She woke to the smell of roasting cow and lay quietly for a dozen beats, drifting between sleep and wakefulness. Then the memory of the previous night struck her. Confused, she left the embassy and stepped into the dining pavilion. “Depik?”
“One moment, my lady,” Depik called out, and shortly he appeared, trundling the cow on its trolley. “Sorry about that. I’m afraid I got a bit of a late start.”
“But, didn’t you hear?”
“Hear what?”
Lamprophyre almost didn’t tell him. It felt so good to speak to a human who didn’t hate her, she didn’t want to give that up. But it wasn’t honorable to keep this secret. “The ecclesiasts have said anyone who associates with dragons is denied Jiwanyil’s blessings.”
“Oh, that.” Depik said the words as if dismissing everything she’d just said. “I’m not giving up the best job I’ve ever had for the sake of religious trappings. Now, would you prefer sheep or cow for your supper?”
Lamprophyre gaped. “Religious trappings? But you won’t be able to worship!”
Depik gave her a serious look. “Worship is what you make of it,” he said. “I’ve kept Jiwanyil’s teachings for years even though I rarely go to services. I’m willing to take a chance on that satisfying God.” He turned and entered the kitchen.
Lamprophyre stared after him for a few beats. Then she absently tore off a large bite of cow, her eyes never leaving the kitchen door. She expected people like Dharan and Manishi, people who didn’t really believe in God or his teachings, to reject the ecclesiasts’ demands. But Depik was faithful, or as faithful as someone could be who disobeyed what he had to believe was God’s command. Lamprophyre tried to imagine denying Mother Stone and came up blank. It would mean not being a dragon anymore. Obviously it wasn’t the same for humans, but if they truly believed the ecclesiasts heard the word of Jiwanyil, how could they justify refusing to obey their commands?
She ate slowly, wishing the food could dispel the horrible ache that lingered in her throat and had moved behind her eyes. Rokshan would come back. He had to. She clung to that thought until common sense prevailed. Of course he wouldn’t. She didn’t know what humans believed about what happened to their souls when they died, but being denied Jiwanyil’s blessings almost certainly meant their souls would be cut off from their God. That wasn’t something anyone faithful would want to risk. And that alone would keep him away.
She found herself unable to finish her meal and pushed it aside without summoning Depik to remove the rest. Wearily, feeling a million years old, she trudged back to the embassy and sorted through her piles of stone. Her eye fell on the sack containing the kyanite crystals, and another pang of sadness pulsed through her. She opened the sack, removed a long, rod-like crystal, and bit off the end. The sweet flavor made her gag, but she choked it down where it would no doubt sit in her stomach, lumpy and indigestible. She tossed the rest of the crystal back and lay down beside the stone stores, breathing in their mingled odors.
She heard footsteps approaching and looked up to see Dharan running across the courtyard. “I heard,” he said, panting, as he drew up even with the doorway but did not enter. “Are you all right?”
Lamprophyre shifted to be able to look at him more directly. “He left,” she said. “I don’t know where he went.”
“I haven’t seen him since two days ago. I would have thought—but no, he wouldn’t talk to me because he knows what I’d say.”
“What would you say?”
“That he’s a fool,” Dharan said. “This is clearly a ploy by the ecclesiasts.”
“I agree, but, Dharan—”
“No ‘buts,’ Lamprophyre.” Dharan sounded furious. “You know the ecclesiasts want dragons gone. They’ve hit on the perfect way to accomplish that. I never knew they were this corrupt.”
“Yes, but what if they’re not?” Lamprophyre exclaimed. Orthoclase’s words of the previous day had faded to nothing in memory. “Ecclesiasts do receive prophecies—we’ve seen that. There’s no reason to think this isn’t one more prophecy except that we don’t want it to be!”
“I may or may not believe in God, but I do believe in logic. And a principle of logic is that you shouldn’t ignore the obvious answer in favor of a more convoluted one. You dragons threaten the ecclesiasts’ power. They need you gone. And they just happen to be possessed of a prophecy that gives them what they want?” Dharan started pacing the doorway, turning rapidly on his heel every time he came up against the frame. “It’s ridiculous. It can’t possibly be true.”
Lamprophyre sighed. “It doesn’t matter. There’s nothing we can do about it. Besides, we have other things—I mean, we dragons do—to investigate.”
“More important than convincing Rokshan to pull his head out of his ass?”
“We can’t force him to believe our way, Dharan. It has to be his decision.” She sighed again. “Come inside. I don’t want to talk about this where people can hear.”
Dharan glanced around the courtyard. “Nobody is here. And that’s not likely to change so long as the ecclesiasts’ edict is in place.”
That made Lamprophyre’s heart feel like cracking in two. “Even so, I don’t want to risk it.”
