Call of the Dragon

by Jessica Drake

  I pursed my lips, thinking about it. “I could use some company on the ride down,” I finally said. Rhia seemed to really want to be my friend—this was an opportunity to show her what my life was really like and see if she wanted to stick around.

  The next morning, we took a cab from the academy to the lift station, which was located at the southern edge of the table mountain. For commoners, the only way to get up and down Dragon’s Table was by climbing the steep stone steps that zigzagged their way up and down the mountain. But in the last ten years, a series of elevators had been installed at intervals along the mountainside, for use by anyone who had the coin to purchase a ride. The cost was prohibitive to most commoners, but Barrigan had paid for my trips up and down when I was freelancing for him.

  “Not as bad as I thought,” Rhia said as we got in line. There were only three people ahead of us.

  “Aye,” the man in front of us said. “Normally the lines are much longer at this time.” He glanced over his shoulder at us, and I stiffened as recognition lit in his eyes. “Well I’ll be!” he said, his gold tooth flashing as he grinned at me. “It’s not every day that a servant girl turns into a dragon rider, is it?”

  I groaned—it was the airship captain that had taken me up the night I’d tried to rob Tavarian. Of course he would have heard about what had happened.

  “I was really hoping that you wouldn’t recognize me,” I said, a meaningful note in my voice. Was he going to out me to Rhia?

  The captain chuckled. “If you want to be anonymous, you should chop off that cloud of flame,” he said, gesturing to my hair. “That thing is practically a banner.”

  I raised a hand to my hair self-consciously. “I like my hair just the way it is,” I said, unable to keep the note of defensiveness from my voice.

  “Hang on,” Rhia said, holding up a hand. “Why is he calling you a servant? What’s going on?”

  I sighed. “I’ll tell you when we get in the elevator.”

  It took a good ten minutes before it was finally our turn, but eventually we made it into the box. Rhia flashed her dragon pin to get us in for free, but she tossed the operator a coin, and he closed the doors before anyone else could join us.

  “All right,” she said, leaning against the wall. “Fill me in.”

  I took a deep breath and gave Rhia the shortened version of my history. I had hoped to wait until she walked into the Treasure Trove so I could see her reaction, but now that the captain had outed me I told her a bit about my thief background, and that I’d gone straight as a treasure hunter before being pulled back into the life one more time to save Brolian’s hide.

  “Damn,” Rhia said when I was finished. We’d completed half the journey, and had just gotten off elevator three. “I knew that you were different, Zara, but a treasure hunter? That sounds so amazing!”

  I stared. “Is that the only thing you got from my story?”

  She waved an impatient hand. “Yes, yes, you stole when you were an orphan. But you were just trying to survive. And it was incredibly stupid for you to try and steal from Tavarian, but you were desperate and you wanted to save your shop and your friend. Honestly, Zara, you’ve done nothing to be ashamed of.”

  “I don’t know that everyone would see it that way,” I pointed out. I’d conveniently left out the part about Salcombe, but still, I’d expected a much stronger reaction.

  “If by ‘everyone,’ you mean Aria and her cronies, then yes,” Rhia agreed. “But really, Zara, the fact that you were able to carve out a life for yourself like this is pretty impressive. I might be a sheltered upper city girl, but I know the stereotypes. Most orphans don’t grow up to be successful business owners.”

  “I don’t know about successful just yet,” I admitted, but a smile tugged at the corners of my mouth. “We’re still a fledgling operation, and my participation in the shop has been cut drastically. But we’ll figure out a way to keep things afloat while I finish my training. Just because I’m a rider doesn’t mean I’m going to stop being a treasure hunter.”

  “I don’t see why you’d have to stop,” Rhia said with a shrug. “There’s lots of dragon riders who still run businesses. Most of the original twelve families own mines or farms or cattle ranches they’ve invested in. My father owned a small shipping company, and my mother and I ran it together before I got my own dragon. I still help her out on the weekends.”

  “Huh.” That didn’t sound very different from my own situation. “Shouldn’t you be with her, then, rather than me?”

