Chapter 1 #2
“You’re more trusting than I and likely to take a sweet from a stranger,” Sylin said.
“I meant about the beauty.”
“You’ll want to watch out for the dragon too,” the dwarf added, her gaze squarely on Rylana now.
“He doesn’t take kindly to human soldiers, and you’ve the look of one.
” Cupcake in hand, she gestured toward the chain mail shirt visible under Rylana's tunic, the bow and quiver, and the combat boots that had seen a lot of use in the dragon-filled mountains that rose out of the mists of the southern jungles.
“See, there is a dragon.” Sylin nodded, as if she’d known for certain all along. Maybe she had. Elves had more ability than humans did to sense the magical, and dragons, with their ability to fly, breathe fire, and shape-shift into other forms, were definitely that.
“He’s the chef,” the dwarf added, then popped the cupcake into her mouth. “I really must stop eating so many of the samples,” she murmured to herself, then went inside.
Rylana faced the diner’s dragon door again, but all the warnings were succeeding in making her believe this establishment would be best avoided. She still had a few coins. She didn’t need a job immediately. Just… soon.
“There have to be alternatives. Didn’t you say your wealthy family lives across the lake here?
” Sylin waved toward the west where, opposite of the city core that sprawled along the eastern side of the lake, ancient castles that had been turned into manors of wealthy families stood along the shoreline, each on sprawling acreages overlooking the water.
“I’m not asking the father I haven’t seen or even written to in seventeen years for money.”
“Didn’t he offer you a job in the family business once?”
“He tried to force me into that job after torturing my brother and me with ten stifling years of nonstop tutoring and testing. If my lute teacher hadn’t let me sneak out into the woods to practice with the neighbor’s bow, I could have gone insane.
” Rylana didn’t mention the worst part, that her father had tried to arrange a marriage for her to a socially acceptable landowner whose family also had an estate on the banks of the lake.
That had been what had ultimately prompted her to flee the city and become a mercenary in a far-off land.
“You’re lucky you were an orphan, Sylin. ”
“Oh, yes, all orphans are thankful every day that they weren’t born into wealthy families where missed meals were nonexistent.”
“I bet the wolves didn’t make you learn the lute.” Brimming with determination, Rylana thrust open the door.
So what if there was a dragon? If he was hiring bookkeepers, she was a bookkeeper.
Rylana stepped inside to the most wondrous of smells.
Was that bacon? With a hint of sweetness like maple?
The scent wafted through a tidy dining room with not a speck of food or grime on the tile floors.
Illuminated by daylight flowing through the windows, the back half was further brightened by lamps and sconces adorned with paper-thin wooden shades that had been burned with the same dragon logo that was on the door.
Despite the sumptuous scents, only two booths were occupied, one by a man eating skewers of meat while reading a newspaper, the other by an amorous university-age couple, the girl sitting in the guy’s lap as they giggled over bowls of stew.
Or maybe that was the soup the goblins had warned them of.
The other booths and a dozen or so stools at an empty bar in the back were unoccupied.
A hallway beside it led toward a swinging kitchen door, what might have been an office opposite it, and to what looked like a large supply room taking up the back half of the building.
A pale-skinned gnome with shaggy black hair, bare feet, and wearing an apron sat cross-legged in a corner of the dining room, next to a toolbox and a knee-high mechanical contraption, a panel open in its side.
Busy tinkering, the gnome didn’t acknowledge Rylana's entrance.
Nobody did, certainly not the giggling couple.
Since the gnome looked like he worked in the diner, Rylana started toward him, but the kitchen door swung open first. A handsome man as tidy as the dining room walked out in black trousers, an apron, and a crisp cream-colored shirt with the sleeves evenly rolled up to reveal muscled forearms. He had short silver hair, emerald-green eyes, bronze skin, and radiated power even though he was carrying a tray, not unlike the dwarf baker across the street.
Instead of cupcakes, his held a plate of sliced meat under a precise dollop of gravy and surrounded by cubes of beautifully colored vegetables.
It had been a long time since breakfast, and Rylana's mouth would have watered, but she was promptly struck by there being something familiar about the man. No, that was undoubtedly a dragon shape-shifted into human form. There was a scar beside his right eye that stretched back into his hairline, and when his emerald eyes locked onto her, Rylana rocked back. She’d met him before. She was sure of it.
The dragon in human form roared and lifted the tray, as if he might hurl it at her—or against the wall in a fit of rage—but he caught himself and instead set it on the bar before springing toward her.
Rylana slung her pack and her weapons off her shoulder as she rushed back outside where she would have more room to maneuver.
But the cursed tranquility ribbon kept her from drawing an arrow.
The presumptuous magic even zapped her when she tried to pull one from her quiver.
Furious, she threw her bow and quiver to the ground and pulled out her utility knife, the only blade the peacekeepers hadn’t tied.
“Problem?” Sylin, who’d waited in the street, asked calmly.
“I’ve met that dragon before.” Rylana backed farther, surprised he hadn’t yet charged out after her.
A roar sounded again, not the vocalization that might come from a man’s throat but the thunderous heart-rattling roar of a real dragon. It came not from the front room of the diner but the alley behind it.
“You met him?” Sylin asked. “Or one of your arrows met him?”
“I think he got a real personal introduction to the contents of my quiver, yes.”
As Rylana crouched with her knife, a shadow fell over them.
Scrapes came from the rooftop of the diner—talons gripping the gutters.
A huge silver dragon with great muscles bunching under sleek scales glared down at her, and his fang-filled maw opened, saliva glistening on teeth like daggers. No, like swords.
Rylana looked down at the ridiculously small weapon she held. Her knife wouldn’t even scratch one of the dragon’s scales.
“I’m dead.”