The Queen's Opal: A Stone Bearers Novel (Book One)

by Jacque Stevens

  Drynn’s hand brushed the cloth around his ears. It seemed to be in the proper position, though he probably should get himself another hat soon. Kol had always insisted on that. Maybe he was doing something else to gain the man’s notice, but Drynn had no idea what that would be.

  The black man slid into the chair on the other side of Drynn’s table. His head was bald, and rings glittered on his fingers. “It’s Drynn, right? You’re Jesp’s friend. Me too. Name’s Mink.” He held out his hand.

  Drynn resisted the urge to jump. The man was just being friendly. No reason for his heart to race or his eyes to dart to the window, though both happened.

  The man dropped his hand but held his smile. “I have some interest in the old religion myself. Maybe I could buy you a drink, and you could tell me more about it.” He scanned the area for one of the servers.

  “Sorry, sir, but I have to go.” Drynn had eaten some of Jesp’s food, but he had no intention of drinking anything. He got to his feet, ready to leave even if Jesp wasn’t. The rats could have the rest of the food, even if Drynn could no longer give it to them directly.

  He turned to the door when he heard the gruff voice coming from the table Mink had just vacated. A dorran, speaking in her own language. Almost music to Drynn after hearing only Human for so long. And the voice . . .

  He grinned. Cindle. She was here. She had said she wanted to talk to dorrans in Kalum, and here she was in the best stroke of luck he had since coming to the human kingdom.

  He locked on the voice, drawn to it as an insect to a flame.

  Until he peered past the arms and legs of the busy bar and saw who she was talking to.

  CHAPTER 26

  CINDLE HAD MADE her way through several human cities. She had talked to dorrans, as her forgemaster and clan had directed, but she had another mission now—looking for Drynn. One small pebble in a mountain of humans. Kalum wasn’t like her mines. No order, no census. Finding Drynn was an impossible task, really, but she had to try.

  She sat across the table from a dorran she had found in Kalum’s capital city. As expected, there was an instant comradery as they spoke together in their own language.

  “I’m Gritt StoneClan,” the man said, “but a lot of the humans call me Dwarf. They’re used to me being the only dorran around.”

  Cindle frowned at the slang. Humans seemed to relish the fact that dorrans were often an inch or two shorter than them, though dorrans were physically superior in every other way.

  “Not often we see a lady this far west.” Gritt took another drink, leaving a damp spot on his gray beard. He had been with the humans too long—taking on all their mannerisms.

  “It wasn’t my choice to come this far, but there is need.” Cindle wanted to go home more than anything. Assuming she still had a home left. “The demon raids from the north have gotten worse, and we need more help to defend our mines.” That was the part Cindle had agreed with when her forgemaster, Jorrey, first presented the plan to her. Though it was in their nature to proudly deny it, the dorrans at home needed help from whatever source they could get.

  “How bad is it?” Gritt put down his mug, eyes creasing into serious lines.

  “Bad enough.” Now she would have to get into the rest of the plan, the deceptive part she had only agreed to because she had seen no other way. “Before I came, Forgemaster Jorrey made some plans to bring the elven people into the conflict. Their princes wanted to take off to the humans on some foolhardy mission. I was supposed to help them, keep them here so Jorrey could tell the other elves that the goblin and monster raids had taken them. If that doesn’t bring the rest of the elves to arms, I don’t know what will.”

  Just asking the elves to join them wouldn’t have worked. Though talented in their own way, elves were passive to a fault. They hid in their forest, allowing others to defend them. The dorrans lived between them and the northern crags where the demons lived. Now thousands of dorrans were dead, including three of Cindle’s brothers, and the elves still looked down their noses on their “barbarian” protectors as if they were the moral superior ones.

  The dorrans had let them get away with it for too long.

