“It’s only one tribe, isn’t it?” another of the warriors asked, moving around Valan to approach the table.

  “As far as I can ascertain,” Brel replied.

  “So, if we don’t give them time to put out a call, we won’t face the entire nation.”

  It was a sound conclusion, and Brel nodded.

  “Then here is what I propose, we do…”

  Doreia craned forward as another of the warriors lifted a scroll from one of the shelves along the rear wall, and spread it on the table. Valan moved alongside her, listening as Brel laid out the plan, and the others suggested modifications. To his surprise, Doreia remained silent, until they’d firmed up the dragon’s part of the plan and turned to her.

  “You want to convince the god of what?” the dragon asked.

  “That non-White-Mountain races are sentient, and so are the half breeds they create between them.”

  “Is that all?”

  “And that the power such sentients can offer in worship will give him an edge over his brethren, and his tribe an edge in its competition with the others.”

  “That’s a tall order,” Ravendar observed.

  “But not an impossible one,” Brel acknowledged. “We will need to get them to the shrine in order for them to make that request… And we will need to free the kings.”

  “So we need a diversion,” Ravendar concluded. “Do you have one in mind?”

  Brel dipped his head. “I do.”

  They stepped closer to hear what he had in mind.

  “No!” Ravendar snarled a few moments later. “With all due respect, my lord, that is insane and I cannot allow it.”

  “I’m not asking for your permission,” Brel told him. “We steal the princess, and while they are pursuing those they think have her, we will visit their temple. It’s not that well-guarded, is it?”

  Ravendar gave him a sour look. “You should know.”

  Brel bared his teeth. “I do. Our scout has been most thorough.”

  “You said she hadn’t gone inside.”

  “She hadn’t…but while we spoke.”

  The two warriors closest Ravendar leapt for him, reaching him in time to shove his weapons back into their sheaths as they propelled him back and slammed him into the rear walls.

  “Let me go!” he roared. “I’ll gu—”

  One of his men slapped a hand over his mouth.

  The other looked back over his shoulder.

  “You shouldn’t tease him like this, my lord. You know how hard it is for him.”

  Brel observed the wrestling match, some of the amusement dying from his face.

  “I told her to observe,” he explained. “She has just reported that she entered, scouted the temple’s interior and…”

  He let his words trail off, his face paling as Ravendar stopped struggling. The room stilled to watchfulness as the warriors released their leader and moved closer to the dragon. To Valan’s relief the man’s weapons remained sheathed.

  After a few heartbeats, the dragon blinked.

  “Well, that puts things into a different perspective,” he stated.

  “What is it, my lord?” Ravendar asked.

  “I… We have a meeting at the temple.”

  Ravendar stilled, then groaned and covered his face with the palm of one hand.

  “How many times did we speak the god’s name?”

  “Not one of us said it more than once,” Doreia answered after a moment’s silence.

  “But how many times was it spoken in total?” Brel demanded.

  “Three,” the girl answered. “Once by you, once by Ravendar, and once…by me.”

  The admission came out softly, and Valan looked at her, then at Ravendar and, finally, Brel.

  “What don’t I understand?”

  Ravendar stalked to the end of the table.

  “We’ve just been summoned by a god,” he snarled.

  He prodded Brel’s shoulder.

  “What of my mate?”

  “Skayl’n says she is surprisingly good company…for a half-breed.”

  “Ugh!” Ravendar cocked his fist, but that was as far as he got, before Brel reached up and covered it with his hand.

  “Punch me, later,” he said. “My instructions are that my plans to collect the princess are approved, but that I must drop her children at the shrine, first.”

  He ducked his head to catch Ravendar’s eye.

  “At which point, your mate will be released to my care and I am to deliver her to you before I collect the princess.”

  “Why me?” Ravendar asked.

  “Because you and my four ‘guardians,’” and here it was clear Brel was quoting the intruding deity, “Will create the required distraction so our meeting remains both uninterrupted and a secret from his people.”

  “That does not bode well for our chances of success,” Ravendar observed.

  “Or our survival,” one of the other warriors observed gloomily.

  “It still increases our odds,” Brel replied. “At least this way, we know we won’t be facing an angry god that’s wondering why we’ve invaded his temple.”

  “Oh, no. This is so much better,” Ravendar retorted. “This way we face a curious god expecting some kind of bargain that will substantially increase his power base. I assume he heard the girl’s proposal.”

  “He said he was curious to hear more, but that his offer to listen expired by midnight unless we were already in discussion and he remained interested.”

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Why are we meeting a god?” Valan asked, again. “I mean, how does he even know to meet with us?”

