Dragoncraft E-Book

Dorothy Winsor

• Herausgeber: WS
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 346

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Lyz Island's dragon has awakened after centuries of sleep, and Drake Jaffen's throne now hangs in the balance.

Driven by duty and love for his brother, Addy strives to help Jaffen bond with the reluctant dragon. But the brothers' trust strains under suspicions of treachery.

Emlin, a dragon-inspired crafter, adds another complex layer to Addy's already turbulent world. As the island grapples with the resurgence of dragon power, Emlin and Addy are caught between familial loyalties and their growing feelings for one another.

Tensions rise as Jaffen's failure to bond with the dragon threatens to plunge Lyz into chaos.

Dragoncraft is a tale of duty, love, and the precarious dance between power and loyalty.

Amidst dragons soaring and destinies entwining, can Addy and Emlin find their way to the future they both desire?

Leseprobe

Dragoncraft

Dorothy A. Winsor

Published by Inspired Quill: September 2024

First Edition

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. The publisher has no control over, and is not responsible for, any third-party websites or their contents.

Content Warning: This novel contains mentions of physical assault, attempted kidnapping, and death.

Dragoncraft © 2024 by Dorothy A. Winsor

Contact the author through their website: www.dawinsor.com

Chief Editor: Sara-Jayne Slack

Proofreader: Brigid Kapuvari

Cover Design: Marco Pennacchietti

All Rights Reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-913117-25-2

eBook ISBN: 978-1-913117-26-9

EPUB Edition

Inspired Quill Publishing, UK

Business Reg. No. 7592847

https://www.inspired-quill.com

Praise for Dorothy Winsor

A gripping Young Adult fantasy story, brimming with danger, magic and intrigue, set in a richly imagined world, with a superb cast of characters.

– Mary Simms,

BookCraic

Dorothy Winsor’s novel presents an intriguing and well-drawn world, with a very likeable lead. An exciting, adventurous, and thoughtful YA fantasy novel.

– Dr. Una McCormack,

New York Times Bestselling Author

A delightful coming-of-age story about finding out who you are when everything about your life is changing; when you can’t go back but aren’t sure you see a path forward; and when the gifts you’ve counted on most may turn out to be not to be the ones you need to save the people counting on you.

– Rachel Neumeier,

author of Winter of Ice and Iron

Dorothy A. Winsor is a meticulous writer who expertly balances intelligence and delight.

– Saladin Ahmed,

Hugo, Nebula, and Gemmell Awards finalist

Journeys: A Ghost Story, is a very good tale that, without any real surprises, still manages to surprise. There’s a well-wrought aura of melancholy that permeates the story, even in the funny moments. Another author I’ll keep an eye out for in the future.

– Fletcher Vredenburgh,

Black Gate Magazine

[In Finders Keepers], the action is brisk, emotions are deep, and the moral message is subtle but strong, providing excellent depth for all readers, young and not so young. Great story – I loved it as an adult and think it is a wonderful book for older kids and young adults. Five Stars.

– Melinda Hills,

Readers’ Favorite

For Jim and Joan

See how much my character loves his sibling?

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright Page

Praise for Dorothy Winsor

Dedication

Epigraph

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Epilogue: The Sage and the Child

Dear Reader

Acknowledgements

About the Author

More From This Author

The dragon of Lyz had deep red scales and a dark underbelly, so on her famous night flight, she was invisible against the sky. She loved growing things, healers, spices from far away, and a good joke.

—A History of the Dolyan Islands by Mara of Basur

Prologue

When you come down to it, it’s not surprising I’m a good liar. I grew up surrounded by liars, by secrets, by knowledge withheld. The first eight years of my life were shaped by a lie my mother lived with, meaning I lived with it too. Well, perhaps she didn’t exactly lie, but she did refuse to explain why we couldn’t go to my father’s palace. Of course, that left me wondering. Based on the rare occasions he visited, I had a good idea what my father thought of me. So, I decided he sent us away because he was angry about something I’d done. It turned out my mother left him because she knew he was better at detecting lies than she was at telling them, and she was afraid he’d guess her secret. But I didn’t learn that until years later, during the events in the story I’m about to record in these pages – a tale about the interweaving of power, love, and sacrifice in the history of the Dolyan Islands.

