37. For his own good
37
FOR HIS OWN GOOD
When Anahrod returned from her flying lesson, she could barely walk. Not that she’d used her legs for any physical exertion, but because she’d tensed her muscles bowstring tight the entire flight, her body urging her to run while strapped down and immobile.
The flight itself had gone well. Ris had tried to tease but gave up when she saw Anahrod’s heart wasn’t it. They concentrated on making sure Anahrod wouldn’t freeze at the wrong time.
Ris had pointed out that she didn’t need to be cured of her phobia. She only needed enough control to keep from panicking for roughly seven minutes.
When Anahrod entered the apartment, everything was chaos. All the household staff were throwing supplies and equipment into boxes, both regular and the folding kind.
They were packing to leave.
One looked up, her expression one of simultaneous relief and guilt. She pointed at the stairs. “Master Gwydinion is in his room, miss. You should talk to him. He’s in a state.”
“What happened?”
The woman glanced up one more time before she returned to folding linens. “Go talk to him, please.”
Anahrod ran upstairs, taking the steps three at a time. She paused in front of Gwydinion’s door, halted by the sound of crying. She knocked instead of barging in. “Gwydinion? What happened? Why aren’t you in class?”
A hard drum of footsteps heralded Gwydinion, a few seconds before the door flung open.
“Why aren’t I in class?” He sounded incredulous. His face was streaked with tear tracks. “Why weren’t you!? Where were you? Why weren’t you waiting for me?”
“Cary—” She paused. Sicaryon had been given a job to do, hadn’t he? And Ris had pulled Anahrod away. There would’ve been no one waiting for Gwydinion, no bodyguard even as they rushed about trying to protect him. She tasted bile.
“Go back inside.” Anahrod pushed him back through the door, then followed him.
Anahrod closed the door behind them. “What happened?”
“I’m being kicked out of school!” Gwydinion shouted. “That’s what happened. You and the rest of the staff are all supposed to go home, and I’m being picked up by someone from the Church!”
Anahrod’s gut twisted. No…
“What happened?” Anahrod asked again.
“What you wanted,” Gwydinion said bitterly. “That’s what happened.”
She scoffed. “What I wanted? No. Absolutely not.”
He threw up his arms. “The headmaster caught me cheating on a test. No second chances, just… kicked out.”
“Did you?” Anahrod asked. “Cheat on a test?”
“No!” Gwydinion screamed. “Of course I didn’t. I didn’t need to! They planted it on me. It wasn’t even subtle.” He wiped his eyes. “It’s what you wanted. It’s what Mother wanted. I will never get to be a dragonrider. I guess after what happened at the consecration ceremony, I already knew that. This just makes it official.”
“This isn’t what I wanted,” Anahrod told him.
“Yes, it is,” he spat. “You think I don’t know the deal Ris worked out with our mother? All the help Ris could possibly want, and all she had to do was make sure that I didn’t get picked. I’d be blaming her if I hadn’t seen Varriguhl palm the questions. None of you wanted me to bond with a dragon, and did you think to ask me what I wanted? No!”
She sat down on the edge of his bed.
They hadn’t, had they? Not once had Anahrod ever asked, just assuming he’d be far too sensible to want something so foolhardy. That like Anahrod, he was being told what he wanted, rather than being allowed to figure it out for himself.
Her little brother wanted to be a dragonrider.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
He sniffed and wiped his nose. “Go take sorry to the marketplace and see what it buys you.”
“I didn’t do this. I wouldn’t do this. You being kicked out ruins everything,” she told him, because it was true. “They’ll throw us all out, and we’re not ready.”
He frowned. “You can’t hide? They’ll—” He wrinkled his nose. “No, they’ll check exit papers, won’t they? And kick up a fuss if you never show up. Shit.”
“You’ve been hanging out with Claw too much,” Anahrod said.
She remembered the satisfied look on Varriguhl’s face when he’d commented that Neveranimas couldn’t see Gwydinion until after he was consecrated, which meant not until after the cathedral was repaired. How was Varriguhl handling the news that any old chapel would work just as well?
“Your consecration ceremony,” Anahrod began. “Who else needs to have theirs done, besides you?”
Gwydinion looked up, swallowing back tears. “No one. I was last. The order was random.”
“Eannis’s left tit, the order was random.” Anahrod stood up.
Varriguhl had saved him for last, delayed the ceremony for as long as possible. That old bastard knew exactly who Gwydinion was. He’d always known.
“Where are you going?”
“To go threaten the old man who’s screwing everything up by trying to save your life.”
