The Bond (Book 2) (5 page)

Eyes on the runner, she pursed her lips.

“Thank you,” Eldin said from behind. “Tell her I shall be there shortly.”

“Yes, sir.” The runner bowed and left.

Lora closed the door and walked to her husband. “This is about your own project, isn’t it?”

Eldin glanced at her briefly as he searched the wardrobe. “Yes. Probably.”

“This is the fourth one you’ve embarked upon.” She glanced at the dresser, at her sister’s letter upon it. “And the dragon project is Baronel’s second. Third, I suppose, if you count the Caer as his first.”

Eldin made a non-committal grunt.

“You were friends, once. What happened to you two?”

“Nothing happened,” he replied, removing a heavy robe. “I’m sorry, love, but this must be important for Master Philippa to summon me this late. I’ll return as quickly as I can.” He kissed her on the cheek and put on the robe.

She raised a hand to where he had kissed her. She brushed the skin under her eye, at the corner of her mouth, and then sighed. Has she changed as well?

Her husband left the room, closing the door.

+ + + + +

Hand still resting on the door handle, Lord Eldin paused in the hallway.

He loved Lora. He did. As much as he could love anyone who wasn’t
her
, anyway. It had taken some time, but he loved his wife. Their children, too. He still recalled first seeing Gregor cradled in Lora’s arms, and years later, their daughter Elise. So tiny, so vulnerable. Those moments would forever live in his memory. It had been both surprising and shocking, the love each of his children engendered.

Even so, he still could not forgive the thief, Baronel.

It took Lord Eldin several minutes to make his way to the chambers used by Master Philippa for the project. Located on the western side of Caer Ilan, the largest room had two enormous archways opening on the outer yard. He found her there. The Smith Craft master was of medium height, though quite burly, and spoke quietly with one of the many people bustling about the room.

Sounds of labor could be heard everywhere. The clanging of hammer on metal, the sawing of wood, and even the occasional muted curse could be heard. He was again glad he had these rooms for the project added on the outside of the Caer and away from living quarters.

As he waited, the project’s gleaming, thick metal rails, two for each archway, caught his eyes. Each set ran beside a long wooden platform—he was standing on one of the two platforms in the room—and continued beyond them, running out the archways and then off across his land. Initially, there had only been one rail per track, but after testing, they had to add a second rail. Magical levitation kept the carriages, or carts, afloat over the track, and double rails, two points of levitation, eliminated the slight rocking that made some people sick.

The work on the tracks had started many months ago. They connected to a neighboring lord’s land, to a rail station there, before continuing beyond that. Veritable roads of rails, these tracks lead to his future. A future, he hoped, that was filled with success.

For this project had to succeed. The expenses incurred in the previous failed projects had run the Caer’s coffers low. If Lora found out . . . But he felt certain about this one. Every business relied on shipping in one way or another. Parts, supplies, finished product, they all needed to be shipped, transported. And one who controls most of the transportation resources controls—

“My apologies, Lord Eldin.” Master Philippa walked over, her conversation apparently complete. “My assistant had more reports on the final test and I had some instructions for him.”

“Ah! So you completed testing?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“From your expression, it went well?”

“It went perfectly. We’ve determined the best bank angles for the turns in the tracks to offset the centripetal force at normal running speeds.”

“I see. That’s good, but you could have apprised me of this in the morning.”

“Oh, yes, but that wasn’t the news I wanted to give you. Track line one is nearly complete. All that remains are the turns, which, now that we know the bank angles, can be finished. It should only take two or three weeks as most of the line is a straight run.”

“Excellent!”

Master Philippa smiled. “You can start planning the public demonstrations, my lord.”

Lord Eldin glanced to the other platform. “You have already built ten, what did you call them, carts?”

“Cars, my lord. And yes, we have ten already built, five for carrying cargo and five for carrying people. They passed their own tests some time ago and are ready for demonstration. It is a very exhilarating time.” The smith’s eyes gleamed with excitement.

Lord Eldin nodded, turning to the cars. “Yes, it is. Was there anything else?”

“No, my lord, that was all.”

“Thank you, then. And good work. Please continue to keep me apprised of track line completions.”

“Of course. Goodnight, my lord.” Master Philippa gave a short bow before taking her leave.

Lord Eldin looked about the room, at the workers, at the structures, at the core of his business. He
was
in a competition of sorts with Baronel. He hated that his former friend had won—stolen!—the heart of Rora, leaving him to settle for Lora, her twin sister. But he would get back at him.

