Of Dragon Warrens and Other Traps

by Shannon McGee

  “Yes, lady!” With one last curtsy, Cahaya flew from the room so quickly that a small current of air stirred up in her wake.

  When she had left I cleared my throat. “The deal, lady?” It did not escape me how casually she mentioned calling upon the resources of the earl for something so simple as a servant.

  “Yes.” She smoothed her dark hair back over her shoulder as she spoke. “Cahaya needs nothing to upset her. This transition will be hard enough once the excitement wears off. If you want Benjamin to go home, then you will do nothing to disrupt my work here in Dabsqin.”

  My heart sank, and I looked to Benjamin sitting on the settee. His hands sat loosely curled in his lap, and he didn’t look bad—on the contrary, his beard was carefully shaven, and his hair was neatly braided back. He did not look gaunt, or sickly, or even slightly frightened. His features were smooth and placid. If I hadn’t known any better, I’d have thought he was merely lost in thought. It was only his eyes, glassy and staring blankly ahead except for the occasional slow blink, that clued me in. His pupils had overtaken the brown of his eyes almost entirely, giving an eerie quality to them.

  He hated me. He wanted me bound in chains and taken home to burn and… and he was helpless. I didn’t need to ask Lady Famai what she would do to him if I disobeyed. There were a million ways for a noble to make a commoner disappear, especially one with access to magic. In this state, her mages could burn him up, or slit his throat. They could even dump him in the sewers for the drakes to find.

  What of Cahaya though? Wasn’t she equally helpless? They would train her to be a bandit like The King’s Snakes, or they could use her as a sacrifice, as Michael had intended for me. There was no telling what exactly they had in store for her, but I didn’t need to know the specifics to know it would be horrible.

  Seconds slipped away as my mind raced. Beth didn’t deserve to have her father murdered for trying to do what he thought was right. Cahaya didn’t deserve to be foisted into whatever dangerous plot Lady Famai was cooking up because she was trying to help her family. What was the right call here? The cages they each sat in looked nicer than the sewer tunnels where the drakes had lay in hiding, but they were in traps just the same.

  I needed help, I realized. I could not make this decision on my own. I had balled my hands into fists, and I relaxed them slowly.

  “Do you need my answer now?”

  She snapped her fan shut, rising to her feet in the same movement. “We will be in the city another week. If I do not hear from Cahaya or her mother that you have spoken to them, I will take that for my answer. Would that make you comfortable?”

  Feeling helpless, I nodded and backed out of the room. Though none of the people within the room were near it, the door swung shut the moment I stepped into the hallway.

  I’d hoped I’d have some time to relax when I got back to my room, but Bao, god of luck, was not smiling on me. Both Aella and Luke were waiting for me when I returned.

  “Where were you?” Aella asked the moment I stepped through the door. I stopped short to look at her. She was standing in the center of the room, her face pale and taut with worry. “I got back, and Luke said you weren’t here, and you weren’t in the kitchen or dining area. You weren’t in the bathhouse…”

  “We were about to report you missing to Aedith.” I glanced to my left where Luke stood. He had been preparing to leave.

  I winced. They both looked so worried. Even Luke, who was ordinarily so composed and relaxed, had the telltale flushed cheeks of someone who had been darting about. His short blond hair was even mussed—though on him the effect was still roguishly handsome.

  Aella had clearly been running her fingers through her curly hair, though now she had her arms wrapped around her middle as though she had a stomachache.

  I should have left a note I saw that now. Especially on the chance that something terrible had happened in the noble’s rooms. However, whether it had been from the compulsion or my own pig-headedness I had been too worried that someone would see it and attempt to intercede. I hated to think what might have happened if I had returned any later, if Twelfth Company had started to search for me.

  Stricken with guilt, I shut the door quickly and closed the short distance between Aella and myself. Tentatively, because this was something I was still new at, I drew her into a hug.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, putting real feeling into my words.

  She returned my embrace then, tightening it, and I sank into her, relishing the comfort I felt in her arms. She was solid and real after a conversation with the shadowy Lady Famai. If I could have stayed there forever, I would have been happy. Aella was the one to draw back first, and she seemed to consider me.

  “That felt like you needed it as much as I did,” she said, her tone less strident, but no less suspicious. “Taryn, where were you?”

