“Perhaps that’s the burden a ruler must carry,” she said. “To see the larger picture—and serve the greater good—even when the people do not.”
“Speaking of the larger picture, Elden Grealor isn’t sharp enough to puzzle out what you meant by the summer solstice, but I know you a little better. You wouldn’t send the exile to kill Emperor Mercer just because of Kira, and you certainly wouldn’t start a war over her.”
“Would you rather I had done nothing?” Ashlyn asked.
“Of course not. That clock-worshipping bastard kidnapped my youngest daughter,” Hertzog said. “I’d jam a seashell into Mercer’s mouth myself if I could. And I was glad to see that you’re willing to get your hands dirty. But I want to know the real reason.”
Ashlyn had found a way to live with her father, but she’d never forgiven him for the things he’d done to Silas. Hertzog didn’t deserve to know the inner workings of his daughter’s mind.
“If we both want the same thing, what does it matter?”
“Ashlyn.”
“Father.”
“I know what you think of me,” Hertzog said. “That I’m a shortsighted and brutal man, stuck in a warlike and tribal rut, along with the rest of Almira. And the world might be more complicated than I admit, but it’s simpler than you’d like. When there are men with swords drawn standing outside your walls, you must defend yourself, or you will not be queen of this muddy country for very long. Remember what I said—steel and gold are the only two ways to rule Almira.”
“I understand, Father,” Ashlyn said.
“No, you don’t.” He stifled a cough. “But you will.”
* * *
That night, Ashlyn was working late at the top of the Queen’s Tower, which had a ceiling made from domed windowpanes that looked up into the star-filled sky. The room used to be a lavish bedchamber, but Ashlyn’s mother, Shiru, had it converted to an observatory. Ashlyn used to stay up late with her mother learning the Papyrian names for the constellations. There were three telescopes, each facing a different section of the sky. Ashlyn kept them cleaned and calibrated so she could look at the stars when she needed to forget the world below.
She conducted the vast majority of her business from this room. Her contracts, provincial maps, and intelligence reports were stacked in neat piles on the large desk. The eastern wall was covered with a dozen of her most recent dragon sketches. There were more than fifty folios of dragon drawings in the basement archives—everything she’d done since she was a ten-year-old girl with no sense of scale or perspective.
When her mother was alive, she had indulged Ashlyn’s love of dragons. Shiru had hired a Papyrian alchemist—Gayella Stern—to tutor her on the natural world and teach her to draw. For nearly ten happy years, Ashlyn had absorbed everything Gayella could teach her about plants, rivers, animals, and—most of all—dragons. How to track a dying one without getting yourself killed. Once you found it, how to dissect its body and learn as much as possible from its organs before they went to rot. Ashlyn had surpassed Gayella when it came to drawings, but she’d always felt as if she’d barely managed to scratch the surface of the alchemist’s knowledge before Gayella was taken from her.
When Shiru died, Hertzog banished Gayella because he’d suspected the alchemist knew about Shiru’s affair with Leon Bershad but had kept it a secret. Hertzog gave her one day to leave the Almira, and threatened her with a pair of blue bars if she ever returned. Ashlyn had no idea where the alchemist was now, but hoped she had found her way back home.
Ashlyn spent the evening reading reports from her informants on the far side of the Soul Sea. Balaria was still a bottomless pit from which no information ever escaped, but their surrounding colonies were not as mysterious. Agricultural calamities continued in Ghalamar. Crop shortages so bad that entire villages had been abandoned as people moved on, looking for food. It had taken Ashlyn months of research to figure out exactly what caused the famine. The wheat farmers had eradicated the low-valley Green Horn dragons, which frequented their fields to hunt a specific breed of red-tailed fox. Without a natural predator, the foxes decimated the pond-frog population. This, in turn, allowed the frog’s main source of food—the meadow wasp—to see an exponential increase in numbers. The wasps alone wouldn’t have caused the famine, but Ghalamarian wheat was prone to an ergot fungus that was spread through the tiny hairs on wasps’ legs with unstoppable industry. The fungus turned good wheat into a mash that, when eaten, would make adults shit themselves to death within three days.
