The Golden Wyvern’s sign squeaked on its hinges, buffeted by a chill wind streaming down from the mountains. Kailas knelt on the cushioned window seat inside the tavern, enjoying the peace and quiet before her shift.
She touched her nose to the leaded windowpane, looking past the sign of the wyvern gripping a key within the coils of its tail, past the wood-framed shops in the main square, to a cobbled drover’s path.
The path wound its way out of town and into the mountains. Kailas walked it each day no matter what the weather, a habit formed on the afternoon of her arrival three months ago. Her daily trek took her past terraces of weathered-stone houses to the foothills. Wiregrass tussocks clung to the sides of the path after the cobbles ended, and the path reverted to bare soil and stones.
A rickety stile marked the end of her walk. There she would lean, breathless from the altitude, gazing at the distant peaks. The path kept going, winding through the foothills and summer pastures until it reached the foot of the Cruckboar Scars.
Kailas took a sip of hotbrew and relaxed on the windowseat. Pereguard’s ancient, unconquerable mountains were her comfort, like a steadying hand on the shoulder. She had made the right decision in leaving Mealduth, but other fears were proving harder to dislodge.
She woke some nights with a stifled cry, seeing the old priest’s gap-toothed grin, his gnarled hands reaching for her.
‘You’re coming to the forest, girl,’ he would say, before letting out a cackling laugh.
The Mayqsa can’t find me here. Neither can my father.
If she kept saying it to herself, hopefully she would come to believe it.
The sun set early in these last days of winter, splashing the peaks with pools of fire. The stretching shadows obscured the footpaths and deer trails winding around forest, brush and rock.
Kailas placed her hands on the windowpane, relishing the setting sun’s warmth on her skin; she had spent every winter before this one beneath a pall of torquor smoke too thick for sunlight to penetrate.
Her new hometown of Mottesfont Reach was renowned for the clarity of its air and the pureness of its underground spring water. It was the last well-provisioned settlement before the wild reaches of the north, and was a popular stop-off point for wealthy travellers, who wanted a taste of the wild without any of the discomforts.
Coaches arrived from Ordasius throughout the winter, disgorging sightseers eager to catch a glimpse of Farous’ Dancing Lights. Visitors were prepared to wait weeks to see the elusive, wondrous phenomenon that cast shifting colours across the sky.
It was a far cry from her previous life in Mealduth, where only a fool would stand outside in the dark staring up at the sky.
Kailas forced the memory aside as she unlatched the windows to air the tavern. The pure air, like the spring water, was believed to have therapeutic qualities. A stiff breeze raised goose bumps on her arms, but it smelled sweet and the customers would appreciate it once the tavern was full.
In the square, a warmly dressed stockman drove his flock of sheep towards the drovers’ lane that led to the lower pastures. Locals and travellers alike wandered round the town’s eateries, looking for a quick pint after work, or a hot meal to round off the day. The Golden Wyvern’s menu of winter warmers brought in a full house almost every night.
Kailas’s stomach grumbled at the rich aromas of soup, fresh bread and roasting meat coming from the kitchens, along with the sharper undertone of the speciality ales behind the bar.
Only three months ago, her diet had comprised mudfish, hardbread, bitter apples and unappetising braces of spitted chalk beetles. Weeks of richer, tastier food had put a shine in her eyes and added lustre to her hair.
Regular prustian-powder baths had helped to draw out the last tang of torquor rock from the pores of her skin. She’d lost the Mealduthian smell and was working on softening her accent. All was going to plan.
A crash startled her from her thoughts, followed by Cook’s curses over a dropped pan.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Kailas jumped up from the window seat, her heart hammering. She turned her back on the darkening landscape, aware she had wasted the lull before the evening shift staring out the window. She pummelled the cushion into shape and got to work, determined to put her previous life behind her.
~
The Golden Wyvern was full to the rafters with noisy diners. Kailas shouldered through the swinging doors into the kitchens and hit a wall of heat and sound.
The kitchens were stifling from the heat of the bread ovens and the spit where the boar and roast fowl were basting, their skins turning a crisp golden brown. Eddies of steam caught in her hair, making it stick to the nape of her neck.
She made her way over to the sinks, her arms laden with empty plates and crumb-filled platters and dumped her plates by the sinks where the red-faced pot boy was up to his arms in soapsuds. He gave the growing pile of crockery a filthy look. His work was stacking up and it was still early.