When I was eight, my mother died. To my further grief, my father sold her estate, brought me to the palace, and dumped me in a wing as far from him as possible, which turned out to be not far enough for either of us.

One day, soon after I moved to the palace, he came to the schoolroom in search of Lyz’s Sage, whom he’d ordered to give me lessons. It didn’t surprise me that he looked to the Sage for knowledge because, as far as I could tell, the Sage knew everything.

True to his general desire to avoid my company, Father ordered me from the room while they talked. But I wanted to know what was important enough that he came to the Sage rather than demanding the Sage go to him, because that surprised me. So, I listened at the door.

Father must have been pacing the room because his voice grew softer, then louder, then softer again. He seemed to think he owned a plot of land someone else was squatting on. The Sage murmured soothingly in the pauses. Father’s voice grew loud again. The door jerked open, and I sprang away too late. He grabbed my arm.

“Were you listening, you little beast?”

“No, sir.”

He hit me so hard across the face he knocked me down. “Liar,” he spat. “Beat him,” he ordered the Sage and stalked away.

But the Sage did not beat me. Instead, he loomed over me, looking down. I watched the hairs in his nose quiver as he breathed in and out. “You like knowing things?” he asked. “That’s good. There’s power in knowledge.” Then he pointed out that I put my hand over my mouth when I lied. I don’t do that anymore.

But I decided right there on the hard palace floor that I’d be like the Sage.

And I’d uncover every secret anyone ever tried to keep from me.

Chapter 1

Addy skidded into the street along the harbor, braced his hands on his thighs, and gulped lungfuls of fishy-tasting air while he scanned the docks. The first thing he noticed was, of course, the two dragons wheeling through the sky over a ship just furling its sails to come into anchor. The dragons had been around for months now, but the sight of them still knocked him back. Kural’s dragon was a patch of darker blue against the sky, while the long red body of the one from Lyz rippled like a banner. Addy had thought he knew what dragons would be like before these two woke from their long slumber, but now he realized he hadn’t. No one could know ahead of time what it would be like to be in the great creatures’ presence. The massive dragons circled the ship once more before soaring away.

The everyday sounds of people talking and working on the docks started up again. Like everyone else, Addy shook off the dragons’ spell. Gulls strutted out of hiding to squawk over the fishing boats tied up nearby, their nets spread on racks to dry. The new warship loomed at the far end of the dock, people scurrying around it, getting ready for its flag-raising later that day. The only merchant ship already tied up and unloading was the one from Salep Island. The ship he wanted – the one from Kural Island – was the one the dragons had circled, now setting oars to row in and dock.

“Late to meet your sweetheart?” a man’s voice asked.

Addy turned to see an old fisherman mending a net. “Right on time, as it turns out. A little early even. How did you know what I was here for?”

The man squirted pink thoi juice through his teeth to land a yard and a half away. “At your age? I’ve seen that look in a young one’s eye too many times to miss it. Had it myself once.”

Addy surreptitiously scanned the man. He had the weathered look of the clothespin soldier a much-younger Addy had once abandoned to its fate in the yard all winter.

The man smiled. “Hard to believe, eh?”

“Not at all,” Addy said quickly. “What was your sweetheart like?”

“Tough.” The man’s gaze went far for a moment, then came back to rest on Addy. “That’s the kind you want because we all have some ugly wrinkles. Remember that, lad.”

“Sure thing,” Addy said weakly, embarrassed that his appraisal of the man’s wrinkles had shown.

The man waved his hand. “Go on now. Shoo.”

With an apologetic nod, Addy trotted toward where the ship coming in would likely disgorge Emlin – his sweetheart, as the fisherman said. At least, Addy hoped she was still his sweetheart. He hadn’t seen Emlin in two months, and it was possible that in that time, she’d come to her senses. He pictured her wide dark eyes, the awe-inspiring art she made from stained glass, the fierceness with which she defended the people and things she cared about. Tough, he thought, and smiled. Now she was only as far away as that ship, which, to his landlubber eyes, had drawn no closer. He looked around for something to distract him while he waited.

