‘Nothing,’ Jael said sadly, images of the broken fort flashing in front of her eyes. Hearing the desperate cries of panic and pain. Seeing the flames.

  Trying to find Eadmund.

  ‘Nothing.’

  With no Egil sleeping in his little bed, anticipating his master’s every need, there was no fire. There was not even any wood in the chamber, so Jaeger shrugged off his wet tunic and trousers and ran for the bed, slipping under the furs. The linen-covered mattress was cold, but the fur against his chest felt warm.

  ‘Meena!’ Jaeger called throatily. He felt drunk from the smoke which had dried his throat, but he was too tired to look for anything to drink in the dark. His eyes were already closed, but he knew that Meena was still standing where he’d left her, dripping on the rug. He would have to organise that servant to move into his chamber. It was far too inconvenient not to have someone always on hand, tending to his needs. ‘Meena!’

  And then Meena was there, naked and wet and shaking beside him as he pulled her close, wanting to share her body heat. ‘Tell me,’ he whispered sleepily. ‘Tell me what you saw.’

  Meena didn’t want to.

  She felt as though she was still flying, up in the clouds, watching the fire, listening to the screams.

  Falling.

  She was confused. It had not felt as though she was the dragon, but she had seen it. Felt the heat of its fiery breath and the weight of its wing. She had spun with it, listening to its painful death cry, watching as it dropped onto the fort, crushing the Andalan people and their homes.

  Draguta had killed many, and it made Meena sad. If she had escaped with the book when she’d had the chance, Draguta wouldn’t even be here.

  But had she killed Berard?

  Meena closed her eyes, wanting to fall asleep. Hoping to see if Berard and his family were still alive.

  ‘Tell me,’ Jaeger whispered again.

  Meena could feel his heart beating as she lay her head on his chest. It was slowing down, and she hoped that he would fall asleep so that she didn’t have to relive it, but then she felt his hand crushing hers.

  ‘Now.’

  Morana’s eyelids drooped as she leaned over the fire, but she did not want to fall asleep. There was too much to think about.

  Morac perched on a stool opposite her. After helping Evaine to her chamber, he’d felt too tired to walk all the way back to Yorik’s cottage, so he’d decided to spend the night in Morana’s room, though she seemed more intent on talking than taking to her bed.

  ‘It’s not all bad,’ Morana sighed, hanging her wet hair near the flames. ‘She is doing our work for us. Killing the Brekkans. It’s not all bad.’

  Morac frowned. ‘It seems as though her plans are hers alone, though. She has no grand vision. Just personal grievances,’ he whispered hoarsely, glancing at the door.

  ‘Who doesn’t have personal grievances?’ Morana sniffed. ‘I’d happily gut Jael Furyck. If only Draguta could find her!’

  ‘We’re not safe while Jael Furyck lives,’ Morac muttered distractedly, reminded of how easily she had twisted Eirik around her little finger.

  Eadmund too. For a time.

  ‘We’re not safe at all,’ Morana reminded him. ‘Draguta has no interest in us. She might see me as useful. Meena too. But if we displease her... if she no longer needs us? She’ll kill us. And I don’t know why she’d want you around, Brother. Not once I’m gone.’

  Morac saw Runa’s face, remembering his fumbled attempt at saying goodbye to her. It was only now that he wished he’d said more. It was only now that he realised how much his old life had mattered to him.

  He wondered if he would ever see her again.

  ‘He opened his eyes a while ago,’ Isaura said, looking from Thorgils to Runa, who stood by Bram, watching him with great concern. He was covered in furs, tucked into one of the beds lining the hall.

  ‘Did he say anything?’ Thorgils asked wearily, squeezing his hands together, trying to feel them again. They had not warmed up since he’d plunged them into the snow, digging out those who could be saved from their broken cottages; from under the dragon.

  And some had been.

  But not many.

  Isaura shook her head. ‘He grabbed Ayla’s hand, didn’t he?’ she said, smiling at the dreamer who had stopped by to check on Bram.

