by Liz Flanagan
“Well, where are these people?” Tarya said, still with one arm around her brother. “If it belongs to them, why don’t they come and get it?”
“She didn’t say it was our fault,” Milla cut through them. “Just that people died. She wasn’t blaming us—”
“Who cares about blame, what about dragons?” Tarya interrupted. “She said they’re returning! People searched for years …”
Milla was saved from more questions by a new announcement from another tense-looking herald.
“The young men of Arcosi will swear their oaths to the Dragon Duke!”
“Now?” Isak asked. “I’m not ready, Tarya.” The duke had invented an elaborate oath for the occasion of his birthday, and everyone would be listening.
Tarya helped Isak stand, took his mask, then straightened his glasses and smoothed down his shirt. “You can do this. You know the words. We all know those words, back to front and in our sleep. Right?”
Isak managed a weak smile. “Right.”
“Good luck!” Milla called.
He nodded, looking unconvinced, and went to take his place in the line.
Milla moved to the back of the hall with the other servants. The Norlander maids edged away and looked down their noses at her, but she ignored their whispers, keeping her eyes fixed anxiously on Isak.
He recited his oath perfectly. He even stayed on the platform a little longer, chatting with Duke Olvar. When he walked back to his place, wearing a pewter medal inlaid with a black enamel dragon silhouette on a chain around his neck, he seemed energized after speaking to the duke. That was Olvar’s talent: he drew people to him. He was their sun and they all turned their faces to his light.
Milla hurried to bring the twins platefuls of food, stealing a few discreet mouthfuls along the way so she could tell Josi it wasn’t as good as her cooking. It was delicious, and she began to feel stronger again. After the guests had eaten, the palace musicians stepped up, and soon the old dragonhall was full of music.
“Time for the dance …” Tarya stared longingly toward the polished wooden dance floor, decorated with another fire-breathing black dragon. “But you’d better not risk it, Isak. You should rest. We’ll just watch.”
“I feel fine now. I’ll just dance this one,” he said, gulping. “It’s the duke’s ball. I owe it to him. He was so kind when he spoke to me. Did I tell you he asked me to sail with him?”
“Yes, three times already.” Tarya rolled her eyes, but she was smiling.
“Here, hold my glasses for me, Milla?”
So it was Milla who watched, holding Isak’s eyeglasses and Tarya’s shawl and fan, one foot surreptitiously tapping out the beat. The twins were the best dancers here, Milla saw with pride. She watched Isak dance with a girl in a silver dress with long, blond hair and diamonds glittering at her neck. He moved smoothly, with perfect rhythm and control, and whatever he was saying made the girl laugh. You’d never guess how much it cost him.
Now Tarya swung past: she tackled dancing with the same energy she tackled everything else, and Milla couldn’t help smiling as she watched her.
“She’s beautiful,” a voice spoke in her ear, making her jump. It was a tall young man, wearing a green feathered mask and a matching green silk jacket embroidered in silver thread.
“Yes, and that’s not all she is …” Milla retorted protectively.
“So I hear.” He stood very close, speaking so only she could hear. “That’s good. I could do with a challenge.” He drawled the long courtly Norlandish vowels, sounding just like the duke.
“You’ll get it, dancing with Tarya Thornsen.” He must be next in line on Tarya’s dance card, but Milla didn’t like the way the stranger’s hungry gaze followed her friend around the dance floor. “She’s no ordinary merchant’s daughter, you know? She speaks three languages, she’s practiced in archery, skilled with a longsword, and she throws a short dagger better than her father. She can brew a healing draft, draw a good scale map, and she’s more fun than anyone in this room!” Milla drew breath, feeling her cheeks burning. She hadn’t meant to say all that.
“Better and better.” The tall young man pushed his mask up onto his forehead and smiled down at her.
Her mouth fell open. It was Vigo, the duke’s son. Just like Skalla, the kitchen tomcat, he had a spoiled, languid air and a lazy fluid grace. He was much taller than Milla, with short, curling dark hair and very green eyes, adding to this catlike impression.
