6.0 - Raptor (3 page)

Jartya walked out again, and Cas mentally urged her to hurry. But the maid noticed the water droplets.

Don’t look up
, Cas silently urged.
Don’t look up…

Jartya bent and swept the sponge across the water. She glanced at her bucket.
Yes
, Cas thought,
those drops came from your bucket, not from the woman with trembling forearms braced above the door.

There was no way for Cas to stem the drops falling from her hem, not with both her hands occupied. As Jartya was cleaning up the mess, a new drop fell, plopping onto the back of her white uniform. She didn’t seem to notice. For the moment. Another drop fell. Jartya stood up with a sigh. She had gained weight and a few gray hairs in the years since Cas had been here. She probably wouldn’t appreciate a hundred-pound woman falling onto her head.

Sweat slicked Cas’s palms, and one started to slip. She flexed her shoulders, pushing harder to keep herself in place. Finally, Jartya headed down the hall. She disappeared around the corner that led to the kitchen without looking back.

Cas dropped down, wincing when she couldn’t make her landing silent. She hurried into the office, afraid someone would have heard her. Jartya might also return to lock the door again once she put away the cleaning supplies.

Her father’s tidy office and clear desk made it easy to spot something out of the ordinary. A single envelope lay on a corner, the top sliced open. It was addressed to the Trim and Tight Landscaping Service, one of her father’s businesses that covered up what he truly did. Cas wiped her damp palms and pulled out a single page inside the envelope. She skimmed the short letter inside, pausing on key terms.
His celestial highness… authorized me to hire you… the traitor Tolemek Targoson. Fifty thousand nucros or good imperial gold.

Cas slumped against the chair. Tolemek.

• • • • •

Sardelle knocked on the door to Ridge’s office on the second floor of the brigade headquarters building in the middle of the army fort. Thanks to King Angulus, she now had a fancy piece of paper that could get her past the guards without chicanery. Nonetheless, she had expected to have trouble this time, since she had Tylie with her. The guards
had
questioned Sardelle, but one look at Tylie’s paint-stained dress and the grass-thong sandals she had grabbed after the attack, and they’d decided she wasn’t a security threat. Fortunately, they did not know she had the potential to be a powerful sorceress someday and had already learned a few skills.

“Come in,” Ridge said, then silently added,
You don’t ever have to knock
.

Sardelle had already brushed his mind, letting him know they were coming, so she was monitoring him for comments.

I wouldn’t want to catch you doing something embarrassing.
She tried to make her tone light, though her mood was anything but light after the dragon incident. She hadn’t yet told him about that, just that there was trouble and they needed to talk.

Generals don’t do embarrassing things in their offices. They’re proper and staid.

The man across the hall has his door locked and is vigorously looking at a calendar with naked women in it
, Jaxi informed them both.

Well
, Ridge replied,
he’s only a colonel.

How does one look ‘vigorously’?
Sardelle wondered before she could think better of it. She opened the door and waved Tylie inside, glancing at the closed door across the hallway.

“No need for details,” Ridge blurted, frowning at Jaxi’s spot on Sardelle’s hip. How a soulblade could pulse mischievously, Sardelle did not know, but Jaxi managed it.

Sardelle walked over, hugged Ridge, and kissed him on the cheek. He looked quite handsome in his freshly pressed uniform—General Ort would be proud, since his boots were even mud-free at the moment. She would have enjoyed lingering for more than the perfunctory kiss, especially since he had been sleeping on base most nights of late, ever since Phelistoth showed up at the cottage. He was staying close and assisting with Tylie’s teaching. Sardelle couldn’t blame Ridge for being uncomfortable having a dragon wandering around the house at odd times of the day. It rattled her too. But it meant that
she
slept alone. She didn’t feel that Tylie was old enough to stay out there by herself, and Tolemek was away on a mission for the king, so Sardelle had been taking care of her.

You did agree to teach her
, Jaxi said.

That was before I knew I’d get a dragon with the deal.

Technically, Phelistoth is
her
dragon. He just tolerates you because you came with the house. Much like Ridge’s original couch.

I doubt the dragon belongs to anybody.

Reluctantly, Sardelle released Ridge and stepped back. “We have trouble.”