  “We said his name three times in a single conversation,” Doreia explained. At Valan’s blank look, she continued in exasperation, “You do that and you have a chance the deity in question is going to hear you and pay attention, and I’m guessing, given his followers’ interest in this area, the chances were greater than usual.”

  Ravendar headed for the door.

  “I’m guessing his offer to return my life mate expires at midnight, also,” the man snapped, opening the door. “Shall we?”

  Brel followed. “We shall…and you have my sincerest apologies.”

  “If I didn’t already know you had instructed her to observe from a distance, we would be having an entirely different conversation,” Ravendar answered. “Since you did, all I ask is you get us there quickly.”

  “Agreed,” the dragon answered, surging ahead of the warrior and tearing open another door, which led to a winding set of stairs. He glanced at Doreia and Valan. “Explanations will have to wait. This way.”

  A short climb later, and they stood on a small plateau pocketed in the side of the mountain. The city’s lights flickered in the distance, as did the lights on the ships sailing toward port.

  “Do you think the god will be able to call his people off?” Valan asked, worried for the people who’d raised him.

  “He’s not much of a god if he can’t,” Ravendar retorted.

  “And I’ll tell him you said that, shall I?” Brel asked.

  “If he’s already riding your mind, he already knows,” Ravendar stated, “And given he is a White Mountains deity, he probably agrees.”

  Brel walked to the center of the plateau, and morphed to his dragon form.

  “Let’s go,” he ordered. “Valan and Doreia will mount last as they will need to dismount first…and, Doreia, I need to speak mind to mind.”

  “Agreed,” the girl said, watching as Ravendar guided each of his men into position on the dragon’s back, before seating himself. She waved Valan over. “I’ll go last.”

  Valan wanted to argue that he couldn’t allow her to do that, but the look in her eye warned him against it. There really was no arguing with her when she was in this kind of mood.

  No sooner had she settled in front of him, than Brel moved to the edge of the plateau and threw himself into the air. Doreia wrapped her arms around the spine in front of her, and pressed her forehead against it.

  Valan didn’t blame her. He wanted to do the same. Instead, he had to rely on the grip he had with his thighs, and Brel not making any sudden moves. He hoped they didn’t run into any cannons in the mountains.

  “Or ballistae,” Brel put in, giving him the image of an oversized crossbow.

  “Thanks for that,” Valan replied.

  The dragon made no reply, merely lifted higher over the mountains, giving them a fine view of the setting sun. Valan took in the sight, remembering his guardian’s words regarding it: “It’s a promise there will be a dawn.”

  He hoped so. He also hoped he’d live to see it.

  “Me, too,” the dragon told him, and Valan swore his sides rose and fell in a sigh.

  All too soon, they were getting ready to land, dropping swiftly between mountain peaks and descending into shadow. Valan hoped they’d live to see the light, again.

  “Light enough for you?” The intruding voice did not belong to Brel.

  Valan had a suspicion he knew who it was, but he didn’t want to find out he was right.

  “You do know it’s rude to ignore a god, don’t you?” the voice persisted, and Valan swallowed against the sudden dryness in his throat.

  “I did not mean to ignore you,” Valan admitted. “I just did not know what to say.”

  The god laughed.

  “You are fortunate I need you sister’s aid,” it said, “Or I would take pleasure in watching them flay your flesh and strip the muscle from your bones, half-breed.”

  “Get. Out,” Valan snarled, his blood heating in response to the deity’s presence.

  “And I suppose you have the means to—”

  “Ravendar! The boy!” Brel roared, dropping the last ten feet to land on the temple’s porch.

  The warrior lost no time in dealing with the threat…or he would have, if Valan hadn’t leapt from Brel’s back and headed for the temple doors, drawing his blades as he went.

  Doreia followed, shouting “Duck!” to the young woman emerging from the temple’s atrium.

  The woman threw herself to one side as Valan stormed past, tucking into a roll that carried her to where Brel was waiting. It might have carried her over the mountain’s edge, but the dragon thrust out a forepaw and caught her before she rolled past.

  “Take care, little sister,” he admonished her, lifting her and placing her beside the shoulder furthest from the drop.

  Valan didn’t feel the dragon’s careful touch as it tried to reach his mind. Nor did he hear its farewell to his sister as it lifted into the sky.

  “Make your barter with care,” it admonished, as it fled to its next destination.

  Valan didn’t hear and he didn’t care. The rage had taken him, and all he wanted was to find the source of the voice that had tried to dominate his mind…and then he intended to destroy it. He also didn’t know of the deity’s frustration, when it tried the same trick with Doreia, and discovered it could not enter her head. It spoke out loud, instead.

