Faelost Read online

  Mom stood and stretched her arms over her head. “Thank you.”

  She kissed the top of my head, then stumbled down the hallway toward her room.

  Serida nuzzled my ear. I stroked the underside of her chin and nodded at Yana. “Come on, let's go raid the garden and see what's ready to pick for lunch.”

  Chapter 4

  The garden was tended to, the rabbit we snared was skinned and cleaned, and a pot of stew was simmering on the stove, so I sat in Yana's loft while she read. I had a dragon and my sketchbook on my lap, and a kindling urge to go kick Shan out of my room so I could lie on my own bed and stare at the ceiling for a while. He was still asleep and looked as if he had no interest in ever rousing. I hoped he'd get up soon. He needed to participate in chores and be coherent enough to converse with Daelon later.

  Coherency had been an issue lately. Shan slept more than I thought any normal person should, and his fatigue often caused him to stumble on words as he spoke. I suspected he spent too many nights studying into the small hours, and then his studying was chased by raging insomnia. Maybe his odd behavior was a typical problem among University scholars, and not the result of the Jarrah breaking him into little pieces and reassembling him out of order. Maybe it was both.

  Yana giggled at something in her book, then sighed and kept reading. The physicians estimated her age to be about seven, but we didn't know for sure because time was irrelevant in the underground world to which she was born. I'd never seen a child so young read as much as Yana did. Maybe she was trying to make up for an early childhood completely devoid of books. The Uldru were not allowed literacy by the Jarrah or the monstrous Varaku who kept them enslaved, so the refugees were eager to learn. Two or three nights a month, Daelis took us to their commune within the redwood forest west of Jadeshire so we could tutor them in reading and writing.

  Book still in hand, Yana stood and stepped to the window. She peeked through the shutters. “Too bright out now. The cousins play in the trees. I want to play with them, but the sun won't let me go outside. Do you think I'll ever be able to? The redwood Uldru can't. They only go out at night, never at midday.”

  “I have no idea,” I said. Yana's large eyes couldn't tolerate full sunlight, and her skin burned quickly. She'd helped me in the garden that morning, but she was fully-covered and wore the dark goggles that Mom's orc friends had given her.

  “I hope so.” Yana returned to her reading nook. She pulled a gauzy blanket over her scarred legs and stared at me from the sanctuary of her pillow nest. “Do you not have work now?”

  “Not today. Shan doesn't have classes, either. Which is good, because I haven't figured out what to do with Serida while I'm at work. She won't be able to fit in my pocket for long. Considering how much she's already eating, I think she's going to get big fast.”

  “I'll take care of her. She likes me,” Yana said with a grin.

  “You can't take her to school with you.”

  “Oh. Yeah. That's right.”

  “And I'm not sure if you were serious when you considered eating her.” I rubbed the back of my neck as I watched the steady rise and fall of the dragon's ribs. “Mom's busy with Zinnia and Daelis is busy with his duties. I can't leave her alone or she might get lost, get stepped on, contemplate chewing on the baby, or get eaten by the cat.”

  “Put her in a little cage to keep her out of trouble,” Yana said with a shrug.

  “I think I'll have to. I need to find one, anyway. Daelon's supposedly been figuring out what we should do with the dragons, and we'll need to cage them to move them so we don't announce to the world that we have a pair of solar dragons. I can see that getting dangerous quickly.”

  “People might hurt you to take them?”

  “Yes. No one has seen a solar dragon for centuries, so Daelis says even bound to Shan and me their worth is infinite. He said the other dragon breeder families that used to compete with his mother's family might try to steal them. And they might kill us, but they're more likely to kidnap us along with the dragons because it might not be possible to separate dragons from their dragonbound without bad things happening.”

  Yana stared at me, her head tilted to the left. Her nose crinkled and her right ear twitched. “I don't want anyone to hurt you. I like you, a lot more than I like a stupid, tasty dragon. I don't want you to leave because of her.”

  “I know, but I'll probably need to. She's my responsibility.”

  The metallic resonance of a strummed zither rose through the floorboard gaps and echoed off the sloped ceiling.

