Forty-One

When the door to Dagan’s cottage burst open and the wind howled in, Safire looked up, expecting Asha.

It was Roa who stood in the frame. Rain drenched her lavender dress and her dark eyes were wide with something like fear.

“They took him.”

The dragon queen stumbled into the room. Safire rose to catch her, gripping Roa’s ice-cold arms as the words rushed out of her. “I told her I would bring a war to her door . . . but she took him anyway.” She didn’t need to say his name. It was clear on her face that she was speaking about Dax. “She imprisoned him.”

Safire’s stomach dropped. “On what grounds?”

The door creaked on its hinges, hanging open and letting the rain in. Safire was about to leave Roa in front of the fire and shut it when two more figures entered.

“Roa?”

Torwin and Asha stepped into the cottage, just as wet as the queen. Rain rolled down their faces. As Torwin shut the door, Asha joined Roa and Safire on the carpet, her brow furrowing. “What’s happened?”

Roa explained that as soon as Dax gave Safire’s refusal to the empress, she accused him of being in league with dangerous fugitives and took him and their guards into custody.

Roa, however, was left untouched.

“I told her this would incite a war between our two nations. I reminded her that we not only had a formidable army but dragons at our disposal.” She looked from Asha to Safire. “She was unyielding.”

“But she didn’t take you into custody,” said Asha, her thoughts churning in her eyes as she stared down at the Skyweaver’s knife, now lying across her palms.

Roa shook her head. “I believe she wanted me to find you.”

“You mean she wants us to come for him,” said Safire. She had refused to hand Eris over, and now Dax was being punished for it. “This is my fault.”

“No.” Roa reached for her wrist, squeezing tight. “It’s mine.” She let go, looking down to her lap. “We so badly need those seeds. I let Dax convince himself—I let him convince both of us—that Eris deceived you. I’m so sorry, Safire.” Roa shook her head, holding Safire’s gaze once more. “You should know that he defended you in the end. It’s why she’s punishing him.”

Safire swallowed the lump in her throat, thinking of Kor and the others. Pirates who hadn’t been given a trial. Would the empress give Dax a trial? Would she dare execute a king?

“I need to go,” she said, rising from the wood floor. “Before the worst happens.”

“Wait,” said Asha, stepping between Safire and the door leading outside. “There’s something else. Something you both should know.”

Torwin seemed to anticipate what she was about to say, because he emerged from the room beyond this one with a scroll, handing it to Asha. She unrolled it across the table beneath the window, revealing three pieces of parchment. She laid them out side by side.

Roa rose from the carpet and joined them.

“The stones I showed you?” Asha said to Safire. “There are stories carved into them, worn away by time and the harsh elements here. Dagan says they’ve been there since before his great-grandfather lived.”

She touched the words scribbled across the parchment, many scratched out and rewritten.

“From what I’ve managed to decipher, they tell the story of three gods: the god of souls, the god of shadows, and the god of tides.” Picking up the parchment, Asha handed it to Safire. “The god of tides disguised herself as a human woman and convinced Skyweaver to kill the Shadow God. Only Skyweaver couldn’t do it. She imprisoned him instead—in a world between worlds. Somewhere no one would ever find him.”

Safire handed back the parchment, every inch of her body wanting to go. To mount Sorrow and fly to the citadel. “I don’t understand what this has to do with Dax.”

“It has to do with the empress.” Asha looked out the window in the direction of the sea. “According to the stories, Leandra is the god of tides.”

The room fell silent.

Safire thought of the paintings in the citadel. Ones that told the story of Leandra coming to save the Star Isles and petitioning the Skyweaver for help. She shook off the strangeness of it. Mortal or immortal, it didn’t matter what Leandra was. Dax was imprisoned. She needed to get him out of there.

Roa must have seen it in her eyes, because she said, “I’m coming with you.”

“Me, too,” said Torwin.

Safire thought of Kor and the other pirates, executed without a trial. She thought of the scrin burned to the ground with all the weavers inside it.

The likelihood of any of them—of all of them—getting hurt . . .

Safire shoved the thought away. She hated to think about it.

“It has to be me. Alone.” She looked from one friend to the next. “It’s my job to protect you.”

