Path of the Flame (The Dragon Thief Book 1)

by D. K. Holmberg

  “Do you know where you are?” he asked Ty.

  Ty was tempted to snap at him, to say something stupid, but he still needed to know what had happened to Eastley and whether he had managed to escape.

  “I assume I’m in the palace,” Ty responded.

  “The palace. Yes. An associate of the Dragon Thief found within the palace. What an interesting turn of events.”

  They thought he was with the Dragon Thief? Maybe they had captured the Dragon Thief as well. Ty struggled to figure out how to work this out; he had no idea what angle to take, as anything he did or said could be used against him and could lead to his perpetual captivity.

  He didn’t have much time.

  He needed to get out of prison, and once he did, he believed he could find his own way out of Zarinth, and maybe into the rest of the kingdom. He would risk the dangerous road if he had to. What other choice would he have?

  “Do you know who I am?” the man asked.

  The way he said it suggested that Ty should know, but he didn’t know anything about him other than that he was a Dragon Touched. It wasn’t as if Ty kept tabs on the Dragon Touched.

  “Should I?” Ty asked in response.

  The man stepped closer. His black hair reminded Ty of the Tecal he’d faced, but there was a brooding intensity to him that seemed to be supplemented by the power of the Dragon Touched that he possessed. “I find most within the kingdom have heard my name.”

  Ty’s heart started hammering. There was one particular Dragon Touched in the city whom he had heard about. One dangerous one.

  “The Killer of Wyn,” Ty stated.

  The man stepped forward, smiling at him. “You have heard of me. Very good. It will make all of this much easier. I am Roson James. I serve the king directly.” He let the words linger a moment. “Now. Where is the egg?”

  Ty blinked. They thought he still had the egg?

  He was sure he had it on him before he had been captured by the Tecal. Had she taken it and not revealed it to the Dragon Touched? “I don’t have the egg,” Ty said.

  He regarded Roson carefully. If there was some issue between him and the Tecal, Ty might be able to use it to his advantage—but how? Roson had a reputation. And Ty had seen the Tecal. He had felt the pressure of her presence.

  Bright light flared near him. The dragon light.

  He thought he saw Roson smile, perhaps amused by Ty’s unsteadiness and uncertainty in captivity, as he kept his hands on the bars of the cell.

  Ty wasn’t exactly sure what happened next, but something grabbed him. It felt like a band of heat that wrapped around his legs and worked up and around him until it started to constrict around his shoulders, pressure building all the way down.

  Roson watched Ty. “You will find that I have a skilled technique in obtaining the information I need. Very few have been able to withstand my questioning.”

  “Like the Wyn?” Ty barely managed to get the words out.

  Roson grinned, holding out his palm with the glowing light. It seemed different from the dragon light, and the heat that radiated from it was almost enough to make Ty back away, but he couldn’t. “It’s easier when people have heard of me. Questioning goes more smoothly. That will be helpful given our circumstances and the expediency with which I need to work.” He stepped closer, and the strange band of heat around Ty seemed to constrict, making it even more difficult to move. “Where is the egg?” Roson asked again.

  Ty licked his lips. “I don’t have it.”

  “The Dragon Thief stole the egg from the vault. We know this. You were with the Dragon Thief. And now the egg is missing. I will ask you one more time, and if you choose to lie to me, you will find me even more unpleasant than I’ve been.”

  Ty tried to glare at him. “I think you’re plenty unpleasant as it is.”

  “You have barely begun to see unpleasant,” Roson said.

  Ty swallowed. He didn’t have the egg, so he couldn’t do anything besides try to fight. “I’m sure. Especially if the stories about you are true.”

  “They are. They most certainly are.”

  The band wrapped even more tightly around Ty, squeezing him.

  Ty couldn’t fight. It seemed like a flaming rope squeezed around him. Roson simply stared at him, no emotion in his eyes—nothing other than the hard edge of darkness that seemed to fill him.

  “I don’t know anything,” Ty said through gritted teeth. He could barely speak. The pain coming off the bands was enormous. The longer he held onto the pressure and burning, the more the pressure started to shift, becoming a hot pain that surged into him, making it so he could barely do anything.

  “That’s unfortunate, especially since your friend claimed you did,” Roson said.

  His friend. Eastley.

  Which meant he was captured too.

  And he had blamed Ty?

  No. Would Eastley do that?

  Ty had no idea if Eastley would betray him, but there would be no real reason for Eastley to protect him either, especially if he thought lying might get him safely out. And Ty couldn’t even blame him for it. If there was some way of getting out of this to safety, wouldn’t he do what he had to?

  “What do you want to know?” Ty asked.

  “Tell me about the egg.”

  “I had it. I don’t anymore.” He would tell Roson anything to get the pain to stop burning around him. But it persisted.

  Roson kept one hand resting on the bars of the cell, and regarded Ty with a strange, passive indifference, as if Ty were nothing to be concerned about, no one to care about. “Unfortunate,” Roson stated.

  “I told you everything I know. We tried breaking in for some gold so we could get out of the city before the volcano erupts.”

  “And yet you took the egg, not the gold.”

