Page 239 of Dragon Avenger (Age of Fire 2)

“I’m really here to ask you if you wish to stay, to live with us,” Scabia said.

“It is quite the most marvelous home cave,” Wistala said, watching blighters clean up dragon waste about the pool.

“We would like you to be uzhin,” NaStirath said.

“Wistala, I am like my uzhin DharSii in that I’ve no patience for disguise. My beloved daughter is the best of dragons but barren, and I would have hatchlings in this cave again.”

Wistala stiffened.

“Don’t look alarmed, I’m not asking for you to take wing on a mating flight now,” Scabia said. “Nor even call any male here your lord. NaStirath is a fine dragon and would sire strong hatchlings. You would have a home and honor and, yes, even precious metals here for the rest of your moons if you would leave a few clutches for Aethleethia to sing over and raise as her own. Don’t look so shocked—it was not an uncommon practice in ancient Silverhigh. You’re obviously healthy; I’ve never seen such thick scale on a maiden before, more like that of your grandsire AuRye, who was always stuffing himself with well-armored dwarves and golden hilts from broken battle-axes. I will condescend to say that such a famous line will improve the blood around here.”

Scabia cast a pointed glance back at NaStirath.

She’d always meant to keep her promise to Father; in fact, she’d dreamed of a clutch of restless eggs last night for some reason, but this, this—“Unnatural,” she said. “It would be unnatural.”

“No more unnatural than a dragon wearing hominid jewelry and a carrying harness,” Scabia said. “Were you born with that icon on your fringe, perhaps? Or growing up among hominids, as I suspect you did. Tell me I guess wrongly.”

“I . . . ,” Wistala said, groping for words. “I didn’t come here to find a mate.”

“Is it a song you want?” NaStirath put in. “I know one or two:

“There once flew a maiden of AnFant

Whose mind was as pure as her vent

But when—”

“You’re not helping your cause, NaStirath,” Scabia said, again employing the juvenile—deservedly so, Wistala thought.

Scabia turned those faintly pink eyes back on her. “Now, dear, we shall have breakfast soon. Let’s have you join us for a few more meals and we’ll speak no more of this while you recover from your fatigues and hurts. Get to know my darling Aethleethia, and I’m sure you’ll come to feel, as I do—”

“I must go,” Wistala said, hopping from her loft and running for the exit. Grand, Vesshall was, but it was also hollow. Hollow of honor, hollow of feeling, hollow of—

She almost bowled DharSii over as she sprang out the tunnel mouth, leaped from the ledge, and spread her wings beneath the stone canopy that suddenly seemed as dreadful as the thorn garden below. He began to say something, but Wistala didn’t hear the words in her eagerness to get away, flying south as fast as she could.

Chapter 24

Is this a joke?” Ragwrist said.

Wistala sat with him in the equestrian theater, a riding arena outside Hypat, where his riders practiced during winter camp.

She’d come south in easy stages, keeping to the west side of the Red Mountains and not raiding livestock. She slept only on the loneliest hilltops, and drank snow she melted with her foua, with an eye to avoiding the barbarians. In this way she made a long and ultimately fruitless search of the Red Mountains, even passing into the southlands and the borders of the Empire of the Ghioz, without meeting another of her kind, finding nothing but bats and bears and a horrid troll or two in likely caves. If any dragons did lurk there still, they were being quiet about it.

I am but one, and my enemies can’t be numbered. I shall have to improvise. Perhaps the Dragonblade and the dwarves have a weakness only one familiar with their habits could exploit. Cunning is required, treachery even. What would Prymelete do?

“It would be a terrible risk,” Ragwrist said after she outlined what she wanted him to do. They’d gone to some trouble to find a place where they could talk quietly. The new apprentice fortune-teller, Intanta’s great-granddaughter Iatella, had been hanging about getting an eyeful of Wistala and peering at her through the crystal shard. Though she was a skinny little girl, Wistala didn’t like being overheard, even by someone almost small enough to be gulped down in one swallow.

“I know. If the dwarves suspect me, they will kill me at once. And they know how to do it. I’ve seen the proof.”

Ragwrist did not ask her to elaborate.

“No, I don’t mean that. This Fangbreaker fellow is offering me so much money for you, I can retire to an estate and sell the circus to pay for the finest velvet cushions for my sore feet and sit-upon. I am afraid to trust myself. Especially since if your plot does not come off, I shall have made a powerful and implacable enemy.”

“You may always plead ignorance and desperation brought by poverty,” Wistala said. “You’ve had ample practice.”

“You’re getting as cynical as Brok. Where is the kindly green giant I once knew?”

“Still freezing her tailvent shut in the north, perhaps. Ah, I shall trust you. Perhaps my fate can balance out your desire to become a landlord like your brother.”

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