12

TALON

I’m not hiding in the drake stable. Cleaning my primary mount’s tack and combing her crest feathers is a necessary part of my job. It needs to be my hands oiling her dry spots and my smell pressed into the harness, to firm up our bond. These war drakes are dangerous even when they trust their partner, but if I let others do this work, she might follow the wrong command or decide I don’t belong to her at the worst possible moment.

It is convenient, though, that I need to be here for several hours a day before we depart on Caspian’s grand tour. Nearly everyone on the council wants a piece of my time this afternoon to exert some kind of control over the proceedings, despite the fact that everything is already arranged. I’m not making last-minute changes to satisfy the rivalry between the ministers of prosperity and the hoard, or adding more time to our stay at House Barghest because Mia Brynsdottir pouts at me over tea for an hour. Fortunately, none of them will follow me into the nest of war drakes. Only General Bloodscale might do so, and he indicated a desire to once again argue that House Dragon declaring the war over did nothing to assure House Kraken would stop fighting—as if I don’t know that. We need to follow through by putting down our arms, though, or why should they believe this is real? We’ve had this argument several times this week, and I won’t do it again. At least Bloodscale won’t interrupt me here, because he knows better than most that I need to take care of my primary mount like this.

After a couple of hours I’ve gone over the harnesses and saddle, checking the buckles and new decorative filigree, and put it all on her to make sure it sits tight enough not to chafe and she doesn’t hate any of it. Then I take it all off and pack it neatly, and turn my attention to rubbing down her scales and combing the feathers with a fine pick. I file her claws and buff them, especially the large hooking claws on her rear legs. She leans her hips against my shoulder while I’m down there, teasing, and curves her strong neck to bury her muzzle in my hair as if she can groom me in return. The huff of her blood-sour breath down my spine makes the stall seem even hotter, so I remove my uniform jacket and roll up the shirtsleeves. The final part of tending to her is polishing and oiling her scales. I tie on a short apron and get the jar of thick salve. Though she’s used this oil all her life, I first dip my fingers in and hold them before her muzzle.

She plants her nose in my palm, snuffling, and dips her head to smear the long line of her jaw through the oil on my fingers. Acceptance.

“Good girl,” I murmur. “If I have time once we finish this, I’ll dig some of those old flattened copper coins you like so much out of my hoard and tie them under your neck tomorrow. And I have salt fish.” Though war drakes don’t know language, they can learn a few words here or there, and mine recognizes how I say “good girl” and “salt fish” for sure. She stomps her left rear leg on the stone floor, scraping through the remnants of sawdust.

The scale oil smells earthy and cold, like moss-slick stones after rain up in the mountains of House Dragon’s ancient territory. I get to work, rubbing under her jaw and down the muscles of her strong neck. Her scales are warm and smooth, gently pebbled until they get longer near her breast and down her back. I take time with her dry elbows and between her stubby fingers. She chitters at me when I find ticklish spots at the end of her stubby, thick tail—it’s more for balance when she really runs than anything else. The feathers there aren’t as shimmering as the green and black spinal-crest feathers or the tiny feathers around her emerald eyes. These are fluffier, and their tips curl almost grayish. There’s a spot on her right rear, just over the jut of her hip, where some of the scales have rubbed off. She must have done it herself, itching something. I don’t let the oil get on the exposed dermis. I’ll have to grab a patch before I leave and check it again when I dress her in the parade tack tomorrow morning.

The war drake has been shifting her weight, restless, as I finish, and I make my way back to her head. I put away the salve and wipe my hands on the apron. “Salt fish?”

She dances a little in place and snaps her jaw lightly. It makes a clicking sound almost like laughter.

I step out of the stall and unlatch the metal bucket nailed to the wall between this stall and the next. It’s half-filled with little dried fish. I grab a handful and go back to my primary mount. “Good girl,” I say, and hold out my cupped hands. She immediately dives in, her thin tongue lapping up the little fish. Though most drakes of other sorts are more omnivorous, the war drakes are true carnivores, and the only food they get is meat—raw in stables, preserved on the road. They don’t usually bother with fish, so these little snacks are an excellent treat.

