Chapter 57
Lance
“Well, that didn’t get us very far,” I said as we walked out of the university grounds.
“Professor Rathbone promised to send us a copy of any maps he finds.”
Fern was trying very hard to be optimistic, and I didn’t like that at all.
Lad. I prodded my dragon. You keep saying the answer is in the earth. Have you got anything more concrete than that? There is nothing Auren wants more than to find that nest.
I know. Never before had I heard Viridian sound so despondent.
Well, not since the time I was held against my will.
I search, brother. I search and I search, digging in the earth, looking for the answers.
I will dig up every inch of Nevermere if I must to find this for my mate.
There is nothing that will stop me from trying.
“Viridian doesn’t have anything useful to add either,” I said, waving down a nearby carriage. “I guess we’re back to square one.”
“We could go down to the docks.” Kael paced back and forth. “The toffs might not have any ideas, but the common people know more than they let on.” He glanced at me. “Some of the villages close by. Talk to the farmers there and see if they’ve seen anything strange.”
“If there’s no map of all the ruins.” Lorien grinned. “No one said we can’t make one ourselves.”
With a plan in place, we all piled into the carriage. All three of our hands went out to help Fern inside, and I couldn’t help but grin when she clasped mine. It meant I took the seat beside her when she sat in the corner.
“We need to have a discussion about sharing,” Kael growled, but his gaze softened when he looked Fern over far too thoroughly. “Something that could bring us all pleasure.”
Her gasp, the resultant good natured jibing washed over me as I looked past the other two to where Dain was staring resolutely out the window.
“Perhaps after you share what you saw when you touched the sculpture?” I said.
Dain ignored this, but Fern spoke up.
“I was in some kind of underground cavern, tied to a post.” Kael’s leer grew. “About to be sacrificed to the three white-gold queens…”
His smile faded as she told us the alarming story of her experience. The second hand horror of it was still washing through me as we arrived back to the keep, only to find a much more concrete threat waiting for us.
“Afternoon, cadets.” Frederick approached, slapping a roll of papers against his free hand. “No need to salute.”
“Wasn’t going to,” Lorien muttered.
“Here’s your new class schedules.”
The way his eyes sparkled, the smile he shot me, made clear that no one was going to like the changes.
“What classes have you been assigned to?” I asked as I looked over Kael’s shoulder.
“Animal husbandry,” he replied. “Carpentry, metal work.”
All physically demanding manual labour, and most importantly, classes that as a woman, Fern would not be admitted to.
“What’s this about, Frederick?” I asked.
“General’s orders,” he said. “Got any questions? Take it up with him. Speaking of which, the general asked you to drop by his office, Lance.”
“Guess we better get to class then.” Kael’s innocuous reply, the fact he walked away without further comment to the officers, let me know he had something else planned. “And while we waste our time learning skills we picked up years ago, you can do a little recon for us,” he told me.
“Recon?”
Fern and I looked at him, confused.
“The library is ‘closed for fumigation,’” he replied as Lorien came to stand beside him. “Mad Murdoch’s office was ransacked. Seems like someone else is chasing the same information we are.”
“You think the general is behind all of this?” I said. “The man is a bastard, but all he has to do is walk into any department of the university and demand to see the results of their research and it would be handed over.”
“Not if he doesn’t want anyone to know what he’s looking for.” Dain was usually a sullen presence lurking at the edges of our group, but right now those dark eyes bore into mine. “Whatever was taken from that office, it wasn’t something he wanted to request through official channels.”
So I needed to search for hints in the general’s office to see if I could determine what it was.
I stood outside the general’s closed door, my hand hovering as I considered what they were saying.
General Rex tearing the room apart, tossing books and papers everywhere.
It felt too ridiculous to consider, but…
I’d learned first-hand the terrible things people are prepared to do when they feel like their grip on power was slipping, so I rapped my knuckles on the door.
