“How?” barked Tomaaz. “By heading beyond the Grande Alps and rushing headfirst into a troop of tharuks?”
“Enough, Tomaaz!” Hans snapped.
“Enough? Ezaara’s gone, now Ma’s going, too!” Tomaaz leaped out of his chair, his hands clenched in fists.
“We hid in Lush Valley to avoid Zaarusha’s wrath. Now that she’s found us, there’s no point in staying.” Hans’ eyes blazed like emeralds. “There’s nothing left for us here.”
“But Lofty, my friends …”
“He’s right, Hans,” Marlies said. “We’ve made a home here. It’s hard to leave.” Hans had been itching to leave for years, but her heart was breaking for Tomaaz. For the lies they’d told. “Zaarusha has asked me to find her son. Tomaaz, I have to rescue him for Zaarusha. I must clear my name.” The weight of the dead dragonet had always sat on her shoulders. Now she carried the weight of more of Zaarusha’s offspring. And if she didn’t succeed, that weight would crush her. “I have to go tonight. Now.”
“You, too?” Tomaaz stared at her.
She embraced him. He was so rigid with tension, it was like hugging stone.
Blinking back tears, Marlies picked up her rucksack and headed to the door. “I’m sorry, Son,” she whispered.
“Just get Ezaara back.” Tomaaz’s voice was brittle, like shards of ice snapping underfoot.
Ezaara wouldn’t be coming back. He didn’t fully understand imprinting—the emotional and mental bond that compelled riders to be with their dragons. How could he? They’d never even talked about dragons.
Hans ushered Marlies outside, his hand warm in hers. Dusk had settled, giving her cover for her journey. They walked to the stable and saddled Star. Hans led the horse across the paddock to the copse.
“Here’s your cloak. I wish I was coming with you.” Hans embraced her. “Speed well,” he said, kissing her.
Marlies wrapped her cloak around her. “My cloak always reminds me of Giddi,” she murmured.
“Me too,” Hans said. “May it protect you.”
After kissing Hans again, she climbed upon Star, waved, and rode to the sacred clearing. Dismounting, Marlies bowed before the piaua tree, and placed her hands on its trunk, listening, sensing. The trunk thrummed beneath her fingers. The tree’s leaves stirred, filling the air with a rushing sound, like a giant river cascading through a chasm. Marlies cocked her head, straining to hear the tree’s message.
“Take my berries, witch of blue.”
Piaua berries? Those were usually a last resort—only for the desperate. She shivered. Becoming a witch of blue had never been in her plans.
“Be quick. An enemy is approaching.”
“Thank you,” Marlies said, “for the berries and the warning.”
She rose and plucked two stalks of berries, thrusting them into her healer’s pouch. Marlies swung into the saddle, departing from the clearing as the crack of breaking sticks alerted her to someone’s presence. She glanced back.
Bill was in the clearing with a crow on his shoulder. Staring after her with malice-filled eyes, he grinned.
Digging her heels into Star’s sides, Marlies urged her on through the trees. She’d suspected there was something odd about Bill, the traveling merchant. Today he’d incited Lofty to wager and start a sword fight in the village that drew attention to her children’s skills. As they’d cleared up at the market, Tomaaz had mentioned dragon cloth that Bill had shown Ezaara. And now, this. A prickle ran down her spine. Bill might be a tharuk spy.
There was a caw above her. A crow dived through the trees at her, circled, and flew off. Was it the same one that had been with Bill?
No, that was too strange. Marlies and Star galloped on.
Above the trees, high on the Western Grande Alps, something glinted. A beacon fire, in the pass—a warning that Lush Valley would soon be under attack. Torn between Zaarusha and her family, Marlies reined Star to a halt. Her chest tightened.
All those years ago, she’d fled Zaarusha’s wrath, leaving death in her wake. Now she was abandoning her family when death would soon be visiting.
Death Valley
The creature licked his aching leg, trying to edge his tongue under the biting metal shackle. The dull throb returned the moment he stopped licking. Hunger gnawing at his belly, he limped through the gray haze to the mouth of his cave. He was wearing a furrow in the ground from his endless pacing.
Muffled scrapes reached his ears. Someone was coming. His nostrils flared. Human—sniff—and rotting rat. Daggers of sunlight stabbed his eyes. With a whimper, he pulled his head back into the shadows. A vague memory of days in the sun—sun that hadn’t burned—stirred in his mind, then was swamped by gray fog again.
He growled, letting the rumble build in his throat. As usual, the human ignored him, shambling toward him with his meal—not that he’d call those putrid rat carcasses a meal.
Despite his disgust, he salivated.
Empty-eyed and slack-mouthed, the human dumped the meat in the glaring sunlight.
The creature tried to rear, but fell back when the shackle bit into his leg. Not noticing, the human shuffled off.
The creature lay on his stomach and edged toward the fetid stench, squeezing his eyes shut to stop the burn. Stretching his neck, he snapped up the rotten meat. Blinded and still hungry, he retreated into the darkness.
Scorned
Hans turned away from Marlies’ departing figure, his neck hair prickling and senses alert. The farm was wrapped in night’s shadows. He scanned the fields with dragon sight, but despite everything being peaceful, unease trickled down his spine. Again, he checked his land, then the copse and the river. Nothing there. Why were his nerves so jumpy?
He gazed across the grass, through the walls of his home. Tomaaz was jabbing the coals with a poker, but apart from his son venting his frustration, nothing was amiss. Just to be sure, Hans padded around the farm’s perimeter. By the roadside, the carrot tops feathered
