“I’m careful. It just seems like she watches out for everyone else but no one watches out for her. Besides . . . I think she likes it.”
“Real y?”
“Yes. She just hasn’t realized it yet.”
“Aaah,” Dagmar said at the same moment Rhona bounded down the castle stairs, her weapons strapped to her back and wearing what appeared to be the clothes Annwyl had left behind.
“Did you eat?” Vigholf demanded as she headed out the Great Hal ’s big front doors.
Rhona’s answer was to flick two fingers at Vigholf and keep going.
“See?” Vigholf pointed out with a shocking amount of confidence. “She likes it.” Now Dagmar knew. When it came to females, Vigholf was nothing like his brother—but he was a true Northlander.
Sulien held up the broken spear, one piece in each hand. “A warhammer did this?”
“You saw that hammer the Lightning almost hit Addolgar with. And that’s not even the one he uses during battles. That one is bloody huge. Nearly as big as the bastard’s head.”
Her father chuckled and stepped around her. “The only purpose of this spear was to protect you—and it did. Its job is now done.” He started to throw the pieces into a bin he kept for trash.
“Don’t you dare throw that out.”
“Why not? It’s broken, and repairing it would be useless. It’l only break again.”
“But you made it for me.”
“You cling to what is meaningless, child. Just like your mother sometimes, only with her it’s mostly grudges.” He tossed the spear into the trash, and Rhona had to fight every instinct she had to not dive into that bucket after it.
“Besides,” her father continued, “I have something better.”
Sulien crouched in front of a trunk, opened it. “I was going to give it to you when I saw you back at home, but this is even better.” Her father stood and handed her a smal metal stick. She’d guess it was only three feet long—and that was it.
“Oh . . . a stick. How . . . uh . . . nice.”
“Don’t be foolish, Rhona. It’s more than a stick.”
He took it from her, held it in his big hand. And Rhona smiled when a sharpened tip suddenly appeared at the end. “Oh! It’s a long knife.” Then it extended another four or five feet, turning it into a metal spear. “Oh, Daddy! That’s—” It extended again and grew wider, stretching to and through the opening at the top of the tent.
Eyes wide, Rhona grinned. “That’s . . .” She simply didn’t have words for what it was. There were quite a few weapons among their kind, many of them created by her father or his kin, that could extend from smal to big and back again, so that the dragons using them wouldn’t have to constantly switch weapons depending on their current forms. Usual y banging the weapon at a certain angle on its base extended it or a shield and they were easy enough to make smal again.
But this . . .
“No matter what form you’re in, you’ve got a weapon.”
“What do I press?”
“Nothing.” The spear quickly slipped into its original size, and her father handed it to her.
“But . . .” After years of training by her father’s side, before she’d joined Her Majesty’s Army, Rhona knew what was needed for their weapons to work. “Don’t you need a chant? A spel ? Something?”
“Only in the creation of it.” He leaned in. “Want me to show you?”
“Are you joking? Yes! ”
He laughed. “Go on and try it first. See what it can do.”
Rhona held the weapon in her hand. It seemed so . . . ordinary. A metal stick. Nothing more. But then she cal ed for the tip and it was there. She used her free hand to touch it.
“Careful,” her father warned. “It’s bloody sharp.”
It was. And Rhona was delighted.
She cal ed forth the spear, and the weapon lengthened and grew. It was the perfect height for her, too. As tal as her with the tip extending just past her head.
Rhona dropped into a crouch, one leg stretched out to the side, the weapon now in both hands. A low attack.
Her father stood back and watched her, his smile warm. When she was younger and home more, they often did this. He’d create new weapons and she’d try them out for him. It was the main reason she had proficiency with more weapons than most Dragonwarriors.
She thrust the spear, stood, and swiped it through the air.
“Daddy, I love the weight.”
“Light, yeah? But combined with your strength . . . deadly just the same.”
“I love it,” she gushed. “I absolutely love it.”
“Cal its ful length. You can stil handle it while human even at that length and width.” Excited to try, Rhona aimed the weapon toward the exit and away from her father. She cal ed forth the dragon-sized weapon and happily watched as it grew in her hands, the length of it reaching past the tent flaps and—
“Owwwwww! Gods-dammit, female! ”
With a thought, Rhona retracted her weapon. A few seconds later, the Lightning stumbled into the tent, blood flowing from his shoulder, lightning sparking from his body.
“I told ya!” he bel owed “What happened to your spear was an accident!” They shoved Vigholf into a chair and the two Fire Breathers leaned down to get a better look at his wound. Without much effort, he could see the resemblance between father and daughter. Although Rhona was much prettier.
“He’l live,” the male said, appearing quite disinterested in Vigholf’s wound.
