Still, she moved quickly. In case anyone meant to follow her.
Asha hurried through the rattling esparto grass. The cedars croaked and hushed around her. If she was going to call a dragon—if she was going to call the most dangerous dragon—she needed to put as much space as possible between her and the city. She needed to right the wrongs she’d committed, not repeat them.
In the late afternoon, she climbed the sun-bleached cliffs of the lower Rift, looking back the way she’d come, ensuring the walls of the city were far and small in the distance. She laid the blacksmith’s bundle on the rock before her, untying the cords and pushing back the fabric.
Twin blades greeted her: black as night, elegant as slivered moons. Their hilts were made of bone inlaid with iron and gold. And there was a second bundle. Asha unwrapped it to find a shoulder belt and scabbards. She strapped on the belt and sheathed each slayer, one after the other, so they crisscrossed against her back.
Now for the treacherous part. She had only six days to track and kill Kozu. Asha couldn’t afford to waste time. Kozu had been seen in the Rift. If she told an old story here, it might draw him to her.
But which one would the oldest and wickedest of dragons want to hear? One about himself? One about Elorma, the First Namsara?
Asha broke away from the hunting paths, heading into the pines and hacking at clinging vines that blocked her way. As she pressed on, Asha drew a story up from her depths. Like a bucket hoisted from a well full of poison instead of water.
Asha opened her mouth to tell it when she stumbled out of the trees and onto a rocky outcropping.
A lean beige dragon lay curled around itself, blending into the shale as it soaked up the heat of the sun. Beyond it, the Rift dipped into a valley of lush green growth around the river snaking through it.
Asha froze as the dragon swung its head to look at her. The smoky stench of it hit her in the face. Its horns had barely come in, making it an adolescent. Judging by its muted coloring, it was female.
This dragon clicked dangerously as it curled its body around to face her. Younger dragons were more prone to aggression. More prone to fighting than fleeing. This dragon was no exception.
It spread its wings wide, like a fowl displaying its plumage to appear bigger and more frightening in the face of an enemy. Its wings cast a shadow over Asha. The sunlight sifted through the translucent membranes, revealing interlocking bones that worked to keep its huge body in flight.
The dragon hissed.
Asha’s fingers wrapped around the handle of her axe. On any other day, stumbling across a dragon would have thrilled her.
Asha gritted her teeth. The sooner I slay it, the sooner I can summon Kozu.
Slamming her helmet down over her head, Asha gripped her axe, then changed her mind.
Using her unburned hand, she tucked her axe back into her belt and drew one of the slayers from the scabbards at her back. The moment her palm connected with the hilt, her blood hummed.
These slayers can only be used to make wrongs right, a warning clanged inside her.
I am righting a wrong, she thought.
Asha swung the sacred blade, throwing sunlight into the dragon’s eyes, and then lunged. The dragon slithered out of her way, circling back around her. Its scales whispered against the rock. Asha barely had time to duck and roll before it could slam its spiked tail into her back. This was a hunting lesson Asha learned early: always know exactly where a dragon’s tail is.
Before Asha could climb to her feet, the dragon lunged, its venom fangs out and ready to bite. Asha rolled again just as it struck, missing her by a fingerbreadth. She rolled again, right beneath it, her back to the cracked rock, her face to an underbelly as pale as an egg.
Asha thrust her slayer up into soft flesh.
Two things happened. First, the dragon shrieked, flapping its thin wings, trying to scramble away. Second, pain like no other raced up Asha’s arm and her screams joined the dragon’s.
She let go of the hilt. The dragon broke free, dragging itself toward the cliff edge.
Asha sat up. Her arm hung limp at her side. Her breathing came sharp and fast. The pain had vanished, replaced by a horrible numbness.
She couldn’t feel her arm. Couldn’t flex the fingers of her hand. It was as if the limb didn’t exist.
These slayers can only be used to make wrongs right.
Again, she tried to move her arm. Again, it didn’t respond.
Elorma had deceived her.
Enraged, Asha screamed her hate at the Old One. “Deceiver!” The word echoed all across the cliffs until the wind whisked the sound of it away.
Asha looked to the cliff edge, where the young dragon lay silent and still. Maybe it wasn’t dead. Maybe she’d just injured it.
Maybe she could fix this.
“Please be alive,” Asha whispered, moving toward it. But when she grabbed the hilt with her scorched hand and pulled the weapon out, blood pooled around her boots.
Asha sank to her knees before the dead dragon’s head, resting on the rock, its eyes closed.
Her left arm was useless, her right hand burned. How was she supposed to hunt Kozu now?
The bloodied black blade lay across her knees. Asha wanted to throw it off the cliff.
If the Old One thought he could stop her through trickery, then the Old One had underestimated her. It was Asha who, at the age of ten, summoned the most wicked of dragons and nearly destroyed an entire city. It was Asha who had more kills to her name than any other hunter.
Asha was dangerous. She was not to be trifled with. Because, maimed or not, she was hunting Kozu down and bringing her father his head. She was putting an end to the old ways forever—if it was the last thing she did.
Eight
“Would you hold still?”
Asha leaned her head back against the cool plaster of the alcove wall, obeying her cousin. Her knees were drawn up and her limp arm hung in a sling wrapped tight to her body. She’d come straight to Safire’s room upon her return from the Rift, where Safire—clothed in a brand-new mantle—proceeded to growl at her.
Despite being in the women’s wing of the royal quarters, the room was cramped and dreary. The plaster walls were cracked and yellowed; there was no terrace; and despite the glassless windows, very little light reached in. Before the revolts, the dragon queen’s slaves lived and slept here. Now they were confined to the furrow each night, under lock and guard.