Dragon-Ridden (43 page)

“I’m the imperial inspector
appointed to look into the events of the Castle Pointe Tunnels,” he said.

Tate blinked slowly and turned her
head away. She was tired. Not physically tired, for her body told her she’d
been asleep for quite a while. Mentally, though, she was exhausted, her
thinking processes slow. For once her mind wasn’t racing with thoughts or
questions. It was content to simply exist in a tranquil contentment that didn’t
really require her to think.

Fire raced up her arm threatening
her peaceful state. Tate hissed and tried to draw her arm away. The inspector
had grabbed it, right on the wound and held on tight.

“Let go,” Tate snapped.

“Ah, there you are,” he said
cheerfully, not letting up. “The Isis root tends to clog thinking when someone
just wakes up. A little pain goes a long way to relieving it.”

“So you grabbed a wounded person’s
arm?” Tate asked. The bubble of peace she’d been in had drifted away, and she
was back in the real world, feeling every wound mentally and physically. She
felt brittle as if the events in the tunnel had stripped her defenses down and
left her nerves exposed.

“You didn’t seem inclined to answer
my questions otherwise,” he pointed out.

“Maybe you should have taken the
hint, then.”

He sighed and leaned back in his
chair. He was glad to see a bit more color in her face and the numbness of
before had been replaced with a little life. Her eyes were quite pretty when
they spat fire.

“I don’t think you understand how
much trouble you’re in,” he said. “Right now you’re under suspicion of aiding
and abetting suspected traitors to the empire as well as voluntarily engaging
in black magic for the purpose of subverting and hindering the established
regime. You are also responsible for stealing and kidnapping from an agent of
the empire as well and interfering with an official mission headed by said
agent.” He leaned forward. “We behead traitors.”

Tate glared at him and tightened
her jaw stubbornly. “I haven’t done anything that could be classified as
traitorous.”

“So you say, but your actions to
date have been extremely suspicious.”

She didn’t know what he was talking
about, and it must have shown on her face because the unreadable expression on
his face shifted for just a moment and he nodded as if she’d confirmed
something for him.

With a flick of his wrist he threw
several balls in the air above her bed. They hovered in midair. While she was
distracted he slipped a metal tube into one of the wounds on her arm. She
flinched from the sharp pain and tried to pull away. He held her still while
whatever it was worked its way under her skin and sprouted tentacles that
attached themselves to nerve endings.

“What is that?” she shouted,
grabbing one of his wrists and trying to break his grip on her.

“Relax,” he urged. “It’s just a
truth-sayer. It’ll let me know if you try to lie to me at any point in this
process.”

“I don’t care. Get it out of me.”

He slapped her hand away when she
tried to grab the tube. “Stop fussing. It’ll stop hurting after a moment.”

He was right. Already the pain was
fading, though the odd feeling of having something under her skin remained.

“Now,” he said, releasing her
slowly to make sure she didn’t try to tear the tube out. “When you lie, these,”
he tapped one of the floating balls which drifted out of place before drifting back,
“will turn red. The truth-sayer will also dig deeper into your arm. I’d be
careful if I were you. These things have been known to borrow so deep that the
arm had to be cut off later.”

Great. Just what she needed. She
tried to ignore the tube, but her eyes were drawn back to it almost constantly.

“Let’s start shall we.” He didn’t
wait for her to respond. “What’s your full name?”

“Tate Fisher.”

Immediately the little tentacles
burrowed into muscles and nerves causing pain to radiate up her arm and the little
balls to flash red.

“It is my name.” The pain started
again. “It’s the one I came up with because I don’t know my real name.” The
pain stopped and the ball flashed a pale yellow.

“The truth but not the entire one,”
he observed.

Sweat had started pouring off Tate,
and her arm already ached.

“What is your name now?”

“Ai said its Tatum Alegra Winters,”
Tate tried. She blew out a deep breath when the pain didn’t start.

“Alright,” he said. “Tell me why
you decided to get off your ship at Aurelia.”

Tate licked her lips. “Because-“

She grabbed her arm as the
tentacles sent waves of pain up it. “I didn’t even say anything yet.”

“You planned to lie. That was
enough.”

