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  Table of Contents

  Heart of Steel

  Book Details

  The Queen's Dragon Rider

  The Silent Knight

  To Tame a Dragon

  Blackberries and Buckthorn

  The Heartless Knight

  Ser Rae of Del

  A Shieldmaiden's Vow

  About the Authors

  Heart of Steel

  Edited by

  Samantha M. Derr

  Everyone loves the stories of knights: chivalry, bravery, loyalty, love gained, lost, unrequited and timeless. Daring feats, epic quests, bloody wars, and more...

  The Queen's Dragon Rider by Cora Walker—Tessandra dreamed of being the first woman in her family to join the Legion of the Bold. But that promising career in the Legion was dashed when the riderless dragon Merryn selected Tess, much to her disappointment. Now joining the queen's service, though not in the capacity she expected, Tess is about to begin her first mission—and it's already shaping up to be full of peril.

  The Silent Knight by Avery Stiles—As a courier, Loran has always worked alone, but her latest delivery comes with a companion: a mute knight without a name. The strange knight at first seems more hindrance and help—especially after they insist on saving the life of a brigand Loran would have preferred dead.

  To Tame a Dragon by Christina DZA Marie—The Septimoan Law of War states, "No woman shall ever bear arms for king and country. Should she participate in war, her only acceptable role is that of nurse." But Floriane has no patience or time for such a law—especially once she finds herself right in the middle of a war.

  Blackberries and Buckthorn by TS Porter—Ser Isolde has been tasked with the underwhelming duty of escorting young Lady Siofra home from her sorceress' training. She has better things to do with her time than babysit a silly girl, but at least the matter will be simple and quickly over...

  The Heartless Knight by Heather Morris—Long a part of Prince Tom's inner circle, and newly knighted, still Isi is a man eternally out of place. Once a slave, always a foreigner, and that's only the start of what makes him odd to most. Confusing feelings for Tom do not remotely help.

  Ser Rae of Del by B.A. Huntley—The king is dead, and Rae finds herself dragged right into the heart of politics when her lover, the queen, orders her to find a rumored bastard child and bring them back at any cost.

  A Shieldmaiden's Vow by Helena Maeve—Setting aside her vow to defend against wickedness, a disillusioned Maud turned her back on the Order of Saint Kilda four years ago and struck out on her own. Then two of her former shield-sisters arrive in town town, hell-bent on dragging her back into the fold, and Maud's past and present collide.

  Heart of Steel

  Edited by Samantha M. Derr

  Published by Less Than Three Press LLC

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission of the publisher, except for the purpose of reviews.

  The Queen's Dragon Rider Edited by Nicole Field, The Silent Knight Edited by Michelle McDonough, To Tame a Dragon Edited by Michelle McDonough, Blackberries and Buckthorn Edited by Nicole Field, The Heartless Knight Edited by Melanie Odhner, Ser Rae of Del Edited by Amanda Jean, A Shieldmaiden's Vow Edited by Keith Kaczmarek

  Cover designed by Kirby Crow

  This book is a work of fiction and all names, characters, places, and incidents are fictional or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is coincidental.

  First Edition September 2017

  The Queen's Dragon Rider Copyright © 2017 by Cora Walker, The Silent Knight Copyright © 2017 by Avery Stiles, To Tame a Dragon Copyright © 2017 by Christina DZA Marie, Blackberries and Buckthorn Copyright © 2017 by TS Porter, The Heartless Knight Copyright © 2017 by Heather Morris, Ser Rae of Del Copyright © 2017 by B.A. Huntley, A Shieldmaiden's Vow Copyright © 2017 by Helena Maeve

  Printed in the United States of America

  Digital ISBN 9781684310869

  Print ISBN 9781684310876

  The Queen's Dragon Rider

  Cora Walker

  As Merryn shifted his wings and lurched downwards, Tess instinctively dropped her hand back to the saddle horn. Her training taught her how to deal with the feeling of her stomach rising, the little rush of heat that went through her chest every time they dove, but this was their first long solo flight, and he kept catching her by surprise. Tess took a moment to adjust the dwarven-made glass goggles that kept the wind from thrashing her eyes. She adjusted her seat in the saddle, checked the straps holding her in place—the finest leather and metalwork—and checked her sword and her spear. When she shifted her weight, she felt that new, strange presence brush against her mind, a query asking permission to enter, perhaps an expression of concern, and Tess denied him that. The presence retreated, always too close but relenting for the moment.

