“Why do you bait him?” Cithrin asked.
“Who? Inys? Do I bait him?”
“You do, sir,” Yardem said.
“I don’t know,” Marcus said. Then, “Because he’s self-indulgent with his grief. Because he screwed up badly once, and now everything he ever does is about that, and God forbid that anyone around him ever be let to forget it for a day.”
“Oh,” Cithrin said. “All right. I understand.”
“I wasn’t going to say it,” Yardem said.
“Say what?” Marcus said, then understood. He disliked the dragon for being too much like Marcus Wester. He shook his head. “You can both go piss up a rope.”
“If you say so, sir.”
“And you two take care of each other while I’m gone. I’ll miss you. Now let’s go break the bad news to Kit.”
Clara
Clara, wrapped in layers of wool and leather against the cold and the wind, pressed her face against the dragon, closed her eyes, and waited for the worst to be over. Inys’s leg shifted as he flew, the huge muscles flowing and flexing against her in a way that felt both intimate and impersonal. The leather straps that kept her from plummeting to her death bit into her legs and back. She couldn’t say whether her feet had gone numb from the lack of blood reaching her toes or the intense cold. She had imagined one time and another what it must be like to fly through the air. Always, she’d evoked ideas of freedom and joy. Now that it came to the actual practice, it felt more like being a baby carried along the edge of the Silver Bridge by a not-entirely-trustworthy nurse.
On the occasions when she did open her eyes, there was little enough to see besides the horizon of stars and the bulk of the vast animal to which she was tied. The land below her was dark, and the few firefly glimmers she saw might have been anything: cities, camps, farmhouses, tricks of her over-tired eyes. The others—Wester and Kit—had straps of their own on other legs. She couldn’t see them, nor could she imagine hearing them over the sound of the wind. Had they fallen to their deaths, she would not have known.
They had left Carse only hours before, with the dull red disk of the sun hovering just above the horizon. She’d felt then, waddling out to the open space nearest the Graveyard of Dragons, ridiculously overdressed. Her elbows and knees seemed hardly to bend. Barriath walked beside her, and if he found her as laughable as she found herself, he showed respect enough not to say it. The dragon was on a great perch made from a felled pine. The scent of its sap was still fresh. When she saw the harnesses hanging limp from the great beast’s legs, she had to work to stifle her laughter. What would the ladies of the court think if they saw this? Hardly appropriate behavior for a baroness. But what had to be done, would be.
In the shadow of the great wings, two figures were already waiting. The older man with the long face and wiry hair of the priests and an attractive younger woman with a thick braid. They were speaking with an intensity that made her wonder whether they might be lovers or father and daughter, though that didn’t seem likely. The woman’s face was hard, and tears streaked her cheeks. The man’s posture was equal parts sorrow and strength. Clara found herself wondering how they managed to express so much with their bodies alone, but then they were actors. She supposed it was the sort of thing one did without thinking, if only one practiced enough. Like the way her daughter Elisia used to spend the whole day whistling to herself after working with her music tutors.
The woman said something she couldn’t make out, and the old man laughed, then they embraced. Not as lovers would, nor yet parent and child. Family of some sort, though.
“I should be going,” Barriath said.
“Of course you shouldn’t, dear. They need you for Callon Cane or the leader of the little fleet or some such. Besides which, there’s little you could do to look after me that Jorey won’t be able to accomplish. He is still the Lord Marshal.”
And if he took her place, she wouldn’t be reunited with Vincen Coe, she didn’t say. In truth, the implausible journey she was about to take might have uneased her more deeply without the prospect of Vincen at its end. Of course, she couldn’t explain that to her son. For him, her eagerness might even look like courage. She felt a bit dishonest about that, but didn’t see what else she could do.
The actors stepped apart gracefully, as if they had ended their scene. What fascinating people really. And the woman, at least, seemed vaguely familiar. Clara wondered whether she’d seen her perform somewhere. Barriath took Clara’s hand, turning her. The distress in his eyes reminded her of how he’d looked as a boy. A baby. Of course this was hard for him. Since the day they’d found each other again, he’d been able to play the protector. Now he was sending his mother off into the teeth of danger. What boy could ever see that done and be unmoved?
She raised her laughably puffy arm and touched his face. “No regrets now. We’ve gone past that.”
“Just tell me you won’t take any chances you don’t need to,” he said.
She wondered for a moment what her life might have been if she’d lived by that rule. Nothing like it was, she thought. She wondered what her son would make of all the things she’d so carefully never told him. The rage and despair she’d suffered losing Dawson. The joyful recklessness of standing against Geder Palliako even at the height of his power. She was friend to thieves and cutthroats now. Lover of a man her sons’ age. And none of it could be said.
“I will use my very best judgment,” she said. “And this won’t be our last meeting.”
“You don’t know that,” Barriath said, choking on the words.
“I don’t,” she said. “But I choose to believe it, or else I’d never stand going.”
“I love you, Mother.”
And then they were embracing. Not for the last time, she told herself. There would be another, at least. Somehow. She was weeping now as well. When she could bring herself to let him go, Barriath’s eyes were red and wet. He wiped them angrily with his sleeve and stepped back. She turned to the dragon.
The mercenary captain and his Tralgu second fell into step beside her. The green blade was strapped across the older man’s back. The Tralgu—Yardem, his name was—flicked an ear.
“I know,” Marcus Wester said, as if something had been said. “Watch after it all until I’m back.”
“Will.”
And then she was at the dragon’s leg, and they were helping her into the harness. She still didn’t entirely believe that it was going to happen until the dragon spread its wings, howled like a storm, and fell up into the sky.
That had been hours ago, and the sun had long since fled. Clara couldn’t entirely believe that she’d slept, but her mind had surely lost track of time. A scattering of fires glimmered far to what she presumed was the east, and the ground seemed closer. She could make out the shapes of trees, and a thin silver line that might have been a stream or a dragon’s jade road. Her cheeks were stiff as plaster, and as unfeeling, but she craned her head against the storm wind. The ground was closer. Much closer. The dragon dipped, dipped again, and didn’t rise. The great wings worked, stirring loose snow and winter-killed grass. They landed in a drift that rose to her knees. The ripping storm that had plagued them since Carse vanished instantly, and the calm seemed unreal. Clara sagged against the dragon’s flesh. Now that they weren’t in motion, the warmth of it was like sitting near a fire, and she wondered how much Inys’s heat had sustained her during their flight.