Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Present day...

“I don’t think we’ll be able to save it,” Shavala said, pausing her work. Scrubbing at the discolored layer of grime coating the wooden bar top had revealed dry rot.

Katrin stopped too, blowing a lock of hair out of her eyes. “No, I guess not. I’ll need to find someone who can replace it.”

While the others were busy cleaning the keep room by room, Shavala had been stuck in the old tavern watching over the dragon eggs. She’d decided against moving them a second time, worried that any unnecessary jostling might damage the creatures growing within. Katrin had joined her on the third day, wanting to get a start on fixing up the tavern.

Shavala stood back and stretched. “What next?” she asked.

“The floor,” Katrin said. “We’ll just have to work around those things.” She gestured to the eggs with distaste. “I’ll go borrow a broom from the keep.”

They’d already removed the tables and chairs, putting the ones in the best condition in the back room to be cleaned and polished, and tossing the rest outside in a pile to be chopped up for firewood.

“Wait,” Shavala said. She concentrated and summoned a light gust of air, blowing the loose leaves and other recent detritus up and out the open door.

With the easy part out of the way, she summoned more winds, stronger this time. Feeding into each other, they formed miniature cyclones, coming up only to knee height. Shavala directed them around the room to scrub the floor, loosening up some of the crusted-on dirt and then blowing it out of the way. The wind couldn’t fully clean the slate tiles, but it could get rid of the bulk of the mess.

One of the whirlwinds whipped at Katrin’s skirts. “Hey!” she said, laughing. “That tickles. Stop it!”

Shavala grinned and let the winds die out. “You don’t need to borrow a broom now.”

“I’ll go refill the buckets, then,” Katrin said. She massaged her shoulder. “More scrubbing.”

Before Shavala could respond, Leena and Zhailai appeared in the room, returning from their trip to Cetos. They’d been gone for over a day.

Zhailai peered around as if not quite certain she’d actually changed locations. “A strange sensation, to be in one place and then another so far apart from each other,” the dorvasta druid said. “Thank you, Leena, for your aid.”

“Did you learn anything?” Shavala asked. She would have liked to see Cetos for herself, but Leena was limited in how much Traveling she could do while taking others with her. She had to rest and recover each time, and it was more important for Zhailai to go so she could track down her contacts there. It wouldn’t have been fair to ask Leena to make an extra trip just so Shavala could satisfy her curiosity.

“We went to Kalas, which is an outpost on the border of the settled region. We found Makula there—he’s a ranger, and the great-grandson of the woman who first showed me the outlands during my travels. They have their own rangers, not like ours.” Zhailai shook her head and switched to the elven language. “I always forget how quickly humans are affected by time. Makula was just a little boy the last time I visited, and now he’s a man with children of his own.”

“What did he say?”

Zhailai switched back to trade tongue so the others could follow the conversation. “He says the eggs will hatch without their mother, but if the hatchlings don’t have anyone to hunt for them, or to teach them to fly and hunt for themselves, they aren’t likely to survive. An older female dragon that has raised young of her own in the past will sometimes take care of hatchlings that aren’t hers. Only sometimes, but he thought it was worth a try. He’s gone to search for a group of outlanders who may know of a good candidate. I had to give him some of the coins you offered. He doesn’t work for free.”

It wasn’t good news, but it was better than nothing. The hatchlings would have a small chance at life.

“Thank you. Did he say how long it would take?”

“Outlanders are a strange bunch, but there are usually some near Kalas. He should have an answer by tomorrow, though we should go early in the morning or it’ll be nighttime there.” Zhailai trailed her fingers over the eggs. “I worry about carrying them all at once. Perhaps we should take two tomorrow, and two the day after.” She glanced at Leena. “If that is acceptable to you?”

Leena nodded. “It was farther than I’ve ever gone before, but as long as I don’t do anything else, I think I can handle it.”

“Only take one on the second day,” Shavala said.

Zhailai tilted her head to the side. “Would that help? I do not understand this magic. If Leena goes by herself, she will be less tired?”

“Yes, but I’d just have to make another trip afterward,” the Sanvari woman said. “And I wouldn’t be able to talk to anyone there—I could barely understand what you were saying.”

“This is true,” Zhailai said. “The trade tongue they speak in Cetos is very different than what we speak here.”

“I don’t mean for Leena to make an extra trip,” Shavala said. “I want you to leave one of the eggs here. You say the adult they find may not care for the hatchlings, so I’ll raise one of them myself. I’ll hunt for it, and teach it to hunt.” Teaching it to fly would be harder, but some part of it must be instinctual. Birds could learn to fly on their own.

“Shavala!” Katrin said. “You can’t!”

“I’ll train it not to harm people. If it has food, it won’t need to kill anyone.”

