Dragon Blessed (The Dragonwalker Book 2)

by D. K. Holmberg

  “Why is that?” He hadn’t heard that part of the story.

  “The first people to enter the dragon fields were called the dragonwalkers. Only they had some way of withstanding the heat and pain of the dragon fields.”

  “I know of the dragonwalkers,” Fes said.

  “Most people do. The empire has not been quiet about them, even if they could have been. But people don’t realize that the dragonwalkers didn’t deliver everything to the empire. They had other options.”

  He smiled to himself. That was easier for him to believe. He could more easily believe that his ancestors chose to barter for their services, searching for the best price. It was something that Fes could get behind.

  “What kind of things were sold elsewhere?”

  “Have you ever seen a dragon skull?”

  Fes frowned. As he thought about it, he hadn’t. There were replicas of dragon skulls, but he had seen nothing that would have been what he would expect as a dragon skull. Could there have been a skull remaining on the Draconis Pass?

  Maybe. Had Fes taken the time to look, it was possible that he would have seen one, but he had been more fixated on defeating Reina.

  “Are you saying that the emperor doesn’t have any?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s possible that a third-degree flame might know, and it’s possible that the emperor would know, but…”

  She turned her attention back to the tray and began eating again, digging in with gusto. Fes watched her eat and said nothing. Instead, he kept his focus on the soldiers around them, trying to pay attention to whether or not they were listening. So far, Fes had seen nothing that indicated that they might have been. Maybe they could eat and disappear, move over to the Dragon’s Breath to find a room for the night without raising any more notice.

  Then the door opened.

  Fes glanced over and saw Captain Jaken enter.

  He paused at the door, his hand on the hilt of his sword, and his gaze swept around the tavern.

  “Skies of Fire,” Fes whispered.

  Jayell looked over at him and heat burst from her suddenly, enveloping Fes at the same time as Captain Jaken turned his attention to him.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Don’t move,” Jayell said.

  Fes sat utterly motionless, his hand resting on the side of his face as if he were a weary traveler staring at his tray. His other hand was at the hilt of his dagger, prepared to unsheathe it at any moment. He could feel the heat of the spell Jayell had wrapped around him. What was she thinking?

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jaken making his way into the tavern. Somehow, his gaze had slipped past Fes, and he had decided to saunter into the tavern.

  He took a seat nearest the door at the table with the soldiers and rested his hands on the tabletop.

  “Who is he?” Jayell whispered.

  “The person who would be able to identify me,” Fes said. He flicked his gaze to her. “What is it that you did?”

  “Nothing but a mild concealment. I don’t know how long I can hold it.”

  “Then we should go.”

  “I can’t hold it while we’re moving.”

  Skies of Fire. That left them trapped. Worse, the fact that she was holding a spell meant that she was drawing power from her dragon relics, and if she did that long enough, she would be weakened. They might not have enough power were they to need it.

  “The moment he turns away, we need to get out of here,” Fes said.

  Jayell nodded.

  Fes met her gaze. Her eyes were tight, and he could see the effort of maintaining this spell. “This isn’t easy for you, is it?”

  “This is one of the more complicated spells that I know,” she whispered.

  “Why do I get the sense that you aren’t telling me everything?”

  She breathed out. “I am worried that holding this will reveal my presence to the fire mage who has to be in the city.”

  With Jayell’s attention on him, with her spell wrapped around him, Fes couldn’t feel the energy of the other fire mage. For that matter, he hadn’t been aware of it ever since entering the tavern. Either it had grown more distant, or coming inside the tavern had mitigated its effect.

  “Hold it as long as you can. If we come across a fire mage,” Fes said, lowering his voice as much as he could, “we will deal with that. For now, I don’t think that we could overpower the dozen soldiers here.”

  “We have once.”

  “We have once, but we don’t need to.”

  And if they did, he worried about running the risk of having all of the soldiers in the city coming down upon them. How many could they withstand?

  Fes didn’t like the odds of handling any more than what they had already dealt with. And it wasn’t that he wanted to combat the soldiers. They were doing a job, and whether that job was finding him or whether there was some other purpose, he had no reason to attack them—unless they came after him.

  “Any word?” one of the soldiers asked Jaken.

  “Nothing. I don’t know where he has gone.”

  “Are you sure that we were to meet here?” the other soldier asked. He had a square jaw, and his hair was cut short. The stripes on his jacket indicated his rank, though Fes wasn’t familiar enough with the Dragon Guard to know how they were organized. Likely, this man was just below the captain in rank.

  “I am sure that we were to meet in Idaris.”

  “The scouts haven’t heard anything.”

  “No. I’m aware of that.”

  “And what of her?”

  “She grows impatient. She says that we should have found him by now.”

  Were they talking about Fes? If so, did that mean the emperor now wanted him captured?

  And by her, he could only imagine that they were talking about Elizabeth. He knew that she was well connected to the emperor, perhaps as much as Azithan.

  “Have you seen what she’s doing?” the other man asked.

  Jaken glanced over. “It’s not my place to watch what she’s doing.”

