Test of the Dragon

by Jessica Drake

  "I believe I can assist with that." Carina gave me a crooked smile as she hefted a giant purse from the pack slung over her shoulder. "Your half of the profits," she said, handing it to me. "With a bit of an advance, since I know I won't be seeing you for a while."

  My mouth dropped open as I took the bag. Judging by the weight, it held a small fortune. "You don't have to give me all this," I said weakly. "Surely you should keep some for when the shop goes through lean times. It's bound to happen soon."

  But Carina shook her head. "We've got plenty squirreled away for rainy days," she said. "I don't think you quite comprehend just how much we've made since you became a dragon rider. And even though I've given you money here and there, for the most part you haven't even had a chance to enjoy the profits. I wish you were taking this money to buy yourself a nice house on top of a hill for you and Lessie to enjoy," she added with a sigh. "Not spending it on this terrible war."

  "Perhaps I still will buy that house on a hill, when all of this is over," I said lightly. I only hoped that hill was somewhere in Elantia, and not in a foreign country where we would have to hide from the Zallabarians, forever fugitives.

  The six of us sat down together while the staff got the children up and dressed for the day, then hashed out a plan. Carina and Portina left with some of the gold to procure carts and donkeys, while Tavarian and I accompanied the staff to the orphanage to collect their belongings. Thankfully, only two thugs guarded the premises today, and they begrudgingly let us pass. I wished we could take the furniture—there were lots of usable beds, desks, and other pieces—but aside from a few chairs, we stuck to the essentials and loaded everything on the carts Carina and Portina brought.

  Miss Cassidy looked at the row of carts. Three of them were stuffed full of supplies, while the children sat atop boxes and crates. "I have to say,” she said shakily, “in my thirty years of running the orphanage, I've never felt quite so overwhelmed."

  "There, there." Rhia's mother put an arm around the woman and steered her toward the cart. "It will be all right. You have two wonderful people who've agreed to come with us, and I will be helping you as well."

  I glanced at Rhia, who gave me a sad smile. "My mother always wanted a big family," she said as Mrs. Thomas darted around the cart, giving hugs to the children who were scared and making sure they were as well situated as possible. "But my father’s death prevented it. We may have lost everything, but for her, this is a blessing in disguise."

  The rest of us hopped into the cart at the front, and Tavarian took the reins. He urged the two ponies into a quick walk, and we headed for the east gate.

  The soldiers were sympathetic at the sight of so many small children, and to my relief, they barely spared the adults more than a cursory glance. "Wish I could say you were the first to be chased out of the city," the guard said gruffly. "But you're not, and you won't be the last. Best of luck to you all."

  The soldier’s unexpected empathy caught me off guard, but others in the cart weren't so easily manipulated. Jallis glared at the guards as we passed, and I had to squeeze his arm tight to keep him from doing anything stupid. He looked like he wanted to leap out of the cart and strangle the man. Rhia, Mrs. Thomas, and Miss Cassidy stared straight ahead, refusing to acknowledge them, and the staff kept their eyes lowered.

  In other circumstances, I would be furious too. But I was too tired to summon the energy necessary for so much anger, so it was all too easy to let it go instead.

  The children were quiet for most of the journey, in low spirits after being kicked out of the only home they'd ever known. I doubted any of them had ever set foot beyond the walls of Zuar City, never mind traveled through the Elantian countryside, and many of them stared dully as we passed barren fields and lonely farmhouses. The harvest season was long over, and a pang hit my chest. Zuar City always had a wonderful festival to celebrate, and that would have been a month ago. Though I doubted anyone had celebrated. Would there be any sort of celebration for winter solstice? The Zallabarians had their own traditions. Would they force them on us? Considering that many of our festivals and rituals centered around the dragons, I doubted they would let us continue with our own.

  It took us only two hours to reach the forest where the dragons were hidden, but we had to slow considerably to navigate the narrow paths not meant for carts and horses. The animals whinnied nervously as we approached, sensing the giant predators, and Jallis jumped out of the cart to soothe the animals.

