Blood Warrior

was focused on the altar.

Tallis narrowed his eyes. A man stood where the Sun had delivered her pandering benediction. He was tall, with a commanding presence. His hair was brown, his features sharp, his clothing black on black. Among those gathered in the valley, his layers of leather and protective plates of silver armor stood out like a burn on a child’s skin.

The Sun was a warmonger in silks, but this stranger was pure violence. No pretense. Grim lines flanked his mouth. A sharp, narrow nose and brow that was no lighter for its elegance. Those features weren’t masked. They were solid and brazen and true to Tallis’s every sense. And what he saw was a remarkable resemblance to the Sun.

“You were expecting someone else,” the stranger intoned, his words hypnotic. They echoed back across the valley like a one-two punch of spellbinding power. “You were expecting a savior. I’m here to say there is no such thing. And there’s no such thing as reconciliation between the factions of the Indranan. There never will be.”

Tallis turned and grabbed the Sun by the scruff and dragged her to the tent’s opening. Her face had gone chalk white. The color looked sick and unnatural on a Dragon King, but it was especially disturbing when it leeched the soft charisma of her beauty.

“Who is that?” Tallis was more agitated than he would have liked, but the unexpected was always a threat.

“That.” She swallowed. “That is Pashkah of the Northern Indranan. My brother.”

—

If skin could turn to ice, Kavya’s would have had more in common with the glaciers up the Rohtang Pass.

She hadn’t seen Pashkah since she was twelve years old. No matter that span of years, she would never mistake his stance, his face—the face he hadn’t bothered to disguise. He’d never needed to. Even as a boy, he’d been able to hold a freakishly blank expression so well that not even she or Baile, their sister, could gauge his emotions. Demons and monsters and ghouls were nothing compared to his uncanny nothingness. Had she been able to understand him, with telepathy or her senses, she might have been able to save Baile.

But in those final moments of her life, Baile hadn’t wanted to be saved. Before Pashkah had taken her head, she’d wanted his just as much.

The triplet who wielded the sword gained the power, leaving Kavya unaffected. She hadn’t just remained in her childhood home so she could become his next victim. She’d run.

Now, having reduced their family to a series of grim victories, Pashkah stood within a few hundred yards of success. He would take Kavya’s gift and add it to the power he’d stolen from Baile. He would become thrice-cursed with his true potential sewn together in violence—while the shrieks of two dead sisters would destroy his sanity.

Tallis shook her by the hair. “What is this, part of your big announcement? Bring in muscle to make sure everyone complies?”

“This is my brother having found me after decades of searching. This is . . . this is the brink of chaos. Worse than you even thought of threatening with two barbarian swords.”

She jerked free of his hold and stared him down. At least now she knew who he was. His true identity.

Tallis of Pendray. The Heretic.

She still wasn’t able to read his mind, but his seax held residual memories so strong that she’d caught flashes of his true self. His identity. His life on the run.

A man of myth. But still a man.

“You don’t need telepathy to sense the panic.” She tipped her chin toward where Pashkah owned the altar —the altar she’d hoped would be host to an evening of peaceful triumph. “Those are lambs being herded toward a butcher’s knife. This man is fear and danger. Nothing I’ve done, no matter your delusions, will match the crimes he’s capable of committing.”

“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.