The rain that had strengthened during the night grew even heavier as we ate a simple breakfast and broke camp. By the time we started off across the same, dull terrain, the clouds were emptying their bowels in sheets, the rain making dull thunking sounds on the wagon top and forcing our gazes downward. In no time, the ground had softened to mud. It sucked at my boots and slowed us down. When we stopped for a short afternoon rest, there was no way to sit without becoming soaked. Some of the soldiers sat anyway, but I didn’t relish having a wet bottom for the rest of the day, so I stood and stretched my back and arms, wishing for nothing more than a warm fire.
For four solid days, the rain fell, bringing with it the colder air of the falling season, so that at night we were all eager to climb into our damp tents and burrow under our blankets. Every morning, our cloaks and clothes were still damp, and it was miserable stuffing my damp socks into my damp boots. My bones ached with the constant chill and wet, and I often found myself longing for the warmth of Nuaga’s breath and wishing I could nestle into her.
Conversation was almost nonexistent, though I noticed Dalen and Kendel walked often together, heads bent against the rain and toward each other. I so needed their support in convincing the unit that the return of the dragons was a good thing—but I wasn’t willing to trust Dalen in light of his betrayal of my secret. No one spoke of the dragon when I was nearby, and I had no idea what they might have been saying among themselves.
Teaching them to trust Nuaga felt impossible.
On the fourth evening, the rain slackened to a light mist. After our meager rations, I spread my wet cloak outside my tent; though it had no chance of drying, at least I would be slightly less damp during the night. I crawled into my tent with the lantern I always took from the supply wagon. It had been ages since I’d written anything, and I was aching to find the words that would help me express my growing need to be with Nuaga and what it meant to have the mark of her breath on my back.
I pulled a folded bit of parchment from my bag, along with the broken pen, the nubby inkstick, and a small stone well. I held the well in the palm of my hand and spat into it, rubbing the inkstick into the spittle until I was satisfied with the depth of color. The lantern light flickered and teased, but the parchment on my lap was fairly illuminated. I dipped my pen into the ink and scratched the first word.
Warrior, it said.
I stared at it, the shapes and angles poking at me, daring me to own it. Then I dipped my pen again and continued to write, the words spilling from my fingers in a hot torrent. I imagined Storm sitting at the foot of my bed while I wrote, as he often did.
Every word on the parchment was for him.
“How do you always manage to have a lantern?”
I hadn’t noticed Forest lifting the tent flap. He held his rolled-up blankets under his arm.
“I borrow it,” I said, every muscle tense.
“Ah.” He cleared his throat. “Mind if I come back?”
My heart somersaulted. “Did Jasper kick you out?”
“Yes and no.” He came in and started spreading out a blanket. “I couldn’t keep using the stings as an excuse to avoid you. They’ve clearly healed.”
“True.”
He pulled off a boot. “I, uh, haven’t really wanted to be around you.”
“I know.”
“And I needed a few days to get used to the idea of sharing my tent with a girl.”
“It’s been almost a week.”
“That’s a few days.” He pulled off his other boot.
I set my pen and parchment aside. “I’m sorry. I know this is … awkward.”
“You could say that.”
It was hard to know where to look. I shoved the well and inkstick into my pouch and folded the parchment.
“What are you writing?”
“It’s nothing,” I said. “I write poems sometimes.”
“When you’re not dressing like a boy?”
I pressed my lips together and forced myself to look at him. His expression wasn’t accusatory, the way I had expected it to be. He had raised one eyebrow, and his eyes hinted that he was teasing.
“I’d just started my first boy-poem, but you interrupted me.”
The hint of a smile lit his face, but it quickly faded. “I’m sorry for ignoring you. It’s just … I thought I was friends with … someone named Storm. And then, there you were in the creek, and…” Color crept into his face.
I felt heat in my own cheeks. “It was a horrible moment for me, too.”
“Who are you, really?”
“Rain L’nahn,” I said. “I came in my brother’s place.”
“Why?”
I told him all about Storm and what the fever had done to him, and how the medicine had been given to me.
“I always believed my parents meant for my brother to receive the medicine, but a few days ago Jasper gave me a letter from my papa,” I said. “He explained that it was the healer who made the decision, and that he gave the medicine to me because I was wearing the son’s cap.”
“Why were you wearing it?”
“Because—” Did I want to shed such a dark light on Willow? “My sister was little. Nobody saw her put the cap on me.”
“Mistaken identity.”
“Yes.”
“How ironic.” He said it matter-of-factly.
“I left at night,” I said. “They never would have let me come. But my father was planning to come to Grigsbane with Storm, and I couldn’t let him do that. If anything happened to him, my mother would be destitute. He couldn’t even afford Willow’s dowry until she turned nineteen, and if she knew that you were—” I stopped, mortified.
“Willow?”
I sighed. “Willow L’nahn. Your intended bride.”
