The alchemical monks were abandoning their home and fleeing from certain and fiery death, but they somehow still found time to offer Dae and her companions aid.

“We’re going to be traveling light anyways,” Monk Wunchlasse said. “So our extra food stores are yours.”

“Thank you, I can’t imagine it was easy to get all this up here,” Dae said, looking over the crates of rations and preserved foods that the monks had hauled out of their store houses.

“Easier than getting it down it turns out,” Wunchlasse said. “We had plenty of time to stock the storerooms, but precious little for the unloading.”

“Will you be able to carry enough to reach the Gallagrin border?” Dae asked.

“We should be good as long as we don’t need to take too many detours,” Wunchlasse said.

“When you get to the border, ask for sanctuary in my name,” Dae said. “The troops there should be briefed on your arrival.”

“You’re able to communicate with your queen?” Wunchlasse asked.

“No, but she foresaw that something like this might come up, so they’ll be expecting your arrival some time before the fighting starts,” Dae said.

“Let’s hope that she’s foreseen enough for us all to make it through the coming cataclysm,” Wunchlasse said.

“You should be safe in Gallagrin at the very least,” Dae said.

“If Haldri Paxmer gains the power you seek, I doubt we’d be safe anywhere in the world,” Wunchlasse said, her wrinkled brow furrowing even further.

“We’ll make sure that doesn’t happen,” Dae said.

Jyl wandered up to them in the company of one of the monastery’s scribes.

“I’ve got the maps that you asked for,” she said. “Can you figure out where we need to go from these though? They look different than the ones we have in Gallagrin.”

“Paxmer map notations are different from the ones we use,” Dae said, examining the largest map that Jyl had brought with her.

“There are fewer dwarves in Paxmer,” Estella said.

“What does that have to do with maps?” Nui asked.

“Gallagrin has one of the largest cautographs schools in the Blessed Realms,” Dae said. “Until about fifty years ago the school was open to dwarves only and they trained their students on the most exacting surveying techniques and equipment. Nobody else could match them for their accuracy and detail.”

“What happened to them?” Nui asked.

“Falling out among the heads of facuity that ran the school,” Dae said. “Squabbling, led to infighting and in the end the central guild they were all part of collapsed and the individual inot rectors set up a number of separate schools and started teaching a wider range of students.”

“So you’re saying our maps are wrong then?” Nui asked.

“No, not wrong, just different,” Dae said. “At least if you know how to adjust for the differences in representation styles.”

“And you do?” Nui asked.

“Hell no,” Dae said. “But Mayleena does.”

“She’s somewhat out of commission though, isn’t she?” Jyl asked.

“We’ll have to see about that,” Dae said. “Worst case we can use the maps we brought from home to at least get close to our destination.”

“You mentioned going from town to town on your journey,” Estella said. “That’s not the fastest path for reaching your destination.”

“I know,” Dae said. “But our queen insisted that it was vital once we reached this stage and confirmed that dragons were active in the area that we make every effort to ensure that the local population is not decimated by them.”

“Odd that the Gallagrin Queen cares so much about Paxmer civilians,” Estella said.

“She cares about people,” Dae said. “She always has.”

“Isn’t her first duty to the people of Gallagrin though?” Nui asked.

“Yes,” Mayleena said, emerging from the sky carriage at last. “But safety for one brings safety for all.”

Dae watched Estella’s expression turn contemplative, as though Mayleena’s words had provided the last piece to a particularly opaque puzzle. She wondered how much of Alari’s plan her mother had discerned and whether it really made sense to wait to reveal it openly. Alari and Dae had worked together carefully on the timing when information would be released so that the right bits would reach Haldri at the right times. With the plan in motion though, Dae could help but second guess the parts of it which she’d made cases for being true.

It was easy, sitting in the planning room of the castle in Highcrest, to imagine a flow of events, one triggering the other with contingencies for when each step went astray. It was very different though enacting those plans though and having to walk blind into traps that you could foresee.

Before Dae’s party left the alchemical monastery, Dae found a moment to pull Mayleena off to the side for a private discussion.

“How are you both holding up?” she asked.

“We feel like we are two strings on a violin on which different melodies have been played, badly,” Mayleena said. “We are regaining our harmony, but it is difficult.”

“Good,” Dae said. “We’re going to face more dragons before this is over, but from here on out you don’t need to hold back.”

“What about our cover though?” Mayleena asked. “If they discover we’re here, won’t they send more dragons?”

“They’re already sending more dragons,” Dae said. “At this point we just need to hope that the rest of the plan works out in our favor.”

The next step in the plan was to resume their journey, which the monks also helped with by allowing both the Queen’s Knights and the Resistance members to take the long sky carriage in the monk’s stable to the ground for its first trip down the mountain.

Sailing from the top of the spire the monastery as located on, Dae was able to put a real picture to the region which the conflicting Gallagrin and Paxmer maps displayed.

The border between the two nations was largely remarked by a series of impassable mountains with the occasional traversible pass which allowed for trade and travel to occur. Where the mountains continued well into Gallagrin’s lands though, in Paxmer they extended like a series of sharp and tall fingers that broke up the northern provinces of the realm.

Apart from the fringe of mountains though, Paxmer enjoyed tremendous plains, that left Dae boogling at how much land there was for people to tend to. Here are there stretches of forest dotted the landscape but these seemed like carefully tended sanctuaries rather than the wild growths which clawed life out of Gallagrin’s rocky slopes and meadows.

As they drew closer to the ground, the other thing that struck Dae was how much larger the distances seemed when confronted with their reality rather than simply a representation on a map.

She knew that they were looking at many days of travel to reach their destination. Easily over a week. Seeing the space they had to cross though left her wondering if even that much time would be enough.

If the plan’s going to work, it will have to be, she thought.

“Be careful when you get off,” the monk who was driving the sky carriage said. “There are fire drakes in these parts and other draconian half breeds and knock-offs. They usually stay away from people but with winter ending they’re at their hungriest, so it’s best to stay alert.”

“I presume Wunchlasse would like us to clear out any such creatures that are waiting in ambush?” Estella asked.

“She just said to warn you,” the driver said.

“The old fox never just says anything,” Estella said.

“It’s a fair repayment for their help,” Dae said.

“We’ll see if you think like that if we run into a sulphurmander,” Estella said.

Fortunately their travels took them past neither fire drakes or sulphurmanders.  In point of fact, their travels took them past no animal or monster life whatsoever.

“I’m right to be creeped out by this aren’t I?” Jyl asked

“This does feel really weird,” Nui said. “We’re not far off from Hangarsford, but there should still be more animals around than this. It’s a warm night, there should be birds at least.”

“The beasts of the wild can sense the dragons as they gather,” Estella said.

“But it’s going to be weeks before the big lizards can all make it here,” Dae said.

“Their intent is focused here,” Estella said. “It’s not enough to bring their fearful auras to bear, but remember that dragons are more than just what you see them to be. They are a part of the magic which is imbued in Paxmer.”

“Can they sense us?” Jyl asked.

“Not directly,” Estella said. “And even when they’re commanded to move, the dragons who live under Haldraxan’s rule have little interest in showing initiative. They are uniformly self-absorbed, as Haldraxan’s insists they be.”

“So they won’t be searching for us either then?” Jyl asked.

“On when they’re ordered to,” Estella said. “And even then, only to the extent they are directed.”

“Meaning if their riders are new and don’t tell the dragons to sniff us out, then they’ll ignore any scents they catch of us,” Dae said.

“That’s lucky for us,” Jyl said.

“Not precisely,” Estella said. “The reason Haldraxan insists on that mindset in the dragons that he controls is that their lack of initiative means that they work flawlessly with their rider’s will and they are completely subservient to him.”

“So there’s no option to split their ranks, or defeat their morale,” Dae said. “In a sense they are already berserkers, just ones under Haldraxan’s control.”

“How could all of the dragons be like that?” Jyl asked. “Pact spirits are literally bound to us and they’re each unique. The queen can’t dictate what they do and there’s no Spirit King who commands and shapes them.”

“Paxmer magic is different from Gallagrim magic,” Dae said. “Each was crafted by a different deity to fit a different purpose.”

“That’s true, but it’s not the reason why our dragons are limited as they are,” Estella said. “The story that you told about Gallagrin’s lost Spirit Crown has a mirror in Paxmer, except Paxmer’s controlling artifact is not lost. It sits on Haldraxan’s brow. When the dragons were originally shaped from the earth, they were modeled after your Pact Spirits, but they were given physical forms so that they could collect their own experiences.”

“It sounds like there were problems with that?” Jyl asked.

“They were meant to be the guardians of Paxmer, and servants to the crown,” Estella said. “But over time they didn’t wish to fight in the wars the gods waged against one another, and certainly not the ones the Kings and Queens of Paxmer demanded they fight in.”

“That’s when Haldraxan was created,” Nui said.”

“And why he was given a divine tool to rule them with,” Estella said. “His rule is not so absolute as the Spirit Crown that you spoke of, but with his long centuries of experience, it works out to be much the same in the end.”

“So, why hasn’t he usurped the throne himself?” Dae asked. “Why take orders from a creature like Haldri Paxmer?”

“As he rules with the gem, so to is he ruled by it,” Estella said. “He is bound to the Paxmer throne by the same power that he uses to bring the other dragons into his own likeness. But it’s not a simple matter of subservience. Haldraxan and the ruler of Paxmer are joined by a bond. They are two beings but they share one appetite.”

“So everything rotten in Paxmer is Haldraxan’s fault?” Jyl asked.

“Not at all,” Estella said. “Haldraxan colors all of the rulers of Paxmer, but each one brings their own avarice to the relationship as well. In Haldri Paxmer we have a queen whose hunger for power cannot be satiated within the confines of our realm, and so, once again Haldraxan’s eye is turned outward. In a sense this has helped us. We’ve been able to build up our strength far beyond what it was when I returned her, but it also means that unseating Queen Haldri will not be enough to forge a peace for Gallagrin.”

“Haldraxan will just pass on her lust for power to the next monarch and we’ll enter the cycle all over again,” Jyl said.

“Unless we also destroy Haldraxan,” Dae said.

“But he’s immortal,” Nui said.

“No,” Dae said. “The gods themselves showed us, everything can die.”

Coming out of the grip of dragon fear was no easier for having managed it twice before Dae decided. She’d been able to isolate the emotional cataclysm the dragons inflicted on them somewhat better thanks to the foreknowledge of what they would be exposed to, but even with that she felt shaky and disoriented as the magical compulsion faded.

“Not that I’m complaining, but what killed the dragons?” Dae asked, pushing down a wave of nausea before she decorated the monastery’s landing pad in the colors of whatever she’d last eaten.

“Blasting powder,” Monk Wunchlasse, the old woman leading the other monks, said. “They came to claim our current stocks and ‘encourage’ us to make more.”

“I didn’t know that blasting power could be focused that well?” Dae said.

“It’s easier when you get to pack it carefully on your target’s backs,” Monk Wunchlasse said. “We’re lucky that these were young ones, both the riders and their mounts, though.”

“Yes, if their lieutenant had more experience he wouldn’t have fallen for my ruse,” Estella said.

“And the dragons might have survived the explosions,” Monk Wunchlasse said. “But come, there is much to discuss and put in motion and precious little time from here to work with.”

“I need to check on my people,” Dae said. She turned to find Jyl standing against the side of the sky carriage, panting to catch her breath but looking to have weathered the dragon fear as well as Dae had.

Inside the sky carriage, Dae found Mayleena folded over, hands wrapped around legs and forehead pressed to knees.

“The dragons are gone,” Dae said, keeping her voice soft.

“We know,” Mayleena said. “We need a few…we need time. Please. Don’t let anyone else open the door until we come out. We are…we’re not safe at the moment.”

Dae nodded, understanding.

“Take as much time as you need,” she said. “We have some questions to work out with the monks. I’ll check back in when we’re done, and I’ll knock before entering.”

“Thank you,” Mayleena said, her voice cracking into alien tones.

After the dragon fear, Dae couldn’t be sure if her apprehension at bothering Mayleena further was due to being off balance still or if it was the voice of self preservation screaming an entirely sensible warning. Mayleena had managed to stifle her natural reaction to dragon fear, and as a result hadn’t killed everyone on the mountaintop. The effort had cost her dearly though and from what Dae could see the reaction in Mayleena was still fighting to go out of control.

On the off chance that they survived the mission, Dae promised herself that she would make time to work with Mayleena in less fraught situations to help her hone the amazing amount of control she’d already clearly developed.

“How is she?” Nui asked as Dae returned to the gathered group of Resistance fighters and alchemical monks.

