Balanced on the Blade's Edge (Dragon Blood, Book 1) (20 page)

You already found
it?

Yes, did you think our
conversation was consuming all of my vast mental resources? I am a
soulblade, you know. Powerful and gifted.

And cocky.

Naturally.

Sardelle was poking through a rack of maps,
searching for a topographical one of the mountains, when the door
creaked open. She looked up, hoping for Ridge, though she couldn’t
imagine what would have brought him by so soon. It had only been a
half hour. He couldn’t be missing her yet, though maybe he had been
thinking of her and how delightful it would be to share that coffee
with her…

Now who’s cocky?

Hush.

It wasn’t Ridge but a young soldier who
entered, a soldier carrying a steaming mug of coffee and a couple
of books under his arm. He was watching the black liquid carefully
as he walked; it was filled to the brim and threatened to slosh
over. Her first thought was that he had the morning off and had
come to use the library as well. She started to push her book to
one side so he would have room to join her if he wished, but he
stopped at the head of the table and set the mug and the books down
in front of her. He also dug a slightly smashed muffin out of his
pocket and laid it next to the coffee.

“Ma’am, Colonel Zirkander sends these items
with his well wishes for the success of your research.”

“Oh, thank you. Thank him for me,
please.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

He remembered
,
Sardelle thought as the soldier strode out, closing the door behind
him.
I think I’m in love.

I may gag. Do you have my
map yet?

Just a moment. Let me see
what he sent.
Sardelle opened the first book. It was a journal
like the other one, but more recent, written by a general’s
assistant from… yes, dates ranging from twelve to nine years ago.
The crash should have happened during that time. The second book
was an atlas.

There you go. Don’t you
love him now too?

He
does
have a sexy chest.

Sardelle snorted and flipped through the
pages, finding the correct mountain.

That’s the spot.
Jaxi used her finger, guiding it across the contour lands. Sardelle
always felt it a little strange when the soulblade took control,
but, as an early instructor had pointed out, it was only fair given
that humans got to swing swords around whenever they wished. Once
Jaxi had even ambulated her unconscious body after a battle, moving
Sardelle to a safe spot where she wouldn’t be captured by the
enemy.

An image flashed through her mind of a
narrow, snow-covered plateau overlooking a ravine with a river and
a lot of jagged rocks far below.

You’re saying it will be
difficult to retrieve, eh?

There’s a reason the only
thing the soldiers recovered after the crash was the power
source.

Maybe Ridge can…
disassemble it somehow. Or bring out a team and repair it up on
that plateau. If I had a schematic, I’m sure I could help.

Better leave it to
him,
Jaxi thought.
I doubt he’s going to
believe you’re an engineer
and
an
archaeologist.

Possibly right.
Sardelle pushed back her chair.

Where are you
going?

To tell him, of
course.

You’ve only been in here
for thirty-seven minutes, and you’ve only had his books for seven.
Don’t you think he might find that efficiency a little
unlikely?

You may be right.
Sardelle settled back in the chair and picked up the coffee mug.
She took a sip. It wasn’t as sludgy as Ridge had threatened. Maybe
he had put someone else on coffee-making duty this morning.
An hour? That would be long enough, wouldn’t
it?

You just want to see him
again, don’t you? I am definitely going to gag.

Careful. You wouldn’t
want to inhale a rock.

* * *

Ridge stifled a yawn as he followed Captain
Bosmont, the engineer responsible for keeping the mine machinery in
working order, to the bottom of yet another tram line. The officer
hopped out of the cage and pointed at the pulley system at the
bottom. “This is the last one, sir. Let me get the part number for
you.”

The captain rolled up his sleeves, dug a
wrench and pliers out of the coveralls he wore over his uniform,
and clanked and tugged at bolts the size of apples. The burly
officer had shoulders and forearms that would have impressed a
smith, along with tattoos that covered most of the skin Ridge could
see, including one of the schematic of a dragon flier. That had
been what had convinced Ridge to work past his office hours,
following the man around and writing down his parts requests. A
private could have handled the job, but on the off chance Sardelle
found the location of the downed flier, it wouldn’t hurt to make
friends with the fort engineer.