It was similar to her problem with the red-shelled snails in the Blakmar province, just far larger in scope.
Finding all these connections had taken months of work. Ashlyn imported fox scat, frog specimens, wheat, and living wasps from Ghalamar. Then she’d started her own miniature wheat field in a greenhouse and spent weeks watching the wasps. Examining their tiny legs for fungus. Tracing the small, hidden connections that ran between all living things.
Once Ashlyn mapped the source of the famine back to the overhunting of Green Horns, she’d dispatched carrier pigeons to Ghalamar, explaining the problem and urging them to allow the dragons to return. The stewards had written back with idiotic and insulting questions. How could the elimination of Green Horns—which had been celebrated as a great victory—possibly cause a wheat fungus? Why was a princess of Almira sticking her nose into their problems? She’d heard rumors that the Ghalamarians called her the Mad Wasp Princess because of those messages. The people of Floodhaven court—who’d seen her laboring inside her tiny wheat domain and obsessing over wasps—probably had their own names for her.
Ashlyn didn’t care. The nobles could call her whatever they wanted. The wheat famine was in danger of destroying Ghalamar, and the exact same thing could happen to Almira if Emperor Mercer succeeded. Whispered rumors were a small price to pay if it gave her a chance to stop that ruination.
She unrolled a map that showed every country with a shoreline on the Soul Sea, then began plotting the Great Migration. Charting the movement of dragons made her feel closer to them. The younger Needle-Throated Verduns were already starting their journey. In addition to the one Silas had killed, there had been sightings all along the eastern coast of Almira. Looking at the map and seeing how much was at stake, part of Ashlyn felt naïve for relying on five people and a donkey to stop a war.
Tomorrow, she would try to convince her father to recall the Malgrave wardens from Mudwall. The sooner she had a reliable army, the better.
Later, when everyone was asleep in the castle except for Hayden, who stood watch outside her door, Ashlyn moved to the far side of the room. There was a table of alchemical supplies. Glass jars. A copper alembic. Steel clasps. Bamboo needles. A flame that used dragon oil and could be adjusted with a small crank beneath the desk. She’d been studying dragons all her life. She measured their carcasses whenever possible. Weighed organs. Explored the anatomy of the different species. That was the habit that had bred the rumors of her demoncraft. She’d had a much larger research station in the eastern tower, but it was destroyed in the explosion, so she had to make do with this meager setup. Despite that setback, her work was more important now than ever. She wouldn’t let limited tools stop her progress.
She unwound the translucent cord from her wrist and laid it flat on the table. Ashlyn still couldn’t believe that such a small object had caused such damage in the eastern tower. She’d found it last year—a long strand of barbed nerve tissue that ran down the spine of a one-hundred-year-old female Ghost Moth.
Ashlyn moved her hand across it. Felt the interwoven texture, which reminded her of a spider’s thread, but far thicker. That texture had led Ashlyn to start calling the strange organ a dragon thread.
This was the only thread she’d found, despite having dissected two hundred and eleven dragon corpses in her life—fifteen of them Ghost Moths. It was clearly part of a rare and hidden system—some unusual combination of biology and elemental power—but its true purpose and fu
ll potential eluded her. For now. Ashlyn thought about what her father had said—that gold and steel were the only ways to rule Almira. For him, that might be true. But Hertzog Malgrave was confined by the limitation of armor-clad soldiers and the obedience of the liege lords who commanded them.
If Ashlyn could unlock the mechanism beneath the dragon thread, those constraints would no longer apply to her.
She took a deep breath. Felt her pulse quicken. Activating the thread always made her nervous, especially after the fire in the eastern tower. Her palms dampened. Mouth went dry. She squeezed on the thread and was about to rip her hand down the length when two firm knocks came from the door.
“Princess Ashlyn,” came Hayden’s voice. “A steward to speak with you.”
