Page 11

Friday, April 23, 2167

Pilgrimage Ward

Dragon Heights, Wyoming

One day,Cedrick would learn.

Rather than distract my parents, my mother’s attention locked onto the poor titanium dragon-kin. After a few moments of thought, she declared he would serve as our tour guide and take us to Shrine Hill, as they had ‘heard rumors of strange happenings’ at the sacred site. As Cedrick valued his life, he called his father after we arrived at the base of the mini mountain.

As my parents found Cedrick to be amusing, we waited for his father to arrive.

He came as a dragon, and he transformed on the street wearing an expensive suit with polished shoes. To my amusement, his cuff links were made with titanium, and he had an oxidized titanium tie clip in the colors of the rainbow.

Phillip bowed to my parents before greeting Garnet, who squeaked and snuggled close to my neck and nuzzled my cheek as though trying to convince the dragon she wanted to stay with me.

“I’m not going to take your human from you,” he promised. “I see you have some new friends, Kinsley.”

While the hummingbirds had manifested over the Gray Ward, more than a few had already crossed the city. They appreciated the flowers covering Shrine Hill, but they lived to fight with each other. I could understand why the titanium dragon assumed I had more than one.

The hummingbirds were not shy about our presence, and more than a few visited trying to figure out what we were about.

Mine indulged in the fighting a little, although he seemed more interested in making certain the other birds understood he had claimed me as his territory. The rest of the time, he visited nearby flowers.

“Only one of them seems to be mine,” I replied, gesturing to where the little boy investigated the nearby plants.

“I sent your mother to the shop to keep an eye out for bounties,” Phillip informed his son. “I thought I’d come and supervise, especially since Kinsley picked up a true creation.” The titanium dragon’s gaze fell on me. “Earned, I promise you. The magic decides, and it seems the magic feels you deserve even more than Garnet. And you do.”

My parents did an admirable job of hiding their pride, although I caught my mother preening at the praise.

The hummingbird darted back to me, and he landed on my other shoulder. “Do true creations understand English?”

“They’re capable of learning languages,” he confirmed. “They’re magical in nature, and they adapt to the needs of those around them. You’re best suited for intellection companionship, so your bird will learn to understand you. You will find him easy enough to train. While flushing a toilet is beyond his abilities, he will be able to learn to use one. Simply show him, and he’ll figure it out readily enough. The true creations tend to pick up on those sorts of things. He might already know, as I can’t help but notice you have not been covered in droppings yet.”

“I’ve been afraid to check my hair.”

“Your hair has not been despoiled.”

That was a relief. “Thank you for Garnet. She’s wonderful.”

“And you are as wonderful as she.” Phillip turned his attention to my parents. “I trust you are satisfied with Garnet’s care?”

“Oh, we’re satisfied,” my father stated, and he smiled, reaching out to pet the carbunclo. “We did want to confirm Kinsley is a suitable caretaker for Garnet, but we are pleased with what we have seen. The hummingbird was a surprise, but it did not take us long to determine that she is incapable of mistreating an animal. When we arrived at her domicile, she was hard at work gathering the conjurations. She cleaned her whole street of them quite diligently. That Garnet assisted was all the evidence we needed.”

“I paid the kitten for her contribution,” Cedrick reported before his father had a chance to say a word. “I’ll register her in the bounty logbook tonight, but she’s already been paid. Kinsley is holding the funds.”

“That will work.” Phillip leaned over to look into Garnet’s eyes, once again stroking his hand along her head and back. “You keep taking good care of Kinsley, all right? She likes convincing everyone she’s tougher than even a titanium, but she’s got a soft heart.”

The carbunclo purred and nuzzled Phillip’s hand.

My father took the role of leader, and he considered the titanium dragon with his head tilted to the side, one of his ways of expressing his curiosity. “Still, I am surprised the Chileans sent her to you—and that they did not mind you gifting her to Kinsley.”

