Dragonshadow Read online

  When no steward descended to politely but firmly insist I review the household accounts with him, I heaved a sigh of relief. Barton’s study, yes, but no Barton. Instead, scores of parcels and packages, boxes and chests lay around the room, some wrapped in paper, some decorated in gold and silver gilt. Piles balanced on the desk, chairs, and floor formed a precarious labyrinth around the study. Pan leapt for the first pile on my left, swerving out of the way just before it collapsed. In a moment I lost sight of him.

  A long roll of paper curled atop the nearest stack, written all over in a neat, looping hand. My curiosity got the better of me and I picked it up.

  From: Lord Hatch, the sum of one (1) set of silver dinnerware with dragon engravings, with deepest gratitude and congratulations to Lord and Lady Daired (see attached card)

  From: Magistrate Holm on behalf of Village Lambsley, the sum of five (5) bolts of fine white wool and three (3) fattened rams for Lord Daired’s dragon, on the hoof (must have a word with Master Groundskeeper)

  From: Lord and Lady Selwyn of Castle Selwyn, Lake Meera, the sum of one (1) pearl necklace for Lady Aliza Daired and one (1) pearl-handled dagger for Lord Alastair Daired, with respectful regards

  From: A Minister of the Ledger, in recognition of bravery against the old, deep things of the world, the sum of one (1) cask of Garhadi ale (no name?)

  “Oh! Your Ladyship, you gave me a start!”

  I almost dropped the list. The plump, motherly figure of the Pendragon housekeeper stood in the doorway, her arms filled with more parcels. “Sorry, Madam Gretna,” I said. “I just happened to peek in. What is all this?”

  She deposited her parcels on a chair by the empty fireplace and mopped her forehead with her hand. “Wedding presents, Ladyship. They’ve been coming for weeks. I think those there should be the last of them now. Ah, I see you found the list.”

  I let the paper unroll. The bottom brushed the floor.

  “That’s just half. I hope you don’t mind. I know Master Barton’s been asking for you, but I told him, I said, let the two enjoy their wedding weeks! And I didn’t want to bother you and the master until you were ready, so I thought—”

  “Yes, yes, it’s all fine.” I pointed to the fourth item on the list, the one without a name. “Madam Gretna, where did you put that?”

  “The Garhadi ale? Locked that straight in the wine cellars, Your Ladyship. Didn’t want to leave it lying about in the warm.”

  “Good.” In my entire life I’d only met one minister, the Shadow Minister of Els, and the memories of our encounter in the abandoned gallery in Merybourne Manor were not pleasant. Wedding gift or not, I didn’t trust anything associated with that creature. “Do me a favor, will you? Don’t open it without letting me know.”

  She gave me a curious look but didn’t ask for an explanation. “While you’re here, would you like me to fetch the other list? It’s nearly done.”

  “Aye, do,” I said, and she bustled out. A stack of gifts on the other side of the room gave a treacherous wobble. “Pan!” I hissed. “Get out of there!”

  His only answer was a growl. I followed the sound to a pile of small boxes, some enclosed in gold-brushed paper, some tied with silken cords, some not covered at all. One box stood a little to the side, the plainest of the bunch, wrapped in an oilskin still dusty from the post carriage and tied shut with rope. Pan circled it, every hair on his body standing on end, his tail like a bottlebrush sticking straight up.

  “What’s this?” I asked, reaching for the parcel.

  He arched his back, let out a bloodcurdling howl, and streaked away. A vase on the table by the door swayed perilously as he dashed out of the room.

  I looked at the package. There was no note or giver’s name. Cautiously I touched it. Nothing happened, though what I expected to happen I couldn’t say. The bindings had been loosened, either by the road or by Pan’s nosing, and it didn’t take much to undo them. The oilskin fell away with a tired crinkle.

  Inside was a box. A silver box no larger than my two fists, plain and unimpressive. There was a square of parchment wedged in one corner, written over in an uneven hand.

  To Lord & Lady Daired

  Keep this safe at all costs

  I lifted the box. It was lighter than it looked, cool against my fingers, and though there were clasps there was no keyhole. I tried opening it. The lid wouldn’t budge. Odd. After a moment’s hesitation, I folded the note, picked up the box, and slipped them both into my dressing gown pocket.

