Wind blew, scented of rot and blood. A distant scream rose—the demons claiming another bride or perhaps slaying another weredragon. So much death, so much pain; how could she stop this?

"My father is in the north now, hunting Laira," she whispered to herself. "Taal . . . please. Please let Laira kill him." She found herself clenching her fists. "Let my father, King Raem Seran, die in dragonfire."

The thought horrified her, and she gasped and covered her mouth. She was his daughter! She was Princess Issari Seran, heiress to the throne!

She tightened her jaw. Her knees shook. She reached into her robes and clutched the hilt of her dagger. She pulled her hood low, climbed off the wall, and walked home in silence.

LAIRA

 
LAIRA

When dawn broke, Laira felt so cold, hurt, and weak that she wasn't sure she could rise.

She lay under the pile of leaves, her breath frosted. When she touched her hair—short, ragged strands Zerra had cut himself—she found it frosted into hard spikes. Fingers numb, she parted the blanket of dry leaves covering her and gazed up at the forest. Mist floated, and the boles of maples and birches seemed black in the dawn, rising to an orange canopy. A murder of crows sat upon the branches, staring down at her with beady eyes.

They're waiting for me to die, she thought. But I won't.

She rose. Naked and trembling, she approached the branch where she had hung her patchwork fur cloak to dry. It was still wet. Laira hugged herself, shivering, teeth chattering. She should never have washed the garments in the river; she should have let the dung dry, then shaken off the flecks. Now the cold would kill her just as readily as the rocs or her wounds. She examined those wounds and winced. The welts on her feet were swollen, and one seemed full of pus.

"It's infected," she whispered, every word sending out puffs of frost. "I need healing herbs or the rot will crawl up my leg."

She wondered if she could find another tribe; others wandered the plains and forests, hunting and gathering and sometimes battling one another, and they had shamans of their own, perhaps less cruel than Shedah who would only scorn, strike, and spit upon Laira whenever she asked for a poultice. Yet Laira remembered the few times she had seen the other tribes, nomadic groups bearing their own totems—bronzed skulls of beasts, gilded buffalo horns, and even one tribe that bore the mummified body of a goddess child. Whenever Goldtusk would come across another tribe, arrows flew, spears thrust, and often lives were lost.

"If they find me, they'll know I'm a stranger," Laira said through chattering teeth. "They'll kill me or worse—capture me to be their slave. They will not heal me."

But . . . they could heal her.