“Uh, we’re not going to keep your prisoner here against her will,” Pimples said.
She will stay. You will guard her from predators. Phelistoth leaped into the air and flew out over the water, staying low to avoid branches. He and Tylie soon disappeared from sight.
Pimples spun toward Cas. “Are we taking orders from a dragon?”
Cas sighed. While she admitted it might not hurt to have the emperor’s daughter as a bargaining chip—was it possible they could trade her for him?—she felt as affronted by all of this as Pimples.
“No.” Cas nodded to Zia. “We won’t keep you here.”
“That would mean more to me if I could step away from this log.”
“You mean you can’t even get up?” Pimples asked.
Zia tried to stand, as she had earlier, but it was as if something forced her back down.
Confused, Cas stepped closer. She had seen Sardelle use the air or wind to move things around and even levitate objects, but as far as Cas knew, she couldn’t do anything that might be permanent.
Pimples waved his rifle through the air above Zia’s head. It didn’t encounter anything. He tried swiping through the air to either side of her. Cas did not know if magic could be tested with logic. She looked toward the water lapping at the reed-choked beach and hoped the alligators had gone to bed. They had barely driven the last batch off and might not have without Phelistoth’s help. She didn’t want to be stuck in one place, trying to defend Zia. She also didn’t care to be stuck here because a dragon had ordered it. They needed to find Tolemek and Quataldo. She should also report in to Captain Blazer with this rather significant new development.
“Maybe it’s tied to the log itself,” Pimples mused, lowering his rifle to rest the butt on the ground. “Can you scoot up and down it?”
Zia had been watching him test the air, her expression somewhere between amusement and exasperation. She answered his question by scooting her butt along the log to one end and then the other.
“Maybe we just need to carry the log along with her on it or next to it, and then we can take her with us,” Pimples told Cas.
“We?” Long sleeves hid Cas’s slender arms, but she pretended to flex a biceps to remind him that she wasn’t the brawniest person on the squadron. Pimples wasn’t that muscular, either, a few inches shy of six feet and lean of limb. The idea of them carrying a log was laughable.
“Take me where?” Zia frowned at them. “I was heading to a certain place when I ran into you and your dragon. If I could escape this strange prison—” she thumped her knuckles on the mossy bark, “—I would continue on to my destination.”
“The Cofah ships in the bay?” Cas asked. “Wouldn’t the soldiers just return you to the city to marry your new beau?”
Zia’s face froze in a concerned expression. Tylie had whispered that she was the princess, Zia presumably being a nickname. Maybe Cas shouldn’t have revealed that she knew, but she had no interest in playing games with the young woman.
Zia looked back and forth from Cas to Pimples, as if their faces might give her crucial information she needed. Cas would have thought she appeared less intimidating than he, at least to someone who didn’t know her reputation for marksmanship, but it was after gazing at Pimples for a moment that she confessed.
“I planned to sneak aboard one of the ships,” Zia said, her focus dropping to the dirt at her feet. “I assumed they would eventually get tired of looking for me, or assume I’d been eaten by something in the swamp. The wedding would be called off, and the ship would return home. From there... I hadn’t decided yet fully. If I return to the palace, it’s likely my father would simply arrange everything all over again. I’ve been considering the ramifications of not returning to the palace. Of disappearing.”
“I assume you didn’t agree to the marriage in the first place,” Cas said.
“I said I’d give it a try, because—well, I’m not good at confronting authority figures, especially my father. It’s a weakness, I fully admit that. I’m much more comfortable writing down my objections to something, where I can take my time and outline my arguments, come up with supporting evidence.” She cleared her throat and shrugged self-consciously. “Let’s just say that my father isn’t interested in reading my notes. I’m his eleventh child from his third wife, so I’ve never been a huge priority for him. That was always fine with me. I didn’t have that many responsibilities or expectations either. This came out of nowhere. As far as I’d heard, my father wasn’t even planning to marry me off to anyone. We have enough alliances to last ten generations. But all of a sudden, since the Iskandians found some dragons, he’s sure we need shamans to come to the empire and teach a new generation of sorcerers.”