“Garnet has been displaced several times now,” Phillip admitted, straightening and turning to face my parents. “She is of Argentinean breeding, and she was given to the Chilean ruby clan for a favor owed. Garnet did not find the Chileans to be to her liking, and she started showing signs of stress and losing weight. She then came to us, and while we were able to get her weight up, it was clear she wasn’t happy. We tried to take a freer approach with her, and she showed interest in all those good deeds young Kinsley enjoys. I’ll admit, we’re relieved that Garnet has taken to Kinsley so well. She’s already showing better color and her fur is softening.”

I hadn’t noticed anything amiss with Garnet, and to comfort myself, I stroked the kitten and praised her for being a good girl.

“It’s of no fault of yours, Phillip,” my mother soothed, and she smiled at the titanium dragon. “Carbunclo know what they need to thrive, and it’s no fault of your family that Garnet has a more adventurous nature with a drive to do good in the world. She’s a helper, and she partners best with a helper. You can assist them by making sure they moderate their helping to tolerable degrees. I am sure they will both try to help, perhaps a little more than they should.”

Busted. I assumed my father had snitched on me about the killings I investigated, although I would be picking their brains about how best to proceed with the investigation.

My morning checks of the news had come up with nothing, and Cecilia hadn’t reported any additional attacks.

Until I found more clues or something else happened, I would be grasping at straws.

“You’re truly satisfied?” Phillip asked, and he eyed my parents with wary regard.

Interesting. I would need to interrogate my parents to find out what they’d done to intimidate the titanium dragons. Once I found out why, when, and how, I’d determine how long I spent yelling at them for being, well, dragons.

My mother continued to smile. “We’re truly satisfied. We will be going to dinner with the girl to better familiarize ourselves with Garnet, that way she can locate us should there be any future problems. I doubt there will be. We are concerned about these attacks, though. We’ve read about them, but it seems the severity is worse than we thought?”

“It’s been suspiciously quiet for the past few days, but people are avoiding going to the shrine alone. Tourism is down, and those who have expressed interest in petitioning have steered clear. Kinsley has no interest in petitions or pilgrimages, so I feel she is at little risk, but it is a concern. There haven’t been any dragons attacked, but dragon-kin and humans alike are being targeted. At this point, nobody knows anything about the killer.” The titanium dragon winced. “Or killers. We don’t even know if it’s a group yet.”

My mother’s gaze turned to me. “And you know of these killings?”

“I’ve been following the news, but that’s all I know about it.” As neither Phillip nor Cedrick knew about my camera yet, I opted against informing them I’d taken photos of the entire site already. In case someone was watching, I hoped my next words would cover my tracks a little. “It seems like an interesting tourist spot, but I don’t see the point beyond that.”

“Well, we’re already here,” Phillip said, and he heaved a sigh. “We may as well introduce you to one of the glories of Dragon Heights.” With a dismayed look, he stared up the hill. “Exercise. How dreadful.”

My parents laughed, and my father thumped Phillip’s shoulder. “You’ll survive, old chap. And if you don’t, I can probably manage to carry you down.”

“My pride would not survive such an indignity. I will manage. But I question our ancestors for their decision to torment us with steep and narrow paths to reach the shrines.”

“They built it before the days of tourism,” my mother replied, shaking her head. “The point was that pilgrims should be willing to test their bodies and their spirit before undertaking the pilgrimage. Petitioning is easier. It’s safer. Parents are far more willing to put in the effort to help their children petition than they are to encourage a pilgrimage. Only the desperate, the brave, or the foolish embark on a pilgrimage nowadays.”

Once I got my parents alone, I would find out if my parents believed me to be desperate, brave, foolish, or all three. Knowing them, they would answer with all three. “It seems there are many a desperate, brave, and foolish people in Dragon Heights. There have been more than a few deaths.”

I’d read about at least twenty men having been murdered, and I suspected there were more I hadn’t found buried in the news yet.

After ditching my parents, I would review my notes, get a solid body count, and find out what connected the victims—and I would look into their records to see if somebody had decided to be a vigilante.

