The Dragon Gods Box Set

by Resa Nelson

  “You’re right.” Frayka now fidgeted while she paced. “And I slept so well last night! Of all nights, why couldn’t I have woken up from nightmares or tossed and turned?”

  GranGran chuckled.

  Distressed, Frayka muttered, “This isn’t funny. The lives of all the people who escaped the Northlands are at risk. They’ll die—I’ll die and Dagby, too—if I can’t find Norah and convince her to help me.”

  “Patience,” GranGran said. “All things have their proper time and place. Your time to call upon your portents for help will come tonight. In the meantime, why not help us shuck these sun grains?”

  Chagrined, Frayka knew GranGran was right. Frayka recognized her own desire to rush things along when she would be wiser to let them unfold in their own time. Frayka sat on the floor again and picked up a new ball to husk.

  Glancing at Dagby, Frayka noticed again how much her daughter looked like Njall. Shame washed over Frayka as she realized she hadn’t thought about her husband for quite a while. Part of her still wanted to leave this island and go back to the Far East mainland to search for him.

  But now Frayka had the responsibility not only of working with the dragon gods but also of taking care of Dagby. Now that she’d found a safe place for Dagby, Frayka wouldn’t risk taking the child back to the mainland—and Frayka had no plans to go anywhere without Dagby.

  CHAPTER 20

  After leaving the old man who claimed that Frayka had married a dragon god, Njall trudged up the mountain slope. Exhausted due to days of hiking and his decline in fitness, his steps became slower and slower. By the time Njall reached the peak, he collapsed on a boulder to rest, thankful no fellow Northlander could see his pitiful lack of stamina and ridicule him for it.

  The sun touched the horizon and colored the feathery clouds surrounding it yellow and orange. A flock of birds flew in silence, their silhouettes black against the colorful sky. A patch of dead grass at Njall’s feet rustled in the peaceful breeze.

  I have to find a place to sleep.

  Remembering the old man’s advice, Njall followed the path along the peak while looking for signs of a village on the coast below.

  The wind chilled his bones. With every moment that the sun sank lower beneath the horizon, the temperature dropped.

  Njall shivered.

  The cold never bothered me much before. But I’ve spent close to a year in a temperate city inside a warm and comfortable building. Have I lost my acclimation to cold weather? Have I turned into someone soft and weak?

  The thought troubled Njall. He had never known any Northlander to be soft or weak. If he became that way, how could he still call himself a Northlander?

  And if I’m not a Northlander, then what am I?

  During the past few days, Njall had discovered the mountains were rich with caves that provided good shelter at night. If he couldn’t find the village before daylight disappeared, maybe he could find a cave.

  But then he followed the curve of the path, which revealed the sight of an inlet below. There, Njall spotted a cluster of houses, a port, and a small harbor full of ships. Feeling a burst of joy, he hurried along the trail at the mountain’s peak until he found another one leading down toward the village.

  When Njall set foot on the downward trail, he hesitated.

  What if I’m heading toward trouble?

  Njall paused and considered the possible outcomes of arriving in a strange village at twilight.

  Considering the remoteness of the village, they probably had never seen a Northlander before. Laws of all kinds riddled the Far East, and Njall knew only a few of them.

  What if his presence broke a law? What if the villagers were so offended by that broken law that they took him back to Zangcheen and charged him in court?

  Now that the Emperor had died, that meant Empress Ti replaced him in hearing cases, determining a verdict, and doling out punishment.

  Njall didn’t want to face Empress Ti in court. Not after hanging the robe she’d forced him to wear as her concubine from the mast of a ship for all to see. She’d seen it by now and taken it as an insult.

  Njall had intended it to be one.

  Then he remembered the way the old man had reacted when seeing Njall earlier today. The old man had been frightened because he thought Njall was some kind of wild man.

  Njall looked at his own long hair and skin, their normal paleness stained dark with dirt and grime.

