Page 5

brITT

B ritt had experienced loathing before, but nothing as deep as what she felt in the musty cottage of a soldat.

The soldat.

What were the odds?

Her breath was shallow and fast as she advanced into his living space ahead of him. Wisely, Denerfen stopped struggling and waited, his body limp. To the soldat's credit, he held Denerfen with care. He could have snapped Denerfen's neck, tossed his body into the alley, and had his way with Britt before dropping her into the sea.

Rumors abounded that the cunning soldats had done worse. The fact that he moved her out of the rain was a win, at this point. This cottage would be more comfortable than the shed. Her eyes skimmed the soulless interior, cluttered with little more than dust and stone.

She pressed her spine to a wall, sat down, and drew her knees to her chest. Having something against her bolstered a false and momentary sense of safety. Thanks to General Helsing, she'd long ago learned to take her wins as she found them.

Denerfen is still alive and we’re out of the rain, she thought.

Her optimism ended there.

Britt’s hand snaked into her cloak pocket, where Tesserdress stirred. She chirped, but settled at Britt’s touch. Heat remained in her scales, which was good. She'd be thirsty, and tired, after all this movement and noise. Britt asked too much of her in her weakened state. A dragul, thrust into a pocket for hours on end.

Unheard of.

When the soldat didn't immediately follow her into the house, panic flared. She stood, then shuffled back into the rain to see his gray, broad form retreating to the shed. A cry gummed up her throat.

Before she could fling herself across the yard, he returned with a crate under one arm, Denerfen hanging miserably from the other hand. Relief flowed through her as the soldat stomped through puddles and into the house. A scowl appeared on his face as he closed the door, eyed her, and moved to a table.

Denerfen gave a pathetic mewl as he passed by. She swallowed her rising ire. Not only had Deneferfen met danger and captivity, but now the soldat knew too much. He knew she was Kapurnickkian, a dragul keeper, and snuck onto his island without registering with the port authority.

The clatter of the soldat dropping a lid, ruffling through the crate, and emerging with a candle echoed in the barren space. A coated match lit the candle. Light bounced onto the table in puddles of butter yellow. The soldat set Denerfen near it, but sent her a dirty look of warning. She glowered.

Rotten scoundrel.

He ignored her.

Aided by what little light the candle provided, Britt assessed the dim interior with a wary eye. Stone, like everything in Stenberg. Mortar pasted the smoky sealstone rocks into walls. Windows interrupted the walls with high, horizontal panes that admitted fresh air and light when opened, but didn't shuck the suffocation. All of Stenberg pressed too close, as if Stenbergians strove to control the sea with their walls.

Sound, though. The interior was militaristic at best. Little more than furniture to interrupt the sealstone, without a single decoration or personal effect visible. Had he been gone for a very long time?

Or did soldats live such boring lives?

She assumed the latter.

Minutes of tinkering later, the soldat set four candles on the table, shedding light onto two chairs, an elevated platform along the far wall that, at some point, might have held a mattress. No wonder crates packed the shed.

The soldat snapped two fingers and pointed down.

"Sit."

He commanded her into the chair across from him, but didn't sit himself. Britt clutched the chair in obvious defiance.

He canted an eyebrow. "You won't sit?"

"Not if you command it."

"Fine." He waved a hand. "Stand."

She sat.

He paused, schooled his expression into something halfway patient, and continued to rummage. Britt set her hands on the table and met her dragul’s eyes. Denerfen hopped to his feet, a moment away from pouncing in her direction, when the soldat pinched his tail.

"Ah, ah," he tsked. "Not yet."

Britt growled.

Denerfen whirled around to bite the fingers, but the soldat anticipated him and grasped the base of his wings again. With a pathetic mewl, Denerfen wilted in defeat a second time. He must be colder than she thought. Britt tried to gather calm and project it through her mannerisms, but her blood boiled with the urge to wrap her fingers around the soldat's neck.

He tossed her a hard towel.

"Dry off."

Further irritated with the command, but openly trembling, she wrapped the fabric around her shoulders. Thrumming rain continued overhead. A leak sprouted near the far corner, trickling down the stones.

Maybe not as sound as she thought.

The man lowered Denerfen into a bowl padded with a rag, but kept the dragul close. He lifted the half-full crate to the floor, sat on the closest chair, and stared at her.

"So," he drawled, "we meet again."

Britt hid a wince. Her chin elevated. "Lovely to see you, soldat. You have a name, I presume?"

"I do."

She paused, hoping pressure would motivate an answer. It didn’t. The soldat studied Denerfen, who cozied into the rag, but glared at the soldat. His mewls of frustration as he snuggled deeper into the blanket, hissing sleepily, would have been amusing if she wasn't so distressed. Denerfen yawned, his petite jaws closing like a baby alligator. Loading and injecting venom exhausted him, and he clearly hadn’t slept well in the shed.

The soldat nodded toward Denerfen. “It's a handsome dragul, and impetuous. More . . . assertive . . . than other draguls I've met."

