“Cas. Stop them. Hurry.”
The dragon folded his wings and plummeted earthward. Jenna knew from experience how that looked from below. They’d been flying so high, they were all but invisible to human eyes, especially at night. Now they descended so fast that they would be on their prey before the male and female knew what hit them.
Jenna scented blood as the dragon’s claws sank into the male’s back. He screeched, kicked, and flailed while Cas struggled to lift him into the air. Jenna could feel the dragon’s heart pounding against her chest, feel his blazing heat beneath the scales.
The female stared up at them, eyes wide, blood spattered across her face.
Jenna?
“Kill the male. Catch the female.”
With one final effort, Cas swooped off the mountain and let his cargo go. With that weight gone, they rocketed skyward.
By now, the female had retrieved her sword and was making a run for it. Cas circled around and drove her back with torrents of flame. She threw her knife, dove, rolled, scrambled, then, finally, made her stand like a warrior, feet slightly apart, sword at the ready.
Cas landed heavily on the ledge a short distance away, folding his wings as best he could. He swung his head toward the female—the girl—breathing in her scent. She raised her sword in warning.
Jenna slid to the ground, into the shelter of Cas’s wing. Then stepped out from behind it so that she could get a better look at their captive.
The empress’s warrior stared at Jenna as if she’d emerged from the dragon’s bunghole. The girl’s hair was the color of winter-seared wheat. It had been braided, but now was mostly hanging free around her battered face. She was tall, muscular, and fierce. Her curved blade was the kind carried by the empress’s bloodsworn.
“Drop the sword,” Jenna said in Common.
The soldier flinched, as if she hadn’t expected human speech. She swiped blood from her face with her sleeve, glanced to either side as if looking for options, then finally let her sword fall to the ground at her feet. Chin up and defiant, she met Jenna’s eyes.
There was something familiar about her that raised gooseflesh on the back of Jenna’s neck. A fist of memory squeezed her heart and drove the air from her lungs.
Wolf, Cas said, before Jenna could put it into words.
Yes. This girl had the same wolfish aspect as the healer Adam Wolf. While the healer had smoldered, this wolf burned hot. She was wilder, more savage.
Cornered wolf. And then, nudging her back into the shelter of his wing, added, Wolf pack.
Out of the darkness they came, silent as smoke, with their thick gray fur and brilliant, intelligent eyes. Their hot breath froze on their muzzles and ruffs and their massive paws barely dented the earth.
With her attention focused on Cas, the warrior did not seem to notice the wolves all around her.
The wolves gazed at Jenna and Cas for what seemed to be a long time, then turned as one and melted into the darkness. Jenna, awestruck, stared after them.
By now, the warrior was growing restless. “This is your meeting,” she snapped, in Common. “What do you want?”
“Who are you?” Jenna said, the words awkward in her mouth after the ease of communicating mind-to-mind with Cas.
“I’m Alyssa Gray,” the soldier said. “Captain.” She spoke in a clipped fashion, like a prisoner of war identifying herself.
“Who was that?” Jenna pointed toward the canyon with her chin.
“Quill Bosley. Lieutenant.”
“You both fight for the empress?”
With a flicker of hesitation, Gray said, “Yes. I am—was—his commanding officer.”
“Why was he attacking you, then?”
“Because he does not understand the chain of command,” the wolf girl said.
“What?”
Gray rolled her eyes. “Because he has the talent of a turd floating in an ego the size of the ocean.”
Jenna laughed, which took her by surprise. Stop it, she thought. This is the enemy. You must interrogate her, and then you must kill her, so that she doesn’t give you away.
Meanwhile, Gray had been studying Jenna with equal interest. “So—you were riding the . . . uh . . . dragon?” she said, as if choosing her words carefully.
Tell her my name is Cas.
“She doesn’t need to know that,” Jenna said, in their silent speech.
“Yes,” she said aloud.
“I didn’t know that the empress had . . . a flying army,” Gray said, clearly fishing for information. “How many dragons do you have?”
Tell her people don’t “have” dragons.
“Let me handle this.”
Gray was looking from one of them to the other as if she suspected that she was being left out of something.
“I am more of a scout,” Jenna said.
“Who are you scouting for?”
It was striking how quickly Gray turned the conversation, as if she were used to questioning prisoners, issuing orders and having them obeyed.
“I ask the questions, you answer,” Jenna said. “Isn’t that how it works in an interrogation?”
“Is that what this is?”
“Where are you from?” Jenna said. “You’re not from around here.”
Neither are you.
Jenna lost patience. “Cas.”
Cas straightened his neck, bringing his head to within a few feet of Gray, so that his fuming breath swirled around her. The captain skipped back a step as Jenna caught the scent of scorched wool.
“It seems . . . very well trained,” Gray said, then leapt back again to avoid a gout of flame.
Trained? Cas’s scales rattled as he bristled.
“We’re partners,” Jenna said. “Cas is sensitive about what you call the ‘chain of command.’ Now, where are you from?”
“I’m . . . from the wetlands,” Gray said. “That’s what they call it here. From the mountains in the north.”
“The north?” Jenna’s heart accelerated. The healer was a wolf from the north, too. “What are you doing here?”
“I was captured in the fall of Chalk Cliffs,” Gray said. “The empress brought me back here and drafted me into her army.”
“You don’t shine like the others.”
Gray licked her lips. “No. I don’t shine like the others.”
“How many of you are there?”
“Prisoners, officers, or troops?” She spoke with precision, like a soldier.
“How many troops?”
“Tens of thousands,” Gray said. “More every day.”
“What does the empress intend to do with these troops?” Jenna said. “What is the plan?”
Gray cocked her head, clearly puzzled that the empress’s scout was asking a soldier about the empress’s plans. “The empress hasn’t shared that with me,” she said.
“If you had to take a guess,” Jenna persisted. “What do you think she is planning?”
“If I had to take a guess,” Gray said, “I would say that she plans to conquer the Seven Realms.”
“When?”
“Soon.”
Jenna pulled a scroll from her carry bag. “Sit,” she said, gesturing toward a flat spot on the ledge.
Warily, Gray sat cross-legged. Jenna sat across from her and unrolled the scroll on the stone between them, anchoring the corners with pebbles.
Cas extended his body into a semicircle around them and promptly went to sleep. He still tired easily when forced to fly for long periods or when carrying extra weight.
Gray kept peering nervously at the dragon coiled around them. Jenna touched her shoulder and pointed to the map she’d drawn.
It was an aerial view of Celesgarde. It was all there—the wharves, the buildings, the marble stump that was the beginnings of a palace. The rows of tents represented with little triangles.
Gray stared down at it, then raised her eyes to Jenna. “This is fine work,” she said, as if surprised. “Did you draw this?”
“Yes.” Truth be told, Jenna was rather proud of it.
No. Don’t be taking a liking to this girl. She is the enemy.
“I need to know where the empress stays,” Jenna said, running her fingers over the harbor front. “Is she in the marble palace yet, or is she sleeping somewhere else?”
Gray straightened, understanding dawning on her face. “You don’t work for the empress at all, do you? Who do you work for?”
“I work for myself,” Jenna said.