Dragon's Mage (An Advent Mage Novel), The - Raconteur, Honor (34 page)

I’d dodged several of his attacks, and put out most of the flames around me, and the arsonist wasn’t happy about this. He started frothing at the mouth, and the open funnel of flame in his right hand started throwing out unpredictable zigzags of flame that made it hard for me to deal with. Tired of dodging, and of having to take the brunt of his attacks against my shields, I stopped trying to evade him. He wanted to fight me toe to toe? Fine.

I focused on the source of the flame, at the mouth of the funnel, and instead of letting it stream outward, I forced it to feed
backwards,
into the tubes. The fire sparked and flared, backfeeding into the huge container of oil on his back. I could feel the intense heat as it sparked and exploded within seconds of the flame hitting the open container.

Realizing the danger, he quickly unbuckled the strap around his chest and with a shriek, threw it away, freeing his hands, and lunged forward. As soon as the pack left his back, I smothered the flames, not letting it burn openly. It left a smoking hunk of junk on the pavement.

The arsonist didn’t get more than three feet before a two-ton and very angry dragon dropped on him from the sky. Kaya planted a paw on his back and squashed him into the ground so hard that the breath was knocked out of him.

“Bad man,” she snarled down at him, tail lashing in an agitated side-to-side motion.

I knew how mad my familiar was. It paled in comparison to how I felt. If I didn’t get the arsonist out of here soon, she would likely roast him right there.

“He’s a very bad man,” I agreed solemnly. As I talked, I turned about in a small circle, extinguishing the flames around me. As none of it had been given more than a few seconds to burn, it didn’t take long. “Let’s take him to the Enforcerers.”

She scooped up her prisoner like a housewife would a dirty dishrag, choking the man on his own shirt as he dangled from her claws. With a snort, she started walking forward, lecturing him all the while.

“Bad man. You scare small Kryses. You burn homes. You burn toys. You burn park. Made everyone cry. Now I make
you
cry.” So saying, she gave him a shake hard enough to rattle the teeth in his head.

Whoo boy. So this was what Kaya was like when she was furious, eh? I listened to her lecture the man in her simple, sometimes broken sentences, and she didn’t let up with her litany of all the things he had done wrong on the three block walk to the station house. Sometimes she paused, as the children nearby caught sight of her, and ran to her side asking if this was the bad man. Kaya would always assure them, “Caught bad man. No more burn things.”

Reassured, the kids would give her a hug around her leg or pat her on the nose, and then run back to their parents with the news that all would be well because Kaya had caught the bad man.

Feeling wonderfully useless, I just tagged along and enjoyed the show.

~*~

Since no one trusted the arsonist more than they could throw him, I’d been volunteered to babysit him until they could chain him down. The Enforcerers were thorough, too, draping enough chains on him that would give even an elephant pause. But I hardly thought it necessary. The last exchange we’d had had broken him mentally somehow, and he hadn’t done anything but gibber unintelligibly since.

With him chained to a wall inside the cell, eyes blind to his surroundings, he hardly looked capable of the destruction he had wreaked. I looked at him and knew that he would likely be in a cell just like this for the rest of his life. All for what…power? I would choose the freedom to live life over power. To me, it wasn’t worth the tradeoff.

Mari caught up with me at the jail, coming in just as I was leaving. She grabbed me by the shoulders and looked me over frantically. “Tell me you’re not hurt.”

“I’m fine,” I assured her, smile a little perplexed at her worry. “Personal shields, remember?”

She let out a shaky breath. “I keep forgetting about those.”

I’d noticed. I carefully didn’t say that aloud. I just put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her in for a close hug. “Breathe,” I advised against her temple. “He’s safely behind bars, our job is done, and we’ve won the day. There’s nothing left to worry about.”

Mari leaned her head against my shoulder, taking in and releasing a deep breath as I’d suggested. “Except rebuilding the city.”

“Except that.” And that would be quite the task. A lot of damage had been done.

“Ah, Krys?” Captain Lang leaned just inside the doorway, a wry smile on his face.