  Very odd.

  Chapter 2

  A Message from Lake Meera

  I nearly crashed into Madam Gretna as she bustled back into the study, another long sheet of parchment fluttering from her grasp. “Thousand apologies, milady,” she muttered, and shoved the list into my hands. “What you asked for. If you’ll excuse me.” She bobbed into a curtsy and rushed out again, her face pinched with worry.

  “Thank you. Madam Gretna, is something wrong?” I called after her.

  “Lord Alastair’s asked the lord general to stay for lunch,” she called over her shoulder. “And the dining room in the east wing hasn’t been cleaned yet today!”

  I tucked the list in the pocket with the silver box. Chasing after a mad Pan in the early morning hours was one thing, but I’d not risk stumbling into the lord general of Arle’s entire royal retinue wearing nothing but a dressing gown. I hurried back to our chambers.

  The size of the house wasn’t the only thing I’d had to get used to when I took on the Daired name. It still mildly surprised me each time I opened the wardrobe and realized all the clothes within were mine, not hand-me-downs from my older sister, Anjey, or misplaced from my younger sisters’ room. It was a nice change, but there were mornings when I missed the ritual scuffle over who would get to wear the gown with pockets. After the wedding Alastair had smiled but passed along my requests to the Daired seamstress without comment, and when my new dresses were returned to our chambers, even he had to acknowledge the practicality of pockets on each side.

  I slipped my hand into the pocket of the gown I’d chosen and pulled out a small book, bound in leather with crisp, unmarked pages of remarkably high quality. A pouch in the back held three sticks of charcoal, finer than any I’d ever owned before. The only writing was on the front page.

  To Aliza, from Henry Brandon. For all your adventures to come.

  Tears had started in my eyes when my friend had presented it to me at the wedding banquet. Henry had once told me there was little fortune in being a bard; the tales must be their own reward. Commissioning the sketchbook would’ve cost my friend a great deal. I’d promised him then I’d carry it with me always, and today I had plans to put it to good use.

  On more than one occasion since our wedding Alastair had started to show me around Pendragon to get to know it, as he said, “like a Daired.” We’d never managed to go far before our attention was otherwise engaged, but on one such excursion we had made a cursory circuit of what he had called Story Hall. It was a long corridor on one of the upper floors, bright and quiet and full of sunlight, with thick-carpeted floors and walls decorated with the most exquisite murals I’d ever seen. It had annoyed me how little Alastair seemed interested in it, intent as he was on showing me the enormous statue of Edan Daired and his dragon Aur’eth the Flamespoken that stood guard at the end of the hall. This tribute to his distant ancestor and the founder of Arle had received my obligatory admiration, but it was the murals that had lodged in my mind.

  Today the corridor was empty. I settled down on the floor in front of the widest section of mural and set my sketchbook on my lap. I could almost hear Henry singing “The Lay of Saint Ellia of the Shattered Bow” as I traced the contours of the image with my eye, marking out the bounding lines on my paper. There was Ellia, robed in white and gold and green, the colors of her father’s kingdom. On her right stood Saint Marten and his wyvern, protecting their princess from those creatures who refused an alliance with humans. On her left sat her other
guardians: the silver dragon Sanar and her Rider Niaveth Daired, chronicler of the saints’ story and no doubt the one who had earned the mural a place in House Pendragon. Around the three writhed the monsters that refused Ellia’s Accord of Kinds and would forever afterward be known as Tekari: gryphons, direwolves, valkyries, sirens, sea-serpents, even the great sphinx that guarded the Silent Citadel of Els.

  “But that was before it was called Silent,” Henry always added when he reached that part of the story, pressing a hand to his forehead. “And gods damn the day that drove the saints to those fateful shores!”

  I smiled at my friend’s imagined theatrics as I sketched out the outlines for Niaveth. The Daired features had run true for hundreds of years, and it was fascinating how much of Julienna I could see in her face. An older, battle-hardened, bitter Julienna, maybe, but without a doubt the Blood of the Fireborn.

  “Aliza Bentaine.”

