Mother lay where we’d left her. I’d wondered why she hadn’t come looking for us, but apparently she was confident enough in me keeping my promise, and in her own aura of dread and terror keeping us all safe, that she hadn’t bothered getting up.

  She wasn’t sleeping, though. She had one of her big eyes cracked open, and it seemed to shine as it focused on me.

  “You were out long,” she remarked. “Did you find anything interesting?”

  “We did, yeah. A library.” I looked fondly at Herald. She was curled up inside her furs, making the occasional noise of complaint against the cold. “It was very emotional.”

  “Your Herald was excited?”

  I stepped away from Herald, getting closer to my mother so that we could lower our voices.

  I laughed softly. “You should have seen her. I had to tear her away when she started falling asleep.”

  “She truly is precious to you, is she not?”

  “There is nothing I love more.”

  “Very well. Then, for your sake, I swear that I will not harm her, nor let harm come to her. I will protect her as though she were part of your hoard.”

  I could feel the weight of that promise. The only way that oath could have been more sacred was if she’d sworn on her own hoard instead of mine, and I truly believed that Herald would be safe around her. “Thank you, mother,” I said, stepping a little closer. “That means a lot to me. Your promise, and that you understand. Were you ever close to any humans?”

  “Oh, yes. Many of them and many times, over the centuries.”

  “I thought so. You like them, yeah?”

  “They are amusing, and often pleasant creatures. Yes, I do. So, why was your little human so excited?”

  I looked back at where my sister slept, curled up in her bedroll. “My Herald has a scholarly streak, and a dragon’s heart for gold. And we found a library, perfectly preserved. Full of Old Mallinean books. Very rare and valuable, yeah? But no one can read them.” I paused, then asked, very respectfully, “You know about books?”

  “I do, yes,” she said, the corner of her eye wrinkling with amusement. “I have many of them in my hoard, in fact. But it seems to me that if no one can read these books, it should reduce their value. Or at least their usefulness. Am I right to think that there is more to tell?”

  “She found a primer for elder Tekereteki in Old Mallinean— a book to help you learn the language based on another. And she can read elder Tekereteki.”

  “Aaah,” she said, drawn out and full of satisfaction. “So she can use the known language to help with the unknown one. That would be exciting!”

  I smiled, then used the equivalent dragon expression, for Mother’s sake. “I doubt she’ll care about anything else for days.”

  “You are so much like your father,” she sighed, and that pulled my attention away from my sleeping friend. There was a lot of regret there, and longing.

  “Do you miss him?”

  It took her a while to answer. “I regret his absence. I expected much joy from our children together, the ones we already expected and the ones I hoped for in the future. But this was centuries ago. The pain has passed. Though I cannot help but wonder what might have been.” Then she smiled. “Especially now that I have found you.”

  “How am I like him? My father, I mean. Night?”

  That finally got her to raise her head and look at me directly “Oh, you look just like him,” she said fondly. “A little female Night, lithe and beautiful. Your father was the same. Small, but quick and agile, and a delight for the eyes. And you have his venom and his magic, I have seen that myself. I will not ask you what Advancements you have been offered, but I imagine that the living flame is not among them. And there is your attachment to the humans, of course, though I imagine that could as easily come from growing up with them.”

  I fought an urge to laugh. She couldn’t possibly have any idea how right she was about that, just not in the way she thought. As it was, I couldn’t keep a smile off my face.

  “He did that too, sometimes,” she said. “The human expressions. Displaying your teeth to show how pleased you are. Of course, with him it was something he chose to learn.”

  “He must have liked humans very much.”

  “Oh, yes. He Who Darkens the Night surrounded himself with humans. I believe I told you. He had a whole mountain, hollowed out with tunnels and chambers where he kept his flock. Why should he keep them separate from his hoard, he argued, when they were as precious to him as all his gold or silver? I never saw the inside, of course. I cannot melt into the shadows the way he could, and you can. But there must have been hundreds of them in there, with how many came and went in a day.”

  “It’s not just the one mountain,” I blurted. I felt an urge to connect with her over something. If that was because she was my mother, or because I needed her to see me as something other than a child to be controlled for my own good, I didn’t know. “There are magically hidden gates up and down the mountain range that open to tunnels just like the ones in my— in Night’s mountain.”

  “That does not surprise me. He had some magic users with him who could carve stone more easily and precisely than I can, and I do not say that lightly. And he always enjoyed his tunnels and his secrecy. So, you have taken his mountain for your own?”

  I considered denying it, but what was the point? She could feel where I was, probably like how I could feel Mak and Herald, and I couldn’t stay away from my hoard until she chose to leave. She’d know where I had my lair sooner or later. Besides, it wasn’t like she could get inside.

  “I have. It’s where I made my first home. It’s safe, and comfortable. I haven’t seen any reason to move.”

  “And the discomfort… yes, that is understandable. And it is not so far from there to the glut of rifts here in the north of island.”

