by Dan Allen
I think she killed her teacher.”
“True,” Verick agreed. He leaned forward.
“They had opposite powers from birth,” Reann said. “Tira had the gift to take life, and Onel, her sister, could save it—she became the healer of Essen.” Reann toyed with the string at the top of her blouse as she considered for the first time the literal wording in the contract.
Joint heir.
A flash of intuition sent Reann dashing toward the historical section where she kept documents of special interest tucked in the middle of an impenetrable stack of financial contracts.
Reann lifted the pile of miscellaneous records and hurried back to the table. She flipped through the pile until she spied a very old one written in cryptic Dervite hieroglyphics.
“I’ve got it,” Reann cheered, laying the sheet of parchment in front of her.
The southern noble leaned over her shoulder. “This is in Dervish—looks like a bunch of scribbles and gibberish.”
“Not to me,” Reann said. “This marriage contract was written out in Dervish so that other Serbani wouldn’t come across it and make accusations. For Essen to side with Erdal rather than the Serban was treacherous. It’s a mountain region on the border. They have equal trade with the coast and the plains.”
“Interesting,” Verick said eagerly. “What does it say?” He drew his chair next to Reann and leaned over her shoulder.
Reann’s breath stopped as his chest brushed the back of her shoulder. Then she focused on the pictograms, extracting the meaning like oil from an olive press. “It is hereby sworn that the first son of Erdal—that means Toran,” Reann explained, “and the heiress of Essen, shall produce a joint heir to unify the . . . oh the next part is tricky,” Reann admitted. “I’m not entirely sure how it ends, but the gist of it is there.”
“Curious,” Verick said. “Tira was the heiress, but she was exiled. That would mean—”
“Onel inherited the contract,” Reann said with a smile that quickly fell. “But she married Lord Angot, a Hersian political émigré.”
“Then the contract was broken,” Verick said, not hiding his dismay. “There never was a joint heir.”
Reann returned the contract to the pile. Her fingers froze. “Unless . . .” The idea was plausible. “Do you recall that after Lord Angot died and the Tower of Essen came under siege, Onel sent to Erdal for help?”
“Yes, and Toran came,” Verick said. This time he stood and paced. “He went straight from the Outlands with the dragon riders and his cavalry. They broke the siege.”
“They saved the coast,” Reann said. “So Toran was there. And at the time Onel was recently widowed.” A thrill of excitement ran through her, raising goosebumps on her arms.
“You think Onel mothered an heir of Toran? The Serbani witch?”
Reann beamed. “It has to be.”
Verick leaned closer, peering at the whirls and wheel-like pictograms on the contract. “Supposing this guesswork is fact, it begs the question: where is the heir now?”
Reann’s mind sputtered. “I . . . I don’t know exactly. It shouldn’t be too hard to find out where. There might still be some survivors living here and there.”
Verick rubbed his chin and frowned. “Another dead end. Essen is just a relic now. It was abandoned after the truce with the Dervites. They say the old tower is haunted. Nobody dares live within its shadow. What else do we have?”
“It’s the best I can do,” Reann said.
“Are you proposing I saddle my horse and ride two weeks to Essen and dig through the rubble for more clues?” he said, his voice rising. “There has to be something. Is there anything verifiable?”
If he would give her full access to his notes, she could certainly make quicker progress. She could keep some of the better clues for her personal research and pass Verick measured amounts to keep him satisfied until he lost interest. But how could she convince him to give her the clues? Apparently she still didn’t have his full trust.
“If we have nothing else,” Verick said, sounding decisively final, “then I will find someone else to assist me with my research.”
Reann gave an uncomfortable laugh. “I don’t think that—”
“Perhaps you are not telling me everything you know.” He stepped closer. “Perhaps there is some nugget of information you have gleaned from your lifetime of study in this—” he gestured with a hand, “place. Surely you must have met people. Surely you must have been privy to private conversations.”
Verick stood directly in front of Reann, looking down at her.
“If you mean spying—”
“You know what I mean,” Verick said. “If you can’t provide anything of actionable value then we are both wasting our time. I have no need of you. I’ll take my effort and my notes and move on.”
She wasn’t prepared for that. Verick could just leave. He could leave her alone, the way she was, a mean castle servant with no future to speak of and no . . . him. Reann’s gut twisted. Everything was slipping away so suddenly. She had found an heir, but Trinah had gone, apparently determined to do nothing about the empty throne. Now, without any convincing evidence to continue his search, Verick could just leave Reann.
She was on the verge of something. Something was happening. She could feel it, somehow. Finding Trinah was just the start. Things were beginning to come together. It was as if her ship were just a skeleton of timbers being put to sea unfinished, to sink. It was all slipping away.
“Speculation,” Verick said, “unfounded rumors—if this is all we can muster I can’t see any point in continuing.”
“That’s—that’s not necessary,” Reann said.
“You know something . . . something that would put an heir of Toran within our reach? Something about the Erdali heir, or the Furendali, perhaps?”
“Ah.” Her gut twisting itself over in knots, Reann struggled to keep her posture and her gaze steady.
