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  ‘Nediah.’ His name emerged as a whisper. Already beating hard from the battle, Brégenne’s heart beat even harder. It would only take a few steps to close the distance between them …

  ‘You’re really here.’ His smile was warm; she felt her face flush. Not just her face; heat rushed through the rest of her, making her palms tingle, burning in the soles of her feet. She took a step towards him, just as Nediah moved towards her, reaching out his hand.

  ‘And you’re here why exactly?’

  Kait seized Nediah’s outstretched hand, planting herself firmly at his side. The tall woman’s stare was even more hostile than usual.

  ‘I’m here saving your lives,’ Brégenne said, though the sight of Kait holding Nediah’s hand made her hackles rise. Exactly what had happened between them during their months in Acre? Her imagination tormented her with possibilities.

  ‘We didn’t need your help.’ Kait’s hold tightened on Nediah and he glanced down at his hand, frowning. ‘We were fine without your interference.’

  Nediah shrugged out of Kait’s grip and though Brégenne knew it was petty, she felt a surge of satisfaction.

  ‘Are you well, Hagdon?’

  The Sartyan’s question broke their standoff. Brégenne looked around to see Lieutenant Mercia standing at the ex-general’s side. Her blade dripped blood.

  Hagdon’s teeth were gritted. ‘It might be fractured.’

  ‘I can mend it,’ Nediah said at once, ‘if you can hold on for a few hours.’ He paused then, looked at Brégenne. ‘But I forget – I’m not the only one who can heal.’

  She shook her head, feeling a tightness in her throat. ‘You will make a neater job of it. Your skill is second to none.’

  ‘Brégenne?’

  Irilin was staring at her, eyes round. She managed one step before her knees buckled. Though it must have caused him pain, Hagdon caught her with his good arm and lowered her gently to the ground. Brégenne hurried over. ‘Let me see,’ she said, placing her hands on the young woman’s injured shoulder. The crossbow bolt was buried deep.

  Despite the pain that whitened her face, Irilin smiled wryly up at Hagdon. ‘Our positions seem to be reversed.’

  For a moment, the soldier’s expression remained inscrutable. When Brégenne’s palms began to glow, however, he returned Irilin’s smile. ‘If only I’d had a Wielder on hand.’

  ‘Be careful,’ Brégenne told Irilin when the healing was done. The bolt lay on the ground beside her. ‘I’m no expert and you’ve lost a lot of blood. You too,’ she added to Hagdon, taking his arm. ‘I can mend the fracture, but Nediah should look at it in the morning.’

  Hagdon seemed nervous at the sudden easing of pain. He doesn’t trust us, Brégenne realized. He’s spent his life hunting us down.

  ‘Thank you,’ Hagdon said with an obvious attempt at casualness. His gaze did not stray from her face. ‘I believe there are introductions to be made.’

  ‘I almost forgot. Kul’Das, it’s safe now.’ With her Lunar-enhanced sight, Brégenne picked out the woman crouched in the shadow of the boulder. When she beckoned, Kul’Das came over, her blue eyes wary. ‘Kul’Das is my –’ friend seemed too strong a word – ‘companion,’ Brégenne finished. ‘She serves in the court of Ümvast.’

  Hagdon tilted his head. ‘A pleasure. And yourself?’ he asked, turning to Brégenne. ‘Your arrival was rather … timely.’

  ‘My name is Brégenne. I’m a Wielder of Naris,’ she said. Of course he’d be suspicious. Without her intervention, this could have ended very differently.

  ‘Not just a Wielder,’ Nediah spoke up. ‘She’s a councilwoman. One of our leaders.’

  Kait gave an undisguised grunt of disgust and, despite her best efforts, Brégenne felt her cheeks colour. She was grateful for the gloom. ‘I doubt I’m that any longer,’ she said to both men. ‘I left Naris against the wishes of my fellow Council members.’ A brief smile touched her lips as she remembered the day she’d escaped with Gareth aboard the Eastern Set. She’d seen their pursuers reduced to impotent specks as the airship gained height. ‘They sent a party of Wielders to track me down.’

  She could feel Kait’s eyes burning into her cheek. Brégenne shrugged uncomfortably. ‘It did not go well for them.’

