Page 1 of Haunted

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Deep in consideration of Her Highness, I stroke the stubble on my jaw. This is the first I’ve laid eyes on her.

They say she murdered her own father for power, I tell my dragon through our mental bond. Neifion is back at the camp, but I watch the empress’s confident steps cross the secluded clearing from where I hide on the ridge above.

Caedryn, Neifion says, his voice urgent. My sight is momentarily disrupted as he shares his vision with me. The lords are gathering; Neifion shows me each weary face in turn.

I rub my chest where an ache has started. It’s over. We’ve lost.

Evil always has a weakness. Remember this as you move forward.

Neifion’s words do little to buoy me. There’s nothing I can do but continue my watch of the woman below. Rumors of the empress’s unforgiving nature flow before her. Wherever she goes, death festers in a trail of rotting flesh. Subjects cower. Neighboring lords curse her very soul.

My job is to undo her entirely.

To find a weakness because she can’t be killed.

I’m not sure I’m ready for the mission I’ve been tasked with.

From my crouch behind a tree, I squint at Empress Rhianu. She approaches her gray wolfhound—a present from Lord Berwyn.

Her olive-green dragon, who is never far away, curls up at the edge of the clearing, pretending not to be disgusted by the slobbering drool of the furry animal. The empress ruffles the dog’s head and chin.

I can’t hear her, but she’s praising the mutt. Her dragon opens one eye to follow the dog as he chases a stick.

I am entranced by the empress’s mane of hair as she leans her head back and laughs at the dog bounding toward her with a branch the size of my forearm. A sheet of red cascades down her back, dipping low.

Red the color of blood.

Her hair grows redder with every drop of blood spilt in her name.

Or so I’m told.

It’s a myth, Neifion says.

Myth or not… I’m intrigued. I expect her to remove a dagger and slip it into the beast’s breast as a symbol of defiance, as a symbol that she cannot be bought.

She does not.

She falls to both knees and lets the beast lick her face.

Her dragon snorts, and smoke wafts into the air.

The empress would never let anyone see herself like this—vulnerable, with affection.

Her heart is not supposed to know laughter. So I understand her seclusion several hundred yards in the woods beyond the encampment as she prepares for the lord’s presentation of surrender, with her dragon…

With a dog…

With laughter.

Before I caught up with her and saw this, I assumed she was preparing a blood sacrifice.

Who knew she had a heart after all.

Appearances are deceiving, Neifion mutters.

I slip backward, soundlessly, to join my liege and the rest of the gathering lords.

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