Chapter 31
Perhaps he was still in the clutches of the dragon, but Ainsworth suddenly knew, lying there in the dark, that if he went to the tavern room, Honey would be waiting for him.
He was not compelled to go in the same way he had—almost—been compelled by the dream to abandon his plans.
But still, he knew he would meet her. So he wasted little time in throwing on a shirt and trousers and rushing out into the hall.
It only occurred to him as he entered the tavern room that he forgot to put shoes or socks on.
Honey was sitting in front of the hearth, the fire down to its last embers. She had her back to him, still wearing her dress from earlier that evening, her hair unbound and spilling down past her shoulders.
“Honey. What was that?”
She pulled her knees to her chest, and her tail curled neatly around her.
Ainsworth walked closer, gripping the edge of passing chairs as he did so to steady himself. “Honey. Answer me, please.”
Honey did not answer him. He reached her, knelt down, and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Y-you’re a Dragon Pèidse, aren’t you? That’s how the dragon’s curse manifested in your family.”
Ainsworth remained still and dared not to breathe as he awaited her answer. Finally, he felt trembling beneath his hand. His gut twisted. Was she crying?
Oh, how could he have been so blunt about it! “Honey, I’m sorry, truly I—”
Ainsworth removed his hand from her shoulder as she placed her face in her hands and let out an almighty sob.
“Oh, Honey, I— I’m terribly sorry, I did not mean to upset you!” He sank to his knees in front of her. “Please, what can I do—?”
Honey peered up at him, her eyes twinkling with tears and a wry grin on her face.
She was laughing, not sobbing.
“You really are stupid for a scholar, Ainsworth!” she burst out, wiping a tear from her eye.
Ainsworth was so stunned that he almost fell back into the smoldering embers of the hearth. “How can you laugh at a time like this?”
She continued wiping her eyes. “I know; I’m sorry. This is actually all very serious, but—a Dragon Pèidse. Really? With what just happened, you come to that conclusion?”
She finally rose and stretched her neck. “It’s exhausting work, manipulating everyone while they sleep. Get us something from behind the bar, will you? Then meet me up in the attic. I’ve a feeling I have a lot of explaining to do, and it’ll be best done away from prying ears.”
Before he could reply, she shuffled off through the hall, yawning as she began to climb up the stairs.
“A-all right, then…” Ainsworth said, grabbing them a bottle of wine from behind the bar and making a mental note to pay Bren first thing the next day. He was not entirely sure why he was doing what she asked, but he also knew he’d very much like a drink before finding out just what was going on.
He crept upstairs to the guest room within which lay the steps to the attic, the wood flooring oddly comforting and warm beneath his feet.
He hoped they would not be too dirty by the end of the night, then marveled at himself for fussing over such things during a time like this.
Plus, Ainsworth had to creep past a room of snoring guests to get to the attic stairs, and he hoped Honey had indeed pulled everyone, somehow, into a deep sleep.
Thankfully, none of them stirred.
“A whole bottle! What a treat,” Honey said when he finally arrived in the attic archive. She stood clutching one of Beatrice’s journals in one hand, with her other palm flat in the air, a globule of light emitting from it.
“I’ve never seen you use magic before,” was all Ainsworth could think to say.
“Ah, well, it gives me away, you know?” she said with a grin. It took Ainsworth a moment to realize that her eyes were as they had been in the dream: a molten, shimmering gold. “As does my temper, which I do my best to keep under wraps. A challenge ever since you stormed into my life!”
“Honey, enough jesting, please!” Ainsworth said, sitting on the rug and uncorking the wine.
He gestured at her to sit opposite. Beyond her small globe of light loomed Ainsworth’s work: tightly rolled scrolls and neat piles of parchment, journals, guest logs, and accounts lining the bookshelves.
Above, the ghostly light of the full moon shone through the small attic window, which was supplemented by the warm glow of Honey’s light.
“Please. What is going on? Who are you?”
The silver charms dangling from her horns caught the moonlight.
She sat down as Ainsworth poured them both a generous drink and watched him lift his glass.
