My gaze crawled over the dancing shadows, stopping and swerving abruptly back to the pair of eyes watching me from across the fire … watching me as though they had been watching me the whole night long.
Stretched out upon his bedding, the soldier Ari contemplated me, and in his deep stare I felt a wary suspicion, palpable, the manner in which prey might observe a predator. My gaze drifted down. He was abed with his sword of dragon bone clutched in his hand, outside his blankets, his fingers wrapped tightly around the hilt.
I held his gaze for several long moments before rolling over. Expelling a sigh, I closed my eyes and attempted to return to what I hoped would be a dream-free sleep.
STIG’S REGIMENT SPRAWLEDover a rise like a newly erected city of a thousand strong. Positioned strategically high, with a panoramic view at every side, so no attackers could catch them unawares, they spotted us coming well before we crested the rise and I was afforded my first view of the bustling hive.
The smell of leather and horseflesh and human sweat immediately assailed me.
The sun was setting, dipping beneath the treetops. It would be dark soon. For now I had a perfect view of hundreds of A-frame tents dotting the plateau. The smell of cooking meat filled my nose. Smoke from campfires twisted like gray serpents in the early evening air. My stomach clenched in hunger, reminding me that I had not eaten since I woke that morning, and even then it had been a hasty, paltry affair. We’d munched on a biscuit and a strip of dried meat as we went. Not nearly enough for my greedy appetite.
I should not be here.
My steps faltered, and I shot a glance of longing, of regret, over my shoulder, as though I could turn and go back and do the thing I’d failed to do in the three days it took us to reach the camp.
It was too late, though. There was no going back. No doing things over.
The muted light of fading day softened the features of the soldiers watching us as we moved deeper into the nest of Stig’s army.
I should have done something, anything, to stop myself from being brought here, even turning three soldiers to ash. Now there were too many of them. Now I was truly a prisoner. Worse thanthat. Once I faced Stig, I would be far worse than a prisoner—for he would do whatever it took to bring out my dragon.
Failing to escape, I had failed the pride.
I had failed all dragonkind.
I could have acted last night when they all slept, striking Ari first, as he was the one awake and watching me, his hand ready at his sword to end me. And yet I had not. The very notion of it had turned my stomach sour.
We walked among the tents, skirting the small groups clustered around fires, tending to their own suppers. Jorgen led the way with purpose toward the center of camp, the heart of the hive. I felt the interested gazes following me and wondered if there were any others out there who recognized me from my days in the palace.
A palatial tent loomed ahead, and I knew it belonged to Stig. Several of the A-frame structures could fit within its interior. Numerous poles held up the fabric of rich cerulean blue, and I estimated a fully outfitted chamber would be inside. Stig would not travel in humble fashion. Not as his soldiers did. He would, of course, travel in comfort and extravagance with all the amenities of home. He was the Lord of the Borderlands, and nothing like Fell, who had roughed it alongside his warriors.
Stig liked nice things. He dressed nice, smelled nice, and arrayed himself only in the finest of things. He would embrace all the pampering and indulgences due a person of his station—a station that had apparently risen in the past year. Just another way the Terror differed from the Beast.
We stopped before the tent. A pair of guards, much less travelworn than we, with pristine cloaks, stood at attention before the tent’s closed flaps.
“We’re here to see his lordship.”
“He is away.”
Jorgen frowned. “Away? It’s nearing dinner.”
“He took a party and left on a hunt. Battle boars were spotted in the area.”
Of course they would seek to take down one of the beasts. Such enormous animals would go a long way in feeding this army.
“When he returns, he’ll want a bath and supper,” the other guard volunteered. “You’ll have to wait to see him. He won’t have time for you until tomorrow.”
Jorgen shook his head and gestured to me. “There will be no waiting. We brought him something he’s going to want to see.”
Me.Something. As though I wasn’t a life that mattered.
The guard looked at me, then with a curling lip said, “Take this jade away. She’ll not tempt him. He has a fine lady wife to see to him through his days and nights. Your offering will only offend and likely get you flogged.”
A wife?
Jorgen sputtered, pushing me forward. “You fool. Trust me, he will want to seeher.”
I stumbled, still reeling from the shock that Stig had a wife. A wife he had brought north with him.
