The sleek black dragon, he was lithe rather than muscular, almost vibrated, he was trembling and shaking so much.
M–My apologies. It just feels so good!
“Be that as it may,” she said, a smile curving her lips despite her best efforts, “you must remain aware of your surroundings. Your wing could hurt Kristina.”
His head whipped around to face her, and his eyes shone. I would never hurt Kristina!
“He’s fine as he is.” The girl in question continued to brush the hide under his left wing.
“Do you know how much that wing weighs?” Sharrah asked her before looking back at him. “Votan, you may not intend to hurt someone, but your body has a great deal of mass. A misplaced paw or wing could lead to broken bones.”
Listen to Sharrah, Votan. Karu stood several feet to his side, where Jemma dutifully brushed her. Karu’s amber hide darkened to chestnut at the extremities. Another of the new dragons, she was a former Departed. How would you feel if you accidentally hurt Kristina?
A quiet whine came from the black dragon.
“You all leave him alone,” Kristina said. “He gets the point.” She walked in front of him, reached up, and held his large head in her hands. “Don’t you, you big handsome boy?”
The whines stopped, his golden gaze fixed on her, and he let out a breath that fluttered her long hair. He nodded. I do. His large partially split tongue shot out and licked her face.
“Scamp!” Kristina laughed and wiped at the wetness.
Jemma paused in brushing Karu to look over and scowl. “Ugh. I better not taste dragon when we kiss.”
Kristina turned to her. “Oh, please. It’s not that bad. I rather don’t mind it, myself.” She stood, hands on her hips, head angled slightly up.
Jemma stared at her a moment, then started chuckling. “That dragon slobber all over your face is ruining your attempt at a haughty attitude. Why don’t you get back to work, lay-about.”
Kristina stuck out her tongue, and with laughs and smiles, they both got back to brushing.
“Ten pale says those four are going to be bond-pairs.”
Sharrah turned to the whisper, to Cheddar, and raised a brow. “Do you think me a fool? I’ll not take that wager.”
He laughed quietly. “A fool? Not at all. But your regained happiness might have caused you to slip up and accept.”
“Regained happiness?”
A wrinkle appeared between his brows. “For a little while before, uh, before the dragon show, you seemed . . . worried, I suppose?”
She pursed her lips. He knew it wasn’t the show that had concerned her, it was her mother. The worry had started again with the letter. Worry that was initially justified.
“But since then, you’ve been back to your old self.” He stepped behind and wrapped his arms around her. Chin resting on the top of her head, he held her close.
What exactly had happened after she’d fled her parents in the guest rooms, she still had no idea, but afterward, their attitudes were wonderfully different. She placed her arms over his. “I should thank you for whatever happened after I stormed out of there. One day, perhaps you’ll tell me?”
A chuckle thrummed against her back. “Maybe.”
She smiled and looked over the candidates.
Kristina and Jemma weren’t the only ones grooming dragons. Hunter and Renny were here, though today they brushed dragons other than their usual ones. Two other candidates were working on dragons, too, but their names she had yet to learn. And they weren’t the only ones. She didn’t know the names of any dragons here aside from Votan and Karu. There were so many members joining the guild and House, lately.
It made her a little sad—the comfortable group of half a dozen that they once were was a thing of the past—but it also made her excited. The guild was growing! Bond-mates now flew over villages, towns, and cities all over the continent, helping people. Aeron, she was certain, was excited by that, too.
“It’s been weirdly quiet today, don’t you think?”
Sharrah nodded. “Yeah, well, the rest of class one is off doing things.”
He released her, moved to the right, but kept one arm around her waist. “Hmm. That’s true. Some are in Stronghold, some in Bataan-Mok—”
“Jessip is on an enchanting shift at the Wing . . .”
“That’s right. And Renata is working with Liflin on the guild’s land issue.”
“Land issue?” She glanced at him. “I thought the benefice from Lord Baronel was pretty clear on what lands were deeded to us for the Guildhall and farms and such.”