Anahrod considered various ways to approach Varriguhl as she walked to his house before she performed the mental equivalent of a shrug and knocked on his door.
More like banged on his door, but she wasn’t in a good mood.
At first, no one answered. She contemplated the possibility that Varriguhl wasn’t home, instead making some other student’s life miserable. Then the door swung open, and she was staring at Varriguhl’s pinched expression.
“I should’ve known,” he commented, before wheeling his chair around and rolling back inside. “Come inside, then. Prove yourself better than a Windsong vel keeper by closing the door behind you.”
His house was lovely, a fact that annoyed her but came as no surprise given his role as the rider of the First Dragon of Yagra’hai. The absence of stairs was also expected, removed in favor of ramps and an inscribed lift. The furnishings ranged in style, more vibrant and colorful than she’d expected. The most striking feature in the room, however, was a pet firebird—a huge specimen with scintillated red and orange scales, long tail features—who groomed itself as it perched on the arm of a sofa. Despite its name, the bird was not ablaze, but its talons had left deep gouges in the sofa’s wooden arm. The rest of the sofa was draped in velvet, a rich shade of red-purple.
“I want to talk about—”
“Or don’t prove yourself better than a Windsong vel keeper. At least one of those would introduce themselves. They might even ask how I was doing, but I don’t know that I’d want to bet on that.”
She heard a noise from somewhere off to the right, something that sounded suspiciously like choked-off laughter.
“Fine,” she growled. “My name is Anari. Are you having a nice day now that you’ve conspired to have my ward expelled on false charges?”
He regarded her in surprise. “Where have you spent the last seventeen years, Anahrod? It’s done nothing for your manners.” He rolled his chair over to a side table and reached for a clay pot. “Would you care for tea?”
Anahrod yanked the veil off her face. There really wasn’t any point, was there? “Thank you.” Habit forced the words from her. “As long as we’re being so honest with each other—” She canted her neck to the side. “Kimat, you might as well come out. I know you’re there.”
A heavy drape moved aside as the troublesome teenager from Grayshroud revealed herself. “How did you know?” she demanded.
“I didn’t. I guessed, and you confirmed it.” Anahrod ignored Kimat’s indignant squawk, turning back to her old teacher. “But that’s not how you knew who I was.”
“No,” Varriguhl admitted, “but you still ball your hands into fists in the same way when you’re angry but are forcing yourself to be polite.”
Anahrod unclenched her fists and smoothed her palms against her thighs.
“I also don’t know many guards, no matter how well paid, who will run into an active rampant zone to protect their charge. An older sister, though…” He paused while pouring water into the pot. She couldn’t see a way to heat the water, but he was Ivarion’s rider. No doubt fire magic came easily. “You know that Gwydinion’s your brother, yes? I’d hate to think you just found out from me.” He sounded chagrined.
“I knew,” she said.
“Thank Eannis.”
“How is he?” Kimat asked, sounding like she cared. “How’s Gwydinion?”
“How do you think?” Anahrod said. “Feeling betrayed.”
She flinched. “Tell him I’m sorry.”
“No, I don’t think I will.”
“We had to—!” Kimat’s eyes were bright.
“Kimat!” Varriguhl scolded. “That’s enough.”
Anahrod was feeling on the back foot, even though she didn’t think she was alone in that. She sat down on the sofa next to the firebird, who promptly waddled over and shoved its head against her shoulder, demanding attention.
“Seperan likes you,” Varriguhl said, then rolled his eyes. “What am I saying? Of course he does. I imagine all animals do.”
“Not all,” Anahrod said. “A hungry tidefisher has no friends. And I know why you’re having Gwydinion expelled.”
His hand froze while pulling apart a tea brick, setting the curled black strands into a strainer. “You do?”
“It’s not because he cheated.” Anahrod’s smile was forced. “He saw you palm the test answers.” She rubbed the crest on the firebird’s head, eliciting a satisfied coo. “You’re trying to keep him out of Neveranimas’s clutches, the same way you tried with me. Which is why I’m not fighting you on it.”
Varriguhl’s eyes narrowed. “You’re not?” He closed the teapot lid.
“You’re not?” Unlike Varriguhl, Kimat sounded disappointed.
“I’m not,” she repeated. “But I need two weeks.”
“Impossible,” Varriguhl snapped.
“Two weeks,” Anahrod repeated. “You file no expulsion paperwork, nothing goes on his record, and Gwydinion and I will vanish.”
“You don’t have two weeks.” Varriguhl wheeled over toward her. “I’m not the one who’s setting the deadline here. Neveranimas wants him consecrated tomorrow . After that, I can delay one, maybe two days, before the interview.”
