There was some minor embarrassment the next morning, when Herald opened the strongroom door to see who was knocking and what they wanted. It was Ardek; what he wanted had to wait, as he apologized profusely and walked away with quick, determined steps.
“I do not see what the problem is,” Herald said, though her own blush made me doubt how truthful she was being. “He has seen me in my nightclothes before. We slept next to each other for weeks!”
Mak just laughed at her. “That was before we caught him admitting to Simdal that he’s been lusting after you. But since you’re clearly not bothered—”
Herald blushed even darker at that. “I am not!”
“Well then, let’s see what he wants! He’s a big boy. He’ll survive a little embarrassment.”
What he wanted was Zabra out of the inn, as soon as possible. I would have expected Herald to support him, but she was busy not being at all bothered, which meant hiding behind me, not looking at Ardek and not saying a word.
“I was trying to have breakfast,” Ardek said, “and the Sorrows’ own Night Blossom walked in and sat down with me! Right across the table, with a mug of tea!” The despair in his voice would have been funny if he wasn’t so obviously upset by the experience. “Is she staying here now? Will she be going back to the house? I don’t think I can handle having her around!”
“Did she do anything?” Mak asked.
“She knew my name!” Ardek almost wailed. “She knew which people I was with when our fair lady here ‘recruited’ me. She apologized! She asked my forgiveness for putting us in that situation, for the danger we were in because she underestimated Draka. I kept expecting her to stab me under the table!”
“Yeah, you don’t need to worry about that,” I told him. “She knows that you belong to me. Hardal… be careful around Hardal, maybe? Who knows with him? But Zabra will be out of here once Kesra is awake and strong enough to move, so you’ll just have to hang on a little longer.”
Mak looked at him curiously “Why are you so worried about her anyway? You said that she apologized to you.”
“So did you, and that scared me more than when you beat the shit out of me.” Ardek took a breath and gathered himself somewhat before continuing. “Listen, I used to be in a gang, right? Or, I used to be in a bunch of gangs, but the one I was in right before I joined the Night Blossom. Two days after we joined, Berek and Ava and me, our old boss, Spur, he came to find the Blossom. Walked right into a tavern she owns while she was there. So, I wasn’t there, but Rosh, another guy you killed, he was there and he saw what happened, okay? So Spur, he walked in there with some of his guys, and he complained right to the— to Zabra’s face about how she’d poached some of his members. And she apologized. Told him how of course she hadn’t meant to poach anyone’s people, and how she’d take care of it right away. Then she whips out this long curved knife and just slashes his throat, just like that, while Hardal cuts down the other guys. In the middle of a tavern. And then she says — and Rosh swore that this was true — then she says that there, now he can’t complain about her poaching his people anymore.”
I thought about the emotional wreck that was Zabra. Ardek’s, or Rosh’s, story didn’t exactly fit. Then I thought about the woman who’d stood outside my cell and casually told one of her men that if Mak wouldn’t stop crying, he should bring Herald down there and break her fingers until Mak shut up. That was the woman in Rosh’s story. I wondered if that woman was still in there, under the fear and the remorse. A small part of me wondered what it would take to bring her back out. That woman, with some restraints on her and under my control, could be very useful.
I sent Ardek away with my assurances that Zabra was harmless, at least to anyone under my protection. He literally had no choice but to trust me, so he seemed, if not happy, then at least satisfied with that.
With Ardek gone and a whole day ahead of me I was at a loss for what to do. I didn’t have any meetings or anything else scheduled. I could visit Jekrie and his people, then take a look at my hoard, but I’d rather not go out flying again just yet.
I killed time. I read a little; Herald had money to burn and was buying every adventure story and trashy romance she could get her hands on, and they did wonders for my reading practice. I talked to people, mostly checking with them, and with the man himself, how Avjilan was settling in. It turned out that he had proven himself something of a carpenter. These past few days he’d been helping out with maintenance around the inn during the day, and the previous night, while me and the girls were preparing to destroy a gang, he’d been singing in the common room. Missing that was a bit of a disappointment; everyone agreed that his performance had been very well received, and I had no trouble believing them. His voice was literally magic.