“So you said.” He winced. “It’s not the house again, is it? We’ve barely been there a month.”

“The house is still standing.”

“The couch was incinerated,” Tylie said, waving her arms in an expansive gesture. “And Phel is missing. The other dragon chased him away.”

“The
other
dragon?” Ridge braced himself against his desk.

“The thousands-of-years-old criminal one that escaped from his magical prison in that cavern.” Sardelle had arrived only for the aftermath of the mission Ridge had gone on with Captain Kaika, General Ort, and King Angulus, but she had seen the big gold dragon flying into the sunrise, and she had felt the power of his aura from miles away.

“Angulus was worried he would be a nuisance.” Ridge sighed. “I didn’t think he would be a nuisance to my house.
Or
my brand new, paid for in installments that haven’t been installed yet, couch.”

Sardelle squeezed his arm, tempted to let him know that she felt the loss of the couch even more keenly than he. She had been delighted when he had agreed to take her and his mother shopping to replace his atrocious plaid sofa, and that he had allowed himself to be persuaded from dubious choices by the joint efforts of Sardelle and Fern. The dragon was, of course, a more pressing concern.

“I’m worried about him,” Tylie said, gesturing and pacing. Somehow, her sandals had come off by the door, and she was walking barefoot across the polished wooden floor. “He’s a silver. And a scholar! He’s no match for a gold dragon.”

“Phelistoth is a scholar?” Ridge’s eyebrows rose.

“So he tells us.” Sardelle hadn’t been home when the incident had occurred, but Tylie had shared the events with her through a mind link. She thought about having Tylie do the same thing with Ridge, but he might object to telepathic sharing with Tolemek’s little sister. Sardelle touched his arm and relayed the incident herself, including the way it had ended, with Phelistoth leading the other dragon away.

“Well, that’s going to alarm the neighbors. Especially if they figure out that those dragons started out on our lawn.” Ridge eyed Tylie, who had walked around his desk to stare out the window as she worried her lower lip with her teeth. “I’ve heard the gold dragon has been flying around the Ice Blades, terrorizing mountain communities. There have been deaths, of people as well as livestock. I’m sure the king is considering ways to deal with it, especially since—” He glanced at Tylie again and finished with a shoulder shrug.

Sardelle decided not to tell him there wasn’t much point in leaving secrets unspoken around Tylie. She sensed what others were thinking without meaning to. Sardelle had been working on teaching her to wall off her mind so she wouldn’t be bombarded by the thoughts and emotions of those around her, but since she spent so much time flying off with Phelistoth, her education was at a rudimentary level. Tylie already knew the king had been, however inadvertently, responsible for freeing the gold dragon. Phelistoth knew too. Sardelle hoped the silver dragon would know better than to react out of spite, especially now that he seemed to be a target.

Sardelle realized she didn’t know
why
he was a target. “Tylie? Do you know why the gold dragon went after Phelistoth?”

“Morishtomaric,” Tylie said, turning from the window. “That’s his name.” She frowned down at her bare feet, or perhaps the floor, then picked up a ladybug that had found its way inside. “Did you know ladybugs have very focused minds? They’re always on the hunt for insect eggs, and that’s always in their thoughts. Do you have any insect eggs in here, General Ridge?”

“Sorry, Private Domez cleaned in here last night. We’re out.”

“Morishtomaric told you his name, Tylie?” Sardelle had learned it from reading the plaque and doing research on the dragons imprisoned in that cavern, but she doubted Tylie had plucked the name from her thoughts. Unlike Ridge, Sardelle knew how to keep a barrier around her mind, both for protection from snooping telepaths and as a courtesy to those who were sensitive, such as Tylie, and were uncomfortable with the constant background noise of loose thoughts. In her time, it had been much more of a concern.

“He told Phel.” Tylie looked around the room, studying the corners of the ceiling as the ladybug strolled across her hand. She opened the window and stuck her head outside, looking in either direction from their second-story perch. “You should have a garden out here, General Ridge. There’s no good place for her.”

Sardelle winced. She’d gotten used to Tylie’s eccentricities and her young mind, at least somewhat, but she worried Ridge would see her as an oddity—and that she would sense that and be stung.