“One moment,” Ashlyn called, annoyed. She tied the thread back on her wrist and adjusted the sleeve so it wasn’t visible. Even Hayden didn’t know about it.
When she opened the door and saw the steward’s face, her stomach dropped. The man’s eyes were glassy, skin puffy from tears.
“Princess,” he said. “Your father is dead.”
8
GARRET
Almira, South of Mudwall
Garret was bleeding in the woods. He’d managed to escape the dragon, but a splinter from the lizard’s tooth was lodged deep in the muscle of his forearm. That was a problem, but he’d been unable to pry it out after an hour of painful attempts, and he needed to keep moving. If anyone from Mudwall was smart enough to look for him, a bloodhound would be able to track him from leagues away now that he was bleeding.
Garret found a shallow creek with a gentle current and splashed down the middle of it for an entire afternoon, staying in knee-deep water as much as possible to hide his tracks and his scent. He paused every fifteen minutes to listen for signs of pursuit or more dragons, but heard none.
This mess would cause more delays. Getting himself bitten by a dragon had been stupid and sloppy. Little mistakes would kill a man in this business, which was why Garret always stressed the details. Careful planning and precise action—that was the key to good work.
Once Garret was sure that he wasn’t being followed, he cut through a valley that was dominated by oak trees until reaching the main road heading south. Rather than walk the highway, he skirted the edge, being sure to stay under tree cover and hiding from sight anytime he spotted another traveler. By dusk, he reached a large fork in the road—one branch heading southwest to Deepdale, the other east toward Floodhaven. This was the spot. Garret waited until dark, then ventured out of cover and located a stump seven paces directly south of the fork. There was a red pin in the bark, and behind that pin a hollowed notch containing a rolled scrap of paper. There was only one word scrawled in ornate cursive.
Deepdale.
Garret traveled south for four days—using the road at night and moving into the trees during the day. Sleeping for only a few hours at midday. The landscape turned mossy and wet and full of insects. Turtles with flashes of orange and red on their heads sunned themselves on river rocks. Every pond and lake he passed was full of colorful fish. And every passing bird or shadow from a cloud put Garret on alert, thinking another dragon might be descending.
He worried about his left arm. Despite being unable to remove the tooth, he cleaned the wound and changed his bandage once a day, but the pain was getting worse by the hour. This was not a friendly country to open wounds—things got infected easily in warm, damp climates, and it would only get warmer and damper after he crossed the Gorgon and headed into the Dainwood rain forest.
By the fifth day, the edge of tooth that he could see protruding from the wound had turned green. Garret’s arm smelled like sour milk. If he didn’t get the tooth out of his arm soon, he was going to have a serious problem. Garret turned into the woods and found a thin creek that provided decent cover. He sat down on a sunbaked rock, dropped his goatskin bladder, and started removing his shirt—quickly on the right side and gingerly on the left, as if his arm was a newborn he didn’t want to awake from a nap. He found that it was too painful to pass the sleeve over the wound, so he used his hunting knife to cut away the fabric and bloody bandage.
Garret found a few thick patches of moss growing along the riverbank and dug them free with his knife. He stacked them on the rock, planning to plug the wound with the moss after he removed the tooth. He moved over to a deep pool, pushed his arm under the water, and held it there hoping the cold would dull the upcoming pain a little.
“You’ll die if you plug your arm with that moss,” someone said from behind him.
Garret froze. His knife was five strides away on the rock. He turned around. There was a boy perched on the riverbank. He was thin, no older than fifteen, and wearing a dirty gray robe. He was carrying an overloaded backpack, but no weapons. Garret decided that he didn’t need to stab the boy to death just yet.
“The moss cleans it,” Garret said.
“Some moss does. Not that kind.”
“What do you know about it?”
