“Shouldn’t I look into those justified complaints?”

  “When you can,” King Colm said with a shrug. “But ‘justified’ can mean many things. One family may have their fortunes hurt deeply by your policies. Doesn’t mean those policies are wrong, especially if they help far more people than they hurt.

  “One example would be those priests of the Green Lord you sent to help save your vassals’ farms, pastures and ranches.” King Colm clapped Aefric on the shoulder. “A fine bit of work. And most of your vassals love you for that. But the merchant families who stood to build fortunes importing food? They’re not so well pleased.

  “A better example, though, is this borog matter,” King Colm continued. “When news spreads that you have allowed literally hundreds of borogs to live in the Dragonscar, you’ll get a lot of scared people. But I don’t doubt the gold those borogs mine for you will help those scared people’s lives.”

  “You’ve already heard what happened in the Dragonscar this morning?” Aefric asked. “I haven’t had a chance to tell you yet.”

  “Very little eludes Beatritz.”

  “Did she tell you I named Ge’rek a ler?”

  “She didn’t,” King Colm said, giving Aefric a considering look. “I take it he’s the borog leader?”

  “Technically I’m their clan chief. But he’s what they call my ‘chief’s hand.’”

  “Then it sounds as though you have a good handle on things, for now. Try to keep it that way.”

  “I will.”

  “Have you picked a replacement for Calder?”

  “Not yet,” Aefric said, through a sigh. “I was considering bringing Ser Grey up from Behal to serve as castellan here.”

  “I recommend against it. That would be a demotion, of sorts.”

  “How so?”

  “Down in Behal, she practically lives as a baron,” King Colm said. “You spend most of your time here, so she has a lot of work and a lot of respect as castellan. Bring her up here, she’ll have a lot less of both.”

  “Good point,” Aefric said. “I’ll find someone here.”

  “One more thing,” King Colm said. “I want you visiting Netar before winter.” He shook Aefric’s shoulder. “Have a look at your new barony, man.”

  “I will, your majesty,” Aefric said, then sighed. “I have to get down to Kivash, too. Ashling gave me a castle down there, and everything inside it.”

  King Colm chuckled. “I’m not surprised. She gave me one as well. One might almost think she expects Malimfar to try to retake Kivash.”

  “You don’t?”

  “Not soon. They know we’ll be watching for it. No. If they want to try to hit us again in the next year or two, they’ll strike somewhere else.”

  “Speaking of which. Since Malimfar isn’t behind the assassinations—”

  “No, your grace,” King Colm said firmly. “You may not have permission to go after Nelazzi. Something serious is afoot, and I don’t want your focus split when I need you. Talk to me of Nelazzi again in the spring. Not before.”

  “Yes, your majesty.”

  “Anything else before I go?”

  “A question,” Aefric said. “Did her majesty mention that she offered to provide both a dowry and another title for Sighild Ol’Masarkor, if I wish to take her as my bride?”

  King Colm laughed. “No, but I should have seen it coming, the way those two kept conferring privately on the road. I’m telling you, Aefric. When it comes to Fyrenn matters, they turn into werewolves.”

  “Does that include Sighild?” Aefric asked. “She’s only a cousin to the Fyrenns.”

  “Might not,” King Colm said a slight shrug. “She seems a dear enough girl. But I haven’t seen her deal with a Fyrenn question.”

  He tilted his head as he looked at Aefric. “Is she a likely candidate to be your bride?”

  “I don’t honestly know,” Aefric said. “Seems sweet enough, but I barely know her.”

  “Well, if you get to know her, find some way to see her reaction on a Fyrenn matter. See if she sprouts claws and starts howling.”

  “I’ll keep an eye out for that,” Aefric said, chuckling.

  “And now I must get moving. We have many miles to cover before dark.”

  “Yes, your majesty,” Aefric said, offering the king his hand.

  King Colm kissed Aefric’s hand, and Aefric pressed his forehead to the king’s knuckles.

  And then they left the cell together.