He’d been in a lot of harbors in the years since he was thirteen and ran away. He’d finally decided harbors all looked alike, including this one. Across from the anchorages were warehouses, cheap inns, alehouses, and brothels. In the year he was sixteen, he’d been curious enough to enter similar buildings a time or two but found they mostly left him wanting something more. He’d had just enough sense to know that in most of these places, more was dangerous. Who knew where he’d have wound up if, at the end of that year, his father hadn’t died and his brother hadn’t called him home? He slid the silver token back and forth along the thin chain around his neck. Jaffen had given it to him the day he returned to Lyz. It was the least of his brother’s gifts, really. He tucked it back inside his shirt.

The boom of an angry voice made him turn toward where a crowd had gathered.

“Lyz can’t go on like this!” A man stood on a cart, one hand raised, finger pointing at the sky. He looked ordinary, right down to wearing a loosely woven brown jacket that was twin to the shabbier one Addy had on a hook in his rooms. But what the man was saying wasn’t ordinary at all. His face twisted with outrage.

“Drake Jaffen claimed our dragon’s awakening meant a new day. He said he’d bond with it and take us back to being what the original Dragon Riders meant us to be. Brimming with crafts and scholarship! Living in comfort! He can’t even summon our dragon, much less ride it.”

“A person has to ask why,” said a woman among those gathered to listen.

The man on the cart leveled his finger at her. “Exactly. Jaffen says our dragon woke for him, but if she won’t take him as her rider, maybe that’s not true. Maybe she’s looking for someone else.”

“The dragon’s eye is judging Jaffen,” someone called.

“He claims he’s meant to be the Great Drake of all the Dolyan Islands,” the man in the cart said. “Great Drake, my backside. You know what I have from Jaffen’s rule so far? A pocket full of promises.”

A dissatisfied murmur rippled through the crowd.

Alarm jigged in Addy’s chest. He waded through the mob toward the indignant speech-giver. “Drake Jaffen is the rightful drake of all the Dolyan Islands,” he said, “not just Lyz. And who else could our dragon be looking for but Jaffen, the son of the previous ruler?”

“I don’t know.” The man in the cart scowled at him. “But now that our dragon is awake, we can let her choose. We don’t have to settle for someone because of who his father was. Jaffen’s father was a tyrant. If the dragon refuses Jaffen, maybe he’s one too.”

Addy shook off the urge to punch the man in his filthy mouth. “He’s nothing like his father. You couldn’t be more wrong. Come down from there.” He took a step toward the cart, and something squished under his boot. His foot shot out from under him, landing him flat out in a puddle, the breath driven out of him.

“Are you drunk?” demanded an old woman.

It wasn’t the first time he’d been unjustly accused of drunkenness. He’d found old ladies could be particularly nasty about it. Ignoring her, he tried to push himself up, but one cursedly clumsy foot tangled around the other, and he sat down hard. Fish scales glittered on his sleeve. When he got home, his valet would burst into tears.

From the direction of the customs house, a Watch whistle blew. In an eyeblink, the mob scattered like rats in a Rhythian warehouse. He managed to plant a foot under him and rise to one knee before a running man jostled him and he went down for a third time.

As he finally struggled up, he took a moment to be pissed off. Years ago, at age eight, he had defied Lyz’s dragon, who’d been asleep at the time. She turned out to be still aware enough to punish him with a maddening clumsiness and a gut-wrenching fear of heights. Are you happy? he mentally snarled at her. You don’t think your little joke has gone on long enough?

Two members of the Watch plowed through the fleeing crowd and seized the man in the cart as he crouched to vault over its edge. “You again, Ston?” one of them said.

“I’m allowed to speak my mind! Or is that another of Jaffen’s empty promises?” Ston protested.

“Wait.” Addy stopped slapping at the wet seat of his new trousers. “I hate to say it, but he’s right about that. Jaffen issued an order undoing the restrictions his father put in place.”

“Keep out of it, lad,” the Watchwoman said.

Her partner ran an appraising look over Addy’s silk shirt and tailored, though soggy, trousers. “And you are?” he asked cautiously.

Addy felt the token, carved with Jaffen’s dragon signet, lying smooth against the skin of his chest. He could pull it out, and the Watch would jump to obey him with frightening speed, but he hesitated. He had no authority to speak for Jaffen here, and bad things could happen when a person stepped on a ruler’s toes even – or possibly especially – when that ruler was a brother. Addy wasn’t sure he wanted to probe how generous Jaffen was feeling toward him.

He smiled as inoffensively as he could. “I’m a concerned citizen who’s heard Drake Jaffen speak of this,” he ventured. “It strikes me as possible the drake would disapprove of this arrest.”

