I watched Ushra’s black eyes as he stepped in. They were orbs almost sunken in a face hundreds of gyras old, and there were depths to those eyes. Whatever sense of dragons I might have, I wouldn’t push it trying to read Ushra.

Those eyes were lingering on the orange drake high-walking in. The ancient alchemist was frowning.

Under that gaze, Adwyn entered. A red dress was flowing under him, swishing as he walked in, gleaming in the fain light of the loversuns. His metallic-red eyes met mine as he entered, then he glanced around the room and his gaze settled on the dark-jade wiver.

“Ah, Gronte-gyfar. Greetings,” he said, and inclined his head with it. His brilles were clouding in a way which had them glinting slightly in the sunslight, and he may have missed the brief frown on the old wiver’s face.

Turning to our end of the slab, he added, “And hello, Specter-eti, Gären-eti. I was looking for you both, in fact.”

I saw Hinte lean forward, and I waved my tongue, murmuring, “What winds that we’re both here, then.” Stabbing a bit of chicken and lifting it to my mouth I stared at him through a window’s reflection. I wondered whether someone could have listened in on our conversation last night, and I chewed.

The military adviser looked to me, smirking. He said, “Not quite a coincidence, you see.”

I coughed a bit, the meat choking a little in my throat.

“I had come to meet you first, Kinri-cyf. But then I saw you flying and decided to follow you here.” There was a careless toss of his head before he added, “You aren’t quite observant.”

“Come and sit, Adwyn-sofran,” Gronte said, waving at the two empty mats.

The orange drake lay down in the spot beside me. He did that on purpose, he had to.

“And now, we only need to wait for Digrif.”

I glanced up to the ceiling, some tile pattern looking even less colorful than the black and brown floor. Up there were thirty-six hexagon tiles in a skirmboard pattern, dark gray on darker gray.

I tapped a thoughtful rhythm on my snout. Would it take long for Digrif to get here?

The warm-gray drake would show up to games long past the first act, sometimes past even the second act. When he checked out scrolls from the library, he’d always turn them in late, at least back when I had been volunteering. And while he often came by the Llygaid Crwydro putting in orders for tools or supplies, not once had he come by to pick them up. Someone else always had.

Briefly, Digrif was terrible about showing up to anything on time. But he’d seemed excited about Hinte’s exploits last night. Maybe he’d show up earlier because of that?

…After Hinte had finished her plate, after I had started my second chicken, after Staune had fully crunched Ushra’s proffered nut, after Gronte finally started eating her food, after Ushra had filled his leaf of fernpaper and then begun talking with Staune in whispered Drachenzunge, after so many well-measured moments, it really seemed I had been expecting too much.

After more conversation, after more impatient glances leveled at Hinte, there at last came that long-awaited knock⁠ ⁠—⁠ it could only be Digrif. Ushra left again and you heard a quick exchange from the hall and then a slam of the door.

The light-green drake returned alone.

“Who was that?” I asked.

“Some of those ashwitted Dychwelfa ac Dwylla dregs. Such a waste of time.” Then, almost under his breath, he added, “We never would have tolerated these orts back in the forests.”

“Why not?”

He whisked a wing. “Religions and similar residua are banned in the forests.” He settled back on his mat, letting his parrot Staune nibble on his sweet root.

Gronte coughed, said, “Were banned. You know that’s not the case anymore.”

This time he whisked the wing at Gronte. “Feh. It is their own erosion. The ashes are not the forests, and I shall not consider them so. I’ve nothing to do with them.”

Dropped my chicken, peering at Ushra, I asked, “How is that even possible?” My foot was still tapping on my snout. “That’s like saying you’ve banned art or something.”

“Ah yes, we did try that once, but it… did not work so very well. Easier to let dragons waste their and energy as is their wont.”

At that I widened my frills a bit, and saw the adviser do the same. Gronte let her head rest on a foreleg, clouding her brilles. Before I could ask what he meant, a purple parrot bounced back in through the doorway and fluttered onto the slab.