  “I don’t really live there now, though,” I admitted. “I get that you may not like it, but I live mostly in the city. When I call Herald my sister… I have a family, there. Humans, of course, but I consider them my brothers and sisters. I live in their home. And I have friends besides them, and servants. And I love them.”

  I looked silently at Reaper, anxiously waiting for her reaction. When it came, it was as a sigh. “This ‘family’ you’ve found for yourself: are you sure that you can trust them?”

  “Herald and Makanna? Beyond question. Herald has loved me for as long as we’ve known each other, and Mak… she doesn’t have a choice but to love me.”

  “Ah. You have inherited that from Night as well. That is good. But also dangerous. He was far too restrictive with this power, leaving his humans too much independence. I cannot imagine but that it was this that doomed him. Am I right in thinking that this Makanna cannot even conceive of wishing you harm?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That is good. You should do the same to all the humans around you.”

  The casual way that she said that sent a chill all the way to the tip of my tail. It made one difference in how we viewed humans very clear: to her, affection for humans was dangerous, and they should be rendered entirely harmless before you could trust them. If that meant leaving a ragged hole in their free will, so be it. It was the same way I’d heard friends in my old life talk about neutering their dogs.

  But I didn’t want to just contradict her. I needed her thinking that I could take care of myself, by her standards. So I decided to be selective with the truth. “I’ve considered it,” I told her honestly. “But it affects me, too. It makes me protective of them, even if I don’t like them.”

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  Her expression was one of mild confusion. “Why would you do this to a human you do not like?”

  “Instead of killing them?”

  “Again: why? Kill them and be done with it!”

  I thought about dear, awful Tammy, with her missing hand and her desperate desire to be reunited with me. Why, indeed?

  Because in the end, having an alternative to killing was important to me. It was thanks to that Mak was still alive, which more than made up for every Tammy I may create. But how did I explain that to Reaper?

  The short answer was: I didn’t.

  “They can be useful,” I told her instead. “I have a servant far in the south, gathering information for me. She’s a terrible person, or at least she was — It’s hard to say how breaking a human will affect them, yeah? Anyway, she disgusted me when I captured her, but she’s already given me information that was important to the city I live in. It’s worth the worry.”

  Reaper snorted, but it was an amused snort, not an exasperated one. “You have more patience for them than I. I have only rarely spared any human that offended me, and then only because they were precious to someone important. Perhaps yours is a valid approach as well. But you must promise me, daughter: only trust them when you have absolute power over them. Humans are clever and capable of surprising things, deceit not least among them. If there is ever the least possibility that they might harm you, you must not give them the opportunity. You may think that the risk is small, but our lives are long. Over the centuries, the risks add up. You will be betrayed. It has happened to me, and it had happened to your father even before I knew him. When that happens, you must not be in a position of weakness. You must not be ill, or wounded, or sleeping. Promise me this!”

  “I don’t know if I can.”

  Her eyes narrowed in displeasure, and I hurried to add, “I have friends that I’ve trusted with my life already. I refuse to break them to my will, and I’m not going to stop trusting them unless they give me a good reason.”

  “And if that good reason is a lance through your eye? Even young as you are, your scales are strong, but you are not invincible, daughter.”

  “I’m aware. I have the scars to remind me. But I’ve taken Advancements to help with that.”

  “Good. Good! Advancements that make you tougher, stronger, more likely to survive should be your highest priority. You cannot grow your hoard if you are dead.”

  Bloody hell, but she was easy to distract! “I’m glad you approve,” I said, hoping to keep her mind off my friends.

  Her eyes narrowed, and I couldn’t tell if it was amusement or annoyance. “Do not think I cannot recognize sarcasm, little one. You should be glad. It means I can trust you not to spend your Advancements foolishly. I am sure that you have something like ‘Physical Greatness?’ The fact that you have not taken it is a good sign.”

  Instinct was outraged enough to speak up for the first time in days. Physical Greatness was her favorite, after all, the one Advancement she always wanted me to choose. Mother does not know what she is talking about! she insisted. Age has made her dim!

  I ignored her. I was vindicated! “I’ve felt tempted,” I said, “but it’s always made me uneasy. How can you tell that I haven’t taken it, and why don’t you think I should?”

  “Because it will make you stupid.” She almost spat the last word. “I admit I was concerned, at first, due to your size, but you show none of the other signs. It will make you big, yes. And strong. And then you will be offered another Advancement like it, and you will be foolish enough that this time you will not hesitate. And it will happen again, and again. And one day you will be as magnificent as I am, at a quarter of my age and a fraction of my hoard, and your judgement will be no better than that of a common wyvern.”

  She said “wyvern” with such derision that I felt insulted all over again, remembering the bounty that the Alchemists’ Guild had put out on me.

  Probably shouldn’t mention that to Mother. I couldn’t see her taking it well.

