“Oh, we’re bargaining now? Hmm.” Draki called over his shoulder, and two half-nude women slipped past the pelt and joined him, wrapping their arms around him. They were young, lovely. Terrified. “I killed the weak men of this village. Those left alive have never been freer. They stay because they desire it. They desire us.”
The only desire Reyker could see in these women was to stay alive, even if it meant bedding the warriors who murdered their kin.
“I saved the best of the women for you,” Draki said.
A hand touched Reyker’s arm. His pulse stumbled as he looked at the girl beside him and realized why Draki had chosen her. Her features were different: She was a little too short, her eyes more the color of moss than grass, her hair more like fire than wine. But the resemblance was striking.
“I love you,” the girl said, leaning toward him.
Reyker pulled away, but the girl continued to profess her undying love, rubbing against him until he pinned her arms as gently as he could. Her gaze was unfocused. She squirmed in his grip, mewling as if it pained her to be close to him without pawing at him. Reyker glared at Draki. “Stop this! Return the girl’s mind to her.”
“I will, after you fulfill your end of the bargain. I’ve appointed an overlord to stay here, since I must leave soon to check on Dragon Bay—”
“Stalwart Bay.”
“—and in the meantime, you will sack Selkie’s Quay for me, and declare it Dragon’s Quay, so I will control the two biggest ports in northern Glasnith. When you are done, choose someone to stay on as overlord and then join me in Dragon Bay, where we will plan our return to Iseneld.”
Reyker stilled. “What?”
“There has been news of attacks from the Fjull Uprorsmund on my holdings back home. You’ll travel there ahead of me to eliminate the rebels, so they do not spoil my triumphant return as high jarl of Iseneld and emperor of the Eastern Isles.”
The Fjull Uprorsmund—the Mountain Renegades. The same warriors Reyker had planned to seek alliances with when he’d sailed toward Iseneld on behalf of Torin and the Sons of Stone, before he took a scythe to the chest and was left in the freezing sea to die. Draki wanted him to hunt them down and take them out, to make Reyker his Sword once more, slicing through anyone who opposed him, securing Draki’s standing as high jarl. No longer just a warlord, but king of the entire island.
In spite of all this, that one word stuck in his head, beating like a drum: Iseneld.
Home.
The fist clenched around Reyker’s heart loosened a fraction, before constricting again. He had to stay on Glasnith to protect Lira’s people, to shield them as much as he could from the unrest Draki had sown, the Dragonmen’s destruction that would continue even after their leader left. He owed her that.
“I love you, Reyker,” the girl in his arms said, kissing every part of him she could reach. “I belong to you, and you to me.”
He wanted to scream, to shake sense into the girl, to punch Draki’s grinning mouth so hard his fist came out the back of the warlord’s skull.
“I will win you Selkie’s Quay, and you will release every survivor from Stony Harbor.”
Draki pretended to deliberate. “They are yours. I’ve had my fill of them, and this island is full of maidens who yearn for the touch of a real man.” He disentangled himself from the two women attached to him like frightened barnacles, shoving them at Reyker. “You are his possessions now, my pretty ones.”
“It’s all right,” Reyker told them in Glasnithian. “I will keep you safe.”
They stared at him. He was just another Dragonman, splattered with blood, his arms locked around a panicked girl. Of course they would trust nothing he said. He jerked his head, and the women followed him reluctantly.
Draki called after him. “Welcome back, brother.”
CHAPTER 8
LIRA
Taloorah was abandoned. After what happened to the temple, superstition that the gods had cursed the village had spread, keeping people away. Even the Dragonmen.
We weren’t far from the Boglands, and the nomads less suited for long travel needed to rest. It took little prodding for me to convince Garreth to stop here. Aillira’s Temple was the holiest place on our island, and he wanted to see what the warlord and his Dragonmen had done to it as much as I did.
With no Daughters of Aillira left to conceal the temple, we saw it clearly: an area as large as the rest of the village, surrounded by stone walls. Our horses carried us beneath the archway, through a broken gate, into the courtyard. A dense quiet lingered here. It was the silence after someone took their final breath, the stillness after a failing heart contracted for the last time.
Sliding from Wraith’s back, I walked across the grass, taking it all in. I’d witnessed Draki’s attack on the temple in a vision, but I hadn’t seen the aftermath. The library, the dormitories and lecture halls, the sanctuary with its spired towers—whether by Draki’s own hand or by an earth-shifter under his control, every building had been reduced to a pile of rocks.
I climbed over stones to reach the sacred thorntree at the center of the temple. The oldest and largest tree in all of Glasnith, planted by Aillira in memory of her lost, beloved Veronis. In another realm, frozen in time, Reyker and I had pledged our love to each other beneath this tree. Here in this realm, it was poisoned by Draki’s magic, and lay on its side like a felled giant.
My gift was fractured, but I had to try. Pressing my palm to the trunk, I opened myself to the tree’s essence.
The images crashed into me: Temple guards and priestesses sliced open by Dragonmen’s blades; the Daughters of Aillira, tied up and forced to kneel; Draki’s stiletto cutting into them, one by one, ensnaring their minds. Screams filled my ears. I experienced every fall of sword and axe, every wound, every ounce of terror, all at once.
It ended as Garreth pulled me backward, holding on to me as I thrashed and howled, until the memories dissipated.
“We can’t let them get away with this,” I said when I could finally speak.
“We won’t.”
My handprint glowed bright red on the thorntree’s trunk. I glanced around at the temple wreckage, wondering how I’d ever find a goddess’s key here, especially when I had no idea what it looked like. Garreth was already trying to lead me away, but I snatched my arm from his grip.
“This place has been fouled,” he said. “We shouldn’t stay.”
“I can’t leave yet.” I moved toward the rubble of the sanctuary. Maybe if I touched every stone, one would tell me where the key was. I reached my palm out, but Garreth moved between me and the rubble. “I have to do as the gods ask, Garreth, or they’ll never let me be.”