Her first meeting came by chance, in the kitchens above the Catch Basin. The kitchens, as might be expected, joined the rest of the Beehive from several directions. Sort of a sub-warren all their own, the kitchens contained storage areas for fresh and preserved food, washing and laundry space, and two big portals up to the dragon levels, all branching off from the cooking galley itself where the fish and other provisions met fire and water. Once the workers in the Catch Basin had loaded a cartload full of fish for the dragons, it was pulled by an ox up the winding path to the galley. From there it would be emptied onto a cast-iron grating that could be maneuvered on a sort of ceiling rail into the central cooking fire. Ordinary cooking utensils, even for masses of humans such as ate at the dining hall, were inadequate for the dragons, so they’d created ways to char or roast entire cartloads of meat.
The cavern kitchens were painted in a durable red, lit by the charcoal fires, and smelled of dragons, a greasy-metallic smell that reminded her of scorched oil. She always returned from the kitchen smelling of it. But after fish guts, she welcomed a strange scent, even if the heat of the cooking fire was intense enough to singe her nostril hair.
The cooks were kindly men. Some were former dragoneers, injured in such a way that they no longer could fly, or no longer wanted to. They told fascinating stories she rarely had time to hear in their entirety, like the time Jeroth’s dragon couldn’t be roused to wakefulness after a long flight and big meal. Ileth got through Jeroth shouting in its ear, pulling at its lip, and pouring water on its head, and he was just about to lift its head using a shovel as a lever when Gorgantern shouted for her from the Catch Basin to bring “primed water.” They often had a crock of cider or water with berries and mint leaves to cool it and shared it with her.
Because the cooks were looking so she couldn’t spit in the tankard she filled for him, she idled for another moment watching them work.
She caught a reflection of an eye in the darkness of the passage up to the dragon caves. An angular, horned head appeared. The head was smaller, she thought, than Agrath’s had been when she met him in her youth, even allowing for her change in size. It had a long snout like a horse but was feline in the set of its eyes and mouth. It was a unique color—gray as ash, though the skin sometimes rippled with color changes. Its nostrils opened as it sniffed at the worktable. A forked tongue flicked out and gently explored the brown-crackled skin of a turkey fresh from the roasting oven, sitting in a row with five others of varying size.
Something struck Ileth as odd about the dragon and it took her a moment to realize it. It had no scale.
“Wait, it’s almost ready,” the cook nearest the turkey said.
Ileth knew it must be a youngish dragon to be able to make it through the human passageways to the kitchens. She also knew he was male; female dragons were green-scaled, or rarely, white, and didn’t have horns growing out from the bony ridge behind the eyes.
She could smell it, too. The oily odor, strong and fresh off the dragon, hit her nostrils hard enough for her to squeak in shock. Though it was a tiny sound, and she would have sworn no one who was not next to her could hear it, the dragon turned its head and gave her a look. The cook used the distraction to push the turkey out of reach of even the dragon’s long neck.
The dragon’s gaze reminded her of the evaluative glance a shepherd might give to a stray dog who’d wandered into his flock’s pasture. She’d never been looked at this way by an animal before. The dumbly friendly stares of sheep and goats, the eager-to-please or wary looks from dogs, even the contempt of a cat didn’t quite match it. Childhood fables of people being mesmerized by a dragon’s stare turned from vague legends to certainties—she could see how the power of the creatures overwhelmed you into an instinctive stillness.
“This is Aurue, girl,” the cook by the turkey said. “Wings uncased, but hasn’t decided on a rider yet.”
“Nor do I need to,” the dragon said, in heavily accented Montangyan. His color went briefly darker as he watched the cook work.
“You’re just lazy, drake,” the cook said, letting the dragon sniff the spoon he’d been using to drip juices over the roast bird. “Only like to work when it suits you.”
“Dragon,” Aurue said. “I’ve breathed my fire. I have my wings. I’ve flown. I am a dragon.”
“Oh, of course, of course,” the offending cook said. “No harm meant. I’ve just always known you as a drake since I’ve been here. It falls off the tongue, like.”
“No harm done,” Aurue said. He moved and his skin took on the color of the kitchen’s red walls, or the black of a great stove near it.
“Your s-skin is . . . beautiful,” Ileth said.
The dragon stared at her and sniffed the air about her again. “No, it’s a curse. Born without scale. No good in battle.”
“Ahh,” the senior cook said, “don’t talk like that, Aurue. You’re quick as thinking in the air, being light. Faster even than Vithleen. Speed’s got a power all its own.”
“Still not faster than a crossbow bolt,” the dragon said. “They’ll never give me anything important. I was warned off coming here and mixing with humans. Said I’d end up dead or bored. So far I’m just bored.”
Ileth felt a flash of sympathy. So dragons had their own doubters too.
“Then why’d you bother?” the cook who’d called him a drake asked.
“I like being around humans,” Aurue said. “There’s always something underfoot. And I don’t care for hunting up my own food.” He flicked his tongue out to taste the turkey again.
Ileth, keenly attentive to any and all dragonly matters since the age of seven, spent the rest of her day and some time before bed wondering at that. The dragon hadn’t been born here but had come before uncasing his wings. Where had he been bred, and why a long, inconvenient, and potentially dangerous journey before his wings emerged?
The next night Ileth met someone even more important than the dragon Aurue. The Manor accepted, with gratitude and respect, a visit and address from Roguss Heem Deklamp, Charge of the Serpentine, First Master and Dragoneer Laudii. He was a man who would have no doubt had other titles in one of the aristocratic lands, but those were ample for the Republic.
He didn’t look anything like a dragoneer from romantic fancies, except perhaps in uniform, which was simple and immaculate. A small gold pauldron, hardly more than a curved nameplate, hung from the shoulder of his gray tunic, which had a high black-and-gold collar and matching belt.
As a man he was short and potbellied, with droopy, staring eyes. While a few of the other novices seemed disappointed that he wasn’t much larger than a teenage girl, Ileth’s heart warmed to him immediately. Perhaps size and reach and fencing ability and your aim with a crossbow wasn’t all there was to being a dragoneer.
There was, however, something vaguely alien about him. His gaze roved across his audience as the Matron introduced him, sad eyes watery and staring, and then when he fixed on something his face would turn quick on his neck like an owl’s and stare for a moment, before the eyes began their survey again. There were stories of dragoneers drinking dragon blood and being changed by the drafts, and after watching him hunt about his audience and room in that raptor fashion, she was willing to believe it.
After the Matron (all bobbing and giggling in a coquettish manner that was even more unsettling than the Charge’s stare) finished emphasizing how fortunate they were in his visit, he stepped to the center of the little hall and spoke in a deep, ringing voice that seemed to come directly from that potbelly.