Page 12 of Deadly Maiden

I’m the sort of girl who doesn’t trip rich, ignorant people who elbow her on the ramp. Or mostly doesn’t.

I slip my arm into his and snuggle in as we tramp up-ramp into Bollingham. Sometimes, it surprises me that I have equaled Father’s height. Rhuy is here, waving in greeting, leaning on the railing. His black hair has been shaved at the sides. He’s smoking a cigarillo, also something his parents would disapprove of, and he eyes me up and down as if I’m already his.

We’ve only bedded once, but I can feel myself stir.

That sort of male arrogance is…interesting.

Rorsyd

The horse skitters beneath me. We dragonshifters rarely find a mount that likes us and remains calm. The town is in sight, grinding on its well-trodden, eons-hardened roadway. By late evening, we should catch up to it, leap aboard, and track her down.

Nothing grows on the golem-town routes. No plant would dare to try.

A day has passed since this Aos Sin patrol asked me to join them, to bolster their numbers, and to help them quell any dissent while we arrest a girl suspected of necromancy.

She has clearly done something while I was not watching her.

Is this Fate? It certainly feels so.

I won’t be letting them take her anywhere. She is my responsibility and so ingrained beneath my almost-scaled skin that it would be irresponsible to palm off her execution to these fools of fae.

Mineis the word I will be saying to them, soon.

I will say it as I step from her bloodied corpse.

Mine by right of a vow, twenty years old and cold.

Mine because I am a dragonshifter, and therefore what I claim is rock-solid, flame-hardened truth.

Despite my lack of shifting. And if they require proof?

I can fake it enough to convince them. Painful though it would be.

“There flies the raven!” Davyd, our sergeant-leader, points with his arm at full extension at the sky, at a small black dot of abird. It heads for Bollingham. In a hushed tone he continues, “Its eye does burn with red.”

Does it? When I study the bird, a spot of bright red leaves a trail on my vision that gradually fades.

I rap the sides of my horse with my knees and draw level with the sergeant. “A raven?”

“Yes.” He frowns, thick blond eyebrows squeezing in. “I suppose it matters not if I say. It is reported to be a raven risen from the dead near the Fortress of Slaedorth. A lookout tower keeps watch on that place. The bird seeks the descendant of necromancers—the girl we are to arrest. Wyntre Diamond.”

“In essence…she committed some form of necromancy, and this triggered the bird to rise?” My innate need to understand thewhyandwhereforeof things nudges me.

With a pointed yet respectful glance, he adds, “Nothing such has been reported. However, our mission is from the king.”

“But how was she identified as the target of this bird? It has not yet arrived.”

“It issaidthat a knowledgeable person brought out a map and a compass, and predicted the route of the bird and where it must intersect. This is the only place of note. The mountains and desert beyond them are nigh uninhabitable.”

“Go on.”

He clacks his teeth, makes a mildly annoyed smile, saying nothing. Our horses trot onward, kicking up clots of wet clay and gravel. The recent rain has made the trail messy and less safe for galloping.

“Please continue.” If not for my formidable nature, I’m sure he would’ve said nothing more, but my hand makes two of his and my claws have extruded. None of these fae are certain what type of shifter I am, and I prefer the uncertainty.

He notes my claws then clears his throat.

“The records show only one new child arrived in this town near the date they investigated. Her and a lesser fae of no magik who pretends to have fathered her, Landos Diamond.”

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