Call of the Dragon

by Jessica Drake

  “That’s so sad,” the girl said, and her voice was so mournful that I actually felt a pang of sympathy for Lord Tavarian, a man I’d never met. A man who lived in a grand mansion atop a floating island, and who probably never had to worry a day in his life about whether or not he would have food to eat or a roof to lay his head beneath.

  A man who would never again taste the skies on the back of his dragon.

  Stop it, I scolded myself. I’d already known this about Tavarian—Salcombe had told me. I should be grateful that he didn’t have a dragon—one less thing for me to worry about while I raided his estate.

  I wondered if the heart I’d been sent to steal belonged to Tavarian’s dragon. How did one preserve such a thing? Would I find it in a pickling jar, suspended in some kind of greenish liquid? I shuddered at the thought. Why did Salcombe even want it?

  It doesn’t matter, I told myself firmly. You just need to get it and get out.

  As we drew closer to the island, I noticed the gas lamps on the estate were being lit to replace the waning sunlight. I was surprised to see them—from everything I’d heard, the elite eschewed modern technology. Very few of them had electricity installed in their palaces and mansions, even the ones on Dragon’s Table. According to Salcombe, they saw no reason to adopt the new ways when they had plenty of servants to do the work for them.

  The green dragon we’d spotted earlier launched himself into the sky, jumping from the precipice of a high cliff and spreading his wings to catch an updraft. Two other dragons took off as well, sans riders, and I realized they were leaving them behind for the soiree, likely coming back to pick them up later. I wondered why Tavarian didn’t allow the riders to host the dragons in the giant stables perched just behind the mansion, but then I realized they could probably host no more than four, and there would be many more than four riders attending.

  “Prepare for landing,” the captain shouted over the wind as we flew over a pasture dotted with grazing cattle. Since it was difficult to ferry supplies back and forth, these islands were mostly self-sustaining—in addition to the cattle, I spotted a hothouse, several fields growing different kinds of crops, and a chicken coop. It seemed extravagant for one man—as I understood it, Lord Tavarian was the last surviving member of his family—but he did have to feed his servants, and perhaps he had others living on the estate as well.

  The other crew members sprang into action, reducing the flame and downshifting the gears that controlled the fan speed. The captain steered the ship to the right, taking us to the small shipyard about a mile away from the mansion, where several other airships had already landed, their passengers disembarking.

  The elite might not embrace technology, but even they had grudgingly acknowledged the convenience of airships. Most noble families owned at least one, since not everyone had a dragon of their own, and dragons were proud creatures who did not deign to be used as ferries.

  Our landing was fairly smooth, and as soon as we touched down, the crew ushered us off the ship. A horse-drawn wagon awaited, sent to take us to the mansion itself, and it took off as soon as we were seated, flying along the winding dirt road.

  I’d taken a moment to study Lord Tavarian’s home from the air, but now that we were on the ground, it seemed so much bigger than it had from above. It had to be at least ten thousand square feet, with various wings and bays shooting off from the main structure, and wraparound porches on the upper stories. The outer walls were made of some sort of shimmering gray stone and dressed up with timber framing, and towers and turrets jutted from the steep, multifaceted roof that looked like it would be an absolute bitch to traverse.

  Perversely, I wished the ship had dropped me onto the rooftop, just so I could try it. But I doubted Lord Tavarian would appreciate seeing the hired help dancing on his roof, and keeping a low profile was essential.

  The wagon led us around the meticulously trimmed garden and well-kept path, which led us to the servants’ entrance around the side. The scent of roasted lamb and freshly baked rolls drifted from the kitchen as we trotted inside, and my stomach rumbled even though I’d eaten.

  “There you are,” the house stewardess said, sounding harried as we were ushered into a small room. “The ballroom is nearly packed already, and there is hardly anyone serving drinks!”

  A tray was shoved into my hand, and I was sent out to said ballroom to ferry around said drinks to the guests. Stopping by the bar, I was given twelve glasses of sparkling wine tinted the peculiar pink that only came from drinks mixed with Angelberry juice—a rare fruit that tasted divine and was incredibly expensive. I was half-tempted to take a sip myself, but I passed—I needed a clear head, after all.