  As Aefric and the king emerged from the cell and into the hall, Ser Beatritz was there to meet them, along with two Knights of the Crown and Sers Beornric, Wardius and Temat.

  “Our ship is packed and ready for departure,” Ser Beatritz said, flanking King Colm and Aefric as they strode rapidly toward the stairs. “The ducal seneschal provided us with the Swift Wave to carry us to Behal. Rikas have been dispatched to ensure that the royal entourage meets us there by late afternoon.”

  King Colm made a low sound of objection. “We’ll have to spend the night in Behal, won’t we?”

  “It’s the smarter way to go,” she said, as they emerged from the stairs to a far more decorous hallway, where Aefric took the lead to see them quickly to the back of the castle and the docks.

  “Staying in Behal tonight will see us better organized when we depart in the morning,” she continued. “Your majesty knows what will happen if we try for today.”

  “We won’t even reach Goldenfall,” the king said.

  “And I trust your majesty wouldn’t consider sailing past Behal and making his entourage chase him all the way back to Armityr.”

  King Colm chuckled. “No, I suppose not. Do we have both prisoners? The assassin and the wizard?”

  “We do,” Ser Beatritz said. “And I’ve sent a rika to Stormsent, telling Duke Wylyn to bring his baron to us at Armityr.”

  “Good,” King Colm said. “I find myself wondering if that business in Silverlake has any relation to those attempted assassinations.”

  They emerged from a door in the back of the castle to the coral-like docks of the Water’s End port, right by the ducal pier.

  Down at the end of the pier, Aefric could see the Swift Wave making ready for departure. Sailors crawled the rigging, preparing the sails. Even more sailors were busy on the decks.

  And there. All the way aft, and watching. Aefric spotted Maev.

  Their eyes met across that long distance. He felt her smile, more than saw it. Even so, that moment of connection was such that he felt the space between them begin to fall away…

  Something jarred that connection, causing Aefric’s heart to lurch and the world to swim back into place. Lady Zhila, standing beside Maev, had taken her arm. Forced Maev to look at her.

  “I think it’s best if your grace remains here,” Ser Beatritz said with admirable tact.

  “Why is Maev aboard that ship?” Aefric asked. “I thought she was going back to Varondam.”

  “She is,” King Colm confirmed.

  “She asked for the chance to say goodbye to her father, before she and Lady Zhila board their ship,” Ser Beatritz said, emphasizing “her father” just a little, and giving Aefric a meaningful look.

  Aefric sighed, and stopped walking.

  “Farewell, your grace,” King Colm said. “Stop by Armityr on your way to Netar.”

  “I shall, your majesty. And may you, the queen, Killian and Maev all fare well until next I see you.”

  He saluted Ser Beatritz by making a fist and grabbing the wrist behind it. She bowed in response.

  “I shall pass your good wishes along,” King Colm said, and then he and his knights proceeded down the docks, while Aefric and his knights remained behind.

  “It’s for the best, your grace,” Ser Beornric said softly. “How much harder would it have been for you to say goodbye to Princess Maev from arm’s length, without getting to hold or kiss her?”

  “You’re right,” Aefric said with a sigh, watching as Lady Zhila led Maev out of eyesight. “I still hate it.”

  “We never had our morning meeting, your grace,” Ser Beornric said, and Aefric could tell the good knight was just trying to distract him.

  “And we won’t,” Aefric said. “Not today.” He shook himself, trying to get rid of the dull ache in his chest at being parted again so soon from Maev.

  “Your grace really ought not go to Behal today,” Ser Beornric said carefully.

  “I won’t,” Aefric said, steadying himself through a deep breath. “But during our hunt for Calder we went through a good many of those potions that allow the drinker to see through illusions and sense magic.”

  “We did,” Ser Beornric agreed.

  “And I am going to spend the rest of my afternoon brewing more.”

  Without another word, Aefric took to the air and flew up the gorgeous, sparkling deep blue walls of his castle to his smaller, private balcony.

  From there, he passed through his private sitting room — offered a quick word of greeting to Ocheda — and on into his magic laboratory.

  Those items from Sifwyn, still awaited his attention. But they could wait a little longer.

