“It’s a spear?”

Rhona grinned. “It’s whatever you want.”

“Gold?”

Her cousin’s glare instantly returned.

“Bread?” Brannie tried again. Of course, now she was just being an ass. “Wine!”

“No, ya irritating cow!” Rhona let out a frustrated breath. She used to make that same sound whenever she had to train Brannie and Izzy back in those early days. When they were just privates with dreams of being more. It was, as Rhona had told them more than once at the time, one of her least favorite things to do in the “universe.”

She’d actually said “universe” not just “the world.”

“Think of your favorite weapon and see what happens,” she finally told Brannie.

Of course, Brannie liked lots of weapons. But her favorite? Well . . . that would be the halberd, wouldn’t it? But she did love swords. Short swords. And she did love axes . . . and hammers! Gods, she adored hammers!

“You are overthinking this, Branwen the Awful!” Rhona yelled in the same voice she’d used when she’d been training Brannie. “Make a decision!”

Startled, Brannie thought halberd! because she wanted to use it to strike down her bellowing cousin.

And the metal stick in her hand immediately began to grow. It lengthened and thickened right in her palm. The tip turned into a spearhead and from the right side of the tip grew an ax head.

Brannie immediately stood, her mouth open. She’d never seen anything so beautiful before.

“It automatically knows if you’re in human form or dragon and will adjust accordingly,” she heard her cousin explain, but Brannie was barely paying attention anymore.

She thought about a hammer and watched her halberd turn into a war hammer with an oversized head. Then it turned into a gladius. Then a spear. Then a bow. Then a long sword. Then back into a halberd.

That’s when she squealed.

* * *

It was that smile. He watched it spread across Brannie’s face. So wide, it almost made her eyes disappear entirely, her poor nose forced into a scrunched-up position, her shoulders coming up until they practically covered her ears.

Her glee exploded from every pore on her body and she went up on her toes as she began to sort of . . . dance around with her newly formed halberd in her hands. Yes. She danced.

Over a weapon.

And then there was the squealing. Aidan was sure he could hear nearby wolves howling in response, and Uther and Caswyn moved as far away as they could without leaving the fresh roasting meat the triplets had hunted down and put on the fire. But Aidan wasn’t annoyed at all. How could he be when he’d never seen Branwen the Awful this happy or excited before?

She was so busy hugging her new weapon to her chest and grinning that Brannie didn’t notice that her triplet cousins were walking up behind her, their own weapons at the ready. Triplet one had a hammer. Triplet two had a double-headed lance. Triplet three had a long sword.

Triplet one brought her hammer up and over, aiming toward Branwen’s head. The second swung the sharp end of her lance at Brannie’s legs. The third went straight for her gut.

No one said a word to Brannie. Not one word of warning. Not even a grunt from her cousins. They did nothing but attack. With full force.

Yet she must have sensed them. She must have known they were there. How else could she move so quickly, using the blunt end of the halberd to block the blades of the lance so they never reached her legs? At the same time, she used the curved spike on the opposite side of the halberd’s ax-head to catch hold of the wood handle of the hammer.

But Triplet three was still coming with her sword. So Brannie, gripping her weapon tight, jerked just her torso far enough over that the blade missed her and sent her cousin falling forward. She would have landed on Brannie, but the army captain stepped back and her kin hit the ground hard. Then Brannie twisted her weapon and body, sending the other two flipping up and over in different directions.

Her cousins immediately tried to get back up but Brannie brought the blunt end of her weapon down against Triplet one’s head. As she roared in pain, Brannie flipped backward, away from the hammer Triplet two was swinging at Brannie’s legs while she was still on the ground.

When Brannie landed, she brought the ax-head of her weapon down on the wood part of the hammer, breaking the handle into two pieces.

Without a word and with absolutely no anger, she slammed her foot down on the back of Triplet three’s back, pinning her to the ground. And the halberd she held in her hands stretched and lengthened until it could reach the other two. Metal spear tips grew out of both ends and she pressed each against her cousins’ throats, quietly waiting until they both raised their hands in defeat.

Brannie stepped back and, with a quick twist of her hands, she spun the weapon up and back until she held it behind her body. By now it had changed once again so that it was a six-foot metal staff.

And she’d done all that while wearing only his surcoat and a belt around her waist.

Uther and Caswyn gaped as well until Caswyn demanded, “I want one.”

Rhona rubbed her hands together and shook her head. “No. That is not a weapon for you.”

“Why not? I can handle anything. I’ll pay if that’s what you want.”

“It’s not about money,” Rhona explained calmly, quickly organizing the chain mail and armor they would wear for the rest of their trip. “You’re simply too stupid.”

Aidan snorted out a surprised laugh and Brannie’s eyes widened in shock at her cousin’s words.

“Rhona!” Brannie chastised. “What a horrible thing to say to someone!” She jerked her thumb at a stunned Caswyn. “And I say this as someone who doesn’t even like him.”

“Did you have to add that last bit?” Caswyn asked.

“Puddles!” she reminded him.

“It’s nothing personal really.” Rhona tossed each of them chain mail shirts. “He just doesn’t think fast enough. You do. Where’s the shame in that?”

“You didn’t have to call him stupid!”

“Dumb?”

“Rhona!”

Now she tossed metal sword belts at them. Their sword belts were usually leather but these were different. Aidan examined his. It was made of chain mail, was flexible, and had a clasp at the front to secure it rather than tying it into a knot.

“All I’m saying,” Rhona explained to Brannie, “is that your weapon is the kind that can help some warriors or get others killed. I trained you, Branwen the Awful, when you were just Branwen the Black. I know exactly how you work and how fast you think on the battlefield. I also know your mother started training you long before that. And what every Cadwaladr knows is how to make anything a weapon. Your battle-mind is”—she snapped her fingers several times—“fast. We all just witnessed that. But that weapon is only as fast as the one who wields it.”

Rhona looked Caswyn, Uther and, finally, Aidan over before announcing, “These dragons are Mì-runach. Slow. Lumbering. Like bears.” She shrugged. “They run naked and screaming into battle to terrify the weak and startle the strong. So I will give them very good weapons that fit their”—she thought a moment—“skills. That fit their skills better than your weapon. Okay?”

Brannie opened her mouth, but Rhona quickly cut her off with “Good.”

Not bothering to argue any of this with Rhona the Fearless—she’d always made her feelings on the Mì-runach abundantly clear—Aidan held up the new equipment she’d provided and asked, “Anything we need to know about this?”

“Chain mail shirt and leggings, sword belt, and weapons will shift with you. Chain mail boots are for when you are human, but when you shift to dragon, they will turn into greaves to protect your lower legs and cover your heel tendons.” She handed each a dark red cape and stated, “These are bewitched. They’ll shift when you do and the color will change as needed. Shadows will be your friends in these.”

“Will we be invisible?” Uther asked.

And the look Rhona gave him . . . no wonder she didn’t trust him with Brannie’s weapon. “No.”