“Come in.” The general’s voice had a distracted air and when I walked in, he glanced up, closing the book he was reading and then setting it on the stack on one corner of his desk. “Lance, m’boy. I heard you made a little trip down to the university today?”
Gods, did he watch our every move? Academically, I knew the man had people reporting to him throughout the keep, but his words gave me pause. When he gestured to the seat in front of him, I sat down.
“Yes. I know I was supposed to be teaching a class today, but—”
“The Lady Fern wanted to leave the keep. Don’t worry, lad. I can cover your swordsmanship classes, but unfortunately, she has not been receptive to any of the other men's overtures. You took the silver riders with you.”
That was said less as a question and more a statement of fact.
“They invited themselves along,” I replied, and that was true. All the best lies were grounded in the truth. “Not something I appreciated, but I was willing to tolerate them for Fern’s sake.” His brows drew down. “However, I was the only to kiss the lady.”
I didn’t want to reveal this. Taking out something so very personal and sharing it with the man felt fundamentally wrong, but there was something about the general’s intent gaze that had me telling him anyway. Perhaps because now he sat back in his chair, looking like the cat that got the cream.
“Well done, Lieutenant. So, during this trip of yours. Did anyone else end up… sampling the lady’s charms? I’m going to need a full briefing on what happened while you were away.”
This was to be expected. I’d prepared for this meeting over and over in my mind on the whole trip back to the keep. Somehow I still felt unprepared. I took in a shuddering breath, ready to report, when the office door was flung open.
“What is the meaning of this?” the general snapped at the officer standing in the doorway. “The keep better be on fire to warrant this kind of interruption.”
“Thought you might like to know, sir.” The honorific was tacked on hastily. “Two of the silver riders got into it in the foyer. We tried to drag them apart, but the minute we thought we had them settled, they’d lay into each other again. Something about the lady dragon rider?”
“Did they?” Rex was on his feet, a sharp smile on his face.
“Fighting in the keep? That’ll earn a cadet a night in the stockade.
I think I’ll deliver that information myself.
Lance.” I stood up. “Stay here.” He glanced down at his desk drawers, then shook his head.
“I’ll be back shortly and you can tell me exactly what happened. ”
Leaving me unattended for some minutes as the general went to deal with the issue. Slate and Brightfang’s riders did this deliberately, Viridian said. They told me to tell you to—
Investigate the general’s office, I thought.
Kael had to have instigated this to buy me some time. I saluted politely, then sat back down, right up until the point the door closed behind the two men.
Rifling through a man’s personal space sat badly with me, but if Rex was conspiring against us…
Some part of me was still the idealistic boy that had been transported from a life in the poorer areas of the Wyrmpeak to a Royal Rider.
I didn’t want to believe it of him, until I inspected the pile of books.
It was now apparent why the library was closed.
Text after text on dragons, their history, even the archaeological studies of human inhabitation of Nevermere, were included in the stack and it wasn’t the only pile of books.
There were more piled up on the sideboard, the bookcase behind the general’s desk.
Slips of paper poked out of their edges, indicating where the man had found something of interest. Far too many for me to look at them all now, but I could make a start.
I flipped the first one open and then started to skim the page.
Some have surmised that the gods and goddess from our pantheon were actually based on ancient dragons of the past. When our primitive ancestors saw the terrible powers these massive beasts were able to wield, it is understandable that they would deem them gods.
Statues unearthed around Wyrmpeak support this theory.
The triple dragon statues that are now displayed in the royal museum are so similar to the depictions of the Dread Sisters as to suggest that the dragon works were the inspiration for the form of the triple goddess…
I slipped the bookmark back in, opening to the next tabbed page.
Legends speak of the White Death, a dragon of such immense size as to blot out the sun itself.
We have reason to believe that rather than a singular dragon, this was actually three dragons.
It was always assumed that Drathnor was a male dragon, but archaeological records have revealed that she, as well as her sisters, Skael and Tharla, appear to be continental dragons that travelled across the channel periodically.
