“You may feel otherwise.”
“I doubt it,” Ty said. “Now, if you want to tell me where to find Albion, I would be more than happy to listen to anything more that you have to say. As it stands, I intend to learn why Roson James has returned to Zarinth.”
“You should be careful. You do not want to get in between one of the Dragon Touched and their objective for the king.”
“It’s not just him.”
She frowned. “Who else? Other Dragon Touched?”
“Priests of the Flame. At least, men who pretend to be Priests of the Flame.” He watched Gayal as he made the comment, curious how she might react.
Her eyes widened slightly. “You are in even greater danger than you know.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Gayal made a circle around the inside of the courtyard, pausing every so often to look at the dragons, though she never got too close to them. She seemed to give them respectable distance, though none of the dragons paid her much mind, as if they weren’t at all concerned about her presence. The two dragons that were frolicking in the back of the courtyard continued their play, rolling and spinning, tumbling over each other. Every so often, one of the dragons would look up, and when a dragon paid attention to Ty, he could feel something flare within him, as if he once again had swallowed something warm and unpleasant. It was as if he drank his stomach full of hot water each time the dragon watched him.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
Gayal turned back to him. She was standing on the opposite side of the courtyard, watching. “The men you refer to are called the Order of the Flame.”
“Are they part of the priesthood?”
“There are some who would make that claim, but I do not think so. Some of the Order have burrowed within the priesthood, making it seem as if they are truly following the Flame, but I suspect they have a different agenda.”
“They shot me with a crossbow bolt.” He fingered his shoulder. It had healed fairly rapidly, which left him wondering what exactly Maeve had done to help him heal as quickly as he had. “I almost didn’t make it.”
“It’s even more reason for you to be careful. If the Order is there, you should hide.”
“I’m not going to hide. If they know something, or if they’re after the same thing as Roson, then—”
“Then you need to be careful. Whatever they’re after is a problem for you.”
Whatever they were after was tied to Albion, though Ty wasn’t at all sure how or what it might be. He needed to know, which was even more reason to get to him brother.
“I suppose you’re going to want me to cooperate with them?”
“I would never ask you to cooperate with one of the Order. They serve a different purpose.”
“And you serve the king,” Ty said. One of the dragons stirred near him, twitching and swinging its massive tail. Ty jumped back, surprised by the suddenness of the movement, but then the dragon curled its tail back around to a resting position. The heat that radiated off the tail surprised him. They were small, but perhaps they were just as dangerous as Gayal claimed. “Could they work for Lothinal?”
She smiled tightly. “Now you begin to ask the kind of questions that one of the Tecal would ask.”
It seemed like a compliment, but at the same time there was something else buried within the way that she said it. Gayal watched him, and her gaze lingered on him in a way that left him unsettled.
He continued to look at the dragons. When he was younger, he had wanted to see a dragon, but after he’d first seen one in Zarinth, Ty had been unimpressed. His mother had told him that the real dragons were something to be seen, respected.
“They once lived all throughout these lands,” she had said, patting his hand as they stood in the streets of Zarinth. The parade of the Dragon Touched, along with the small dragon, had moved away down the street. Ty had felt the heat radiating from the dragon, a surge of energy that he couldn’t quite place but had felt familiar.
“Why don’t they any longer?”
His mother had a wan smile. “Because they have not had the chance to return. That will change. I am sure of it.”
“Why?”
She had patted his hand again. “There are those who are working to see to it, Tydornen.”
Ty shook those thoughts away. His mother had always loved the dragon relics, and he remembered her disgust when she had seen the small dragon.
“And let’s say they knew that Albion had gone to the city for something else. What if they are after it?”
“Then it is already too late,” Gayal said. “The Dragon Touched responsible for questioning him will have learned. And you may not be able to do anything to help him.”
Ty fell into a silence. He might not be able to help Albion, but could he learn what other reason he’d gone to the city for? And if he did, what would it do? What would it change?
As he looked at the dragons, he didn’t believe that he was drawn to them the way that Gayal said. He could feel the heat coming off of the dragons, no differently than he had felt when he was younger, but nothing else.
And all this did was keep him from what he needed to be doing.
Finding Albion. Not just that, but finding a way to getting to Albion.
“I need to get back to my friend,” he said.
“I caution you to be safe.”
He stuffed his hands in his pockets, feeling the note. He brought it out, wanting to see if there might be something here that would help him understand what Albion had left for him. He had wanted him to find and understand something, but there had been nothing in the note that helped. No answers were there. Nothing that would provide him with any insight.
The dragons were seemingly lethargic, or perhaps they were resting. One of them made a steady circuit around the courtyard, as if prowling toward him. Ty stayed on edge, watching the dragon. Golden eyes looked in his direction, and ultimately he tore his gaze away, afraid of watching too closely.
“Unless you help me find my brother, I’m not sure there’s any way for me to be safe. I told you that I need to get to him, and I intend to try to help him as much as I can.”