“Maybe you should take her to the house,” Ridge said. “If the trees haven’t been incinerated by itinerant dragons, there ought to be spider eggs all over the woods out back.”

Tylie considered this, then nodded. “Yes.” She tucked the ladybug into one of the loose pockets on her dress.

“Tylie,” Sardelle said. Time to try again. “Did the dragon communicate with you?”

“Morishtomaric has been looking for Phel. He told him to be his… assistant.” Tylie spread her arms. “That isn’t the right term. They were speaking in dragon, and I don’t understand all the words. Maybe slave? Servant?”

“Wait,” Ridge said. “You understand
some
of the words? In dragon?”

“Yes. Phel speaks to me that way. It was a long time before I learned to understand him.”

“He spoke to us in the king’s tongue.” Ridge rubbed his head. “Strongly.”

“He prefers his own language,” Tylie said. “Phel didn’t want to serve the other dragon. He refused. Morishtomaric came to punish him and make him change his mind.” She bit her lip and looked out the window again. “I can sense him, through our link, and I think he’s in trouble. He’s not responding to me.” She looked back toward them, her brown eyes moist and imploring.

Sardelle almost walked over to offer her a hug, but thus far, Tylie had shied away from physical contact with anyone except Tolemek. She wished
he
were here and hoped he’d return from the king’s mission soon.

“He didn’t say what he wanted Phelistoth to do as a servant, did he?” Ridge asked.

Tylie shook her head.

“Finding a creature that can cross all of Iskandia in a few hours isn’t going to be easy,” Ridge said, nodding to Sardelle. “And figuring out how to kill it, or at least get it to leave the country and become someone else’s problem, won’t be fun.”

Sardelle thought Tylie might object to the idea of killing a dragon—she certainly wouldn’t have wanted Phelistoth harmed—but she merely firmed her chin and said, “Magic can kill a dragon.”

“But do we have powerful enough magic for that?” Ridge raised his eyebrows.

“I certainly don’t. Jaxi doesn’t.”

A small harumph noise sounded in Sardelle’s mind, but even Jaxi wasn’t cocky enough to think she could match a dragon.

“What about that other sorceress?” Ridge asked. “She was here in Iskandia a few weeks ago. We’re pretty sure she wasn’t trying to do anything that would
help
us, since last we heard, her goal was to rule over Iskandia as the Cofah emperor’s agent, and since she annihilated two of our officers.” His jaw tightened, but he took a breath and continued. “Is it possible that she could defeat a dragon, if we could make a deal with her?” From his expression and aura, Sardelle could tell making deals with enemy sorceresses was the last thing he wanted to do, but he would if it meant protecting his country.

“She’s more powerful than I am,” Sardelle said, “but she still wouldn’t be a match for a gold dragon. Or even a silver or bronze. No single human can equal a dragon in power. There are old fables of sorcerers using craft and guile to defeat dragons, but one wonders how often that actually happened.”

“It only takes once to become the stuff of legends.”

“Exactly. And to be retold and embellished into hyperbole. Like the exploits of pilots.”

Ridge’s eyebrows flew up. “My exploits are perfectly factual.”

“Oh? The last I heard, you single-handedly brought down a whole armada of flying fortresses sent by the vile Cofah Empire.”

“An armada? Who’s been saying such things?”

“It was in an article in a magazine from Provalian County. I saw it at the library when I was doing dragon research.”

“Ah, Provalia.” Ridge waved a dismissive hand. “They’re very rural and quaint. They probably don’t know the difference between an armada and a single floating fortress. Duck was raised in Provalia, you know. He didn’t learn to read until he joined the military.”

“I thought that was because he was raised by wolves.”

“Yes. Rural wolves from Provalia.”

“As opposed to urban wolves?”

“General Ridge?” Tylie asked—she hadn’t quite gotten the hang of properly addressing someone in the army. “We need to help Phel.”

Ridge lifted an apologetic hand. “Yes, I know. Sorry. I haven’t seen much of your teacher lately, and I enjoy chatting with her about frivolous subjects.” He smiled at Sardelle.

She enjoyed chatting about frivolous subjects with him, too, but Tylie’s concerned eyes reminded them that this wasn’t the time for it.

“I’m scared too,” Tylie whispered, her voice so soft, Sardelle wondered if she had heard correctly.