  I started and looked around. The silent, sunlit gallery looked back, empty as it had been since I came in. Dust stirred in eddies around me, hanging like minuscule moths in the bars of sunlight falling from the windows.

  “Alastair?” I called softly.

  The dust motes moved as the air shifted. A draft fingered through my hair, playing across my face with the cold, acrid smell of steel and old blood. The hair rose on the back of my neck.

  “Lady Daired?”

  I sprang to my feet and whirled around. A maidservant stood twisting her hands beneath the gallery arch. She ducked into a curtsy the moment I stood.

  “B-begging your pardon, milady,” she said. “I—”

  “How long have you been there?” I demanded.

  The maid trembled. “Only a moment.”

  “Did you say my name?”

  “Sorry?”

  “Did you say my name?”

  “I-I called for Lady Daired. I didn’t . . . I don’t . . . I’m sorry, milady?”

  I picked up my fallen sketchbook and drew in a long breath. The draft and the strange smell had vanished, the sound of my whispered name fading like the distant memory it was. The wedding gift. It had to be that. Seeing the Elsian minister’s name again attached to that cask of ale had stirred up old fears and set them running wild through the hallways of my imagination.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap,” I told the poor girl, who looked at me with the terror of a cornered mouse. “You just startled me.” When she made no move to relax, I tried a different avenue. “What’s your name?”

  She blinked. “Um. Milena, milady.”

  “Miss Milena then. You have a message for me?”

  “Oh. Ah, aye. I just come up from Madam Gretna. She told me to tell you that, er, Lord-Daired-is-waiting-for-you-in-the-East-Hall,” she blurted, fell into a curtsy, and scuttled out.

  Splendidly done, Aliza. First ignoring the household accounts, now yelling at the servants. Some mistress of House Pendragon I was turning out to be.

  The lord general of Arle was not at all what I imagined. From the Merybourne gossip and the comments of my aunt Lissa and uncle Gregory I’d gotten the impression of a stern old fighter, grizzled and battle scarred from his years in command of the king’s army. The man Alastair introduced me to in the East Hall looked less a grizzled old warrior as an apple-cheeked grandfather with a fondness for sweets, and the scars running from brow to chin looked more like the signs of an ill-behaved pet cat than the marks of battle. He swept the papers he and Alastair had been studying aside and stood as I entered the hall.

  “Shield and Circle, Alastair, is this your new bride?” he boomed.

  “Indeed it is. Aliza, this is August Camron, lord general of Arle and an old family friend,” Alastair said. “Camron, my wife, Aliza Daired.”

  I curtsied as he came forward. “Your Lordship.”

  “There are songs about you in Edonarle, my lady,” the general said. His eyes fell to the bloodred brooch at my shoulder as he kissed my hand. “The part you played in the death of the Greater Lindworm has not been forgotten.”

  “An honor to meet you, sir.”

  “No, no, the honor is mine,” he said slowly, his eyes never leaving the heartstone brooch. After a moment just half a heartbeat past comfort, he released me and turned to Alastair. “Yes indeed, lad. Your father would approve, Thell give him rest. Nakla or not, any woman to earn a verse in the same ballad as Charis Brysney has certainly proven her worth.”

  It shouldn’t have stung so much. That he meant it kindly I had no doubt, but even Alastair had not used the Eth term for non-Riders since before our wedding, and for some reason it struck me more than it should have, a quiet reminder of all that I lacked in the eyes of the world. Compounded with the comparison to Charis and I no longer wondered at Lord Camron’s deserving of the title “general.” If his arrows found their mark the way his words did, he’d be a fearsome warrior indeed.

  “There’s none like her.” Alastair smiled at me over Camron’s shoulder. “Shall we eat?”

  The general returned to his seat as Alastair rang the bell for the meal. I tried to get a better look at the papers they’d been poring over, succeeding only in deciphering the outline of a map before Lord Camron finished clearing them away.

  With practiced alacrity, servants in the gold and crimson livery of House Daired emerged from the doors opposite and set the dishes on the table. I looked around at the place settings. There were only enough for the three of us.

  “What about your retinue, Lord Camron?” I asked.

