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00:00:30Every girl in the north dreams of her binding day. None of them dream of the cage.
00:00:35My people used to be the best dragon callers alive. We have not called one in a hundred years.
00:00:39A sky people with no dragons is just prey, so my father sells the only thing he has left. Me.
00:00:58Sky bound.
00:01:00I came for what is promised.
00:01:12You belong to me now.
00:01:21Get up and dress. The Blackclaw warlord rides for our gate at dusk, and you will be waiting at the
00:01:27binding altar to take him as your husband.
00:01:29A husband? You have kept me behind these walls my whole life. I have never even spoken to a man
00:01:33who is not my guard.
00:01:34You will speak to this one tonight, and bear his children after.
00:01:38Ravec of the Blackclaw. His dragons are the only thing between us and the Froskin. He wants you for them.
00:01:43So my blood buys your dragons, and you call it a treaty.
00:01:47I am trading one girl to keep ten thousand people alive. Say no. And the Blackclaw rides south, the Froskin
00:01:53come down off that ridge, and everyone in this keep is dead by spring.
00:01:56I am not the answer to your problems. Find another way.
00:02:00Then walk out that door and tell ten thousand people yourself!
00:02:03I will not be sold to a Blackclaw warlord to pay for your war. Find another way.
00:02:07Cassia, you will not shame me in front of the whole keep.
00:02:28So, this is the Dragonless Princess. They are selling me. They told me the North had nothing left worth taking.
00:02:35They were wrong.
00:02:36Let go of me. I have not been given to you yet.
00:02:39You were mine. The day your father ran out of options. Tonight is just the part with witnesses.
00:02:44Soft hand.
00:02:47A whole people who forgot how to hold their own beasts. No wonder the Froskin are sharpening their knives.
00:02:52We were calling dragons out of the sky while your horde was still eating its dead.
00:02:56Do not lecture me on what we lost.
00:02:58They told me you were timid. Timid does not survive my keep. Your wrist, little queen.
00:03:10What is this?
00:03:11My cuff and yours came out of the same iron. After tonight, there is no one making it.
00:03:16The North gave you away, little queen. I keep what the North gives.
00:03:21You are shaking. Good. A dragon can smell a coward. And a coward it will not carry. Be afraid, but
00:03:29do not be a coward.
00:03:30My hands shake because your hand is on me. Do not mistake it for anything you would want to feel.
00:03:35Give it time. You will stop hating me when you realize I am the only one keeping your people alive.
00:03:40You can lock iron on me, but you cannot make me want it.
00:03:58Every one of them lives or dies on what I say next.
00:04:01No one walks out of a door with all of that on the other side of it.
00:04:12I will take you. Not for my father. For her. And every one of them out there on the ice.
00:04:18You give your word standing up like an equal. On your knees. You will thank the warlord for saving this
00:04:25keep with your worthless hands.
00:04:30She kneels to me. Not for you. And not because you put her there.
00:04:38She is mine now, old man. Remember that the next time you raise your hand to her.
00:04:42They call him a monster. Right now he is the only wall between me and a war that eats children.
00:04:49And tonight I will not just touch you. I will ruin you. And you will ask me for more.
00:05:00They say the Blackcloth do not bed their brides. They break them. And his dragons sleep at the foot of
00:05:05bed and watch.
00:05:06Enough. She will be presentable. She will be obedient. And she will hold that alliance together.
00:05:14That is the end of it.
00:05:16Leave us. I will have a moment with my bride.
00:05:20Custom keeps the warlord and the bride apart until the altar.
00:05:23I do not ask twice. Tonight everyone will say I forced a scared girl into this.
00:05:29I want them to look at you and see something different.
00:05:32I want them to see you chose me. Not that your father sold you.
00:05:41It is too tight.
00:05:43It is meant to be uncomfortable. Every Blackclaw bride wears one so nobody asks who she belongs to.
00:05:49Only I take it off.
00:05:51Wear it to the altar. Let them all see it before you say my name.
00:05:55Let them all see,ζ.
00:05:59No.
00:06:04Wait, I will...
00:06:31You are bleeding.
00:06:33Frostkin blood, not mine.
00:06:37Their scout will not report what he saw.
00:06:41What happens tonight is yours to give.
00:06:43I do not take it.
00:06:46Do you take each other through war and peace until the end?
00:06:51Say the words.
00:06:53Loud enough for the whole North to hear.
00:06:55By sky and by iron, I bind my life to his.
00:06:59Whatever comes for him gets through me first.
00:07:03Our people do not deserve death.
00:07:06I am doing this for her.
00:07:07For all the innocents in the North.
00:07:09I am not doing this for him.
00:07:12Then seal it!
00:07:18No one has ever kissed you, I can tell.
00:07:22Tonight gives me everything, but I am taking this right now in front of all of them!
00:07:35I always believed our fathers would give you to me.
00:07:38Then a southern brute rides in and takes you in an afternoon.
00:07:41Let go of me!
00:07:46A sky-bound altar makes a wife.
00:07:49The Black Claw need more than words.
00:07:52Bring him in!
00:07:57The Proving.
00:07:58He puts her in front of the dragon.
00:08:00Everyone watches to see if it bows or bites.
00:08:03No one from the North has ever passed it.
00:08:04It will not bow to a sky girl with no gift in her blood.
00:08:07He is going to get her killed in front of her own mother.
00:08:09Do not pull back and do not look away.
00:08:12It smells fear and it smells lies.
00:08:14Show it neither.
00:08:17You will burn my arm off.
00:08:19Then we will both find out what you are made of.
00:08:36Beak knows its queen!
00:08:38Let the North remember it!
