“He’s a good man.” She shuddered, a tear welling in one eye, she blinked it away. “And dear to us all.” Finally, she looked away, hanging her head.“It’s not my decision,” Treylen said. “Stay quiet.”“Yes, assassin,” she said, and sank down to slump on the stone, unmoving.Treylen sighed and turned away as Rime raced down the walkway checking for any more hidden watch. Treylen wiped his dagger on the cape of the dead man, frowning at the body.Marziel said the guards would welcome us. He sent the thought to Rime. He’d been party to a number of killings, but few by his own hands. Up until now the majority had at least deserved it. This poor fool was a different story. They were supposed to stand down when he showed his dagger. Every Iveran soldier knew the shape of the Queen’s Fingers. Treylen followed the dragon to the end of the walkway and peered down to the balcony below. Rime waited beside him.Maybe they love their viscount. Rime scurried down and sniffed around the outside of th

The OfferingTreylen watched a trickle of blood as it flowed through a narrowchannel carved into the floor of the antechamber. There’d been no screams when the blood started, only the soft murmur of conversation from the top of the stairs in front of them.All he could do was watch it run beneath his feet and wonder what was happening up above.There was nothing else to look at. The staircase blocked the view of the audience hall, and the passage behind them curved out and away toward the palace ground. Six guards bracketed them, dressed in matching blue tabards over delicate silver mail that shone like the scales of a river fish. Each carried a polearm with a blade affixed to the top, its point angled inward toward the visitors.Treylen tried to remain stock-still like the guards. Rime sat on his shoulder as he’d been instructed, sniffing the air. Felicity rested on the floor between him and Aaron, doing her best to appear disinterested in the blood. Whatever Marziel had told the dr

The Corpse “I’ve always known you were idiots, but I never expected Aaron tobe the greater of the two.”Treylen didn’t hear Marziel. He was too focused on making sure his friend’s head was tilted so he didn't choke on the blood running from his mouth. The five of them, assassins and their dragons, waited in a rough stone chamber deep beneath the palace.When the guards had first brought them, dragging Aaron, who’d been in and out of consciousness, Treylen had worried that they were heading into the dungeons. But then he had smelled the unmistakable odor of dragons just before the caves appeared. They were wide chambers on either side of the hallway, with small alcoves carved into the walls where the assassins slept. Bone and coins piled the ground under the dragons’ nests. The dragons snoozed at the center of these rooms while their bondmates served the court in the Palace above.Another hallway passed more alcoves, and they headed down a spiraling staircase which led them to a pl

Just above the work yards was the clan house. One of the oldest structures in the city, these were the communal living quarters of Wetherdin’s original inhabitants. Marziel had said that they’d existed long before the city came under the rule of the queen. There was no love lost between the clan and the Iveran nobility who lived above them. These would be the hardest communities to infiltrate, especially once they learned that Treylen was lodging with the countess. The clan was the group who had the most reason to betray their queen. By dumping Aaron in the lower section, Marziel’s hope was that he might catch the eye of the clan leaders and be invited to lodge with them.The community above the clan house was a patchwork of smaller dwellings belonging to those who had moved here from the rest of Iverna. They were craftspeople, merchants, and overseers. Most were citizens, but a few serfs worked in the mines as well. They weren't as insular as the clan and Marziel had assured him that

The ViewAs they reached the balcony of the western lodge, they crested thetop of the cliff and were afforded their first views of the mountain range that lay beyond. Boulder-strewn slopes dotted with scrub brush and tumbled rocks lent a desolate quality to the landscape and cut a stark contrast to the verdant gorge they’d just ascended from. Jagged peaks of the Dragon Lands stretched into the distance, like a black, roiling sea.The Count Tsoro awaited them at the top of the stairs. A short man with too many medals on his chest, he wasn't half as charming as his brightly- dressed aide and right away began to interrogate Mauridin’s qualifications as a mine director.Marziel deflected enough, reminding their hosts of his mandate from the queen. There was little point—he said—in divulging expertise until he could be sure the recipients were competent enough to put it to proper use. An insult blunt enough to bludgeon them into silence.As soon as the formal greeting ended, Marziel was i