Oaths (Dragon Blood, Book 8)

by Lindsay Buroker

  “Good to see you, Mom,” Ridge said, though it had been less than a week since they’d seen each other. His mother had taken control of the wedding planning without asking and had been visiting frequently. Too frequently, apparently.

  “I’m glad you’re here, Ridge. We need to talk. And…” She looked to Bhrava Saruth. “I know we’ve met, but I’ve forgotten your name. You’re Tylie’s friend, aren’t you? An artist?”

  Had someone introduced and explained Bhrava Saruth that way? Ridge couldn’t remember, but he wasn’t surprised. He opened his mouth to give her a true introduction, but the dragon spoke first.

  “I am the god, Bhrava Saruth!”

  Mom’s mouth dangled open, and then she broke into a coughing fit.

  Ridge dropped his face in his hand but gave the dragon his best baleful look through his fingers.

  “I thought we were no longer hiding truths from her,” Bhrava Saruth said.

  “Mom,” Ridge said, lifting his face and extending his hand toward her, then patting her gently on the back. She was still coughing. She’d probably been so shocked, she’d swallowed her tongue. “This is Iskandia’s gold dragon ally, Bhrava Saruth,” he said. “We told you whatever we told you because you’d decided dragons weren’t real, and we didn’t want to alarm you.”

  “I…”

  Ridge lifted his eyebrows, hoping more was coming, but she seemed stunned.

  “Do you want to change, so she can see the real you?” Ridge asked the dragon, then peered left and right to the houses on either side, checking to make sure nobody was in sight. The lots here weren’t that close together, but someone sitting on their porch would definitely notice a dragon appearing in Mom’s yard, even if it was starting to get dark.

  “I would be most pleased to show your mother my true majesty.”

  Ridge, hoping that wasn’t an innuendo, extended his hand toward the yard.

  Bhrava Saruth ambled back a few steps and then, before their eyes, blurred and changed shapes, from human to dragon.

  Ridge stood close to his mother and rested a hand on her shoulder. Sardelle had said she’d seen Phelistoth, but two dragons in one day might be overwhelming.

  Bhrava Saruth rose on his hind legs and stretched his wings, or maybe stretched all his muscles, like a dog getting up from a nap. Then he lowered his head on his long neck until it was level with Ridge’s. He looked into Mom’s eyes, his own deep green orbs compelling.

  Majestic, am I not? You are an artist, yes? You may draw me if you wish.

  Ridge eyed his mom, afraid the telepathic contact—he assumed it was her first—would send her over the edge. He squeezed her shoulder, worried that she hadn’t moved, hadn’t reacted at all.

  “You’re not going to faint, are you, Mom?”

  Finally, she stirred, wrenching her gaze from the dragon. “Ridgewalker Meadowlark, I am a strong, independent woman. I do not faint.”

  A neighbor comes outside, Bhrava Saruth announced.

  He blurred and shifted shapes again, this time, turning into a golden ferret, a creature that Fern had seen before. Her mouth dangled open as he chittered and ran into the house. Numerous feline screeches and hisses came from the living room.

  “Oh dear,” Mom said. “He won’t harm my cats, will he?”

  They are chasing me! Bhrava Saruth cried into their minds. Me. The god Bhrava Saruth. Back, feline antagonizers.

  “I don’t think so.” Ridge draped an arm around his mom’s shoulders, half afraid to let her go lest she pitch over, despite her strong independence. “Let’s go inside, Mom.”

  The living room smelled of fresh paint, and Ridge paused before an easel set up in the center of it. What looked like it would become a lighthouse on a rocky point in a storm was taking shape.

  “How about the kitchen?” Ridge suggested when he spotted Bhrava Saruth perched on the back of the couch, gazing down at five cats, his green ferret eyes gleaming with power. They’d stopped hissing and were staring raptly at him.

  Not sure if he was gathering feline followers or simply ensuring they did not eat him, Ridge led his mother to the kitchen, shutting the door behind him.

