Chapter Nineteen #3
“Twenty-eight years,” Surot amended with a laugh. She had a deep laugh, and the lines on her golden face deepened as she smiled. “But some days it feels like two hundred.”
Well, that made more sense. “The meat is delicious,” Marin offered. She wasn’t certain what kind of meat it was, just that it wasn’t fish.
“We raise sheep for us and for the dragons,” Surot said. “They prefer theirs raw, but we’re pickier. This lot was cooked by my brother’s husband. I’ll let him know you approve.”
That was enough niceties, wasn’t it? Marin launched into the only topic she wanted to talk about. “Do you think there’s a way to save my boat?”
Surot hesitated. “Such a thing hasn’t been attempted before.”
“Probably not many boats get stuck up on the mountain.”
“Not many,” she agreed with another smile.
By the fireplace, Dax began to play the guitar. Beside him, the magenta-haired woman sang loudly, and conversation around the tavern paused for a moment to listen. She had a pleasant, furry kind of voice that filled the room.
Dax was smiling, but it was a plastered-on smile. I hurt him, Marin thought.
It was for the best, a little hurt now to stop a greater hurt later. He had to see that. What kind of a relationship could they build when he was due back at the conservatory in a few short weeks? She was just a supply runner. She wasn’t a permanent fixture in his life.
“It’s one of our island songs,” Surot said softly, “about when the dragons first came to Ilreka and learned to live with humans.” A few more voices joined in the singing.
It wasn’t a language that Marin knew, probably the original language of the island.
When the empire spread across the sea, it imposed a standard language on all the disparate cultures.
It wasn’t always kind about it either. But some languages clung on stubbornly.
Surot continued. “The first human to befriend a dragon was my ancestor, or at least that’s what my great-grandmother claimed.
It was many generations ago. Supposedly, she walked up to his cave and offered to let him eat her in exchange for the safety of the village.
See, the villagers had taken a look at the dragons’ teeth and decided that we must look like lunch to them.
My ancestor was wearing a necklace like this one.
” She touched the multiple-stranded necklace that spilled across her bodice.
Looking closer, Marin saw it was elaborately braided gold, studded with gemstones. In the center was a pendant that looked like a swirled snake. It had tear-shaped rubies for eyes. “It’s beautiful.”
“The dragon thought so too,” Surot said.
“As it turned out, he had no interest in eating humans—we apparently look less delicious than we think we do—but he was interested in starting his own hoard. She gifted him the necklace, and he, in exchange, gifted her his friendship. Ever since, we wear necklaces until the day we choose to gift them to our own dragon friend. We receive them back when our dragon dies, as remembrances.”
Nearly everyone in the tavern was singing now, but Dax was only looking at Marin as he strummed the guitar along with them. He was gazing at her as if she was all that existed in the world. I shouldn’t have said no, Marin thought as she stared back at him.
He’d practically promised that his kisses came with complications, though. Everything was complicated enough with her boat in the possession of a dragon …
A dragon who liked treasure …
She touched the heartsinger ruby in her pocket through the velvet of her borrowed clothes.
It was looking increasingly unlikely that she was going to make it home with the ruby, regardless of whether she had the chance to look for the head librarian.
In fact, it felt a bit as if the universe were conspiring to take her treasure from her.
If she had to give it up, then Iovar would win.
But if she didn’t give it up, she might not get her boat back, and then he’d also win. And either way, her parents would lose, and she couldn’t allow that to happen. They deserved so much more than a daughter who kept making colossal mistakes and hurting people she cared about.
“You’ve stopped eating,” Surot noted. “Is everything still to your liking?”
“Sorry, yes,” Marin said. “I’m just worrying about my boat.” And my family. And Dax. And everything. She speared a chunk of potato and put it in her mouth before she could say more. The headwoman didn’t deserve to have all of Marin’s worries dumped onto her like an upturned basket of fish.
Surot sighed. “I dislike saying it, but I fear you are right to worry. Keva is an unusual dragon. She alone on the island does not have a hoard yet. We have not figured out what it is she wants, only that it isn’t the standard gold or jewels, nor is it works of art.
We’ve tried sculpture, pottery, even paper crafts, but she’s uninterested.
Your ship is the first item we’ve seen her interested in.
If she has decided to make it part of her hoard…
” She spread her hands as if to say there was nothing that could be done.
The potato felt like a lump in her throat. Marin swallowed it, along with all the worries that cycloned up from her stomach. “I have to try.”
“Of course,” Surot said. “Please know that if you can find what pleases Keva, we would be in your debt and happy to assist you in any way we can.”
Marin watched Dax as he handed the guitar back to its owner. The crowd burst into applause, and Dax clapped for them and their singing. He then crossed the tavern to Marin and Surot. His eyes were fixed on Marin.
“That was wonderful,” Surot told him.
He tore his eyes away and summoned a smile. “Thank you.”
A silence passed.
Belatedly, Marin realized Surot was expecting her to fill it.
“Surot was telling me about the dragon who has Silver,” she offered.
“She doesn’t have a hoard yet so we don’t know what we can give her to encourage her to surrender the boat.
She’s apparently not interested in jewels or gold or works of art. ”
“We’ve tried everything from paintings to pottery,” Surot said.
“Have you tried music?” Dax asked. He was addressing the headwoman, but Marin couldn’t help feeling that all his attention was still on her.
Surot smiled. “We have not.”
“It will work,” he said, his intense, sad eyes back on Marin. “You can trust me.”