  “We were just looking for gold. Jewels, maybe, but—”

  “You went to the wrong vault.”

  Could they have?

  They had relied upon Bingham’s information. He was the one who had given them the map of the palace grounds and told him where they needed to go. What if he had sent them to the wrong place?

  Worse, what if he had sent them there intentionally?

  Bingham had been holding something back from them. What if he had known there was an egg in the vault and had sent them there, hoping they would find it and steal it, then…

  Ty wouldn’t put it past him to keep something as important as that from him, but he had to keep those thoughts tamped down. That wasn’t what Bingham wanted from them. He wanted out.

  The bands continued to constrict around Ty. “I don’t have the egg. I don’t know the Dragon Thief.”

  “Then you will stay here,” Roson stated as he moved away from the bars of the cell.

  Ty hollered after him, but he didn’t turn back. It wasn’t until Roson disappeared altogether that the bands finally loosened, their grip no longer constricting him. And even then, he still had a memory of the pain, along with a memory of what Roson James said to him, and he couldn’t shake that either.

  Chapter Twelve

  Ty had again lost track of how long he was in the cell, but he had noticed an increase in rumbling as the volcano’s energy steadily built up.

  He didn’t know how long he had before the volcano erupted, but as Roson James hadn’t returned, he started to think that perhaps he was going to simply abandon him here. No one had brought him food or water still, and Ty had been forced to relieve himself in the corner of the cell. It had started to stink.

  His mind wandered. This wasn’t how he had imagined leaving the world. Not that he had given too much thought to that. Why should he think those thoughts? He was young, and he thought he still had time.

  But that had been a mistake.

  At some point—Ty still didn’t know how much time had elapsed—another light slowly started coming down the hall. It was white, not the dragon light. Hopefully it wasn’t Roson, but at this point, he would take anyone. He would say or do
whatever he had to in order to get out of the cell—and stay out.

  The light stopped in front of him, but he couldn’t see the person holding it, as his eyes struggled to adjust.

  “You are the Dragon Thief,” a soft, familiar voice said.

  It wasn’t Roson. It was the Tecal.

  He moved forward. “You have the wrong person. I’m not the Dragon Thief. I was in the wrong place.”

  There was a harsh, hoarse laugh. “The wrong place?”

  “Yes, I was in the wrong place,” Ty repeated.

  “We know the Dragon Thief has been targeting the expedition. You were found with a claw that was part of the most recent journey down the mountain. Do you deny that?”

  The claw? That was what this was about?

  “I had the claw, but I’m not the Dragon Thief.”

  She was a pace away from the outside of the cell, and with the glowing light, he could now make out her dark eyes, her olive-colored skin, and her inky black cloak.

  “I don’t have the dragon egg,” he said hurriedly. “That’s what you’re after, isn’t it?”

  She cocked her head, sniffing. “Perhaps you do not.”

  “If I had it, I’d give it to you so I could get out of here.”

  “Would you?”

  “By the Flame, of course I would,” Ty said.

  He needed some way to convince her—something he could do to get her to let him free—but what could he do or say for her to free him?

  “You were here when the Dragon Thief attacked. At the least, you are an associate of the Dragon Thief,” she said.

  “I’m not an associate of the Dragon Thief. We encountered somebody in the vault, where we were going to try to find gold to buy our way out of the city before the volcano erupted, which is what I told Roson.”

  “Him. He was here already?” She tipped her head to the side, sniffing again. “He was. Perhaps you will talk to me. I can promise leniency, something he will not.”

  “I told him everything. I told him the truth,” Ty stated.

  At this point, he had nothing to lose. He didn’t have the egg, and if he didn’t get out of the cell, he was going to be trapped here when the volcano erupted, killed like everyone else who was stuck in the city.

  “I found your home to be quite interesting,” she said.

  Everything went cold for him. She had gone to his home?

  He didn’t have much, but his home was the one place he was incredibly protective of—mostly because he didn’t have much, and partly because he had neighbors whom he had come to know, people he didn’t want harm to fall upon, not because of him. He would protect them if he could.

  “You won’t find anything there,” Ty said.

  “Are you so certain?” She held out a bag, shaking it gently. “I actually found some interesting items. It’s surprising that you would leave them there, rather than in a bank.”

  He found his gaze drawn toward her hand, to the collection of coins he knew she must have. It was everything he had managed to save—money he had been hoarding so he could buy information about his parents, should the opportunity arise. He thought his savings might also allow him to be able to stop stealing for Bingham one day, and perhaps even help him if he chose to leave Zarinth.

  He had never mustered the courage to do so, not until recently, but the Tecal taking his coin meant that any opportunity he might have to do that was now gone.

  She regarded him, as if knowing every thought in his mind.

  “What do you want from me?” Ty asked.

  “I think I’ve made my position quite clear,” the Tecal said.

  “You want the egg. I don’t have it. I told you we took it, but…” He frowned. “I had it on me when you captured me.”

  “Did you?”

  She tapped the light in her hand, which started to glow more brightly for just a moment before fading. “My responsibility as one of the king’s Tecal is to uncover all the secrets here—including whatever secrets you think to keep.”

