6. Darian
Chapter six
Darian
Bacon.
Which one of his uncles was cooking bacon?
Darian rolled over, his eyes still heavy with sleep. His blankets were warm and cozy, and opening his eyes felt an impossible task.
But if he didn’t get out there, they would ruin the bacon.
He threw himself out of bed and grabbed a shirt before stumbling out of his bedroom into the kitchen, where Celia stood, her dark brown hair in a knot on her head and her brown eyes sparkling with suppressed laughter as she took in his bedraggled state.
“In a rush this morning, are we?” she asked.
Darian flushed as he pulled his shirt over his head. “I was not expecting company,” he said, looking at her with a grimace. “I apologize.”
Celia waved her hand at him. “I’m a healer. It’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”
Darian’s ears burned. Apparently, he was nothing special. He’d always thought that he had a good physique, but apparently it wasn’t anything worth mentioning.
He turned to see his uncles sitting at the table, openly laughing at him.
“Good morning,” Uncle Amos said with a grin. “Glad you finally decided to join us.”
“I wasn’t aware she was coming,” Darian said, glancing at Celia.
“You did say I could come and speak to your uncles,” she reminded him as she began dishing bacon onto a plate and scooping eggs next to them.
Darian’s mouth watered as he took in the spread. There were also biscuits with a crock of butter and a jar of jam already sitting on the table.
“How long have you been here?” he asked.
“Oh, I made the biscuits at home.”
“So what did you want to talk to us about?” Uncle Bram asked Celia, smiling as she delivered the plates of bacon and eggs to the table.
“I would like to know why Darian can talk to the dragons and I can’t.”
Uncle Bram nearly spit out the mouthful of tea. “I’m sorry, what?” he asked.
“Darian can speak to my dragons, and I can’t,” Celia said matter-of-factly.
His uncles exchanged a look.
Darian’s gut churned, and he put down the piece of bacon he’d picked up. They did know something, after all. He had almost hoped they didn’t know anything about dragons, that they hadn’t been keeping a secret like this from him his whole life.
But they knew.
“I didn’t realize you had dragons,” Uncle Bram said conversationally, as if he hadn’t nearly spewed his tea everywhere. “How did you come about them?”
“I’m a healer,” Celia said as she took a seat at the table with them.
“I’ve given up healing humans, but when I found baby dragons that needed help, I couldn’t resist. They don’t have anyone else, so I might as well help them.
But when Darian came, he was able to have a conversation with them, where all I hear are squeaks and chirps. And he said you might know why.”
His uncles turned to him with nearly identical expressions of disbelief.
“Why do you think we know anything?” Uncle Bram asked.
“Because you know everything,” Darian pointed out. “You’ve told me so many times.”
His uncles grimaced at each other.
“Well, that backfired,” Uncle Bram muttered.
“Are you saying you don’t know everything?” Darian asked, with a pretend gasp.
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Uncle Amos said. “We do know quite a lot. But not everything.”
“Do you know about this?” Darian asked.
Uncle Bram sighed. “Give it up, Amos. He’s an adult. He knows we don’t know everything. And if you keep leading him on, he’s gonna think we know all the things about dragons that we definitely don’t know.”
There was a hidden current under his words. He knew more than he was letting on, but Darian didn’t want to push him yet.
“Do you know why I can talk to dragons?” he asked.
Uncle Amos shrugged, spearing a piece of bacon with his fork.
“Some people have that ability,” he said.
“It’s not one I’d go spreading around, though.
Magic is illegal, you know. And I’m sure dragons would raise some eyebrows.
You haven’t told anyone else?” he asked Celia, pausing with the bacon halfway to his mouth.
Celia shook her head. “Darian was the first person to discover it, and now you two. But I agree with you—I don’t want it to get out that I have baby dragons. There are people who will take dragons or dragon eggs as a source of power.”
“We have to protect them,” Uncle Bram remarked.
“Who’s ‘we’?” Darian asked sharply.
Uncle Bram shook his head. “Not me. I meant as a general ‘we.’ It’s not something that I personally have any experience with. But when we were children, it was known there were people who would do so. Of course, we also thought dragons were a myth,” he said with a barking laugh.