Cas rubbed her chin. As much as she had objected to this diversion, they were getting free intelligence from the woman. Either Zia still hadn’t figured out that Cas and Pimples were soldiers or she was only worried about her own fate and didn’t care.
Pimples sat next to her on the log, a sympathetic expression on his face. He looked like he wanted to take her hand, but he clasped his hands in his lap instead. Cas tried to decide if he was hoping to gain her trust and get more information from her or if he was hoping she might run away and have babies with him. Knowing him and his romantic notions, the latter was probably more likely.
“I knew it would be a mistake,” Zia went on, unprompted, though she did look at Pimples before continuing. “Everything I’d read about this place—it’s an oral tradition, you know. They didn’t have a written language until recently, and that’s largely used for accounting. They don’t have books.” Her voice grew anguished at this statement. “What am I supposed to do if I want to learn something? Or if I need to escape from my own loveless marriage by exploring some fanciful adventure of fiction? Ask someone to tell me a story?”
“No books at all?” Pimples asked. “That would be distressing.”
“You ran away because there wasn’t a library?” Cas didn’t quite manage to keep the incredulous tone out of her voice. “Not because you object to your fiancé?”
“Oh, he’s loathsome,” Zia said, “but I’d been told often growing up that I could expect an arranged marriage, so the idea of being betrothed to some old wart is something I’ve had time to accept. I admit I wasn’t expecting an old wart who is also a shaman.” Her lips reared back in distaste. “On the night we met, he thought it would be amusing to remove my clothing. With his mind. I found it creepy.”
“That’s horrible,” Pimples said. “I’d find it creepy too. Not that a shaman is likely to want to remove my clothing, but I can imagine how uncomfortable that would be.”
“There are female shamans,” Zia pointed out.
“What?”
“An old wart of a female shaman might want to remove your clothes.”
Cas almost laughed at the flustered expression that twisted Pimples’ face.
“You are kind of cute,” Zia added.
Pimples perked up. “I am? I mean, thank you. You’re cute too.”
Cas dropped her face into her palm. Duck. She should have brought Duck along. He would have been too busy practicing his hunting skills to flirt with a princess.
“What if you came back with us instead of returning to Cofahre?” Pimples asked.
Cas lowered her hand and shook her head vigorously, trying to catch his eye. Captain Blazer’s empty seat was for the emperor, not his daughter. Unless Pimples could talk Phelistoth into carrying two people across the ocean on his back, they didn’t have room for her. And Phelistoth seemed to have his own plans for the young woman. Besides, even if Zia wanted to run away with them, the rest of the world would see it as kidnapping. King Angulus might be willing to suffer the consequences of making off with the emperor, but if they stole his daughter while not being able to kidnap him, leaving him here and furious, Cofahre would probably throw everything it had at Iskandia in retaliation.
“With you?” Zia asked. “To Iskandia? Is that wh
ere the dragon wants to take me? The silver is the Iskandian dragon, isn’t he? My understanding is that the two golds that left your country aren’t loyal to anyone.”
“Uhm, Iskandia, yes.” Pimples watched her face, probably worried his hope of whisking her off for romance would be dashed once she knew they were soldiers.
“Phelistoth is technically a Cofah dragon,” Cas said, though she wasn’t sure if she should volunteer the information. Mostly she wanted to disabuse the princess of the notion that Phelistoth was linked to them, to Cas and Pimples anyway. “We’ve been trying to convince him that Iskandia would be a better place for him, and you’d think he would listen since your scientists were draining him of his blood and experimenting on it when we found him.” Cas shrugged. “But dragons are stubborn.”
“Oh, I thought he was loyal to your people. I don’t know anything about the experiments.”
No, why would she? It didn’t sound like she played a role in her government.