She wanted to run. But she wanted a life even more. She wanted the notes.
Reann looked down at her servant’s smock and then back up at the vaulted ceiling. “There may be something.”
It’s worth it, she told herself. Just this one piece. She had to get him to trust her—just enough information to get access to the notes. Then she could misguide his investigation with false clues and continue the search for the other heirs herself.
Reann’s conscience screamed momentarily as she temporarily shut it into the coat closet of her heart. She held her breath, feeling her heart beat anxiously against her chest. Needing space, she turned away from Verick and sat on the edge of an armchair, not even caring that it was bad manners.
Trinah doesn’t want the throne anyway, she reasoned. It was a sour excuse and she knew it the moment it popped into her head. But it stuck. I just need a little more time, she thought. I can find another heir. I can make this happen.
Reann interlocked her fingers to keep them from shaking. If she balked now he would know she knew something and extract it from her by force, or if he thought her to be of no value he might discard her somewhere.
The aviary.
Reann nodded, plucking courage and clearing her throat. “When the Nots clans burned the northern forests as a prelude to invading the Furendal, the starving wolves invaded the Furendali villages, stealing children and raiding their food supplies. Erdali records say a small group tried to cross the southern pass in winter to seek help from Erdal, but only one survived the descent under the ice sheet into the plains of Toran’s realm.”
“It was a woman,” Verick seized, “of course.”
Reann continued the tale. A note of confidence gathered in her voice. “Toran was so moved by her courage and the plight of her people that he gathered volunteers to lead the rest of the Furendali refugees down into Erdal. The next summer he led his volunteers against the Nots. That was Toran’s
first expedition outside the plains of Erdal. He was only twenty-six.”
“This woman, she must have been very important—perhaps even the mother,” Verick twirled his hand. “But where is the heir?” Verick asked directly. He stepped toward her again. His ever-present saber dangled by his side. “I grow impatient of your meandering.”
He still doubted her.
“Births among the Furendali are recorded for taxation purposes and military service orders,” Reann blurted out. She continued speaking each word warily, softly now, as if he was a wild creature to coax back into its den. “And their colonies are too small for an unwed birth to go unnoticed.”
“My sources say there is not a single record of the birth,” Verick said. His eyes flicked to the notebook in his vest pocket. “What do you know that nobody else does?” His posture cried out for the information. His hands gripped his sword hilt as if it were a safety rope and he were about to be tossed overboard.
“Well,” Reann said, choking past the tightness in her throat, “the female births are not written down in the official record.”
“The heir was a girl!” Verick gasped, as the missing piece of the puzzle slammed into place. “How did you discover it? Did you know the mother? Was she here in Erdal?”
Uneasiness settled over Reann, but she was so determined to prove that she was right that she squelched the feeling and continued explaining.
“And what about the heir? Where is the child?” he pressed.
“Verick,” Reann said sharply, almost angrily, “the heir is no longer a child. Now, I cannot say I know for sure,” a disclaimer far too weak to take back what she had already revealed, “but . . . last week at the ceremony . . .” Reann hated every word, but it also thrilled her. Every word made the experience more real. It had happened! She was real. There was an heir. “The spear throwers mentioned the woman who found the way through ice caves. She had a child.”
“The heroine,” Verick said.
“Yes,” Reann said. “Toran followed her back through the caves and saved the Furendali refugees.”
“A peasant?”
“Yes.”
“Unwed.”
“Yes,” Reann said again, her throat getting tighter.
“A single child?”
Reann nodded.
Verick was nearly trembling, but he didn’t speak. It was as if he too were facing a crisis of conscience. The two faced each other and the truth of the legend, the greatest mystery in the empire as it unrolled into brilliant reality.
“Who was it?” he demanded.
“The Lady of the North.”
The moment she said it, she felt wrong. It was a foolish, utterly selfish thing to do. She couldn’t unspeak a word of what she had already betrayed. She felt condemned, as if shackles were clamped on her wrists. The first time she had done something terrible for Verick, she could claim it was his fault. This time, it was all hers. Was she becoming like him? Was this who she was?
She shook her head to ward off the barrage of self-incrimination.
Verick eyed her discerningly. “You knew?” He stood up, eyes gleaming. “You knew she was the child of Toran’s first campaign, yet you didn’t tell me.”
Reann felt as if he were about to seize her. Her heart raced in her chest. She opened her mouth and breathed out slowly, carefully, measuring the time while her brain lunged for excuses. “Yes, well, I didn’t suspect she was a child of Toran,” she sputtered, “until now.”
Verick’s jaw wormed before he said brusquely, “Perhaps you have allies you are not revealing, associations . . . but I have enough information to ponder for one night. Be on your way.”
Reann went for the exit as if it might suddenly close and lock her in this place with Verick. Sidestepping the reading table, she knocked a chair over, which she left on the floor. She scurried across the room, slipped through the small gap between the reinforced door and stone wall, and darted down the hall.
In two steps she had leapt into the laundry chute and slid halfway until, breaking with her hands, she pressed herself out of the chute and into the adjacent corridor on the next the level down. She ran the opposite direction and down a flight of circular stairs to the dungeon.