The demonstrations for the public and his partners
would
be successful. Their first track line spanned nearly a third of the entire continent, and with the speed of the locomotives, as Master Philippa had taken to calling the rail engines, his company would be able to transport cargo in a fraction of the time others could.

A slight frown creased his forehead.

It actually wasn’t entirely his company. He’d had to bring in partners. All of them brought valuable resources of one kind or another, but he would have preferred to own it outright. He had hoped to get Gregor to join him in the business, keep more of it in the family. But he hadn’t seen his son in years, and their recent communications were strained.

There had been an argument about Gregor’s future. Lord Eldin was upset that the boy couldn’t or wouldn’t decide what he wanted to do. Words had been said. Even so, though Gregor continued to decline the occasional request to join the business, perhaps he could still be of use. Better information made for better plans.

Rumor had it that Baronel’s ‘project’ would be to form a company to take advantage of his dragon’s capabilities. But the protection–from–nahual yarn Baronel was spinning had to be a ruse. Where was the money in it? Oh, he could charge fees, but that was pissing change. It wasn’t
real
money. No. Stories had been circulating that the dragon was very fast. It was much more likely that Baronel was going to set up some kind of transportation business using dragons. And that could present a problem.

Lord Eldin’s nascent transportation company was not yet positioned to dominate. He wanted to head off any potential competition, especially from Baronel.

Whatever business the man’s company turned out to be involved in, there was the dragon. For now, that gave Lord Eldin somewhere to start. Steps had been taken. Slow, careful steps, perhaps, but he didn’t want to tip his hand. No need to alert Baronel that anything was amiss.

After all, the man only had the one dragon so far. He, on the other hand, would eventually have dozens of locomotives, maybe even hundreds. Each pulling trains of cars filled with cargo, filled with passengers, and filled with profit.

His company, The Continental Transportation Company, was going to reshape the transportation industry.

A small smile curved his lips. “We’ll see who’s the better man, the more powerful man, eh Baronel?”

The day was already getting warm, though sunrise was only a few hours past. The high temperatures, coupled with the heavy, humid air, forced Renata to find a shaded spot to rest. She wanted meat, the loss of the turkey still rankled, but there was no one out here to save her should she succumb to the heat.

Sitting in the shadow of a large acacia tree, she watched the seemingly frantic flight of insects as they flitted from flower to flower in a newly born sea of blooms, aftermath of yesterday’s downpour. Almost all the flowers, multihued and otherwise, were rain pips. The storm had been heavy enough for them, but most wildflowers would need more time to grow and bloom. The short-lived bounty of nectar was being enthusiastically taken advantage of by all who could.

Was it ever that way? Did everyone and everything grab all they could, when they could? Was it right to do so? Was it wrong? She certainly hadn’t hesitated to benefit from her position while a Pesan. She had risen so far from where she had started. The methods she’d used, however, and the things she’d done? Her skin crawled just thinking about it. Perhaps it was
good
that her time had been short. How much worse would she have gotten?

Isandath had also made mention of that short-lived power nearly a month ago. His note requesting a meeting had been delivered to her in the Manisi quarters.

The knock on her door had interrupted a short nap between training and lunch. After the messenger left, she read the note. Certain of what the meeting would be about, she took her time walking to his room, thinking.

Everything he’d discovered concerning the Order lead her to the same conclusion. He was right. She was certain of it, and it made her angry—for the lie and for making people believe so fervently in something that was not true.

There was no mention of dragons anywhere in the original text. The Order had condemned them to death for no apparent reason. And they kept perpetuating the lie! They knew that the text had been changed. Yet they still talked of the evil of dragons, of the need to kill them. And though none had been killed or even seen in decades, what of before? Gods! All those dragons killed, and for what? What if the Order was wrong? What if it was something else that they should have been hunting down?

It pained her knowing that Polandra’s anger about that poor girl might have been deserved. Maybe those creatures
were
what the Order should be hunting. Unlike the lie inscribed on the stone tablets, the original text didn’t name Yrdra’s dark gift.

She’d even heard tell of a plan by the Nesch to extend the reach of search parties, send them further out seeking more poor dragons to kill. A plan no doubt inspired by that persistent rumor of the boy and his pet dragon.

