“Some, and I could talk about them all day if I wasn’t busy with my guard duties. But it’s time for you to move off the queen’s lawns now, sorry to say. Go on.”
Silver dipped her head politely as she backed all the way to the fence and stepped over to the road. The guard lifted his chin to her in farewell and drifted back to his place against the wall.
“Wait,” Silver called. “Can you tell us where the Maze Market is?”
The guard pointed to a shadowy alley over Silver’s shoulder. “The entrance is there, but they close up at twilight. No one wants to work during the social hours.”
Silver squinted to get a better look at the market entrance, but Brajon shook his head.
“Come on,” he said. He tugged on Silver’s arm. “Let’s find somewhere to sleep, and try in the morning.”
But a sense of urgency clicked in Silver’s mind. “We don’t have time to sleep. We don’t even know how long we have until the races begin. We need to find Arkilah soon, or else Kirja…” Silver couldn’t say the terrible thought out loud.
“We’ll find her. We battled a cave monster to get to her!” Brajon looked left to right, then at the white walls of the palace. “Excuse me,” he called to the guard. “Did we miss the qualifying races?”
“You’re just in time,” the guard called back. “Registration opens tomorrow morning, and the races begin in the evening.”
“See,” Brajon said, facing Silver again. “We have time, and we’re not going to find Nebekker’s friend tonight. People shouldn’t wander around in the dark in unfamiliar cities.”
Silver opened her mouth to argue that the cover of darkness could be good for their search.
A commotion made them spin away from the market. Down the road, a cart was rattling toward them so quickly Silver was sure the wheels would pop off at any moment.
“Run, you beast!” the driver roared, snapping a whip over the herd animal’s head.
A yelling mob chased after the cart, kicking up more dust and pebbles.
“Stop him!” someone called. Others raised their own shouts. Even the Abruqs in the little palace pools tipped their noses up and raised alarms. The guards rushed to assess the situation.
Silver caught a flash of glittering purple and silver in the back of the cart, combined with a desperate whimper that she was sure only she heard. A water dragon!
Theft runs rampant before big races. Nebekker’s words rang in Silver’s ears.
She imagined it was Hiyyan in the runaway cart and did the only thing she possibly could. She stepped into the middle of the road, directly in the cart’s path.
“Stop your cart,” Silver shouted, flinging up her hands.
“Whoa, girl! Move your hide,” the cart driver screamed, yanking on the reins.
Time seemed to slow as the cart hurtled toward Silver. People in the crowd screamed when they realized there was a girl standing in the middle of the road. A guard in white leaped over the palace railing.
Silver knew there was no way the driver could turn the herd animal fast enough to get around her, even if he wanted to. But the driver didn’t try; he lowered his head, snarled at Silver, and kept his course.
Still, she stood her ground.
Until the guard slammed into her side, throwing her out of harm’s way. Silver’s breath rushed out of her as she landed hard on her back. The shouts died down as the crowd ran past, and, slowly, the dust did, too.
“Silver!” Brajon fell to his knees beside her. “Are you okay, cousin?”
“She’s not,” the guard said. It was the same guard who she’d talked to a short time ago. “She’s out of her mind! What in the desert were you thinking, girl?”
“Thief,” Silver said, weakly sputtering with dirt in her mouth. “I couldn’t let him steal a water dragon.”
“Your life is worth less to that thief than the dragon,” the guard scolded.
Silver sat up and looked around. The cart had overturned, and the mob was descending on the driver.
“They stopped him!” she cried. “How?”
“This cousin of yours threw his bag at the herd animal,” the guard said. “Spooked it enough to send them all crashing.”
Silver threw her arms around Brajon and pulled back to give him an admiring look. “Good thinking.”
“Unlike yours,” he retorted. “You could have been killed!”
“I imagined what it would be like to”—Silver glanced at the guard and lowered her voice to a whisper—“lose mine, and knew I had to.”
The guard looked curiously from Silver to Brajon and back, but then a man from the crowd, dressed all in dark blue, pulled on his shoulder.
