Of Dragon Warrens and Other Traps

by Shannon McGee

  “It’s possible,” Aella said, “but you’ll drive yourself mad, looking for connections like that. Let it be for now. My mother and her seconds will figure out what’s happening.”

  I wanted to do as she said, but I also couldn’t. I’d kept Lady Famai’s handkerchief with me since Aella had handed it to me days prior, and no matter how much I tried to keep my thoughts focused on other things, it inevitably wound up back in my hands several times a day. My mind kept returning to Lady Famai and all the little instances that didn’t seem quite right.

  During our lunch with the lady she had been very interested in my part in the hunt. She had also appeared disappointed to find that I hadn’t taken part at all. It had been after she had learned that nothing had happened to me on our hunt that my memories had been unlocked.

  When we had gone into the sewers again, the tracks had been such that we’d been forced to pare down to the point where I had to fight. Had that been a mere coincidence? Or had it been a trap?

  Lady Famai had also asked the servants who among Twelfth Company was most important to me, and Aella had almost come to grief during both fights. Michael had been able to control Zehya. Could one of Lady Famai’s mages have been controlling the drakes?

  If I was being fair, I knew that danger would be part of any job we took. Lady Famai had also asked those question after our first excursion and Aella’s first injury. Still, it made me near boiling mad to think Aella might have been particularly singled out to provoke a reaction from me.

  Lady Famai. Her handkerchief was in my hands, and I was stretching it between them, though my right arm trembled with the effort. Was she connected to Master Noland? Or was her interest in me independent of any larger plot of his? I didn’t know which of those I’d prefer.

  What I wanted was to believe the best in her, because how could someone who knew what it was like to be sorely mistreated ever want to hurt other people who were vulnerable? Even in the stables after she had scared me, she had seemed so kind. I had really felt sorry for her and believed her apology. Yet, Victor had said she was doing some sort of magic, and now that I was clear of whatever influence she was trying to put on me, I knew that was true. It had shown in her eyes.

  If she was in league with Master Noland, how could she have smiled and acted to kindly toward us if all of this had been going on behind her eyes? If they were connected, then how many casualties would she and Master Noland allow in whatever they were up to?

  I folded the handkerchief into a tiny square, squeezing it in my right fist, like one of the sand-filled exercise balls, Belinda had started me working with to help with grip strength.

  And what if we were totally wrong about her connection to Master Noland? What if she wasn’t bad, but merely a strange woman with powerful friends? Wasn’t I doing myself a disservice by not at least asking about the aid she had offered me not once, but twice?

  Yes, Ito and Belinda had known Gabriel and Anya when they were young, but people changed as they grew up. Who was to say that they hadn’t become better people than what my company-mates remembered?

  I had told everyone that I wanted to stay away from Michael, and I had meant that. Still as my strength returned to me, so did an unrelenting sense of curiosity. I wasn’t so sure that I was willing to leave Dabsqin without one last discussion with the lady. The compulsion only grew stronger the longer I lay in bed thinking.

  I had so many questions, and the only person who had the answers for them was Lady Famai herself. Now that I had told Aedith everything I knew, she and the rest of her trusted people were “handling it,” as they put it. They weren’t hiding anything from me, but they weren’t exactly inviting me to their meetings either.

  Which was fair, I supposed. Aella wasn’t included in those meetings either. We weren’t fellow commanders, trained mages, or even one of her seconds. I was just a mercenary under her command who had brought her important information. She’d let me know when she had something for us to do about it, and until then, it was a good mercenary’s job to wait for orders.

  Aella was perfectly comfortable with waiting, and so was Luke. Without their help there was little I could do, at least until my mandatory bed rest came to an end. When it did though, I had made up my mind. I was not a good mercenary soldier like them, and I was not going to sit around and be left to wonder any longer.

  Getting myself alone took a little finagling. There was no way I was dragging any of my friends along, and I also knew that if they were around they probably wouldn’t be too keen on letting me go alone. They’d make a fuss, and their friendly visits would quickly become friendly monitoring.

  I was patient and bided my time until the day Belinda said I would be all right to move about the inn on my own. I didn’t rush it, unwilling to risk further injury by pushing my body too quickly. After the first few days, Belinda had stopped using her magic during my bandage changes, declaring that it was best for the body to do some things at its own pace. While I agreed with her, it meant the healing went slower.

  I let myself savor the relaxation time. It gave me scads of time to practice what I would say, and by the time I was strong enough to stand without swooning, I was mentally prepared as well.

  Getting rid of Luke was easy. All I needed to do was feign extra tiredness on the day in question and urge him to spend a little more time with Sabine, the serving girl who had caught his eye.

  Aella was a little more difficult. We shared a room, and I couldn’t exactly banish her from it. What I could do was ask her if she could make a run to the market for a pot of the sun balm that Luke favored.

  “I want to be able to wear it straight off the next time I’m able to go outside,” I explained to her. “That should be any day now.”

  She agreed readily enough, and I felt a little guilt at how eager she was to help, but I pushed that aside. It wasn’t as though I was heading for a duel, and she’d understand, once I’d returned safely, that it had been the right thing to do.

