Before she was ready, Jildarin stretched his silver wings wide and glided downward. In the center of a meadow, a great gray pillar of a rock with a mushroom-cap top rose as high as the trees around it. Rylana recognized the spot, having visited it with a neighbor’s family that she’d gone camping with in her youth.
“We call that Toadstool Rock,” she said.
Somewhat ignoble, considering there is magic within it.Jildarin descended, not landing on the top of the rock formation, as she thought he might, but in the meadow beside it. Fresh grass and clover spread across the ground, damp with dew.
Though it was past midnight, Rylana didn’t see any dragons and thought they’d departed. Then she spotted someone and sat up with a start. A voluptuous woman with lush blonde hair that gleamed in the moonlight stood at one end of the clearing. A flowing dress emphasized her full curves, and she looked toward Jildarin with striking eyes like liquid silver, no hint of fear stiffening her body. She held something up in her hands like an offering. Two small sacks tied with twine.
“That looks like a trap to me,” Rylana said.
Indeed. I also sense another dragon in the area.
“Another? Does that meanshe’sone?”
She is one of the sisters.
“Why did she turn into a human when we’re miles and miles from Tranquility’s border?”
Despite Rylana’s warning that it might be a trap, and the reservations he had to have, Jildarin didn’t depart. He’d landed in the shadow of the rock pillar and turned to face the beautiful woman. No, the dragoncurrently taking theappearanceof a beautiful woman. So striking was she that if she and Sylin had been walking down the street,shemight have gotten all the men’s looks.
The woman’s gaze shifted from Jildarin to Rylana, and a frown compressed her full lips.
“Who are you?” she asked, her tone hard, not matching her youthful beauty.
“I’m the bookkeeper. Who are you?”
“Who are you that presumesto ride upon the back of a mighty dragon? You are not even elven.”
“A tragedy, I’m sure.” Rylana slid off Jildarin's back to land in the dewy grass.
She serves me, Jildarin stated telepathically.I am not displeased to see you, Loxvonla, and I am interested in that which you carried all these miles.
He remained in his dragon form, slitted eyes shifting from the woman to the sacks that she held. Since he was in his native form, her human beauty presumably wouldn’t do anything to entice him or affect how he bargained with her, and Rylana wondered again why she’d turned into a human. Surely, more than because dragons lacked pockets, and it was easier to hold bags of spices with fingers than talons. After all, she had to have traveled here as a dragon.
I am pleased that you are pleased, Jildarin-grozanarav.She’d switched to telepathy, and her voice was more musical mentally than aloud—though maybe that was because she was speaking to Jildarin now instead of Rylana.
Since the woman was focused on him, Rylana took a couple of steps back and slid her bow off so she could string it and work out the knot of the tranquility ribbon. In the city, its magic would have made it difficult to remove, but out here, it was a mere knot.
I understand you have use for the dried and powdered forms of the fungi and herbs that grow in our caves,the female—Loxvonla—continued.I propose a trade.
While she spoke, a winged shadow crossed over the meadow. Rylana looked up as a huge black dragon alighted on the top ofToadstool Rock. It—she?—also had silver eyes that glowed in the moonlight, visible when her head lowered and she peered down at them.
Jildarin had been aware of the other dragon’s approach, and he didn’t react in any way to what Rylana presumed was another sister above them. Perched on, Rylana’s mercenary mind couldn’t help but note, the high ground.
Be wary,Jildarin whispered into her mind, and she believed the words were only for her.Female dragons are very powerful.
Oh, I know,she thought back, trusting he would hear her words.But you’re powerful too, right?
There are two of them.
Does that mean I should run if they attack? Or take cover behind a tree and shoot them to help you?
Jildarin's head swung around, and he looked at Rylana, but Loxvonla cleared her throat, drawing his attention back to her.
What do you desire in trade?Jildarin asked, but he sounded like he already knew.
We offer what you want,the new arrival said telepathically, her voice booming with her innate power,in exchange for you.
Rylana didn’t catch her meaning at first, but the way Jildarin stiffened suggested he had.
