CHAPTER

TWELVE

WHAT HAD STARTED AS A DISCREET GATHERING OF TENTS HAD BECOME A TEEMING KELDARI CITY. Since the tribes despised each other only slightly less than the munakuri beyond the desert, too many had died Dancing the Blades to count. At this rate, Agni wouldn’t have to exterminate the tribes to purge them of their devalki. Only a remnant would survive their daily squabbles.

Each night in the ruins of Nurzhan, the tals met by the fire to conspire how to eliminate each other, while Mykal dreamed of rose-flavored blood. As news spread across the sands, two new tals had joined them: Sabri tal’Asp and Husam tal’Viper. With Cobra putting forward Razul’s rav, Tariq, to lead them to the Green Lands, all the great tribes of the Keldari were represented.

Such a feat had never been achieved since Agni first blasted the land with Fire and Somma dried the Wells and wadis as punishment.

As tal of the tribe named for their neverending hope for forgiveness, Gana tal’Tellan thought he, of course, should command the envoy to capture the White Queen. For now, Mykal was willing to let him think so. He even let Gana believe his intention was to drag her screaming and kicking all the way to Agni’s Rock and toss her within.

Although Gana and Nijar were his more closely than the others, he trusted them as much as a feral dragon in rut. They had seen him accomplish the impossible. Legends were always told of how love’s sacrifice had been able to save a dra’gwar once the dragon was loosed, but those tales were few and far between. Certainly, no one could whisper of a warrior, alone, who had transformed back successfully once the beast had torn him apart.

They whispered this tale with awe and hope, watching him secretly as he walked by, always with a speculative gleam in their eyes. Keldar was a hard land, a hard life, and hope was not something they understood after centuries of punishment. Until they saw his dragon recede with their own eyes, they would not believe, not fully.

So they pushed him. They argued, insulted, and challenged him at every opportunity. Fortunately, Mykal tal’Mamba was not a man easily stirred to great passion, whether anger or other, without a complex plan of his choosing driving his actions.

Smiling, he tucked each insult away to be paid in full later, at a time of his choosing.

What they didn’t know was how very terrified he was of that slumbering dragon inside him. How much he loathed it. The thought of those slithering scales and scrambling claws made a cold sweat trickle down his spine at highest, scorching noon.

He didn’t fear the killing; killing had been a way of life for him longer than he could remember, more natural than breathing. No, it was the hunger. The dragon wanted to kill, kill, kill, and eat, eat, eat its way to Shanhasson, all the way to the High Queen of the Green Lands.

However, he didn’t think the dragon wanted to eat her, not at all. But it wanted her, and only she would do. On that much, he and the beast were in full agreement.

The tals’ right and left hand warriors waited just beyond the firelight, hoping to be called for some important task or overhear details of their mission. A scuffle among them drew Mykal’s attention.

Asad, his own rav, brought a very familiar munakur through the ranks of frustrated, bored warriors. Curses and insults muttered in Keldari followed his passage toward the tals. The trader held a scroll in his hand. If Mykal’s eyes didn’t betray him, the scroll bore the Great Seal of rampant lions wreathed in roses.

Roses. He sucked in a deep breath. Even from a dozen paces away, he swore he could smell her on that parchment.

Gana jerked his chin at his rav, and a warrior stood and moved to intercept the trader. Hissing, Mykal flung back his taamid to make his weapons easily assessable, silently flowed behind the unsuspecting warrior, and swung his right arm in an arc.

He was as stunned as everyone else when the rav’s head rolled across the sand. Staring down at the vicious claws, he rotated his hand, watching the moonlight flicker across the silver razors. Shaken, he tried to remember what he’d done to make the claws come out. How had only part of the dragon manifested? How did he control it?

Raising his hand high above his head, he turned in a circle, letting the warriors see the evidence of his transformation. He might as well use the opportunity to bring them farther under his control, as long as he could successfully mask his own unease. By the awe on his own rav’s face, no one suspected his stomach boiled with fluid as noxious as the Venom Lake.

Asad’s voice shook as badly as his hand offering the scroll. “Tal.”

As though dragon claws on his human hand were perfectly normal, he used his index blade to crack the wax seal. Carefully he unfurled the parchment, his heart pounding. The dragon crouched, wings cocked, ready to burst free and fly hard and fast toward Shanhasson.

He held the precious scroll to his face and breathed deeply.

Iyeh, her hands had touched here and here, and…there, he touched his tongue to the parchment, a hint of salt. The ink had blurred, smearing her name slightly. A tear, how appropriate, how fitting. The dragon within shuddered, curled up its wings, and slept to dream of a sweet, clear lake the likes of which this blasted land had never known, sprinkled with drops of blood.

He knew she was the Rose of Shanhasson, Last Daughter, High Queen of the Green Lands, but more importantly, she was the White Dragon to break Agni’s fiery punishment.

Or loose Yama’s Shadow on all the world.

Closing his eyes, Mykal thrust his taloned hand into the air and clutched the parchment to his heart. He swore he could feel the dance of moonlight on his flesh, cool rainbows and pearly light, soft and gentle in a way the sun’s fire failed.

Please, he prayed, although he knew not who might listen, let alone answer.

His fingers burned, skin splitting and seared by dragon fire. He fisted his hand and raised his voice. “Agni burns the world by sending us to the munakuri lands. On the morrow, we ride to Shanhasson!”

Asad stared at him, eyes dark and shining while he tugged on his coiled hair. “Iyeh, let us ride!”

“We’ll destroy them!” Gana shouted, trying to draw some of the tals back to his side. “We’ll burn the world! Nothing will keep us from taking what we want!”

Mykal threw his head back and let his dragon rage through his throat on a roar that made the horses scream in terror and the warriors before him fall to their knees. “The only thing we take from Shanhasson is their Rose.”