  Carefully, I made my way through the throng of people in the ballroom, passing by slowly enough that guests could take the full flutes off my tray without accidentally sloshing them. As the steward had said, the ballroom was packed with guests. Most of the women wore gorgeous silk gowns and jewels, their hair artfully arranged into braids or curls piled on top of their heads, their men wearing perfectly tailored dinner jackets over brightly colored vests paired with trousers and shiny shoes. But there were others in the crowd, both men and women, who wore double-breasted coats and breeches in navy blue with brass buttons. Dragon rider uniforms, I thought as I noticed the house emblems so delicately embroidered on their backs, all in a variety of colors. They were made of an incredibly light but durable silk that came from a special silkworm only found in the Hamarian Forests, designed in such a way that a rider could wear them to social settings like this, yet still throw their armor on at a moment’s notice. Rumor had it that the tunics were fireproof, though I had never seen them tested.

  Regardless, all of the guests sported golden dragon pins either on their breasts or in their hair as ornaments, marking themselves as members of the dragon rider class. I’d learned from my history studies with Salcombe that not every rider got a dragon—the dragon chose you, not the other way around, and refused to hatch unless its rider was present. Some riders got their dragons as young as ten years old, while others might wait an entire lifetime without ever being chosen. I wondered just how many of the men and women here were bitter about not getting a dragon for themselves, and how many had accepted their lot in life and moved on to greener pastures.

  Like Lord Tavarian, I mused, glancing toward my unwitting victim. He was holding court a few feet away from me, a gaggle of nobles all vying for his attention. Pausing, I took a moment to study him. He wore his dress uniform just like the other dragon riders and filled it out well—tall and lean and broad-shouldered, with long black hair that framed an angular face too sharply carved to be classically handsome. His eyes were the most arresting thing about him—a deep silver that seemed to shift and ripple in the flickering light, like pools of mercury.

  Those eyes met mine from across the room, and a shiver rippled down my spine. Quickly, I broke that quicksilver gaze and moved away, gooseflesh racing across my skin. There was something unnerving about that thousand-yard stare, as if he could strip my flesh from my bones if I held it too long and yank out the secrets nestled deep in my soul.

  Oh stop it, I scolded myself. You’re just being dramatic now. Lord Tavarian couldn’t see into my head any more than the charlatan fortunetellers who worked the streets. I was just letting my anxiety get the better of me, my nerves jangling as if this was the first heist I’d ever pulled off.

  It might as well be. When was the last time you stole from a dragon rider?

  Never. And there was a damn good reason for that.

  My tray only had a few glasses left on it, and I turned my attention to getting rid of the rest of my drinks as quickly as I could. Once it was empty, I could leave the ballroom under the pretense of going back to the kitchens to get more, and hopefully slip away to explore the rest of the mansion.

  “Hey,” a cheerful male voice said from behind me. “Mind swinging that tray over here?”

  I turned around to see a young man around m
y age standing a few feet away, his free arm around a blonde in a garnet dress. He had thick chestnut hair and sparkling green eyes, and a muscular build that cut him a very fine figure in his dragon rider uniform.

  “Certainly, m’lord,” I said with a smile, handing him my last flute.

  He smiled as he took the glass, revealing dimples in his handsome, tanned face. A current of warmth rushed through me as our fingers brushed, and to my annoyance, my blood heated in response.

  Stop that, I scolded myself as my cheeks warmed. Thankfully, the dragon rider didn’t seem to notice—he’d already turned his attention back to the woman on his arm. Shaking off the surge of desire, I wormed my way through the crowd with my empty tray at my side, heading back to the kitchens. The moment I was out of sight, I slipped through a side passage, ditching my tray as I went. My spelled boots made no sound against the parquet floor as I moved swiftly through a crimson hallway with ebony wood wainscoting, throttling my senses wide open so I could scan for valuables.