“She won’t be alone,” Anahrod pointed out. “Interviews need interpreters. Another dragonrider, another dragon.”
“And if that other dragon is a loyal lackey? Tiendremos or Aldegon?”
Anahrod froze. Would Tiendremos care?
No. No, Tiendremos would not. And Jaemeh wouldn’t dare cross his dragon’s will.
Varriguhl waved a hand. “It doesn’t matter. Accidents happen. Especially when dragons are so very large and teenage boys are so tiny.” He leaned forward in his seat. “I’ve arranged things with a friend in the Church. Gwydinion will be picked up and processed and his paperwork lost . By the time anyone realizes otherwise, your brother will be back in Crystalspire, apprenticed to a lore keeper under the wrong name.” He leaned back again. “If you have another option, I’m willing to consider it, but it cannot wait two weeks. It cannot even wait one.”
Anahrod closed her eyes. They couldn’t do this in a day or two. Sicaryon had procrastinated retrieving the sword, thinking he couldn’t be sent away if they were waiting on it. He’d had time, hadn’t he? They’d had all the time they needed.
“May I ask what is so important that you’d jeopardize your brother’s safety by delaying?”
She lifted her head. “You may not.” She narrowed her eyes at the man, Kimat lurking nearby. “What’s the relationship between you two, anyway? It can’t just be the Grayshroud magistrix’s daughter selling her services.”
“She’s my great-great-granddaughter,” Varriguhl answered primly.
“Ah.”
Varriguhl placed his hand against the side of the clay pot. “How did you survive your execution?”
She rubbed her neck. “Asked a flock of blood crows to catch me.”
Varriguhl’s eyes widened. “And that worked?”
“Sort of. Broke a lot of bones.”
“But you lived.” He evidently decided the tea was ready and poured out three cups. He handed two to Kimat and motioned for the girl to bring one to Anahrod.
“Yes.” Anahrod murmured thanks to the girl and stared at the tea in bemused silence. It would be the sort of irony confined to stage tragedies if she reached this state only to be poisoned or drugged and turned over to Neveranimas. She sniffed the tea, detecting nothing untoward about the aroma.
She started to take a sip, then set the cup down on the table. On purpose, in part because she wanted to see their reaction. Kimat, for all her skills as a pickpocket, wasn’t the best actress she’d ever met.
“What if he ran away?” she asked the headmaster.
Varriguhl paused mid-sip, swallowed. “What was that?”
“What if Gwydinion ran away? He’s distraught—not even a lie—and has been given horrible news compounded with a huge mental shock. It wouldn’t be difficult to believe that a teenage boy in such circumstances might run. Would that buy me a week?”
His eyes bored into hers. “I think… yes. She’ll rip apart the undercity looking for him, you realize. Probably the docks, too.”
“She won’t find him.” In some ways, this would make the heist harder, because security would be tighter…
She paused. No.
The weakest chain in any defense was always the people—dragon or human. Neveranimas would demand more of people who’d already spent weeks running themselves up and down cliffs. If at that point Gwydinion were to be found… just for a day or so…?
If he went missing a second time, people would be too exhausted and sick of wild-crow chases to give matters the attention they deserved. You could silence the warning bells by making sure they never rang, or you could make them ring so often and so loud that people ignored the real alarm.
Anahrod knew what to do about Neveranimas’s response time.
“You’re thinking yourself very clever right now,” Varriguhl commented.
“No,” Anahrod responded, “just very sure about human nature. Draconic, too, I suppose.” She glanced back up at the headmaster. “One week, then Gwydinion will be found. When that happens, place him under guard—for his own protection—and let Neveranimas know she can meet with him as soon as the ceremony is finished.” She raised a hand. “I realize she’ll want to rush things. Agree to whatever she wants. I promise Gwydinion won’t make it to that meeting. Indeed, Gwydinion won’t be seen in Yagra’hai again.” Because if they pulled this off… Ris or Sicaryon both seemed like they might have sanctuaries. Gwydinion would adapt to the Deep. She had.
“You honestly think this will work?” Varriguhl seemed faintly skeptical.
“You don’t know what ‘this’ is,” Anahrod pointed out. “It won’t be worse than your plans to invest him in the Church. Neveranimas wouldn’t let that one fly either.”
The man paused, long fingers wrapped around his cup. “Have you figured out why?”
“Why she wants us dead so badly, you mean?”
“Yes. Just so.”
