Might of the Dragon

by Jessica Drake

  “I see.” But the modiste didn’t seem convinced. “You should make sure that is well-understood, then. You wouldn’t want someone to get the wrong idea and think you are a spy.”

  “I have nothing to fear on that end,” I said airily, resisting the urge to punch the woman in her bony face. “My husband is a very important man with many friends here, and is fabulously rich. I’m sure he will have no problem at all when I tell him that I am doubling my order. Besides,” I added, allowing a thread of steel to enter my voice, “I am sure that as a foreigner yourself, you would not want to let the authorities hear you talking of spies. They too might get the wrong idea.”

  The modiste stiffened, even as she gave me a wide smile. “That is wonderful news,” she said, and I could tell that both my bribe and warning had hit the mark. “I will make sure everything is delivered well in advance.”

  I stared after her as she bustled away, a pit of unease growing in my stomach. How many more people would I have to cajole and bribe to look the other way? I sincerely hoped that Salcombe didn’t intend for us to stay long, or we might soon find ourselves caught up in a trap even he couldn’t weasel out of.

  4

  The next week passed in a dizzying storm of activity. When I wasn’t with Lady Astilla, practicing for my court presentation, I was being whisked off to all sorts of parties and dinners so Salcombe could continue to make connections and mine the guests for information. It never ceased to amaze me how often nobles got together for this sort of thing. Didn’t they ever tire of it? It was exhausting to constantly primp and prep and fuss, spending evening upon evening engaging complete strangers in conversation. The whole thing was quite an education, and I quickly learned how to act like an aristocrat, mimicking their speech mannerisms and facial expressions, the way they could compliment someone so effusively in one moment, then cut them down in the next with a single word.

  Even though I hated all the socializing, part of me was thankful to be kept busy. My separation from Lessie gnawed a hole in my heart, and whenever I was alone with my thoughts, I missed her terribly. I could confide in no one about my heartache—Salcombe would not sympathize in the least, and I couldn’t very well tell General Trattner, whom I found myself spending more and more time with. We ran into each other often, running in similar social circles, and he was more than happy to answer my questions about various Zallabarian temples and sites under the pretext that I wanted to visit them.

  “It is quite a shame that we are on the brink of war,” he said to me as we sat in the salon at one of the many house parties I’d been invited to. “This is the perfect time of year for you to visit the northern temples—not too hot or too cold—but with dragons flying near our borders, I’m afraid it’s too risky.”

  “Does either side have plans to strike soon?” I asked, widening my eyes. “From what I hear it seems that there have been a few skirmishes, but no official battles as of yet.”

  “I am not at liberty to discuss specifics,” he said, “but it is only a matter of time. I will be meeting with King Zoltar at the reception, and the agreement will be signed the following morning.”

  Dammit. I wanted to probe the ambassador for more information, but I couldn’t without arousing suspicion. Was there anything that could be done to stop the reception from happening, or stop the general from attending? I wished Tavarian were here, so I could speak with him, but he hadn’t made an appearance at this particular gathering. In fact, I’d only seen him a handful of times since our encounter at the garden party.

  “Is everything all right, Zara?” Salcombe asked in the carriage as we returned home. It was just the two of us—Trolbos had been left behind, as Salcombe couldn’t very well bring his thugs to these parties, and in fact I was seeing less and less of him. My former mentor seemed to realize how uncomfortable Trolbos made me and responded by putting distance between the two of us. Salcombe subscribed to the idea that employees were more productive when their basic needs were met, so I tried not to read too much into it, and reminded myself that a man who was forcing me to do his bidding and who would not allow me access to my weapons or personal possessions was not, and could never be, my friend.

  “Everything is fine,” I lied, “except that we’re getting nowhere with our search to find Lord Fanuel. I’m beginning to wonder if the man exists, or if he’s just a myth. How much longer must we continue to put up with these toffs?”