“She’s holding it together, but she needs time,” Dae said. “For the love of all the Sleeping Gods, no one go into the carriage or disturb it at all though. There won’t be a mountain left, or any of us either, if you do.”

“What is she?” Monk Wunchlasse asked, her aged face tightening in suspicion.

“One of mine,” Dae said. “And a good woman. Please treat her as such.”

“And who are you?” Monk Wunchlasse asked.

“Maricha, please meet my daughter Daelynne Korli,” Estella said.

The old woman took a step back, her eyes widening in shock.

“You’re less dead than I was led to believe,” she said, regaining her composure.

“It’s Akorli now, and yes, we’re working on discovering who it was that survived the events of twenty years ago,” Dae said. “Neither my mother nor I are precisely who we were then.”

“Well that explains why we had to save you I guess,” Wunchlasse said.

“How did you know to do that?” Jyl asked. “I was out of it there for a while, but it looked like you took the dragons completely by surprise.”

Wunchlasse glanced at Estella but Dae answered Jyl’s question before any awkward prevarications could be dreamed up.

“Hand signals, I think,” Dae said. “From where I was frozen I had a decent vantage point on Lady sur Korkin and I’m pretty sure the finger fluttering she was doing was not the panicked, overly emotional gestures the dragon rider mistook them for.”

“The resistance has gone on long enough that they’ve developed a whole language of gestures?” Jyl asked.

“Probably,” Dae said. “But probably better if we don’t know too much about it. They’ll be worried what we’ll say if we’re captured.”

“If I’m captured, I don’t plan on retaining the capacity for coherent thought,” Jyl said, “Much less the ability to betray any secrets.”

“I’m not sure it’s a comfort to them to know that if defeat seems imminent, we’re likely to unleash our Pact Spirits and self-destruct,” Dae said. “After all it won’t exactly be healthy for anyone within line of sight of us if that happens.”

“If defeat is imminent, I believe all of us would prefer a swift death, no matter how terrible, in place of the tortures Haldri Paxmer would have waiting,” Estella said.

“I have lived a good long life,” Wunchlasse said, “And I intend to keep living it for a good time longer, so enough talk about defeat. I want to hear why you’ve come and what sort of hell you’ve brought with you?”

Dae saw that the monks around them weren’t gathering to be part of the conversation but were instead rapidly packing up boxes and crates as though a surprise housing inspection were imminent.

“Our time table has shifted up somewhat,” Estella said as Wunchlasse led them into a room at the top of the spire.

“You’re rushing things because your daughter has returned?” Wunchlasse asked.

“No, we’re rushing things because of the army that she is bringing here,” Estella said.

“An army?” Wunchlasse asked, looking at the two Pact Knights in the room.

“Yes,” Estella said. “There’s an army massing just north of the border. These three are it’s vanguard.”

“You’ll be slaughtered,” Wunchlasse said.

“That’s not the army you need to worry about,” Dae said.

“She speaks true there too,” Estella said. “The queen has mobilized the largest flight of dragons since the War of the Split Throne.”
“That’s impossible,” Wunchlasse said. “That many dragons in our province would devastate the countryside. The royal army couldn’t possibly handle the logistics of keeping them all fed.”

“Impossible or not, the dragons are coming,” Dae said. “Haldri thinks they will be justified in holding off an assault from Gallagrin. She also thinks they’ll be sufficient to accomplish the task.”

“How could they not be sufficient?” Wunchlasse asked. “Even with all the Pact Knights in Gallagrin, you couldn’t beat a dragon army the size of the ones that were fielded during our civil war.”

“We have a lot of Pact Knights and with the right tools a single Pact Knight can defeat a dragon,” Dae said.

“It’s never been done before,” Wunchlasse said.

“We haven’t had the right tool before,” Dae said.

“There is an artifact, one that will allow a Pact Knight to push through dragon fear,” Estella said. “My daughter and her companions seek to acquire it before our queen gains control of it.”

“That’s why the queen has ordered the dragon army here then, isn’t it?” Wunchlasse asked. “With an artifact like that she would hold the upper hand over Gallagrin at last.”

“No,” Dae said. “She’s not interested in keeping Paxmer safe. She wants the throne of Gallagrin, and she’ll grab for any power that promises to give it to her.”

“We have more immediate matters to discuss though,” Estella said. “While I am deeply grateful for your assistance, I am afraid of the cost you must bear for rendering it.”

“It won’t be the first time I’ve fled from my monastery,” Wunchlasse said. “And at least this time it’s not on fire and collapsing on top of me.”

“Why do you have to flee?” Jyl asked. “Can’t we come up with a story for you? Maybe we killed the dragons in mid-air and then landed here, overpowered you and fled down the mountain after taking the supplies we need.”

“There are two problems with that story,” Wunchlass said. “First, our queen will not believe a story wherein a trio of Pact Knights got the better of a trio of dragons in an aerial battle and second, even if she did, she wouldn’t care.”

“Haldri Paxmer is not a forgiving monarch,” Estella said. “She’d slaughter everyone at the monastery even if the story you suggested was the pure and factual truth.”

“That’s insane,” Jyl said. “She must go through advisors like they’re fashion accessories.”

“No,” Estella said. “She’ll never give up a pretty broach once she has it. Her advisors enjoy much less guarantee of remaining in her good graces than that.”

“The monks are packing to leave already?” Dae asked.

“We’ve known the cost for the taking direct and lethal action against the queen’s representatives ever since the Resistance was founded,” Wunchlasse said. “Now is the time for us to scatter. The queen may hunt some of us down, but enough will survive to rebuild the monastery, in secret if we must, and continue forward the research that’s been done here.”

“Wait,” Dae said. “What if you didn’t have to scatter?”

“No one can be here when the next dragon riders arrive,” Estella said.

“Agreed,” Dae said. “But what if the monks stayed together?”

“Then Haldri Paxmer would only need to find us in one place to wipe us out completely,” Wunchlasse said.

“Not if that one place was in a spot where her power couldn’t reach,” Dae said.

“You mean for us to go to Gallagrin?” Wunchlasse asked.

“Yes, you could continue your research, together, as the community that you’ve become, with no fear of being hunted down,” Dae said. “And, once the current strife is ended, you could leave Gallagrin and return home.”

“We would be refugees,” Wuchlasse said. “Unless your queen could guarantee us our place in your country and the freedom to return to our own whenever we wish.”

Dae smiled and a light flashed across her eyes. When she spoke her voice was not her own.

“We grant the people of this monastery the sanctuary and protection of the Throne of Gallagrin,” Alari’s voice said from Dae’s mouth. “We grant too the right of transit so that none may bar them from leaving our realm when their sojourn within our borders is complete.”

“I’ve heard royal proclamations before,” Wunchlasse said. “You’ve been given the Gallagrin Queen’s voice to speak with?”

“Yes,” Dae said, reverting to her own. “Our offering of sanctuary is backed by royal will and is a binding pledge on both myself and the monarch whom I serve.”

“It will take us some time to reach the Gallagrin border from here though,” Wunchlasse said.

“Then we shouldn’t delay you any further,” Estella said.

“And where will you be going?” Wunchlasse said.

“We must head for the artifact which my daughter seeks,” Estella said. “The time of Paxmer’s destruction is on us sooner than expected but we must rise to play our role in it nonetheless.”

“Which means I believe you owe me a hundred gold crowns don’t you?” Wunchlasse said.

“You had a bet on this?” Dae asked.

“Your mother thought we would struggle on to our dying days with nothing ever changing,” Wunchlasse said. “I’ve seen the signs of this coming for years though.”

“Yes, well, remember that you’ll have to live through this in order to enjoy those gold crowns,” Estella said.

“You too little bird,” Wunchlasse said. “You bring the coins when this is all done and maybe I’ll share another bottle of the monastery’s Special Reserve.”

“I still don’t remember that week,” Estella said. “But another bottle sounds wonderful.”

“If you’re going to head directly to the border from here, I have a request,” Dae said.

“And what would that be?” Wunchlasse asked.

“Warn the people in the town’s that you pass,” Dae said. “We’ll travel overland and do the same. You’ve seen a cataclysm coming, let’s make sure everyone’s ready for it.”

Jyl sat on the driver’s bench as the floundering sky carriage made its final approach to the alchemical monastery. The temptation to leap over the side and take her chances with a high speed impact with the ground was strong enough that she was squeezing the wooden seat with sufficient force to leave fingerprints in its surface.

“Permission to speak freely,” she asked through clenched teeth.

“Yes, I know this is a bad plan,” Dae said as she drove them onwards to their doom.

“Not what I was going to say, actually,” Jyl said.

“What’s on your mind then?” Dae asked as the sky carriage plummeted twenty feet before the Wind Steeds regained a semblance of solidity.

“Why me?” Jyl asked. “I mean rather than May. Not that being in the cabin will keep the dragons from eating me, but why not have the one person here who we know is capable of fighting them?”

“Because our only hope here is that we won’t have to fight them,” Dae said.

“The dragons all descended to the monastery when they saw us coming in,” Jyl said. “I’m pretty sure we’re going to have to fight them.”

“Mayleena’s not going to be able to handle them for us,” Dae said. “At best she’d be able to catch a couple of them before the third lifted off and roasted us all from the air.”

“That’s two more of them than we’re going to take out with this plan though isn’t it?” Jyl asked.

“That’s probably true,” Dae said and fought against a wild turn to the right as one of the Wind Steeds faltered and flicked away briefly. “Assuming we can even get there.”

“Honesty time, crashing into the side of the mountain’s not looking so bad right at the moment,” Jyl said.

“Can’t say I disagree, but our job’s not done here yet,” Dae said. “And for as much as what’s going to come next is going to suck, I promise you it’s worth it.”

Jyl clenched the shivering muscles in her torso and forced herself to draw in a deep breath. The air carried with it the scent of dragon fire.

“I can’t do this,” Jyl said. “This isn’t me. I was wrong to come on this mission.”

She felt herself coming unglued, like whatever tethered her to her body had dissolved and she was manipulating it at a distance. From that ghostly remove, only one course of action made sense.

She released her grip on the bench and tumbled off her seat. Her bond with her pact spirit was just as distant as her connection to her body, so she had no idea if she’d be able to manifest wings to fly safely to the ground but somehow that didn’t matter in the least. She welcomed the plunging feeling that meant she was going to escape the horror that awaited her at the top of the mountain.

Or she did until she felt Dae’s hand wrap around her arm like a steel coil.

“We’re going to get through this,” Dae said as the sky carriage tumbled in towards the landing platform.

Jyl fought to escape. She didn’t want to. She respected her commander’s judgment and power too much to try to assault her, but some part of her wasn’t interested in respect or rational judgment. That part of her needed to escape. She felt like it would have been easier to order her heart to stop beating than it would have been to deny that primal imperative.

Her first blow took Dae right in the cheek. It was a solid hit and would have knocked someone without a pact spirit completely off the driver’s bench. Dae’s head didn’t even rock backwards though.

“No more of…” Dae wasn’t even able to finish her admonition before the sky carriage touched down and the two of them were frozen in place by the aura of dragon fear that awaited them.

Coherent though, which had eluded Jyl the last time she encountered a dragon, remained in place this time. The only problem was that she became even more disconnected from her body than she had been.

I shouldn’t have hit the commander, she though. That might cause complications in the mission.

She tried to say something, offer an apology, or even drop her arms limply to her side to indicate that she wasn’t going to fight any further. Movement of any type was not an option though. Observing her body, Jyl didn’t think she was even breathing still.

Somehow though that didn’t seem like a problem. Holding her breath for a while was a basic survival technique for a frightened animal, and on some level that’s all that she was.

Humans, and elves, and dwarves, and all the other Mindful Races believed that they were special. That their intellects allowed them to be the masters of their world. From the magics of pact bonds to the technologies of steel wrung from the mountains, the bits of power that people had scraped together gave them the illusion that they were something greater than the primitive beasts that prowled the wilds or were yoked to toil for those who could think.

As dragon fear descended on her for the second time though, Jyl was forced to confront the fact that in the grand scheme of the gods’ creation, she was no greater than any other beast. Like any animal, she was driven by her desires and limited by her needs. Whatever she wanted, and whatever she thought was right didn’t matter. All that mattered was what she needed, and before all other needs came the need to survive.

To be helpless in the face of that need, was soul crushing. In the cold empty night of her her fear drowned heart, a spark of hatred flared. Hatred for Dae for keeping her on the sky carriage, hatred for Mayleena for not saving them and hatred for the queen for sending them on the mission in the first place.