As she finishes, she keeps licking at my palm. I laugh, letting her curl that tongue around my thumb while I use my other hand to gently scratch under her big green eye. Her feathered lashes lower, and she heaves a sigh. “You can rest now, gorgeous,” I say. “After tonight you’ll be on guard for weeks, so be sure to relax.”

“Chaos, I can’t—”

My drake and I both startle at the voice. One of the drake’s fangs nicks the heel of my thumb as she snaps her jaws closed and shifts her entire body to face the stall opening. She flares her crest feathers and taps her clawed feet aggressively on the stone floor.

“There, it’s all right, it’s all right,” I say firmly. I put my hand at the base of her neck, where it meets her right shoulder, and pat firmly three times. That’s one of their training signals for all’s well.

Darling, standing in the open door of the stall, is silent and still. Which is good.

“Give me a moment,” I say to her, turning my focus back onto the drake. I glare into her nearest eye and stand as tall as I can.

“I can go,” Darling begins.

“No, don’t leave; the drake might want to chase.”

“Chaos,” Darling says again, quietly.

I rub my hand up my mount’s neck, stroking back and forth. “Darling, that bucket next to you has some dried fish in it. Can you grab some and slowly hold it out to me?”

Instead of an answer, I hear the creak of the metal and a shuffle of little fish. Then Darling says, “Here.”

Glancing over my shoulder, I see her outstretched hand. I hold mine out, and she tips a few fish into my palm. I bring them to the drake’s muzzle again, and her crest feathers finally relax. She licks up the little fish enthusiastically, and I continue patting her. “Good girl,” I murmur. Then I scratch under her eye again. “Get your rest.”

As I join Darling at the door, I say, “Let me take your elbow.”

Darling juts out her chin but doesn’t protest. I cup her elbow and turn her around to leave together. Hopefully my drake will accept this suggestion that Darling is mine, too, so they don’t have to be enemies.

We walk down the stone corridor. War drakes peer out from their stalls at us, a few of them being tended by other Teeth or one of the shared handlers. I take a deep breath of the musty smell of scales and char before we reach the sunny exit. Immediately I release Darling. “That was stupid,” I snap, regretting it even while I’m saying it. But now that we’re outside I can finally react, and, well, I’m having a lot of feelings. Irritation, anger, relief, surprise. A complicated appreciation for how Darling reacted to the war drake’s aggression and the ease with which she did what I said. But anger is the most comfortable when it comes to Darling.

“You’re the ones pretending monsters can be tamed and kept in pretty little boxes!” She glares at me. “Besides, your apron is stupid.”

I raise my eyebrows, incredulous.

Darling raises hers back, mocking. Her goggles are plainer than most that my brother has provided, just spheres of dark glass that reflect the sun behind me like furious white pupils.

We stare in silence for a moment. A few Dragons watch from around the drake yard. We use this arena for training and exercising the war drakes, and the dirt-packed ground is bare of everything and ringed by metal posts. Finally, I reach behind my waist to untie the apron. I ball it up in one hand. “Did you . . . what do you want?”

Darling puffs a big sigh. Her hands are on her hips. She’s dressed not dissimilarly from me in trousers and a loose shirt. It suits her.

Chaos teeth, I left my jacket in my mount’s stall.

“I need to hit something,” Darling says.

“And you thought of me.”

“Naturally.” She smirks. But then she adds, “You did promise me a spar.”

I take a breath. “I did.”

“Well?”

It’s a much better prospect than returning inside to face meetings and arguments and being waylaid by the council. I have at least a couple of hours before I promised to dine with Aunt Aurora. Besides, I want to test myself against her again, especially since we danced. I nod. “Yes. This way.”

I lead Darling away from the war drake yard toward the Dragon’s Teeth barracks. It’s near the base of the fortress territory, the barracks and offices cut into some caves, and a practice ground that’s multilevel and includes several types of sparring fields. We climb down to the lowest, which is unoccupied at the moment. A few Teeth glance at me as we pass, but I wave them off. They’ll have to at least pretend not to watch this.