She felt a need to know the creatures better, to understand them. They were predators, but so were elves and humans. Shavala herself was a hunter, and she’d killed humans in battle. She’d killed men with fire. Was she any better than the dragon she’d helped to hunt down?

“We cannot speak to dragons,” Zhailai reminded her. “They’re not part of the natural world.”

Shavala held her hands out to her sides, palms up. “Is it so different than what humans do in training dogs or horses? Wolves are predators, yet dogs can learn a different way of life ... and dragons are smarter than dogs or horses.”

Zhailai nodded.

“Corec isn’t going to let you keep a dragon,” Katrin said.

“Corec doesn’t decide what I do,” Shavala told her. “I’m not a child, and I don’t need another parent.” It wasn’t the first time she’d had to remind the other woman of that. She cared for Corec and Katrin, and she could adjust her life to spend time with them, but she wouldn’t allow them to change who she was.

A hurt expression crossed Katrin’s face. “It’s too dangerous!” she protested.

“If I can’t control the dragon, I’ll kill it myself,” Shavala said. “I promise. But I need to know if we can live in peace with them. Humans and elves are not their natural prey.”

“I’d like to help you,” Zhailai said. “When we take the other eggs to Cetos, I’ll find out more. The outlands are different than anywhere else I’ve been. Perhaps we can learn something from them.”

“Miss Ellerie,” Duke Lorvis said, rising from behind his desk to greet her. “Welcome back to Matagor. Judging by the message you sent me, I suspect you’re not here to get your old job back.”

Devin, Lorvis’s Captain of the Guard, smirked at that. He was the man Ellerie had reported to when she’d served as bodyguard to the duke’s daughters.

She unfurled the cloth from around the bundle she carried, and laid the three-foot-long dragon’s horn out on the duke’s desk. “The dragon is dead,” she told him.

Lorvis pursed his lips but didn’t respond right away.

“It could be fake,” Devin said. “Or from some other dragon. You can buy that sort of thing if you know where to look.”

Ellerie rolled her eyes. “It’s real, Dev.” He hated when the guards under his command addressed him informally. “And check the cuts—they’re fresh.”

“We’ll take it as true for now,” the duke said. “There have already been rumors coming out of South Corner. I wasn’t expecting to see you in person so soon, though, Ellerie—much less with the deed already done. Your message said you were trying to find the funding to take care of the matter.”

“The dragon’s attacks were too serious for us to delay, but it was an expensive undertaking. We had to borrow a great deal of money.” Most of what they’d borrowed had been from their friends rather than a moneylender, but Ellerie still hoped to pay it back.

A sly grin came over Lorvis’s face. “Well, seeing as how the beast is already dead and I never agreed to anything beforehand, I have to wonder why you’re here.”

“Surely it’s worth something to you if the trade roads could be reopened. How much money would you save each year with a direct route to Tyrsall?”

The duke shrugged. “Perhaps a bit. Eventually. I have existing contracts that must be honored—I can’t just change things on a whim. In any case, I assume the dragon won’t be returning to life, so I’ve already got what I would have wanted out of the deal.”

“The dragon’s dead, but the roads are covered with fifty-four years worth of growth,” Ellerie pointed out. “Completely impassible in some spots. You’re not going to get any caravans through there unless someone does the work. We’ve got over two hundred miles of road to clear, and that won’t come cheap.”

It wasn’t as bad as she was making it sound. Much of the overgrowth came from grasses and weeds that would be beaten down as wagons and horses started coming through.

“Two hundred?” Lorvis said with a frown. “I don’t care about the north-south route. I’m only interested in the trade road—the Old Road.”

“Then help us pay for that. It’ll benefit you as much as us.”

“Who is this us, exactly?”

There was only one answer that would work. Free lands they might be called, but the nearby kingdoms considered the area to be human territory. Ellerie couldn’t lay a claim there, particularly once word got out about who her mother was. Besides, Duke Lorvis would respect martial strength, and, like many of the nobles in the surrounding lands, he would want to know who he was dealing with. He wouldn’t accept the idea of a group of nameless advisors sharing the duties of running the fortress.

“Corec Tarwen holds the keep,” she said. “He led the forces that defeated the dragon, and he helped fund the expedition. Now that the way is safe, he and his soldiers have occupied the fortress so the trade routes can be reopened.”

“Tarwen? That’s a barony in Larso. Does King Rusol intend to surround the hillfolk from all sides? Marten never thought the free lands were worth the trouble.”

Duke Lorvis knew the name of one of the smallest baronies belonging to his neighbor to the north, but in the time Ellerie had worked for the man, he’d never realized who she was.

“Tarwen, yes, but a third son,” she said. “Neither Larso nor the king are involved, and Lord Ansel has no stake in the matter.” But getting Corec’s name out to the public might draw Rusol’s attention, which was the whole idea.

“And you work for this Tarwen now?” Lorvis asked.