Smoke and Shadow: An Epic Fantasy Progression Series (The Dragon Thief Book 3)

by D. K. Holmberg

He took a deep breath and stepped back. “I’ll keep perusing,” he said.

  “You can keep looking, but you will not find anything. Not what you’re looking for. Not here. You have to go to the Demsal section in order to find that, and no fool wants to do that.”

  Ty just nodded. “Thank you.”

  He backed away and glanced toward the soldiers, but they didn’t seem to have caught sight of him—yet. That didn’t mean that they wouldn’t. Just that they hadn’t seen him so far.

  He slipped through the crowd and pulled the hood of his cloak up, knowing it looked more suspicious, but at the same time he had no idea if they would recognize him otherwise. If they did, he had to find a way to hide, a way to keep them from seeing him.

  He kept moving, going quickly, watching carefully, and then ducking around the corner. There was no further movement from the soldiers. He had to stay hidden, keeping himself low and out of the view of the soldiers, but more than that now he needed to figure out how to find Zara.

  He had a name of a city section.

  He slipped forward, staying low, sweeping his gaze around as he did. He didn’t see anything nearby, but that didn’t mean that he was going to be able to find what he needed. More than that, it didn’t mean that he would be able to get out of the market without drawing any more attention.

  Somebody jostled into him, and Ty looked up. A large, hulking man looked down at him.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

  The man took a step toward him, and the smoke dragon surged again, surprising Ty by sweeping a hint of smoke out, concealing him.

  He hurried away, using the smoke to shield him, thankful that it reacted though still uncertain as to why it chose now to do so.

  He could see the soldiers there but nothing more than that. They were searching through the vendor stands. Either they knew he had been there, or they were looking for somebody else. Regardless, they were continuing their search.

  Ty darted off.

  The Demsal section.

  That was what he needed to find, but he didn’t know how he was going to find it. It had to be close enough to the warehouse.

  He rounded a corner, keeping his eyes open, and then stopped.

  A marking on a building caught his eye.

  It was a street marker. Many of the buildings in the capital had street markers, the names of the streets etched into the stone, and this one was no different, though it was faded as if it had been scratched out. There was a D, but nothing else. The rest of it was blurred, faded.

  Not the Demsal section. Demsal Street.

  Where was Zara? Someone like Zara would have some sort of storefront, some kind of a marker as a healer.

  If it was anything like Zarinth, there would be something hanging from the door, next to the door, or even painted on the front of the building.

  Only, this wasn’t anything like Zarinth. He had to find something different.

  He made his way along the street. It was a narrow street, and it curved slightly before coming to an intersection where the street name changed.

  Ty must have missed it.

  He turned back, heading the way that he’d come, and wandered along the street as he searched, trying to come up with the answer as to where to find Zara’s shop. It would have to be somewhere along the street, someplace that he could find, and it had to have some sort of marking that he could use.

  Ty moved more slowly.

  He wasn’t as concerned that he might get followed. If this section was dangerous, then he doubted there would be as many people here. If they were Dragon Touched, and they might be able to follow his dagger or the crossbow. They might still be working with Roson James.

  As he made it to the midpoint of the street, a marking on the stone caught his attention. Normally, a cobblestone like that wouldn’t draw any notice, but in this case the stone had the shape of a dragon head on it. It was faded and faint, but he had been looking for anything that might be a marker of Zara, and a healer, and this was the first thing that he’d seen that could be something.

  It was right in front of a door.

  Ty headed over to it and knocked. He had one hand resting on his dragon-bone dagger. He didn’t have to wait long. The door came open.

  Zara was dark-haired, dark-skinned, and beautiful.

  She frowned at Ty, glancing either direction along the street before grabbing him by the hand and yanking him inside and closing the door. She slipped three locks into place, one on the top and bottom of the door, and one in the middle. Then she pressed her hand against it, and a ring on her finger started to glow faintly for just a moment.

  Only then did Zara turn back to him.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked. Her words were clipped, and she looked along the hallway before turning her attention back to Ty.

  “I’m looking for my brother. I figured that you would know where he was.”

  She frowned at Ty. “Your brother? What would you… you don’t know.”

  “What don’t I know?”

  Zara shook her head. “How did you find me?”

  “I asked around.”

  “Dangerous,” she muttered, looking back toward the door. “Who did you ask?”

  “I asked in the market. I was implying I was looking for a sort of forbidden healing.”

  Zara regarded Ty for a moment before chuckling. “I suppose that would do. And then you found me?”

  “I was directed to this section. And then I found the marking outside your door.”

  Zara snorted. “I think your brother underestimated you.”

  “Why?”

  “Never mind. Come along.”

  She slipped past Ty, down the narrow hall, and guided him into a wood-paneled room. There was a hearth at one end, and heat radiated from it. Dragon-bone relics lined the mantle. Many of them were shaped into weapons. He saw two daggers. One sword. And an entire quiver filled with crossbow bolts.

