It seemed that Brigida the Foul enjoyed her meals more when they thrashed about.

When the old She-dragon finished sucking in the cow’s entrails like soup noodles, she suddenly turned that hard-to-look-at face toward Annwyl.

“What do you want?” that raw voice asked.

“Are you sure?”

Brigida tore off the cow’s leg and proceeded to munch on the hoof the way Annwyl tended to munch on chicken bones during quiet dinners when she was able to spend most of her time reading a book.

It suddenly occurred to her that perhaps she should stop that little habit.

“Sure about what?” Brigida asked around the hoof.

“That you can fix Elina Shestakova’s eye?”

“You get me a fresh eye, I can fix it.”

“How fresh?”

“Very.”

“If I ride to and from the Outerplains . . . ?”

Brigida shook her head, the sound of munching filling the valley. It was making Annwyl queasy.

“Nah. That’s too long. By the time you get back, that eye will be dry as a raisin and that hole in her head won’t be much better.”

“That’s disappointing,” Annwyl said softly.

“Ain’t ya got some prisoners? You can take it from one of them.”

“If they’re in jail it’s because they haven’t done anything to warrant getting their heads cut off. I’m not mutilating one person for another.”

“You mean . . . unless they deserve it.”

“It just seems fair,” Annwyl snapped back, already preparing the argument she’d have with Dagmar. “Her mother took her eye for no damn reason, so her mother owes her an eye.”

Annwyl abruptly scratched her head. Her hair itched. Not her scalp. Her hair, which even she knew was kind of a bad sign. But she was getting frustrated by all this.

Very fucking frustrated.

Spitting out some cowhide, the She-dragon asked, “What if I told you I could get you there and back from the Outerplains in a day?”

Annwyl immediately dropped her hands to her sides. “I’m not giving you my soul.”

“Don’t need your fucked-up soul. Got me own, don’t I? If I was going to take a soul, it would be a pure one. And I ain’t seen a pure soul around Garbhán Isle in many a century.”

“Then what do you want? I know you want something. I’m not stupid. I know how these magicks work.”

“Little girl, you know nothing. But that’s what I like about you. Your fists are hard. Your brain relatively empty. And your soul . . . mean. You and me? We can do things together.”

“Will I have to look at your face a lot?” Annwyl asked, closing her eyes. “Because it’s freaking me out.”

The old She-dragon cackled like she’d just heard the best joke ever. And when Annwyl opened her eyes again, Brigida was walking toward her as a flame-covered human, her walking tree trunk now shrunk down to a six-foot walking stick, the runes carved into it glowing.

By the time Brigida stopped in front of Annwyl, the flames were gone, but the blood-covered carcass of a mean old woman remained.

“Come on then, Annwyl the Bloody.”

“Come where?”

“First to that stream over there. I need to get this blood washed off. Then me and you . . . we’ve got somewhere to be.”

“I should tell Fearghus I’m leaving.”

“You don’t need to tell no male nothin’. Just come on. We’ll be back before anybody notices.”

Annwyl watched Brigida walk off and it suddenly occurred to her that she had no limp today. She was just walking along toward that stream as if she didn’t have a care or pain in the world.

Annwyl really didn’t know what to make of this old bitch. She really didn’t. But she knew that she owed it to Elina to at least try to make things right. And something told her that Brigida was the only one willing to do that.

Glancing around and seeing nothing that changed her mind, Annwyl followed Brigida the Foul.

Celyn came into the Great Hall, hoping to see Elina at one of the dining tables. Instead, he found an exhausted and forlorn-looking Frederik.

“What’s wrong?” he asked the Northland male while reaching for the fruit sitting in a bowl on the table.

Frederik sighed, long and loud. “Nothing.”

Celyn rested his ass against the table and stared down at the boy. “Did Kachka toss you out of her room when she was done with you this morning?”

“Yes. She did. She used me and tossed me aside.”

“She did use you.”

“Thank you very much, Celyn.”

“But so what? From the sound of it when we passed her room this morning, you were enjoying every second of that using.”

“That’s not the point.”

“What is the point? That she gave you the time of your life? Would you have preferred to have that idiot Gwenvael hire you a girl to break you in proper? Because trust me, if you’d kept showing up with those little peasant girls and prissy royal brats you were trying to woo . . . eventually he would have offered. And among the Cadwaladrs it’s hard coming back from that shame.”

“I didn’t know everyone took an interest in who I . . . I . . .”

“Fucked. The word is fucked. If you can’t say it, you won’t be able to do it. Look,” Celyn went on, “my suggestion is that you just take this experience and enjoy it for what it was.”