by Logan Jacobs
but as I watched, a little bit more grew back.
“How long do we have?” I questioned, and I realized we’d let time get
away from us as we looked through all the books and scrolls. I’d gotten some
important information, though. I now knew a lot more about dragons’
different abilities, which would come in handy in our further training. Now, I
could actually test to see if they had particular skills or not.
“I’m not sure,” she admitted. “But we should hurry.”
“Asta,” I whispered loud enough for the elf girl to hear me.
She spun around, and her white hair swung around in a wide arc before
she made my eye contact with me. Then she hurried over to where Kas and I
stood.
“It’s time to go,” I informed her.
“Right.” She nodded.
“Inger, Uffe,” I said, “I want you on the girls’ shoulders again as we
go, okay?”
The twins nodded from their place on the ground and scurried up the
girls. Blar hopped down from the table and stood by my side, then I quickly
led us to the door and opened it just a crack to look outside.
There was nobody in the hallway, so I opened the door and ushered the
girls outside before I turned to start down the hallway we’d come from
earlier.
“Wait,” Kas whispered, and I turned around to look at her. “Shouldn’t
we lock the door back?”
I thought for a moment before I cursed inwardly and retrieved the
feathers from the table nearby. It was too risky to leave the door unlocked. If
Odin or one of the guards attempted to open it instead of one of the council
members, then they would know it had been broken into. They may not ever
know it was me, but after we presented Odin with the proposition to bring
dragons back, then I bet he’d have his suspicions, and I wasn’t sure the king
would take kindly to someone breaking into his castle, whether it was for a
good cause or not.
So, I quickly locked the door again, tested it to be sure, then replaced
the feathers and led us down the hallway. The wooden floors and stone walls
created a loud echo, and the faster we walked the louder the echo became, so
we were forced to keep a slow pace as we made our way back to the garden
exit.
Every so often, I looked back to check on the paper in Kas’ hands, and
each time it grew larger and larger until it was nearly its original size.
My heart pumped violently as we rounded the last corner that led to the
back garden. There, near the doorway was a maid with a small, white dog.
She leaned down to give the pup a treat, but the dog could sense us, and it looked in our direction and started to bark.
“What’s all this?” the maid asked as she tried to soothe the animal with
pets. “You’re going to wake the whole castle.”
The woman was right in the way of the door, and there was no way we
could get by without her feeling us, so I turned to Asta and mouthed the word
‘wind’ to her.
The light elf understood what I wanted, and she lifted her hands and
closed her eyes as she concentrated.
The paper in Kas’ hand expanded more as I watched, but after a
second, a huge burst of wind blew the doors to the garden open, and the maid
and the dog took a few steps back as they were overcome with the huge push
of air.
We took the opportunity to make our escape, and we ran out into the
garden and down toward the gate we’d come in before.
“Rath,” Kas whispered, and I turned around to see that the paper was
fully formed again.
We were visible once more.
Chapter 25
We were a hundred feet or so from the gate, but I knew which way the
two guards who stood just on the other side of the fence faced, so I had to
think quickly before they spotted us.
“Act drunk,” I said in hushed tones. “Uffe, Inger, get on the ground
again.”
The only thing more suspicious than a few drunk people in the garden
would be drunk people with dogs on their shoulders. The little dragons
scurried down, and Kas started to sort of stumble while Asta looked around,
unsure of what to do as she tried to follow Kas’ lead. Neither of the women
were great actors, so I figured it was up to me.
As a street kid, you learned quickly how to act a certain way, and this
was no different.
“Where are we?” I asked loudly, and I took a few steps forward and
crossed my legs so I nearly tripped.
“Hey!” one of the guards called out, but I looked up and around instead
of in his direction. “Over here!”
“What’s the matter with them?” the other guard asked.
“Oh,” I said, and I acted surprised to see them as I finally turned to
face them. “Where are we, sir?”
I made sure to slur my words and continued to stumble around.
“He’s drunk,” the first guard said with a shake of his head.
“How in the hell did he get in here?” the second asked, but I just
stumbled over to the guards and looked around.
“You’re not the barkeep.” I narrowed my eyes at the men in confusion,
and I added a hiccup just for good measure.
“Hey, warrior!” the second guard grunted. “How’d you get in here?”
“In where?” I asked, and I threw my arms around Asta and Kas as if I
needed them to stand up. “Where’s the bar?”
“I’m gonna be sick,” Kas murmured then, and she doubled over.
“Alright, alright,” the first guard grumbled with a look of repulsion on
his face, and he pulled the gate open. “Get out of here, warrior, and take your
women with you. Ye need to be celebrating at the tavern and not around here.
Get on with you.”
