Page 65 of The Storm of the Empire

“Goodnight,” he said absently.

I hurried back beneath, not quite sure what I was just witness to.

When I returned to the room Hazel and I shared, I could tell she was awake.

“Why are you still up?”

“What were you doing?” There was something in her voice I couldn’t quite read.

“I needed some air and?—”

“You’ve been gone ages.”

“And if you’d let me finish, I’d tell you what happened. I witnessed something.”

“What did you see?” Her energy changed. The edge eased, but I didn’t cross the room yet. She was still a dragon after all, and she’d been upset since the egg went missing, understandably so, but I wasn’t taking any chances.

“Veles and another male made a ghost drop.”

“What does that mean?”

“It’s a secret drop over the side of the ship to another waiting vessel.”

She sat up quickly, and the hammock swayed. “What did they drop?”

“I don’t know. It was two crates which were supposed to be wine for the captain, according to Faolan. They were sent to his quarters, and now they are gone.”

“What if they were the eggs?” she gasped.

“They may well have been. They had the stamp of the sun order in yellow.”

“And you couldn’t stop them?” She looked doubtful.

“I couldn’t stop the captain on his own ship, no. And neither could you. All we can do is find out as much as we can.” I scanned the space. “Have you seen any crates marked with yellow in here? I’ve only seen blue.”

“No, and I’ve gone through more of them. But they are all the same, just supplies. I can’t figure out what we’re missing.”

“Did they take any crates out of here?”

She shook her head. “Not while I was here.”

I finally risked working my way through the crates to where she laid in her hammock only in her undergarments. Ships were sweltering in the holds even with our hammocks hung near the vents. Especially with the warm wind coming off the coast. We weren’t far enough out to sea to benefit from the cooling of the water.

She didn’t look away from me. “If those were eggs, do you think there are more?

“There could be, but where?”

“Maybe in the lower hold?”

“We were down there. Unless they have them hidden under the ballast.”

“You know ships better than me, are there secret stores somewhere?”

I made a mental map of all the places we’d been. “Anything is possible. There’s no way to search every inch of this ship quickly without being caught.”

“I think we should do a better search of the lower hold. I feel like we’re missing something.” She tucked her hands behind her head, stretching out.

We’d only been down in the lower hold for a brief time as it was mostly left sealed during sailing. The stores of food resided on the orlop along with the beer stores and bread room, while above us, the crew resided in their cabins. But every inch of unused space went to storage in a ship of this size. It was large, but there was always more to fit.

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