  "It's all right," he cooed as he patted the horses' necks, stroking their damp hides and murmuring soothing words as they stamped their hooves. "No one is going to eat you today."

  "Eat us?" one of the children cried. "Why would anyone eat us? What's going on?"

  "You'll see," I said, twisting around in my seat to smile at them. "It's a surprise!"

  This didn't seem to allay the children’s fears, not that I could blame them. The horses’ anxiety naturally affected them. Thankfully, Jallis managed to calm the horses using his talent, and we made it to a small clearing barely large enough to fit the horses and wagons.

  "We'll need to leave them here for now," Jallis said. "Even my talent won't be able to calm the horses if they actually come face to face with Kadryn."

  We left the orphanage staff to guard the horses, while Rhia's mother and Miss Cassidy led the children along to meet the dragons for the first time. Via Lessie, I ordered the dragons to lie low to the ground and be as non-threatening as possible. I needed the children to feel comfortable around them if we were going to ferry them up to the floating island.

  "Dragons!" they cried, their sullen resentment and desperation evaporating at the sight of the huge beasts. I’d been worried the orphans would be frightened when we led them into the larger clearing, but although a few did seem nervous, most were excited.

  "Oh my," Miss Cassidy breathed, her hand on her heart. The blood drained from her face, and she looked like she was about to faint. "This...is not what I expected."

  "It's all right, Miss Cassidy." I gently took her by the hand and led her over to Lessie. She was nearly Kadryn's size now and had outgrown Ykos by a mile. "They won't hurt you."

  Lessie fixed her fiery eyes on Miss Cassidy as we approached. "Be nice," I warned as I laid the woman's hand on Lessie's snout. Her nostrils flared as she let out a huff, and Miss Cassidy jerked back as Lessie's breath clouded in the air around her.

  The children, on the other hand, gasped excitedly, and soon enough one of them was tugging on my hand. "Can I try?" she asked eagerly, looking up at me with the biggest brown eyes I'd ever seen.

  Before I could answer, Lessie shifted her head, nudging the little girl with her snout. The orphan giggled as she pitched forward, landing on top of Lessie's head, and something in my heart melted as she lay there, sprawled across Lessie's snout.

  "So pretty," she cooed, running her little hand across Lessie's iridescent scales.

  "I am nice," Lessie said smugly to me. "Especially to little girls who acknowledge my magnificence."

  I hastily disguised my laugh as a cough before I turned to the children. "Anyone else want to try petting a dragon?"

  "Me! Me!" Hands went up everywhere, and even Miss Cassidy had to laugh.

  The children played with the dragons for the rest of the day while we waited for night to fall. I worried they might make too much noise and attract unwanted attention, but Tavarian cast a muffling spell across the clearing to mute their voices. As long as the children and dragons didn't set foot outside it, no one could hear them.

  "It'll probably take ten trips to get everything to the island," I said to Tavarian and Jallis as we stood in the other clearing, inspecting the contents of the carts once more. "Do you think we should try taking the carts up, too?"

  "I wouldn't advise it," Jallis said. "They're too unwieldy for the dragons to carry easily."

  "We won't need them anyway," Tavarian said. "We can fashion litters from supplies on the island that the dragons can use to tr
ansport the supplies back down. It will take half the time for us to bring everything back down to the ground once we arrive at our destination."

  "Excuse me," Miss Cassidy said as she entered the clearing. "I can't help but feel left in the dark. Where are you taking us with these dragons? It isn't as if it is safe to fly, even at night, when the Zallabarians are killing all dragons on sight."

  "We won't be traveling on the dragons," Tavarian told her. "We'll be using my floating island."

  Tavarian gathered everyone together, and we explained the plan. "It will take two days for the island to reach the hidden estate," he told them. "There is more than enough room for all of you to live there comfortably, and between what we've brought and the stores already there, enough food to last at least a year. There is a couple on the grounds to help with the cooking and cleaning, and a library with a selection of educational volumes you can use to teach the children."

  The orphanage staff stared, their faces slack with astonishment. "An entire estate?" Tammy squeaked. "We thought perhaps you were going to leave us at a farmhouse or something."

