The Dragon's Path

way. Maybe if…
    Grit in the chilly air made her eyes water, and she wiped the tears away with the back of her hand. On the way home, she stopped at a public house and drank a mug of the samekind of fortified wine Sandr had brought her that day by the mill pond.
    It didn’t taste as good.
    A ll well?” Captain Wester snapped as she came in. “You were gone a long time.”
    “Fine,” she said shortly. “Everything’s fine.”

Dawson
     
    D awson Kalliam found Kavinpol ugly. The city squatted with one leg on either side of the river Uder, its buildings stuccoed a scabrous red-grey. The local food founded itself on onions and fish pulled from the same water into which the sewers emptied. Too many cycles of freeze and thaw cracked the streets, leaving pools of half-frozen mud to break the leg of an unwary horse. And in the center of it all, Lord Ternigan’s estate with hunting grounds walled away from the city like a glorified lawn garden. In any other year, Dawson would have stayed on his estate with Clara and whichever of his sons chose to winter there rather than follow the hunt here.
    This winter, though, the hunt had taken on a different meaning. Ternigan’s tame deer and hand-raised quail weren’t the prize Dawson tracked. And private audiences with the king were much easier to arrange when it was the king who wanted them.
    “God
damn
it, Kalliam. I’m trying to keep peace, and you’re killing people in the streets?”
    The ceiling of the king’s chamber vaulted up into the soot-muddied dimness above them. Great windows looked out over the city, boasts made of glass and iron. Overstated and gaudy, the architecture spoke of glory and power, and what it said was:
You may have these or comfort, but not both.
    Dawson looked at his childhood friend. The months of winter had etched a frown into the corners of his mouth and left grey at his temples like the first frost. Or perhaps the signs of age and weakness had always been there, and Dawson hadn’t been willing to see them until now. The jewel-studded robes that Simeon wore—even the crown itself—looked less like the raiments of power and greatness than they had in the autumn. Instead, they were the empty form of it, like a dry pitcher waiting to be filled. Dawson knew the response that Simeon and etiquette expected.
Forgive me, sire.
    “Nobler blood’s spilled in Camnipol every time someone slaughters a pig,” Dawson said. “They were Issandrian’s thugs.”
    “You have proof of that?”
    “Of course I can’t prove it, but we both know they were. His or Maas’s, it hardly matters. And you wouldn’t be pulling my leash if you believed they were street toughs with poor aim.”
    The pause weighted the air. Simeon rose. His boots scraped against the stone floor. Around them, the chamber’s tapestries shifted, and the king’s guard kept their silent watch. Dawson wished they could be truly alone. The guards were servants, but they were also men.
    “Your Majesty,” Dawson said, “I think you fail to understand the loyalty all around you. My own included. I have spent the season having private conversations with the highest-born men in Antea, and there is a wide support for you against Issandrian and his pack.”
    “Issandrian and his pack are also my subjects,” Simeon said. “I can make the argument that feeding unrest is in itself acting against me.”
    “We are acting
for
you, Simeon. The men I have spokenwith are united in
your
name. I only wish you were with us.”
    “If I start declaring war on parts of the nobility only because they happen to be in ascendance at the moment—”
    “Is that what you’ve heard me say? Simeon, I have spent months cajoling and promising everyone I could find with any influence on Ternigan. He is ready to pull Klin from Vanai. All he needs is a signal from you.”
    “If I take sides in this, it will end in blood.”
    “And if you don’t the kingdom will have unending peace and light? You know better than that.”
    “The dragons—”
    “The dragons didn’t fall because there was a war. There was a war because there wasn’t a leader. A family needs a father, and a kingdom needs a king. It is your duty to lead, and if you fail in that, the day will come when they follow someone else.
Then
we will be on the dragon’s path.”
    Simeon shook his head. The firelight reflected in his eyes. Outside, a cold wind whirled, smelling of winter. Snow like a fall of ashes whirled past the windows.
    “A