I was getting a little tired of that question. “Yes, I’m fine. I just had a panic attack and then an out-of-body experience, and quite frankly, please, just give it a rest. I need more food. I need sugar. Caffeine.”

As I mulled over what had happened, I realized that the panic had disappeared. I was still terrified of Hyto, but now the fear was based on the battle we were facing, not what he had already done to me.

“There is no help for it—Smoky, we have to face him. We can’t let him decimate the area.” I pushed away hands that would keep me in bed and stood, the pain in my body substantially less than it had been a few minutes ago. “I’m tired of hiding. I’m tired of being afraid. I’m tired of feeling like my life is out of control. I am going to face him, and I’ll be carrying the horn of the Black Beast when I do. Your father doesn’t know I possess it.”

The cloak made out of the Black Beast’s hide would go a long way toward protecting me, too. I straightened my shoulders. “It’s time to end this.”

Delilah stood beside me. “I’ll be there.”

Smoky frowned. “I don’t want my wife in any more danger from—”

“You idiot. Still you spout off about this?” I hit him lovingly on the arm. “I’m in danger as long as Hyto is alive. I’m in far worse danger if you get yourself killed and I’m still alive. We stand together. We’re husband and wife.”

“And husband.” Trillian stepped forward.

Morio started to pipe up, but I stared him down. “Not you. Shut up. You have every reason for staying in bed, and stay there, you will.”

“I can be of use—”

“Yeah, you’ll be of use all right. I’ll be so worried about you that I won’t be able to concentrate. You stay here, guard Maggie and Iris—”

“Oh no, girl.” Iris slipped through the pack. “I’ll be there with you. My powers are far stronger than they were before we went back to the Northlands. Long have you helped me and protected me. I owe you one, Camille. I owe all of you a great deal. I’ll be there.”

I held up my hand as they all started to chime in. “I got it, I got it. All for one, one for all. But somebody has to stay behind to guard Menolly while she’s asleep, and Maggie, Morio, and Hanna. And Georgio and Estelle.” I looked over at the pair, and they both smiled shyly.

“Fair maiden, what sort of treachery could you possibly worry your beautiful head over?” Georgio said, sweeping into a low bow. “I would be glad to put asunder your worries.”

I quietly walked over to him. “St. George, my stalwart hero. Do not worry yourself over this matter. You stay here and help to guard those who must stay behind, and you will assuage my worries. Will you do that for me?”

He smiled then, his face lighting up. “I will do that and more for you.” With a look over at Smoky, he shook his head. “I still find it odd that you would unite yourself with the dragon—you know I must slay him—but until that day, we stand a truce between us if there is a common enemy come to call.”

Feeling my heart warm, I leaned forward and kissed Georgio on the head. “Brave knight. Stand tall.”

Turning to the others, I shrugged. “Well, then. Trillian, Vanzir, Roz—you three stay here tomorrow. Shade, Delilah, Iris, Smoky, and I will march out to meet . . .” I paused, my gaze flickering over to Georgio. Best he not know another dragon was coming into the mix. He hadn’t figured out Shade yet, which was a good thing. “To meet Hyto.”

Smoky let out a long sigh. “I wish . . . I have to make a quick trip. Stay inside, all of you. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Do not let Camille out of your sight. I implore you.” He slipped on his ankle-length trench and took off out of the door.

“Where’s he going?” Vanzir asked.

“I have no idea,” I said. “Not a clue.”

“I was afraid you might have gone to meet Hyto by yourself—to hunt him down.” I blurted out the words before thinking them through.

Smoky scowled. “No, but that doesn’t mean the thought didn’t occur to me. But no, I had other matters to attend to. Come. We should get some sleep before tomorrow. We’ll need all our energy.”

I bit my lip, staring at the floor. “This may be the last night we all have together. Hyto is ruthless.” Lifting my head, I gazed at each of them, exhausted. “I’m tired.” Part of me felt like we should have sex—celebrate life even in the midst of what we were facing, but the truth was, I was just exhausted. “Sleep with me. Surround me with your love.”