00:08:47I am a person, Ravec.
00:08:49Not something you show off to your men.
00:08:52You humiliated me out there.
00:09:00Hello, little queen.
00:09:06Lothra, you should not be in here.
00:09:08Skybound blood should stay with skybound blood.
00:09:10Our fathers meant you for me.
00:09:11And one southern treaty does not unwrite it.
00:09:13I am only here for what was promised first.
00:09:15The binding is sealed, Lothra.
00:09:17Lay one finger on me and you are not insulting a girl, insulting the whole black-clow horde.
00:09:21Think hard about what that buys you.
00:09:23He is drunk in the feast hall with black-clow girls in his lap.
00:09:26By the time he remembers he has a wife, I will already have made you mine.
00:09:30The warlord is in his cups and you are all alone, girl.
00:09:33One sound out of you and I will tell them you invited me in.
00:09:41Where is your frightened little northern bride?
00:09:44She does not even want you.
00:09:46Come remind yourself.
00:09:49What real women are.
00:09:52I called for Ravec.
00:09:53I do not even know why.
00:09:55He is not my husband.
00:09:56He is my warden.
00:09:57But he is the only one I called.
00:09:59In here, no one will find us.
00:10:04Ravec, Ravec, help me!
00:10:13Ravec, please.
00:10:17He is not coming for you.
00:10:19You should thank me.
00:10:21When I take you, I will at least be gentle.
00:10:24Which is more than that animal would ever give you.
00:10:31You think the warlord cares what becomes of you tonight.
00:10:35He will never love a skybound girl.
00:10:37He will feed you to his dragon for this.
00:10:39My father commands the king's own guard.
00:10:42No southern dog can touch me in this keep.
00:10:44And no one is coming down that corridor for a skybound bride.
00:10:51You little skybound bitch!
00:11:10What is mine I keep.
00:11:12What touches it I burn.
00:11:22You put a hand on what belongs to a warlord.
00:11:28Did you think the dragons would not smell it on you?
00:11:39You all came to watch a binding.
00:11:41Watch this instead.
00:11:43Look at her.
00:11:44The North handed me their last real dragoncaller.
00:11:47From tonight, she is one of mine.
00:11:49We do not touch our own women like that.
00:11:52We do not go after another man's wife.
00:11:54And we do not lie to the man whose dragons are keeping your North standing.
00:12:06What are you doing?
00:12:10He reached for a warlord's wife.
00:12:13He will carry the answer on his face.
00:12:15Where the whole North can read it.
00:12:31What is mine I keep?
00:12:34The whole North can watch what touching it costs.
00:12:40That dragon keeps looking at me like it knows something I do not.
00:12:43And honestly, at this point, so do I.
00:12:49So this is where it happens.
00:12:51Get it over with.
00:12:52Look at the roost, little queen.
00:12:53That is where it happens.
00:12:54Not here.
00:12:55A Blacklaw wedding is not sealed in a bed.
00:12:57It is sealed in fire.
00:13:00At dawn, everyone watches the warlord walk through his own dragon's breath.
00:13:04If it is real, the dragon holds.
00:13:06If it is not, he burns in front of everyone and she goes free.
00:13:10You are going to walk in dragon fire to prove you own me?
00:13:13I am going to walk into dragon fire to prove this is real.
00:13:17What you do with that is up to you.
00:13:19A whole dying kingdom.
00:13:22And the only thing in it worth burning for is you.
00:13:24Do not say that.
00:13:25You do not get to say that.
00:13:27You bought me.
00:13:28You may own this cluff on my wrist.
00:13:31You will never own the rest of me.
00:13:33I will not love you.
00:13:38He's going to ravage me now.
00:13:40I don't want to lose it like this.
00:13:45I do not know what came over me.
00:13:48I will take only what you give me tonight.
00:13:50Sleep, little queen.
00:13:51At dawn, you watch what your husband walks into for you.
00:13:56He's sparing my virginity.
00:13:58For now.
00:14:40Judge me, old friend.
00:14:41The claim is true.
00:14:43Rayback.
00:14:45Rayback, no.
00:15:06You walked into it for me.
00:15:09You would have burned to ash.
00:15:11A binding is sealed.
00:15:12The Horde has seen it.
00:15:14That is all that happened here.
00:15:15Now you come to me, to my bed.
00:15:18I will try to be patient.
00:15:20I will not beg.
00:15:21But I also will not love.
00:15:39So he actually did it.
00:15:41Walked into the fire for you.
00:15:44I honestly did not think you would.
00:15:46Not for some scared little northern girl.
00:15:49I do not know you.
00:15:50Give your name before you speak to me like I am livestock.
00:15:57Drusilla.
00:15:59My father rides at the warlord's right hand, the strongest warrior in this horde.
00:16:03And before your father sold you north, I was the one in Ravik's bed.
00:16:07So I know things about him that you do not.
00:16:12You do not know how to keep a warlord, little northern bird.
00:16:15I had him before you wore that cuff, and I will have him after.
00:16:19Ask anyone in this keep whose furs he slept in last winter.
00:16:49First night here, and my wife will not eat.
00:16:52Is this a northern thing?
00:16:54Or are you actually trying to starve yourself?
00:16:57Starving myself?
00:17:00Skybound children went hungry all winter so I could eat.
00:17:03I do not waste food.
00:17:07I do not even know what half of this is.
00:17:09You have never put southern meat in your mouth.
00:17:12My father never let his daughters pass the inner wall.
00:17:16We ate what the kitchens cooked, and the kitchens cook north.
00:17:23Open.
00:17:25No wife of mine goes hungry at my own fire.
00:17:32There.
00:17:34The north did not crumble.
