29. A welcoming committee of one
29
A WELCOMING COMMITTEE OF ONE
“This is the worst!” Gwydinion’s mouth dropped open as he rushed into the apartment. “They can’t expect us to stay here, can they?”
Anahrod grimaced. Behind her, the staff weren’t having a much better reaction.
As she’d suspected, the building was set so far back it merged with the cliffside. It was advantageously placed next to nothing, with no view to speak of, and no noticeably redeeming features besides a roof and walls thick enough to keep out the weather. Animals had nested in the front room, spreading a corresponding amount of dust, debris, and droppings. The apartment’s most redeeming feature was that it proved to actually be two apartments joined through a common door. So, they had twice the space—assuming theirs was the only such “error.”
“Has this been cleaned?” Gwydinion continued. “Ever? In my lifetime?” He stopped in the middle of the main hall to glare at Anahrod, arms crossed over his chest.
Sicaryon grimaced. “It’s dry, at least. Don’t knock the comforts of being out of the rain.” He sighed. “Not that I disagree with the complaint. I need to sit down.”
“Don’t let the garbage fool you. This place has hidden charms.” Ris walked down the stairs from the upstairs bedrooms, smiling as if she’d just told a joke.
Ris was back in her red outfit, this time paired with a shirt of overlapping white lawn scales, trimmed with gold thread. Several strands of jewels wrapped around her neck, long enough to be lost in her cleavage. Her hair was a glory of cascading red curls.
The urge to go over and kiss the woman was so strong that Anahrod almost did so before she remembered she was still angry at Ris.
“Nice to see you again, Gwydinion. You’ve grown, haven’t you? I’m certain you were at least an inch shorter when I saw you last.” Ris’s eyes turned to crescents as she smiled at the boy, who blushed nearly the same color as her coat in response.
“And I apologize for making such a dramatic entrance, but I’m technically banned from being on campus, so a stealthy approach seemed best.”
“Banned?” Claw caught the edge of the conversation as she carried boxes inside. “What did you do, boss?” She squinted. “Or should that be: Who did you do?”
Ris stared at Claw flatly in response to the joke, which Anahrod fully supported, given the average age of the students. “ All dragonriders are banned from being on campus without permission.” She waved her wrist. “Yes, except Varriguhl, but he doesn’t count. This is all Ivarion’s territory.”
“Does that mean dragonriders also jealously defend their territory?” Sicaryon was leaning against a wall and trying his hardest to look nonchalant, but he wasn’t succeeding.
Ris examined him, frowning. “Not always, no. You look like hell.”
“Thank you. I feel like it, too.” He gave her a tight, unhappy smile. “I’d be in bed right now, but apparently we’re going to need to clean the leaves out first.” He raised a finger at Claw. “Do not make a joke about how I should be used to that.”
Claw sighed.
“Completely different leaves,” Anahrod said. “As you can see, we had a minor problem with the room assignments.”
Ris scratched her cheek, not looking embarrassed as much as apologetic. “Sorry about that. The problem was me.”
“You did this?” Anahrod gestured to the student-housing-turned-animal-den with a finger.
“If you mean did I dirty up the place, the answer is no. I hired professionals.” Her gaze lingered on Sicaryon. “When will the sword arrive?”
“It’ll be here by the time you need it.” He moved debris out of the way to make room on the floor, then sat down and leaned against the wall.
Ris’s lips thinned. “You don’t trust me, do you?”
Sicaryon raised both eyebrows. “You’re a dragonrider.”
Ris pursed her lips. “A fair point. I don’t trust most dragonriders either.”
Sicaryon didn’t seem to know what to think about that.
Ris then raised her voice and clapped her hands once, loudly. “All right, team. I need to show everyone the two most important parts of your new home.” She waved a finger at the movers. “Not you. Just keep stacking boxes over there.”
Naeron helped Sicaryon to his feet, who patted the other man on the arm. “You’re a good man, Naeron. I’ll think of you fondly when I rule the world.”
Anahrod decided to assume Sicaryon was joking.
The entire group followed Ris, although only a short way, as she just walked to the wall by the side of the staircase. Ris pressed a plaster relief on the wall.
A grinding noise sounded from behind the wall; a section of the stonework slid away to reveal a dark tunnel.
“That’s sunshine!” Gwydinion yelled.
“That is literally the opposite of sunshine,” Sicaryon commented.
Gwydinion rolled his eyes.
“Nice,” Claw said. “Does all the student housing come with secret passages?”
“Why no,” Ris said brightly. “This is a special feature. There are other publicly available entrances to the tunnels. It’s just that none of those are nearly this convenient.” Her smile flickered for just a second, as she glanced at Anahrod, who instantly knew that Ris had left something out. Something important.
Anahrod followed the woman into the next room, frowning.
Said room was a very large study area, meant for students if the ruined tables and couches were anything to go by. At least the inscribed lamps still worked.