  Ayla nodded. ‘He did. His leg is broken, but it will heal. He must have landed on something, which damaged his chest, so he is struggling to breathe. But he was lucky. Something stopped that dragon from crushing him. It could have been a lot worse.’ She couldn’t offer anything more than that. Everyone agreed that the injury to Bram’s chest was a worry, and no one was confidently predicting his recovery yet.

  Gant and Eadmund came in through the doors, sleepy-eyed and wet through.

  Dawn had been struggling to break through the snowstorm, but it had finally eased enough to give them a chance to check how things stood in the fort.

  And it was even worse than they’d imagined.

  ‘We need to set up more places to bring the injured,’ Eadmund said, yawning as they walked over to Thorgils.

  ‘Not just the injured,’ Gant added. ‘We have to find places for those who have lost their homes. It’s too cold to be outside for now. The Tuurans in the tents will freeze. The sea-fire’s almost out, but we don’t know how long this blizzard will last. We have to bring them into the fort. Find them somewhere warm to stay.’

  Eadmund frowned instinctively as Ivaar emerged from behind the grey curtain. ‘We need to move the sea-fire jars that are still intact,’ he said, glaring at his brother. ‘Can you and your men do that? You’ll need to take them to the eastern side of the fort, away from the last of the flames,’ he suggested, glancing at Gant, who nodded in agreement.

  ‘We can,’ Ivaar said wearily. He’d been hoping for a drink and a moment to thaw himself by a fire, but if the sea-fire wasn’t stored safely, there’d be more flames than anyone wanted soon.

  Eadmund clapped Thorgils on the shoulder. ‘Can you come with us? We need all the help we can get.’

  Thorgils nodded, grabbing his cloak which he’d left drying by the fire.

  ‘Maybe you should try and organise some food?’ Gant suggested, glancing at Isaura and Runa. ‘For those who have an appetite, at least. Something hot in their bellies might be welcome.’

  ‘Of course,’ Isaura said, looking around for Biddy, who had mentioned the same thing earlier.

  Eadmund blinked, following Gant and Thorgils to the doors, trying to keep the constant visions of Evaine out of his mind.

  There was too much to do to listen to that desperate voice in his head.

  As soon as the blizzard eased, Aron walked Edela and Eydis back to the cottage. Edela had looked ready to fall down from exhaustion, and Branwyn had firmly insisted that her mother would be more use once she’d had some sleep.

  For once, Edela had not argued with the fussing. She could barely keep her eyes open. It had been a tragic night for Andala, and she had worked hard to help as many people as she could. There were burns and cuts. Broken bones. Crushed limbs.

  Homes were shattered. Part of the fort was destroyed.

  And then there was the Widow.

  Edela tucked Eydis into Biddy’s bed, and quickly crawled into her own, grateful that her kind grandson had stayed behind to light a fire. The flames helped to warm the cottage, and as she rolled over, they revealed how worried Eydis was. And Edela, despite needing sleep, was determined to get to the bottom of it. ‘What do you think the Widow was scared of, then?’

  Eydis frowned, running her hand over Vella’s fluffy back. ‘I don’t think she was scared. It wasn’t that. I thought she was crying.’

  Edela shivered, suddenly worried about Jael. She took a slow, deep breath and exhaled, clearing her mind. Throughout Jael’s life, Edela had always been confident in her granddaughter’s safety; convinced that if something was going to happen to her, she would be warned. She opened her eyes, relieved to feel that same sense of certainty was still there. But as for what was wrong with the Widow... ‘And she said goodbye to you? It seems a little odd. Unless she said it before?’

  ‘No.’

  Edela listened to the pop of the fire and thought about the dragon. It was almost too unbelievable to be real.

  ‘She helped us. She wanted to save us,’ Eydis murmured.

  ‘If she hadn’t, that dragon would have destroyed the entire fort. Burned us all to ash. I don’t think the gods could have stopped it, even with all that wind and snow.’

  Eydis yawned, feeling her mind drift. ‘Maybe she’s saying that she can’t help us anymore?’

  ‘You might be right, Eydis. And if that’s the case, I fear what it means for us all. But especially...’ Edela rolled over, yawning herself, curling into a frozen ball. ‘Especially for Jael and Aleksander.’ She closed her eyes, trying to get the terrifying sound of the dragon out of her head.

