2. Darian
Chapter two
Darian
Darian Emberlin stretched before leaning down to pick up another sack of potatoes, throwing them over his shoulder and transporting them to the cart out back.
“Ready for a good year, are you?” he asked the farmer as he set the last bag down.
“The missus wants me to double the crop this year,” the farmer said, scratching his head, “which means we need more seed potatoes.”
“I’d say you’ve got plenty,” Darian said, holding out his hand as the farmer paid him. He accepted the money, counted it to make sure it was all there, nodded his head, and said, “Thank you for your order,” before heading back inside.
Uncle Amos nodded at him as he put the money in the till. “Nice work,” he said, clapping Darian on the shoulder.
Darian winced at the pain shooting down his spine. Uncle Amos had a strong grip, and Darian had lifted far too many potatoes.
“Thank you,” Darian said, stepping to the side as Uncle Bram joined them.
“I heard you want some more potatoes to carry,” his uncle said with a grin.
Darian shuddered. “No, thank you. I’ve carried enough potatoes to last me a lifetime.”
“Fortunately for you, you get to spend the rest of your lifetime running this store,” Uncle Amos said.
“And I am sure I’ll enjoy it,” Darian said with a quiet smile.
Running a general store for the rest of his life was not what he’d always thought he would do, but his mother’s brothers had raised him, and he owed them everything.
The general store was far too important to the region to let it die, and he couldn’t lose their legacy.
Uncle Amos turned to help the next customer, and Darian looked around at the mostly empty store.
“I’m going to take my lunch break,” Darian said to Uncle Bram, who nodded as Darian slipped out from behind the counter to head out the front door. Normally, he brought his lunch, but he had forgotten it today after oversleeping and needing to rush in to work.
Before he could get to the front door, he heard a squeaking noise.
Uh oh. Had the rats come back? He’d thought they’d have more time to replace their mouser after losing him to old age.
He turned on his heel, making his way closer to the sound, and as he made his way around the corner of the freestanding shelf that ran down the length of the store, he nearly ran into a woman with a basket on her arm and a knapsack in her hands.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” he said, turning to go around her before he realized the squeaking was coming from her basket.
He looked down at it, then back up at her. The tips of her ears turned pink.
“What do you have here?” he asked curiously, reaching out and uncovering the basket.
She moved her hand as if to stop him, but before she could get to him, he froze—the shawl covering the basket had moved just enough for him to see that it was not a kitten in the basket, or a puppy, or even some chicks.
What was in the basket could only be described as a baby dragon.
He opened his eyes wide, looking around to make sure no one else had spotted him, then reached for the woman’s hand and pulled her through the closest door—the supply closet.
It was fairly dark and very small, but it was private.
“Is that what I think it is?” he asked as he closed the door behind himself, uncomfortably close to the woman and her basket.
“Excuse me, sir,” she hissed, looking up at him with anger in her dark brown eyes. “Let me out of here.”
“Do you have a baby dragon?” he whispered, glancing down at the basket, where the chirping and squeaking had only grown louder.
“Whether I do or not is none of your concern,” she said. “You had no right to poke your head into my basket, and you have no right to drag me into this closet. This is quite improper, and I shall have a word with the shopkeeper.”
“No, wait,” he said. “Please. I just want to know if that is indeed a dragon.”
She looked down at the basket, her words frosty as she said, “And if it is?”
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly, the words almost pleading. “I just didn’t know dragons were real. I always thought the things my uncles showed me were imaginary.”
She frowned suspiciously. “What sort of things do your uncles show you?”
The closet door opened, and Uncle Bram stuck his head in. “Darian, my boy,” he said evenly, “why are you in the closet with a customer?”
Darian looked down at her, and she shook her head imperceptibly. “She asked if I could help her find a broom,” he said, reaching out for the broom on the wall and snagging it.
“We can’t sell her our broom,” his uncle said. “We have new brooms on the other wall, and you know where they are.”
“Oh, I know,” Darian said. “We just had to sweep up a mess.”
His uncle narrowed his eyes at him but took a step back to allow Darian and the woman to leave the closet. As they stepped away from each other, he could almost feel the loss of her next to him.
That was odd.
But even more odd was the fact that she had a dragon.
Dragons couldn’t be real. Surely this was some sort of reptile he’d never seen before…not an actual dragon with wings and scales and a cute little squishy-looking round body.