  “Your people are seeing to them. No need for extra ears in a conversation between old friends, eh?”

  Into which you are invited by merit of your husband’s name alone. I heard it in the space between his words, saw it now in the angled placement of his and Alastair’s chairs pulled close together with a third added to the end of the table like an afterthought. I squared my chin, dragged the chair directly across from theirs, and sat with what I hoped was Daired-like dignity. Another smile touched Alastair’s lips. If the general noticed, he gave no sign.

  “What brings you to Pendragon?” I asked Lord Camron after we’d filled our plates.

  “My apologies, my lady, I’d thought you’d heard. I was sent to deliver the royal wedding present.”

  I looked to Alastair. “A pair of Pelagian mares,” he said. He pulled a letter from his pocket and pushed it across the table. The waxy remains of the royal crest still clung to the edges of the paper. I unfolded the letter and read.

  To the honorable Lord Alastair Daired and Lady Aliza Daired,

  House Pendragon, Dragonsmoor:

  Greetings.

  It gives us great pleasure to extend our sincere congratulations on the occasion of your wedding and to offer these mares as tokens of our esteem and regard, with best wishes for the continued health, happiness, and loyalty of House Daired.

  Sincerely,

  His Majesty King Harrold IV of Arle

  Her Highness Queen Consort Callina I of the Garhad Islands

  His Highness Prince Darragh III of Arle

  Edonarle, Late Summer, 1061se

  I blinked at the paper in my hand. The words didn’t change. Good gods. The royal family knew my name. For a few seconds it was the only coherent thought I could form. “That’s, ah, generous of them.” I folded the letter and handed it back. “Thank you, Your Lordship.”

  “Terribly belated, I know,” Lord Camron said. “The king and queen consort wanted me to relay their apologies. After word of the Worm spread, it was all we could do to convince even the Garhad ships to keep coming in. The Pelagian horse traders were twice as nervous. The Garhadis wanted proof—physical proof!—the Worm was dead before they’d let one of their own on Arlean soil.” He gestured angrily with his fish knife. “What do you think of that, Alastair?”

  Alastair studied the wine in his glass. “Their merchants are no warriors. They wouldn’t have helped us.”

  “Maybe not, maybe not. But it would have been a damn fine show of solidarity.” The gene
ral snorted. “Turned from us in our hour of need, they did. And now they wonder why we’re looking toward Els!”

  I set down my glass. Cold sweat started at my temples. The ghastly blue light of the Shadow Minister’s conjured flame danced before my eyes. “What’s that about Els?” I asked.

  “There’s talk in Edonarle of an official trade agreement,” Alastair answered. “Lord Camron says Els has offered to open their ports.”

  I recalled all I knew of our relationship with the Silent Kingdom and the other nations to the south, realizing then how pitifully little it was. “Haven’t we always gone through the Garhad Islands?” I asked.

  “For near two hundred years,” Lord Camron said, and turned back to Alastair. “You’d think that’d buy us some loyalty, wouldn’t you? Well, now we know where they stand, so what’s to stop us from taking Els up on their offer? Or going straight to the Principalities? I tell you, lad, if we hope to—”

  “What made the Silent King change his mind?” I said. This time both Alastair and the general looked at me. I reminded myself to apologize later. This was important.

  “No one’s, ah, sure, Lady Daired,” Lord Camron said. “Perhaps wiser heads prevailed among his council. Or perhaps his court was as shaken by news of the Worm as we were, but even they must see the value in an alliance. After all, they have Elsian steel, and our defenders need more weapons.”

  “Those of us who are left,” Alastair said in a quiet voice.

  “Too true,” Lord Camron said. “Speaking of which, when do you and Akarra begin your rounds again? And where is she? I thought we might have seen her riding in.”

  “She’s visiting her Nestmother in the eyries. She’ll be back soon.”

  “Best not wait much longer. The Worm may be dead, but the Tekari are still out there. We’re hearing reports of direwolves savaging flocks as far south as Westhull, and banshees are creeping out across the plains at Middlemoor. My people and the Free Regiments are doing their best to take care of the smaller incursions”—he spread his hands—“but frankly, lad, my soldiers don’t ride dragons.”