CHAPTER 1: NO HOLDS BARRED

  They brought the princess to the mountain at dusk.

  The sky over the Grey Marches burned in strips of red and gold, but the mountain itself was already dark, a black tooth jutting out of the fog. The tower crowned it. Hammered into the earth from above: narrow, impossibly tall, a spear driven into the very bedrock of the world.

  The Princess Irena Vaudrin sat hunched in her saddle and tried not to look at it.

  Maille rattled, and leather creaked as the column of riders wound its way up the broken road in a clatter of hooves and iron. Banners of the Third Host, the Marchwardens, snapped in the wind, their white-and-green pennants catching the dying light. Hard men in dull plate and drab cloaks rode with their shields slung and their spears tipped up, too tense to relax even so close to their destination as this.

  If anything, they grew even more tense as they climbed higher.

  “Eyes up, lads,” barked the captain at the head of the column. “We’re in the dragon’s shadow now.”

  The word dragon scraped its cold fingers down Irena’s spine. She lifted her head, pretending she was merely adjusting her hood and that chance alone had let her glance sideways across to that far peak.

  That far peak was little more than a silhouette shape in the dark. Jagged and steep, the summit’s upper half was lost in a smear of low cloud. There was no sign of anything living there save the wind that whipped that fog into flurries over blackened mountain stone.

  Then the mountain moved.

  At first glance, that movement seemed but a shifting of shadow, a trick of the failing light. Then the earth heaved; a long curve of black stone uncoiled with ponderous, awful grace. Two ridges opened into wings vast enough to blot out the stars, stretched once, twice, shaking off a deep slumber. A line of orange lit up along the rock face, a slit in the world as rocks and boulders tumbled from their place on the mountainside.

  An eye.

  It opened, lazy and lid-heavy, and turned towards the road.

  Irena couldn’t breathe.

  A sound rumbled across the valley, low enough to be felt more than heard. Hooves stumbled. A few horses shied; one nearly unseated his rider as he panicked outright.

  The mountain’s body rose. And then the air itself caught aflame.

  That flame poured from the heights above in a long, contemptuous sweep, spilling down a bare slope far from the road, painting everything in its wake a wash of roaring orange. Trees vanished. Stone glowed. Heat rolled back up the valley, over the column of soldiers and their ward.

  “Steady!” the captain shouted. “It’s a warning, that’s all.”

  Only a warning. Irena could still taste the smoke, acrid and sharp at the back of her throat. Her mare danced sideways, snorting, until a gloved hand reached over and took the reins from her grip.

  “Steady, Highness,” said Baron Caldar Brennec, voice smooth as old oil. His horse was close enough now that she could have leaned over and shoved him off the narrow path. The sudden impulse tempted her, indeed.

  “He’s only reminding us who’s in charge out here,” Caldar said as Irena jerked her hand away from his and stared straight ahead, jaw clenched.

  The tower loomed larger with every turn of the road. There were no banners adorning it, and no light in its narrow windows; its stone was darker than the black mountain beneath it, stained with centuries of smoke and weather and, if the stories were true, far stranger things. Once, it had belonged to the Archmage Thalen, who had claimed this high vantage overlooking the Grey Marches, the mad wizard who’d tried to build a stairway to the Sun and destroyed himself instead.

  Now the tower, like the rest of the Grey Marches, belonged to House Brennec, and Baron Caldar Brennec had graciously placed the tower “at the Crown’s disposal” for the princess’ “safekeeping.”

  At its base, waiting on the steps, stood a tiny figure all but swallowed up by cloak and shadow. She was no guard. She stood alone, caught in the wind. Irena’s stomach sank at how lost she looked. Hands balling into fists, her nails dug into her gloves until the leather creaked.

  “I do not see why I have to be brought all the way out here,” Irena said, desperate and unsure whether she had even meant to say it aloud.

  Baron Caldar Brennec heard anyway. He always heard what he wasn’t meant to hear.

  “Your father judged this tower to be the most secure place in the realm, Highness, and the Concord agreed,” he said. “The Third Host guards the approach. A dragon watches the sky. You are beyond the purview of Highcourt. No one can touch you here.”

  “I never asked to be kept ‘secure’,” she hissed.

  He smiled. He had that courtier’s smile, thin and careful.

  “You refused a marriage your father and the High Prelate spent four years arranging. You publicly shamed ‘Prince’ Jorren of House Caravel. You gave the people… ideas.” His gaze slid across her in appraisal and then flicked back to the far ridge, where that orange slit of an eye was slowly closing. “And then there were the rumours.”