  Meena’s dreams were filled with dragons.

  Nightmares of fire and death.

  Her ears echoed with screams.

  ‘And soon it will be your turn. If you’re not careful, girl, soon Draguta will kill you. Can’t you see? Not much of a dreamer are you if you can’t see what’s right in front of you. That woman. Always watching.’

  The laughter was old and familiar, scratching at her like branches against a window pane.

  ‘She sees everything. Hears everything too. And soon she will come for you!’

  Meena jerked awake, panting in the darkness.

  36

  As dawn forced its way in through the wood’s canopy, Jael and Aleksander hurried to leave their campsite.

  ‘The only thing we can do now is get to the Widow’s cottage as quickly as possible,’ Jael muttered, running her hand down Tig’s face as he nuzzled against her, looking for a treat. ‘We can’t help anyone in Andala until we have that book.’

  Aleksander nodded, hoping the weather would warm up again soon. ‘We might get there by nightfall,’ he suggested, adjusting his scabbard.

  Jael peered at him, hearing the uncertainty in his voice. ‘You don’t know where we are, do you?’

  Aleksander sucked in a smoky breath. ‘Well,’ he sighed, ‘not at the moment. We’ve been turned around so many times now. I... can’t get my bearings.’

  Jael frowned, thinking of the vision of the woman she’d seen showing her the path. ‘She wants us to come, so she’ll lead us to her, won’t she?’

  Aleksander shrugged and stuck his foot in a stirrup, throwing himself up into his wet saddle. ‘I hope so.’ And he did. More than anything, he wanted to hear that voice in his head again, telling them where to go.

  Bayla held her two-year-old granddaughter’s tiny hand, wondering how much more her family would have to suffer.

  Berard sat on Halla’s other side, trying to calm her while Entorp dabbed a sweet-smelling salve over the cuts on her face. Some of them were very deep. The rafters had splintered, and Entorp had spent a long time pulling out each shard of wood, carefully stitching up the worst of them.

  But Halla would recover, unlike Irenna.

  Berard didn’t want to think about Irenna. He didn’t want to remember her dead body lying on the broken bed, entombed in snow. He tried to think of other things, such as what was happening in the fort or wondering how Hanna was. She was being kept next door in a smaller shed, away from everyone else. Her father was with her, caring for her. He was glad to think that she wasn’t alone. But Hanna had only gone to Saala because of his arm, and Berard felt the heavy weight of guilt pushing down on his shoulders.

  If only he had taken that book, Irenna and Haegen would be alive.

  Perhaps, even his father too.

  And Hanna would not be sick.

  ‘Berard!’ Karsten called from his stool by the fire where he’d sat slumped over for some time. ‘Go and eat something.’

  Berard shook his head. Halla was so scared. He didn’t want to leave her. She kept crying for her mother. It broke his heart. ‘I’m not hungry,’ he insisted.

  Karsten got up from his stool and stretched out his aching back. ‘You can’t do anything now, except get stronger,’ he groaned. ‘It’s the only way you can help us.’

  Berard sighed, realising that Karsten was right. He squeezed Halla’s hand and smiled at her before walking over to Nicolene who was spooning what looked like porridge into bowls for the children. The smell made Berard want to vomit, making him wonder if he had the sickness too.

  Karsten inclined his head towards Valder and Lucina, who were sitting together on a bed, eyes down, staring at their socks. Neither had uttered a word since they’d been moved into the shed. ‘Come on, you two, come to the table and have some porridge.’

  They didn’t even raise their heads.

  Karsten didn’t blame them. They’d lost their father and mother now. It was too much for anyone. But they had to eat. ‘I think Nicolene has some honey to go with the porridge, don’t you? Maybe some berries?’

  Nicolene nodded mutely, sprinkling a few raspberries into each bowl, though she had no appetite herself. The smell of the sea-fire smoke was strong in the breezy shed, but it was not as stomach-churning as the smell coming from Hanna next door. She clamped her lips together and tried not to inhale.

  Karsten walked over to his niece and nephew, grabbing their hands and easing them off the bed. He didn’t want to speak at all, but they had to help each other survive what had happened.