A little self-conscious at being caught in a close embrace with Mari in public, I cleared my throat and took a step back. “Yes, Captain?”

“Can you come outside and talk to Kaya? We don’t really want her eating what’s left of the buildings.”

Mari choked on a laugh. “Hot crunch again, huh?”

I rolled my eyes to the heavens, praying for patience. Some days, I just didn’t know what to do with her. “I’ll deal with her.”

“My thanks.” About to retreat back outside, he paused long enough to say kindly, “And congratulations to you both.”

Blinking, I watched him go. Come to think of it, he hadn’t seemed surprised to see us together. Had we really been that obvious…? No, not going to ask.

Mari patted me on the arm, already turning for the door. “I think I’ll get back to work.”

I let out a sigh. “And I’ll go deal with a dragon.”

Epilogue

Now where had Kaya gotten to? She normally disappeared at this hour of the morning to go hunt for breakfast, leaving me to watch over the kids, but she rarely took this long to come back.

In about fifteen minutes I needed to leave for the smithy, which meant I didn’t have the luxury of waiting for Kaya to come back before I fixed breakfast for myself. Curse the luck. Cooking always woke
somebody
up. Well, maybe if I did something really simple, I might get by with it.

I put on a kettle for tea with slow motions, doing everything in my power to avoid making clinking or scraping noises. Then I cut two slices of bread for toast, all the while keeping a weather eye on the far nest and the four little darlings still fast asleep.

Phew, so far, so good.

Last winter, Kaya and I had gone up to dragon territory in the far north of Libendorf with the mission to talk some dragons into coming back down and working with the firefighters in Sol. It had not gone well. They were interested in me, and with Kaya translating, asked me many questions about Fire Mages. But not one wanted to come back down.

It had been more or less the answer I expected, but I’d still hoped for better. Disheartened, I left after four days and flown back home to Mellor. What I
didn’t
know at the time was that winter was mating season for dragons. (Something that Cora had known full well and didn’t warn me about!) While we were up there, Kaya had a little fun one night and came home pregnant. Come spring, we had four little dragons, all of them born hale and hearty. We had three girls and a boy in this batch, all of them criminally cute. (Which they knew and took advantage of.)

Because my familiar was a young mother, we were both officially put on maternity leave with the city until her children were weaned enough to fly and hunt for themselves. That would take another month, perhaps two, according to Kaya. Until then, I worked at the smithy in the mornings and spent the afternoons with my new bride. Well, as much as I could with the four darlings demanding my attention.

The sole boy of the group raised his head blearily and blinked open crystal blue eyes. When he didn’t immediately see his mother, he let out a small squawk of protest.

Worried he’d wake up his sisters, I quickly dropped the bread in my hands and went to him, scooping him up in my arms. Reassured, he put his head on my shoulder, wrapped his tail around my other arm, and went right back to sleep. I looked at him in resignation. Now how in the world was I supposed to finish cooking breakfast without having at least
one
free arm?

Someone chose that moment, of course, to softly tap on the door. Frowning, I turned and went to answer it. Whoever stood beyond the portal had a very large and familiar heat signature. With a little juggling, I managed to toggle the door latch open and then shove it further back with one foot.

Garth stood there with a smile on his face, taking me in from head to toe. “How’s it going, Papa Krys?”

I glared at him, thinking murderous thoughts. “Don’t start with me, Garth.”

“Hmmm. Judging from your expression, I caught you before you’ve had your morning tea.”

“Now how am I supposed to drink tea in this situation?”

“Good point.” Stepping inside, he shut the door behind him and waved me to a chair. “Sit, sit. I’ll get your tea.”

Fine, if he was fixing me breakfast, he was almost forgiven for his early morning arrival. And his snickering at the situation. “What are you doing here?”

“Ah, that. I came to get your help, actually,” he answered as he went to the stove and went about fixing my tea. He poured himself a mug while he was at it. “Our new batch of students have heard all about your dragon familiar and quite a few of them are interested in going up and seeing if they can’t get one of their own. As I understand it, the dragons there weren’t against having dragonriders, right? They just didn’t want to work for the firefighters.” He glanced up at me for confirmation, which I gave. “But the only person that’s walked into dragon territory in living memory is you. I figured it would be best if you came and gave a guest lecture on the do’s and don’ts of dragons.”

