The Last Namsara (Iskari #1)(76)

It was only when a quiet melody drifted in that she fell still. From outside the tent, Torwin plucked a familiar tune from the strings of his lute. The same tune he’d been humming ever since he’d stitched up her side. There was more of it than the last time, but it still wasn’t complete. Torwin kept falling into silence halfway through, only to pick it up again at the beginning.

She imagined those hands, so deft and sure, plucking strings as easily as they’d made a poultice and stitched up her side. As easily as they’d undone the buttons on her dress.

Swallowing, Asha imagined those hands going farther. Sliding off her dress. Moving across her bare skin.

She shut her eyes, trying to escape the thoughts, knowing the danger they put him in. But they only flared up brighter behind her eyelids.

Much later, when Torwin gave up on his song at last and went to sleep, Asha lay awake, thinking of his hands.





Thirty-Eight


The next morning, when Asha entered the meeting tent, she ran straight into Jas. His eyes, rimmed in dark lashes, widened at the sight of her. Recovering, he smiled, fisting his hand over his heart in greeting.

“You look well this morning, Asha.”

His kindness startled her. After all, she’d pulled a knife on him just last night. And most people upon meeting the Iskari were not so quick to smile at her.

Torwin stepped in behind them. “Sorry we’re late. We . . .” At the sight of what was clearly the middle of a meeting, he stopped.

A dozen people looked up from the roughly hewn log benches. Dax stood in the center, pouring tea.

The sight of it jarred Asha. Serving tea was a slave’s task. But here was her brother, the heir to the throne, holding the brass teapot high in the air as liquid gold streamed in an arc, filling the circle of glasses with frothy, steaming tea.

Before the Severing, under the old ways, the master of the house always served the tea.

Dax stopped pouring to stare at Asha’s clothes. Which were actually Torwin’s clothes. The daughter of the dragon king was wearing the clothes of her husband’s slave.

Her face flamed as she realized how it looked. But she was surrounded by strangers—draksors, scrublanders, skral—so she said nothing. She didn’t look at Dax, whose stare burned up her skin, just ducked past a wordless Jas and filled the empty spot on the cushions next to Safire, who shot her a curious look.

Dax’s stare turned to a wordless question, which he fixed on Torwin. Torwin, who was supposed to be leaving.

Avoiding eye contact, Torwin filled in a gap on the other side of the circle, as far from Asha as he could get, sitting between Roa and a woman Asha recognized: the blacksmith who’d forged her slayers. The blacksmith nodded to her. Asha nodded back.

Safire broke the awkward silence, continuing as if they’d never been interrupted. “Aren’t we forgetting something?” She tossed a throwing knife from hand to hand. Its sharpened steel edge broke the light into countless colors that went skittering across the tent. “There’s a law against regicide, in both the old age and the new.”

Asha thought of the last three scrublander assassins who’d tried to take her father’s life. Remembered the blade hacking at their necks beneath the blazing midday sun. Remembered their heads falling to the stones with sickening thuds. Dax had been sitting right next to Asha, watching it happen.

She thought of Moria, centuries earlier, kneeling on those same stones, resting her head on that same bloodstained block.

The law against killing kings was an ancient, sacred law. It couldn’t be circumvented.

If Dax killed their father, he too would lay his head on that block.

And Asha would have to watch.

“You can’t be thinking of killing the king,” she said.

“We can’t take the throne if your father lives,” Safire said. Essie, Roa’s silver-eyed hawk, perched on the leather patch on her shoulder. “Not officially.”

Asha stared at her brother. “But if you kill him, your life is forfeit.”

“A detail we have yet to work out.” Dax set down the tea and served the first cup to Roa. She took it stiffly, not meeting his gaze, as if still vexed from their argument. But the moment Dax turned to pour the next cup, she looked up, watching him with her dark brown eyes.

“Let me help,” said Asha.

Dax shook his head. “I don’t want you anywhere near Firgaard when this starts.”

“I don’t need to be near Firgaard.”

He gave her a puzzled look.

“We can use the dragons,” she said. “The king won’t expect an attack from the sky.”

A murmur rose around her as everyone exchanged nervous glances.

“If the dragons are on our side,” Asha continued, “so is the Old One. Any draksor in the city still devoted to the old ways will be with us.”

Dax shook his head in disbelief. “You—the girl who’s made it her life’s mission to hunt dragons into extinction—now want to recruit them? The dragons hate us, Asha. How can you possibly think of bringing them to our side?”

Her eyes fixed on the silver collar resting against Torwin’s collarbone. “I know a way.”

Dax waited, looking skeptical. He was right to look skeptical. Asha didn’t actually know—not for certain. But according to Shadow, the dragons turned on the draksors because they enslaved the skral. So if the draksors set them free . . .