  “Don’t be angry,” I warned.

  “Oh, this should be good,” Luke said. When I looked at him, I was relieved to see he was at least smiling now. I could only hope his good humor would last through my explanation.

  I tugged Aella over to the bed, sitting down myself with an involuntary groan. Apparently being healed enough to get out of bed was not the same as being fully healed. Despite the fact that it had seen little use, my bandaged arm was throbbing dully. Still, tired or not, it wasn’t much past noon, and I owed them an explanation.

  When Aella had sat beside me and Luke had crossed the room to sit on Aella’s bed, I began to go over what had filled the last hour of my time, from the compulsion that had begun some time earlier in the week, to my discovery of Cahaya and Benjamin.

  There was a fair amount of interruptions throughout my story. I would have been surprised if there hadn’t been. Both Aella and Luke were comfortable telling me how they felt under normal circumstances. After hearing what I’d been up to, they felt no reservations in expressing, in their clearest terms, how stupid I had been, Aella particularly.

  “If you’re going to fight a dragon, you bring me,” she scolded, eyes blazing. “If you really have to be so unbelievably careless with your own life—which I happen to be fond of, thank you very much—then you bring me!”

  After much apologizing, I got through the whole of it. Luke softened long before Aella did. He was impressed by what he considered my daringness. He even laughed when I said that I’d been surprised when the door shut on me.

  “I can’t exactly blame you. Belinda didn’t even notice you had a compulsion laid on you, and she was in and out of this room all week. The lady and her mages must be something else,” he pointed out, which made me feel a little better. “The important thing is that you’re alive. That’s what matters most.” He scratched the back of his head. “Plus, we know more now. Sort of.”

  “I had a chance to confirm some things,” I corrected him. “I still don’t feel like I learned anything she didn’t want me to know. Or rather, that I couldn’t find out easily on my own.”

  “No,” Aella murmured. “That lady is too clever to let anything slip. She’s not about to tell you what her master is up to, but she wants you to know that she knows all about you. Where you’re from. Who your family is. She wants you to know where she’s going and whose lives are at stake.”

  “It’s interesting,” Luke said. “Because that part is so gods cursed ominous, but there’s another part of her that she clearly wants you to know. She sounds as though she really thinks she’s helping these kids. I mean, she called you selfish for trying to talk her out of using this kid—Cahaya?”

  I nodded eagerly, glad someone else had picked up on that. “What do I even say to something like that?”

  “I think what you said hit the nail on the head with what you told her,” Aella shook her head. “Not that it’ll matter. People like that aren’t looking to have their minds changed. That would be dreadfully inconvenient,” she said the last part in dramatically arched tones, clearly mocking Lady Famai.

  “It’d definitely take a leg from
their stool if they had to actually think about what they were doing from another perspective.” I curled my lip in disgust.

  “And—” Aella began, but I was on a roll, and I bowled over her.

  “And there’s nothing I can do about it. There’s no way for me to know who else they’ve done this to. No way to know what kids are being put through the same ordeal as Michael and me. Cahaya has a sister. She isn’t a twin, but what if they decide to try his plan again with a tiny tweak?”

  Aella, looking only a little taken aback by my tirade, chafed my shoulder comfortingly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think about how hard that part would be to you.”

  A sigh billowed out of me, and I squeezed her fingers before scooting backward on the bed. I needed to prop my arm up and rest against the pillows. “No, I’m ok. I’m just mad. I’m not going to let them take Cahaya. As soon as I’ve had a rest, I’m going straight to Timon. I’ll tell him Benjamin needs help, and then, while he is dealing with that, I’ll find Cahaya’s parents. She’s from around here. Someone in the market must know them.”

  “Don’t tell Timon,” Aella said firmly.

  I gaped at her, pushing myself back into an upright position. “But I have to do something,” I protested. “Cahaya is in danger, and I can’t sacrifice Benjamin to get her out of it.”

  “Why not?” Luke muttered.

  “I can’t—”

  “She was baiting you. Can’t you tell when you’re being baited?”

  When I only frowned at him, he said, “Ok, so you’ll tell Timon what? That his wealthiest guest has a man in her employment? A man who something bad might happen to if you talk to a little girl’s mother?” The incredulous look on his face told me exactly what he thought of me taking Lady Famai’s crimes to an innkeeper.