  “Shan's awake,” Yana said.

  “I hope he didn't wake up the baby.” I closed my eyes and listened for Zinnia's cry, but heard only the zither.

  “She woke a while ago. Sounds like Mom is walking around the great room with her while Shan plays.”

  “You know, I envy your Uldru hearing sometimes.”

  “I know. Don't envy anything else Uldru. Uldru life isn't a good life. Wasn't a good life. Isn't now for the underground ones. It's getting better, at least for me and the ones in the redwoods. We're free, but we don't know what that means yet.”

  A faint smell of char drifted up from the kitchen. I'd forgotten what I was supposed to be doing. I slipped groggy Serida into my pocket before standing. “Come on. Let's go downstairs. I need to take the bread out of the oven and stir the pot before it burns any more than it already has.”

  ∆∆∆

  Relatives drifted in and out of our house all afternoon. Aunt Nora and Uncle Tristan, who lived in the house behind ours. Uncle Elsin and his wife, Melly. An assortment of cousins. Mom's parents. Like every other afternoon that week, they brought with them an excess of baby gifts and too much food. I wasn't sure what we were supposed to do with it all. It was far more food than our family could eat, but somehow it was always gone by morning. I suspected either Daelis or Shan was sneaking out to take the leftovers to the orphanage that sat down the hill beneath the perpetual shade of the nearby city wall.

  I wasn't in a mood to entertain my noisy extended family for a fifth straight day, so I retreated to my room. It made me anxious to have extra people in my house, even people I'd known my entire life. It felt like a small scale invasion. I was only starting to get used to Yana and Daelis living with us when Zinnia was born, and I wasn't quite ready for a new disruption. Mom thought my dislike of uninvited people sprang from jealousy, but that wasn't it. It was more about discomfort, maybe even a strain of territoriality. It happened before, when Alon was born. Mom thought I didn't like him, but I was only agitated because a new baby also meant a house full of visitors.

  Then at four years old, Alon died. The visitors came back, but this time it was to remind me of what my family had lost. “I'm sorry for your loss,” echoed through our home for two weeks. It was all that I heard and all that I felt. Then the visitors stopped coming, stopped sending flowers and food, and when people did come over they were afraid to say Alon's name. It felt like everyone had forgotten him, but that wasn't what had happened at all. It was fear. They were afraid of reopening the gashes of our grief. Their discomfort made me feel worse. I loved him and I wanted to talk about him. I wanted the world to remember that my sweet, funny little half-brother had existed, had lived. Words couldn't bring him back in the flesh, but they could help solidify my favorite memories of him. Sometimes it was difficult to remember his face, and I had moments when all I wanted was to talk to someone about him, but saying his name made both Mom and Shan cry. My family was more guilty than anyone of tiptoeing through the shattered glass of his memory.

  Yana understood. Before Mom found her, she lost her parents and two siblings—a little brother who died shortly after birth and a twin sister who fell to her death while they were running away from the Varaku who had eaten their parents. Hani was her twin's name, and Yana told me they were identical. Sometimes, when no one else was around to listen, Yana and I shared stories of our lost siblings. We laughed together through the good memories and cried throug
h the bad, and both were important. It was our way of reminding each other that the people we loved and lost were still loved, and our memories kept them alive in our hearts. It was a bittersweet connection that I shared with her, but we both appreciated it. We both needed it.

  I've strayed far from my original intent and I'm dredging up new memories that I'm not yet ready to explore or acknowledge. Where was I? Oh yes, the visitors.

  Mom's family knew nothing about the dragons, so their presence gave me a reasonable excuse to escape the chaos of the great room and kitchen. Mom told them I was tired because Zinnia's crying woke me up several times a night. I wasn't a heavy sleeper like Shan was, so that wasn't untrue. I took both hatchlings into my room and set them on my bed so they could socialize while I read about patination. Serida and Lumin circled each other for a while, then batted around a spherical seed pod before settling into a knotted twist of long-tailed, sleeping dragons.