“Not here. The Wing.”
Her brows lifted. She hadn’t thought about that! “Oh.”
“I overheard Renata talking to Jessip the other night at dinner. Apparently, those caves are well outside the land deeded to the Corpus Order at its formation, so when we acquired its assets . . .”
She sighed. “The land with the caves wasn’t part of the acquisition.”
“Exactly. Guildmaster Millinith wanted Renata and Liflin to discover if the acreage with the caves belongs to anyone. If it doesn’t, we can petition the Bureau of Land Management to obtain it.”
She scrunched her nose. “And if it is owned?”
“Then we have to try to buy it from whoever owns it.”
“Great. They’re already enchanting those caves. What if we can’t buy the land?”
“If worse comes to worst, we can expand Bataan-Mok, I guess.”
“I suppose.” She frowned. “Polandra really wants dragons back in those caves, though. And I do, too, actually. It’s part of their history.”
“Well, the land may be available, and even if it’s not,” Cheddar pulled her close, “we’ll think of something.”
Her lips pulled into a little smile, and she leaned into the hug. His confidence was adorable.
+ + + + +
“You gonna finish those deep-fried potatoes?” Fillion pointed to the sticks of fried tuber.
Chanté nodded. “Yes. I’m just distracted.” The side dish was very tasty. In fact, he’d likely finish those rather than all the sandwich.
Fillion chuckled. “They’re actually pretty good, aren’t they? I wasn’t very confident in the place from the look of the outside, but the food is actually very good.”
“Master Gella did not lead us wrong.” Gregor eagerly took another bite of his sandwich.
Chanté grabbed one of the fried sticks, dipped it in a sort of tomato dip that was also tasty, and ate it. “When are Tobin and Quillan going to testify? We sat there all morning for nothing.”
“I wouldn’t say it was for nothing,” Elizabeth said, cutting into her steak. “The prosecution is carefully building its case. But I’m certain those two will testify this afternoon. They’ve gotten through almost all the previous witnesses on their list.” She ate the small slice.
“You’ve seen the list?” Fillion stared at her.
Elizabeth dabbed her lips with a napkin. “Yes. I’ve been working closely with Master Gella on the case so that I can write it up as part of my series of articles on this whole affair.”
“Series?” Gregor’s brows were raised.
She nodded. “That seemed the best approach to take, owing to the volume of information to present.”
Fillion pointed at her with a fried potato stick. “The prosecution does have a great deal of evidence to present. And the opening argument was great.”
“Speaking of that,” Gregor said, “didn’t you think the defense’s opening statement was a bit underwhelming?”
“Indeed,” Chanté said. “The prosecution laid out several ideas that it seemed the defense was unprepared for.”
The three turned to him.
“Exactly!” Fillion waved another fried stick, this one a bit limp from the vinegar he favored.
“And did you see Koen?” Elizabeth’s lips had a slight angle to them, almost a smirk.
Gregor chuckled. “He’s not happy about how the trial is progressi
ng at all. At first smiling and looking smug and confident, he now sits slumped in his chair, arms crossed, brows drawn together, with a worried look on his face.”
“Good.” Elizabeth almost spat the word. “The bastard should suffer for all he’s done. People died in those fires he started that night and in the years prior. People died at the attempted train robbery, too, and Koen even ordered a few people killed.” Her hands were fists on the table. “Justice needs to prevail.”
Chanté leaned back in the chair.
Justice. Quillan had mentioned it before, but a few questions had been needed for Chanté to understand what the word meant. His memories weren’t to be trusted, so he couldn’t be certain if the idea was unique to human and dragon, but whatever the case, he was drawn to the concept of justice more and more. Bad luck was bad luck, but if someone deliberately harmed you either directly or by instigating an action that they knew full well could harm you, then they should be punished.
Chanté frowned. “I didn’t realize that a trial would take this long. It seems a simple thing.”