“What are you two here for?” Zia asked, meeting Pimples’ eyes again. “Something to do with the wedding? I trust you weren’t invited. If Iskandia has some plan to muck things up with the empire so the alliance wouldn’t be made...” She snorted softly. “It’s terribly selfish of me, but I confess that I wouldn’t object.”
“We’re just pilots,” Pimples said.
Cas grimaced. Iskandian pilots were the most loathed soldiers in the army, at least from the Cofah perspective.
Zia didn’t draw back at the revelation. Instead, she leaned closer to Pimples. “You get to fly? I’ve always wondered what that would be like. My father doesn’t let any of his daughters travel by airship. He says it’s too dangerous. I had to come all the way down here by boat.”
“Flying is cracking,” Pimples said, pumping his arm with enthusiasm.
He launched into the story of his first time going up, and Cas let the back of her head thud against a tree. Something splashed out in the marsh, and Pimples stopped talking, his hand going to his rifle.
“Maybe that’s a sign that we should leave,” Cas said. “Pimples, has your big math brain formulated a way to move our new friend yet?”
“Math brain?” Zia mouthed.
Pimples flushed. “Uhm, I was thinking about rolling the log down to the water, making a raft, and floating her back to our fliers. I think there’s water the whole way, and if she’s right about the crocodiles being crepuscular, we might have a few hours where we won’t be attacked.” He chewed on his lip and looked in the direction that the splash had come from.
Cas wouldn’t bet much on them not being attacked, but she was pleased that Pimples had at least been thinking of solutions. Building a raft was a more labor-intensive solution than she would have hoped for, but she would rather do something than stand here and wait. Besides, it would please her if Phelistoth returned to find his captive—and his log—missing. He would find them easily enough, she had no doubt, but he deserved extra work after foisting Cas and Pimples with this duty.
“If Zia is amenable to a raft ride, let’s try,” Cas said. “We need to check in with Captain Blazer.” She wished she could check in with Colonel Quataldo. She wanted someone a lot higher ranking than she to know that they had the Cofah princess. It seemed like something that could be turned to their advantage, but she wasn’t sure she had a twisty enough mind to see how. If not Quataldo, she would settle for talking with Tolemek. There was nothing wrong with his mind.
“How do we move the log?” Zia switched to straddling it, though she still couldn’t stand up straight, and she tried to rock it back and forth. It didn’t budge.
“We find a lever of course.” Pimples trotted over the hill and eyed a couple of trees.
“A lever? A big branch?”
Pimples returned holding such a branch aloft. It qualified as a small log in its own right. “Yes, my lady. We Iskandian soldiers make do with what we can find.”
Cas managed to keep from rolling her eyes, though it was obvious from the way Pimples was toting that branch around that he was trying to impress Zia. She shouldered her rifle and walked over to help, bracing herself for what was sure to be a long night for more reasons than one.
• • • • •
Flames from the bonfire leaped and crackled, the villagers standing around them, warming their hands and chattering happily as they shared mugs of beer. Ridge sat in a relaxing wooden chair with a reclining back, fighting off yawns. People had finally stopped plying him for stories. He’d had to pull out his best yarns to distract them from the dragon battles they wanted to hear about, and that sense of deception made him uncomfortable, as did hiding his missing memories. Uncomfortable and tired.
Thanks to three or four mugs of the infamous local stout, which he’d been unable to keep the villagers from foisting on him, his head was muzzy too. He definitely wouldn’t be flying until the morning. Maybe Mara was drinking somewhere, too, and wouldn’t wake up in time to leave with him. He had little interest in piloting home with her in his lap. It would be hard enough explaining his arrival in a fifty-year-old flier made mostly of twine and cloth. He could easily imagine the indignant look General Ort would give him if he landed with a civilian woman in his lap. Besides, he would need to return Mayford’s craft. There was no reason he couldn’t do as he had suggested, bringing out a couple of pilots and fliers with back seats. Landing in a lumpy field behind a barn would be good practice for some of the younger officers. A worried lurch went through him at the idea that he might have acquired some new lieutenants in the last year, and that he wouldn’t have any memory of them. He wouldn’t be able to hide the hole in his brain if that was the case. Once again, the fear that his disability would come out made him worry that he would be removed from duty for his own good.
