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  “No!” Welk shouted, and golden light exploded in all directions.

  Chapter Seven

  The light drilled pain into Danr’s skull, and he clapped his hands over both eyes with a throaty howl. When the pain died, he cautiously took his hands away and blinked rapidly to clear his vision.

  The scene had changed. Kalessa was still standing in the carriage with her sword, but most of the crowd had vanished. The rest of the crowd stood dumbstruck outside the wall of the temple of Grick. Joe stared down in shock from the driver’s seat. Everyone was silent.

  Surrounding the carriage was a knot of toads. Danr counted perhaps forty or fifty, brown and warty and goggle-eyed. They hopped and skittered in a confused clump around the carriage, leaving behind small piles of their clothes.

  “Welk!” Danr turned to him. “What did you do?”

  Welk slumped in the bottom of the carriage, looking utterly exhausted. “I panicked,” he moaned. “They were coming for me—for us!”

  “And Ranadar’s glamour—” Kalessa began.

  Aisa was more pragmatic. “Run!” she bellowed at the people. “Or you may be next!”

  The remaining demonstrators needed no further warning. There was a sound of frantic footsteps and the street was clear.

  Kalessa changed her sword back into a knife and sheathed it. “That was handled well.”

  “More important,” Ranadar said, “what do we do with them?” He gestured to the knot of toads hopping about the carriage. “We cannot just leave them.”

  “The elf demonstrates compassion for the humans,” Aisa said. “A greater wonder than the toad transformation.”

  “Hey!” Talfi said. “He shows a lot of compassion for me! Just last night, he—”

  “Ranadar has a point,” Danr interrupted quickly. “What do we do with them?”

  Kalessa opened the low carriage door and crooked a finger at the toads. “Get in!” she barked.

  “You can’t be serious!” Welk protested, but his voice was little above a whisper.

  “A true highborn mage takes responsibility for his actions,” Kalessa said. “These people were not true enemies, so it becomes your task to take care of them.” She gestured again at the toads. The toads, however, seemed more than a little wary. Kalessa sighed. “Do you want to stay on the street and be squashed by a passing lettuce cart, or come with the only person who has a hope of changing you back?”

  The toads streamed into the carriage. They filled it with croaking and cold, leathery skin. Danr sat down before they could swarm his seat. Aisa didn’t react quickly enough and had to sit on his lap. Welk sat amid them, his head a pale island in a sea of brown. The toads’ rubbery legs and toes crawled over Danr’s thighs, and he shuddered. Kalessa slammed the carriage door shut and leaped out of the carriage so she could cling to the side. Danr envied her forethought.

  “Go!” she barked at Joe, who was only too glad to whip up the horses.

  They made a strange procession—a half troll, an elf, and three humans in a carriage filled with croaking toads and an orc hanging on the side. People turned to stare. Danr sat upright, his hands around Aisa’s waist to steady her. He wasn’t sure whether to laugh, or laugh, or maybe just laugh. What else was there to do?

  “You look like you’re going to eat a handful of these toads,” Talfi observed from his place in the croaking pile. This only increased the croaking considerably.

  “He will not,” Aisa said. “Toads have a distinctly sour taste. Especially when they used to be sour humans.”

  The odd parade trundled into the high-class Diamond District, where great homes spread themselves behind stone walls like soft ladies collapsing within great skirts. The streets were wider, the cobblestones smoother, the people cleaner. But still the latter stared. People had been staring at Danr his entire life, but he couldn’t seem to get used to it; no, he couldn’t. Something about the eyes made him feel ungainly, clumsy, too big for his own skin. They were judging him, and even though he knew damn well it didn’t matter what they thought, it still made him unhappy to be at the cold center of their thoughts.

  “We seem to create an impression wherever we go,” Aisa said.

  “I think it’s more of a crater,” Danr sighed.

  Ranadar, meanwhile, had fallen silent and was staring at nothing while toads crawled over his shins and ankles. Talfi looked at him for a moment, then touched his arm. “Are you all right, Ran?”