  “I must say, wizardess, your companion is—”

  “Of Northman extraction,” the girl replied tartly. “I don’t know what you tried, but you triggered the rage.”

  “Rage?”

  Doreia scowled.

  “You’re a deity, not stupid…” she tartly replied, “And I’m darned sure you’re aware of a Northman’s temper and what triggers it. Your people will have come across them often enough.”

  “My people? No, but I believe the tribes to above us might have. Truth be told, beyond this one’s father, this is the first time I’ve met one. Please follow. He has almost reached the shrine.”

  Doreia cursed softly under her breath, using one of the more colorful variants involving sea-serpents, mermaids, and ten unfortunate sailors, that she’d learned from her time on the docks.

  “An interesting idea,” the deity observed. “I may have to try it.”

  Doreia paled, and promptly decided against asking the deity not to. She jolted into a sprint and caught up with Valan, just as he reached the shrine. Fortunately, Skayl’n had already had the kings brought.

  Ignoring them, Valan headed straight for the altar.

  “Free me!” the nearest king commanded. His white-blonde hair was pulled into a warrior’s plait and he looked almost identical to Brel’s human form, but there the semblance ended.

  This man was older, his face full of crags and furrows, his brows bushy, his beard unkept, his eyes a startling crystalline gray…just like Valan’s.

  “Free me,” he repeated. “Before my son does something unforgivable.”

  Doreia hurried forward, almost undone by the sight of the forest elf watching her silently from beside the Northman. At her glance, he managed an almost-smile, but said nothing, and Doreia’s breath caught.

  That smile was so like the one she saw in the mirror, and his eyes…green as the forest depths and flecked with gold, so like her own. Pushing away the urge to turn and free him, instead, she drew her belt dagger, and cut the Northman’s rope, first.

  He wasted no time, but dived toward his son, knocking Valan from his feet and pinning him bodily to the ground. When that was not enough to snap the boy out of it, he pulled back a hand.

  “Sorry, boy.”

  Doreia winced at the crack that echoed around the chamber, and surveyed the other four men set before the altar. Before the god could tell her to do otherwise, she’d drawn her dagger and moved to the elf.

  She didn’t dare look at him, but her hands trembled as she cut the ropes binding his arms behind his back. When his bonds fell free, she left him to deal with the ropes binding his feet and moved to the next man, one whose blue skin and elvish features marked him a sea-elf.

  The next was human, dark haired and dark eyed, with curly hair and a beard, and the last was…

  She drew back, and he rolled his eyes, his very amber eyes set amidst the dark scales of his narrow face. He flicked his ears and tasted the air with a forked tongue, regarding her from vertical pupils.

  “Yes, from under the mountains, but part of a treaty we wished to extend to the tribesman. Not a ravening monster. Now, please… I can heal your brother and bring him round faster, and we need that.”

  That, more than anything was what enabled Doreia to step in and cut his bonds.

  She stripped them away, and was about to go and check on Valan, when the serpent-elf grabbed her arm.

  “Give me the dagger,” he ordered. “It will make freeing us faster.”

  Doreia hesitated, then thrust the dagger out, letting him take it from her hand, before going to meet the returning Northman.

  He had Valan slung over one shoulder, steadying him with one hand as he looked her up and down, then looked to the forest elf and back again.

  “Yes, Trogaran, she is mine.”

  The elf’s words had her smiling before she could stop it, although his next words were somber.

  “Now, if only our sweet captor would arrive.”

  There was a dark undertone to his words, but before Doreia could figure out why that was, there was a commotion at the door, and Skayl’n spoke from the altar.

  “Your captor is here, albeit a little reluctant to enter, given you are free. I must ask you do nothing to jeopardize this meeting. If the maid and her brother would approach…”

  Doreia glanced uncertainly at the Northman, and saw him hurriedly beckon the serpent elf over.

  “One moment,” Trogaran said, his words carrying the weight of an order.

  “You’d order a god?” Skayl’n demanded.

  “No, your lordship, but we need time to wake my son from his unplanned slumber.”

  “You knocked him out,” the deity qualified.

  “Do you know of any other way to still a Northman’s Rage?” Trogaran asked.

  “Be swift,” the deity ordered, then turned its attention to the slender figure moving hesitantly into the room.

  “What is wrong with her?” Alanadine pondered, as she made to stop, then stumbled.

  “I compel her,” Skayl’n answered, “And she is injured. The pre-purification rites had begun.”

  “No.” Alanadine darted forward, the man and the serpent and sea elves by his side.

  Even Trogaran looked like he might hurl the slowly waking Valan to the floor to attend her.

  Doreia stepped forward, and hauled her brother’s arm across her shoulders.