“I think the bar’s closed,” I slurred to Asta, and the white-haired elf
nodded and nearly fell over forward.
“Come on,” the guard pushed. “Out.”
“Alright, alright,” I murmured as I pulled the girls forward. As eager as
I was to get the hell out of the garden, I had to sell the drunk act, so we
couldn’t move too quickly.
“We’re just gonna let them go?” the second guard whispered to the
first as we stumbled through the gate and out to freedom.
“They don’t even know where they are,” the first guard replied. “He’s
a warrior as well, you wanna fight him? They probably came through the
fence somewhere and didn’t even realize. It’s alright, they didn’t get inside.”
“Is the mead all gone?” I asked with another hiccup as we continued
on down the path.
I could hear the guards behind us talking about how they should do a
sweep of the perimeter to make sure it didn’t happen again, and I kept up the
drunk facade until we were out of view of the guards and back on the stone
streets that led to the castle.
“Oh, dear Odin and Freya,” Kas breathed as soon as we were back on
the safety of the road, and she clutched her hand to her chest. “I thought we
were caught for sure.”
“As did I,” Asta agreed, and her yellow eyes were as wide as the moon
above us.
“Everyone did well,” I congratulated my team.
; “Acting drunk was a genius idea,” Kas told me with a grin. “I feel so
exhilarated. This must be why people do bad things.”
“I’m not sure that’s right,” I chuckled. “But there is an adrenaline rush that goes along with it for sure.”
“I can’t believe we did that,” the blonde sorceress breathed, and I could
see her hands were still shaking slightly with excitement.
“Yeah,” I laughed, “but let’s not make a habit out of it.”
“Oh, ha, ha,” Kas said with narrowed eyes, then she stuck her tongue
out at me.
“Asta,” I said, and I turned to the white-haired elf woman. “The wind
you created tonight was amazing.”
“Oh,” she murmured, and her yellow eyes widened with surprise.
“Thank you.”
“It’s true,” Kas agreed with a nod. “It was spectacular to watch.”
“The whole mission would have been compromised without you.” I
smiled. “So, thank you.”
“It means so much to hear you say that,” Asta replied as her face split
into a wide grin. “I’m so happy I could help.”
The elf girl had been an important part of the team from the moment
she’d agreed to join us, but I knew she didn’t feel that way about it. Her
powers had been small, and after she’d been injured by the snow leopard, I
knew she felt she was more in the way than anything, though she hid it well.
She was so grateful for everything Kas and I did, from buying her clothes to making dinner, and I wanted her to know she contributed just as much as
anyone. We were all a family, and nobody was more important than anyone
else.
We were able to get back to the house a little faster than usual because
of our still racing adrenaline. We walked quickly with a sense of exhilaration
that we’d just accomplished something so dangerous yet satisfying. Once we
arrived at the house, I immediately grabbed each of us a pint of mead as Blar
started the fire for us.
“Thanks, Blar,” I said as I sat down, and the little dragon looked up at
me as proud as he could be.
I handed the girls their pints, and Asta downed half of it in a split
second while Kas took a smaller sip and exhaled heavily.
“I’m sad we weren’t able to grab anything,” Kas sighed after a
moment.
“I know,” I agreed. “It would have been a lot easier to recall
everything we just went through if we could have taken a few books or
scrolls. But if Odin or a guard ever went in there, they’d know someone had
broken in for sure.”
“I looked at all the eggs they had in there,” Asta remarked. “There
were so many.”
“I didn’t do an actual count,” I said. “But I definitely saw the egg we
got for the council, and I found some scrolls about how to hatch them.”
“What did they say?” Kas asked, and she leaned forward slightly with
interest.
“Dragon eggs need heat and their mother to be able to hatch,” I
explained.
“Interesting,” Asta whispered. “That’s why you can find eggs in my
world that are unhatched.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “And if the mother isn’t there, then they’ll just be
dormant forever.”
“Some people eat them,” the elf said with a shrug.
“What?” Kas shrieked, and she looked at the elf girl with shocked wide
eyes.
“It’s not a common thing,” Asta consoled her, “but I’ve heard if
someone is very hungry and they find one, they’ll eat it.”
My face pulled into a grimace as I thought about eating dragon meat,
or dragon eggs, or anything related to dragons. The idea of eating a dragon
egg almost made me hurl.
“I found a bunch of information on dragon diets,” Kas said to change
the subject.
“What do they eat in the wild?” I asked as I turned to the blonde with
interest. I hadn’t really thought about it since Blar hatched and I realized he’d
eat virtually anything I ate.
“Fish, some birds,” Kas said. “But apparently they eat a lot of
vegetation, too.”
