Free Iron Hearted Violet by Kelly Barnhill Page A

that terrible fool!), without thinking, without planning ahead, pawed the ground like a bull, lowered his head and shoulders, and with an animal grunt, rammed his skull into the Captain’s rib cage. It was a very brave and very stupid thing to do. The Captain was a giant of a man, and cunning, too. The weight and force of Demetrius’s body caused hardly a jostle in the big man’s stance and certainly didn’t pull the tip of his sword from the throat of the King. In quick succession, he grabbed the boy by the back of his tunic, tossed him up into the air, and threw him down hard onto the ground. And before Demetrius could even breathe, the Captain had unsheathed his stiletto from his belt and, with a casual flick of his wrist, sent the blade directly into the boy’s shoulder.
    The pain nearly blinded him.
    “Damn,” the Captain said. “I missed.”
    The King swore, and the assembled party shouted, but Demetrius was too astonished to make a sound.
    “I was going for the throat,” the Captain said casually, narrowing his eyes at the King, “but perhaps, given the reaction of your overly emotive crew, it’s best if I let the boy live. For now.” He spat on the ground. “He may be useful.”
    Demetrius, panting in pain, pulled up to his knees, yanked the blade out himself, and stanched the bleeding with the heel of his hand.
    “Bind him,” the Captain of the Guard said. He kept his sword on good King Randall’s neck. The King did not flinch. After his brief eruption, his face no longer betrayed even a hint of fear or worry but instead remained as calm and unreadable as stone.
    “We are always delighted to see the emissaries of our cousin to the north,” the King said slowly and formally, as though he was standing in the Great Hall. “May we inquire the nature of this visit, sir?”
    The Captain paled. He had expected the captive to beg, insult, or even engage in a foolhardy attempt at an attack. He was not expecting the address of a King.
    Still, he was not the Captain of the most elite unit ofthe Mountain King’s guard for nothing. He set his jaw and twisted his lips into a sneer. “We are responding,
Your Majesty
, to an act of war.”
    The King raised his eyebrows. “Our hunting party?”
    “I don’t care what you choose to call yourselves,” the Captain said, waving at the disarmed hunters and their weapons piled on the ground. “What I see is a fierce assembly, armed to the teeth, one mile within our borders and heading, apparently, to the castle.”
    “Indeed,” the King said thoughtfully. “Indeed.”
    It was, I believe, an act of sheer will for the King to refrain from glancing into the rocky grotto where the dragon, its transport, and the Mistress of the Falcons and the two trappers lay in wait. From where the Captain stood, the entrance to the grotto was invisible, and as he had not yet ordered a soldier to gather any strays, the King knew it was unlikely that the Captain had seen them enter or exit with the dragon.
    And thus did our beloved King permit his hands to be bound, his ankles tied with a lash that looped under the belly of his horse, and his horse tethered to the others. He looked out at the faces of his companions, all bound, and said, “I am truly sorry, my friends.”
    He turned to Demetrius, the boy’s face an ashy mask of pain. “I don’t know how I shall face your father, beloved Demetrius. My heart aches with sorrow for this attack on you, for the danger I have put you in.” The King’s voice halted and broke. “It is unforgivable, dear child, and I am sorry.”
    The hunters, all grave-faced, said nothing.
    For they, too, knew that three of their number hid and listened at the rocky lip of the grotto’s entrance. They knew that once they had plodded away, they might—should they look behind them—see the shadow of a flank, the wisp of a tail, and the broad-winged beat of the five falcons on their launch to the sky as the two trappers and the Mistress of the Falcons