Darling studies everything like she’s planning an invasion. Which . . . well. Her suspicion and distaste for Teeth accoutrement certainly are earned. At the edge of the lower sparring field is a shed. I throw the doors open to reveal all manner of practice equipment: weighted wooden swords, blunt daggers, shields, body armor, a few spears, even, though we tend only to use those with the drake cavalry, which is a specialization apart from the Teeth. “Challenger’s choice,” I say to her.

“Knives,” she says immediately. And she winks at me as she shoves past to grab a pair of blunt daggers not even as long as her forearm. She tosses both to me, and I manage to catch them. Darling takes two more, and we head for the center of the field.

The sun passes behind a cloud, and I glance up. The clouds are moving quickly, so we’ll have changing light. I settle my feet and wait as Darling scrapes her own boots against the beaten dirt. It’s furrowed from battle, and we leave it rough here for optimal practice. Sparring in the rain and mud is one of my Teeth’s favored ways to pass time. Afterward there’s fire, beer, and close quarters in the cave barracks as we all dry off and retell the best moments to each other.

“What rule?” Darling asks. “I chose the weapons. You lay the bounds.”

I smile tightly. “No blood.”

She scoffs.

“Caspian would make both our lives miserable if I put marks on your face before this tour.”

“Oh, I think your face is the one in danger,” she answers with an easy grin.

“It is an awfully pretty one,” I agree.

She snorts, but it sounds like suppressed laughter.

Oh, this is fun. Channeling my aggression and frustration into this kind of spar, into banter. Before it can turn too close to flirting, I say, “No blood, and reset after a hit. Four hits is the winner. Or total disarming. Or yield.”

“You wish,” she says, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

“I won last time, remember.”

“You cheated.”

“I used all the weapons in my arsenal. Including Finn.”

“I bet I can beat you before you get two hits,” she says.

“There’s nothing I could win from you that I need.”

Darling narrows her eyes. “How about answers?”

I stop, shifting my grip on the blunt daggers.

She presses. “Instead of a wager, how about this? I hit you, you give me an answer. You hit me, I give you one.”

Slowly, I nod. “Sounds good.”

Without even agreeing, Darling flings herself at me. She’s fast, I remember that, but her darkness advantage is gone here. I dodge and turn, moving one of my knives into a reverse grip, and slash down.

Darling spins and goes low. I back off, and she follows me, moving almost too fast for me to keep track of both her weapons. I focus on her body language, on defense. I need to keep her from winning too fast. Knives are not my specialty.

There’s no sound but the scuff of our boots and our breathing, getting faster and harder. My hair flops in my face, and I wish for my helmet or oil to slick it back. Darling takes advantage, feinting in an identical way twice, and then a third time I think I’m ready for her to change it up in a trick, but she does the exact same thing and just barely gets a hit on my forearm.

I grunt and back off. She does, too. I wait. Darling studies me, I assume; her big round goggles are trained on me. “Where’s Leonetti?”

“Prison convoy.”

“On the move!” She looks appalled.

It is pretty sneaky, but instead of admitting that out loud, I attack.

I drive her back, and Darling turns quick, lashing out several times in a pattern that I can barely track. If not for my boon, I probably couldn’t at all. I see the end point and block her. She’s clearly surprised, and I manage to jab the butt of my left dagger against her hip.

We back off.

“Do you remember your real father?”

“Leonetti is—”

“Your birth father,” I quickly say.

“Maybe.” Darling opens her mouth, then closes it. She tilts her face down. I want to see her eyes again, open and shimmered over with Chaos the way they were at the gala. “I think I do, but there’s little way to be sure unless I ever meet someone else who knew him, is there?”

We move at the same time, and I can barely hold my own under the flurry of Darling’s attacks. I use my boon to track her motion, and there’s the pattern; I can see it like a dance—the way I told her at the gala a dance was like a battle.

Suddenly she gets another hit. With a triumphant crow, she backs away.

I lower my knives to wait.