  “Can I get you something, Mom?” He noticed a kettle on the stove. “Tea?”

  Mom shook her head and closed the mouth that kept dangling open. “No, no, you sit down. We need to talk. I’ll get you some tea. Are you hungry? You must be. I’ll make you something to eat too.”

  Ridge wanted to object but thought she might gain some comfort from going through the familiar actions of taking care of him. He slid into a chair at the small kitchen table. He debated making small talk before launching into what he’d come to discuss, but after starting out by introducing a shape-shifting dragon, there seemed little point in discussing the weather.

  “As you might guess,” Ridge said, “Bhrava Saruth is magical. All the dragons are.”

  “Magical. Humph.” His mother strode to the sink, grabbed a paintbrush, and started washing it out. Vigorously. “There’s no such thing as magic.”

  Ridge did not know what to say. Argue and convince her? Let her deny it if that made her happier? Maybe Sardelle had been mistaken and his mother hadn’t seen the floating rocks. Or she had seen them but hadn’t grasped the meaning. Or had denied the meaning.

  “Just tricks.” Mom paused to cough again.

  Ridge frowned, hoping she wasn’t coming down with a cold. When he’d first moved her out of the poor section of the city that he had grown up in, she’d been delighted, and she still seemed to enjoy her peaceful semi-rural cottage with the seventeen cats. But she was about to turn seventy, and even though she got around fine and didn’t need anyone’s assistance—as she reminded him whenever he broached the subject of moving her closer—he didn’t know who would care for her out here if she were to get sick. The neighbors were nice enough, but perhaps he should offer to help move her into one of the vacant houses on the street where he and Sardelle lived. She might make them both crazy if she visited every day—or multiple times a day—but it would be easy to keep an eye on her then.

  “Those dragons know a few tricks,” she added when she recovered. “That’s all.”

  “But you’ve decided that dragons do indeed exist?”

  “I don’t know. It could be people tricking me. Like that strange boy.” She pointed a dripping paintbrush toward the living room.

  “You can go rub his belly if you want to convince yourself he’s physically there and real. Er, assuming he’s still in ferret form.”

  “I really don’t know why you would be involved with this, Ridge. Tricking your own mother. And Sardelle! I thought she was so nice, so mature. Above this kind of thing.”

  “She is nice, Mom. Uhm, does that mean you saw the rocks?”

  She gave him a scathing look and went back to scrubbing the paintbrush. That one would be completely devoid of paint soon. Also bristles.

  “I should have told you from the beginning, Mom,” Ridge said, “but I knew you didn’t believe in magic, and I didn’t think you wanted to believe in magic.”

  She grunted without looking back. It sounded like agreement.

  “But Sardelle is a sorceress. From another time period.”

  Mom froze, staring down into the sink.

  Ridge debated how much of Sardelle’s story he should share. Was that enough? No, with so many people knowing the rest of it, she would hear it sooner or later.

  “I met her when I was stationed up at Galmok Mountain, where she’d been hibernating in a stasis chamber for three hundred years. She was effectively trapped in the rocks there, but our miners found her. At the time, I barely believed in magic myself, but I’d encountered some enemies with a few tricks, as you call them, so I wasn’t completely unaware. But I had no idea there were people who did good things with magic. Like Sardelle. She’s gone into battle with me and helped me defend the country, but she’s first and foremost a healer. And a historian. Now that she’s met cousin Lilah, they’re getting alon
g nicely.”

  Mom was still staring into the sink, her back rigid.

  “I know Sardelle would like it if you would come back with me and talk to her. She’s distressed that you walked in on dragons and magic lessons this morning when you weren’t prepared. Her family is long gone, and she doesn’t have anyone left, so I know she was really touched when you accepted her so easily. And she’d be very upset to lose your good opinion of her.”

  “Ridge.” Mom clunked the paintbrush down on the counter and turned to face him. “This is extremely immature of you. I don’t understand why you’re making up these stories and trying to trick me. Do you think I’m old and senile? To believe your fiancée is three hundred years old? Why are you doing this when the wedding is so close? This isn’t a joke. I’ve waited your whole life for this. For a wedding and babies. Is that even—was any of it ever real?”

