The first received a single good blow to the head, which snuffed him out like a blown candle. The second lost the ability to stand, his knee dislocated. The third Dom caught around the throat, holding his arms at an angle, until his eyes slid shut and his heartbeat slowed.

“Enough,” Dom growled as the thug slid to the floor with a limp thud. “Enough.”

The rest of the tavern shrank away from the blond-haired, green-eyed behemoth in their midst. Some froze mid-grapple, fists raised and collars grabbed. The thugs still living groaned on the floor, inching away like worms.

Sigil and Sarn took no notice, the latter wrapped around the former, trying to squeeze the life out of the bounty hunter with her thighs. Sigil laughed, seizing Sarn around the waist, and threw her into the wreckage. Sarn landed hard, a hiss of pain smoking through her teeth.

Then Sigil was up against the outer wall, all stone, no give, Dom’s forearm braced against her throat, under her chin. He stared into her face, all his thoughts narrowing to one.

“Enough,” he said again, unyielding, even when she kicked him over and over.

Her face began to purple as he cut off her air, pressing harder.

Still on the floor, moving slowly, Sarn raised her head.

“I’m willing to trade, Sigil,” she said. Though they had won, the bounty hunter and her thugs incapacitated beyond measure, there was defeat in Sarn’s voice.

It sent a shudder through Dom and surprised the Temur wolf.

But it worked.

The bounty hunter gave a nod, as much as she could. Her legs dropped, her arms went slack. Dom stepped away, letting her find her feet. Her hand flew to her throat and she gasped, sucking down air. Her sharp eyes darted to Charlon, his stained fingers drawing holy symbols in the air over the cook, then to Sarn.

Sigil swallowed hard. “Let’s talk.”

In her chair, Valtik cackled, first in Jydi, and then in the common tongue they all knew. “Hammer and nail, the Companions are now seven, wind and gail, bound for hell or bound for heaven.”

By now Dom was well accustomed to the witch’s rantings, but he felt a shudder up his spine all the same.

The footsteps on the stairs were light, well balanced, barely a brush of feet. Dom turned to see Andry leaning down, his jaw slack and eyes puffy. He looked over the hurricane that was once the tavern.

“What did I miss?”

25

TEARS OF A GODDESS

Erida

Erida expected nightmares. Some judgment, from the gods or her inner self. Remorse or regret for her choice. This was not just a marriage, but an alliance with a man she could not trust. But she had seen Taristan’s skin, cut by blade, healed in seconds. She had read the harried reports of her best scouts, their descriptions of his army like none other upon the Ward. And the hunters of the fleet had sent word as well. Monsters spotted in the Long Sea, creatures not seen for centuries, better suited to myth or the pages of a children’s book. Everything Taristan had promised, the gifts of the Spindles, had come to fruition. What she desired was in her grasp, closer by the second, with every Spindle torn.

And the guilt never came.

The Queen slept soundly, without nightmare or dream. Even on the road, when rest was usually difficult. She found herself reinvigorated every morning she awoke in her tent or carriage. It was oddly easy to keep moving, and her convoy’s pace reflected her ambitious manner.

Autumn crept closer, the heat of summer breaking when they left the lowlands. Green hills rose as the procession climbed out of the fertile valley of the Great Lion, heading east. A fresh north wind rode the landscape, carrying the smell of pine from the Castlewood. It would be colder still at the Madrentine border, the winds angled by the mountains.

The final morning was crisp. Erida took advantage of it, electing to ride her horse rather than shutter herself up in the massive but stifling carriage. The cold air made her alert as a falcon, the hood of her emerald velvet cloak thrown back, her gloved hands tight on the oiled leather reins.

While some of her ladies were just as happy to escape their rolling box, a few grumbled, their voices low behind their hands. Erida heard them anyway, well accustomed to eavesdropping. She listened from her saddle, keeping her eyes on the Cor road ahead.

“The Queen sets a quicker pace than most armies,” Margit Harrsing, one of Lady Bella’s many nieces, chittered to her companions. Fiora Velfi, the daughter of a Siscarian duke, hmm-hmmed in her high voice, in neither agreement nor contradiction. The dark-haired young woman was better suited to intrigue than the rest, raised in the royal villa at Lecorra, a pit of vipers. She very rarely, if ever, gave her true opinion on anything.

The fourteen-year-old Countess Herzer, with ringlet curls as stupid as her instincts, didn’t bother to check her tone. “Her Majesty is eager to see her husband again,” she said, sending a smattering of laughter through the ladies. “I think it’s romantic.”

A tongue of fire went down Erida’s spine. She kept straight and still, but her lips pressed to nothing, her teeth clenched behind them, as she weighed her options. A woman in love is a woman in weakness, not to mention far from the truth, she thought. It won’t do for my ladies, and by extension my court, to think their queen reduced to a simpering, starry-eyed girl trailing after the first man to touch her.

But it is not useless either. Taristan stands in a precarious position. My favor keeps him steady, keeps him important. And that helps me maintain control over him, at the end of it all.

She elected not to answer, in either direction. Countess Herzer meant to be heard and wanted to draw a response. Erida of Galland would not give her the satisfaction. There was too much else at stake to be drawn into small-minded games.

Besides, she had not missed the way the ladies seemed to whisper about Taristan. Their conversations varied, assessing everything from his appearance to his stoic manner, but always returned to the way he had seemingly bewitched the Queen, winning her hand at first sight. For reasons you cannot fathom. It was frustrating, but ultimately, she was glad for their ignorance. And their expectations. It made her endeavors easier, if no one expected them of her.

The border with Madrence loomed, somewhere over the forested hills and down into another river valley. Erida imagined it like the lines on her map, starkly drawn, with a row of Gallish castles built up along the river, her soldiers strung between them like ropes of pearl. Their lines had held for years, the border country precarious, a stack of dry kindling that needed only a few sparks to burst into flame. Erida carried that candle with her now, ready to set all alight.