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FOR THE NEXT THREE days, the city was in mourning. Everyone wore white from head to toe and Bataar and I squabbled over the only white cloak in the storeroom.
“I’m going to sneak around Apeq’s Jadefire House of Marvels and see if I can get a glimpse of Zin or Zyla,” he said when he snatched it from my hands.
“You would be more use helping me look for the Dragon Riders. They’re somewhere in this city and the one place we know they aren’t is at the House of Marvels. I think they might be with those Oak Leafed Order guys.” I argued, but my argument was half-hearted. I was worried about the girls, too. And I couldn’t stop thinking about that kiss. What made Zyla do that? It definitely wasn’t something I said.
Bataar smacked my shoulder good-naturedly. “If I see an opening, I’ll steal Zin away. You’re sure she doesn’t want to be there, right?”
I nodded, scowling slightly. If I knew Bataar, he’d also try to steal Zyla away from Apeq ... and from me.
He’d taken his fall from the railing during what people were calling “the madness” in stride. He refused to talk about it, but I knew he was as haunted by that night as I was. He tossed and turned at night and spent any time we weren’t searching the city sitting by the hideout entrance looking out over the mountains and the mist and muttering about things I didn’t understand. But he also helped me and Saboraak find a place for the dragons around the side of the mountain range, tucked away in a place inaccessible to humans.
“Watch out for patrols,” I told him. “Your face is clearly Kav’ai and they’re looking for anyone who stands out.”
“Are you sure you saw Shabren the Violet up in a window during the fighting?”
I’d told him everything – not that he believed me.
“Are you going to make me tell you the whole story again?” I asked, irritably.
I was in a bad temper. I wanted a closer look at the golem I’d disabled, but I’d had to flee almost as soon as Zyla left the scene. Guards had rushed in from every direction and they hadn’t left the statue-like creature since the moment it froze on the boardwalk. There was a rotating patrol there and when I tried to sneak close to it, they’d grabbed me and demanded that I show my arms. Fortunately, that had been in the daylight.
Worse, no one knew where the second golem went, and everyone feared it would return. There was a curfew now and patrols everywhere. Long parchments with names scrawled in a list were posted at every crossroad and square. Lists of names of the dead. More were added every day as their names were discovered.
They didn’t bury their dead here, or even use funeral pyres. They stored them in big caves. When Bataar told me that, I barely slept the whole night afterward. I still got the creeps just thinking about it.
“It’s just strange that no one has mentioned him,” Bataar said. “With half the nobility dead and the city gripped with fear, you’d think that someone would have noticed a foreign Magika at the heart of it all.”
“Does Ko’Torenth have Magikas?” I looked up from the food I was stuffing into a pouch.
“The Order of the Oaks. They used to be very powerful, but rumor has it that they are losing their magic.”
“I’m going to look there for the Dragon Riders,” I had said.
That had been yesterday.
After a day spent freezing in the cold, I hadn’t managed to find anything out about Shabren or the Order. I sat all day in front of one house with Oaken leaves or another, juggling and doing tricks for coins and watching, watching, watching. No one going in or out looked suspicious. No one came in through the windows but only the doors. And there was no sign of Shabren’s hulking form anywhere.
Discouraged and bone-cold, I returned to our hideout to find Bataar just as gloomy, sitting in front of the fire.
“Anything?” I mumbled, as I levered the top off a small barrel. It was packed with dried and salted meat. Maybe I could make a soup or something.
Bataar shoved half a loaf of bread in my hands. “I bought food. We can’t eat only meat.”
Meat was fine. “I meant, did you find anything?”
“I heard an interesting piece of news,” he said, a brooding look in his eyes. “With so many nobles dead, the ones still living are looking to Apeq A’kona for leadership. He’ll be giving a public speech on the uppermost level tomorrow.”
I felt a chill go through me. If Apeq had loosed those golems, then perhaps he had done it for just this reason – to seize full control of the city.
“Delegates from the other cities of Ko’Torenth will be attending,” Bataar said.
“Any sign of the girls?”
He shook his head. “But something is happening in that Jadefire House of Marvels. I’ve seen that butler of Apeq’s bringing people in secretly through the back door. There’s something odd about them.”
“Let me guess. They have silver swirls in their eyes.” The bread really was good. It went well with the salted meat.
Bataar’s eyes narrowed. “How did you know?”
“Just a hunch. They are the same people who were hunting you, aren’t they? Because of those Ko.”
Bataar hunched low. “If Apeq A’Kona seizes control of Ko’Torenth, then maybe they won’t be hunting me anymore.”
“Or maybe it will only make them want you more, Bataar.” He was a fool. He couldn’t run away from those marks and every time he tried, he just ran into more trouble.
Then you are a fool, too. You also have the marks.
Well, I wasn’t running from them. I just didn’t care.
Maybe you should use them.
To do what?
To challenge Apeq.
I almost spat my bread out in my surprise. My dragon wanted me – a street boy turned Dragon Rider – to try to seize the power over another nation? Ha! She could think again. I was going to rescue the girls and those Dragon Riders and then I was going to fly south and find Hubric and that would be the end of it. The spying life was a bad fit for me. Anyone could see that.
“One of us should go listen to his speech tomorrow,” Bataar said looking at me significantly.
“And one of us should sneak into his Jadefire House of Marvels while he is making it and rescue Zin,” I said, adding my own significant look to the conversation.
I was done eating and there was finally time to do something I’d been waiting for. Carefully, I pulled out the burlap bag of items we’d taken from the warehouse at the Bright Redemption, laying them out along the ground in a row. I took the little book I’d borrowed from Apeq and began to flip through it, looking to see if any items matched while Bataar babbled in the background.
“A delegation of Kav’ai have arrived in the city – Oosquer riders. At least a dozen.”
“Mmmm hmm.” I scanned the pages as quickly as I could, checking each item as I went. That bracelet with two separate bands and tiny chains connecting them, that looked a bit like the picture, but it was missing the engraved wings along the bracelet. No match. What had it been for? Some sort of speed enhancement. That would be fun.
I kept scanning.
“And if they see me, they will know it is me.” Bataar was still babbling, a mile a minute. I was only picking out the highlights as I scanned the book.
What about this strange clasp? You could put it on a cloak or a belt. It was shaped like a mountain. It was in the pile! I picked it up, turning it around in my hands. It was supposed to make eyes slip over you, not quite seeing what was there. That was my kind of magical item!
“And with the oosquer there, they will be a sight to see!”
“What do oosquer look like?” I asked idly.
There was a flap of wings as Saboraak returned from checking on the other dragons. She settled in her area and began to drink the water I’d put out for her.
“... the size of a dragon, but pale and with skittish movements. Their skin hangs from them like leather bags and their feet are heavy and they have no tails. We cover them in heavy saddles and hanging cloths to keep the sun off their skin, so you barely see anything of an oosquer beyond the eyes and snout.”
I looked up at that. “So, you could easily disguise a dragon as one. You would just cover them in cloths and a heavy saddle, right?”
“And chains. They are decorated with heavy chains.”
Sounds terribly frumpy. I hope you don’t plan on decorating me that way.
I stood up, a sudden idea bringing a smile to my face. “Bataar, you’re a genius! You, too, Saboraak!”
The skeptical looks they both threw my way only made me grin wider.
“I know exactly what we’re going to do!”