Dharan walked past her and sat next to the second slate. It still had Porphyry’s handwriting scrawled across the upper half, unrelated words he’d found visually appealing. “So what do you dragons have going on?”
Lamprophyre settled herself so her hindquarters blocked the doorway and most of the light. The dimness comforted her. “We found out a few things. One is that the ecclesiasts are searching Tanajital for something, and they’re traveling in mysterious patterns we don’t understand. The other is that some adepts are trying to invent an artifact that will let them hear thoughts. Manishi is one of them.”
Dharan’s mouth fell slightly open. He said, “Even one of those things would be astounding. Are you sure about the mind-reading? I know, it’s not reading. Or maybe it is, if it’s adepts inventing the thing.”
“We’re reasonably sure. It fits all the evidence.” Lamprophyre fumbled around until she found the kyanite bag. “This crystal is what they’re experimenting with. I’m supposed to give some to Manishi.”
“You can’t do that,” Dharan said. “Manishi is smart and ruthless. If anyone could invent a mind-reading artifact, it’s she. And Manishi capable of hearing people’s thoughts doesn’t bear thinking about.”
“I have to. She’s threatened to hurt Flint if I do.”
Dharan laughed. “How in God’s name does she expect to hurt a dragon?”
Lamprophyre explained everything. “And we can’t risk the king getting angry with us now, even if I’m sure we can prove Flint’s innocence eventually,” she concluded. “We’re already in such a precarious position. And there’s Flint’s human friend Lokun to think of, too.”
“But giving in to a blackmailer is dangerous. Manishi will go on holding that over your heads forever, and her demands will grow more terrible.”
“It won’t be forever. We’ll figure out a way to stop her. At worst, we’ll find a time to tell the king ourselves what Flint and Lokun did. That has to be better than him finding out some other way.”
“I don’t know.” Dharan shook his head. “It doesn’t sit well with me to give in to blackmail.”
“Me either, but we don’t have a choice right now.”
“You always have a choice, Lamprophyre. You just don’t have a good choice right now.” Dharan leaned back with his head tilted against the wall in a pose that reminded Lamprophyre so much of Rokshan it made her want to fly away from him. She closed her eyes and willed herself calm. Nothing she could do.
“Tell me more about the other thing,” Dharan said. “How do you know the ecclesiasts are searching? What for?”
“We don’t know. Dolomite was watching them yesterday and he saw the patterns.” Lamprophyre stood and stretched. “We should go to the warehouses so you can see. Maybe a human will understand better than a dragon.”
At the warehouses, when Dharan finally appeared—he had flatly refused to fly with Lamprophyre, which had secretly relieved her mind, because she didn’t want to fly with anyone but Rokshan—he examined Dolomite’s slate with interest. “It’s definitely a search pattern,” he said. “I’m not sure about these smaller patterns, except that they seem to outline certain districts within the city. And they’re avoiding some places entirely. The streets surrounding the dragon embassy, for one.” He traced the white lines surrounding the spot Dolomite had marked, smearing the chalk slightly.
“That makes sense,” Orthoclase said. “If they’re so keen on dragons being evil, they wouldn’t want to contaminate themselves.”
“They’re also avoiding the slums,” Dharan continued, “and that makes sense too, if you consider what a high opinion of themselves ecclesiasts have. It’s not as if anyone in the slums will attack an ecclesiast, so it’s not a matter of personal safety, but that’s what they have reverends for, to take Jiwanyil’s light into dark places they’d rather not venture.”
“So the embassy, the slums, and…what’s this?” Bromargyrite asked, pointing.
Dharan tilted his head and squinted. “The academy,” he said. “But that might just be because there aren’t any large streets within the academy’s boundaries, just footpaths. The ecclesiasts certainly circle it. You said they trace their paths four times?”
“That’s what Dolomite observed,” Orthoclase said. “He’s out watching the ecclesiasts again. I think he enjoys the challenge.”
“So they might not follow the same paths today,” Lamprophyre said. “And who knows how long they’ve been doing this?”
“The question is, what are they looking for?” Dharan said. “I don’t know how to answer that.”
“We could just ask,” Flint said.
Lamprophyre laughed. “I doubt they’d be willing to talk to a dragon. Or a known heathen,” she added, gesturing at Dharan.
“So we watch them, and see what we can learn,” Flint said.
A shadow passed overhead, and the dragons looked up. Lamprophyre caught sight of Coquina’s face, set and hard, before the dragon landed, took a few trotting steps to slow herself, and ducked inside her warehouse without saying a word. Lamprophyre looked at the others. “Coquina tried to talk to Melika this morning,” Flint said in a low voice.
Lamprophyre took a few cautious steps, being careful to make noise so Coquina wouldn’t think she was sneaking up on her, and paused just outside Coquina’s warehouse. Coquina was a dark shadow inside the windowless building. “Um, did something happen?” Lamprophyre asked.