Most of all though there was hatred of herself for being so weak. For pretending to be a person for so long when she was nothing more than an animal.

In the flames of that hatred she heard her sister’s laughter. It was a laughter that cut and sliced into Jyl, piercing through skin and muscle and into the marrow of her bones.

Her twin knew Jyl’s weaknesses and mocked them cruelly at every turn, so it was right and proper that the echo of her that lived within Jyl’s mind should laugh at this too.

Except, there were some things that they never tormented each other over. Some areas that were off limits. Jaan might kick Jyl when she was down, but somehow the kicks put Jyl back on her feet, ready to fight more, rather than grinding her down further into the mud.

Jyl knew her relationship with Jaan wasn’t a cornerstone of strength for either of them. Neither sister had ever supported or nurtured the other. Almost from exiting the womb there’d been strife and rivalry between the two. Anyone who watched the two of them would inevitably observe that the two were the most bitter of enemies, and Jyl and Jaan had done nothing to correct that belief.

As hatred tore into Jyl’s psyche though, and the dragon fear tried to unmake her image of who she was, she found strength in a simple paradox; she hated her sister and she loved her. She and Jaan were bitter rivals and they were also the ones that at the end of all other things each knew they could rely on.

Jyl was an animal. The dragon fear showed that there were parts of her that could be overwhelmed and driven to thoughtless, uncontrollable action.

But that wasn’t all that she was.

With her sister’s laughter in her ears, Jyl reached out to her body and climbed back into her life in time to hear Lady sur Korkin speaking with one of the dragon riders.

“Thank the gods you were here, Lieutenant, these women are operatives from Gallagrin, and they must be taken into custody immediately.”

“I will have to take everyone into custody, your Ladyship,” the dragon rider said. “Yourself included.”

“Of course,” Estella said. “We must make a full report to the queen’s inquisitors. There may be more Gallagrin agents within the country.”

“You wish to speak to the inquisitors?” the dragon rider asked, clearly surprised.

“As soon as possible,” Estella said. “Paxmer must be ready to defend itself, if this is the prelude to a larger invasion.”

“We are already preparing for an invasion,” the dragon rider said.

“They came to requisition our special blasting powders,” one of the alchemist monks said.

“We are fortunate in your timing then,” Estella said. “Without your dragons, I doubt we could have escaped from three Pact Knights. I must request that you bring the dragon’s full might to bear though, there remains one additional Pact Knight hidden inside the carriage.”

“The dragons will stay where they are,” the rider said. “Any hidden Pact Knight is already frozen by my partner.”

“The hidden one claims to have been responsible for the sinking of a Sunlost ship off the coast of Windsmer and the murder of two dragon riders,” Estella said. “I urge you to be extremely careful of her. They captured us unawares, and had a blade to my throat seconds after they saw me. I know you are not so powerless as we were, but while there is little my daughter or I could have done to resist them, I believe they may have some hidden strategies for dealing with our great protectors. I can’t imagine they would have dared our shores otherwise.”

“You make a compelling case,” the dragon rider said. “We shall burn the carriage, if you don’t object?”

Jyl could hear the dragon rider fishing for a measure of resistance to indicate that Estella’s loyalties had been compromised.

“I have no objections whatsoever to that plan,” Estella said. “The carriage belongs to the mayor of Windsmer. I’m certain she would rather see it burned that used by a Gallagrin infiltrator, just as I’m certain that questioning someone who could slay two dragon riders is unacceptably dangerous.”

Jyl felt herself hauled off the driver’s seat. She was rigid and still unmoving, but she felt an echo of familiarity from her pact spirit. This wasn’t a natural reluctance to move. It was a magical paralysis that was part of the dragon fear aura. She wasn’t too afraid to move, she was bond in magic that prevented her from doing so. And forced her to be terrified. So the difference was slight, but it was present and that, in some odd manner, reassured her.

“Perhaps I shall bring the other dragons in as you say then,” the rider said and signaled the other riders to bring their dragons in for a landing near the carriage. Jyl winced as whole new flavors of dragon fear scoured her mouth like boiling bile. “I want to know what sort of monster Gallagrin has created that can slay two of us.”

“Please, no!” Estella said. “I saw how easily they penetrated the mayor’s estate. I know our dragons are powerful, but you shouldn’t risk yourselves trying to capture them all alive. Certainly one of the other ones could answer your questions?”

“You wish to preserve the third one’s secrets?” the rider asked.

“I am more concerned with the risk you take, than with secrets,” Estella said. “I’ve already endured hours in their captivity. I don’t want some trick they have prepared to take you unawares.”

“You needn’t worry about us, your Ladyship,” the rider said. “We can handle any tricks three little pact knights might have in mind.”

And with that, the three dragons that were present exploded.

Bits of caustic blood and steel hard scale rained down over the entire landing pad and Jyl felt the dragon fear that had gripped her heart vanish in a flash. Where the dragon rider had been standing there was a particularly messy looking pile of what might once have been a man, beside which stood Lady Estella. Jyl watched her lower a long tube which was billowing black smoke from its far end.

“In your next life, consider that it’s the older woman who’s likely to know the most tricks, Lieutenant,” Estella said.

In a realm bound in peace by the will of the gods, battles were an anathema. That was, Alari decided, mildly inconvenient. She was engaged in a life or death struggle after all, and she had zero interest in allowing her opponent to survive it, the will of the absent gods be damned.

With the divine peace in effect though, the battle Alari fought against Haldri Paxmer was not going to be won by any delicious use of physical force. Crushing the Dragon Queen was something Alari would have to enjoy on a metaphorical level rather than a literal one.

Presuming of course that Haldri’s strategems didn’t prove to be the superior ones. That thought helped cool the blood that raged through Alari’s veins hotter than any Paxmer dragon’s breath could burn.

She’d spent years uncomfortably perturbed by the policies of her southern peer. Thanks to Halrek’s presence in her life though though, Alari had adopted the belief that Gallagrin deserved the full attention of its queen and any questionable practices the queen of Paxmer was engaged in were ones which Gallagrin had to accept as outside its realm of influence.

When the Sleeping Gods had walked the Earth and crafted the peoples and places of the Blessed Realms from the formless clay of the newborn world one of the first things they’d done was to divide the lands into dominions which each of gods took as they own. There wasn’t always peace between the gods, and in the fields where they fought an unholy devastation still remained millennia after divine blood was shed on the debased soil. From those early conflicts, accords had been forged between the surviving gods and the realms they controlled.

Peace was the highest goal for the immortal creators since only through violence on a cosmic scale would they ever perish. From the early accords, the God’s Hall had been raised, and terrible and binding oaths sworn to ensure no realm or god could ever assault another.

Those were oaths which many supposed were eternal, but which Alari knew had ended when the gods passed into their eternal slumber.

The Blessed Realms were meant to be blessed with wisdom, but it was an external wisdom. One enforced on the Mindful Races as though they were children who could never develop a true understanding of how to govern themselves.

In pursuing her revenge against Paxmer, Alari had questioned herself many times. She knew the high path was the road of forgiveness and reconciliation and that the gods would have enforced it on her if she still had access to their counsel. In that sense, the rage she felt was the rage of a child who’d been wronged.

But that didn’t mean that her anger was unfounded, or unjustified, or wrong to pursue.

The gods looked at their realms and cared only that their sandboxes were not disturbed too greatly by the toys they had put into play. Peace between the Mindful Races wasn’t a higher calling, it was simply convenient.

The problem with peace, or at least the peace Alari saw laid before her, was that it was an illusion. There was no peace for the people of Paxmer in their suffering under Haldri Paxmer’s tyranny. There was no peace for the people of Gallagrin who endured the endless feints and forays Paxmer sent to test the strength of the borders.

Alari had suffered directly from Paxmer’s hunger to expand and consume, but that alone didn’t give her the right to sacrifice her people or the people of Paxmer on the field of battle. Her pain was simply the fuel she burned to push onwards and confront a problem that was even larger than her power as a queen of the Blessed Realms could encompass.

Haldri Paxmer had brought the two countries to the precipice of war through her schemes, both the direct ones and the indirect machinations acted out by pawns like her brother Halrek. The Paxmer queen had played a long and dangerous game of baiting Gallagrin into an unrestrained military conflict both and so Alari’s actions were required to address that. Haldri had see the war she craved begin to form if Alari was going to get her to make the kind of fatal misstep that separate the royal head from the royal shoulders.

“It is an interesting view, to see the world from this far above, is it not?” Haldri asked, gazing down at the projection of the Blessed Realms that had replaced the floor below them.

“It seems a very divine choice,” Alari said. “To look at the broad curve of the world and ignore the small details which truly matter.”

“Getting lost in the small details is what our lessers are for,” Haldri said. “As sovereigns, our task is to attend to the global picture that escapes those below us.”

“The global picture shows none of the people below us,” Alari said. “We see none of the differences that make each realm unique beyond their simple geography.”

“Perhaps that’s a sign, a reminder from the divines that there shouldn’t be divisions between the realms,” Haldri said. “Perhaps the unity we see below us calls for but a single monarch to govern it.”

“Yours will never be that voice,” Alari said. “Your own people barely tolerate your rule, the other realms will never welcome you.”

“You sit so confident in the belief that you are beloved in your realm,” Haldri said. “I wonder what that must feel like?”

“It feels like a burden to be lived up to,” Alari said.

“And do you live up to it?” Haldri asked. “Are you truly as beloved as you wish to believe? They call you the Bloody Handed Queen do they not?”

“I call myself that,” Alari said. “Though some days I worry that my hands are not quite bloody enough.”

Within her breast, the Spirit of Gallagrin stirred. If there was anyone whom the pact spirit most wished to visit violence upon, it was the sovereign of Paxmer. Alari’s injuries were fresh, but the spirit remembered centuries worth of insults and blood that Paxmer owed to its northern neighbor.

“And I thought we came here to speak of peace,” Haldri said.

“There will be peace between our realms once this is concluded,” Alari said.

“A bold statement,” Haldri said. “And with what army would you enforce that peace?”

“What makes you think I need an army?” Alari asked.

“I think you need an army because I know the armies you believed loyal to you are not answering your calls to muster,” Haldri said.

Alari was silent, but glared at Haldri as though sheer disdain might be enough to stop the Dragon Queen’s heart.

“My mother spoke to me of the art of war when I was young,” Haldri said. “For a monarch to commit to a battle, they must know that they have already won it. Fighting against an enemy you do not understand means you will find the power of your attacks blunted. Fighting alongside allies you cannot control means you fill find your defenses unraveling when you are at your weakest.”

“The former queen of Paxmer was fond of prattling on I gather?” Alari asked. “Tell me, did she ever fight a real battle during her reign? Or did she just have your pets eat anyone who offended her?”

“Were we in Paxmer, I would see your body shattered to jelly by fear for speaking against my mother,” Haldri said.

“As I thought,” Alari said. “Though perhaps I’ll be in Paxmer before too much more time has passed and you will have a chance to see how that works out.”

“I imagine it will work out quite well,” Haldri said. “But don’t suppose that you will ever be allowed to enter Paxmer while breath remains in you.”

“Or in you,” Alari said.

“You are no longer young enough to be so foolish as to think you can unseat me,” Haldri said.

“I admit your position is a formidable one,” Alari said. “Your forces are powerful, even without the addition of your draconic troops.”

“Gallagrin has never witnessed what the assembled might of Paxmer is capable of,” Haldri said. “Even without the aid of our dragons, we can withstand any assault you would throw against us. And I believe we both know how very weak of an assault you are capable of mustering under the present circumstances.”

Alari let her irritation slip out along with her words.

“You have no idea what I am capable of mustering,” Alari said.

“I know you must speak of peasants and rabble,” Haldri said. “Or are my reports on the disposition of the Gallagrin Ducal armies in error?”

Alari was silent for a moment, visibly swallowing her anger.

“And you think I will leave my Dukes and Duchesses with the choice of whether to serve me or not?” Alari asked.

“If you could compel them to service they would be pressed up against my borders already,” Haldri said.

Alari laughed, a bitter, hate filled bark.

“You truly don’t know? Do you?” she asked.

“About the artifact that you seek?” Haldri asked. “Oh I am well aware of that fool’s errand but no simple trinket will buy you victory over your own people and the forces I can bring against you.”

“It is no simple artifact or trinket that will be delivered into my hands,” Alari said. “Have you never heard of the Relics of Myth? The tools forged by the gods when they were young and at the height of their powers. Before they were bound by treaty and accord.”

“Those have long since passed from the world,” Haldri said. “They are no more than stories for children.”
“We both know that’s not true,” Alari said. “Or has your little pet never revealed to you the powers of the Gem of Command that sits upon his brow?”