  Maybe it’s better to look like a wild man than a Northlander. Who would take a wild man to court? And for what reason?

  Then again, the people might attack and run him out of their village. If they assumed Njall to be a threat, they might even kill him.

  A cold gust blew, and Njall shuddered.

  He had already encountered many things in the Far East that made him feel endangered, such as the law calling for his death because he’d married a woman with Far Eastern blood. Following Madam Po’s advice, Njall had posed as Frayka’s servant. If anyone discovered they were husband and wife, the law called for them both to be killed.

  But then Njall thought about his time in the Hall of Concubines and the friendships he’d made with the other men who lived there. He liked them. He enjoyed their company. Njall didn’t agree with everything they thought, but he believed them to be good men at heart. At times he didn’t see much difference between the Far Eastern concubines and the Northlander men he knew back home in the Land of Ice.

  Njall stared at the village below and thought about the people he saw on its roads.

  Maybe they’re not much different than Northlanders either.

  Weighing the possibility of being sent to the Zangcheen court or driven out of town vs. the chance of being welcomed, Njall decided to take the risk of following the path down to the village below.

  * * *

  By the time Njall set foot in the port village, daylight had faded so much that the few people remaining outside looked like dark shadows. The villagers he’d seen puttering outside their homes had retired for the night. Only a few men lingered by their boats, appearing to secure them.

  Still thinking about the different ways in which these men might react to his presence, Njall walked slowly toward the dock.

  One of the men looked up as he walked away from his boat. He stopped in place and stared at Njall.

  Njall halted and stood still.

  “Who’s there?” the man called out.

  “A stranger in need of help,” Njall answered. He held his arms out to his side and showed empty hands to make sure the man knew Njall held no weapons.

  The other men on the dock looked up. One by one, they finished with their boats and gathered around the villager who first spoke to Njall. A couple of them lit lanterns, which illuminated their haggard and sea-worn faces. “Approach,” one of them said.

  Wanting to reassure the men that he posed no threat, Njall kept his arms out to his side and took slow and measured steps toward them.

  “He’s a wild man!” one the men said.

  “No,” the first man who saw Njall said. “Wild men don’t know how to talk. This man has a funny accent, but he’s a civilized man.”

  “I apologize for my appearance,” Njall said, still taking slow steps toward them. “I’ve been searching the mountains for days. I’m looking for my wife. She’s gone missing.”

  The men turned toward each other and all talked at once. The man who first spoke to Njall—the man who looked to be the oldest and most grizzled—shushed the others as if claiming seniority. To Njall, the grizzled man said, “Is your wife a tall one?”

  Njall’s heart leapt with hope. “Yes! Nearly as tall as me!”

  The men consulted with each other again. They argued briefly but then seemed to acquiesce to the wishes of the grizzled man, who took one of the lanterns and stood in place while the other men dispersed. They walked past Njall, through the village center, and then into separate homes.

  The grizzled man strolled from the dock, holding the l
antern with one hand and allowing it to swing by his side. Its light cast swinging beams from the dock to where Njall stood. “You say your wife is missing. But you say nothing of the child.”

  Njall’s heart raced. “My wife has gone missing for months. I didn’t know she was with child.”

  And now I don’t know whether the child is my mortal daughter or the monstrous offspring of a dragon god.

  The grizzled man studied Njall with the sharp eye of a hawk. “True enough. I saw the babe myself.”

  “Are they here?” Njall said. He felt so excited that he struggled to contain himself. Lowering his arms, he wrung his hands. “Can I see them?”

  The grizzled man shook his head. “They left before men from the royal city came looking for them.” He paused and corrected himself. “Men and one boy.”

  Njall shivered even though no cold wind blew. “Where did they go? How can I find them?”

  “No use looking at night,” the grizzled man said. “Impossible to find anyone in the dark.”

  “Please,” Njall said. “I have to find them. They could be in danger.”