  “Nah.” Rhia shrugged. “My mother can manage without me every once in a while. Our business is well-established.”

  Unlike mine, I thought with a twinge of worry, but I didn’t say it aloud. Despite the confidence I’d shown Rhia, I wasn’t at all certain that the business could survive without me going on regular expeditions.

  Rhia and I hired a hansom cab when we got to the bottom, and as we traveled through the city, I pointed out various landmarks. Here, a temple to Dariann, a pre-Dragon War god that most of humankind had solely worshipped before the World Eater had come to our world and shattered the notion that there was a benevolent deity watching over us. There, a bazaar where tourists and residents alike came to shop for exotic goods brought in from countries around the world. In the center of the city, a verdant, well-maintained park where mothers took their children to play, or couples came with picnic baskets to make out beneath the shade of trees.

  Rhia took it all in in relative silence, her eyes round with astonishment. “You know,” she finally said as we drew closer to the shop, “I expected Zuar City to look more like this.” She gestured to the buildings around us that were gradually growing shabbier, the streets beneath us that were becoming more dilapidated. “But although it’s not luxurious like Dragon’s Table, it’s still quite charming.”

  “The inner city is, yes,” I agreed. “And the western side of town, where the well-to-do middle class live, is quite nice, too. Unfortunately, the slums still make up a third of the city, and many of the people who live here are quite poor. But,” I admitted, “there are worse places to live than the capital.”

  “Is this the place?” Rhia asked as we stepped out of the cab a few feet from the shop. Her eyes lit up. “Because it looks like you’re having a great day.”

  I looked through one of the display windows, and my mouth dropped open. The place was packed! “Umm, yeah,” I said dumbly as I stared at all the people milling about. “It does look pretty busy.”

  “Let’s go see what all the fuss is about!” Rhia grabbed my arm and pulled me inside.

  I shook my head, trying to recover my wits as I stepped inside the shop I loved, the shop I was so used to being empty. Saturdays were our busiest day of the week, but we usually never had more than five people in the shop at any one time. Today, however, there were at least thirty people in here, maybe more, and by the looks of their outfits, they were all upper class. Possibly even upper city, I thought with amazement as I spotted what looked like a dragon pin on a gentleman’s lapel.

  “Zara!” Carina cried, spotting me in the crowd. She hurried over to me, looking both harried and excited to see me. “Thank goodness you’re here. Brolian’s out sick today, and I’ve got Kira working the register, but it’s not enough. I can’t keep up with all these customers!”

  “Excuse me, Miss,” a woman shouted, as if on cue. “How much does this tea set cost?”

  “I’ll be there in a moment!” Carina called over her shoulder. She turned back to me, and her wild eyes landed on Rhia. “Who’s this? Does she have any experience working in a shop?”

  “My name is Rhia.” She warmly shook Carina’s hand. “And yes, I do. I’d be happy to help with the registers.”

  And with that, Carina promptly put us to work.

  I had so many questions, but I barely had time to say hello to Kira—how had Carina known she was looking for work?—before I was swept up into the crowd of customers. Many were here to buy things, but a goo
d number of people also wanted to sell, and I quickly found myself behind the counter, appraising a veritable avalanche of art and artifacts being brought in. A good number of the items brought to the counter were genuinely valuable. At first, I was worried we wouldn’t be able to afford it. But Carina assured me that wasn’t an issue, and to buy up anything I thought was worth acquiring.

  “Morning,” a young man with a mop of blond hair said as he plunked down a gleaming metal sphere inset with round crystals. “Here to sell this today. It’s a pre-plague artifact. Not sure what it does.”

  “He’s lying.”

  I turned, startled, at Rhia’s voice. She was manning the register a few feet from me, but she’d turned to look at the man, her eyes narrowed.

  “I am not!” the man said, his cheeks turning pink. “This has been in my family for generations!”

  “No, it hasn’t,” Rhia countered. “You probably made that thing yourself. It looks like it’s cobbled out of bits from a scrapyard.”