It was Haldri’s turn to stew in silence for a long moment.

“I’d like you to imagine something,” Alari asked her. “You know how thoroughly Haldraxan can dominate the other lizards which infest your realm. Picture a crown meant for the head of Gallagrin’s monarch which grants the same sort of influence over anyone who partakes of Gallagrin’s magics.”

“So that will let you convince the pact bound to fight for you,” Haldri said, her voice steady even as the color drained from her face. “All that means is that more Gallagrin blood will enrich Paxmer soil.”

“You don’t seem to grasp the puissance of this tool,” Alari said. “Of what value is the much vaunted fear your dragons can spread against a body that is driven by a will which is not its own.”

“Not even with all of your Pact Knights could you defeat the dragons of Paxmer,” Haldri said.

“Do you believe that such would be required?” Alari asked. “Or have you not thought to question just how deeply your fellow nobles fear and loathe you? Surely there’s been a night or two when you’d lain awake and speculated on what would happen if Haldraxan were to fall in battle?”

“Haldraxan has ruled for as long as Paxmer has stood,” Haldri said. “I have no fears on his account.”

“Haldraxan has never fought the sort of foes a tool of the gods can unleash upon him,” Alari said. “And so that you don’t misunderstand, I will need no army, because there will be no battle. Only a wave of unrestrained, unstoppable berserkers focused on one mission; destroying the one thing that lets you hold onto the reins of power. Once Haldraxan’s gone, all of my forces can step back, and allow the natural politics of Paxmer to secure my revenge. I don’t imagine it will be quick or painless but do you think they’ll send me a piece of you as a momento?”

Haldri was silent again for a long moment, but when she looked up and spoke there was a cold smile on her face.

“Bravo,” she said. “That is a fine scheme. Worthy of a noble of Paxmer. Sadly, I have been outwitting the nobles of Paxmer since I was a child.”

“It’s too late for you to outwit me,” Alari said. “You are trapped here until the dawn.”

“If I were as slow as you believe, I would have been devoured before I learned to walk,” Haldri said. “I have known of the forces you sent against me for weeks now. Only three of them, and one of them oh so dear to your heart. They may seek this Spirit Crown but all they will accomplish is to lead my elite forces to its location. Never before has someone presented me with as fine a gift as you have, dominion over an entire realm in one neat package.”

“You forget that my armies are still massed and ready to carve a path to my prize,” Alari said.

“And you forget that Haldraxan need not protect me while I am here,” Haldri said. “He lies in wait for your armies, and with him is gathered a force of more of our dragons than have ever been assembled before. Your armies will fail, your kingdom will fall, and when you are no longer queen you will be given to me so that Paxmer can reclaim the debt of blood owed by Gallagrin.”

An hour after the dawn, the High Stream, the road of air on which the stolen sky carriage rode, turned to the south. The sky carriage, however, did not.

“It always feels weird to leave a High Steam,” Dae said as she urged the Wind Steeds to follow a north easterly route instead. So long as she held the reigns for the flying vehicle, the highway of wind that it rode upon stood out in her vision like a long green path that undulated with the rushing wind. The High Stream didn’t offer any particular safety to travelers in the air, it was certainly possible to be attacked by flying creatures or other people on similar vehicles, but being off of the translucent emerald path always left Dae feeling like she was going to plunge to the ground below any moment.

“We’re going to need to land reasonably soon anyways,” Nui said. “We’ve been flying for hours, the steeds have to be getting close to the limit of their endurance.”

“We’ll be grounded for good once we set down,” Dae said. The metaphysics of sky carriages wasn’t an area Dae had studied deeply but she was familiar with the basic tenants of their use. Each Wind Steed held only so much magic within itself. By running on a High Stream, they’d been able to conserve their power and greatly extend the distance they traveled, but even with that boost, the steeds’ range was still limited and, they would soon tire and seek relief from their burden.

Wise sky carriage drives allowed their steeds to land before their magic was depleted. The steeds would then return to the aerial realms to recover their strength before returning to their earthly stables the following day.

The problem Dae and her companions faced was that, the stables the Wind Steeds would return to were back in Windsmer and, without the magical horses, the sky carriage was nothing more than a roomy and lightly built conveyance with no inherent means of locomotion.

“Let me switch with our mother,” Nui said. “She’ll know where we should go.”

“Can you cloak us from inside the carriage?” Dae asked.

“It’s easier if I’m outside, but I can manage if something comes up at us,” Nui said and opened the hatch behind the driver’s bench to descend into the compartment below.

After a few minutes of shuffling and repositioning, Estella sur Korkin sat atop the carriage with Dae while Nui settled inside and joined the others in pilfering the food stocks the mayor kept freshly stocked in the back of the transport.

“We need to head for Direbreak Ridge,” Dae said. “But it doesn’t look like the Wind Steeds will carry us that far.”

“Not without a High Stream to run on,” Estella said. “Unfortunately Direbreak was mined dry long ago, so there’s no easy path there by air.”

“We’ll need a place to set down then,” Dae said. “Somewhere that we can secure transportation.”

“And supplies,” Estella said. “We brought what was available, but you’ve advanced our timetable considerably.”

“We didn’t know that you had a timetable,” Dae said.

“Would it have mattered if you did?” Estella asked. “The deadline you’re racing against is a fluid one as well isn’t it? Any delay could cost you the prize and above all other things, you can’t let the queen of Paxmer or her forces retrieve the Spirit Crown.”

“No, we can’t,” Dae said.

“For what it’s worth then, we can’t either,” Estella said.

“Does it matter to you if Haldri crushes Gallagrin?” Dae asked.

Estella was silent for a long moment, her gaze tracing the features of Dae’s face.

“Gallagrin was my home once,” Estella said. “I won’t lie to you, I’ve hated it more since I fled from it than I did even when we were plotting the downfall of the king, but in my darkest days I never would wish for Haldri Paxmer to gain the sort of power you’ve described.”

“But not because of what she’d do to Gallagrin with it,” Dae said.

“I have no wish to see the people of Gallagrin harmed,” Estella said. “Those I swore a vendetta against passed from this world years ago.”

“And you can let your anger against them go as well?” Dae asked.

“No,” Estella said a laugh catching in her throat. “If I let myself think too long on the torments of yesterday, I can feel the same old hurts and the same old rage still waiting there. Maybe a few degrees colder but part of me still wants to exhume some of the people who died along with the Butcher King, and reanimate them just so I could have the pleasure of killing them myself.”

“Interesting,” Dae said.

“What?” Estella asked.

“Apparently I get my forgiving nature from you,” Dae said and smiled without taking her eyes off the sky ahead of them.

“It’s a poor inheritance if so,” Estella said.

“Nui suggested that we could start over as two people who’ve only just met,” Dae said.

“You are certainly a lifetime beyond the daughter I once knew,” Estella said.

“It still feels like it was yesterday though,” Dae said.

“I spent the last twenty years believing that, dead or alive, you hated me,” Estella said. “I can bear that thought longer still if hating me will ease your heart at all.”

“I don’t think I know you enough to hate you,” Dae said. “It’s as though we’re the most intimate of strangers. You’re not the mother I’ve carried with me for years, and I don’t think you’re even the mother I imagined you to be before you left.”

“As children we never see our parents as the people they are,” Estella said.

“It seems like a rare thing to manage with anyone,” Dae said.

“It takes time,” Estella said. “For the moment, perhaps we can at least be the Gallagrin Queen’s Knight and the leader of the Paxmer Resistance?”

Dae exhaled a breath she hadn’t noticed she was holding.

“We can at least be that,” she said.

“Then as the voice of the Resistance, allow me to suggest that we make for Dungil Peak,” Estella said. “There is an alchemical monastery there where we can find aid and support.”

“Can we make it there before the Wind Steeds falter?” Dae asked.

“Hand me the reigns,” Estella said. “I know a few tricks that will buy us an extra mile or two.”

Dae passed her mother the reigns of the sky carriage and felt her enhanced vision fade.

“I’ve read reports about you,” Dae said. “Though we didn’t know that you were the ones behind them. My queen spent a lot of effort over the winter collecting information about the Paxmer Resistance.”

“Hopefully she wasn’t able to find out too much,” Estella said.

“We learned of your existence,” Dae said, “Though nothing about your membership. You seem to guard those secrets well.”

“Those who don’t, tend to meet rather grisly fates,” Estella said. “The Resistance has had more contact with Gallagrin that you may realize though.”

“We had our suspicions,” Dae said. “A few of our operatives escaped from situations where they were certain they’d misstepped too badly to avoid a catastrophe.”

“They were asking the sort of questions that we like to encourage,” Estella said.

“It’s unfortunate that we weren’t able to set up better lines of communication,” Dae said.

“We couldn’t allow that,” Estella said. “The Resistance holds the future of Paxmer. Or a future at least. We have to play a delicate game of balancing between safeguarding that future and not allowing the current regime’s forces to grow so powerful that there’s no hope of our future coming to pass.”

“Should you be taking this risk then?” Dae asked. “Even if we’re not caught, our mission could easily expose your connections.”

“Your arrival and the actions of the armies that are stirring north of our border are one of our apocalypse scenarios,” Estella said. “However this turns out, the three of us with you are unlikely to have anything to hide once it’s all over.”

“I’m surprised you weren’t the one holding a blade at my throat then,” Dae said.

“We don’t necessarily disagree with an apocalypse in the right context,” Estella said.

“I’ve had nights like that,” Dae said.

“Change on the scale that we seek to promote will never come easily,” Estella said. “I don’t want to see my country burn, but I can’t deny the likelihood that it will happen at some point.”

“And if you can’t prevent it, you at least want to be able to profit from it?” Dae asked.

“Not for myself, or for anyone else in the Resistance,” Estella said. “If scouring flames are going to reduce our lands to char, we simply want to be ready to hide as many as we can from the devastation and then plant the seeds to grow a new and better Paxmer from the ashes.”

“I don’t know if there’ll ever to friendship between Gallagrin and Paxmer during the reign of my queen,” Dae said. “She has a beautiful and forgiving heart, but the wounds she’s sustained run too deep.”

“Given the tumult of recent years, it would perhaps not be unwise for Gallagrin and Paxmer to hold each other at a distance until the hurts that each side has endured fade from memories into stories,” Estella said.

“That would be an ideal situation,” Dae said. “It’s a shame we don’t live in a world where it’s ever likely to come about.”

Estella shook the reins as she laughed. Closing in the distance, Dae saw a single tall spire rising high above the low mountain peaks that surrounded it.

“We’re almost to the monastery,” Estella said.

“And we have a problem,” Dae said. “Look there, dragons are circling in the clouds above the peak. Three of them. We should get Nui to cloak us.”

“The carriage can’t make it much farther,” Estella said.

“Then we’ll need to proceed on foot,” Dae said.

“There’s another alternative,” Estella said.

“What is it?” Dae asked.

“It will require your trust,” Estella said. “And it won’t be pleasant.”

“You’re going to turn us over to the dragons, aren’t you?” Dae asked, guessing her mother’s intentions.

“They’ll track us down and roast us all if we land,” Estella said.

“And if we head on to the monastery, they’ll only roast Jyl, Mayleena and me,” Dae said.

Estella inhaled and turned to Dae.

“I will understand if this is a step too far,” Estella said. “And I will understand if you don’t believe a single word I am about to say, but I swear to you that I will stand between you and any harm the dragons would inflict on you. Before they touch you with a single claw, they will need to rend my body limb from limb.”

Without any further words, she handed the reins of the sky carriage back to Dae and turned her attention forward.

Part of Dae wanted to believe her mother while the rest screamed at her that being lured into facing three dragons was almost the perfect forum for an inescapable betrayal.

The two sides of her pulled and tore at Dae’s psyche, sending her back into the paralysis of doubt that she thought she’d cleared once they left the Resistance’s secret hideaway.

With nowhere else to turn, Dae found herself wondering what Alari would do. The answer came to her almost immediately, as though Alari’s words were waiting there in her heart like a gift that had only to be noticed to be received.

Surprisingly, the words Dae found waiting for her weren’t in the form of a kindly message. Alari hadn’t asked Dae to forgive her mother. She’d asked Dae to face the Lady Estella, and she’d shown Dae how much she believed in her Knight.

Through Alari’s eyes, Dae saw that her choice wasn’t between trusting her mother or not. It was between rising to the challenge before her or falling prey to her insecurities and fears.

There were dragons, the unknown awaited them at the alchemical monastery and they’d be confronting both with nothing more than their wits, skills and magics.