  ‘It seems we’re all rebels here, then,’ Hagdon said somewhat ruefully. Hand on heart, he added, ‘I am James Hagdon, who currently finds himself commander of the Republic of Acre. This is Lieutenant Mercia … whose arrival was almost as timely as yours.’ The dark-haired Sartyan grinned. ‘Though,’ Hagdon added, ‘she won’t be considered lieutenant for very much longer.’

  ‘Long enough for us to reach Parakat, I hope,’ Mercia murmured.

  The Sartyans were regrouping, wiping their blades on the garb of those they’d killed. Watching them, Brégenne felt a flutter of disquiet. They were so calm, so controlled. It was easy to see how the soldiers of the Fist had upheld the empire’s rule for centuries. Few, it seemed, could stand against them. And this was only a single unit. Brégenne eyed Hagdon warily, wondering at the things he’d witnessed in service to such a force, at the orders he’d carried out, at those he’d issued. Here was a man half her age, who’d risen to command the greatest army the world had ever known. What did that do to you? Having that power at your fingertips? She knew what power was; she’d wielded it since the age of thirteen. The ex-general might not command the Solar or Lunar, but his power was just as potent. She sensed it came with just as high a price. In his scarred soldier’s face, Hagdon’s eyes were those of a haunted man.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Hagdon asked, snapping Brégenne out of her reverie. ‘We were under the impression you’d already reached Ben-haugr.’

  Before Brégenne could reply, Irilin said, ‘Where’s Gareth?’ Moving stiffly, she climbed to her feet, gripping a charred trunk for support. ‘Where’s Gareth, Brégenne?’

  ‘He’s inside Ben-haugr.’

  ‘You left him?’ Irilin’s pale cheeks flushed. ‘You said you were looking after him.’

  The words stung because they were true. ‘I know.’ Brégenne looked down. ‘It was the gauntlet. Somehow it pulled him through the wall of the mound.’ She forced herself to meet Irilin’s gaze. ‘It happened this morning. I couldn’t stop it from taking him.’

  ‘We were to return tonight,’ Kul’Das chimed in. ‘Then Brégenne saw your battle from afar.’

  ‘I don’t want Gareth to be alone. We came to help him too.’ Irilin took a wavering step towards Brégenne. Hagdon made a small movement, as if he intended to steady her, but thought better of it.

  ‘Brégenne,’ Irilin lowered her voice. ‘How was Gareth … when you told him about Shika?’

  Brégenne hesitated. ‘He doesn’t know.’

  ‘You didn’t tell him?’ Irilin’s small fists balled at her sides. ‘You kept it secret?’

  ‘You haven’t seen him,’ Brégenne said quickly. ‘He’s changed, Irilin. I watched him die and return to—’ not life – ‘return to us. I made the decision not to tell him. He’s so frail. I didn’t know what the news would do to him.’

  ‘He deserves to know,’ Irilin said in a low voice. ‘Shika was his best friend.’

  Brégenne closed her eyes briefly. ‘I’m sorry, Irilin. Maybe I was wrong. I had to watch the gauntlet strip him down to bones.’ She paused. ‘You won’t recognize him.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ Irilin said, though she looked a little less sure.

  ‘You say this gauntlet pulled him through the wall?’ Hagdon asked.

  Brégenne sighed. ‘Don’t ask me how. No power can turn a body incorporeal.’

  ‘Except a Starborn’s,’ Irilin said. ‘Like when Kyndra fought the Khronostians.’

  Brégenne felt a strange pang. Was it protectiveness or pride? ‘How is Kyndra?’ she asked quietly.

  ‘Different,’ Irilin said.

  She didn’t have to say more; Brégenne knew what she meant. Kyndra: the girl she’d rescued from a burning town, whom she�
��d brought to Naris, the young woman who had ended the Breaking and the Madness, who’d saved the citadel … gone.

  Power always came with a price.

  10

  Char

  Mother.

  As he waited on the steps of the Chime – the chamber where Ma had broken the mandala’s hold – Char’s insides roiled. He found himself looking at Ma, but she wouldn’t return his gaze. Her face was carefully blank; he knew the expression well. Whatever she felt, Ma was determined to hide it. She was good at hiding.

  Char tried to catch hold of his feelings, to separate them, but they were a jumble he could not unpick. The Lleu-yelin waited impassively. Their aloofness reminded him of Kyndra – the new Kyndra – and the way she stood, gaze introverted, completely unaware that she wasn’t alone. If the Lleu-yelin were a feeling people, they kept it as well hidden as Ma.