  “It’s okay.” I held up a hand before the two of them could get into it any further. “Look,” I said to the man. “Even if this were a genuine artifact, the most I could offer you for this is five dorans, not fifty. But it’s obviously not.” I used my fingernail to pry at a piece of the metal, and it broke off easily. “Look at this. Did you use wood glue to mash this together?”

  “Now look what you’ve done!” the man wailed, snatching the object out of my hands. “You’ve broken it.”

  I scowled at him. “And I’m about to break your nose if you don’t get out of my sight. Or should I call the Muncies and charge you for trying to sell forgeries?”

  The man’s face went white, and the next thing I knew, he was gone. The front door slammed as he raced into the street, clutching his piece of garbage, and I shook my head. Good riddance.

  “Phew,” Carina said hours later, when she finally shut the door behind the last customer of the day. She pushed a skein of hair away from her sweaty face. “That was nuts. This definitely takes the number one spot for busiest day of the week, don’t you think, Kira?”

  “Absolutely.” Kira leaned against the counter, looking equally exhausted. “I’m glad you and your friend showed up, Zara. I don’t know how we would have managed without you two.”

  “More than happy to help out,” Rhia said with a smile. “I wanted to see what Zara’s life on the ground was like, and I got my wish.”

  “This is definitely not a typical day for me,” I said, turning to Carina. “What did you mean when you said this was the busiest day all week? Don’t you mean, like, ever?” I waved my hands around, indicating the state of the shop. It looked like someone had come in here and robbed us—half the shelves and display cases were empty. It was hard for me to wrap my head around the idea that they’d been emptied by paying customers.

  Carina laughed. “Well yeah, that too,” she said. “But we’ve been busy all week, Zara. Monday morning was pretty dead, but we started getting a steady trickle of customers, and it’s just ballooned from there. I’m pretty sure we have your Captain Marcas to thank for that.”

  The fog of confusion in my head lifted instantly as I remembered my last visit to the shop. “Damn,” I said, stunned. “I know he said that he was going to recommend the shop to a few people, but I didn’t really think anything of it.”

  “Neither did I,” Carina admitted, “but he’s changed our business overnight. At first, I worried that we’d just run out of inventory, but treasure hunters have been bringing in artifacts at a steady rate, and I know we’ll have more as word of mouth spreads.”

  “Yeah, for sure.” I looked toward the back room. “Are the purchases you’ve made waiting for me to authenticate? I should get to that soon so you can put them up for sale.”

  “Ugh.” Carina made a face. “I wish you didn’t have to leave so soon, but no. You don’t have to worry about that. When I delivered your letter to Salcombe, I told him about my predicament, and he came down to the shop and authenticated them himself.”

  “He did?”

  “I know, I thought it was weird too,” Carina admitted. “But he seemed genuinely interested in helping. He also told me to let you know that he’d like you to come by and visit before you head back up. He has something important to tell you.”

  “I will,” I said, biting back a sigh. Part of me didn’t want to go—after running myself ragged all day, I just wanted to hang out and catch up with my partner. But I owed Salcombe a debt, and I knew he was anxious to hear from me. Besides, I wanted to know why he’d decided to help out Carina when he’d never shown an interest in the shop aside from making sure I paid his investment back.

  “I guess I’d better head over there now, actually,” I said ruefully as I glanced at the antique clock on the wall. “Rhia, would you mind waiting for me here at the shop? I’ll try not to be too long.”

  “Sure,” she said cheerfully. “I can help close up for the day.”

  “I like you,” Carina said, grinning. “You’re a real soldier.”

  “Literally,” Rhia said with a laugh.

  I was pleased to see my two friends bonding, but even so, I couldn’t help feeling guilty. “I’m sorry you got dragged into all this,” I said to her. “I know you weren’t expecting to spend your day off working.”

  “You don’t have anything to apologize for.” Rhia patted me on the shoulder. “Honestly, this was a really nice change of pace, and I loved getting to see your shop and all the amazing things in it. Besides, I can always come back down here again.”

  “Still, Zara’s right,” Carina said with a frown. “You basically gave us a day of free labor. Maybe after we close up the three of us can head down to the bazaar. It’s open until nine tonight. Zara, you wanna meet us there when you’re done?”