But there was something underneath it that felt not quite honest.
Darian glanced at Celia, who was watching the three of them with her arms crossed against her chest, then back to Uncle Bram.
“So I’m able to speak to dragons,” he said, “but that’s it? And you don’t know why? And you don’t know where it comes from?”
His uncles shook their heads.
“Magic has been illegal for too many years for us to know,” Amos said. “Our parents may have known where it came from, or our grandparents, but that’s no longer something we know.”
“Could my mother speak to dragons?” Darian asked. “Or my father? Is it something that was passed down?”
He didn’t know much about his father. His uncles claimed they didn’t know who he was, only that his mother said his last name was Emberlin.
“It would more likely be your father,” Uncle Bram said.
“If Melody could speak to dragons, she certainly never told us, and I think she would have. We were thick as thieves as children,” he said to Celia with an air of confiding a great secret.
“Some siblings may not like their brothers and sisters, but that was not us. We were close—closer than most. And I think we would have known if she was sneaking away and talking to dragons.”
“But you didn’t know she was sneaking away to meet my father,” Darian pointed out.
At the pain that crossed his uncles’ faces, he wished he hadn’t.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“No, you’re right,” Uncle Bram said. “We had started the store by then, and your uncle and I were wrapped up in it and paid less attention to your mother. It’s one of the things we regret most.”
There was a lump in Darian’s throat, but Uncle Amos added, “If she hadn’t, though, we wouldn’t have you. And we don’t regret that for a moment.”
Darian nodded, but the action felt hollow. If his uncles had missed that, who was to say they hadn’t missed his mother sneaking away to see dragons? Perhaps his mother had discovered the nesting grounds the same way Celia had, and perhaps she had discovered the same secret he had.
“Now, Celia,” Uncle Amos said, turning to her with a smile, “tell us more about yourself. I know I’ve seen you around the store sometimes, but you don’t talk about yourself much.”
“For a reason,” Celia said curtly.
And now they were changing the subject.
“Ah yes,” Uncle Bram said good-naturedly as he took another bite of eggs. “But then you barged into our home before all of us were awake and asked us personal questions about our nephew. So I daresay we have the right to ask a few personal questions about you.”
Celia narrowed her eyes at Uncle Bram, and Darian resisted the urge to laugh. If there was one thing Uncle Bram was good at, it was getting someone to talk about themselves—even if they didn’t want to.
“I told you,” she said. “I’m a healer.”
“There must be more to the story than that,” Uncle Bram said. “If you don’t heal humans any longer…”
Celia picked up a piece of bacon and put it in her mouth.
Darian smirked. That was one way to avoid answering the question.
Judging by the way Uncle Amos’s shoulders were shaking with silent laughter, he also appreciated it.
“You can ignore him,” Uncle Amos said, shooting Uncle Bram a look. “He doesn’t understand boundaries.”
“What are boundaries?” Uncle Bram asked with a shrug. “They only work if you want to keep them.”
“I want to keep them,” Celia said with a slight smile as she reached for a biscuit and began to butter it. “I think that revealing I have dragons is enough for one morning.”
“So you’ll be back?” Uncle Bram asked. “I certainly wouldn’t mind it.”
Celia smiled smugly. “I’m sure,” she said. “Who wouldn’t like someone showing up to their house with eggs and bacon and homemade biscuits? I know I wouldn’t mind.”
As his uncles chortled and scooped more food onto their plates, Darian took a mental note of her remark. Perhaps he should show up with eggs and bacon and homemade biscuits—although that would probably scare her off, since his homemade biscuits were nothing like this.
He was not a very good cook. None of them were. Something about being raised by bachelor uncles left him with dismal cooking skills.
This was some of the best food he’d had in years, aside from when he’d eaten dinner with her the other night.
“I thank you for your hospitality,” Celia said with a smile as she finished eating her biscuit and stood. “Would you like me to wash up?”
“Oh, no, no, no,” Uncle Amos said, also getting to his feet. “You cooked, I’ll clean. Sit and finish.”