Vigilantes liked to believe they did good while terrorizing an entire populace, leaving uncertainty and corpses in their wake. Miami had more than a few vigilantes, and they liked targeting suspected necromancers, yet another reason on the list of many I’d left the city behind.

“Right you are,” Phillip stated. “And between the lot of us, we should be safe enough from any foolish enough to try their hand at my son.”

“Your son should be safe enough,” my father replied, and he gestured at the sign. “As we are here, where should we begin?”

“Perhaps not the titanium shrine, and we would be wise enough to keep a distance from it.” Phillip eyed his son. “And no playing about, boy.”

“I have no desire to be murdered, Dad.”

“If you did, I’d have to have a talk with your mother and find you a doctor. Why don’t we let Kinsley decide?”

I made a show of looking over the map, eyeballing the various shrines and the short descriptions. As my father expected me to choose cyan, I read the information available and said, “Apparently, the cyan one is popular? It’s the top visited shrine.” Pointing at the ranking of popularity, I cast a glance in Phillip’s direction, hoping he translated my behavior to mean I had no idea what I was doing or why.

The titanium dragon snickered. “That’s as good a place to start as any. I can’t say I’ve visited the shrines in order of popularity before.”

“An unusual method of visitation,” my father murmured.

“I think it’s delightful, so let’s see what we see, shall we? I can’t say I’ve ever come here just to play tourist.” My mother strode to the path as though she owned the place, waving for us to follow. “Who wants to play tour guide first? Cedrick, how is your knowledge of the shrines?”

“It’s not great,” the titanium dragon-kin confessed, and he hurried to catch up to my mother. “But I do know where they got the stones for the pathways.”

I petted Garnet and followed the dragons and the dragon-kin, careful to keep from dislodging the carbunclo or the hummingbird. “Even the pathway stones have a story?”

“We’re dragons,” my mother informed me in a rather haughty tone. “We wouldn’t just use random stones on something as important as our shrines.”

“They’re rocks, and they’re not the kind of rocks I would give to Garnet,” I replied, and I did my best to match her tone. “If they’re magic rocks, then someone should put that on the sign.”

“If that was put on the sign, people would steal them,” my mother countered.

I stopped to consider the stones, which were a mix of slabs and cobbles. “Are they magic rocks?”

“Not quite,” Cedrick said, and he laughed while shaking his head. “They were flown in by all the clans, with each clan bringing the same number of stones. The heirs of each clan were responsible for laying the stones, and they began with their shrines. Every clan contributed at least one stone to each shrine as a representation of unity between the clans. We bicker, but we do so amicably. Some more amicably than others.”

The pointed look he shot my parents made me giggle, and as I wasn’t supposed to know anything about dragons or their clans, I asked, “What’s that all about?”

“I am a navy dragon,” my father announced.

My mother lifted her chin, gave a dainty sniff, and said, “I am a red dragon with orange tendencies.”

If I let them, they’d go on and on and on about why their color of dragon was superior. In reality, my mother was as much orange as she was red, but claiming she was red made the other dragons feel better about themselves—or so she claimed.

I sighed. “Phillip? What are they going on about?”

“Navy and red dragons absolutely hate each other. Navy and orange dragons bicker as well. These two, however, decided to buck the trend and form a permanent pairing. It is a matter of conflicting abilities. That they haven’t killed each other yet is considered to be a miracle, frankly.”

Having met my mother and father and witnessed how much they loved each other, I questioned everything the titanium dragon told me. “I suppose they were fighting a little outside of the shop.”

“A little?” Cedrick rolled his eyes. “I’m amazed they didn’t transform and start duking it out on the street.”

Once again, my mother sniffed. “We were having a lively discussion.”

Their lively discussions ran a risk of me having a sibling, not that I’d tell the dragon or his son that. Instead, I stared at the stones we walked on. “What’s the significance of where the stones came from? Is there a significance?”

