Carina’s sun-kissed skin went deathly pale. “You burned down the Dancing Pig?” she whispered.
“It was an accident!” Brolian cried. “I didn’t mean to, I swear.”
This was bad. Really, really bad. “You know Slick owns that bar, right?” I pinched the bridge of my nose, a headache starting to brew. Slick was the head of the Brass Boar Gang, the most dangerous criminal organization in Zuar City. Brolian might as well have signed his death warrant the moment he’d set foot into that place.
“Oh yeah, I know him,” Brolian said bitterly. “Where d’you think I got these broken ribs? Two of his goons ambushed me and held me down while he kicked the tar out of me. He told me that I owed him a hundred dorans for burning down his place, and that if I didn’t pay up he’d break my legs and cut off both ears.”
“Well, that’s not so bad,” Carina said sarcastically. “It’s not like you make much use of your ears since you never listen to me, and maybe if you can’t walk anymore, you’ll stop running headlong into trouble.”
“Oh, quit busting my balls,” Brolian whined. “Can’t you see I’ve suffered enough today?”
“That’s debatable.”
“There’s no way you really owe a hundred dorans,” I said, interrupting the siblings before this conversation devolved into a bickering match. “I’d estimate thirty, tops, considering what a dive that place is.” I’d been there once or twice—dive was the polite word for that shithole. The beer tasted like cow piss, and I was reasonably certain the chef delighted in inflicting food poisoning on the patrons. “Slick is just trying to squeeze you for as much as you can get.”
“Maybe we should just go to the authorities,” Carina said, twisting a strand of hair around her finger. “You can explain the situation to them, and once things have settled down, work out a way to pay off the honest amount.”
“That won’t work,” Brolian said wearily. “Slick has the Muncies in his pocket.”
“Then what are we supposed to do?” Carina cried, throwing up her hands in frustration. “All my money is tied up in the business, and I know you’ve spent every last bit of your portion of the family inheritance already. Should we ship you off to a different city? Maybe a different country altogether? I hear Warosia is nice this time of year,” she said in a scathing tone.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Brolian snapped. He pushed himself to his feet, looking a bit more recovered than when he’d stumbled in. “I know I’m a screw-up, Rina, but I’m not leaving you.” He awkwardly put an arm around her shoulder and pulled her close. “I’ll figure this out. I always do.”
But as I met Brolian’s gaze over his sister’s head, I saw the despair there, a despair echoed in my own heart. The two of us knew what Carina was too naïve to acknowledge—there was no safe place for Brolian to hide, no authority who could protect him. If he didn’t find a way to pay Slick the full amount, he was as good as dead.
2
The next morning, I rose after an abysmal night of sleep to greet the sun poking its golden rays through the slats of my window. I’d been up into the wee hours of the morning with Brolian and Carina, trying to come up with ways to pay off his debt. More than once, Carina had suggested selling her share of the shop to someone else, but that meant I’d have to sell my half too because there was no way I would partner up with anyone else. With my luck, Barrigan would be the one to buy the shop, and he would make my life a living hell.
And I’d already determined, a long time ago, that I was never going back to hell again.
Rubbing the grit out of my eyes, I stumbled from my bed and into the shower, ignoring the clock on the wall that told me it was only eight in the morning and to get my sorry ass back to bed so I could catch more than four hours of sleep. Tilting my face up to the hot spray, I closed my eyes and let the water seep into my bones, driving the exhaustion away so I could face the day.
I had a very important visit to make. And I couldn’t show up as anything less than my best.
Five minutes later, I stepped out of the shower and toweled off, then wrapped said towel around my hair to let it dry while I dressed. I rummaged through my closet to find a reasonably clean pair of leather pants, which I paired with a long-sleeved, dark brown shirt. My dark brown leather corset went over that, its shiny brass buckles gleaming in the strengthening daylight seeping through the windows. Around my waist went my leather pouch belt, stuffed to the gills with fun things like smoke bombs, matchsticks, medical supplies, and jerky.