“Ceya, I have returned!” said the bird. Wasn’t he checking on some Monsoon or something?

Gronte looked at the parrot, a glare angling into her frills. “I didn’t hear the hatch open, Versta. When ask you to do something, I expect that you do it, not lie about it.”

“But⁠ ⁠—”

“Check on Monsun, Versta.”

The bird spread his wings and fell backward from the slab. Landing on his feet he disappeared through the door once again.

“What is Monsoon?” I asked.

Gronte glanced at the dark-green wiver. Tapping her locket, she said, “Another parrot of ours, one who is not in adequate health.”

“Why doesn’t Versta want to check on them? Is it just him acting hatchy again?”

“It is… private. I’d rather not discuss it with strangers.”

“Oh oops, I’m sorry.”

Adwyn was still looking at Ushra. “Did the forests truly ban art? It seems a little… difficult to believe.”

“No,” started Gronte, “Ushra is just twisting history for a joke. There was a time when the paints and parchments used by artists were scarce and restricted for us in war, but that was long before even the rule of clans, and it was hardly systemic.”

Beside me, Hinte clenched her feet together and looked at the orange drake. She asked him, “Why were you looking for us.”

“Ah yes, that. I⁠ ⁠—”

Another knock came from the door, just before the first long ring. In reply a trill came up from the empty mat and Versta poked his head up, looking to Staune, who was perched over the nut I’d given her.

“Ueh, Toastyfeathers! Wanna bet that’s not the one either? I’ll take yer nut.”

The old wiver stood up with a sharp glance at the purple parrot. Her voice came slow and deliberate, sounding more dangerous than when she had seemed a pitch from shouting. “Versta, what are you doing in here?” I found myself almost dewing sorry for the little bird.

The purple parrot ducked back under the slab while the dark-jade wiver stalked around to him. He darted out from the slab between me and Hinte, running then leaping for the doorway while we watched. Gronte followed him out, slipping into muttered Drachenzunge that didn’t sound very nice at all, at all.

“Poor bird.” Hinte dipped her head. “What was he expecting?”

Adwyn had watched this happen out with that same disquieted look he had worn when he saw the humans. “What is this all about?”

I glanced around the slab. Gronte had left, and so had Ushra sometime while I hadn’t been looking. “This is the third time Gronte-sofran asked him to go check on one of their other parrots, who’s sick.”

“Ah.” Adwyn licked his eyes, and said, “It’s unsightly, you know. Hearing an animal talk. Is it a forest-dweller thing, or are Ushra’s magics stranger than I’ve heard?”

The red bird squawked at Adwyn and spread her wings, but Hinte stopped her with a tonguesnap. “Come here, little hen,” the wiver said, and she held out her alula and the red parrot flew over to perch there.

Looking back to the drake, Hinte said, “No. Dragon-tongued parrots have been around for thousands of gyras. Our histories speak of our parrots in the same breath as snakes or monitors.”

Staune cawed and added in Hinte’s voice, “And Ushra is an alchemist, not a magician.”

“You hardly have a head large enough to correct me, little hen.”

When Staune squawked and flew at him the dark-green wiver didn’t try to stop her —⁠ but Ushra stepped through the door just after the red bird took to the air.

“Staune,” was all he said.

The bird landed just so, and looked back at the old drake. But her head lowered, and she scuffed her way back to Ushra’s filled fernpaper⁠ ⁠—⁠ not before kicking her foot out at the orange drake.

Behind Ushra, a familiar drake dragon trailed into the room.

“Wow Hinte!” was his greeting. “I knew you were up to something awesome, but I didn’t expect you had been adventuring!” His wings hitched up and down in excitement. He vibrated.

Hinte groaned. “I was not adventuring.”

“She wasn’t,” I echoed in her defense. “It really wasn’t that much of an adventure.”