“I don’t know what to think,” she told Isandath when she got to his room. “Everything I strove for, everything I believed in is a lie. I feel . . . lost.”

“I know exactly how you feel.” His eyes lost focus. “And because of that, I left Bataan-Mok for a time.”

He had disappeared a few years ago, people said. But no one left Bataan-Mok. She’d thought it a lie.

“When I discovered the original text tucked away in the archives, when I found out that the Capu and the Nesch, and even many Umeri knew of the discrepancy, my faith in the Order was shaken. So I left. I had no particular destination, really. I just needed to think.” He stared at his hands clasped in his lap.

“For days I wandered about the desert, eventually ending up in The Scars. My feet had led me to some caves. The caverns provided me with better shelter from the cold nights, and deeper in, there was a pool of water fed by a spring at its bottom.” He looked up at her. “Whether subconsciously or not, I found myself at a former home of dragons.”

Renata’s eyes grew wide.

“There hadn’t been any dragons there in a very long time, but I could almost feel their presence. It was strangely comforting. I set up a more permanent camp there, and spent the remainder of my time away in and around those caves, thinking.”

His story was shocking, amazing, and completely at odds with what she thought she knew of the man.

“I had to decide what I was going to do. I felt angry, confused, and lost, as you said.” He paused, rubbed his thumbs together and looked up at her. “It was perhaps two weeks after I arrived when she first . . . spoke to me.”

“She?”

“Yes. We talked at night. She didn’t show herself at first, keeping instead to the shadows down a passage. Terribly frightened of me when I arrived, she had nearly left the caves. But she needed them, just as I did. So she had watched me, listened to me in a way, and eventually, she felt comfortable enough to talk with me, if not show herself.”

He smiled. “At first, I thought she was a simple-minded girl. Despite the extraordinary way she talked, that was still my first impression. For her manner of speech was plain. The more I talked with her, however, the more I realized that she just didn’t know all our words. She was actually quite intelligent, though extremely shy and nervous.”

He was silent for a moment, lost in his memory. Renata just stared at him, stunned by his tale.

Out in The Scars? All by himself? Isandath?

“One evening, she asked why I was sad. That she could sense my inner turmoil surprised me. Still, glad for ears to listen, I told her about what the Order had done, how they’d based the First Principle on a lie. I told her that the Order’s lies made me sad, but what made me even more sad was all the dragons that had been killed because of the lies.”

Renata clenched her jaw and her heart beat faster.

“These caves were once filled with dragons, I told her, living their lives in peace. Now they only echoed hollowly with faded memories.”

He glanced at Renata. “She said I had a kind heart, and that she would tell me of a dream that came to her recently. I had experienced strange and detailed dreams while in the caves, and I was curious if hers had been like mine.

“In her dream, she heard a voice, a male. He told her to go to the caves. Her children would meet my children. They would become friends, would be together. They would help dragons and people. She said that there was also a strong feeling she got from the dream. This was her purpose. Would I help her with it?

“I told her that I would be more than happy to do anything that would help dragons, but I had no children, so perhaps it was not me in the dream. But she insisted that it was me, that she somehow knew.”

Isandath sat back in the chair. “There was something very compelling about her. On the one hand, she was timid, nervous and shy. On the other, she had complete confidence in that dream and a fierce determination to see it through.

“I told her I would help her, though it might take some time. Excited, she said it was no matter, she would return with a child each year. My agreeing to help made her very happy. It also made her brave enough to finally show herself.

“When she walked out of the shadows,” Isandath said, a joyful smile on his face, “I knew I had made the right choice.

“I returned to Bataan-Mok shortly after and told my superior that I had left to help a sick relative. The punishment wasn’t beyond enduring, and I accepted it with no qualms, thinking the whole time of my new friend’s strange dream.

“One day I saw children laughing, new Pesani running down a hallway before being admonished by their Ojoni trainers. That was when I realized what I was meant to do. So I searched, watched, asked questions, and talked. And you, my dear Renata, are the first I think might be worthy of the trip.

“Go to The Scars. Meet her, meet her child. Hear her story and choose your path.”

They spoke for maybe another hour, but Renata had already decided to go. After all, there was nothing to keep her there anymore. The place that had been home, Bataan-Mok, was built on lies. As for family, she had none. Her parents’ faces were already fading from memory, though the hurt of what they’d done still burned deep inside her heart.

Renata left within the week.