I also checked in with Herald, Mak, Kira, and Tam to see how they were doing, in general but more specifically Heart-wise. Kira, unsurprisingly, was entirely spent. She’d blown all she had bringing Kesra back from the dead, or the brink of death at the very least, which… yeah. Fair enough if that took it out of her. Herald and Mak could both feel that their stores were running low, Herald a little more so than Mak, which tracked. Herald had used her magic while we fought the previous night, and Mak hadn’t. As for Tam, he still felt full up and was loving it. All this pretty well confirmed what I’d suspected: as long as someone had some Heart in them, it would burn off slowly. My suspicion was that strengthening their minors had a small, constant cost. They could also use it to make any magic they had more powerful, the way Kira had, or the way I did when I dreamwalked, or when I obfuscated things by permanently cloaking them in shadow. Of course, I could hold orders of magnitude more of the energy than a human could; one more example of how being a dragon was completely awesome and totally unfair.
It still didn’t feel like I was spending my time well. Practicing my reading, making sure that my new human was doing all right, and learning more about how humans dealt with the power of the Nest Hearts were all important, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I should be doing something else. Something productive.
Late in the afternoon I must have started giving off some kind of distressing vibe, because Mak came down to check on me. That, or she’d wanted to let me deal with it myself and finally couldn’t take it anymore. Whatever the reason, she knocked on the door and let herself in, and before I could say anything she just asked me. “Draka, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I huffed from where I lay. Then, at her flat, unimpressed look, I rolled my eyes at myself. Trying to lie to Mak about how I felt was somewhere right at the top of the most ridiculous things I could possibly do. “I feel like I’m wasting time,” I told her. “I’m just… lying here. Not doing anything.”
“You’ve done plenty today.” Her tone was gentle and cajoling, like she was handling a fussy child.
“I’ve had some good talks, sure. And I read most of a book that no decent person should sell to a lady Herald’s age.”
“I noticed,” Mak murmured. She was completely unembarrassed. I was not. I had a pretty good idea of just what she’d felt from me, and I moved on quickly. “Anyway, I haven’t done anything to… to get me anywhere, yeah? There’s a dragon coming. A dragon. An adult, full grown one, that people call ‘Reaper.’ They might be here as soon as within a week, from the council’s estimates, and I have no idea how to prepare for that. And I feel like I’m not getting any closer to living out in the open. I mean, everyone should know by now. I landed in the middle of the Forum, for God’s sake. But what are people saying about me?”
“Word’s getting around about you attacking bandits, and there’s a rumor now that you wiped out the White Cranes and the raiders in the south. But there’s also a lot of fear and uncertainty,” Mak admitted. “Rumors that you attacked the Palace to take over the city, and that the Cranes were forced to flee after trying to drive you off. Utter horse shit like that.”
“What about the staff here?”
“They all seem pretty supportive, honestly. We in the family have all been taking a pro-Draka position, obviously, and no one wants to go against their boss, but I haven’t felt like anyone’s tried to deceive me when the subject of ‘the dragon’ came up. Especially since our resident Wolves have been talking to anyone who’d listen about how you attacked those bandits, way back, and how the people you killed in the harbor were pirates and slavers. Their word carries some decent weight.”
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
“Oh. Well, that’s nice,” I said, then, after I thought about it some more, “Hey, Mak, remember how I asked you to think about introducing me to the staff?”
“That was the day before yesterday, Draka. Yes. I remember.”
“What do you think?”
Until then she’d been standing just inside the door. When I asked that, she came over and sat against me, and started stroking my neck gently. “This really bothers you, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah. This place is as much my home now as my lair in the mountain. Maybe more so. And it feels like— no, I am hiding in my own home. Most of the time I don’t ever go out into the main cellar in case someone needs to run down and get something. I’m sick of it.”