And so they pulled Morio’s bed close to Smoky’s four-poster, and then Smoky, Trillian, and I crawled into the billowy folds of the comforter, and together, pressed warm against each other. I trailed my hand over Trillian’s side to hold Morio’s as we slept.

Breakfast was a silent affair, with Delilah serving fried-egg sandwiches, and Trillian silently fuming. He wanted to come with us, but he knew that we needed him there to protect the others.

Iris had changed clothes, too—she was in her priestess robes, and her hair was done up in a wrap of braids around her head. She carried her wand of Aqualine crystal with her, and as I sat playing with my food, she slipped over to my side.

“Don’t fret. We’ll take care of him.” She lightly touched the collar around my neck. “Something feels different about this.”

I nodded. “I can’t lose it just yet, but the Moon Mother came to me last night, and some of its power has been stripped away. I can’t tell you quite why, but I feel stronger. Ready to face him.” Inside, I was a quivering ball of fear-jelly, but I tried to own the fear and let it go.

Iris smoothed my hair back and braided it. “No sense giving him any advantage,” she said. “I think you’re learning a hard lesson, one that you’ve never been able to accept. You’re learning that you can’t always be the rock, you can’t always be the one who makes things better.”

“I’m not in control of this situation. Only of my reaction to it?” I smiled at her, drinking in her winning smile and brilliant blue gaze. Iris had far more common sense than most people I knew, but she wasn’t soft. She was the epitome of tough love—and she had that rare gift of making you love her for scolding you.

“Ah yes . . . then you are learning.” She stood back, eyeing my hair. “There, done for now. Finish your sandwich and we’ll go.”

“Thank you,” I mumbled, taking another bite. I shoved the last bit of sandwich into my mouth and drank down a huge glass of milk.

Delilah dusted her hands on her jeans. “I can’t believe we’re going to fight a dragon. Smoky, Shade, I just hope that you guys can take care of him, because I’m damned if I know what to do.”

Shade jerked his chin at her, smiling. “You and your sisters need to have higher opinions of yourselves. Come now. Let’s be off and get this done so we can attend to other business.”

His almost laissez-faire attitude went a long way into helping me calm down. Smoky said little, merely pulled me onto his lap and wrapped a gentle arm around my waist. I leaned into him, forehead against forehead, and kissed him lightly.

“We can do this, my husband.”

“We can, my wife.” His voice was calm, but his eyes were flashing with lightning and I knew he would not rest until Hyto was lying in a million little pieces strung out over the forest. Sometimes he loved me so much—they all did—that it scared me. I never wanted to endanger that love, but I was so far from perfect that I wondered if I was worthy of their devotion. Just then Trillian leaned in over my other shoulder and kissed me. I walked over to Morio for another kiss. Finally we were ready, and—with one last glance at the barrow—we headed out to meet Hyto.

“You made Trillian and Roz stay home because they are more vulnerable to Hyto, didn’t you? Vanzir, too?” Delilah caught up to me, blowing on her hands. The early-morning air was damp and moist, filled with the taste of snow.

I nodded. “Yes, but that’s not the only reason. We really do need someone to watch over Maggie and the others. What if Hyto breaks through us? Smoky’s got it set up that if he falls, a warning will go off in the barrow. That will give them enough time to run.”

“I didn’t know that,” Delilah said, suddenly grim. “This is really it, isn’t it? We’re fighting a dragon?”

None of us had ever been on the receiving end of a dragon’s fury except Roz—once when he pinched my butt in front of Smoky—and me, at the mercy of Hyto. I hated to think about what waited in store for us when the battle was to the death.

“I didn’t know it, either, but he told me shortly before we left the barrow. He also told Trillian, so they know what’s going down. Menolly—she’s safe enough, we figure, tucked away in the lower levels. I doubt Hyto would go to much bother trying to find her. But the others . . .”