Cedrick nodded, and he pointed at one of the darker stones. “That’s shale from the east coast, and the black dragons flew it in. They like the color. There’s blue shale from a nearby site the navy dragons brought in, although most of those stones went to the shrines themselves due to their larger size. The smaller stones were broken up to be fillers between stones because shale can get slick when it rains. Every clan went and found stones, essentially going on a pilgrimage to build the ward.” Cedrick turned and pointed deeper into Pilgrimage Ward. “Every street intersection has cobbling made of stones the dragons brought in. This ward is supposed to represent the city’s unity for a cause.”

Interesting. “I thought that was the central ward.” I’d never been to the ward, which had the official name of the Diamond Ward. The most influential clans lived within the ward, and it served as the city’s seat of power.

“The Diamond Ward,” my mother corrected. “But not precisely. Dragons and dragon-kin are supposed to tread with respect and care in this ward. Those who move here are supposed to do so in peace—and to aid pilgrims should they make themselves known. The Diamond Ward may as well be called the Diamond War; the clans fight among themselves for power. Anything goes. Well, for the most part. There are some rules that the residents of Dragon Heights must abide by.”

Uh oh. I foresaw a lecture on the horizon, one that my parents would deliver with witnesses. “I try not to break any of the rules here.”

“You have abided by all the rules we expect humans to follow,” Phillip assured me. “The rules for dragon-kin are the same unless they have awakened a dangerous power. But the idea of the rules remains the same. Dragons have different rules, but that’s only to be expected. Our powers are stronger—and more dangerous.”

As I already worked to keep my heritage hidden, I decided I wouldn’t worry much over the titanium dragon’s commentary. I pulled out my phone and made a note to myself to check if any of the pilgrims had violated the rules that humans and dragon-kin needed to follow while within Dragon Heights.

The vigilante angle made a great deal of sense, especially if the culprit was someone with an opinion on the type of person who should grow into a dragon’s power.

Compiling the public criminal records of the victims would help somewhat—and I would interrogate my parents on what they knew about the situation and hadn’t told me.

My mother stopped and pointed at a paler stone in the pathway. “Orange dragons brought these stones. Several of our pilgrims flew them in from the heart of Africa. It was quite the show of strength.”

My father snorted. “Stupidity, more like. They lost three dragons to that expedition. When orange dragons challenge the sea, they lose.”

“Please do not transform and kill each other and everyone around you,” I requested, wondering if my words would make a difference. While my parents glared at each other, they did behave. Well, mostly.

To those who didn’t know them well, my parents were on the edge of homicide. In reality, they needed to find a hotel room and relieve their tension in other ways. That the titanium dragon and his son failed to understand they postured amused me.

When my parents had a dispute, they took care to keep things excessively cordial and calm.

Neither wanted to hurt the other—or hurt those who happened to be in the line of fire.

Once we ditched Phillip and Cedrick, we needed to talk about their behavior, how everyone seemed to know of them, and what was going on. More importantly, why did Phillip care what my parents thought about Garnet? I petted both the carbunclo and the bird, and I made a show of examining the stones we walked on. A pink rock caught my attention, and I pointed at it. “What’s this one?”

“Strawberry quartz,” my father informed me, coming to my side and crouching beside the stone in question. “These were imported from China, brought over by a smaller clan of pink dragons. They were wise and hired a cargo ship for their venture, although they flew the quartz over. They did not take the same risks that the orange dragons took, using the ship as a place to rest while another dragon took over the hauling duty. Of the ventures to bring stones, the pink dragons garnered the most respect for their strategic planning and dedication towards bringing the best raw materials for Shrine Hill. They brought a great deal more than they needed, and the shrine sells crystals from the same mine. Their flight consisted of fifty dragons, and they hauled far more than was necessary. One of the leftover crystals would make an excellent heritage stone for your little one.”

I joined my father, and I patted the stone before saying, “Garnet, would you like a stone like this one? If the shrine has one for sale, I will get it for your collection.”

The carbunclo jumped down from my shoulder and investigated the pink stone, her ears pricked forward and her tail held high. After a moment, she made a few inquisitive squeaks.