“And you want to let them know now?”
“I don’t know. I guess? At least then I’d have taken a step towards living here openly. I could talk to those two kids, Relki and Sana, and show them that I’m not as bad as they think. I could get to know everyone and hang out in the main cellar instead of in here, and talk to them when they come down. Stuff like that. And, I mean, someone will figure it out sooner or later, right? With how often I come and go from the yard, at least one of them must have seen me by now. And you lock them out of the cellar so often that they must put two and two together any day now. Why not just tell them before it gets out anyway?”
“I’ve been thinking about it, since you asked,” Mak said, still in that soothing tone. “And I’ve decided that we have two choices. Either we wait until the council throws their support behind you—”
I snorted. “That could take months. Hell, it could take years.”
“Or we do it now,” she continued, ignoring my interruption. “I get the feeling that you want to do this before you face Reaper. And I can guess why.”
“I don’t want to die for a city that doesn’t want me.” Admitting it was hard, but if there was anyone I could tell my fears, it was Mak. It was messed up, I recognized that, but Mak would never judge me. She would never think less of me.
Mak turned around so that she could put her arms around my neck, and pressed her cheek into my scales. “You’re going to be fine, Draka. All right? You’re going to be fine.”
“You don’t know that.” My throat felt tight. My stomach was twisted up in a tangled little knot of fear. “You don’t know that I’ll be all right.”
I would be facing a full grown dragon. I had no idea what their intentions were, or if they were as bad as all the stories said: cruel, deceitful, and greedy. I had no idea what their reaction might be when they found another dragon already living here.
I had to face them, because everyone I cared for was potentially in terrible danger, depending on what Reaper wanted. There was a very real chance that they’d kill me, and I did not want to die.
Mak’s hug grew tighter, but her voice was no less calm and soothing. “I do know that. I know that you’ll be just fine. Because you’re Draka. You’re my sister, my friend, and my mistress, and you are far too magnificent and amazing to die.”
I didn’t know what to say. An unhappy noise escaped me, and I wrapped my neck around her as she continued.
“You may not win a direct fight. I don’t think it’s impossible, but I want to be realistic. But you will not die. You simply won’t. You’ll find a way to survive. You’ll get away, and you’ll hide, and you’ll recover, and then you’ll strike back. And if you have to, you’ll find a way to keep us safe. All right?”
“All right.” I wish I could have been half as confident as she was. She probably couldn’t even entertain the thought of me not winning in the long run. I could very much see myself losing horribly in the first minute after meeting the other dragon. But lying there with Mak, feeling her absolute confidence in me, I realized that it didn’t matter what I believed. Losing wasn’t an option. She was right. If it came to a fight, I’d survive. I had to. I had to keep my humans safe, and that was all there was to it. Why even worry about something that couldn’t be allowed to happen?
“All right,” I said again, with more confidence. “Yeah. I’ll keep you safe, one way or another.”
“I never doubted it. Now, about introducing you to the staff. I think we should wait until tomorrow.”
“Any particular reason?”
“A few. We need to give some notice that the bar won’t be staffed. We need to make sure that everyone is in at the same time, and let them know that we want them assembled so that we can tell them something important. And we need to be prepared in case someone bolts.”
“Oh, right. Yeah.”
“What do you want to do if that happens?”
“I— let them go, I guess? I don’t want to— you know.”
“You don’t want to enforce secrecy?”
“No? I don’t think so. I want you to tell them that you’ll tell them something that they can’t spread around, and that you’ll have to fire them if they do, but… no. I don’t want to have to break anyone. If they leave, and spread the word, fuck it. We’ll deal with it. Do you think that’s a good idea?”
“I think that it’s a risky idea. But I don’t think that any of our remaining employees would do that, so the risk is much smaller than it might have been. And, in the end… Draka, you know that I have to tell you what I think will be best for you. And with how much this clearly bothers you, well, I think we should do it.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow,” she agreed.