“Need a hand?” Ridge asked.

“Nah, I got it. You make yourself
comfortable, sir. This’ll just take a minute.”

Ridge eyed the open chamber, with its six
mineshafts shooting off at irregular intervals, and wondered where
one might find comfort. Perhaps he could sit on one of the rusty
ore carts lined up on the rail. He yawned again, not bothering to
hide it this time. Though he and Sardelle must have been stuck in
that cave for twelve hours, he didn’t remember getting all that
much sleep. How odd.

The captain glanced over, and Ridge wiped the
smug expression off his face. “I appreciate you coming down here,
sir. And ordering the parts. The general always said there wasn’t
any money in the budget, and he expected me to make do. Well, you
can only make do for so long before things start busting, and when
stuff breaks down here, people get hurt or killed.”

“There wasn’t money in the budget because he
had no idea how many people were actually working here, so he had
to overestimate on his supply orders. That’s been fixed now, so
we’ll only be ordering what’s needed and nothing extra.”

Bosmont nodded and pulled out a torso-sized
part that must have weighed a hundred pounds. His voice wasn’t at
all strained when he said, “Number’s on the back, sir, if you want
to write it down. ’Preciate it, thanks.”

Ridge hurried to do so, so the captain could
return the clunky piece before he threw his back out. After he
refastened his bolts, they headed for a cage up to the top.

“You ever work on fliers?” Ridge waved toward
the man’s tattoo.

“My first duty station, sir. Love them
babies. Got to fly a couple times, too, but nothing like what you
do of course.” Bosmont threw the lever to start them up the
tramline.

“
Did
.” Ridge
sighed.

“Yeah… was wondering about that. Seems a
waste, them sending you here when you could be blowing up enemy
airships. How, ah, did that come to be, if you don’t mind my
asking?”

“I threatened to rip off the wrong diplomat’s
cock.”

It was hard to tell in the dark cage, but
Ridge thought the man looked at him in shocked silence. It was
silent for a moment, anyway, with nothing except the clank and
grind of the cage rolling up the rails. Then Bosmont laughed.

“Something similar happened to me, sir.”

“With a diplomat?”

“Nah, with a commanding officer.”

“Well, I trust now that we’ve bonded like
this, I won’t have to worry about such threats from you.”

“No, sir. Glad to have you here.”

They stepped out of the cage up top, and
Bosmont shook his hand before walking off, whistling a tune. Ridge
wished all men were so easily pleased.

He turned, intending to make sure nothing
important had been left on his desk before finding his rack, and
almost tripped over someone in the dark.

“Sorry, Colonel,” came Sardelle’s voice from
beneath the hood of a parka. Did she have it pulled up because of
the cold, or because she was skulking about and didn’t want anyone
to see her? Or maybe she wanted to secret him off to some dark
corner for a repeat of the previous night’s activities? That would
be scandalous, completely inappropriate and… appealing. “I’ve been
trying to meet with you all day,” she said, “but your captain
wouldn’t let me in the admin building to see you.”

“He wouldn’t?” Ridge squashed irritation at
the captain. Heriton was just doing his job, however annoying
certain aspects of that job were at the moment. “I apologize for
that. What did you want to see me about?”

“I believe I’ve found the location of your
flier, and I think I can help you find something else too.” She
glanced toward a pair of miners heading out of a tram cage and
toward the mess hall. “You might wish to discuss it in private. And
I need some light to show you on the map.” She held up the atlas he
had sent her.

“The furnace should still be warm in my
office.”

“I’ll follow you. I’m fairly certain the
captain won’t deny
you
entrance.”

“I should hope not.”

