Page 14 of Fortune's Blade

“Hurry up, or we’ll be late,” she said, as we hustled down a broad stone passageway to a set of too-steep stairs going up.

The main hall in this castle was at the top, rather than occupying a lower floor as in human strongholds, but that would have been okay if the stairs hadn’t been made for people with longer strides than I had. A lot longer. They were also deeper, as if meant for bigger feet, leaving me leaping from one to the other more than walking, as Claire was also doing up ahead.

“And I, for one, do not want to make an entrance!” she panted.

Yeah, blending in at some back table in the shadows sounded more like a plan to me. Assuming that we could keep up with our guide, that is, since despite the stairs, she was not letting grass grow. But I was glad we had her, because this place was like no other castle I’d ever seen.

Unlike our room, which had glittered with mosaic and had beautiful designs inlaid into the floors, the passageways were almost completely unadorned. There also wasn’t any artwork, carpets or benches to break up the view, just acres of golden stone. And with no niches for lanterns, I wouldn’t have been able to see anything if the ends of the halls hadn’t been open to the skies.

That let the wind whistle through at regular intervals, tugging at our hair and fluttering our clothes every time we hit another passage, and I supposed explained the missing furnishings, as the weather and wildlife would have ravaged them soon enough. But the architecture still seemed odd, since the whole point of Earth castles was to be defensive. But when you had a scaley wall that could be deployed at any time, I guessed that didn’t matter so much.

Lord Rathen’s people had clearly prioritized ease of access over protection, and they were using it, coming and going constantly—only not on the stairs.

I watched some of them, who were as late as we were, emerge from their rooms, run down the hallways and throw themselves into the air, changing in an instant and soaring upward. Or coming back from some errand or other, and landing and shifting bodies at the same moment. Making a transformation that appeared as effortless for them as breathing did for me.

That might explain why the shifting was constant, with some doing so merely to avoid the stairs and skip up a flight or two the easy way. And was facilitated by the breezy, halter-style outfits I’d seen once on Earth, with gauzy waves of beautiful cloth cascading from a single magical band around their throats. In dragon form, it was a scarf-like adornment; in human, the filmy folds fell downward as their bodies shrank, clothing them as they changed.

I hadn’t seen the constant activity as we approached, since the castle, in the brief glimpse I’d had of it from the road, had seemed rather sleepy. But I imagined that it must now resemble a great birdcage, with the brightly colored creatures who flitted around it like exotic pets. Ones with claws and scales and maws full of teeth, but still.

Stunning.

Louis-Cesare was watching them, too, but he didn’t seem so awed anymore. We appeared to be going in opposite directions, with my initial suspicion and wariness leaching onto him, and some of his wonder onto me. His expression was calculated, as if trying to determine the weaknesses in all that armor plating and the best place to strike, if it came to it.

I could have answered that from observing Claire’s other form: nowhere.

“We might have dined in our room,” he said, with his tone telling me that his thoughts had mirrored mine. “If we are so late.”

“No, you couldn’t have,” Claire said, throwing her bright red mane over her shoulder, and causing it to bounce almost down to her waist. It reminded me of the real mane that her alternate form had, except for being curly and red instead of flowing and lavender, so okay, not at all. But there was something there, nonetheless, some hint at her alter ego that was usually absent.

Maybe it was the violet silk she wore, shot through with silver and almost scandalously sheer. It was also open at the sides except for some silken ties that were loosely fastened so as not to bind her or rip the material if she had to change quickly. It was striking, but it wasn’t Claire.

She was normally on the conservative side with her clothing, preferring maillots to bikinis and long skirts to minis. She had a prairie chic aesthetic, with jean jackets over long, flowy prints and boho jewelry. She could have been a model for Valentino if she didn’t disdain makeup most of the time, and if she didn’t hate high heels with every fiber of her being.

Today she was barefoot, I guessed because shifting into her alter ego was hell on shoes, and looked more like some pagan priestess planning to serve us up on an alter to her god than my old friend. It made me nervous, because everything around here was making me nervous, and I didn’t like it. It was hard to know what to be wary of when even my friend seemed strange!

“I beg your pardon?” Louis-Cesare asked, continuing the conversation I’d lost the thread of.

“Cowardice is the biggest sin among the houses,” Claire informed him. “Your reputation is everything, so cringing in your room—which is how missing dinner would be seen—would only result in more attacks. You have to brave it out.”

“Something that would be considerably easier if we knew why we were being targeted,” he commented tartly.

But Claire wasn’t listening. Claire had spied the duffle bag I’d brought along despite the fact that it in no way matched my outfit. She hadn’t noticed it before since she’d been in a tizzy after returning from teaching her half-brother—the massive red creature who’d buzzed us on the road—a lesson. Only to discover that she’d missed even more excitement back here.

A ginger eyebrow raised. “Really, Dory?”

“Yes.” I gripped it tighter. “Really.”

“My father will protect you—”

“Your father wasn’t there earlier,” I pointed out, and saw her flush. It didn’t help my mood that the color was more lavender than pink, almost matching her dress and staining her cheeks up to her temples.

“He didn’t think you’d be attacked in his own house! Nobody did—”

“Then why were we?” Louis-Cesare asked, because he did not do the usual courtier routine. He might look like he belonged in the salons of a different age, but he had never fit in there, as he tended to be far too direct for most people’s liking. Including Claire’s, judging by the way her green eyes snapped when she glanced back as we started up yet another stairway.

This one was even more impressive than the interior ones we’d been following, as it wound outside of the castle, like a crazed snake hugging the place. Or a crazed dragon, I supposed, with the stairs being the jagged ridges along its backbone. And, of course, there were no railings, because what did dragons need with railings?

I was surprised they’d had them on the balcony in our room. But even there, they’d been short and more decorative than anything else, and here they were missing all together. Giving us a dizzying view of what looked to be a couple miles straight down into the mist-wreathed valley below.

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