Page 9 of A Matter of Destiny

Ensyvir grunts, and his lips twist into a cruel smile. There’s another flicker of movement, another shift in balance, and my left arm comes up to block his next attack. His fist slams into my forearm hard enough to knock my shoulders back.

I step backward, panting, waiting for his body to betray his next attack. But Ensyvir just crosses his arms over his chest and grins at me in a way that makes me think of storybook wolves, the ones who will talk you into their den with sweet silver promises.

“So,” Ensyvir drawls. “There’s still a little fight left in you.”

I don’t know how he expects me to respond to that. I wipe the back of my hand across my mouth and wait, my eyes on his feet, his fists. His eyes narrow, and he raises a hand to cup his chin.

“They told me you were clever,” he says. “But I’ve seen no evidence of that. You’ve shown consistently poor judgment, and you’re easily led astray.”

I say nothing. My breath rattles inside my chest like the wind through dead leaves.

“They also said you were a fighter,” Ensyvir continues. “That, at least, seems to be the case.”

He presses his lips together like he’s just tasted something unpleasant, then rocks back on his heels.

“So,” he drawls, looking at me like I’m one of the rusty, dented weapons we keep in the back of the armory, “do you know what you are, dear Rayne?”

A dragon. I’m a fucking dragon, you son of a bitch. I grind my teeth together to keep the words from escaping. Ensyvir’s smile splits his face, showing all of his teeth.

“You’re a weapon,” he declares. “You’re a tool to be sharpened, then pointed at the heart of those who oppose the mighty of Valgros. Are you not, Rayne?”

Sweat traces a path down my temple, and my heart thuds a dull, insistent beat inside my skull. No. Please. Let me be more than that. Let me be a woman who once drank frost wine with a stranger, who followed him into a secret garden and kissed him before all the lights of Cairncliff. Please. Let me be a woman who was seduced, who was a seductress, a woman who has friends and lovers and dances and laughs and knows the names of all the bright shining stars.

Ensyvir’s eyes narrow, and his expression twists into something angry. My heart trips over itself in my chest. I’m running out of time. I need to give him the answer he expects, or kings help me, he might go looking for the truth.

“Does— Does this mean I’ll join His Majesty’s Army?” I blurt.

It’s stupid, so painfully stupid, that old dream I’ve been dragging around like a worn-out nag hobbled to a stone. But it must be the right answer, because Ensyvir throws his head back and laughs in a way that makes me feel like my skin is trying to pull off my body and hurl itself out the window. He laughs for a long time, long enough for my embarrassment to curdle and turn in on itself, becoming a hot stone of rage in the pit of my stomach.

Finally, he stops laughing, wipes his hand across his eyes, and gives me the same condescending smile my hopes and dreams have received for my entire life.

“We’ll see,” Ensyvir says. “We’ll see, little Rayne.”

Chapter6

Doshir

“King’s blood!” a man curses.

I have time to think what an odd curse that is for Cairncliff, where there is no king, and then the world lurches like a ship on the ocean and I’m suddenly on the floor. A nice floor it is, too, I note as my nose presses against a clean-swept tile. Very soothing.

There’s a strange clumping sound, then a hiss as something drags over the tile. I twist my head and find a very large man approaching me with a crutch under his arm. His face is wrinkled with concern, and his complexion seems so much ruddier than the last time I saw him.

Because the last time I saw Eadberh, I slowly realize, he’d been as white as his sheets. And almost dead. Now, he was clearly not almost dead. Good. Rayne would be glad.

That thought sends a different flavor of pain through my chest. I wince as Eadberh carefully lays his crutch down next to me, then lowers himself onto the floor.

“Doshir?” Eadberh asks.

I try to nod and smile at the same time, but my body blithely ignores both commands.

“What in the king’s blessed name happened to you?” Eadberh asks, shaking his head.

He’s looking at my chest and frowning in a clinical sort of way. Panic lances through my lungs, pulling my breath up short. Not me. He shouldn’t be assessing me.

“No,” I rasp, reaching for him.

My fingers are dark, smeared with something I’d rather not think about. I catch Eadberh’s white shirt in my fingers and twist.

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