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KYROWAT, DESPITE HIS age, flew like a fire was nipping his tail. We roared out of Vanika and rose into the sky, higher and higher until my home was nothing but a speck on a rolling horizon of grey and brown. I’d never been so high before. The giddiness of it filled me and I found my attention flickering between the landscape and trying to identify the mountains and rivers I knew and then conscientiously watching Hubric fly. He hardly seemed to guide his dragon. The old Purple just flew as if he required no guidance.
The day was grey and overcast, making it impossible to see where the sun was and the wind was so fierce that it whipped my scrap of a cloak around me like a flag. I must be turned around because it felt like we were headed toward the Oakbrim Forest. No one went there. Or at least, no one went past the wood cutting camps on the edge of the forest.
Wait. This had to be Oakbrim. I could pick out a tiny wood camp beneath us. I remembered Ephretti giving orders to double the cutters there. Wood was desperately needed to rebuild and warm Vanika over the winter.
I leaned forward and tugged on Hubric’s sleeve. Skies and stars, it was cold up here! He was busy trying to light a pipe. How did he expect the pipe to light in this wind? He should get the dragon to light it for him.
I’m a dragon, not a flint. Forget that and I’ll scorch your boots while you sleep.
Friendly fellow.
Hubric turned around.
“Any tips for lighting pipes in a high wind?” he asked.
“We’re going the wrong way!” I shouted over the wind.
“Headed west and north, boy. Exactly as planned.” He tried the flint again, nearly dropping it. He passed me the pipe. “Here hold this.”
“But Dragon School is South-East. Even I know that! Ephretti told me about it. She says that on your first day you get to choose your dragon and I’ve already made a choice. I want a big Green like Ephretti’s. Ephretti says that the Greens are explorers and adventurers – like me!”
“Ephretti says a lot.” He struck his knife on the flint, trying to angle it to a handful of dry grass in his other hand. “You shouldn’t be too hasty. You’ve only ever seen a few colors of dragon. Purples like Kyrowat, Ephretti’s Green, and that sleek White thing Dax used to fly with before he set up the hospital for you all. What does he do now?”
“Relaxes. Sometimes Dax pays me to polish his scales if I catch him in the right mood. He pays well. The dragon sleeps through the whole thing.”
“Well, there you go. That’s not many colors of dragon.”
“I also saw a Gold.”
“Hmm?”
“I saw the Prince of Baojang arrive on a Gold dragon that night I helped you. What do Golds do?”
“Diplomacy. Negotiations. Boring stuff like that. Not a good fit for a lively fellow like you. I can just imagine sending you into a negotiation. You’d probably try to play Find the Weevil, only while you thought you had them distracted, they’d be fleecing you.”
“I doubt that.” No one pulled tricks on me. I had fast eyes and faster hands. When it came to marks – I knew a few, but I wasn’t ever one of them.
“Keep an open mind, boy.” The dry grass flared to life and Hubric snatched the pipe back from my hand, lighting it deftly with the dry grass before tossing it away into the wind.
“Ephretti told me other things about Dragon School. There was a lot about hot savory meals and learning to fly a dragon.”
“You’re flying on one now.”
“But I’m not holding the reins!”
“Neither am I.”
I sighed. “Hubric?”
“Yes?” He puffed out a stream of smoke but the wind snatched it away as quickly as it formed. I could hardly tell where the smoke ended and the light snow began.
“Be straight with me. We aren’t going to Dragon School, are we?”
“Nope. We’re headed in the wrong direction.”
I gritted my teeth, trying to keep from losing my temper. “Then do you think that you might want to tell me what the plan is?”
“The Dominar has commissioned me with the task of setting up a spy network for the Dominion. And it occurred to me that I knew someone who’d lived his whole life hiding, being chased, and taking things that didn’t quite belong to him.”
“You lied to me.” My voice sounded tighter than I would have liked. I didn’t want him to know how close I was to throwing him off this dragon.
Don’t even try it.
He snorted. “How’s that?”
“You said I would ride dragons!”
“What would you call the thing you’re riding right now?”
“Agh!”
I was silent after that as the hours stretched out. I should tell him to turn around and go back to Vanika. This wasn’t what he promised me. I’d never signed up to be a spy. Spies had bad things happen to them – daggers in the back, torture in dark rooms, beautiful women trying to steal their secrets ...
Well, maybe I would stick around just a little bit longer. I didn’t have my own dragon yet, but I was flying. And it felt good. It felt like what I was made for. And while Hubric didn’t seem to have much with him, he probably had food. And I was hungry. And up here in the air there weren’t men with swirling silver eyes following me – which was a pretty big consideration now that I thought of it. So, maybe I’d wait until nightfall and see what happened. Maybe, if things looked grim, I could still talk Hubric into turning around and heading straight to Dragon School.
I let my mind wander as I studied the landscape below. There seemed to be a trail in the forest. It was a narrow thing. I wouldn’t have even noticed except for the people walking along it. At first, there was just one or two, but now that we’d gone further, there were more. Dozens of people with packs and horses walking through the Oakbrim Forest – a place that no one ever went. I felt a chill at the thought. What could they be up to in this place? Not that it was any of my business.
“Do you see the people on that trail?” Hubric said at last.
“Sure.”
“That’s trouble right there. Pray – if that’s something that you do – that they haven’t found my stash.”
His stash? What would he be stashing up here? Gold? Weapons? My eyes widened suddenly. Maybe being patient and waiting to see what happened next had been a good idea. Especially if –
“Skies and Stars! Hold on!” Hubric yelled.
I barely had time to grip the saddle before we were diving toward the ground.