“And I have warned you that there may not be anything that you can do to help him.”
Ty looked around one more time. He wondered if he would ever get to see this place again, though he doubted it. It required somebody with his ability and his connection, and without that…
“Why are these dragons stunted?”
She stared at the dragons. “The king has never understood. They should not be. As far as we know, there should be no reason these dragons wouldn’t grow further. It’s as if they reached a certain point and then stopped.”
“But dragons have gotten larger than this before.”
“Not in the kingdom, and not for centuries.”
“Why not?”
He thought about what his mother had told him about how the dragons would return and how there were others who were working to see to it. Who were they?
Priests?
They certainly celebrated the Flame. It seemed to Ty that they would celebrate dragons, but he had never seen the priests worshiping the dragons that had come to Zarinth.
“I don’t know. None do. Unfortunately, the Tecal have not been able to find those answers.”
“But you must have some idea. At least a theory.”
“Some have believed that there is something about our land that is not conducive to the development of dragons. Others have theorized that it might be tied to something that happened to the eggs when they were small, which is the reason the king constantly searches for eggs, hoping that he might find one that will hatch and grow beyond this stage. So far, he has not. All of the dragons we hatch have grown to a certain point and no further.”
“And what about you? What do you think?”
“It doesn’t matter what I think.”
“It does to me,” Ty said.
“I think there is something that
prevents them from developing,” she said softly, staring at the dragon nearest her. “We don’t understand them nearly as well as we think we do. Some claimed that the dragons are far more intelligent than we give them credit for, and others simply think that they are animals, meant to be confined like this. It is the Flame.”
He found himself actually curious, questioning what Gayal might feel about the dragons and wondering what she might believe about them. “What about you?”
“I think that the dragons are intelligent, though I doubt that we will ever know the extent of their intelligence. I think that they are something different than we fully understand, and I think there is something about the Nerenal kingdom that prevents them from developing.”
Ty held his hand out as one of the dragons turned its head toward him, and then before he had a chance to react the dragon pressed its nose up against his hand.
Ty froze. He wanted to withdraw, to pull his hand away, but he couldn’t. Everything within him went tense, and he lingered there, frozen in place.
The dragon had a strangely textured nose. It was warm though, not hot. It reminded him more of the dragon-bone dagger than anything else. It breathed out, hot air drifting along his skin. When it did that, he felt a surge of heat once again within his belly, and it spread outward, much like he had felt within the Hatchery.
“Be careful,” Gayal said.
He glanced over at her. “What do you think I’m going to do to the dragon?”
“I’m not worried about what you will do to it. I’m more concerned about what it will do to you.” She chuckled. “They aren’t large enough to eat you. It might nip off a finger, but even that is pretty rare.”
The idea that a dragon might bite of his finger was laughable, but maybe it shouldn’t have been. They certainly were large enough that he could imagine a creature biting through the skin and bone, tearing his finger off.
Ty couldn’t move. He still felt the heat from the dragon flowing into him. It wasn’t unpleasant, though. “What is it doing to me?”
“I suspect it’s trying to decide what to do about you,” she said. “Perhaps it is trying to decide how much of a connection you have to it. Then again, you don’t believe you have any connection, do you?”
The gnawing in his stomach had turned to something else. A burning.
Was that the dragon, or was that his fear?
Finally, the dragon pulled its head back and pressed it against the ground, looking up at him.
Ty breathed out. Even now that the dragon had pulled its head back, he could still feel something burning within him, though that started to ease, as if it faded the longer he was withdrawn from the dragon.
“I think it’s time for me to go,” he said again.
“Let me help you,” she said.
“You’ve done enough.”
Gayal shook her head. “You won’t be able to leave the Hatchery without my help.”
She guided him through the Hatchery, and he looked around one last time, taking in the pale bluish light, along with the other eggs that were here. If this was going to be the last time that he would see this place, he wanted to remember it. It was strange, somewhat unsettling, and there was a part of him that marveled at it. How much would one of these eggs be worth?
Not nearly as much as he had believed.
As he started toward the door, something in one of the alcoves caught his eye.
“What is that?” He made his way toward it, noticing that the eggs—or whatever it was—were smaller than the others. They were round, and the heat radiating off of them was different than the rest. “These look like dragon pearls.”
Gayal arched a brow at him. “Do you have much experience with dragon pearls?”
“Not as much as I would like.”
“Some scholars have felt the way you did. They believe that they were dragon pearls, but others felt that they were eggs. They were larger than the traditional dragon pearls, which made them a little bit more unusual. Those who believe they were dragon pearls felt that they might simply be just larger dragon pearls, which would mean they were more powerful. Our Dragon Touched have tested them over the years, and none have been able to confirm that they were truly dragon pearls, which left most thinking that perhaps they were eggs.”
“Perhaps?”
“Again, very few people know for certain, but there are features about them that make us think that they are eggs, rather than pearls.”
“What features are those?”