“Alright. Alright. Enough,” she
yelled. The tentacles seemed to draw back, but she could feel them moving just
beneath the surface. “This is torture.”

“Indeed.” He lifted one eyebrow as
if to say ‘so?’ “Simply tell the true and the pain will stop.”

So she did. She told him about
hearing how Ryu was getting off at another city and how she decided to get off
here because of pressure from the crew. He, of course, wanted to know why Ryu’s
whereabouts mattered, so she had to tell him how he always seemed to be
watching her. The entire story poured out of her. About how she met Umi, how
she stole the key from Dewdrop. All of it. The entire chain of events. He
stopped her several times, asking for more detail in several instances, about
her motivations, her observations, everything. Every time she tried to hide
something or twist the truth he, or the truth-sayer, would ferret the details
from her. Staying silent wasn’t an option. When she tried, the tentacles looped
around the femur in her arm and tightened, threatening to snap the bone unless
she talked.

Finally he had the whole story.
Tate’s voice was hoarse from speaking, and her arm was a blaze of pain.

“One last question,” he said.

Tate felt relief that this ordeal
was almost over.

“How did you come by your dragon?”
His steely gaze met hers.

She got the feeling this was the
most important question he’d asked her yet. That this was the real reason he
was here. Somehow she felt that her fate rested on the outcome. It was on the
tip of her tongue to ask ‘what dragon?’ but she knew what he was talking about.
She could no longer pretend her tattoo wasn’t real.

“I don’t remember,” she said. She
held her breath waiting for a spark of pain but there was nothing. The balls
flashed green. She’d told the truth. Thank the Saviors.

“Nothing?”

She shook her head. “Everything
from shortly before Jost picked me up is a blank.”

It was difficult to tell what he
thought of her answer. In the end, she was left wondering. He held up his hand
and the floating balls flew back to him. The tentacles receded, and he pulled
the tube from her arm. She breathed a sigh of relief.

As if summoned, the door opened,
and Ryu stepped into the room. He didn’t glance at Tate, his attention focused
solely on the imperial inspector. Ryu looked faintly worried, but that was
absurd. He’d faced down rival pirates and a roomful of the Red Lady’s disciples
with a look of mild boredom. This shouldn’t even phase him.

Furthermore, his presence was a bit
odd given he wasn’t exactly on the same side of the law as the inspector.

“She passed,” the inspector
informed him, his clothes rustling as he stood.

“You’re findings?”

“A tendency to lie,” the inspector
said, casting a censorious glance on Tate. She shrugged at him. Of course she
did. The truth was a weapon best wielded carefully. And sparingly. “Actually,
most of what comes out of her mouth are lies and half truths.”

Ryu’s shoulders tightened, and he
nodded grimly. Tate folded her arms across her chest, or at least tried to. The
bandages on both arms didn’t exactly make it easy for her to bend them.

“But,” the inspector continued,
“for all that, she has a strong, if skewed, sense of right and wrong and an
overabundant sense of responsibility. I recommend that she be trained by the
guard immediately to break whatever bad habits she’s picked up.”

“Bad habits,” Tate parroted. Fear
made her stupid. Talk of training as if they had any right to decide the course
of her life made her braver than she’d be otherwise. “I don’t have bad habits,
and I don’t need training. I don’t know who you are, but I’ll decide the course
of my own life.”

“Tate,” Ryu warned.

She didn’t heed him, instead
glaring mulishly at the man towering over her. Had she been any younger, she
probably would have stuck her tongue out at him too. “He has no right.”

The man arched one perfectly
groomed eyebrow. “You’ll have your hands full with this waif, my lord Ryuji. I
don’t envy you one bit.”

Tate’s eyes snapped to Ryu as the
inspector let himself out of the room. She knew it. She knew he was some
highborn lord. She just hadn’t been able to figure out what he was doing on
Jost’s ship. Before she could gather herself to express her anger, Ryu had
crossed the room and grabbed her around the neck. He didn’t hurt her, holding
her carefully but firmly.

“Not a word,” he warned. “You have
no idea how close you came to being executed. He has every right to decide
what’s to be done with you, shelila. You’re a dragon in the Emperor’s own city.
You’re not registered nor have you made yourself known to the required
authorities.”