“Arrest that man!” His eyes blazed as he pointed to the cart driver. “He attempted to steal my master’s water dragon!”
“Try to stay out of trouble,” the guard said to Silver as he went to address the theft.
“Silver,” Brajon said, perfectly mimicking Rami Batal’s voice. “Is it possible for you to stay out of trouble?”
Silver giggled at her cousin.
“Come on,” Brajon said. “We don’t need any more attention on us.”
Silver wanted to stay and see what kind of water dragon would be released from the cart, but Brajon pulled her arm insistently and she let her cousin lead her away. Still, she looked back over her shoulder every few steps.
The sun was melting into the horizon, and the palace was going through a transition, day to night. Lights came on in the upper-floor windows. Lanterns throughout the garden were lit, though Silver never saw a person doing the lighting. The gold trim shimmered and sparkled, challenging the beauty of the stars. The striped tails of the Abruqs glistened where moonlight doused them.
Then an upper window was flung open, and there she was.
Queen Imea.
TWENTY-FOUR
Silver stopped and stared at the monarch. The queen didn’t look down but, instead, looked out over all of Calidia, like the vast desert beyond the city was drawing her gaze. Then, just as quickly as she appeared, she spun away from the window, her hair flinging over her shoulder.
Even from a distance, Silver could tell the queen was agitated. There was something about the sharpness of her movements. Another woman, draped with colorful fringed scarves, appeared, closing the windows, then she disappeared as well. The light went out in the room.
“Come on. Stop dawdling!” Brajon dragged Silver around a corner, and she lost sight of the palace. “I know I saw an inn back this way. Somewhere … Where was it?”
The streets that had been so easy to follow during the day were a maze after dark. They turned down one road, realized their mistake, and went back. Confusion dashed excitement away and tiredness took its place. They struggled to keep walking.
Silver’s fingers fluttered over Nebekker’s cool pendant. She worried about Hiyyan. She worried they were never going to find Arkilah. She worried that they had only one day to rescue Kirja. She couldn’t fail. Nebekker was depending on her.
At the thought of the old woman, a circle of warmth touched her chest. Silver pressed her hand hard over the pendant. Did that mean Kirja was near? Silver turned in a slow circle, but other than the little pools, there was no sign of anywhere an Aquinder could hide. The pendant went cold again.
Silver’s shoulders slumped. If they didn’t find an inn soon, they’d have to settle for sleeping in a doorway.
As she scanned the roads, she spotted a group of people, two men and a boy who looked about her age, dressed head to toe in fitted dark-blue clothes. She recognized one of the men from the crowd chasing the cart, the one who’d told the guard his master’s dragon had been stolen. The three entered a building.
“There! I see an inn!” she said. She and Brajon dashed across the road and followed the trio in.
When they entered, the room was full of people seated around tables, drinking from crystal goblets and talking over one another. The boy in dark blue turned around and gazed at Silver. She tr
ied to defiantly hold his gaze, but when that became uncomfortable, she focused on a girl about her age, who was cleaning on the other side of the room. The girl looked them over carefully, then went back to her work.
Brajon stepped forward. “We’d like a room, please.”
The innkeeper pressed a palm to his nose. “We have nothing for filthy dock children like you. Get out!”
“But we can pay,” Silver said, reaching into her pack for the money.
The man dragged the cousins into the street. As the door was slamming shut, Silver heard the innkeeper’s voice go as sweet as rose syrup as he helped the group of three.
Silver frowned. “But we asked for a room first.”
“Yes, but they don’t look like they, well, crawled out of a cave,” Brajon said. “A doorway it is.”
“Hey!” A fierce whisper came their way from an upper window of the inn. The cleaning girl stuck her head out and waved down at them. She looked over her shoulder, then back at them. She pointed to the end of the road. “Meet me there.”
Silver started walking, but Brajon stayed behind.
“I don’t think we should trust her,” he said.
