Stepping out of the shadows, she started to follow Aidan but stopped short when she saw a door at the end of the hallway.

She gritted her teeth. Follow Aidan? Go to the door?

“Eh,” she said with a wave of her hand. “He’ll be fine.”

Brannie ran to the door and eased it open to find stone stairs. Closing the door behind her, she made her way down. As she neared the last step, she could hear chains . . . and sobbing.

A dungeon.

Just what she’d been looking for.

Brannie reached the last step and stopped, silently waiting for a guard to pass. Once he did, she moved up behind him and quickly cut his throat.

Footsteps came from behind and Brannie turned, throwing the blade. It slammed into the second guard’s head and he fell back. She retrieved the weapon and slid it into the sheath at her side.

Brannie checked for more guards, but didn’t see any, so she made her way down to a large open space. In the middle of the room were tables covered in chains, metal cuffs, and blood. Chains also hung from the ceilings. And on each wall Chramnesind’s sigil had been burned into the stone.

If the sigils were magickal, Brannie wouldn’t know until they destroyed her. But she didn’t deal with magicks. She left that to witches and other blessed folk. All warriors could do was hope for the best.

Brannie moved to the far wall and started down the long room. Not every cage had someone in it, but most did. So she studied each carefully in the hope of finding Ren.

She’d just reached the end of the first wall of cages when she heard, “Branwen the Awful?”

It was a female voice, so not Ren. But Brannie spun around, wondering who called to her.

Blinking, she rushed across the floor to the cages on the other side.

“Kachka?” She stopped in front of the cage and gawked at the three Riders inside. “What are you doing here?”

Kachka Shestakova of the Black Bear Riders of the Midnight Mountains of Despair in the Far Reaches of the Steppes of the Outerplains—and yes, that was her entire name—had come to the “decadent and corrupt” Southlands with her sister Elina Shestakova. They were true Daughters of the Steppes. Hearty, powerful women who thought men were beneath them, only good for sex and garbage removal. They were warriors and horsewomen known for breeding and raising small but remarkable horses that were great in battle and during long, cross-country rides.

The Daughters of the Steppes were nomads, moving their many tribes around the steppes and, when necessary, raiding Northland and Outerplains towns in search of boys to use for husbands. A term that Annwyl said should be changed to “slaves.”

Although the leader of the Daughters of the Steppes, the one they called the Anne Atli, had an alliance with Annwyl, her involvement in the war—and thereby the involvement of her people—had been limited to providing food, water, and horses when necessary. Otherwise, the Daughters of the Steppes had not raised a sword against any of the Zealots as long as they stayed away from their territories.

So, in the end, less of an alliance and more of a truce. The Riders didn’t strike the Zealots but they also didn’t strike Annwyl’s troops.

So why were these Daughters of the Steppes fighting for Annwyl in a small squad referred to as “The Scourge of gods”? Because these were the Riders no longer wanted by the tribes for varying reasons. Kachka and Elina had lost their positions because of their mother, a price Elina wore on her face every day with an eye socket that no longer held an eye. Kachka had defended Elina and that had put her outside the tribes as well. Now, both women had found dragons to keep them company. Brannie’s brother Celyn had fallen in love with Elina, and Kachka had managed to snag the very handsome Rebel King of the Quintilian Provinces, Gaius Lucius Domitus.

Even Brannie thought that was a coup. Gaius was an exceptionally gorgeous Iron dragon and, coincidentally, also missing an eye.

But even more impressive to Brannie was that Kachka hadn’t suddenly given up her life as a warrior once she’d made a king her mate. She hadn’t taken her place on a Quintilian throne to give orders behind the safety of a legion of guards. She had left that to Gaius’s twin sister, Agrippina, and continued to do what she’d done before. She took her orders from Annwyl or, if necessary, Dagmar. And she still took her squad of Rider Rejects—Gwenvael’s nickname for them—around the country, attacking Zealots where and when she could under the cover of darkness, leaving nothing but blood, death, and Zealot remains behind.

But there should be at least seven of the Rider Rejects, including a male, and she’d never thought that Riders would allow themselves to be taken alive.

“What are we doing here?” Kachka repeated, her elbow resting against the steel bars. She looked over her shoulder. “Yes, Zoya Kolesova, tell Celyn’s big-shouldered sister how we got here.”

“Still?” the giant Zoya Kolesova asked from the corner of the cage. “Still you blame me for this?”

“Yes!” Nina Chechneva, the actual witch of the group, shouted. “This is your fault, Zoya Kolesova! It will be your fault until the day you die. And on that day, I will wear red, dance on your still burning corpse, and sing the song of happiness!”

“Always so dramatic, unclean one,” Zoya lashed back.

“Shut up!”

Kachka looked at Brannie and drily asked, “Does that answer your question, Celyn’s sister?”

“Not really.”

* * *

Uther knew as soon as the rain started that Keita would begin to complain. So he found a very large tree with lots of protective leaves and got her situated before going off to find something to feed her. A hungry She-dragon could be annoying and dangerous. So he grabbed Caswyn and they went in search of something to feed on. Because it was raining, it was harder than usual to track something down, but they eventually caught a deer, killed it, and dragged it back to the tree where they’d left Keita.

Dropping the deer, Uther turned in a circle. “Where . . . where is she?

“If something happened to her . . .” He threw up his arms. “First Puddles and then Keita? Brannie will tear our bloody heads off!”

Uther looked at the ground, trying to find any tracks or signs of where Keita might have gone.

The heavy rain, however, had turned the ground into mud and the flashes of lightning weren’t helping. Sniffing the air was useless, especially since every time he raised his face, his nose filled with water.

Frustrated, they both started walking, still searching the ground, hoping to find something—anything—that would tell them where Keita had gone. They found a few tracks under the bigger trees, where the leaves offered some protection.

“Oh, no,” Caswyn said, barely audible above the harsh rain.

“What?” Uther demanded. “What is it?” Uther ran to his side, desperately pushing his wet hair off his face.

“I think she went there.”

Uther’s gaze followed where Caswyn was pointing. He’d been focused on the ground so hard, he hadn’t realized where they were heading.

He gawked at the fort and shook his head. “Brannie is definitely going to kill us.”

* * *

“They must have been tracking us for weeks, these pathetic fools.” Kachka let out a breath. “They waited until we separated. I sent the Khoruzhaya siblings, Marina Aleksandrovna and my cousin Tatyana Shestakova back to Garbhán Isle to protect the weak Northwoman until the Dragon Queen’s concubine—”

“I’m gonna warn you now that Uncle Bercelak is not going to like that nickname,” Brannie called over her shoulder. She was desperately searching for something that would get the cage open. There was no lock for Brannie to simply rip apart. Instead, the cage was welded shut on all sides. She could use her flame but that could put the Riders in danger of burning to death if the metal didn’t melt quickly enough.

“—and Annwyl’s armies destroy the Zealots.”

“Why did you three stay behind?” Brannie asked.

“To find Ren. But we were too late.”

Brannie froze and faced Kachka. “What?”

The Rider shrugged. “When they sealed us in here, he was in the cage right next to ours. We talked a bit but he was taken away by three guards. We heard screams . . . then nothing. Later they brought out his head.”