Phrased like that, Dae’s choice was all too easy to make.

“This is going to suck for us,” she said. “I know that. It’s inevitable. Just promise me you’re going to make it suck worse for them.”

The Paxmer night sky faded from a gem speckled swath of dark blue velvet to an ever lighter blue as the night progressed towards next day’s dawn. Dae loved seeing the break of dawn from the air, but under her present circumstances she wasn’t sure if the beauty was worth the risk to their safety.

“Can you keep the invisibility cloak around us once the sun’s risen?” Dae asked. They’d flown for hours but thanks to the trickle of magic that Kirios fed to her, she was still alert and ready, if the need arose, to seize control of the Wind Steeds that pulled the stolen sky carriage. Traveling on a High Stream path of wind and magic that lead eastward into the heart of Paxmer meant that the need to seize control of the steeds would only arise if they came under attack and, while that seemed unlikely under normal circumstances, Dae knew that nothing about their mission could be considered normal circumstances.

Against the near certainty of an assault from Paxmer’s forces, Nui was their best defense but the teenager didn’t share her older sister’s magically-enhanced stamina and was visibly flagging in her seat beside Dae.

“I let the cloak drop hours ago,” she said. “We’re high enough up that no one’s going to notice us unless they know to look for our passage.”

“And if they are looking for us by now?” Dae asked, searching the sky around them and finding it empty in the pre-dawn light.

“Then I’ll cloak us again before they can get too close,” Nui said. “The trick with glamour is that a little can go a long way if you use it right.”

She offered Dae a small smile and with a wave of her hand appeared bright, rested and perfectly made-up.

“I’ve sparred against Sunlost duelists,” Dae said. “I don’t think any of them had your skill though.”

“Thank you, but why would you think that?” Nui asked.

“You hid a room full of people and you maintained a cloak of invisibility that even the dragons couldn’t see through,” Dae said. “The duelists I sparred with were well trained but none of them pulled out any tricks like that.”

“Oh, I’m probably not better than them then,” Nui said. “Not necessarily anyways. Turning invisible in the middle of a fight is extremely difficult. Your opponent knows you’re there and they expect to keep seeing you unless you can get them to look away somehow. A good glamour caster plays on the expectations of the people who observe their glamours. That’s a more powerful aspect of the art than the direct creation of illusions. ”

“That makes sense, but I wasn’t expecting the room in your stronghold to be empty of people,” Dae said. “I thought we were going there to meet Zana’s contacts, and you managed to hide everyone.”

“True, but you didn’t have any set expectations for what you’d find in that particular room,” Nui said. “That made it easy to present you with a simple environment that you wouldn’t question too much. The cloak of invisibility was very similar. No one saw us leave, so no expected to see us flying out of the city. That made it a lot easier to keep the cloak held around us.”

“Even against the dragons?” Dae asked. The giant monsters had more powers than just their dragon fear, but Dae didn’t know of anyone who’d pushed them hard enough to force them to unveil all of their tricks.

“They are a different order of magic from Glamour or Pact Magic,” Nui said. “They’re powerful but they’re not immune to the gifts from the other realms gods. And it helps that I’m protected from them too.”

“You wield Sunlost’s magics but you still qualify as a citizen of Paxmer?” Dae asked.

“It’s in my blood,” Nui said.

“We share that same half of our blood and I can assure you that it alone is not enough to protect you,” Dae said. She bit back both her first memory of dragon fear and her most recent one.

“You really fought a dragon?” Nui asked. “And you lived?”

“Barely,” Dae said, the image of waking up broken in body and spirit in a battlefield tent surging to the forefront of her mind. She was a long road past the person she’d been then and while there was nothing to suggest that her body couldn’t be broken just as badly again, she wasn’t sure the same could be said about her spirit. Then she’d lost everything, or thought she had. In learning that she’d been wrong, Dae had found a stronger core to cling to in the face of the despair that swallowed her back then.

“Maybe your blood protected you to some degree?” Nui said.

“Not enough to make a difference,” Dae said. “I was supposed to defend one of our border keeps. It’s gone now and so are most of the troops I was given to defend it with. I survived, but it was mostly because my Pact Spirit is a tenacious monster who wouldn’t let me pass on.”

“What’s it like?” Nui asked. “Having a Pact Spirit?”

“Hard to describe,” Dae said. “Each bond is unique. For us, we’re like partners. I’m still myself, but I’ve got this very odd friend with me at all times. He’ll help me out, give me strength when I need it, and keep me from killing myself, but he doesn’t stop me from trying. In return, I try to make sure that I give him as many new experiences as I can, since that’s what he gets out of the deal, and I work with him as often as possible which makes us both stronger.”

“Is he awake now?” Nui asked.

“He’s always awake,” Dae said.

“So he can see me?” Nui asked. “And hear what we’re saying?”

“Yes, though he’s an old spirit, so however interesting this is to you and me, I’m pretty sure he’s only vaguely paying attention,” Dae said.

“I’m not sure if that’s creepy or comforting,” Nui said. “At least with your companion Mayleena it’s clear that you’re speaking to both a woman and a spirit at the same time. With you I could be speaking to either couldn’t I?”

Dae barked out a short laugh.

“No, it’s not like that,” she said. “I’m always here, and the Pact bond means I’m always the one in control. My spirit isn’t possessing me. It’s more like I’m possessing him.”

“That sounds even weirder and more disturbing somehow,” Nui said.

“It should,” Dae said. “Magic wielders of any type are dangerous. Gallagrin’s magic gives phenomenal physical ability, but the magics you control are much more terrifying.”

“I’ve been told that, but it’s hard to accept it when I see how limited glamour is,” Nui said.

“You can rewrite our perceptions of reality,” Dae said. “All my power as the Queen’s Knight amounts to nothing if I can’t understand the world I’m using it in. You could make me think I was stabbing Haldri Paxmer through the heart when the woman before me was my own queen.”

“That’s probably not actually possible,” Nui said. “Not with how you’ve spoken of her. There are bonds that even the strongest glamours can’t disguise.”

“That’s comforting to know, but it leaves open a chillingly large number of horrible possibilities,” Dae said.

“There are other limitations too, but I see your point I think,” Nui said. “Under the circumstances though both of us would probably be better off if we’d taken after our mother than our fathers.”

“Why’s that?” Dae asked, puzzled at the thought since Paxmer magic had always seemed far distant and alien to her.

The sun crested the horizon and the first light of day fell on the sky carriage and woke the slumbering women inside it.

“You bond yourself to Gallagrin’s magic and I began fiddling with glamour before I could speak, but after sixteen years in Paxmer I’m kind of wishing I’d taken up the native magic here instead,” Nui said.

“Dragon magic?” Dae asked. “But that’s only practiced by the highest of nobility isn’t it?”

“I thought you had a wide education in magic?” Nui said.

“Wide does not mean comprehensive,” Dae said. “What I know I’ve gleaned from a haphazard variety of sources.”

“Let me ask you a question then,” Nui said. “You mentioned that the Sunlost boat that you were on was assaulted by dragons. Do you think there was a high-born noble controlling them?”

Dae blinked and stared at her sister.

“No,” she said. “No there wasn’t. The dragon’s carried riders. Riders who attacked independently of the dragons, but were common enough to risk sending into a minor battle.”

“Those rider’s shared a bond with their dragons that might not be the same as the Pact Bond you have but there’s some similarity I think,” Nui said.

“In hindsight that makes a terrible sort of sense,” Dae said. “But how does Haldri control a legion of Dragon Warriors if even a commoner can become one?”

“By controlling the dragons themselves,” Nui said. “It doesn’t matter if a commoner learns to speak the dragon tongue or is willing to exchange their heart with a dragon if there’s no dragons who will answer their call.”

“Dragons aren’t that docile a creature I thought though,” Dae said. “Do they really all take orders from the Paxmer Throne?”

“That’s a complicated question,” Nui said. “The Paxmer Throne is shared. Haldri Paxmer governs the peoples of the Mindful Races who live in her domain, while Haldraxan Paxmer governs the dragons who serve the crown.”

“And no one can oppose them?” Dae asked.

“We oppose them,” Nui said. “But we can’t do so openly or Haldraxan’s dragons will destroy both us and our lands.”

“Your protection from the dragons only goes so far,” Dae said.

“It’s tied to our citizenship,” Nui said. “If Haldri strips us of our citizenship, which she can do with a word, Haldraxan’s forces will gladly devour us. Or most of us.”

“So what good would it have done for you and me to have embraced Paxmer’s magics?” Dae said.

“Citizenship is one protection against the dragons of the realm,” Nui said. “But it’s not the only one.”

“Someone who knows Dragon Magic can fight the dragons here even if they’re not a citizen?” Dae asked. She was bond to Gallagrin’s magic, and she would never give up Kirios while she lived, but the idea of being to resist the dragon fear was an intensely appealing one nonetheless.

“Not quite fight them,” Nui said. “More command them.”

“That sounds even better than fighting them,” Dae said.

“The problem is that dragon’s don’t like being commanded, and if there’s someone else around who knows Dragon Magic, like one of the Paxmer High Nobles, then it can become a true battle of wills and wits,” Nui said. “Which, still sounds more appealing that being eaten while you’re too terrified to defend yourself.”

“How would a single person win against a dragon and a noble though?” Dae asked, intrigued by the notion.

“By not being alone,” Nui said. “The easiest method of commanding a dragon is to have another dragon repeat your command in clear and specific terms.”

“I can imagine we would have a problem in that regards,” Dae said. “With the Paxmer nobles controlling all of the dragons, it seems like they have the decided advantage there.”

“Whoever said that the nobles controlled all of the dragons?” Nui asked.

Dae froze in her seat.

Nui held up her forearm and showed the silver tattoo of the haloed dragon.

“Not all of Paxmer’s defenders have been bent to the greed of the Royal Throne,” Nui said. “Haldraxan may have them bound in a sleep as deep as that of the absent gods but their souls are still tied to this realm and their hearts are still buried in its depths.”

“That’s what the resistance is trying to discover, isn’t it?” Dae asked.

“We know where they are,” Nui said. “But while Haldraxan’s around, they’re limited in how they can help us.”

“What can sleeping and buried dragons do?” Dae asked.

“That’s something you should talk to our mother about,” Nui said. “She leads the Resistance in this province for more reasons than the blood she was born with.”

Nothing about sharing wine with her mother felt right or natural to Dae. After the tense standoff between them ended though, Estella had invited Dae and her companions to break bread with the Resistance fighters as they planned out their strategy.

“We’ll need to move fast,” Dae said. “There’s a lot of ground to cover inland to the location our Queen asked us to search.”

“Speed will attract attention,” Estella said. “Something has the Paxmer army on its toes in this region and their eyes are peeled for anything unusual.”

“That’s probably our fault,” Dae said. “I’m sure the Paxmer ships reported the sinking of the Fearless, and our borders have been permeable enough for the last seven years that I’m sure Haldri Paxmer knows of the troops that Gallagrin is marshalling.”

“You can’t be planning an invasion,” Estella said, her features tensing in concern.

“That depends what you mean by invasion,” Dae said, offering a wolfish smile.

“This Spirit Crown!” Nui said. “If you can’t retrieve it, Gallagrin’s going to send an army to get that job done, isn’t it?”

“Technically there’s more than one army massing on the Gallagrin side of the border,” Dae said, without denying Nui’s claim.

“They can’t cross the border,” Estella said. “Paxmer is waiting for them. It will be a slaughter.”

“Haldri Paxmer only thinks she knows how far my queen is willing to go to collect the blood price that’s due,” Dae said.

“She would invite death on such a grand scale? How much does she take after her father?” Estella asked.

To her credit, Dae noticed the concern in Estella’s voice and was able to refrain from killing her mother on the spot for the implied insult of comparing Alari to the Butcher King.

“She is nothing like King Sathe,” Dae said. “His madness caused him to lash out and destroy everyone and everything around him. His rage controlled and consumed him, but his daughter is not as weak as he was.”

“Our Queen does not let us see her anger,” Mayleena said. “But it burns within her, a weapon bound in her will, and sharp enough to cut through the heavens.”

“She’s not the kind of person to sacrifice her subjects lightly though,” Jyl said. “Which is why she needs us to move fast so that she doesn’t have to.”

“There’s only one fast option for escaping the city,” Nui said, passing a pot of stew to her mother. “You’ll need to fly out of here.”

“That’ll probably draw a lot of attention,” Dae said. “If that’s our best option though, we may have to go with it.”

“You can’t,” Estella said. “The dragons wouldn’t let you get half a mile from the city before they swooped on you.”