  I expected Salcombe to be annoyed with my outburst, but to my surprise, he gave me a sympathetic nod. “I too find these endless social rounds to be quite tedious,” he said. “You know that I prefer my books and collections to the company of people. However”—his eyes gleamed—“I believe we are finally reaching the end of the road. There is a Lord Elliot Rycroft attending the king’s reception—he is a cousin of Fanuel, and I am confident he will be able to give us the information we seek.”

  We. As if the two of us were a team. I had to hold back a scoff. “Do you really think that he’ll just come out and tell us what we want to know?” I said, keeping up the charade that this was a willing partnership.

  “There may be some resistance, but I have prepared for that.” Salcombe sounded unconcerned. “The two of us will be wearing matching seal rings that contain a strong truth potion. It lowers inhibitions and inspires an irresistible urge to bare one’s honest feelings and hold nothing back.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “You mean like the truth potion you and your cronies forced on me back in the airship?”

  “I had to know if you were telling the truth, Zara,” Salcombe said. “I knew the potion wouldn’t harm you in any way. It isn’t even the first time I used it on you.”

  My mouth fell open. “Excuse me?”

  “When you were a child, I had to ensure you had not been sent to me as a spy by some rival before I took you in.”

  I ground my teeth but said nothing. After all, it wasn’t as if I had come to Salcombe as an innocent. I’d broken into his house and tried to steal from him. It was only natural of him to be suspicious. And yet, I felt violated that he’d used the substance on me multiple times, against my will.

  “I really hope you’re right, and that this Rycroft can tell us where to find Fanuel,” I finally said. “I’m not suited to this pretentious aristocracy we’re pretending to be a part of. I have nothing in common with these people.”

  “That is the silliest thing I’ve ever heard you say,” Salcombe said, and if I’d been sitting in a normal chair, I would have fallen right off it. “As the daughter of a dragon rider, you are more than equal to any of these foreign aristocrats. You too have an elite lineage.”

  Something about the way he said that made me pause. “Just how long have you known I had dragon rider blood?” I asked cautiously.

  “Almost from the day you tried to rob me,” Salcombe said with a faint smile. “Your treasure-hunting talent was a clear sign, and I had your background investigated. I know exactly who your parents were and where they came from.”

  The world seemed to tilt on its axis, and I stared at Salcombe, feeling betrayed all over again. “You never thought to tell me any of this?” I shouted, nearly lunging across the carriage. Emotion slammed into me so hard that I could hardly breathe. I wanted to grab Salcombe by the front of his coat and shake him until all the secrets he’d hidden from me came tumbling out of the crevices of his black heart. “Why would you hide such a thing from me?”

  “Because your talent would have been wasted up there in the clouds,” Salcombe snapped. “If I had revealed your true parentage, you would have been sent to live with your family and bred to become just like the toffs you so despise, forced to live in a box that never suited you. You may hate me, Zara, but you thrived under my tutelage. You never would have seen and done all the things you have if you’d been groomed as a dragon rider.”

  “You…” I trailed off, unable to come up with a proper retort. Salcombe was right, wasn’t he? If Salcombe hadn’t taken me in, I never would have become a
treasure hunter. Thanks to his patronage, I’d visited many countries, learned about all sorts of fascinating cultures and history. I already knew from spending time at Dragon Rider Academy that I had an expansive worldview compared to my fellow cadets. That worldview shaped my actions and thoughts, and had brought me to this very situation. Plus, if I hadn’t grown up with Salcombe, he might very well have tracked down the pieces of heart on his own. And without me trying to stop him, he could have succeeded in resurrecting the dragon god and destroying our world.

  Even so, I couldn’t let this go. I’d always wondered if I had relatives living somewhere in Elantia, people who would have wanted and loved me. If I did, if these people still existed and Salcombe had deprived me of them…

  “You need to tell me about them,” I said flatly, clamping down hard on my anger. “I deserve to know where I came from, and if I still have any living relatives.” If I did, what did this mean for me? I was a member of House Tavarian, thanks to Lord Tavarian’s sponsorship, but would that continue? Would he send me back to my family’s house, if it still existed, or would he insist that I honor our agreement? Then again, would they even want me? There was so much I didn’t know, and Salcombe had all the answers.