Actually not a bad idea. I’d been toying around with writing an instruction manual for the same reason. Right now, I was the leading authority on dragons and the books we had on them were…well…not always accurate. As he sat in front of me, I maneuvered an arm free enough to scoop up my mug.

“Chapter one will cover
not
going into dragon territory during the mating season with your own dragon in tow.”

Garth, not fazed by my acerbic tone, just chuckled. “But you got such cute little dragonlings from it.”

“You as a friend should have at least warned me!” I growled softly, to avoid waking the baby in my arms.

“And miss all the fun? Never!” He grinned outright, not in the least remorseful.

Grumbling, I managed to lift the mug just enough with one hand to sip from it. Doing so craned my neck almost out of alignment though. Where was a straw when I needed one?

“You know, you could have just called me by mirror and asked that. Why are you really here?”

“Ah, that.” He tried to look innocent but didn’t quite pull it off. “Well, we’re starting to outgrow Strae Academy. This last year’s students taxed us quite a bit.”

“Already?” I asked in surprise. That place had been built to house over three thousand students.

“We’re the only magical academy for an entire country,” he reminded me, sipping at his tea. “Hain has at least a dozen and they sometimes don’t have enough room for all the students either.”

Fine, he made a good point. “So someone’s volunteering you to create a second academy?”

“Vonlorisen is making noises about it, yes. I don’t think it’s such a bad idea—I even have a good idea of who would make the perfect headmaster of it—but it’s
where
he wants to put it that’s the problem.”

I’d been with Garth when he first went to Vonlorisen and bargained with the king on where to build Strae Academy. So I knew very well the problem without having it spelled out for me.

“He wants it in Alvacon, doesn’t he?”

Garth let out a long groan. “I keep telling him that magic and politics don’t mix well, but he insists on having at least one academy in the capitol.”

“Your argument might go over better if there weren’t
two
academies in Del’Hain,” I pointed out, half-sympathetic.

“Yes, but it’s a different matter in Hain. They have a magical council that keeps things in check. Chahir doesn’t have anything like that.”

I made a silent bet with myself right there that Garth would eventually be talked into creating one. And he’d probably be the main chair on it, too. But I could leave that argument for another day. “So, in other words, you’re hiding here from Vonlorisen so you can avoid another argument.”

He sighed mournfully. “It sounds so childish when you put it that way. I came up to procure a special guest lecturer. Maybe take in the sights a little.”

“Well, you’ve succeeded in the first part, but I think that while you’re up here, you can pay your dues.” He looked at me in confusion, not following. Or at least, he didn’t follow right up until the point that I leaned over the table and dumped a sleeping dragon into his arms. Swearing, he almost knocked over the mug and dropped the baby, but with a son of his own, he had a father’s reflexes that prevented a disaster. He caught his balance in the nick of time.

Baby dragons could sleep through just about anything providing they had a secure set of arms and nice body heat to snuggle into. The one in Garth’s arms let out a little hiccup sigh before rolling snuggly into his new body pillow and going right back into a deep sleep. Garth looked down and then up at me in protest, “You’re not suggesting you’re going to leave me to babysit all morning, are you?”

I didn’t respond, just scooped up my mug of cooling tea and my (un)toasted bread. “I’ll be back around lunch. Tell Kaya I went to work, will you?”

“Now, wait a minute Krys, I don’t know anything about dragons! Especially not miniature ones.”

“Nonsense, you have an infant son. There’s not any real difference. The one in your arms just spits fire now and again, that’s all.” I hummed as I stepped out the door, ignoring Garth’s wail of protest. If he kept doing that, he’d wake up the other three, and then he’d
really
be in a situation.

Regardless, it would be him who’d have to deal with it. I had four hours of baby-free time on my hands. I smiled up at the sky, enjoying the slight briskness of the wind as it glided over my face.

This might not turn out to be a bad morning after all.