Page 12 of Red Dragon
“Glower all you wish. I’m having a painting commissioned.”
Vorik laughed softly and stepped closer, lifting a hand, as if he would take her in an embrace. Her body wanted that, even if her mind was wary of him, and she leaned toward him. But he looked over his shoulder toward the rest of the throne room and kept his place, dropping his arm.
The chief and chieftess and numerous of their entourage had disappeared, but many of the military men remained, the officers still negotiating, or whatever they were doing, at the table. Dolok’s face was red. Things probably weren’t going his way. Jhiton was impassive, impossible to read. He didn’t glance over when Vorik looked back, but it didn’t matter. Jhiton had already arranged for Vorik to speak with Syla.
To what end? To find out if Wreylith would come again to aid Syla if the stormers attacked? Or something more?
“We’ll cede no ground to you.” Dolok pushed his chair back, the legs screeching on the floor. His words were, for the first time, loud enough for Syla to hear from across the room. “No islands. And you’d better get your people off Harvest Island. We’ve almost got that shielder repaired, and those people will be protected again soon.”
If only that were true. Syla needed to speak with Tibby to get more details on those components she’d mentioned.
Whatever Jhiton's response was to the outburst, it was too quiet for Syla to hear, but he remained calm, seated with his fingers threaded and unperturbed that Dolok loomed from across the table.
“If you’ve no better offers than that to make,” Dolok said, “you can get in your ship and leave. The next time it appears in our harbor, we’ll fill it with cannonballs.”
“As long as you are aware that we’ll have a similar stance toward the ships thatleaveyour harbor,” Jhiton said. “Any of your harbors. It would behoove you to negotiate.”
“It would behoove you not to be bullies.”
“I wonder if Wreylith will appear to guard your ships,” Vorik mused, gazing thoughtfully at Syla instead of watching the officers at the table.
Though the red dragon had returned the figurine that could be used to communicate with her, Syla had no delusions about Wreylith coming to her assistance again. She wouldn’t randomly defend Garden Kingdom ships, regardless, nor would she want the Harvest Island shielder to be repaired. Wreylith and the other wild dragons wereenjoyinghunting the apparently delicious elioks that lived there. Since they were wild and elusive, Syla had never had the meat, so couldn’t speak to their taste.
Aware of Vorik watching her and waiting for a response, she said, “I believe she adores me now and can’t wait to drive enemies away from our ships.”
A laughable notion, but Syla would be smart to feed Vorik false information instead of truthfully answering all his questions. She should be the one getting information from him. That was how spying worked, wasn’t it?
“That seems unlikely, given her stance on humans in general,” Vorik mused. “I do wonder if she might drive enemies away from whatever ship you were on.”
“Are you and your people planning to target my ship if I go on a journey?”
“If it involves you taking a repaired shielder to the unprotected island, they might.”
“Because your goals are still to destroy all of the shielders and leave every island unprotected? Captain Lesva suggested that.” The woman who’d tortured her probably wasn’t a reliablesource, but, given the circumstances, Syla had deemed her more likely to be telling the truth than Vorik.
“Plans are in flux.”
A vague answer that she could have guessed. She didn’t have experience interrogating people and didn’t know how to fish information from his depths. He was as wary with her as she with him—maybe more so.
Syla sighed and leaned on the windowsill, gazing out at the fountain. The sun had disappeared behind clouds as it sank toward the horizon, evening creeping over the island.
“I don’t suppose you’d like to spend this time with me talking about inane and unimportant things?” Syla asked.
Vorik smiled sadly, looking like he understood the reason for her request. Maybe he even regretted trying to finagle information from her.
“Iwouldlike that actually. Do you… How are you doing? I know this will sound hypocritical, given who I am and what my people are doing, but I regret that you’ve lost so much. I’ve lost family myself and understand how hard it is, but I can’t fathom what it would be like to lose everyone at once.”
His words and sympathetic tone brought her emotions to the surface, tears threatening as her throat tightened. She shook her head, realizing she should have kept the talk political rather than personal. This was more dangerous. She’d cried in front of Vorik before—and he’d held and comforted her—but she couldn’t do that here. She dared not let Dolok see her being friendly toward him in any way, and she also didn’t want to break down in front of the general or anyone else in the room.
Blinking to keep the tears from falling, Syla stiffened her spine, tightened her grip on the sill. “It is difficult, yes.”
Vorik, perhaps realizing that he was making thingsmoredifficult rather than less, lifted an apologetic hand.
“Who have you lost?” she asked, not trusting her voice—her emotions—if he asked more questions. Better and safer to ask them of him.
“My mother when I was little, and my father when I was slightly less little. When I was about twenty, I lost a brother who was between Jhiton and me in age. He was also training to be a dragon rider, but neither of us had mounts of our own yet. We sought to prove ourselves in a sea hunt that would bring in a great deal of meat for the tribe’s winter stores. We risked seeking the great tusked seals in the Strait of Tempest’s Torment. The name isn’t melodramatic. It’s a deadly area when a storm comes up. And, as we learned, cloud strikers also like to hunt the seals there. That day, they hunted us. We defeated them, but they put us off our course, and when a storm came up, it hurled our craft against the rocks and destroyed it. I lost my brother and almost my own life as well. Jhiton came on his dragon and found me. We searched all over for our brother, but he must have drowned. It’s been ten years, so if he’d survived, he would have found a way home by now.”
“I’m sorry.” Syla had heard of the strait and the seals, but, other than a few brave explorers and hunters who went out more for sport than necessity, her people didn’t seek out such creatures, not when they could hunt and fish from their safe islands. Since the shields did not deflect rain and wind, the islands weren’t immune to storms, but the weather was less dangerous than at sea.
