Page 62 of Fortune's Blade

“Yes, and a great maw of teeth, so many and so sharp,” the hippie continued. “And perfect, unbroken armor, not shattered and damaged in places like mine—”

More people began to look worried at that comment, and I spared a thought as to how said armor had gotten shattered. Maybe the reason had something to do with why a group of people who looked like kings or very well-heeled nobility were listening respectfully to a guy who might have crawled out from under a bridge. And while there was some uneasy shifting in the crowd, no one interrupted again, although the hippie raised his voice anyway.

“—yes, not damaged like mine, shattered in battle for your lord. No, pristine and perfect, you are—and untried, untested, unproven. A good warrior you might be someday, boy, even a great one if ye’re anything like your parents, but for now—”

It could be my imagination, but I thought I saw the crowd drawing back a little from poor Axsel, who was starting to look a little concerned himself. The smirk was still there, but his eyes, so blue, so confident, so assured a moment ago, were glancing about. He was smart enough to know that he’d somehow stepped in it, but not to see what was coming.

That made two of us.

“But for now,” the hippie suddenly thundered, loudly enough to stagger me except that he wouldn’t allow it, “ye’re a child and a damned foolish one! Which is fair enough, as ye are still a child, but less forgivable in the elders among us who should know better!”

“Know better . . . about what?” Axsel asked, confused. And then yelped slightly in pain when his mother’s nails stabbed into his bicep to shut him up.

“Know that weapons don’t make a warrior. Or armor or magic or bloodlines, either! I’ve seen more battles than any of ye, and yes, perhaps it has rattled me brains some, wouldn’t deny it. But it seems I still see sharper than some. I watched you, oh yes, I did, filing over here with barely concealed contempt on your faces. Or anger—outright fury—that you had to show respect to one such as this.”

He shook me a little. “One such as this,” he repeated, his voice acid. “Who ripped apart the bastard who dared to swallow her, who carved her way out of his stomach through sheer bloody-minded determination. Who held onto his hide even as she was sliced to ribbons, then stared down the bastard of Vitharr himself before blowing half a dozen of his warriors out of the sky! And she did it without armor, without talons, without fangs. But I’d say she has bigger fangs than you, proud Axsel, bigger than any of you, whose blood I didn’t see staining the sky last night alongside hers!”

“But you’d see it now,” someone said, a grave looking older man with shoulder length dark hair. “You’d see us join an alliance that might get us killed—”

“Alliance?” the hippie looked at him blankly for a second, and then laughed. “What do I have to do with yer damned alliance?” I could care less about politics, and whether ye join Lord Rathen’s war party or not. I will; I like a fight. And I like even better the idea of fighting beside warriors such as this,” he shook me some more. I really wished he’d stop doing that. “Who is the only one I ever met who might be crazier than me. We’ll savage the bastards together,” he told me, grinning. “You could probably do more damage in your current state than half of them here anyway.”

Yeah, I doubted that. And maybe he did, too, if he was telling the truth, instead of putting on whatever farce this was supposed to be. Because he plopped me back down on my log again as if suddenly losing interest in the conversation.

“Then what do you expect us to do?” the same man demanded, as people began looking at each other again, then at me, and then at the hippie, as if expecting guidance from one of us. But they weren’t getting it from him.

“What?” he looked up from a low-voiced conversation he had started with Regin. “What are you saying? Stop mumbling, boy, I’m old!”

The “boy”, who clearly wasn’t one, scowled. “I said, what do you expect us to do, then?” he shouted.

“About what?”

“About the war!”

The hippie blinked at him. “Didn’t I just say?” he asked irritably. “Do as you damned well like. Are you dragonkind or aren’t you?” And then Regin got up and the two men walked off, still chatting.

Which was probably why everyone’s gaze suddenly turned on me, since I was the only one left.

I gazed back, caught off guard, and without a speech prepared. Not that I’d ever had to give one, or ever expected to; again, that wasn’t my job. Only they didn’t know that, didn’t realize that I was a fraud, a walking vote who now found herself the spokesperson for my entire senate.

And just when I thought my day couldn’t get any worse.

I hesitated for a moment, but there was nothing else for it. I stood up again, climbing on top of the log this time, not that it helped much. But the people in front of the now-sizeable crowd hunched down slightly, with a few of the men even going down to one knee so that the ones in the back could see better.

And then they waited.

I fervently wished that my father was here, he of the eloquent speeches and perfect timing. Or Louis-Cesare, who fit in with these people a lot better than I did, and was tall enough not to need the log. Or Claire . . . alright, maybe not Claire, at least not now.

But there was only me, so I opened my mouth, hoping against hope that something eloquent was going to come out of it. What I got instead was Lord Rathen, his voice bellowing out of nowhere, and almost causing me to fall off my perch. And startling the crowd almost as much, who hadn’t seemed to expect that, either.

“Can she see us?” Rathen demanded as the glade winked out, leaving me staring at a dark void. But a moment later, Louis-Cesare’s vision cut in, dispelling the blackness and showing me—

“What the hell?” I murmured, and the crowd murmured with me.

I had the impression that they were seeing what I was, although how they were, I didn’t know. I hadn’t gotten my father’s mental gifts in the genetic lottery, Dorina had. But the scene I was receiving—and somehow broadcasting—was as clear as crystal.

We were looking at a valley, a once pretty one judging by the ring of blue mountains in the distance and the undamaged pieces I saw here and there, when Louis-Cesare’s eyes flicked from bit to bit. He didn’t seem to know what to let them light on, although my partner was not squeamish. But what I saw at the center of the valley . . .

Was a nightmare.

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