  I scowled at him. It was hard to angle myself to be seen properly from the bed where I was lying once more. Aella seemed less than interested in accommodating me by moving, still, I did my best.

  “I don’t know that I’d put it like that,” I said.

  “It doesn’t matter how you put it,” he said. His smirk faded, and he spoke seriously then, “If you tell Timon, he’ll have to either ignore the problem, or he’ll have to go ask Lady Famai, politely, what all the ruckus is about.”

  “That’s what I want!”

  “Gods. Sometimes I forget how little experience you have with nobles,” Luke muttered. When I glared at him, he sighed and swiped a hand down his face. “Sorry. I didn’t mean—Look. If he goes up there, Lady Famai will lie. She’ll lie, and because a noble’s word is supposed to mean something—”

  “More like their purse means something,” Aella interjected, and Luke nodded.

  “Timon will have to believe her. Have to, Taryn, if he doesn’t want to face repercussions of his own. And despite that, the lady will likely complain about the disturbance to her friends anyway, and he’ll lose business. And Benjamin? He will be in hot water for sure. The only person who might have the power to bring Lady Famai to heel, in all of Dabsqin, is the earl himself.”

  “And he’s not about to take a call from a shepherd turned mercenary,” I finished for him, dejection settling across my shoulders. Especially not since the lady was on such good terms with him that she could call upon him for all sorts of favors, and she had made sure I knew that was the case.

  “I’m sorry, little bird,” Aella said. “It’s the way of the world. If you want Benjamin to get home to your friend Beth, then you have to do as the lady says and leave Cahaya’s family alone.”

  “But Cahaya—”

  “You’ll get another chance to help Cahaya,” Aella said quickly. “If The King’s Snakes are under Lady Famai’s command, then she’s going to be around. She mentioned the eastern steppes. That’s in the direction the mage sisters were last seen, at the very least. If we catch them and can get them to confess who they’re working for, we could even get the lady arrested.”

  “I mean, maybe.” Luke did not sound convinced, and I felt my heart squeeze.

  Aella gave him a nod. “Right, maybe. It might be that the king won’t want to believe that a woman of her noble personage was involved in something so tawdry. I also think there are diplomacy issues since she’s connected to Elyria and Donegal.”

  I screwed my eyes shut tight. “I just don’t understand.”

  “What?” Aella asked, scooting closer to lean her head on my shoulder.

  “If we can’t trust these people who are supposed to be in charge—who are supposed to protect us—then who can we trust to help us?”

  “Oh, pox and gods all take those people!” Aella exclaimed, and my eyes popped open to look up at her. “We can trust each other.” In my peripheral, Luke was nodding. “We can rely on each other.”

  A smile finally quirked up the corners of my lips. I really did want to believe her. More than that. I did believe I could rely on her, and yes, most of the rest of Twelfth Company as well. Dai would likely be furious at me for the risk I had taken, but I could rely on Aedith, Kaleb, and Victor. I could even rely on Nai back home. Speaking of Aella’s mother though…

  I mustered up a pitiable look. “Now, I suppose in pursuit of relying on one another, we should tell your mother about my, um, visit with the lady.”

  “Yes, I suppose we must.” Aella smiled with so much liking in her eyes that I flushed from neck to forehead, even as she leaned forward and kissed me.

  A pillow hit us both squarely in the head. “Let’s go, you sappy turtledoves! Hard as it might be for you to believe I’ve got my own pressing matters to attend to, I promised Sabine I’d take her on a walk after I grabbed some coins for a late midday, and she has been waiting for me for almost an hour!”

  About the Author

  I'm Shannon McGee, avid gardener, dog and cat mom of four, amateur artist, and most importantly I'm a writer of fantasy YA.

  I've always been a reader. Mostly I have been a lover of fantasy, since that is where my obsession with books began. Still, there were some stories I wanted to read that I couldn't find in my preferred genre, and you know what they say—if the story you love hasn't been written you must write it.

  I turned to making my own maps and filling those maps with people and then giving those people histories and stories to tell. Before I knew it, Taryn’s Journey had sprung into life and so had an additional series, set after her quartet.

  I’m excited to share it all with you.

  You can find more information at:

  www.shannontmcgee.com