What? I’m an explorer at heart. Even if I’m only going down to the market, I never leave the house unprepared.
I shoved my boots on, tucked two daggers in the hidden sheaths I’d installed in them, then skipped out the door. I stopped at the corner market to grab a pastry and a small block of cheese, then caught a hansom cab to take me to my mentor’s place on the west side of town.
The cab driver dropped me just outside the high walls of Albric Salcombe’s mansion, walls I’ve scampered up countless times. The first time I’d done it, I’d been nine years old, drawn by the call of hundreds of priceless art and artifacts within the walls. I’d nearly walked out with several miniature portraits from the Golden Age when the old man had caught me.
Now, here we were, fourteen years later, and our relationship, though not always easy, was more akin to father and daughter than robber and victim.
Forgoing the urge to scamper up the wall again just to prove I could do it without getting caught, I walked right up to the gate and said a cheery hello to the guard. He opened the gate for me immediately, and I walked up the gravel path toward the mansion. The sprawling two-story structure sported gray-tiled roofs and scalloped blue siding, with a darker blue trim that edged the windows and doors. Wrought iron balconies wrapped around the second story I’d often climbed down late at night when I was supposed to be in bed so I could steal into town and visit my friends. It was a place that held both fond and harsh memories, and I always felt both nostalgia and trepidation when I came to visit.
Not bothering to knock, I let myself in, and wound my way through the many halls toward the one place he’d always be this time of day. Even if I didn’t know this place like the back of my hand, the smell of freshly roasted coffee and buttery loaves of bread would have led me to the breakfast room, where Salcombe sat at a cozy table by a set of bay windows that looked out onto a small garden. That garden, like everything else on the property, was just as much about function as it was about form—the riotous blooms and berries had both poisonous and medicinal properties that could be used to mix up all kinds of concoctions.
Not that I was an expert. Salcombe had taught me the basics of mixing potions, but it really wasn’t my forte. I could concoct basic remedies, but my poisons were more likely to put someone to sleep than to kill them.
“Zara.” Salcombe looked up from the morning paper with a smile that lit his pale gray eyes. He patted the chair next to him. “Come, sit and have breakfast with me. It’s been a long time since you’ve sat and chatted with me.”
Normally, I would have refused. I came to Salcombe’s house once a month to make the loan payment for the collateral he’d given me to open up the Treasure Trove, but beyond that I tried to keep my visits scarce. I loved him, but he was always trying to push me into going on expeditions to recover dragon artifacts, and I just wasn’t interested in that kind of work.
Today, however, I took a seat, then grabbed a buttered roll and some sliced ham from the plates on the table. Salcombe poured me a cup of coffee and stirred in some cream for me as I took my first bite, and I bit back a moan as the soft, buttery bread practically melted onto my tongue.
Overall, I enjoyed being independent, but no one in the city made rolls the way Salcombe’s cook did.
“Here’s your monthly payment,” I said, fishing the five dorans out of my money purse. I pushed them across the table to him, and he swept them into his hand and out of sight. “Sorry I’m late. I know I was supposed to come last week, bu
t I was on an expedition.”
“Did you bring back anything of note?” Salcombe asked, his eyes sparking with interest. He was a thin, bony man, with silver hair and the sallow skin that came from a mysterious wasting disease that no doctors or herbs had been able to cure, but whenever I mentioned expeditions he always lit up with renewed vigor.
“Nothing that would be of interest to you,” I said, knowing he was really asking if I’d brought back any Dragon War artifacts. Salcombe was absolutely obsessed with anything that came out of the Dragon Age—that period of our history nearly two thousand years ago when the dragon god Zakyiar had come to our world and nearly wiped out the entire population with his army of dragons. Artifacts and texts from this period were extremely rare, which meant they were worth an absolute fortune.
