There was a strange, oblong shape inside, resting on a pile of hay.
He frowned at it.
Ty leaned forward, staring at the object, when he noticed movement near him.
He spun, but was too close to the Dragon Thief. He started to take a step back, while the Dragon Thief moved toward him. He was quick and kept himself low, making it difficult for Ty to try to get to him.
He’d trained to fight. That was always a possibility with his line of work, but the man was larger than him—and Ty wasn’t nearly as skilled as he wished he were. It was better to sneak in unseen. That he was good at.
Ty prepared to brace himself just as the Dragon Thief collapsed.
Eastley stood behind him, hands releasing a grip on his neck. “Who’s this?”
Ty breathed out a sigh of relief, wondering if Eastley had killed him. “I’m assuming it’s the Dragon Thief.”
“What?”
“He was here before me. Us.”
“Maybe that’s what I heard,” Eastley said. “Thought it might be a patrol, but didn’t see any sign of them. I went looking, but I couldn’t find anything.”
“No patrols?”
“Nothing,” Eastley said. “Now. Where is the gold?”
“I haven’t found any,” Ty said.
“We aren’t getting out of here without bringing back the gold.”
“Then we aren’t getting out of here,” Ty said. “I don’t see any gold. All I’ve found so far are dragon remnants.”
“That’s it? There’s nothing else here? We need more than remnants to get out of the city, Ty.”
And here he had thought Eastley wasn’t concerned. “You can help me look.”
Ty had no idea how long they had, but he knew they had already made too much noise—not only during Ty’s initial scuffle with the Dragon Thief, but also when Eastley had knocked him out.
“Let’s see what I can find,” Eastley said. He started sorting through the boxes, moving quickly and tossing them open before closing them again. He seemed unmindful of the noise he was making, and Ty tried to hush him several times, but Eastley ignored him.
“I don’t see anything but bones,” Eastley said. “And this one drawer has all of these teeth, but nothing else.”
“There is this,” he said, motioning to the trunk that the Dragon Thief had been resting near. “It has to be valuable.”
“Right,” Eastley said. “And what is it?”
Ty leaned forward, flipping the trunk open again, and grabbed the item inside. “I don’t know. It looks like… an egg.” He didn’t know what else to call it. It certainly could be an egg.
Eastley looked over, locking eyes with him and grinning slightly. “A dragon egg? Really?”
Ty glanced toward the door. “Think about it, Eastley. There has to be something here that’s valuable enough for the Dragon Thief to come after. Why wouldn’t it be an egg?”
Eastley shrugged. “I suppose it could be.”
Ty thought it made sense. He looked at the trunk. “We’re taking this.”
“And if it’s not worth anything?”
“Then we drop it. But if it is, then this might be our way out.”
“Or it might get the Dragon Touched to come chasing after us,” Eastley stated.
There was that danger. They both knew it.
“Do you see anything—” Ty cut off suddenly.
There were footsteps in the hall. They didn’t have much time.
After another quick look around the room, Ty grabbed a collection of dragon bones and stuffed them into his pocket, while Eastley grabbed the teeth, shoving his own pockets full of them.
“Time to go,” Ty said.
Eastley looked over to him, but he didn’t say anything. He was still trying to stuff his pockets with dragon teeth. They wouldn’t be able to carry much—worse, they wouldn’t be able to move any of this. This was not what Bingham had wanted.
Maybe they could find a dragon pearl. Some jewels. Something.
But they didn’t have time. He could hear the footsteps making their way toward them. He grabbed for Eastley, dragging him along as they hurried down the hall.
They didn’t have to go far before they caught sight of a man making his way toward them. He was dressed in a black jacket and pants, somewhat like the Dragon Thief, and there was a part of Ty that questioned whether he was with the Dragon Thief—but then he noticed a pale glow around him.
Dragon Touched.
They veered off, taking another hall. He thought about the map Bingham had showed them. There was the layout they had intended to take, but what he needed now was a different exit point. He might be able to find something, but it was going to take a bit of maneuvering in the hall.
“Tell me that you remember what Bingham showed us,” Eastley said. “Because I have a feeling we’re either going to have to fight our way out, or we’re going to have to find another way.”
“We can’t fight our way out,” Ty said. “If there is a Dragon Touched, we won’t be able to overpower them.”
They turned a corner.
He was irritated with Eastley, though he wasn’t going to say it. Had he not disappeared, they might not have needed to make that much noise, and they might have avoided drawing any attention down here in the first place.
They took another turn, and from there, he caught sight of a staircase in the distance. He went running for it as Eastley kept pace with him.
The staircase was more open than the one they had used coming down, and they hurried ahead, quickly reaching the second level just as Ty heard the sound of boots behind him. He looked up the stairs and decided to jump through the doorway and onto the landing, dragging Eastley with him.
He was startled by two soldiers on that level, and Ty had a chance to change direction, hurrying another way before the soldiers came after them. Once he reached the stairs again, he debated which direction to go next. The soldiers knew Ty and Eastley were trying to get back out after being in the vault, and they might even know that they had the egg.