  Below, the Rockwood seemed to stretch for miles. Merryn ducked out of the cloud cover again, allowing Tess to see the marble forest that reached from the farmlands to the base of the looming mountains in the distance. Tess had seen them once, as a child following her father on a visit of the towns and villages he was responsible for overseeing and defending. She remembered how similar to living trees they were—down to the finest details of their bark—but they were white, hard as stone, and frozen in time. To fall onto their many branches as she and Merryn were riding over them would be as bad as landing on the jagged rocks along her coastal home. She thought briefly of the ships she'd once seen bashed onto the rocks outside her home town by the single, powerful gust of a storm, and how they had broken into splinters. Some sailors had been rescued by the large fluffy dogs that were as essential to her coastal home as dragons were to the kingdom itself, but most of the men had been lost against those rocks.

  She thought about how her training taught her how to use the trees when she fell and how little that applied this far into Rockwood. She and Merryn would be bashed against stone if they fell—countless sharp spires of rock. Even the mountains would be better ground to fight over if they encountered trouble. At least they wouldn't be skewered.

  Tess took another deep breath, tilting her head to shield her face from the wind. As she leaned into the wind, the freshly cut ends of her hair brushed against the tips of her ears, and it made her sad all over again.

  She'd liked short hair as a youth, but wearing long hair in Legion training had been the one vanity, the one tiny point of pride she allowed herself as one of the two girls in the academy of mostly boys. But after Merryn chose her, what was difficult to maintain as a soldier became dangerous as a dragon rider. Thousands of feet up in the air, long hair posed too many risks.

  At least now it reminded her of being a young girl and fighting her mother to keep it in a bob. "You look like a page boy," her mother once snapped, and Tess remembered thinking back on that with pride the day she'd been set to get her shield.

  Lost in thought, she felt Merryn's foreign presence nudging inwards at the edge of her mind. She was still learning how to decipher the depths of his intellect—from the polite, almost tentative nature of the call, she gathered that he wanted to comfort her. She pushed him away by imagining a stone wall rising out of the ground. It wasn't a defense she could hold for long, but it was enough to convey her message.

  Not only had her career in the Legion of the Bold been smashed like that ship from her childhood, she now constantly had to contend with the presence of another. Her mind, her heart, anything could prompt Merryn to try and speak to her. Tess did her best to only communicate with him for the simplest tasks, only the necessities of surviving while in the air.

  Tess relaxed back into the saddle and watched the Rockwood fly beneath her in a blur. People said
that somewhere down there, there were simple animals—solid as rock, white as marble, and frozen in time like the forest was. Tess imagined a petrified squirrel at the top of one of those trees, a deer at the base somewhere, with one hoof raised and head turned towards the source of the calamity. All animals were as they had been in the moment before the spell fell.

  Tess had always wanted to visit the forest, but she imagined herself riding through it on horseback—a knight of the Legion.

  She'd still earned her shield, but along with it came a pair of unwanted wings.

  The mountain that had seemed so small on the horizon now loomed beneath them, the snowy top scraping the clouds to their right. The ghostly pale trees became fewer and fewer, only occasionally spotting the mountainside.

  Somewhere they had crossed into the Mountain Principalities, overseen above and below by the dwarves, and friends of Tess's own human kingdom and Queen Leona, her regent. Tess could already see the smoke from the border towns. The sun would set soon, and Tess looked forward to the reds and pink that would splash over the snow when it did.

  BOOM.

