Trysten gasped and clapped her hands over her mouth.
“I wanted your den to be warm when you came back,” Caron said. “It was a bit careless of you to leave this on your table, out in the open where anyone could have seen it.”
Trysten slid her hands from her face. “Do you… Do you know what that is?” She nodded at the pendant.
Caron smiled slowly, her eyes on Trysten’s. “It’s a dragon tooth pendant. Where did you get it?”
“At the burial ground. The old burial ground. The one near our battle last week. I found it where one of the Second Hordesmen had fallen.”
Caron handed the pendant to Trysten.
She took it and stared at it as it swayed at the end of its chain. She looked back up at her mother with a creased brow. “Why did you take it? And did you take the sword as well?”
Caron nodded. “It’s in your room. Beneath your bed.”
Trysten shook her head with confusion. “Why?”
“The horde was in the south. I suspected it might be the Prince. I knew you had the sword in your den, but I didn’t know you had the pendant. I took it so you would not be compromised.” Caron nodded at the mysterious piece of jewelry.
“Why? Why would I be compromised? What do you know about the pendant?”
Caron reached out and took the tooth between her thumb and forefinger. She turned it around, held it pointed-end up before Trysten. “What tooth is this?”
Trysten examined it. She stared at it, and as she did, she noticed a slight curve in the tooth that she hadn’t seen before. It curved back, arching like the dragonslayer sword.
She gasped. The pendant had changed. “It’s curved!”
Caron nodded. “And what dragon has curved teeth?”
Trysten shook her head. “But wait, no! Hold on. I have spent a lot of time studying that pendant, and it did not curve like that before. Are you sure it’s the same one that was on my table?”
Caron held the pendant out in her open palm. The tooth was dagger-shaped again, with one side having a slightly more pronounced slant than the other side. It appeared to be one of the teeth from the middle of a dragon’s jaw. There was nothing extraordinary about it at all, except for the chain.
Trysten blinked.
“It’s not a trick, Little Heart. You can see it. I can see it. No one else in this village can see it. Well, not that I know of.”
“What is it? And if we’re the only ones who can see it, why hide it?”
Caron closed her fist around the pendant, took Trysten’s wrist, and turned her palm up. She placed the pendant in her daughter’s hand. “The metal is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. I don’t know what that means. The Prince might. I felt it was better to be safe than sorry.”
“But what does it mean? Why does it change shape?” Trysten looked at the pendant in her palm. It was the same shape it always was since she found it.
“It doesn’t change shape. It is what it is. It is both things.”
Trysten scrunched up her brow. “What?”
Caron shook her head. “It is from a dragon unlike any you have ever seen.”
“How do you know all of this?”
“My mother.”
“Your mother?”
Caron nodded. “She had a similar pendant, though not on such a chain. Hers was on a regular, silver chain.”
“Where is it now?”
Caron didn’t answer right away. “She took it when she left.”
“She left?”
“She went to the north. She went in search of the remains of Drowlin, where she was born, where her father was Dragoneer.”
“I thought she died,” Trysten whispered as if the conversation should be treated as a secret.
Caron swallowed. Her eyes filled with tears as she glanced to Trysten’s lips. She looked back up to her daughter’s eyes. “She did.”
Trysten glanced to her palm again. Suddenly she was holding a tool far too complex for her to understand. “What is this thing?”
“It is what it appears to be. It’s a dragon tooth made into a pendant.”
“From what kind of dragon?”
“From no dragon around here. That is all I can tell you. My mother didn’t completely understand herself.”
“Where did she get hers?”
“I don’t know. She had it as long as I can remember. She brought it with her from Drowlin. She begged me to keep all of this secret. This was before I met your father. Her brother might know more about it, but I never asked.”
“Galelin?”
Caron’s brow dropped a bit in agitation. “You know that, too?”
“Father told me.”
“What else did your father tell you?”
“Not much else. But this,” Trysten said as she lifted the pendant slightly. “What am I supposed to do with this?”
