“There it was again,” he mused, apparently to himself.
“What?” asked Jocelyn nervously, although she was pretty sure she knew. She could feel the power coming out with her words just as surely—and just as inexplicably—as she could sense that it was having no hint of its usual impact on her most unusual hearer.
“There’s something surprising about your words,” said the dragon patiently. “And it takes a great deal to surprise a dragon.” He gave her a searching look, and she tried not to fidget. “It’s almost as though they have magic. But that can’t be the case.”
Jocelyn remained silent.
“Say something,” prompted Elddreki, the moonlight bouncing off his scales as he shifted slightly, as if making himself comfortable for a fascinating show.
“I…what do you want me to say?”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Elddreki calmly. “Say anything you want to say. Just speak.”
For a moment Jocelyn just blinked. The invitation was such a contradiction to the one inflexible rule by which she lived. Say anything she wanted to say? She felt a sudden urge to laugh, followed instantly by a rush of the agonizing loneliness that was her constant companion.
“Anything I want,” she repeated, her voice not quite steady as she looked away from Elddreki, staring out into the darkness.
“All right. The tension about the freedmen can’t be coming from nowhere. It must have a source, and we should be trying harder to find what that source is. Calling together a council of nobles isn’t a bad idea, exactly, but it’s not a very complete solution. It could make the freedmen feel like they’re being talked about without giving them the chance to have their own say. People get very frustrated when they can’t have their say, and I should know. What Father should do is identify the main complainers—it seems strange and sinister to me that it’s so hard to identify who is really voicing these complaints. Then he should get them in a room with some of the key leaders from the freedmen. Do it without the audience of the whole court, and let them argue it out, with him there to mediate. It would be a good place to start.”
She took a deep breath, changing topics abruptly and disregarding how the energy of her words was building as she barreled on, speaking much too quickly.
“Eamon and Luciana are perfect for each other, and everyone can see it. It’s not as though I want her to start mooning over him every time we’re together, but of course I want her to become my sister, and I don’t mind talking to her about him. And Eamon is being an idiot. He should have more faith in her than to think her interest in him is at risk from me speaking to her about it. As if it’s not bad enough that I can’t even tease my best friend about her love life, it stings that he of all people is muzzling me. How could he do it? He’s supposed to be the one person who I don’t have to explain anything to, who doesn’t put any restrictions on me.”
Her voice was growing stronger and even faster, throbbing with the intensity of the torrent now that the dam had burst.
“And why does that Kincaid have to make small talk all day? Can’t he use his imagination and figure out that I’m desperate to know what Bryford is like? All that wasted opportunity to give me some useful information, to prepare me for whatever I’m walking into. He says he can tell I don’t want to be alone.”
She snorted at no one in particular. “How perceptive! Of course I don’t want to be alone! What am I, a hermit crab? Who would want to spend their life alone?! It’s all right for him to be so cheerful and unconcerned, wandering across the kingdoms with no responsibilities. He wants to talk to me, does he? Befriend me? Acting like we can relate to one another because we’re both outsiders here. As if he could ever imagine how far apart our lives are. It must be nice to be so free—I couldn’t be less free if I was locked in a cage!”
The last word burst from her with unnecessary force. She could feel the energy behind her words racing out and away, but the dragon was clearly unaffected. She fell abruptly silent, breathing hard, torn between embarrassment at her unprovoked complaints and overwhelming relief at the release of tension. Such an outburst was unprecedented for her, at least since childhood.
Elddreki had listened in silence to her tirade, his fascination clear in his eyes even in the darkness.
“What a curious combination of thoughts to voice,” he observed. “It felt as though you had been trying to hold back an avalanche with your bare hands, and were relieved to finally give up and be swept away.”
Jocelyn laughed weakly. “Yes, it did feel a bit like that.”
She glanced up at the beast, intrigued. Perhaps there was something in the generational friendship philosophy of the dragons. Because she could find no other explanation for how comfortable she felt around Elddreki, a creature who logically should terrify her. Perhaps it was because she had just shared her thoughts with him more than she had with anyone but Eamon for years, but it really did feel as though he was a friend, despite the fact that they had just met.
Elddreki was still regarding her unblinkingly. “There’s definitely something strange about your words, young Jocelyn. I thought I knew all there was to know about humans, but I do not have any idea what it is.”
Jocelyn felt herself deflating. She hadn’t dreamed that she would actually encounter a dragon on her way through the mountains, so it wasn’t exactly that she had built up hopes that had now been disappointed. But it was still discouraging to discover that even an actual dragon couldn’t tell her the secret of her words.
“If you figure it out,” she said heavily, “please let me know.”
“Well, I will certainly try to figure it out,” said Elddreki comfortably.
“You will?” Jocelyn asked, her head snapping up in surprise. “Truly?”
“Of course,” said Elddreki, his eyes widening slightly. “You are a fascinating mystery.”
Jocelyn wasn’t sure how to respond to being described in such terms by a magical creature out of legend, but she was spared the necessity to reply because Elddreki pushed calmly on.
“I imagine there will be ample opportunity for me to contemplate the question as we travel together.”
