Scarlett Meris's Arc

Chapter 3 of 15

Brynn's finger stayed on the mark. Before Scarlett could ask another question, a low horn rolled through the hills — the healing house's warning bell, rigged to the ridge wire. A second dragon was down. Scarlett was on the door before Brynn spoke. "East slope," Brynn said. "The wire runs to the pines." "Watch the pup." Scarlett grabbed her satchel and ran. She found her mount waiting in the paddock and swung up without a saddle. They climbed hard. From the ridge she saw it — a young bronze dragon crumpled in the bracken, one wing bent wrong. Four hunters worked toward it through the brush. Two carried the same short bows that had shot the pup. Scarlett banked low and rolled her mount sideways, dropping behind the nearest hunter before he could raise his bow. She kicked him flat and drove past the second. The bronze thrashed. A barb jutted from its shoulder, the shaft etched with three lines crossed by a fourth. The third hunter loosed. The bolt caught her mount across the ribs. They fell hard into the bracken. Scarlett rolled clear and came up with her knife. She cut the closest bowstring, then his belt, then his leg. He went down screaming. The fourth hunter ran. She crawled to the bronze. Its eye tracked her, then stopped tracking. The barb had gone deep. Blood ran black at the edges. She reached for the red petals in her satchel and packed them into the wound, but the chest had already stilled under her hand. Too late. She sat back on her heels in the wet bracken and pressed her palms against her thighs until they stopped shaking. A branch cracked. She spun with the knife. A man stood between the pines. Dark coat, dragon-scale buttons at the cuff, violet eyes. One hand stayed in his pocket, closed around something with corners. Scarlett had seen him twice at the healing house door, always after dark, always alone. "Kieran," she said. He looked at the bronze. Then at the barb in her hand. "Same mark." "Same ship." She held it out. "Fae-flagged. Out of the city." His jaw set. He took the barb and turned it in the low light. "My father's harbor." "Your father." "Runs the docks." He closed his fist on the shaft. "Signs the manifests." "Fae don't hunt dragons." "Someone in our court does." He tucked the barb inside his coat, beside the thing with corners. "I need this. Quietly." "You'll tell me what you find." "Tonight. At the house." He looked once more at the dead bronze, then back at her. "Move the pup. If they tracked this one, they'll track yours." He walked into the pines. Scarlett dragged herself up. Her mount was breathing but wouldn't fly by dusk. The bronze was gone. The pup at the healing house was next on someone's list, and the list was written in her own court's ink.