If only they hadn’t knocked out the Dragon Thief. He probably had some way of getting out of this without getting captured.
Ty dragged Eastley down another hall, found another staircase, then went down a level and around before looping up onto yet another staircase. At one point, he stumbled, rolling across the ground a moment before popping to his feet. His back felt warm where he’d struck the stone, and he worried he’d injured himself. He looked to see what had caught his leg, but didn’t see anything—just shadows and darkness.
Eastley shoved him forward. Once they stepped out into the hall, they found it empty. They waited, searching for a sign of someone there, coming toward them, but heard no footsteps. Since there was no sign of the soldiers or the Dragon Touched, they hurried along the hall, reaching the door that would take them to the next level, then went up the stairs from there.
Heat exploded as he pushed open another door. He caught sight of a pair of men dressed in dark leathers, and a blackened form slithering along the hall.
The dragon.
Ty jumped back as his breath caught. He didn’t think they’d seen him, but how could they outrun the dragon?
“What are you doing?” Eastley whispered.
Now he was being quiet?
He wouldn’t keep the dragon from him. Eastley would only go rogue again. “We have people following us, and they can’t know that we have a map to follow, so I think we have no choice here,” Ty said.
“No choice but to do what?”
“Keep running.”
But to outrun soldiers, Dragon Touched, and now a dragon?
They were on the first sublevel, and Ty raced through the palace until he reached more stairs, Eastley close behind. He soon heard the sound of footsteps chasing after him, near enough that he knew he had to get moving more quickly. Once he reached the main level, he noted its familiarity. They had come through this part of the palace before.
The
darkened lights that he had dimmed before were glowing brightly now.
They weren’t going to be able to go that way.
Clutching the egg up against him, he hurried toward the only entrance left.
Stupid, Tydornen.
They plunged outside, into a glowing light around them. In the distance, he could feel Ishantil trembling, as if the volcano wanted to reaffirm its presence. The light glowed against the darkness, surging every so often, warning Ty that it was close to erupting.
They ran across the lawn.
When he glanced back, he saw that one of the people chasing them was a Dragon Touched, and another person, clad in a shadowy cloak, trailed alongside him.
“We have to split up,” Ty said. “It’s more likely we’ll escape that way. You draw off the Dragon Touched, and I’m going to draw off this other one.”
“And if you can’t?”
“If I can’t, then you get out.”
Hopefully Olivia had already managed to escape.
It felt strange to him to care that much about anything happening to her, but she didn’t deserve captivity any more than he did.
Eastley glanced over, holding his gaze for a moment, then sprinted off to the right as Ty took off to the left.
Ty could feel somebody following him as he ran ahead. He didn’t even need to turn around to confirm it: He was fully aware that somebody was pursuing him and that he had to outrun them—but the palace wall loomed in front of him.
He hazarded a glance back.
When he did, he realized that he had seen the person following him before, in the city. They were short, almost willowy, and wore a black cloak, moving pace for pace with Ty.
He wasn’t going to be able to outrun them.
As Ishantil trembled again, its soft glowing persisting, he felt something catch his ankle. He looked down, but there wasn’t anybody immediately near him. It felt as if he had tripped on darkness itself. Again.
He stumbled, rolling forward, and tried to bounce to his feet.
The shadowy cloaked figure was there.
He looked up and saw it was a woman, wearing a cloak that matched her hair. Her eyes were inky black and her olive skin reflected Ishantil’s light. There was a strangeness to the way she tipped her head, sniffing, as if she were some predator ready to bound onto him.
With a startling realization, he knew who—and worse, what—this was.
The Tecal.
He tried to get to his feet, but she seemed unconcerned about him running.
He staggered back, only to bounce off of somebody behind him. The Tecal made a motion with her hand, and a man behind Ty grabbed his wrists, binding his arms behind his back. It probably wasn’t even difficult for him to do that. Ty wasn’t large enough, or strong enough, to fight them off.
The dark-cloaked woman took a step toward him. She tipped her head to the side again, sniffing, then pulled her cloak around her, making it swirl strangely.
The woman glanced up at Ishantil as it trembled, its glowing light in the distance.
“Bring him inside,” she said. Her voice was harsh, dangerous, and he knew he wasn’t going anywhere. He had been caught.
Hopefully Eastley managed to escape.
As they dragged him toward the palace, he felt the trembling of the volcano again.
A surge of light told him there was another eruption. It was brief, and didn’t illuminate the night as it did before, but it lasted long enough for Ty to wonder whether he was going to be able to escape before Ishantil fully erupted, and if he might die without knowing what happened to his parents.
Chapter Eleven
Ty sat in the corner of the cell. There was no light, just a flat darkness that surrounded everything. He pulled his knees up to his body, staring at the bars he knew were there but could not see. He had wandered around the cell when he was first thrown into it, trying to get a feel for it and trying to ascertain whether there would be any way to get out, but there wasn’t. There was nothing but the bars.
They had stripped him of the items he’d stolen, so he no longer had the dragon bones or the dragon egg. He still had his lock pick set, but he doubted that was going to do much good for him here. He was trapped.
