Ariadne leaned back in her chair and made a tutting sound with her mouth. Valenna cast him an exasperated look, and he wondered if, perhaps, the direct approach wasn’t always the best.
“Now listen.” He leaned forward, trying to keep her attention. “I broke the oath to save Valenna’s life. We encountered the Odenbarrow serpent in the Whyspenware. What was I to do, let her be eaten?”
“Trevelyan,” Ariadne said with a sigh. “If you didn’t mean to keep the oath, then you shouldn’t have taken it.”
“Come, Ariadne,” he persisted. “You’re not an immoral woman.”
Ariadne’s eyes blazed. “Of course I am not.”
“Then I assumed you wouldn’t advocate for cowardice.”
She spread her hands. “Rules are rules.”
“I need one small thing from you. Then we’ll leave and you’ll never see me again.”
Ariadne glared at him like she was a schoolteacher and he a naughty child. “What do you need?”
“Wyvern bone powder.”
“And why would we have that here?”
“Because you have wyverns here.”
“It’s possible. But it doesn’t matter, because rules are rules.”
Evander rested his elbows on his knees and rubbed his hands together. “Please, Ariadne. Will you bend the rules for me, just one time?”
“I would … but …” She glanced at Valenna, who sat rigid in her chair, wringing her hands. “Does she need a drink of water or something?” Ariadne asked.
Evander bristled. “You may ask her yourself.”
“We’re desperate,” Valenna said. “Wyverns are extinct everywhere but here, and we need wyvern bone powder.”
“Do you know why wyverns are extinct?” Ariadne asked, leaning back in her chair and looking remarkably like a queen upon a throne. “Because the bones in their wings are hollow. We recently discovered that Silvanlight was buying the wyverns from us, removing their wings, and using the bones to make barrels for shotfires, which they sell to the warring kingdoms. And not just little single-shot weapons. No, they use them for the great ones mounted on dreadnoughts that can fire a hundred shots in a minute.”
“But you’re still selling wyverns to Silvanlight,” Valenna said.
“We sent our last one to be trained—not killed. It was, regrettably, lost.”
“But you still have some wyvern bone powder?” Evander asked.
Ariadne’s face wrinkled in a disdainful frown. “Tell me, Trevelyan, whyshould I bend the rules for you? Our youth returned last night, and the report they brought of you was ... lukewarm, at best.”
“I trained them better than any other …”
With a short laugh, Ariadne said, “You taught them how to pilot a dreadnought. Which they do not need to know, since we live in peace.”
“Cadmus has been seeking Cobblepine for years. If he finds it, they’ll be going to battle. I taught them how to survive.”
“They need to know how to handle dragons in this sanctuary, not in some warmongering nation they will never see.”
Evander heaved a heavy sigh and glanced at Valenna, who looked back at him, her lips tight and her nostrils flaring. She reminded him of a canister of scattershot, ready to blow.
“I was hard on them, but they were unruly. They needed a firm hand and …”
“It wasn’t the harshness they complained of. They said you were cold and aloof and that you disliked them.”
“I didn’t dislike them,” Evander protested, “any more than I dislike anyone else. I’m not a warm person.”