----------------------------------------
Tomorrow came quickly. Mak had been thinking about how to handle my introduction to the staff for two days, so there wasn’t much to plan. She took care of making sure that everyone already in the know knew what was happening, and what she wanted from them, which wasn’t much more than their presence. Herald was a little miffed that I hadn’t discussed it with her, but she was also Karakani enough to accept that I’d turn to Mak, as the head of the House.
More seriously, the idea of sharing me with so many more people clearly inflamed her jealousy and possessiveness again. It wasn’t comparable to when I brought Zabra and Kesra, but then, Herald liked or at least got along with everyone on the staff. She still needed an evening alone with me to reassure her, and I was only too happy to give her that. We read together in silence, and then I taught her some English. She loved it, and it took my mind off my nerves. By the time we woke up the next morning there wasn’t a trace of her insecurity left.
That brought us to about an hour after breakfast. There were things to do around the inn, of course, but nothing that couldn’t wait. And apparently Avjilan could man a bar, so the morning drinkers didn’t even have to brave the rain to find somewhere else to ruin their livers.
The cellar ended up quite crowded. Towards the outside door stood my family, Kira and Ardek. Closer to the stairs, where they could easily leave if they freaked the hell out, were the two street rats, Relki and Sana, as well as Reben, the inn’s former owner and current manager. There was also his daughter, who ran the kitchen; her husband, who was the primary custodian and handyman; and their two daughters, Reben’s granddaughters, who did much of the cleaning and serving. And then there were the three additional maids who did a little bit of everything, rounding off the ten person staff, Avjilan not included. All in all there were sixteen people down there, and I hadn’t even made my entrance yet. I was waiting in the shadows behind the central rack of barrels which divided the main cellar.
Once everyone had settled down an expectant silence settled over the room, and Mak stepped forwards. “Thank you all for coming. I’m sure that you’re all curious why I’ve called you down here, of all places. And why I’ve asked you all to never speak about what I’m about to show you. You’re asking yourselves, ‘Why the secrecy?’”
“Yeah!” Relki said, earning him a light smack on the head and an embarrassed “Shush!” from his older sister. “I’m sorry, Lady Drakonum,” Sana said, bowing quickly. “Please don’t look too harshly on my brother.”
Mak only smiled. “I know that you all have things to do, so I’ll try not to drag this out. As you all know, we have frequently declared the cellar off limits, which has caused some difficulty with restocking the bar and the kitchen, among other things. There was a good reason for this. To put it simply, someone has been living down here.”
There were some surprised mutters at that. And between the barrels I could see Relki’s eyes go huge as he first looked at Herald and Mak, then turned to look at his sister, who had gone pale and completely rigid.
“She has been a dear friend to us for many months now. In every way that matters, she’s family. But she is also someone who values her privacy, and her secrecy,” Mak continued. “However, she has decided that she wishes to give up some of that privacy, and that secrecy. You have all proven reliable and even tempered. Not one of you who was here tried to run when the Cranes attacked, and not one of you who wasn’t here was absent once the threat was over. I trust you all, and I have told our secret sister that I believe that she can trust you as well. So, without further delay: Draka?”
On my cue I stepped out of the shadows and took my place among my family, facing the other ten people who spent their days and, in most cases, nights in this inn.
No one ran, which was nice. Sana fainted, which was… better than screaming or running. And Reben’s son-in-law caught her, so she didn’t get hurt or anything. Other than that there were some gasps, and some muttered prayers to the gods and the Mercies. Many of them took a step or two back, Relki stood over his sister looking ready to fight, and two of the girls had to sit down. Overall, much better than I’d feared.
“Good morning,” I told them, and one of Reben’s granddaughters joined Sana on the floor. “My name is Draka. I’m, ah… I’m a dragon? Pleased to meet you all.”