"Don't worry about it. We've got it under control."

Fearghus doubted it, but he was in no mood to argue and was simply grateful his siblings had stood behind him and Annwyl during all this. They were an annoying lot, but they were his.

The servant appeared again at the bottom of the stairs, indicating he'd done what Fearghus bid. Knowing Annwyl was resting and out of hearing range, he straightened, motioned his brother back a bit, and swung his fist overhead, bringing it down on the table. The table splintered and buckled where his fist landed. Both Rhiannon and Talaith jerked back from one another, Talaith with her dagger now in hand and Rhiannon with a spell on her lips.

"You come here," he said to his mother, keeping his voice low and barely controlled, "and call my mate a wh.o.r.e, and then you're upset you don't get a polite welcome?"

"I didn't call her a wh.o.r.e." When everyone simply stared at her, Rhiannon clarified, "I didn't call her a wh.o.r.e to her face ... today."

"Then what's going on?"

Rhiannon's hands landed on her waist and her foot tapped against the floor. If she were in dragon form, it would be one of her talons. "I simply didn't understand why neither of these two idiots didn't contact me sooner?"

Talaith slipped her dagger back into the sheath tied to her thigh. "Contact you so you could call her a wh.o.r.e to her face?"

"I called her a wh.o.r.e when I thought she'd bedded another."

Fearghus walked toward his mother. "And now?"

"And now I know differently."

He couldn't help but be a little suspicious. "What? Just like that?"

"Aye. Just like that."

No, something was wrong. He looked from one witch to another, the three at different levels of skill-Talaith centuries behind the other two but catching up quickly-and he knew they were hiding something.

"What aren't you telling me?"

Rhiannon stroked his cheek and gave him a soft smile. In this moment, she wasn't the frightening Dragon Queen who ruled with an iron tail. She was his mother. He saw it in her eyes, felt it in her touch. "My son, there is nothing to worry about. We're simply going to try to find a way to get her energy back up so she's not dragging for the next few weeks."

His mother was lying to him. He knew it, deep in his bones. Yet he couldn't push further, because he wasn't ready to hear the truth. Not now. Because he knew she wasn't lying to hurt him-she was lying to protect him.

"All right?" she asked softly.

He nodded. "All right."

Talaith looked up at Briec, her eyes narrowing on the open wound that wouldn't stop bleeding. "What happened to your face?"

Briec stared at her a long moment before calmly replying. "Nothing."

And Talaith didn't seem remotely convinced.

"A little tired, are we? Feet sore?"

Dagmar gritted her teeth and answered, "I'm fine."

She wasn't fine. She was in agony. Her feet were not sore-they hurt! She could feel sores developing with every step she took. Her muscles had begun to scream in protest as well. And her forehead burned from the low-hanging two suns above her, the clouds that always hid them not providing nearly as much cover as she always believed they did.

Dagmar had always thought her occasional brisk walks around her father's fortress had kept her in shape. However, the laborers kept the even, tiled grounds clean. The main road to Spikenhammer, tragically, was riddled with rocks and deep indents she didn't see until her foot encountered one. Nor was the road one, straight path, but instead a winding route that went up and down hills, which also meant the city wasn't nearly as close as her eyes and those inaccurate maps had led her to believe. For more than three hours they'd been on this road with no apparent end in sight and the dragon seemed more than comfortable continuing.

"Sure you don't want me to fly? I can swoop us right in there so your tiny royal feet won't have to touch this dirty, mean-spirited ground a moment more."

His sarcasm certainly had gone up a notch since he'd discovered she'd lied to him. But, to her surprise, he hadn't insisted they return to her father's lands immediately. It was strange being around someone whose behavior she couldn't easily predict. She'd always relied heavily on that particular skill.

"And get us shot down in the process?" she asked. "Spikenhammer does not allow your kind beyond its gates."

"It may not allow dragons, but I can a.s.sure you dragons are in there somewhere. We're everywhere."

Dagmar stopped walking, disturbed and fascinated by his statement. "Even on my father's lands?"

