Ellyesce huffed out a breath and answered him in the same dialect, “I do not know, my old friend. But I am certain nothing will be easy from here on out. Let us take this problem one step at a time and deal with the challenges when they come to us. It will do none of us any good to create obstacles that do not yet exist.”
Jaax snapped his teeth together and jerked his head once. His friend was right. Had he not just been inventing extra worry by imagining an army swarming in from all sides?
The dragon exhaled through his nose and closed his eyes, counting slowly in his mind.
“Then we must focus on finding Keiron, if he is still alive, and those who ambushed Jahrra. There is still a chance they have nothing to do with the Tyrant’s army, and if so, we need to know what their motives were.”
Ellyesce quietly voiced his agreement then gazed up at his friend once again. There was something odd in his eyes and his furrowed brow. Something was bothering the elf, something other than the mystery of Jahrra’s attackers.
“What is it?” Jaax asked.
At first, Ellyesce didn’t answer, as if gathering his thoughts and deciding what he should say. Finally, he spoke, this time using that ancient language, the dialect belonging to his own people.
“How much have you told Jahrra, about me?”
His words were so quiet, so devoid of emotion, that Jaax almost missed them.
“What do you mean?” the dragon replied, his own tone bland and hard.
Ellyesce’s green eyes settled on him, and an old emotion broiled within them. Jaax, had he been an elf and not a dragon, would have taken a step back.
“When Jahrra woke up earlier this afternoon, she asked me who I was.”
Jaax blinked, confused by his friend’s words. Before he could press for more, Ellyesce continued.
“She was agitated, and deeply frightened. She then told me she knew who I was and how dare I deceive both her and you. At first, I thought that perhaps she had hit her head in the struggle with the mercenaries and was suffering some memory loss. But then, she told me something that shocked me. She told me she once witnessed a slave auction in Edyadth when she was a young child, and she had seen me there.”
Ellyesce drew in a ragged breath and looked back at his friend. “She remembered my face, and she had thought me to be a slave trader. But how could she possibly remember something, a fleeting glance at my profile, from so long ago, and be so certain it was me?”
This time, his gaze was accusatory, and Jaax couldn’t blame him. But he had told nothing to Jahrra of the elf who traveled with them. Nothing at all, because if he had told her even a tiny detail, then he feared more would spill free, secrets that must remain buried for as long as possible.
Jaax shook his head. “I have told her nothing,” he insisted, and when Ellyesce looked him in the eye, he knew his friend spoke the truth.
“So that is the only secret of mine she knows?” he murmured quietly, relief tainting his words.
Jaax was utterly still for several heartbeats, his emerald eyes, appearing deep jade in the darkness, growing hard and unwavering. Suspicion and caution prickled up Ellyesce’s spine, but before he could puzzle out what had made his friend shutter himself so quickly and so fiercely, the dragon spoke again.
“As far as I know, yes,” he said carefully. “Perhaps the fight loosened some memory, so much so, that it shone in perfect clarity upon waking.”
Ellyesce ran his hands over his face. He had been worried, Jaax could tell, but he needn’t be any longer.
“You know why I must keep my secrets,” the elf whispered, continuing in the dead language.
Jaax lowered his head and answered in kind, “Aye, that I do. The same reason I must keep mine.”
The sound of a hinge creaking forced both elf and dragon to straighten. Their attention darted in the direction of Jahrra’s cabin and the weak light spilling from the small crack in the door. Two large, brown eyes sitting beneath a pair of pointed, red ears gazed at them.
“S-sorry,” Dervit muttered. “I heard voices and wanted to see where Ellyesce had gone.”
“You can return to your guard over Jahrra,” the elf said in the common language, his voice lighter than before. “I was just speaking with Jaax.”
Dervit nodded and made to close the door behind him but paused. “Is there any news of the regent’s son? Jahrra was wondering before she fell asleep.”
Jaax let out another breath and shook his head. As much as he disliked the young Resai man, he hoped they found him alive and well for Jahrra’s sake. He was, however, grateful she was sleeping. The more rest she got, the quicker her leg would heal. And the sooner we can leave this trap of a city before the noose is pulled so tight we cannot work ourselves free.
“It grows late,” Jaax said, then turned to Ellyesce. “I think you should return to your cabin. We can continue our discussion tomorrow morning, and perhaps by then, we’ll know more.”
Ellyesce nodded his head. It could be no more than an hour or so after sunset, but it wouldn’t hurt to get some extra rest tonight. Ethoes knew what challenges tomorrow held for them.
Jaax watched to make sure his friend got inside for the evening before curling up around the circular stone cabin, his head and tail meeting in front of the door. He would sleep lightly, as he had done for the past several evenings, and anyone plotting to do harm to his ward would end up either incinerated or pulverized between his teeth.
As the earth turned beneath him, and as the wheel of stars above crawled across the sky, Jaax thought of what Ellyesce had told him about Jahrra’s sudden accusation. So, she had seen him long ago, among a crowd of people taking part in a slave auction. Where on Ethoes would she have witnessed such a thing? He wouldn’t ask her. There was no need to stir up any more trouble or lingering doubts about Ellyesce. But it still niggled at him. Had she been with her foster parents at the time? Or had Hroombra been with her when she’d seen such injustice? If so, the old Korli dragon would have told her, no matter her age, what she had witnessed. Her parents would have spoken words of half-truths to save their daughter’s innocence, but not Hroombra. He would have been gentle about it, but he would have told the truth.
Jaax sighed. He was confident enough in himself to make his own decisions, always had been. In fact, some might tell him that was his greatest fault. But tonight, as the approach of dawn drew nearer and nearer, and as the frustration of not knowing exactly which path to take from this point on, Jaax would have given anything to have a few moments with his old mentor, if only to take comfort in whatever advice he might have to offer.
“I used to fight you on every front with Jahrra,” he murmured to the stars. “If only I had been more willing to swallow my pride and let go of my stubbornness, it might have brought us to an easier path than this.”
On that somber note, Jaax stopped fighting his exhaustion and allowed his mind to drift off into the place between wakefulness and dreams.
Dervit couldn’t sleep. In fact, he hadn’t been able to sleep for the past few days now. He hadn’t told anybody, they would simply call him crazy, but the strange inkling which had begun as an unsettled prickle in the pit of his stomach had gradually grown worse. It was the natural born intuition common to all limbits; the reason why his race was so superstitious. The morning of Jahrra’s attack, that warning spike had grown so sharp he finally cracked, chasing Jahrra down to issue a warning. Unfortunately, she hadn’t listened to him. In her usual, stubborn way, she had told him to mind his own business and not to worry. But he had worried. That was exactly why he had run the entire way back to the cabin to get Jaax. No, he hadn’t actually seen any signs of trouble, but gods and goddesses above and below, he had felt something wrong in the pattern of his emotions. It had weighed him down, made it hard for him to move through the shallow snow, but he had pushed on. And because he hadn’t ignored his instincts, Jahrra was still alive.