  “You know where you came from,” Salcombe said, just as flatly. “Your parentage doesn’t change that. I will tell you that only one of your parents had dragon rider blood,” he said before I could protest further. “But if you want to know the rest, you must help me finish my quest.”

  “What does that mean?” I demanded. “Help you find this piece, or all the others, too?”

  “Who knows?” Salcombe smirked. “Maybe I’ll tell you something about them every time we find a piece. A little incentive to keep you by my side.”

  I held back a snort at that. There was no way I was risking the fate of the world over the identity of my parents. But the tidbit Salcombe had given me niggled at the back of my mind. Only one of my parents had been a dragon rider. But which one? Had my father fallen in love with a commoner, or had it been the other way around? Was their love story similar to that of Rhia’s ancestors? Her great-great-great-great-grandfather had married into an old dragon rider family, but because the family had never accepted them, the two had branched off and started their own, smaller house. Perhaps my parents had gone through a similar upheaval…

  When we arrived home, I went straight up to my room, wanting to be alone with my thoughts. Unfortunately, a giant pile of boxes waited on my bed, preventing me from flopping onto it and burying my face in the pillows. Annoyed, I lifted the top off one of the boxes to see one of the dresses I’d ordered, a pale-yellow silk. My heart jolted, and I quickly sorted through the boxes, wondering if my court dress had arrived.

  But the elaborate dress I’d ordered wasn’t in the boxes, nor were the fancy hoops or ostrich feathers I would be forced to wear with them. I opened a round box to find one of the hats I’d ordered. It had a wide brim, meant to be worn slanted over my head. Not something I would have ever ordered on my own, but the pink silk roses and green leaves laden at the top would go very well with the garden dress the modiste had matched it with.

  I was about to put the lid back on the box when my treasure sense flared to life. I usually kept it on low when I was in the house, since there were so many valuables here, but sometimes it had a mind of its own, activating when something important or magical was nearby. Curious, I lifted the hat from the box and found a small package nestled within, wrapped in brown paper. Tearing it open, I found one of the small, magical earpieces dragon riders used to communicate with each other over long distances.

  Could it be? I thought, my heart pounding. Hastily, I fixed the earpiece to my right ear, then ducked into the bathing room for some privacy. Please work, please work, please work, I chanted silently as I pressed my fingertip to the small button on the outside of the device.

  Long seconds passed as the device hummed in my ear. I was about to give up hope that someone would answer when the humming abruptly ceased. “Miss Kenrook?”

  “Lord Tavarian!” I kept my voice to an excited whisper, even though I wanted to shout his name from the rooftops. Tears of joy and relief sprang to my eyes, and for the first time in weeks, I felt some of the weight slide off my shoulders. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m still alive,” Tavarian said, and the weariness in his voice made me pause. “What about you? Has Salcombe hurt you at all?”

  “I’m fine,” I said quickly. “But what’s happened to you? You sound…” I didn’t want to say “defeated,” but that was the first thought that came to mind. “You aren’t being kicked out of the country, are you?”

  “Not yet,” Tavarian said. “But someone attempted to assassinate me yet again, with a poisoned dart on my way back to my lodgings. I was able to get the antidote in time, but I am still recovering.”

  “Poison?” My heart kicked into a gallop as my stomach dropped, leaving me reeling. Here I was, bitching about having to go to court and play nice with snooty nobles, while Tavarian was dodging assassination attempts! “Dragon’s balls! You shouldn’t be going through this alone.”

  “I could say the same about you,” he said, a hint of a smile in his voice. “But now that we have a way to communicate, we don’t have to be quite so isolated anymore. Please don’t worry about me, Zara,” he added. “This is not the first time I have been at death’s door, and it will not be the last.”

