Over another lovely meal at the inn the next morning, Kalin had explained his situation to the mage, whose name was Sophia. She had confirmed it was the Master stage she’d made it to, though her bedraggled hair was the only evidence of the night of drinking and carousing. If it hadn’t kept Kal up half the night, he might not have known from her appearance that she’d barely slept, if she had at all.

There were many benefits to being a high-ranked mage. In addition to the mind-boggling magical powers and diplomatic near-immunity he knew about, apparently they were also impervious to hangovers.

Sophia had been kind and talkative, and had left before the meal arrived. Unfortunately for Kal, other dragon-mages did not seem very comfortable around one of their own who had a badge and staff but not the actual dragon. He’d gotten that impression from some of the instructors at the outpost, but their dragons hadn’t sniffed around looking under the table before staring at him with bared teeth and a distinctly suspicious expression.

He’d been impressed. Most of the dragon’s at the outpost hadn’t quite mastered the art of human body language yet, and in any case most of them lacked the extravagant facial fins of Sophia’s dragon, which had certainly heightened the effect.

Luckily for him, Sophia had ordered before she suddenly had to leave, so he had gotten a chance to try the buttered asparagus tips.

They’d been good. Not good enough to make up for the fact that he’d been totally useless on his first mission and hadn’t even had a chance to succeed, but tasty. Enough to motivate him to get out there for his second day on the job with a good attitude.

It was remarkable, he reflected, as he knocked at the door of the first stop on his list, how a full belly of good food could change your outlook on things.

In fact, despite the anticlimax of the quarry, Kal found himself truly looking forward to the day. If this was the first step toward becoming the warrior he knew he could be, he would take it. He smiled at the middle-aged woman who opened the door.

“Hello ma’am, my name is Kalin Bowden, and I—”

“Ain’t no ma’am,” the tanner growled. “And what you are, is getting off my front porch!”

She slammed the door, but he deftly wedged a toe in to stop it, wincing slightly as it bounced off his foot. He’d always wondered why the Elders made such a point of wearing boots of reinforced leather.

“Apologies.” He pulled out his seal of office. “I heard you were wounded, and came to apply this poultice of greenroot, and to offer some advice on wound care. Twice daily you should—”

The tanner grabbed the poultice from his hand, kicked the toe of his boot with her bare heel, and slammed the door in his face. This time the door slammed home with a thud and a latch, and from behind it Kalin heard a grunt that might have been thank-you, or maybe a curse.

Well, he thought, standing in the mud of the street as wagons covered in waxed canvas trundled by, at least she took the poultice. He'd have to spend a few hours later to replace the plants he'd used from his store, but she would have plenty to see the wound healed.

Though it wasn’t what he’d expected to ever be doing, he’d learned from the life-aspect tutors that human interaction was a vital part of healing, and this sort of experience was not necessarily uncommon for traveling healers.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

There had been a lot of those ‘practical ethics’ lectures. Kal had gotten the impression that at least a few of the mages who taught them thought that there was nothing they could really learn until they had a dragon and real magic of their own to work with, which was perhaps why some had focused on the more mundane aspects of the job.

He gave it another moment’s thought, then shrugged, and made his way to the next stop, weaving through the mules and oxen who snorted their steamy breath into the cold air and churned the mud ever deeper with their hooves.

***

The wiry, white-haired man squinted at Kalin through a pair of absurdly thick lenses.

“Hmm,” he said finally. “No dragon. Hmmmmm.”

They stood on the old man’s doorstep, and inside Kalin could see a pleasant fire burning in the hearth and something savory bubbling in the large black pot that hung above the fire.

It would have smelled quite nice, without the lingering odor of mold and dank leaking through the cracked door.

Kalin had gotten through the basics of the situation easily enough with the man, who hadn’t introduced himself.

About a month ago, the old man’s roof had begun to leak. Only during heavy storms. Then they’d had a spell of unusually fine weather and he’d put off getting it fixed, and by the time the issue came to a head a few days ago, the disaster at the mine was well underway and the town carpenter had been down at the quarry, along with anyone else who knew enough about structural woodwork to help.

Now the roof was fixed up fine, but the mess remained. The water had pooled in the cellar, and though the [Carpenter] had kindly lent her apprentice for the morning to haul buckets of water up and out, about an inch and a half of water remained. Kalin had caught the apprentice on their way out, and they’d shaken their head and remarked that it was the finest laid foundation they’d ever seen, and the water would probably take another two weeks to drain entirely.

It was the kind of problem that, most of the time, you just dealt with.

“Where’s your magic come from then?” The old man spoke like some small dogs barked; harsh and loud and sudden after a long while of suspicious watching. He closed one eye like he was having trouble focusing on Kalin even through the thick lenses.

“I do technically have a dragon. Maybe. They think—”

“Maybe! What’s your game, child? Made some sort ‘o pact? Hmm?”

Kalin was twenty-three. He’d been one of the older recruits at the outpost.

He decided not to quibble about the finer aspects of different schools of magic. Plenty of magic classes were pact-based, when it came down to it. Whether you were licensed and registered to a dragon or made an oath to serve a cricket in the grass, the result was the same.

Well, the trickle of life magic a cricket could provide wasn’t exactly the same, but in principle, the process was. There was a reason no one had ever heard of any famous [Cricket-Mages].

Though now that he thought about it, his friend Archie had always talked about that strange uncle of his…

“Like I said, I can do magic, and I’m still a cleric. My instructors were quite pleased with my progress in magic theory, and all the scholars agree that all a human needs to do to attract a dragon is to dedicate themselves com—”

“Where is it, then?” the man demanded, poking a bony finger in Kalin’s chest with surprising force.

“I…haven’t found it yet.”

He didn’t mention Instructor Alyssa’s theory that he actually had bonded a dragon during the ceremony, only it was an unknown variety that stayed invisible most or all of the time. And didn’t communicate with it’s partner in any way, shape, or form. Kalin had his doubts.

Kalin also wasn’t as sure as Prioress Evelyn had seemed to be that there really was a dragon out there for him. He more than half believed he’d have to make his way alone. But he didn’t think saying that out loud would help the man trust him either. And in any case, he had made it far enough through the Ceremony to give his general oath of service to the Order. Even without the oath that would have bound him to a dragon, he had a commitment.

Finally his impatience bubbled over.

“Look, do you want the water out of your cellar or not?” he asked sharply.

“Never said that, did I?” the old man mumbled, opening the door a bit wider for Kalin to squeeze through.

Kalin sighed and stepped inside.