Dragon-Ridden

by T. A. White

  “But,” the inspector continued, “for all that, she has a strong, if skewed, sense of right and wrong and an overabundant sense of responsibility. I recommend that she be trained by the guard immediately to break whatever bad habits she’s picked up.”

  “Bad habits,” Tate parroted. Fear made her stupid. Talk of training as if they had any right to decide the course of her life made her braver than she’d be otherwise. “I don’t have bad habits, and I don’t need training. I don’t know who you are, but I’ll decide the course of my own life.”

  “Tate,” Ryu warned.

  She didn’t heed him, instead glaring mulishly at the man towering over her. Had she been any younger, she probably would have stuck her tongue out at him too. “He has no right.”

  The man arched one perfectly groomed eyebrow. “You’ll have your hands full with this waif, my lord Ryuji. I don’t envy you one bit.”

  Tate’s eyes snapped to Ryu as the inspector let himself out of the room. She knew it. She knew he was some highborn lord. She just hadn’t been able to figure out what he was doing on Jost’s ship. Before she could gather herself to express her anger, Ryu had crossed the room and grabbed her around the neck. He didn’t hurt her, holding her carefully but firmly.

  “Not a word,” he warned. “You have no idea how close you came to being executed. He has every right to decide what’s to be done with you, shelila. You’re a dragon in the Emperor’s own city. You’re not registered nor have you made yourself known to the required authorities.”

  She pushed against his chest. Although he wasn’t hurting her, she wasn’t comfortable with him so close or touching her.

  “It’s not like I even knew I was dragon bound until I got to the city,” Tate told him crossly. “I don’t even know what it means except that my damn tattoo can move and breath fire when angry.”

  “You don’t remember what happened in the tunnels, I take it,” he said, his thoughts hidden behind his dark eyes.

  Tate frowned and fingered the bandage on her arm. Like she’d told the inspector, a lot of what happened down there was a blur. She remembered someone telling her to give in, to let the dragon take charge. Her brow furrowed, and she looked unseeing across the room.

  Everything after that were just impressions. Mostly hunger. And blood. She remembered dreaming and in that dream she’d known her entire past. She’d understood things with a bell like clarity that made her existence in this world seem cloudy by comparison. The man she’d spoken with had seemed familiar. So very familiar. She’d known him somehow before. He’d been important to her. She just wished she knew how.

  “Your ignorance is probably the only thing that saved you,” he said, letting her go and moving to sit in the inspector’s former chair. He didn’t ask her about the tunnel again, letting her keep those thoughts private.

  “What’s so bloody bad about not announcing my presence?” she asked roughly.

  “You’re dangerous,” he said, pointing at her. “In ways you haven’t discovered yet. Any time a human forms a bond with one of the dragons, they are required to submit themselves to the Emperor’s corps so they can be tested, and if found to have the correct qualities, trained so they may serve the empire.”

  “Who decides what qualities are the right ones?”

  “The Emperor and the dragon-ridden.”

  “What gives them the right?” she asked.

  “Power,” was the prompt reply. “Experience. You’re a weapon. All of the dragon-ridden are. To keep the balance, there have to be rules and consequences.”

  “Seems kind of arbitrary to me,” Tate said. “What qualities do they look for then?”

  “Stability of mind. Compatibility with their dragon. Honor, discipline, integrity, loyalty, duty. It’s very complicated,” he finally said. “You heard him. You barely passed. If you’d failed in the tunnels, there’s no doubt he would have failed you on the spot. As it is, you’ll be in a probationary period while they make sure you’re not a danger.”

  Tate grumbled to herself. It sounded like a very elite club. The wonder wasn’t that he hadn’t failed her but that he’d passed her at all. Most of those qualities weren’t ones that could be used to describe her.

  “How do you know about all this?” she asked. For a pirate’s shipman he knew a lot.

  He studied her for a long moment before rolling up his sleeve to mid elbow. He tapped the skin on his underarm and concentrated. She got a weird feeling she knew where this was going.

  A dragon walked out from under his sleeve to curl around his wrist and rest its chin on the top of his hand. It blinked golden eyes, pupils slit like a cats. The dragon was twice the size of hers with silver markings etched on its head. The rest of its body was a gleaming black with silver outlining several of his back scales. His body shimmered like the night sky on the ocean. Beautiful and mysterious.

  In wonder she reached out to it, hesitating before running a finger along the brow ridges of its head. It closed its eyes and purred and butted against her hand. Ryu shivered. Tate looked up to find his eyes closed and his face soft.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said withdrawing her hand. She laid a hand on where hers rested on the inside of her upper arm. It was still, but if she concentrated she could feel the slight movement of its chest against her fingertips.

  “He,” Ryu corrected.

  Oh. She looked back at the small dragon whose eyes were trained on her.

  “How,” she started but stopped. She didn’t know how to ask what she wanted. Too many things had happened in too short a time. Too many bombshells, too much information.