“Why is it when I come to this bloody kingdom by invitation, I’m nearly kil ed?”
“Luck?” Rhona asked.
Along with Ragnar and Meinhard, Vigholf had escorted Keita and Éibhear to the Southlands five years ago just before the war with the Irons began. He’d had his first introduction to the infamous Annwyl the Bloody when she’d charged him and Meinhard. Then, while they tried to keep the crazed monarch at bay, she’d gone for Vigholf’s head—and took his hair instead. When it happened, it had been humiliating. A shame he was sure he’d never recover from. But as Vigholf got to know Annwyl better, he quickly realized that he was lucky to have kept his head at al .
Rhona’s father leaned in to take a closer look at the wound. “I can fix this.” He reached for him, and Vigholf couldn’t help but scramble out of the chair that held him.
“No offense if I’d rather not be tended to by a blacksmith.”
“Don’t be such a baby,” Rhona chastised. “Me da’s good with a needle and thread.”
“Your da can keep his needle and thread to himself, thanks.”
Rhona folded her arms over her chest. “So what are you going to do? Wander around al evening bleeding like a stuck cow until you pass out and die and we’re forced to quickly burn your remains so the stink of your corpse won’t bother the children?”
“Your concern for my wel -being overwhelms me, Sergeant.”
“You shouldn’t have been fol owing me, Commander.”
“Who said I was?”
“Common sense?”
“I don’t know who that is,” he muttered, turning away and looking over the blacksmith’s work area.
“If you’re not going to let my father tend your wounds, at least see the healers by the lake. They’l help you.”
“No need.” Vigholf, pul ing off his chain-mail shirt, walked over to the forge and picked up a poker that stil sat in the burning coals.
“Wait—” Rhona cried out as he pressed the poker to his open wound, sealing it closed. It hurt, but nothing he couldn’t handle. Once he knew he’d stopped the bleeding, Vigholf pul ed the poker away, ignoring the bits of skin that went with it, and tossed it back into the forge. When he faced father and daughter, he found them gawking at him. Rhona’s mouth was open, but her father was grinning, even laughing a little.
“You are a mad bastard,” she whispered.
“What? It’s done, isn’t it?” He pul ed his shirt back on. “Now—” Vigholf began until that familiar scent caught his attention, and he moved quickly toward the tent opening, ignoring the way Rhona scrabbled out of his way as if he was some dangerous animal.
Such an odd female.
Rhona watched the crazed male walk out of her father’s forge and she couldn’t help but fol ow, curious to see what had caught his relentless attention. She was taken by surprise, though, when she saw the Lightning put his arms around an older She-dragon in human form.
“Mum,” she heard him whisper.
“My dear, sweet son,” the female whispered back. “Oh, how I’ve missed you so.” Al right. That surprised Rhona. Not that the Lightning had a mother, but that he’d treat her so . . . tenderly.
Rhona’s father tapped her shoulder and she stepped back into the tent.
“You want to tel me what’s going on? Why are you really here?” her father asked, and al Rhona could do was shrug.
“You know me, Daddy. I fol ow orders and don’t ask questions. Especial y when it’s al coming from the royal side of my kin.”
“Not like your mother at al .”
“As she likes to remind me.”
Her father put his arm around her shoulders. “She just doesn’t understand you. But it’s not your job to help her with that.”
“But—”
“No time to discuss.” He laughingly pushed her toward the forge. “You’ve got work to do, child. And I have much to teach you in a short amount of time. So to work with you!”
“What are you doing here, Vigholf?” his mother asked, her hand reaching up and stroking his jaw. “Is everything al right?”
“Everything’s fine, Mum. I promise.”
“Then why—”
“It’s complicated. But you,” he asked, changing the subject, “are you al right? Are you safe?”
“I’ve been treated like a princess since I’ve been here.” Davon the Elegant leaned in and whispered, “I’m considered a returned prisoner of war, so they’re al very gentle with me and give me lots of things. It’s been nice.”
“Mum.”
“Wel , if it hadn’t been for my wonderful sons, it would have been horrible living with your father. But you al looked out for me. So it’s easy for me to sit back and enjoy the pity.”
“As long as you’re safe, Mum. That’s al Ragnar and I care about. That’s al we’ve ever cared about.” She pushed long gold hair behind her ear. “I’m fine. I promise.”
He stepped back and took his mother’s hand. “Then I want you to meet someone.”
“Oh?”
“No. Nothing like that,” he laughed and pul ed her toward the tent, lifting the flap so he could escort her in. But Vigholf stopped right at the entrance, his eyes on Rhona as she worked at her father’s forge with a skil he’d only seen in blacksmiths who’d been working for hundreds of years. She swung a hammer, working away at some weapon.