  “Sure,” I said gratefully. “That sounds like fun.”

  I ran to my apartment upstairs to wash the sweat off my face and change my blouse, then headed across town to call on Salcombe. As usual, I let myself in, and found him in his study, reading a thick tome on his desk.

  “Ah, Zara.” Salcombe looked up from the book with a smile. “I was hoping you would stop by. Your friend Carina delivered your message, and I’ve been eager to see how you’re faring.”

  “I’m doing okay,” I said cautiously as I took a seat in front of his desk. I peered at his face in the dim light, searching for any hint of anger or disappointment, but I didn’t find anything of the sort. “Are you okay? I thought you’d be…”

  “Angry?” Salcombe took off the spectacles perched on his long nose and sat back in his chair, giving me his full attention. “I’m not going to pretend that I wasn’t disappointed when I learned of your failure. But I am happy for you, Zara. I always knew that you were different, and that you were trying to find your place in the world. And now that you’re a dragon rider, you have.” He beamed at me.

  Okay, there was definitely something weird going on. “You look different,” I accused, reaching for the standing lamp to my left. I turned it on, then stared at Salcombe. “Not just different. Better.”

  He smiled. “I’ve recently come across a remedy that’s effective at treating my symptoms.” Indeed, the yellow tinge to his skin was gone, replaced by healthy color in his cheeks, and there was an air of vitality I was unaccustomed to seeing from him. Even his hair, which was normally thin, seemed a bit thicker and shinier.

  “I’m so glad to hear that,” I said, smiling back. No wonder he was in such a good mood, if he’d found something that was actually treating his condition! I knew from the way Salcombe moved sometimes that his mysterious illness pained him, but it hadn’t occurred to me how much it might have affected his disposition. Maybe this newer Salcombe would be more forgiving, more inclined to do favors—such as help Carina out by authenticating newly acquired items, I realized.

  “So,” Salcombe said, folding his hands over his flat belly. “Tell me all about your new life as a dragon rider.”

  I told h
im everything—about my deal with Lord Tavarian, the classes I was taking at the academy, and the new friend I’d made. I decided to leave out any mention of Jallis and Aria, knowing that Salcombe wasn’t interested in such drama, but I spent plenty of time waxing poetic about Lessie.

  “I can’t wait for you to meet her,” I said with a happy sigh. “It’s strange, but she feels like a piece of my soul that I’ve been missing until now.”

  “From everything I’ve read of dragons and their riders, that’s perfectly normal,” Salcombe assured me. But the smile on his face faded, replaced by a serious look. “Just how close are you to Lord Tavarian?”

  I frowned. “Not close at all,” I said. “I haven’t seen him since I left for the academy. I don’t really expect to see him any time soon, either—he might have pledged me to his house, but I get the feeling that he’s pretty hands-off.”

  “I see.” Salcombe drummed his fingers against the edge of his desk. “I’m afraid that won’t do, Zara. I’m going to need you to cultivate a better relationship with him.”

  “And why is that?” I asked, an unpleasant tingle starting in the base of my spine.

  He raised his eyebrows. “Because you still need to get that dragon heart, of course.”

  “What do you mean?” I argued, my stomach sinking. Of course, this was all still too good to be true. Why had I assumed Salcombe didn’t want something from me? He wouldn’t have summoned me otherwise. “I don’t need the money now, remember? Slick is off the streets and can’t collect from Brolian anymore.”

  “You may not need the money anymore, but I still need that heart, Zara,” Salcombe pointed out. “And though you did not find it in the vault, I am convinced Lord Tavarian still has it hidden somewhere.”

  I sighed. “Why do you think that?” I asked. Even if Tavarian did have the dragon heart, I wasn’t at all certain I wanted to try to steal it again. My bond with Lessie gave me a certain amount of protection, but I wasn’t stupid enough to think that Tavarian didn’t have other ways to make my life miserable if I crossed him. Besides, he might not be particularly friendly, but he was my benefactor, wasn’t he? Was it really right for me to steal from him?