“What’s Nipper doing here?” I ask Azelie over my shoulder, not daring to take my eyes from the beast’s long snout in case she’s thinking of using her teeth again.
“Ooh, you’ve named her,” Azelie coos, completely missing the point. “I love it.”
The dragon ambles forward, flaring the glistening purple webbing around her head and neck. I take a step back, retreating into the house. Her scales seem to turn more pink than purple as she hurries toward me. I reach for the door, about to slam it shut when Meredy stops me with a hand firmly placed over mine.
“She likes you, Master Necromancer,” Meredy says slowly, apparently reading the dragon’s emotions with her Sight. “Alot. She’s afraid—probably that you’re leaving. I’m not entirely sure, but I think she wants to come with you.”
I shake my head. “Oh, no. What in Vaia’s name makes you think we need another creature to look after?”
But Meredy doesn’t appear to hear me as she looks thoughtfully toward Halmar. “I don’t suppose...” she begins.
“She can accompany you,” Halmar says gently, giving us the first true smile I think we’ve seen from him. I’m surprised, but when hesays, “Karthia and Sarral were once great allies. Perhaps Karthia has forgotten, but Sarral’s memory remains as sharp as ever,” I start to understand. “Normally,” he continues, “we’d never dream of letting a visitor leave with one of our babies, but...” He gazes solemnly between me and Meredy. “You’re no ordinary visitors, are you? You’re the first Karthian cartographers—no, the first Karthianambassadorsof King Wylding’s long reign!”
He says it with such admiration that my insides squirm guiltily at our deception. I hate lying to someone who’s been so good to us, but we have to do what we can to keep Valoria’s rule a secret until she’s ready to tell the world herself.
“Besides,” Halmar continues, unaware of the guilt now souring my mood, “we’ve tried to breed this particular dragon a couple times, but she wasn’t interested in a mate. We were planning to sell her to a farm nearby—”
“As you should!” I agree, breathless, as Nipper rubs her scaly head against my legs. I’m just waiting for her teeth to come back out.
“A female dragon’s bite can sometimes be a sign that she’s chosen a mate,” Halmar adds with a barely suppressed chuckle, now collecting the dirty lunch bowls. “I don’t think she’d be happy with the farmer now that she’s met you.”
Taking a deep breath, I crouch face-to-face with the dragon, hoping I’m not about to be hit with a cloud of fire. “Go away,” I say firmly. “And I’m hopeless at taking care of anything more complicated than a daisy. The last person who followed me around died at the hands of a monster, so really, I’m doing you a favor. Now go.”
The dragon rears back on its hind legs. I almost lose my footing in my haste to move out of its reach. The dragon lunges forward, laying its clawed front feet on either side of my neck. She flicks her forked tongue across my cheek.
“I hate you,” I mutter. But as I stroke Nipper’s long nose, and find her scales surprisingly soft—more like fur than snakeskin—my resolve slips away. My love of all living creatures apparently extends even to ones that bite me by way of hello.
“I’ll send word to the queen today and let her know this little one is under new ownership,” Halmar declares. “And we hope you’ll tell King Wylding where you got her, so that he might look upon Sarral with fondness, and perhaps... if it isn’t asking too much...” He meets my eyes as his voice breaks over his next words. “Perhaps this great gift will encourage him to consider sending aid to Sarral in honor of our old alliance, should our borders fall to the Ezorans.”
When I answer, holding Halmar’s gaze, my words are heavy with the weight of a promise that’s the least I can do for people who have shown us so much kindness in a short time. “I’ll make sure the Wyldings know that Sarral would welcome an ally in Karthia once again.”
“You promise?” Azelie asks, her eyes round with hope.
“I give you my word,” I say, shaking her hand, then Halmar’s. This kingdom clearly needs allies if a few Ezoran warriors can destroy an entire Sarralan patrol.
And if Karthia were in trouble again, I’d want the whole world to rush to its aid.
VI
Music fills the night air, a loud song with a fast, pulsing beat unlike anything I’ve heard in Karthia. Tired from our tour of the city, Meredy and I share a blanket on a hillside behind the healers’ house. On another blanket nearby, Azelie’s friends talk quietly while we wait for a fireworks show to start. Occasionally, one of us shivers in the sea breeze.
“Any minute now,” Azelie whispers, casting an eager glance at the sky.
I think she hopes the fireworks will drive news of the Ezorans’ latest attack from everyone’s minds, but I doubt all the wine in Karthia could do that. Not when it seems a war is brewing on Sarral’s doorstep.
One of Azelie’s friends murmurs something too soft for me to hear over the music the Dead are playing, well aware that if we’re caught outdoors at night, we’ll be in trouble with the Queen’s Authority.
Still, when Azelie showed up at the inn just before sundown, Meredy and I agreed we could hardly refuse her offer to see the Deadhold their Festival of Rella, the blue-eyed death goddess they share with the island of Lyris. After locking Lysander in Meredy’s room, and Nipper in mine, we snuck out.
Azelie led us with confidence around the few living soldiers patrolling the streets, giving the impression she’s done this many times before. Our only light came from the stars as we climbed the hill to meet her friends. Clouds cloaked the nearly full moon, and still do, as we wait for the fireworks to begin.
I gaze down the hill at a glimmer of blue visible only through gaps in an expanse of trees, my first glimpse of a gate to the Deadlands since arriving here. The glow calls to something deep inside me, and my feet itch to march into that light. Maybe the spirits would have some news from Karthia for me. I need to know what’s happening there.
Funny. I was so desperate to escape it, yet with each day that passes, I crave word from Karthia more and more.
Beside me, Meredy murmurs, “I wish they’d hurry up with the show. I don’t want to get Azelie in any trouble.”
I frown, more worried about the Dead than Azelie. “Doesn’t this bother you?” I make a sweeping gesture toward the field below where the Dead are preparing their festivities to the lively beat of drums and some other instrument I can’t name. “The living and the Dead, trying to ignore each other’s existence?”