  "We are incredibly grateful for your generosity," Miss Cassidy said, "but what can we do for you in return? There is no way for us to repay you."

  "You can repay us by teaching the children to be self-sufficient adults," Tavarian said. "There are books in the library about the history of the dragon riders, as well. Teach them the truth of it all—the good, the bad, and even the ugly. They are the future of Elantia, and they must not make the same mistakes we have."

  When night fell, we mounted up, each dragon taking two children at a time in addition to the riders. Tavarian's cloaking spell kept us from being seen, and the children thought the short flight was great fun. Tavarian's staff were startled to see so many people arriving at once but relieved he was still alive. He quickly explained the situation while we got all the people and supplies situated.

  Once everyone was settled, Tavarian and I went to his vault. "You know, I could do this faster with my lock pick," I joked as Tavarian spun a series of dials to open the heavy metal door.

  He lifted an eyebrow. "That would trigger the alarm spell, and then we'd both be trapped inside here." He smirked as the door swung open. "Or have you forgotten what happened the last time you were here?"

  "Right." I stepped inside, and a sense of déjà vu rippled through me as I looked around the room packed with valuable art and treasure. But despite the sheer amount of wealth in this room, my eyes went straight to the black lacquered box sitting on one of the shelves.

  "So, it's still here," I murmured, picking it up. I flipped the latch up, opened the box, and stared into the empty space where Lessie's egg had once rested. Emotion surged in my chest as I remembered that fateful day, the thrilling combination of terror and elation that had erupted inside me when that egg had hatched, when I held Lessie’s tiny body in my arms for the first time.

  “It is.” Tavarian squeezed my shoulder gently in support. “Do you want to take it with you?”

  I hesitated, then placed the box firmly back on the shelf. “No, the dragons will be overloaded as it is.”

  “Then it will be waiting for us when we come back,” Tavarian declared. I wished I shared his confidence in our return, then frowned at myself. Why shouldn’t I be just as optimistic? Attitude tended to be the key difference between success and failure—I’d executed enough heists to know that.

  “Yes, it will,” I said, and then we turned our attention to the remainder of the vault. "There's enough treasure in here to fund a war campaign if we could sell all this stuff," I said, "but since there's no easy way to fence it, I'd suggest we just take all the coin and anything that's gold or silver that we can melt down or trade."

  "Agreed," Tavarian said. "But we still need to figure out what we will give the Porcillas family in exchange for the horn." He tapped his chin as he considered. "Ferrying food to them will be awfully cumbersome, and now that we have the orphans, I am reluctant to part with any of that.”

  I considered for a moment, then remembered the bow the chieftain had trained on me. "You have to have an armory here, don't you?"

  Tavarian's eyes brightened as he caught on to my idea. "Ah, yes. The weapons the Porcillas family took from the estate are the reason they have the advantage over the other tribes in the first place. It is only natural that they would want more."

  We went to the armory, and sure enough, Tavarian had a sizable store of weapons—enough swords, shields, and daggers to arm at least two hundred people.

  "Not enough to outfit the entire Porcillas tribe," I said as I balanced a dagger in my palm, testing the blade's weight, "but then again, I don't think I want to give them all weapons." The last thing we needed was for them to get cocky and try to come after us.

  "Neither do I," Tavarian said. He drew a short sword and sliced through the air, nodding in satisfaction as he executed a few experimental strikes on an imaginary opponent. "It is not necessary to give them this many for a fair trade anyway. We should bring some for our own people, and perhaps hold on to a few to trade with the other tribes."

  Great. So now we were becoming arms dealers. I wasn't exactly comfortable with that, but we needed that horn.

  "That horn better be an actual weapon, or I'm going to be pissed," I muttered.

  "You and me both," Tavarian agreed. He spun around and flung the blade across the room, where it sank straight into the center of a waiting target. The motion was graceful, effortless...and full of anger, I realized as I stared at Tavarian's clenched jaw. "You and me both."