  Upset by her distress—and denial—Ridge rose and went to hug her, but she pushed him away and turned back to the sink.

  “Mom.” He rested a hand on her shoulder, her very tense shoulder. “I know it’s hard to believe. I’ve had almost a year to get used to it now. That’s the only reason I’m calm about it. I was also shocked at first. But this isn’t a trick or a joke.” He grimaced, mad at himself because he’d teased her and played a few pranks on her in the past. Not for nearly twenty years, but he could somewhat understand why she would be suspicious of him.

  She only shook her head, refusing to look at him or acknowledge his touch.

  At a loss for how to make her believe him, he said, “Shall I ask the dragon to come in and show you some magic?”

  It was half joke, but half serious. Maybe if she saw plates and tea kettles floating around the kitchen under Bhrava Saruth’s command, she would begin to grasp that magic was real.

  “No,” she said emphatically. “No more tricks. Go away and leave me alone. I’m very upset with you, Ridgewalker.”

  “Mom…” He stopped, having no idea what else to try. It stung that she didn’t believe him and that she thought he was capable of planning this elaborate ruse to tease her. To hurt her. Logically, he understood that she was having trouble processing this and groping for a way to explain it, but it still upset him.

  The tea kettle whistled. She shrugged her shoulder away from his touch and stalked to the stove.

  Ridge let his arms drop, watching her glumly.

  “Please go,” she said without looking back. “If you insist on this farce of a wedding, you’ll do it without me.”

  Reluctantly, Ridge headed toward the door. In a couple of days, he would try again.

  She coughed as she removed the kettle, her shoulders hunching. He frowned. He would come back tomorrow. To make sure those coughs were due to emotion, not some encroaching illness.

  She lifted her hand to her face. Wiping her eyes?

  Ridge paused with his hand on the door. Damn it, he didn’t want to leave her like this. Maybe he could find someone more trustworthy—at least in her eyes—to confirm what he’d said.

  “Mom,” he said, inspired by the thought. “I know I’m sarcastic and make jokes, and maybe you don’t trust my word, even though I’d never lie to you about something as serious as this. But will you talk to the king? If I can get you an audience?”

  Once again, he wished he hadn’t been so flippant with Angulus that morning. Especially if he was going to ask for favors. Still, Angulus liked Sardelle, and he’d met Mom briefly and ought to remember her—if by the cat-shaped soaps she’d foisted on him rather than anything else. Ridge thought he might take a few minutes out of his schedule to talk to her about this.

  “You can talk to him about this,” Ridge continued. “You know he’s a serious man and wouldn’t lead you astray.”

  Mom kept her back to him. He did not think she was excited about the idea, but he was positive she would be polite and wouldn’t wash paintbrushes while the king was talking. Getting her to agree to go to the castle might be difficult though. Unless Angulus would have his people send her a summons. She couldn’t say no to that.

  “I’ll set it up,” Ridge said, heartened by the idea, even though he cringed at asking Angulus for a favor. But he would. If it would help his mother believe the story and maybe bring her back into the wedding planning process—and into trusting Sardelle—he would do whatever it took.

  Night had fallen by the time Sardelle, Cas, and Kaika reached the harbor. In a city the size of Pinoth, there were always dozens, if not hundreds, of vessels docked, everything from the Iskandian navy warships, to commercial fishing boats, to private yachts, to merchant freighters from around the globe. Between all their crews and the people who lived near the waterfront, Sardelle would have thousands of auras to search through while hoping to find a familiar one. It helped that Tolemek had dragon blood, but even so, this was a daunting task.

  Have no fear, Jaxi thought. I am an excellent searcher.

  Like a bloodhound?

  Like the powerful sorceress I am.

  “Let’s start at the port authority office,” Kaika said. “There should be someone there around the clock, and they’ll have a record of all the ships that have legally entered the harbor.”