“Being paralyzed in mid-air might not be too fun,” Jyl said, taking a hunk of bread from Mayleena to soak up another bite of stew.

“The dragons will only assault them if they’re seen leaving the city,” Nui said.

Estella’s eyes widened and she looked at her younger daughter.

“They can’t turn invisible,” Estella said.

“They won’t need too,” Nui said, an unspoken argument passing between mother and daughter. Estella was the first to look away, sighing as she did so.

“We would need a sky carriage to keep everyone together,” Estella said.

“The mayor has one,” Nui said.

“It will be heavily guarded,” Estella said.

“You can leave the guards to us,” Dae said.

“What guards?” Mayleena asked.

“The guards on the sky carriage we’re going to steal so that my mother and sister can accompany us in our escape from the city,” Dae said.

“And they are joining our entourage why?” Mayleena asked.

“Because I can wrap a sky carriage in a glamour that will let us fly free of the dragons that are encircling the city,” Nui said.

“Except it’s not just going to be you five on the sky carriage,” Zana said. “You’ll need backup.”

“The more we try to move the harder it’s going to be,” Nui said.

“Can you handle cloaking six of us?” Dae asked.

“Six or sixty, if we’re all in one sky carriage then it’s the same effort,” Nui said.

“Zana should join us too then,” Dae said.

“Why?” Zana asked, pulling back where she’d previously been leaning forward.

“You’re quick,” Dae said. “You picked us out of crowd and worked out who we were without alerting half the tavern to our identities. I don’t think your forces can afford to lose a noblewoman like Lady sur Korkin or an exotic magic wielder like her daughter. My team has a mission to achieve though, so I can’t say their protection is our top priority. For you, I think it would be.”

“And what if that conflicts with your mission?” Zana asked.

“Then you’ll follow your mission, and we’ll follow ours,” Dae said. “Ultimately our goals lie in the same direction.”

“And if we try to betray her, my daughter will have all the confirmation she needs to strike us down where we stand,” Estella said.

“There is that as well,” Dae said.

“So assuming that matricide is not on the agenda, how are we going to steal a sky carriage?” Jyl asked.

The answer, Dae discovered, was “easily”.

The mayor’s estate was well guarded, but since she had to entertain foreign guests, the dragons were positioned so that their fear auras didn’t encroach on the mayoral mansion.

The mayor’s guards were brave and well trained. Even with the presence of the dragons to ensure peace and safety, the guards maintained a strict patrol and good discipline. They were alert and prepared and capable of capturing an intruding force of any reasonable size short of an army.

In the dead of the night though, with the talents of a skilled illusionist and three Pact Knight’s of surpassing prowess, the guard regime was confronted by a force that was more powerful than even an unreasonably large army of attackers would be.

Quietly, the defenders of the mayoral estate were dispatched into unconsciousness by attacks which they didn’t see coming and would not be able to reconstruct the details of later.

When the sky carriage lifted off and took to the winds, no candle flame was disturbed and no personnel were awoken. The theft was begun and finished in less than a minute’s time without the slightest sound being made.

The major’s sky carriage was broadly spacious and appointed lavishly enough to pass for one of the finest ducal carriages from Gallagrin. Windsmer’s position as a major trading hub generated enough wealth that it’s overseers had to appear as though they enjoyed a station far higher than their actual influence warranted. To do less would be to suggest that Paxmer’s glory was clutched in miserly hands and if there was one thing that the nobility despised it was accurate depictions of the world they created.

Mayleena, Jyl, Estella and Zana took their places within the sky carriage, while Dae took the reins of the wind steeds in the driver’s bench and Nui sat beside her to maintain the illusionary cloak that concealed them.

“I was twelve before she told me about you,” Nui said as they passed over the walls of Windsmer and began to place distance between themselves and the restless monsters that guarded its perimeter.

“You can hold the glamour and speak at the same time?” Dae asked, honest surprise creeping into her voice.

“We’re high enough up that I didn’t have to add an auditory element to the cloak,” Nui said. “So I can use my voice. I just can’t open my eyes.”

“You didn’t have to come along on this,” Dae said.

“I think I kind of did,” Nui said. “You were serious about killing her weren’t you?”

“I don’t draw that particular blade in jest,” Dae said.

“I think she knew that,” Nui said. “Even before she broke the glamour I cast on her.”

“That probably wasn’t her wisest move,” Dae said.

“It worked out ok though, didn’t it?” Nui asked.

“I wish I could say,” Dae said. “A part of me is still wondering if I didn’t make a terrible mistake there.”

“Was it really that bad? What she did?” Nui asked.

“Yes,” Dae said. “And no. Now’s probably not the right time to ask that question.”

“You can’t forgive her?” Nui asked.

Dae was silent as the miles flew by beneath them, mulling those four words over and searching for an answer. When that proved to be impossible, she turned to the question of why the answer to such a simple question was so elusive.

“I don’t know her,” she said at last. “The woman I met tonight is not the mother I’ve known for the last twenty years.”

“But you haven’t even seen her in twenty years!” Nui said.

“Since I was eight, there’s been a knot of hatred in my heart and its name has been ‘mother’,” Dae said. “I’d spent most of my life with the name Estella as a synonym for the deepest, vilest of betrayers. There hasn’t been a day that passed when she wasn’t with me.”

Nui was silent, and leaned away from her sister.

“Now that we’ve met again though, I don’t know who that woman is,” Dae said. “Is she my mother, the one who abandoned me to the mercy of a Butcher King? Is she Estella sur Korkin, the betrayer of my murdered father? Or is she some new creature, one with a life almost wholly apart from my own? I almost want her to be my mother so that I can hate her and kill her and be done with carrying the anger that fills me every time I hear her name. But I don’t think things can ever be that simple.”

“Don’t kill her,” Nui said. “Promise me that.”

“What difference would a promise make?” Dae asked. “I have to be a monster from your perspective aren’t I? Why would you trust anything I said?”

“A monster would have killed her back in the hideout,” Nui said. “A monster is someone you can’t reason with. Someone who treats you as a thing instead of a person.”

“That’s one kind of monster,” Dae said. “But anyone can do monstrous things.”

“But you won’t,” Nui said. “You don’t hate my mother, you hate the memory of what happened. You had how powerless you were, and the people who made you feel like that. But you don’t hate her.”

“Maybe,” Dae said. “I knew this meeting was coming, but I never envisioned it like this. I never envisioned you either.”

“That could be why I can see things more clearly here than anyone else,” Nui said.

“Really?” Dae said, offering her sister an amused smile.

“I’ve known about you for years,” Nui said. “I’ve thought of a thousand possibilities for how we might meet. If nothing else had come up, I was going to petition to visit Gallagrin two years from now and see if I could find you in Highcrest.”

“That would have been an interesting meeting,” Dae said. “I think I’m glad we met under the circumstances we did.”

“Believe it or not, I considered that we might meet like that too,” Nui said. “I won’t say your reaction didn’t surprise me, but it wasn’t the farthest thing from what I’d imagined it might be. And I think it went a lot better than how mother thought it would.”

“That was better than she guessed it would be?” Dae asked.

“She grieved for you twice over,” Nui said. “Once when she fled your country and again when she learned that you were alive because she believed you would never forgive her for what she’d done. Her visions of you were of someone who would hurt her in every way possible. The you she encountered tonight is possibly a kinder person than she ever imagined you could be.”

“Perhaps both my mother and her daughter are dead then,” Dae said. “I’m far from the girl she knew, and I don’t know if she was ever the mother I saw her to be.”

“Then maybe you can both begin as new people to one another,” Nui said.

“I might be able to manage that,” Dae said.

“And I’d still like you to promise not to kill her,” Nui said.

“I might be able to manage that too,” Dae said.

Alari knew that she was walking into a trap. In fact, she knew that she was walking into more than one. As she stepped into the God’s Hall and felt the ancient magics which governed the aerial palace of the slumbering divines, she could feel the skeins of fate shifting and knotting in her wake. Power woven by the will of the creators of the Blessed Realms surrounded and infused her. Within the confines of the God’s Hall she was safer than she was anywhere else in the world. The insurmountable will of the divine insured that. That didn’t mean that she was safe though.

Alari had arrived at the most peaceful hall in all the world with the fires of war burning in her soul and the certain knowledge that her adversary held that goal in common with her. Two queens of the Blessed Realms were entering a sacred realm and neither had any intention of allowing the other to leave with their crown, or ideally their lives, intact.

“The sun will finishing setting in a few minutes,” Alari said to the crew of the sky carriage that had ferried her to the God’s Hall. “You will need to cast off and return for us when you see the signal fire lit.”

Only at certain times of the day were people allowed to approach the God’s Hall and if the sky carriage tried to remain, or if anyone else tried to disembark they would wake a wrath that no earthly creature could withstand.

“We understand your majesty,” General Karlin Limli said. “Though I do wish we could send some form of guard with you.”

“Here, we must tread alone,” Alari said. “As must Haldri Paxmer.”

The queen of Gallagrin shivered. The magics of the God’s Hall meant that each of the queens was safe from the other, but Alari wasn’t sure if even the gods would refuse her the wrath she felt and what she would do if their peace was suspended for even an instant.

“The signal fire of Paxmer is lit already Your Majesty,” Admiral Yonda Kemere said. “She’s waiting for you.”

“Yes, she is,” Alari said. It was rare for any of the rulers of the Blessed Realms to meet directly. Correspondence was common, but it was delivered by ambassadorial couriers. Outside of the God’s Hall monarchs of the realms preferred to avoid the company of their equals. In the eyes of the royalty, only other royals were seen as legitimate threats. In that sense, Alari felt she held the advantage. She knew that despite the powers bestowed upon the monarchs of the Blessed Realms, there were still so many things that could hurt or destroy them.

“If you need us, signal early and we’ll come,” Limli said. Despite their differences, his face was lined with concern. There was trust and respect there, but also concern for the safety of someone he had sworn to protect and concern for the safety of a realm he’d spent his life shepherding to a better state. If Alari’s gambit failed, the best scenario Gallagrin could look forward to would be a far more protracted civil war than the one between Alari and her father. There were countless worse outcomes than that though and Limli looked to be actively repressing those from his thoughts.

“If we need you early, something cataclysmic will have occurred and we doubt all the armies of Gallagrin could save us then,” Alari said and turned to walk into the Hall of Celestial Mediation.

The room was vast, it’s borders extending beyond the physical limitation of the outer hall. Hints of architecture remained from whatever original building had been uplifted into the sky and sanctified by the gods for there work. Here a half-transparent pillar of white marble carved with a  thousand prayers to the absent gods. There the hint of a great dome, arching above the room and fading away to reveal the majesty of a sky filled with more stars than even the heavens could hold at one time.

When the gods had constructed their meeting hall, they had gifted their mortals followers with a glimpse of the divine view of the cosmos and it never failed to take Alari’s breath away. Though the creators of the Blessed Realms slumbered in an eternal sleep, in the God’s Hall their presence still lived and breathed.

They had willed peace for all within the hall, but Alari’s long delayed rage refused to be blown out completely. The flames of her anger offered no more light than a single matchstick but that was all she needed to illuminate the path before her.

“Gallagrin, you’ve arrived.” Haldri Paxmer was seated on the throne of her realm. The true throne of Paxmer, where the kings and queens who ruled it came at the conclusion of their coronation ceremony to receive the lingering blessing of their realms creator. The thrones within their castles were only pale imitation of their proper seats as monarchs of the world.

“Paxmer,” Alari said, taking a seat upon her own throne. “Were you waiting long?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Haldri said. “I enjoy the solitude.”

Alari returned Haldri’s smile. They were in agreement as to the room being more enjoyable with the absence of the other.

“Busy social schedule?” Alari asked, thinking of how many generals and dragons Haldri must have spoken with in the last two weeks.

“The spring is coming,” Haldri said. “The long frost is thawing from my lands and leaving me with much to attend to.”

The winter when neither queen could move their forces en masse. Haldri clearly believed that the spring would be a red season rather than a green one. Alari’s plans however were blacker than that.

“Indeed,” Alari said. “And yet you were able to find time for this discussion. That’s wonderful. There is much that lies between us.”

“A queen must always listen to the needs of her realm,” Haldri said.

“And what has Paxmer spoken of to you?” Alari asked.

“I listen and I hear drums upon my borders,” Haldri said.

“And what song do these drum ring out?” Alari asked, amused at how direct Haldri was willing to be in discussing the build up of the Gallagrin Royal Army on Paxmer’s border.

“It is too early to say. They seem muffled, as though the orchestra was not yet in place,” Haldri said, revealing her awareness that the Royal Army was still in a gathering stage.

