Rhiannon crouched beside the burbling waters of Dovetail creek. It was the first day of spring. Tiny flies sparkled in the shafts of sunlight streaking down through the canopy. Rhiannon gripped a cord running from a stake to the water and drew her wicker fish trap out of the creek. The vase-shaped apparatus had a dozen red-streaked sticklebacks inside. They flipped and flopped and gawped as Rhiannon reached a hand into the trap, drew them out, and flicked them into her basket. Despite taking care to avoid their frills, she got stung three times.
Farther down the stream, Irik was pulling sticklebacks from a second trap. “Ach!” he yelled and sucked his finger. “Faedryn’s smelly balls, how I hate them, Rhiannon. I hate them!”
“Don’t blaspheme. And you’re too impatient. Go slower.”
“And make this take longer than it needs to? No, thank you.”
He grabbed a few more fish from the trap, tossed them into his basket like they were on fire, and shook his hand. The sticklebacks were too small for good eating, but they made great fertilizer for the garden. When they finished emptying the traps, they’d grind the fish up and add the pink slurry to the fresh plantings in the garden.
Rhiannon was preparing to toss the trap into the creek when she saw a streak of black downstream. She caught the beat of mighty wings, the lash of a tail, then it was gone.
“Briar and bramble,” Irik said. “Did you see that?”
“Yes.”
They stared at each other. Then, without another word, they put down their baskets and sprinted downstream until the creek flattened at a ford; then they leapt from stone to stone across the ford with practiced ease and bolted toward a meadow, the onyx’s likely landing spot. By the time they reached the meadow, Rhiannon’s legs were burning and she thought she might throw up.
Irik, breathing just as hard, pointed to a stand of pampas grass. Careful of the sharp leaves, they pushed through it, crouched, and peered through the tall stalks. At the center of the meadow was the largest onyx dragon Rhiannon had ever seen.
Irik whispered, “She’s as big as a bloody citadel.”
“How do you know it’s a vixen?”
“Her size, for one. Plus, bulls have big frills between their horns. Hers is small. And look at her tail. Bull’s tails are more rounded, like a water oak.”
“How do you know so much?”
“Remember the book on dragons that went missing last year?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s under my mattress.”
Rhiannon had seen only a few dragons in her life, mostly in Andalingr’s eyrie, and they’d all been from afar, but this one seemed to dwarf those silvers and brasses. The onyx was nine horses at least, maybe ten. Her scales were jet black with a line of garnet running jaggedly along her sides. Atop her triangular head was a crown of twisted horns. Sharp barbs ran down her neck and back. And her eyes were a sharp, piercing yellow.
She seemed to be growing impatient, fanning the barbed frill at the end of her tail. She spread her wings, arched her head back, and screeched so loud and piercing it made the hair on Rhiannon’s arms stand up.
“Ircundus, enough!” Brother Mayhew bellowed from the far side of the meadow, lugging a saddle and bridle toward the dragon. “Do you want to call all the dragons in Andalingr’s eyrie down on us?”
Brother Mayhew often left the abbey, sometimes for weeks at a time. Whenever anyone asked, he said he was going on rangings to commune with the forest, but it was a lie. Or at least not the whole truth. Rhiannon had once overheard Mother Constance say he flies to the Holt to speak with the Red Knives.
Ircundus twisted her head, rattling the barbs along her neck, and lashed her tail against the earth.
“I know,” Brother Mayhew said, “you’re very fearsome. Now be quiet.”
Ircundus huffed, then settled and allowed Brother Mayhew to approach. Brother Mayhew threw the leather saddle over Ircundus’s back and secured it. He stood in front of the dragon’s snout and held up the bridle. Ircundus spread her jaws and allowed Brother Mayhew to insert the bit and fit the bridle over her massive head.
Irik leaned closer. “Do you think he’s going to speak with Llorn?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you think it’s to do with the wisp?”
“I don’t know. Now shut your gob before that monster hears us.”
Ircundus lowered to the ground, and Brother Mayhew mounted. With a snap of the reins, Ircundus got up on her hind legs, beat her wings, and launched into the air. The rhythmic whump-whump of her wings faded as she soared through the citadels and disappeared.