  “That’s the feeling I got!” I told her. I wasn’t trying to manipulate her, as such. It was true. I’d always suspected that Advancement would make me more dragon. That included pride, aggression, and a host of other emotions that I didn’t have a problem with as such, but might make participating in polite society difficult. Judging by my mother’s distaste for the Advancement, that apparently went for polite dragon society as well.

  “You have good instincts,” she said, nodding her approval. “How long have you spent around humans? All the months since you awoke?”

  “Less in the beginning,” I said, wiggling my head in a dragon equivalent of a shrug — it was amazing, the things I just knew subconsciously. “More in the last few months. Herald and the others, my family, they bought an inn… you know about inns?”

  She huffed.

  “Of course you do. Well, we found a treasure together, and they bought an inn with their share. One with a safe place for me to sleep, or just to stay when I don’t have anything else I want to do. I spend much more time there than I do in my lair these days.”

  “You abide with the humans, in the city?”

  “I thought I told you?”

  She huffed again, and I wasn’t sure what it meant this time. Instincts and blurry childhood memories could only get me so far. “Perhaps. It sounds unsafe.”

  “It’s in a cellar, below ground, and I have a heavy door with a lock on it. Safe as safe can be.”

  “You are locked in?” She actually sounded worried by that. “What would you do if they broke down the door?”

  “Kill them,” I said, with another head wiggle. “Or—”

  I Shifted, flowing around and past her and then, on a whim, onto her back, where I Shifted back. I balanced there, between her wings, my claws only barely out to let them catch on her scales. “They can’t hurt what they can’t see, and they can’t chain me. Believe me, one tried. It didn’t end well for her.”

  Things got unstable as she moved to turn her head toward me, so I laid down instead.

  She faced me with one of her chuffing laughs. “I forget that you can do that! You would think it unforgettable, but I do! Yes, that certainly would help. Now, get off my back.”

  She said it politely, but there was an edge of command to it that I decided not to test. “Far be it from me to deny such a polite request,” I said, after Shifting and returning to where I’d been sitting as we spoke. “But you see, yeah? I’m in no danger. And even if some human were to come after me, they’d have to get past my family and my friends. There’s no need for you to worry.”

  “No need. Perhaps. But you are my first child in a very long time, and you are so much like your father. Forgive your old mother if she worries anyway. But I see what you are angling for. Go, if you wish. For a few days. Then return, and we will hunt together, and fly for the joy of it, and you can tell me of your life here, with your humans.”

  I looked at Herald. “In the morning, perhaps.”

  “Of course. The human needs her rest. As do you, I should think, unless you have spent the day sleeping, as Night so often did.”

  The next morning, Herald was a hurricane of excited energy. I had to quite literally force her to have something to eat before heading out, catching her around the waist and sitting her down by the cold fireplace that I’d stocked with fresh wood from the pile we’d collected.

  “Breakfast,” I told her. “Eat, and drink. Then we need to talk.”

  She did as I said, but she grumbled about it.

  Once her porridge was cooking I spoke again, raising my voice. “Now. Mother, are you awake?”

  There was an affirmative huff from the back of the temple, and one huge eye opened a sliver.

  “We need to go back to the city.”

  Reaper didn’t react. She’d already given her permission. Herald, though, stopped stirring her porridge, her head snapping up to look at me with shocked betrayal. “Draka! The book! The primer!”

  “It’s only for a day or two. I’ve been away—”

  “You do not understand! Please! I need to do this!”

  “And you can come back to it! It’s not going anywhere.”

  She licked her lips, turning her head to throw a quick look at Reaper then back to me.

  “Herald,” I started. I had a feeling that I knew exactly what she was thinking. She cut me off before I could continue.

  “Do you trust your mother?” she asked, loud enough that there was no way the dragon in question didn’t hear.

  Reaper’s eye crinkled with amusement.

  “Yes,” I said, with enormous reluctance. I trusted her to do two things: keep her word, no matter what that might be, and to do whatever suited her.

  Reaper’s amusement only grew.

  “Would I be safe if you left me with her?”

  “Herald!” I sighed, but my exasperation was pointless. “Yes, you would.”

  “Then… I do not think that it is my place to ask her, but would you ask your mother if she might consent to keeping me safe while you return to the city, so I can continue working?”

  I might have refused. I might have demanded that she come with me, and she would have. And I couldn’t do either of those. I couldn’t bear the thought of forcing her to do anything. She wanted to stay. My mother had sworn to keep her safe. But how much did I trust Reaper? My gut told me that promises among dragons were holy, but did I know that? How well did I know Reaper? Well enough to leave her a hostage?

  Not at all. And I’d promised Tam—

  “Draka,” Herald said, her golden eyes huge and shining. “Please?”

  Sorrows take me, I couldn’t deny her when she looked at me like that.

  “Mother, would you be so kind as to keep an eye on Herald while she works at the library today? Get her there and back safely?”

  Her voice was a lazy rumble, echoing through the temple. “Of course, daughter. I will keep your Herald as safe as any of my own flock.”

  “Wonderful,” I sighed. “Herald, I’m going to need you to write a letter.”

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