“If the drums are muffled, then perhaps they hold no song,” Alari said. “Not every gathering is a cause for song and celebration.”

“Or perhaps it’s that the players simply have farther to travel than than their conductor expected?”

Alari allowed a look of concern to flicker across her face. In less than an instant it was gone, but it didn’t escape Haldri’s eyes. The Gallagrin Royal Army was usually spread out across the country. Concentrating it on the Paxmer border did take time, and came with certain complications.

“And where do you suppose these traveling players might be journeying from?” Alari asked. She held no illusions that the movement of her troops were a secret to Haldri, but she was curious how much she could get the Paxmer queen to reveal.

“I suppose very little,” Haldri said. “Though I am curious as to what the cost of this performance will be. Transporting so many players so far is not without difficulty and danger.”

“Danger can be assessed in many degrees,” Alari said. “Perhaps the risks of travel are outweighed by the benefits opening up a new venue would bring.”

The risk of assault Paxmer with a less than sufficient force would, of course, be the annihilation of the army that was sent on the campaign.

“Perhaps,” Haldri said. “But there are only so many performers, and in enriching one area, all of the others are lessened. Especially if one must command one’s own performers out on a journey.”

Paxmer was Gallagrin’s most troublesome border, but Gallagrin’s other neighbors, Inchesso, Senkin and the Green Council were not without their own perils.

Alari watched as Haldri took a sip from the cup of tea that was resting on the arm of her throne. With a wave of her hand she called forth the Mundus Globe and beneath the two queens the floor turned transparent, revealing the blue sphere of their world beneath them.

It was only a projection, a magical image that could be manipulated by any of the royals who were present, but it looked real down to the tiniest leaf and detail. Haldri spun the globe and enlarged it under the western coastal border between Gallagrin and Paxmer was focused on. She left the globe in that position but made no additional comment. Even without words though, Haldri’s message was clear. She knew of the advance of the Gallagrin Royal Guard to the Paxmer border. Alari had ordered her troops to the coastal border area with Paxmer and their arrival had been read exactly as she hoped it would be.

The Paxmer queen knew that the troops that were massed on the border would be capable of a devastating invasion. It was one which would ultimately fail once Paxmer’s dragon forces were in play but in a short time, Gallagrin could inflict significant damage on Paxmer’s land and cities, and much worse (from Paxmer’s perspective) capture a great deal of wealth in the process.

Balanced against that was the fact that in moving Gallagrin’s forces to the south, Alari had left her northern and eastern borders more lightly defended that at any time during her or her father’s reign. If Inchesso, Senkin or the Green Council wished to invade, she had all but extended to them the invitation to do so.

“It seems as though the drums of Gallagrin are not the only band that is assembling to play,” Alari said, sliding the globe to the south to show the Paxmer provinces that were clustered around the border.

“And what does your realm whisper to you?” Haldri asked.

“It is hard to hear whispers over the thunder of the approaching storm,” Alari said, letting the globe drift over the rest of Paxmer following the routes that she knew Paxmer’s dragon armies were traveling as they assembled on the Paxmer side of the contested area.

“You believe a storm is gathering against you?” Haldri asked.

“I do not need to believe when eyes that I trust have reported seeing it,” Alari said, adding a small smile as though questioning whether Haldri had really believed that Gallagrin did not have as many spies in Paxmer as Paxmer had in Gallagrin.

“And that does not worry you?” Haldri asked, a frown wrinkling her lips.

“What is a storm besides gusts of meaningless wind and some tears from the sky,” Alari said. “If you prepare properly, even the worst of storms comes to nothing.”

“Lightning can kill quickly, and the rains can flood the land and kill slow,” Haldri said. “Against some storms there can be no preparation or defense.”

“I’ve often been advised of storms such as that, but I’ve yet to see one that lived up to its claim,” Alari said. “Perhaps they’ve all appeared stronger than they were.”

Dragons were creatures of pride, and Alari knew that the dragon queen was much the same. Small, goading insults weren’t going to make Haldri fly off into a foolish rage, but pecking and poking at the Paxmer queen’s defenses would nibble away tiny bits of her attention.

“It’s a pity you’re experience is so limited,” Haldri said. “It will be heartbreaking when you encounter a proper hurricane.”

“I have no fear of a broken heart,” Alari said.

Her voice escaped her and crackled with shards of ice. The world thought the Queen of Gallagrin bereft from her Consort King’s betrayal, but for Alari that was one of the lesser wounds that she carried.

In her heart, Alari knew that the actions she took were done to benefit her realm and the people who were entrusted to her care, but that wasn’t the fire that drove her onwards.

She had never truly loved Halrek. Not deeply and without reservation. That space in her heart was claimed long before the Prince of Paxmer appeared in her life, and the distance she kept between them was enough, in the months that had passed, to cushion the blow of his betrayal somewhat.

She didn’t fight for revenge on him, she fought for someone who never got to be, and for the life that was denied to her. In honor of the princess who never was, she fought for all of Gallagrin, and for all the people who would never reach their cradle if Paxmer had its will done, but mostly she fought for that one small life that had been lost.

The problem with working through minions, Haldri decided, was that you had to refrain from letting your dragon eat them, even when they truly deserved such a fate.

“Gallagrin doesn’t breed idiots,” she said, turning a knife over in one hand.

“I’m pleased you think so,” Duchess Sanli said. She was reading through another stack of papers that had been forwarded to her. Haldri marveled at how well the Duchess could manage her resources remotely. It spoke to a great deal of trust between master and underling.

As with most such displays of trust though, it was horribly misplaced on the part of the weaker parties. Sanli was a generous overlord but she knew the value of sacrifice, most especially the sacrifice of others to attain one’s goal. In the conflagration to come between Paxmer and Gallagrin, Sanli was poised to burn away her ties to falling Gallagrin and embrace her role of advisor within the rising court of Paxmer. She was intelligent and pragmatic enough to see that it was the only sensible course of action. Unlike Baron Gedli who was proving to be a disappointment.

“We can only conclude that the idiot Gedli is trying to goad us into an ill considered offensive,” Haldri said. Her grip on the knife’s hilt left fingerprint impressions in its steel surface.

“You underestimate the force of the impression you made upon him,” Sanli said. “He left here firmly a creature at your command, whatever his official loyalties might be.”

“He all but declared that aloud,” Haldri said. “And yet not a week later and there are reports that he is fortifying the border with five times the troops which he had before coming here.”

“Five times or fifty times, it won’t matter,” Sanli said. “It is not with armies that the usurper queen will be cast down.”

“Alari Gallagrin doesn’t worry me,” Haldri said. “She lives in her father’s shadow and struggles too much to escape it.”

“Then why the concern over the troop build up?” Sanli asked.

“You’ve claimed that Gallagrin is at heart a simple woman,” Haldri said. “She seeks to redress the harm inflicted by the Butcher King directly to the people who suffered the most under his reign.”

“That seems to be the limit of her imagination, yes,” Sanli said. “She has focused her energy on restoring the provinces which were the most damaged by the war against her father, whether or not those areas were allied with her or not.”

“She’s done this despite the resistance from her own court, and despite the fact that it is senseless and will cause her immense harm in the future when her enemies regain the power to strike back at her,” Haldri said.

“She’s young and naive,” Sanli said. “Just as a princess who was sheltered from the world for most of her life would be.”

“That simplicity suggests that her current actions may be simple as well,” Haldri said. “The easiest use of an army on the border is to have them begin marching over it.”

“Invasion?” Sanli asked. “That would be madness. No army has ever invaded Paxmer and returned to tell the tale.”

“Her father was a mad king,” Haldri said. “Perhaps his daughter longs to become the Butcher Queen?”

“From every speech she’s given, that seems to be the last objective on her mind,” Sanli said. “It seems, in fact, to be what she is striving the hardest to avoid.”

“She may say she wants peace, but her actions speak of war,” Haldri said. “Selling my brother to the Inchesso in pieces leaves little question as to her feelings.”

“An invasion would serve no purpose though,” Sanli said. “Even if they could capture a major city, it would still be accessible by your dragons. Any forces they tried to place in the city’s defense would be crushed. All that a venture like that would earn her is the hatred of her people and the delivery of somewhat damaged weapons and armor into your hands.”

“Gallagrin doesn’t breed idiots,” Haldri said. “So she is aware of that as much you are. Which means her scheme is of a different design.”

“It seems you are correct that it is her scheme at least,” Sanli said, fishing out a report from the middle of the pile she was perusing. “This may not be a full reprieve for Gedli, but it looks as though the troops that are building up on his side of the border were ordered there by Faen Kemoral.”

“The commander of the Gallagrin Royal Guard?” Haldri asked.

“The same, and a loyalist to the queen,” Sanli said. “If he gave the order then it originated with her.”

“Tell me, does Alari Gallagrin believe in myths and fairy tales?” Haldri asked.

“She seems to believe that the common people are good and worthy of her concern,” Sanli said. “So, yes, I’d say she’s childish enough to still cherish that sort of story.”

“And would you spend the lives of several thousand soldier following one?” Haldri asked.

“That seems less likely,” Sanli said. “Her victory against her father was delayed by weeks because she refused to spend the lives of her troops to secure an early victory when the opportunities presented themselves.”

“Interesting. That gives us a lens to measure her through,” Haldri said. “If she prefers to play the long and certain game, then any action she takes now is because she believes the reward is overwhelming or the risk of not taking action is unbearable.”

“From a first glance it appears that an invasion of Paxmer would be just the reverse; no reward to be gained, and an overwhelming risk of failure the moment they set foot on Paxmer’s soil. But you have a report that suggests differently I take it?”

“A Sunlost warship, the Fearless, was sunk not far off the coast of Windsmer recently,” Haldri said.

“Weather was not to blame, I presume?” Sanli said.

“The skies were clear, according to the reports,” Haldri said. “The first fascinating thing about the sinking was that the Fearless was in battle against Paxmer ships when it sank, but each of my captains has sworn that they were not the one to bring the Fearless down.”

“Then who did?” Sanli asked. “And what is the second fascinating thing about the sinking?”

“The answers to both of those questions are the same, we believe,” Haldri said. “Our spies in Gallagrin report that your queen dispatched three of her personal guard to attend to a task, and they were seen leaving by a sky carriage bound for the coast.”

“What connects them to the ship sinking?” Sanli asked.

“Three women from Gallagrin boarded the Fearless before it set sail in pursuit of my ships,” Haldri said.

“Why would the Gallagrin queen’s guard sink a Sunlost ship that was in combat with Paxmer vessels?” Sanli asked. “That sounds hopelessly tangled.”

“We don’t believe they had a choice,” Haldri said. “Dragon riders were boarding the Fearless after their mounts paralyzed everyone onboard.”

“The Queen’s Guard shouldn’t have been able to act at all in that case,” Sanli said.

“No they shouldn’t, unless they’ve developed some new magics,” Haldri said. “These are, presumably, the three most powerful Pact Knights in the realm.”

“Powerful enough to shrug off dragon fear?” Sanli asked. “I haven’t heard reports of anyone that strong in court. Even the Queen’s Knight isn’t that powerful.”

“From the extent of the destruction, it seems more like a desperate ploy than a casual ability,” Haldri said. “But it is still worrisome. There is something in Paxmer which Alari Gallagrin wants badly enough to spend her prized guards on and then thousands of soldiers.”

“My contacts in the palace may be able to provide clues as to the sort of mission the Queen’s Guard were engaged in before they drowned,” Sanli said. “This feels like a bold play for her though.”

“Indeed, it’s possible that she’ll stumble into her own undoing with no help from us,” Haldri said. “But to be safe, we wish to make sure our plans are in place to guarantee that stumble.”

“If the transportation guild master can fulfill the promises she’s made, we should be ready to put things in motion within two weeks,” Sanli said.

“We will set the date for the peace negotiations as two weeks from today then,” Haldri said.

“If all goes according to plan, you will be with her in the God’s Hall when she is deposed,” Sanli said. “What will you do with the former queen of Gallagrin once the lingering divine protection of royalty no longer applies to her?”

“It’s a tempting idea to pitch her from the top of the battlements,” Haldri said. “The idea of listening to her scream and knowing that she will see her fate coming and be helpless to prevent it is a delicious one. The only drawback is that it’s such a brief entertainment. A few moments of terror and then oblivion. We can engineer a much more prolonged passing if we bring her back with us, which we expect we shall.”

“How will you convince her to meet with you at all though?” Sanli asked. “As you’ve said, she’s not an idiot. She’ll suspect a trap, even in the God’s Hall.”

