Page 25 of Dragon Heir

Sarah blinked up at her parent. “Isn’t it good to have a little girl, Mama?”

“Yes, but it isn’t polite to be asking that of others,” Emily countered.

I grinned. “I don’t mind. I hope I have a little girl like Sarah here.”

Emily bit her lower lip. “Yes, but. . .the dragons-” Her eyes wandered over to the barn as she tried to form some polite words. “They’re not very. . .prolific, are they?”

I stood and shook my head. “No, but you never know with them. They tend to surprise you.”

“Well, we do hope to see more of the lord now that he has a bride to show around,” Emily added as she used her arms to gesture about the place. “Our home is your home, even excusing the land deal with His Lordship.”

“You don’t mind being a tenant?” I asked her.

She shook her head. “Not at all. He’s a good landlord, the best I’ve heard about, as far as I can tell. When the crops fail he doesn’t even charge us rent and when they do well he hardly takes anything.”

“So he must be pretty popular around here,” I mused. Emily bit her lower lip and turned her face away. My heart skipped a beat at the dark shadow on her brow. “Isn’t he?”

“Well, there are a few people who are unhappy with some things,” she reluctantly admitted.

Sarah tugged on her mother’s apron. “Ben’s dad said Mr. Dragon needed to come out here more often and fix things, didn’t he, Mother?”

Emily frowned down at her child. “Yes, but one mustn’t tell others that, Sarah.”

The small child’s shoulders slumped and she scowled at the ground. “Grownup rules are so strange.”

I was in the middle of a laugh when smoke tingled my nose. Emily’s eyes widened as she gaped at something over my shoulder. “The barn! It’s on fire!”

My heart skipped a beat and I spun around. Smoke billowed out of the upper windows of the barn. The few animals inside its walls stampeded out, encouraged by Ware and Allard as the dragons herded them out into the adjacent open field.

I grasped Emily’s hands and caught her terrified eyes in my gaze. “You two stay here. I’ll see what’s wrong.”

I didn’t wait for a reply but dashed toward the barn. Already less smoke poured from the upstairs windows but I raced through the doors and found myself staring down a long aisle with large stalls on either side. A tack area was on my left and hay filled the lofts above the stalls. Or at least, there used to be hay. A flurry of ash rained down on me but the kindling was so combusted that it didn’t get a chance to spark the dry hay on the floor but completely evaporated before reaching the boards.

Vargas stood near the open door where she held a handkerchief over her mouth. I hurried up to her and saw that she stared up at the loft. The smoky figures of Will, Steven, and Raines could be seen moving around. They kicked at straw, creating piles that Will then carefully torched with his flame magic.

“What’s going on?” I asked the lady dragon.

She rolled her eyes. “Lord Thorn is cleansing the loft by burning the hay.”

My eyes widened. “All the loft?”

“Of course.”

I whipped my head back to the loft and my gaze traveled up and down the fifty yards on either side. “That’s. . .that’s a lot of hay.”

“Quite a lot,” she agreed.

I heard a gasp behind me and I spun around to find Emily standing just outside the doorway with Sarah cowering behind her. Her hand flew to her agape mouth as her horrified eyes beheld the ruins of the hay in the loft. Her terrified eyes fell on me. “What’s happened? Why is all the hay being burned?”

I hurried over to her and grasped her arms. “I don’t know but I’m sure there’s a good reason for it-”

“An infestation,” Vargas spoke up as she sauntered over to us. She grasped our arms and turned us around so we all faced the exit. She marched us out of the barn away from the smoke and ash. “Now we should let the men do their work. It will not take long.”

“But the animals!” Emily protested as she twisted around to get a look at the fiery loft. “How will we feed them over the winter?”

“Lord Thorn has already promised your husband all the grain and straw your animals will need,” Vargas assured her.

“But he may catch the barn on fire!” Emily pointed out as Vargas released us some twenty yards from the barn close to the chicken coop.

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