Halonya shook her head. “Again, I have to say I have no idea how any of your children could be so ungrateful.”

Tchazzar eyed her. “Really? Aren’t you the one who tried to convince me repeatedly that Jhesrhi is a traitor? That she helped Khouryn Skulldark escape and all the rest of it?”

Halonya drew breath to say yes, then thought again that it might be counterproductive to push too hard. “Your Majesty commanded me to put all such suspicions out of my head.”

“Yes. Because, despite what I’ve just told you, Jhesrhi… well, she’s done glorious things for me.”

Halonya assumed she knew what one of the “glorious things” was. Jhesrhi had rushed to Tchazzar’s aid when Alasklerbanbastos had him at a disadvantage. She would have liked to know what the others were too, but the living god didn’t discuss them. It was a mark of his distress that he’d even alluded to them.

But whatever had happened in the interval between the moment when Jhesrhi and Gaedynn Ulraes first encountered Tchazzar and the day the Red Dragon returned to his people, Halonya could see his mood altering in its sudden, unpredictable way, his mind shying away from hurt feelings and suspicion. Fearful that her chance was likewise slipping away, she said, “I’m grateful for any good thing the wizard has ever done for Your Majesty. But can we be sure that means she’s loyal today? She’s a sellsword. You’re a warlord and understand such folk better than I ever could, but isn’t it necessary to buy their loyalty again and again and again?”

Tchazzar frowned. “I hoped that Jhesrhi was shaped of purer clay.”

“I pray you’re right,” Halonya said. “But I fear what could happen if you’re not. Especially now, when some undead horror has sneaked into your palace itself and you’re about to start another war.”

“You have a point. There are so many players, working on so many levels. Any of them-” He caught himself, as if he’d been on the brink of saying something he shouldn’t. “The dragonborn, that is, and the remaining renegades in Threskel.”

“I understand,” Halonya said, although she wasn’t sure it was true.

“But I can’t move against Jhesrhi unless I have proof she’s disloyal,” Tchazzar continued. “And it’s not just because I love her, although that’s part of it, of course. I’ve always believed that you and she are the two halves of my luck, my sister Tymora’s double gift to me. And anyone who spurns such a blessing without cause trades good fortune for bad.”

“Your Majesty is wise as always. But I beg you to consider that when you have doubts about Jhesrhi, that, too, is your wisdom coming out.”

Tchazzar smiled a crooked smile. It was a cast of expression Halonya almost never saw on his long, amber-eyed face, seemingly reflective of a wry, self-aware amusement. “But if my instincts tug me in opposite directions, where does that leave me?”

“It leaves you with the need to test which feeling is the true one. I confess I’ve done my best to keep an eye on Jhesrhi. I didn’t tell you because I was afraid it would anger you, and the need to go behind your back limited what I could do. But if you now agree that someone should watch her…” Halonya spread her hands.

Tchazzar nodded. “Then we can watch her properly.”

“There’s something else,” Halonya said. “If Lady Jhesrhi is disloyal, then it stands to reason that Aoth Fezim and his company are too, and probably committing treason up in Threskel.” She remembered the Thayan gripping her forearm from behind, the threat of his spear and his magic, and she had to clamp down on a spasm of loathing to keep her voice steady. “I think you should check on them as well.”

FIVE

15-19 E LEASIS, THE Y EAR OF THE A GELESS O NE

Aoth studied the drake riders on the rocky ridge below. One outrider was too close to the column. The other had strayed too far away. He suppressed a sigh.

But he shouldn’t have bothered because Jet still heard the sigh inside his head. “It’ll be a marvel if they make it another day,” the griffon rasped.

“Some of them can handle a crossbow or a spear,” Aoth replied. He’d run his new command through a few tests and drills before departing Airspur, less in the hope of improving their skills at such a late date than to assess what he had to work with. “Some have elemental tricks that may prove useful. And some have been in these mountains before.”

“They’re still in over their heads,” said Jet. “Especially when you consider that, judging by what happened back in the city, Vairshekellabex knows we’re coming.”

“At least the company’s not likely to be ambushed.” Aoth felt a twinge of humor at his own expense. He didn’t think of himself as optimistic by nature, but Jet could be so relentlessly dour that it provoked a fellow into arguing the opposing point of view. “Not with you, me, Gaedynn, and Eider in the air.”

Jet grunted. “The column’s stopping.”

And so it was. The riders at the head had reined in their mounts, the better, perhaps, to confer. After a moment, Cera looked up and waved her mace in the air. The gilded weapon gleamed in the sunlight.

Aoth looked around, found Gaedynn, and held up his hand to signal him to stay in the air. The Aglarondan acknowledged the order with a casual wave. Then Jet swooped toward the firestormers.

Drakes hissed and shied as the griffon touched down. It pleased Aoth to see that Cera didn’t have any more trouble controlling her mount than most of the genasi. She’d said she needed a break from being carried around like a sack of flour, and she was evidently getting the hang of managing a reptilian steed.

“So,” said Yemere, “our august captain condescends to descend and mingle with his underlings.”

Yemere was a skinny, slouching fellow with a petulant cast to his features, a silvery-skinned windsoul but, in Aoth’s estimation, much like his friend Mardiz-sul nonetheless. Both were young aristocrats, drawn to the Firestorm Cabal by idealism and a thirst for adventure-or what they imagined adventure would be-and granted a measure of authority despite their inexperience. No doubt it was hard to deny rank to a nobleman, especially if he offered to pay for rations, weapons, mounts, and other necessities.

The major difference between them was that Yemere hadn’t fought a dragon or dragonspawn yet and hadn’t had any of the arrogance kicked out of him. Aoth wouldn’t have minded attending to that chore himself. But there were times when it was better for a captain to ignore insolence, lest he appear thin skinned or malicious. And now when he was still trying to win the trust and good will of the firestormers might be one of them.

So he simply asked, “Why are we stopping?” His fire-kissed eyes notwithstanding, it wasn’t impossible that folk on the ground had noticed something he hadn’t spotted from the air. Although even now that he was down here with them, he still didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.

It was Mardiz-sul who answered. “Son-liin thinks we should turn off onto another path.”

Like Zan-akar Zeraez and Arathane, Son-liin was essentially a stormsoul. Unlike them, she had some affinity with the elemental force of earth as well as lightning. Some of the lines that ran through her purple skin were gold instead of silver, and so were the translucent crystalline spikes that took the place of hair.

That likely meant she knew an extra trick or two. But at the moment, it was her knowledge of the Akanapeaks that interested Aoth. Though still an adolescent and small-in her brigandine, with a lance in her hand and a quiver on her back, she looked like a little girl playing warrior-she was one of the few firestormers in the band who’d grown up in the mountains and, with her father, a trapper and prospector, wandered them extensively. It had been a stroke of good fortune that led her to Airspur at just the right moment to join the expedition.