On behalf of all dragons, I regret that you did not succeed.
Me too.
I long to link with and share growing feelings with Wreylith, but with Wingleader Saleetha yelling into my mind and roaring at me, I was forced to attack her.
I saw that,Vorik said.You even drew blood.
That was because she attacked back, and my instincts took over. I am relieved she escaped the confrontation though she battled superior numbers. She remains magnificent.
But unwilling to speak with you?
A faint clink reached Vorik’s ears, distracting him from Agrevlari’s response. With troops marching about, there weremany noises in the city, but that had come from the ground nearby, a narrow cobblestone alley beside the building he perched upon. He hadn’t thought anyone was in it and crept to the edge of the roof to peek down, half-expecting to find a stray dog nosing at garbage bins.
But the alley was devoid of animals. Aside from a few scraps of rubbish, nothing occupied it except a metal grate over an opening that stormwater presumably ran into to be diverted to the river. Since his people didn’t build permanent towns, Vorik knew little of such infrastructure, but stormer spies sometimes moved about Kingdom cities via the underground passageways. Might there be tunnels leading to that palace? Maybe he could reach Syla more easily using a subterranean route.
Agrevlari’s words about his actions possibly making her feelings wane made Vorik hesitate to check out the grate. He worried there was truth to them. How many times could he impede Syla or outright act against her and expect that she would continue to care for him? When their gazes had met, her initial expression of delight had warmed his heart, but it had quickly faded to suspicion and wariness.
Another clink sounded, followed by a scrape-clunk. The grate moved aside, and a man stuck his head out.
Vorik blinked. That was Yevlor from Moonhunt Tribe. And he waved to someone back down in the darkness. Gavartash from Vorik’s tribe, from his own wing, rose up and peered out. Had they been sent in as part of the incursion team that had lit fires and destroyed buildings? What were they up to now?
They ducked back into the darkness below the cobblestones, but they didn’t replace the grate.
Vorik made sure no guards were tramping through the street out front, then hopped down into the alley.
“Hello?” he called softly through the opening, not wanting to startle armed men and capable warriors.
“Hello?” came a curious reply. It sounded like Yevlor.
“Is it a soldier?” Gavartash whispered.
“They don’t call downhellobefore they attack us,” Yevlor whispered back.
“Your faces don’t inspire cozy warmth in people the way mine does,” Vorik said.
After a long pause, Gavartash asked, “Captain Vorik?”
Vorik grabbed the edge and swung down into a dark tunnel, landing with a splash in six inches of water. The air was close, dark, and dank, with the only light coming through the opening above. It provided enough illumination for Vorik to make out the two men, and did he hear more mutterings farther back in the tunnel? Around a bend that he spotted? Yes, and he even sensed someone with magic back there. Someone familiar.
He sighed. Captain Lesva hadn’t yet lost any power from the death of her dragon. She might retain it for months. If another dragon deigned to link with her—after all, dragonslikedruthless ambition, and she had plenty of that—she might never lose her power.
“My mother likes my face all right.” Gavartash looked Vorik up and down, his expression more wary than inviting, and there wasn’t any humor in his eyes.
His gaze shifted toward the opening, as if he expected someone else to follow Vorik down. Who else would be with him? Syla?
Not yet…
“I’m alone,” Vorik said, “with only my mission to keep me warm.”
“What mission is that, sir?” Gavartash rested a hand on the sword in a scabbard hanging from his belt. “You attacked Captain Lesva in front of everyone, and she was trying to destroy that terrible weapon.”
“She was trying to kill Queen Syla. Since I have orders to kidnap her, I had to stop Lesva.” Vorik glanced toward the dark bend, but the sounds from that direction had quieted, and Lesva, though he still sensed her, hadn’t come forward.
“We needed to sink that ship, sir,” Gavartash said. “Destroy that weapon. The queen… Storm god’s wrath, we can’tkidnapher. She’s dangerous. Remember what Devron said? She almostchokedhim to death. Just by touching him.”
Vorik grimaced at the reminder that Syla had the power to hurt—to kill. She’d done more than constrict the airway of the assassin who’d tried to slay her in the wheelhouse of that whaling ship. The man had been dead at her feet. It was hard for Vorik to imagine sweet Syla the healer hurting anyone, but she could. Abruptly, he felt presumptuous about saying, when they’d been in bed, that she had beenhiscaptive instead of the other way around. She hadn’t minded, but he couldn’t pretend that was true, that he had the upper hand with her.
“The queen should be killed and that ship sunk,” Gavartash said when Vorik didn’t answer right away. “That’s what Captain Lesva wants to do.”