She pushed against his chest.
Although he wasn’t hurting her, she wasn’t comfortable with him so close or
touching her.

 “It’s not like I even knew I
was dragon bound until I got to the city,” Tate told him crossly. “I don’t even
know what it means except that my damn tattoo can move and breath fire when
angry.”

“You don’t remember what happened
in the tunnels, I take it,” he said, his thoughts hidden behind his dark eyes.

Tate frowned and fingered the
bandage on her arm. Like she’d told the inspector, a lot of what happened down
there was a blur. She remembered someone telling her to give in, to let the
dragon take charge. Her brow furrowed, and she looked unseeing across the room.

Everything after that were just
impressions. Mostly hunger. And blood. She remembered dreaming and in that
dream she’d known her entire past. She’d understood things with a bell like
clarity that made her existence in this world seem cloudy by comparison. The
man she’d spoken with had seemed familiar. So very familiar. She’d known him
somehow before. He’d been important to her. She just wished she knew how.

“Your ignorance is probably the
only thing that saved you,” he said, letting her go and moving to sit in the
inspector’s former chair. He didn’t ask her about the tunnel again, letting her
keep those thoughts private.

“What’s so bloody bad about not
announcing my presence?” she asked roughly.

“You’re dangerous,” he said,
pointing at her. “In ways you haven’t discovered yet. Any time a human forms a
bond with one of the dragons, they are required to submit themselves to the
Emperor’s corps so they can be tested, and if found to have the correct
qualities, trained so they may serve the empire.”

“Who decides what qualities are the
right ones?”

“The Emperor and the
dragon-ridden.”

“What gives them the right?” she
asked.

“Power,” was the prompt reply.
“Experience. You’re a weapon. All of the dragon-ridden are. To keep the
balance, there have to be rules and consequences.”

“Seems kind of arbitrary to me,”
Tate said. “What qualities do they look for then?”

“Stability of mind. Compatibility
with their dragon. Honor, discipline, integrity, loyalty, duty. It’s very
complicated,” he finally said. “You heard him. You barely passed. If you’d
failed in the tunnels, there’s no doubt he would have failed you on the spot.
As it is, you’ll be in a probationary period while they make sure you’re not a
danger.”

Tate grumbled to herself. It
sounded like a very elite club. The wonder wasn’t that he hadn’t failed her but
that he’d passed her at all. Most of those qualities weren’t ones that could be
used to describe her.

“How do you know about all this?”
she asked. For a pirate’s shipman he knew a lot.

He studied her for a long moment
before rolling up his sleeve to mid elbow. He tapped the skin on his underarm
and concentrated. She got a weird feeling she knew where this was going.

A dragon walked out from under his
sleeve to curl around his wrist and rest its chin on the top of his hand. It
blinked golden eyes, pupils slit like a cats. The dragon was twice the size of
hers with silver markings etched on its head. The rest of its body was a
gleaming black with silver outlining several of his back scales. His body
shimmered like the night sky on the ocean. Beautiful and mysterious.

In wonder she reached out to it,
hesitating before running a finger along the brow ridges of its head. It closed
its eyes and purred and butted against her hand. Ryu shivered. Tate looked up
to find his eyes closed and his face soft.

“It’s beautiful,” she said
withdrawing her hand. She laid a hand on where hers rested on the inside of her
upper arm. It was still, but if she concentrated she could feel the slight
movement of its chest against her fingertips.

“He,” Ryu corrected.

Oh. She looked back at the small
dragon whose eyes were trained on her.

“How,” she started but stopped. She
didn’t know how to ask what she wanted. Too many things had happened in too
short a time. Too many bombshells, too much information.

“Jost is an agent of the empire,”
Ryu said training his eyes on hers. “Once he got a look at your dragon, he
contacted me and asked me to confirm his suspicions.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this from
the beginning?” she asked, feeling a little lost and hurt. All this time he’d
been watching her, observing her. For what? To see if she was this
dragon-ridden. And Jost. All this time she’d felt grateful for him picking her
up and taking her under his wing. She’d even felt guilty about abandoning him
as she had. It’d all been a lie.