“Julienna—”
“No, no, I’m going. I imagine you’ll both want to finish unpacking,” she said before he could finish. She squeezed my shoulder as she passed. “I’ll see you later.”
Alastair closed the door after her. “She told you the news?” he asked wearily.
“Aye. Tekari attacks around the city, folk in a general frenzy over the treaty talks, and more missing heartstones.” I fished my brooch out from beneath my armor and tossed it onto the bed. “What’s new?”
“Caldero said the same thing.”
“I suppose that means we’re in the right place. You think Wydrick and the other ghastradi are in the city already?”
“I’m tired of guessing, Aliza. I want to know. If we’re going to stop this war, we need to understand what we’re facing. Tomorrow I’ll have a word with my contacts in the palace,” he said. “In the meantime, though, I think we should leave these here.”
He removed the Greater Lindworm’s heartstone from its chain and, after a moment’s rummaging through the great wardrobe next to the bed, pulled out a delicate oakstone box. Dragons danced around the border, breathing scrollwork around the figures of the seven great saints of Arle, and a tiny bronze key in the shape of a dragon sat within the lock. He put our heartstones inside, locked it, and threaded the key onto the chain around his neck.
“For the time being.” A smile crept back into his face as he offered me his arm. “I have a surprise for you, khera.”
“Now? What is it?”
“You’ll find out at dinner. Until then I’m under strict instructions from Julienna to show you around the townhouse.”
I narrowed my eyes in mock suspicion. It was a little game, a blind stab at levity amid all that weighed on us, and I cherished every second like I cherished the warmth of his hand on mine and the dimple below the scar on his cheek. “She wanted to show me herself, didn’t she?” I said.
The dimple deepened. “Yes. I told her she couldn’t.”
I laced my fingers with his. “In that case, lead on.”
As was true of the Daireds themselves, there was a great deal more to their townhouse than a cursory glance revealed. Three stories rose above the street, but the building had deep foundations, with room enough for an armory to rival Pendragon’s, and even its own small smithy. Alastair introduced me to the smith, a thin, balding Garhadi man called Master Teo, with an address so respectful it made me wonder if the man was a retired Rider. I’d certainly never seen a bow that low for an ordinary nakla. Alastair explained as we headed back upstairs.
“Apart from Forgemaster Orordrin, Master Teo is the finest smith in the kingdom. Perhaps in the world,” he said, touching the hilt of the sword at his hip with something like reverence. It was new, I noticed, not the unadorned blade he had taken from Pendragon. A silver dragon formed the pommel and guard, its eyes burning like fire opals.
“And he works for your family? Just your family?”
Alastair smiled. “Even House Daired couldn’t afford that. Master Teo smiths where he chooses, but he likes Aunt Catriona, so he makes us blades when he can. The forge here is his to use as he pleases.”
“Generous of you.”
“Generous of him.”
“I’ll bet he’s—”
I drew up short at the top of the stairs, whatever conclusion I’d drawn about Master Teo discarded for sheer surprise at the sight awaiting us in the front room. Julienna and her cousin Captain Edmund stood deep in conversation with a flame-haired Rider and a beautiful silver wyvern. Next to them, Lady Catriona and Captain Edmund’s wyvern spoke with another Rider with her back to me. Her glossy black ringlets fell over her shoulders in the double plait of an apprentice Rider, which did little to hide the short sword in its scabbard on her back.
“Anjey?”
She spun around. “Aliza!”
Shadows and flames, steel and armor and the looming threat of war evaporated and for one glorious moment, all was right in the world again as I threw my arms around my older sister. She laughed and squeezed me tight.
“Oh, dearest, I’ve missed you!” she said.
“I missed you too.” I released her and looked at Alastair. “But how did you know we were here? We only arrived this afternoon.”
“Silverwing saw Akarra flying in,” Brysney said, and the silver wyvern next to him hooted a greeting in Vernish. “Hello, Aliza,” Brysney added with a grin. “Good to see you.”
“I sent a note inviting them for dinner as soon as we arrived,” Alastair said, sidestepping a gentle elbow to his ribs. “I wanted to surprise you.”
You certainly did. Anjey’s hair wasn’t the only thing she’d changed. She wore a small gold hoop through her left ear, much like her husband, and her cheeks were leaner, her eyes brighter, and I got the impression of hard muscle beneath her sleeves. It was an impression only, as her Rider’s leathers prevented anything more. Besides the sword at her back, she wore a long dagger at one hip, twin of the knife Brysney had given me. Gone was the doe-eyed, raven-locked darling of the Merybourne bards. The sister that stood before me had forged a new kind of beauty, a wild, ferocious loveliness full of sharp edges and shadowed in red.
She smiled a little shyly at my obvious astonishment. “Do you like it?”
“Honestly, Anjey, I hardly recognize you.”
Brysney draped an arm around his wife’s shoulders. “My beautiful Rider-in-training. Anjey’s taken to the fighting arts like a phoenix to fire.”
“It’s true,” Lady Catriona said. “I’ve seen Angelina spar Edmund here. Even made him break a sweat once.” She clapped her nephew on the shoulder and he reddened. “Nice to see you again, Miss Aliza.”
I dipped into an unthinking curtsy, but she tutted me upright.
“Good gods, girl, we’re family. None of that. Now, Alastair, what’s this important business you wanted to talk about? And what’s it got to do with the negotiations at the palace?”
Like the first winds of winter, her words leached the joviality from the room. “Dinner first,” Alastair said. “It’s a rather long story.”
Over dinner, Alastair and I took turns telling them about our contract in Lake Meera, our escape from Rushless Wood, and our encounter with the Tekari in Hart’s Run. When we mentioned the ghastradi, even Lady Catriona looked taken aback. “And Wydrick is one of them?”
“He is,” Alastair said. “He has been for some time. Since before the Battle of North Fields, at least.”
“Thell tear his soul to pieces,” Anjey muttered, “if he has one left.”
The other Daireds murmured their agreement in Eth curses of various vehemence. Julienna alone said nothing.
“You think Wydrick and the other ghastradi are in the city now?” Edmund asked.
“You say ‘other ghastradi,’” Brysney said before Alastair could answer, “but do we know how many there are? Or who they are, besides Wydrick and this lithosmith fellow from Hatch Ford?”
I shook my head. “They hinted that their master had agents around the kingdom, but who and where they are, we have no idea.”