11. Magnitudes of risk
11
MAGNITUDES OF RISK
Anahrod wrapped her hair up in her mantle as she headed to the docks. People would think it odd, but not nearly as much as her uncovered hair—cleaner and less green, but still knotted in vine braids.
The docks had changed little over the years. Crowded and loud, filled with people—a place to be invisible, hiding in the human herd. At any hour, people and cargo from the huge, winged merchant cutters were arriving or departing. Enterprising merchants set up small stands next to the boarding planks, offering discounts on merchandise they didn’t want to haul back home. People from every city in Seven Crests went about their day, whether that was business or meeting friends—genuine or rented by the hour.
Anahrod barely glanced at the big, fat-winged ferry as she walked by it. A long line to board stretched into the street, all waiting to be taken to the next city in the mountain chain: Duskcloud. If they stayed on from there, they’d go to Grayshroud, then to Rosecliff, Windsong, Blackglass, and finally, Snowfell. There was no easier or faster way to leave Crystalspire in a hurry.
Or rather, there was no easier or faster way to leave Crystalspire if one didn’t have the help of a dragon.
Since Ris had the help of a dragon, Anahrod wouldn’t make it easy for her.
A dragon roared.
She paused, the old instincts kicking into focus. A very large dragon, near the edge of the city itself.
Anahrod turned to look. Everyone did.
Several people helpfully pointed farther up the mountainside, although given how far up Crystalspire was located, there wasn’t much “farther up” that wasn’t the dragon crèche itself.
Aldegon was a white dragon, with violet shading and amethyst eyes. This was someone new. Not Tiendremos—that beast of a dragon was a dark blue color.
This dragon was the color of molten gold.
“Speak of Zavad, and Zavad appears,” Anahrod murmured.
This was Peralon—and Anahrod had been right to distrust Ris’s assurance that her dragon was two hours away.
Eannis, he was beautiful, though.
An unlucky color, perhaps, but almost blinding in his glory, sunlight reflecting off his scales. The chattering crowd around her gossiped this dragon was new, although a few were quick to correct the tale. Yes, the dragon was new, but he’d visited earlier that morning, arriving in the hours before dawn.
Anahrod felt the old tension, the quickening of her heartbeat, the sense of awe. As a child, she’d been a lot like Gwydinion, wanting to be bonded to her own dragon. It had been her dream.
Well, no. It had been one of her mother’s dreams, but Anahrod hadn’t figured out the difference until it was almost too late.
The dragon let out another roar before launching himself airborne, flying up and out over the city on swift, sure wingbeats. As he soared overhead, Anahrod thought she saw a rider. She couldn’t be sure: the dragon was too far away to make out details. Still, Anahrod assumed Ris had wasted no time changing clothes.
Anahrod whipped her head away from staring at the fading shape and instead took advantage of the distraction to slip through the crowd. She bought breakfast from a random cart, exchanging one of her scales into smaller Crystalspire coinage.
The second purchase she made—the most expensive purchase—was a set of rings. She might easily have exhausted the rest of her money had she gone to a proper metalsmith for platinum rings, but she needed nothing so fancy.
So instead, she found one of those shops where one might sell a precious item in return for quick money; where another might buy that same item for far less than its worth. It limited her options, but guaranteed nothing on her fingers would look new or expensive.
She barely remembered what social rings meant, let alone garden rings. She’d been Gwydinion’s age—fifteen—when she’d gone to Yagra’hai, and while some of her classmates had been precociously interested in what rings they might one day wear, she had not.
Fortunately, since most young people eventually found themselves at a point in their development where they wanted garden rings but weren’t sure which rings they needed (and would die of mortification if they had to ask their parents), guidebooks were easy to find. Little portable tracts one might consult to prevent embarrassing gaffes. She’d made up an elaborate story about buying one for a little brother before she realized no one cared.
The social rings were easy enough. Those were more limited in scope, the hardest part being the career ring. She ended up choosing a blood crow ring, both for the sake of irony and because “scavenger” allowed her the easiest excuse to explain why she wanted to switch to a different career.
The garden rings were trickier. She didn’t expect to find her preferences for sale at a pawnshop, and in this she wasn’t disappointed.
As she had no wish to claim a particular love of feet nor a true passion for mountains quite above and beyond what most people meant when they exclaimed, “I love mountains!” Anahrod settled on something inaccurate but plausible. Masculine partners only, monogamous, and in an exclusive relationship. Not much interested in sex at all. Common as gruel for breakfast, and wrong on every count. The hardest part was finding a set that wasn’t silver tarnished to the point of blackness, but she settled on white gold and nickel steel.
After that, she could talk to people without concealing her hands. Anahrod then went shopping, this time with more vigor. She made quick purchases: a water canteen, basic provisions, cooking equipment, and a satchel to store them all in.
Clothing proved the greatest obstacle, since even in a city as large as Crystalspire few places existed where one might buy premade fashions. She could waste hours—if not days—sorting through castaways at a frippery stall.