  “There was nothing,” Irena snapped. “Elene and I— we never—”

  Her throat seized. Despite her best intentions for Elene, even just hearing her name hurt like an admission. He didn’t bother to pretend he hadn’t noticed that either.

  “Of course, of course,” Caldar murmured. “Just girls. Just friends. Just holding hands in the rose courtyard at night. Just slipping away from the feast to lie on each other’s laps under the colonnade. Young hearts are so dramatic.”

  Heat flushed her cheeks, shame and fury tangled so tightly she couldn’t tell them apart.

  “We were talking,” she said. “You spied on us.”

  “Talking,” he repeated, as if tasting the word. “The word the priest used was ‘indecent.’ ‘Impure.’ The word His Majesty used was ‘embarrassing.’ Fortunately, the Holy Concord was very merciful. There are worse fates than a little seclusion, Highness. For a princess rumoured to be a lover of women.”

  “I am not—” she choked on it. “They are lies. I would never—”

  You would, something in her chest said. You wanted to. You thought about it every time she held your hand. You thought—

  Irena pushed that thought away so suddenly that she felt dizzy.

  “She was my friend,” she said hoarsely. “She is my friend. That’s all. And you took her away.”

  Caldar’s smile thinned further.

  “The girl is in a cloister now,” he said. “Where she will have time to pray for both your souls. You should be grateful they showed such restraint. The King’s temper is not… what it once was. Nor the High Prelate’s patience.”

  Grateful. She almost laughed.

  Her father hadn’t even come to see her off. Neither had her mother. Nor had any of her siblings. Crown Prince Edric would have been in council, no doubt nodding gravely while men twice his age explained how necessary all this was. Seren would have been at her harp lesson, pretending not to hear the servant’s gossip. Even little Tomas, still in his schoolroom, hadn’t been allowed to slip away and wave as she left. House Vaudrin had simply… looked away from her, all at once, as if she were something shameful on the floor. They’d sent for the baron, the Marchwardens, and a Sun-priest instead.

  The column wound around the final bend. The tower reared up in front of Irena now, vast and unyielding. Up close, it somehow looked all the more terrible. The stone was pitted and scorched, clawed at by the mountain weather. Old iron rings studded its flanks where scaffolds had once hung. The lower doors were thick oak bound in black iron, shut fast; a ring of pale stones was set into the earth around the foundation like a circle of bones, each one carved with faint sigils that made the skin between Irena’s shoulder blades itch.

  I don’t want to go in there.

  It struck her stupidly late, something a child would say. She gripped the saddle’s pommels with both hands, fingers numb inside her gloves, and wrestled with the fact that no one cared what she wanted.

  A barked order, and the Marchwardens dismounted as one. Shields thudded against thighs. Spears grounded. The Marchwardens moved with the crisp, practised efficiency of men who would very much like to be finished with whatever accursed business this was, to be back on the roads far from here, where the mountains did not breathe fire.

  If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  Still, that figure stood at the base of the tower steps, now beside the Sun-priest. Small. Cloaked. A flash of brown hair and, for a heartbeat, Irena thought, stupidly, Elene—

  But no.

  She was much too small.

  The figure shifted, and Irena saw the ears. Halfling. The cloak was too big for her, hem muddied from the courtyard. Hands folded so tightly together that the knuckles were white.

  “Your handmaiden,” Caldar said, following her gaze.

  They didn’t send a guard. Only a girl, alone in the wind. It landed in Irena’s chest like a cruelty and a mercy in the same breath.

  “Lira of the Low Market,” he continued. “Dedicated to your service by decree of the Concord, to tend to your needs.” His tone made ‘needs’ sound faintly indecent. “Consider it proof of our good faith.”

  “Your good faith took Elene away,” Irena said under her breath.

  “You persist in using the girl’s name,” he said mildly. “Some would call that impropriety.”

  “And some would call it basic human decency,” she snapped.

  He looked faintly amused. “You are still young, Highness. Perhaps the tower will teach you the difference between the two.”

  The Sun-priest raised his staff; the golden disc at its top caught the last rays of the Sun and flared. His voice carried with unnatural clarity across the stone. The tower itself seemed to listen.

  “By decree of King Halvar Vaudrin, second of his name,” he intoned, “and with the consent of the Holy Concord of the Unsetting Sun, we commit Princess Irena Vaudrin into seclusion at this, the Tower of Thalen, that she may reflect upon obedience, purity, and duty.”