"You had me there."

"You don't count." She dismissed him with a wave of her hand. "And no, no. There couldn't have been. I would have noticed. Unlike those who are fooled by the Magick of G.o.ds, I am not. I would have noticed," she said again, desperately trying to convince herself more than him.

"How?" He pointed at the crest on his surcoat. "True, you knew of this army, but do you know every crest of every army that's been destroyed over the centuries?"

"Because of course the Horde dragons must be as vile a gang of liars as the Southland dragons."

"Just admit it. You've probably had Lightnings in and out of your fortress and never knew. Some soldiers pa.s.sing through, trying not to look too tall or always in their cloaks to hide their purple hair. There's no shame in not noticing. We've been fooling you humans for eons. Why should we change now? For instance-"

"Ahhhhh!" Dagmar fell forward, her foot stuck in one of those infernal holes in the ground, her arms stretching out before her to brace her fall. Her hands slammed into hard, unforgiving Northland ground, her tender palms torn open by the jagged rocks and bits of gla.s.s, stone, and other trash littering the area. Her breath left her in one big "woosh!" and her spectacles flew off her face.

Of everything, the loss of her spectacles worried her the most.

She reached out, her eyes squinting, trying to find the small round frames she'd come to depend on so much. When she got home, she would beg Brother Ragnar for several new pairs.

"No one's ever taught you to fall, I see."

Exhausted, in pain, and afraid she'd broken the only things that could help her see clearly, Dagmar glared at the dragon beside her. He'd crouched down next to her, so his form only blurred at the edges. "No, Lord Gwenvael, no one has ever taught me to fall."

"You need some help?" he asked.

"I need my spectacles."

He reached in front of her and took hold of something. "Is this the only pair you have?"

Panic swept through her. "They're broken?"

"No. Just asking. When you're on the road, things have a tendency to break or get stolen or simply lost. If this is your only pair-"

"It is my only pair at the moment, but I hardly have time to worry about getting a new pair now, do I?"

"You're being awfully snappy."

Gritting her teeth together so hard she feared she'd break them into little pieces, Dagmar reached out for her spectacles, hoping to s.n.a.t.c.h them from his hand. He easily held his hand up, out of her way.

"Give them to me."

"No. You'll get blood on them. Your palms are bleeding." He glanced around, the other people on the road walking around the pair as if they were simply dead animals in their way. "Here. Let's get off this road." He reached for her and she raised her hand, expecting him to take it. He didn't. He simply pushed her arm aside and picked her up by the waist.

"I don't need to be carried."

"Obviously you do, you poor, weak, clumsy thing."

Gwenvael took her deep into the surrounding forest and set her down against a large old tree, her back against its trunk. "Look up at me."

She did, and he carefully placed the spectacles on her face, making sure they fit perfectly behind her ears. "There. Better?"

She blinked, the world around her back in focus. "You have no idea."

"Actually I do. When I was ninety-eight, my brother shoved me into a volcano."

He told her the strangest, most violent stories about his family. And what did that have to do with anything?

"Please tell me there's more to that story."

"There is. As you can imagine, lava doesn't do much damage to my kind. Although"-he leaned in a bit and lowered his voice-"it is great for torturing the Lightnings and the Sand Dragons."

"I'll keep that in mind."

"Do. You never know when you'll need that kind of information. Anyway," he slowly and carefully moved her hand and wrist, side to side, up and down, watching her closely as he kept talking, "the lava did sting a bit but nothing that would really bother me. But I didn't close my eyes fast enough. Some splashed in. My sight was blurry for weeks. Finally my mother took me to a healer after I stood in the middle of her Court and cried out, 'Will no one help the blind one? Will no one love me now that I'm blind?' "

Dagmar twisted her lips to prevent any laughter from sneaking out. She wanted to stay angry at him.

"I'm sure you were relieved to have your eyes fixed."