She blinked. "I'm sorry?"

A hint of amusement appeared in his lazuli eyes. Tall tales whispered to her by Malcolm at night, when they were children, said that Stenbergians had pure black eyes and drank blood when the moon went dark. The resulting nightmares kept her up beyond her bedtime, wondering if it was true. Malcolm’s tall tales were wrong.

This soldat didn’t have pure black eyes, but those of thunderclouds.

Unfettered sky.

Faygel flowers on the Kapurnick volcano slopes.

"The other draguls," the soldat insisted. "They were far more frightened, hiding behind their bonded. Until this firecracker tried to steam me when I grabbed you, I thought the rumors of their protectiveness were lies."

Britt's attention narrowed.

The other draguls.

He bluffed.

No doubt he acted so confident to trick her into spilling details. He thought her a fool? Well, two could play this game. He could draw all the assumptions he wanted. If she never confirmed details, suspicion would always bother him.

“Do soldats obsess over unconfirmed rumors?” she asked with a saccharine smile.

He frowned.

She could almost feel the power in the conversation slide her way, so she pressed her advantage. "You must have met the blue and purple dragul," she said lightly.

The soldat tilted his head to the side. "Mm . . . no. Yellow. Golden, really, because of the orange underbelly."

Her heart jumped into her throat. Blessed mermaids! Had he actually met Bamerbam? The infamous, tetchy golden dragul of legends?

A stroke of pain followed her astonishment. They had lost Bamerbam to old age a few months ago, which was only part of the reason that brought her to Stenberg in search of Malcolm. Losing Bamerbam had been hard enough. If the draguls lost Tesserdress as well? Bamerbam had lived to the ripe age of fifty-five, which was ancient for a dragul. Tess recently turned five, reaching reproductive maturity.

"Yellow," Britt said to buy herself another moment. “She was yellow, not golden.”

Britt must have done a terrible job concealing her surprise, because the soldat stretched his legs, stacked his hands behind his head, and gave the impression of an uncoiling cat.

“It was a cranky dragul, all right," he mused, hiding a yawn. "Hiding in the hood of her bonded. Wise old man. Had stories to tell for days and days. Is it true that the opposite genders bond? Your little dragul is male?"

Britt's thready heart threatened to fly away in panic. He not only knew Bamerbam, but her bonded man, Yolf. Other details, too. Did this soldat try to earn her trust, or set her on guard? Her lips pinched together. She'd mentally prepared for almost every inevitability and deprivation as she headed for Stenberg, but not this .

Not a soldat, in his home, with Denerfen captured from her cape, and information about draguls open to someone outside the Kapurnickkian islands.

Shock unseated her, and Britt swam in the heady and dangerous waters of uncertainty for a breath too long. Sensing his opportunity, the soldat leaned close, forearms braced to the table, and stared at her with eyes too soulful for such chiseled intensity.

"I know who you are, Kapurnickkian."

Grateful to set aside the complicated subject of the dragul, Britt mimicked his posture. The only way to surprise him would be to act the same. Project arrogant certainty. Lean into his power in the conversation, thus lull him into a mistake.

"Britt. My name is Britt."

Just a hint of shock lightened his gaze.

"I'm a dragul keeper from the Kapurnickkian isles. Stenberg islanders call us tamers , but that’s the wrong word. We don’t tame draguls, we keep them. Care for them.”

She resisted the temptation to add, and I’m the niece to General Helsing, just to see his reaction.

The soldat blinked.

She smiled.

A silence several beats too long passed between them. In it, she heard Denerfen's rapid breaths, felt his intense scrutiny. Draguls could sense or feed off of their bonded's emotions, but wouldn't understand such rapid back-and-forth language or the elaborate nuance of conversation.

Regardless of how this played out, at least she'd bested the soldat at his own game for control. The soldat strove to recover. He asked, "And why is a dragul keeper traveling to Stenberg?"

"What is your name?"

The instant rebuttal earned a grunt. Studying her, he eventually said, "Henrik."

"Henrik. Huh."

He frowned. "What?"

"You don't look like a Henrik."

"What do I look like?"

Amused with his disgruntled reply, she said, "Oh, maybe a . . . Shad?"

His nose wrinkled.

She fought to maintain an even expression. A line formed between his eyes when he looked annoyed. "It's beside the point," he muttered. "What are you doing here ?"

"I'm going to lie to you, whatever I say next, Henrik. Truly. Would you like me to keep the lie simple, or elaborate?"

He paused for a beat, clearly ascertaining whether she was serious, before he waved a hand.

"By all means. Make the tale and lie as elaborate as you desire. You're only wasting time. Until I receive the truth, the dragul is mine. Based on what I know of the desperate predicament of the draguls in Kapurnick, I have an idea that every single minute is precious."

Britt clenched her jaw. Surely, he bluffed a second time. He couldn’t know about the desperate and dire straits of their draguls or else His Glory would have long ago demanded meetings with General Helsing to reassure him that jord production wasn’t in jeopardy.