  The words washed over Irena as frosty water. She glared at the priest, at the circle of carved stones, at the tower itself.

  “I have done nothing wrong,” she said, loud enough that soldiers shifted and glanced at one another.

  The priest’s mouth tightened. “You refused your father’s will in the matter of your betrothal—”

  “I refused to be sold,” she shot back. “To a man I do not know, to bind a deal I never agreed to. That is not a sin!”

  “A princess does not choose,” he said. “A princess obeys. The Sun watches over those who accept His order.”

  “The Sun watches over the King when he puts his daughter on a mountain and throws away the key?” Her voice cracked. “Does He watch over my friend rotting in your cloister too?”

  Gasps. Someone muttered, “Blasphemy,” under their breath. The priest’s face went a shade paler.

  Baron Caldar stepped smoothly between them, his smile all teeth now.

  “Enough Highness,” he said softly. “Every word you speak only serves to dig this pit deeper. You are being offered mercy. Take it gracefully.” His gaze flicked to the tower, then back to her. “Besides, perhaps in time you’ll come to enjoy the solitude. They say Thalen found great enlightenment here for many years. Before he blew himself to pieces, of course.”

  He thought he was funny. She hated that about him most of all.

  A roar rocked the mountainside.

  Unlike the earlier rumbling, which was lazy and distant, this was close. The furious sound punched through stone and bone; the tower and the ground around it seemed to vibrate. Irena’s teeth clacked together. She whipped her head around in time to see a black shape sweep across the gulf between the mountain peaks.

  The dragon’s silhouette burned fire-bright at the edges, veins glowing beneath its scales. Wings spread. Serpentine neck craned. It banked once, twice, slow and unstoppable as a drifting storm, then settled again along that far ridge, folding itself into the rock with casual finality.

  Everyone on the road had frozen. Even the priest had fallen silent. For a moment, there was nothing but the hiss of cooling stone where the last plume of flame had scoured the mountain.

  “Think of it this way,” Baron Caldar murmured, almost kindly. “No assassin can reach you here. No Caravel bravos. No outraged zealots. No one. Not while that’s up there watching.” He gave her a small, cold smile. “The mad wizard’s tower, the dragon’s guard, the King’s will, the Sun’s blessing. You are, in all ways, untouchable.”

  Untouchable. Irena stared at the tower doors. At the halfling girl waiting there, so frightful and still, she might have been a part of the stonework. At the dragon’s now resting bulk. At the narrow, guarded faces of the Marchwardens surrounding her.

  Elene would have mocked the pomp of all this, she thought suddenly, wildly. She would whisper some joke about dragons with indigestion and priests who liked the sound of their own voices too much, and I would have bitten my lip to keep from laughing.

  Where are you?

  Her chest hurt. Not only from the smoke. Not only from the climb. From the not knowing.

  Did they send you to the city cloister? To the cold one in the north? Did you cry? Did you call for me?

  Tears pricked hot at the corners of her eyes. She blinked them back furiously. She would not cry in front of damned Baron Caldar Brennec.

  Small steps on stone. The halfling handmaiden descended and now stood, head bowed, hands clenched in front of her apron, for Irena’s attention. Up close, Irena could see how young she was. How small. Dark curls escaped her braid and clung damply to her forehead; her cheeks were pink with cold and nerves both.

  “Your Highness,” she said, voice barely above a whisper. “As they say. I– I am Lira. Of the Low Market. I have been assigned as your handmaiden. I—” Her gaze flicked up for the barest instant and then dropped again. “I am here to serve.”

  Her voice shook, but she didn’t step back. That, at least, was something. Still, she looked like she wanted to let the ground swallow her up.

  So do I, Irena thought.

  “You don’t want to be here,” Irena said, more sharply than she intended.

  Lira flinched. “I— I wish to perform my duties,” she said quickly. “The Concord decreed— that is, I was… honoured to be chosen.” The lie was so flimsy it barely held together.

  “Honoured,” Irena repeated flatly. “To be locked away here with a stranger.”

  Lira’s fingers twisted tighter together. “It is a noble charge for us,” she whispered. Then, as if catching herself, she added, smaller: “Your Highness.”

  There was desperation in the way that she said it. A raw, frightened need for approval. Irena realised, with a little jolt, that this girl’s life hung from the same fraying threads as her own. Obey and live. Step out of line and die.

  She wanted to say I’m sorry. It stuck in her throat with everything else.