Ston flicked his head back and forth between the two holding him, clearly trying to see if they bought it. The Watch members exchanged a look that lasted until the male half of the duo lifted his chin at the woman. She sighed and turned to Addy.

“Sir, it’s true Drake Jaffen lifted those restrictions, but troublemakers have been stirring up unrest, and our orders are that the drake wants it looked into.”

Addy considered her claim and concluded it was probably true. Wanting things to be better didn’t mean Jaffen could ignore the problems their father had left behind. Nevertheless, he was still trying to decide whether he should press his defense of Ston when a familiar voice called, “Addy!”

He spun to see Emlin running toward him, smiling widely. Happiness shot through him, strong enough to make his head spin and his breath grow short. He opened his arms and gathered her in. The warmth of her touched him right through their layers of clothing. This feeling, this moment, had to be a bit of the more he’d wished for in all those other harbors.

Emlin pressed her face into his shoulder and inhaled. Whatever she expected to smell, she was disappointed because she pulled back, wrinkling her nose. “You smell like rotten fish.”

“What an Emlin thing to say. I fell in a puddle.”

She laughed. “What an Addy thing to do!” She put a wind-cooled palm on the side of his face. “I am so happy to see you.”

Even her light touch made his heart tip over. From the corner of his eye, he glimpsed the Watch hustling Ston away. The irritating sense that he should have done something more needled at his brain, but Emlin hugged him again. Strands of dark hair had come loose from the braid that was thick as his wrist, tugged by the clean west wind her ship would have battled to come into Lyz’s sheltered harbor. When he looked again, the Watch and their prisoner had vanished. Ston would have to take care of himself.

Addy stepped back, hands still on her shoulders. He was pretty sure the grin on his face looked foolish, but he didn’t care. “Come. I have a room at the palace all ready for you.”

She grimaced. “That sounds lovely, but I’m staying at Lyz’s crafthouse. Didn’t Jaffen tell you?” She looked down at the dock’s worn planks.

Addy came alert. He’d seen her look down like that before and knew what it meant.

“This is the first time I’ve traveled to another island,” Emlin said, “so I didn’t realize it, but crafters always stay with one another.” She squinted up at his face. “I’m sorry, but maybe it’s for the best. I can take my stained-glass window to the medicine crafthouse and look after it until Jaffen is ready to accept it.”

Addy clutched at the excuse. Maybe she did just want to protect her window.

“Belira is taking me to the medicinehouse.” Emlin gestured, and he realized a thin-faced girl in a blue crafter’s tunic had been patiently waiting with a handcart holding a flat, wrapped package and a satchel. “Maybe you already know her?” Emlin said.

“No, I’m sorry. I don’t. I’m Adyriel.” He extended his hand to shake Belira’s.

“I know who you are. You made your brother drake of Kural Island.” She put a limp hand unenthusiastically in his. Her fingers were stained, presumably from making the medicines for which Lyz’s crafthouse used to be famous and was becoming so again, thanks at least partly to knowledge Addy had brought home from the Westlands. Not that he expected to be thanked for that. Of course not. In Belira’s case, it was a good thing his expectations were low because she pressed her mouth into a thin line, suggesting he should drag his clumsy carcass elsewhere.

“Kural’s dragon made Jaffen drake,” he said as pleasantly as he could manage. “Shall I push the cart?”

“Oh, no.” Emlin lunged to get between him and the cart handles. “I’ve seen you push a cart, and my window is in there.”

“My fumble feet aren’t my fault,” he protested.

“I know.” Emlin slipped her arm in his, and he immediately felt better. “Why don’t you escort me and Belira to the medicinehouse?”

With Belira and the cart rattling along on Emlin’s other side, he guided her toward the street sloping gently up from the harbor. He pointed out various landmarks, including, most importantly, the mountain where Lyz’s dragon lived. A wide black scar showed where fire had flowed when she awoke half a year earlier.

“It’s lower than I remember.” Emlin rubbed the crafter’s ring on her right hand. “I mean, lower than I pictured.”