  It would serve them right if their willful ignorance got them killed, and allowing the other elves to believe that the elven princes were taken by the raids wasn’t even much of a lie. It was exactly what would happen to the elven people if the dorrans were no longer there to defend them. The attacks were already starting. The single monstrous panther they had fought in the forest would become a dozen in no time. By making it seem as though the much-needed wakeup call had already occurred, with the dorrans still there to lead the charge, they could fight the hordes together.

  And if Cindle went with the princes—who had already been determined to put themselves in danger—she would be able to keep them safer than they would be on their own, and maybe Cindle could draw in some more dorran recruits from the human lands as well.

  At least, that was how Jorrey had justified it when she had ordered her to go.

  Cindle had justified it by shifting the blame to Tayvin. He chose to leave the forest without understanding the full danger. He chose to drag his hapless brother along. He was a reckless, pompous fool and an easy target for her ire. But when the inevitable misfortune had happened and Drynn had gone missing, all Cindle could see was the same pain and determination she had felt after her brothers died mirrored in the elder elf’s eyes.

  Except this time, the goblins couldn’t be blamed. This time, it was her fault. She had known the danger better than the elves and allowed it to happen, so she had to put it right.

  Gritt nodded, as if her words had only confirmed an earlier suspicion. “So that’s why you were with them. You know . . .”

  * * *

  Drynn wasn’t listening anymore. No wonder Cindle hadn’t cared to talk to any dorrans when they were together. The dorran man was a thief from Cain’s band, and Cindle was just like them—using him for his title as the other thieves had wanted. She might have betrayed him to the thieves in the first place as a way to keep the elves here. All the humans and dorrans could be thieves plotting together, a conspiracy that could have engulfed the forest as well by now.

  And what about Tayvin? Had she left him in a ditch somewhere like she had said the human soldiers might? Is that why his brother never came after him?

  Tayvin wouldn’t have let Cindle come at all if not for Drynn.

  Drynn had stood too long. Mink was still coming closer, a thief like all the rest. The man would catch him, bring in the others with Cindle at their side.

  A hand clapped on Drynn’s shoulder from behind, and it was all he could do not to scream. Cindle would see him then.

  Jesp smiled at him while taking coins from the people around them. “Perfect timing. I was just about to go. You’re coming with me, right?”

  Mink came up to Jesp without missing a beat, handing him a few more coins. “Thank you for a very enlightening evening.” He tipped his hat at the human, before turning to the elf. “And Drynn, I’m sure we’ll be in touch.”

  Drynn squirmed behind Jesp, only relaxing slightly when Mink walked away. And though Cindle was standing to scan the bar, he didn’t think she saw him yet.

  * * *

  Gritt was looking at Cindle with a squint before she sat back down.

  “I’m sorry. I thought I saw . . .” Cindle shook her head. She had been chasing after elves so long she was seeing them everywhere. “Never mind. What were you saying?”

  Gritt put down his mug. “You brought the elf princes to a human village. My troop saw them and thought the younger one would be a good payout with the robes. They took him.”

  The words hit Cindle like an avalanche of stone. “You took Drynn?” How could he—a dorran—do that? Honor was supposed to mean far more to them than the humans. They were meant to defend weaker races, no matter how irritating. They were meant to—

  Cindle remembered her own actions and swallowed the unspoken wor
ds.

  She had spent so long yelling at Tayvin and others when the truth was that she was only angry at herself. Angry that her brothers had died. Angry that she couldn’t join them on the battlefield. Angry she had been born a woman, commanded by the matrons to serve her role as one who sat at home, preparing and drawing others to fight in her stead. She had fought a different sort of war at home—a war of forging weapons, a war of gathering supplies, and then a war of deception when she had been ordered by Jorrey to lead the elves astray.

  She had told Tayvin to follow the matron spirit that had been preached to her all her life, but really, she longed to throw that so-called honor to the wind and go to battle directly. To fight alongside and defend her brothers, she should have forgotten and sacrificed everything.