  Aefric lit the room by magic. Set his Brightstaff just inside and closed the door.

  The room smelled like vervain today. Odd, that. It probably meant something, but he didn’t know what. And likely he wouldn’t. Not until he understood the magic of the old Soulfist grimoires.

  He crossed the permanent magic circles, within the whitewashed stone floor on his way to his alchemy desk.

  He checked the worktable beside it. He’d need at least two of the mortars and pestles, he knew that much. Likely two or three of the alembics, at least one burner…

  Beyond that, he wasn’t sure. Potion-making had never been an area of expertise for him. But it would require a focus that he would very much benefit from at the moment.

  He took down the first of the old Soulfist recipe books. It was a heavy, leatherbound thing. Taller than his forearm was long, and just about as thick as his wrist was wide.

  No dust, of course. Books and magic and alchemy always seemed to pick up traces of the magic used around them, and inscribed in them. Sometimes that made them quirky to the point of becoming peculiar.

  But one thing it always ensured — they repelled dust and vermin.

  As he did with the Soulfist grimoires, Aefric took a moment and projected thoughts at the book before opening it.

  I am Aefric Brightstaff, rightful Duke of Deepwater and Baron of Netar.

  That latter part wouldn’t likely mean much to the recipe book, but it was part of a true statement about who Aefric was. And the truth of the first part likely mattered a great deal.

  After all, if he was the rightful Duke of Deepwater, then it stood to reason that he’d inherited this book, not stolen it.

  Along with those thoughts, he projected the image of both his ducal seal and his personal seal.

  He felt a sort of harmonic chime of acknowledgment. The book wouldn’t object to Aefric’s opening it.

  He began to read.

  And a short time later, he began to laugh.

  The key was here. In the first few pages of the oldest alchemy book the Soulfists had left him. The answer he’d been hunting so hard for, working so hard to figure out on his own. It had been in the room with him all along.

  The first pages of that old alchemical recipe book, they carried the key to the cypher the Soulfists used in recording all their recipes and formulae.

  Between the book’s acknowledgment of his right to read it, and the key to the cypher contained in those pages, he could read the rest as easily as though it were written in the common tongue.

  Laughing, Aefric set down the book and crossed the room to his magic research desk. Pulled down that first grimoire. The one he’d been working to hard to translate.

  It acknowledged him before he even sent it a thought.

  Aefric pumped his fist and opened the book.

  The very first spell was a Soulfist version of the same personal grooming spell Aefric used himself.

  And he understood it!

  Excitement thrilling through his veins now, Aefric set that grimoire back on the shelf. He ran back across the lab to his alchemy desk and skimmed through those recipe books for the potion he needed.

  Then he fetched the reagents he needed, and began to brew.

  13

  An aett after the king and queen departed Water’s End for Armityr, Aefric boarded his magari with Sers Yrsa, Beornric and Micham, heading for the Dragonscar.

  The day was bright and clear. The late summer’s heat had resurged a bit, but Kentigern kept promising that this was a temporary thing that happened every year, and that the days would be cooler soon enough.

  Of course, Kentigern also said that by Midwinter Aefric would find himself missing the summer heat, but that seemed unlikely.

  Still. Up here, flying high above Lake Deepwater, the temperatures were milder, and the winds were strong, and smelled cool and clean.

  Ser Beornric was taking his fourth ride on the magari now. Though he still held tightly to the chariot’s sides, Aefric noticed that his grip was less white-knuckled than it had been. He was even willing to look over the side from time to time, though he wasn’t yet much for conversation while flying.

  It seemed, however, that Ser Yrsa intended to make up the difference.

  “Your grace has spent a great deal of time in his lab, of late,” she said. “Not avoiding Sighild Ol’Masarkor, I hope.”

  “Why?” Aefric asked, standing the Brightstaff beside himself, so he could handle the reins with both hands. “Do you like her?”

  “She’s pretty. She’s charming—”

  “Understatements, both,” Ser Micham said. “She’s the prettiest and most charming suitor your grace has. Excepting Byrhta Ol’Caran, of course. But it’s hardly fair to compare anyone to her.”