The hair lifted on the back of Addy’s neck. Emlin was a dragon-inspired crafter. She was so close to the dragons that talking to her sometimes made him feel as if he’d been walking down stairs and missed a step that she and the dragons had constructed between them. He clutched for facts and spoke as evenly as he could. “Lyz’s dragon blew the top off the mountain. Though to be fair, even before that, the wind had eroded it some. There’s nothing but ocean between us and the Westlands. I’ve forgotten how many miles of ocean, but I could look it up if you want.”

Emlin laughed.

“What?” he asked.

“I’d forgotten how full of scholarly chit-chat you are.”

“You know you like it,” he said.

She poked him in the side. “To a point.”

Grinning, he steered her around a corner, and the medicinehouse came into sight. Emlin made a faint noise and stopped dead.

“What happened?” she asked.

He examined Lyz’s crafthouse. He hadn’t been here in a few weeks and was interested to see how the rebuild was getting on. Like most of the larger buildings on Lyz, it was U-shaped, turning its back to the weather sweeping from the west. But from causes that were shamefully not wind, the roof tiles had been torn from the left wing, and one wall on that side had collapsed. Scaffolding rose halfway up, and two workers were heaving stones into place. The front door and the shutters on the center and right were plainly new, shiny with fresh blue paint.

“My father wanted something from the craftmistress, and she said no,” he said, condensing the horror into as few words as possible. Shame at his father’s stupid destructiveness settled in his chest.

“In the glasshouse we heard the bare outline of the story, of course, but I didn’t realize the destruction was so thorough.” Emlin’s face flushed. “This is sacrilege. I’m astounded Lyz’s dragon didn’t burst out of that mountain to punish him and the people who did it.” She glanced at Addy from the side of her eye. “No offense, Addy. I know you’re not your father.”

“Offend away,” he said with a lightness he didn’t feel.

“Emlin, if you want to know more, you could ask Drake Jaffen,” Belira said, opening her mouth for the first time.

Addy didn’t like the way she said his brother’s name. “Jaffen is the one having it rebuilt.”

Belira pursed her lips. “My mother was a medicine crafter before they were driven away. She always said Jaffen was here when it was destroyed.”

“Your mother was mistaken,” Addy cut in. “My father was here. He and Jaffen look alike but are very different people.” He shifted his weight uneasily. Belira was the second person he’d met this morning who claimed Jaffen was like their father. In the back of Addy’s mind, he’d been deciding Ston was a freak malcontent stirring up a crowd. Maybe there were malcontents, plural. The Watchman had said as much.

Emlin patted his arm. “None of us is responsible for our parents’ actions.”

Addy grimaced. Emlin ought to know. Her traitor father had tried to get Jaffen killed.

Belira shrugged. “Emlin, let’s get your window safely inside. The craftmistress has been planning a crafters’ reception for you.” She pushed the cart into the crafthouse yard, skirting an herb garden. Near the door, she took hold of one side of the parcel and lifted it, saying, “Emlin?”

Addy had never felt quite so uninvited. “I’ll come see you tomorrow morning,” he said, trying not to sound forlorn.

Emlin clutched his sleeve. “Do you know when Jaffen wants to hold the formal presentation of my window?”

“He’s not sure. He’s hoping to receive envoys from some other islands. I think he wants to impress them by having the window ceremony when they arrive. But don’t take my word for it,” he added hastily. “I can’t speak for Jaffen.”

Emlin released his arm. “I hope the envoys don’t come for weeks.”

That was the most encouraging thing she’d said yet. He felt better. He was bracing himself for her leaving when she curled her hand around the back of his neck, pulled it down, and kissed him on the mouth. Everything around them, including Belira, fell out of his head.

When she stepped back, Emlin whispered, “I’ve wanted to do that since the instant I saw you in the harbor.”

He struggled to catch his breath. Before he could answer, she hurried to take her window’s other side. She and Belira hefted the window and vanished into the medicinehouse.

He stood for a moment, then shoved his hands into his pockets, kicked a stone that lay offensively close to his foot, and started for the palace. He tried to cheer himself up by remembering that although Emlin wasn’t staying in the palace, she was now nearby. He’d see her tomorrow and every day she was on Lyz. But as he walked, he kept thinking about the moment when she’d told him she had to stay at the crafthouse, not the palace, because that was what crafters did.

When he’d met her on Kural, he’d spent a fair amount of time considering how trustworthy Emlin was. He’d eventually concluded her natural bent was toward truth; she was often too unsuspecting for her own good. On Kural, for instance, she’d trusted him though he’d deceived her without shame. He knew that when she lied, she looked down, avoiding her listener’s eyes. She’d done that at the dock. Why?