Anahrod looked back and forth between Kimat and her great-great-something-grandfather. She didn’t know why she was trusting him now of all times, but…
No. She knew. Because wretched as he’d been, every action he’d ever taken made perfect sense in hindsight, from the perspective of a man trying as hard as he could to save someone’s life despite themselves. Even if he had to ruin them to do it. Whatever else, he didn’t want Gwydinion to die, just as he hadn’t wanted her to die either.
“Eannis,” Anahrod said, staring. “I’m not the first one, am I? She’s killed others.”
He glanced down at his tea, pressed his lips together. “Yes,” he said. “Rarely often enough to seem suspicious. Around sixty years ago, I noticed children with certain blessings of Eannis never left Yagra’hai. Rampant dragons are so dangerous.” He sipped his tea.
Anahrod shuddered, leaned back, and petted the firebird for a few minutes. “I’m uncertain,” she admitted. “But my theory is that she thinks we can cure a rampant dragon. Not… not make one less likely to go rampant, the way a dragon’s rider can, but stop a dragon mid-frenzy.”
Varriguhl’s cursing drew her attention away from the firebird. The headmaster was patting at his lap, having spilled his tea.
“Let me get you—” Kimat ran for a towel.
“Can you?” The man’s voice held a desperation that Anahrod had never, ever heard before.
Of course. Ivarion.
“I don’t know,” she responded honestly. “I don’t—” She remembered that ball of pain and hate and rage that had been Modelakast’s mind. Like a condensed hurricane, so powerful that to come too close was to guarantee disaster. “I don’t know that I could without destroying myself,” she said. “It would be like someone who knows fire spells trying to stop a volcano from exploding.”
He nodded with a bitter smile on his face. “Yes, well. Perhaps it’s the potential she fears. The idea that you might one day… Thank you, dear.” Kimat had returned with the towel. “She’ll be furious if she thinks he’s escaped her.”
“Maybe we can do something about that, too,” Anahrod said vaguely. Ris had seemed certain this heist would somehow remove Neveranimas from power. If that happened, then Gwydinion could return the following year, if he was still set on becoming a dragonrider.
It was the best she could do.
She stood up. “We have a deal, then? You never file the paperwork that says he’s been expelled, and he runs away?”
The man was instantly full of bluster. “The cheating is important if—”
“He doesn’t get consecrated if he’s been expelled, Headmaster,” Anahrod reminded him. “And no consecration means no personal interview. Neveranimas needs to think that’s still happening.”
“The priests are leery of performing that ceremony,” Varriguhl explained. “I don’t need to spell out the reason when his augury was provided by a dragon’s death, do I?”
“Were the omens that inauspicious?”
He glared at her. “As long as it’s just an accident, they can pretend it never happened. No priest wants to confirm those readings, though.”
“That bad?”
“No, they were that good. For him, anyway.”
She didn’t know how she felt about that, a weird mixture of dread and pride, so she instead shoved that feeling aside. “Then don’t have the consecration, just lie, and say you did. Neveranimas won’t be checking to confirm your story.”
“What is wrong with you?” Kimat said. “Do you actually want this to happen?”
“No, I want Neveranimas to think it’s going to happen. I want her to think she’s in control. Do you want Neveranimas to think she’s about to lose him to some priest’s cloister because you kicked him out of school? She’ll kill every priest in town.” She found herself frowning.
Why hadn’t Neveranimas attacked the school, or rather, made a rampant dragon attack the school? Was there something special about this place beyond its headmaster and some draconic points of etiquette?
“Has a rampant dragon ever attacked the school?” she asked idly.
“Oh yes, many times.” Varriguhl smirked at her. “Suspiciously often in the early days of my tenure. But this place is so riddled with underground shelters and tunnel systems we’re like ants retreating into our nests. She can’t kill me here. She knows it.” The smile faltered somewhat. “That’s why I never leave.”
She contemplated what the last hundred years must have been like. Year after year of training kids to serve dragons, all the while knowing that some might be abused, but all would be dominated. Meanwhile, Neveranimas circling, picking off anyone with a chance of stopping her. She wasn’t sure if she respected him for it or despised him. How many children believed their lives were ruined when in fact they’d been saved?
She retied her veil. “You have an escape plan? A way to leave the city if the situation deteriorates?”
He sniffed. “Of course.”
“Good.” She gave the firebird one last head scratch. “Thanks for the tea. I’ll return tomorrow morning to give you the bad news about Gwydinion’s reaction to recent events.” She gave Kimat one last appraising look. The girl was in danger of forgetting she didn’t date fifteen-year-olds. Probably for the best that the teenagers didn’t have time for anything serious.
“I’ll tell him you’re sorry,” she said, just before leaving.