It was as if everyone in the city had held their breaths and let them out at the same time. What they had witnessed would be told and retold for generations. Kendra turned to the captain. “Sir, we will take our leave, now. If you wish to book another passenger for his cabin, he won’t object.”
“His belongings?”
“None of my concern. Come, Damon.” She turned and walked to the gangplank without a backward glance.
The young man holding our horses handed us the reins. When I reached for my purse, he waved me off. “It’s good,” he said.
I flipped him a full copper coin and mounted. No cargoes were being loaded or unloaded, no wagons filled with freight were moving, and pedestrians stood in their tracks. All watched us.
“Where to?” I asked.
She pointed to where the sailors gathered when ashore, a run-down part of the port where people woke daily to find throats cut, the music was too loud, the wine too thin. The activity behind us didn’t resume until we’d turned a corner. We didn’t go far.
A pair of women with most of their breasts exposed stood outside and invited men to join them. Both women probably were more successful long after dark, when the light was poor, and the men had several drinks in them. Kendra and I tied our horses to a hitching ring. She said to the nearest, “Did you watch the dragon?”
The woman nodded solemnly.
“Do you know who I am?”
She nodded again.
“Good. If anything happens to my horses, you will meet my dragon personally. Do we understand each other?”
For the third time, the woman made the same nod. I didn’t think there would be any misunderstanding or problem with thieves and our horses. Kendra walked directly to the double-door and pushed. I followed.
Inside we found a room crowded with mismatched tables and chairs pushed almost together, so there was left only a little space for walking. The proprietor understood that the more people, the more he earned, and he must have been greedy. All the tables were empty, but one. At that one sat Princess Anna in yellow again, Lord Kent wearing a pale blue jacket that matched his pants, and a mage who was instantly recognizable from years of living in the palace. All were smiling as if sharing a joke as we walked nearer.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Kendra had walked a few paces into the room but pulled to a stop long before reaching the proffered chair an insolent young Lord Kent indicated. He appeared the same high-born, overbearing boy Elizabeth had walked with in the gardens, and the same I’d placed a wet spot at his groin to rid her of his presence.
Her eyes roamed the room and rested on a closed door. The three of them avoided looking at it. She smiled back at them, but spoke to me, “Damon pull your sword and kill whoever is lurking behind that door, should he or they emerge. Then run outside to protect yourself. My dragon is about to do to this building what it did to the city of Mercia.”
My sword was in my hand. I was only a few steps away. Lord Kent and the mage stood to object. “Sit or die,” I barked, my sword ready to speak for me.
They sat.
She said to them, “Do you know me?”
“The servant who spies for Princess Elizabeth,” Lord Kent said with a curl of his lip. “A homeless orphan.”
Princess Anna said, “I believe you served me tea once, but perhaps not. I do not keep track of palace servants.”
The mage looked worried.
My sister paced as they spoke and pulled to a stop near the door we’d entered. She said softly, “I am all of those things.” Her focus was on the mage. “I am also the one who ordered a mage trying to sail to Kondor today grabbed by my dragon and flown into the sky. Then dropped. He twisted and turned, and I could swear I heard his screams for the longest time as he fell to his death.”
“You’re her,” the mage said, his voice hushed.
“Who?” Lord Kent bellowed.
The eyes of the mage never left Kendra, but he answered, “The Dragon Queen.”
“This is all her fault?” Lord Kent asked, confused. “A servant?”
The building shook as if a boulder had rolled down a hill and struck it, or a dragon had landed on the roof, none too gently. My guess was the dragon. The closed door the three had avoided looking at still drew my attention. Sword still in hand I crabbed sideways closer. Now they watched me instead of Kendra, which told me something important was beyond the door.
Kendra realized I was up to a game of my own and kept the dragon quiet, although we heard hundreds of running feet in the street outside and screams as people fled the area. I placed a hand on the door latch and yanked. The door flew open, and a single huge soldier wearing a burgundy breastplate bolted out, already lifting his heavy broadsword as he ran at me. It took both hands to raise the sword that was longer than he was tall, and it weighed as much as a large child.
Mine was already in hand, and as I’d argued with Elizabeth about, reflexes slashed the blade across his breastplate, doing him no harm at all. However, on my return swing, I adjusted the height to below his waist, which was unprotected by the breastplate. He wore stiff leather leg protectors for his thighs, but as his arms were raising his sword, his bare lower abdomen was exposed. I cut across it, so deeply I felt my blade strike bone.
My third slash was higher and removed his left hand at the wrist. It fell to the floor with a solid-sounding thump. The unbelieving eyes of the massive soldier watched his own hand roll across the floor after his foot kicked it. He fell. He was not dead, but from the amount of blood, he soon would be.
But it was not him that concerned me. Still in the small room was another man. “Come out,” I ordered.
He hesitantly did.
Kendra drew in a deep breath of recognition.
I didn’t know what to do. The man who strolled regally out of the room and callously stepped over the fallen man was a man we knew well. It was the king. He was healthy. It was Elizabeth’s father.
Then it wasn’t.
“Stop it,” Kendra screamed at the mage. “He’s drawing essence from the dragon!”
The building shook again. The dragon roared as if in response to Kendra.
The man who had looked like our king for a time was still similar, the same nose, hair, and height, but how I had confused them was beyond me—unless it was magic. I’d met, talked, and performed tasks for the real king a hundred times. No, a thousand. This was not him, but a cousin? Perhaps. However, it had not been a trick of the light or my mind. The man had been the king.
The mage smiled at me, unworried and confident.
Lord Kent said, “How would both of you like to be elevated to become royals? Live on a par like me? The image of our king standing before you will have that power to grant, and more. Perhaps you wish to be an earl? Or duke? Duchess for your sister?”
Princess Anna said in an earnest, convincing way, “Together, we who are in this room today can rule Dire. Imagine what your lives can become with our help.”
“And we won’t have to wait half a lifetime to do those things, either,” Lord Kent said with a grin that continued to grow as he believed the bait he fished with couldn’t be resisted.
The man who had briefly appeared as our king said with a wave of his arm, “Name your titles, and I’ll make it so as soon as I rule Dire.”
Kendra said coldly, pulling me away from the conversation, “Damon, is there a back door?”
“There must be one for the people to reach the outhouses.”