“He’s your brother. I wouldn’t expect anything less than deceit and mind-warping delusions.”

Kavya’s heart was expanding with each beat, until it shoved against her trachea. Everything she’d worked for was at Pashkah’s mercy. “Do you hate me so much that you deny the obvious? Look at the men at his back. Every one of them is twice-cursed.”

“You can tell? You’re reading their minds?”

“I don’t need to. They’re Pashkah’s Black Guard. Whole communities have been rolled over by their arrival.”

“He kills Dragon Kings? The Council and the other clans would’ve heard about that.”

Kavya shook her head, her eyes filling. “Not killing. Trying to breed. The Black Guard was responsible for the Juvine forty years ago, when women were stolen from the South and held captive here in the mountains. Retaliation after retaliation followed, reviving the same deeds and the same hatreds that split our clan three thousand years ago. By trapping me, you’ve given him unchecked permission. The Black Guard will continue its spree.”

Tallis had fascinating skin—smooth except for those places where emotions pushed to the surface. So animated for a Dragon King, he frowned with his whole face until it took on the gravity of a pending typhoon. Finally he seemed to be taking her fear seriously.

“Unbind me,” she said, pressing her advantage.

“So you can flee? What do you think I am?”

“An idiotic, brainless thing. All I want is to face my brother without ropes around my wrists.” She forced strength into her voice just as she’d forced calm into her body. “You wanted me discredited, not martyred, remember?”

“That I can agree with.”

“First obeying me, now agreeing with me. You’ll be undone by dawn.”

“Suddenly you expect to live that long,” he said with an edge of a smile.

“You have no idea the consequences if I don’t. Forget martyrdom. I’ll be the dead soul that gives Pashkah what he’s always wanted: the powers of a thrice-cursed Indranan.”

He shook his head. “Legend.”

“No, fact. Just like how the Heretic seems to have graced me with his presence.”

That caught him off guard, but only for a moment. “So you admit it. You’ve known who I am.”

“For the last few moments, yes. Your weapon tells tales to a telepath, even if I can’t read your mind. But none of it means your accusations hold merit.”

He silenced her by dragging a seax nearer to her flesh. Although she shuddered, she appreciated the knife more than his kiss. She could endure pain. Life had taught her those lessons and the means of coping with what no one should have to endure. The surprise of pleasure, however, was still frothing through her veins. Every hair stood on end. Her skin pulled toward his touch and his Dragon-damned kisses.

The conflicting emotions were too much to process.

The tip of the seax was as fine as the point of a needle. Engraved scrollwork along the blade caught the last of the dying sunshine. She recognized the etchings as the ancient language of the Pendray but had no idea of their meaning. Tallis slid the tip between her wrists and sliced the ropes with one swift cut. No wasted motion. Perfect mastery of his weapon.

“Members of the Sun Cult,” came the voice that sent hot dread up her spine and ghostly chills back down. “Your leader is no longer here. Because I am her brother, Pashkah, you can imagine the consequences if I take her life—or if I already have. Perhaps she’s merely fled, leaving you to my mercies.”

The Black Guard marched to the edge of the altar.

Pashkah didn’t smile, but contentment shimmered around him in a swirl of charcoal fog. “I have no mercy.”

Additional members of the Guard dragged a pair of men into sight and thrust them to their knees, flanking Pashkah.

Kavya gasped. “No, no, no . . .”

A hand wrapped around her mouth. She struggled until Tallis’s words found their way into her short-circuiting brain.

“Quiet,” he hissed softly. His arms were strong around her, which was welcome rather than abhorrent. She was ready to shudder apart, disintegrated by fear and utter outrage.

Tallis ducked her back into the tent. They could see through a small sliver that parted the folds of canvas. He kept his mouth near her ear, as if any stray syllable could be a death sentence. Still a Pendray, relying on words. For the Indranan, thoughts were louder.

“Who are they?”

“Representatives to the factions’ Leaderships,” she replied. “My allies. Oh, Dragon save them.”

Pashkah was a man of his sick, malevolent word. He stood over the representatives and spread his hands with a flourish. “These are the presents the Sun was going to offer at dusk. Omanand of the North. Raghupati of the South. She would’ve stood behind them and smiled that tranquil, happy smile and watched as they shook hands. Ended the civil war. Healed the breach. Wouldn’t that have been lovely?”

“Is that true?” Tallis asked against Kavya’s cheek.

“Yes,” she whispered. “A foundation for lasting peace. But it doesn’t matter now. Nothing will matter now.”

One of the Guardsmen handed Pashkah a sword that gleamed with a golden sheen.

Tallis drew in a sharp breath. “That’s Dragon-forged.”

Her lucidity was slipping away, along with her hopes. She was physically ill, so painfully, violently ill. “Yes.”

Pashkah lifted the blade. With one blow, he beheaded Omanand. With another, he separated Raghupati’s head from a body that flopped onto the altar. Terror echoed through the valley like the shrieks of demons.

Kavya saw only blood.

CHAPTER

FOUR

Tallis had witnessed the beheadings of Dragon Kings. He’d dispatched more than a few. Visceral memory would not let his hands forget how the metal hilt would crush the bones of his palm as he struck a Dragon-forged sword through a neck. Neither could he forget the warm spray of the blood. When he’d committed his first murder at the behest of the Sun, that of a long-dead Pendray priest, he’d left behind the ring that bore his family’s crest, claiming the kill and marking himself as the target of his clan’s hatred. Better that way.

Yet he’d thought about Lady Macbeth. Although he’d wiped clean his armor and his weapons, he would never be able to wash away the stains. The exact temperature of a dying man’s blood became an indelible detail.

Subsequent kills had meant less to him. The repetition of it. The rhythm of following orders and detaching his morality. The deaths he’d brought about had created peace in places where Dragon Kings squabbled, where rifts threatened to break fragile alliances. His dirty work had been successful—until it had ruined Nynn’s life.

He was unnaturally good at his work.

Pashkah of the Northern Indranan was better.

Had the man felt any emotion about beheading two fellow clansmen, it would be satisfaction. He stood like a triumphant god who, dissatisfied with sacrifices made in his honor, had taken the task upon himself. Two lifeless bodies slumped at his feet. Two heads had rolled away—distended tongues, bulging eyes, matted hair. The pair of Guardsmen stepped back from what remained of the prostrate men they’d forever immobilized. Their expressions were even more vacant. They radiated none of Pashkah’s silent triumph.

If Tallis could ever read minds, this was the moment. He sensed more than satisfaction radiating from the murderer. He sensed glee.

The camp was a riot.

The Black Guard descended from the altar and strode through the tents. They grabbed women. Young women. Dark robes and saris were subsumed by men in black brigandine armor. Little blackbirds chased by avaricious ravens. In the melee, only flashes of mirrored armor plates distinguished predator from prey.