Page 118 of Mikoto and the Reaver Village
He whispered, “This. All of it.”
“Even the eleven-year-old girl who proposes to give it toyou?”
Tenma’s words were like a vow. “If she is resolved, I willdevote myself to her happiness.”
Borrowing from the wisdom of cranes, Ginkgo asked, “Can suchgenerosity lead to anything but joy?”
FORTY-TWO
Smart Cat
Sinder was accustomed to getting his way. Every dragonwas. But it was pointless trying to sway Timur and Torloo. Only when Sinder losthis temper did they bend, but his triumph left him feeling like a petulantchild. They were obviously humoring him, because Torloo had lowered the stakesso far, Sinder and the rookies weren’t doing anything more menacing thanplaying tag in the forest.
Well, to be fair, it was tag with traps.
Trapping an intelligent person wasn’t the same as outwittinga dumb beast, especially one on their guard. To keep things interesting, he’d workedin several traps of his own. If the four winds favored him, Michaelson wouldfall for one.
It made an amusing daydream, but Sinder wasn’t holding hisbreath.
Timur of the illustrious Order of Spomenka was undoubtedly wiseto a dragon’s ways. They preserved knowledge and techniques that were supposedto be lost to time. Sinder knew for a fact that dragons from the heights hadbeen tasked with the monumental chore of snuffing out any songs or fables thatmentioned the tricks of the dragon slayer’s trade. In the tales that remained, knightswere praised for their bravery upon setting off and showered with glories upontheir return.Howthey’d succeeded wasn’t a matter of record.
Humans should have been no match for dragons, who werelarger, fiercer, and stronger than any other predator. Yet every dragon wasdriven by three instincts—to fill a harem, to reach the sky, and to move withthe seasons.
All dragonkind embraced a migratory existence, and it wasthe predictability of those courses that had led to their near demise. Learnthe patterns. Lay the traps.
Of course, urges could be curtailed. Or more often,channeled.
Ancient dragon dwellings were sprawling affairs, invariablycross-shaped. Lords moved their entire household from one wing to the next withthe turning of the seasons. And in more modest, modern harems, lords maintainedfour bedchambers, one for each bride—east, south, west, and north.
Sinder understood the pull. He kept his sanity byrearranging the furniture. Juuyu never minded. It gave him an excuse to clean. Maybeit was team building. Maybe it was group therapy.
Dragons were isolationists, obsessively secretive abouttheir idiosyncrasies, now more than ever. Sinder understood that, too. Their traditionswere already remarked upon, even criticized. The lords were reluctant to exposetheir culture, opening the way for mockery, speculation, psychoanalysis, or futureattacks.
Which were a real possibility, thanks to the rogue.
Because that dragon wasn’t immune to the pull of instinct.
The women he stole were stashed in makeshift harems. Manyprofilers believed he was after progeny, a frustrated male who’d refined histechniques once he realized he could only impregnate females of reaver descent.
A noteworthy discovery, to be sure. Lapis Mossberne wasespecially interested in that particular point, but Sinder was skeptical. Ifthe rogue wanted his children, wouldn’t he show more interest in gathering themup? Yes, some infants had gone missing, but those disappearances didn’tcorrelate with the reports of fresh kidnappings and killings.
Sinder thought it more likely that an even greedier instinctdrove the rogue. He wanted to gain the sky.
The rogue was after wings, something that traditionally tooka thousand years. But the truth was far less poetic. It went without sayingthat dragon lords had long been forming alliances with reavers and benefitingfrom their tending. What most left unsaid was that those who consumed the soulsof reavers—even the undisciplined, unrefined souls of unregistered reavers—couldgain those selfsame wings.
And damn the rest of them.
The lords had looked on in horror when mounting evidencepointed to a dragon as the perpetrator of heinous crimes against humanity. Immediately,they’d put the scholars of the heights to work. Registries were opened.Lineages traced. Eggs tallied. Identities confirmed. And to the mystificationof all, every male was both found and found innocent.
Meaning the rogue dragon was an impossibility.
No male had sired him. No female had carried him.
And nobody would believe them.
Despite every protestation of peace, dragons would be vilified.So when Hisoka Twineshaft approached the lords, asking for any detail, nomatter how small, that would give trackers an edge in the chase, the dragonspledged their cooperation.
And when the cat smiled and singled out the Graennturnenclave’s IT specialist, nobody questioned his choice in emissaries. Sinder wasplucked from the heights of an urban high rise, thrown to the wolves, partneredto a phoenix, and trusted with more secrets than anyone should have to keep.