Asha reached for her hand, lacing their fingers together. Those black eyes met hers. “No, Saf. We protect each other.” She squeezed hard and didn’t let go. “I’m in no danger so long as Kozu’s with me. We’ll follow at a close distance and keep to the sky. Just in case you need us.”

“I’ll return to Firgaard,” said Torwin, looking from Safire to Roa. “If she refuses to release Dax, we’ll want the army on its way.”

Roa nodded her agreement. “And I’ll propose a truce. If she’s willing to hand Dax over, we’ll leave these islands immediately, quietly and peacefully. If she refuses”—her eyes darkened at the thought—“then we go to war.”

But there were four of them and only three dragons.

It took some coaxing, but Sorrow seemed to understand he was needed, that their friend was in danger. Despite his fear, the skittish dragon seemed willing enough to do his part. So Torwin and Sorrow headed across the sea while the rest of them flew for Axis. Once the grid-like city streets came into view, Asha and Kozu stayed in the sky, keeping their distance from the citadel. Roa and Safire continued on, landing Spark in the empress’s courtyard while the rain lashed the earth around them.

They were swarmed by Lumina soldiers immediately. Spark hissed and spread her wings while Roa tried to soothe her.

“Go,” she whispered against Spark’s scaly throat, pushing gently. “Find Asha and Kozu.”

Spark looked conflicted as the soldiers dragged Roa away from her. She seemed to understand, though. And before the soldiers came for her, too, Spark flung herself into the sky.

Safire watched the dragon’s golden form disappear into the mist as they shoved her inside.

They marched Safire into a familiar, circular room with rain-streaked windows on every wall. As the doors slammed shut behind her, she turned to find herself alone with four soldiers at her back, guarding the entrance.

Roa wasn’t behind her.

“Where have you taken the dragon queen?” she demanded.

“My business is with you, Safire. Not your queen.”

Safire looked to find Leandra standing at the widest window, looking out into the storm.

“If it’s me you want,” said Safire, “then release Dax. You’re already treading on dangerous ground by imprisoning him without just cause. If you don’t let him go, you’ll have an army at your gate and a horde of dragons burning your city to the ground.”

Leandra sighed, staring out toward the water. “What are armies and dragons compared to the power of the sea?” Not for the first time, Safire noticed how she seemed neither young nor old, but both at once. Ageless.

Asha’s story clanged in Safire’s mind.

“I think I’ll keep your precious king and his wife,” said Leandra. “At least long enough to coax your cousin down from the sky.”

Safire narrowed her eyes. “Asha is the Namsara. Kozu will eat you alive before he lets you anywhere near her.”

“We’ll see,” said Leandra, clasping her hands behind her back. “She has something that doesn’t belong to her. Something I’ve been hunting for a very long time. In the wrong hands, it could unleash a monster. One I thought I put to rest a long time ago.”

The Skyweaver’s knife? Safire wondered, thinking of the blade sheathed at Asha’s hip.

“Now.” Leandra turned toward Safire. “You have been a thorn in my side since you first walked through my gate uninvited. You will need to be disposed of.” In the window at her back, thunder cracked, followed by a flicker of lightning. “Before you leave us, though, you should know: I did what you failed to do. I captured your precious Death Dancer.”

An uneasy feeling twisted in Safire’s stomach.

“Liar,” she said, her hands bunching at her sides.

The empress continued, as if she hadn’t heard her. “Tomorrow I’ll give her the same punishment I give every enemy of the Skyweaver. Do you know what that is?”

Safire heard the breath of the soldier behind her. Felt the shadow of them fall across her back. Her spine straightened and she reached for her throwing knife—but they’d taken it from her.

“No,” said Leandra. “Of course you don’t. Let me tell you.”

A cloth sack came down over her head. Safire gasped for breath as something tightened around her neck and a familiar bitter smell filled her nostrils.

Scarp berries.

Safire held her breath, trying to resist their poison.

“First,” the empress said as Safire struggled to fight the soldiers off, “I’ll take Eris to the immortal scarps.”

Safire couldn’t hold her breath forever. Soon enough, she felt her arms growing heavy and slack. Felt her legs giving out beneath her.

“There, I will cut off her hands.”

At those words, Safire struggled harder, even as that dull fog crept over her mind, lulling her, insisting that she close her eyes and sleep.

“And then,” the empress said as the world began to fade, “I’ll watch the daughter of my enemy die a slow and agonizing death.”