“They’re omnivores,” Asta agreed with a nod.
“Interesting,” I mused. “Well, I found information on Vinrar and
scrolls on how dragons used to be used during the wars the Aesir fought.”
“It makes me wonder,” Asta said. “The council must know they are
unable to hatch the eggs by now, so why did they have us retrieve the egg
from the Jotunn to begin with?”
“I’m not sure,” I admitted, and I thought about it for a moment.
“Maybe the Jotun are trying to hatch eggs as well.”
“Even if they were,” Kas said, “didn’t you say eggs need heat and their
mother’s presence?”
“Right.” I nodded.
“Then they wouldn’t be able to hatch them, either,” the blonde
sorceress pointed out.
“That’s true,” I said.
“Unless they have the mother,” Asta whispered.
“Do you think that’s possible?” Kas breathed, and she looked at me
with round violet eyes.
“I don’t know,” I said with a shake of my head. I hadn’t considered
that possibility until Asta said it, but I didn’t see how it was any less plausible
than them having the egg to begin with. “If that’s the case, then they could
easily hatch the egg.”
“How would they keep the mother, though?” Kas asked as she cocked
her head to the side. “I didn’t see any dragons while we were there.”
“If dragons require a mother’s presence, then perhaps the Jotunheim
separated the mother and egg on purpose,” Asta said.
“Why would they do that?” Kas wondered.
“Maybe they weren’t ready for the baby yet,” I said with a frown. If
they did have the mother, then that meant she was in captivity of some sort,
and they could have been waiting to hatch the baby until they had a place for
it.
“Do you think they stole a dragon from your home world?” Kas asked
Asta.
“I can’t say for sure,” the white-haired elf replied as her lips curled into
a sad frown. “But it wouldn’t surprise me if they did.”
“They could be buying babies in the hopes of weaponizing them
against us,” I suggested, and we all fell silent so the only sound that remained
was the crackle of the fire.
“But… if that’s the case, then how are they training the babies?” Kas
asked, but her face was pale, and I knew she already knew the answer.
“They must be using force,” I said, and I closed my eyes at the
thought. “They’re following in Vinrar’s footsteps.”
“You think they’re torturing them?” Kas gasped, and her eyebrows
pulled together as her face grew pained at the thought.
“I think so,” I said with a shake of my head.
“We have to stop them,” the sorceress growled, and I was surprised by
the hot anger in her voice.
“I know,” I agreed. “We have to stop them and investigate and stop the
dragon trade in Asta’s home world. Who knows how many poor dragons
have been abused just to make good pets.”
I looked down at Blar and the twins, who slept soundly by the fire in
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br /> front of me.
I couldn’t imagine hurting them in any way.
The frost giants were known to be cruel, though, even to one another,
and I wouldn’t put it past them to torture any kind of animal. While people
often had pets in Asgard, I’d never heard of a frost giant having a pet, and I didn’t doubt it was because of their icy demeanor that they didn’t even bother
to be nice to animals.
“How could we do that?” Asta asked with a frown.
The elf woman hung her head as if she’d considered this a million
times and finally given up.
“We have to win the battle the council set up for us,” I said, and my
tone was strong and confident. “We need to bring dragons back to Asgard,
that’s the first step.”
The girls looked at me with serious and determined eyes before we all
went quiet, sat around the fire, and drank our mead.
It was much later in the evening than we typically went to bed, but
after such an adrenaline rush earlier in the night, I still wasn’t back to my
usual self. The dragons were already asleep by the fire, though, and I saw
Asta yawn a few times, so I walked her inside and laid her down on the bed.
Then I refilled Kas and mine’s pint glasses and went back out to the fire.
“She really did do well today,” the sorceress told me, and she looked at
the door to our home with a soft smile on her face.
“She did,” I agreed. “Thank you for performing the binding spell.”
“It was my pleasure,” Kas replied, and her violet eyes said she meant
it.
These two women had come into my life so abruptly, but I felt so
connected to them, especially Kas. There was something about the way we
had bonded that filled me with pride to know she was mine. I’d never
imagined myself so much as getting married, but here I was, bonded to two
beautiful women, and I couldn’t be happier about it.
I sipped on my mead as I watched Kas stare at the fire. Her violet eyes
were set on the flames, and her whole body was cast in a beautiful orange
glow. The blonde sorceress was so gorgeous, and I admired the soft slope of
her nose and the poutiness of her bright red lips.
As I watched, she reached back and pulled her hair free of the braids
they were in, and her mane of curls cascaded freely down her back once
more. I couldn’t help myself, so I reached out and stroked them gently with
my hand. They were soft and voluminous, and I wanted to grab onto them