A puff of hot smoke emerged from the doorway. “She wouldn’t see me,” Coquina said. “Her mother told me I wasn’t welcome and slammed the door in my face. So I don’t know if that was Melika’s decision, or her mother’s, or—”
“I’m sorry,” Lamprophyre said, the ache beginning in her throat again. “I’m sure Melika is still your friend, even if this decree means she has to stay away.”
Coquina burst out of the warehouse. “She’s a stupid human, and she believes the lies her false god is telling her,” she shouted. “I don’t know why I ever thought we could be friends.”
Lamprophyre faced her down, unmoved by her outburst. “I know it hurts,” she said. “If we can find a way to change the ecclesiasts’ minds…” Even to her, that sounded facile and improbable. She blew out a smoke cloud of her own. “Let’s worry about the things we have power over. Rokshan and I were going to meet with Manishi around late afternoon to deliver the kyanite. Am I still doing that?”
“We’re not in a position to defy her yet,” Flint said. “Can you put her off for a few days?”
“I think so. She might not know I’ve already harvested it. I can tell her I won’t have it until three days from now. Any later than that and she might get suspicious, or angry, and go to the king.” Lamprophyre looked up to where Dolomite swept past, a dark green speck against the cloudless summer sky. “I wonder what he sees up there?”
The others followed her gaze. “It’s hard to remember he’s our age,” Coquina said. “And then he comes up with something brilliant like seeing those patterns.”
“Once he’s drawn today’s paths, we’ll have something to compare yesterday to,” Dharan said, “and that might be revelatory.”
“But what does it matter?” Coquina burst out. “So the ecclesiasts are looking for something. It’s not as if we can do anything with that.”
“Maybe not,” Flint said. “But if they’ve lost something, they don’t want anyone to know about it, or they’d have made another of those obnoxious announcements. Suppose we figure out what it is and find it first? That gives us a weapon to use against them.”
That hadn’t occurred to Lamprophyre at all. “That would be fantastic,” she breathed. “But it’s going to take time. And we still have to figure out how to keep Manishi from going to the king with what looks like evidence of treason.”
“It gives us something to do,” Orthoclase said with a shrug.
Coquina spread her wings with a sharp crack. “I’m joining Dolomite. If we can bring down these ecclesiasts, I say we should.” She leaped into the sky with a great swirling of wind and dust.
“I’ll talk to Manishi,” Lamprophyre said, “and the rest of you get to work thinking how we can outmaneuver her.”
“Be careful,” Dharan warned. “She’s suspicious and paranoid. You can’t give her any hint that you intend to deceive her. Even pretending to be downcast and submissive might tip her off.”
“I’ll do my best.”
Lamprophyre was halfway back to the embassy before remembering she likely couldn’t get a human to take the message to Manishi that she wanted to see her. Muttering curses under her breath, she changed direction and headed for the slums. Dragons didn’t lie, but they knew about pretending—putting on a show the other person knew was false, but accepted in the spirit of the game—and she was sure she could trick Manishi. But pretending wouldn’t be necessary. Lamprophyre was angry and hurt and bewildered, all of which she could display to the adept without giving anything away.
She descended slowly, giving the humans time to clear the streets. The slums were never as crowded as the richer parts of Tanajital, as if the residents were ashamed of where they lived and didn’t want anyone to see them. Men and women slunk off down narrow alleys leading from the street in front of Manishi’s warehouse, their thoughts a muddled tangle of surprise and fear and even resentment, which puzzled Lamprophyre. After some consideration, she decided the humans might not like being invaded by a creature the ecclesiasts had declared outcast. Suppose the reverends and the ecclesiasts considered them tainted by proximity to her, even if they didn’t speak or interact in any way? Anger flared within Lamprophyre. It was all so unfair she wanted to scream.
Manishi’s workshop was as quiet and still as it ever was, giving no sign that anyone was within. Lamprophyre hesitated before knocking on the door. Suppose the workshop’s protections were sensitive to any outside force? She didn’t think she was in danger, but the surrounding buildings and the people hiding from her within them might be. She thought about this for a moment, then knocked gently on the wood. The protections couldn’t be that sensitive, because for all this neighborhood wasn’t busy, there were enough people that casual contact with the buildings was possible. Manishi didn’t want her workshop blown up for no reason.
The door swayed a little under her knocking, though she hadn’t used much force. Lamprophyre heard no one moving around inside. She waited a few beats, then knocked again, more forcefully. “Manishi?” she said. “I need to talk to you.”
Still nothing. Lamprophyre looked around. She couldn’t sit in the street, waiting who knew how long for Manishi to return. She had no way of leaving a message, nothing to write with, and Manishi might get angry if Lamprophyre scrawled all over her door and walls. And she couldn’t leave a message with one of the humans, even if there had been any about. But she didn’t like the idea of returning here repeatedly until she found Manishi. Lamprophyre let out an impatient puff of smoke from both nostrils. She was close to leaving this city, and Stones take the alliance between her people and Gonjiri.