00:17:37Your color is up, wife.
00:17:38I am warm from the fire.
00:17:39The fire is behind you.
00:17:41I am the one in front.
00:18:01He walked into dragon fire in front of everyone to keep my people safe.
00:18:04Whatever else he is, he did that.
00:18:06I can say thank you for that much, even if it kills me.
00:18:15We just got married, and he is already doing this.
00:18:18I knew it.
00:18:20I knew exactly what he was.
00:18:25Cassia.
00:18:26Stop.
00:18:27Not one more step.
00:18:34Sit.
00:18:36Run from her in tears, and by morning the whole keep says the north broke in a week.
00:18:58Blackclaw law does not let a warlord settle a woman's war.
00:19:02This is between the two of you, wife.
00:19:06Settle it.
00:19:07Or sit there and watch it settle itself.
00:19:11I warned you the first night, little bird.
00:19:14He needed a treaty.
00:19:16Not a wife.
00:19:17You cannot even hold his eyes.
00:19:19I have held the rest of him for years.
00:19:21Are you truly going to let her do this, Ravak?
00:19:24She is in your seat, little queen.
00:19:26And weeping has never moved a blackclaw off anything.
00:19:39Watch, northern girl.
00:19:42This is how you hold a man like him.
00:19:45He wants me to break and beg him to stop.
00:19:47I will choke on my own tongue before I give that woman the satisfaction.
00:19:51Well, wife, the seat is still yours if you want it.
00:20:14Your beast is as ill-mannered as your bride.
00:20:18Ravak.
00:20:19Call it off and let me finish what I came up up to do.
00:20:23Eyes on me, Cassia.
00:20:25Watch what you keep handing another woman.
00:20:27Because you are too proud to take it yourself.
00:20:30Enough games.
00:20:33Let me give him the rest.
00:20:35Where the little bird can watch and learn her place.
00:20:39Stop!
00:20:41That is enough!
00:20:42The seat is mine, and so is the man.
00:20:46Move!
00:20:48You heard the queen.
00:20:50Off!
00:20:51I will say this once.
00:20:53I am Cassia, Ravak's wife.
00:20:56Stay away from him, or find out what happens to women who do not.
00:21:01He does not want you.
00:21:03Your own father sold you off like a lame mask no other man would take.
00:21:21He keeps you because you tease and never give.
00:21:24The day he tires of your weeping, he throws you back over the wall to your dying little kingdom, dragon
00:21:28or no dragon.
00:21:29Say one more word about my people, and I will give you a matching mark on the other side.
00:21:35Your people are already dead, little bird.
00:21:38They simply have not lain down yet!
00:21:41A dragonless treaty playing at Warlord's wife.
00:21:45He will tire of you, and I will still be here.
00:21:49And your north will still be ash under our boots!
00:21:56You raised this hand at a Black Claw queen.
00:21:59Be glad I only gave it back to you.
00:22:01He hit her for touching me, not because she was embarrassing him.
00:22:04For touching me.
00:22:06I am still thinking about that.
00:22:15No!
00:22:18The Black Claw do not kill women.
00:22:20Be glad.
00:22:22Get out of my keep, and hope I forget your father's name by morning.
00:22:35Come to the war map then, queen.
00:22:38The whole horde should see where the queen stands.
00:22:41Have you lost your mind?
00:22:43You let that woman pour at you while I sat caged behind your dragons.
00:22:47And now you call me to your map as if nothing happened on it.
00:22:50Drusilla's father holds my eastern passes, so I let her games go on too long.
00:22:54Today you ended them for me in front of the whole horde.
00:22:57They saw their queen show her teeth.
00:22:59I will not pretend I am sorry they did.
00:23:01You needed her father's spears, so I paid for them in shame in front of your whole horde.
00:23:06You know nothing of what shame does to a northern woman!
00:23:08I know it could fire where there were only tears.
00:23:11An hour ago you could not hold my eyes.
00:23:13Now you have struck a warrior's daughter and bared your teeth at me on my own terrace.
00:23:18I want you exactly this way in my bed.
00:23:20You are exactly the monster they warned me about when I was little.
00:23:30You want a dead bride?
00:23:32Say so!
00:23:33A blade is faster than a slow death in this frozen pit as a thing you bought!
00:23:37Cassia, put it down.
00:23:39Why?
00:23:40She was right!
00:23:41You do not care if I live or die here, so I will spare us both the rest of it!
00:23:50Look at my side.
00:23:53I walked through dragon fire to take you.
00:23:56A man does not burn for a thing he regrets buying.
00:23:59I walked into that beast fire in front of the whole horde, so your people could sleep knowing the binding
00:24:04was true.
00:24:04You think I burned for your father's alliance?
00:24:07I burned for you.
00:24:08Give me the knife, little queen.
00:24:09I burned for you once.
00:24:11I will walk back into that fire every dawn they ask, before I let you do that to yourself.
00:24:33I will walk back into that fire.
00:24:46I will be bedding other women.
00:24:47But you will not bed me.
00:24:48I am a warlord, little queen.
00:24:50I fight all day.
00:24:51At night I need a woman.
00:24:53If that is not you, it will be someone else.
00:24:55Then perhaps I will find some southern boy and let him have me where you can watch.
00:24:58And we will see how the great warlord likes it.
00:25:00I would feed into my dragons one piece at a time.
00:25:06And put the leash in your hand.
00:25:12Then do it, Ravec.
00:25:14Take me now and be done.
00:25:16So I can hate you honestly.
00:25:19Go on!
00:25:20You will not get gentle from me.
00:25:22Gentlemen do not survive the frozen waste.