  “Jost is an agent of the empire,” Ryu said training his eyes on hers. “Once he got a look at your dragon, he contacted me and asked me to confirm his suspicions.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me this from the beginning?” she asked, feeling a little lost and hurt. All this time he’d been watching her, observing her. For what? To see if she was this dragon-ridden. And Jost. All this time she’d felt grateful for him picking her up and taking her under his wing. She’d even felt guilty about abandoning him as she had. It’d all been a lie.

  “You have to understand, Tate. There are many who would like the power and standing a dragon can give them, but only about one in ten million have the strength to be a host. Even fewer have the compatibility it takes to be part of the dragon,” Ryu explained. “As you saw with the Red Lady, that doesn’t stop others from trying to force a merging. Usually resulting in the death of both. Your lack of memories seemed like a good excuse if anybody wondered how you came to be soul bound to your dragon.”

  “Why would a pirate care about any of this?” Tate asked having to fight to keep her voice steady.

  “He’s not just a pirate. He’s more of a privateer. The empire has many enemies both within and out. Jost targets a lot of our foreign enemies for his pirating and if he hears of any large scale plots, he warns his handlers.”

  “Great,” Tate said pressing her palms to her eyes. They were stinging now. “I’m so glad.”

  Ryu pulled her hands away from her face and clasped one in his. He rubbed her knuckles softly.

  “What happened after I… changed?” she asked looking away. “Did we stop the Red Lady from whatever she had planned?”

  He sighed softly but let her direct the conversation to less dangerous waters. “Yes. For whatever reason the spell didn’t work on you the way it was expected to. If she hadn’t gotten greedy she would have pulled the fulcrum’s power into her, and we’d probably be looking at war right now.”

  “I saw her suck power from the little boy,” Tate argued. “He was barely breathing.”

  “The spell was tailored to both of you. Since you took your dragon’s form, it skewed the focus of the spell, making it work harder at draining you when there was nothing to drain. Because of that imbalance, she wasn’t able to absorb what she got from Kenan. Once your thief friend broke the runes, the power went back to the original owner.”


  Tate flinched, remembering exactly how he had broken the barrier. His body crashing into the circle and his screams as the light enveloped him echoed in her dreams.

  “Have you been able to locate the key?” Tate asked.

  He shook his head grimly. “We don’t know where it went. Officially the Kairi are happy with the return of the fulcrum and are blaming the key’s loss on Umi.”

  “And unofficially?”

  “They are unsure of how they feel.”

  “What will they do about Tempest?”

  “What do you mean?” he asked carefully.

  “He died a hero,” Tate said flatly. She didn’t care what their honor stated about his previous actions, all she cared about was his final act. He should be remembered for it. “He died trying to keep the boy from Umi’s followers.”

  Ryu was quiet. Tate closed her eyes. It was all the answer she needed.

  “They will not strike his name from the family record, and his family will be told of his final deeds. But, he will not be given the warrior’s call nor will his name be entered into their hall of heroes. They will not give him a sea burial either.”

  So not full honors, but it was something. It burned. Man, did it hurt to know that no amount of arguing could change their minds. It wasn’t fair, but she couldn’t force them to her way of thinking no matter how much she wanted to.

  “What about Dewdrop and the boy?”

  “Alive.”

  She nodded and sank back into her pillows. “I’d like to be alone now.”

  “Tate,” he began before quieting. Her face was set and closed. He sighed. “All right. Rest now.”

  The chair creaked as he leaned back and folded his arms. He had no intention of leaving, but that was all right. Tate was tired enough that sleep came quickly to steal her away.

  Chapter Twenty One

  Tate tilted her head back to bask in the warm light of day as the city sounds burbled below her swinging feet. Needing to get away from well-meaning healers and their poking, prodding and insisting she do nothing but rest, she found herself across the city and climbing up to the perch Dewdrop had showed her when they’d been hiding from Ryu. That morning was the first time they’d let her out of bed, two weeks after the events in the Castle Pointe catacombs. So named for the fact that they were under the palace on the cliffs.

  Evidently her wounds, while shallow, had been plentiful enough that even their best healers had had trouble getting everything to close up. The blood she’d lost had needed to be replaced with rest and food. The stress of shifting to the dragon form had kept her asleep for a good portion of that time as her body recuperated.

  The hospice where she’d been treated had been kind but strict in keeping her in bed until some of the deeper cuts had fully closed. The moment they’d let her up, she had walked into the city and somehow ended up here.

  She liked it up here with the city sprawled below and the wind ruffling her hair, the smell of the sea in her nose. For a moment she could pretend it was as it had been the first time she’d stood on the Marauder’s deck and watched the city opening its arms to welcome her.

  Tate squinted down at the harbor. It felt good to be under the wide-open sky with no walls around her and no ceiling above.

  In her dreams the tunnels called to her, whispering of secrets revealed and her past concealed. She knew there would come a time when she’d have to go back under and speak to Ai, but not yet, not when the pain of recent events was still too close.

  A boot scraped against rock. She didn’t turn around, her shoulders tensing slightly. She’d seen him as he made his way up to her perch.

  “You come to kill me?”

  His stride hesitated a beat before Jost lowered himself to sit on the ledge beside her, swinging his legs out over it as she did. His shoulder brushed hers as he took in the panoramic view.

