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  He began stroking the scales on her forehead again. It seemed to make the entire situation easier.

 

 

  She frowned.

 

  Kesia breathed out slowly.

  Something in her quiet stubbornness stirred him. Despite her teasing, Kesia was rarely so assertive.

  Zephryn moved on to the next task.

 

  He brushed her hair one last time, savoring the silkiness.

  Kesia reached out and grabbed his arm, squeezing it tightly, her skin warm on his. So strong, even in this state. Even when she shouldn’t have to be.

 

  She gritted her teeth. Her wings collapsed, bones pushing against cartilage until they were doubled over behind her. But what should have been easy and painless took endless seconds.

  Minutes.

  A slick of blood coated her scales. There were only fragments and bits left of her wings, pressing hard against her back as she forced them to shift. Sweat beaded her brow. Her fingers sank into his arm, sending throbbing arcs of pain through his veins. Zephryn pushed the pain away.

 

  She nodded, releasing a short breath.

  The final bit of bone smashed into her flesh and vanished. Instead of wings, Kesia’s back was swathed with blood stains, and she bore deep bruises and scars from the shift.

  She released his arm. Zephryn’s shoulders slumped, and he rubbed feeling back into the limb.

 

  His muscles tightened once more.

  She truly was his equal. The ideal tactical partner.

  By life or by death.

  Chapter 6

  “Is this a house or a prison?” Shance muttered to himself. Not quietly enough, from the look the butler gave him. He returned the stiff man’s scowl with an apologetic smile and took another look around Grand Count Nul Thredsing’s mansion.

  The front hall was constructed with the same claymesh found in the rest of the Scepter of Commerce, with glittering shards of mirror and silver forming orderly mosaic patterns in the walls. Both sides of the hall were lined with square pillars painted pale gray and studded with silver and steel, both rare commodities this far south. The three-story pillars emphasized the wealth of the Nul lineage, as did the steel railings that fenced the second and third floors. Even the windows were barred with embossed steel.

  The whole effect made his skin crawl and his chest constrict. No airflow was possible here—this box employed the finest industrial cooling technology instead of breezeways. It took everything Shance had not to run out of the house and camp in The Silver Streak throughout its repairs. Although, even his damaged airship was in the underground shipyard.

  There was no escape.

  He took out the small flask Brody had given to him at the end of their meeting. Something to take the edge off, he’d said, promising to send a full bottle to Shance’s room.

  Good man, Brody, even when delivering piss-poor news. Shance took a swig from the flask. It burned his throat as if he’d swallowed engine fuel.

  “Captain Shance Windkeeper.” The velvet-voiced figure stood at the far end of the hall at the top of a metal-edged staircase. “We finally meet. I’m glad to see you’re willing to hear my proposal.”

  She was powerfully female. Her skin was a rich umber, accented by the deep gray-blue of her fitted pants and corseted coat that cinched her breasts up and framed them with the low neckline of her cream blouse. Silver jewelry gleamed in her ears and pierced the bridge of her elegant nose. Long, tiny black braids were tied neatly away from her strong-boned face, and pale gray eyes appraised him openly.

  So this was what it felt like to be surveyed like product on the merchant dock. Shance didn’t like it one bit. Even so, he opted not to step forward and chose instead to put the flask back into his waistcoat. He didn’t want to venture farther into this elaborate jail cell.

  “Countess Nula Thredsing. I was expecting—”

  “My father?” She lifted her chin. “This venture is entirely my own, Captain Windkeeper. And I am considerably interested in what role you can play in it.”

  “Oh?”

  The heels of her slim black boots clicked on the stairs as she descended. She never took her eyes from him, her full lips slightly parted, almost as if she was tasting him. In other situations, that might have been highly enticing.

  But not when marriage was on the line, marriage to a woman who held no interest in his heart.

  “You like playing games, I’ve heard.” Nula began to slowly circle him. “And you are one of the best captains in the Congruency war fleet.”

  Irritation smothered his wariness. “The best captain. The skies are my home.”

  “Indeed. The Windkeepers were sky merchants before the war. A reason that you persist in keeping an open-air deck, despite its antiquated and potentially dangerous nature.”

  The annoyance heated his skin. Was she trying to bait him? “I need to feel the winds to use them. That is far more important and powerful than any modern technology.”

  “Hmmm. And your crew? What of their lives?”

  “My crew trusts me with their lives. I haven’t lost anyone yet. Even in the explosion, everyone made it to the parachute boats.”

  Nula had completed her circle and stepped close, her face inches from his. Her voice became even softer. “Admirable. It is for all these reasons and more that I requested you as my consort. You follow your own path and make your own way, Captain Windkeeper. I like that. Such strength is quite impressive. And with my influence, you would have no trouble reestablishing your family’s mercantile ways after the war is over. I believe we would suit each other well.”