Again, Caron shrugged. “I don’t know. Perhaps nothing. Perhaps you should ask Galelin, though I would suggest you wait until the Prince has grown bored with our village and fled back to the mother city. You know how Galelin gets when presented with new ideas.”
Trysten nodded. She closed her fist around the pendant and shoved it into the pocket of her tunic.
“Thank you. Thank you so much.” She threw her arms around her mother and drew her into a tight embrace.
“Oh, Little Heart,” Caron said as she patted her daughter’s back. “I wish there was so much more I could do for you. I wish I had more answers. If I had known back then, back when your grandmother was alive, I would have learned so much more. I’m so sorry you never got to meet her.”
Trysten drew back from her mother’s embrace. “Thank you for telling me. I’m happy that you know about my bond with the dragons. But why did you keep it from me for so long?”
A slight blush crept into Caron’s cheeks. “To be honest, when your grandmother told me these things, I thought she was a little… eccentric. When she showed me the pendant, I thought she was playing tricks on me. It wasn’t until you were born and I began to see the world through your eyes that I started to suspect that there was more truth to it. You understand, then, why you have no siblings?”
Trysten clutched her mother’s hand. “Father told me about that as well. Galelin told him about your heritage, but he said it was too late, that you were already carrying me.”
Caron shook her head. “I didn’t believe the myth. I didn’t believe a word of it at the time. It took you to make me see my mother for who she truly was. Who I am.”
Caron drew Trysten into another quick embrace and squeezed. “Oh, go on. You’ve got stuff to do. You have a weyr to take back. Go be the Dragoneer. Go be the person you were born to be.”
Trysten nodded and stepped away from her mother and out into the damp afternoon.
Chapter 18
It didn’t take much looking for Trysten to find Kaylar at The Fire and Stone.
“Trysten!” Kaylar called out from beside a table. A grin crossed her face, and then faded away. She dropped her tray to the table top and walked away without serving the dishes she carried upon it. As the diners looked on in agitation, Kaylar crossed the tavern and took Trysten up in a great, crushing hug.
“I’m so sorry! I heard the news. I can’t believe it! What a pig’s hind end!”
Kaylar let go, took Trysten by the shoulders and held her out at arm’s length. “What are you going to do now?”
Trysten reached up and clasped each of Kaylar’s forearms. A grin crossed her face. “I’m going to hold riding classes tomorrow. Are you still interested?”
The solemn look of concern faded away as Kaylar smiled. “Even though His Royal Highness says you can’t?” She rolled her eyes.
“I am the Dragoneer. The horde is mine. He cannot change that.”
Kaylar let out a low, rumbling laugh. She shook Trysten’s shoulders. “You bet! Wherever you lead, I will follow!”
“Wonderful! Would you do me one other favor?”
“Anything. Ask.”
“Speak to the other recruits. Let them know to meet me behind the bunkhouse after the dawn bell.”
Kaylar’s grin faded. “What about Tannil?”
Trysten took in a deep breath as she thought of the young woman, her glee upon returning to Aerona on the back of Elevera.
She shook her head. “She’s too young. After the solstice, when she is of age.”
The rest of the grin fell from Kaylar’s face. “But she really wants this. And the rules say that you can’t be the Dragoneer, yet you are. Can’t the rules just say that she can train? The solstice is but a couple months off.”
Trysten shook her head again. Suddenly, the role of rebel felt a little uncomfortable. “I am of age. I can make choices and be held accountable for my actions. Tannil is too young. Once she is old enough to choose for herself, then she can choose whether to do what is right for her or only what is allowed.”
A look of disappointment passed quickly over Kaylar’s face, then she nodded. “I understand. I’ll talk to the others. We’ll meet you behind the bunkhouse after the dawn bell. I will go talk to them right now.”
As Kaylar began to step around her. Trysten caught the larger woman by the upper arm.