  Perhaps it was his years as a human that made him this way. Char was only just beginning to grasp the edges of what it meant to be Lleu-yelin, to witness centuries come and go, to be so removed from the world. It was the opposite of everything he had experienced in Genge’s caravan, living each day on a razor’s edge. Every slave they’d captured and sold reinforced life’s transitory nature. Nothing lasts forever.

  But here, amidst this grey city dug out of the mountain’s heart, was the sense that some things did last forever. The world’s problems were far away.

  Then why had the Lleu-yelin given ambertrix to Sartya?

  Char knew he was using these thoughts to avoid the more personal and pressing one. Ekaar. His mother’s name. She was here, only moments away. Once he’d dreamed of finding his parents, of asking them why they’d abandoned him. But that was a lie Ma had told to hide his heritage. Over the years, his yearning for them had turned to anger and then slowly to indifference. Ma was the only parent and friend he needed. He glanced at her again and this time caught her whipping her gaze away.

  Ekaar. What would she look like? What would he say? She was a stranger who—

  Wingbeats put an end to his fevered musing. Char looked up to see two dragons approaching. One was Sesh’s mate; the other was black and carried a rider.

  Char’s throat tightened. The black dragon’s scales were the same teardrop shape as his own, the same dusky hue. Her eyes were violet. She landed and her rider, a male, slipped gracefully off her back. He was tall, scaled skin somewhere between orange and black and his eyes –

  Yellow. Yellow like mine.

  Ekaar took a clawed, tentative step. ‘Orkaan?’

  He found he couldn’t move. His gaze swept over her: she was larger than he, her ruff finer, talons golden – painted? – he wasn’t sure. Her horns were the same shape as his: sweeping up and back.

  ‘Is it you?’

  Still he couldn’t move. The male rider stood silently beside Ekaar, his gaze equally intense. His claws were yellow-tipped, like the flickering tongues of fire.

  ‘Go to her, Boy.’

  Ma’s words were quiet; only for him. She stood with one hand on his hide, but lifted it when Ekaar’s eyes swept over her. Char had felt it tremble. Slowly, he descended the wide steps. Pausing on the last, he looked back at Ma. She nodded encouragement, but her eyes were a portal to her thoughts. Pain and pride, a flash of jealousy, bitterness, resignation – all of it disappeared between blinks. Char wanted to go to her, to throw his arms about her neck. His arms, however, were spiked and talon-tipped; they would harm her now. Unable to look any longer, he turned back to Ekaar and her mate.

  Ekaar seemed to understand something of what had passed between them. Her violet eyes had narrowed to slits, but widened when he came to stand before her. She lowered her head as if to scent him. ‘It is you,’ she said, her voice the softest thunder.

  Perhaps he sensed something Char did not, for the yellow-eyed male placed a comforting hand on Ekaar’s hide. ‘I do not understand,’ she said. ‘It seems I held you only moments ago, yet here you are, a risling.’

  ‘The Khronostians trapped you,’ Char said awkwardly, uncomfortable under the general scrutiny, ‘for twenty years.’ He hesitated, head swinging round to point at Ma. ‘Ma rescued me. She raised me.’

  ‘A human dared to take you from me?’

  ‘We were separated in the attack,’ Char said quickly. ‘Ma knew the du-alakat would kill a helpless infant.’

  His words only seemed to inflame Ekaar. She took a threatening step towards Ma, a growing rumble coming from her throat. ‘Lies. She acted out of avarice, as all her kind do. She saw an opportunity and she stole you.’

  When she took another step towards Ma, violence in her violet eyes, Char found his wings spreading, surprised to hear a dreadful hissing coming from his throat.

  Ekaar froze at the sound, staring at him. He sensed her shock, as if he’d thrown a terrible insult. ‘Orkaan.’

  Char did not back down. ‘If she wished me harm, do you really think I’d be standing here today?’

  They glared at each other for a few fierce moments before Ekaar’s spiked ruff flattened against her neck. ‘I do not know you,’ she said, ‘you are a stranger to me.’ And she took off in an angry gust.

  Char lowered his wings. Guilt wanted to overwhelm him, but he stopped it. She had threatened Ma.

  ‘Apologies,’ said the rider she’d left behind. ‘She’s always been like that. Quick to anger, quick to forgive. But stubborn.’

  ‘Sounds familiar,’ Ma murmured.