Kailas threw the lad an apologetic smile before heading over to the orders board. The board was divided into twenty numbered hooks, each one representing a table. Most were hung with slates containing each table’s orders. Kailas took five thin slates of food orders stuffed into the central pocket of her gold tabard and, with practiced speed, hung them up on the hooks allocated to her tables.
She took the opportunity, while empty-handed, to twist her hair up in a bun and secured it with a ribbon.
Table twelve had a bare hook beneath it.
Kailas stopped in her tracks. The table was laid for six, and she’d seen a group of five or six having a drink at the bar while they waited for a free table.
Hecton. She was always picking up after him. If he’d forgotten to take table twelve’s order, there would be complaints.
‘Is there a problem?’
She turned to see the manager eyeing her with distrust. He had a knack for turning up the moment she stood still during her shift. He eyed her with suspicion, as though she was smuggling a bottle of dramsear in her tabard, to sell on the black market later.
‘No problem,’ she said, but the manager had already spotted the empty hook.
‘Hecton.’ His mouth twisted. ‘He’d better not be sitting on his hands while there’s customers waiting. Go and see what he’s up to. And, after he’s grovelled to table twelve, get back to work.’ He smacked the back of his hand against his palm to emphasise the point. ‘Well, get to it!’
Kailas set off through the steam, cursing the manager and Hecton under her breath. She pushed through the swing-doors to the bar, relieved to leave the steam and heat behind.
The taverner signalled and raised a tray containing two flagons of the local Bearbaiter. She heaved them up and headed for table four, her bright tabard opening a path through the throng at the bar, past tables laden with food and drink.
She got a cheer from her table of local townswomen. Kailas couldn’t help but smile as she set the flagons down and the group wasted no time pouring out the golden beer, tucking into a platter of boar ribs, fried potatoes and fluffy rolls dripping with butter. They would be fine for a while. She swiftly cast an eye round her other tables before remembering table twelve.
Hecton was heading her way with a stack of empty plates. She rushed to intercept him.
The gangly lad stopped short as she blocked his path, his plates sliding and rattling.
‘Table twelve, Hecton,’ Kailas asked bluntly. ‘What’s going on with it?’
‘That’s not mine.’ He looked baffled by the question. ‘I know it’s not.’
‘It’s on your rota,’ Kailas told him. ‘The manager’s on the war path, Hecton. You need to go and take their order, quicksharp!’
‘That’s not…’ His eyes clouded over. ‘I don’t -’
His eyes slid past her to the kitchen doors, his arms trembling under the weight of the crockery.
Kailas let out an exasperated sigh. ‘Look, I’ll sort it out, but you owe me.’
Hecton blurted his thanks and staggered through the swing doors.
Swearing beneath her breath, Kailas took a spare slate from her tabard. She squeezed past the crowded bar and down the long stairs to the tavern’s lower level, passing tables nine and ten. They were all full. Table eleven, likewise, was full of diners.
She rounded the immense wooden support pillar that shadowed table twelve.
There should have been six people waving at her. But table twelve wasn’t full of hungry diners. A single cowled figure sat across the empty oak circle, his arms loosely draped over the chairs to either side. The tables around him were full, and there was the group she remembered waiting by the bar, their stomachs no doubt growling with hunger.
Not one of these people seemed to have noticed this man, sitting alone at a wide and empty table in plain view. Kailas couldn’t explain the oversight and didn’t have time to worry about it. She stepped round the pillar to look at him.
Unease rippled through her.
How was it no one had asked him to move? An unpleasant thought struck her – could he be a notorious local no one had bothered to warn her about? As she was wondering how to approach him, he looked in her direction, his cowl pitch-black.
‘Are you waiting for friends?’ she asked, rummaging in her pocket for her chalkpen, hoping to take his drinks order and send him packing to the bar.
The man did not reply. Instead, he raised his hands to his hood and pulled it back from his face.
Kailas straightened in astonishment.
The man’s skin glowed with health. His blond, tousled hair framed a face of perfect proportions, from the angle of his clean-shaven jaw to the way his cheekbones set off the shadows beneath. But it was his eyes that took her breath away. His irises were pure gold, blazing rings of fire.
‘You’re a long way from home, Kailas Darkchar.’