“We don’t have a choice,” Silver said.
“What if she tells the innkeeper we’re standing there so he can come out and give us a proper beating?” Brajon folded his arms across his chest. “I’ve never met such mean people as Calidians. I can’t wait to go home. Let’s find a place to safely wait out the night. We can find Arkilah at first light, grab Kirja, and get out of here.”
Silver hesitated, chewing on her bottom lip.
“Think about Hiyyan waiting back at the river caves,” Brajon said. “He probably misses you. If he’s still even there.”
“Don’t say that,” Silver cried. Then she lowered her voice so passersby wouldn’t overhear. “Even if our plan goes as easily as you just laid it out, we can’t leave before the afternoon. If I don’t race Hiyyan … if I don’t claim him, he could be as easily stolen as Kirja was.”
“Race him? No way. Why can’t he hide? Kirja was in hiding for years.”
“But Kirja was found. And now that Sagittaria knows that Aquinder exist, it’ll only be a matter of time before Hiyyan is discovered. I have to do everything I can to protect him.”
“Our focus is to rescue Kirja,” Brajon said as he threw up his hands. “Not for you to go off and race water dragons for a thrill!”
“It’s not about the thrill!” Silver shook her head. “You don’t understand. I know that what’s best for my water dragon is to make sure he can never be stolen. If you want to go, then go. I can find Arkilah myself. Maybe I’ll ask the cleaning girl for help.”
“That’s it?” he said. “You want me to just go?” Brajon’s face was turning pink. “After everything I’ve done. You couldn’t have gotten this far without me. You would have been run down by that cart if not for me. You would have been torn to shreds by that cave monster and sucked alive by the worms and—”
“If not for you, I could have swum Hiyyan through the cave river, arrived a day ago, rescued Kirja, and gotten back to Jaspaton by now!”
“Then take that creature and fly to the other side of the world. Maybe there, you’d find people who actually like you.”
Silver sucked in a pained breath. Brajon had never spoken to her that way.
“I’d rather have a Flying Black-Eyed Scorpion help me than a two-faced Dwakka like—”
“Be quiet, you two!” There was that fierce whisper again. The cleaning girl had appeared out of nowhere and was glaring at them both. “Follow me.”
She darted to the end of the road and turned the corner. Behind the buildings, a narrow alley bathed in shadows stretched farther than Silver could see. The girl disappeared into it.
“Come on,” she said over her shoulder.
Silver avoided her cousin’s gaze as she went into the alley. Brajon followed behind her, but only after sighing loudly to let her know how irritated he was.
“Here,” the girl said. She waited for them, holding a plain door open.
Silver stepped inside. It was a tiny room with only a single small square window to let in what little light from the Calidian lanterns could find its way there. When Silver’s eyes adjusted, she saw a mat with a blanket on one side of the wall, a small ceramic bowl, and a pitcher filled with steaming water. There was also a small pile of clothes, neatly folded, in one corner.
“Where are we?” Silver asked.
“In my room. This is the back of the inn. Well, a little cubby in the back of the inn.”
“This is your home?” The cleaning girl’s face closed off at Silver’s tone of disbelief. Silver’s cheeks flushed. She hadn’t meant to upset the girl, but she was taken aback. The girl didn’t have books or pictures or cushions or anything that made it seem like it was hers. “What I meant was that we can’t stay in your home. It’s too generous.”
“I’m not offering it out of charity. You said you could pay.” The girl rolled her eyes and held out her hand.
“Oh.” Silver reached for her coins, counted out enough to fit in a circle in her palm, and passed them to the girl, who scrutinized them.
“I was hoping for more, but this will do,” the girl said, tucking the coins into her apron. “Since you’re a friend to water dragons.”
“What do you mean?” Silver asked.
“I overheard one of the men in blue talking about a street urchin with badly cut hair who stopped the theft of their dragon. I assume that was you.” The girl pinched her nose. “Not too many people in this area fit that description.”
