“Do you want us to go get it for you?” Brannie asked. She didn’t like her father to travel as much as he used to. He was getting older, although it was hard to see since he was still so very handsome, and she worried about him. Especially since he traveled mostly on his own. Only on Queen’s orders would he allow for a protective guard. “We can be there and back by tomorrow, before your meeting.”

But a bony elbow rammed into her side.

“Ow!” she complained.

“I have plans tonight,” he whispered.

“Oh, by the gods,” she sighed. “Please don’t tell me you’re starting up again with Izzy.”

“No, I’m not starting up again with Izzy. And are you going to keep throwing that in my face any time I say I have plans?”

“Maybe!”

Disgusted, although she didn’t really know why, Brannie turned from her brother to finish talking to her father, but he was gone.

“Where’d he go?”

“Wandered off that way.” Celyn motioned toward the Great Hall doors.

“I don’t want him traveling so much, Celyn. He’s not getting any younger.”

“Neither are you, but we aren’t holding that against you.”

Fed up, Brannie caught her brother by his black hair, lifted him up while she stood and then hauled him over the railing, throwing him to the ground below.

“You vicious cow!” he screamed up at her.

She started to scream back at him, but something out of the corner of her eye caught her attention and she walked across the battlement to the other side. There she saw Izzy walking along with that ugly dog of hers. Brannie had been around Izzy for many years now. They’d been through battles and nights of too much drink and other nights of too much kin, and she knew when something was bothering her friend.

Worried it was Éibhear, she went down the battlement stairs, walked past her still-yelling brother, and out one of the side doors. She tracked down Izzy heading away from the castle and deep into the woods.

“Iz!”

Izzy stopped and turned, watching Brannie run up to her. She forced a smile. “Hi, there.”

Brannie halted in her tracks, glared. “Do you expect me to believe that smile?”

Realizing it was futile, Izzy let the smile go and her shoulders slump.

“What’s wrong?”

Izzy threw her arms out and announced to the trees, “Everything!”

Nodding, Brannie suggested, “Would you like a stage to make this speech?”

Izzy pursed her lips to stop from chuckling. “Bitch.”

Brannie slung her arm around Izzy’s shoulders. “I know, I know. It’s a flaw. Now tell me what’s wrong.”

Izzy did. She told her of her surprisingly short but incredibly painful conversation with her mother. While she talked, they walked, until they ended up at one of their favorite spots. A quiet lake surrounded by trees and boulders. It was too small for dragons in their true form, so it was mostly used in the evening by dragons with human mates. And during the day . . . by Izzy and Brannie.

Dropping onto a boulder, Izzy stared out over the calm lake. “I don’t trust that woman.”

“Your mum?”

“No. That bitch who bred her.”

“I can’t say that I blame you. Do you think your mother’s really going to send Rhi to her?”

“I do. But that’s madness. What if she turns her against us? Giving that evil bitch someone as powerful as my sister seems a foolish move.”

“But keeping your sister here with no way to control her power seems more foolish. At least if she destroys everything around her, she’ll be safely in the south and far from us.”

Izzy gawked at her cousin, and Brannie added, “Not that I don’t care about the Desert Land people. I’m just saying it won’t be our problem.”

Looking back at the lake, Izzy wondered what would be the best decision. Trusting her mother was making the best decision about a woman who’d tossed her out while pregnant and barely sixteen?

“What do you need, Iz?”

Yeah, that was Brannie’s way. If she didn’t have an answer, then she wanted to know what she could do for you to help you get through whatever your problem was. An important trait in an ally during battle. An invaluable trait to have in a friend.

“I need time to think. This isn’t some battle I’m going into. This is my sister’s life. But trying to find time to think with this family . . . the twins will want me in the training ring, Rhi will want to talk dresses—although Keita’s here, so she may help with that—and my mother will keep staring at me, waiting for me to talk to her about it.”

“I’ve got the perfect thing,” Bran said excitedly. “Go to me da’s place.”

“Why?”

“He’s here to meet with Annwyl and Rhiannon tomorrow. The place is empty except for his assistant. And that one’s quiet as a mouse. You’ll just need to bring back one of Da’s all important papers.”

Izzy finally smiled. “I love your father. He’s so nice.”

“Isn’t he?”

“And yet none of his children—”

“Yes,” Brannie cut in. “We know. We know.”

Disgusted, Éibhear walked on, his hand around Frederik’s small shoulders.

“We don’t know why you’re mad,” Aidan argued from behind them. “It’s not like we haven’t done this before.”