Quint turned at the sound of rustling leaves. Instead of a black-cloaked Shade, a woman emerged, a tawdry pack slung over her shoulder and a tattered green scarf about her head. Her soiled and threadbare clothes hung loose from her frame as she moved toward the fire with the subdued gait common to refugees. What’s a refugee doing here, alone, at night?
The woman pulled back the scarf, revealing ginger curls cut to just below her chin and a deep purple birthmark that spread upward from her jaw like a battle scar across her freckled face. Her eyes, though, commanded his attention. Framed by wrinkles and the dark rings of an abiding fatigue, the radiant blue spheres shone with a vitality at odds with the rest of her appearance. Dermot snapped to attention, and Quint realized his mistake.
“You requested a meeting?” The Shades’ leader was a head shorter than Quint. She stood, hands on hips, impatient for his response.
“I’m sorry. I—” he blurted an apology cut short.
“I’ve neither time nor patience for excuses.” Her voice was as sharp as a freshly honed blade. “What of your progress with the Dragonborn?”
What progress? The Dragonborn’s leader, a woman covered head to toe with tattoos and brands of the sacred symbols of her people, seemed to view his presence as a favor to the Shades. In three moons, the Mother, as the Dragonborn called her, had consented to only two meetings. During both she’d exhibited complete disinterest in his advice. She’d arranged for Quint’s food and shelter, but he was otherwise ignored. He was stuck, deep in the Fringe, as an unwanted adviser to a backward tribe. As a Shade, Quint felt as much a fraud as when he’d been living in the temple.
“There’s nothing to tell,” he admitted. “The Mother refuses to meet or take any action. I believe she and her elders doubt the war will come.”
The woman’s nose wrinkled in disgust. “And you need my assistance to gain her attention?”
“I’d like to request a new assignment—one closer to the action, where I could contribute.”
In one rapid motion, she grabbed the neck of his shirt and yanked him down so they stood eye to eye. “You’d have me—” she emphasized every word—“reassign a boy, who’s accomplished nothing in three moons, to a position of greater importance?” She released Quint’s collar with such force he stumbled backward. “You’re too used to your father’s sycophants. Here, respect is earned, not inherited.”
She stomped away, shaking her head and mumbling under her breath, but paused at the edge of the clearing. “In case you’re thinking of running home, know that would be treated as desertion.” The Shades’ success in the field relied on surprise. That surprise required secrecy. They wouldn’t risk a deserter revealing their secrets.
Dermot stared at the flickering reflection of the firelight on his boots as the crunch of her footsteps disappeared. “She’s friendlier once you get to know her—a little.”
You should’ve warned me! Quint was shaken but stifled the urge to lash out. With Dermot leaving in the morning, he didn’t want to make matters uncomfortable between them. Instead, he sat down next to his friend to watch the fire die and let his anger subside.
“Did you have me assigned here?” he asked a while later. He’d wrestled with the question since first learning of his placement with the Dragonborn.
As usual, Dermot paused, as if needing to inspect the words in his mind prior to speaking them. People often mistook this slowness of speech for slow-wittedness, but Quint believed it due to the caution with which he’d needed to speak while a slave. This particular pause, though, stretched longer than usual. “You wouldn’t like the front.” Dermot exhaled the words as if he’d held them, and his breath, for some time. “This is a good place—a better place.”
The indirect answer was all Quint needed to know the truth. His question, though, had left Dermot wearing the same anguished look he’d worn while in chains. That look had upset Quint as a child. He couldn’t bear it now. “Thanks for watching out for me,” he said, relaxing Dermot’s strained expression.
Quint thought back to the day he’d freed Dermot, and flushed with shame at the loyalty he accepted from the ex-slave. Instead of freeing Dermot due to the strength of his convictions, he’d done it only to spite his father.
Had the tellers known? Did they foresee I’d steal the key and open the shackles? How many lives were affected by that moment of defiance? Certainly my own—in ways I could have never predicted.
Welloch, Chapter 12
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The dragons will return. Every Tunga death will be repaid one hundredfold, and smoke will billow from sand to sea as their enemies burn.
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—Excerpt from the Tungresh,
the sacred scrolls of the Dragonborn
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Welloch
Two Moons Later
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“Stop fooling with those boxes and get to work!”
Nikla pretended she’d not heard her aunt’s call and continued to arrange the offering to the Dragonbrother. She’d just placed the last cricket leg when she noticed her aunt behind her, arms crossed and scowling.
“Girl, I’ve half a mind to whip you raw.”
You’ve got half a mind, all right. “Going now.” Nikla slid the offering boxes next to the door and hustled toward the fields.
“If it wasn’t for your uncle, I’d name you Forsaken.”
If not for my uncle, I’d declare myself Forsaken. Nikla loathed her aunt, though she was admittedly very late that morning. By the time she reached the fields and her uncle’s plot, every other parcel was being worked. The rows of herbs and vegetables were full of women wearing the straight-cut flaxen frocks of the peasant caste, bobbing as they pulled the weeds from the soil. From a distance, they looked like birds pecking for bugs.