“I am finished,” Celia said.
Uncle Bram waved his hand at her. “You can’t be finished,” he said. “You haven’t eaten enough.”
“I’ve eaten plenty,” Celia said.
But Uncle Bram shook his head. “I won’t hear it. You sit, keep Darian company while he finishes.”
And with that, both his uncles got up and started cleaning, leaving Celia and Darian sitting next to each other.
“Can you tell they’re trying to set us up?” Darian whispered with a furtive glance at them.
Celia let out a grunt. “I have no interest,” she said. “I simply want to know more about the dragons.”
Darian grinned at her. Of course that was all she wanted, but there was something about her that was irresistible, and he hoped he could change her mind.
If she truly wasn’t interested, he wouldn’t push it, of course. But if she was open to it…things could change between them.
“If you say so, ma’am,” he said, the corners of his mouth turning up.
She shot him a sideways glance. “You don’t have to call me ma’am,” she said.
“That’s what I call all of our customers,” he said with a smirk. “And you don’t want to be more than that, correct?”
She gave him a sideways glance. “I suppose so,” she said with a suspicious look. “But you still don’t have to call me ma’am. Celia will do.”
“If you say so,” Darian said.
She sighed and stood, her plate scraped clean. “I have everything I came for,” she said. “I must head back now.”
“Darian will walk you back,” Uncle Bram said, suddenly paying attention.
She very nearly grimaced, turning it into a cough instead. “Oh, that’s not necessary.”
“Do you not want me to come along?” Darian asked.
She shook her head at him. “I don’t need help carrying anything today.”
“You never know,” he said with a shrug. “You might want someone in case they set your house on fire.”
Celia rubbed her hand over her face. “I hope they haven’t,” she said. “They’re going to be the death of me.”
“They better not be,” Darian warned. “Maybe I’d better have a talk with them if you think they might.”
Celia shook her head. “No, they’re not actually going to set me on fire.”
“Besides,” he said, turning the corner of his mouth up, “I should ask Sod how he’s feeling today for you. Maybe he can tell me something about his leg that will help you heal him faster.”
Celia raised her eyebrows at him, and he fought the urge to laugh. She was too easy to bait.
“Pass the butter, please,” he told her, and when he took it, her fingers brushed against his.
She looked up at him and swallowed hard, her dark brown eyes staring at him like she would drown if she looked away.
He would drown right along with her.
Uncle Amos let out an “oof” and Darian looked up to see Uncle Bram’s elbow leaving his brother’s gut. “Darian should walk you home to be sure you’re safe,” Uncle Amos said.
He couldn’t resist whipping his head back to see Celia’s reaction and was rewarded with her actually rolling her eyes at that one. “You mean the walk that I have been doing by myself every day, every time I come to town for the past two years?”
“Yes, of course,” Uncle Bram said. “I’ve heard there are dragons lurking in the meadow.”
Darian resisted the urge to snort, but the corners of Celia’s mouth twitched.
He nodded seriously. “I think I agree with my uncle. I would feel terrible if something happened to you on your walk, and I could have prevented it simply by being there.”
Celia sighed. “You just want to see the dragons again. Is that it?”
“Is there a problem with that?” Darian asked. “I would think you would be excited to have an interpreter come with you.”
He could barely keep the innocent look on his face, but it was worth it when Celia sighed and said, “Let’s go.”
“Yes, let’s go,” he said, getting to his feet.
His uncles gave each other a high five behind their backs.
“I’m going to go see how the baby dragons are doing today,” Darian told them.
His uncles nodded sagely. “As you should.”
“All three of you are ridiculous,” Celia muttered under her breath.
“Thank you for breakfast,” his uncle said. “Come again soon.”
Celia sighed and made her way to the door. “Coming or not?” she asked, looking back at Darian.
“I’m coming,” he said. He gave his uncles a thumbs up.
His uncles returned the gesture as he made his way to follow her, and Darian tried not to laugh. They were far too obvious. But he had to admit—choosing to follow Celia felt like one of the best decisions he’d made in a long time.