“And are you part of the package, little wildcat?”
Making her mind up in an instant, she decided to pretend he was just the same as anyone else. Otherwise she’d just stand there gaping like a goldfish and the guards would come and steer her away.
“No,” Milla snapped, before remembering to add, “Your Grace.” She knew from city gossip that Vigo liked pretty girls, and they tended to like him right back.
She looked up at him, trying to decipher his words and his expression. There was keen interest in those green eyes, and something else, more disdainful. Did he think Tarya was beneath him? Then she noticed something. “Why aren’t you wearing the dragon medal, like the others?”
“Did you hear me swear loyalty to my father?”
“No, Your Grace.” Milla spotted Duke Olvar in the crowd. Isak had stopped dancing and was talking intently to the duke.
Vigo switched to Sartolan, lowering his voice: “I might have had the misfortune to be born his son, but it doesn’t mean I have to like it. Although he does have some good ideas,” he murmured, keeping his glance on Tarya. “Please, excuse me,” he said to Milla, slipping through the crowd to the dance floor.
Vigo tapped the shoulder of Tarya’s current partner. Apologizing charmingly, he took Tarya’s hand and bowed to her. Milla was too far away to hear what he asked, but she saw Tarya’s nod in reply.
Vigo and Tarya started to dance.
The other couples noticed the new pair and left space around them. The dance suited them both: fast and complicated, it demanded tight control. They spun around the floor, gathering speed, perfectly matched.
Milla watched with an uncomfortable premonition gathering weight in her chest. Without losing the formal steps of the dance, Vigo added moves to surprise Tarya. She followed his lead, keeping pace and adding flourishes of her own. Already a combative dance, it became a kind of duel, as both dancers stretched its formal pattern to the utter limit.
Tarya held herself very straight and tall. In perfect time to the music, she snapped her head around as they changed direction, then kicked into the air, as high as her dress allowed.
Vigo tipped her backward, and for a moment she resisted, almost falling, then she gave in and allowed him to take her weight on his arm.
Milla couldn’t look away.
Tarya was glaring at Vigo. He smiled down at her, lip curling in that catlike way.
A plump woman with wine-reddened cheeks said, “Well, if he chooses her, at least she is a Norlander.” She lowered her voice to whisper, “Not like his mother …”
“Hush! You can’t say that!”
“Why not?” the woman said. “It’s what we’re all thinking. About time he was betrothed, too. And she’ll bring a fine dowry, Nestan’s daughter.”
Nestan wouldn’t promise Tarya to Vigo, not without telling her first! But Milla’s sinking feeling plummeted ocean-deep at those words. The woman was right. If the duke wanted to fund his growing army of soldiers, who was richer than Nestan? Milla knew the rumors. Nestan had saved Olvar’s life in the last war—almost losing his own. Olvar paid him in guilt money afterward. Nestan used that gold to buy his first ships, and now his wealth was unparalled.
But a betrothal? It made sense of Isak’s angry words to his father.
Milla had to warn Tarya, quickly, before anyone else did. She took one step forward, ready to dart in with some excuse.
She was too late.
Tarya and Vigo stood together in the middle of the dance floor, perfectly still, face-to-fa
ce. His lips were moving.
Tarya pulled back from Vigo, snatching away her hands.
There was an audible intake of breath from the watching crowd.
Tarya looked furious. Noticing the stares fixed on her, she forced a smile and fanned her face with a hand. “Sorry, please forgive me, Your Grace, I need air.” She fled from the hall.
Turning to run after her, Milla caught sight of Nestan’s face. He looked up and met her eyes and for a second he looked guilty. What had he done?
Milla caught up with Tarya in the garden. She put one hand on her shoulder, feeling her skin, hot under the flimsy silk sleeve of her dress.
“Leave me alone—” Tarya began, spinning around. “Oh, it’s you. I didn’t mean you.” Her face crumpled. “Milla …”
Milla saw the tears on Tarya’s cheeks, silvered in the moonlight. She reached up and opened her arms to her.