Reann curled up in the corner of a dark cell on the old moldy straw. Hand over her mouth, Reann cried silent tears as she realized what she had done.
I betrayed her. I betrayed Toran.
Her betrayal of Trinah’s identity to Verick was like a wound that never healed. She had thought that sharing it would make Verick trust her. With that trust she could get his clues and find the others. It had been a sacrifice for a greater purpose.
Instead, it was the worst thing she had ever done, and it had only made Verick more suspicious. The moment he said the words allies and associations, Reann had realized that Verick likely had allies and associations of his own.
Ranger entered her cell and curled up on her lap, demanding attention. Reann absently stroked his mottled fur, trying to reason what she had just done. She had exposed Trinah’s identity to Verick out of a greedy curiosity about the clues he held about the heirs. Reann began thinking of ways to rectify the situation. Reann could always turn a situation to her advantage, provided she had what she needed and played to her strengths.
A smile crept across her lips. “Time to steal that notebook of his and find out who I’m really dealing with—and maybe get some extra clues to the heirs. I can find them first and warn them.”
Verick’s true purpose on one hand and the identity of Toran’s heirs on the other were like the two jaws of a bear trap. Finding the truth was no longer a matter of simple curiosity. It was life and death. But she no longer had the luxury of waiting to find out. The trap was already closing.
“I’m going to steal those notes.”
Chapter 16
Montazi Realm. Ferrin-tat.
Wings beat the air heavily as the challengers’ dragons rose at the start of the race—all but Akara.
The fruit dragon screeched a protest as Terith snapped the reins that pierced the neck spines behind Akara’s head. She turned her head obediently away from the rising group and ran over the ground, wings folded tight against her sides.
Startled spectators scattered as she crashed through the brush onto an overland trail. Bushes and branches whipped at the armor-scaled and leather-clad pair in vain.
The fruit dragon had the most developed legs of any of the species. Terith used Akara’s speed to his advantage, gaining ground as they neared the domed summit of Ferrin-tat.
Terith turned the dragon aside into a clearing. She climbed into the cup of a waiting catapult, a new long-range version Werm had demonstrated for Ferrin only weeks before. Terith slashed the tether with his knife. As the huge counterweight swung down, Akara catapulted into the air, wings tucked full.
Cheers erupted from the crowd in the clearing behind them as they effortlessly gained valuable altitude, coming level with the leaders who had gone around the center ridge of the megalith.
Pert wasn’t in the lead, at least not at this stage, but the sprint dragons would fall out eventually in the long climb to the summit of Candoor. Terith hoped his plans would be enough to get Akara through. Her training was as thorough as any dragon in the realm, but she wasn’t bred as a pure racer. The dragons of Neutat were bred for something else entirely. For now, clever tricks kept him in the competition. But by the end, it would be down to grit and luck.
The sun shone through scattered clouds as the dragons began the descent on the opposite side of the megalith. Terith relished the feel of the air in his face. Below him, the already familiar first bridge approached. The other dragons were diving toward the low bridge, taking their heavy riders with them, but Terith stayed high. When all the riders had nearly finished their descent, and only after settling into the strongest updraft, Terith repeated the three whist
les. Akara bobbed her head three times.
Then he leapt.
Akara tucked her wings in a drop-rock dive as Terith stretched his dragon-wing chute. His descent slowed into a gentle glide as Akara plunged fearlessly.
“Do it,” he urged.
Less than a half hour after the near death experience with the dral, Akara fearlessly dove for the bridge again, the product of centuries of Neutat breeding solely for loyalty and courage.
Terith cheered as she passed under and dashed unhindered, slashing effortlessly through the crowd of dragons circling to rise against the down draft on the other side of the bridge.
This, the steepest climb of the race, began to separate the challengers. Two fruit dragons, burdened by their riders, had already set down on ivy branches to rest mid-climb.
Pert’s velra, its massive wings punishing the air with solid savage strokes, passed the resting challengers without a glance, and made rapid progress on the sprinters. The fishing dragon looked stronger with each down stroke.
Quickest on the descent, the mounted dral, though large, struggled to keep its rider out of the fog of the deep. The pair wisely avoided a taxing early ascent, conserving energy in a gradual climb up the canyon.
Riderless, Akara beat her wings quickly and easily. Avoiding the velra, she turned back, corkscrewing upwards in the same thermal that lofted Terith.
As she rose toward him, Terith tugged an arm and leg to angle against the breeze. Gliding astride his dragon, he tucked his legs and dropped into the harness. Terith folded his dragon-wing cape as spectators along the bridge and the ridge cried foul.
“Read the rules!” Terith shouted. Nothing in Ferrin’s reading said the rider had to pass the obstacles.
The canyon walls loomed on both sides, rising up to the peak-top village of Hintat and the second obstacle. They had to go over a bridge, a punishing two-thousand-foot climb in less than four miles of flight.
Gaining speed as she leveled, Akara pressed her advantage.
Below them, but farther along, the velra had taken the lead, continuing the rapid climb toward the second bridge.