“They don’t have to go through with this. None of you do. Darin and Deslan may choose to continue their training whenever they wish.”
“But Alea and I will never be allowed to choose. We won’t have the choice if we don’t take what you are offering us now.”
Trysten nodded. “You understand that Prince Aymon has stripped me of my title.”
Kaylar leaned in slightly and lifted her eyebrows in a devious manner. “He thinks he has. But he hasn’t. You are the Dragoneer.”
Trysten smiled. Her spirits soared on the swell of this woman’s confidence. “You are amazing, Kaylar.”
The enthusiasm returned to Kaylar’s face. She shook her head. “Only because you give me the space to be so.”
As Trysten stepped out of the tavern, she looked to the west. The clouds remained thick over the village. Not far away, near the crest of a small hill, a group of villagers led several horses and two wagons. It was the cutting party heading out to The Wilds at the base of the mountains. It felt good to see it, to know that things were continuing as planned, in some respects, even though Prince Aymon was in the village. She chose to take it as a sign of confidence, that upon news of her ouster, Tuse had still considered a second weyr a necessity, and had not called back the cutting party.
Her hand slipped inside the pocket of her tunic, her fingers curling around the pendant. The sharp, serrated edge pushed at her flesh as it had when she first closed her hand around it at the burial grounds. She closed her eyes and tried to picture the pendant again in her mother’s grip, the way she had held it to make the tooth appear curved. It was difficult to do. Every time she attempted, she pictured not the tooth, but her mother’s hand, the callouses and the first few spots of age. That was the picture that brought comfort to her mind’s eye.
She ran her fingers along the edge of the tooth. It felt like a normal dragon tooth under her examination. It was shaped more like a blunt dagger than a small sickle. A strong urge sent a tingle down her arm. She wanted to pull the pendant out and look at it, hold it like her mother did. Surely it had all been in her imagination. Surely.
Her gaze drifted from the cutting party and on out to the southwest, where the burial grounds lay. She should go back and look around more, see what else could be found among the stone and heather.
She took a step forward.
How dumb. Was she going to walk the whole way? She shook her head, then glanced back at the weyr. There was no way she was going to get out of there with a dragon, and if she tried, there definitely would be no riding class tomorrow.
With a sigh, she turned and started toward Galelin’s cottage again. Her mother had warned her not to show Galelin the pendant until after Prince Aymon left, but she needed to know if he knew anything about it.
Chapter 19
When Galelin opened the door at Trysten’s knock, he glanced behind her as if looking for someone else.
“I’m alone,” Trysten said.
Galelin stepped back. Once Trysten entered the cottage, he closed the door. “I’m afraid I’m in no position to help you plan the insurrection.”
Trysten slipped her hand into the pocket of her tunic. “I’m sorry about the sword.”
Galelin shrugged, then went to the hearth to pull the kettle off the hob. “I’m glad to have that ghastly thing out of my house. It gives me bad dreams.”
Trysten’s grip on the pendant tightened. “I’m sorry. I had no idea.”
“Not your fault. If I can’t help you foment the rebellion, then what can I help you with?”
Trysten pulled the pendant from her tunic. She opened her hand. “What do you know about this?”
Galelin glanced at her palm, then paused with the kettle still in his hand. “My word. You are just a source of trinkets and treasures. Where did you get that?”
“Do you know what it is?”
Galelin placed the kettle atop a stack of books on the seat of a chair. He reached for the pendant.
Trysten closed her fingers on the pendant, then with her other hand, held it up as she had seen her mother do, the setting between her thumb and forefinger with the tooth pointing upward, the chain dangling toward the floor.
The tooth changed. It was a plain dragon tooth, but it was also curved and vicious. Her brain stumbled with the sight of the tooth being two things at once. Her eyes tried to look away, but she forced herself to stare at the object to convince herself that it was indeed two different things at the same time. It was no mere illusion, no trick of the mind. Her eyes began to ache slightly with the effort.
