I glanced to the sky as the wagons neared. “If that’s the king, then he should have some of his riders with him,” I said. “Dragon mages. All of that.”
Maybe even with the dragon I swore I saw the other day.
Alison looked over to me and chuckled. “You and dragons again.”
When I was younger and still foolish, I had wanted to be one of the king’s dragon riders. I remember the first time that I had seen one flying through the sky. It had been small, little more than an enormous bird from my vantage, yet it banked and swooped, and occasionally streamers of flame would shoot from it, revealing the presence of the dragon.
It hadn’t been until I was nearly ten when I had seen a dragon rider up close. At least, as close as someone like me would ever get to one. The dragon had been perched atop Marshal’s Tower in Berestal, and even from the ground, I could see the dragon’s black-scaled side gleaming in the sunlight. I could practically feel the heat radiating off it.. I remembered wanting to climb the tower to get closer to the dragon, wanting with all of my being to be near it. As if a part of me burned to touch it.
I leaned on the completed section of fence, watching as the wagons passed by. The lead wagon and the standard bearer didn’t turn in our direction. The man simply sat upright, perched on the lead seat, holding on to the flag as they rode past. The driver briefly turned in our direction, before focusing again on the road in front of him. One by one the wagons drove past, each of them marked with the king’s colors. When they were gone, Alison and I stared for a few moments, as they drifted out of view.
“What do you think they came for?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
She stood silently for a while before shaking herself. “We should go into Berestal later.”
“You want to see them?”
“Like you don’t.”
“I have too much work to do.”
Alison looked at me, a pleading note flashing in her deep blue eyes. “ For me?”
I watched her for a moment before nodding slowly. “For you. I’ll always make time. I’m sure Mom has things she needs, and there are a few supplies that I need for the barn.”
Alison forced a smile.
“You know, you don’t need me to go with you. Don’t you go into the city every week for supplies anyways?”
She looked down. “I did.”
I frowned, glancing over to the house. “What do you mean?”
She took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. Alison looked as if she was choosing the next words carefully. “Lately, Mom has been the one going into the city.”
I looked over to Alison, but she turned away from me. I hadn’t even noticed. I sighed. Alison deserved better.
“I’ll tell her I need your help,” I said , starting to take a step toward her before deciding against it.
“Are you sure she’ll let you?”
“I don’t see why not.”
“You’re probably right. Now that you practically run the farm, she treats you more like Dad.”
“That’s not true,” I said, though I laughed a bit at the thought.
“It is. She still treats me like a little girl. At least, most of the time. But when she wants something from me, suddenly I’m a young woman.”
“You’re seventeen. You are a young woman.”
“Not in her eyes… ”
I said nothing for a moment. That our mother would hold Alison here to keep her working, rather than letting her leave so she could live her life, filled me with something I hadn’t felt before—hopelessness. Alison turned away, heading back toward the house. She paused, turning back toward me. “When can we go?”
“If you want to see if it really is the king, we should go before the wagons depart.”
She nodded. “How long do you think they will stay in the city?”
“I don’t know. A couple days, probably.”
“Maybe they’ll head on to the Wilds.”
I smiled. “It’s more likely they’ll head north to some of the other villages before looping back to the King’s Road.”
For them to have navigated the King’s Road, they would not have too many other places within the western reaches for them to travel. Berestal layat the edge of the kingdom. Unless they planned to travel into the Wilds, though I doubted there would be any way those wagons would be able to travel through the Wilds.
Which meant that this was the end of their travels. It was possible they would head north where there were a few smaller villages that were a part of the kingdom, though no cities nearly as large as Berestal. I doubted they would actually attempt to go beyond. The road stopped at the edge of the Wilds, and the king or his men had not attempted to venture beyond the plains. Maybe the dragons would, but that wasn’t something that I had heard either.
“I still have to get chores done before we go anywhere,” I said. There wasn’t much of the fence left, and as soon as it was finished we could leave the livestock out to graze. “I could use your help here.”
She wrinkled her nose as she frowned. “With the fence?”
I nodded.
“Why don’t you ask Joran to help?”
“Joran already helped. He decided I was asking too much of him.”
“Considering what happened, don’t you think he owes you?”
I closed my eyes and sighed. Why was I the only one who could forgive him for his role in the accident? Joran hadn’t been where he was supposed to be, which is why my father and brother had suffered. “There’s only so much that I can demand of him. Besides, I’m not so sure I want to have him around you too much.”
“Joran?” She frowned again, shaking her head. “I don’t have any interest in him.”
“Not yet, but in time you might.”
“He’s just a sheepherder.”
“There’s nothing wrong with sheepherders,” I said.
“There isn’t,” Alison said, sighing as she leaned on the fence. “I