So Anahrod cheated. She found a woman who was both her size and dressed appropriately and offered the woman five scales to exchange clothes with her. Anahrod claimed it was for a scavenger hunt, and dropped enough names from important banking divisions to lead the other woman to believe Anahrod might be some spoiled daughter of privilege, dressing up as one of the middle class because aren’t rich people so eccentric? The young businesswoman haggled her way up to ten scales and then they ducked into a guesthouse to make the exchange.
There were two awkward parts.
The first came when the mantle Anahrod had wrapped around her head slipped, revealing her hair. The other woman had immediately commented on the style.
Anahrod ran a hand down one of the vine braids. “I just had them done. It’s a surprise for the party next week. My mother’s going to hate it.” She grinned at the woman as if sharing a juicy secret.
The other woman pursed her lips. “I think it’s a good look. I rather like it.” She sounded surprised.
Anahrod nodded. “Mark my words: everyone’s going to be wearing their hair this way in a year.”
The second moment was when the woman had introduced herself as Jiedre, and then asked Anahrod’s name. She’d at least given some thought to the matter, so she didn’t hesitate to say, “Anah.”
But she wasn’t prepared for the woman’s reaction.
“ Please tell me your parents didn’t name you Anahrod.”
“Excuse me?”
She nodded emphatically. “I have a friend who has that name, and she had to petition to have it changed, because no one wanted to buy from an ‘Anahrod.’” The woman shuddered. “Bad luck, you know?”
Anahrod forced a smile onto her face. “It’s just Anah, praise Eannis.”
The woman left after that, both convinced that she’d taken shameless advantage of Anahrod and possibly on her way to a beauty salon. Anahrod hoped so: it would be hilarious if vine braids became a fad just as Ris and/or Tiendremos were searching the city for a woman with that same hairstyle.
Not that Anahrod had any intention of remaining. She tried not to think about what that woman had said about her friend—that just having the name Anahrod was bad luck.
She had to know.
Anahrod ducked into a bookseller’s shop and asked what books they might have concerning Anahrod the Wicked. The nearsighted old man didn’t seem to think her request was odd; he just creaked to his feet and made his way into a back room, returning with five different clothbound books of middling quality. As the man spoke, she became motionless, her head tilted to one side, her breath caught in her chest, listening as he described how Anahrod Amnead had been a villainess of the first rank.
“Dead now, of course,” he said, smiling gently.
“How…” She licked her lips. “How long ago was this?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” the man replied. “Twenty years? You’d have been a child.” He squinted at her, trying to gauge her age. “Maybe not even born yet.” He set a hand on top of the books. “You look old enough, anyway. They’re garden books, you know. Not for children.” He grinned. “Some of my best sellers, though.”
“I’ll take that one,” she said, and pointed to one book at random, not because she wanted it, but so she wouldn’t stand out.
Anahrod didn’t open the book, afterward. She didn’t want to see who’d written it, who’d published it, who’d profited from spreading titillating lies about her life.
Several blocks away, she tossed the book into a sewer.
As she’d done her shopping, she’d been amazed by how little had changed. The fashions, perhaps. The coats that had once flared out from the shoulders now fitted close to the torso. Some of the fabrics were unfamiliar to her, either made with techniques she’d never seen before or dyed in new, brighter colors. Her new mantle, for example, was a soft teal doeynd wool, interwoven with fibers of green and silver—all new dyes, either sourced from new trading partners or invented by some industrious chemist in Grayshroud.
But other things hadn’t changed at all. Most skin colors were still Skylander dark, but Ris was hardly the only pale-hued person in the city. It mattered not, because regardless of one’s skin tone, hair, or eye color, Crystalspire citizenship was recognized by a trait harder to counterfeit: arrogance. The pride and ostentation that Crystalspire was famous for demonstrated itself with every upturned nose and dismissive eye roll. Crystalspire’s citizens were better, richer, and more successful than those of any other city in Seven Crests.
They knew it. They made sure everyone else knew it, too.
She told herself that she hadn’t missed Crystalspire, didn’t miss Crystalspire, wouldn’t miss Crystalspire. This was the city that had betrayed her. Leaving it would be a pleasure.
She knew herself for a liar. She missed the noise and the crowds and the smell of honeyplum tea sold from food carts near the marketplace. She missed the water splashing on her as she sat at the edge of Oelvond Fountain. She missed sneaking up to the manor’s roof in the early hours of the morning to watch the giant sky cutters fly into port and listen to Aldegon’s suitors croon love songs from the cliff tops overlooking the city. She missed turning up a fur-lined collar against winter winds so cold they felt like sharpened glass against her skin. She missed her second mother’s cooking.
She didn’t miss the lies, or the sudden horror of realizing that her parents weren’t coming for her. That they hadn’t loved her, or at least, that they hadn’t loved her half as much as they’d feared dragons.
If she’d had any illusions about her ability to stay, the people she’d spoken to had helpfully set her straight. Ris had been correct—she couldn’t hope to remain in Crystalspire as Anahrod Amnead. That woman was a monster. Ask anyone.
At least Anahrod the Deeper was only a troll .
Fortunately for all involved, staying had never been part of the plan. She made her way to the docks to see about leaving town.