“That explains it. We don’t have thornfruit in Paragon.”
“I doubt it would grow in the volcanic soil.” She smoothed her robes. “Here, it flourishes in the marshes of the Mystic Wood.”
“I’ve heard there are snails that live in those marshes that can be intoxicating to elves.” Colin watched Leena carefully for a reaction. A muscle in her jaw twitched like she was grinding her teeth, but she didn’t turn her head.
Marjory gave a heady laugh. “Now you’re making me revisit my adolescent years. Oh, I remember doing snails. Harmless good fun, although a huge waste of time. I’m afraid they won’t work on dragons, though.”
“Pity. I’ll have to stick with elven ale.”
“No one brews it better!” She gave him an authentic smile. “All this talk of banquets and ale… Are you sure you’re up to returning to the simple meals and hard beds of the temple, Colin?”
He grinned. “I’ve spent most of my life on a military cot. It doesn’t bother me at all. Anything to find the information we need. I do wonder, though, if Leena is sad to leave the palace. She hasn’t said a word since we departed.”
Now she turned her head, her purple eyes narrowing to slits. If looks could kill, he’d surely be dead.
“Oh, you’ll have to forgive Leena,” Marjory said. “I believe this was her first banquet and her first time out of robes since she was a child.”
Leena glanced at her and nodded once.
Colin furrowed his brow. “Surely you must have attended one before you entered the order.”
The smile faded from Marjory’s lips, and she glanced at Leena as if to sayshall you tell him or shall I?
“No.” Leena’s eyebrows bobbed with her words, her expression softened by a hint of what he interpreted as embarrassment. Her cheeks tinged pink. “Never. Actually, I entered the temple at nine years old. I’d never experienced anything like that. Well, not as far as I can remember anyway.”
There was something about her tone that made his dragon grow cold. Nine was the age she’d told him she’d competed in the Animus Games with her father by her side. What had happened that year to make her a ward of the temple?
“Is it common for a child to take the oath to become a scribe?”
Leena looked away and licked her lips. This time, her Quanling did answer for her. “No, it’s not common, and she didn’t become a scribe as a child. Leena was orphaned that year. The temple took her in.”
“I didn’t become a scribe until I was an adolescent,” Leena added, glancing at him again. “Sixteen.”
Colin’s stomach filled with lead. This wasn’t right. How could anyone make a decision that required giving up a normal life when they’d never had one? No wonder she’d kissed him. She’d never had the opportunity to kiss anyone before. She’d never had the opportunity to experience any of the world as an adult.
“Colin, are you unwell? You look as though you might be sick,” Marjory said.
He cleared his throat. “Fine.” He straightened and focused on his own window.
“Oh,” Marjory said softly. “I have been thoughtless. After what happened with your mother, of course talk of being orphaned must disturb you.”
He gave her a slight nod, only to appease her.
“At any rate, we should be arriving soon. We’ve left the wood.” She gestured to the window and the stretch of desert beyond it.
An orphan.Colin tried his best not to stare at Leena, but his eyes were drawn to her side of the carriage again and again. He kept picturing her, small and vulnerable, dressed in robes before she even understood what they meant.
But he couldn’t think about that now. They’d arrived and were pulling up to the stone building that was the Temple of the Sacred Pools. He followed Marjory and Leena out of the carriage.
Sand blew across his toes, and the sun baked him with a concentrated and brutal intensity that would be uncomfortable for most creatures. As a dragon, he wasn’t bothered by the heat of Niven’s desert, but the dust and sand instantly turned his throat dry as a stone.
The closest sacred pool shimmered a half mile in the distance. He’d always wondered who was the first to discover that it wasn’t water reflecting the burning sun but an acid so strong it could burn a dragon. Absently, he ran his fingers over the scar on his right arm. When Leena helped him find the orb of Rogos, they soon discovered that any tool they tried to use to retrieve it would dissolve before they could get the orb to shore. In an act of desperation, he’d shifted his arm and reached in for it.
Although his dragon scales had survived the ordeal, he’d suffered permanent burns that were present on both hissomaform and his dragon. He didn’t regret it. That orb and the cog it’d concealed were part of the answer to winning this war.
“The room you stayed in before in the west wing is still available,” Marjory said. “Shall I ask the Fratern to show you the way?”
“No, I remember.” He adjusted his pack on his shoulders.
