gray clouds that had been hanging in the sky for days, glowering but never quite getting around to storming. Then he saw a shape flying in the clouds. Presumably, the same shape the child had seen.
“That’s no dragonhawk,” he whispered.
“Vaskar?”
“Probably. It’s big enough.”
“Where’s he going?”
Gaven glanced at the sun, still low in the sky. “More or less eastward. To the Mournland. To raise the Sky Caves of Thieren Kor.”
They watched the dragon soar in and out of the clouds for a long moment.
“What do you think it will be like, if the Storm Dragon succeeds?”
A vision from his nightmare flashed into Gaven’s mind: numberless legions of soldiers marching beneath bone-white banners bearing a blasphemous rune, leaving carnage and devastation in their wake. Senya and the coach around him suddenly fell away, and he stood on the desolate plain in the army’s wake. Vultures flapped their heavy wings and peered at him sidelong before returning to their grisly feast. In the distance, above the marching legions, dragons soared among the clouds.
“Gaven?”
He was back in the coach, though he still felt the clammy air of the battlefield on his skin. Senya stared at him, eyes wide, her back pressed against the window. He curled around his stomach, resting his forehead against the smooth wood of the bench in front of him.
“Are you all right?” Senya whispered.
“Do I look all right?”
“What is it? What did you see?”
He turned his head back and forth, feeling the wood against his skin. Senya put a tender hand on his back, and he tried to concentrate on the sensation of her touch.
“I don’t want to see any more,” he said. “I just want to be here, now. Blind like everybody else.”
“Lady Alastra?”
Rienne looked up from the cup of warm wine she cradled in her hands. The messenger was a young half-orc cursed with a face that could break mirrors, with wide-set black eyes and a nose and mouth that were both like ragged holes in his gray skin. He wore a sleeveless shirt that showed off his muscles, and his black hair was cropped close to his head.
“Yes?” she said, trying to smile.
He looked awkward, uncomfortable around women perhaps. She noticed a flush in his cheeks, and he didn’t meet her gaze. “Krathas sent me,” he stammered.
“Of course he did. You have news?”
“I’m to tell you that he has arrived by Orien coach. Er-not Krathas. He’s the one who told me. But I don’t know who he is. Uh, I mean, I know who Krathas is. I don’t know who has arrived by Orien coach.”
A brain to match his face, Rienne thought. “I do. Thank you.”
The messenger’s smile revealed jagged rows of crooked and broken teeth, and did nothing to improve his looks. Rienne returned the smile as best she could, then ignored the boy as he murmured some pleasantry, bowed, and made his exit. She sipped her wine, trying to calm her nerves and her pounding heart.
Gaven is here, she thought. Now what?
Gaven was dimly aware of Senya saying something beside him, just as he had vaguely noticed the busy plaza they stood in. But the thing that had captivated his attention since they emerged from the Orien station was a ship, ringed with a circle of dancing flame, floating in the air across the plaza. She was moored to a tower that proudly flew the kraken banner of House Lyrandar. A Lyrandar airship.
He had to fly one.
His mind spun, trying to remember all he had learned about the research his house had been doing, trying to make these ships work. The ring of fire must be a manifestation of a fire elemental bound to the ship, probably granting her propulsion rather than levitation. Piloting the ship, then, was almost certainly just a matter of imposing one’s will on the elemental bound into her, not too different from piloting an oceangoing Lyrandar galleon. He wondered if his dragonmark would help him do that-his lack of a mark had hindered him in his previous attempts to pilot galleons.
“Gaven!” Senya pulled on his arm. He tore his eyes away from the ship-the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen-and looked at her.
“What do we do now?” she said.
Her question jolted him back to the present, and to something that he had been turning over in his mind for days. “I’m not sure we do anything.”
“What?” She arched an eyebrow at him.
“Listen, Senya. I meant to have this conversation with you back in Korranberg, but we got so caught up in… things, and I never got around to it. But now that we’re here, you could go anywhere you want, do anything you want. It doesn’t make any sense for you to shackle yourself to me, especially since there’s a strong possibility of real shackles in my future. I have no idea what I’m going to do, and I don’t want to tangle you up in whatever mess I end up making. I think we should go our separate ways.”
“Without me you’ll be bound for the cold northeast in a week’s time.”
“I can handle myself. And besides, I know people here.”
“After all these years? People move, you know. Or die.”
“That’s not the point.”
“The point is you want to get rid of me.”
“Yes,” Gaven said. He watched her eyes narrow and her nostrils flare in anger.
“Too bad. I’m not leaving.”
Gaven sighed. “Senya, I appreciate all you’ve done for me already. I have enjoyed your company these last couple of weeks. But I couldn’t-I don’t want you to suffer because of your association with me.”
“It’s too late for that. Ever since the lightning rail, they know me.”
“Those people won’t be bothering us again.”
“No, but I’m sure they checked the passage records in Korranberg. They know who you’re traveling with-they know my name. And that’s all they need.”
Gaven put his hands to his temples. “I’m sorry, Senya. I wish-”
“You seem to have forgotten that I chose this. Not just in Darguun, either. I was in this up to my neck when I got on that wyvern’s back in Q’barra. I’ve made my choicees. So what do we do next?”
He shook his head. “Let’s see if Krathas is still alive.”
“Lady Alastra, there’s one more thing you should know.” Krathas spoke cautiously, and Rienne moved her hand to Maelstrom’s hilt instinctively.
“What?”
“Gaven has not been traveling alone. He has a companion.” Rienne raised her eyebrows, and Krathas flushed. “A woman.”
“That’s his business,” Rienne said, trying to ignore the icy claw touching her heart.
Krathas was visibly relieved. “Just thought you should know.”
“I appreciate your concern, wasted though it may be.”
Krathas inclined his head in a small bow.
“So where is he now?” she asked.
“On his way here.”
“Krathas, would you do me the favor of allowing me to greet Gaven alone?”
“Of course, Lady.” Krathas got to his feet and worked his way around his desk. He laid a hand on her shoulder and smiled. “Olladra’s fortune.”
Rienne returned his smile warmly. “Thank you.”
As Krathas shuffled out the door, she sank into his desk chair, her heart racing. She’d been in Vathirond