Heriton had left for the day, so nobody
charged out to deny anything. Ridge was relieved. He knew he would
get more concerned looks if the captain saw him taking Sardelle up
to his office. Ridge had been too busy working and watching the
skies for returning Cofar ships to worry about rumors and gossip
during the day, but he didn’t doubt that word of his night spent
alone in the cave with Sardelle would have gotten around and that
Heriton would have heard. The captain had made it clear that while
he respected Ridge very much, yes, sir, he suspected Sardelle was a
witch who had put a hex on him, something to make him sympathetic
to her cause. Whatever that was. Maybe he was about to find out. He
doubted she had spent the whole day researching flier crashes.

Ridge stepped inside the office and turned up
a couple of lamps. He thought about inviting her to sit with him on
the couch—perhaps doing
more
than
sitting—but she went straight to business, laying the atlas out on
his desk and opening it to a page she had dog-eared. She had
circled and X-ed a spot on the southern side of the mountain. “It’s
been exposed to the elements on the top of a cliff for ten years,
so I don’t know if there’s hope for making it flight-worthy again,
but you can check at least.”

“Yes, I’ll send out a team.” And hope there
were no owls haunting that side of the mountain. “Thank you. And
there was something else?”

“Yes.” Sardelle had pushed back the hood of
her parka, and her black hair tumbled around the silvery fox fur
rim, making for an eye-catching contrast. She looked around the
office. “May I see the mine map again?”

Ridge pulled it out from behind the bookcase.
While he spread it out, Sardelle grabbed a pen out of a drawer.

“You’re going to mark up the official copy?”
he asked.

“With likely locations of crystals, if that’s
all right?”

His breath caught. She couldn’t possibly
know, could she? With the mine producing so few of them, getting
them back from crashed fliers was always paramount, and every time
one went missing meant a reprimand on someone’s record, even if the
pilot had been facing overwhelming odds. Ridge had heard rumors
that there weren’t any left in the king’s vaults. He couldn’t let
that information out, though, not to Sardelle, not to anyone who
might repeat it.

“So long as it’s not graffiti,” Ridge said,
making his voice casual.

“I’ll try to restrain my doodling
tendencies.”

Sardelle bent, one hand on the map and one
holding the pen. Ridge held his breath. She marked an X, then
another, and a few more. “These are approximate, of course, based
on my studies of the Referatu. The maps I’ve seen were from before
the mountain was bombed.”

Ridge, noticing his mouth was dangling open,
snapped it shut. “Where and when did you study these people so
closely?” And how could she know so much about the history of an
area owned and operated by the government when he had known so
little? Though he supposed the military had only been mining here
for fifty years or so. Before that, perhaps someone else had been
doing research? He had no idea, in truth. Maybe he needed to spend
some time in the library. “I can’t imagine it was during your days
as a pirate.”

“No.”

“I only mention this because Heriton found
your record.” Ridge pulled the folder out of a drawer. “It actually
confirms the story you were telling the other day, if you can
imagine that.”

Sardelle didn’t appear surprised or uncertain
in the least. She gave him that serene smile and said, “I must be
more honest than I sound.”

“I… think not.” Ridge suspected she had
planted the record. If she could sneak in and out of the guarded
fort and the guarded mines, the archives room wouldn’t present that
much of a challenge.

She spread her hands. “There are a lot more
crystals off the edge here. I can point more out to you if you have
another map of the other half of the mountain, but maybe you want
to see if you can verify these first.”

Ridge tossed the folder back into the drawer
and studied all the Xs she had made. Eight. If he found crystals in
half of those locations, he would probably get an award when he got
back home.

“I would have told you sooner, if I had known
what you were looking for,” Sardelle said. “It was only when I was
digging around in the library that I came across the
information.”

“And what are
you
looking for?” Ridge gazed into her eyes. “While I appreciate all
this assistance, especially if something comes of it, I’m quite
certain you didn’t come here for me.”

“What brought me here… was largely an
accident.”

“But you’re searching for something. Nobody
stays here without a purpose.”