“I feel bad,”Rylana said as the delectable aroma of her latte wafted up, a touch of vanilla bean sweetening the drink. She sat across from Sylin, looking out the window of the coffee shop toward the Dragon Diner while her friend, who had pushed the other chair away from the table, alternately stood or squatted, her back to a ceiling-high piece of roasting machinery that emanated a faint magical glow.
“About what?” Sylin inhaled the scent of her straight black coffee, then took an appreciative sip, letting it linger on her tongue before swallowing. “This is the best roast I’ve had since we left the southern kingdoms. Most coffee beans are stale and anemic by the time they reach this latitude, but someone must have paid for a dragon to bring this north on its back.”
“Yes, I’ve heard their kind delight in undertaking freight delivery for humans. More likely, some magical gnomish storage containers were used.”
“However the beans came to be here in such a fresh state, I approve.” Sylin sipped again and smacked her lips a couple of times. “Based on the robust and nuanced taste, I believe theyoriginated in the equatorial Lazombik Rainforest, from farms at just a high enough altitude in the mountains that the cooler temperatures slowed the bean development to increase the flavor, acidity, and exquisite complexity of the coffee.”
“Yeah, I like mine too.” By now, Rylana knew about her comrade’s obsession with the beverage and didn’t comment on the rest, though she’d often joked that it must have been the scent of coffee brewing in a hunter’s camp that had first drawn Sylin out of the woods and away from the wolves who’d raised her.
“Yours is a latte.” Sylin wrinkled her elegant elven nose. “I don’t know how you can tell anything about the complexity of the beans when they’re diluted with milk.”
“There’s vanilla and sugar too.”
“Loathsome.”
“I feelbad,” Rylana said to bring the conversation back to the topic, “because the dragon—Jildarin, I believe it was—was fined because of me.”
“It was Jildarin-grozanarav. I remember him and his brother Zilek-grozanarav from the war. They were high-ranking dragons in Clan Killcrusher, some of the archnemeses of the joint kingdoms. And it’s not your fault that he lost his temper and shifted. All you did was walk in. He brought all that upon himself.”
“I did shoot him last year.”
“During the war. In wartime, shooting your enemy isexpected. Your only mistake was in not hitting him in the eye and killing him. Now, he’s nursing a grudge, maybe fantasizing presently about chancing upon you outside of the city boundaries so he can finish what the peacekeepers rudely interrupted.”
“My incineration?”
“Precisely.”
“He’s probably already forgotten me. He’s got a cooking competition to prepare for.”
“And rent to pay. Who ever heard of a broke dragon? ClanKillcrusher has a legendary hoard, reputedly. Though you’d have to ask a goblin for details. Their kind keep track ofallthe sizable hoards, just in case an opportunity arises to visit one while clutching a purse.”
“Yes, thieving from dragons often goes well for goblins.”
“So often that their charred skeletons frequently litter the mounds of gold.” After another sip, Sylin shifted to gaze out the window. “Maybe he’s been disowned. I’d say it might have been because of a poor performance during the war, but those two brothers took out the entire Bloodletters mercenary company. Do you remember?”
Rylana set her cup down with a clunk. “That was them?”
She remembered the annihilation of the mercenary clan, but the Moon Daggers had been fighting on another mountain when it had happened.
“That was they, yes. At the time, I was competing for kills against Salvo, the half-elven Bloodletter assassin who always wanted to show me up but also wanted to sleep with me—strange man. He was one of only three people in his unit who survived to tell the tale. That’s why I remember the dragons’ names.”
“Well, that doesn’t change anything about today. Even if all is fair in war—” Rylana waved a hand, not sure she believed the aphorism, “—Jildarin's irritation toward me was founded.” She didn’t think she could pronounce his full clan name so stuck with the shortened version. “If you want to get philosophical, the prevailing dragon irritation towardallhumansisn’t entirely unfounded.”
“No, humans are almost as good at vexing other species as goblins are. Elves, I know, find your people terribly tedious and tiresome.”
“Yet you honor me by having coffee with me.”
“Elves find me even worse.” Sylin saluted Rylana with her cup.
Rylana had never asked her comrade how many of her ownpeople she’d killed under orders from Captain Maverick and his superiors. It didn’t seem to bother Sylin. Little did. Perhaps one couldn’t be an effective assassin if moral qualms haunted one’s sleep on a regular basis.
“Maybe I can help him somehow,” Rylana mused.
“The dragon?” Sylin set her cup down. “Are you daft?”
“I still need a job. Don’t you? Since the unit disbanded and the war is over, the traditional mercenary retirement plan isn’t going to work for either of us.”
“You mean the plan where mercenaries die on the battlefield before theyneedfunds for retirement?”