  The elf remained silent a moment longer, then shook his head. His red hair tousled a little. “I was only thinking. So many people are upset, and so much of it can be traced back to my people. They trapped the Stane underground for a thousand years, they enslaved the humans, they skirmished with the orcs. Is it any wonder the people of Balsia are unhappy? They have never had an ally they can trust.”

  “So it has been for a thousand years,” Aisa said.

  “Now my mother is going out of her way to make everything worse,” Ranadar continued. “Perhaps we need someone to provide … an example. Someone to be trusted.”

  “What are you saying, Ran?” Talfi said, pushing a toad out of his lap.

  “Now that I live among humans, I see many new things,” Ranadar said. “I understand new ideas. Some have floated through my mind like morning mist for a long time, but after the argument we had over slavery yesterday and this demonstration today, the ideas have become more solid. For all time, we have not been the Nine People. We have been the Three People Who Fight. Someone needs to say, ‘It is time to stop fighting and be the Nine People again.’”

  “And that someone would be you?” Aisa set aside a toad that tried to climb her sleeve.

  “Every one of you seems to have a purpose,” Ranadar said. “Perhaps this is mine.”

  “A peace between orcs and elves, Fae and Kin, sprites and giants,” Kalessa said. “That is a new idea indeed.”

  “I like it,” declared Talfi. “And I think I want to claim my first favor.”

  “Favor?” said Aisa.

  “He cheated three of them from me in an archery contest,” Ranadar sighed.

  “Why did you get into an archery contest with Talfi?” Danr put in. “He never misses.”

  “You tell me that now,” Ranadar grumbled with mock severity.

  “Fing!” Talfi agreed.

  “What is this favor?” Kalessa asked curiously.

  “Actually, it’s both a favor and a reward for his proclamation about peace between the Nine People,” Talfi said in airy tones. “I want a kiss.”

  Before he could make any bigger production out of it, Ranadar gave him one. The toads increased their croaking, though whether in approval or for some other reason, Danr couldn’t tell.

  “If there is a better way to begin peace between races,” Aisa observed, “I cannot think of one.”

  They arrived at the blocky expanse of the Gold Palace, so named because the original stones had wide streaks of iron pyrite in them that glittered like the sun in full daylight. The center of the Gold Palace had been built for defense, and showed it—stone blocks crushed thin windows that peered over a stocky wall set with iron spikes—but over the centuries, each prince of Balsia had added something to it, another building, a courtyard, a wing, until the place had become a rambling, amiable fortress as fat as a dragon dozing in the sun.

  Joe took them to the main gate, where Kalessa hopped free of the carriage and pulled the door open. A stream of toads poured to the stones while the guards gaped. Danr and the others stepped down, minding where they put their feet. Ranadar gave Joe a tip that made him gasp, despite the strange events of the day. He touched his hat and drove away as fast as propriety allowed.

  Two humans and two golems stood guard on either side of the main gate. Spiky dwarfish runes crawled over the golems’ baked brown skins, and a blue glow illuminated their eyes. Two streaks of blood smeared each of their foreheads. Someone had dressed them in the red livery that marked Prince Karsten’s guards and servants, and in their blocky f
ists they held short pikes that matched the two human guards’. It showed the wealth of Balsia’s prince that he was able to put a pair of expensive golems on light duty at the gate when elsewhere golems were on high demand for tiresome, difficult work once done by slaves. To Danr, however, the golems only brought back memories of that awful day during the Blood Storm when Aisa, grown to giant size, had sliced his chest open with Kalessa’s blade and used his blood to take control of the enormous golem that threatened to destroy all of Balsia. Unconsciously, he touched his chest at the spot where the metal had split him open while the lightning flared and the wind howled around them both. Sometimes he could still feel the pain.

