Herald and I returned to the Favor sometime close to midnight. One of the night guards that Barro had hired let Herald in through the front door, and she let me into the cellar. Everyone else was already asleep; the inn was dark save for a candle or two in the windows, and the common room was silent.

  Early the next morning, Mak came down. “Sorry to wake you, Mistress, but something happened while you were away,” she told me once I’d blinked the sleep out of my eyes. I was instantly alert, but she soothed my worries as soon as they flared to life, smiling slightly as she said, “Nothing bad. I’m quite pleased, really. But I thought that you should know that there will likely be at least one, and possibly two visitors to see you today. Probably soon after breakfast, if the last few days are anything to go by. Would you like to know who, or would that spoil the surprise?”

  I considered what she’d said, but more than anything I considered her smile. Mak wouldn’t tolerate anything that might harm or upset me, and the fact that she was smiling about the whole thing meant that it couldn’t be anything bad. “I’ve had too many unpleasant surprises lately,” I told her. “If you think I’ll like this one, don’t tell me.”

  “As you wish,” she said, and her smile grew. “I can’t wait to see what you’ll make of it.”

  The first surprise guest didn’t upset me. Far from it. “Lady Draka,” she said as she descended the stairs. “Thank you for meeting me.”

  “Alanna,” I replied. “Or Captain Nahasia, I guess, since you’re in uniform. I wasn’t sure I’d ever see you again once we were released from the Citadel. What brings you here?”

  “Officially, Lady Draka, I’m your new liaison with the guard. Unofficially… I’ve thought a lot about the things Lady Drakonum — Makanna — told me while you were detained. We’ve talked more these last two days, while I was waiting for you to return. I would… like to get to know you better.”

  “Liaison? The lord commander thinks I need a liaison now?” I asked, mostly to keep the conversation going. It made sense enough. What I was really curious about was Captain Nahasia and her interest in us. Mak had worked hard on… perhaps “seducing” wasn’t quite the right word, considering the connotations. But while we were being held at the Citadel she’d spent a significant amount of time trying to bring the young captain over to our side, and from what I’d seen and heard, she’d done an excellent job. She’d spilled entirely about how binding herself to me could potentially get Nahasia some ridiculously strong Advancements, but that hadn’t done much. Instead, by the end of it Mak had Alanna in tears with promises of a sympathetic ear and friends who’d appreciate her for who she was, not for her rank and station.

  The captain, as far as I could tell, didn’t need more strength. She was lonely, and all the power in the world couldn’t fix that.

  “Liaison, yes,” Nahasia said. “The lord commander feels that, with the damage done to the relationship between yourself and the Council, not to mention the guard, it would be best to have a dedicated point of contact. And, well… the lord commander seems to think that you’re more likely to tolerate me than most of the alternatives.”

  “You’re all right, yeah. Why not Sergeant Terdam, though? He’s been here long enough already.”

  The captain glanced at Mak, and her face twitched halfway to a smile before she schooled herself. “Sergeant Terdam’s reliable, a fine squad leader, and has been diligent about establishing good relations with the matriarch of this House. But per his own reports, he’s not actually met you, Lady Draka. That, and he doesn’t belong to an established House — though I suspect you don’t care about that. But I’m not replacing him, if that’s what you’re worried about.” Again she glanced at Mak, and again she had to suppress a smile. “There will be a rotation of three squads here from now on, and the sergeant in command will report to me. But Terdam will of course be free to continue ‘liaising’ with House Drakonum when he’s off duty.”

  Mak wasn’t even blushing as she said, “Speaking of Terdam, I think I’ve got him comfortable with the idea of meeting you, Draka. And that it’s about time.”

  “You two getting serious?” I asked.

  “Serious enough that I can’t keep him separate from the rest of my life anymore. He’s already getting to know everyone else. I need to know how the two of you will get along, because if you don’t…”

  “You like him, yeah?”

  “I really do.”

  “Then we’ll get along. Anyone you like can’t be bad.”

  Mak did blush a little at that, smiling silently.

  Then Nahasia cleared her throat, and the moment ended. “Lady Draka,” she began. She hesitated, looking somewhat uncomfortable, though I didn’t get the feeling that it was my short exchange with Mak that bothered her. Then she continued, “Before we go on to hopefully build some kind of amiable relationship, there’s something I need to say.”

  “I think we’re doing fine already, but sure. Go ahead.”

  She took a controlled breath. “Makanna’s told me how my grandfather has treated you, both in what he’s said and what he’s done. I’m only a junior member of a junior branch of my House, but for what it’s worth I’d like to apologize, on his behalf and on behalf of my family. I swear that my grandfather is not a bad man. Not intentionally, at least. But he’s old, pious, and set in his ways, and I don’t think that there is any temple around the Sareyan Sea that paints dragons in a good light. Even the Mercies only ask for forgiveness. That doesn’t excuse him seeing only what and not who you are, but I hope it explains it, and I hope you can at least try to see him in that light. Or, if not, at least try not to damn the rest of my House by our association with him.”