“You looking for the adept?”
Startled, Lamprophyre looked over her shoulder. A human child, male or female, Lamprophyre couldn’t tell, stood hesitantly in the shadow of the nearest alley. The child’s eyes were wide, its face filthy, and it wore a ragged shirt that fell all the way to its knees that Lamprophyre thought was actually an adult’s tunic. The child wiped a hand across its nose and repeated, “You want the adept?”
“I, well, yes,” Lamprophyre said. “You shouldn’t speak to me.”
“Why not?” Another swipe across the nose. “I heard as dragons don’t eat people. So I ain’t scared of you.”
“Because you’ll be in trouble with the ecclesiasts.”
The child shrugged, one shoulder rising higher than the other. “Don’t never see the ecclesiasts in here. Ain’t scared of them, neither.”
Lamprophyre turned to face the child more directly. “Your parents will be angry with you, though.”
The same odd shrug twitched through the child. “No parents. Just me and Kavari.”
Rokshan—she closed her eyes briefly as she thought of him—had told her many of the children who came alone for soup were orphans, a word Lamprophyre had never heard before. He’d also said that children whose parents died and who had no other family were usually in the direst of straits among Tanajital’s beggars. “Who is Kavari?”
“Little sister. We live just down there. Do you breathe fire?”
“Sometimes, but never to hurt people,” Lamprophyre assured the child. Its thoughts were clear and untroubled by fear, but there was an edge of hunger to them Lamprophyre recognized, and it broke her heart. “What’s your name?”
“Rassika,” the child said. That sounded like a girl’s name, though Lamprophyre hated to jump to conclusions with humans and their strange prickliness about having their sex misidentified.
“Rassika,” Lamprophyre said, “are you hungry? You and your sister?”
Rassika’s eyes widened. “We do fine on our own,” she said. “Ain’t no one taking her away.”
“I wasn’t going to do that. My friend Depik makes soup every night for anyone who needs it. I was wondering if you and Kavari might want some.”
Now the girl’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Why?”
“Because Depik and I like helping. Because we have lots of food, and Depik used to be a beggar and he knows how it feels to be truly hungry. I would be pleased for you and your sister to visit me.”
“But you want something out of us,” Rassika said, suspicion still tingeing her voice and her thoughts.
“No, I—” Lamprophyre paused. She didn’t know how old this child was, but she knew plenty of adult humans whose pride wouldn’t let them accept help without giving something in return. “Actually, yes,” she corrected herself. “I need to tell Manishi—the adept who works here—something important, but I don’t think I should wait around here for her to return. If you give her a message, I’ll give you and Kavari a good meal tonight. Is that fair?”
Rassika regarded her in silence for a moment. “Fair,” she said. “What message?”
Good question. “Tell her the delivery will be in three days,” she said. This was actually an excellent solution; Lamprophyre wouldn’t have to encounter Manishi, or lie to her, and Manishi would have no option but to wait the three days, lacking anyone to argue with.
“Delivery in three days,” Rassika said. “Delivery of what?”
“It’s private.”
Rassika nodded as if privacy was something she understood and held dear. “Where do we go for food?”
Lamprophyre considered her mental map of Tanajital and translated it into something a landbound creature could use. “The old customs house, north of here,” she said, and gave a handful of directions Rassika took in without looking or sounding confused. “You can come any night you want. And we can talk again, if you want. I like talking to humans.”
Now Rassika did look puzzled. “Why?”
“Because humans are interesting, and I’m here in Tanajital to explain about how dragons live and their customs so humans and dragons will understand each other.” Something that could not happen so long as the ecclesiasts’ edict was in force. This made her angry again, so she took a deep breath and said, “Can I meet your sister?”
Rassika shook her head. “Tonight,” she said, and slipped away deeper into the alley.
Lamprophyre listened to her thoughts—dragon big, maybe not eat but it would crush Kavari, don’t know if I trust it—until Rassika was too distant to be more than a thread in the tangle of humanity surrounding her. Then she flew for the embassy. Depik needed to know they were still serving soup that night, even if no one came.
She landed in the courtyard and stretched out her wings and back. Even if Rassika didn’t deliver the message, she could justify not going back as a response to the ecclesiasts’ demands. Yes, make Manishi come to her. Manishi might be blackmailing her, but Dharan was right that giving in readily would just make Manishi step up her “requests.”
She took a few steps toward the embassy, but stopped when something moved within, something no more than a shadow in the dim interior. “Can I help you?” she asked, squinting into the darkness.
The shadow moved forward to stand in the doorway. It was Rokshan.