Feel the Burn (Dragon Kin #8)(60)

“Why would we do that?” she asked.

“So the world can see that in the Southlands whom one worships is still a protected choice.”

“They did steal,” one of the acolytes pointed out. “The ones who did this.”

“I saw nothing missing.”

“That barrel of apples we just picked . . .”

The priestess, who was very tall, moved in close to the acolyte and glared down at her. “Really? They saved our lives and our temple and you’re bitching about gods-damn apples?”

“I’m just saying,” she replied, “they could have asked.”

“I swear,” the priestess sighed out, heading back inside. “You people.”

Kachka tossed another apple core to Zoya—she liked apple cores, which Kachka thought was disgusting, but to each her own—while Kachka pulled two more apples from her travel pack. She gave one to her horse and ate the other.

They still used the Southland horses that had been given to them eight months ago. They managed pretty well considering their size. Although they had to take frequent breaks or the horses became bitchy.

“So where are we off to now, Kachka Shestakova?” Zoya asked.

They were very close to the Western Mountains that separated the Southland territories from the Quintilian Provinces. Kachka chuckled to herself thinking about just showing up at the fancy palace of the Rebel King. What would his royal family think?

“I don’t know,” Kachka finally replied in their language. “We’ll have a better idea once Tatyana gets back from that town we passed.”

“We should have gone with her,” Ivan complained. He complained a lot now that Zoya had stopped hitting him when he did so. “Stayed at a pub for the night.”

They all stopped and looked back at him.

“I can’t be the only one who likes a nice soft bed. I can’t be!”

“I hate the beds here,” Zoya replied, walking off with her horse right behind her. It was the biggest horse the queen’s stables had and was feared by almost all her soldiers, but he had immediately adored Zoya. Of course, she always treated horses and other animals much better than she treated men. “They are too short for me unless the pub caters to the dragons.”

“Everything’s too short for you, Zoya,” Marina pointed out.

“I know!” she replied gleefully. “I never have to go up on my toes. I see all just from here!”

Yelena pointed. “Tatyana’s returning.”

Kachka’s cousin rode up to them, reining in her horse when she reached the Riders. “I tracked a group of travelers to a nearby town. Their boots and scabbards were in that fancy style of Annaig Valley. I’m guessing they’re Chramnesind followers.”

“That’s rather blatant,” Marina noted.

“What worried me,” Tatyana went on, “was that they disappeared without a trace into the surrounding forest right by the base of the mountains. Their tracks just ended.” She pulled out her water flask. “I know of at least three monasteries on the other sides of those mountains.” She took a long drink before adding, “But that’s no longer your queen’s territory, Kachka. It belongs to the Rebel King.”

“So?” Kachka tossed her apple core to Zoya before mounting her horse. “Take me to where the tracks end. We’ll decide what to do from there.”

“What is there to decide, comrade?” Zoya asked. “We hunt them down and kill them.”

“It’s not the queen’s territory,” Tatyana said again.

“And it could be a trap, Zoya,” Marina added.

“So? I am tired of this sneaking around. Let’s confront them head-on. I am ready!”

“But you’re so good at being stealthy.”

Zoya mounted her horse, the animal grunting a bit as she settled into her saddle. “Unlike my sisters, I’m very delicate and small. That gives me an edge.”

Nina Chechneva, who hadn’t spoken a word in two days for no other reason than she simply hadn’t felt like it, shook her head. “No,” she said to no one in particular before riding off. “I can’t with you, Zoya Kolesova. I just . . . I can’t!”

Zoya watched the witch ride off before asking the others, “She can’t what? She says that around me a lot, and I have no idea what it means. What can she not do, Kachka Shestakova?”

Didacus Domitus scrambled up the hill, pushing himself to run fast. As fast as his human legs would take him.

He knew who these dragons were. Why they were here. What they wanted. He knew. He’d heard the rumors. The tales coming from all over the Empire.

That his cousin Gaius Lucius Domitus had been hunting his “treacherous” kin down like dogs. And even more horrifying, he’d been using the vilest of the Southland dragons to help him. The Mì-runach. The most hated and feared of the Dragon Queen’s soldiers.

And then there was that female. He knew that female from reputation alone. The dreaded Branwen the Awful, a captain in the Dragon Queen’s Army. It was said her cackle had rung out as Didacus’s cousins were put to the spear, the sword, or the cross.

It was that heartless female chasing him up the hill right now, while the Mì-runach took down the soldiers who had once been loyal not only to Didacus but to the mighty Overlord Thracius, rightful ruler of the Empire and Didacus’s beloved uncle.