  After she had left, I dressed as quickly as my stiffly bound right arm would allow. I tucked the lady’s handkerchief into one pocket. I wanted to return it, regardless of what else needed done. Then I briskly and quietly strolled out of my room, doing my best to ignore the feeling that I was doing something wrong.

  The lady's rooms would not have been in the same wing as those of commoners, and I bypassed the rest of those in our hallway without a second thought. An establishment such as this one took care to have especially comfortable suites for their more impressive guests, removed from the riffraff. Passing softly on stocking-shod feet I made my way to those now.

  It was a difficult balance to maintain, walking as though I had every right to be there while still being careful to avoid being seen by servants or anyone who might stop me. I was painfully aware of how high or low I held my head, and I wasn’t sure what I should do with my hands, because the moment I thought of them they felt awkward swinging at my sides.

  It wasn’t until I reached the noble suites that I realized my first mistake in my plan. Unlike Twelfth Company, who often left their doors open so they could yell back and forth to one another in their down time, every one of these polished and intricately carved doors was shut. How was I to find the lady? I didn’t know her room number, and I wasn't about to knock on every door until she answered one. That was a sure-fire way to have the staff called.

  As I hovered there in indecision, I slowly became aware of raised voices— several someones were talking loudly in the third room down on the right. Shouting was not very noble-like behavior, was it?

  I drifted closer. There were two people in the argument, so far as I could tell. The one saying the most was a sweet-voiced female. Though I couldn’t make out the words through the thick door, they carried calm authority, and I got the sense she was in charge. The second voice was a more harassed-sounding male, whose sentences grew shorter and shorter after each response he received, until at last, there was silence.

  I reached out t
o steady myself on a wall as the floor seemed to spin beneath me. Triumph warred with fright within my chest. I knew both voices. They belonged to Lady Famai… and Benjamin. What was more, now as I listened to them side by side, any doubts I’d had about the vision faded. I hadn’t been making it up or imagining things. They were the voices I’d dreamed of before I reached Fort Forklahke.

  The hand not supporting me drifted up to tangle in a lock of hair. That was one mystery solved before I even knocked on her door. Whether she had good intentions or bad, Lady Famai had to know who I was.

  I tugged sharply on the hair in my hands as frustration bit into me. How simple I must have seemed to her. If I had only remembered her voice. But I shook my head. I refused to blame myself. When I’d had the vision, I hadn't known I’d had magic, and I hadn’t known her either. Even once I had met her, I had nothing to connect her to. It wasn’t as though I’d seen her face. My dream-self—probably Michael—had been hidden behind the canvas of a tent or a caravan throughout the whole dream.

  The squeaky noise of a wheel in desperate need of oiling caught my attention. It was one of one of the carts that the servants used to push around their cleaning supplies. I knew because it had needed oiling all this week and had caused me a great deal of annoyance. Now I was grateful for the warning.

  Skipping forward another few feet, I slipped into a narrow alcove that held a tall but thin window. I didn’t bother looking through it, keeping my eyes focused on the hallway and trying to think of what excuse I could make if a servant asked what I was doing here. The faintest breeze flowed through the window, hitting my back squarely. It was slick with sweat, and I made a face.

  I waited there, listening intently, but the cart did not turn down the noble’s hall. It rumbled along the wood floor in the direction of my own wing. Slowly the noise of the squeaky wheel and the shuffle of booted feet faded. I breathed a sigh of relief.

  With that threat gone my thoughts returned immediately to the vision—and Michael. My brother. If I had been seeing through his eyes in the dream, then that meant Lady Famai was either the most generous soul alive and she had saved him of her own volition, or more likely, she was in league with Master Noland. Either way, did that mean Michael was here with her? The thought gave me pause. If he was here, what would I do? The last time I had seen him, he had been trying to kill me.

  Now that I thought about it, Benjamin’s aim the last we’d spoken had been similar. Not to mention Lady Famai herself, who I knew nothing solid about beyond that she had a connection to three men who wished me no blessings.

  I blinked at the door, not really seeing it. My assuredness that coming here had been the right decision was fading as quickly as it had swelled. What had I been thinking? I had learned enough just by hearing Benjamin’s voice. What I needed to do was go back to my room and regroup. I needed to get help—but something stopped me.

  A gentle prod at my back compelled me to move forward and knock on the door. A voice in my head whispered that I needed to be strong. It told me that I needed to walk straight in there and damn the consequences. The voice was so quiet that I almost confused it for a feeling. I almost didn’t hear it at all, but it was there, and part of me really wanted to listen to it.

  I blinked. This wasn’t right, I realized. Walking straight in there alone would be stupid. Coming here by myself and sending my friends away had been the wrong choice. If I thought about it now, I knew that. Why had I—?

  As though in response to my rejection, the impulse to confront Lady Famai suddenly pushed back harder. I scowled as realization dawned on me. That voice wasn’t me at all.

  Taking a deep breath, I let it out slowly, shutting my eyes and trying to center myself. I couldn’t touch my magic, but I could see it, and I could see the magic of others. Now that I was looking for it, the spell affecting me shimmered clearly behind my eyelids. A thin cord in pearlescent green extending from me and through the door.