Tarya pulled her close and sobbed into her curls. “Father’s promised me in betrothal … to him!” Then she lifted her face and wiped it, shaking the tears away angrily. “And Vigo just loved telling me. What an arrogant, smug, spoiled …”
So it was true. This was Nestan’s plan for his daughter—the one he and Isak had been fighting about earlier. “It’s all right, shhh!” Milla hugged Tarya, finding words of comfort, even if she didn’t believe them yet. “We’ll find a way through this. It’s going to be all right.”
“I won’t do it.” Tarya’s anger seemed to win now. “You’re always telling me there are choices, Milla, and this is mine.”
“What do you mean? What’s your choice?”
“Even if I have to jump from the palace walls on my wedding day, I’m not … marrying … him.”
Milla kept her arms around Tarya, staring up at the pearly moon above them, wondering how her world could change so much in one single day. Her secret burned inside her, but she stayed silent, for now.
They got home just before sunrise. The sky was fading to a mist-shrouded blue, and even Tarya was yawning and stumbling as they walked through the gates of the Yellow House. Milla had persuaded her to return to the dance floor—“Come on, Tarya! Show him. Show everyone your kind of courage!”—and she had stayed there all night, avoiding Vigo’s gaze.
Even though she was exhausted, Milla sat up, waiting for everyone else to fall asleep. Her pallet bed was tucked in a corner of the first-floor hallway, in case Tarya called for her during the night. She changed back into her usual tunic and leggings, trying not to make a sound. Then she crept down the main staircase, listening hard. She paused in the hallway, by the portait of Vianna, trying not to feel as if it was watching her disapprovingly. She heard nothing but deep breathing and gravelly snores, and some distant music from parties in the lower city.
Only then did she creep back out into the garden.
It was time to discover the truth about the hidden bag. It felt strange, doing something so entirely for herself, something only she knew about. But if the bag held something dangerous, better it should hurt only one person. And if it held rubies, then there was an escape route for Tarya and Isak and for her.
She hoisted herself again into the orange tree, pushing through the leaves and branches to that little cave of greenness, feeling that it might be the last time. It didn’t feel like a safe haven anymore.
She unhooked the pannier and placed it carefully around her neck. Two of the padded pockets hung down near her shoulder blades, the other two rested on her chest. They were lighter than she expected, and there was no sloshing liquid as she moved, only a strange, gathered density centered in each pocket. It was beautiful, the main strap embroidered in gold thread with a pattern of leaves or flames. Each of the pockets was a different color: subtle, jeweled shades of crimson, kingfisher, primrose, moss. The bag alone was worth more than she’d ever own, never mind what was inside it.
She reached out and pushed some of the orange tree’s branches aside, letting more light into her refuge. Then, with trembling fingers, she reached down and struggled to unhook one carved ivory button from its tiny loop. Finally, she freed the lid on the blue pocket. Just at that moment, the first rays of the sun slanted through, dappling her with brightness.
She held her breath. How did firepowder ignite? She sent a prayer out into the pale morning and peered down.
Milla saw a smooth, gleaming expanse nestling in a deep velvet surround. There was a rounded dome inside, a light turquoise blue, dotted with dark gold speckles like the first drops of rain on stone. Gently she wiggled her fingers down the sides and lifted it out.
It was smooth and egg-shaped. It was larger than both her hands: she held it between her palms and stared. Was it real? Surely it was too big to belong to a bird. Perhaps it was an ornament?
She tapped it lightly with one fingernail: it sounded neither hollow nor solid, but something between the two. It could be a rare bird: an eagle for the duke to hunt with, perhaps?
She bent down and touched her lips to it, finding it surprisingly warm and slightly damp. It wasn’t made of stone. It felt full of potential. Alive and quickening. A pulse of excitement fizzled up her spine, as an incredible idea took shape.
The old woman at the ball had spoken of dragons returning to Arcosi. A man had been killed. If these were dragon eggs, it would explain why.
Dragon eggs?
It couldn’t be. She was tired. She was dreaming. Didn’t Josi always say her imagination was too wild?