  “Master Danr, Hero of the Twist, is here to see the prince,” Kalessa told one of the human guards with a straight face. “Along with Aisa of Irbsa, Savior of Balsia and Bane of Golems; Prince Ranadar of Balsia, the Traitor to the Fae; Talfi of the Iron Sea, the Boy Who Forgot to Die; and Princess Kalessa, Master of the Mystic Sword. Oh—and Welk, the shape mage.”

  “And … the toads?” the guard stammered.

  “What toads?” Kalessa said.

  The croaking, hopping train of toads followed them through the palace. More than one servant approached with pained looks, but Danr returned a hard look of his own, and they backed away. The guards ushered them into a large meeting chamber—apparently someone had deemed the toads too tricky for the throne room—where a group of people awaited. Some looking annoyed, some looking curious, some looking angry, but all ducked their heads and murmured respectful words. Aisa had saved the entire city from the harbormaster and his giant golem, and both Danr and Aisa had restored the power of the shape to the Kin. And Danr had wielded the Iron Axe. For all these things and more, Karsten had offered them titles and land, but they had quietly refused, not wishing the responsibility. However, their status bought them an audience with the prince whenever they wanted one, and at the moment, Danr was only too pleased to trade on that.

  “Danr! Aisa!” Prince Karsten came forward. He was young for his position, not yet twenty-one, and was still growing into a man’s body. His dark hair and gray eyes gave him a rakish look that, Danr had heard, was already combining with his title to earn him a number of marriage proposals from highborn ladies. So far he had fended them off. “Never boring with you around. If it’s not mermaids and magic, it’s golems and dwarfs. And now … toads?”

  Danr and the others bowed. It was a gesture Danr had learned to make with grace after long practice.

  “It all makes sense when you hear the story, Highness.” Danr introduced Welk, who was still looking pale and exhausted, and explained. His words echoed slightly in the large unadorned chamber. The room was furnished with nothing but a plain table and hard chairs with braziers spaced about for heat, but none were lit, indicating how hastily the room had been called into use. Danr didn’t recognize the half dozen courtiers in the room, though he did recognize Lady Hafren, mother to Prince Karsten. She was a short, slender woman whose keen gray eyes missed nothing, and who shared Karsten’s long nose and firm chin. Karsten’s father, her husband, had died of blood poisoning from an infected cut, an accident that had left the throne unexpectedly empty, and Lady Hafren either hadn’t been strong enough to overcome the Balsian prejudice against women to rule herself or hadn’t been willing to try, for the then-teenage Karsten had been anointed prince only a few days after his father’s funeral, with Lady Hafren as his primary adviser. She wore a thin circlet of silver on her brow as a symbol of her office, while the prince wore one of gold. So far, Karsten had weathered both the Stane immigration and the attack on the city by the harbormaster, and had shown himself to be a capable, if inexperienced, prince who was prone to a shockingly informal court that drove many of the older courtiers into conniptions.

  “I’d already heard about the demonstration outside of Grick’s temple,” Karsten said toward the end of Danr’s story, “but this—”

  “You heard about it, but did nothing?” Aisa broke in.

  Danr winced. Aisa had interrupted the prince. But as the city’s savior, she was allowed a certain amount of latitude.

  Karsten’s face grew more serious and he looked more adult than Danr had ever seen him. “There’s a lot of resentment on the streets, Aisa. People—the human ones—are nervous about all the changes. The Stane were a lot to get used to, no matter how much we love Danr here. Now we’re adding shape magic and more half-bloods. People are scared they won’t know how to survive in this new world, and it makes them want to shout and scream. If I let them demonstrate, they feel they’ve been heard and they feel better. If I gag them, their anger builds. That leads to fights, and fights lead to revolutions.”

  “And when people are hurt in those fights?” Aisa said. “What then?”

  “Someone will eventually be hurt, yes,” Karsten said. “It’s the way it goes. Either the protesters will hurt someone, or the guards will hurt the protesters, or a riot will hurt everyone. I’m trying to keep it to as few hurts as possible. And,” he added pointedly, “I don’t need to justify how I run Balsia to you.”

