Page 35 of The Storm of the Empire

“Why would I be lying to you?”

“To get me on your side so I help you.”

“I could have done that with Dragon’s Bane, which was the only thing I was after in the first place.” I held her gaze, willing the Goddess for her to trust me.

“Well, it’s none of the concern of Storm. We don’t give the priests our eggs.”

“Doesn’t every kingdom give the priests their eggs? I know I’m quite new to all of this, but from what I’ve heard, the dragons need the help of the nurseries the priests run to hatch their eggs successfully. They protect them.”

“Not Storm eggs. We hatch those ourselves. Our magic is such that only we can care for our eggs the way they need, so why would they be smuggling any dragon eggs through here?”

“Taking them somewhere else?”

“We’re nearly impossible to traverse, and you can’t get to other kingdoms from here,” she shot back, taking out every argument I had.

But it struck me that she was wrong. I knew the maps after being aboard ships for months after my village burned. “You border the Ninth Kingdom, though.” The name escaped me, but I knew the numbers and where they were placed, as that’s how the King and most ships referred to them.

“It’s impassible. The storms are too bad, and you risk more than just the lightning. Tornados ravage the path, and rivers wash out the valleys.” The way she spoke about it made it sound like a tragedy.

“Then I don’t know why they’d bring them here.”

“It’s just not adding up. They keep the eggs safe and in perfect hatching condition to maximize their chances of survival. Why on earth would they move them? Especially crates of them. They are too precious to risk like that! We only have one dragon with an egg in Storm right now.” She shook her head like it was absurd.

“What do you mean only one dragon with an egg?” Surely, I’d misheard her.

She stared at me. “You know dragons lay those eggs, right?”

I gave her an exasperated glance. “I’m fucking aware of how your reproduction works. I do educate myself when I find a gap in my knowledge. I meant how is there only a singular dragon with an egg in the whole kingdom?”

“Do you really not know? I guess this gives credence to your whole story about not being raised knowing about magic.”

“Enlighten me then.”

“Storm dragons are exceedingly rare.” She held up a hand before I could speak. “Yes, all dragon eggs are rare, but in Storm, we take that to a different level. We usually only have one or two a generation.”

How could there be this much I didn’t know? All these facts every other Storm fae learned as a child, I was completely oblivious to. “I knew you were rare but?—”

It took her a minute to process what I meant, but recognition crept into her expression.

She shot me a flat look. “Don’t even start.”

We drifted in and out of conversation for a few hours while the storm showed no signs of stopping, both of us trying to unpick the situation in our own minds.

“Why would priests take dragon’s eggs?” she asked the question I’d been wondering since finding them. “They are trusted with their care, and then if they are successfully hatched, they are returned to their parents to raise to maturity. No dragon would ever give their egg over if they thought they were being shipped off to other kingdoms. What purpose does that serve?”

“It can’t be for a good reason,” I mused, not fully getting it myself. “What happens to an egg if it doesn’t hatch successfully?”

“It think the family is notified, and it is destroyed by dragon fire to return the spirit of the unborn to the Goddess.”

I digested that for a few moments, wondering if I could possibly think so little of the priesthood that I could believe them capable of falsifying egg deaths in order to somehow steal viable dragons for some purpose. Then I thought on it, and given everything else I had seen which somehow involved the priests, was it so unfathomable?

“What are you thinking?” she asked, seeming to somehow know I was on the brink of an idea forming.

“I’m not sure I want to put it into words,” I admitted.

“It can’t be worse than what I was thinking,” she sighed. “I guess I just wanted to see if you had reached the same conclusion.”

“That they are stealing eggs and claiming they just didn’t hatch?”

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