“We’re not street urchins,” Brajon said. “We’ve just been traveling a long ti—Ow!” Silver was grinding her heel into Brajon’s toes.
“We helped a water dragon, yes,” she said.
The girl nodded. “A friend of water dragons is welcome here.”
“But where will you sleep?” Silver looked around the tiny room.
“In the kitchen,” the girl said. “I sleep there half the time anyway. The cook loves to give me tasks in the middle of the night and she doesn’t want to come all the way back here to wake me up.” She put on a defiant face, but Silver saw her exhaustion.
The girl pointed to the basin. “I brought you hot water for cleaning.”
“We got the message from the owner of the inn. We smell,” Brajon said drily.
“Mr. Homm would never let dirty kids like you in there. Besides, we’re full until the dragon races are over, at least. Better get down to the seawall early tomorrow if you want a spot to watch. People start heading there before sunrise.”
Silver bit her lip. They had to find Arkilah and get Kirja soon. “And where do we find the seawall?”
The girl shot her a quizzical look. “Don’t you know anything? It’s the wall that meets the ocean, of course. First through third are south of the docks. I’m going to try to watch some of them. If Mr. Homm lets me. There are more than a hundred dragons in Calidia right now trying to qualify. Or just be registered.”
“You know a lot about these races for a cleaning girl,” Brajon said.
The girl glared at him. “You don’t know anything about me,” she said, but then turned away and swallowed hard. She seemed to pick her next words carefully. “I know how to listen. No one thinks much of someone like me, so they talk freely. I know more gossip than anyone in this city. You should see all the racers and squires sitting around, boasting about their dragons. They’re all sure they’re going to qualify here and then win the final cup at the Spring Festival. The deals, the treachery, the amount of money that exchanges hands as bets…” The girl shook her head. “I could start my own kingdom with it. Anyway, I have to get back to work, or Mr. Homm will come looking for me and we’ll all be sleeping down at the docks tonight.”
“Wait,” Silver said. “What’s your name?”
“Mele,” the girl called over her shoulder. Then she disappeared around the corner, and Silver and Brajon were
left alone in the tiny room.
TWENTY-FIVE
Silver sighed with happiness as she lowered her hands into the washbasin. Brajon had offered to wait outside to let Silver wash up first: his way of apologizing for their argument. There was a small piece of soap in the basin, so Silver wet her new scarf and lathered it up, then wiped down her skin. When she finished, she tried to wring the dirt out of the scarf, but it was stained. So much for that pretty orange color she’d loved.
She poured some water over her head, watching gunk and suds rinse out of her hair. The water in the basin was now black. She could hardly blame Mr. Homm for turning them away. Especially when there were guests as smartly dressed as those men in blue they had followed into the inn. She wondered where they were from and what kind of water dragon someone had tried to steal from them.
Brajon rapped on the door. “Are you done yet?”
Silver shook droplets of water from her hair and traded places with her cousin. As she waited outside, she thought about the next day’s plan. First thing tomorrow, they would go to the seawall.
She knew the most important thing was to find Kirja, but also … her chance to prove herself as a racer was here and now. If she signed up for one of the races and won, Sagittaria Wonder couldn’t ignore her. And, if she claimed Hiyyan as hers, he would be safe.
The trouble was, how could Silver sign up for a qualifying race without exposing Hiyyan to danger?
Silver shook her head. No, they had to focus on finding Arkilah first. Nebekker had told them that Arkilah could help them rescue Kirja from Sagittaria.
Silver paced up and down the alley. Her heart ached. She missed Jaspaton, just a little, and she really missed Hiyyan.
Hiyyan. Maybe he could help her figure out what to do. Silver closed her eyes and pictured the Aquinder in her mind. A feeling of peace swept over her.
She thought his name. Can you hear me from this far away? I have an idea, and I need your—
“What are you doing?”
Silver’s eyes flew open. Mele was standing in front of her, squinting curiously. She held a small package wrapped in cloth.
Silver Batal and the Water Dragon Races Page 14