  A thunderous noise echoed through the mountainside, and Tess felt it shake the inside of her ribcage. Merryn was as alarmed as she was, and Tess found herself instinctively reaching down to the smooth, scaly shoulder next to the saddle. She opened her mind, the wall she'd brought up earlier now hastily deconstructed.

  A cannon?

  Yes, came Merryn's reply, and Tess tried not to think about the depths of his mind. That pool was one she feared losing herself to. Trouble ahead.

  Tess nodded and leaned into the turn as Merryn banked with the wind. Her heart thundered as more shots were fired, bouncing from the mountain and cliff face before finally reaching her.

  She'd fought before. She'd been in small border skirmishes with the Legion when she was at the academy, but with a sinking realization, she realized this would be her first fight as a dragon rider—her first battle in the air.

  It's not my first battle, Merryn said. If he was trying to be reassuring, he failed.

  Tess tried to block the images that flashed from his memory, but her mind went to the handsome young man who had ridden Merryn before her—the auburn-haired Prince Salle, Leona's youngest brother, who died in one of those battles Merryn had been in before. Just as Merryn pulled his mind back, Tess felt the well of pain that thought brought up in him, and hoped he could sense her immediate, honest regret.

  They surged over a mountain pass, a shadow on a hillside as the sound of dwarven cannons got louder and louder.

  A small village lay ahead, and the first thing Tess saw was the muzzle flashes. The next thing she saw was the three dragons and their riders ducking and dodging over the city, doing their best to silence the cannons. There was the occasional spout of fire as they swooped down, but the rock watchtowers were resistant to the little puffs those little wyrms could offer. On their backs were soldiers wearing the colors of the Eleven—named for the Eleven Gods their king had pledged to take back the world for. Bright checker-marked tunics over mail and plate signaled their allegiance.

  Tess gulped. The Eleven were the ruthless enemies of Queen Leona. For centuries, the city states and their leaf-eared people had been humanity's allies, until the ascension of their new high king. She and Merryn were far from reinforcements, and at least an hour's flight from the much larger town they were going to stop in to rest for the night.

  But her duty was to engage with soldiers of the Eleven wherever she found them, and to protect the innocent. She hunkered down low on Merryn's back and reached for her long spear—the stick with the long, curved blade on the end—and assumed the fighting stance the quarter master had taught her.

  She and Merryn dove in silently, deadly, and they came upon the first enemy; Tess artfully, neatly drove her spear into his unsuspecting back. He was lost the moment they chose him, and he went falling silently to the ground.

  Tess didn't even have time to think about how that was her first kill in the sky, about how cowardly it seemed when compared to the rules of war she'd been taught at the Legion. But fire was surging through her stomach, rising up her arms as she shifted her spear again and the other two riders turned on her. She and Merryn would not get another advantage like that, and she steeled herself for the response.

  She heard someone shouting from the watchtower, someone telling the dwarven militia to hold their fire, no doubt. By now, Tess acknowledged that the enemy riders would probably recognize Merryn—the iconic flame-colored dragon who directly served Queen Leona, and whose previous rider had been the scourge of their armies.

  The other riders splintered, heading in opposing directions. Merryn and Tess headed upwards, in a vertical, twisting motion. One of the enemy riders broke rank and followed, thinking he could go in for the kill, thinking that Merryn must be as slow as he was big or his new rider as inexperienced as she was young, but Merryn turned sharply before rolling to slow his speed and position for their response. If they hadn't practiced the motion a thousand times, Tess doubtlessly would have lost her spear as Merryn's claws raked down the stomach of the enemy's wyrm. There was a terrible, animalistic cacophony as his claws rendered and tore—in victory from Merryn, and in bitter, mortal pain from the other dragon. The enemy rider screeched as they fell to earth, crashing into a large outcropping of rock. The dragon landed on its backside, torn stomach skyward, wings outstretched behind it, and rider doubtlessly pinned beneath it.

  Tess's mouth was dry. Her arm already ached, but the fire kept her from noticing. Merryn maneuvered away again, and she found herself shouting in triumph.