  Almost immediately, I was overwhelmed by the vast number of valuables clamoring for my attention. It would be easier for me to search for something in the house that wasn’t valuable, I groused as I passed a marble statue that had to be worth at least two hundred gold dorans. I dialed back my treasure sense so that the least valuable objects faded away, and focused in on the higher-ticket items.

  Although that didn’t actually narrow it down by a whole lot, I sensed a large cluster of high-value items in the south wing, and decided to strike out in that direction. More than likely, I was headed toward the vault where Lord Tavarian kept his most valuable items, and with any luck, the dragon heart would be there.

  Twice, I had to duck into bedrooms to avoid the attention of patrolling guards, and once more to avoid a maid, but other than that, my journey was relatively unimpeded. In fact, I was decidedly unimpressed by Tavarian’s security. If it was this easy to sneak into a dragon rider’s house and walk around, perhaps us ground-dwellers had overestimated them.

  As I got closer to the vault, I picked up on an incredibly strong signal. My blood raced with excitement—I’d never heard a call this strong, not even when I’d excavated the tomb of a king from the Golden Age and found a crown encrusted with semi-precious jewels. Barrigan hadn’t paid me nearly as much for that find as he should have, and I’d had to split it with several other treasure hunters who’d come along with me, but the gold I’d made had kept me comfortable for a good year. This object, whatever it was, had to be worth at least ten times that.

  I stopped in front of a large oil painting of a rider standing next to a blood-red dragon and grinned. Typical. I felt along the sides of the painting for a catch, and found it quickly enough. The painting swung open, revealing a large metal door with a keyhole and three safe combination locks of varying sizes. The average thief would have to guess the combination locks of all three, likely in a certain order, and then jimmy the keyhole lock open.

  But I was no average thief.

  Smirking, I ignored the safe locks and inserted my magical lock pick into the keyhole. The golden pick grew uncomfortably hot in my hand as I turned it, and for a moment, I worried that the lock wouldn’t give. But the lock pick’s magic turned out to be stronger than the lock, and a few seconds later, the tumblers gave way, and the door swung open.

  “Yes!” I cheered under my breath, stepping inside. It was pitch dark, but the moment my foot touched the floor, a gas lamp mounted on the wall flared to life. My mouth dropped open as I beheld the space—it was roughly the size of my bedroom, filled with chests of gold and jewels and shelves packed with all sorts of rare artifacts. Both Barrigan and Salcombe would be absolutely green with envy if they were standing here, and it took everything in me not to start going through all the items and cataloguing.

  Focus, Zara. Get what you came for and get out.

  I took a deep breath and zeroed in on the object emitting the incredibly strong signal. It turned out to be a black lacquered box with a golden lock. It didn’t look like something that would store a dragon heart, but maybe the heart had been petrified or preserved magically so that it didn’t need to be stored in a solution. My heart pounded with anticipation as I picked the lock, then flipped the lid open.

  “Shit.” I let out a gusty sigh, my stomach sinking in disappointment. The object inside was a petrified dragon egg roughly the size of my head. Picking up the egg, I ran my hands over the stony scales, wondering how they would have felt when the egg was newly laid. The signal emanating from it told me that it was no carving, but the real deal—probably laid hundreds of years ago, and turned to stone once the dragon inside it had died, never finding the rider it was fated to ride with.

  The back of my neck prickled in warning, and I turned just in time to see the vault door swing shut. “No!” I screamed, dropping the egg back into the box. I threw myself at the door and beat my fists against it. “Let me out!”

  But no one heard me, and after several frantic moments passed, I began to suspect that I had somehow triggered a magical trap meant to shut intruders in. Panicked, I searched the door for any kind of lock mechanism that I could tamper with, but the thick iron door was smooth and unyielding.

  “I am so dead,” I groaned, pressing my head against the cool metal. Tears stung at the corners of my eyes as my dreams crashed and burned before me. Someone would be coming for me eventually, and when they found me, I’d be executed. Sure, Salcombe would still pay Brolian’s debt—he never reneged on a bargain—but Carina would be forced to sell the shop. She didn’t want to run it without me any more than I wanted to run it without her.

