Ash crown, Thorn heart

*Elara* By the time I reach the river lodge, moonrise turns the reeds white and my horse is lathered dark with sweat. He stumbles as I dismount. I catch his bridle before he can go to his knees and press my forehead briefly to his neck. "Not yet," I whisper. "Please." The lodge stands where the blackwater narrows under alder boughs, half-hidden by ivy and old court discretion. My mother used it in high summer when the palace became too crowded with mourners and advisers. Only five people know I am here tonight. I had stopped believing in coincidence somewhere between the second ambush and the sight of my own crest on the archers' sleeves. The lantern beside the lodge door burns low. Safe, it says. Expected. My hand goes to the knife at my belt anyway. I lead my horse behind the woodpile first. He trembles. An old hound crawls from beneath the steps, one ear torn, ribs too visible under patchy fur. He freezes when he sees me. "There you are," I murmur, because it is easier to speak gently to a starving dog than to myself. I crouch, ignoring the pull in my thighs from too many hours in the saddle, and break the last of my oatcake in half. The hound creeps closer, lip twitching with fear, and takes it from my fingers. Only then do I straighten and climb the steps. The latch lifts before I can knock. "Princess." Relief hits first. Sharp and humiliating. "Maelin." My former lady companion wears a plain wool gown instead of court silk, her hair braided back without jewels. She looks as if she has been crying. In another life, I might believe that means sorrow. "Thank the gods," she says, clutching my sleeve. "Come in quickly." I step over the threshold and smell banked meat, rosemary, hot wax. Three men rise from the supper table. Not guards I know. Not servants. Mercenaries by the look of them, with hard boots and kingdom steel that has been scrubbed clean of insignia. I do not move. Neither do they. Maelin lets go of me. The room narrows to details. A bowl of pears on the table. Mud dried at a stranger's cuff. My own seal pressed red into a folded packet beside the plates. Borrowed seal wax. I flinch before I can stop it. One of the men smiles without warmth. "Her Highness knows quality work when she sees it." My voice comes out level. "You used my seal." Maelin's mouth shakes. "Elara, listen to me." No. I am done listening to soft voices wrapped around knives. I snatch the packet from the table and break it open. My crest stamps the wax, a stag under moon branches. Inside, in a hand that copies my steward's clerk too carefully, are orders for river gate access, route clearance, and my transfer to regent custody for my peace and protection. For your peace. Saelor's favorite phrase. The ribbon at my wrist loosens under my glove. I tug the glove off with my teeth and retie the narrow strip of silver silk hard enough to bite skin. Maelin watches my hands. Her eyes fill at last, too late to matter. "I did not know they meant to kill your escort," she says quickly. "I was told you would be hidden until the court settles. Saelor said the city will burn if you try to claim the throne tonight." "The city is burning because he planned it." "That is not fair." I look at her. Properly look. At the new pearl pins in her braid, bought with somebody's silver. At the fear under her guilt. At how she still expects me to make this easier for her. One of the mercenaries reaches for my arm. I drive my knife into his hand. He shouts. The table goes over. Pears roll across the floorboards. Maelin screams. I am already moving, grabbing the iron poker from the hearth with my free hand and swinging it into the second man's knee. Bone gives with a sound that turns my stomach. The third lunges. I hurl hot ash in his face and run for the back door. "Take her alive," someone gasps behind me. "The regent said alive." The night air hits like cold water. I sprint for the woodpile, boots slipping in damp earth, and s***h the lead rope with my knife. My horse lurches free just as an arrow strikes the stack beside my head. I do not make it into the saddle. I catch his mane, scramble on, half-hanging, and then we crash through alder scrub toward the river path while shouts spread behind us. I hear hounds. Of course I do. Saelor has always preferred his hunting elegant. The path narrows between roots and black water. Moonlight silveres the marsh and the low drift of mist. Ahead, where the old standing stones lean over the bank, a figure steps into the trail as if he has been carved there and only just decides to breathe. My horse rears so violently I nearly lose him. The man does not flinch. He is too broad for an elf, too still for a frightened smuggler, and the air around him holds a strange dry heat that does not