“What reasons did your father give you for massacring House Sphinx?” She says it almost casually. That’s how I know my answer matters.

I wish I had a better one. “He didn’t tell me anything.”

“You didn’t know?”

“I knew, but it was . . .” I tap the blunt tip of the practice dagger to my thigh. “It was presented to me by others. As simple revenge. Sphinx killed my mother, so my father killed Sphinx. A natural consequence.”

“Dragons,” Darling hisses. She attacks again.

I defend myself. Her attack is faster, vicious. I barely stop one of her daggers from gouging out my eye, and the other ends up dug into my ribs. “Darling,” I gasp.

“Who was the first person you killed?” she demands, very softly. She’s so near, her dagger against my side.

I stand still, suddenly reminded of my war drake, the beautiful but very dangerous weapon I keep at my side so often. I stare into Darling’s goggles. Her shoulders heave. I carefully say, “A deserter when I was fourteen. We found him because it had rained and he slipped and twisted his ankle. We hanged him where we found him.”

Darling’s jaw muscles tense. She swallows. “Hanged him. That isn’t what I meant.”

“It’s my answer, though. I was in command.”

“At that age?”

“What do you think a War Prince is, Darling?”

“And you want this war ended? Really? Caspian doesn’t fight, he’s completely ridiculous, so I understand why he thinks he wants peace. But you?” Darling drops back with a scoff. “It’s all you are.”

I think, But it’s not all I want to be. I swallow it back. I can’t say that to anybody, much less Darling Seabreak. Maribel Calamus. Whatever her name is.

Maybe she sees something in my eyes—they’re right there for her, after all. Unoccluded. Darling’s expression does something that on anyone else I might call softening.

Before it gets worse, I ask, “How old were you the first time you killed?”

Darling turns her head away, looking toward the horizon where the sun is sinking. “Fourteen,” she says very quietly. Just like me.

“Do you want it over?”

“That’s two questions, War Prince, and no hits!” Darling flings herself back into the fight. She disarms me almost immediately. I narrow my focus to only survival, one knife against her two. My boon can’t do much more than it already is, connecting her steps and actions in a trace pattern for me. But Darling is breaking the pattern even as she weaves it. I block her again and again, never following up with an attack. Honestly, I barely could if I wanted to.

“Why aren’t you trying harder?” she demands, panting.

My breathing is hard, too, and I shake my head. “I don’t want to hurt you,” I say lightly, trying to put a gleam in my eye.

Darling laughs once. “Oh, well, go ahead and hurt me—I dare you!” She emphasizes “dare” with an attack.

My whole focus is on her, on the fight, narrowed to this single knife and the Chaos sensation of her trace through my boon. I see her moves a split second before she makes them, which is the reason I know she’s going for the throat just as she does it, in time to drop my remaining knife and grab her wrists with my hands.

“Darling!” I snap. Her wrists tense in my hands. I press back.

“Disarmed you,” she cries delightedly, even as I’ve got her pinned. She could squirm or kick me, but her hands are mine.

Sweat cools on my brow as the evening breeze blows, and I’m grateful we didn’t end up with an audience. I lower her hands, which are still clutching both practice daggers. This was good. I liked it. Hard, intense, and . . . fun. “You win.”

“Damn right.” The smile she flashes makes me think she had fun, too. Despite our needling. The too-raw topics we touched upon.

I let her go.

We’ve got to get back to the fortress proper. I’m sure whatever handlers she slipped—including Marjorie, who better have a good excuse or she’ll be running laps all night—are frantic by now. And I need to bathe and get ready for dinner. “Let’s do this again.”

“Sure,” she says, as we put our gear back into the shed. “And you should let me have a real knife. For protection.”

“I don’t think so.” I side-eye her, and she’s nearly laughing. I like how quickly she flickers back to humor. It might be how she survived everything she’s been through.

Darling shrugs and speeds up, as if the worst way to return to the Crest would be at my side.

I don’t mind, thinking that we’ve fought for real, life-and-death; we’ve danced; and now we’ve sparred against each other. I can’t help but wonder what it would be like instead to fight at her side.