“You recognize them from their… paw prints? Or handprints. I don’t know what the respectful term is,” Marcus said, but Inys took no notice of him.
“She said that all her compositions were inspired by the colors of the stars.” Inys shifted, caressing another imprint. Black talons dug into the stone. “Kairade. He was my brother’s friend. He knew things had gone too far, but he was loyal. I asked him once to help me stop the war before it went beyond the point that we could mend the damage. His laughter had tears in it. I remember that. No one else remembers it, but I do. I am the only one who knows. And if I’m wrong, if I misremember a name or detail, it becomes true now. I can make the past simply by saying what is so and what is not. Any past that reaches this point, this place, is as good as another.”
Marcus looked at Yardem. The Tralgu scratched his arm.
“So,” Marcus said. “You’re looking better.”
Inys shifted his great head, the vast eye focusing on Marcus.
“Well,” Marcus said. “Improved, anyway.”
“These dead around us,” Inys said, sweeping his wings in a gesture that took in everything in the long arcades. “How did they pass? Was it in the war? Was it after? Did Morade turn on his own in the end?”
“Don’t know,” Marcus said. “I wasn’t there, and the records that far back… well, could say they’re spotty.”
“The weapons they brought against me,” Inys said. “I have never seen their like before. They were designed to let slaves like you bring down dragons.”
“That’s what it looked like,” Marcus agreed.
“Who made these designs? And why?”
“Again, I can’t really say.”
Inys settled onto the ground, tucking his huge legs under him like a cat preparing for a nap. His ragged wings folded against his sides. Marcus had the sudden image of a man sitting alone in a room filled with ancient bones. He felt a pang of discomfort, as if he might be intruding on something sacred. He scowled at the feeling and the deference to the dragon that it carried along.
“Magistra Isadau’s back at the compound with Cithrin and the others,” he said. “Cithrin’s plan to end the war seems to have done something, so that’s good. I suppose. Unless it just means the Antean army that kicked our asses in Birancour are coming to kick our asses in Northcoast, in which case, that’ll be a pity.”
“The truth is lost,” Inys said. “All truth is lost in the blackness of my sleep and the emptiness of your history. There was a crime. A treason worse than mine. Worse than my brother’s. Slaves armed against us. How desperate must we have been to allow it. How terrible that rage.”
“We’re thinking it might be good to have someone go take a quick look south of the city here. Just in case there’s an army on the road. We haven’t heard word of Antea crossing into Northcoast, but since there’s someone here that can go aloft and check. To see if we’re about to be attacked. Which could be important.”
“Or perhaps we did not permit it,” the dragon said. “Perhaps the slaves rose up themselves. Perhaps these evil designs were born in a slave child’s mind, forged in a slave’s fire. Perhaps we weakened ourselves with war, and the animals rose up against us, smelling our blood and fear.”
“All respect, sir,” Yardem said. “There’s not a way we can know that. And it doesn’t change much if it’s truth.”
Inys blinked, as if surprised to find them there. Marcus wondered what exactly the plan would be if, between grief and injury, the dragon lost its mind. That seemed a distraction that wouldn’t help anyone.
“Would you, Marcus Stormcrow? Would you turn against me?” Inys asked.
No, he thought. For God’s sake, tell the lizard you’ll lick his ass if that’s what he wants to hear. We don’t have time for this.
“I don’t know. Maybe? Depending on what you were doing.”
The scales along the dragon’s side rippled like grass in a high wind. Acrid smoke leaked out from between Inys’s dagger-sharp teeth. “Treason. You would turn your hand to treason!”
“If you don’t want the answer, don’t ask,” Marcus said. “Would I ever say you’d gone too damned far, and no farther? Yes, if you earned it. Would you rather I tell you that I’d follow you to the death of the world and the sky just because you’re such a great and powerful you? Because I’m fairly certain I can find you a dozen or so of that sort just by walking back up the path there if you want them.”
Inys was silent for a long moment. Long enough that Marcus began to feel little flutters of unease in his belly. Then the dragon chuckled. “You are more like her than you know, Marcus Stormcrow. Not so educated, not so graceful, but carved from the same stone all the same. Drakkis would have laughed with your jokes.”
“Honored,” Marcus said. “But here’s the thing. This war we’re fighting is a long way from done, and it’s getting more complicated by the day. Back down south, we all thought you were the big damned secret that’d turn things our way. You thought it too. We called it wrong, and so we’ve pulled back. It’s left us weaker and in a less defensible position. If Antea comes here before Cithrin can do whatever it is she’s doing, we’ll have to pull back again, and we’re getting damned thin on places to pull back to. So while I’m sorry your dead friends are dead, I need you to focus on the next few days and weeks. If you’re strong enough to help us in the war, that’s a great good thing. If having your ass handed to you on a Birancouri platter’s put you off your game, that’s less good, but I’ll manage. What I can’t have is everyone making the plan to move forward counting on you if you’re too weak. So, all respect, are you going to sit here feeling sad for yourself, or are you going to stand up and do the job?”
“No one speaks to a dragon so,” Inys said, his voice deep and resonant as a gong.
“Almost no one. What’s it going to be? Do what needs doing? Or mope like a child who didn’t get the candy he wanted?”
Yardem flicked his ear, the rings jingling against each other. The Tralgu’s expression was pained. Fair point, Marcus thought. May have gone a bit far there.
The dragon closed his eyes, breathed in deeply, the house-wide ribs expanding, pausing, and falling again. The air filled with a smell like brimstone and hot iron.
“You shame me. Tell me what it is you need, Stormcrow,” Inys said. “I am in despair, but not yet in defeat.”
“Yes, well. You and me both,” Marcus said.
Clara
Of all the things that could have been occupying her mind as she rode back across the dark landscape of Birancour, the one that Clara could not dislodge was the letter she had promised to carry back to Camnipol. She had meant to, of course. She had resigned herself to going back to court, and the one bright moment of it was the thought of carrying Jorey’s words back to Sabiha. And Annalise. Little Annalise.
She had letters like it herself, or once had. When Dawson had been away in the field as a young man riding at the order of his dear friend King Simeon, he had been consistent with his love letters home. She must have had fifty of them. More, perhaps. Dawson had had a traditionalist’s view of poetry, so each letter included some bit of verse he’d composed for her along with his professings of love and descriptions of desire. She rode now in the darkness, the little horse tramping south through the cool air that spoke of autumn. The soldiers of Birancour were surely patrolling the countryside, as were Jorey’s men. The gloom of night gave her only so much cover, and the risk of being caught by either side was great. Barriath rode behind her on a thin mule. He was wrapped in a hooded cloak, and stayed behind her, the way a servant should. Pretending that men she loved were her servants had become something of an expertise of hers, and Barriath had been willing enough to take her direction. He played the role now in case they were seen before they knew it. One played one’s role always when it was possible to be seen, or else, more often really, one accepted the risks.