  The rider heard her. ‘Indeed?’ He was the very opposite of Ekaar, relaxed and smiling. ‘I am Arvaka,’ he said to Char, ‘your sire.’

  It was so casual Char almost failed to grasp the fact that he’d just met his father. ‘There will be time for talk,’ Arvaka said with a glance over his shoulder, ‘but now you should go to her.’

  Char looked at him uncertainly. ‘I don’t think she wants to see me.’

  ‘She expects it. You must understand. Offspring are born to us so rarely and she has missed watching you grow.’ His smile turned sad. ‘We both have.’

  ‘Then I will go.’ Char glanced around until he found Kyndra. The Starborn was standing off to one side, seemingly only half her attention on the scene. She met his gaze and nodded, knowing what he asked. Ma could certainly look out for herself, but Char wasn’t taking any chances.

  ‘I will be quick,’ he said.

  ‘I’d make no promises,’ Arvaka warned.

  Char hoped his running leap didn’t look as clumsy to the watching Lleu-yelin as it felt. He followed Ekaar’s retreating scent; her smell reminded him of the desert evening, of the air after a burning day. She wasn’t flying very fast – perhaps Arvaka was right and she did want to talk. Char found her atop one of the rugged walls, where she perched like a great eagle. He landed with difficulty beside her.

  ‘You chose to take after me. I am glad.’

  It took Char a moment to understand what she meant. ‘Yes,’ he said, remembering with a shudder the change that had overtaken him during the battle on the steps of Khronosta. ‘I suppose I did.’

  ‘It is fitting,’ she replied.

  ‘I’m sorry we don’t know each other,’ Char began awkwardly when she said no more. ‘I’m sorry that I wasn’t here.’ He hesitated, went on. ‘But Ma is a good person. She did the best she could.’ He wasn’t about to go into their life with Genge; there were some things Ekaar was better off not knowing. ‘If not for Khronosta, none of this would have happened.’

  ‘You say twenty years have passed,’ she said, gazing out at the grey expanse, ‘but when I look at you, I see the infant I held only hours ago, at least so it seems.’

  Char’s throat tightened. He didn’t know what to say.

  ‘I do not understand.’ She swung her head to look at him. ‘Why would Khronosta punish us so?’

  ‘To cripple Sartya,’ Char answered.

  ‘Ah,’ Ekaar breathed. ‘The Ambertrix Concord.’

  ‘I think I can guess what that is.’ He shook his head, ruffling his mane. �
��Why ally with Sartya?’

  ‘Why not?’

  Char blinked. ‘Some friends of mine would say the empire is oppressive and cruel. That it imprisons or slaughters any who oppose it.’

  Ekaar’s claws left gouges in the rock. ‘When have humans ever done any different?’

  ‘All right,’ Char conceded, remembering Genge. ‘But Sartya only maintained its power with Lleu-yelin help. What did you get out of such a deal?’

  ‘The Concord was agreed with Sartya’s emperors by the Chimer, not I,’ Ekaar said a touch defensively. ‘But you ask what we received in exchange. The answer is knowledge.’

  Char snorted, a coil of bluish steam drifting from his nostrils. ‘Knowledge? You’re dragons.’

  ‘We,’ Ekaar corrected him. ‘You have worn the human skin too long.’

  ‘What could you possibly learn from Sartya?’

  ‘You would know this had you grown up under my wings.’ She refolded them fussily. ‘Who do you think designed Magtharda’s streets, the amberstrazatrix mechanisms that facilitate the luxuries we enjoy?’

  ‘Amberstrazatrix?’

  ‘Sartya calls it ambertrix.’

  ‘I can see why they shortened it.’ Then the impact of her words hit him and Char felt his eyes widen. ‘Humans did that? But they would have had to have come here.’

  ‘We brought them. We shared our power, they their power of invention. Both of us benefited.’

  ‘Yes, while the rest of the world was enslaved.’

  The accusatory statement didn’t seem to rile Ekaar. ‘We have little interest in human politics.’

  ‘It won’t perturb you to know that the emperor is dead, then.’

  She stilled. ‘When did this occur?’

  ‘Mere weeks ago.’ Char paused, remembering a conversation he’d had with Ma. ‘But it was bound to happen sooner or later – that was Khronosta’s plan. They weren’t prepared to face you in combat. They knew their losses would be too heavy. So they came up with the time prison instead. All to deprive Sartya of ambertrix. You were never the true target.’