“That’s too bad,” Salcombe said with a sigh. “You know, I really wish that you would come back to work for me, Zara. You were always the best at sniffing out dragon artifacts. My collection has stagnated without you.”
I held back a sigh of my own. “You know why I can’t do that.” There was a reason I’d stopped hunting dragon artifacts—it was illegal to keep them. All Dragon War artifacts were supposed to be turned in to the Elantian government to be catalogued and studied by dragon rider historians. That in itself wouldn’t have bothered me so much, except that they never paid what the items were truly worth.
Damn dragon riders, I thought morosely, glancing out the window. Far up in the sky, I could just make out one of their floating islands, drifting between the white fluffy clouds dotting the sky. They thought they were above us, hoarding their knowledge and secrets, living up in the clouds so they wouldn’t have to concern themselves with our existence. Salcombe felt the same way as I did about them, which was why he hoarded the dragon artifacts he collected rather than turn them in. Silently, I applauded him for it, but I couldn’t be involved with that kind of activity anymore. I needed to keep my nose clean for the sake of my business.
Salcombe shrugged. “You’d pay off your debt in mere months rather than years. Is that not worth a bit of illegal activity?”
“It might take more than a few months to be free and clear, with the way things are going for me right now,” I said darkly. “I’m in danger of losing the shop.”
Salcombe sat up straight, his eyes narrowing. “Explain,” he said in that crisp, authoritative voice that made me think he’d once been nobility of some sort. Except that was impossible, because the only people who lived in mansions down here were the self-made men with money considered too new to be admitted to the upper ranks of Elantian society.
I raked a hand through my hair, where it promptly snagged on a knot I’d failed to brush out this morning. “Carina’s brother has gotten himself into trouble with Slick.” I told him the whole sordid story as I finger-combed my hair, and ended with the two choices I was faced with—sell the shop, or find the money to cover Brolian’s debt.
By the time I was finished, Salcombe’s brows had drawn tightly together, a look of extreme disapproval on his face. “I told you that you shouldn’t have gone into business with that woman,” he said tightly. “That you needed a business partner with experience and assets, not one with liabilities and barely two coins to rub together.”
“It’s not Carina’s fault her brother is a deadbeat,” I retorted sharply. “And I never would have been able to start the business without her.” Carina’s father had been an amateur explorer who was independently wealthy, and when he’d died he’d left her a sizable inheritance. She’d sunk most of it into the Treasure Trove, and had bought the building we operated out of.
Salcombe looked like he wanted to argue, but to my relief, he let it go. He had a sharp, critical tongue that I mostly ignored, but insulting Carina was one of the few things I couldn’t let him get away with. The two of us had become fast friends as teenagers—in fact, we’d met on a joint expedition. She might not have grown up as an orphan, the way I did, but she seemed to get me better than anyone else.
“I suppose there is no use in crying over spilled milk,” he said dryly. “You have made your bed, and I was the one foolish enough to lie in it with you by investing in the shop. I suppose that you have come here to ask me for another loan to cover that idiot’s debt?”
“I have.” I forced myself to meet Salcombe’s gaze even though I wanted to duck my head in shame. Dammit, I hated having to grovel or beg for help, and I especially hated having to ask for money. “Please, Salcombe. I can’t lose the shop.”
Salcombe huffed. “It would be better to simply kill Slick and be done with it,” he said. “His type never truly lets go once they have their tenterhooks in you. Even if Brolian pays him off, Slick will simply find other ways to extort him until he’s bled dry. Besides, you’d be doing the city a public service.”
“I’m not an assassin,” I said firmly, refusing to entertain the thought even though Salcombe was right. I’d gotten blood on my hands a few times—in my line of work, where I regularly encountered thieves and bandits during expeditions, it was unavoidable—but I wasn’t going to kill someone in cold blood, especially over a debt that wasn’t even mine.
“And I’m not a loan shark,” Salcombe said. “You can’t simply come to me every time you are in financial straits. Even so,” he mused before I could protest, stroking his goatee with his long fingers, “I cannot simply sit by and let you throw your shop away, or I will never recoup my investment.”