  His attention was drawn to that, though he didn’t even know if he could use them. He had the fake Order of the Flame’s crossbow, but he didn’t know if it used a certain type of crossbow bolt.

  Zara turned to him. “Why did you come looking for me?”

  “Because something happened.”

  “Obviously,” Zara said.

  Ty regarded the woman, looking around the inside of the home. Dragon relics and remnants filled it, enough wealth—likely stolen wealth—that left Ty overwhelmed. The rest of the decorations in the home were simple, though many carried markings of the Flame. If he was right, then this was where his brother spent his time. This was the person he spent his time with—when he wasn’t working as the Dragon Thief.

  “How long have the two of you known each other?” he asked Zara.

  “Why? What did he tell you?”

  “He told me that you were married.”

  Zara smiled tightly. “I wasn’t even sure if he would admit that.”

  “Why wouldn’t he admit that?”

  “I’m not particularly welcome in these parts.”

  “Why wouldn’t you be welcome?” Ty asked with a laugh. “And I can certainly understand why my brother would be intrigued by you.”

  “He was intrigued by me because of my connection to the Flame,” she said, turning to the fire. She twisted the dragon stone ring on her finger before glancing over at Ty. “We developed a friendship. Then we became close. Then…” She shook her head. “I didn’t know what he was until much later.”

  “A thief?”

  Zara shook her head. “A priest.”

  “You were more concerned about him being a priest then you were about a thief?”

  “It is the curse of my people.”

  Zara took a seat and motioned for Ty to join her. There were two wooden chairs in the room, both of them large and faded but comfortable. They were strangely warm, and as he took a seat Ty realized that they were made out of dragon bone.

  He ran his hand along the chair. “You painted it.”
>
  “I painted what?”

  “The dragon bone. Why?”

  Zara tipped her head, studying him. “How did you know?”

  Ty shrugged. “I can feel something about it. It feels like dragon bone, even if I’m not able to tell much more about it than that.”

  “Most aren’t even aware of it,” Zara said as she ran her fingers along the chair. “They see it as something unusual. Which it is. None recognize there’s something else to it.” She looked around the inside of her home, and Ty followed the direction of her gaze.

  How much of everything here was dragon bone?

  Maybe everything was. And if it was, then it meant that his brother and Zara had as many dragon-bone remnants—and probably relics—as he had ever found in any one place.

  They collected them.

  Of course, his brother was the Dragon Thief. He would have an eye for them and would know what things were worth collecting.

  He smiled to himself. “That’s why you fell for him,” he said, tracing his hand along the dragon-bone chair. He could feel the energy within it, and it pressed up through his palm, a warmth and heat that radiated outward, filling him. There was something almost comfortable about it, which he was surprised by.

  “He had so many interesting items,” Zara said, shaking her head. “When I first met him, I didn’t understand why. It was only later that I realized he didn’t come across them honestly.”

  “It didn’t bother you, though.”

  Zara shrugged. “Why should it bother me? The king doesn’t come across them honestly, either.”

  “He finds them.”

  “Finds them. Makes them, as well. He has his artisans shaping dragon bone into various forms like this,” she said, grabbing something off the table that Ty hadn’t noticed. It looked like a small figurine with a man’s face. Though none had seen him in person, most knew the king’s face from the sculptures he had made. “He’s arrogant enough to believe that face needs to be placed upon the dragon bone.”

  “You don’t think the king should be?”

  “I don’t think anybody should be placed on dragon bone.” She placed it back on the table and shook her head. “What about you, Ty? What do you feel?”

  Ty shrugged. “I can’t say I have much of an opinion about it. At least, I never had before. Dragon-bone relics are valuable.”

  “They are, and for good reason.”

  “I’ve never been intrigued by dragon-bone relics for the reasons that others were. I didn’t care about the power that they might possess or anything else like that. I cared about the value the king placed on them.”

  “You are a Tecal.”

  Ty frowned, shaking his head quickly. Maybe too quickly. “Not a Tecal. Like my brother, I am—or was—a thief.”

  She smiled at Ty. “Something that runs in the family, then. What an interesting family yours must have been.”

  “We weren’t thieves when I was younger,” he said, looking at the figure with the king’s face. “When I was younger, my brother was”—Ty shook his head, not sure how much to share with Zara, not sure how much his brother would’ve shared with her—“different. Albion had always embraced the Flame. I think he thought it would please our mother.”

  “I didn’t realize that he felt the need to please your mother.”

  “He was always closer to Father and believed that our mother didn’t care for him quite as much as she cared for me.” Ty closed his eyes for a moment, thinking back to his family long ago, his brother, and how he had always seemed more like his father. “He could be so foolish, so ignorant.”

  “Men often can be,” Zara said.

  Ty took a deep breath, letting it out. “He never gave me any indication that he would be a thief.”

  “And he never gave me any indication that he would be a priest.”

  “Does it bother you?”

  “A little,” Zara said.

  “Why?”

  Zara smiled at Ty. “If you understood my people, then you would know the reason.”

  “You mentioned that before. What kind of people are we talking about?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Zara said.