  And prepare for what might be coming next.

  Draguta peeled open one eye.

  Bright morning light shone in through the fluttering curtains, but she was so weary. Not ready to wake.

  Closing her eye, Draguta sighed, happy to think that she had finally drawn her sister out of her little hole. In the end, as predicted, she had not been able to resist helping those pathetic humans. Saving them from the dragon. Well, not all of them, Draguta smiled. But if her sister hadn’t revealed herself when she had, there would have been nothing left of Andala.

  Nothing but warm ash and charred bones.

  The Furycks still lived, but the symbols were useless against her now, and more importantly, Draguta had seen where her sister was hiding.

  The snow finally stopped falling, but it still felt colder than Oss in the depths of winter, which was just as well, Eadmund decided as he watched Ivaar and his men working to move the sea-fire jars. He didn’t want any of those fires sparking back to life.

  Eadmund blew on his hands, trying to get some feeling back into them. He hadn’t packed his gloves, not thinking he’d need them in summer.

  ‘Any idea how we’re going to get this flying worm out of here?’ Thorgils muttered, jiggling on the spot beside him; hungry, freezing, and half asleep.

  Eadmund shrugged, still in shock as he stared at the dragon whose dead body curled around the fort like a range of black, snow-capped mountains. ‘We’re going to need a lot of rope.’

  Thorgils nodded. ‘A lot of rope... a lot of hands. Horses too. It’s three times as big as the serpent!’

  ‘At least. But we can’t start repairing the wall if we don’t get the dragon out of it. We have to move it quickly,’ Eadmund said, turning to Gant and Oleg who joined them, shivering beneath thick fur cloaks.

  Gant frowned, unable to stop staring at the dragon; still wondering if he was dreaming. ‘It’s going to take a long time to repair the wall. And in the meantime, we’re exposed. There’s nothing to stop them attacking us now. No symbols. No Jael.’

  No one spoke, but Oleg could hear the anxiety in Gant’s voice. He’d never heard him sound so rattled.

  ‘We have to prepare what we can,’ Eadmund said, glancing around. ‘We need to gather our armies. Organise a defense. We can’t just sit here and hope that Eydis can stop the next attack. We don’t even know what’s happened to Jael and Aleksander. Whether they’re still alive? Maybe Draguta’s already killed them?’

  Thorgils’ grainy eyes widened in surprise.

  There was no feeling in Eadmund’s voice at all.

  ‘Jael and Aleksander are the two most determined people I know,’ Gant said, not liking the dismissive tone of Eadmund’s voice either. ‘Nothing will stop them from getting back here. Not a dragon or a Draguta!’ He tugged on his beard, thinking of Ranuf, and of the years they had spent training Jael and Aleksander together. Training them to withstand every sort of enemy they could think of.

  Except, of course, magic books and dragons.

  ‘Hurry.’

  It was barely a whisper, and Aleksander had almost closed his eyes as he rode through the trees, his head nodding in time to Sky’s rhythmic walk. He jerked around in surprise, thinking it was Jael, but she was ducking a branch, not even looking his way. Turning back around, he quickly dropped beneath a branch of his own. Progress had been slow since they’d left their camp, which didn’t trouble Aleksander as much as the fact that he still had no idea where they were going.

  ‘Left. Go left.’

  Aleksander swallowed, glancing to his left. There didn’t appear any way through the thicket of trees. He frowned, then looked again, his eyes brightening. ‘This way!’ he called, tugging on Sky’s reins.

  He could see a path now.

  Axl felt overwhelmed.

  The dragon.

  The giant hole in the wall.

  The sickness.

  Many of his people were dead. Their homes were crushed, burned to ash. His harbour was wrecked. He was struggling to think; frustrated that there was little he could do to help. But he had his cousin Aron and his crutch, and he hobbled around the snow-blanketed fort as quickly as he could, leaning on Aron when it became too much.

  Kormac and Aedan walked with them.

  ‘It will take some time to get that dragon out of here,’ Kormac frowned. ‘And we’ll have to clean up the wall before we can start any repairs.’

 

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