As we crossed a clearing, a deer came out of the undergrowth, standing near entwined buses of huckleberry and bracken. She stared at us, not moving but poised to run, and I gazed into her eyes as we passed by. She couldn’t control what we were doing, but her reaction was one of caution, wariness. I raised a hand, slowly, greeting her as we passed by.

The snow grew thicker, heavy and wet, as the grade of the path increased. I tried to tune in to the land here—if I was going to use the Earth Elemental to counter Hyto, it might help if I could make a connection with the land. I’d have to start paying more attention to my surroundings once I was part of Aeval’s Court, so I might as well do it now.

Suddenly, I realized I was thinking of the future as if there really was one. The thought We might actually have a chance . . . ran through my head, and I wondered where it had come from.

As we continued, I began to have an odd feeling we were being followed. I glanced behind us but could see nothing. When I mentioned it to Smoky, he listened, then shook his head. The hush of snow falling on snow muted sounds, and the world took on the same surreal white glow that the Northlands had held.

“I can hardly wait for spring,” I muttered under my breath. “I’ve had enough snow to last me a lifetime.”

“You and me both,” Iris said, now riding along on Smoky’s shoulders. “I am dreaming of planting flowers and vegetables. Last night, a pansy chased me down the path in my dreams, threatening me if I didn’t make it stop snowing.”

The sudden break in mood made me laugh. Even though I was trying to keep quiet, my voice rang out down the slope behind us, and I bent over, stifling myself. I managed to quickly sober up, but it took everything I had not to giggle.

Smoky and Shade said nothing, but Delilah gave me a sideways look that told me she was either very annoyed or very much in agreement with me.

We came to a level area on the slope, before the grade of the hill started up in earnest. Another half-hour’s hike, it looked like, before we reached the rendezvous point. The treeline was still dense. We weren’t even into the real foothills of the Cascades yet, though it wasn’t that hard to get an up-close-and-personal view of Mount Rainier from the road. But here the vegetation was thick, the snow deep, and the going problematic.

“At least he doesn’t want to meet us up on the top of the glaciers. I don’t fancy a climb up Mount Rainier to fight a dragon.” Even as the words left my lips, there was a noise to the right and a bolt of lightning came shooting out at us. It missed Delilah and me but caught Shade on the arm. He shouted and dodged to the right as the glaring fork disappeared.

“Crap! Is that Hyto?” I turned, quickly seeking out any form that might tell us he was in the area. But the area from where the attack had come was thick with fern and bracken, covered in large drifts of snow. A hole had melted through it—the spell had to have come from there, but it was low to the ground and somehow I didn’t think that Hyto could keep himself hidden that well. He was too arrogant; he’d want us to know it was him.

Shade motioned for us to stay on the path and hurried over to the area, kicking the plants askew. “Nobody here. But there was, and they wore . . . some form of sandal, would be my guess.”

“Sandals? Hyto doesn’t wear sandals.” I frowned. “He wears boots and they’re damned hard and heavy. I know, my ribs show the damage.” Smoky let out a low bark and I turned to him. “Keep hold of yourself, my love. Not once while I was there did he wear anything but those damned boots.”

“Should we follow the tracks?” Delilah asked.

Shade gazed at the direction in which they’d gone. “I don’t know if that will do us any good. That was powerful magic. Anyone who can command a strong lightning bolt . . .”

“My father cannot.” Smoky set Iris on the ground and she shook her self out. “He can control mist and fog and snow, better than I can, but he can’t control the lightning. Unless he was using a scroll, there’s no way he could have cast a spell like that.”

“Then who . . .” I paused. “I know who.” And I did—as sure as I knew my name. “Asheré. The snow monkey—he’s a rogue monk from the Northlands. Trust me, it’s got to be him.”

“Are you sure?”

“Makes sense to me.” I took a deep breath and looked around, expecting to see him at every turn, but there was simply nothing there. “He’s playing cat and mouse with us. That has to be it. Keep your eyes open—he’ll probably try to dishearten us before we ever come into sight of Hyto. Reason tells me that much. Hyto likes to torture his toys. Anything that can demoralize us, he’ll do.”