  He coaxed me into giving him an update, and I told him about the progress I’d made with Salcombe—or lack thereof—and about the upcoming court presentation we were to attend. I decided to leave out the bit about Salcombe knowing about my parentage—it wasn’t relevant to our current circumstances, and Tavarian had enough to worry about without me throwing something new into the mix.

  “I’m really worried about Lessie,” I confided in him. “Every time I reach out to her through the bond, I sense anger. But she’s too far away for us to communicate, so I have no idea what’s going on.”

  “I know how you feel,” Tavarian said. “Being separated from your dragon for long periods of time will naturally create a sense of anxiety within both of you. It took Muza and me a long time to find our…equilibrium. But so long as your dragon is not in physical pain, I would not assume the worst. If Lessie returned to the camp, she is probably being confined, in the absence of her rider, to prevent her from seeking you out.”

  “Chained up?” That would explain the anger. “But that’s wrong! Lessie hasn’t done anything to deserve being locked away.”

  “I know it seems wrong,” Tavarian said, “but it is normal procedure to do so with a dragon of Lessie’s age. Partially-trained dragons are young and impetuous, and therefore very hard to control without their riders.”

  I sighed. “I guess so, but Lessie isn’t going to see it that way. I hate the idea of her being locked up because of me. She might be a bit headstrong but she—” I cut myself off at the sound of someone knocking insistently on the door. “I have to go,” I whispered.

  “Please keep me updated,” he said. He quickly gave me his address in case I needed to send word to him and couldn’t get to the earpiece. “Take care, Miss Kenrook. Court is not for the faint of heart.”

  “Don’t I know it,” I muttered, disconnecting. I hid the earpiece in the cabinet beneath my bathroom sink, then went to answer the door, expecting the maid.

  Instead, it was Trolbos who filled the doorway with his menacing bulk. “What do you want?” I cried, instinctively reaching for my absent daggers.

  Trolbos ignored me. “Who were you talking to?” he barked, backing me into a corner. His black eyes blazed with fury, his teeth bared in a snarl.

  “I wasn’t talking to anyone!” My heart pounded erratically against my breast as he pressed a hand against the base of my throat, not quite choking me. “Let me go!”

  “Don’t lie to me! I heard your voice as I passed your door.” His grip on my throat tightened, fingers digging in hard enough to br
uise. “Tell me the truth!”

  I tried to speak, but a strangled gasp was all that came out. My vision was already starting to swim from lack of oxygen, panic a living, breathing thing in my chest. Trolbos’s massive body pressed against mine, close enough that I could feel the press of his many knives. I snatched one from its sheath on pure instinct and stabbed his heart, only for the strike to reverberate through my wrist as it bounced back against something.

  Trolbos laughed, a dark, delighted sound that made my blood freeze. “Think I wouldn’t take precautions, bitch? I wear chain mail under my clothes at all times.” He knocked the knife from my hand, and it clattered to the floor as he crushed my body against the wall again, leaving me no room to make another grab for his weapons.

  “I’m not going to ask you again.” His rancid breath was hot against my skin, and this time I felt more than just his knives pressing against me. “Tell me who you were talking to.”

  “Trolbos!” The door banged open and Salcombe strode in, his eyes wide with anger. “What are you doing!”

  Trolbos didn’t budge. “I heard her talking to someone in here,” he growled, not even looking at Salcombe. Frustration warred with bloodlust, and I could tell he was furious at being interrupted. “If you’d give me a minute, I’ll get the bitch to tell us who.”

  “Let her go at once!” Salcombe snapped. When Trolbos still didn’t move, Salcombe took a step forward. The atmosphere in the room changed at once, and I sensed something dark and ominous swirling in the air around Salcombe. “Do I need to repeat myself?”

  The fury in Trolbos’s eyes wavered, replaced by a flicker of fear. “No, master,” he said respectfully, finally withdrawing from me.