Saffron’s eyes widened and she stood straighter to face me. “You can get us into the city then? All of us?” She waved at her horse.
I didn’t know why it was so important that her horse come with us, but I nodded. “I know of a way in. But let me warn you that you may not care much for it.”
A frown tightened her forehead, but cleared in an instant. She shook her head. “I have a need to see this city near mountains. I will go no matter what.”
Holding up a hand, I knew I must give her every warning I could so she was at least making a decision based on some knowledge. “Someone with your…talents may find Torvald a great danger. Magic is not just frowned upon; it is considered to be criminal fraud.”
She shrugged. “What will they do? Call me a witch and throw stones at me?”
“If anyone names you witch, the king’s Iron Guard will come to drag you to prison and your horse will be sold to cover your fines and I doubt you will ever be seen again. I have…excuse me, I had some say at court, but that is gone. I would not be able to help you.”
Again, she shrugged and waved off my words. “So I will not be discovered. I intend to do the discovering anyway.”
I let out a long breath. I had done all I could.
She had at least hidden her skills from me, and they only came out because she used them to save me from the grim-bear and the soldiers. Maybe, if she was not threatened, she would have no need to use her powers
“Very well, we’ll go.”
She stepped closer and smiled. “Thank you for your warnings, but we will take our chances as we find them.”
I thought it a bit presumptuous for her to say ‘we’ as if I would agree to everything she wanted to do without fail. I glanced over at her horse, which seemed to be staring at me, and unhappy with me as well. I tried to shake off the feeling—but was Saffron using ‘we’ for herself and her horse? I could not think so.
“Just get us to this city and find us a way inside and we will be forever in your debt,” she said, her tone grand and formal. She had an odd way of speaking at times, as if her and her horse were nobles from the days of old.
Hefting my books again. “I can do more than that. If it’s information you want, I know where books—more than the few I carry with me—might be found. If it’s mountains and cities you want to know about, that’s something I can help with.”
Jaydra the horse gave what seemed to be a smoky snort and nudged my chest with her nose, almost knocking me off my feet. And now she seemed happy with me.
Something wasn’t quite right with this horse, but I was done arguing about anything for now with Saffron.
We headed in the direction Bower had come from, and I hoped he really could find his way back to this city of his. I wasn’t certain he could, but I was glad to have his help. The stench of the burning bear fat was terrible. I didn’t have to urge him to walk faster to get away from that. As we walked, with Jaydra still looking like a horse and now carrying Bower’s bags, she asked, her voice echoing in my head, Saffron should like Bower.
I glanced back at Bower. He was starting to slow his pace after only a short walk.
I do…apart from the obvious, Jaydra thought at me. I heard her give a soft, laughing nicker.
He may be slow, but you’re the one who is a horse. And I am not going to try to explain that I can’t ride you. Jaydra knew as well as I did that if I mounted her, the illusion that she was a horse would not hold for long. Where I touched, Bower would start to see blue-green scales and Jaydra’s wings.
Ridiculous disguise! What happens when Bower sees me flying?
He won’t see you fly because we won’t be flying to this city. You have to walk like any other horse.
Jaydra snorted.
She was annoyed with this deception. That came through clearly in her thoughts. Like all dragons, she could be a little arrogant.
Not arrogant. She gave an annoyed huff. Realistic. I am a dragon. Biggest, strongest, smartest creature around. She snickered again and slapped me with her tail. I turned to thump her on her snout.
“Hey!” Bower hurried to catch up with us. He looked alarmed at my apparent intended cruelty.
Bower can see you were about to do something incredibly stupid! The dragon-horse whinnied and turned a mournful look at Bower. ‘Look at Jaydra the mistreated.
For a moment, Bower’s eyes widened. His eyebrows shot up and lines marred his forehead. Was it possible he might have heard the words she had projected? I had heard Jaydra, but only another dragon should have heard her. His mouth pulled down and he looked away with a small shake his head.
Bower muttered, “Your horse is odd. At times I get the curious notions it is trying to tell me something.”
I gave a laugh, but his words unsettled me. Walking a little faster—which made Bower have to stride out to keep up with me—I said, “My horse is trying to talk to you? Do you have talking horses in this city of yours?”
Jaydra said Bower special. Saffron has no idea how special.’ Jaydra nudged me with her nose.
I swatted at her again and thought to her that she had best behave.
Bower glanced at me, mumbling something about the notion being worth forgetting.
Lifting her head, Jaydra sent me an image that she was hungry. I was as well. It was coming on dark and I’d not eaten all day. I was used to going without food for a day or so, but I could hear Bower’s stomach grumbling. And now Jaydra was mentally grumbling, too.
Not going to start eating grass and you wouldn’t let Jaydra eat bear. If anyone thinks to put heels into my side, best think again.
I sighed. With the daylight fading it seemed wise to leave the road for the safety of the woods. Bower didn’t seem to think that wise. “What about grim-bears?” he asked.
Shaking my head, I told him, “We’ll look for a spot that won’t attract a bear.”
“You can do that?”