Men had fought and died and sailed to the ends of the earth in search of dragon eggs. No one brought back even a rumor of seeing one.
It must be treasure. A gemstone, maybe lapis, or quartz?
But her heart said otherwise.
“Hello, you,” she whispered, feeling ridiculous for speaking to the thing. But she felt a pull toward it that she could not explain. She sat there for a long while as dawn became day, cradling it against her chest, like the beat at the heart of her life.
Finally, swaying with exhaustion, she almost fell from the branch. Reluctantly, she eased the blue egg back into the safety of its pocket before she could drop it. She opened all the other pockets and checked—three more eggs, each a different shade, just like the pockets themselves: yellow, red, and green.
She knew she should go straight to Nestan and tell him what she’d found. That was what a good servant would do. He would know what these eggs were. He would know what to do. But she’d have to admit she was there—that she’d seen the murder and done nothing. What if he blamed her? Her sleepy thoughts felt muddled and confused.
She’d ask the twins, she decided, yawning. As soon as a good moment came along. When Tarya had calmed down, she’d ask her advice.
For now, Milla had a promise to a dead man to keep, and a new, deep protectiveness welling up inside her. “I’ll look after you!” she whispered. Whatever they were, she couldn’t give them up. She knew it as well as she knew her own name.
Guarding the eggs as carefully as a newborn baby, with one arm clasped across the front pockets, she climbed slowly down, one-handed, trying not to jolt the pannier. With her heart beating hard underneath the padded fabric, Milla stole across the garden. She circled the kitchen building, moving as silently as Skalla when he was hunting field mice. The smokehouse leaned against the rear of the main oven’s chimney stack. She drew aside the leather curtain that sealed the wooden door and slipped inside.
The smoke caught at her throat immediately: rich, pungent, and gently acrid, carrying the aroma of curing fish and cheese. She reached up in the darkness, fumbling past the heavy sides of fish, to the large bunch of sage leaves she’d hung there yesterday. She took them down, hooked the pannier up high, and then replaced the herbs on top.
“There, you’ll be safe.” There was no reason for anyone else to come in here and look up into the dim, smoky warmth. Even if they did, you could barely see the bag.
She stumbled to her pallet bed. Now she lay awake, staring at the ceiling, trying to decide what to do, till the exhaustion won
and she fell into a shallow sleep.
Milla dreamt of blue. Deep endless blue, like the sea. In her dream, she soared over blue water. She flew through misty blue air. She was lifted and held by blueness. There was music, too. She sang out, loud and clear. The same repeating notes, going up and then down again. The tune came echoing back to her. And in her dream she was happier than she had ever been. She was bathed in joy, like hot sunshine. And it was all because of—
“Milla! Where is she? She’s late!” Lanys’s angry words floated up the main staircase, getting closer.
Nearby, she could hear Isak singing, for the first time in days: maybe that explained the music in her dream.
Milla scrambled to her feet and fled down the steep back stairs. She went straight out to check on the eggs, still half-asleep. She blinked up at the bright blue sky, trying to wrap herself in the dream and hug that perfect feeling to herself a little longer. She pursed her lips and blew, to capture the tune before it faded. Those five plaintive notes … Too late, it was gone.
In the gloom of the smokehouse, she eased each egg from its hiding place. She greeted them in turn, lingering over the blue one, checking for damage, and then she carefully hid them all again. She emerged, squinting against the late-morning sunshine, while her thoughts chased themselves in circles.
Her gaze fell on the kitchen window, and what she saw jolted her wide-awake. Inside, Nestan and Josi stood in a tight embrace. As Milla watched, Nestan pulled away and wiped Josi’s damp cheek tenderly.
“Where have you been?” Lanys demanded.
Milla jumped guiltily and spun around. “Just checking on the new cheeses,” she lied, barring the entrance to the smokehouse.
“Here, you take this. Breakfast is your job. Just because they took you to the palace, don’t get any ideas.” Lanys scowled at Milla, pushing a tray of dirty plates at her.