Rhiannon and Irik headed back toward the creek. Halfway there, Irik said, “What do you think he does with them, the Red Knives?”
“What do any of the Red Knives do? Try to overthrow the imperator.”
Irik kicked a pinecone, sending it flying. “Do you think the empire will find out he’s a Knife? If they do, they’ll call him a heretic, maybe call the whole abbey heretics. They might burn it like the Knives burn the Church temples.”
“Irik, how would I know?”
“I dunno”—he kicked the same pinecone, and it spun off into the undergrowth—“maybe Sister Merida told you something.”
“Sister Merida doesn’t tell me anything,” Rhiannon said.
“I don’t know where he’s going or what he’s going to do when he gets there, okay?”
Irik was silent for a time but he was chewing the inside of one cheek, which he only did when he was worried. “I wish Mother Constance would send Brother Mayhew away.”
“You know she won’t. She’s too worried about what Llorn would do to the abbey if she did.” Seeing how distraught he looked, Rhiannon stopped. “What’s gotten into you?”
Irik stopped, too. “I know I grouse about chores, sometimes, but I don’t know what I’d do if the abbey was burned. I’ve nowhere else to go.”
“We’ll be fine, Irik.”
“How do you know?”
She didn’t, but telling Irik that wouldn’t help. “We’ll be fine.”
They returned to the creek to collect their baskets and hiked back to the abbey in silence. They ground up the sticklebacks in the grinder in the garden shed and spread the smelly meal around the chickpea seedlings.
After evening meal, Rhiannon, Irik, and the other twelve aspirants were set to copying stories by candlelight in the refectory. The room was curved, hollowed out from a citadel tree. Four deep-well windows overlooked the garden and the central walks of the abbey. The two youngest aspirants, Mearah and Ashby, were practicing their penmanship—they weren’t good enough yet to make salable copies. Rhiannon and the others were making manuscripts that would be bound into books and sold in Andalingr. Or sometimes a merchant caravan would buy a crateful to sell in the capitals.
They heard a voice from outside, and Lexie, one of the older acolytes, a tall girl with honey blonde hair, went to the window. “Come see.”
The aspirants shoved their quills into their inkwells and crowded around the windows. Mearah and Ashby squirmed their way to the front and stood on tiptoes. It was dark outside, but below a pair of lanterns at the brewery doors, Sister Merida was speaking with a woman and two men.
“Who are they?” Mearah asked.
“The stocky one is Aarik,” Lexie answered. “The woman beside him is his beloved, Blythe.”
“You mean his wife?”
“No, dummy. The Knives don’t marry like the empire does. She’s his beloved. The last one is Maladox—”
“He looks like Brother Mayhew!” Mearah blurted.
“He’s his twin brother.”
“Why are they talking to Sister Merida?” Ashby squeaked.
“That’s the question”—Lexie glanced down at Rhiannon—“isn’t it?”
The other aspirants looked at Rhiannon, too, even Irik.
Rhiannon wished she had an umbral ring like Brother Mayhew’s. She’d use it to shrink herself until she disappeared. Aarik was Rhiannon’s uncle, the leader of the Red Knives. Blythe and Maladox were high up, too, right below Aarik himself and Llorn. Whatever the reason for all three having come to the abbey, it was surely to do with the wisp. Or maybe Brother Mayhew had gone missing.
Aarik, Blythe, and Maladox headed inside the brewery, and Sister Merida marched toward the refectory. The aspirants scattered back to their chairs. A short while later, the door to the entry hall groaned open.
Sister Merida called, “Rhiannon?”
Rhiannon stood, feeling all eyes on her. “Yes?”
“Come with me.”
Ignoring the stares, Rhiannon followed Sister Merida from the room and closed the door behind her. Sister Merida led her out of the refectory and into the chill night air.
“Your uncle wants to speak with you,” the sister snapped as they headed toward the brewery. “You’ll answer his questions in a forthright manner. No twisting the facts. Understand?”
“What do they want to know?”
“They want to know about your summoning beside the swamp.”
“I only did as Brother Mayhew asked . . .”
“I know.” She opened the brewery door. “Just tell them the truth, all right?”
Rhiannon nodded and entered. Sister Merida closed the door behind her.