Jaffen hadn’t told him about Emlin staying at the crafthouse, which left him itching to inform his brother that he intended to spend time with the traitor’s daughter whether Jaffen thought it was a good idea or not. But Emlin hadn’t told him either, despite having written to him whenever ships came from Kural Island to Lyz. Maybe her feelings for him had cooled. That could happen when people were separated for too long. Still, the kiss she’d just given him was satisfyingly enthusiastic.

He didn’t know what to make of it all, but like the ranting Ston, it reminded him that the world was a treacherous place.

Chapter 2

Emlin lowered her side of the wrapped window carefully onto the sawhorses waiting in the crafthouse storeroom. On the other side, Belira matched her move. Emlin opened her fingers and stepped back. She should check to be sure the window was intact, but she’d been told not to let anyone see it until Drake Jaffen unveiled it. She felt protective of it in front of Belira, anyway. The twit had been nasty to Addy for no reason Emlin could see. The window was a dragon-inspired work of art, and if Belira sneered at it, Emlin wasn’t sure she could remain polite.

“We’re done?” Belira made her lack of interest clear, so apparently it didn’t matter if Emlin left the window covered. “Let me show you your room.” She whisked Emlin out of the storeroom and across the big workshop so quickly she had time only to take in the curious face of the boy washing crockery. “Get her satchel from the cart, Daro,” Belira said over her shoulder as she started up the stairs.

Emlin hurried after her, nearly running into her when she stopped on the first landing.

“This is yours.” Belira opened a door on the right and ushered Emlin into a square room with a view of Lyz’s mountain. The shutters stood open, letting wind sweep through and out the door to the landing. Up the hillside, laundry flapped on lines in half a dozen yards. “Is it all right?”

Emlin forced her gaze away from the mountain to take in the bed, dresser, and washstand. “It’s fine. Thank you.”

“Craftmistress Loril will be home soon,” Belira said. “You’re, um, friendly with the drake’s brother?”

Emlin took in the girl’s raised eyebrow and pursed mouth and felt a terrible desire to say no. Not at all. I kiss all the boys that way.

“I met him on Kural. I didn’t know he was the drake’s brother.” Belira’s calling Addy the drake’s brother made it sound as if Emlin had latched on to him for something other than the person he was. His being Jaffen’s brother was, in truth, the main thing complicating their relationship.

“So Kural’s dragon truly accepted Jaffen as that island’s drake?”

“He did. I saw it. And I must admit, Jaffen’s been a much better ruler than our old drake. Not that that’s a high bar.”

“You ‘must admit,’” Belira said. “You don’t like Jaffen?”

Emlin pictured the despair on her traitor father’s bruised face the last time she saw him, just before Jaffen made him disappear. Not that she cared, she reminded herself. Dain didn’t deserve her sympathy. He’d abandoned her pregnant mother, which was as low as a man could go. Still, against her better judgement, Emlin was going to try to find out what had happened to him. But she wasn’t about to share her family dirt with Belira. She met the girl’s prying eyes and said nothing.

Belira drifted into the doorway, then stopped. “Someone told me you’re Dain’s daughter.”

Emlin cursed herself for flinching. It was as if the girl were reading her mind. “Do you know him?”

“Only in passing. He came here to buy medicines once or twice last year. What’s happened to him?”

“I don’t know.” Emlin put her hand on the back of the door and nudged it, so Belira had to move. When she went out and started down the stairs, Emlin closed the door and crossed to the window. Off to her left, she heard hammering and the shouts of the people rebuilding the crafthouse. She licked her lips to see if they tasted of Addy and was disappointed when they didn’t. She hoped she hadn’t hurt him by rejecting his offer to stay at the palace, but with Addy, it was hard to tell. He always kept some part of himself hidden away, protecting spots that had been hurt when he was too young to understand why. She felt bad for how lonely that must leave him, but the world had not taught him trust and there wasn’t much she could do about it.

The dragon only knew she’d liked to have stayed close to him in the room he had ready. She had things to do first though, things he wouldn’t like. He might even take them as a betrayal of Jaffen, the one person he trusted without question. But what was she supposed to do? Dragons weren’t used to having their demands questioned.