  “Of course not, Highness,” Danr said quickly, before Aisa could speak again. “And that’s not why we’re here. We thought that the crown might want to handle this man Welk. The toads were an accident.” And Danr explained what had happened while the knot of toads hopped and skittered about the room, filling it with croaks and goggly eyes. Welk looked very much as though he wanted to lie down. His hands were shaky and his skin looked clammy.

  “He changed all these citizens into toads,” Karsten repeated toward the end of Danr’s story. “Can he change them back?”

  “Not that we’ve seen,” Danr said, shifting a little.

  “This … man changed more than forty innocent people into toads?” Lady Hafren took up a spot beside her son and folded her arms. “He should be imprisoned! Hanged in the square for this horrible crime!”

  Welk’s already pale face went even whiter at this. Danr became afraid the man might faint. Ranadar and Talfi traded looks, and the croaking grew even louder.

  “I do not believe killing Welk is really the best—” Ranadar began.

  “This court does not take advice from the Fae,” Hafren interrupted. “And certainly not from a traitor to his own kind.”

  “Now, look,” Talfi said hotly. “It was thanks to this traitor that everyone in this room is alive right now.”

  “Says the regi boy who consorts with half-bloods and shape mages,” Hafren retorted. “Our city is becoming corrupted with people like—”

  “Me?” Kalessa also interrupted. “You forget yourself, lady. I am princess of the Third Nest, and I have feasted with Grick herself.”

  “Which means nothing in this room,” Hafren snapped. “You wyrm-riders leave trails of slime wherever you—”

  “Quiet!” Danr roared.

  Shocked, the entire room fell silent. Even the toads stopped croaking. All eyes turned to Danr, as if only now understanding how close they stood to the tall and powerful half troll who had nearly torn the world in half. Danr’s mouth went dry under all those eyes, but he wasn’t going to back down now.

  “We didn’t bring Welk here to have him executed,” Danr said in an even voice. “I don’t know if changing someone into a toad is even a crime.”

  “If it isn’t,” Hafren said, sniffing, “it soon—”

  Danr gave a half snarl, and she fell silent again. “I already said that the toads were an accident, and we’ll figure out what to do about them. Meantime, we brought Welk here to help both him and the crown.”

  “How?” Karsten asked.

  “Someone who can turn men into toads at a distance would be a great asset to the army,” Aisa said. “Would he not?”

  A small stir went through the court at that. Karsten frowned thoughtfully.

  “General?” he said.

  An older man dressed head to foot in Balsia ocean blue trimmed with gold stepped forward. “Obviously, he would. The army doesn’t
have any shape mages in it yet, and I’ve been wondering what’ll happen if we go up against someone who has them.”

  “Then I believe you have your first volunteer,” Kalessa said.

  “He’s a bandit!” Lady Hafren protested. “Like all shape mages! Untrustworthy!”

  Aisa turned hard brown eyes on her. “Lady, are you saying that I am untrustworthy? I am the first shape mage, after all.”

  “I am saying—” Hafren said.

  “This gets us nowhere, Mother,” Karsten said, exasperated. “Look, I already said it’s damn scary having shape mages and Stane and orcs and even Fae in the city these days. But it’s also a damn good thing we still have a city to be scared in. Eventually, we’ll sort it out, but for now I want these Vik-damned toads out of my court!”

  “Very pragmatic, Your Highness,” said the general.

  “I may be able to help,” Aisa said, “if Lady Hafren will not be too offended at shape mages performing magic in her august presence.”

  “Aisa,” Danr warned.

  When Hafren only pursed her lips, Aisa turned to Welk, who looked as though he would rather be trotting across hot lava just now.

  “Welk,” she said, “have you ever tried to turn one of your toads back into a human?”

  He nodded. “Course.”

  “Why weren’t you able to do it?”

  “The power,” he said simply. “It weren’t enough. Changing into toads is easy, lady, but turning back takes more power, and I don’t have it. I can change one or two, but after that, I’m dead. I’m about ready to drop right now.”