for evening meal.
Throwing his legs over the side of the bed, Celyn stood and stretched. Now that he’d had some sleep, things weren’t looking nearly as awful as they had a few hours earlier. He was grateful for that, too. He hated when he felt nothing but angry. He left snarling and snapping at all times of the day to his uncle Bercelak and royal cousins, Briec and Fearghus. He didn’t understand being angry all the time. What was the purpose? What did it accomplish except to give him stomach acid and make everyone avoid him?
Pulling his black hair back and tying it with a leather thong, Celyn went down the stairs. By the time he reached the second floor, he could hear raised voices. He couldn’t make out what was being said, but he could tell there was yelling involved.
As he reached the final set of steps that led into the Great Hall, he stopped and stared at the long dining table. That’s where all the yelling was coming from.
Well, yelling might be the wrong word. Yelling suggested anger, and Celyn saw no anger. Instead, he saw . . . passion. A passionate discussion that involved very loud talking.
Fascinated, he continued down the stairs and over to the table and found himself a seat beside Gwenvael, who was also watching.
As soon as Celyn was seated, one of the servants placed a bowl of hot stew in front of him, followed by a large plate of ribs and a platter filled with bread. He didn’t eat at Annwyl’s castle often, but when he did . . . the servants clearly knew how to feed dragons in human form.
Something that Celyn appreciated.
“So what’s going on?” Celyn asked his cousin between spoonfuls of
stew.
“Well, when we started to come in for dinner, we found your father, Frederik, the Outerplains female, and Annwyl chatting . . . but by the time we all sat down to dinner, the chatting had turned into a lively debate.”
Celyn studied the Rider. With her elbows on the table, she sat between Annwyl and Celyn’s father, tearing pieces from a crusty loaf of bread, and shoving those pieces into her mouth while she stared blankly across the room.
“She looks miserable,” Celyn observed to his cousin.
“Who?”
“The Rider.”
“You mean Elina Shestakova of . . . whatever, whatever, whatever?” Gwenvael snorted. “She’s not miserable. She’s in whatever an Outerplains barbarian considers heaven.”
Celyn had no idea what Gwenvael meant until Elina snorted at something Briec said and cut in drily with, “You hoard like angry squirrel, Briec the Mighty. Keeping all riches for yourself and sharing with none.”
“Why should I share with anyone?” Briec demanded, sounding more haughty than usual. “My hoard is my hoard.”
“But you stole that hoard,” Annwyl reminded Briec, her legs tucked under her on her chair, her torso stretched over the table, elbows against wood, hands clasped.
“I don’t understand your point.”
“How is it yours? You didn’t earn it.”
“I did earn it. I stalked those caravans, had to fight off their protection, tear apart the carriages to get at the treasure, and then transport that treasure back to my cave. That took a lot of work, and often the only thing I got out of it was a warm meal that screamed for mercy.”
Talaith, sitting next to Briec, slowly brought her hands to her head and began to rub the temples.
“Bah,” the Rider exclaimed, dismissing Briec’s words with a hand swiped through the air. It was so amusing to see someone other than Talaith taunt Briec so brazenly that Celyn and Gwenvael glanced at each other and grinned.
“You brag and brag, Briec the Mighty. But who among you has not killed an enemy while he begs for mercy, laughing as he dies in pain and torment?”