“My word!” Galelin said. He cupped his hand around the chain and pulled it forward some, gazing at the metal in his palm. “I have never seen anything like this? Do you know which metal this is? Where did it come from?”
Trysten blinked. She looked at Galelin for a moment to rest her eyes after staring at the pendant. “What about the tooth?”
Galelin pinched the tooth between thumb and forefinger, then tugged it from Trysten’s grip. Immediately, it became a regular tooth again. She glanced up at Galelin’s face and realized that he couldn’t see the tooth as she had. If it hadn’t been for her mother, Trysten would have wondered if she, herself, had seen what she thought she had seen.
“Well, it’s…” Galelin held the pendant up to the gray light in the window. “It’s the fourteenth or fifteenth tooth from an adult dragon. I’d have to remove the setting to know for certain which side of the jaw it came from, but I would hazard a guess that it came from the right side. Why?”
Trysten blinked several times. After staring at the tooth, her eyes were having a bit of difficulty focusing. “I found it at a burial ground. An old one to the southwest, where we fought the Second Horde.”
Galelin immediately returned his attention to the pendant, studying it anew, but his focus remained on the metal and not the tooth. He carried it over to a candle burning on the table, next to an open book and a half-filled cup of tea. He held the chain in the flame of the candle. Fire crawled up the chain nearly an inch. Smoke rolled off the top of the flame and then disappeared into the air. After a few seconds, Galelin pulled the chain from the fire and gingerly touched it. He jerked his fingers away and gave them a slight shake, satisfied, apparently, that the chain was warm.
“It is unlike any metal I have ever seen. It has the luster of gold, but not the color. I would have to consult a blacksmith to tell you anything more. It could possibly be of Western origin.” He handed the pendant back to her. “They may have metals or—” Galelin turned as if checking to be sure they were alone.
“Or?” Trysten prodded.
He stepped closer to Trysten. “The legends hold that there were once men capable of changing the basic properties of materials. They were called alchemists. I personal
ly choose to believe that there are simply things that have yet to be discovered by us, and that this metal could be one such thing. Perhaps it is in the ground only in the West. Or it has yet to be discovered here because it is only in the mountains. There are many reasons why we may not have seen this metal or heard of it.”
Trysten’s grip on the tooth tightened. “Alchemists?”
Galelin shook his head. “You children. You always latch onto the most outlandish explanations, don’t you? It will serve you well to exhaust the realm of the possible before you go looking into the impossible.”
His hand slipped from the chain as if he were tired of holding it. He sat upon a stool at the table and ran his hand through his thinning hair.
“But it’s possible. It’s possible that magic was involved in making this, right? Is there a way you can find out for sure? Is there some test?” Trysten pushed.
“A test? For magic?” Galelin chuckled. “My dear Dragoneer, there is no more a test for magic than there is a test to see if this stool can fly like a dragon. It can’t because it is simply not possible. Magic is not possible. It is, as I have said, simply a way to explain something that is new to us. That doesn’t make it magical, it only makes it new.”
Trysten held her palm open before herself and looked at the pendant. The tooth was a tooth. But she knew if she held it the way her mother had, it would be something different. And it certainly was not that it merely had been undiscovered until now. She saw two things at once in the same place, and that had to be magic or else Galelin would see it too.
“I recommend you wait until the Prince leaves, but once he does, you might take that to the blacksmith and see what he has to say about it,” Galelin suggested. “The metal may be known to him.”
“Thank you. I will do that,” Trysten said.
She had no intention of taking it to the blacksmith. The blacksmith couldn’t even begin to tell her what she wanted to know. But could Prince Aymon?
As she left Galelin’s cottage, she looked at the upper floor of the weyr, to her den waiting under the vaulted ceiling. The Prince seemed to know a great deal. It would make sense that a man with his rank would have access to more information than herself and perhaps even more than Galelin. But she couldn’t dare trust him.
The Dragoneer Trilogy Page 39