  I liked watching them, but as I watched them I wondered how long I would regret allowing Serida to bind to me. I'd never lived with pets before Daelis's cat moved in, but the dragons didn't seem like pets to me. They were intelligent wild animals, and one happened to think I was her father. Or mother. Or something other than a terrifying predator or a future tasty snack. The other regarded me with suspicion, but didn't seem to mind my presence as long as I didn't try to touch him. He'd made it clear with a hard bite to my thumb that I was only tolerable because I smelled kind of like Shan, and because I was owned by his sister.

  A pair of ducal guards scouted the garden outside my open window. Daelis and Daelon must have arrived home for dinner. I waved at the guards and they replied with a synchronized nod. I didn't know their names, but I recognized them from the last time they escorted Daelon from Goldtree Manor to our home in the merchant class Hawthorn Heights district. It wasn't safe for Daelon to travel anywhere alone, especially since he'd survived an assassination attempt less than a year earlier.

  A knock shook the door.

  “Are you awake?” Mom opened the door a crack and peeked in at me. “You need to come out now. Daelon's here and dinner is almost ready.”

  “I'm awake. Just reading.” I closed the smithing book onto a tattered ribbon and sat fully upright. “Be right there.”

  “Don't be long. Daelon wants to speak with you.” Mom closed my door and slipped away.

  I dumped a stack of books out of a lidded produce crate, then lined the wood with a soft old tunic I didn't fit into anymore. I was taller and thinner than I was a year or two prior, so none of my old clothes fit. I'd been planning on giving them to Aunt Nora and Grandma so they could salvage the fabric, but I hadn't gotten around to it yet. That was fine because this particular tunic made an excellent dragon bed. I used a dead spider to coax the dragons into the crate and then carried them into the great room.

  Shan and Daelis were busy preparing dinner while Uncle Elsin set the table. I hadn't expected him to still be in our home. He hated Daelis, who'd assigned him to the Northern Cavalry following a physical altercation the two of them had gotten into not long after Shan was born. I didn't meet Elsin for the first time until the Goldtrees recalled him to Jadeshire. He greatly resembled Mom in both appearance and demeanor. Everyone said I looked like him, even more than I looked like Mom. He told me just after our introduction that he was grateful some part of Rohir lived on in me, but I knew there was little about me that reminded him of his childhood best friend. Maybe it was enough that I existed.

  “I didn't think you'd still be here,” I said as I passed Elsin at the table.

  “Yana slipped and told me about your dragons. I had to stay so I could see them. Sent Melly and the kids home, since they heard nothing about it and have no need to.” Elsin grinned and nodded at the crate in my hands. “They in there?”

  “Yep.” I stepped next to him and lifted the lid. The dragons looked up at Elsin and hissed. “The all-gold one is mine. Serida. The one with the black and silver markings is Shan's hatchling, Lumin.”

  “Is he behaving for you?” Shan asked without turning away from the cutting board on the counter.

  “He was fine. Won't let me touch him yet, but doesn't seem to mind that I'm nearby.”

  “Magnificent,” Elsin said, his blue eyes sparkling. “I wasn't expecting them to be so tiny. I suppose they won't be tiny for long. The Cavalry has a small division of dragonbound, and I've seen hatchlings up close, but battle dragons start out larger than these two and they mature quickly. None of those midnight drakes look anything like yours. Cobby with shorter necks, not serpentine like these two. Those tails . . . amazing. They're going to be breathtaking when they're larger, aren't they?”

  Shan dropped a handful of chopped radishes into a bowl and faced Elsin. “Yeah. I saw their mother. Enormous creature, and beautiful. Kinda terrifying.”

  “Splendid dragon, as are her offspring,” Daelis muttered. He kept his back to us. He and Elsin were still unwilling to speak, and they could hardly look at each other without visibly seething. I liked both of them, but it was irritating to act as an intermediary on the few occasions when they were forced to be in the same room.

  A shudder escaped my spine and trotted down my arms. “Well, I'm going to leave you three to your awkwardness and go talk to Daelon.”

