It wasn’t until the fifth week that the maids in training were marched up the mountain to the gates of the fort. It was a long trek up a road that was nearly too steep to allow for carriages, well maintained but not paved. Agadart was suddenly glad of the harsh physical labor she had been forced to do, as she was certain she would not have made it all the way up without collapsing otherwise. At least two apprentice maids had fallen down, one twisting her ankle severely enough to be sent back down by a very unimpressed Mistress Seraphinite.

The fort’s heavy iron main gates were built to keep enemy dragons out in case of invasion, and were massive and heavy in ways similar to the most majestic cathedrals Agadart had visited. The human staff of the fort itself were all soldiers — people who were well trained and well monitored. There were no rude overtures of the kind that her father had warned Agadart might happen in military camps. She did not know if the Master of the Fort was that strict or if Mistress Seraphinite was that frightening to them, but either way she was grateful.

They were given a short tour of the yard and main buildings, then herded up long flights of stairs to the warrens where the dragon lairs were. By the time they got to where they were to start actually working, Agadart’s feet and calves were already hurting.

The lairs were very simple caves carved out of the rock, forming a warren built for both humans and dragons to use. Many were empty, but at least three were occupied that Agadart could see. Very few dragons spent their entire lives as dragons, but many found the shifting from form to form exhausting and would stay in their dragon shape for days, sometimes weeks, before returning to live as a “walker” for an equal length of time. Quite a bit of her studies on dragons by that point had focused on when and why dragons shape-shifted, especially regarding breeders, who tended to go for longer stretches in one form or another. If they were impregnated in one form they would remain in that shape until the child was born or an egg laid, but that was a rare and precious event, and certainly not one that was expected at any time at Endestern.

They were all directed to cleaning supplies stored in various locations and Agadart became a glorified barn hand to fork hay and clean lairs, switching off with other maids between collecting old, dank hay into wheelbarrows and being the one pushing the wheelbarrow around. No one expected any more or less from Agadart than any of the other maids, despite the hard labor and close quarters, so Agadart enjoyed her anonymity as simply one dragon maid among many as they all plodded along at their tasks. Mistress Seraphinite kept a fierce eye out for lallygagging but stayed out of their way, mostly spending her time leading individuals from one place to another.

Nonetheless she never missed an opportunity to glare at Agadart when they passed each other, and the other maids picked up on it. There were rumors here and there as to the reason, but they were mostly far-fetched. However, if her cousin’s goal was to keep Agadart separate from her dragon maid peers, then she was successful. The other maids skittered around Agadart as if fearing they would catch the headmistress’s ire if they got too close.

Of course, the truth was that they were probably right.

After the first day, the apprentices ended up spread out over several levels, and Agadart quickly realized that while she had only seen about twenty dragons in flight, the fort was built to hold dozens more. It hurt something inside of her, her chest being squeezed tight, to realize how empty the place was.

“Are you doing okay, Maid Aegirine?” Maid Unakite asked in her timid way, stooping down a little to talk to her while also keeping a sharp eye out for the headmistress.   

Agadart paused in her sweeping, looking around at the little-used lair. The launching platform hanging outside the large cave was covered in the scratches left by massive talons, but most of those scratches all looked old and worn. There were very few recent markings.

“Doesn’t it feel wrong?” she asked, gazing at the pile of hay Maid Unakite was throwing into the wheelbarrow. It was dry and dusty. It was clear to her that no dragons used that lair regularly.

“Wrong?” Maid Unakite squinted at the walls. “No.” She shrugged. “Why do you ask? Does it feel wrong to you?”

“A little. There are no eggs here, and very few dragons. It just…just feels wrong.” She wanted to explain the sensation better than she was currently able to do, but it was almost like being nostalgic for something she had never experienced. Even at court there were only about a dozen dragons total. The queen, her flight, and a few noble-born dragons were the only actual dragons that lived in the palace. Out of hundreds of people, there were few enough dragons that one never met them unless purposefully introduced. Agadart had never thought that having so few dragons around was in any way lacking. It felt normal, then, but as she stood in the little-used lair in a mostly dragonless aerie, she could not help but feel sad and alone.

Maid Unakite nodded, but not with understanding. “I suppose it is a little weird for the place to be so empty. But isn’t that what our treaty with Watt is for? They have all the dragons.”

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Technically, their treaty was to support the Isle of Watt. It did not seem to her that their paltry number of dragons would be much help to a nation, however small, that was predominately populated by dragons. But then, the whole issue there was that for all their dragons, they had no queen, and had been without one for centuries. If war were to come, the queen of Kaaltendt was supposed to stand in stead for them, and support them with the many natural resources of Kaaltendt. In return, Watt served as a barrier.

