Kavya was different. Out here in the wilds of the Pir Panjal, she was well away from her people. She couldn’t read his mind. She was forced to be herself, and that was even more tempting than an image of perfection. He liked how he could unnerve her with his dry humor and even his silences. He’d needed to learn English sarcasm like another language, but it was useful when sparring with a woman who used thoughts more than speech.

His people, however, told stories. Huge, rambling, straightforward stories. Subtleties such as irony and sarcasm hadn’t made sense. Tallis had arrived in England as an exile, completely unprepared for the cultural difference of a few hundred miles.

“What about the Southerners?” he asked.

“What about them?”

“If you in the North managed to mingle with the Han and the Mongols, where did the Southerners go after the split?”

“The coastline and the islands—Indonesia and the like. Some even colonized Australia. Every religion in this region is so fractured. Tiny pockets of belief. We migrated and split and kept splitting. Pods became villages, and villages became cultures. And we’d split again, always so distrustful and willing to move on, start again, if it meant the chance of being safe.”

The Pendray way would’ve been to stand and fight, not run, hide, change, live in fear. He understood the desire to have one’s gift from the Dragon made whole, but the cost was a civilization that resembled a petri dish of bacteria dividing and dividing.

Kavya led the way into a seedy, run-down area of Kullu. The idea that she would assume another Mask turned Tallis’s stomach. He followed, with Chandrani at the rear. He knew they talked to each other. That shouldn’t have bothered him, because they’d taken to voicing important decisions about direction and timing. The remaining, unspoken little things did bother him. For the first time in longer than he could recall, he was keeping company with Dragon Kings. They challenged him. Kavya in particular. As if his mind had tipped sideways, he was confused, angry, and uncertain of his purpose.

Find Pashkah?

Run from him?

Worse, it had been nearly thirty-six hours since he’d eaten. Hunger tended to bring out his less desirable traits. He was irritable and prone to snap harsh phrases. The beast needed to be appeased. Now that he’d called it out of its cage, that dark and raging animal was making more of his decisions.

“What happens after?” he asked.

Her strides were short but quick. She’d had no trouble keeping up with his pace, probably due to her familiarity with these daunting mountains. “After what?”

He needed to stop admiring the way the morning sun turned her golden skin to bronze. She glowed as if she really were the Sun of his dreams. “After you take on another Mask. Can he find you at all? Will you go into hiding? We’ve had different goals from the start.”

“The start being when you kidnapped me among my own people for reasons that seem founded on madness?”

“Yes. That.”

“At least you can admit some of what took place yesterday.”

“What happened to how much you appreciated my saving your life?”

Kavya brushed long chocolate-brown hair back from her shoulders and used a sleeve of her sari to wipe her face. Only then did he realize that yes, she was rather a mess. He must look worse. “I thanked you once,” she said, not breaking stride. “Don’t expect more gratitude until you do something new to deserve it.”

The October morning gave way to surprising warmth. Tallis unbuttoned his coat. He couldn’t imagine the snow and winds this place would withstand come winter. Already, preparations appeared to be under way. Chopped wood lined each building in great stacks. The faces of these hearty humans spoke of survival. Deep wrinkles were born of squinting against snow and ice made into beacons by the high mountain sunshine.

Kavya lead them deeper into the crumbling neighborhood, to a few rickety buildings. This city itself was a destination known for attracting adventurers who sought guidance up the valley toward the infamous Rohtang Pass. The natural wonder, which was so dangerous that humans closed it from November to May, was a temptation to those whose lives lacked mortal thrills.

Tallis resented them, pitied them, envied their innocent cares.

But this was no tourist area. They approached a small pine building. It was daubed with mud and listed toward where the valley continued its downward slope. Kavya closed her eyes. Although he heard nothing, Tallis felt a pulse of energy flow from her body. Why had no one ever talked about that facet of the Indranans’ gift? It didn’t have to be audible for him to know it was there.

A man appeared in the doorway of the listing little building. He matched the pine shelter that surrounded him, as if a rough wind would send him twirling into the sky. He had to be pushing the upward limit of a Dragon King’s life span.

“A Mask, eh?” He rubbed a chin covered in bristly gray hair. “That will cost you.”

Kavya nodded. “It always does.”

—

The man’s name was Nakul. Kavya had known of his existence in Kullu for several years, because she’d thought she might need him one day.

“You’re really going through with this?” Tallis asked.

He stood with his hands in the pockets of his leather coat, so Dragon-damned handsome that she was dazzled. People called her the Sun, but nothing compared to how the dawn graced him. Pink and gold were blessings that washed over his features. His skin was luminous. The cold ocean blue of his eyes was lightened without dissipating any of his intensity. Even his lashes were tipped with a silver sheen that matched his thick hair.

The berserker rage had spun everything about him into a wild creature, ragged and worn, but with so much strength that his casual posture couldn’t disguise his vigilance in watching the trees, houses, and high mountaintops. He wore the weariness of a man who’d been at war for years. A man without faith. A man without allegiances or a home. A man who’d seen something terrible, unspeakable, and would never be the same again.

She wanted to hold his head to her body and stroke his hair until it was free of wild tangles and his mind was free of old, sad pains.

Frustrated by her capacity to be distracted by Tallis, she turned to face Nakul.

The old man scared her.

How many Masks had he dispensed through the decades? How many had he cleanly installed? Would age affect his work? Her mind already verged on having been soaked in too many artificial details. It would take a patient, skilled Masquerade to pick through those false touches and places new ones in between.

Pashkah would find her. She would never be able to reverse the damage to her people. Out there, women had been kidnapped. The Dragon only knew what was being done to them. The Dragon only knew what repercussions would come of their abuse.

“Yes, I’m really going through with this. You can step inside, or you can stand watch.”

“I don’t want to see any more witchcraft. I’ve had my fill for ten lifetimes.”

Head high, she walked the small distance to Nakul’s half-falling awning of tattered, dirty canvas. He’d bring it in before winter. Some internal sense of being in tune with her homeland said the snows would be soon in coming.

“I know who you are.” Nakul’s voice reminded her of his gnarled old bones. He was stringy with exposed tendons and veins. Whatever was left of his flesh hung in saggy pantomimes of a man’s muscles. “The whole of mankind and the Dragon Kings would lie here in the dark, confused and freezing to death, if the Sun abandoned us.”

A shiver turned her skin into a field of goose bumps. She didn’t know which sun he meant.

“I will give you anything you like.” Her peripheral vision found Tallis edging slowly closer. Skepticism tainted the air around his lithe body. “Just name the price.”