It was definitely one of the fattest dragons he had ever seen. Not that he’d seen any in person before, but in all the drawings they had skinnier bodies.
And if dragons were real…were the stories his uncles had told him real too?
His mind whirled with possibility. He took the broom and led the woman around the corner, away from his uncle.
He began sweeping the broom along the floor for his uncle’s benefit as he whispered to the woman, “I can’t believe they’re real. ”
She shushed him. “I need to get the rest of my supplies and be on my way,” she said. “I have mouths to feed.”
“Are there more?” he asked, his heart rate growing faster.
There were more dragons.
Of course there were more dragons. Why would there only be one? If there was one, there had to be more. But where were they—and could he see them?
The urge to reach into the basket, pull the dragon out, and hold it close to his chest was starting to overwhelm him. He gripped the broomstick tighter to keep himself from doing just that.
“Let me help you get the rest of your supplies,” he said. “What else do you need?”
“I can get it,” she said shortly.
“I would like to help,” Darian said, his long legs nearly taking one stride for every two that she took as she made her way through the store. “At least let me hold your sack for you.”
After staring at him for a moment, she willingly transferred the knapsack to him, and he followed her around, holding it open as she put more and more things into it, until it grew so heavy he could barely hold on to it.
When at last it was full, she led him toward the counter, and he set it down next to his uncles, who were looking at him in amusement.
He found himself growing red under their scrutiny. It was perfectly normal of him to want to help her, he told himself. It was not his fault if they were amused by it.
“Hello, Miss Celia,” Uncle Amos said. “How are you today?”
“I’m fine,” the woman said curtly as her basket began squeaking again. “Ring me up, please.”
His uncle did so, and Celia pulled a worn pouch of coins from her dress pocket. When his uncle said how much her total was, she pulled a large gold coin out and set it on the counter.
Darian’s eyes nearly dropped out of his head.
What was that?
His uncle did not seem fazed, however. “Thank you, Miss Celia,” he said as he began handing her back other coins.
Darian was burning with curiosity. Where did this woman come from? Why was she paying with a gold coin? And why did she have a dragon?
Why had he never seen her before?
He had been working in the shop for years, although the schoolteacher had been tutoring him until recently. She must have come in while he was at school.
His uncles had asked him to continue his education beyond what most of the young men did, and as far as Darian was concerned, he was entirely too well educated to be a shopkeeper. But perhaps his uncles knew better, and he was not inclined to argue with them.
“I hope you have a pleasant journey home,” Uncle Amos said.
“Surely that’s too much to carry,” Uncle Bram said as Uncle Amos loaded everything back into Miss Celia’s knapsack. “Why don’t we have Darian help her with it?”
“Oh, no, no,” she began protesting.
“I insist,” Uncle Amos said. “He’s quite strong, you know.”
“It’s too much. I’m quite capable of carrying my own supplies.”
But Darian had perked up at the idea of following her home and seeing if there were more dragons. “Of course, I’ll help,” he said far too eagerly. He pulled himself back. No need to scare her off by being too much. “That is a heavy load for you, ma’am. I would be honored to help you carry it home.”
“It’s far too long of a walk for you,” she said.
“I’ll be fine. If it’s a long walk, then it only makes more sense for me to help you,” he said, taking the knapsack and swinging it over his own shoulders before she could continue to protest. “Which way are we heading, ma’am?”
“Toward the Gloaming Mountains,” she said, the words almost distasteful. “But I can do it.”
Darian’s eyes widened. “The Gloaming Mountains?” he asked. “That’s so far. I simply can’t let you walk that far alone with this much to carry. Lead the way, ma’am.”
“You don’t have to call me ma’am,” she said, bristling as she led him out of the store. “I can’t be more than a few years older than you.”
“How old are you?” he asked, the words coming out before he could stop himself. That was not something you should ask a woman—he knew better than that.
She glowered at him. “Twenty-six,” she said after a moment. “Old enough to be a spinster.”
“That’s hardly enough to qualify you,” he said. “I’m twenty-one, if you care to know.”
She scoffed. “Young enough to be my little brother,” she said, taking a step further away from him as she did so.
Darian sighed. She seemed rather prickly, but perhaps by the time they reached the Gloaming Mountains—or wherever she truly lived—he would get her to tell him more about dragons.
After all, that was the reason he was following her.