  Somehow she couldn’t work up interest in his response, content to look out over the city while they sat in a companionable silence. Guess that was answer enough. Of course he might just be waiting, toying with her. Naw, wasn’t his style.

  “Only the senior officers are killed when they leave the crew.” He bent forward resting his elbows on his thighs. “And then only when they turn traitor.”

  She squinted up at the sky and leaned back.

  “I won’t apologize for the things I kept from you,” he said.

  She lifted an eyebrow. Good. She didn’t want an apology.

  “I acted the best way I could with the information I had at hand. I won’t make excuses or ask forgiveness.”

  At that Tate finally turned to look at him, giving him a hard stare. What had he come here for?

  His weathered face softened slightly as he met her eyes. “I do apologize for the pain I caused you. It wasn’t my intent.”

  “Did you know the crew was harassing me?” She blinked at him, slightly surprised at her own question.

  His astonishment answered better than words ever could. “I knew you were planning to leave, but I didn’t know the reason behind it until Ryu told me.” He rubbed his neck. “If I had, things might have turned out differently.”

  She gave a short nod, relieved. She hadn’t realized how much that question bothered her until now. If he’d known about it; she shook her head slightly. Well, she didn’t know exactly how she’d feel but she suspected it wouldn’t have been forgiveness.

  She didn’t know how to respond to the other part. The part where he’d been informing on her since the very day he’d forced her on board his ship. Probably the very moment, even. Intent or not it felt like he’d violated her privacy and damaged her trust, and she couldn’t decide how she felt about that. She’d thought she’d been part of something only to find out they’d been spying on her. She couldn’t help but question every word and deed in her eight months with the crew. She’d probably be doing that for a long time to come.

  She sighed and leaned back on her hands. It would be easy to rail at him, point out how his actions had indirectly cost someone their life. That would be wrong, however. The blame didn’t rest with him. It didn’t even rest with her, though it was tempting to fall into the trap of self-guilt. One hand clenched into a fist. No, the people responsible had been Kadien, Umi and the Red Lady. They’d all paid for their part in it with their lives. Still, she couldn’t help but think about what she could have done differently if she’d only known what was at stake from the beginning. Tempest might still be alive, and she wouldn’t be facing practical servitude for simply being dragon-ridden.

  Her own integrity wouldn’t let her do any of that, however. There was no guarantee things would have turned out any better if she hadn’t gotten involved and a good chance it would have been worse. Like it or not what was done was done, and there was no going back to change it.

  Good or bad, things had turned out the way they had, and there was no use moaning about what could have been. The only thing left to do was accept it and move on.

  Jost waited patiently for her answer.

  “I don’t blame you for spying on me,” Tate finally said.

  The tightness in Jost’s body relaxed, and he let out a huge sigh of relief. He clapped her on the shoulder. “I’m glad. The boys wanted to see if you’d come pub crawling with us to celebrate our victory.”

  “I can’t today. I’ve got a few loose ends to take care of first.”

  His weathered face frowned in disappointment. It wasn’t what he wanted to hear but hardly surprising given the events of the last few days. She knew he thought she’d refused because she still blamed him. That wasn’t it, but she did nothing to correct him. It would take time to build up the rapport of trust they’d previously had. Going forward their relationship would have to change, and only time would tell whether it was a good or bad change.

  She turned her face back up to the sun watching as the birds called to each other. They didn’t speak after that, letting the time slip past in a companionable silence.

  **

&n
bsp; After she climbed down from her perch, long after Jost had left, she wandered the city again not quite ready to return to the healer’s hospice. Somehow she found herself in the temple district with her feet taking her to the Hall of Saviors. It was even more majestic and serene when she was fully conscious. Somehow she had thought that had been an aspect of the pain she was in when she’d come through before.

  She took a seat on one of the wood benches that littered the great space and stared up into the familiar stone faces. None of the different sects’ priests approached her this time. They were probably under the impression that she’d come here to pray. No prayer moved her. She hadn’t been drawn here to commune with the gods but instead had wanted to know if that faint sense of remembrance she’d had visiting them last time was real.

  It was while she was soaking in the atmosphere that Blade took a seat on a bench in front of her after bowing his head while he mumbled a short prayer.

  Tate tensed in preparation to flee or fight. In all the craziness she’d forgotten Lucius had set a price on her head.

  “Relax, Tate. I’m not going to drag you off to Lucius. I’m alone,” Blade assured her without turning around before she could do more than tense. Tate let herself settle back into her seat, curious as to what business he had with her.

  “Every time I come here I’m struck anew with awe in the presence of these monuments,” he said, nodding to the towering statues. Tate nodded cautiously. She could relate. “The time and effort that went into building each of the four. Each person who worked on these masterpieces left their mark on the world for generations to come. I find it breathtaking.”

  She eyed him suspiciously. Why were they discussing inert stone? She edged back on her bench and turned her head to see if anybody was watching them. Despite his assurances, she didn’t trust him to be as alone as he said. His companions could be hiding in case she ran.

  Her silence didn’t deter him from speaking. “Lucius wasn’t pleased to find the key lost to him, but since nobody knows what happened to it, he’s willing to let it go.” He looked down. “For now.”