“You traveled deep into unmapped parts of cliffs! You fought monsters! You two are totally adventurers,” he said as he stepped into the room, laying himself on the other side of Hinte. Hecking Adwyn. Why did I have to sit next a freaky canyon-dweller instead of Digrif?

“We didn’t do a whole lot, though,” I said.”

“The point is moot, perhaps,” said Adwyn. “I glimpse Hinte is the hero of the day.”

Adwyn saw me frowning at him, and he returned a pale-eyed, lip-twitching glance.

I was a hero too, wasn’t I? I sighed, my frills drooping like the sad willows in the front yard. I returned to staring at the tiles on the ceiling.

“Digrif-ychy has finally arrived,” started Gronte as she high-walked back into the room. She continued, “So, now that we are all present,”⁠ ⁠—⁠ she tapped her locket, Hinte, can you tell us what did happen out in the lake last night?”

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Hinte told her story, one foot held over the other. Looking down at her feet, she started only at smelling the blood and sweat.

Gronte had stopped eating partway through, watching her granddaughter with worried looks and clutching her locket. Ushra, on the other foot, seemed to continue eating his meal as he listened, moving his utensils, but on closer inspection, no part of his plate had grown smaller as the story went on. Adwyn picked at his claws, looking around the slab at Ushra and me. And on the last foot, Digrif hadn’t wavered a bit in his excitement.

When Hinte reached the point where the humans attacked, mentioning how it had been my plan that outsmarted both humans, Digrif glanced over at me, and my glumness fought giddy excitement for rights to my lips. Adwyn glanced my way too, but I ignored him.

When you heard how heroic this story sounded from Hinte’s perspective… maybe you wouldn’t think I wasn’t a hero. I had needed Hinte to save me from the olm, to convince me to fly toward danger instead of away, to finish off the humans. I hid from Wrang when he took the weapon from the human, and had been no better than bait against the humans.

As Hinte reached the point where the rockwraiths had attacked, Digrif bounced on his mat. The rockwraiths. That was all me, the one point in this story where I might look middling heroic to anyone else.

“Hey,” I interrupted. Everyone turned to me, Hinte looking up and Adwyn glancing up from his claws. “Can I tell this part of the story, Hinte?”

She inclined her head. A quiver of nervous anticipation flew through me, lighting as cloying chagrin on my fangs.

“Um,” I started.

Adwyn twitched his lips, and my frills flared in embarrassment. This was such a mistake! Why did I go through with this horrible idea?

Then Digrif shifted on his mat, facing me with an easy smile. I don’t know why, but knowing he was listen gave me the drove me to continue⁠ ⁠—⁠ instead of the opposite.

“So. I had been following behind Hinte. We were, uh, above the lake and it was pretty foggy and I could hardly see in front of me. So I just followed after Hinte. She had her, err, goggles, so that she could see a lot farther in the vog…” A small smile lighted on Gronte’s face.

“But she couldn’t see the wraith when it shot out of the vog beside her — it plunged right into her side⁠ ⁠—⁠ and then another appeared right beside it about to take her head off! But she dodges in time and it misses. So they start fighting, but while that was happening I was attacked by two others. I threw one off by distracting it with the human I was carrying, but the other would not stop chasing me!” Digrif was shifting on his mat again, leaning about as far forward as he could without slipping.

“So I flew up and it followed me up and I grabbed it and slammed it into the lake. But by now they were both attacking me at once and I couldn’t get a hit in edgewise… And I remembered something Hinte had told me earlier. She was explaining how the first human had been half-eaten by rockwraiths and said, ’Kinri. Skinhounds will eat you, and crabs will run away, but wraiths will only stop attacking when you stop moving…” Hinte had an odd smile on her face⁠ ⁠— her lip was curled, but it wasn’t smirk.

“So I stopped moving. The wraiths stopped attacking me — but I could hear Hinte off in the distance and her fight wasn’t going well at all at all. I had to get us out of here, but what could I do? With four wraiths between the both of us, we couldn’t fight them off. But I thought and thought… All sorts of creatures around the lake sleep out the gray season. But wraiths don’t⁠ ⁠—⁠ what do they eat?” Staune hopped by Ushra’s side, eating a sliver of chicken meat. I gave her a half-smile before continuing.