Though the Scars covered an enormous area, finding the caves wasn’t as difficult as she thought it might be. Isandath had provided a satchel filled with supplies, including a map, and she located the cave system soon enough. She had been waiting for the woman ever since.

However, after everything that happened yesterday, she almost left. If it weren’t for the odd dreams that returned last night, she would have. They reminded her about dragons and what the Order had done to them, what it was going to continue doing to them. So this morning, she decided to wait a little longer. Isandath was counting on her. And if the mysterious woman could help with dragons, Renata wanted to know how.

She looked out across the sun-baked land, heat shimmers wavering in the air. A deep sigh made her ribs twinge. With a grimace, she stood, the ayllu bumping against her thigh.

She’d made the throwing weapon soon after finding the caves, using some of the leather Isandath had squirreled away in the carry-all. The ayllu had served her well these past few weeks, though two days of practice had been needed to get good with it again. As a young child, she’d been expert with them. Isandath used to laugh at her stories about pestering the other village kids with random throws around their legs. She’d been something of a terror.

Her smile at the memory faded. That was before she’d been given to the Order.

Renata could have used magic to hunt, of course, but she refused to use anything learned in Manisi training. Damn the Order; she’d do things her own way.

She shook off those thoughts and focused on the task at hand. Leaving the shade, she made for a likely patch of scrub in the distance. Perhaps there’d be a jackrabbit. With all the plant shoots from the rain, surely some would be out and about.

“A girl’s gotta eat,” she mumbled, heading off.

Behind her, a shadow separated from a rocky cliff.

+ + + +

Aeron finished the last bit of his sketch, then lifted the two translucent sheets of tracing paper from the map of Caer Baronel.

That’s a start, he thought. At least while they look for a better place.

A knock sounded at the door. Opening it revealed Willem.

“Morning!”

“Good morning,” Aeron replied, with a grin. “Come, look at this and tell me what you think.”

Aeron placed the first sheet of paper on the map. “We can expand the Dragon Stable like this.” There was a small building drawn on the piece of tracing paper, and the map of the Caer showed through. He slid the paper so the new building sat  just off the corner of the dragon stable, next to the investigation office, and extended to the west along the courtyard fence. “Your—ah, that is the next dragon could be housed here. Then,” he placed the second sheet on top, slid it into place, and indicated the two buildings on it, “we can build more extensions on the west side of the courtyard and the north, as needed. That should work until a new permanent place is found or built for more dragons. What do you think?”

Willem looked over the hastily sketched plans and nodded. “I think that’s a great idea. It allows the next dragons to be here, too, so we don’t have to change much of what we do already for Anaya. And it seems like Master Doronal wants to take things slow at first, so like you said, being able to use the same stables will give us time to figure out a better location.”

Aeron smiled. “Great!” Clearing his throat, he said, “I, ah, asked if you were coming over this morning, um, because I wanted to ask you something.”

Willem said, “Sure. What is it?”

“Right. So.
 . . I think it was pretty clear last night . . . at–at least I think so, but I suppose I could be wrong. I mean, I’m not the most observant person in the world about these things, but it sure felt like—”

Just ask him, Aeron.

Anaya!
He’d thought she was still asleep.
Okay, okay. You’re right.

Willem stared at him, looking completely confused.

Aeron took a breath to calm himself, and with the words almost tripping over each other, he said, “I really like you a lot, and it seemed last night that maybe you feel the same way about me.” He stared at Willem, searching for a clue as to his reaction. “Can we . . . are we going steady?”

Willem tilted his head. With a smile, he said, “I really like you a lot, too. And yes, we can—we are—going steady.”

Aeron closed his eyes and let out a long breath. Then he quickly reached over and hugged Willem. “I’m so happy,” he said. “I wasn’t sure if my memory of last night was right. I was worried it had been a dream.”

“Noodlehead.” Willem leaned his head back a bit as they looked at each other. “You caught my eye when we first met. Then, as I slowly learned
who
you are, I couldn’t help but fall for you. You don’t know how difficult it’s been to resist—” His eyes widened slightly, and almost as if to himself, he said, “But I don’t have to anymore.”

After a few seconds, Anaya told Aeron,
Willem kisses really well, does he not?

Aeron stepped back and looked at the doorway to his bond-mate’s den. “Anaya!”

“What happened?” Voice tense, Willem looked from Aeron to the doorway. “Is it another nahual?”