“If we are correct, she’s already convinced herself to come,” Haldri said. “She is planning some action against Paxmer and she believes she holds the initiative. She will want us outside of Paxmer so that our forces cannot react as quickly to stop her advance.”

“Can your seneschals handle defending against a Gallagrin assault in your absence?” Sanli asked.

“Haldraxan can,” Haldri said.

“What plans will she have for him then?” Sanli asked.

“Useless ones,” Haldri said. “Haldraxan cannot be planned for, anymore than an earthquake or a maelstrom can be.”

“He has been a cornerstone of Paxmer for generations,” Sanli said. “But if he takes to the battlefield he may still be snared in some unexpected stratagem.”

“With his centuries of experience, there is very little which Gallagrin can throw at my Dragon King that would prove to be unexpected, and nothing at all that would be effective,” Haldri said. “His scales are so thick and his mind so sharp that he has no weak points for a Gallagrin assault to penetrate.”

“If Haldraxan is proof against assault then there seems to be even less reason to worry about an invasion,” Sanli said. “And even more reason to suspect a trap.”

“I am certain that there is a trap being laid here,” Haldri said. “But Gallagrin is unfamiliar with traps and treachery. Her idea of subtlety seems to send a small group in and then follow it with an army so that we will mistake the threat she poses to us. Both of those efforts are clearly a distraction though.”

“I agree,” Sanli said. “If Gallagrin troops march into Paxmer, they either already possess a means of tipping the balance against you, which is impossible with the might of a dragon like Haldraxan to support you, or, more likely I imagine, they believe that one can be found here.”

“That is what I would like you to focus on Duchess,” Haldri said.

“You want me to find out what it is they’re looking for, and how close they believe they are?” Sanli said. “That’s a secret the queen is likely to guard closely.”

“When it was a mission for her trusted Guard, we believe you were correct,” Haldri said. “If she has turned to the Royal army to fulfill her objectives though, more will have been brought in on the secret.”

“She’ll limit the full details to her trusted staff, but, yes, there should be room to work there,” Sanli said. “With the right form of persuasion, I should be able to procure that information for you.”

“Two weeks from now, a new era will begin for Gallagrin,” Haldri said.

“Two weeks from now, a new era will begin for Paxmer,” Sanli said. “And you will go down in history as the one who ended the mad reign of Gallagrin’s first monarchy.”

“What we do will echo far beyond our reign,” Haldri said. “We will be the first monarch to depose the monarch of another country. Once that is proven to be possible, it will be on Inchesso’s shoulders to decide whether they will join us as a vassel state, or be destroyed.”

For someone who’d considered themselves alone in the world for over half a decade, Dae found the growing number of family members confronting her an unexpected and unpleasant sensation.

“I don’t have any sisters,” Dae said, looking the girl before her up and down.

The girl stood beside her mother, arms bent and her balance distributed in good form to dodge or lunge forward. Someone had trained her in at least basic fighting principals.

In support of the girl’s claim, there were a few familial feature that tied them together as well. Their cheekbones and eyes were cast from the same mold and Dae’d seen the frown that the girl wore more than a few times when a mirror was nearby.

The girl lacked Dae’s muscle tone though and she was shorter by half a head. Strangely, it was the girl’s fingers that caught Dae’s primary attention however. They were slender and twitched with an agitated grace that Dae had only seen in Sunlost glamor casters.

“That’s technically true,” Estella said. “Nuilynne is your half sister. You are both my daughters.”

Dae did the simple math of considering when Estella had fled to Paxmer compared to Nui’s apparent age. The girl was in her middle teenage years somewhere. Sixteen perhaps. That would place her birth several years after Estella left Gallagrin. Several years after Phob Korli’s death.

“Who was her father,” Dae asked, knowing that the answer didn’t make any difference in at all, but wanting to know all the same.

“The former leader of this resistance cell,” Estella said.

“A Sunlost ex-pat was leading the Paxmer resistance?” Dae asked, reasoning that Nui’s Sunlost features had to come from somewhere, as did her glamor casting.

“Paxmer has never been a pleasant neighbor to anyone,” Estella said. “Nui’s father lost his first wife to Haldri’s pet, so he was uniquely motivated to aid the cause of Paxmer’s liberation by sharing Sunlost’s powers.”

“And that’s why you’re here?” Dae asked. “To liberate Paxmer?”

“Of course not,” Estella said. “Liberation from the reign of the dragons is not within our grasp. Not yet at any rate. The resistance exists to protect the resources and personnel that will be needed when the current King or Queen has grown weak enough that they can be deposed.”

“How will the future be any different than today?” Dae asked.

“Nothing lasts forever in this world,” Estella said. “After centuries of rule, the Paxmer throne shows the cracks of age starting to form already. In another few generations the one who sits on the throne will be too weak to call the dragons to support them. That is when we’ll strike.”

“And until then you’ll horde wealth and build power?” Dae asked. “You think like a dragon.”

“No, she thinks reasonably,” Nui said. “You live a nice life in your fancy castle with nothing to worry about. You haven’t seen a dragon, you don’t know what they’re like. You can’t fight them. You can’t even resist them. The only choice we have is to weaken them over a long time, and then strike when they’re brought low.”

“Dragons are beasts of magic,” Dae said. “They’re never going to weaken with age. That’s what makes them so powerful. Age only makes them stronger, like Pact Spirits.”

“Dragons are nothing like your Pact Spirits,” Nui said. “You think you’re mighty because you’ve got that bloody blade, and the armor that you can summon, but you’re still just a human.”

“No, she is more than just a human,” Estella said to Nui and then turned back to Dae. “I never dreamed they would make you a Pact Knight. I thought that honor was reserved only for those controlled by the monarchy.”

“Sathe was not the only royal within the palace,” Dae said.

“And now you are champion to the queen?” Estella asked, eyeing her daughter with curiosity.

“It is a change of title only, my duty is the same as it ever was,” Dae said.

“And what duty compels you to venture into this country?” Estella asked. “You spoke of a ‘retrieval mission’ I believe?”

“We’re here on orders to seek out an artifact,” Dae said. “My queen sent us to look for a mythical object from before the gods entered their slumber. It’s supposed to allow the wearer to command Pact spirit’s directly.”

“Command them how?” Estella asked.

“What the wearer thinks, they’ll do,” Dae said. “It compels absolute loyalty, above and beyond the control of the host the spirit is bonded to. Whatever the Pact Spirit is capable of, the wearer can command them to do, regardless of the cost the entails for the person the spirit is bonded to, even up to their death.”

“That sort of control is impossible though, isn’t it?” Estella asked.

“It’s supposed to be, but the gods did all sorts of impossible things while they were awake, didn’t they?” Dae asked.

“Why would something like that be in Paxmer?” Nui asked.

“Because it was meant for the monarch of Gallagrin to protect them from uprisings but the courtiers at the time weren’t fond of their liege holding that kind of power over them so they stole it and things went horribly wrong as they generally do,” Dae said.

“If Queen Haldri gained that sort of power…” Estella trailed off, the expression on her face shifting ever more horrified as she imagined what the outcome would be.

“If she had that sort of power, then no army in Gallagrin could stand against her,” Dae said. “Only it’s worse than that.”

“What would be worse than that from your perspective?” Estella asked.

“Haldri wouldn’t stop with Gallagrin,” Dae said. “With power over both dragons and Pact Knights, Haldri could expand outward, like Paxmer has always wanted. Inchesso would be the first to fall, followed by Senkin perhaps? Or maybe she’d sail out and wage war on the Sunlost Isles?”

“That would be strategically insane,” Estella said. “Paxmer could never hold all that land, even if they could win it by force.”

“They wouldn’t need to hold it themselves,” Mayleena said, piping up from under her veil. “They are risking dragons on their sea voyages, they have plenty to spare I believe.”

“How would they have plenty of dragons?” Nui asked. “In a war against the Blessed Realms each side is likely to lose things that were irreplaceable.”

“When do you think was the last time Haldri of Paxmer counted anyone beside herself as being irreplaceable?” Dae asked.

“You’re right,” Estella said. “Dragon births are rare, but that’s not because of the dragon’s life cycle, but rather their wishes. There are tempering cycles the creatures are put through even while they are within the egg. Since dragons do not like to share their wealth or territory, many will ensure that the tempering cycle is set to allow only impossibly tough offspring to arise with the rest being reduced to ash.”

“But if they decide that quantity is more important than quality then they can adjust their tempering down a notch and have more dragons than they could ever hope to raise to adulthood.” Dae said.

“Which wouldn’t be a problem because the weakling dragons would just be sent to the front lines to die anyways,” Nui said. Dae heard herself in the girl’s words and noticed that it was a trait they’d both inherited from their mother. Her distaste at the thought was something she decided to deal with later though.

“That’s what may come to pass in the future,” Dae said. “At the moment we have a more important issue to consider.”

“Would that be ‘getting out of this city’?” Jyl asked. “Cause I’d really like to get out of here before the dragons decide to eat us.”

“As luck would have it,” Estella said. “We have been discussing how to pass out of city unseen for the last several days.”

“You are natives of Paxmer. Are you not free to travel within it’s borders as you wish?” Mayleena said.

“Yes and no,” Zana, their dwarven guide, said. “With the proper papers you can go wherever you like, but you still have to pay taxes to each town and duchy that you pass through.”

“We can handle paying for our passage,” Jyl said.

“Perhaps, but you’d be scrutinized at each checkpoint,” Zana said. “Are you sure you want to attract that kind of attention?”

“It’s worse than that,” Nui said. “You’re foreigners so they’ll fleece you for everything you have at the first checkpoint and then the second one will clap you in chains and sell you to a debtors prison.”

“Surprisingly they have that covered,” Zana said. “Their travel papers grant them the duke’s protection.”

“How did you arrange for that?” Estella asked.

“We forged it,” Jyl said. “Amazing what the harbormaster leaves lying around in his office under only a half dozens locks or so.”

“That’s daring, but potentially fatal if you are caught,” Estella said.

“If we’re caught, they’re going to try to kill us whatever we do or say,” Dae said. “The ducal protection is really more for their benefit than ours.”

“They will do much worse than kill you if you are caught my daughter,” Estella said. “Queen Haldri feeds her captives to her pet dragon, but only after their are destroyed by dragon fear.”

“I know,” Dae said.

“No, you don’t,” Nui said. “If you knew what Haldraxan was like, you would never have come here.”

“I know what dragon fear is like,” Dae said.

“You can’t,” Nui said. “I’ve felt it, I’ve seen it. My father…” Her words stumbled to a halt.

After a moment, Estella spoke.

“It was a public execution. They had no idea that my second husband was connected to Nui or I, otherwise we would have shared his fate.” she said.

Dae thought back to when she was sixteen. To the pain that lingered from watching her father’s hanging. She and Nui had more in common than they ever should have she decided.

“I have faced dragon fear,” she said. “And it broke me. Even with the full power of my Pact Spirit, I couldn’t stand against it. I spent years thinking about that.”

Nui looked up, her glassy eyes focused on Dae.

“I faced it again on the sea as we traveled here. With a more powerful pact bond to draw on. And I was still helpless before it.”

Dae looked at her sister to see if the girl understood what she was saying. There was no condemnation of Nui’s father in Dae’s heart. Dragon fear was more than just being afraid. It was a magic that reached inside you and forced terror into your bones.

“I know what Haldraxan and the others of its ilk are capable of, I know what it will do to me if I have to face one of them again,” Dae said. “But that’s not going to stop me.”

“Why?” Nui asked. “Why would you care so much about the country that killed your father?”

“I don’t,”  Dae said. “Gallagrin holds my loyalty for one reason only.”

“The Queen,” Estella said, understanding lighting up her eyes. “You love her?”

“Forever,” Dae said.

“That’s not going to be enough to fight against the dragons,” Nui said. “Nothing is.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” Dae said. “I don’t mean to fight them. I mean to destroy them.”

“You intend to use the relic yourself?”

“Haldri’s dragons are used to shattering their opponents with the sheer magical might of their aura,” Dae said. “I don’t think they’re ready for what will happen if the Pact Soldiers and Knights who stand against them are driven by a compulsion that cannot feel fear.”

“You would unleash an army of bersekers bent to your will upon Paxmer?” Mayleena asked.

“They tried to kill her. Haldri Paxmer was as much a part of the plan last fall as her brother was,” Dae said. “So yes, I would unleash every form of hell on that monster, and I would do it with a smile on my lips and a song in my heart.”

“Life has not been kind to you,” Estella said. “Nor have I.”

“Life gave me Alari,” Dae said. “It’s been kind enough.”