Fillion laughed. “This trial will actually be fairly short. Two, three days, maybe? It’s just Koen, an individual, on trial. When they brought National Transportation to trial, which is a company, that took weeks.”
He grunted. “I see.”
Uchu and Karu are here!
Who do they bring?
Sharrah and Cheddar rode with them, along with Terry and Korrie, and of course, Renny and Hunter.
“The others have arrived.” Fillion stood. “We should get back so we all get seats.”
After brief hellos at the courthouse, they were able to locate two rows with enough seats clustered together to accommodate all of them before the trial resumed.
Two more witnesses were called up by the prosecution that Chanté didn’t know.
At first glance, all the witnesses so far might seem inconsequential, but as Elizabeth had intimated at lunch, each witness was important. They all confirmed a little of the story the prosecutor had outlined in his opening argument. They spoke of supply purchases, setting up companies they knew to be false, bribing of officials, admissions of taking money to say certain things on street corners, being duped into selling properties to said false companies, and more.
Once the prosecutor was done with a witness, the defense lawyer had a chance for his own questions. From Elizabeth, Chanté learned it was called cross-examination. All day the defense lawyer tried to break the testimony of each prosecution’s witness via cross-examination, and he did create some small doubt as to the veracity of a few of them, but even so, his face, and Koen’s, grew more and more pinched as the day wore on.
Finally, the prosecutor summoned someone Chanté knew to the stand.
Tobin was initially asked about his history with Koen and what his general duties were working for the man. Then the prosecutor asked what Tobin knew of the plan—what he’d been apprised of by Cadoc or Koen. Tobin spoke of years of work by his brother and himself, by Cadoc, and everyone involved, getting things prepared for the fateful night.
“A particularly tenacious insurance investigator, apparently tipped off by some fires we’d set to test adjustments to the fire machine, was getting a little too close, so Koen had Cadoc take care of him.”
The prosecutor turned to Tobin. “Who was the investigator?”
“His name was Bogden.”
“Bastards.”
Chanté turned to Elizabeth. Her hissed whisper had been angry. She scratched furiously in her notebook.
“You said Lord Koen had Cadoc take care of him. What does that mean?”
“Koen had Cadoc kill him.”
Gasps and loud murmurs filled the room.
“Order!” The little hammer banged until the crowd stilled. The robed woman who’d wielded the hammer turned to Tobin. “The witness may continue.”
“With Bogden out of the way and tests of the machine able to continue, most of the groundwork was in place,” Tobin said. “Money was the biggest issue remaining. Koen, under the advice of his accountant, needed funds that could not be traced back to him. That’s why he intended to purchase Korovite from National Transportation. A warehouse was ready with equipment and people waiting to create counterfeit coins that he would then sell to certain individuals and groups for real money.”
A few murmurs and whispers came from around Chanté, but they quickly died down as Tobin continued.
“Special investigators, however, with assistance from the Dragon Craft Guild, disrupted National Transportation’s activities and shut the company down, cutting off that source of funds. Later, when dragons helped stop Koen’s plan to rob a train carrying a Korovite shipment, he decided that something would have to be done about them. He still had contacts in the desert, used in that failed venture with National Transportation, so he used one to try to distract the guild, focus their attention at their new branch down there while he worked on robbing a payroll delivery here.”
A hissed whisper came from the right. “Fala.”
Chanté turned to Gregor. His jaws were clenched.
“Though the distraction failed, the bank robbery succeeded due to Koen using underground drainage tunnels as an escape route to elude any dragons that might show up. With the stolen payroll he was able to complete the purchase of the expensive devices used to activate the fire machines remotely.”
“And with those purchased,” the prosecutor said, “was there anything left to do before the day the final part of Koen’s plan would be put in motion?”
“No,” Tobin said, “everything was ready. But even I was unaware of Koen’s true plan. It turns out that what he’d told the people in his organization, at least most of us, was a lie.”