It didn’t take long to find an old overgrown trail that led up to a hilltop. A scattering of ruined cottages stood here, their roofs caved in and the windows smashed and the doors gone. Gardens had gone wild, but they would have plants we could eat. It looked like it might have once been a beautiful place to live, before whatever had happened to force those who lived here to abandon it.
Jaydra didn’t like the destruction and ruin. Bad happened here.
I agreed with her, so we found a spot on the hill that gave us a view down to the road. The trees would give us some shelter, but it was a mild enough night. I gathered firewood and Bower set out rocks for a fire ring—at least he knew something.
Resisting the urge to use some magic to make the fire—I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t launch a fireball that could singe the clothes off our skin--I settled instead for using flint and stones. I soon had a small blaze going—not so big that anyone would take much notice.
“Why would anyone leave this place?” Bower asked. He sat on the ground and pulled his cloak tight around him. I had harvested some of the plants to eat—we had a feast of beans, fresh greens, and sweet peas to eat. Jaydra had left to go hunting and she had thought back to me that she would bring fish back, too, if she found a lake or a river.
Glancing over at Bower, I watched the firelight play over his face. He had fine bones and looked made for a city and not for these wild lands. “There are places like that all over that I’ve seen in my travels. Ruined towns and ruined villages. I had always heard the mainland was supposed to be… I don’t know…richer than all of this.” I picked up a stick and poked at the fire. A knot had formed in my chest. I didn’t tell Bower how I’d thought the mainland would be teeming with dragons and dragon riders, just like the drawings on the cave. I had thought it would be easy to find the mountains with dragons—shouldn’t everyone know where they were. Instead, I had learned at once not to ask questions, to keep moving, and now that I seemed to be close to finding a city near a great mountain… it all seemed as if perhaps I was too late to find anything that would help me understa
nd where I came from and how I could better control my magic.
Bower nodded and pulled his cloak tighter. “The realm is in a bad way.” He cleared his throat and looked over at me. “It wasn’t always like this. I’ve read stories…oh, such stories. The Middle Kingdom was once the greatest land of all. People traveled from the whole world over to come to the court at Torvald. There was art and music, and the city…why it was said to be so white and brilliant and beautiful that some travelers fell on their knees at the first sight of it and wept.”
“What happened? Do your books tell you that?” I leaned forward, my face warmed by the fire.
Bower looked different when he spoke about his stories and his books. He went from being a skinny young man who seemed to know nothing and his eyes lit with fire and his voice became strong and warm. I could glimpse the man he might become—someone strong and thoughtful and serious.
From nearby I heard Jaydra’s thoughts as she snickered. She gulped down a fish.
Quiet! I threw up a few walls in my mind so I might concentrate on what Bower was saying.
He stared into the fire as if seeing into a far distance. “It’s a long story—or it should be. No one really speaks of it anymore, and I think few know, for hardly anyone reads. But it starts in the old times.” His voice softened, and I settled back to listen to his words.
“There were once five great cities, and Torvald, the greatest of them all. Towns and villages dotted the roads, all the way to the coast and from the mountains in the north to the southern border. The Middle Kingdom used to be one of the most powerful kingdoms under the sun. Even the hot southern lands with all of their rare spices and clothes couldn’t come close to us.”
“The hot southern lands? I never heard about them. There’s so much I still had to learn about the world.” I frowned and poked at the fire. Anger itched under my skin and my face heated. Why hadn’t den-mother Zenema taught me more? Did she not know? Or had she thought I wasn’t ready for teaching?
Bower smiled. He ate a handful of peas and said, “Don’t they teach you very much in the isles.” Bower shrugged. “Well, that’s a lot like it is here. We once had great schools and academies, but they’re all gone now. But I’ve read of the lands far to the south where the land gets hotter and hotter, and the ground becomes drier for the rains only come once a year for a month. There are seas made of golden sand and these seas are as large as a whole country. The people live in rocky areas that have deep wells and there are—or were—a dozen different princes who each controlled a different part of the land. Many of the people also travel—and there were once southern dragons there.”
My skin started to tingle. “And dragon riders?”
Bower nodded. “At one time, bandits and raiders from the south would cross our borders to steal from the rich lands. They’d take sheep or crops or anything they could. And there were Wildmen in the north. But Torvald had Dragon Riders.” He frowned and pressed his lips tight, then looked over his shoulder as if he was afraid someone might have heard him say these words.
“Tell me about them?” My heart was beating faster and I knew these had to be the people riding dragons that I had seen on the cave drawings. Jaydra sensed my excitement. I felt her edge closer to us. She had found a spot in the woods where she could be a dragon again, with her belly almost full. She hadn’t brought any fish back to share, for there was hardly enough for her, but she was happy to sit close, sniffing the air to scent for danger and listen to Bower’s stories.
“I’ve said too much,” Bower said. “Forget I said that.” He hunched a shoulder. “They’re just stories, but it can cost you your life to say such things in Torvald. They do terrible things there.”
I threw a stick into the fire. “What do you mean? And I’ve already seen your books.” I waved at his case that carried his books. “They’re all true stories, aren’t they? The city in those drawings—they’re all of Torvald.”
