DANNON

“ N ever thought I’d see anyone take you down.” Patrick swigged wine from a skin. He leaned a shoulder against the door to Dannon’s hut, the firepit’s shimmer an orange cloud at his back. “A girl, of all people. Picked up that sword like a stick. Strong. Quick too.”

Dannon slid his tunic off his wounded shoulder. Blood flaked from its folds. Weariness collapsed his every muscle.

He wanted the solitude of his bed and time to decipher flurrying thoughts. What had just happened? He had never sought to be overlord. “No doubt trained from a young age under a blade master.”

“I know men who’ve carried a blade a lifetime only half as fast.” Patrick wiped his wet mouth on a sleeve. “Colla, for one. Lumbers like a bear. Thinks like one too. Slow and mean. I wonder who she really is? Can’t trust someone you don’t know.” He tilted his head to drain the wineskin. His brushed-back hair gleamed in candlelight as if waxed. “That’s better.” Patrick burped then stretched his lips into his usual lupine smile.

“You won’t ride with her?” Dannon unbuckled his weapons belt. “Come, don’t tell me you don’t want a blade like that with you, rather than against you?”

“Oh, I’ll ride with her. Or ride her, if she lets me.” Patrick leered. “Though I prefer to be the only one with a sword when I’m with a woman.”

“You’re a pig,” Dannon said.

Patrick only grinned at the insult. “She not only got through your defences but under your skin, I see.”

“No. I just don’t like the way you talk about women.” Kate’s scorn and her skill with the blade intrigued him; that was all. For one mad moment in that village, he had thought the girl waving a sword at him was Eloise. Alive once more.

Dutifully he had tied that girl’s hands and brought her back. His wilder side had wanted to throw her over his saddle and ride off. But Dannon had locked that part away long ago. Rash men died young. Careful men did not.

What might have become of them had he surrendered to instinct? What if, for once, he had put aside reason?

Patrick offered a playful bow. “If you’ve decided to become defender of her nebulous honour, I’ll leave Kate to you. I wish no dispute with the Bloodtaker.”

“The Bloodtaker is wounded,” Dannon reminded him with an uneasy chuckle. Patrick was ambitious. He’d challenge him one day. But not yet—probably.

“Injured or not, you’re still fast with the blade, Dannon. Too accurate with a bow too. But you’re hard to kill because you’re so cursed clever. I think that brute Conroy forgot that.”

Dannon didn’t feel clever. Just bone weary, belly sick from his wounds, and sore. He hoped the wood witch arrived soon with her potions and poppy juice. And her soft hands.

Heat stirred in his groin. Juliette had even softer lips he’d kissed more than once. Not that she belonged to him. Juliette came and went unquestioned, healing those in need, the Varee, villagers, even Vraymorg soldiers.

Dannon sought nothing, only gladly opened his arms when she came to his bed. Of late, though, he knew from her quiet, secret smile Juliette was thinking of someone else. Ah well. He did not stoop to jealousy. Only curiosity.

“Is it true what you said?” Patrick watched him. “About Conroy trying to kill you?”

“It’s true.” Dannon peeled off pants stiff with blood. The seeping thigh wound was a skilful cut. Any deeper, and Kate would have crippled him. Then, sniffing weakness, Patrick or another would have challenged him in a fight to the death. That was how the Varee won power.

“I knew he was ruthless. But that goes against the code. What happened?”

“A story for another time.” Dannon’s head spun with all that had unfolded.

“I’ll hold you to that.” Patrick fingered a silver charm strung about his neck. “About this Kate. What if she’s Quisnaf? Or a Sister of Cyrah? A spy. Can we trust her?”

Dannon shrugged.

“The mage wants you to use the brew.”

“No,” Dannon said. “It’s cruel.”

“The mage said you’d say that. He said to tell you if you don’t, he’ll have her killed.”

Kill something so fascinating and dangerous? The careful part of Dannon whispered, Take no chances. The wild, hidden part screamed no. Instinct and reason. Always at war within him. “I’ll question her. Tonight.”

Patrick snorted. He preferred a simple solution. Kill the problem, and it disappeared. He would make a good host captain—except he was Varee-born.

A frustrating tradition, Dannon thought as he sank onto a stool. The ancient writings described how the first host captain had ridden with the Varee. Generations of mages had argued over those words. Ridden with them. The host captain was an outsider. Like Dannon.

Patrick could aspire to overlord but not host captain. A pity. His mind was not devious, so Dannon guessed he could manage him, just as he had “managed” Conroy. A cruel man that. Sentimental. He would gut a rival for a perceived slight but sob over a dead dog.

“Find Kate and send her to me,” Dannon said. “I’ll question her. Question, that’s all.”

Patrick clicked his tongue against his front teeth. “The mage will be displeased about the brew. What’s your problem? You drink it nearly every night.”

He drank the brew because it was too late for him. He yearned for its promise of emptiness, its gift of sweet, sweet oblivion. It offered an escape from his own wretched thoughts. His own wretched dreams. Yes, his dreams most of all.