00:25:24But I swore at the binding fire that you come to me on your own feet or not at all.
00:25:29And my horde has watched me keep harder oaths than that.
00:25:31Though the horde will sing about your hand at that woman's mouth for a year.
00:25:35Keep the jealousy.
00:25:36I do not want Drusilla.
00:25:38Then why parade her in front of me at all, if you do not want her?
00:25:41I told you, I do not do love.
00:25:43But I want you.
00:25:44Only you.
00:25:45More than I know what to do with.
00:25:47I told myself I would never feel anything for him.
00:25:50I came all the way down here telling myself that.
00:25:52I am such a liar.
00:25:55All that fury at Drusilla.
00:25:58And now you are breathing hard with my hands.
00:26:01On you.
00:26:02Tell me to stop then.
00:26:12No.
00:26:12Not on the same stones where she just stood.
00:26:15I will not take a place that woman warmed an hour ago.
00:26:23Then I wait.
00:26:25I told you I could be patient.
00:26:27You will learn how patient a warlord can be when he has decided a thing is his.
00:26:40That beast has never bowed its head to anyone but me.
00:26:43Three times now it has left my side to come to you.
00:26:46Lift your hand, Cassia.
00:26:48Slow.
00:26:49Let me see what the North forgot how to do.
00:27:10A hatchling.
00:27:12A hatchling.
00:27:13Born on my roost three nights ago.
00:27:16Same night that big one came to you.
00:27:18I want to see something.
00:27:19Do not move.
00:27:22It hates me.
00:27:23Take it back to its roost before it bites one of us.
00:27:25Baby this young does not trust anyone except who hatched it.
00:27:30Not even me.
00:27:33Hold still.
00:27:34Open your hand.
00:27:35Do not reach.
00:27:36Let it come to you.
00:27:49It stopped.
00:27:51Why did it stop?
00:27:53A hundred years the North has not called a beast.
00:27:56And a three-night wilt crawls into her hand like she hatched it herself.
00:27:59The skybound never lost the blood.
00:28:01They lost the teachers.
00:28:03And no one alive has thought to teach her but me.
00:28:06Keep it then.
00:28:07It shows.
00:28:08Feed it raw meat.
00:28:09And keep it off my firks.
00:28:20My wife at the hearth.
00:28:22I did not take you for a woman who knew which end of a fire to stand at, little queen.
00:28:27Council so early?
00:28:28The bread is not even out of the oven.
00:28:29I do not eat in the morning.
00:28:31I have a council on the terrace.
00:28:33Go to the markets.
00:28:34Buy whatever northern women buy.
00:28:37You think a string of beads is the whole of what a woman wants?
00:28:52Council waits.
00:28:53Keep the keep standing until I am back, wife.
00:29:23This I baked with my own hands, husband.
00:29:25And I am not carrying it back down those stairs.
00:29:29Eat.
00:29:31Captains?
00:29:33I would have the warlock alone.
00:29:35My lord, we were mapping the Frostkin raids on the northern passes.
00:29:38This is no audience for a southern feast and a bride playing serving girl.
00:29:41The Frostkin take the passes because the north has no dragons to hold them.
00:29:46I was born in that north, Captain.
00:29:48You map my home.
00:29:50I will stand here while you do it.
00:29:52Five blades drawn and a roost full of dragons.
00:29:55Her hand did not shake once.
00:30:09You broke a council of war.
00:30:12Little queen, how will you make it worth the captains?
00:30:16I just sent away hungry.
00:30:19There is something I want.
00:30:21I do not quite know how to ask a warlord for it.
00:30:23No honey and no games.
00:30:25Ask it straight and I will answer it straight.
00:30:29The passes your captains were mapping.
00:30:32Breera is still behind them.
00:30:34She is 17 and I left her there.
00:30:36Fly me north one day, long enough to put this in her hands and see that she is safe.
00:30:40Is that all?
00:30:42No.
00:30:42You cannot cage me in the south forever.
00:30:45She is 17.
00:30:46She is my sister.
00:30:46She is the only thing back there I still care about.
00:30:49You came south so your people would not die.
00:30:52I have heard nothing of your family, your sister.
00:30:54The passes are burning and I am not flying my wife into a Frostkin war for a wooden bird.
00:31:26The passes are burning and I am not flying my wife into a wooden bird.
00:31:27You are actually standing in my room.
00:31:30How are you here?
00:31:31I thought I would not see you again before midwinter, if ever.
00:31:35How did you cross the whole north to the south in a single day?
00:31:40I said I would not take you into danger.
00:31:42I never said I would not bring her to you.
00:31:45I sent someone at dawn before you even showed up with that bread.
00:31:48You flew through burning passes to pull a skybound girl out of a war.
00:31:54Why would the monster of the south do that?
00:31:59That is what husbands do.
00:32:01And soon you will do what wives do.
00:32:10He sent a dragon to bring my sister here before I even ask.
00:32:14He is never going to admit what that means.
00:32:19Neither am I.
00:32:20Not yet.
00:32:22Now, one night, tell me everything about the south he says I cannot see.
00:32:35You are out of the passes and you are safe.
00:32:38Ask me for anything you want.
00:32:40The warlord all but owns the south.
00:32:41The night market under the black moon.
00:32:43The one the warlord's people throw past the walls with the fire dancers.
00:32:48And the caged sky plane hatchlings.
00:32:49I want to dance.
00:32:51No, I am not allowed past the keep without Ravek.
00:32:54Not among strange southern men.
00:32:58You said whatever I want, I am going.
00:33:01If you are too frightened of your husband, sister, that is your trouble.
00:33:05Coming or not?
00:33:13He said not past the keep.
