“Because that is where you are from,” Jahrra braved, holding out a quill he had missed.
She formed it more as a statement than a question. The look of surprise in his pale eyes told Jahrra she had guessed right.
“What makes you think I’m from Dhonoara?”
Jahrra shrugged. “I know a few elves who come from that valley and you have the look of them. One is a bit taller, but they both have the same hair color and complexion as you.”
Dathian furrowed his brow and gave Jahrra a serious look but before he could say anything more, Torrell’s perturbed voice broke the quietness of the glen.
“You will not believe what I saw on my way here!” she proclaimed, sounding quite exasperated indeed.
She stopped short when she spotted Jahrra, Senton and Dathian, all posed for what appeared to be a silent standoff.
“What did you see?” Senton asked, removing himself from the awkward conversation that had passed before his other friend’s arrival.
Torrell went into a tirade about some girls she knew and their seemingly inappropriate behavior regarding a young man from one of her other classes. Senton, bless his soul, listened as if his life depended on it. He was good about listening to Torrell’s and Jahrra’s feminine complaints, though Jahrra had to admit she didn’t think she had as many as Torrell.
Casting a wary glance at Dathian, Jahrra rejoined her friends. The elf would not make eye contact, instead feigning the need to clean his glasses once again. Jahrra wondered why he had blanched when she noticed the book on Dhonoara but soon Torrell’s heated words burned out all other thoughts from her mind. She would have to wonder about Dathian later.
Soon their professor arrived and they all gathered inside the building, where the centaur proceeded to tell them of what he had planned for the afternoon. As Jahrra had suspected, they’d dressed for a hike. Anthar wanted to take them into the hills in search of heartsong sparrows.
“Their young should be hatching out right about now and the song the adult male sings . . .” He paused, his kind face showing pure bliss. “Nothing else in all of Ethoes matches it.”
As they started their climb a half hour later, Jahrra noticed that she and Torrell were able to keep up with the centaur the best, what with all of their training in recent weeks, and Senton was just behind them. Dathian, Jahrra noticed, was at the back of the group. He walked as if it took him great effort to climb the hill but on closer inspection, it was clear he wasn’t struggling at all. Odd.
“There! A male, notice the gold streaks on his back?” Anthar breathed with excitement, his tail swishing to chase away flies. “And if you look very carefully you’ll see a tiny blush of red on his breast, hence the name heartsong sparrow. That and the heartbreaking beauty of their song. Everyone hush! He’s hopping up to the top of the tree; maybe we’ll get lucky and he’ll sing for us.”
And then the bird started to warble and chirp in the most beautiful birdsong Jahrra had ever heard. They studied the birds for about half an hour, jotting down what Anthar said about them and sketching the female as she tended her young. Jahrra glanced up a few times from her work only to catch Dathian looking at her every now and again. He would glance away just as quickly, but not soon enough for Jahrra to miss the worry and annoyance in his gaze. Was he somehow angry that she’d discovered where he was from? And if so, why? She shook her head and focused on her drawing. If he was angry at her that was his problem, not hers. He didn’t even know her for goodness sake.
Before Jahrra was ready for class to be over, Anthar was calling for them to gather together and head back down the forested hillside. The students grumbled of sore muscles along the way but they all seemed glad to have seen and heard the heartsong sparrows. Once back at the cabin Jahrra explained to her friends that she couldn’t practice that day; Jaax wanted her to meet someone at the library.
“We’ll go with you,” Torrell said in her usual way, not waiting to see if Jahrra wanted company.
Senton shrugged and followed after their friend. Jahrra sighed, hiked her pack up onto her shoulder, and began to follow them. She peered back at the cabin and noticed Dathian talking seriously to Anthar. The elf caught Jahrra looking at them and he ceased talking immediately. Anthar glanced over his shoulder, his face looking more staid than usual.
Feeling ridiculously exposed, Jahrra turned quickly around and gritted her teeth. Why on Ethoes had she helped that elf pick up his books in the first place? She had thought all mysteries had been left behind in Oescienne but it appeared that no matter where she went, secrets would always follow.
-Chapter Ten-
A Familiar Dragon and a Formal Introduction
Jahrra and her friends were waiting in the library for a full hour before Jaax finally showed. She hadn’t seen him come in since she’d been facing the back of the building, but she knew his voice anywhere and immediately picked it out from all the others that mingled in polite and cheerful conversation. She couldn’t hear what he was saying at first but his tone wasn’t laced with the usual steel and fire it often held when he spoke in public. It sounded softened somehow, as if someone had removed a great thorn in his side or a loose scale that had been giving him trouble.
Jahrra turned away from Senton and Torrell and some of her other classmates and froze. A shiver of recognition along with slight embarrassment and resentment coursed through her. Jaax approached but he wasn’t the only dragon breaking the rays of dusty light pouring through the upper windows of the library’s massive hall. At his side, sauntering in like a well-fed lioness was another Tanaan dragon.
Jahrra knew her immediately even though the light in the library was much better than it had been the first time she’d seen her, outside the Castle Guard Ruin the night after the Great Race of Oescienne. So this was who Jaax wanted her to meet. Too bad she couldn’t tell him they had already met, in a sense. But she had a feeling her guardian would not appreciate that she’d been eavesdropping on him.
The red Tanaan looked much more in her element here. She had the same predatory gracefulness that Jaax had but she made it appear more feminine. Her glance traveled slowly around the room, taking in every detail. Jahrra got a strange sense that she was testing her surroundings with all five of her senses and maybe even a few more.
The friendly students of just a few moments ago backed away nervously as they came to realize the two dragons were heading directly towards them. Even Senton seemed ready to bolt. Torrell, not surprisingly and to Jahrra’s great delight, arched an eyebrow and turned to face the dragons. Jahrra wondered if anything frightened Torrell.
Those classmates they had run into earlier were at least polite about their departure (a far cry from the reactions of the villagers in Oescienne), whispering apologies and promises to talk with her later. Moving away not because they feared the dragons, Jahrra suddenly realized, but because Jaax and his companion exuded something more than fear here. The people of Lidien respected dragons and for some reason their manners seemed to go beyond common courtesy whenever Jaax was present.
Jaax stopped talking directly to his companion as he drew closer but he still nodded or murmured a response if she questioned him. By the time they were within ten yards of Jahrra however, his attention went directly to her. He regained his hard continence, giving Jahrra a look that said watch your tongue and your attitude. A silent warning.
Jahrra sucked in a breath and managed to smooth her feathers before they bristled too much. She stood up straight and crossed her arms, returning his look with a similar one, but hers rang more to the tune of push me and I might not try too hard to be the well-mannered little ward you expect.