  By the time her last words reached his ear, the countess’s tone had dropped to a whisper, sending pleasant rushes through his body despite the abhorrence of her words. Fiarston, she’d be attractive if she weren’t the daughter of a money-hungry businessman trying to steal his freedom and coerce him into selling the family name.

  “Tempting, Countess Nula. But part of the honor and pride of the Windkeeper line is our separation from cartels and industries. We offer fair prices to all, we chart our own courses, and we never sell out to large corporate interests, even those as well-built as your own.”

  “Hm. I see.” She lingered. Gods, if her lips only moved a little closer—no. That would not happen. “Is there any way I can convince you?”

  Shance finally stepped backward, putting distance between them. Pride be damned; he wouldn’t last another minute if she kept up that game. “I can’t think of a single one. Your father already donated to fix The Silver Streak within a month.”

  “I could make it two weeks.”

  “So I can return to the front lines? Wonderful. Thank you.” Too much sarcasm and honesty. He switched topics, grasping for anything to keep her at bay. “In addition, I am already engaged.”

  What? Where had that come from?

  Nula scrutinized him for a moment, then her rich laughter filled the vast expanse of the room. “I highly doubt that, Captain Windkeepe
r. You are not subtle, and information sells very well in this city.”

  There was no turning back now.

  “Yes, but this is a very recent development and a far more advantageous offer. An ideal arrangement and an opportunity that I cannot possibly pass up.”

  Her face hardened and her gray eyes glittered like the silver adorning the pillars. “Please, do share the name of this individual, for I cannot think of a single woman who offers more worth than I.”

  Thoughts and faces spun through Shance’s mind as he remembered and discarded a host of women, none of whom would fit his description. Blind Viorstan! He would follow this course regardless and hope things sorted out later. “She is rather shy but has intriguing connections. I will introduce her to society soon.”

  “Intriguing, hm? I enjoy a curious intrigue myself. I didn’t realize you had become so connected.” Nula sniffed. “You will introduce her at the Congruency gala that opens next week?”

  A week? Maybe he could pay Wylie.

  Shance nodded. “Yes. She will be overjoyed to finally declare our undying devotion. I look forward to introducing you to her. Until then, Countess Nula.”

  He spun on his heel and strode to the door. His pace increased as he reached the threshold until he was running, pushing past the mid-morning rush that filled the sidewalks, following the only thing that made sense in his life right now.

  The wind was swirling, tugging Shance toward the sea and open air. Away from the disastrous meeting with a disturbingly attractive woman.

  Engaged? Where in all the lands would he find a woman to be engaged to? In the Scepter of Commerce, one could pay someone for nearly any kind of service, but that wouldn’t hold. The countess would know the truth in a heartbeat and expose him.

  He needed a real answer to this situation. To all the situations. Gods above! In case anyone was listening, Shance sent out a plea for escape. Escape from the endless war and bloodshed. From the confines of a military uniform and a regimented schedule that allowed for little freedom and less compassion.

  Fatigue burned Shance’s lungs. He finally slowed his pace near the waterfront. A half-dozen ships were still docked, mostly ferries carrying people from one Trebbian Sea to another. Ilyon, the sea in front of him, was the busiest, as it received tributaries from the north. Daily cargo ships arrived bearing produce and product from the northern farmlands, as well as visitors coming to see the great Scepter of Commerce with a few coins in their pockets.

  Most of them would go home much poorer.

  Shance fell into a stroll, giving the ships a cursory glance. Something in the wind urged him to the ship anchored at the pier farthest from the city.

  There. He should go there.

  “Why?”

  Another gust of wind pushed at his back. Never question the winds, his father had always said. Only prepare yourself for the flight.

  Considering the morning Shance had endured, this urging could only improve matters.

  Somehow.

  ***

  The ship was a cage.

  Kesia didn’t voice the words or speak them loud enough within her mind for Zephryn to hear. He had been pacing the length and breadth of the vessel during their entire voyage.

  Now he paced down one end of the open deck and back to the other, pushing through the other passengers on the ship. Meanwhile she stood still and tried to pretend that she wasn’t trapped in skin form on a rocking vessel that she did not control.

  In the end, she couldn’t really complain. Neither of them could. They had made it this far.

  After escaping from the Pinnacle, she’d woken up in an isolated cave with Zephryn reapplying a bandage to her wounds. Later she had ridden astride his back, around the shoulder blades. It had been Kesia’s idea since she could not shift into scales and descend from the Cloudpeaks herself. She remembered how it felt to have Shance straddling her shoulders. While that had been dangerous for the airship captain, holding on to a simple leather harness fastened to a dragon she was mentally connected with was incredible, with the wind in her hair and the rush of free flying. It was as if she were experiencing her first Launch Day all over again. Zephryn had turned into a show-off, wheeling around tight turns and through narrow passages in the cliffs at breathtaking speed.

