Page 34 of Fortune's Blade

And then I was distracted once again when great, shadowy wings rose up behind him, casting the other newcomers and half of the hall into shade. They caused torches and lamps dozens of yards away to flicker and a few to go out and sent a definite chill across the diners. I saw several people shiver and others, on the edges of the shadow, deliberately move out of its path.

I didn’t blame them. And the voice that came out of the man’s throat a moment later was no better. It didn’t sound human, but neither did it sound like Lord Rathen’s when he was transformed. I wasn’t sure what it sounded like, but if it had been written out, the letters would have had scrawling edges that bled blackly across the page. There were screeches and screams and howls somewhere behind the words, like far off damned souls tearing at them as if at the bars of a cage, trying to get out.

It made my skin crawl, and that was before I realized what it was saying.

“To welcome your daughter, surely; I have heard tales of her beauty,” the terrible voice said, causing Claire to make a startled, unhappy sound. “But of the others . . ..” his face turned unerringly toward our box, as if he’d known exactly where we’d be. “One of them has had dealings with my house. I would take her and go, and trouble you no further.”

A murmuring went around the great space, and Louis-Cesare looked at me. I looked back, shaking my head; I had no idea what he was talking about. I was the only other woman in our party besides Claire, but I’d never seen Steen before in my life.

And that included his alter ego “Ryn.”

I watched it in the shadows behind him, acting almost like an independent entity. Even his own men stiffened when its shade fell across them. And those completely in its shadow seemed to shrink, falling into themselves, and failing to show the bravado of their companions on the edges.

But Claire’s father didn’t seem to notice.

“Her?” Rathen-Den sounded slightly puzzled. Tanet had jerked his head to look at me, as practically the rest of the hall was now doing, but his father never so much as glanced my way. “I’m afraid I’m at a loss, Lord Steen. The only woman in my daughter’s party is an off-worlder who has never before visited our fair lands. You must have her confused with someone else.”

And suddenly, belatedly, I got it, at the same moment that Louis-Cesare did. Our eyes met, and our lips formed the same word: Dorina. What did you do? I thought, alarmed.

And then I thought about something else.

“I beg to differ,” Steen was saying, and his terrible voice had sharpened to a knife’s edge. “She has done me an injury. I will have recompense. And I will have it now.”

Dragons did not appear to share the senate’s love of discourse, and of following carefully veiled threats with more and more obvious ones for some time before exploding into action. Because that was it—that was literally everything that was said before the people around Steen were on the move. They shifted all together like a tide, or like a sudden storm if storms were made up of scales and teeth and giant, dhampir-spearing claws abruptly boiling in my direction. But I was moving, too, only not away. Claire was screaming something about the stairs and grabbing for me, and with her newfound speed, she should have caught me.

But I had speed, too, when I chose to use it, and an intense need to talk to the only person who might be able to tell me where my sister was.

And his people had just left him alone.

Of course, the reason they had done so was to attack me, but Rathen-Den didn’t like that, and his people were moving, too. They changed in an eyeblink, flying off perches all over the hollow tower to meet Steen’s forces in a deafening clash in the air. But they didn’t meet me, because I’d already jumped down, hit the blood-slick floor, rolled and was off—

And Louis-Cesare was right there with me, trying to grab hold, and he was faster than Claire. He was faster than anyone I’d ever met, but a screaming group of bison-like creatures, shaggy and meaty and panicked, who I guessed had been the next course, took that moment to stampede across the floor, separating us. And buying me an extra second.

And a second was all I needed.

Because a second is just a second, unless it’s in slow-time, the altered reality that dhampirs and vamps can fall into during combat, which makes it seem like everything is happening in slow-motion—except for you. Which is why I was treated to the sight of a squirming mass of scales in a rainbow of colors overhead; to a torch flinging sparks in a parabola across the scene, knocked out of its bracket by a lashing tail; to a glimpse of Claire transforming in the fighting mass overhead, right before she was crashed into by a dark purple dragon twice her size; to Tanet, his alter ego finally unleashed, changing and turning and ripping into the beast on top of her with every evidence of relish; and to a wash of flame from someone’s open maw hitting a silken banner hanging from Lord Rathen’s dining chamber, setting it alight. “Wel Com Of-Wurlled Gests” it had proclaimed in lively, golden embroidery, a kind gesture that I had failed to notice on my arrival, being too busy watching entrails raining down from the sky.

I wasn’t watching that now, but only because the sides were evenly matched, at least in the toughness of their scales. But Steen’s people were seriously outnumbered, which had me wondering what he was thinking coming here. I didn’t wonder for long.

A bunch of dark shapes appeared in the windows scattered around the half of the tower that wasn’t mountainside, silhouetted against the stars. And then crawled in, hunching down, making themselves compact enough to fit through the great, elongated rectangles, but not bothering to transform back into human shapes to make it easier. Those that couldn’t fit busted through the thick slabs of rock instead, shattering the stone inward and peppering the fight with flying shards.

I avoided the spray by keeping the battling pairs above me as a sort of shield as I darted across the floor. And rooted around in my big, black duffle bag for the magic it contained, which I really hoped my opponent had never seen before. Because otherwise, I was screwed.

But I couldn’t just run away and let others fight, and possibly die, for me. And I couldn’t lose what might be my only chance to find out where Dorina was and what she’d been doing recently. A location could make all the difference in the world to this crazy venture, and get us all the hell out of here before anything else went wrong.

It was worth a risk.

So, Lord Steen it was, and while he was big and bad and terrible, especially now as he’d just transformed into a huge black dragon with jade and purple iridescence on his wings and burning green eyes, he was still the job. And I’d spent a lifetime doing the job. And taking down things that scared me almost as much as he did.

Let’s see what five hundred years of experience gets you, I thought, right before a golden bullet co-opted me.

Even in slow-time, it took me a moment to realize what had just happened, it was that fast. And once I did, I still couldn’t really track it. I vaguely understood that Lord Rathen was displeased about Steen crashing his party and trying to drag off one of his guests, but all I saw were slashing claws and snapping teeth and tails as big as other dragons’ whole bodies swiping left and right and clearing a large patch of the floor around them.

Servants were running or flying or swinging on banners out of the way; buffalo were getting squelched underfoot, adding to the slippery carnage on the floor; and the gallant guards had their spears out and at the ready, only they couldn’t reach the fight without their steeds, as they had no wings.

Which was probably just as well, considering how those who did manage it were fairing.

And then Louis-Cesare caught up with me.

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