  “Captain Nahasia,” I said. When she tensed at my use of her rank and family name, I softened my voice. “Alanna. Are you close to your grandfather?”

  “Not particularly,” she admitted, and I thought she wished it were otherwise. There was a lot of regret in those two words. “I have a lot of cousins, and I’m so far away from the main line of inheritance that I don’t matter politically. He’s aware enough of me and my brother to ‘help’ us, and he’s yet to call me by the wrong name when we’ve met, but that’s about it.”

  “Well, Alanna, here’s what I can do. I can try not to judge your relatives by what House they belong to. I really shouldn’t be doing that anyway. But he’s made me his enemy, and having him on the Council is a threat to me and my family. You see that, yeah?”

  “I do,” she said, and it was clear that she couldn’t see this going anywhere good.

  “That means that I need to either change his mind about me, get him off the Council, or get some kind of leverage over him. I don’t see the first two happening. And if the only way to get leverage is to use his House, I will.”

  “Why are you telling me this?” she whispered. She looked like her hopes had been entirely dashed — betrayed, almost in despair.

  At the back of my mind, Conscience got more and more unhappy. She knew what I was doing. She’d known the moment I thought of it, and she didn’t like it. But she saw the value in it enough not to interfere.

  “I’m telling you because I’ve seen enough to know that you’re different. From the moment we first met at the Citadel, you treated me as a person. Powerful and potentially violent, sure, but a person. Someone to be reasoned with. You didn’t assume me to be some malicious monster like your grandfather did. You never insulted me or my mother. So you’ve earned a lot of lenience, no matter who you’re associated with. Frankly, I can see myself liking you. Are you with me so far?”

  “I’m with you,” she said, and there was a cautious eagerness there, an ember of those dashed hopes flaring back to life.

  Perhaps I should have felt bad, manipulating her the way I was, playing on her loneliness and her hopes for something better. Conscience certainly thought I should. But for the most part I was being entirely honest with her. I could see myself liking her and becoming friends with her. I could see her joining us, even. But she was still a Nahasia. She was a member of the guard, and thus a pawn of the Council. And fairness didn’t matter much when it came to entities that had actively tried to hurt me and my family.

  She’d earned herself a lot of leniency. That was it. Well, that, and Mak liked her.

  “Now, I don’t intend to hurt your brother, or your parents, or cousins or aunts and uncles or anyone else I don’t have to. But none of them have earned any kind of benefit of the doubt, yeah? None of them have earned the least bit of leniency if I cross paths with them in unfriendly circumstances. I have to treat them all as probable enemies, and for that to change, I need something from your grandfather. I’m sure you can guess what.”

  “An apology?” she said, and her expression told me everything I needed to know about how likely that was.

  “An apology,” I confirmed. “And assurances that he’ll treat me fairly. If I can’t have those, things are going to stay as they are between me and mine, and him and his House.”

  Here I did feel like a bit of a bitch. I was still being entirely honest with her, but there were other ways I could have done this. Ways that would have been less of an emotional rollercoaster for her. But they would have been much less effective in pulling her closer to me, and I agreed with Mak: having a captain of the guard in our group could be very useful, especially one who belonged to the same house as a member of the Council. So I paused just long enough for a sick doubt to creep into her expression, and only then did I say, “But not you, Alanna. You’re always welcome here. But I would like you to tell your grandfather what I’ve just told you. Him, or the lord commander, and he can pass it on. An honest apology, that’s all I’m asking for. It doesn’t even have to be in public; the lord exchequer Soandel and I met privately and worked out our differences, and I hope that I could do the same with the lord hierophant. Can you pass that on for me?”

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  “Of course,” she said, her eyes bright again. Just as I’d known that she would.

  And it was a good thing that she wasn’t close to her grandfather, because if I got the opportunity, I planned to work out my differences with him the same way I had with Soandel. But she didn’t need to know that. Not until she was fully one of us.

  My second visitor was a real surprise. It took me a while to recognize him, but when he opened his mouth, things started coming back to me.

  Mak and Herald looked terribly pleased when they brought him down; Kira, who came along for some reason, was entirely unreadable. He looked at me with appropriate awe for a second, then hastily bowed, deeply and with his hand on his chest. “Good day, Lady Draka!” he spluttered, and his voice had a kind of slur to it that I associated with the southern parts of Karakan or Happar.

  Behind him, Mak snorted as she stifled a laugh. At a look from me she said, “I’m sorry, but he’s just been so calm and confident until now. Go on, man!”