She propped her elbows on the windowsill. Lyz’s mountain loomed in front of her. Kural’s blue and gold dragon sailed across the fields on the mountainside, with Lyz’s red one close behind. She couldn’t have looked away from them if she’d wanted to. She watched them and breathed. Watched them and breathed. Watched them and breathed.

She recognized that spire of rock on the right. She knew that if she went around it to the left, she’d see a meadow where delicious sheep grazed. She leaned out the window and let the wind wash over her face. It smelled of the mountain and the sky.

A rush of something pushed its way into her head, less an image than a feeling. A sense of danger, the smell and sound of her father. Fear. She bit back a cry.

Somewhere, someone knocked on a door. With a jerk, Emlin recalled where she was, a crafthouse that was not her own. Heart thudding, she stepped hastily back from the window. For weeks now, that unwelcome fear had filled her head, making her unable to even think of creating artful stained glass. Each night, when she dreamed, the feeling became more urgent. She knew where it came from. The dragons were frightened for her father, and they turned out to be relentless nags about it. Why they cared, she couldn’t imagine, but they did. So despite what she felt, she resolved to find him and do what she could to save him. But first, she’d tell the selfish, lying excuse for a man what she thought of him. She pictured him pleading for her forgiveness. She pictured herself telling him to get out of her life. For good.

The knock sounded again.

“Come in,” she said.

The boy Daro dragged her satchel into the room.

When she looked out the window again, the dragons were gone.

Chapter 3

When Addy reached the street running up to the palace, he met a stream of people hurrying in the opposite direction, toward the harbor. It took him a moment to recall that Jaffen was raising Lyz’s flag on the new warship today. Addy had never seen a ship’s flag-raising. Since his day was now sadly Emlin-free, he decided he might as well watch his brother accept the ship’s service for Lyz.

The docks were far more crowded than they’d been earlier, and he couldn’t get anywhere close to the ship. People watched from the roofs of warehouses and even from the decks of the two merchant ships docked farther along. Uncomfortable with people on all sides, he slithered into the shelter of a cart parked outside an alehouse. A half-familiar young man and woman huddled against the wall next to him.

Addy glanced at them, trying to decide if the man could be one of the boys he’d snuck out to play with when he was a kid. He eventually decided he didn’t know the young man, which was all right. He didn’t necessarily want to hear old playmates call him “sir.” That said, he’d found that life in the palace could sometimes be even lonelier than life as a runaway, so he wouldn’t have been entirely sorry to meet a former friend.

The man said something to the woman that made her giggle. Addy turned his back to them and tried not to hear, but turning away didn’t stop the thoughts of his own girl from repeating themselves in his head.

Emlin had lied to him. Admittedly, he wasn’t particularly devoted to the truth himself, so he had no right to object when someone told him untruths, but he found he did with Emlin. He trusted her, and trust came hard for him. He couldn’t help wondering if her not staying with him meant maybe she, like his father, had decided he wasn’t worth holding onto. He could just ask her what the matter was, but over the years, he’d found that calling out lies was a good way to learn a truth you didn’t want to hear. So maybe he should leave it alone and hope it fixed itself. Sometimes that worked.

A cheer from the crowd made him straighten up to look over people’s heads at the warship. A knot of horses and palace guards had gathered near the vessel. The cheer had been provoked by Jaffen appearing on the deck, flanked by his ministers of war and trade. Half a dozen men and women waited for Jaffen further along the ship’s deck – city and island leaders, Addy guessed. A big man in a guard uniform stayed close to Jaffen, his eyes sweeping the crowd below and even the gathered dignitaries. Addy recognized Jaffen’s head guard, Tomian.

Addy shifted from foot to foot. Despite the cheers of the crowd around him, Tomian’s watchfulness was a good idea. So were the guards he now spotted scattered on some of those warehouse roofs.

Jaffen moved toward a mast, hauled on a rope, and raised Lyz’s red and black flag, claiming the ship for the defense of the island. The crowd cheered again.

Somewhere out of Addy’s sight, a dragon roared. Something streaked across his vision. Raised voices came from a roof off to his right, making heads turn that way, including Addy’s. An instant later, a man shouted, “The drake!” At the same moment, Addy realized the streak he’d seen was a bolt from a crossbow. Frantically, he swung his gaze back to the ship to find Tomian hurrying Jaffen down the gangplank, his broad back blocking Addy’s view of his brother. Out of the crowd, guards leapt up onto their horses. Then Jaffen and Tomian were up on their horses too, and the crowd was scrambling out of their way. A woman screamed.