  I’d always known that I would die early. The life of an adventurer is not for the faint-hearted, and growing old had never really been high on my agenda. But I’d at least wanted to make my mark on the world before I left it forever. And now, I never would.

  Tap, tap, tap.

  I frowned at the repetitive noise that sounded like someone rapping their fingernails against polished stone. Turning, I cast my gaze around to see what could be making it, and my mouth dropped open as I found the source.

  “Dragon’s breath,” I gasped, approaching the egg. It was no longer the dull gray I’d seen, but an iridescent blue that shimmered in the lamplight. And it was moving!

  Tap, tap, tap.

  “This can’t be happening,” I muttered, staring at the egg. It began to shake more insistently, the taps growing more frequent as the thing inside struggled to break free. Excitement and terror ballooned in my chest as a crack formed along the surface, and then another, and another.

  “This is totally happening.” Heart racing, I plucked the box from the shelf and placed it on the ground. Kneeling next to it, I watched with wide eyes as a clawed hand forced its way through the gap. The other hand joined it, and the two halves of the shell were pushed open with a loud crack, revealing the impossible.

  A baby dragon.

  5

  The dragonling pushed itself out of the wreckage of its shell, its scales still glistening with whatever residue was still inside the egg shell. It stood on wobbly legs for just a moment before collapsing, clearly too exhausted to manage walking just yet.

  Despite my terror, I felt a wave of sympathy for it.

  “Here,” I crooned, reaching my hand out. Part of my brain was screaming to get away—what if it bit me? Were dragon bites lethal? I had a general overview of dragon riders from my history lessons, but knew very little about the beasts themselves. How the hell was it even alive? That egg had looked dead!

  Hesitantly, I ran a hand over its trembling hide. It was cold to the touch, and still a bit slimy, but the scales were smooth. They shimmered sapphire in the lamplight, and the ripples of iridescence on each scale transfixed me. Dragon scales were incredibly valuable, and while illegal to sell, I knew there was a black-market trade for them.

  Was this what Salcombe had meant for me to find? Not just the heart of a dragon, but the rest of it too? But why? And why wouldn�
�t he just tell me that?

  The dragonling made a strange sound deep in its throat, akin to purring, its back vibrating from the force of the noise. It lifted its graceful neck and turned to me, meeting my gaze with luminous orbs of molten fire.

  The moment it did, lightning struck me.

  Okay, maybe not literal lightning. But it sure as hell felt like it, and I toppled back with a gasp, clutching at my chest. A bolt of pure energy had slammed into me, and with it came a wave of feelings and sensations—elation, confusion, curiosity. But most of all, a deep, gnawing hunger.

  “Hello.” A childlike voice echoed in my head. “Do you have any food?”

  I stared at the dragonling. “Was…are you talking?”

  “Of course I am talking.” The dragonling cocked its head at me, as if wondering whether I was a simpleton. “All dragons can communicate with their riders.”

  “I…what?” Sweat broke out on my forehead, and I rubbed my suddenly clammy palms on my thighs. “No, no, this is a mistake. I’m not a dragon rider.”

  “You are now.” The dragonling tossed its head. “And as my rider, you are obligated to care for me. Food. Now.”

  I stared. “You were just born. How are you able to use big words like ‘obligated’ already?”

  “I have been listening to humans converse for hundreds of years, and have picked up the idiosyncrasies of your language. Now are you going to feed me or not?”

  Hundreds of years? “I don’t have any food,” I said, spreading my hands wide. “We’re trapped in a vault. There’s nothing here to eat but gold.”

  The dragonling huffed. “Gold is for hoarding, not eating.” It swiveled its neck to look around the room, eyes gleaming with interest. “I suppose I cannot blame them for putting me here. After two hundred years, I grew weary of listening, and fell into a deep, dark sleep. I had despaired of ever finding my rider. But when you touched my egg, I woke up. Rays of sunshine from your soul seeped through the eggshell, and I knew you were mine.” It gave me a toothy smile, its maw already full of sharp teeth.