  “You think kidnappers would enter legally?” Cas asked, her head turning left and right to observe everything as they walked along the waterfront.

  Sardelle doubted they would find Tolemek out in the open, but it didn’t hurt to look. Maybe they would stumble across one of the kidnappers who had been sent out to buy groceries, ideally in exotic garb that would mark him or her as a foreigner. Not that exotic garb was that atypical here. Enough trade and tourism came through Pinoth that foreigners weren’t that uncommon, especially here by the waterfront.

  “They would have a hard time entering the harbor illegally,” Kaika said. “The navy keeps an eye on who comes and goes. Just try to take a berth without paying a docking fee and signing the registry. I’ll go flash my rank and my best smile and see what I can learn.”

  Kaika chopped a wave and jogged toward an office still lit for the night.

  Sardelle stretched her senses out toward the docks. On her first broad brush of the area, she didn’t sense Tolemek’s familiar aura. Minutes passed as she painstakingly went from ship to ship.

  Cas paced at her side, peering out at the docked craft and eyeing every passerby. The foot traffic dwindled as the night grew deeper.

  “Anything?” Cas asked after ten minutes.

  Jaxi, are you searching too?

  Yes. I don’t sense him. And we know that my powers are far greater than yours.

  But not your modesty.

  No, because false modesty is tedious.

  “Sorry, no,” Sardelle said, aware of Cas looking expectantly at her.

  Sardelle gazed bleakly around the harbor, up to the castle, and over to the butte that held the flier hangars. Even though the waterfront spanned miles, she had a feeling she would have sensed him if he had been out there. Under normal circumstances. But if his kidnappers had magic—and the sticky substance she’d found suggested at least one among their party did—they could be camouflaging Tolemek’s presence. It wouldn’t take someone powerful to do that, just someone with some experience. And then it would take someone with the power of a dragon to see through it.

  “Phelistoth is who we need,” Sardelle said.

  Cas looked at her again.

  “I was thinking that a dragon would see through any magical camouflage that the kidnappers could be employing to hide Tolemek. I don’t know if Phelistoth would be eager to help, but Tylie would, and she could likely talk him into assisting.”

  Sardelle had debated going back to the house earlier, before accompanying Cas to the harbor, to tell Tylie that Tolemek was missing and perhaps get her help finding him, but a part of her had hoped they might find him right away without having to worry his sister.

  Jaxi? Can you reach Tylie from here? The house, several miles away, was out of Sardelle’s range. Or Wreltad? L
et one of them know?

  Is that wise? She might run out to look for him, and it’s awfully late for that.

  She may be the best one to help us find him. I should have gone back and gotten her earlier. Besides, if she goes out with Phelistoth, it’s not like she’s going to get mugged.

  Unless he’s distracted by the wares from the cheesemonger’s store when hoodlums chance across her.

  The cheesemonger should be closed by now, Sardelle thought dryly. Besides, she’s not without defenses despite her disinterest in hurling fireballs around and harming people.

  “That will be good if we can get a dragon to help,” Cas said, “to double-check, but it’s possible he’s not here. If they took him aboard a ship, it could have already sailed. We don’t know when he was taken, whether it was last night or early this morning, but it’s likely it’s now been a full night and day. Let’s see what Kaika has learned.”

  She started walking toward the port authority office, and Sardelle trailed behind her.

  “You mentioned the airfields, too,” Cas added. “He could be there. Or he could also have been taken on a train.”

  “Yes, there are many possibilities, but all searching will be easier with the help of a dragon. We’ll let Tylie know what’s going on and hope she can convince Phelistoth to help with the hunt.”

  I’m talking to Wreltad now, Jaxi said.

  Good. Sardelle paused to sweep her senses across the harbor again. Since she had already done a more thorough check, she didn’t expect to find anything. But for a second, she thought she felt a familiar presence out near the breakwater, much farther out than she’d been looking before. Frowning, she faced the distant rocks that protected the city from the fury of the ocean. She didn’t see anything out there, but she sensed… She wasn’t sure what.