  No. Not me. It stretched from the gods cursed handkerchief!

  Pulling the cloth out of my pocket, I stared at it with all the indignation I could muster. So, this had been the aim of whatever magic she had been working down in the barn. I could feel the steady pull from it, tugging me in the lady’s direction. It was so gentle that I hadn’t noticed it through the charm around my neck, not when distance had also stretched the connection thin.

  I felt it now, even with my magic disconnected from me. I had been drawn here. It was clever of her to put it on an object and not me. If she had bespelled me, then there was no chance Belinda wouldn’t have caught it during one of our healing sessions.

  Calling myself sixty kinds of stupid, I began to back away from the door. She had played me for a fool. Somehow, Lady Famai or her mages had influenced me, causing me to dwell on the thoughts that honestly wanted to believe there was still a good chance that Lady Famai was a good person, if overly curious. She had used that to gloss over any hesitance or fear I might have had coming to her to ask about her connections.

  Now fear surged past the gentle compulsion as reality set in. Anyone who would compel me against my will was not a good person just in the regular sense. Far from it. The lady was probably more than that. She had very likely been sent here to test me at best and apprehend me or dispose of me as a loose end at worst. I had to get back to my room.

  As though my decision to flee had prompted it, the door to Lady Famai’s room flew open. My heart slammed in my chest, and I took a step backward. However, rather than the lady herself, it revealed the slight frame of the last person I’d expected to see.

  Staring up at me was a young girl, no older than ten, with long, straight hair that was almost black. Her brown eyes glittered with interest, and she seemed to be using a great deal of restraint to remain inside the doorway, using a hand to anchor her as she leaned as far forward as she could on her tiptoes.

  “I thought that it was you.”

  “Cahaya?” I felt dumbstruck. What was the girl from the market-place doing here?

  “But you do not look the same. Why?”

  Talking within the room had stopped, and now the lady herself came up behind the little girl. She was dressed in a simple wrap dress, indigo shot through with gray, with a broad white obi and a thick white under-gown that only showed at her collar. Her hair was loose for the first time since I had met her, falling in a straight line down her back.

  She rested a hand on Cahaya’s shoulder, sinking so their faces were level. “What does that mean, Cahaya? How did she look before?” The lady still hadn’t looked at me, and she spoke to Cahaya as a teacher might her favorite student. “In Common,” she said sternly, when Cahaya began to chatter in Oshkanese.

  Cahaya shifted from foot to foot, looking uncertain. She spoke more slowly then, trying to find the proper words in an unfamiliar tongue. “She was like this before,” she gestured with her hands as though something was bursting from her head. “And now she is… not empty.” She peered at me. “She is like a cold spot. I felt her through the door.”

  Lady Famai’s gaze slipped to me and back to Cahaya so fast I barely registered it. “That is very good. She is wearing a charm that is meant to suppress magic. You can still sense it though. That is impressive.”

  A look of pride came over Cahaya at this compliment, but I could only stare at her. Cahaya who had asked why I looked the way I did. Cahaya, who had been with her aunt on their way to an appointment. Lady Famai, who had been making calls on potential mage students.

  A chill swept up my back. “Cahaya, is your aunt here?”

  Lady Famai rose from her crouched position. She was in chunky wooden sandals, that raised her above my head by a few inches, and she looked down her nose at me. “Cahaya’s mother has given her into my tutelage. Her aunt brought her for an interview this week, and I was so thrilled by her potential that I agreed to teach her that same day.”

  “I am going to learn all the magic! The great lady says I will be strong enough to do anything I want! And
I am going to make it so my momma will not ever have to work again!” Cahaya did a little jig, her eyes bright with excitement. It would have made me smile if I weren’t so frightened for her.

  “That is right, dear. Would you be a love and go tell Anya that I have need of her? Tell her the fish we have been looking for has come in at last. And let Gabriel know that the manservant will be leaving us soon, and we will need to find a new one before we leave Dabsqin.”

  Cahaya dipped in a clumsy curtsy. “Yes, lady!” She ducked backward under the lady’s arm to grab her shoes. As she put them on, Lady Famai and I watched one another, my eyes wary, hers as serene and opaque as the Lorus.

  Cahaya waved at someone I could not see and then to me as she darted back past us. “Goodbye Benny! Goodbye Taryn!”

  “Goodbye, Cahaya,” I said softly, not taking my eyes off her new mentor.

  When she had gone, Lady Famai stepped aside and spread her arm back into the room in a welcoming gesture. “Would you like to come in, Taryn?” She might have been inviting anyone in. Her smooth smile gave away nothing.

  If my right arm hadn’t been bandaged so stiffly I would have crossed my arms across my chest. In lieu of that, I propped my fists on my hips, the handkerchief still clenched in one fist. I was wise to her and her tricks. Going into that room was a bad idea, especially since “Benny” was in there, and she was having her mages come. I couldn’t exactly interrogate her in the hallway though.

  She tilted her head at me. “Is something the matter?”

  “Ito and Belinda know I’m here.” I winced. I had intended that to come across a great deal more confident and casual.

  Her smile deepened then, becoming more genuine. “No, they don’t.”