  The grizzled man nodded. “That’s what I thought. It’s why I took them to a safer place. I can take you there but there’s no sense going now. There’s no way I can show you where I told them to go. It’s all too hard to see at night.” He walked past Njall toward a simple house. “There’s an extra sleeping pallet in the corner of my home. You’re welcome to it. We’ll set sail in the morning.”

  Njall hustled to keep up with the grizzled man, anxious that this stranger refused to give him immediate help, but grateful for a safe place to sleep and the promise of searching for Frayka and the baby tomorrow. His heart lightened with joy.

  The baby truly does exist.

  At the same time, distress gnawed at him.

  But is the child mine?

  CHAPTER 21

  The next morning, Empress Ti woke up to discover all of the other women in the home where she slept had disappeared. She stepped outside to see them gathering food from a garden on a terrace plot sliced into the mountainside above the village.

  Ti smiled at the sight. For a brief time last night, she’d sat down with all the women who lived in the house and talked. Ti felt too tired for serious topics and longed for a frivolous conversation. She’d delighted in hearing the women talk about the seasons and unpredictable weather and the babies the old women bore decades ago as well as the ones the young women hoped to have someday.

  For that brief time, Ti felt like a normal girl instead of an empress that must kill babies in order to stay alive.

  Walking back inside the empty house, Ti discovered a pot of steaming tea and a plate of berries on the low table that dominated the central room. She pulled up a floor pillow and sat at the table. Normally, Ti would have wolfed down the food. But this morning she hesitated, wondering if the food had been left for her or if she should wait for her hosts to return.

  What a ridiculous thought! I’m the empress of the Wulong Province, and everything in it belongs to me.

  Ti imagined what it would be like to have friends and to wait for them to join her before eating. The thought saddened her for a moment, but then she helped herself to the breakfast her hosts undoubtedly had arranged for Empress Ti alone. When Ti finished eating and began drinking her third cup of tea, the women of the house returned, led by the matron with the frazzled hair who had been the first to offer lodging to Ti last night.

  The women greeted Ti in an appropriate and respectful way, while at the same time exuding friendliness. After they put away all of the food they had gathered, two women peeled fist-sized purple gourds, cut them into thin slices, and then steamed them in a basket they placed above a fire pit outside.

  The other women hovered behind Ti, as if waiting to be ordered.

  Noting this, Ti swept her arms across the table, and said, “Please join me!”

  The young women giggled and rushed to sit close to the empress, while the older women smiled and sat farther away.

  Buoyed by the girls’ enthusiasm, Ti spoke more openly than she would have with men. “I would so appreciate your help. I need to find the woman who came here months ago. Her name is Frayka, and she’s my distant cousin. You would be helping the royal family so greatly if you can help me find her.”

  “My empress,” a young woman said in a shy voice. “What direction do you think she would take? Did she mean to return to Zangcheen?”

  Ti bristled out of habit. No one in Zangcheen would ever speak so directly or make the implication that if Frayka didn’t intend to return to Zangcheen that she didn’t want to go there. If Ti were in the royal complex right now, she would have grounds to take this young woman to court and charge her with the crime of Speaking Out of Turn with Royalty. Once Ti pronounced the young woman’s guilt, she would be whipped until blood ran down her back.

  But I’m not in Zangcheen. These women have lived in this remote mountain village all their lives. They’ve never met royalty before, and they don’t know how to act.

  How could I charge someone with a crime when they don’t understand the crime or even know that crime exists?

  How could it be fair to judge them and send them to be whipped?

  Empress Ti felt something soften inside her chest. Ti realized she liked this young woman’s forthrightness. Ti leaned toward her as if they shared a conspiracy. “That is the best question you could ask. I believe my distant cousin did not want to return to Zangcheen! She looks like us, but she’s not one of us. Frayka comes from the Land of Ice and thinks of herself as a Northlander!”

  The young women gasped in a most appropriate manner. The old women shook their heads and clucked.