“His ego won’t allow the snow monkey to make the kill, however.” Smoky let out a long breath. “My father is the epitome of arrogance.”

“Yeah, I know that too well.” I chewed on my bottom lip. “When he was beating me, he was screaming that I was not his equal. He blames me for setting you against him, and consequently for getting him thrown out of the Dragon Reaches.”

“He would have been thrown out eventually, regardless of what I did or did not do. My mother was reaching the end of her patience. When I went to help her not long ago, she told me that she’d already decided to deny him in Council, and that his behavior toward me—and you—was just the final straw.” Scowling, he shook his head. “Hyto was never a good husband, but she married him because of civil obligation.”

I had never heard Smoky talk so much about his family. Most of what I knew about them came from Iris’s knowledge of dragons. “You mean it was a marriage of convenience?”

He picked up Iris again and settled her on his shoulder, holding her tight with his hair. I smiled, watching how carefully he made sure she was comfortable. We took off again, up the slope.

“Not exactly. My grandfather—Relae, my mother’s father—had promised his friend Layr, Hyto’s father, that he would grant a marriage between one of his daughters and Layr’s son. Hyto was the ninth son of a ninth son but had not been able to find a wife. At the time, my grandfather didn’t know that Hyto was unbalanced.”

“You mean, even as a youth he was deranged?”

“I think so, yes. Mother says the signs were there, but . . . she accepted her father’s request and married down in class. It did not affect her status, being a silver dragon, and she loved her father very much and wanted to honor his request. By the time they figured out Hyto was disturbed, Mother had already had several children. She decided to wait, hoping things would get better. Denying a partner in the Dragon Reaches has long-reaching consequences, if you can prove they’ve behaved badly. Hyto would have been shunned.”

Another thought cropped up—one I’d been wondering about for awhile. “Smoky, when we first . . . when I first came to your barrow, you told me you were the ninth son of a ninth son. But not long ago, you told me you were the eldest son?” Might as well get things out in the open. I decided that from here out, if we survived, it would behoove me to learn as much as I could about my husbands’ families and cultures.

Smoky shuddered. One strand of his hair whipped out, striking a tree as we passed. I shrank back, remembering Hyto’s attacks.

“It is complicated. For one thing, mortality rates among dragonets are extremely high. Not many live to adulthood, which is why dragons have such large family records but such small actual families. I was the ninth son to hatch—”

“Hatch? You were . . . you came out of an egg?” I stared at him now, wondering just what else I was clueless about. Smoky’s life was becoming stranger to me as the minutes wore on.

He broke into a little smirk. “What? I’m a dragon. If we were to have a child—and I do believe that is possible—it would be a live birth because you are not of dragon heritage, but . . . Shade—he was hatched. His mother was dragon.”

Shade cleared his throat but merely nodded. Delilah stared at him, then at me. I shrugged. So our lovers had crept out of eggs. So had we; the eggs had just stayed inside our mother and turned into us.

“Anyway, there were fifteen eggs in the first batch of eggs my mother gave birth to. All hatched. Nine boys, six girls. I was the ninth son. We all lived past the first year, so we were all counted as actual children and listed in the Hall of Records. Shortly thereafter, the weaker ones began to die. Out of that first clutch, three sons and two daughters survived.”

“So you were the ninth son on record, even though at that point there were only two brothers older than you?”

He nodded. “And one older sister. Dragons typically have two to three clutches. Mother had two. Out of her second clutch, only one son and two daughters survived to be entered into the records. Only a total of ten sons and eight daughters made it to their first year. And out of the ten sons, only three of us made it to puberty. The rest died. Four of the girls made it. By the time I left home, Hyto had engineered the death of my two older brothers. My eldest sister had died in a fall from the dreyerie. So I am now the eldest. I have one sister from my clutch still alive—younger than me. The children from the second clutch are alive as well, but if Hyto had stayed around much longer, I guarantee they wouldn’t be. My clutch sister married and left, out of his reach.”