  They turned their sights on the last rider, who seemed a bit wilier than the others, because he knew a direct attack was suicide. He probably would have fled, but soldiers of the Eleven were executed for less than desertion, and so he rounded on Tess and Merryn instead.

  Tess eyed his weapon—a long jousting lance, weighted and blunt, but longer in reach than her spear. A dangerous weapon for the skies. Merryn and the enemy rider circled each other around the homes beneath them. For a heartbeat, Tess wondered if there would be a way to draw him away from the village, to try and take their fight elsewhere, but this would be a duel to the death. Tess knew that if he thought the village would put her at a disadvantage, he would be ruthless enough to use that to live. Survival and victory were prioritized above all else from the moment a cadet was drafted. That was the way all soldiers of the Eleven were trained, and it was how they fought on the field.

  They squared off and charged each other. Tess felt the distinctive clicks under her thighs, echoing from Merryn's chest as they charged the other rider and a lance of flame shot out of his throat. The wyrm responded in kind, and the oily flame seemed to shred right off of Merryn's skin, with him doing his best to shield Tess from the sticking oil. Her armor would protect her from the rest, but—

  When she looked up, through the flames, all she saw was the long arm of her enemy's weapon reaching towards her as they sped at each other. Merryn shifted at the last moment, coming almost to a complete halt as the lance ran straight into Tess's metal breastplate.

  The force of the impact took her breath. She flopped, limply, flat against Merryn's back, and her vision went dark. Stupid.

  *~*~*

  Aria sometimes worried she would never get the smell of the forge off her skin. Whether she was wiping soot from her nose, or trying to imagine clothes that smelled like anything but metal, she dreamed of open skies and fresh air.

  She was managing the shop that day because her uncle had left on a trading expedition through the Rockwood earlier that week, so she was at least given a break from the smelting and the cooling. Instead, she was reading through their endless orders in-between customers. A little bit of their income came from visitors looking for a dwarven souvenir, but the smithy was kept aboveground by repairs—there was never an end to repairs.

  She stood, smoothed the front of her apron, and took the little broken dagger t
he Mayor's wife had sent in to be fixed.

  Her mother was just setting a longsword to cool and smiled at Aria as she approached. "Aria? What's next?"

  "Lady Vanessa's little breadknife."

  Her mother looked like a slightly older version of Aria herself—short and muscular, with smooth, round cheeks on a heart-shaped face, and bright-eyed. "Aria," she chided lightly, though there was humor in it. "It's ceremonial."

  "It's her bejeweled bread knife," Aria muttered back as she handed the dagger to her mother, who chuckled as she looked the weapon over.

  Then her mother sighed. "It'd be an alright knife if not for these blasted gems. They weaken the blade and are fixed to pop off at the worst times." She shrugged. "But whatever the customer wants. Right, Aria?"

  "Right, Mama," Aria replied, smiling back.

  Her mother clapped her on the shoulder. "Someday you'll make a few pennies on pretty things, right here in this forge. I'm so proud of you."

  Aria forced her smile wider. Only when her mother could no longer see her did Aria's shoulders finally droop.

  The forge. Her only possible past and future.

  Instead of thinking about that, she thought about the Rockwood, that odd scar of land between the Mountain Principalities and the Human kingdom. It was scary, but motionless, and allowed for free trade between the Dwarves and the humans, when the Eleven weren't making unwanted border incursions on either one. Even then, the lack of underbrush or wild beasts in the Rockwood made it almost impossible to secure completely.

  Aria was fantasizing about riding through the wood with a couple of pack mules full of goods headed to the human kingdom to trade, maybe earn enough to take a boat elsewhere, trade there, too.

  She was still fantasizing about that, glad her mother couldn't see her thoughts, when the alarm bells started ringing.

  At first, she couldn't tell what it was, but soon the loud clanging snapped her out of her daydreams. Her mother came running from the forge, eyes cast upwards to watch the sky.