This is evidenced in the relics found beneath Wyrmpeak which seem to mark the reproductive cycles of the beasts.
We believe they visited what is now the mountain adjoining the keep of the Royal Riders to birth their eggs in the hatching sands…
My teeth ground together. I wasn’t the audience for a scholarly thesis on the origins of dragonkind, but an internal voice shouted at the writer, wishing they’d just get to the point.
But it wasn’t an academic’s thoughts on ancient dragons I needed, but the general’s.
What the hell was he reading all this information for? I flipped through the book faster now.
Dragons have been hunted aggressively on the continent since time immemorial, with only the far smaller beasts that can be used for domestic purposes being allowed to reproduce. It is for this reason we think that Drathnor and her sisters travelled so far to bear their young in Nevermere.
Not helpful, I thought, reading on.
Skael and Tharla appear to have been brought down in a coordinated attack by the chromatic dragons that are the forebears to the beasts that fly the skies of Nevermere. This may be due to the fact that there is little evidence of chromatic dragons mating with the white-gold queens.
I paused for a second, thinking about Viridian.
What were once thought to be fertility idols, appear to be representations of the mates of the dread sisters. Each dragonstone sculpture was clad in a beaten layer of silver metal.
Silver mates with gold, I thought.
Initial thoughts were that these were painted, to represent the different colours that naturally occur in chromatic dragon scales. However, no pigments have been found in or around the excavation other than malachite.
A copper ore that was characterised by a pattern of radiating circles, I knew it well.
Someone had tried to sell Dad a sword with it inlaid into the grip, but my father turned it down.
While the hilt was a truly beautiful shade of deep green, he’d made clear such a sword would shorten a man’s life through the absorption of the chemicals through the skin.
Green…? I blinked. The only pigment used at this site was green?
That had me wanting to read more and discover why, but that wasn’t why I was here.
If we were allowed to access the books, I could’ve pursued the reason why at leisure, but I couldn’t right now.
Where in Wyrmpeak were these sculptures dug up?
Were they around the keep hatching sands?
There was unlikely to be anything left of Drathnor standing there.
The mountain had been turned into a military compound hundreds of years ago, but we could easily check.
The antipathy other dragons express towards the green of their kind could– the book continued.
Brother. Viridian’s voice was like a poke in my ribs, demanding my attention.
Just a moment, I replied.
The general, that human, and all the others with him are almost at your floor, he said.
Shit. I flipped through the pages faster and faster, looking for something, anything that might help.
Pages and pages of dry history, finely drawn images of sculptures that resembled the one in the foyer of the Centre for Dragon Studies.
Dramatic renderings of what I assumed was a war fought between dragons.
He’s nearly there, Viridian said.
I was pulling away, ready to put the book back where I found it, when a bookmark fell free.
Leaving it on the floor would make clear what I was up to.
Opening the book to a random page, I sought to shove it inside, when I saw a curious thing.
A drawing of a wooden staff, dragons writhed around the shaft of it, then three dragon heads opened their jaws to secure a glowing ball of what I assumed was dragonstone in the centre.
For several heartbeats, all I could do was stare.
Now, brother, Viridian insisted. Move now!
Book snapped shut. My feet moving right before I threw myself down into the chair. I had seconds to arrange my body into a relaxed pose. Glancing up, the door opened and in walked the general, looking terribly pleased with himself.
“Divide and conquer,” he said. “It was only a matter of time before those idiots turned on each other.” The man sat down and turned to face me. “Now, tell me everything that happened on the trip. Don’t leave out any of the details, no matter how small.”
I watched his eyes narrow.
“I cannot share the reason why, except to say some very important information has come across my desk and it makes clear that Auren can never be allowed to mate with the silver dragons. I must have all the facts before I can put my plan into place.”
How he missed my stricken expression, I didn’t know, but I cleared my throat and then straightened up.
“Of course, general. Where would you like me to start?”