Throne of Dragons. Морган Райс

in spite of what some people thought, Vars was not a monster. Admittedly, more of it was fear for himself, and how their father would react if he found out that Vars had lost Lenore, but that wasn’t the point.

      The point… the point was that this had happened and Vars hadn’t been here.

      His first thought was relief, because being here would have meant senseless danger, maybe even death, looking at the ease with which it seemed that they’d slaughtered the few guards that had gone with Lenore.

      His next thought was that he was meant to be there, and that everyone would know it. They would look at him like he was nothing, less than nothing, even though he was a prince of the realm.

      “Find my sister!” Vars commanded. “Find out what happened here!”

      He sat there atop his horse while his men spread out, watching as they moved from building to building. Vars sat with his hand on the hilt of his sword, not knowing what he would do if attackers were to leap from the buildings around. Would he strike out at them, or sit there frozen, or flee? Certainly, he wasn’t going to go into the buildings first, seeking out danger.

      A part of Vars hated himself for that.

      “There’s someone here!” the sergeant called out from over by the inn’s stables. “She’s alive, barely!”

      That was enough to send Vars down from his horse, hoping against hope that it was Lenore. If she was dead among all of this…

      He burst into the stables and found the sergeant helping a young woman to her feet. She wasn’t Lenore, didn’t even look like one of her maids. Instead, she wore simple clothes that marked her out as a peasant of some sort, perhaps a servant at the inn. Vars strode up to her.

      “What happened here?” he demanded. “Where is my sister?”

      The young woman cried out at the violence of his tone, and only the sergeant’s soothing grip on her stopped her from pulling away completely. Vars had no time for that. He needed to know what had happened here, needed to know just how much trouble he was in.

      “What happened here?” he demanded. “Where is Princess Lenore?”

      “Gone,” the servant said. “The Quiet Men… they took her…”

      “Quiet Men?” Vars said, unwilling to believe it. He’d heard the stories. King Ravin’s trained killers, taught to cross the bridges to do his bidding.

      “They… they killed most of us,” the woman said. “They took over the inn, kept only a few of us for… for…”

      Another man might have said something soothing in that moment. Vars just watched her.

      “Where is my sister?” he repeated.

      “They took her,” the servant said. “They waited until she came into the inn with her men, and they killed the men, and… they captured her; her and her maids. They kept her here, hurt her, and now they’re riding for the South.”

      “And they left you alive to tell us this?” Vars asked, not entirely believing it. When one did evil things, it was better to do them in secret, away from prying eyes. He knew that as well as anyone.

      “They wanted people to know,” the young woman said. “They killed some of the maids, but others… they sent them out with the news. They left me here. They want people to know what they did, that they could get to the princess even here. That they have her.”

      Vars let out a shout that was pure frustration and anger. Those around must have taken it for anger that his sister had been captured like that, that she was in danger. It was more than that, though, so much more. It was the fact that others knew what had happened here, thanks to those the Quiet Men had let go. It was the frustration that others would, inevitably, know about his failure.

      It was the understanding of what he would need to do next.

      “How many of them are there?” he demanded.

      “A… maybe a dozen,” the woman said.

      A dozen had done all of this? Still, at least there was one advantage to that: they outnumbered them. Vars liked it when he outnumbered his opponents.

      “Gather the men,” Vars snapped.

      “What about this one?” the sergeant asked, with a nod to the woman who’d been left.

      “My sister’s the one who matters!”

      She was the one whose safety would count to their father. Come back with her, and Vars could make up any story he wanted about being delayed on the road, then still be counted as a hero. Come back without…

      It wouldn’t come to that; Vars wouldn’t allow it.

      He went to his horse, vaulting into the saddle like some hero out of a song. The irony of it wasn’t lost on him as his men gathered, forming up together as precisely as if they’d been commanded by a real leader.

      Vars drew his sword, which was more than he usually did in a fight. He looked out over the men.

      “You, see if there are any horses left in the stables. The rest of you, get ready to march, double time.” There were a few murmurs from within the ranks, but Vars silenced them with a glare. “My sister, your princess, is in danger! King Ravin’s men are taking her back to the Southern Kingdom, and that means crossing the bridges. If we reach them first, we can still stop them, still save her! Every man here can be a hero!”

      They all could, but he would be the biggest hero of all. Save his sister, and men would tell stories of how brave Prince Vars had fought the best that King Ravin could offer. Fail… fail and his father would probably have his head.

      Kill a dozen men to stop that? Vars would do that and more.

      “Forward!” he yelled, and heeled his horse onward. “We need to get to the bridge in time!”

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      The first surprise for Nerra was that she woke at all. Her eyes flickered open, and she could breathe, her body not threatening to consume her. She sat, and the second surprise was the bed that she sat on. It was a thing of stone, covered in blankets, in what appeared to be a long dormitory of similar beds.

      On each of those beds, a figure lay, most of them moaning, many of them so still that it looked as though they were only breaths away from death. Nerra could smell sweat, and a kind of heat that seemed to be bone deep. The figures wore a variety of clothes, as if they’d been brought here from all corners of the world, but here and there Nerra could see a patch of bare skin, marred by black, scale-like lines…

      They were like her.

      Nerra looked round sharply, trying to make sense of this. When she had passed out, there had been only the forest, and the dragon…

      “You’re awake.”

      The man who stood near the door was the third surprise. He had a long, curling beard, into which he seemed to have woven shells, each painted with a different sign. His graying hair was also long, falling to his shoulders. He wore a tunic and britches, frayed here and there through overuse. He was tall and broad shouldered, with features that seemed weatherworn and lined by care.

      “Who… who are you?” Nerra asked, standing. “Where am I?”

      “You are where you need to be, in the last refuge for those with the dragon sickness,” the man said. Nerra frowned at that; in the Northern Kingdom, they called it the scale sickness. Did that mean she wasn’t in the Northern Kingdom anymore?

      “I… I feel…” Nerra began. “I was dying.”

      “You were,” the man agreed, in a voice that seemed too calm for the words. “But we have ways of stabilizing the sickness, for a time.”

      “But that’s incredible,” Nerra said. “If people knew… my father is—”

      “I know who you are, Princess Nerra,” the man said. “I know that you were cast out for what you are, but you are