The Last Namsara (Iskari #1)(91)

Her father pressed its edge to a throat.

Torwin’s throat.

“Stop!”

The dragon king looked to the archway. “There you are.” Her father sounded strangely relieved. As if, in spite of everything, the sight of his Iskari was a salve for his soul.

Dax turned. His hands were tied behind his back and the two soldats guarding him had his weapons.

“Asha,” Dax said, “I told you not to—”

“Roa sends her love,” she said, silencing him with a look—one she hoped conveyed the truth: Roa’s on her way.

But where were Safire and Jas? Asha glanced around the courtyard.

Empty.

Her gaze fixed on Torwin. He didn’t look broken. He didn’t even look afraid as his eyes met hers from across the court. As if he’d resigned himself to this. As if he knew what was coming and he was going to face it, unwavering.

The distance across the courtyard had never felt as vast and uncrossable as it did now.

“It seems I’m in possession of something you want, my dear.”

“And what’s that?” She tried to sound calm as she moved toward her father, letting her hunting instincts guide her.

Go slowly. No sudden movements.

Sensing what she was doing, her father began to slide the edge of her slayer across Torwin’s throat. Blood gathered and spilled. Torwin’s body clenched.

Asha halted, throwing up her hands.

“No! Please. I won’t come any closer.”

Her father eased up on the blade, smiling a slow smile. If he was uncertain before, he was uncertain no longer. He did indeed have what she wanted.

Asha’s heart beat out a frantic rhythm as she stared at the blood staining the collar of Torwin’s shirt. The same shirt she’d kissed him in.

This was not going as planned.

Think, Asha.

In the back of her mind, a shadow moved.

Restless. Worried.

No, she thought. Her father knew they had dragons. Which meant he would be prepared for them.

Asha couldn’t let Kozu come here. They would kill him.

So she did the only thing she could think of. Pinning her hopes on Roa, she stalled for time.

“You tried to poison Dax with dragon bone. You tried to kill your own son.” She looked from her brother to her father. “Why?”

Their father smiled a cruel smile.

“You figured that out, did you? You always were the smarter one. You and I both know, my dear, your brother could never be king. I’ve always thought his affection for our enemies was a threat to the throne. And look: tonight he’s proved me right.”

He narrowed his eyes on Dax. “I’d hoped the ring would kill him out there. It would have been the perfect reason to start a war with the scrublanders . . . and finally subdue them.”

“You would kill your own heir . . . to start a war?” asked Dax, sensing what Asha was doing. Helping her stall.

“A dead heir is more useful than a traitorous one.”

Anger blazed through Asha at those words. “Is the same true of a dead wife?”

For half a heartbeat, a strange emotion flickered across her father’s face. Surprise, maybe. Or remorse. Whatever it was, he recovered quickly, his hand tightening on the hilt of his daughter’s slayer.

“Your mother disobeyed the law, Asha. She undermined my rule. I needed to make an example of her.”

“She was my mother.”

“She was corrupting you.”

Asha’s fingers itched for her axe.

The dragon king looked over her shoulder at something behind her.

“Ah,” said a voice that sent an icy chill down Asha’s spine. “I see you’ve found my wife.”

Asha spun to find Jarek standing in the archway. He wore a very fine kaftan the color of midnight. But while its threads glinted and gleamed in the moonlight, Jarek’s ravenous gaze turned what might have been a beautiful sight into a terrifying one.

Beyond him, a sound rang out: marching footsteps and clanging metal, getting louder and closer. Soldats who’d been nonexistent just moments ago were now bleeding out of the darkness behind him, pouring through doorways and into the courtyard.

The edge of her vision flared orange. Startled, Asha looked to the rooftops, where hundreds of soldats wielding freshly lit torches stared down at her.

“It’s time to fulfill your end of our bargain, my dear. It’s too late to cancel the binding, of course. But I’m willing to let Jarek’s slave live if you call the First Dragon and end this.”

The moment her father said the words, Asha felt it again: a dark presence, there in her mind. Kozu knew exactly where she was and the danger she was in. He’d known the moment she stepped into it.

And he was getting closer.

No, thought Asha, thinking of the soldats on the rooftops, all of them armed with bows and arrows. One archer against a dragon was nothing. But dozens? Asha’s hunting slaves had helped her take down plenty of dragons using only arrows.

“What’s it going to be?” Her father pressed the blade a little harder into Torwin’s throat, forcing the skral’s chin up. “The dragon or the slave?”

Asha didn’t take her eyes off Torwin.

“He’s coming,” she whispered. Hating that, after everything, her father still had the power to make her do what he wanted.