His gaze was assessing. Mistrustful. “A true Dakkari,” he murmured. “Huh. I’m disappointed.”
My brows rose. I nearly laughed. Not in offense. In incredulousness. I also knew what he was doing. Sizing me up. Testing me. I’d dealt with it for years with Myre, since we were both after the same position.
“Maybe you can write to theDothikkarabout your displeasure,” I suggested, lifting a shoulder in a shrug. “I hear he loves to take complaints from the Karag.”
He tilted his head at me. Then he snorted again, shaking his head. “Washroom free?”
“Yes,” Syris replied, her gaze going to the closed door behind him meaningfully. For someone seemingly afraid of her own shadow, she wasn’t backing down. “Please show your guest out before Tarkosh finds out.”
His heavy sigh followed him down the hallway. I could feel Syris stiffen with annoyance, and then she scoffed a little under her breath before resuming our path down the hallway. We went past the incubation room from last night, though I could feel the heat seep from it like flesh.
“Former lover?” I asked softly.
Her face flooded red. “Me and Moak? On Muron, no.”
I suppressed a smile, nodding. Interesting.
Syris cleared her throat. “He just thinks he’s above the rules. He forgets they’re there for a reason.”
She guided us through a heavy wood door, and I heard a strange animal sound. The door led out to a fenced-in courtyard, decorative tree plants along the perimeter for privacy. Beyond thecourtyard, around trunks and boughs of the gnarled trees, I saw stone houses, smoke rising from chimneys, all shadowed in the morning light from the mountain behind them. I swore I saw the dark flash of an Elthika disappear into the side of the jagged rockface.
The sound I’d heard came again. A rumbling growl coupled with a low chirping that reminded me of a youngpyroki.
I saw wings first. Small wings, the membranes so thin that they were nearly translucent. His scales were a sleek gray threaded with black strands and he had two small horns protruding from his thick skull.
“Is that…?”
“Yes,” Syris answered me.
A baby dragon. Or whatever the term was that the Karag used.
“A hatchling,” Syris told me, as if reading my mind. Which, for a moment, I’d worried she might’ve.
You’re being silly,I thought, shaking off the worry as I watched the hatchling dart around the courtyard on strong limbs. It was no bigger than a newbornpyroki.Small enough that I might be able to cradle it in my arms.
“Hatched only three days ago,” came a voice.
There was a Karag female, seated on a bench in the shadow of a tree to our right. She had a small silver cup in her hand, and she took a sip from it as she regarded me carefully over the rim. She had golden eyes and dark gray hair. And when she stood from her place, I saw she was taller than even me, dressed in black fitted trousers and a silvery blue long-sleeved tunic.
There were wrinkles around the corners of her eyes and mouth, which made her look like she was perpetually frowning.
“You must be Amaia,” she murmured, setting her cup down on the small metal table next to her. The hatchling dragon scampered past my leg, like it had energy to burn. “Amaia of Rath Savenal.”
I blinked, not having heard my bloodline’s name addressed by a Karag before.
“Yes, that’s right,” I said, inclining my head at her in respect.
“What exactly do you wish to discover here?” she asked quietly.
My brow furrowed, and I glanced up at her, meeting her golden eyes. “I want to learn.”
“What?”
“Everything,” I said, waving my hand to gesture at the hatchling, to the hatchery behind me.
“A tall ask for a single season,” she replied. I assumed this was Tarkosh, the master of the hatchery.
“I know,” I said. “But mymrikrotold me that our creatures might not be so different from one another, that they were all given life by Kakkari. I’ve worked withpyrokisnearly my entire life. I hope to apply some of that experience here. It’s why I’m here.”