00:33:14He did not say anything about the street right outside the keep.
00:33:17Technically,
00:33:24Shall I hold them back, my lord?
00:33:25No.
00:33:27Follow.
00:33:28Keep your distance.
00:33:29Ren, Tobin are my wife the whole night.
00:33:31One southern hand on her.
00:33:33You take the hand.
00:33:50Sky and stone, look at all of it.
00:33:56Dance with me, sister.
00:34:02Ren, hand off me.
00:34:04We are dancing.
00:34:05Nothing more.
00:34:06The warlord does not know his wife is past the walls.
00:34:08I have to send word up.
00:34:12Want it back?
00:34:14You will have to reach down a married woman's dress for it.
00:34:18We both know what Ravek does to men who put a hand where it does not belong.
00:34:29For about five minutes, I completely forgot I was sold to a warlord.
00:34:32It was the best five minutes I have had in weeks.
00:35:04It was the best one.
00:35:09My wife, dancing among strange men under a black moon.
00:35:12You have been a bold little queen tonight.
00:35:14Brea wanted the fire dancers.
00:35:16I was not going to send a girl of 17 into a horde market alone.
00:35:20I know. I have had eyes on you both since the first drum.
00:35:24Half the market watched my wife dance tonight,
00:35:26and not one of them will ever know what that costs to touch.
00:35:29Dance with me.
00:35:33Warlords do not dance.
00:35:34You try and bed me, but you won't try and dance with me?
00:35:37One dance, Ravek. Please.
00:36:20The black moon is up, and the wine is winning.
00:36:23Ren takes you and Brea up before the crowd turns ugly.
00:36:27There is a man down here I still have to see.
00:36:29We just arrived. Stay, then. Watch over us yourself.
00:36:32I have a horde to run, not a festival to enjoy.
00:36:35Listen to me, little queen.
00:36:36When some drunk man puts his hands on you tonight,
00:36:39do not come crying to me to deal with it.
00:37:08Years rotting in the southern wars on the warlords order.
00:37:10Years rotting in the southern wars on the warlords order.
00:37:10And my first night home, he hands me a market full of pretty things.
00:37:14Let us find some trouble.
00:37:15Careful, my lord. The warlord hold this market.
00:37:17And the oath you two swore did not survive your exile.
00:37:20He does not know you have come back.
00:37:23Ravek holds this market, so I do as I please in it.
00:37:26And tonight it pleases me to have her.
00:37:31Find the moment and put those two guards to sleep.
00:37:34The night is young, and my sworn brother owes me a homecoming.
00:37:39An empty cup at the warlord's own festival.
00:37:41He would whip that stallkeeper for it.
00:37:44Biced wine for the lady.
00:37:45On me.
00:37:47You know the warlord?
00:37:48He and I swore the shield oath together before he ever wore the talk.
00:37:52Stay where you are. The wine will find you faster than you found it.
00:37:57I should not. My husband is somewhere about.
00:38:00One second I want him gone, and the next I am looking for him in a crowd.
00:38:03I need to pick one.
00:38:10One cup. It cannot hurt.
00:38:12Let me only tell my sister where I am.
00:38:14Of course. Tell her you are in good hands.
00:38:17My sworn brother casts me out, then leaves his sweet northern wife unguarded at his own market.
00:38:22By dawn, she will not even remember my face.
00:38:39Drink up, Cassia.
00:39:06Off her.
00:39:09Now, I let you keep breathing.
00:39:11When the Horde dragged you out of this keep, you crawl back and touch what is mine.
00:39:17Brother, I did not know she was yours.
00:39:20She looked like any other girl at the market.
00:39:22I swear it!
00:39:24My guards are poisoned and my wife can barely stand up.
00:39:27You knew exactly who she was.
00:39:29You picked her.
00:39:31Stay with her.
00:39:33When this starts, turn her face away.
00:39:37What did he give her?
00:39:38Something he is going to tell me right now.
00:39:58Not this one.
00:40:00You do not need to see this.
00:40:02Close your eyes.
00:40:04The powder.
00:40:05What was in the cup.
00:40:07Dreamleaf.
00:40:07Just under a killing dose.
00:40:09She wakes by morning and remembers nothing.
00:40:12I was only going to take her for a few hours.
00:40:14He drugged my wife to take her.
00:40:17You all heard him say it!
00:40:21You poured it yourself.
00:40:24You held her up while you waited for it to work.
00:40:27We swore the shield oath, Ravek.
00:40:29My shield over your back, yours over mine.
00:40:31You do not kill your sworn brother.
00:40:33You broke the oath when you touched what is mine.
00:40:36Iron holds!
00:40:37Fire proves!
00:40:38The Horde remembers!
00:40:57There was a man.
00:40:59A cup of spiced wine.
00:41:02I told him my husband was somewhere about, and then the floor came up at me.
00:41:06He is dealt with.
00:41:07He will not bother you again.
00:41:09Ever.
00:41:10You left me at that stall.
00:41:12You told me some drunk would put his hands on me, and I should not come crying to you.
00:41:16I did.
00:41:17I rode off and left my gate open for the one man down here who hates me most.
00:41:22That is my fault.
00:41:24Not yours.
00:41:25Who was he to you?
00:41:27You said his name like it cost you something.
00:41:30My sworn brother, once.
00:41:33I exiled him years ago for what he did to women in my villages.
00:41:36I should have killed him then.
00:41:38The shield oath talked me out of it.
00:41:42You paid for that mercy tonight, Drake.
00:41:44Slow.
00:41:45I am not leaving this room tonight.
00:41:47You are gentler with me half as asleep than you ever let the Horde see.
00:41:50Tell one of them that and I will deny it to your face.
