Careful questions.

Borte hissed, “Be gone, Yeran. No one invited you here.”

Yeran lifted a cool brow. “Still yapping, I see.”

Borte spat at his feet. The other riders tensed, but she glared at them.

They all lowered their stares.

Behind them, stone crunched, and Yeran’s eyes flared, his knees bending as if he’d lunge for Borte—to hurl her behind him as Falkan emerged from the ruin.

In wolf form.

But Borte stepped out of Yeran’s reach and declared sweetly, “My new pet.”

Yeran gaped between girl and wolf as Falkan sat beside Nesryn. She couldn’t resist scratching his fuzzy ears.

To his credit, the shape-shifter let her, even turning his head into her palm.

“Strange company you keep these days, Captain,” Yeran managed to say to Sartaq.

Borte snapped her fingers in his face. “You cannot address me?”

Yeran gave her a lazy smile. “Do you finally have something worth hearing?”

Borte bristled. But Sartaq, smiling faintly, strolled to his hearth-sister’s side. “We have business in these parts and stopped for refreshment. What brings you so far south?”

Yeran wrapped a hand around the hilt of a long knife at his side. “Three hatchlings went missing. We thought to track them, but have found nothing.”

Nesryn’s stomach tightened, imagining those spiders scuttling through the aeries, between the ruks, to the fuzzy chicks so fiercely guarded. To the human families sleeping so close by.

“When were they taken?” Sartaq’s face was hard as stone.

“Two nights ago.” Yeran rubbed his jaw. “We suspected poachers, but there was no human scent, no tracks or camp.”

Look up. The bloody warning at the Watchtower of Eidolon rang through her mind.

Through Sartaq’s, if the tightening of his jaw was any indication.

“Go back to your aerie, Captain,” Sartaq said to Yeran, pointing to the wall of mountains beyond the plain, the gray rock so bare compared to the life humming around them. Always—the Dagul Fells always seemed to be watching. Waiting. “Do not track any farther than here.”

Wariness flooded Yeran’s brown eyes as he glanced between Borte and Sartaq, then over to Nesryn and Falkan. “The kharankui.”

The riders stirred. Even the ruks rustled their wings at the name, as if they, too, knew it.

But Borte declared, loud for all to hear, “You heard my brother. Crawl back to your aerie.”

Yeran gave her a mocking bow. “Go back to yours, and I will return to mine, Borte.”

She bared her teeth at him.

But Yeran mounted his ruk with easy, powerful grace, the others flapping away at a jerk of his chin. He waited until they had all soared into the skies before saying to Sartaq, “If the kharankui have begun to stir, we need to muster a host to drive them back. Before it is too late.”

A wind tugged at Sartaq’s braid, blowing it toward those mountains. Nesryn wished she could see his face, what might be on it at the mention of a host.

“It will be dealt with,” Sartaq said. “Be on your guard. Keep children and hatchlings close.”

Yeran nodded gravely, a soldier receiving an order from a commander—a captain ordered by his prince. Then he looked over to Borte.

She gave him a vulgar gesture.

Yeran only winked at her before he whistled to his ruk and shot into the skies, leaving a mighty breeze behind that set Borte’s braids swinging.

Borte watched Yeran until he was sailing toward the mass of the others, then spat on the ground where his ruk had stood. “Bastard,” she hissed, and whirled, storming to Nesryn and Falkan.

The shifter changed, swaying as his human form returned. “Nothing down below worth seeing,” he announced as Sartaq prowled over to where they had gathered.

Nesryn frowned at the Fells. “I think it’s time we craft a different strategy anyway.”

Sartaq followed her gaze, coming close enough to her side that the heat from his body leaked into hers. Together, they stared toward that wall of mountains. What waited beyond.

“That young captain, Yeran,” Falkan said carefully to Borte. “You seem to know him well.”

Borte scowled. “He’s my betrothed.”

38

Though Kashin might have been loath to push his father in public or private, he certainly was not without his resources. And as Chaol approached the sealed doors to the khagan’s trade meeting, he hid his grin when he discovered Hashim, Shen, and two other guards he’d trained with stationed outside. Shen winked at him, his armor glinting in the watery morning sunlight, and swiftly knocked with his artificial hand before opening the door.

Chaol didn’t dare give Shen, Hashim, or the other guards so much as a nod of gratitude or acknowledgment. Not as he wheeled his chair into the sun-drenched council room and found the khagan and three golden-robed viziers around a long table of black polished wood.

They all stared at him in silence. But Chaol kept approaching the table, his head high, face set in a pleasant, subdued smile. “I hope I’m not interrupting, but there is a matter I should like to discuss.”

The khagan’s lips pressed into a tight line. He wore a light green tunic and dark trousers, cut close enough to reveal the warrior’s body still lurking beneath the aged exterior. “I have told you time and again, Lord Westfall, that you should speak to my Chief Vizier”—a nod to the sour-faced man across from him—“if you wish to arrange a meeting.”

Chaol halted before the table, flexing and shifting his feet. He’d gone through as much of his leg exercises as he could this morning after his workout with the palace guard, and though he’d regained movement up to his knees, placing weight on them, standing …

He cast the thought from his mind. Standing or sitting had nothing to do with it—this moment.

He could still speak with dignity and command whether he stood on his feet or was laid flat on his back. The chair was no prison, nothing that made him lesser.

So Chaol bowed his head, smiling faintly. “With all due respect, Great Khagan, I am not here to meet with you.”

Urus blinked, his only show of surprise as Chaol inclined his head to the man in sky-blue robes whom Kashin had described. “I am here to speak to your foreign trade vizier.”

The vizier glanced between his khagan and Chaol, as if ready to proclaim his innocence, even as interest gleamed in his brown eyes. But he did not dare speak.

Chaol held the khagan’s stare for long seconds.

He didn’t remind himself that he had interrupted a private meeting of perhaps the most powerful man in the world. Didn’t remind himself that he was a guest in a foreign court and the fate of his friends and countrymen depended on what he accomplished here. He just stared at the khagan, man to man, warrior to warrior.

He had fought a king before and lived to tell.

The khagan at last jerked his chin to an empty spot at the table. Not a ringing welcome, but better than nothing.

Chaol nodded his thanks and approached, keeping his breathing even while he looked all four men in the eye and said to the vizier of foreign trade, “I received word that two large orders of firelances have been placed by Captain Rolfe’s armada, one prior to Aelin Galathynius’s arrival in Skull’s Bay, and an even larger one afterward.”

The khagan’s white brows flicked up. The foreign trade vizier shifted in his seat, but nodded. “Yes,” he said in Chaol’s tongue. “That is true.”

“How much, exactly, would you say each firelance costs?”

The viziers glanced among one another, and it was another man, whom Chaol presumed to be the domestic trade vizier, that named the sum.

Chaol only waited. Kashin had told him the astronomical number last night. And, just as he’d gambled, the khagan whipped his head to the vizier at that cost.

Chaol asked, “And how many are now being sent to Rolfe—and thus to Terrasen?”

Another number. Chaol let the khagan do the math. Watched from the corner of his eye as the khagan’s brows rose even higher.

The Chief Vizier braced his forearms on the table. “Are you trying to convince us of Aelin Galathynius’s good or ill intentions, Lord Westfall?”