The prosecutor turned to the podium they called the witness stand. “A lie?”
“A complete falsehood. Koen said the High Lady was a terrible leader, one who had neither the drive, the skill, nor even the desire to help us. But that night, even when she said she was starting a program to do exactly what we hoped for, what we’d supposedly been working for, Koen said to continue with the plan, including their grand finale, which I later found out was to burn the theater down.”
The testimony about Koen drew murmurs from the audience loud and long enough that there was another hammer-strike and call for order by the woman behind the desk.
“I see. And what exactly were your duties that day in preparation for the night’s, ah, festivities?”
“They were simple enough, at least until I discovered that Koen had my family kidnapped. Either he or Cadoc must have realized that I was feeling less and less sure about what we were doing. Holding my wife and niece captive ensured I would carry out my parts of the plan. And so I did.”
Chanté had heard about the girl, Preeti, having been kidnapped along with her aunt. The way Tobin talked about it, even the tone of his voice, made it plain he’d been very worried for them. He explained the tasks he’d been assigned to carry out that day, and how they took on even more importance with the threat to his family.
Tobin then spoke about what had transpired that night. Chanté had been outside and later was at the hospital with Quillan, so he’d not been witness to any of it. Some he’d learned since, but hearing Tobin describe it in order, from first-hand experience, was different.
Chanté sat forward in the chair. Gregor, to his right, sat forward as well.
“And so after that, you tried to get back up to the theater floor with the elevator?” The prosecutor stared at Tobin.
He nodded. “Yes. But it stopped, trapping me inside. When Aeron opened the elevator doors and rescued me, rubble, some of it burning, fell from on top of the car. Its weight must have overwhelmed the elevator. The building was starting to collapse, you see, and some had fallen in the elevator shaft. We hurried to get to the lobby and escape.”
“And by Aeron, you mean Apprentice Dragonlinked Aeron?”
“I do.”
The prosecutor nodded. �
��And what did you see as the two of you raced to escape?”
“Once we made it back behind the stage, flames were everywhere.” Tobin shook his head. “If not for the sorcerous fire fighting abilities Aeron used, we’d never have made it out.”
“But you did make it out.”
“Yes. Though, I thought we were done for when we reached the waiting area just outside the auditorium. It was like an enormous boiler. All I could see was fire. Flames covered the floor, the walls, even flowed along the ceiling. The terrible heat and choking smoke made it difficult to see and breathe. I absolutely feared we would lose our lives. Then, through the smoke and flames, I saw more dragonlinked arrive. They immediately got to work, and with their water jets dousing the flames and their sorcerous barriers holding up falling debris, we were all able to run out of the theater just before it completely collapsed.”
A few releases of breath came from around Chanté. He glanced about. It seemed he wasn’t the only one taken by Tobin’s recounting of his experiences that night.
“And that’s when I saw her.”
“Her?”
Tobin nodded. “High Lady Hasana. She was in the courtyard helping with the injured. Seeing her out there, hair a mess, face smudged and sweaty, sleeves rolled up on her dirtied, expensive dress . . .” He shook his head. “It was complete confirmation. Everything Koen had told us about her was a lie. Everything he had the criers say about her was a lie.”
“And do you know what became of Lord Koen and Cadoc?”
“I told Special Investigator Gella where they were and she went to rescue and detain them.”
“And were you reunited with your wife and niece?”
“Yes!” Tobin smiled. “Filli—ah, Apprentice Dragonlinked Fillion and Coatl were successful at rescuing them.”
“Objection, your Honor.” The defense lawyer stood. “The witness has been offering unneeded narrative.”
“Sustained.” The woman seated behind the tall desk wearing a black robe—he thought he heard someone call her a judge—leaned forward and turned to Tobin. “Only offer as much of an answer as is needed for the question. And if the question only requires a yes or no answer, please answer as such.”
Of Gods, Trees, and a Sapling: Dragonlinked Chronicles Volume 4 Page 104