I could guess what she wanted to ask. “I’ll buy it for you because you were such a good girl and helped this morning with the bounty work. You can keep your earnings for treats. We can go to the shop to look for kitten milks and get you a few new bottles with your earnings.”

Apparently, I’d guessed what my kitten wanted, as she lost her furry little mind and developed a case of the zoomies, darting to and fro with wild abandon.

Unlike our visit yesterday, there were other people at the shrine, and they stared at us with wide eyes. Garnet took care to dodge the people, and when one of the women leaned over to say hello, the kitten squeaked and fled to me, jumping into my arms. I laughed, petted her, and said, “I’m sorry. She’s not used to people yet.”

“Quite all right,” the woman replied with a smile, and she displayed slightly pointed teeth, something I recognized as a dragon informing others of her race without having to transform on the street. “It is delightful to see her in such a joyful state.” The woman’s gaze turned to Phillip. “It seems you were correct on the proper caretaker of the carbunclo.”

Somehow, I’d become the heart of drama in Dragon Heights, and I wanted to slip back into the shadows of obscurity. As I wasn’t giving up my kitten or bird without a fight, I stood my ground, wondering at the woman’s comment.

The titanium dragon bristled. “I would not give up such a gift lightly.”

My father joined me and whispered into my ear, “That woman is the leader of the copper dragon clans in Dragon Heights along with her mate. Where she goes, he is close behind. He probably visits their shrine. The copper dragons are notorious about status symbols, and they view Garnet as one of the ultimate status symbols. They surely protested some mere human being given such a prize.”

While I appreciated that my father hid my status as both his daughter and a dragon-kin, I would make him pay for his tone regarding regular humans. I cuddled my kitten, and I took care to keep my expression from changing. “It seems you know a great deal about Dragon Heights.”

My father’s low chuckle was full of secrets and amusement. “That I do. Ignore their posturing and come along. I want to show you something.”

I obeyed, and my parents offered the copper dragon a nod, which she returned with a little curtsey before reengaging with Phillip. Cedrick wisely joined us, and he whispered, “I’m so sorry. Lady Amalissia loves picking fights with my father. She is close friends with my mother, but she enjoys egging my father on.”

My mother giggled. “Don’t let those old dragons fool you, Cedrick. They are quite friendly with each other, but they enjoy sparring. It is a safe outlet. Amalissia rules her roost, and your father will one day rule his once his father’s father tires of the job. And don’t let your father fool you about that. He doesn’t want to lead the titanium dragons, at least not yet. One day, perhaps. I would take care to watch your step, as you might end up the one stuck with the burden of rulership.”

Cedrick wilted. “I hope not.”

“That’s why you’re a candidate, just like your father.” My mother patted the dragon-kin’s shoulder. “Do listen to your father’s advice and remember to steer clear of the mercury, platinum, and silver shrines as well. Let’s not start an accidental pilgrimage.”

“I know to avoid the shrines,” Cedrick replied, and it amused me that his cheeks flushed. “You remembered our clan’s heritage?”

I needed to do some investigation into my parents. While I understood dragons tended to know each other, even in a city populated with tens upon tens of thousands of dragons, that my parents seemed to live up to their egos worried me. What had my parents been doing before having me?

“Of course. It’s always wise to know the important players in Dragon Heights when a dragon. It also helps the older dragons keep an eye on the little dragon-kin if they decide to go wandering to the shrines. We’ll make sure you don’t get too close. We’re old hands at sensing when the shrines awaken.” My mother patted Cedrick’s shoulder again. “Let’s go towards the cyan shrine. With luck, those two will argue until they run out of oxygen and pass out, leaving us to explore in peace.”

“I wouldn’t get your hopes up,” my father stated, eyeing the arguing pair. “It’s no fun to argue without an audience. You know that. It just happens they’ve picked us to be the audience.”

“How delightful,” my mother muttered in a wry tone. “Well, do come along, children. Let’s not waste the entire day.”