The infuriating soldat bargained off a correct assumption, and wasn't that the worst luck? Falling from her high shelf of self-satisfaction at her own prowess was a hard leap to the dregs of annoyance. She dominated the conversation one minute, plummeted the next.

Tesserdress sensed her distress and stirred. Her position beneath the table prevented Henrik from seeing her, which might be the only advantage Britt had. Beyond Denerfen's venom, but to use it twice in one day?

She mentally shuddered.

Her gaze lowered to Denerfen. His eyes had closed. If the twitching lids meant anything, he longed to open them again, but couldn't. Seeing her dragul so depleted, a swamping exhaustion swept Britt.

Had she truly started the day on the ship, escaped this infernal soldat twice, avoided sailors to scuttle through the market, fled pursuit and trouble with the young boys, snoozed in a shed, and ended it by a conversation with the same soldat at his home ?

Britt covered her face with a hand. "Sweet sea turtles," she muttered.

"What?"

Momentarily forgetting his presence, she startled at the sound of Henrik's voice. Irritated, she released a raspberry.

"Nothing."

"Did you just swear by turtles?"

"Er . . ."

His right eyebrow lifted.

All tolerance fled. Britt set her elbows on the table, leaned forward and said, "Yes! Yes I did. I swore by turtles. We have a lot of them in Kapurnick. If that's an insult, forgive me. It's something we do in the Kapurnickkian language. If it's wrong, it's wrong."

He punctuated each word that followed with a finger tap. "Why are you here?"

She said nothing.

"You must not care about your dragul."

The challenge didn't irritate her the way he clearly meant. The approval or disapproval of a Stenberg soldat wasn't high on her priority list.

"Your assumptions will get you in trouble,” she replied.

Something negative must have happened to Henrik in the intervening time when she bumped into him on the ship, because he appeared as weary as her. He rubbed a hand over his face.

"Then we're at an impasse. I won't let you go anywhere until I know why you're here, and you won't tell me why. Tomorrow morning, I'll take the dragul with me to report to His Glory. I'm sure he'll be very interested in your story."

A slow, gradual understanding dawned on Britt, trickling like a warm summer stream. Was it possible that this soldat didn't know all the horrifying dominoes toppling for months now?

"You don't know," she whispered.

"Know what?"

"Where have you been for the last year?"

His back tightened like someone pulled a marionette string through it.

"Why?"

Britt shook her head. "It's impossible that you know about the dragul, and yet . . ." Her eyes widened as final understanding clicked into place. "You're the traveling soldat. The one that goes around, enforces the collection of jord. What is it . . . sweeper?”

“Reefer.”

“Right, my apologies. Is that you? It must be! You picked up the jord. We rode the same ship to here from Kapurnick.”

Clearly discomfited, Henrik set his hands on the table in front of him.

“Why are you asking?”

She chuckled, but it had no power. "You have no idea what His Glory has been doing, do you? The attacks on outlying Lesser Isles? Forcing people into ships against their will and whisking them away?"

"There have been skirmishes over violated contracts,” he said slowly, recalling the rare update he received months ago. “I’ve heard about them from reports but . . .”

She laughed outright, breaking the strange heaviness in the air. His astonishment weighed almost as great as her concern.

"There have been violated contracts, all right, and it's from the Stenberg side of things. Slaves taken. Jord stolen. Ships scuttled."

"That's not right."

Britt's jaw locked. His denial, clouded by a very real uncertainty, was the only saving grace. If he hadn't set Denerfen so close to him, she would have risked snatching him out of the bowl and escaping into the storm. Had he been any Stenberg islander but a soldat, she might have had a chance.

Against him?

None.

Their second impasse fell. For a long pause, neither spoke. Henrik stood, shoving his chair back.

"We're done. If you haven't decided to tell me the truth by the morning, I'm taking your dragul to my captain and telling your story."

He reached into the crate, withdrew a woolen blanket, and tossed it her way. She’d stopped shivering beneath the towel, but the cold hadn't dissipated. Henrik snuffed the candles with a pinch of his fingers, gathered Denerfen, and retreated to the far side of the room. Laying on his side on the mattress-less platform, he put Denerfen so she couldn't see him and settled with a sigh.

Disheartened, Britt unwound the blanket, pulled it around her, crawled under the table, and stared at the wall. Tesserdress stirred in her pocket, so she carefully withdrew her. Tess’s wobbly gait pitched left and right, as if they were still on the ship. She crawled along Britt's arm, closer to her warmth. Burrowing into the crook of Britt's bent elbow, Tesserdress settled with a sigh.

Britt ran her fingertips along Tesserdress's spine and fell into thought.

Henrik didn’t strike her as depraved or desperate, so she assumed they’d survive the night. She’d tell him the details in the morning. She'd also find water and a little food. Like her, the draguls would be famished by then.

What more could she do?

With a sigh, Britt dropped into a surface sleep.