  “As I was saying,” Ser Yrsa said. “She’s pretty. She’s charming. The staff all like her. If your grace must marry a Fyrenn, she’d be my pick.”

  “Well, I’m not avoiding her,” Aefric said.

  “She’s been at Water’s End for four days and you haven’t bedded her yet,” Ser Beornric said.

  Thus proving that Aefric’s marriage prospects were a topic powerful enough to overcome even Beornric’s problem with heights.

  “And I told her why,” Aefric said. “As she wants to be considered a potential bride, I want to get to know her before I sleep with her.”

  “That’s not how it’s usually done in Armyr,” Ser Yrsa said. “Your vassals won’t like it.”

  Aefric chuckled. Maev herself had once told Aefric she wouldn’t show up at his chambers if she were only after the bliss moment. That she found him “far too handsome and interesting.”

  So even in this, royalty played by slightly different rules than the rest of the nobility.

  “I never thought that being a duke would have so many people concerned about my sex life.”

  “Welcome to Armyr,” Ser Micham said.

  “Fine,” Aefric said. “I’ll sleep with her tonight. Happy?”

  “She will be,” Ser Micham said. “Every time she looks at your grace, I fear her gaze will set fire to your clothes.”

  “The point is,” Aefric said. “I’ve been in my magic lab so much because I’ve finally cracked the Soulfist grimoires. I’ve been working on learning their magic.”

  Ser Yrsa whistled appreciatively and said, “All objections withdrawn. I’ll cover for you myself, if I need to.”

  “Be easier,” Ser Beornric managed, “if you named a castellan.”

  “I’ll have to before I go to Norra for the Feast of Dereth Sehk. But I still haven’t settled on who.”

  “Can we … talk about that … later?” Ser Beornric asked.

  “Happily,” Aefric said, and gave his focus to steering the magari, while Sers Yrsa and Micham continued discussing Aefric’s marital prospects. Which were growing even more complicated, now that word had come that Rethneryl, Hatay and Shachan would all send princesses to meet Aefric in the autumn.

  And Rethneryl would send more than one.

  Of course, Aefric’s thoughts still turned more often to Maev and Byrhta than to any other.

  Maev was back in Varondam, where letters told Aefric that the heat was oppressive, negotiations were going slowly, and she missed him.

  Byrhta, though, Aefric would see soon. She and Vercy were coming along to Norra for the Feast of Dereth Sehk.

  It would be good to see Byrhta again. And this time, no one would be working to keep them apart.

  Pleasantly distracting thoughts as Aefric steered the magari over Lachedran and points north all the way to the Dragonscar.

  But Aefric didn’t land there, nor stop to visit the borogs of Clan Thunder Stick.

  Instead, Aefric turned east, whisking through the air above the Dragonscar as the miles fell away beneath him.

  His knights now were discussing the Dragonscar, the borogs, gold, and the like.

  Finally, shortly after midday, Aefric reached the end of the Dragonscar, and eased the magari down out of the sky to land on the hard brown stone of the chasm floor.

  He took the Brightstaff in hand, and he and his knights left the chariot of the magari.

  Aefric dismissed the magical flying chariot, and looked up at last at the sight he’d hoped to see, oh so many days ago, when he and his knights and soldiers came riding into the chasm.

  The dragon’s skeleton.

  It was tremendous. Huge. It filled the very end of the Dragonscar. Its ribs were so big that the spine they held up was at least level with the ridge above.

  The bones of its six legs were longer and wider than many tree trunks.

  The skeleton showed no yellowing or browning with age and weather. The bones were still as bright a white as though they’d just been denuded of their flesh.

  Aefric could see the frame of the great wyrm’s wings, folded down tight along the spine. Even in that state, they looked so very thick. Each of those wings, when spread, must’ve been wider than the flight of an arrow shot by a master archer.

  The dragon’s skull was large enough to serve as a house or pavilion, and faced the sea. And every tooth in that immense jaw was still in place. So many teeth that…