“More than you, apparently.” The boy splashed out to the rock. He moved with a spindly sort of awkwardness that made Garret think these woods weren’t his home. He’d grown up with a roof over his head. “That’s turtle dung moss. Pack it into your wound and it’ll turn black in two days—there are too many little creatures that use it as a home. They’ll use you as a home, too, and in five days you’ll either be dead or, if you’re very lucky, grabbing for your ale glass with a stump.”
Garret did not like that image. He returned to the rock, glared at the moss for a moment, searching for tiny creatures, and then pushed it into the river.
“Do you have a better idea?” he asked.
The boy heaved the backpack off his shoulders and opened it up. He searched around for a few moments, then produced two glass jars, both filled with moss.
“These are what you need. Crimson Tower and Spartania moss.” The boy placed the jars on the rock. Garret peered at them.
“Those don’t look that different from what I had,” he said.
“Maybe not,” the boy said, “but it’s like comparing a garden snake to a Red Skull in terms of potency. Turtle dung is a common moss, it grows everywhere.” He pointed at the jars. “Those only grow in dragon warrens.”
“So?”
“So, the three warren mosses all have powerful healing properties. Spartania is a natural disinfectant—it’ll stop your wound from festering. Crimson Tower reduces swelling and pain.”
Garret did not care about the difference between common moss and warren moss, but he very much did not want to deal with an infected, hurt arm in the jungles of Almira.
“Fine, I’ll use them.”
The boy nodded, then unscrewed the jars and took out a few pinches of each moss.
“So what happened?” the boy asked.
“What does it look like?” Garret said. “I got bit by a dragon.”
“Happens. From the tooth, I’d say it was a juvenile Lake Screecher. You’re lucky, they’re a pretty small breed. A Blackjack would have taken the entire limb.” He paused, frowning at the wound. “How long has that been in your arm?”
“What do you care?” Garret muttered, turning back to the tooth. He took a deep breath and pinched it between two fingers. Pulled, then gasped in pain and stopped. Moving the tooth even the length of a thumbnail clipping sent shocks of pain up his arm.
“Gods, let me help you,” the boy said, rooting around in his pack again. He came up with a vial of blue liquid this time.
“What is that?” Garret asked.
“A numbing tonic. Derived from the poison dart frogs in the Dainwood.”
“Poison frog? Is it safe?”
“Of course. It’s been diluted. The numbness will only last a minute or two.”
The boy pressed around the wound with his fingers a few times, then pulled the stopper on the vial and poured the blue liquid all over it. Within moments, the heat and pain from the tooth disappeared and his entir
e forearm went numb.
The boy corked the vial and put it back in the pack. He rummaged around some more and came out with a set of long metal tongs, then moved his attention back to Garret’s arm. He took a few moments to get the edge of the tooth clamped down by the tongs, then drew the tooth free in one smooth motion, setting it down on the rock. Before a single drop of blood escaped from the wound the boy had stuffed wads of each warren moss into it. Then he produced a thin bark-skin bandage from his pack and wove it around Garret’s arm.
“The tooth started going to rot,” the boy said while he wrapped. “That’s why I asked how long it had been in your arm. The putrification spreads quickly, but I think we’ll be okay. I just wish I still had some Gods Moss.”
“Why?”
“It’s the strongest of the three warren mosses. Gods Moss carries the same properties as Spartania and Crimson Tower, it’s just more powerful. It also stimulates organ functions. You can erase a decade of drinking damage to a man’s liver with the right Gods Moss tonic. But it’s so rare, most people don’t even know it exists. For the few people who understand what it can do, a single vial sells for a thousand gold pieces.”
The boy swallowed. He looked ashamed all of a sudden.
Garret’s fingertips started to tingle, and then all the warmth returned to his arm. There was still a bad pain, but it was noticeably better than before.
“Well, these two seem to be working, at least.”
“Good.” The boy’s face brightened. “The infection should clear up in a day or two.”
The boy admired his work for a moment, then glanced at Garret’s hunting knife and took a few steps back, his confidence melting away again.
“What’s your name, boy?”
“Jolan.”
“What are you doing in this forest, Jolan?”
Blood of an Exile Page 11