  The visitor slowly straightened, looking at me with not only awe, but gratitude. And yeah, he was nervous as all hell, but he was definitely happy to see me. “Lady Draka,” he said, managing to keep his voice a little steadier, “my name is Dorten. There is no reason why you should recognize me, but—”

  And it all clicked. Kira’s presence and conflicted expression, the man’s southern accent and gratitude, and now the name. “You’re one of the people the Spurs kidnapped!” I said. “The, uh… you can mess with emotions, right?”

  “I… I’m honored that you remembered!”

  “Well, good to see you made it all right.” He and his fellow captives had ridden off, headed for some village where one of them had family. I’d never expected to see any of them again and had consigned them to the past as a job well done. “So? What brings you here?”

  “You, my lady.” When I remained silent, inviting him to continue, he said, “I came north some ten days ago, hoping to meet friends in the city and perhaps find some way to support myself. I, ah…” He looked away sheepishly. “I was captured again. I helped an old veteran in a tavern, and someone must have talked. Bandits took me on the road the next day.”

  “And guess who rescued him!” Mak said cheerfully, then didn’t give me a chance. “Lalia! Lalia and Rib and their patrol, who were only out there again thanks to you!”

  “Thanks to Herald, more like,” I muttered, glancing at her. “Is that right, Dorten? You’ve met some of our favorite mercenaries?”

  “Miss Lalia and Young Lady, ah…” Dorten flushed slightly as he trailed off. “I’m sorry, everyone keeps calling her ‘Rib’ and…”

  “She will not mind, I can promise you,” Herald laughed.

  It did little to reassure him, but at least he continued. “Young Lady Rib, then. Yes. They and their patrol rescued me, and they sent me to the city to speak with their commander and to see if I could remember anything useful. And, you know, turns out I’d heard a few names that I could not even bring to mind myself! And Commander Rallon told me where I might find you, and…” He made a helpless little here-I-am kind of gesture.

  He looked very young right then, very embarrassed and vulnerable. I was reminded of the first time I’d seen him, crying miserably in a pen as an older man tried to comfort him. Maybe Mak picked something up from me, or maybe he triggered something maternal in her, because she patted his arm and gave him a gentle, encouraging, “Go on!”

  “I wanted to thank you!” he blurted.

  “You already did,” I pointed out.

  “Again, then. I… the day I was rescued, I saw you. You passed above the camp, and it gave me... You made me believe that I might be free. I’d been doing what I could, trying to make them overconfident or to find an opening to run, but with my feet bound… Still, I was just as hopeless when the Happarans had me, and you freed me then. Seeing you gave me hope. And now I’m told that I have you to thank somehow for your mercenary friends being there to save me, so I’m doubly grateful. I owe you my freedom and my life, twice over. I cannot offer much in return, but you have my thanks.”

  Then he really plucked up his courage. He stood straight, looked me in the eye, and said. “And if you wish for a servant, you have that as well.”

  There was no world in which I was turning him away. Even Conscience was happy about the arrangement. He has nothing, she said when I checked in with her. Be kind to him. That is all I ask.

  When I sent Mak away to get Dorten settled, Kira stayed behind. She hadn’t said a word the whole time, and Dorten hadn’t mentioned her at all. I hoped there wouldn’t be any friction there; I certainly wasn’t putting Dorten in the same room with Tammy, but Kira was almost as much a victim as he was.

  I needn’t have worried.

  “So, how’re you feeling about this?” I asked her.

  “I nearly cried when I saw him,” she said matter-of-factly. “He walked in when I was in the common room, and my first thought was to hide. He… he was looking for me. Miss Lalia and Rib had told him that I was here, I think. And he…” Her voice hitched, and she sniffed and blinked rapidly a few times. “He saw me. He came right up to me. I expected him to scream at me, to hit me, to stab me, anything. He didn’t. Do you know what he did?”

  “He’s still alive, so I assume nothing bad,” I said jokingly.

  A tear spilled down her face as she gave me a bright smile. “He asked if I’d learned any Karakani. And then he thanked me, Draka. He thanked me for my kindness! I begged his forgiveness, right there in front of everyone, and he said that there was nothing to forgive, but if I needed it, I had it! I feel… I feel so light. I never knew how much I needed that.”

  Yeah. I could see why Mak had been so pleased. Dorten, I decided, was going to fit in just fine.

  I’d never had Sergeant Terdam pointed out to me, but Herald had described him as “a foot taller than her” — referring to Mak — and “built like a barrel.” That evening, when Mak brought him into the cellar, I wondered if Herald had undersold him.

  The man was huge. Not only was he slightly taller than Herald, and thus comfortably one of if not the tallest man I’d seen since leaving Earth, but he couldn’t have weighed less than three hundred pounds. Probably more. He had that build you might see on a powerlifter or strongman; a lot of fat, yes, but carried in a way that left no room for doubt about how much muscle there was below.