  Another young woman hemmed, seeming to work up her courage to speak. Finally, she said, “If your cousin wanted to go somewhere other than Zangcheen, then where would she want to go?”

  Empress Ti enjoyed the company of these women more and more with every passing moment. “Another excellent question. I don’t know. When Frayka came to Zangcheen, a man accompanied her and claimed to be her servant. But I believe him to be her husband. He left Zangcheen, and I’m determined to find him.”

  “You, my empress?” The young woman who spoke clapped her hands over her mouth as if wishing she could take back her outburst.

  Ti waved away the woman’s concern as if shooing away bothersome gnats. “You are correct to be surprised. Normally, my guards would do it.”

  Before Ti told the story about Madam Po and TeaTree, she altered the facts. “When I learned that two people who colluded to help my distant cousin escape Zangcheen, I assumed the royal guards would find them. And they failed!”

  Ti leaned back and crossed her arms. “Now I know that if I truly want to have something done right, then I must do it myself.”

  One of the older women spoke up. “You say your cousin might have a husband. We’ve seen no husband here. Why would you come this way?”

  Ti gave the old woman a knowing look. “Because my cousin’s husband isn’t one of us. He’s a Northlander.”

  Some of the older women fretted, but the young ones looked confused.

  The woman who questioned Ti began to speak but then seemed to think better of it.

  She may know some of the laws. She may not know how to speak her question to me in a way that obeys the law.

  “Go ahead,” Ti said. “There will be no punishment for anything said to me inside these walls.”

  The old woman hesitated but then spoke. “If your cousin’s husband is a foreigner, then both their lives are at risk.”

  “Why?” a young woman piped up.

  “It’s the law,” Ti answered on behalf of the old woman. “And I’ve come here to find out if anyone here has seen a Northlander.”

  The women all clamored at once, but within minutes Ti learned that Njall had been in the village very recently.

  “I must find him,” Ti said. “Do you know where he went?”

  An older woman
scoffed. “Probably where Ling Lu and her mother went.”

  “Ling Lu?” Ti felt as if she were piecing a puzzle together. “Is she related to Luan Lu? The girl who came to Zangcheen to ask for my help?”

  “Her sister,” the older woman said. “Those Lu women always thought themselves higher and mightier than the rest of us. None of us complained when we sacrificed our daughters to the serpent dragon. None of us ever went to Zangcheen to bother the royal family about it.”

  “But Luan Lu did,” Ti said, noting disgust on the face of every woman in the room. “And after Luan Lu was killed by the serpent dragon, her sister and mother left. You know where they went.”

  “It’s just a legend,” a young woman whispered.

  “Legend?” Ti said. “What legend?”

  “Seahorse Island.” The older woman scoffed again. “Everyone knows it’s nothing but a fairy tale, but that Lu woman believed it all her life. She stole away in the night with her daughter. Where else could they be thinking of going?”

  Seahorse Island. I’ve never heard of such a place. It must be a local fairy tale, but maybe knowing it will help me figure out where Njall has gone.

  “Do you think my cousin’s husband went there, too?” Ti said.

  All of the women laughed but then hesitated as if thinking better of laughing at royalty.

  “I don’t understand,” Ti said. “Why do you think my question is funny?”

  “Not funny,” the older woman said. “But unexpected. The legend of Seahorse Island says it’s a place somewhat like our house.” She paused and gestured to all the women sitting at the table. “Seahorse Island is a land where only women are allowed to live. Any man who sets foot on the island without their permission is killed on the spot.”

  “You’re saying my cousin’s husband wouldn’t dare go to Seahorse Island,” Ti said. “But is it possible that my cousin did?”

  The women laughed again, more at ease this time. “Only if the island exists,” the older woman said.

  The empress continued moving the pieces of information from these women around in her mind until they began to make sense. “You said Ling Lu and her mother might have gone to Seahorse Island,” Ti said. “If it is a real island, how would they know how to get there?”