Dragon Blood

"Hero?" I choked. "If Orviden calls me a puppy one more time, I just might bite him."

Kellen stared at me for a moment. "The council meets, I believe, next month. Can you get them all together sooner?"

"You are well-informed," said my uncle approvingly. "But my son Beckram and Ward's sister, Ciarra, just had a new baby girl, the first of her generation. Reason enough to hold an informal celebration at Hurog."

"Fine," I said. "To celebrate my niece's birth I'll see to it that the lords of Shavig attend. If they understand what Jakoven holds, they'll see that they have no choice."

Rosem said, "Alizon has the support of most of Oranstone—but they are tired of warfare there. Things are better since the Vorsag were driven out, but there are still many Oranstonian lords who have very little power over their own lands."

"Avinhelle is behind Jakoven," said Tisala. "But there are a few men I believe will support Kellen where they haven't supported Alizon." She turned to Kellen. "Remember, we haven't told them that we intend to put you on the throne rather than Alizon, yet. Seaford will split, I think, from what my people have overheard. And there are several powerful Oranstonian lords who are making noises of support for Alizon, but may not support Kellen."

Kellen raised his cup to me and said, "May we all outlive this year." Soberly cups were raised and drunk.

I dreamt I was back at the Asylum that night, but fortunately I woke up before I woke anyone else. The camp was quiet when I got up and went for a walk.

When I got to the broken wall that looked out over Estian, Tisala was already there.

"What keeps you up so late?" I asked, careful to keep my face in the deeper shadow so she couldn't see the remnants of my nightmare there.

She glanced at me, and then returned her gaze to the city below us. She shook her head. "Have you ever felt like you've stepped into someone else's story?"

"No," I said, intrigued. "Whose story have you stumbled into?"

"I'm not sure right now. Kellen's? Oreg's? Yours?" She looked at her hands where they lay on a broken stone block, capable hands that could wield a sword with rare skill.

But she wasn't seeing what I did. She was looking at her left hand. The scarring was bad—even in the dim light of stars and moon I could see that.

I took her hand in mine; it was damp and tasted salty when I kissed it. I didn't think she'd been sitting in the dark sweating.

"It took something away, didn't it," I said to her tear-wet hand. "I didn't really understand before."

"What did? What didn't you understand?" she asked, trying to get her hand back.

I held on tighter. "Being strapped down while someone hurts you. Being helpless. Even out of the walls of that cell, I'm not free of the Asylum—any more than the torturer's death freed you of his tormenting."

She stopped struggling and stared at my face. Finally she reached up and touched my cheek, tracing the path of my tears, invisible in the darkness.

After a moment she turned back to look at the lights.

"It makes you feel filthy and small," I said, then laughed painfully. "I'm not used to feeling small."

"And guilty," she whispered. "As if you should have been able to stop it like the hero in one of Tosten's songs."

Her damaged hand gripped mine and the strength of that grasp was a testimony to Oreg's healing skills. Together we watched the night and felt a little better for each other's company.

When I slept at last, I dreamt I was small with dirty hands and ragged clothes. Hunger spurred me to dig through the trash that covered the cobbled alleyway, hoping that there was some scrap of dry bread that the rats and wild dogs had left behind. I was so intent on my quest that I didn't hear them until a large hand grasped the back of my neck.

They dragged me kicking and screaming before a harsh-faced man who said, "Purple eyes. This is the one."

I awoke in the early hours of the morning and used the dream to find my brother.

10—GARRANON IN ESTIAN

Only as adults do we understand our childhood.

The sky was yet dark when Garranon arose from his temporary quarters, walked the corridors of the castle, and entered the rooms that had been his since he first came to Estian. His things had been moved out yesterday at the king's orders—Jakoven thought they'd been placed in a different suite, but Garranon had sent them home to Oranstone.

The malachite floors gleamed in the light of the torch he carried from the corridor. The floor was older than the walls, one of the few things Jakoven had left when he rebuilt the castle. Green, thought Garranon, green for the king's favorite, the color of Oranstonian whores plying their trade. Appropriate.

The king had dismissed him from these rooms, the rooms that belonged to the king's whore.

All alone in the suite that had been his, Garranon closed his eyes. He was so tired. For two decades Garranon had been hostage for his brother, for his homeland, and now he'd outlived his usefulness. When the time was right he would retreat to his home like Haverness had, and not return to court. Surely the king would allow him that, after all these years.

He felt hollow and useless. All of the sacrifices he'd made had ended at nothing. He was no longer of importance to the king, and because of it he was no longer of importance to Oranstone.

The suite where he'd lived for the past two decades felt curiously abandoned without his things. Garranon supposed he ought to open drawers and wardrobes to make sure the castle servants had gotten everything, but instead he wandered from one room to the next watching the flickering torchlight reflect in the polished floors.

The king had found a new favorite. Someone more important to him than Jade Eyes—who had been as much a weapon to be used against Garranon as he had been a serious rival for the position of king's favorite. The king had been very angry with Garranon for choosing to fight for Oranstone after Jakoven had determined that Oranstone should fall to the Vorsag before he mounted a defense. That Haverness's Hundred had managed to throw back the invasion had rubbed the king's wounded pride with salt.

Jade Eyes had been a punishment for Garranon and a warning. This new favorite was something else—Jade Eyes had not been triumphant when he'd delivered the message for Garranon to vacate his apartment.

Garranon's reign as the king's favorite was ended, and with it any hope he held to help his people. Not that he'd been able to do much these past few years. It was time to go home and leave Jakoven to his new plaything.

Why did that hurt?

He touched an embroidered couch absently and a memory came to him. He'd been in the garden chatting quietly with the queen, so it must have been before the young Hurog's death a few years ago had driven her to living in solitude on her family estates.

A servant had dropped a tray of food, distracting him from his conversation. When he'd looked up his eye caught the face of one of the lesser nobles, a man he'd seen any number of times over the years, and for an instant Garranon was once again a terrified young boy being raped in the remains of his mother's gardens and the insignificant Avinhellish nobleman was holding his wrists.

Unable to deal with the unexpected memory, Garranon had turned without a word and retreated to this embroidered couch. He hadn't noticed the king in the garden, but Jakoven had followed him only a few moments later.

At the king's insistence, Garranon had, haltingly, told him what happened that long ago day while the king held him until he was finished. Their lovemaking that night had been sweet and gentle.

Garranon jerked his hand away from the couch as if it had burned him.