  Her breath caught at the memory. Incredible.

  Zephryn ceased his pacing of the vessel and gave her a smile, sensing the underlying direction of her thoughts and feelings. She returned it, her heart skipping for a moment and her cheeks warming. This skin form reacted to things in different ways than scales.

  The boat shifted beneath her feet. Her stomach roiled.

  Sometimes it reacted in horrible ways. The swaying vessel had turned her stomach ever since they had boarded the first ship, a river barge, in the small village of Burnside in the Southern Plains, ten miles from the foot of the Cloudpeaks. Kesia and Zephryn had switched to larger ships until they had boarded this metal beast with stiflingly small cabins beneath a long, narrow deck and a pointy front bow.

  No, just bow, Zephryn had said. The bow was always in the front, so the phrase front bow was redundant. Always wonderful to have him around to correct her.

  Kesia rolled her eyes and tilted her face toward the sun. One thing she did appreciate was the warmer weather. Even though the Southern Plains garb suffocated her in an ankle-length brown skirt, a loose white shirt with a wide neck, and a vest that laced up each side and constricted her breathing. The shoes were torture devices of brown leather and laces.

  She twitched the neckline lower, now that there weren’t humans nearby to disapprove. Apparently, revealing skin was considered a bad thing for humans to do, at least humans who lived in the Southern Plains. Which explained their clothing options.

  Kesia faced Zephryn again. He wore black pants, loose shirt, a long coat, and boots, his short black hair tucked beneath a hat. He was fully immersed in his skin form, without cobalt scales peppering his skin or the dark blue strands in his hair. Another rush of heat warmed her, along with a sudden craving for him to be shirtless, as he had been earlier. And a desire to help the process.

  He frowned.

 

 

  Fewmets! What was wrong with her? She swallowed.

 

  Zephryn grimaced.

  Kesia nodded. She hadn’t asked where Zephryn had gotten the money for all these items. Naturally, he’d stolen it from the Pinnacle. The thought reverberated guilt through her, but she’d gotten over it. Mostly. They had needed disguises, and she didn’t want to die. Besides, as the only surviving prince, wasn’t it technically still his?

  Was it truly worth it, stopping in the Scepter of Commerce instead of trying to hide in a more isolated area? There was so much risk in a city.

  Then she remembered the whiff of noxious smoke, the memories stirring from the dark places of her mind.

  Yes. It was worth it.

  A man dressed in rough browns and blacks blew a whistle.

  “Final stop ahead! Grab your luggage and any other belongings and make your way to the dock.”

  She followed Zephryn across the deck and down the gangplank. They had no luggage, save for pouches with money and a few generic tools. They had been travelling under the pretense of being poor immigrants who had sold everything to reach the city in hopes of a new life. The reality was they hadn’t been able to steal much dragon tech on their way out.

  Except for their voicelators.

  Kesia rubbed the pendant, shaped like a cloud lily, that hung on a silver chain just below her collarbone. Zephryn wore a simi
lar pendant beneath his shirt, only his was an engraved metal disc. Both pendants were created of gelstin, an alloy of tepstone, slatesheen, and blonde copper that blunted the resonant effects of dragon voices. There could be no hint of dragon attributes while in the Scepter of Commerce. They needed to find the truth about the green smoke and move on to somewhere safer.

  Now, if only the dock would stop moving beneath her feet. She had thought the ship was bad, but this rubber-legged feeling was worse.

 

  Nowhere.

  He had lingered behind to speak to a few passengers he had acquainted himself with earlier. Should Kesia have stayed near him? Was that what first cousins did? Their current cover was a human idea. In Burnside, the locals had assumed they were married, and then had assumed they were related. Since “marriage” was a foreign word, related seemed to be the best choice. While it prevented them from staying in the same cabin, thanks to human notions of propriety, the feigned family status allowed them to travel together without incident.

  Since they were taking turns sleeping to keep watch, the situation was ideal for their mission. If only she knew what it meant for them right now. What she was meant to do. All this effort, and she was still worthless. Except to the Pinnacle. But whatever value she had to them wasn’t dependent on her being useful.

  After all, what use was a murderer?

  Her stomach lurched. The sun pressed onto her skull like a giant hand. Kesia needed to sit down before she soiled the dock with her most recent meal of meat strips and bread.

  She glanced around the wharf. A few benches were tucked in the shade of awnings from dockside shops and cafes. Zephryn could find her. She stumbled toward the nearest bench.

  Only a few more steps across the dock.

  Kesia’s fingers had just grabbed the back of the bench when a blast of wind hit her face, carrying a mixture of sea-brine, engine oil, and some kind of strong, alcoholic scent.

  It was too much.

  “Can I help you?”

  Her mind instantly catalogued the voice. She looked up into the blue eyes of Captain Windkeeper.