00:42:01Your people never taught you because they forgot how themselves.
00:42:04So I am teaching you on mine.
00:42:07Put your hand out.
00:42:25It wants nothing to do with me.
00:42:27Nothing down here does.
00:42:29It can smell that you are scared.
00:42:32A Skyfang will not bow to something that is afraid of it.
00:42:35Stop asking for its permission.
00:42:38You have ridden them since before you could walk.
00:42:41I have a week of being laughed at by your warriors.
00:42:44Then give them something else to talk about.
00:42:48Do not reach for it.
00:42:50Let it come to you.
00:42:51Find what the two of you have in common and hold on to that.
00:43:00I feel heat.
00:43:02A heartbeat.
00:43:03Follow it.
00:43:04Push into it.
00:43:13This one already chose you once.
00:43:16In front of everyone.
00:43:17Start with the easy one.
00:43:25It came to me.
00:43:26I did not pull it.
00:43:28It just came.
00:43:30It is not a leash.
00:43:31It is not a spur.
00:43:33It is a line between you.
00:43:35Pull too hard and it breaks.
00:43:37Hold it.
00:43:37And it holds you back.
00:43:40My whole life the Elders told me our blood went cold.
00:43:43That the dragons closed the door on us and were never coming back.
00:43:46So why is it opening for me here?
00:43:48On your dragons?
00:43:49Your blood never went cold.
00:43:51Your people just lost the ones who knew how to teach it.
00:43:54A gift no one uses goes to sleep.
00:43:56I am waking it up.
00:43:58A hundred years of my people dying.
00:44:01Just because no one taught them.
00:44:03A hundred years your kings married for armies.
00:44:05When they should have been marrying for dragon callers.
00:44:12Yours finally did.
00:44:14Even if he did not know it.
00:44:22No hand on yours today.
00:44:24Just you and it.
00:44:25Hold the thread and do not let it pull you off it.
00:44:31I am not asking.
00:44:33I am the one voice you have not listened to yet.
00:44:35Come hear me out.
00:44:51A hundred years in the North raised no one who could do that.
00:44:54I bought you for a deal I had no idea.
00:44:56I was getting the last caller alive.
00:44:58You did not buy this.
00:44:59You taught it.
00:45:01Those are different things.
00:45:02I am not letting you forget that.
00:45:12My father's banner is coming home.
00:45:14And I am leading it.
00:45:16Three winters is a long time.
00:45:18For a woman to sleep alone.
00:45:20Your father's banner is welcome under my roof.
00:45:22Stand.
00:45:28So this is the Northern Bride.
00:45:30They say she showed up not knowing how to dress herself.
00:45:32And that she cannot walk past a sky fawn without holding someone's hand.
00:45:37People say a lot of things in this keep.
00:45:38Most of them are already out of date.
00:45:47He turns away the second the border needs him.
00:45:50He will keep doing that.
00:45:51Let me show you around while he is busy.
00:45:54The hot springs at dusk.
00:45:56Just us women.
00:45:57At dusk then.
00:45:59I can find it on my own.
00:46:02Come alone.
00:46:04The springs are no place for guards.
00:46:25Come in, little queen.
00:46:27Let us all get a look at what the warlord traded a whole kingdom for.
00:46:30I came for a bath, not a show.
00:46:32Move over or get out.
00:46:36Lay a hand on me and he takes it.
00:46:38You saw what he did to his own sworn brother on the dask.
00:46:40His sworn brother touched something he wanted for himself.
00:46:43That is different.
00:46:44Ravek is at his war table and he cannot hear you.
00:46:47This water is for Blacklaw women.
00:46:49And a treaty and address is not one of us.
00:46:51Take it off her!
00:47:00He will know about this before you even get back down there.
00:47:03Tell him!
00:47:04Tell him his little northern treaty stood naked on the rocks and could not call a single
00:47:09bird to help her!
00:47:21Who's hands?
00:47:25Ravek, it was just women being women.
00:47:28I was in your furs for three winters.
00:47:30She has not been there a single night and everyone knows it!
00:47:33The whole keep-watched-my-fire Skyfin bowed to her this morning.
00:47:39And you, strip the last dragoncaller alive on a rock for fun.
00:47:43I am a war captain's daughter!
00:47:45You cannot cast me out over a treaty bribe!
00:47:49You put hands on my queen in front of half the Horde.
00:47:51The Horde remembers.
00:47:52Your father stays.
00:47:54You leave at first light and you do not come back.
00:47:57If I see your face here again, my dragons will not wait for permission.
00:48:17Out there, she said I was a treaty in a borrowed gown.
00:48:23For a moment on those rocks, I believed her.
00:48:26She said it because it is the cruelest thing she could reach for, not because it is true.
00:48:30Then tell me a true thing.
00:48:32You have bled for me, killed for me, walked into your own dragon's fire for me, and I still do
00:48:37not know the man who did it.
00:48:38My father's own captain put hands on my mother in front of the whole hall.
00:48:42So I opened his throat at the high table.
00:48:44I was still a boy.
00:48:51He laughed when I drew the knife.
00:48:53The Horde follows what it fears.
00:48:55I learned that before I learned to shave.
00:48:58Everyone who has ever gotten close to me wanted something from me.
00:49:00The dragons, the land, or me dead.
00:49:02So I stopped letting people close.
00:49:04It was easier.
00:49:05I came here with nothing.
00:49:06No dragon, no army, nothing at all.
00:49:09I came because I had no other choice.
00:49:12And somewhere in the middle of it, I stopped just getting through each day.
00:49:15That is the first time anyone has put a hand on that mark and not pulled it back.