Ty ran his hands along the bars, searching for some weakness, but didn’t find any. As far as he could tell, the bars were set into the stone, similar to the way Bingham’s lock was set into his doorframe.
No one had come for him.
He had no idea what had happened to Eastley. No idea what had happened to Olivia.
All he knew was that he had failed.
Worse, with every passing moment inside the cell, he had felt the trembling of Ishantil. Of course, he had already been aware of its rumbling, its threat to erupt. The palace didn’t protect him from that. He wasn’t even sure if it could.
But now, it felt like there was no way he was going to escape.
They had a week. That was all. And then…
If the priests and university archaeologists were right, then Ishantil would erupt, and given that they at least agreed it would happen soon, he had a hard time thinking they were wrong.
Would they just leave him here?
His stomach rumbled and his mouth was dry, and Ty had grown increasingly uncertain about how long he had been there. Moments stretched out into what seemed like hours, an endless period of time that he was trapped in place, unable to go anywhere or do anything other than sit and wait.
With every tremoring of Ishantil, Ty couldn’t help but think about what was coming.
He couldn’t do anything to escape the cell, which meant he was going to die here. He would be trapped, assuming the volcano erupted the way it seemed it would.
He wasn’t going to be able to get out of this. How could he?
Ty kept waiting for somebody to return, hoping one of his captors would come, but they never did. They had left him alone with his thoughts.
Everything that he had done had been to try to find his parents. Really, to find his mother. She had been the reason his father had left. She had gone, chasing some dragon relic, disappearing and leaving him alone.
It was always about dragon relics for her, just like it was for Bingham. Ty suspected that was what had brought them together.
Ty remembered the very first time they had gone to Bingham’s shop. It was part of the reason he had gone to Bingham after his mother and father had both disappeared. He was a familiar face, somebody who might know something about what had happened to his mother, but Bingham hadn’t known anything.
“Why are we coming here?” Ty remembered asking as his mother guided him through Zarinth, leading them toward Bingham’s shop.
It was early morning. Typically in the morning, she would come to the city, buy whatever supplies she needed, then return home to finish her chores. She allowed Ty to come with her most of the time, but she had never brought him here.
“I just have to ask my friend a question,” his mom replied.
He remembered following her into the shop. The stores here were different than they were in the rest of the city. They were old, which wasn’t terribly uncommon for his mother. She tended to prefer some of the older businesses. But the stores were also darker, more shadowy. Once inside Bingham’s store, it seemed as if a layer of dust covered everything. Ty found dozens of dragon sculptures, but when he had tested one, he knew it was a forgery. It was too light. His mother had taught him to recognize real dragon relics, as they had several in their home.
Ty also remembered seeing Bingham for the first time. Ty had been no more than seven or eight at the time, and Bingham had seemed gruff, irritable, except when he was talking to Ty’s mother.
Bingham had tipped his head politely, almost in a bow.
“Bingham, this is my son Tydornen.” Bingham had frowned at Ty, but he thrust out his hand. “I thought it would be helpful for Ty to see some of the places I visit.”
“He’s too young,” Bingham said.
“Yes, bu
t I think he has potential.” She looked over to Ty with the smile he remembered—the one he still chased. “I think the Flame has blessed him. Us.”
Bingham had looked at Ty then, and Ty had felt as if he were being examined.
“I haven’t found anything more,” Bingham said. “I’m sorry, but I’ve tried. I know you’re running out of time.”
She smiled again. “Not running out, Bingham. We still have time. It grows shorter each year, but even if I fail…” She turned to Ty, warmth radiating from her.
Bingham turned to Ty’s mother, frowning. “I’m not so sure that we do. I’ve been looking for—”
Ty’s mother raised her hand, and Bingham cut himself off. “It doesn’t matter,” she said and looked around the shop. “What do you think, Ty? Does Mr. Bingham have anything here that interests you?”
Ty lifted one sculpture. In the entire shop, it was the only one made out of obsidian—the only real dragon relic. “I like this one.”
His mother glanced over to Bingham, beaming. “You see?”
“Maybe,” Bingham said.
“We will keep looking,” she said to Bingham. “And you don’t have to worry about how much time we have remaining.”
“I always worry. That’s my job.”
“Was,” she said. “So much has changed for us, Bingham.”
“We will stop him.”
“That is my hope,” she said, and even at his age, Ty had heard the note of worry in his mother’s voice.
A shuffling outside his cell caught his attention and he looked up, jolted back into the present moment. A faint glowing came along the hall, growing nearer.
Ty got to his feet. He had no idea what he might encounter, but he wasn’t about to be seated when it came. He wasn’t going to be surprised like that.
A dragon light came drifting toward the cell. The man carrying it had an intensity to him that made Ty nervous. A Dragon Touched, he was certain, but there was something about this one that put him on edge—more so than any of the other Dragon Touched he’d seen.
He got to his feet, staring out through the bars at the man as he approached.
The man simply watched him, and Ty stepped back, away from the bars.
Path of the Flame (The Dragon Thief Book 1) Page 11