“Does that mean you’ll lend me the money?” I asked, a spark of hope igniting in my chest.
“No,” Salcombe said, his thin lips curling into a devious smile. “But I will give it to you in exchange for a certain item I need.”
I bit back a groan. “Where are you sending me?” I asked, my scalp prickling with nerves. “And what am I excavating?”
“You’re not going to excavate,” Salcombe said. “You’re going to steal.”
“Absolutely not.” I shoved out of my chair, bristling with indignation. “You know I’ve given that life up for good, Salcombe. My days of breaking and entering are over.”
“Is that why you broke into Rajek Bahar’s apartment last night?” Salcombe said in a silky voice, and I froze. “You do realize that breaking into sacred tombs and buried temples to steal artifacts is not that different from breaking into someone’s house to do the same thing.”
“It is different,” I said tightly. “The caretakers of those temples are long dead, and no one worships those gods anymore. And I wasn’t stealing from Rajek. I was simply taking back something he stole from me.”
I didn’t ask how Salcombe knew about my midnight heist. He had his own network of informants in the city, orphans like me who he tossed a copper to here and there so that they would keep him informed about the goings-on of the city. One of the street urchins he employed must have spotted me last night.
Salcombe merely picked up his newspaper and flipped it open again. “We are finished with this conversation,” he said lightly. “If you do not want the job, I will not push you into it. But neither will I throw more money at this venture of yours when it is obvious to me that my chances of receiving a return have rapidly dwindled.”
I clenched my hands into fists, my nails cutting half-moons into my palms. Salcombe’s coldly logical approach to life was obviously what had made him a rich man—though he’d never told me exactly how he’d accumulated his wealth, I knew he had his fingers in quite a few financial pies. Collecting dragon artifacts was more of an obsessive hobby—he didn’t make his money treasure hunting, unlike me. When I’d broken into his house that day, his decision to take me in had been motivated by greed, not compassion. He’d guessed about my ability and had used it to his advantage.
Even so, I knew he cared for me. My bedtime stories might have come from history texts instead of children’s books, but he’d nestled me in his lap as he’d read them to me, stroking my hair until I was drowsy before he tucked me into bed and blew out the light. He’d hired a t
rainer to teach me the basics of self-defense so I could get myself out of a bind if I had to during the missions he sent me out on, and he’d tutored me himself. I was just as educated as the snooty upper-class jerks who lived up in the clouds, and if I had a mind to, I could have gone to university and “made something of myself.”
Biting my lip, I glanced back at Salcombe. He was ignoring me, his attention fully devoted to the paper. But there was a subtle change to the lines of his gaunt face, a stiffness in his shoulders that was hardly noticeable if you didn’t know the man. He wasn’t merely displeased with me for not going along with his wishes. He was hurt.
“Fine.” I threw myself back into the chair. “Tell me what I’m stealing, and from who.”
He smiled, setting the paper back down. “You are going to a soiree hosted by Lord Varrick Tavarian,” he said. “And you’re going to steal a dragon heart.”
3
“A dragon heart?” Carina screeched. “Are you out of your mind?”
“Hush!” I snapped, looking furtively around the shop. It was empty, which was normal for mid-morning, but my skin prickled with nerves anyway. “I could be arrested if anyone overheard that!”
“That would be better than you being executed if you get caught.” Carina glared at me. “You know the penalty for stealing from a dragon rider. My brother’s screw-ups are mine to deal with, Zara, not yours. You don’t need to risk your life on his account.”
“I’m not risking it on his account,” I said gently, placing a hand on Carina’s slim shoulder. “I’m risking it on yours.”
Tears gleamed in my partner’s chocolate brown eyes as she glared at me. “You’re not allowed to say mushy things like that,” she protested. “Not when I’m trying to work.”
Call of the Dragon Page 2