“Glasscrabs, it had to be. So I took a glasscrab I had killed earlier and threw it⁠ ⁠—⁠ the wraiths took the bait and I ran to Hinte. I told her my plan, to lure them away like that. And it works! They take the bait and fly away with my crabs.”

“And we won.” Hinte concluded.

I smiled with her, but I glanced at her wings when she looked away. It is not defeat until you can no longer play, I heard vaguely echoed.

Adwyn murmured, “Impressive,” and I glanced sharply at him. Then I looked down, so no one would have to see my goofy smile. What I did was impressive, wasn’t it? At least someone admits that, even if it was Adwyn.

And — didn’t that make me a hero in your eyes? At least slightly?

Digrif was saying, “Ooh, is that why your face was all bloodied up when I found you last night?”

“Yeah,” I said, “It was uh, more red than blue.”

“I imagine it is a good look on you,” Adwyn said.

“Wha —” I said just as Ushra started laughing. Gronte gave a stormy look at Adwyn; but she thought better of it, and settled for glaring at Ushra. Hinte lifted a wing to her mouth and Digrif looked around the slab, not really settling on anything and drawing his wings closer to himself.

“Is — heh — Is that the end of your story?” Ushra asked.

“Yes. We just went to the town hall next and told the faer. I would rather not tell a story about telling a story. This is all very boring as it is.”

“Your story, perhaps,” Adwyn said.

I winced, but smiled despite myself; I tried to give a sympathetic look to Hinte. I don’t think it worked.

----------------------------------------

Ushra looked to his neglected meal, and after a prodding by Staune, began to eat at last. I looked back to my food. Watching someone eat was impolite. It’s intimate, something you only do with lovers or close family. But eating with the Gärens didn’t make me feel any closer to them, just gave me a curling queasiness in my stomach.

Ushra looked up from his meal before his gaze drifted to the emptiness in front of Adwyn.

“Oh, I have forgotten to feed you, Sofrani, my apologies.”

“Please, my name is Adwyn. No honorifics. They make me ill. Use Gyfari if you must.”

Ushra gave Adwyn a significant gaze, some twinkle is his eye. As if he had just met a kindred spirit.

Ushra left to make Adwyn’s plate. I looked up. But I had tired of tracing the tiles, so I lowered my gaze, and let it wander around the slab. My gaze settled on Digrif. Digrif, with warm gray scales, handsome hornscales that curled outward, and that excitable, bubbly smile. Digrif, with a smell I’d never scented anywhere else⁠ ⁠—⁠ if there were a flower that smelt like fragrant, burnt wood, he would smell like it. The scent tasted politely insistent and deliciously bitter.

“Hi Digrif,” I said.

He looked to me. “Ohai… Kinri, was it?” He remembered! Granted, it had been said a couple of times at the slab today, but still, he remembered this time. And he didn’t sound like mother!

“That’s me,” I said. “So um. What do you do?”

“Do you mean for work?”

I nodded. My frills danced a little and I straightened them with a deliberate flex, to keep them still.

Digrif lifted his wing to his chin. “I help my dad, mostly. Construction stuff —⁠ right now he got a contract with one of the sifting businesses to put some beams up down in the pits. It pays nicely.”

Ushra returned from the kitchen, setting a plate and mug down in front of the orange dragon.

“For you, Adwyn,” he said. I hadn’t known you could emphasize a silence, but Ushra pulled it off.

“Thank you,” he said, and began to eat his food. I averted my gaze.

After Ushra set another plate in front of the warm gray dragon, he returned to his mat. With a grunt, he put his elbows on the slab, steepling his feet. Is that… okay, down here? My nurse would have knocked me off of my mat if I had tried anything like that.