00:49:25At dawn after the binding, I walked into my own dragon's fire to seal the claim and came out burned
00:49:30down my whole left side.
00:49:33I swore in that fire, I would not take you until you came to me wanting it.
00:49:38And the Horde let a warlord wait?
00:49:40They watched my dragon bow past me to you instead.
00:49:42They have been afraid of my wife ever since.
00:49:46So am I a little.
00:49:48Afraid of what?
00:49:49I have nowhere in the wide world but the keep of the man who bought me.
00:49:54Afraid I signed a deal and ended up with someone I would burn everything down for.
00:49:59That was not the plan.
00:50:01I do not like wanting things I cannot control.
00:50:03Then stop trying to rule it.
00:50:05You have bled for me.
00:50:08Put your cloak on me and waited at a fire that no one else in your Horde would.
00:50:13You have done everything except the one thing you keep saying no to.
00:50:18Say it plain.
00:50:19I am done guessing at what you want.
00:50:36Why did you bring me here?
00:50:38This is where they held me down.
00:50:40I know what happened in this water.
00:50:42After tonight this is the place you chose me.
00:50:44They do not get to keep it.
00:50:46Last chance to push me away.
00:50:48After this there is no deal between us anymore.
00:50:51Just this.
00:50:52I have been turning away from you for months.
00:50:54I am done with that.
00:50:56Do not make me ask twice.
00:50:57Ask me then.
00:50:59Out loud.
00:51:00I want to hear you actually say it.
00:51:02Please.
00:51:03I want you.
00:51:04All of you.
00:51:05Not just the warlord.
00:51:06Now.
00:51:20Say it.
00:51:22The thing you will not say in your home.
00:51:25Mine.
00:51:25Not the treaties.
00:51:27Not the North's.
00:51:28Mine.
00:51:35Your sister carved this.
00:51:36Bria.
00:51:38The morning my father sold me.
00:51:40So the sky would know where I was wherever you took me.
00:51:45She said a skybound girl should never be somewhere a bird cannot find her.
00:51:49She was right.
00:51:52By summer every sky thing alive will know exactly where you are.
00:51:56A few weeks ago a man like you would have frightened me out of my skin.
00:52:01Now I cannot find the part of me that was afraid.
00:52:26What is it?
00:52:28Just say it.
00:52:29Stop trying to protect me from it.
00:52:31Frostkin banners on the northern passes.
00:52:34Boren.
00:52:34Coming straight for the border.
00:52:36He thinks the North has no dragons and that I have gone soft.
00:52:40Is he wrong about the second part?
00:52:43He is wrong about what it makes me.
00:52:48Get up little queen.
00:52:50It is time everyone met you before Boren does.
00:53:03Go back.
00:53:19Oh God.
00:53:35No chain, no caller.
00:53:38Bring it down and no one on this wall will ever call you dragonless again.
00:53:52I am the last of the North that can hear you. Come down.
00:54:10Every dragon on this roof knows her now. The whole horde can see it.
00:54:31The North finally sent me! Something worth riding for!
00:54:43Boren crossed the Gree Pass at dawn. Three hundred lances, two frost sky widths. He is moving for the neck.
00:54:49He wants the neck before the Thor. If he takes it, the whole North ride is divided and he can
00:54:54pick us apart.
00:54:56I ride. You stay.
00:54:59And Boren? He will take the neck and then he will ride south for you.
00:55:02While I am out there, you run the keep. You do not cross the outer wall. The dragons will know.
00:55:08If Boren takes you, I will not stop until there is nothing left of him. You do not want to
00:55:13see what that looks like.
00:55:18Do not push the dragons. They will come to you, but they cannot carry you yet.
00:55:49He told you to stay.
00:55:54He told the Cuff to hold me.
00:55:59I am not testing them. I am asking.
00:56:04What are you doing?
00:56:06He said the harness is not a chain.
00:56:09A real caller does not tell the dragon to obey. She asks it to choose.
00:56:19There are two of them out there now.
00:56:21I know.
00:56:36I know.
00:56:40Open the gate.
00:56:41The warlord's order, my lady. The inner face...
00:56:44The warlord's order was for the Cuff. He did not give an order.
00:56:49To the gate.
00:57:03He is going to be furious.
00:57:04He is going to be alive for it.
00:57:07That is what matters.
00:57:08Last time I crossed a gate without his permission, he took my horse.
00:57:12He will not take yours.
00:57:14How do you know?
00:57:14Because you are doing this for me. He will know that.
00:57:25There are froskin scouts in these hills.
00:57:28Revak's outriders cleared them two days ago, but Boring will have sent more.
00:57:32He knows we left the keep.
00:57:34Somebody at that gate will send a bird.
00:57:36Then we ride faster than the bird.
00:57:43It is not flying.
00:57:47It is circling.
00:57:49Is that bad?
00:57:51It circles when it is watching something it cannot reach yet.
00:58:01Something on the left ridge.
00:58:02I do not see.
00:58:24I do not see.
00:58:33Tell Boring he sent a captain to take a princess, and he should have sent a warlord.
00:58:39We have two frost sky fangs in these hills, cold and loaded.
00:58:44Call yours off, or we loose them.
00:58:46One more.
00:58:57Not today.
00:58:58I am sorry.
00:59:00I am sorry.
00:59:20Ren and Tobin were two hours behind us.
00:59:22They will have found the gate guards.
00:59:23They will go north and find Revec before they come south for me.
00:59:26That was the plan.
00:59:28That was always the plan.
00:59:30I am not bait by accident.
00:59:33Revec cannot reach Boren without riding into those dragons.
00:59:36Boren needs leverage to hold him back.
00:59:39I am the leverage.
