“You aren’t seriously suggesting that we go to Morcant for aid, are you?” Jyn asked, her hands on her hips. “Have you forgotten what those magic wielders—those mardushkas—do to Draconi? For centuries, they’ve captured us with their cursed magic, forcing us to sniff out gems and veins of gold like dogs on leashes. There’s a reason we have a law forbidding Eldrians from setting foot on Morcantian soil.”
“We aren’t going to Morcant for aid.” Kol’s hearts pounded as a plan just as bold and risky as any of his pranks took shape in his mind. “Negotiations work best when you have enough leverage to come to the table as an equal. Ravenspire is suffering from massive food shortages caused by a blight on their crops. There are reports of tremendous unrest and violence among the peasants.”
“That’s correct,” the councilwoman said.
“Ravenspire’s queen doesn’t have enough resources to feed her people and stop the unrest. We, however, have an entire mountain full of treasure—enough to buy food from the merchants in Súndraille for the next ten years. We have the solution to her problem, and the queen of Ravenspire—”
“Is a mardushka from Morcant and married into her throne,” the councilwoman finished, her eyes gleaming.
Kol shouldered his bag. “Let’s go back to the castle. Master Eiler and the rest of the royal council need to know what we’re up against and what I plan to do about it. I leave for Ravenspire in the morning.”
“Why you? Let us go in your place,” Trugg said.
Kol shook his head. “Queen Irina doesn’t meet with ambassadors. She leaves all that to her castle steward, and I can’t afford to be turned down. If I arrive at her castle, she’ll have no choice but to receive me.” He looked at the council members. “I need the council to keep the country running while I’m gone. Send a courier if there’s an emergency, and I need to return. I should be able to cross the mountain border into Ravenspire in two days if I fly hard. After that, I’ll be on foot—I don’t dare anger Queen Irina by violating the treaty that prohibits Eldrians from using their dragon form within Ravenspire. I’ll be easy for a courier to catch. Trugg and Jyn, I know asking you to leave Eldr in her time of need is a sacrifice—”
“We’re with you, remember?” Trugg wrapped a hefty arm around the back of Kol’s neck and squeezed. “To the sky and back.”
“To the sky and back,” Jyn repeated.
Kol pushed his grief, his fear that he would fail and all Eldr would pay for it, into the corner of his thoughts and focused on what he would say to the queen of Ravenspire to get her to agree to use her magic to save Eldr from certain destruction.
She was his last hope.
FIVE
LORELAI’S PULSE KICKED hard against her skin, and her breathing quickened as she crouched in an evergreen that bordered the southern wall around the northeast garrison, gripping the branch beneath her with gloved hands. Sasha perched above her, her bright black eyes fixed on the garrison.
It had been two days since Lorelai had seen the desperate mother kill her children to spare them death by starvation. Two days, and the horror was as fresh as the day it had happened.
Today’s robbery wouldn’t make that right—nothing could—but it was a step in the right direction.
The tree shook as Leo climbed up to join her. His curly black hair was hidden beneath a cap, and he carried their stash of burlap sacks rolled into a pack on his back.
“All set on the plan?” he asked quietly as they watched the garrison’s patrol—a pair of guards in full uniform—march inside the western perimeter of the wall.
“Of course I’m all set on the plan. It’s my plan.” It would take the patrol fourteen minutes to complete the circuit around the inside of the wall. Fourteen minutes for Lorelai to get into place and be ready to create a distraction worthy of diverting the attention of every soldier inside the garrison to her.
“It’s a terrible plan,” Leo said, his hands clenching and unclenching within his gloves.
“You didn’t think so yesterday when you and Gabril were putting your end of it together.”
Thirteen minutes. She scanned the garrison for movement. The plan would work if the only soldiers out in the frigid weather were those required to be on patrol. Close to the northern corner of the wall—the spot where Gabril waited, along with the handful of trusted peasants from the surrounding villages who’d been invited to bring a wagon and load it down with supplies for their respective towns—a stocky structure housed the storehouse of food. The kitchens and the dining hall were close by, but the armory was on the southern side of the garrison, and the barracks were to the west. No one should be near the storehouse in the middle of the afternoon.
Lorelai was going to make sure of it.
“It’s a terrible plan because you’re taking most of the risk.” Leo’s voice was edged with worry. “If I’m seen carrying food from the storehouse to the wall, I can just scale the wall. By the time the soldiers get out of the gate, we’ll have disappeared into the forest.”
“I can scale walls too. I’ll be fine.”