Staune fluttered in with a roll of blank leafpaper — when did she leave? I didn’t notice. After setting them down in front of the light-green drake, she pecked at crumbs on his plate.

“Now, about battle with the humans,” Ushra said. “There were some… issues I have been wishing to air ever since I saw my granddaughter’s injuries. It does not sit right with me.”

Hinte started, dropping her food. Her eyes cleared and her forefeet came to rest, one on top of the other.

“The details,” Gronte started, “just do not seem to add up. What we hear is that these are mere travelers exploring the cliffs? But you said they attacked you on sight?”

“Yes,” Hinte said, looking down.

“I find that strange,” Ushra said. “Dragons do not have very much contact with humans, but to them we are almost mythical⁠ ⁠—⁠ Even the humblest human peasant would recognize a dragon.”

“But,” Adwyn started, mouth full of chicken. He choked down his food and continued, “the smog in the Berwem is thick and reduces visibility. We had concluded that the explorers must have mistaken Hinte for a beast of some form. Perhaps a wildcat or a rockwraith.”

“Perhaps. But the fighting techniques of these ‘explorers’ is suspicious.”

Adwyn looked up from his meal, giving Ushra one of those interested glances I had borne the brunt of until now. “Go on.”

“Hinte said they stabbed her wing, and another hacked at the tendons of her hindleg.”

Hinte lowered her head, staring at her sparse plate.

“Well, I recognize these tactics. They sound a lot like the work of men trained to fight dragons.” Ushra broke his explanation to take a few more bites of his chicken, yanking one away from Staune. Adwyn let him, his brows furrowed in thought. Ushra finished, and continued, “But why would men trained to fight dragons be out exploring our cliffs, this close to Gwymr/Frina? The town is on no human map. It is as if they were expecting her to appear.”

“I am not so sure,” Adwyn said after some time, “Mlaen says that with our lax watch on the cliffs, explorers such as these could have been encroaching on our lands for years. Between our sifters, and the hunting parties, I find it plausible that a lucky explorer may have spotted what looked like a dragon in the distance, and returned to his conspecifics to spread the tale.”

He sipped from his tea, and continued, in a story-telling tone. “But they were just rumors, tall tales, blindness⁠ ⁠—⁠ reasonable men remain unconvinced. But eventually, perhaps, some old warriors with experience fighting dragons hear of it, and come in, hoping for more glory.”

“And what of their immediate response?” Gronte countered, but even I felt she was reaching. “Mere wanderers could not have been expecting her,” Gronte said, “she doesn’t leave for the lake at set times or on set days. And the lake is large. I do not think they could track her within it.”

“Yes. But Hinte and Kinri were lured to the humans by their scent. Could that not have been a trap? They needn’t know her exact whereabouts to draw her in.”

“To what end?” Gronte groused. “They are dead men. Let us assume Hinte’s appearance was an unforeseen complication, instead of taking them for fools.”

“No,” Ushra interrupted, tone slow and deliberate, “let us not assume. As I said, the town is on no human map. Could it not be that the humans were pawns, perhaps, of another stronghold, one of the many that know of Gwymr/Frina? They would point them right at the Berwem, and have no qualms about betraying the apes in the process of their plans.”

Gronte said suddenly, “That is paranoid, Ushra —”

“And yet,” Adwyn interrupted, “the cliffs are at peace with every stronghold. No one has shown any grievance against the Gwymri —” he glanced at Gronte, then added, “yet.”

Gronte continued when the orange drake finished, now peering at the orange dragon, “It is simpler to just assume these humans were too lucky just before their luck suddenly reversed. No plots, no schemes, just chance.”

“It is worth considering, is all,” Ushra said, “He works under the faer, he can decide that my hunches are worth investigating⁠ ⁠—”

“We are worried for our granddaughter… and her friend, is all, Sof⁠ ⁠—⁠ Adwyn.”

Adwyn rolled his head at Gronte’s almost-honorific. He lowered his head to his plate, but not before giving Hinte and me a clear-eyed look I didn’t miss.

* * *