“Maybe that’s also why there’s a company of knights at your back,” the girl continued, “lying in wait while you weasel your way into our midst.”
A muscle feathered in Tol’s jaw. “I can assure you we’re not with them.”
I vouch for the draconic, Gwenhael said.Is my word as dragon not enough to convince you?
“Forgive us,” the older woman said with a reverent bow.
The younger one seemed reticent to show such deference, if only because she couldn’t tear her gaze from Tol.
“We are of course in your service, mighty Gwenhael,” the older woman continued. “But you will understand our distrust of the Fellowship of the Light. Too often have they captured dragons whose freedom it was our duty to safeguard. The Golden Helm will not fail again.”
“What is the Golden Helm, anyway?” Tol asked.
“Your masters really tell you nothing, do they?” quipped the youngest. “The Golden Helm are knights-errant, loyal only to the dragons. Those who haven’t been captured and tortured and killed byyourFellowship.” She spat on the ground at Tol’s feet.
“Ivayne,” warned the older woman, just as Gwenhael emitted a low growl.
The girl glared at Tol. “We were the original draconics. Those to whom the dragonschoseto give their heart-flame.Ouroaths are truly sacred because they were made to the dragons themselves. Unlike your Fellowship. Thieves, the lot of you.”
“Trust me, no one hates their methods more than I do,” Tol said, lowering his sword. “But it’s not like I was ever given a choice. That’s how the masters trick us. They find us as children on the brink of death and turn us when we’re too delirious to know what we’re agreeing to. They claim to want to save us, but really, they only seek to add numbers to their ranks.”
The older woman finally lowered her sword, considering Tol. “What is it you’re after, then?”
“We seek the Sun Forger. Gwenhael told us you might know where she slumbers.”
Ivayne laughed. “Even if we did know, what makes you think wewould tell a supposed deserter of the Fellowship and his strange companions?”
If the Golden Helm truly serves all dragons, then you must share this secret with me if I request it of you.
The women exchanged a glance.
“Look,” Tol said, taking a step toward them, “we just want—”
Both women thrust out their swords in warning. Tol stepped back immediately.
“Careful, draconic,” the older one said, eyes ablaze.
Something had come loose from her tunic, dangling from a chain around her neck. Romie blinked in recognition.
“That compass,” she said. “Where did you get that?”
It looked exactly like the one Vera had—the compass Emory’s mother had left her.
“What is it to you?” asked the older woman.
Vera pulled on her own chain to reveal the identical compass.
The two women lowered their swords at the sight of it. The older one strode up to Vera and examined her compass. “You’re part of the Veiled Atlas?”
“Yes?” Vera replied uncertainly.
The Veiled Atlas—the cult that believed Cornus Clover had truly gone to the other worlds he wrote about. A truth that was becoming more and more plausible. Did this cult exist here as well after Clover passed through?
“You must be Travelers, then,” the woman said. She looked between them all. “Who of you bears the Traveler’s mark?”
“You mean this?” Romie lifted her sleeve so the silver spiral on her wrist was visible. “Most of us here have it.”
“But not all of you are keys.”
