History
“Sal, you here?” I called, seeing the desk he usually sat at was empty.
Hearing rustling from the sea of bookshelves off to my left, I wandered in that direction, maneuvering around piles of books and scrolls stacked randomly in the aisles. The wealth of information that could be found in this place amazed me.
Over the past five months, Sal and I had decided to find as many old books I could help translate as possible.
Numerous items had been lost in attacks on the clan throughout the years, but with the vast memory of the recordkeeper, some were recreated.
I was getting much more proficient at my translations now that I was doing it every day, and I was even teaching it to Sal and his apprentice, Isabell, so we could get more done.
“Cassy, that you?”
I cringed at the nickname he insisted on using. “Yeah, Sal, where are you?”
“Over in the section of the Great War.”
Figured. Sal had me working on translating those records since it was a time in our history we didn’t have a lot of information on.
The Great War happened two hundred years ago between Norden and all the mercenary clans, and it was the beginning of our demise.
There were five major mercenary clans in our land, and before the Great War, they worked together under the mercenary king or queen to keep the kingdom running smoothly alongside the capital’s royalty.
As I translated each text, I was helping to uncover more information about the history of not only our clan, but the others, each of which had its own traditions and were represented by a different colored dragon.
The black dragon had always signified the Raven Rose clan.
The Jade Talon clan had the green dragon, the Hell Hawk clan the red dragon, the Bronze Reaper clan the brown dragon, and the Wind Fists clan the blue dragon.
Apparently, the golden female had always paired with a royal from the capital, and the purple dragon seemed to come and go in our history.
Most of the other mercenary clans were now on the verge of extinction due to Lord Everett’s plans to finish what Norden started so many years ago.
It was becoming clear my biggest task in ruling these people would be to find a way to help those clans regain their past prosperity.
When I finally found Sal, he was surrounded by open books strewn haphazardly around him, ink stains all over his hands and sleeves.
“Um, everything okay?” I asked.
“I’m close, I finally found records from the time of the Raven Queen.
During her rule, the clans prospered like none before.
She was also one of the only queens to take all her guardians as lovers and marry them,” Sal gushed, his wrinkled face glowing with excitement.
“This book is an advisor’s personal account of his time with the queen, but he only ever addresses her by her title, not her given name. ”
Squatting near him, I took the book he held out and skimmed over the passage. “This definitely sounds like the woman I’ve been dreaming about. Oh, look… here it even talks about her dragon, Cheery.”
Sal snagged the book out of my hands and looked to where I pointed. “Thank the dragons, we’re finally getting somewhere.”
“You do realize we’ve translated more than any other generation has before us. I would say we are more than getting somewhere.”
“Yes, yes, but this is information that has been truly lost to us. We don’t have much on her daughter, Queen Emery, because of the Great War.
So many records were destroyed, and nothing was written for fear it would fall into the wrong hands.
To this day, we still don’t really know what happened to cause the divide between us and the monarchy.
If you truly want to build us back to our former glory, that knowledge is going to be invaluable.
Now take this stack with you to work on next,” Sal said, waving at six books he’d stashed off to the side.
Collecting my books, I left Sal’s house, knowing I wasn’t going to get anything helpful from Sal while he was like this. Once he latched onto something, he wouldn’t be deterred until he found what he was looking for. With that in mind, I headed back home to start work on the books in my arms.
My life had fallen into a new rhythm of early mornings and late nights.
I would have five days of various combat training, then I would spend a day with Sal learning about my role and translating.
Thankfully, I got a day off once a week to do as I pleased.
Most of those days, Vasin and I would go flying, getting to know the mountains we now called home.
We would also spend those days working on things only he could teach me, like how to use my Birthright and how to strengthen our connection over distances.
The stronger I grew in our connection, the more often I had dreams of the past. It seemed I was following the life of one of our past queens—the Raven Queen, as the historical texts called her.
Some nights I felt like I was intruding as I watched her falling in love with her guardians and them with her.
Then other times I watched her as a child with her loving parents.
It got to the point I felt like I knew her as well as I knew myself.
I still couldn’t figure out why this particular ancestor had decided to latch on to me.
“Cassarah, Earth to Cassarah,” Becka’s voice finally broke through my thoughts.
“Becka?” I startled, looking up from a scroll I was supposed to be reading. “Sorry, lost in thought and didn’t hear you come in.”
“I was asking if you wanted to join some of us on a hunt tomorrow. It would be a great chance for you to test out your skills. You’re doing great learning all the riding tricks, but that’s in an arena. We need to get you out into the real world,” Becka said, her eyes alight with excitement.
“Does that mean I can skip the normal training? I’m happy to go if that’s the case,” I said, grinning. “I won’t get better without a real-life situation to challenge me, after all.”
With Abbott and Cole training me, I was getting stronger and faster every day, but I still had much to learn.
Abbott beat sword drills into me until I did them perfectly, even in my sleep.
He even added a heavy, weighted leather vest and bracers for me to wear when we fought hand-to-hand.
As for my work with Cole, I was now a master rope climber, feed-sack tosser, and well on my way to getting myself out of any knife fight.
He said we would soon be moving on to live steel instead of wooden daggers for our sessions.
I could also pick a lock faster than anyone in the clan.
“Perfect. I’ll let everyone know you’re going. The boys will be happy too, since now they can come with. I’ll let you get back to studying.” Becka paused at the door and turned to look back at me. “You really should be proud of yourself… you’re doing amazing.”
“Thanks, Becka,” I said, smiling at her as she waved goodbye and left me to my studies.
Lost once more in my reading, I smiled, feeling the fire of determination growing.
Just like Abbott promised, I’d been able to revive the passion and confidence my mother had smothered.
Through our time training together, Abbott had become a steady constant in my life.
He pushed me further than I thought I could go, but he was always there to pick me up when I fell.
The soothing way he helped me work through my fears and conquer them drew us closer.
Cole had also become someone I leaned on, though he was the opposite of Abbott’s calm.
Cole was the spark to light the tinder in my spirit.
He got under my skin and brought out my competitive side.
Everything between us started as a clash, driving me to prove him wrong, and even though most of our conversations still ended in an argument, I knew he had my back.
A tapping on my connection to Vasin interrupted my thoughts. “Cass, come take a break from the past. A lesson outside in the fresh air will do you good. Your nose has been buried in books all day.”
“A break sounds good. I was getting a bit stiff sitting here. Hey, how far back does your memory go?”
“I have memories from the very first dragon hatched here and bound to a human. It seems that any time before we paired ourselves to your kind has been lost. In my opinion, the fact we started bonding with humans created the chain of memories.”
“I have to admit, that is one amazing ability you guys have,” I mused out loud as I headed down to the kitchen.
I plucked an apple out of the bowl on the table, waving at Helena as I left out the back door.
“Don’t go too far. Dinner will be ready in an hour,” Helena called after me.
“Okay,” I said over my shoulder.
“There is no need for us to go very far. We can practice in the woods nearby,” Vasin said as I reached him.
It was crazy to me to see how much he’d grown before my eyes over the past months. He was now as big and stocky, far larger than a draft horse, and his wingspan was so large we needed to take off in the meadows. I reached up to scratch his head, now the same size as my torso.
“What did you have in mind for today?” I asked as we ambled our way to the forest behind the house.
“Now that you can reach me across long distances and don’t have to rely on your emotions to trigger your Birthright, I want to work on harmonizing.
I have been wary of exposing you to that connection because of what happened when you ventured too far into my consciousness.
I do not think these dreams are harmful to you, but I still do not understand why they unlocked in you as they would for us dragons,” Vasin explained, watching me out of the corner of his eye.