As he savored the slight burn in his throat, he could not help but notice how the shape of her horns, the arch of her cheekbones, and the swish of her tail all reminded him of the dragon who had pursued him in his dreams. “If you aren’t a Dragon Pèidse, then—? ”
Honey sighed, taking a sip of her wine. “I suppose I am a Dragon Pèidse, but they…aren’t what you think.
” She put down her glass and placed her hands on the floor beside her, the black claws of her nails tapping against the wood.
“I did consider telling you everything sooner. With your book, your research, I knew it was only a matter of time before you figured it out. But still, I…couldn’t quite bring myself to do it, or to turn you away from the inn. ”
Without thinking, he reached out and placed a hand on hers, and she looked up at him, startled, but did not move it away.
“The Dragon Pèidse, as the tale is spun…they’re a lie, Ainsworth. A lie spread by dragons themselves, so that their secret is not revealed. There are no servants of dragons. All right—there are, probably, but they aren’t souls who are cursed or blessed by dragons, or anything so dramatic as that.”
His mind was racing, but he could not put the pieces together. “Then…what are they?” he asked, unwilling to accept the answer he knew, in his heart, was right in front of him.
Honey, restless, got to her feet and, still holding out a hand of light, paced the short length of the room while seemingly browsing the archive’s shelves.
“A Dragon Pèidse is a dragon. Shifted into humanoid form, so they can move freely and undetected throughout the land. Every dragon is capable of this.”
Ainsworth cast his mind back to the hooded figure in the bar. “A-all right. And if you came to me in my dream, in the form of a dragon, then—?”
Honey idly pulled a journal from its place on the shelf and flicked it open with one hand. “Then, yes, I am a dragon. I am the dragon who resides on Mount Vengeance. Well, at the foot of Mount Vengeance now, I suppose.”
He tried to let her words settle, but instead they seemed to crash into his awareness like they had been thrown down by the beat of a dragon’s wings.
“But—” He struggled for words. He had so many questions!
Yet his thirst for knowledge of the wider world, not just who and what was in front of him, won the battle in his mind.
“Why? Why would a dragon wish to move through the world in such a form when a dragon’s…
for want of a better term, dragon form, is so much more formidable? ”
She stared down at him. “That’s what you want me to answer first?”
He nodded.
“You don’t want to know why I infiltrated your dream? Why I kept this from you?”
“Well, yes, I do. But I need to understand the whole picture before I can understand the details, Honey.”
She seemed, once again, to struggle to contain her laughter. He waited patiently while she composed herself, and wondered if it would be inappropriate to record her words with parchment and quill.
“Ah, Ainsworth. You spent months in this attic, organizing the history that was right there in front of you, and yet…” She shook her head.
“Very well, then, scholar. I need to clarify something, though. What I’m about to tell you…
Well, I left the path that life set out for me a long time ago, so I do not feel bound to that life’s rules as much as I used to.
But it still feels right that I warn you: This is knowledge forbidden for me to share with anyone who is not dragon-kind.
And you—you are a scholar with the means to try and distribute this information. ”
He bristled. “Well, knowledge is important! It should be widely and freely available.”
She rolled her eyes. “I agree, but this…My kind would come for you, Ainsworth. And most likely for the Skarrow Library, too. They can be foul, spiteful, greedy creatures. Not to mention violent—”
He held his hands up. “All right! You have my word.”
She gave a clipped nod and stopped her pacing in the middle of the room, below the window and the cold light of the moon.
“Dragons are not typically…maternal creatures. When we hatch, we have only a few weeks of supervision before our mother returns to her hoard. Then we are left to fend for ourselves, wherever she sees fit to place us. I could not even tell you my mother’s name, and I doubt she still lives; the only thing I know of her is that she chose to place me atop the yet unnamed peak that would later be known as Mount Vengeance. ”
Ainsworth frowned. “So…?”
“We’ll get to the name later,” Honey said.
“But first, when young dragons are left in their new territories, three things spur us on. First is the need to hunt. Not just for food, but to establish the territory as our own, to prevent another dragon from dropping her hatchling in a similar area and forcing us to fight for the claim.”