“They burn an effigy of you every new season to celebrate the end of the dark nights,” Briec pointed out, which got a little smile from Annwyl.
“Then what are you suggesting?” Dagmar asked.
Rhiannon again pointed at the map. “There are two passes through those mountains. One goes directly into Annaig Valley and the other goes into the Outerplains—”
“And right into tribal territory. Again, Rhiannon, that second pass is just as narrow as the first and—”
“We need an alliance with those tribes.”
Annwyl shook her head. “No.”
“Why not?”
“They’re slavers. You know my feeling on slavers.”
“The Riders of the Western Mountains are slavers. I’m talking about the Riders of the Outerplains. The Daughters of the Steppes. And they don’t sell slaves.”
“But they do raid and destroy towns and cities that won’t pay them their ‘taxes’ as they like to call it,” Fearghus reminded her. “Mum, they’re a nightmare.”
“And they hate us,” Annwyl added. “All of us. Not just me. They think Southlanders are worthless and corrupt. They won’t have anything to do with us.”
“Yes, but—”
“My father tried to arrange an alliance with their leaders and they sent his emissary back, riding on his horse, but when he got close we realized that not only was he dead, but his body had been cut into three distinct pieces.” Annwyl shook her head. “How they got his body to stay up on that horse until it reached my father, I’ve never figured out. And I’ve tried.”
“Yes, yes, I know all that. But then when I was thinking about it today, I remembered that the Steppes Riders had recently sent one of their own to kill me!”
The best part of that statement, Celyn realized, was how happy and proud Rhiannon looked when she said it. Her obliviousness was what made Celyn’s job so very wonderful.
“Wait . . . what? What?” Bercelak sputtered. “What are you saying to me?”
“Oh, don’t get so upset, Bercelak.”
“Someone was sent to kill you and no one told me? Me?”
“Perhaps no one told you because you get kind of hysterical?” Gwenvael asked. But when his father turned those black eyes on him, the gold dragon picked up Brannie and held her in front of his body like a shield.
“Really?” Brannie asked her cousin. “I mean . . . really?”
“Gwenvael, put her down,” Rhiannon ordered. “And Bercelak, stop huffing and puffing. It was not a big issue at all.”
“How could it not be? They sent someone here to kill you.”
“Not really. The poor thing was kind of sad and pathetic. I just couldn’t have her executed. She broke my heart.”
Her cold, dead heart, Brannie joked inside Celyn’s head, forcing him to bite his tongue so he didn’t laugh out loud. It was a gift dragons had. The ability to talk to siblings or a parent using only their minds. It was a gift that Celyn often appreciated. More than once he’d called his kin to his side when he’d needed them most.
“I don’t care how pathetic and sad she was,” Bercelak snapped back at his mate. “She should have been executed.”
“Oh, Bercelak, clearly that’s what her tribe leader was trying to do. She sent the girl here, alone, to kill me. Not just any dragon. But me. And as someone who was left at your doorstep by my own mother in the hopes that you’d kill me, I feel for her.”
“Fine. We’ll feel for her as we string her up and—”
“No. That is not what we’re going to do. Instead, we’re going to use her. To send our message to the head of all the tribes in the Outerplains.”
“Wait.” Annwyl scratched her neck. “You want the person they sent here to die at your hand to go back and negotiate an alliance for us?”
“Aye.”
“How is that a good idea?”
“The one who wanted the girl dead was the head of her particular tribe.”
“Which tribe?” Annwyl asked.
“No idea. She said it in her name, but, my gods, that name was so long there’s no way I could be bothered to remember it all.”
“Well, that’s good.”
“But,” Rhiannon went on, ignoring Annwyl’s sarcastic tone, “we don’t want her to negotiate anything with some tribe leader. We want her to negotiate with the head of all the Outerplains tribes. They have a name for her, I just don’t remember what it is. . . .”
“Anne Atli,” Celyn stated. Then he blinked, wondering how he knew that.
“That sounds right.” She smiled at Celyn. “Your parents should be joining us any second so we can now get Bram’s perspective on this.”
“Oh, goody for us,” Bercelak complained.
Brannie, always protective of their father, started to march across the room to say something to their uncle, but Celyn caught her by the back of her shirt and yanked her to his side.
“Not now,” he warned her.
Rhiannon clapped her hands together. “They’re here!” She motioned to Celyn. “Let them in, dear boy.”
Celyn stepped away from the door and opened it, but there was no one standing there. Surprised—Rhiannon usually got that sort of thing right—he stepped out into the hallway and turned, coming face-to-face with his father.
Startled, they both jumped back, then laughed.
“Sorry, Da,” Celyn said, hugging his father.
“It’s all right.” His father’s return hug was warm and loving. Just like the dragon himself.
Against Celyn’s ear, Bram the Merciful asked, “How bad is it?”
“Not too bad. One of Rhiannon’s crazy schemes. Shouldn’t take long to talk her out of it.”
“Good. Good.”
He stepped back and then Celyn’s mother hugged him.
“Hello, Mum.”
“My sweet hatchling. Is everything all right?” She leaned back, peered into his face. “You don’t look well.”
“Went drinking with Brannie last night. I’m still recovering.”
“I thought you knew better.”
“So did I.”
With a wave of his hand, Celyn invited his parents into the war room. Once he closed the door, he turned to find Rhiannon throwing her arms open and moving toward his father with the intent of hugging the poor dragon. Something that Bercelak, after all these years, still hated.
But Bram was not alone. Ghleanna stepped in front of him, blocking the queen from getting near him.
Rhiannon pulled back her arms from her sister-by-mating. Celyn understood why, though. No point in hugging Ghleanna since it wouldn’t make her mate jealous. “Sister. How pleasant to see you. As always.”
“Rhiannon.” Celyn cringed at the way his mother bit out that one word. It was like a curse. Honestly, several centuries and these two still insisted on bickering like a pair of fight dogs over the same bone. The poor bone being Celyn’s father. “Is there something