ever since.
“Mum.”
“Heard you ran into a spot of trouble.”
“Aye, but nothing we couldn’t handle. Had the triplets with me.”
“They’re growing into right little brawlers, my girls, eh?”
Rhona cringed at the description because she didn’t raise brawlers. She raised warriors. Yet her mother saw it as a compliment, so Rhona didn’t argue with her.
“They are. Getting better every day.”
“Your Uncle Bercelak will probably want them to go to Anubail Mountain next year.”
“Great. I can’t wait for them to go.” All right. She was outright lying now. And it wasn’t that she didn’t want her sisters to go and follow the path of the Dragonwarrior as their other siblings had. But of all Bradana’s offspring whom Rhona had raised over the years, she’d become closest to her youngest sisters. Of course she’d actually been there when they’d battled their way out of their egg, head-butting and biting and lashing each other with their tails. Her mother usually stayed around for the hatching, but just before the triplets came along she’d rushed off to raid some traitor dragon’s fortress, thinking she’d be back in time—she wasn’t.
“And,” her mother continued, scratching the vicious scar across her throat with the tip of her tail, “you can go with them. You all can train together. Won’t that be fun?”
Tricky. Her mother was definitely tricky. Bradana knew how much the triplets meant to Rhona and clearly she wasn’t above using that love to get what she wanted. And what she wanted was for Rhona to take the path of the Dragonwarrior. Like all her other offspring and like most of the Cadwaladr Clan. There was just one problem with that plan—Rhona had no desire to become a Dragonwarrior. Much to her mother’s annoyance, Rhona was perfectly satisfied with what she was doing. She was a soldier and a damn good one.
Why did her mother have such an issue with that?
So Rhona said, “I’m sure they’ll be fine. Without me.”
“Your Uncle Bercelak is offering you an opportunity.”
“And I appreciate that. But I don’t need it.”
Rhona turned to go, needing that bath more and more.
“I didn’t dismiss you,” her mother snapped and Rhona rounded on her.
“Which is it, Mum? Are you my mother at this moment or my commanding officer? Because I can walk away from me mum!”
“I’m both!”
“Can’t be! One or the other! Pick!”
“Don’t snarl at me, you viperous little—”
Rhona raised a talon, cutting her mother off, and looked behind her. “You lot,” she snapped at the three soldiers standing behind her, one of which was nursing his right forearm. “What happened?”
“His arm. It got crushed in the tunnels.”
Turning away from her mother, Rhona went to the young soldier. “That’s broken. You.” She pointed at the gold dragon. “Take him to the healer. And you”—she pointed at the Lightning—“back to the tunnels. The commanders need all available troops working there. Now go.”
Rhona faced her mother and asked, “So where were we? Oh. Yes. I’m a viperous little . . . what was the rest of it?”
Slamming down her tail, her mother marched off. Rhona knew this argument wasn’t over, though. Not when it had been going on since the first time Rhona turned down her Uncle Bercelak’s offer to train at Anubail Mountain. As consort of Her Majesty, the Dragon Queen, and commander of the Queen’s armies, Bercelak the Great did not offer the chance to be one of the legendary Dragonwarriors lightly. In fact, Rhona’s mother had actually left mid-battle to seek out her daughter and tell her what an idiot she was being by turning Bercelak down. But Rhona would not let her mother bully her, cajole her, or finesse her into changing her mind. Rhona prided herself on knowing her strengths and weaknesses. Her strength was being as stubborn as her mother. And her weakness was not wanting to be a Dragonwarrior. All right. Perhaps not a true weakness, but her mother seemed to think it was.
“You all right?”
Rhona looked at her younger sister Delen.
“Aye. Just the same damn argument. How can she never get bored with it?”
“The beauty of Mum is that she never gets bored. She can kill and kill for days at a time without ever feeling boredom. I think that’s a foreign word to her. Like rational. Or caring.”
Rhona laughed with her sister, putting her arm around her shoulders. “Excellent point. And how are you doing?”
“Fine. I’ll be working in the tunnels the next couple of days with my troops. I’m hoping to push them along to get the tunnel done. Sooner we can get under those mountains, the sooner we can wipe out the Irons and go home. Unlike our mother, I do get bored. Now”—her sister patted Rhona’s shoulder with her tail—“why don’t you go on and take your break. You’ve been working nonstop for days. You’re no use to any of us if you’re asleep once we hit the other side.”
Rhona chuckled. “Good point.”
“You going for a bath?” her sister whispered.
“Trying to.”
“Take that exit.” She pointed at a narrow tunnel cut through the cave rock. “You’ll have to go outside for a bit, but you’ll avoid Mum.”
“Thanks, luv.”
Rhona slipped away without being noticed and eased through the narrow tunnel until she found herself on the mountain’s summit. She stopped, gazing out over Euphrasia Valley. A stretch of land caught in the middle of the Northland territories, the Western Mountains, and the Southlands. A rough and dangerous valley with thick, almost junglelike forests during the summer and brutally cold winds and ice storms during the winter. It was surrounded by a ring of mountains in varying sizes. They’d made the Hesiod Mountains their stronghold while the Irons were directly opposite from them using the Polycarp Mountains as their protection. Could be worse, though. At least they had access to fresh water and supplies.
“Nice, yeah?”
Rhona’s shoulders slumped, her eyes closing. “I can’t get a break,” she sighed.
“Now what did I do?”
She didn’t bother facing the Lightning. What was the point?
“Nothing.” She started to walk across the ridge of the summit, but the Lightning cut in front of her.
“What if I bought you a long sword?”
“What?” What was he babbling about? Gods! She only wanted a bath!
“A long sword. To replace your spear.”
“I don’t need you to buy me anything.