Forest studied me, his brow furrowed, his mouth slightly open. “Is there anything else I need to know? Like, you’re betrothed to the high king, or you were actually sent here to murder me in my sleep?”
“If that were true, I’d have done it already.”
It was Forest’s turn to sigh. “I’m not even supposed to know her name, and now I find I’ve been sharing a tent with her sister.”
“That sounds worse than it is.”
“What’s she like? Unless you’d rather not tell me.”
I opened my mouth to sing my sister’s praises, but a hard knot in my heart stopped me. Forest waited, the soft lantern light dancing on his face, softening the contours and creating an ache that had become familiar. “She’s wonderful,” I finally said, though the words felt like stones. “Beautiful, sensitive, eager to be married.”
“Why?”
I shrugged. “Aren’t most girls? Anyway, she’s nineteen, so she feels like she’s had to wait so long for what many of her friends already have.”
“That’s the only reason? She’s tired of waiting?”
“It’s hard being a girl. Waiting tables doesn’t bring in much money, and not everyone has the funds to open a shop or eatery. There aren’t many options.”
“Unless, of course, you want to pull on some pants and run away to the army.”
I folded my arms. “I can’t tell if you’re teasing or not.”
“I’m teasing,” he said. “I promise.”
An easiness was growing between us that I’d been afraid to hope for. Worse than the sudden and embarrassing exposure of my femaleness had been my fear that I had forever destroyed our friendship.
“Do you forgive me?” I asked.
“I forgive you,” Forest said. “But…”
I frowned. “But?”
“It’ll be easier if we just keep pretending you’re … who you say you are. It’s taken me almost a week to make myself realize I’ve been with a girl all along without knowing it. So nothing’s really changed. Right?”
“Right.” I bit my lip. “I think I’ll like having you for a brother-in-law.” But my words rang hollow.
“Yes, we can sit around the supper table and talk about our days in the army together.”
I laughed lightly. “Willow wouldn’t allow it.”
He grew serious. “Sometimes I worry that … well, that I won’t make Willow happy. Or that I won’t even like her.”
“It’s hard not to like my sister,” I said softly. “And you’re a wonderful person. I think she’ll fall in love with you the moment she meets you.”
Forest smiled. “From what you’ve said, I could be a warty old goat and she’d still fall in love with me.”
“Not if you were a warty old goat, she wouldn’t,” I said. “Seriously.”
“I know. You’re being kind.” For a moment, he looked uncomfortable again, but he hid it quickly. “Thank you.”
I swore on T’Gonnen’s bones that I wouldn’t bring up my sister again.
“Is anyone going to attempt a fire?” I asked.
“Was that a challenge?”
I shrugged and raised my eyebrows. “Four solid days and nights in the rain? I’d call it desperation.”
“Let’s see what we can do.”
I blew out the lantern and tucked the parchment away with my other writing things, my heart a strange mixture of warm and cold.
The fire turned out to be an impossibility, but the thirteen of us gathered anyway, by the paltry light of a few lanterns clustered together in the middle of the ring we sat in. Cedar was busy carving something, his curls escaping stubbornly from his bun, as always. Rock hummed softly, his deep voice gently comforting. And Coast and Briar were having a low conversation that seemed to consist of more words than either had spoken since we’d all met. Perhaps it was true that adversity had the power to draw out the best in us.
Jasper’s expression was grim, but when he spoke, it was clear he was trying to keep our spirits from flagging.
“We’ve lost at least a day, on account of the rain,” he said. “But we should reach Chancory tomorrow.”
“The wagon’s slowing us down,” Flint said.
“As I knew it would,” Jasper said. “But once we reach the outpost, we’ll be able to move quickly from there without encumbrance.”
No one mentioned the unspoken fear—that the days of silence meant something awful had happened. I saw the hollow looks in everyone’s eyes and shoved my own trepidation deep inside my belly.
“At least we know this rain is slowing the enemy down as well as us,” Mandrake said.
“We may well have news tomorrow,” Jasper said.
“Whether we do or not, we’ll get the job done.” Mandrake’s gaze swept around the circle, including each of us. “This is the best team I’ve ever been a part of.”
“Agreed,” Kendel said softly.
“Some news would help,” Sedge said. “The silence doesn’t bode well.”
I rested my chin in my hand as I leaned on my bent knees. Nuaga had been scouting and running before us. Would she offer news that I could share? My desire to be with her had grown into an ache so deep that I sometimes despaired of having any peace until I was with her again. I longed for her as conversation rose and dipped around me.
“Here.” Cedar handed me the small bit of wood he’d been working on. “It’s not my best work.”
I held it to the light of the lanterns. He’d carved a dragon, with six legs and a long neck that curved just so. It fit in the palm of my hand. I looked at him, unsure what to say.
He lowered his voice. “I know you saw it, and it didn’t scare you. So I’m not going to let it scare me, either.”
I closed my fingers around the gift. “Thank you. It’s beautiful.”