Nikla surveyed the plot that was her responsibility and flipped her braid of black hair over her shoulder. After several days of rain, the weeds were as tall as the plants. She’d need to work through the midday meal, and still wouldn’t finish before dark.
“Morning, dear.” Widow Estling’s faded brown eyes smiled at her from behind a weathered facade of wrinkles. She was as agreeable as Nikla’s aunt was unpleasant. Nikla thought, not for the first time, how different life would be had her uncle remarried with the widow instead.
“Morning.” Nikla pressed her hands together in front of her chest with a slight bow of her head, the custom when greeting one older. Only seventeen turns last moon, she sometimes felt she spent half her day bowing. “Good to have the sun back.”
“Not for the weeds.” The widow had cleared a full row and was halfway through the second. “Seems they rather enjoyed the soaking.”
“If only the vegetables would grow as fast.” Nikla hiked up her own frock—an oversized hand-me-down—and hopped over two rows to the stewing beans. The beans were the slugs’ favorite, which made them decidedly her least favorite plant. Intending to get them out of the way first, she squatted and worked her way down the row. She cleared the weeds then made a second pass, squashing the slugs between two flat rocks she moved along with her.
The sun was already high in the sky by the time the first row was weeded and de-slugged. She stood to stretch her back and felt the sting of a burn forming on her cheeks and nose. In her rush to leave the house, she’d forgotten her hat. For a moment, she considered returning to retrieve the wide-brimmed cover before starting the next row, but resigned herself to suffer a burn rather than face her aunt again. She smeared some of the dark, wet dirt over the most vulnerable spots, then slid over to the split row of potatoes and peas.
Nearly finished with the second row, she noticed the fields had become unusually quiet. “What’s going on?” she called out to the widow as she stood to wipe the sweat fr
om her brow. When she saw the white-robed figure approaching, she dropped the fistful of weeds and joined the other workers in lowering her eyes.
“Child,” the Daughter, hood pulled low to shield her from the sun, spoke when she reached the piled weeds beside the line of beans. Although a turn younger than Nikla, the Daughter, like the Mother whom she’d one day replace, referred to the rest of the Dragonborn as children.
“Daughter.” Nikla pressed her chin into her sweat-soaked chest. What does she want with me? Is this my aunt’s doing?
“Mother requests your presence.” The Daughter spoke softly, but with a practiced enunciation that differentiated her from the common castes.
The Mother? It must be something serious. Despite the midday sun, Nikla’s shoulders pressed forward in a shiver. “I’ll clean up, change, then come right away.”
“No. Go now. Mother awaits you in the GreatHall.” The girl returned the way she’d come, not needing to wait for confirmation.
Nikla kept her eyes lowered until she was gone. There was a time when she would have joined Aila—the girl’s name before she’d been selected as heir—and chatted together on the way. They’d both been raised in the same middle caste, and were once friends. But that was before the accident. Now Aila was the Daughter, and Nikla, a peasant.
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“Come in.” The Mother stopped in mid-conversation to welcome Nikla. The two elders with whom she’d been speaking gave a cursory bow before turning to leave, their grim faces indicating displeasure with the result of the audience. As they left, they skirted Nikla like they might a snake in the grass, giving her a wide berth. She looked away from their glares, her face still streaked with dirt. Her furious attempts to scratch her cheeks clean had only further reddened her complexion.
“Come in,” the Mother repeated. She stood, regal, the intricate tattoos on her face and arms in stark contrast to her simple
white robe.
Nikla tugged on her braid as she stepped forward, her sweat and soil-stained field clothes conspicuous in the formality of the GreatHall. “You wished to see me, Mother?”
Spurning the cushioned platform intended for audiences, the leader of the Dragonborn sat cross-legged on the floor and motioned for Nikla to join her. “Do you remember the symbols?” She traced her finger along one of the ancient symbols of their language inlaid in the mosaic floor. The symbols had long ago been replaced by the Allyrian alphabet, and were now used only for rituals and decoration.
“Yes, Mother.” The accident made me a peasant, not illiterate. Before her mother’s death, Nikla had studied the symbols with her daily, tracing them over and over again in a box of sand.
“And the histories?”
Her mother had been a scholar and loved sharing the stories of their people’s past. “You must learn the past to navigate the future” had been one of her favorite sayings.
“Yes, Mother.” Nikla had no idea where the line of questioning was leading, nor what punishment waited at the end. Nervous, she stretched her throbbing fingers. She’d nearly rubbed off their skin in an effort to clean them on the walk to the GreatHall. Yet they remained stained, as if the dirt had claimed her as its own.
“Have you heard about the young Botheran the Shades sent to provide counsel?”
Few travelers ventured deep enough into the Fringe to reach the Dragonborn. Any visitor was news. She’d only seen the handsome foreigner in his formal blue and gold robes a couple times, both at a distance. She’d overheard plenty of gossip, though, about the young prince with sun-lightened brown hair and flecks of gold in his eyes. Of course. He’s the fantasy of every single girl in Welloch. Many who are married as well. “I have, Mother.”
“Have you met him?”
“No, Mother. He’s a prince. It wouldn’t be proper.”