"I was. But I must admit it was great fun reaching up to my brothers, feeling their faces, and saying, 'Is this you, Briec? I ... I really don't know.' " He laughed. "And if Briec wasn't such a right b.a.s.t.a.r.d, he would have felt really bad for me. Instead he slammed my head against whatever was available."

He checked each finger and knuckle. "Good. Nothing seems broken there." He moved down her body and tugged up the hem of her dress. He pulled off her boot and smiled. "Wool socks?"

"They're warm."

"A royal wearing socks?"

"I'm not a royal, we don't have royals in the Northlands. And vanity versus keeping all my toes during our winters ... guess which wins?"

"Fair enough." He pulled off her socks, and both of them cringed. "You need a healer, Lady Dagmar."

Looking away from the sores covering her feet, Dagmar was forced to agree. "Unfortunately ... I believe I do."

Rhiannon walked quickly down the steps and around a corner to another clearing she could take off from. She sent out a thought for her guards to meet her, giving her a few moments alone with her daughter.

"I can't believe you hadn't contacted me before now."

"You made it clear you didn't believe her. What was the point of contacting you?"

She swung on her daughter, her forefinger pointed in her hatchling's face. "I only had to see her to know. Has it been like this all this time?"

"No. The last month or so." Morfyd threw her hands up. "Talaith and I have tried everything. But it's like she's-"

"Being drained. From the inside out."

"Exactly." Morfyd rubbed her forehead. "Perhaps we should take her to Devenallt Mountain. There we can-"

"No."

"Why not?"

"She won't be safe there."

"Since when?"

"Since the Elders have decided to focus their attention on Annwyl's twins. I thought they'd outright reject them, but they haven't-and that makes me more nervous."

"Why? What could they do?"

"This situation is utterly new, which gives them free rein, for we have no laws about it. And unless we're in the middle of a war, I share rule with the Elders."

"You don't mean the Elders, Mother. You mean Eanruig."

Elder Eanruig. It had been long since Rhiannon had an enemy so annoying and backstabbing as the bloodline-obsessed Eanruig. He'd thought her hatchlings had been tainted by Bercelak's low-born family connections, which meant that now his head was positively spinning with the thought of the dragon bloodline being tainted by a human.

"Leave him to me, Morfyd." She tossed off the robe her daughter had made her wear among the humans and shifted to her natural form. She shook out her wings, tossed back her hair. She simply didn't understand how her children could spend day after day trapped in these human bodies. A few hours maybe-but days? "Annwyl is safer here with you. You and Talaith keep doing what you can. I'll see what I can do from my end."

The royal guards stood behind her now, ready to return home.

"Any word from Keita?" her daughter suddenly asked.

Rhiannon's youngest daughter and most prominent pain in the a.s.s, Keita the Red Viper Dragon of Despair and Death, was rarely in contact with her mother, which Morfyd knew well enough. But Morfyd also knew Rhiannon always seemed to have a good idea where her offspring were at any given time and when she might be needed by them, whether they called for her or not. It was no different with Keita, although she never seemed to need her mother or want her a.s.sistance.

Keita wasn't merely independent; she was belligerent, and always sure Rhiannon was nothing more than a meddling old dragoness bent on making her perfectly useless life miserable. There seemed to be so much misplaced rage in that hatchling, although Rhiannon often felt she was the only one who ever saw it. To Keita's siblings and Bercelak, Keita was the most funloving and carefree of them all, looking for pleasure wherever she could find it.

Yet Rhiannon knew differently. She saw Keita exactly as she was and treated her exactly as she deserved.

So, taking Morfyd's question literally, Rhiannon answered, "Not since she told me to f.u.c.k off, no."

"Oh, Mother-"

Rhiannon dismissed the conversation about her youngest daughter with a flick of her talons. "Gwenvael?" she inquired. Her son could be annoying, but he was never as antagonistic as Keita.

"In the Northlands," Morfyd reluctantly explained. "Getting more ... information."

"And whose brilliant idea was it to send the Wh.o.r.e of the South into the Northlands alone?"

"Annwyl's."

"And that's when you should have known that something must be wrong with her."