Cedar smiled. “Glad you think so.”
I held the carving to my chest, my heart beating against it. This was the first sign that the men might, perhaps, learn to trust Nuaga after all. And I hadn’t spoken a word to Cedar about her. I pushed the little dragon deep into my pocket.
Not much else was said, and our collective exhaustion made heading to our tents the best option. I fumbled in the dark for my dragon powder as Forest made himself comfortable beside me. After I’d taken the powder, I stretched out and pulled my blanket up to my armpits.
“Isn’t it hard to sleep with those strips of cloth around your—around you?” he asked.
“I’m used to it.”
He was silent for a few moments. “So, that dragon powder?”
My stomach tightened. “What about it?”
“Is it really because you’re pigeon-toed?”
“No,” I said. “It’s not.”
“Does it have something to do with … I’m not sure what I’m asking.”
I drew a deep breath and told him everything—my trip with Willow to Madam S’dora’s shop and my subsequent return, and everything Madam S’dora had told me about the dragon powder. I told him how well the powder seemed to be working, and how my voice had even lowered a bit, as Madam S’dora had said it might.
“My face feels a bit … hairier, too,” I said.
“I haven’t noticed anything.”
“If you say so.” I shifted onto my side. “There’s one thing. When I was in the shop buying the powder, Sedge walked in. He was rude, and I … hit him. And I’m always afraid he’s suddenly going to remember where he saw me before.”
“Great God. Has he said anything?”
“The first time I met him, he thought he recognized me.”
“How hard did you hit him?”
“I think I hit his pride harder,” I said. “The fact that I hit him at all, being a girl.”
I could practically hear Forest smiling in the dark. “Wish I could’ve seen it.”
“It was over in a second.”
“Honestly, I wouldn’t worry too much,” Forest said. “He’s never going to suspect that the girl in the shop who hurt his pride is now a boy in his unit.”
“I hope you’re right,” I said.
“I know I’m right.” He was silent for a while; it seemed he was gathering his thoughts before he spoke. “So. This dragon.”
“Yes.”
“It’s the same one you told me about?”
I told him about the trip to the Archives, receiving Nuaga’s mark on my back, and her promise to find the safest route to the dragons. The longer I spoke, the less strange it all felt. When I was finished, I took a great breath.
“Do you believe me now?”
Forest didn’t answer right away. “When I saw the dragon that morning, I…” He blew out a stream of air. “I was still angry. I didn’t want to admit I might’ve seen proof that you weren’t going mad.”
“It’s not easy to believe something like this.”
“No. It’s not.” He was silent for a bit. “Do you feel safe when you’re with her?”
“Yes,” I said. “More than anything, I wanted to go with her. It’s like she’s part of me now, and I’m part of her. I’m not afraid anymore.”
“Why don’t you tell Jasper the truth?”
“I want to. But he’s so … resistant. And it all goes back to the dragon powder. If I weren’t taking it, none of this would be happening.”
“And he can’t know about the powder.”
“Right,” I said. “It’s the reason Nuaga came to me, and the reason I can speak with her. And now that I’ve received her mark, I’m part of the dragon clan.”
Forest’s voice softened further. “What was it like, receiving her mark?”
“She was gentle.” I didn’t want him to know how horrible it had been.
“That’s all? Gentle?”
“I’d rather not talk about it.”
“S’da.” He was silent for a moment. “You’re really part of a dragon clan now?”
“Yes.”
“When Nuaga returns, what will you do?”
“Whatever she needs me to.”
“Even if Jasper says otherwise?”
I sighed. “Even then.”
“Be careful, s’da?”
I nodded in the dark, though he couldn’t see me. “I will.”
He was silent for so long I thought he’d dozed off. Then he said, “Maybe we’ll both make it home. Maybe you’ll be my children’s favorite aunt. Or uncle.”
I giggled. It was the girliest sound I’d made in weeks. “I hope we do.”
Morning dawned cold but rain-free, and we packed quickly. All day, we traveled hard. A chill wind sprang up, and my face was soon numb from it. It seemed our marching hit an almost frantic pace as we pushed forward, yet I was grateful for my warm cloak. The temperature kept dropping.
Shortly before nightfall, the watchtowers of Chancory rose up, ragged against the blood-red sky. Relief that we’d have shelter for the night gave way to uneasiness as we drew nearer. The grounds were too quiet, the watchtowers unlit. We pressed on, the squeaking of our wagon wheels cutting through the silence.
I saw the glow first—the warmth of firelight reflecting from inside the arch of the entryway. We slowed, and Cedar, who was driving the wagon, pulled the team to a stop. Jasper held his hand out and took several steps forward, his boots hardly making a sound. I rested my hand on the hilt of my sword.
Watching.
Barely breathing.
I couldn’t identify the zing until I saw the arrow embedded in Cedar’s neck. He fell from the wagon with a solid thud.