“Travel together?” repeated Jocelyn, startled.
“Yes, we will need to travel.” The dragon seemed to sense her confusion, because he paused. “Presumably you are here to fulfill our agreement?”
“I…well, no,” said Jocelyn lamely, not liking to remind him that she had already told him that she didn’t know about the supposed agreement.
Elddreki gave her an incredulous look. “Then why are you in the mountains?”
“I’m just passing through,” Jocelyn explained quickly. “On my way to Bryford, in Valoria.”
“But surely you humans generally prefer to cross the border further south, using your highway,” said Elddreki mildly.
“Well, yes,” Jocelyn admitted. “But I requested to come through the mountains. I wanted to visit Montego.”
“Why?” Elddreki probed patiently.
“Because…I suppose because it’s in the mountain region, which is supposed to have, you know…”
“Magic?” suggested Elddreki, and she nodded. “By which you mean dragon magic?”
“Well, of course,” said Jocelyn cautiously.
“So you specifically chose to come through the mountains, now, because of the region’s proximity to dragons?”
“I suppose so,” said Jocelyn, and the dragon gave a satisfied nod.
“Like I said, you’re here to fulfill our agreement.”
“But…”
“Your father said he would be glad to assist me in whatever way he could, and I suggested that he come and find me in twenty of your years. And here you are, right on time. Well,” Elddreki cocked his head to one side, thinking. “Perhaps a year or so early, even. But it was not an exact arrangement.”
Jocelyn frowned. “It does seem a strange coincidence,” she began, but she stopped as Elddreki once again made the unnerving laughing sound.
<
br /> “Humans are so fond of that word,” he chuckled. “It is a purely human concept, I assure you.” He smiled down at her, his expression slightly indulgent. “Having established that it falls to you to fulfill the agreement, are you ready to begin? Will you join me?”
Jocelyn hesitated for only a moment, staring up at the vast reptilian form in the moonlight. Did she dare? Did she have a choice?
“Yes,” she said steadily. “I will.”
Chapter Seven
Jocelyn looked out over the vista before her, a frown creasing her forehead. It was a pleasant enough view, with the rocky slopes descending rapidly from where she stood to the level ground far below where the broad waters of the Great River glittered in the morning sun. The pastureland on the other side of the river looked unremarkable, much like the approach to the mountains on the western side—the Kyonan side. But Jocelyn knew that the similarity was deceptive. The land she could see on the other side of the river was not her familiar homeland.
It was Valoria.
The neighboring kingdom had occupied her thoughts almost constantly over the last several weeks, the topic creating a bewildering array of emotions. But since hearing Darius’s unsettling fireside tale about Princess Sarai, who so unwillingly became a Valorian, Jocelyn had felt nothing but apprehension at the name.
Still, that wasn’t what brought the frown to her face now. Her uncertainty about her future was not the most pressing of Jocelyn’s concerns.
“You look troubled, young princess.”
Elddreki’s voice made her jump. She had not realized the dragon was so close behind her. He moved with astonishing stealth for a creature of his size. Jocelyn was silent for a prolonged moment, weighing her words, before suddenly remembering that she didn’t need to be careful what she said around her new companion.
“Yes,” she acknowledged. “I do feel troubled.”
“By what?”
“Well…” she hesitated. “I don’t mean to suggest that I’m not pleased to be traveling with you. But I’m concerned about my family. I’ve been thinking about just how alarmed they’ll be when it’s reported to them that I went missing from Montego. Let alone what the Valorians will think. They’ll probably assume I ran away rather than follow through with my visit to their castle. How could they not be offended? I just hope I’m not creating a crisis between the two kingdoms.”
The matter had indeed been weighing heavily on her ever since she had set out with Elddreki. It had been more than a day since her surreal meeting with the dragon the night she left Montego. She had discovered from Elddreki that in her trance-like state she had walked several hours, meaning that only a couple of hours remained before dawn. The dragon had solicitously found her a sheltered place to sleep for those remaining hours, but they had set off not long after the sun had risen, and walked all the next day.
Jocelyn had been so tired by that following night that she had slept deeply even on the hard rocky shelf where they stopped to rest. And now that the sun had risen, she could see that the day of hard walking had paid off. They were almost at the edge of the mountains.
But the further she traveled from the original route of her cavalcade, the more uneasy she became. Conversation had been surprisingly lacking, Elddreki seeming as quiet by habit as Jocelyn herself. He had asked her a number of questions throughout the day, all aimed at trying to understand the mysterious power of her speech. Accordingly he seemed more interested in listening to her voice than in the words she spoke. But other than setting their course northeast, he volunteered no information about the nature of their quest, and Jocelyn hadn’t liked to ask.
Which had given her far too much time to reflect on the consequences of her hasty decision to abandon her companions and join Elddreki.
“Will your family really be so worried?” asked Elddreki, apparently fascinated. “What will they be worried about?”
“Well, that…that something has happened to me, I suppose,” said Jocelyn haltingly.
Elddreki seemed to be waiting for more, but she wasn’t sure how to explain something that she found so obvious to a creature who she believed to be infinitely superior to her in understanding.