“Kaibren, if you’d be so kind?” Ris smiled at the inscriber, and everyone waited while the old man pasted up the fabric inscriptions to prevent eavesdropping.
Gwydinion offered to help, but Kaibren waved him away, mumbling something that might not have been a quotation.
When he finished, Ris said: “Welcome to our new headquarters.” She sighed. “Admittedly, it needs some dusting. Since we have two apartment suites”—she ignored Gwydinion’s cry of “Yes!”—“it saves the other study for its intended purpose and uses this one for ours.”
“What was it you didn’t want to say out there?” Anahrod asked.
Ris gave her a wary look. “That you should always use the tunnels, because there’s a chance Neveranimas might recognize you.”
Gwydinion, Claw, and Sicaryon all started yelling at once.
Naeron made a noise and sat down, wrapping his arms around his head.
“Can we please—?” Anahrod sighed.
Ris was standing on the other side of the room, looking deeply unhappy. Which was good, because Anahrod didn’t think she could’ve handled it if Ris had treated this like a joke.
“Be quiet!” Anahrod screamed.
Everyone shut up.
Anahrod studied the leaf pattern on the floor for a second before raising her head to stare at Ris. “Mind explaining that?”
“I thought that was the whole point of wearing the fucking veils!” Claw complained.
“Quiet, you,” Anahrod said. “Ris is answering a question.”
“Dragons don’t see the way that we do. They see—” She wrinkled her nose in frustration. Anahrod told herself it wasn’t cute. “Dragons see the true nature of things. Or people. Which unfortunately means that disguises that would fool a human are meaningless against a dragon. People joke about how we look like ants to a dragon, but if a dragon knows someone well, they can pick that individual out of a crowd in seconds.”
Sicaryon staggered forward. “You mean to say that you brought Anahrod here to Yagra’hai knowing that she can’t be disguised and Neveranimas is going to recognize her on sight? You—” He abruptly sat down, holding his head. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
Anahrod rushed to his side, but what could she do? She rubbed his back, while he shuddered and tried not to pass out.
“Too angry,” Naeron chided gently. “Too much heartbeat, needs too much air. Slow breaths.”
“Think I’ll give you a knighthood,” Sicaryon mumbled.
“Kaibren, could you please draw that inscription that helps with altitude sickness for the man?” Ris asked while chewing on the edge of a thumbnail.
The old man nodded and began clearing away an area of the floor.
Anahrod met Ris’s eyes. “He has a point, though. Not feeling real trusting now.”
She didn’t ask Ris why she hadn’t said something earlier. She knew why. Because Ris hadn’t wanted to take the chance that Anahrod wouldn’t come. Because Ris was still chasing after revenge.
Ris’s face contorted into a scowl. “According to records, she only met with you three times. You didn’t bond. It was seventeen years ago. There is no reason to think that Neveranimas still remembers what you look like. This is just being cautious.”
Anahrod looked up at the ceiling, exhaling. “It wasn’t three times. It was three times that anyone knew about. Not counting all the times I spoke to her at a distance to just talk about how my day had gone and what a jerk Varriguhl was being.”
A slow look of horror came over her. “You’re saying—?”
“Yes. Neveranimas knows I can talk to dragons—”
“You can talk to dragons?” Claw said. “Any dragon?”
Anahrod nodded and held up a hand to signal Claw to wait. “—and you would’ve known that if you’d explained this concern to me. Don’t be so certain that she doesn’t remember me.”
Ris exhaled a shuddery breath. “Neveranimas can’t come on school grounds or even near them. There are tunnels crisscrossing the entire campus. You don’t need to ever see sunlight. She can’t see through stone.”
“As far as we know,” Claw added sarcastically.
“Not helping,” Ris spat.
“Not trying to, boss,” Claw snapped back. She sounded unusually angry, even for her normal angry self. “We’ve gotten to the part where I’m honestly wondering what else you haven’t told us.”
Sicaryon raised an arm from where he was still hunched over, and punched it in Claw’s direction, as if to say: Yes, that!
Ris examined all the faces in the room and sighed. She slumped in defeat at what she saw. “Fine. We’ll—” She gestured vaguely. “Let’s meet here tomorrow night after dinner and I’ll explain everything.”
“Two days,” Naeron said, still studying Sicaryon. “At least.”
Ris studied the Scarsea man. “Right. We can do it the day after tomorrow.”
The air felt stifling and awkward. Ris gave Anahrod a smile so tentative it was more like a sketch. “I don’t suppose it would help if I said I was sorry?”
“But you’re not,” Anahrod told her coldly. “You’re only sorry I’m upset. That’s not the same thing. Not even close.”
“No,” Ris said. “That’s not what I—”
“You should go. We have a lot of cleaning to do, and Gwydinion and I need to be up early.”
Ris didn’t argue a second time. She left.