Leona walked through the empty dead end. Magic burned under her feet and hung in the air. A silent memorial for months to come to the Dragon who had lost his life in the spot. She knew the essence of the Rider, Cvareh was easy enough to take note of… But there was one more.
“The third, what is it?” Leona asked Camile.
“It’s…floral? House Tam?”
“Not quite…” Therewasa heavy floral note, almost like honeysuckle on a hot summer night. But mingled with it was a sharper smell of cedar, like one of House Xin.
Sybil had mentioned Cvareh had help, but she said nothing of another Dragon from House Tam or Xin. That would make this a very different hunt. Leona continued to try to dissect the smell, fighting to peel back its layers. But there was only a trace amount, and the heavy rose smell of the House Tam rider who had perished overpowered the rest of them.
Her sister said there’d been a Fen and Chimera helping him. Leona had smelled Chimera blood thousands of times from the slaves at the Rok estate. Their blood was black for a reason—it was dirty, muddled, rotten. This was clean and sharp, but unlike anything she’d ever inhaled before.
“Leona, this way.” Camile interrupted her thoughts.
Leona followed, giving up the strange third scent for now. Camile was on the trail of the fallen Rider, no doubt picked up by Fen vultures that were already picking the carcass clean. It led them through winding, narrow back passages into the depths of Mercury Town—into the beating heart of the muddled, rotten blood Leona had just been comparing against.
The Fen man who waited at the door didn’t seem surprised to see them. They made him uneasy; she could hear his heart racing in his chest. But he didn’t run from his post, didn’t avert his eyes. Instead, he greeted them.
“We are expecting you.” He opened the door.
Leona strode in fearlessly, claws out and gleaming. Some Chimera and Fenthri guns posed no threat to two Dragon Riders. The only thing that could bring down a Dragon in Dortam was another Dragon.
“Welcome, ladies!” A tiny man clapped his hands. His white skin stretched over his bones, giving him a disturbing similarity to a walking skeleton. Beady eyes appraised them as though they were meat. “When I heard the glider, I just knew you would come and investigate your fallen friend. I just knew.” He waggled his finger in the air. “You see, the most terrible thing happened. I caught two men dragging the corpse of our King’s noble Rider off for harvesting. Now, I tried to get the corpse from them, but they overpowered my men and used this room to—”
Leona hovered over the weak little man, moving with Dragon speed to clamp her hand atop his mouth. Blood beaded around where her claws dug into his cheeks. She could kill him in seven different ways right now and each seemed more delightful than the last. But that would be the course Sybil would’ve taken: kill first and ask questions later. As tempting as that approach was, it had yet to yield results.
“I am not interested in your lies,” she growled. The alabaster-colored wretch’s men seemed to be caught in limbo, unsure if they should engage or leave their master to fend for himself. Leona peeled away one finger at a time before removing her hand. She sheathed her claws and dragged her fingers across the man’s bloody cheek, drawing lines of crimson across the nearly glowing white of his flesh. “You seem like a smart man.”
She was lying.
“Tell me what you know, and I’ll let you keep every last organ you illegally harvested, and all your lives. A fair deal, no?”
“Quite fair.” His voice trembled slightly as she dragged her knuckles up and down his neck.
“How did the Dragon die?” Leona asked.
“His heart was ripped out.”
Cvareh then, without doubt. “Who did it?”
“I hear talk of a Dragon running through Mercury Town, blue.”
Cvareh again. This wasn’t new information. Leona’s fingers walked around his tiny neck, ready to throttle. “Where was he headed?”
“No one could find him.” Leona’s hand tensed, causing the man to wheeze. “But I have a theory.”
“Is it a theory you’d stake your life on?” She curled her lips as she spoke, showing her teeth. Her patience was about to run out.
“I hear word of a fight against Dragons at the Ter.5.2 station, three days after your friend died.”
“And?”
The man spoke faster at Leona’s urging. “It takes three days to reach Ter.5.2 by train from here.”
“I already knew he was seen in Ter.5.2. Tell me something I don’t know.”
“What do you know about the White Wraith?” The man smiled at Leona’s immediate reaction.
Nowthiswas certainly new information. The infamous White Wraith of New Dortam had been an annoyance for over a year. They had tried to send Riders down, but one ended up dead, and the rest were made fools of. Yveun Dono eventually deemed it a waste of time to fight an enemy that would not stand up for a duel and only fought from the shadows.