Bower frowned. He rubbed at one eyebrow and forced the words through his teeth. “Yes. No. Maybe.”
Humans. Never know what you feel! Jaydra thought to me.
Ignoring her, I demanded, “Well, which is it?”
Sitting straighter, Bower looked at me, his eyes almost glowing as they reflected the firelight. “It is true. At least I believe it is the truth, but no one else in the city does, and I’ve been told—warned as I’ve warned you—not to fill my mind with old tales. But almost everyone I’ve ever know believes that Torvald was once a terrible place, that everyone’s lives were hard, and that those who lived in Torvald were in terrible danger for all the generations before the Maddox line took the throne to save us all.”
“What’s a Maddox line?” I asked. “That word seemed oddly familiar.”
“It should be. The Maddox became the kings of Torvald—they are the ruling dynasty. Hacon Maddox saved the city from a dreadful disaster that was going to rip apart the kingdom. He discovered traitors in the royal court, and the people chose Hacon Maddox as the new successor to the throne because of it. By all that’s known, they’ve been regarded as heroes for generations.”
Forehead tight, I said, “I find it strange how your words don’t match up with the look on your face. Do you like this Maddox line or not?”
Bower glanced behind him again as if someone might hear us talking out here in the middle of the wilds. “It isn’t my place to like or dislike—I’ve been told that most of my life. But all is not well, not in the citadel nor in the rest of the kingdom it seems. The current king—King Enric—has always told us how powerful he is and how safe the kingdom is, but that’s not what I keep seeing now. And things in the city…they have changed. There are things that you cannot say, cannot talk about. This conversation would end with both of us in irons. And yet people don’t seem to notice the troubles. Sometimes I fear it is because something is blinding them.”
I shook my head. “They could try to put irons on me!”
Bower smiled but shook his head. “You have not seen the king’s Iron Guard. I have heard they travel out of the city, but these days I think they stay close to the king. They’re not really men—they’re something else. And they give King Enric his power. No one can defeat the Iron Guard. No one can stand up to them. And King Enric doesn’t believe that Torvald was once the center of all dragon activity in the world. That is, according to the king’s own laws, heresy and lies spread to try and undermine the proper place of humans as rulers of this land.”
“Ugh…really?” I picked up another stick and started to draw in the dirt. “Why would the king think that?”
“Oh, the king thinks anything to do with dragons and magic and sorcerers is a lie that will break the spirit of any true soul and make us less than human. Those fairy stories are meant to frighten children and such tales can lead to an unjust world and the subversion of his rule. For years, books have been burned and scrolls destroyed. The king’s laws have been around for a very long time, and now there are only a handful of books left from that ancient time.”
“That sounds terrible!”
“It was. It is.” Bower leaned forward again, resting his elbows on his crossed legs. “Torvald, from what I have been piecing together, used to be a friendly, open place. Travelers would come from far and wide to see the dragons that wheeled overhead or to talk with learned men and women who lived with them. If what the old books say is true, Torvald was rich and happy. Now, there are parts of the city that have been left to rot and ruin. People fend for themselves as best they can and struggle to keep up with their taxes. I very much fear the king fears rebellion and so the laws grow worse every day. Anyone who so much as makes a joke against the king can be thrown into prison.”
Frowning, I stared at Bower. I still couldn’t understand this. “But how can anyone deny that dragons exist? That is like saying the sky has no stars or the sun does not rise in the east.”
This place thinks differently of dragons, Jaydra thought to me. She, too, was uneasy with such an idea.
I bit my lip, but I was too annoyed to stay silent. “Why would anyone be certain they don’t? And why wouldn’t anyone want to have dragons around?”
Bower lifted one hand and dropped it again. “It’s not just about the dragons, it’s everything that has anything to do with the past. It’s magic and history and everything.” Chin dropping down, Bower gave me a long look. “Are you certain you must visit Torvald?”
I huffed out a breath. “Didn’t we settle this already?”
“We did, but I’m still worried.”
“It sounds as if you do too much of that.” An odd knot of emotions tightened around my chest like the claws of a dragon that were squeezing too tight. “I’ve gotten used to hiding what I can do,” I said, the words almost too quiet.
Bower was silent for a moment. He stood up, walked around to my side of the fire and sat down next to me. “I know about that. When my parents were alive, they encouraged me to read. But then…well, once I was on my own, I learned all too quickly that I’d best keep everything I knew about the past to myself. I could not tell anyone—not my friends or the few servants in my household.”
Leaning back, I stared up at the stars. They seemed too peaceful—sharp and glittering and splashed over the sky like a river. I knew that I shouldn’t say anything more and I searched for something else to talk about.
What if I told Bower about Jaydra and he acted like so many others we had first met—running away in terror or even falling limp to the ground in a faint? What if he changed his mind about helping us? It was one thing to think a fantasy dragon was an amazing idea, but it was another to actually see something so big—and Jaydra was still a small dragon.
Dragons of Wild (Upon Dragon's Breath Trilogy Book 1) Page 10