  Like Tayvin had done for his brother.

  “I wasn’t involved in that decision,” Gritt said. “At first, I didn’t think it was possible that an elf would leave the forest and be in any danger. And once they had him, what was I to do?”

  Cindle could think of a whole list of things this man should have done to maim the thieves and protect the elf. In the absence of the other thieves as targets, Cindle was half-ready to maim this man herself. Her hand went white on the handle of her war hammer.

  She should have brought Tayvin along; she was nearly as reckless as he was now.

  Gritt sighed. “Dorrans were always meant to be protectors and warriors, servants of the old god, Preservation. Some of us hear that call stronger than others. When I left home, the mines were peaceful, and the humans were in chaos. I joined myself with a man who seemed ready to resist the wizard tyrants. I thought I could help. But the longer I stayed, the more I realized that both sides were equally corrupt. I wasn’t helping them. I was becoming them. I left the troop the night they beat the elf prince, and reported what happened to their leaders—men I knew would do what they had to, hushing the attention a magical race could bring to cover their own skin.”

  Cover their own skin? “You let them . . . They killed . . .”

  “This world we live in is far from pretty, especially here. An elf can’t survive in this land. Better for one of them to die cleanly than for their whole race to be discovered.”

  Drynn was dead, and it seemed Cindle’s brothers had died again.

  Gritt stood, dropping his coin on the table. “I came here to make my peace with the gods and return home. Maybe you should do the same.”

  Cindle watched the man walk away. She had done what she had set out to do. A dorran warrior was coming home to help with the conflict, added to the few others she had already found along the way. An elf prince would never return to the forest, maybe stirring the elf kingdom to violence as her forgemaster had hoped. They wouldn’t have to worry about Tayvin, either. As soon as Tayvin found out about Drynn’s death, he would hunt after the humans responsible and get himself killed as well. There would be nothing Cindle could do to prevent it.

  Even if a silent, absent god could forgive her, she could never forgive herself.

  CHAPTER 27

  “DO YOU KNOW him?” Jesp asked as Drynn followed him out of the bar, indicating the human man named Mink. The man who had to be a thief.

  “No,” Drynn said. “But he said you did.” Was Jesp a thief, too?

  Jesp frowned, scratching the whiskers on his chin. “I don’t think so, but you yell at a crowd long enough, and they all start thinking we’re best friends.”

  His smile was back, and he was waving at everyone on the street. “So, what did you think?”

  Drynn stared down the road, peering through the shadowed alleys. All he thought was that if Jesp’s presence made the known thieves back away, then the bard might be his best option for now. “You take people’s money for telling stories?”

  “Only what they are willing to give me—that’s how all proper trades work. Didn’t you know?”

  No. Elves traded goods directly at times, but Drynn couldn’t say that. His question alone was making Jesp look at him, before the bard shook his head.

  “I meant, what did you think of the stories?”

  “I . . .” The only story he remembered was the one about the phoenix. The rest were lost to his own thoughts, exhaustion, and watching the crowd. “I liked the first one. I just wish I knew where the phoenix was now.” And where the opal was now. And why it didn’t work anymore. And how to get home with or without the healing magic the opal was supposed to possess.

  And a million other things.

  Jesp nodded. “My colleagues and I love the mystery of that creature. They all have their own version of what might have brought the phoenix back to life before, and what it used to be like. Besides the obvious ability to flame, there are stories of healing, shape shifting, and resurrecting. They’re wonderful stories, but the truth is, whether the mark came from a phoenix’s death or some pranksters with charcoal, it amounts to the same thing. There are no phoenixes now, and no known power can bring back the dead.”

  “So you don’t believe them? Are any of your stories true?”

  “They all have some truth in them, I imagine, but people like to embellish things over time.”

  That seemed truly tragic. The written histories were better—at least they tried to be accurate. Maybe if the humans had more accurate histories, he wouldn’t be in this mess. But even the dorran histories had holes. If Drynn had those books again, he might write them anew with all he had learned in the human kingdom.