She sighed. “I suppose. Enough navel-gazing, though. Let’s get this done before the headmistress circles back around.”

Maid Unakite’s eyes went wide with panic and she started throwing hay around vigorously. At least she gave Agadart a lot of hay dust to sweep up.

The following days were marked by more hard labor but different tasks. Agadart’s primary job was to drain, clean and refill the many water troughs that were in the lairs and randomly set around the warren. They were all part of a brutally primitive plumbing system that Agadart assumed was far older than her own grandfather, but regular use and cleaning had kept everything running well enough. She had a scrub brush that was more like a broom, as the troughs themselves were at least ten feet long and three feet wide. Draining them took time, and Agadart quickly designed a system where she worked on two nearby troughs at a time, draining one while another refilled. She started mapping out all the troughs in her head, wondering if she could find a more efficient routine for doing all of them in a staggered fashion rather than individually, one after another.

She was lost in those practical thoughts when she turned a corner into a private lair and saw Mistress Seraphinite with a dragon. It was not the admiral, but Agadart did not know who it was other than it was a male. He was curled around Seraphinite protectively, the very tip of his tail swishing back and forth in a way that Agadart immediately understood meant he was pleased, or happy. Mistress Seraphinite was reaching up, stretching her arms to rub under his chin with her knuckles, practically standing in between his wings, which were braced on the floor as he leaned on his claw knuckle. He looked up and snorted, shuddering his wings in startlement, and Mistress Seraphinite spun around.

“What are you doing here?”

Wordlessly, Agadart raised the scrub brush. She really had nothing to say about the intimate display of affection, which she was certain she wasn’t supposed to have seen.

“You were two lairs over!” Seraphinite snapped, stepping forward as if to protect the huge dragon behind her. He was not moving, his bright marbled eyes trained on Agadart.

“I was trying out a new system, I was—”

“Go.” Mistress Seraphinite pointed and Agadart fled with what dignity she could. From that point on she made a lot of noise as she walked through the aerie’s warren from lair to lair, which earned her a few odd looks but seemed a far better plan than surprising a dragon and his human “companion” in a compromising situation. Especially since that companion was, technically, a Dragon Corps maid. They were specifically barred from interacting closely with dragons other than as servants, and to be caught in a “dalliance” with one meant instant expulsion. Why Mistress Seraphinite would take such a risk, given her station, Agadart quite honestly did not want to know.

At the very least, she comforted herself with the fact that she did not know who the dragon was. Ignorance was rarely a good defense, but Agadart figured that in this situation it would work in her favor.

She returned to her tasks, focusing again on the simple manual labor, putting the scandal out of her mind. She managed to distract herself from worrying about Mistress Seraphinite for a while, until she sought out Agadart for herself.

“Maid Aegirine,” the headmistress said, standing in the interior door of the lair Agadart was working in. Agadart dipped a half-curtsy in acknowledgment, but finished scrubbing down the water tough with her scrub brush and rinsing it out. She put the large cork stopper back in place then turned the simple faucet on so the fresh mountain stream water flowed back into it. Only then did she turn to face her dour cousin, who was immobile in the doorway.

“Have you anything to say?” she said, her voice steady and her expression blank.

Agadart took her time — she had learned the hard way at court, during the tribulations surrounding her husband, that trying to answer too quickly often meant answering foolishly. After a moment of consideration, she shook her head. “Only that I apologize for rudely interrupting.”

Mistress Seraphinite’s eyes narrowed as she considered the answer.

“I understand that liaisons between dragons and dragon maids are forbidden, but as I did not see anything of an improper nature, I don’t believe what I saw in any way violates our code of conduct.”

Mistress Seraphinite continued staring for another beat, then her mouth twitched in a very slight smile. “You could impress a barrister with that line, Agadart.”

Agadart smiled back, baring her teeth just a little, unable to keep from poking at her just a little. “Thank you, Berta.”

They glared at each other for a long moment before Bertrag snorted in a very unladylike fashion and walked out. When her footsteps had faded away, Agadart leaned against the trough, dizzy with relief. She did not need enemies, and even less did she need one in such a position of power. They had barely known each other when they were young, Bertrag always at the edges of society and Agadart at the center of it. She did not think she had ever insulted the woman, but perhaps Agadart’s very existence was salt on the wound for the barely claimed bastard.

Her future for the next ten years lay decidedly in Mistress Seraphinite’s hands, though, and Agadart did not want to have to petition the queen for mercy — again — simply because she got on her cousin’s bad side.