“Those who study such things claim that there is an internal pressure within the egg, something that’s not present within a dragon pearl.” She shrugged. “That’s not something that I can speak to. I don’t have that expertise, so I can’t say with any certainty whether it’s true or not.”
“But you think that it might be?”
“I think it’s reasonable. They don’t look anything like the dragon pearls I’ve seen. Even large dragon pearls have an upper limit, and these are nothing like those.”
Ty couldn’t help but feel as if they looked like the dragon pearls that he had put in the satchel. The same dragon pearls Roson James must’ve stolen. Maybe that was what his brother had been after. Ty had taken them from the temple, after all, and perhaps he was the reason that Roson James would have gotten what he was after all along.
If so, then why had he chased him down the mountainside?
Ty reached for one of the eggs. Gayal didn’t bother to stop him.
Now that he was close to it, he could feel heat radiating off of it. That was different than what he had detected from dragon pearls, but he still questioned whether this was really an egg. The shape of it wasn’t like the eggs that he had seen elsewhere inside the Hatchery. It was rounder, smoother, and there was a certain characteristic to it that he wasn’t quite able to place, though he felt as if it were different in some ways.
He held up one of the eggs. It was heavy, though not so heavy as to be similar to the dragon pearls. Maybe what he had taken from the temple actually had been eggs. Ty rolled the egg in his hand while Gayal watched him, her dark eyes unreadable. “I feel like I’ve seen something like this in Zarinth. I thought they were dragon pearls.”
Not just one like this, but he had seen many.
But those had been dragon pearls. He was certain of it.
Ty finally slid the egg back onto the shelf, and he looked over to Gayal. He waited for her to say something, but she was quiet.
“Are you just going to let me pick my way through here?”
“Would you want to?”
He snorted. “You brought me here to make a point. You wanted me to see the Hatchery, to know that what my brother was after was not all that exotic.” The idea that the egg had not been exotic still left him bothered. All of that effort just for something that the king had dozens of? “Or was there another reason?”
“What other reason might there need to be?” she asked.
Ty snorted.
“Listen, Gayal. I don’t know what’s going on between you and the Dragon Touched and this Order, but all I know is that somehow my brother got caught up in it, and I want to do whatever I can in order to help my brother. If there is anything that you can do to help me…”
“I am not permitted to help you,” she said.
“Fine. The king doesn’t want you to help because my brother is the Dragon Thief, but I…”
Ty looked over to Gayal and found an intensity in her eyes that hadn’t been there before, a look on her face that was almost concerned.
How could he convince her to help him?
He couldn’t.
She served the king. He wanted to help his brother. He wanted to stop Roson James.
That put them at odds.
And maybe that was the reason that Gayal had brought him with her. She had wanted to see what he might do. The only thing Ty knew that he was going to do stemmed from his intention to find Albion. Eastley and Bingham would help. And from there, he intended to learn
what else Albion had planned in Zarinth. Once he did…
Maybe he could find it and use that to get Albion free.
He placed the egg back into the alcove and turned to Gayal. “I am going to help my brother.”
She smiled sadly and turned to the door to the Hatchery, pressing her hand on it. “I wish that you and I might’ve been able to meet under different circumstances.”
“Why? Do you think that we could have been friends?”
Gayal tipped her head. “Perhaps. I would’ve liked the opportunity to know you better.”
She motioned for him to go with her, and she stepped outside, back onto the street. Ty looked around the street, but everything was quiet.
He was left with the strange feeling that he wanted to return to the Hatchery, to go back in and see whether there was anything more he might learn not only from the eggs but from the dragons. He had never imagined having an opportunity to spend time with dragons like that and certainly had never expected to have seen so many eggs before. There had to be some other reason that Gayal had shown him all that. Did she think that he was going to betray his brother?
Perhaps it really was about determining whether he had some connection to the dragons. He felt the burning. He couldn’t deny that. But did that burning mean that he had some real connection to dragons? Ty had a hard time believing that to be true.
Gayal stayed with him as they made their way down the street, before she looked up at him, tilting her head again, sniffing. “You should look at other places within the city before you decide to do something you regret. Perhaps you can bring your friend with you, but I think you might find the first tooth of the Dragon’s Jaw more accepting if you went alone.” She motioned to the south side of the city, toward the rock stretching high overhead.
Gayal started away from him, looking as if she were going toward the palace.
She wanted him to go to the Dragon’s Jaw.
What did she plan to use him to do this time?
Chapter Twenty-Two
As he ventured around the outskirts of the city, making his way back toward the opening and the road where they had entered the city, he found himself venturing along the Dragon’s Jaw at Gayal’s request. The mountains were enormous up close, and as he neared he could feel something almost practically drawing him toward them. It was easy to imagine why Rogel the Proud had decided to build here. There was a certain sense of power standing in between the Dragon’s Jaw, an energy that seemed to linger here, calling to him, as if the city itself were filled with that power.
Within the Dragon's Jaw (The Dragon Thief Book 2) Page 19