“A prince?” the tattooed leader chuckled. “Girls are no different now than in my youth. He is no prince. Bothera has no king.”
“Yes, Mother.” He’s as close to a prince as I’ve ever seen.
The leader reached out her hand and placed a spirally tattooed finger under Nikla’s chin, gently lifting it so her eyes no longer sought the floor. “I have an important task for you.”
“Yes, Mother?” Maybe I’m not being punished. Maybe they need someone to wash his clothes or clean his quarters! Her enthusiasm with the prospect began to displace the dread with which she’d entered the GreatHall.
“This young adviser is eager, but ignorant. He knows nothing of our history or traditions. A man who would give advice without understanding is a fool. But fool or not, there are those who might choose to gain his favor in order to manipulate him. I want you to teach him.”
Nikla inhaled sharply. “But I’m an orphan—a peasant who works the fields. Surely there are others better-suited?”
“The first Mother was also an orphan.”
The first Mother was no peasant. She was the child of a Bone Reader and sister to the Dragonbrother. “Yes, Mother.”
The tattooed leader stood and leaned against the platform as if the conversation had drained her. “Go to his tent in the morning. He will be expecting you.”
A host of questions raced through Nikla’s mind, colliding in a knot of joyous confusion. But Nikla was not in a position to ask those questions. “Yes, Mother.” She stood and bowed—not a simple head nod, but a deep bend of her body—then backed away before turning to leave. Her steps were measured, her hands flexed, her teeth dug into her lower lip—all to keep from jumping and skipping from the GreatHall.
She was halfway across the polished expanse of the stone floor when the Mother called to her. “And Nikla, I am counting on you to do whatever you must to make him understand.”
Welloch, Chapter 13
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After their creation by Amon, the Stewards tended her land. They commanded the elements—earth, water, wind, fire —and spoke with the beasts. They were part of the land, bonded as plants are to the dirt that succors them. Secure within the borders the Makers had formed—the Crags, the Poison Water, the Endless Sand—the Stewards maintained harmony, the delicate balance between hunter and prey, destruction and growth, death and birth.
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But as ages slipped like grains through a sieve, the borders failed. Dragons, the fearsome spawn of the Maker, Steppe, were the first of the other races to reach the Land of Amon. Then, like ants drawn to ripened fruit, Man, the race created by Jah, arrived. Men stumbled, parched and pitiful, from the desert sands and washed ashore like drift from the ocean.
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Wherever the intruders settled, strife followed. Still, the peace-loving Stewards accommodated them. But Man multiplied and spread along the streams and rivers like the venom of an ardor asp through the veins of its prey. When these settlements encroached on the domain of the Dragons, a conflict arose the Stewards could not forestall. The Dragon Discord marked the end of the Age of Harmony.
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—The Fei Archives:
History of the Land of Amon
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Welloch
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For the third time, Quint ignored the tapping on the entry flap and continued to stare at the ceiling of his tent. The Mother had sent word a teacher would come, but with the reasoning of a petulant child, he’d resolved to ignore whomever she sent. I came to Welloch to advise, not be lectured.
The furs on the floor were his only comfort, and Quint was steeling himself to wait out the conflict in their soft embrace. Since the disastrous meeting with the Shades’ leader, he’d left his tent only once each day—for food and, when full, to empty his chamber pot. Though surrounded by people, he lived as a rec
luse, stewing in the despondency that now took every thought captive—wallowing in regret for decisions past.
His reward for forswearing his life of comfort and privilege was this prison deep within the Fringe. It was too late to return to Bothera. Even if the Shades didn’t brand him a deserter, his father would never forgive his deception. He felt abandoned by all—the Shades, the Dragonborn, his father, the Order, even the well-meaning Dermot.
“Hello?” The sunburnt face of a young woman poked through the tent flap. “The Mother said you’d be expecting me.” She was younger than he’d expected—probably a couple turns his junior—with black hair pulled into a tight braid that tugged at the corners of her dark eyes. As her nostrils filled with the stale air in the tent, she scrunched her sunburnt face.
Quint took in the sun-browned skin and plain field clothes. She’s the teacher? The Mother sent a peasant to lecture me? He assumed the selection was intended as an insult. “Am I to learn to plant vegetables?”
Like a deer catching the hint of a predator in the wind, the woman’s eyes widened. He expected her to bolt, but the harsh words seemed to embolden her. “I’m sorry to disappoint, but the feeling’s mutual.” Careful not to spill its contents, she slid the chamber pot to the side with her foot and stepped inside. She wore simple clothes, and was unadorned but for a bone hair comb. However, her eyes, though common in color, shone with a captivating intensity. “I’m here to teach the history and customs of my people, but I do know how to farm if you’re interested.”
Back home in Bothera, even after failing the Rites of the Order and in the midst of his crisis of faith, Quint had been regarded as good-natured and cheerful. His hopeless situation with the Dragonborn had soured his mood to the point he hardly recognized the spiteful and melancholy person he’d become. “I’ll heed your instructions as your Mother heeds my advice. Go ahead, tell the wind where to blow.”
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