  “Princess Irena Vaudrin,” the Sun-priest said, staff thumping against the carved stones, making the sigils flare briefly with sickly light. “Will you accept this seclusion in the spirit of repentance and reflection?”

  “No,” Irena said.

  The word dropped like a stone into a well.

  Caldar’s hand tightened on her bridle. “Highness,” he said warningly.

  She lifted her chin. Petulant, spoilt, stupid, she could hear Elene’s fond voice chiding in her ear, but she clung to the scraps of dignity like armour. “I will endure this because I am being forced to,” she said. “But I will not pretend for your ill benefit that it is just. Or holy. Or my choice.”

  The priest’s mouth thinned to a bloodless line. “Then may the Sun’s light bring you repentance in time,” he said. “Open the way.”

  The carved stones flashed around their feet. The iron-banded doors shuddered. Something heavy and invisible grumbled through the air; the hair on Irena’s arms stood on end. With a horror somewhere beneath her anger, she realised that the ring of stones wasn’t just decoration. It was a line. A boundary. A lock.

  Lira stepped back, careful not to cross it.

  A Marchwarden came to take Irena’s mare’s reins. Another reached up a hand to help her dismount. She ignored it and slid down herself, boots hitting the cold ground harder than she intended. Her legs wobbled. She straightened again, lifted her chin, and walked towards the tower. Past the priest. Past Baron Caldar Brennec, who watched her with that little curdled smile.

  “What a waste,” he said softly, as she drew level. “All that beauty. All that spirit. When you might have borne Caravel such fine heirs. Instead, the King’s eldest daughter chooses to pine for girls. One almost feels sorry for him.”

  Her hand twitched. For one dizzying moment, she imagined turning and clawing at his face.

  “I do not—” she started, and stopped.

  There was no point. He’d already decided what she was. The whole court had. No amount of denial would scrape the stain away.

  She swallowed it. Filed the words away somewhere hard and tight and cold.

  Remember this.

  She walked on.

  As they passed into the tower’s shadow, the noise of the outside world dimmed. The mutter of soldiers, the creak of maille and equipment, all that was left was the thud of her own heartbeat and the soft, quick patter of Lira’s footsteps beside her.

  At the threshold, she hesitated. Up close, the tower smelled of old smoke, stale stone and dust, and something else she couldn’t name. Like hot metal and thunder.

  The open hall beyond the doors was dim. Lira hovered at her side, looking smaller than ever. A figure cut from a painting and placed in the wrong scene.

  Irena looked back only once.

  Behind them, in the courtyard, the Marchwardens waited in stiff, uneasy ranks. The priest clutched his staff. Baron Caldar’s horse stamped.

  Above them all, the dragon settled its massive head more comfortably on its forelegs, half-lidded eyes turned in their direction, as if mildly curious how much longer this little piece of theatre would take before it could go back to sleep.

  Down the long winding road, the valley darkened to blue. Somewhere beyond it, beyond the haze and the hills and the gleaming threads of the Riverlands, lay the Vale, concealing the capital. The palace of Highcourt that crested it. The rose courtyard where she’d held Elene’s hand and pretended not to hear her own heart hammering. The temple bells. The chattering of court. The life she’d been told was hers.

  “Don’t cry,” Elene had whispered in that last, heaving moment as the guards had dragged them apart. “Don’t give them that.”

  She blinked hard.

  “I am innocent,” she said again, mostly to herself this time.

  The tower did not answer.

  Lira swallowed audibly.

  “Your Highness?” she whispered. “We should go in. Before they… lose patience. And before it gets too dark.”

  We. Irena latched onto that word like driftwood. It stopped her from drowning.

  “Yes,” she said. Her voice surprised her by not shaking. “We should.”

  Irena stepped inside.

  The air changed. It carried a charge, a pressure, which she felt against her skin, cool and faintly buzzing, like the calm before a storm. Lira shut the doors behind them. Slid bolts into place—a sound of finality. A sentence passed.

  Somewhere far below, in rooms no one had entered since Archmage Thalen burned himself into dust, scattered on the wind, old sigils faintly glowed, coming to life, curiously regarding the new presence disturbing their wards.

  Ignorant of that, in the dim hall, Lira risked one more brief, frightened glance at her princess.

  “We’ll be all right,” she said, as if saying the words might make them true.

  Irena lifted her chin into the dark. Her eyes stung. Her heart ached.

  “I will get out of here,” she said, quietly and firmly. “And when I do, they will be sorry.”

  The tower hummed very faintly around her, unseen energies charging, reacting to their arrival as if in agreement. Or amusement. Or both.