  “I don’t have any secrets. I’ve told you everything.”

  “You haven’t told me about this,” she said, motioning to the stack of coins.

  “It’s my savings.”

  “Those who know you—at least, those remaining in the city who know you—are surprised. They aren’t aware of you holding any regular occupation.” She looked up at him, and it seemed as if a shadow moved across her features. “Do you care to tell me how you managed to acquire such wealth?”

  “I’m a guide,” Ty said.

  She frowned. “What kind of a guide would be so well paid?”

  It was partly true, which made the lie easier to tell. He had served as a guide at times, though not recently. There weren’t all that many people who were interested in going into the mountains. Very few cared to get close to Ishantil, other than the priests. There had been a time when people were more intrigued, those who thought to go and celebrate the Flame, and Ty had taken advantage of that, but those opportunities were few and far between lately.

  “Some like to go into the jungle,” Ty responded.

  “Much like you did when you were with the Dragon Thief and stole the claw?”

  “It wasn’t me.” The lie felt weak even as Ty said it. “Maybe it was just one of the velum.”

  “I have heard of these creatures, though I have not seen one. I understand they are quite distasteful.”

  Ty tried to change the tone of the interrogation. She didn’t seem like she wanted to torture him the way Roson had. “I haven’t tried one, though I know that some who live farther out in the kingdom do like them. There are plenty of trappers in the kingdom who go after them.”

  She frowned, sniffing strangely again. “You seem concerned by that.”

  Was he? Maybe it was more about his mother’s reaction, the way she had interacted with him when it came to those creatures. She hadn’t wanted anything to happen to them, and felt they didn’t deserve the torment the hunters put them through. But it was more than that, he thought. His mother seemed to treat them as if they were at least semi-intelligent.

  “I just don’t want to see them harmed. They aren’t the simple animals that most of the hunters believe. They strategize,” Ty said.

  She smiled tightly. “You could say the same about wolves.”

  “Or dragons,” he added.

  She frowned. “How many dragons have you seen?”

  Would it matter if he shared what he had seen?

  “The king had a dragon here,” he said. “I imagine anybody who went near the expedition’s collection would have seen it. And it’s not the first time he’s sent dragons here. Usually it’s to parade them and show them off, though maybe it’s for protection.”

  “Occasionally,” she said softly.

  “They’re all small ones. I don’t know why the king doesn’t let them grow to be full-size, but…” Ty trailed off. What was he doing here? “Please let me out,” he said. “I don’t have the egg, but I don’t deserve to die when Ishantil erupts.”

  She frowned again. “Yes. There are only a few days remaining.”

  Only a few days.

  For some reason, hearing somebody who worked for the king speak those words so openly made it harder for him to process. He had known it was going to happen—having seen Ishantil erupting already, feeling the tremors, and knowing the danger that was there—but hearing her say it was a startling admission.

  Only a few days.

  He had to get out of here before the volcano erupted. If he failed…

  He would die. No question.

  “Neither me nor my friend deserve to die here.” He figured there was no point in denying that he and Eastley were together.

  She watched him for a long moment. “Perhaps you can be useful to me. Perhaps.”

  “Tell me whatever you need,” Ty said.

  She ran her finger along the glowing light she held in her palm, and it began to stutter for just a moment before fading altogether. She s
tuffed it into her pocket. They were plunged into darkness, and it seemed to Ty that the shadows swirling around the orb were even denser now. It was only his imagination, only his inability to see anything now, that made it feel like that. Still, he couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling that worked through him.

  “I must find the egg,” she said, leaning toward the bars of the cell. Her voice was soft, a whisper.

  It beckoned him closer, and Ty found himself drawn to the front of the cell, close enough that he could practically feel the heat radiating off of her. He could smell a strange spicy scent, cinnamon mixed with a floral fragrance, then there was something else—almost a pressure coming off of her. Was it Tecal magic?

  He had no idea if they had any power, but seeing her and having been around her now, he couldn’t help but think that she must have something. Though all the stories he’d ever heard of the Tecal never spoke of magic.

  But there was an intensity to her that seemed to overpower him. He was terrified to do anything other than listen.

  “I don’t have it,” he said.

  “You will find it for me. You will find it for me before Roson James manages to find it, and trust me, he will be looking. I need the egg first.”

  Were they in some sort of battle for the king’s favor?

  “Why? Doesn’t the king have others?” Ty asked.

  “Not like this one,” she said softly.

  He frowned at the answer, wondering what made this egg so special. Could it be for a true dragon? Not a stunted dragon like he’d seen in the palace and outside in the city, but one like those that had once flown near Ishantil? Did that even matter?

  “How am I supposed to find the egg?”

  “You can use the Dragon Thief,” she said.

  “I’m not the Dragon Thief. I’m not with him. And I don’t know how to use him.”

  “I know,” she said. “But you know the city. You know the people. And you know where to hide.” She paused. “You must find the egg before Roson James does.”

  “And if I do?”

  “Your friend lives.”

  Eastley. She was offering him Eastley.

  “He and I could work together. He has skill,” Ty said.