  12

  The first night on Tavarian's island was the best night of sleep I'd had in a week. I wasn't sure if it was because the dragon god was too tired to bother me, or because we'd put the pieces of heart in Tavarian's magically sealed vault, but I slept through the night without a single nightmare.

  “Mmm,” I purred as Tavarian trailed warm, feather-light kisses down the back of my neck. His touch awakened a primal need inside me, and I arched into him, reaching back to skim my hand down his very naked thigh. “I could get used to this, you know.”

  His answering chuckle vibrated against the back of my neck, and sparks raced across my skin as he slid one hand up to cup my breast and the other between my legs. Foreplay quickly turned into a passionate bout of lovemaking, and I embraced the waves of pleasure as they rushed through me, clearing the cobwebs from my mind and filling me with buoyant optimism.

  "I know we're still in enemy territory," I said as I lounged in Tavarian’s embrace afterward. "But this is the best damn wake-up call I've had in a long time."

  He laughed, his hand skimming up my bare abdomen. My skin tingled as he traced lazy swirls over my left hip, and my blood heated all over again. "We could go for a second round—" he started, but a growl from his own stomach cut him off.

  I laughed as I patted his belly. "We have other needs to take care of. Besides, we should check in on everybody and make sure they're all right. The children have been through quite an ordeal."

  "The housekeeper would have come to tell me if anything was wrong," Tavarian said. But he rolled off the bed and headed to his massive walk-in closet on the other side of the room.

  I took a minute to enjoy the very fine view, then reluctantly dragged myself from the bed to wash and dress.

  On our way to the formal dining room, a wave of alarm raced down the bond.

  "Zara!" Lessie cried. "Three airships are approaching!"

  "Shit!" I gave Tavarian the message, then bolted for the stairwell. "Warn the others!" I shouted at him.

  He ran in the other direction as I raced up the stairs and out the nearest window. My hands nearly froze as they gripped the icy roof edge. With winter here, the weather on Tavarian's island was downright frigid, but I ignored it and hauled myself onto the roof.

  Sure enough, a small flotilla of airships approached the island. "Lessie," I started, but I didn't even have to finish my thought. The three dragons shot into the
air, glittering red, gold, and blue in the late morning sunshine. They spread their wings wide as they lined up to face the ships, both to make themselves look more menacing and to form a barrier in case one of them decided to try and take a shot at the house with those cannons. My heart slammed against my rib cage as I gripped my dagger, feeling powerless. The ships were out of range, but if they got close enough...

  But the ships seemed to decide that getting in range of dragon fire was not worth whatever damage they might take. Faster than I thought possible, they turned tail and raced away.

  "Well, that was anticlimactic," Lessie said, sounding quite disappointed. "I was looking forward to taking down a few more of those."

  I sighed. "I guess the Zallabarians have decided to make their move on the floating islands sooner than anticipated.” I sincerely hoped they wouldn't come back with more ships—we could fight off a few, but three dragons were no match for an armada.

  When I returned inside the house to discuss the situation with the others, they seemed relieved.

  "Those ships weren't flying Zallabarian colors," Jallis pointed out. "It's quite possible they were from another country, coming to investigate."

  "But why?" Rhia asked. "Who would dare invade our airspace like that and risk angering the Zallabarians?"

  "There are many reasons," Tavarian said. "The neighboring countries will want to know the extent of the occupation and how many resources the Zallabarians are expending. A smart general with the right resources could see this as a time to strike, while Zallabar is spread too thin and has not yet mobilized the resources of the country it has conquered."

  "That's just what we need," Jallis grumbled. "Another country trying to take our land."

  The next few days remained tense as we made a slow circuit around the country, but we encountered no other airships as we traveled to the hidden estate. To our relief, the old couple who ran Tavarian’s estate were alive and well, the estate itself untouched by the war. There was a very heartfelt goodbye between us and the orphanage staff and children, particularly on Mrs. Thomas’s part. If not for both the orphanage’s and Tavarian’s staff assuring her they were sufficient to take care of the orphans, I wasn’t sure she would have left them at all.