  She fell silent, staring at the flame, and traced her fingers along the chair, as if sitting there and running her hands along the dragon bone would give her some contact power, something that would connect her to a greater energy. Maybe it would.

  Could she be one of the Dragon Touched?

  His brother had admitted that he was, and Ty could see him being attracted to somebody else who had the same ability and connection to the dragons as him.

  “Where is he?”

  “Al had to go.”

  Ty chuckled. “When I was younger, he hated it when I called him Al.”

  “He hasn’t been fond of me calling him by the nickname I would prefer,” Zara said.

  “What is that?”

  A playful smile crossed Zara’s lips. “That is between he and I.”

  Ty wasn’t going to push on that. He didn’t think that he wanted to. “Where did he have to go? I saw the warehouse. I know it’s empty.”

  “You did.”

  Ty nodded. “That’s where I went first. I thought I could figure out where my brother had gone and what he had done, but…”

  “Unfortunately, your brother had to leave when the warehouse was emptied.”

  “It was empty. Which means somebody took the items within?”

  Zara’s swung her gaze toward Ty, leveling it on him. “He has gathered items for many years. All that time, all of that knowledge, and it’s lost.”

  “What happened?”

  She shook her head. “He wouldn’t tell me. Only that he had to get it back.”

  “He went after it?”

  Zara nodded. “He said that he was the only one capable of doing so.”

  The Dragon Thief.

  And now he had no idea what happened to him or where he had gone, only that the Dragon Thief was on the loose again, searching for items that he had stolen once before.

  “I need to find him. Something is taking place in the kingdom, and it’s dangerous. Can you help me?”

  Zara looked at him. “Unfortunately, I cannot.”

  Ty looked around the inside of the home. “You have to have some dragon relic that would allow me to chase him down.”

  He didn’t know what it would be, only that he had seen other dragon relics that worked that way. He suspected that Zara had something like that here, if only she would permit him to use it.

  “Even if I had something like that, I couldn’t do that to your brother. He trusted me.”

  “I’m glad he trusted you, but I think he’s in more danger than he realizes.”

  Zara frowned. “Why would you say that?”

  “Because of the reason I’m here.”

  “And what reason is that?”

  “The dragons. They were taken. We don’t know what’s going to happen to them, but if they succeed…” Ty had no idea what would happen if they succeeded, only that he felt compelled to prevent the fake Order of the Flame from finishing whatever they intended.

  Zara turned to Ty, watching him for a long moment, and then she sighed. “There might be something I could offer.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Ty squeezed the small, cylindrical item, tracing his finger along the surface. There was an engraving, though it was a series of patterns that looked like writing in a language he couldn’t read. Maybe they were nothing more than symbols. He could feel the heat coming off it. There was something strange in it, some energy that he couldn’t quite place, but it was dragon bone. Only, it was dragon bone unlike any that he had ever held before.

  Somehow, this was supposed to guide him to Albion.

  Ty didn’t know how to use it, and Zara hadn’t given him much insight on to how to do so, either, only that the power would start to pulse within it, reacting when he got close. All she had said was that Albion had traveled west chasing something.r />
  Ty had known what he was chasing. There was only one thing for his brother to have been chasing.

  Dragons. The Flame.

  But how had he known?

  And why would he have gone on his own?

  Ty wandered the streets, making a looping pattern as he circled the city, passing through sections that were of increasing wealth, until he neared the palace in the distance. It was an enormous building, and yet the Dragon’s Jaw was even larger, as if the palace made no attempt to try to loom larger than the mountains.

  He paused outside the palace, thinking about the ghost king, thinking about what he had experienced while he’d been the city, and thinking about what Gayal would’ve wanted him to do.

  Gayal would’ve wanted him to master his understanding of the dragons. That was the key for him, but given that it was Ty’s fault that they had obtained the dauvern, and that now Roson James and the others of the Order had it, he had to figure out what they might do with those dragons. If it was simply a matter of trying to learn to use them against the kingdom, then he feared how they might use them. But maybe there was another reason.

  He had started back, wandering through the streets, when he had a feeling that someone trailed after him. Ty ducked down an alleyway, slipping along it until he reached a different street, and then he looped back around. He wanted to get behind his possible pursuer, but he didn’t see any evidence of them. They were there; he was certain of it.

  He moved carefully now.

  He slipped the item Zara had given him back into his pocket.

  It wasn’t going to help him in the city. He suspected Albion had already left the city, and given the frustration he had seen within Zara—and the hint of sadness—he wondered whether or not Ty would be able to find him easily. He also wondered if Zara expected to see Albion again.

  Strangely, he suspected Zara understood what Albion was doing. She hadn’t been willing to share that with Ty, which bothered him, though she had been willing to share something that could help him track down his brother.

  He switched directions and started moving with a quicker pace, but the person trailing after him did the same. Ty frowned and moved even faster.

  Now he was certain somebody was behind him. As he hurried along the street, he could practically feel the sense of somebody moving after him. They were doing it subtly.