  With his short hair, clean-shaven face, and extra weight, he had a kind of big boy look to him. He also looked like he smiled a lot, with creases setting in at the corners of his eyes and mouth. He was doing so when he came into the cellar, albeit nervously — after catching sight of me he looked to Mak, as though for reassurance. It was very sweet. I liked him immediately.

  “Sergeant Terdam, I presume,” I said as he put his hand on his chest and bowed.

  “Yes, my lady,” he said, still mid bow. “Mak — I mean, Lady Drakonum — said that you wished to meet me.”

  He had a fairly high voice for such a big guy, and a slightly odd way of speaking, where his pauses were just a little longer than necessary. Not at all annoying, just enough to make you notice and pay attention.

  “I did. Mak’s important to me, and I to her. But this isn’t a test or anything like that. I doubt you call Mak ‘Lady Drakonum’ when it’s just the two of you.” I paused for effect, then said, “Or if you do, that’s none of my business.”

  Mak gave me a bemused look. Terdam, though, snorted, the beginning of a laugh that he quickly smothered. We, I decided, were going to get along just fine.

  “Stop bowing, Sergeant,” I told him. “And there’s no need to call me ‘Lady’, either. I do appreciate the respect, but if you’re going to be courting Mak, or however that works here, then we may as well be a bit more friendly. I’ll call you Terdam, and you call me Draka, yeah?”

  Terdam slowly straightened to his full height. It took him two tries before he could meet my eyes, and I could tell that he wasn’t used to looking up at anyone, but he managed it. “I think I can do that… Draka.”

  “Great,” I said, and gave him a toothy smile. “Now, what are your intentions toward my sister?”

  Honestly, if he’d just thought Mak was cute and wanted to have some fun, I probably wouldn’t have been bothered. However, I had two concerns about Terdam’s possible ulterior motives. The first was that he might want her for her newfound wealth. The second was that he might be using her to get close to me. But in every case, Mak was far better than I at reading the motivations of others; she had a whole Advancement for it, after all. She’d never have brought Terdam to see me if she thought she was being used, and if it was just about fun, well… she was a big girl, and again, she’d be fully aware of what she was getting into. As long as it made her happy and didn’t threaten anyone, it was, as I’d said, none of my business.

  I did want to see and hear him for myself, though, and what I heard set any fears I might have had at ease. The sergeant didn’t have that lovestruck look that Maglan had whenever he was around Herald, but I wasn’t going to judge him for that. He was probably ten years older than Mag was, and he felt like he was a fairly steady man emotionally; not that he didn’t show how fond he was of Mak with every look he gave her and every word he spoke to or about her, but he was perhaps more thoughtful and less expressive when it came to emotions than many men I’d met since coming to Mallin. He didn’t make any huge, romantic promises; he did, however, say that he hoped to make her happy for a long, long time, whatever that might take.

  That was good enough for me. I believed him. Whether it worked out was up to them, but I believed in his sincerity, and I wouldn’t get in their way. I did, however, have to make one thing clear.

  “Listen, Terdam,” I said as we were winding down. “I’m happy for the two of you. Not everyone finds someone to try for happiness with. And I want you to know that I don’t demand that you succeed in making her happy. I don’t want to put any evil on this, but sometimes things don’t work out, and people get hurt, yeah? That’s just life.”

  “I hope that won’t happen, but yes,” he said, giving me a slightly odd look. I was probably being a little too human. “I won’t pretend that it can’t.”

  “Good,” I said, and leaned in close. ”But you also need to know that there’s a big difference between Mak getting hurt because things don’t work out, and Mak getting hurt because you do something hurtful. That, I won’t tolerate. Are we clear?”

  He blanched slightly then nodded. “Perfectly clear. Although…” he swallowed and glanced at Mak. “I know full well what Makanna is capable of. All of us guarding the inn have been briefed. No disrespect intended, but I don’t think I’ll need to worry about you if I do something so stupid.”

  “Good point,” I huffed, getting out of his face. “Well, you have my approval, not that you need it. Good luck, you two. I hope it works out. Of course, if it does we’ll have to introduce you to my mother.”

  “Draka!” Mak groaned.

  Terdam just looked confused. “Your mother?”

  “Yes, my mother,” I said. “You know, the other dragon that sometimes flies over here? Sower of Embers, Reaper of Flame? She’s my mother. And—”

  Mak’s eyes widened. She shook her head minutely, but I couldn’t help myself.

  “She’s taken an interest in Mak and Herald,” I finished. “Since they’re so important to me.”

  Mak groaned softly, looking at Terdam like she was afraid he might run. Terdam stared at me for a long moment. “Oh,” he said before smiling cautiously. “Now this, this is a test, isn’t it?”

  I just smiled right back.

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