  “Maybe not, but the size of that pearl—”

  Jaken slammed his hand on the table, silencing the other man.

  At least Fes thought he had an understanding of how so much power was being used. A dragon pearl, and an enormous one. In his mind, the pearl was probably the same size as the dragon heart, and that had been enormous.

  “Don’t speak so freely here.”

  “Fine, but we need to finish this before we can move on to the next. There has been word that rebels are moving north of here.”

  “We have troops that will take care of the rebels,” Jaken said.

  “Not in the numbers that I’ve heard about. It might be that we need her help.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Fes could see Jaken clenching his jaw. Did he not care for the fire mage?

  That was interesting. Maybe he could use it if it came to that.

  Then again, Fes intended to be gone long before it came to needing information that he could use against Jaken. Jaken was skilled, and more than that, he carried with him a dragonglass blade that was much larger than anything Fes carried.

  What would he be able to do with a sword like that?

  He shouldn’t think like that, but he couldn’t help it. With a dragonglass blade the size of those that the Dragon Guard carried, Fes wondered whether he might be able to cut through a fire mage’s spells even more effectively. Maybe he wouldn’t need to fear Elizabeth’s power. Maybe he wouldn’t even need to fear Azithan’s power.

  The server appeared out of the kitchen and made his way toward Jaken. When he stood in front of him, Fes nodded to Jayell. “Now.”

  They got to their feet, and he stayed in front of her and reached the door as he felt the heat from her spell fading.

  Without meaning to, he cast a glance over his shoulder as the door closed behind him. Jaken looked in his direction.

  “Stupid,” he whispered, forcing her forward.

&nbs
p; “What?”

  He raced around the corner of the building. Jayell followed. “Be ready,” he said.

  “Ready for what?”

  “Ready for the Dragon Guard to appear.”

  She frowned and reached into her pocket, pulling out a pair of dragon pearls. They were the same pearls she had used before, and he didn’t know how much power was remaining within them. Eventually, she would use all that was left within them and they would be rendered inert. The priest side of her would hate that.

  Fes didn’t have to wait long. One of the Dragon Guard appeared around the corner. He seemed surprised to see Fes and Jayell, and Fes slammed the hilt of his dagger into the man’s temple, knocking him down.

  “You intend to render them all unconscious?” Jayell asked.

  “If we kill all of them, we will draw the emperor’s attention even more.”

  “I am a Priest of the Flame,” she said. “I already have the attention of the emperor.”

  “I doubt that you want this kind of attention,” he said. “Don’t kill them. Just… incapacitate them.”

  She nodded. Fes was actually surprised that she would be disappointed in the fact that he wanted her to incapacitate rather than kill. Most of the priests were pacifists. At least, those that he had met. Then, there had been Alison’s grandfather. He hadn’t been completely passive. He had been willing to fight when it came to it, though that had mostly had to do with defeating Reina. Would he have felt equally compelled against the Dragon Guard?

  Another pair of soldiers appeared, and Fes took them both out. He almost didn’t have a chance to recover before three more appeared.

  He glanced around, looking for a way out, but they were trapped in the alley.

  They couldn’t even get their horses free.

  There had to be another way out of here, but doing so would mean abandoning the horses. It was likely that they could find other horses, but that would be difficult and time-consuming—time that they didn’t necessarily have.

  “Jayell?” Fes asked.

  Heat bloomed from her. There was a soft explosion and the three soldiers were thrown backward.

  How many had they seen in the tavern?

  Fes imagined what they had come across, and recalled at least a dozen, but that was only within the tavern. Outside of the tavern, there would have been many more, especially if they were talking about confronting the rebellion. Dragon bones. How many soldiers had the emperor sent out on this mission?

  “We need to get moving,” he said.

  “The horses?”

  Fes glanced at the paddock but shook his head. “I think we have to leave them.”

  “We won’t make very good time on foot.”

  “I don’t think it’s about getting out of the city. Not yet.”

  If they could reach the Dragon’s Breath, maybe they could find some way of hiding. The server had claimed that the owner would be good to them, and once they had a room, they could conceal their presence more easily.

  But first, they had to get there.

  Fes motioned toward the back of the alley, and Jayell followed him there. When they reached the end of it, another pair of soldiers appeared, and they shouted when they saw their fallen comrades.

  “Not much time now,” Fes said.

  He glanced up. The rooftop was a short jump, and if he could reach it…

  One of the soldiers appeared behind him. Fes spun, swinging out with his dagger, and missed.

  The man slammed into his chest, forcing Fes back against the building. He nearly dropped his dagger and kicked out in anger. His boot caught the man in the stomach, and he grunted.

  Another soldier appeared and came thundering toward Fes, unmindful of the danger.

  As he neared them, heat exploded from Jayell, and the soldier went flying backward.

  Fes grabbed Jayell and boosted her to the edge of the rooftop. “Go,” he said.

  “What about you?”

  Three soldiers came racing down the alley. One of them was Jaken.

  “I will be right behind you.”

  Jaken unsheathed, and Fes’s gaze was drawn to the dragonglass sword.

  The other two carried steel blades.

  Fes wanted that dragonglass sword.