  “Maybe they’re all written down in the Tower somewhere, but that lot don’t like to share,” Jesp continued with a shrug. “The rest of us are too busy scraping out a living to bother with it.”

  “Because you have to eat all the time?” That’s what Kol had said. That they had to be thieves to eat, too busy to wonder if it was wrong or right.

  Imagine, needing something so badly that nothing else mattered.

  Jesp laughed. “Everyone has to eat.” He opened a door of a small house connected to several others. “This is the place. Meg’s probably waiting.”

  Drynn flinched. He had almost given his secret away again. He had forgotten to be cautious. Forgotten, in his excitement over the stories, that he was following a human, one who could very well be like all the others. It really didn’t matter if he had a proper wife or not.

  And now Jesp wanted him to go into another box. Drynn froze, unable to take another step. Somehow the lack of crowd made this place seem more dangerous than the bar they had left. A place where no one would hear him scream if he was cornered.

  Jesp shook his head. “You’re not going to come in, are you? Something spooked you at the inn. You’re not going to tell me what that is, but we’re back to square one.”

  “Why do you even want to help? Why do you want me to stay?” If Drynn had been smarter with humans, smarter with Cindle, he would have asked from the beginning.

  They didn’t help without a reason.

  “Streets are rough anywhere at night,” Jesp said. “I’m guessing you had enough run-ins to know that. You said you knew something about the thieves who formed a troop—entertainers like bards.”

  “You said it ruined your reputation.”

  Jesp closed the door, resigning himself for a lengthier discussion. “Not mine, personally, but the guild’s. Lost enough business that our leaders started paying those involved to stop.”

  The Lord had gotten rid of Cain. Drynn had never heard why, but if it was because the bards paid him, that made more sense than any of the thieves having a change of heart. They just found an easier way to make their money.

  “You’re not a thief, but you pay them.” And would turn his back if he knew how badly the others wanted Drynn.

  “Not by choice. If you know something we could pin on them, maybe we—”

  “A guard talked like that. Picc hit him with a tray, and The Lord wanted to kill him. Maybe he did, after.” Drynn had been too drugged to take in all the details, one horrible image blurring with all the rest, but Je
sp’s words had brought it back with full force.

  The Lord likely would have killed anyone who tried to help Drynn, probably found someone to blame and kill after Drynn had escaped. Should he care? Kol was already in the Tower, the nameless guard far behind him—was there anyone left to worry about?

  Even if there were, caring only seemed to get him into more trouble.

  Let the humans hit and kill each other if they wished, just as long as he wasn’t a part of it.

  “Sounds like this ‘lord’ doesn’t like people who don’t do what he wants,” Jesp said. “So why didn’t you listen? Why did you escape?”

  “They were going to lock me up again. Beat me and feed me drugs again.”

  Jesp nodded, rubbing his whiskers, his expression becoming deadly serious. “Well then, we have something in common. There are a whole lot of us here who would rather risk being stabbed than accept a man like that as lord.”

  Drynn frowned, working through the words. “You want to help me because you want to fight The Lord. You think I might be able to help you. What if I can’t?” What if he didn’t want to? If he tried to care about the humans again, he would only put himself in another box.

  “I would want to help you just to prove that most bards aren’t like the ones you met before. That alone is a way to fight a man like him.” Jesp took a step forward.

  Drynn flinched, and Jesp spread his hands.

  “No one is going to grab you. I just want to help. Do you believe me?”

  No. Drynn wanted to, but it was asking too much. “I’m sorry, sir. You have been very kind to me. It’s just . . .” His heart raced again at the thought of explaining.

  “I’m sorry,” Drynn said again. And he was, wishing he could still be more like Saylee or his mother and accept the man’s offer without pause, but he couldn’t anymore.

  He backed away, fading into the night.