Age of War (The Legends of the First Empire #3)

“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “Mostly, I guess he’s been teaching the young men in the courtyard. That’s where I usually see him. He and Suri also go on a lot of walks. Neither one of them likes being in the city much. Why don’t you ask him what he’s been doing?”

“I was just curious.” Persephone smiled. “Never mind. Did you want something, or were you just coming to save me from going crazy?”

Brin hesitated, biting her lip.

Persephone’s eyes grew concerned. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“I think we have a raow.”



* * *





“A raow?” Raithe asked. “In Alon Rhist?”

Tesh nodded.

They stood between the great towers on the parapet above the main gate that afforded an unrivaled view of the Grandford Bridge and beyond it the plateau of Dureya. Tesh knew he’d find Raithe there. The parapet was one of the few places to look at their home without having to climb a few hundred steps to see over the walls. And he knew Raithe liked watching the sunset from there. Perhaps looking out at his old home had a way of reminding his chieftain of how far he’d come, which when measured in physical distances wasn’t far at all. Raithe had his sword out, rubbing the blade with an oily rag. Roan had told everyone to do that once in a while. Said otherwise the metal might go bad, like it was meat or something. Raithe was always oiling his. He took care of it like a woman with a newborn.



Unlike the rest of them, Raithe’s blade wasn’t made by Roan or one of her army of workers. The sword he cleaned was dwarven, the one Persephone had brought back from Neith. Not only was it an excellent weapon, it possessed a remarkable legend. Many believed its markings were magical because the sword was reputed to have destroyed a mountain, made Persephone the keenig, and slain a dragon.

“Raow don’t live in cities and certainly not fortresses,” Raithe explained.

“Brin is convinced it’s a raow,” Tesh said. “She ought to know. She says she heard it one night, and I saw a clawed footprint near her house, then another one when we were down in that maze of corridors and rooms under the Verenthenon.”

“Wait. What? You and Brin? What in Mari’s name were you two doing down there?”

Tesh shifted uneasily. He wasn’t trying to avoid the question so much as trying to find the right way to answer. He didn’t want to admit it hadn’t been his idea, that Brin had led him down there.

Raithe scowled. “Tesh, the girl’s only fourteen!”

“Fourteen? She is not! She’s sixteen…her birthday was months ago.”

“And what about you?”

“I’m sixteen, too.”

Raithe rolled his eyes. “I know how old you are, but where’s your house? Where’s your livestock, your crops, your furs, your fields, your traps? How are you going to take care of her? How are you going to take care of a child?”

“A child? That happens from kissing?”

Raithe smiled. “Never mind. Now, what’s all this about a raow?”

Tesh watched as his chieftain carefully slid the magic blade into a scabbard that was decidedly less impressive.

“We think someone is hiding it. Taking care of it.”

“Like a pet?”

“I guess.”

“No one keeps a raow. Why would they?”



* * *







“Outside my window, I heard two people talking,” Brin said. “One was a man, the other a raow—I’m sure of it now. I could tell by the voices.” She looked at the keenig until she was certain she understood. This was another reason Brin had wanted to talk to her; Persephone didn’t need her to explain. “I’ve been thinking about it. I remember that the man said something about an agreement they had.”

“Agreement?”

Brin nodded. “I think the man was hiding it, feeding it somehow. He mentioned someone by the name of Jada. I think he might have lured Jada to the raow.”

Persephone was shaking her head. “Why would anyone keep such a thing? How could they?”

“Under the Verenthenon are all these little rooms. I saw a footprint in one of them—a raow footprint.”

“It’s called the duryngon,” Persephone said. “A prison. I don’t think there are any people down there anymore, but Nyphron mentioned they used it for studying creatures. You shouldn’t be going down there.”

“Well, trust me, I won’t anymore. But what if there had been a raow there and someone let it out?”

Persephone rested the back of her head against the wall while her tongue slipped back and forth across the front of her teeth. “Who would do such a thing? And why?”

“I don’t know, but I think it was a Rhune.”

“How would a Rhune get access to a raow from the duryngon? It’d have to be a Fhrey. They are the only ones who know about that place and have access to it.”

Brin shook her head. “I found the duryngon. Maybe someone else did, too. The night I heard voices under my window they were speaking Rhunic.”

“Nyphron speaks Rhunic—a lot of Fhrey do.”

“But not when they are by themselves. And it’s possible raow only speak Rhunic. The one that grabbed me did. It’s just that he—the one talking to the raow—didn’t sound like a Fhrey. He sounded like a man.”



Persephone frowned with a skeptical look. “You’re still having the nightmares, aren’t you?”

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