Bodies pressed against Addy, pinning him to the warehouse wall, making him struggle for breath. His brother and guards galloped past, Jaffen bent low over his horse’s neck. He was gone before Addy could see if the bolt had hit him.

“Get off me!” Heart thundering, he tried to shove loose and follow, but the crowd had dissolved into pushing, clamoring chaos. The sensible part of his brain knew that if he forced his way into it, he’d trip and be on the ground and beneath their feet. Under his breath, he cursed the dragon but flattened his back against the wall and forced himself to wait. He should have told someone right away about Ston stirring people up. He shouldn’t have gone off with Emlin instead. If Jaffen was hurt, it was Addy’s fault.

The instant the pressure of bodies around him loosened, he plunged forward. He managed to take only one step before hands grabbed him from behind.

“Get hold of him,” a woman ordered.

Addy’s breath stopped. In his head, he was once again back in the Westlands, outside an alehouse, being grabbed by strangers in the dark. Back then he had yanked free and found himself facing a man with a knife. “Get hold of him,” a man behind him had barked as Addy fumbled for his own knife. “Don’t hurt him. He’s no good to us dead.” Luckily, the alehouse door had opened, spilling light and fellow drunks. The man with the knife swore and bolted, and Addy had whirled around to find no one.

“Sir, sir!”

Addy blinked, back in a panicked mob on the docks of Lyz Island.

Lieutenant Edun, Tomian’s second in command, stepped between Addy and the remnants of the riot. Her heart-shaped face was wrinkled with anxiety. “We have to get you to safety.”

“Is Jaffen hurt?”

“No.” Lieutenant Edun beckoned to the guard holding Addy’s left arm. “Let’s go. Tomian said he thought he saw you here,” Edun added.

Addy’s whole body vibrated with the urgent need to see his brother. “I want to see Jaffen.” He shook off the guard’s hand and charged ahead.

“Sir, stay with us.” Lieutenant Edun trotted at Addy’s side, her elbow raised to fend off frightened people. “We don’t know if anyone else is working with the archer, and I have orders to get you safely to your room and keep you there.”

“Not bloody likely,” Addy said.

“I have orders.” Edun set her mouth in a stern imitation of Tomian. She and the other guard glued themselves to Addy’s sides and shoved through the streets and into the palace, where the front hall held a sea of guards and advisers.

Nearby, the Minister of Trade squeaked, “I was right next to him. That bolt could have hit me.”

“Jaffen needs to do something,” the Minister of War answered. “His father would never have put up with this disorder.”

“This way, sir.” Lieutenant Edun gestured straight ahead where stairs would take them to Addy’s room.

Addy grabbed a fistful of shirt on a man he belatedly recognized as Jaffen’s Minister of the Treasury. “Where’s Jaffen?”

The man tried to shake him off, blinked in recognition, and nodded toward the left. “Small council chamber.”

Addy tried to push his way past, but Edun blocked him. “I need to escort you to your room,” she said a little desperately.

“Get out of my way,” Addy snarled and elbowed his way to the council chamber door, with Edun trailing after him, swearing under her breath.

At the door, Addy had expected to find Tomian but faced a bearded guard he didn’t know.

“Sir.” Edun caught at Addy’s sleeve.

Addy wedged himself next to the bearded guard, tried the door, and found it locked. He pounded his fist against the polished wood panel. “Jaffen!”

Edun spat a surprisingly foul word.

The door cracked open, and Tomian peered out. He’d removed his helmet, so Addy could see that though, as always, dark stubble threatened to break out on his jaw, the rest of his face was pale. He was frightened, something Addy hadn’t thought possible. But Tomian was not only Jaffen’s head guard; he was also Jaffen’s bed partner. Addy’s tense muscles relaxed a little. There was no way Tomian would let Jaffen get hurt.

Tomian shot a glare over Addy’s head at Edun. “Get him out of this mob.”

“I need to see Jaffen.” Addy tried to shoulder past Tomian as he’d done to Edun, but it was like trying to shove a boulder.

“Let him in,” Jaffen called.

“I’m coming, too,” said a familiar voice.