00:59:40While he has me, Ravak has to stop.
00:59:45You walked out of the keep to get captured.
00:59:48I walked out because he rode into a trap.
00:59:52Boren's fake trail.
00:59:53The move at the neck, all of it was to pull him forward.
00:59:56If I stay in the keep, he charges through and dies.
00:59:58If I am here, he stops.
01:00:02I need him to think.
01:00:12I have heard two things about the new Black Clo wife.
01:00:15That she is very beautiful, and that no Skybound has called a dragon in a hundred years.
01:00:20I see both are true.
01:00:21The second one will not be true much longer.
01:00:24The Warlord tell you that?
01:00:25The Warlord showed me.
01:00:28Ravak teaches his wife party tricks the way you teach a child.
01:00:31The calling is not a trick.
01:00:33A real caller is born that way, and the North has not had one in a hundred years.
01:00:37You are a princess from a dying line in a dying kingdom, and your husband knows it.
01:00:43He bought you to stop the Skybound from hitting his border.
01:00:46That is it.
01:00:47Then why are you using me to stop him?
01:00:49A man who bought his wife just to hold a border does not ride two days ahead of his whole
01:00:54army when she goes missing.
01:00:56You know exactly what he is coming to do.
01:00:58You need me between you and him.
01:01:01Send him a message.
01:01:03He pulls back to his border.
01:01:05He ends the Skybound Alliance, and you go home.
01:01:08Everyone walks away.
01:01:18Then I send him a different kind of message.
01:01:29Gateguard at the keep says she walked out four hours before we turn back.
01:01:33The Skyfling went with her.
01:01:34She was not taken, Lord.
01:01:36She walked through that gate by choice.
01:01:38I know.
01:01:40Then why?
01:01:41Because she knew Boren's fake trail would pull me north before I realized she was gone.
01:01:47She knew I would be two hours past her before I turned around.
01:01:51She did this so I would stop.
01:01:52My wife walked out of the keep and let herself get taken so I would not ride into those dragons
01:01:56without a plan.
01:01:57Is that good or bad, Lord?
01:02:01It is exactly what I would have done.
01:02:03Now we do what I do next.
01:02:16He is there.
01:02:20You see him?
01:02:22I see him.
01:02:24Lord Boren is about to talk to him.
01:02:26You stand here where he can see you and hear the terms.
01:02:36Ravek of the Black Claw!
01:02:38I have your wife and I have two Frost Scythanes loaded and wakened.
01:02:44You have until the sun clears the ridge to send your horde back and give me the neck or I
01:02:48send back pieces.
01:02:49He will ride up that hill within both those dragons and he will not stop.
01:02:56That is the point.
01:02:58I need to know if he still will.
01:03:14Far enough!
01:03:15You see her?
01:03:17I see her.
01:03:18Then you know what this costs you.
01:03:21Dissolve the Skybound Alliance and pull back to your border.
01:03:24You have until midday.
01:03:26You brought two Frost Skyfangs into my passes, blocked my road, and took my wife.
01:03:32Midday is generous.
01:03:34Midday!
01:03:35Or I take the hand she let you hold!
01:03:59He is going to ride that camp apart.
01:04:02Not until he has a way through the Frost Skyfangs.
01:04:05He will wait for one.
01:04:07And if no way comes...
01:04:10Then I make one.
01:04:24Cassia!
01:04:25Be quiet.
01:04:39the frost sky veins are chained on the east ledge two callers inside the upper camp if you breach
01:04:45the gate the callers loose the dragons before you are through it take the callers first and
01:04:50the frost sky flings go wild inside a camp full of our people we do not breach the gate
01:04:56we make boring open it 12 riders ravine behind the east ledge wait until dark nobody makes a sound
01:05:04until i am inside how do you get inside lord he will not open that gate unless you give him
01:05:09what
01:05:09he wants he will open it to watch me kneel lord if it goes wrong in there it will not
01:05:19go wrong pick
01:05:20your twelve
01:05:39weapons
01:05:42lord boren will have the warlord's word spoken aloud in front of his captains not written spoken take me to
01:05:49him
01:06:06he is counting the chains
01:06:23say it out loud the black claw ends its deal with the sky bound pulls back south of the gree
01:06:31pass and
01:06:31gives me the neck say it do you know what the binding cost me a burn across your ribs i
01:06:38heard
01:06:39i walked into that fire not knowing if my dragon would hold i have been in plenty of battles i
01:06:45always
01:06:45knew the odds going in that fire i had nothing it is the only time i have ever been actually
01:06:50scared
01:06:58i will not say those words
01:07:03get to the ledge
01:07:23run not yet
01:07:42whatever comes out of that tent stay behind me
01:08:08why are you with this
01:08:09why are you with this
01:08:16kassia the caller is still i know he is not the only voice you know i am here
01:08:24leave him come to me
01:08:27don't listen to her
01:08:37no
01:08:40come back
01:08:42come back
01:09:01that is not possible those dragons belong to a caller they cannot just they could not before
01:09:07things change
01:09:08i knew she could do it
01:09:20you were going to kneel for him
01:09:23i was going to say the words and then tear the camp apart once you were clear
01:09:28the kneeling was just to get the gate open
01:09:30you told him the fire was the only thing that frightened you
01:09:35i lied
01:09:36you scared me every day since the temple i could walk into that fire again i could not lose you
01:09:41say the rest of it
01:09:42i love you
01:09:43i have loved you since you put your bare hand on that dragon and did not pull back
01:09:47tell me you heard that
01:09:48i heard you
01:10:00that
01:10:01you
01:10:01you
01:10:01you
01:10:01you
01:10:01you
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