"What is that about?" Grae asked. He followed the pointing fingers-there were more each moment-and Corinn did the same.
For a few long seconds she did not believe what she saw. And then when she believed that her eyes did see the thing she wondered if it was not some elaborate hoax. And then she knew it was not, just as the crowd knew it and erupted in chaos. What she saw was a winged creature, its wings enormous, lit from underneath by the torchlight and bright against the screen of the night sky behind it, descending toward them. Its body was sinewy and curved, its head that of a reptilian beast, its tail whipping audibly beneath it. Hind legs lashed the air, and for a moment Corinn was certain the monster was going to fall on her.
"A dragon," she whispered, and knew in that instant how quickly death could fall from the sky.
"Archers!" Grae called, on his feet now, shielding Corinn.
There were no archers, though. There never were at banquets. Guests were forbidden weapons, and the only arms allowed inside were those of high-ranked Marah and of her Numrek bodyguards. Both forces peeled away from the walls and pushed toward her, drawing their weapons and shouting for the crowd to make way. They surrounded her, shoving Grae aside. They formed a bristling buttress with their swords pointed skyward. The creature circled a few times above them. In one turn Corinn thought she saw-But that couldn't be.
And then the creature landed. Its feet settled on the courtyard stones with a surprising lightness. With a strange rolling of its shoulders and quick clicking sound, it drew its wings in. Blinking its large, round eyes, it took in the cowering people and the sudden disarray it had caused. The creature held its two thin upper arms delicately before it, claw tips touching and eyes darting about with the nervous energy of a child who suspects she has done something either wonderful or punishable but awaits confirmation of which it is.
In that stillness, Corinn saw the figure on the creature's back. Mena. Her sister had ridden the beast. Now she slid down and hit the stones merrily. She grinned ear to ear and, fixing her eyes on her older sister, asked, as if it were the most natural question in the world, "Did you get my letter?"
C HAPTER
Mena had known there were considerable risks, but she thought she and Elya could pull it off. The night sky would provide cover. They would leave Melio and the others in northern Talay and fly high over Bocoum, then low across the Inner Sea. They would approach Acacia from the east, flying over the crags at the back of the palace. She knew the Blood Moon banquet would be in full swing, and that no bows were allowed. There would be no weapons at all among the guests, and the guards were not overnumerous. She had sat through enough of these events herself to know that. Anyway, the guards would rush to protect Corinn before launching any attack. That, she figured, would give her time to make an entrance that would be written down in Acacian official histories.
That was how she had planned it, and that was the way it had played out: a good bit of confusion and shouting and brandished weapons and indignation, yes, but nothing she had not expected. Just why it felt so important to make such an entrance was a complicated thing she had not sorted out in her mind. She did have one answer that justified it, as she explained to her sister early the next morning, when she was summoned to her.
"What was the meaning of that?" Corinn asked, in lieu of a greeting.
When they were apart, Mena had difficulty remembering Corinn as a child or thinking of her as a sibling. It was only the somewhat distant, somewhat frightening queen whom she recalled. But when they were together, there were moments when Mena saw Corinn as the sister she once knew. Moments when Mena recognized the pursing of Corinn's lips as an insecure gesture made when she felt her beauty was not enough.
Mena chose not to let this official summons become as "official" as Corinn likely wanted. She strode in with a pleasant expression on her face and plopped down on the nearest comfortable seat. She stretched, and in so doing discovered that a yawn resided in her throat and wished to be let free. Corinn watched her, standing with her arms folded and her face wearing a scowl of undisguised annoyance.
"Nice to see you as well, Sister," Mena said, once the long yawn had slipped away. "I can't believe Dariel has truly sailed to the Other Lands. Any word from him?"
"No," Corinn said. "No, there couldn't be. Not yet. No messenger birds fly the Gray Slopes. We won't hear from him until he arrives back at the Outer Isles. Just a few weeks, though, if all has gone well. You will be told about it later. Now, what was the meaning of last night's show?"
"I do wish he were here. I thought about him often while I was hunting, and so looked forward to seeing him." She paused a moment, exhaled, and finally acknowledged Corinn's question, though with no more solemnity than before. "What was the meaning of it? That's a funny question, really. I mean, imagine if some adult said that when we were girls." She put on a gruff voice: "'What's the meaning of this, young lady?' We would have laughed him out of the room."
"Have you lost your wits?"
"No, not at all," Mena said. "Just the opposite. I've gained some wit. Corinn, I didn't mean to upstage you. I just wanted people to see Elya before they heard tales of her, just see with their own eyes and realize how gentle she is. Word of it is probably halfway around the empire by now, and I'm glad of it. I want her safe. I want every fool with a bow or with delusions of grandeur about dragon slaying to know that she is not a target. She's under the protection of-well, of the queen of Acacia, right? Tell me you don't think she's lovely. You must come and see her. She slept the night in the courtyard off my chambers. It's so funny to see her here, beside household items. You should see how she acted the first time she saw a mirror-"
"You're not making sense." Corinn's anger had slipped just a fraction toward perplexity. "What is that thing?"
"That thing is my good friend. No harm can come to her. None at all. You're to put word out to that effect. A royal decree. Let everybody know it." Corinn began to protest, but Mena calmed her with a somber change in her tone. "We've started this from the wrong end. Sit with me. Let me explain it all from the beginning, and then come and meet her with me. Properly, I mean, not with all the confusion of last night."
To Mena's relief, Corinn only held her pressed-lip expression for a few more seconds. Then she called for a pot of tea and sat across from her sister as a servant entered with it. When the servant left them with steaming cups, Mena began her tale.
She told it all just as she remembered. Corinn had heard reports of their progress with the foulthings at every stage, but reports were dry things with no emotion to them. The emotion was what Mena wanted Corinn to understand. She wanted her to know how hard it was for her, seeking out monsters and seeing all their foulness and killing them one by one. She may have been marvelously skilled at it. She may have taken risks and planted fatal blows when others would readily have done so in her place, but none of that meant it was easy, satisfying, enjoyable, thrilling, or any such nonsense. Just the opposite. The fact that she had a natural gift for slaughter was a great burden to her.
"We all have burdens," Corinn said. "You don't doubt the rightness of what you did?"
No, Mena did not. She described the bloated vultures and the foraging creatures, the lion with the eyes down its back, the snakes on legs, the monstrosity that had once been a fish but became a ravening mouth. The tenten beast, she said, had stared at her with malevolence different from a mere animal's. It had been changed not just in size and shape but inside its mind as well.