“Something? Like what?” the dragon prompted. “That you got injured? But most injuries heal, don’t they?”
“Well…well, yes,” admitted Jocelyn. “If they’re not too severe. But they might not think I got injured. They might think I got lost, or abducted by someone, or even, you know…”
“No I don’t,” said Elddreki placidly when she trailed off.
“Died,” Jocelyn supplied, and Elddreki looked more fascinated than ever.
“Would they really think, just because they don’t know where you are, that you had died? How interesting.”
Jocelyn shrugged, uncomfortable. The whole thing might be a curious study in human nature to Elddreki, but her conscience was pricking her at the very idea of her parents and brother being afraid that she had met an untimely end in the mountains.
“I’m not saying they’ll assume the worst, but my father is something of a worrier.”
“Yes, I remember observing that,” said Elddreki reminiscently. “But then, humans are always worrying about something.” He turned his penetrating gaze on her. “But I still don’t entirely understand. If the worst thing they might imagine is that you’re dead, is that really such a catastrophe?”
“Uhh…” Jocelyn blinked.
“What I mean is,” Elddreki clarified kindly, apparently taking pity on her confusion, “aren’t you going to die anyway, in only a few short decades? I thought humans invariably did.”
“Well, yes,” said Jocelyn, fighting a sudden urge to laugh at the absurdity of this conversation. “We do all eventually die. But that doesn’t mean we’re in a hurry to get there.”
“Really?” said Elddreki, still sounding fascinated. “But humans are always in such a hurry to do everything else.”
“Are…are we?” asked Jocelyn, and Elddreki nodded wisely. “Well…” Jocelyn considered the point. “I suppose we are often in a hurry to get to things we think are good. But we tend to think of death as a bad thing.”
“Hmm,” said Elddreki, as he thought this over. “Yes. I suppose I can understand that. Many dragons feel the same way, after all.”
“Do they?” asked Jocelyn, surprised. “I thought you couldn’t die. Or is that myth?”
“No, no,” said Elddreki vaguely. “It’s not myth. I can’t die, or at least, it’s almost impossible.” He returned his attention to his companion. “But you have to die, as you said. And at best you can hope for what, fifty more years? Sixty perhaps? It seems a short time to me. Would the loss of those years truly be such a disaster in the eyes of your family?”
“Yes,” said Jocelyn firmly. “It would. A huge disaster. My parents see me as little more than a child, and they would be devastated if something terrible were to happen to me.”
“Because humans have an extra instinct of protection when it comes to children,” said Elddreki, nodding as if pleased with his inside information. “I’ve observed that.”
Jocelyn looked up at him curiously. He had settled on a rocky ridge next to her, his tail curled around his feet and his head bent low to facilitate their conversation. His form looked altogether too fierce to be real, but his expression was benign. She shook her head to clear it.
“Don’t dragons feel the same way about their young?” she asked, and was surprised by the look of sadness that passed over Elddreki’s features.
“I don’t know,” he said simply. “I’ve never seen a dragonling. No one has in a long time.”
Jocelyn was tempted to ask more, but something in Elddreki’s expression discouraged her. The dragon was silent for a long minute, then he shook himself out abruptly. The motion, which was accompanied by a continuous rattling sound, started at his head and passed over his shoulders and down his back, all the way to the tip of his tail.
“Well, daughter of kings,” he said li
ghtly. “If you wish to allay your family’s alarms, it seems to me that it can be easily achieved if I just tell your father that you’re with me. Then he will know that you’re not lost, or injured, or dead, and he can tell the rest of your family. Will that reassure them, do you think?”
“Yes,” said Jocelyn, surprised. “I think that would reassure them. But how will you get a message to my father? Are you suggesting that we go to Kynton before continuing on our journey?”
“Of course not,” said Elddreki calmly. “We don’t need to go to Kynton to talk to your father. I could visit his dreams, as I did yours, but I think it is unnecessary to do so. He has a way to communicate with me.”
“He—he does?” asked Jocelyn, startled.
“Certainly,” said Elddreki. “It has been some time since I have spoken with him, but if he is as worried as you anticipate by the news that you disappeared in my mountains, I think he will contact me. I can then reassure him with the information that you are with me, fulfilling his agreement.” Elddreki’s expression suddenly became stern. “If he had not forgotten our arrangement, he could have anticipated this outcome, and saved himself unnecessary concern.”
Jocelyn didn’t quite agree that any such recollection would have made Elddreki’s interception of her journey predictable to her father, but she didn’t say so.
“What’s his way to communicate with you?” she asked instead.
Elddreki considered her for a long moment. “If he has not chosen to tell you about it, young princess, then I think I will not take it upon myself to do so.”
Jocelyn nodded, disappointed but not really surprised. “Well, at least he won’t be afraid that I’m dead,” she reflected. How long would it take her companions to get an urgent message to her father about her disappearance? Was someone riding hard for Kynton even now? Had they already arrived? “And he won’t blame the guards who were with me in Montego for letting me get away,” she added as an afterthought. “And I suppose he can send a message to the Valorians.”
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