“What did he do to them?” Headman Lentin asked, just as drawn in as the others.
“He left it to her. She punched out the window of the coach and told the man that if she ever heard of him mowing down a child, urchin or otherwise, she’d track him to his home and see to it personally that it never happened again. That was it. Then we all walked back to the apartment where Papa was setting up a new dining table.”
“That was it?” Old Kenny asked.
“Well, she complained that he had intervened, and he said that the fight was over before he got there. Said he felt her anger and came straight away. You see, he created a portal from his apartment to the market and just stepped through it.”
“They didn’t kill the merchant?” Mitt asked, baffled.
“Nope. I asked Stacia about it another time. Sorry, I mean, Lady Stacia. Anyway, she said there wasn’t a point to bloodshed unless the man did it again. And you better believe she meant what she said. She would paint his house red from the inside out if he harms another child.”
“She wears the pants then,” Bailey said, clearly disapproving.
“Well, she does wear pants most often. But it’s more for being ready to fight, I think. And if you’re saying she tells him what to do, then you might want to keep your thoughts to yourself when they come here. They work together, closely, neither telling the other what to do. And like Papa said, he’s uncommon powerful. I saw him lift three pallets of Papa’s best witchwood off a ship with a wave of one hand.”
“That’s true,” her father said. “The porters weren’t getting it done and so he just flicked his hand and a ton of wood floated from ship to wagon without a single sound. Stopped everyone on the wharf, it did. The elf, Stocan, told me that nobody’s quite ever seen someone with his power. Before he was the Realm Holder, he saved most of the city council when the king dragon, Gargax, accidently smashed part of a wall. It made both Queens and all the dragons pay attention, and he was just part of the Dragon Speaker’s entourage then.”
“I had heard he was friends with the new Speaker,” Lentin said.
“True,” Nira said. “They went to school together. She brought him to Fairie as part of her guards. The realm chose him to hold it. The dragons respect him deeply.”
For some reason, that was the sentence that ended the stories. That and the buckleberry pies that were brought out. Actually, it made perfect sense. The village was very, very wary of dragons. The massive predators were often seen hunting big sea creatures in the waters around the island. Everyone knew that even the least dragon could wipe out their community without much effort at all. The topic of dragons tended to cow most conversations.
After dessert, someone started to play some music, and a place for dancing was cleared. Nira and her father were able to bow out, blaming fatigue, and make their way home.
The little stone house on the cliff was much the same as they had left it. A little dusty and musty from being closed up most of the summer, but otherwise unchanged. A neighbor’s son had watered the garden while they were away, and it had grown into a wild, lush jungle. There were beans, peas, squash, cucumbers, carrots, onions, and a profusion of greens that Nira needed to pick. There were also large quantities of weeds to be plucked.
The same neighbor had housed their hawk-chickens while they were away, keeping the fat eggs as payment for the food and water. Both she and her father would have to retrieve them in a day or so, the process of capturing the dangerous little avians being at least a two-person job.
They unpacked some of their luggage, then her father took the path down the cliff to the seashore to set some crab pots. Nira picked, cleaned, and sorted as much fresh produce as she could, chopping some for their evening meal. With her initial chores done and knowing that her father would be several hours setting his traps, she took the second path, the old path, down the cliff.
Her father hated when she used the old path, the crumbling stone too uneven and shaky for his stocky body. But Nira was light and nimble and never afraid of heights. The path led to her special place, a narrow trail across raw stone, exposed to the full might and beauty of the wild ocean. It was also the location of her greatest secret. The western shoreline of the island where they lived was craggy, fractal,