belong to autumn marsh. Dark hair brushes his collar. Rings flash on one hand. A scar cuts pale across his jaw. He looks at me, then past me, listening to the hunt. "Well," he says, low and rough, "either you're the most inconvenient princess in the north, or I've chosen an excellent night for trespassing." I know that voice. I heard it once across a treaty fire three winters ago, amused and dangerous and very nearly insolent enough to start a war. King Kaelthar of Varkhast. I would prefer another ambush. "Move," I snap. His mouth bends. "That sounds almost like a plea." The hounds are closer now. My horse dances, foam at the bit. "I do not have time for dragon vanity." "No," he says, glancing toward the trees, "you have time for death, perhaps capture if they are sentimental." He steps nearer. Heat touches my face. Gods, he is large. Not merely tall, but built like a fortress wall somebody has taught to smirk. Travel grime darkens his coat. Smoke clings to him. His beauty is the sort I distrust on principle, too severe, too scarred, too aware of itself. He studies my torn sleeve, the blood on my knife, the royal clasp still pinned at my throat because in my flight I do not think to tear it off. "Hunted by your own colors," he says. "How untidy." "You enjoy this too much." "Not yet." An arrow hisses from the trees. He moves faster than thought. One moment he stands at my horse's shoulder, the next his hand is at my waist, wrenching me down as something vast and scaled slams through moonlight where I have been. Fire tears the air. The first line of alder trees erupts. My horse bolts. I hit the ground hard enough to lose breath and come up with Kaelthar's arm braced across me, sheltering me from a rain of sparks. The hounds do not scream for long. When the blaze settles, the path ahead is a trench of smoking earth. Men shout in terror on the far side of the firebreak. I see one drop his bow and flee. Another falls, blackened, before he makes three steps. Kaelthar straightens. For an instant heat ripples over his skin, not illusion, not human. Dragon. Then it is gone, leaving only the man again, broad-shouldered and annoyingly composed. I rise more slowly, trying not to show how my knees shake. "You set half the marsh alight." "Less than half." He looks almost pleased with himself. "You are welcome." Behind us, more riders crash through the brush. Too many. Kaelthar tips his head toward the standing stones. "There's a ferry cave below the bank. Hidden. My scouts found it this afternoon." "Your scouts are in my kingdom." "Your kingdom is currently attempting to shoot you. I assume hospitality has broadened." I should hate him cleanly. It would be easier. Dragon kings do nothing from kindness. They come with treaties that bite and smiles that show teeth. Yet Saelor's men regroup, and the path to the lodge is dead, and every safe route I have trusted is no longer safe. "What do you want?" I ask. His gaze drops, briefly, to the broken seal packet still clenched in my hand. "Access to the old sanctuaries your court keeps buried under prayer and ivy. Truth about why your regent moves troops toward the mountain passes. And formal leave to kill anyone who tries to collar me." "Your restraint is moving." "It is one of my weaker virtues." Another arrow strikes stone near my boot. Kaelthar does not look at it. He only looks at me. Waiting. If I take his aid, I stain whatever remains of my claim. An elven heir fleeing under dragon protection looks less like a queen in exile than a woman who has bartered her people's pride for survival. If I refuse, I likely die before dawn, and Saelor mourns me beautifully. I think of Maelin's face when the lie broke. Of my escort dead on the south road. Of the old hound eating from my hand while killers sat at my table. Courtesy, I learned young, can dress a wound so neatly people mistake it for healing. "Very well," I say. The words taste like a failure. "We have an alliance until I reclaim Letharis. Transactional, revocable, and narrow." Kaelthar's grin is sudden and wicked. "Princess, all my favorite arrangements begin with threats." I step into him before I can stop myself, grab his coat, and speak through my teeth. "If you betray me, I will put an arrow through your eye and tell the world you died begging." His gaze drops to my mouth, then lifts again. Something hot and unreadable flashes there. "That," he says softly, "sounds sincere." A horn rings through the marsh. He covers my hand where it fists in his coat, not gently, not cruelly either, and peels it away. "Come along, Elara." The sound of my name in his mouth is wrong enough to feel intimate. I hate that I notice. He seizes my wrist and pulls me toward the stone bank just as torchlight spills through the trees behind us.