Chay sat back on his heels. “For a while there I thought I’d have to sail for the Far Islands and never come back. Tobin wouldn’t have let me live past telling her you were dead. But you killed him, Rohan—Goddess, how you killed him! It was beautiful! Everyone saw it, too. Your first dragon.”
“First and last. Never again, Chay. I don’t want to do that ever again.”
He accepted his friend’s help in getting to his feet. They started slowly down the rocky path, sliding uncertainly on loose rocks. Rohan’s knees worked, just barely. Maeta had their horses ready when they reached bottom, and Chay spent some moments calming the frantic Akkal, who had never been riderless at a dragon hunt before. Then he joined Rohan and the others beside the massive corpse.
It took all Rohan’s remaining strength to yank his sword from the dragon’s eye. He took off his tunic and used it to wipe the blade clean, instructing Maeta to take just the talons and teeth for now. “We’ll send someone out for the rest of him tomorrow.”
“Yes, my lord.” Maeta bowed low. She had taught him archery, horsemanship, played with him during his childhood, concealed his escapades from his parents. And now she bowed to him.
Rohan drained half a waterskin down his throat, wishing it was brandy. Chay helped him wash some of the blood from his face and chest, exclaiming in surprise at the long talon mark from right shoulder to to elbow. The wound was cleansed, bound with the remains of Rohan’s tunic, and the prince held himself from flinching at his brother-by-marriage’s rough, expert handling.
All at once there was a low rumble in the canyon: sinister, terrifying. He whirled around, one hand on his sword. The others stopped their work and froze, staring into the empty gorge. The sound thickened, intensified, a dozen different notes and all eerie enough to set the hair rising on Rohan’s nape.
“They’re mourning him,” Chay said, breaking the terrible thrall of dragon voices. “Hurry it up and let’s go home.”
The wailing rose and fell as they worked. The she-dragons grieved for their dead just as Rohan and his family would grieve tomorrow night when they set the torch to Zehava’s pyre. At last the talons and teeth were all in large velvet pouches, clattering soft percussion to the requiem music that followed Rohan and his people out into the Desert. He shivered in the blazing sunlight and silently repeated his vow. Never again.
Sioned drew and stood in her stirrups as she caught sight of the riders. Their goal was the same as hers: the cleft in the Vere Hills where Stronghold crouched between the cliffs. She glimpsed the sheen of afternoon sunlight off fair hair and felt all the color drain from her face.
“Him?” Ostvel murmured at her side.
She nodded, unable to speak.
“Oh, Goddess!” Camigwen exclaimed. “Be quick, Sioned—wash your face, and here’s my comb—hurry!”
“Leave her be, Cami,” Ostvel said. “What man can expect a woman to come through the Desert looking as if she’d just stepped from her own chambers?”
Sioned told himself the world was full of fair-haired men. She sat down in her saddle and tightened her grip on the reins, trying to calm her ragged breathing. The party’s sober gray mourning clothes told her that someone had died, someone important. But the prince wore no shirt or tunic at all. A swath of silk was wound around his right arm, and as the riders neared Sioned saw it was a hastily made bandage, soaked in blood.
“I hope we won’t have to wait long. It’s damned hot out here,” Ostvel remarked with casual understatement. “Arrange yourselves around Lady Sioned.”
The title made her start in surprise, but Ostvel had achieved the desired effect. The others formed a semicircle around her as if they were a guard of honor and she already a princess. Sunlight wavered across the sand as the riders approached, and Sioned wished futilely she had followed Cami’s advice. She glanced down at her brown riding clothes, thought of the untidy knot of the braid at her nape, regretted her lack of a wash. At least he would see the worst of her first, she thought, resigned. After this, she could only improve.
The riders paused atop a dune and the blond man rode ahead, a taller, darker figure at his side. The face of her Fire-conjure appeared before Sioned in the flesh. As for the rest of him—of middle height but in elegant proportion that