The brewery was a circular room with a high ceiling. Aarik and Blythe were staring into a big copper brew kettle. Maladox was walking along a high shelf of wooden casks.
“Uh . . . hello?” Rhiannon said to no one in particular.
The three of them stopped what they were doing and approached her.
Aarik said, “Rhiannon, you remember Blythe.”
“Hello,” Rhiannon said.
Blythe, pretty like a kestrel, nodded stiffly. This close, Rhiannon could see scars on her face.
“And this is Maladox,” Aarik went on.
Rhiannon nodded to him. “Charmed.” She felt like an idiot immediately after she said it. She’d read it in a book once. It had sounded so elegant, but now her ears were burning.
Maladox laughed. “Charmed indeed.”
Aarik glared at him for a second, then turned back to Rhiannon. “You’re nervous, I can see that. But you needn’t be. We only wish to hear what you did for Llorn.”
That goddessdamned wisp. I should’ve left and hidden in the forest that day until Llorn and Sister Dereka left. “Am I in trouble?”
Aarik smiled. “No, Rhiannon.”
“Is Llorn in trouble?”
His smile faded slightly. “Never mind that. What did Llorn want?”
“He wanted me to summon a wisp.”
Blythe said, “And do what with it?”
“Make it remember who it used to be.”
Maladox looked like he wanted to spit. “Was Sister Dereka was there?”
“Yes.”
“Did you teach her how to do it?”
“No.”
“Did she ask you to?”
Rhiannon shook her head. “No. None of them did.”
Aarik said, “Did my brother tell you why he wanted you to do this?”
“No.”
“Did he mention your mother?”
The question caught Rhiannon off guard. “No. Why would he have?”
Aarik shook his head. “No reason.”
“Tell me all of it,” Blythe said, “from the moment Llorn arrived. Come, sit.”
Rhiannon followed the other three to a round table near some big sacks with stamps on them. They asked her many questions, and she answered them in as forthright a manner as she could. They wanted to know what Llorn’s mood was like, and Brother Mayhew’s and Sister Merida’s too. They asked if Brother Mayhew had given her any indication why Llorn wanted her to awaken a wisp. In the end, Rhiannon felt she hadn’t been very useful, but she had been truthful. Still, she didn’t know why Maladox looked so angry.
Aarik walked her outside and led her toward the beehives. On the way, he said, “I fear I haven’t been a very good uncle to you, Rhiannon. I’m sorry I haven’t visited more often.”
“It’s all right.”
“No, it isn’t.” They arrived at the bee hives, six wooden boxes on stilts. “But I’m working on something that will help. One day soon, I should be able to come to the abbey more freely.”
“You don’t come because of Uncle Llorn, right?”
“Yes. When your mother died, Llorn became very . . . angry. I think he intends to quench his anger with imperial blood.”
“What about you?” Rhiannon asked.
“Me?” Aarik turned from the beehives to look at her. “No. The killing, it has to stop.”
“And my mother? What would she think?”
“She’d likely have sided with Llorn, but your mother was shrewd. She’d be angry with me. She’d say I’m siding with the empire, approving their bloodshed. But I like to think that, given time, she’d side with peace.”
“And what is it you’re doing?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“But I want to help.”
Aarik smiled handsomely, and the weight on his shoulders seemed to lift. “One day soon, I may ask you to do just that. Until then, keep your head down. Study hard and listen to your elders.”
“Yes, Uncle Aarik.”
Aarik, Blythe, and Maladox spoke with Sister Merida for a short while, then left the abbey. Sister Merida sent Rhiannon to the dormitory. The other aspirants pestered her to tell them what Aarik wanted, but she refused to say, and eventually they stopped.
Over the snoring and the crickets, Rhiannon heard someone whispering. She thought it was the other aspirants talking about her but then realized it was the trees. They sensed a storm brewing, and it made her think of Mother Constance’s history lectures. They’d bored her at the time, but now she wished she’d paid closer attention. If she had, maybe she’d be able to tell if the coming storm would be like Ransom’s War, a decade of killing to appease a quintarch’s grief. Or maybe it would be longer and more painful, like the century-long Talon Wars. Or maybe it would be as bad as the Ruining, when gods fought and mortals wept.
Unable to tell, Rhiannon felt like a leaf, to be blown about in the coming gale.