  “What awkwardness?” Elsin's nose crinkled as he tilted his head toward Shan. “You think I'm awkward, kid?”

  Shan sighed as he jammed his knife into the top of an orange pepper. “You're awkward, I'm awkward, Daelis is awkward, Tes is . . . Tessen is awkward and weird as hell even though everyone pretends he's not. Gather Sylleths and Goldtrees in a small space and you find yourself with a simmering stew of blundering flotsam ready to boil over at the addition of any new ingredient. We have problems, all of us, and denying that only makes them worse.”

  “All right.” I stood and hoisted the dragon crate to rest on my hip. “That's a vote of no confidence from Shan.”

  “Shut up, Tessen.” Shan closed his eyes for a moment before returning his attention to the vegetables.

  I replied to Elsin's quizzical expression with a shrug before leaving the kitchen behind.

  Daelon sat on the couch with Zinnia in his arms and Yana tucked against his side. The fair, middle-aged elf's shoulders were rigid and his posture hinted at discomfort, but a faint smile raised the corners of his lips as he gazed down at his newborn granddaughter. Mom dozed in her orc-made armchair near the cold fireplace, her feet propped on the matching ottoman. Daelis had bought that chair and had it shipped all the way from Sungate for her, and it irritated her if anyone else sat in it.

  “Good evening, Duke Goldtree,” I said as I approached.

  “Tessen, there is no need to address a member of your own family so formally,” Daelon said without looking up at me. He maintained steady eye contact with Zinnia, something I'd never seen him do with anyone else before, even Daelis. Whenever I conversed with him, his pale eyes darted about the room and refused to settle anywhere near my face. “You are already aware that you may address me by my given name.”

  We went through this every time we met, mostly because I was still surprised that he considered me to be family. “Sorry, Daelon.”

  His eyes flickered toward me twice before he returned his attention to Zinnia. “There is no need to apologize. I am more interested in other matters. Tell me, Tessen, what is your opinion on Deepforge tools?”

  “Um, wow. I've never worked with them, but I've read that they're the best quality metalsmithing tools in all of Bacra. Best balance, best durability, great for precision work, but incredibly expensive since they're custom forged and . . . and I don't know if they fine them with Hedolar venom or what, but the blue alloy they use is unique and the Deepforge Dwarves keep its composition a closely guarded secret. The smith I work for, Velker, he has a Deepforge mandrel. He keeps it locked up in a safe when he's not using it.” It made me giddy just to think about Deepforge tools. None of the shops in Jadeshire sold them because no l
ocal craftsperson could afford to buy them.

  “I had suspected you would approve of the quality,” Daelon said. His voice remained as it always did—quiet with minimal rise or fall in pitch aside from a slight drop at end of each sentence. “Tessen, I assume the crate in your arms contains the illicit dragons. Please set it down for a moment and examine the box to your left.”

  The dragons huffed and ruffled their wings as I set them on the side table. I knelt to study the simple oak box that sat at the center of the braided rug. The wood was polished to a smooth finish and the latches were silver, but the surface was entirely unadorned.

  “It is yours, Tessen. Open it,” Daelon said.

  Yana grinned at me as she stroked the top of Zinnia's bare foot. A stack of new leather-bound books sat on the couch next to her.

  I unclasped the latches and raised the box lid. Gleaming blue metal appeared at my fingertips. A lot of blue metal. Hammers, pliers, mandrels, clamps, tongs, engravers, and every other type of tool I'd ever worked with or seen in the smith shop. I gasped and nearly dropped the lid on my hand. There had to be seventy or eighty different tools in this box, and every single one carried the Deepforge mark.

  “This is mine? You're giving this to me?” I could barely squeak out the words. “Why?”

  Daelon nodded and offered me an uncertain smile. “I have had this box in my possession for several years, but I have neither the time nor the skill to work with its contents. Of all the people I know, I was certain you were the one who would appreciate it the most. This set is yours, and it will assist you as you complete your apprenticeship and establish your own path. The teapot you made for me revealed your extraordinary aptitude for the art, so I know they will be of great use to you.