Speechless, I stared at him, a gaggle of questions racing through my mind, but I wasn’t sure just how to phrase any of them.

Delilah broke through my whirling thoughts. “Why did your father kill your siblings? I thought being the ninth son of a ninth son is important. Surely he couldn’t be insecure about his place?”

Smoky stomped over a fallen tree, barely noticing it. His voice was rough as he said, “It is important. I have greater powers than my brothers. Just as Hyto has greater powers than the others in his clutch.”

That explained a little more—so there was a birthright involved in dragon powers. I wondered if the girls had an equitable match.

“As for why he attacked his own children—Hyto saw them as threats for Mother’s attention and her treasure. White dragons are greedy. They are arrogant.” He stopped to help me over another downed tree.

As we started up again, Smoky let out a long sigh. “I have those traits, to a degree. But I honor my mother and chose to cultivate her legacy instead. Not all white dragons are vicious and evil—my grandfather isn’t. He fought next to the Northmen in the wars. But Hyto . . . he is the worst type of white dragon. I choose not to let his heritage corrupt me, though I admit I have his quickness to temper and his impulsive nature.”

At that point, we rounded a bend and Smoky stopped. He set Iris down, bidding her to stand next to Delilah. We were near a huge fir, one so tall I could barely see the top of it. The undergrowth around it was thick, covered with snow, and I nervously looked around. This would be the perfect place for the snow monkey to show up.

“Should we stop here? There’s too much cover and we could be in danger.” Delilah must have been reading my mind. Even Shade looked nervous.

“We’ve been in danger since we started out this morning.” Smoky let out a long breath. “We’re meeting help here. When I left last night, it was to ask someone to accompany us. She agreed to meet us this morning.”

She? Wondering whether he’d made a trip to Talamh Lonrach Oll to ask a favor from Aeval or Titania—I knew he’d never ask Morgaine—I glanced around, looking for any sign of the Fae Queens.

But then, out from behind the fir, stepped a woman as tall as Hyto, but far more stately. She was pale, with eyes the color of gunmetal, and her hair flowed down to her butt, a sparkling array of silver strands with a pale ice blue cast to them. The tendrils moved and twisted and I caught my breath.

Dressed in a filmy robe the color of early dawn, she glided forward, graceful as a dancer. Her aura sparkled with magic and I let out a little gasp. Smoky was powerful. Hyto was strong. But here—here was the true nobility of Dragonkin. It permeated her every movement, her eyes, her stance. And I suddenly understood why the silver dragons were the Emperors of their kind.

The woman’s gaze met mine and she held me fast. At first, the energy rolling off her was aloof, but after a few moments, a sparkle filled her eyes, and for some reason I had the feeling that I’d passed a test.

“Iampaatar, I taught you better manners than this. You will introduce us.” Her voice was the sound of wind chimes tinkling in a thin breeze.

Smoky bowed low, pressing her hand to his lips. Then, standing, he motioned for me to come forward. “May I have permission to use your public name, my Lady?”

“Of course. What would you have her call me otherwise? Hey you?” The corners of her lips turned ever so slightly upward, and I met her gaze with a weak smile. I knew where this was leading, but no way, nohow was I taking the lead. So not my place to interrupt a dragon.

“Yes, Mother.” Looking contrite in a way that I’d only ever seen him look around Iris, Smoky cleared his throat. “Honorable Lady Vishana, it would please me if you were to greet my wife, Camille te Maria D’Artigo, priestess of the Moon Mother. Camille, this is my mother, Lady Vishana. Your mother-in-law.”

I waited, wondering what she’d do. Would she strike out, as Hyto had? Or would she ignore me? But the next moment, she reached out and took my hands in hers. As she held them, she gazed down with those steel eyes and then a smile spread across her face. Oh, she was still aloof, but the smile was genuine, and as she spoke, a note of sincerity filled her words.

“Camille, I have been waiting to meet you since Iampaatar first told me of his marriage. So you are the one who has stolen my son’s heart? Welcome to the family.” And then she leaned down and kissed me briefly on the cheek.