“Are you all right, General?” a woman asked, approaching with yet another mug of beer.
She was one of Mayford’s granddaughters—he had introduced his family earlier in the evening, an all-female clan that included a wife, four daughters, and three granddaughters, two of whom had yet to marry. This one, Chora, he recalled, was one of the unmarried ones, and she had been giving him sweet smiles all night. Mara had snapped at her a couple of times, but she was off at one of the tables now, chatting with a couple of young men. Maybe one of them would lure her off behind the barn for a good time. It might be easier to sneak away in the morning if she was entangled with some sturdy young farm lad.
Once again, I would not recommend trying to leave without her, the voice in his head warned.
I would come back later the same day or the next at the latest, Ridge replied.
She does not wish to risk letting you out of her sight.
Why not? I’m not that valuable. Really.
You can make her mission simpler.
What mission is that, exactly? Ridge asked. Meeting the king?
The voice hesitated and almost sounded sad when it agreed with him. Meeting your king. Yes.
My king? He’s not your king too?
It’s possible that fewer people will be... inconvenienced if she enters the capital at your side.
Ridge thought that word inconvenienced sounded like a euphemism. He also noted that the voice had not answered his question. What exactly do you mean by inconvenienced? What do you know that I don’t know?
Much, the voice said, a hint of sadness in its tone again. But little that’s relevant in this age.
Realizing the young woman was looking down at him with concern and waiting for an answer, Ridge smiled up at her. “Sorry, I’m fine. Just tired and lost in thought.” Or just lost. “I’m eager to see home again.”
“I suppose our town must seem terribly provincial and boring after the capital.”
“It’s a fine town, and I appreciate your hospitality.” He should not be too friendly with Mayford’s granddaughters, especially if he didn’t want the flier loan rescinded, but he found himself waving to a recently vacated chair nearby, in case she wanted to pull it up and joi
n him. Having only Mara for company for the last few days had been lonely, especially since he never felt he could trust her. He wished he could feel more grateful for her assistance, but she was so... odd.
“We don’t get many national heroes ambling through.” Chora pulled over the empty chair and sat next to him. “It’s cause for celebration.”
“Sounds like your grandfather was a national hero in his day.”
Her nose wrinkled. “His stories are old and boring. We’ve all heard them a thousand times.”
Ridge wondered what it would be like for him when people started to find his stories old and boring and no longer sought out his company. Maybe he wouldn’t live that long. Retired pilots were a rarity back home.
“What do you do when you’re not flying, General?” She leaned on the armrest closest to him and smiled, the firelight highlighting delicate features, freckles, and warm blue eyes. Inviting eyes. They reminded him of someone, but he couldn’t quite place it.
“Work keeps me busy,” Ridge said, “when I’m not crashing in the mountains.”
He let work keep him busy, since there wasn’t anyone waiting back home for him. Evenings could be lonely, and he’d had fewer people of late to go out with, since his colleagues had all married, one by one, and started spending time with their families instead of with the boys. He’d never considered himself marriage material, but there were times when he wondered what he was missing.
“Will you be busy tonight?”
“I suspect your grandfather would prefer it if I were.” Maybe it was the beer, but the notion of irking Mayford was bothering him less than it had earlier. He decided Chora wasn’t as young as he’d thought when the colonel had introduced her. Old enough to know her mind and make her own decisions, surely. Would it be so bad if for tonight, that decision was him? She had family here, so she wasn’t likely to latch onto him, try to manipulate him into taking her somewhere.
“I think he went to bed already.” Her eyes crinkled.
“Did he?” Ridge asked.
“And I’m not so young that he gets to choose who I spend time with.” She leaned closer, her hand resting on his arm, a smile flirting on her lips.
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