  It was a mistake, he knew it was, but he couldn’t change the fact that if he could have a dragonglass sword, he might be able to be better protected if Elizabeth attacked. He would be better protected if he had to face power like he’d detected from Azithan.

  “Now!” Fes said.

  Above him, heat bloomed. It exploded, streaking toward the three soldiers, but Jaken merely swiped at it with his dragonglass sword, disrupting the spell.

  Was it the sword—or could Jaken be Deshazl? Either he was Deshazl or there was something about the dragonglass that was important. Much as he had suggested to Jayell.

  Fes doubted that Jaken was Deshazl. If he were, there would be no way that he would be working with the emperor.

  He closed his eyes for a moment, squeezing them shut as he focused on images designed to increase the rage that boiled within him. If nothing else, he wanted that power, wanted the ability to overcome them.

  Indra floated to the front of his mind. With her came Griffin. It was almost as if the two of them called to him, demanding that he find the strength necessary for what he needed to do.

  Heat boiled within his blood.

  Fes jumped.

  As it often did, the jump carried him up and over, and he flipped in the air, landing behind the two soldiers. He jammed the hilt of his dagger into the back of one man and sent him staggering forward. The other twisted, turning to face him, and Fes had to dance back out of the way.

  Too late, he realized two other soldiers were behind him.

  He thought that he could jump and escape, but he wasn’t entirely sure. Maybe he couldn’t.

  Fes met a sword with his dagger, and the dragonglass slipped through the steel, turning the blade into a stub of metal. Fes tried to swing the hilt of his dagger around and catch the man, but he wasn’t able to do that, not and keep himself alive.

  It meant that he would have to attack for real.

  Doing so would set him against the emperor. Was that what he wanted?

  The next soldier darted forward, and Fes slashed with his daggers, cutting the blade, and then jabbed one into his belly. The man fell backward.

  Jaken stared at him, watching but not engaging.

  That worried him, but he didn’t have time to think about it too much.

  Two other soldiers came at him from either side, and Fes kicked upward, spinning in the air so that he could twist and jam his dagger into the back of one man while his boot connected with the forehead of another. Both men fell.

  The remaining soldier staggered toward him, and Fes jumped, kicking him in the face.

  That left only Jaken.

  “You understand what you have done,” Jaken said.

  “I understand that you came to attack me.”

  “You wouldn’t have been attacked.”

  “No? You already came for me once.”

  “Set down those blades and I will bring you to the emperor myself. Perhaps he will forgive you for what you have done.”

  Fes doubted that. Even Azithan would be unlikely to get him out of this. He had made the mistake and now he would have to deal with the consequences.

  “Why don’t you set down your blade and I will promise not to kill you.”

  Jaken smiled. “You do not want an enemy of me.”

  “I don’t want to an enemy of anyone, but it seems as if everyone wants to fight me.”

  Jaken readied his sword.

  Armed only with daggers, Fes knew that he was underprepared. He couldn’t win. What was he thinking going against someone like Jaken, someone who had to be skilled in order to reach the rank that he held?

  The captain started toward him. There was a dangerous grace to his movements and a confidence in the way that he carried him
self. Fes had faced others who were skilled and had been successful at stopping them, but oftentimes that had involved a fair amount of luck. He doubted that luck would be enough to save him this time.

  Jaken swung, and Fes twisted, slapping the sword with his dragonglass dagger. For a moment, he was afraid that the dagger might shatter. He didn’t know whether the dragonglass sword would be stronger than his dagger, but they connected with a sharp crack.

  “Interesting,” Jaken said.

  Had he not known that Fes carried dragonglass daggers?

  Fes took a step back. His gaze darted to the rooftop. Would Jayell notice what he was trying to do?

  He needed her assistance with this, any hope that she still had enough energy remaining in one of the dragon pearls to help, and if she didn’t, then every attempt that he made would fail. He wasn’t even sure whether he would be able to escape Jaken if it were to come to that.

  Fes parried and feinted an attack before twisting and stabbing off to the side with his other dagger.

  Jaken was ready for it and blocked both blows. The force of Jaken’s sword jolted his arm. The man was not only skilled, he was strong.

  “You still have time,” Jaken said.

  “And so do you,” Fes said. “How do you know I’m not here on a task for the emperor?”

  “Because I have the ear of the emperor and you do not.”

  The idea that Jaken had the emperor’s ear was perhaps more troubling than anything else.

  He flickered his gaze up to Jayell. She crouched on the rooftop, and he gave a slight nod.

  Heat bloomed from her.

  As it did, Jaken spun toward her.

  He knew what she was doing.

  How was that possible?

  Fes took the opportunity given to him and jammed both of his daggers into Jaken’s back. He staggered forward, and Fes twisted, bringing them down with a sharp jerk.

  The explosion struck Jaken in the chest, sending both the captain and Fes backward. Fes turned while he was falling and landed on top of Jaken.

  He ripped his daggers free and wiped them quickly on Jaken’s back, grabbing the dragonglass sword.

  As he jumped to the rooftop, joining Jayell, he couldn’t shake his troubled thought.