Alianor nods. “So something stoppers the water. Maybe an earthquake or a rockslide or something that blocked the flow and sent it other places. Whatever it was, it would need to be huge…” She trails off and grins. “Oh! I see what you’re thinking.”
“It’s pure speculation,” I say quickly. “Trysten says the rumors began around the time the Michty went dry. I don’t know what the dragon could have done…”
“Home renovation,” Alianor says with another grin. “You know what it’s like. You move into a new place, and you make some changes. Well, unless you’re a princess who lives in a castle.”
Wilmot nods slowly. “At her size, the dragon could have been responsible, particularly if she was planning to lay eggs. The old books say the incubation period for dragons could be years. If she was pregnant when she came to Mount Gaetal—flying in from over the sea to lay her eggs—she could have stopped the springs in making her den. She lays the eggs and is spotted every now and then for several years. She would have been incubating them and storing food. Then they hatch, and she disappears as she tends to them.”
“Reappearing six months ago,” Dain says, “when she’s hungry and looking for food for her family. That drives off the monsters.”
The others nod. I say nothing, and Dain looks at me.
“You disagree,” he says.
“Your theory makes sense,” I say slowly.
“But…?”
I glance at Trysten.
Dain sighs. “You don’t need to worry about embarrassing me in front of others, princess. My ego isn’t that delicate. You have another theory. Spit it out.”
“I actually don’t have another theory. I just…” I take a deep breath. “Why are predators fleeing? There’s much easier prey out here than dropbears and harpies. And colocolos wouldn’t even satisfy one of the babies—they’re bigger than wyverns.”
“Predators aren’t fleeing because she’s eating them,” Dain says. “They’re relocating because she’s eating their prey. Only the colocolos seemed panicked. The others are just getting out of her way, leaving this area to her.”
“That makes sense,” I say. “And it makes sense that we’d see it more now, with the babies growing up and Momma hunting. I just feel…” I shrug. “I feel like this is a partial answer. A dragon family would definitely disturb the natural order of things. Some predators would move on. They probably did as soon as she arrived. Like Doscach’s herd, wherever they ended up. Some prey would move on, too, especially animals large enough to satisfy her.”
“But it’s too much,” Dain says. “What we’ve seen suggests there’s more to it.”
“It has to partly be the dragons, though, right?” Alianor says. “The timing can’t be a coincidence.”
Wilmot nods. “Yes, it’s unlikely to be coincidental. Something is spooking the monsters who decided to stay, something that convinced the dropbears and harpies to move on, and panics the smaller beasts, like colocolos. So how could the appearance of baby dragons be linked to that?”
“Baby dragons…” I say slowly, and then I turn to Trysten, who nods grimly.
“I think I might be your link,” he says. “Or, not me personally, but where I just spent more than a year of my life. With people who trade in baby monsters.”
“Wait,” Dain says, moving Dez to his feet as he twists toward Trysten. “You knew your village was hunting baby dragons…and you didn’t tell us.”
“First, they aren’t my village, and I’d appreciate it if you remembered that. Maybe you can’t believe anyone would stay with people like that unless they were locked in a cage, but I am not you. While my father might not recognize me as his heir, I was raised as a lord in his house where I was as much a prisoner as I was in Geraint’s village. My father even forbade me from learning to fight and tried to limit proper exercise.”
I frown. “Why?”
“So he wouldn’t grow up to be a threat,” Alianor murmurs. “He wouldn’t be able to challenge his father.” She glances over at him. “You look fine now.”
“Entirely from nearly two years living in the forest. My mother did what she could to keep me healthy, but walking over the mountains nearly killed me. I was a very bookish boy. I will be again, when I get some actual books. My father tried to limit that, too—intellect is another way to defeat a ruler. My mother had to choose where to thwart him. I got more secret lessons in history than secret lessons in sword fighting. The point is that I was ill-equipped for life out here.” He glances at Dain. “I don’t expect someone like you to understand that.”
Dain bristles. “Someone like me?”
“Competent. Confident. You know your way around the wilderness and around monsters. You would have found a way to escape, like Alianor did.”
“That was mostly Cedany,” Alianor says. “But I don’t think anyone here is questioning your story, Trysten.” She looks at Dain. “Right?”
“I wasn’t questioning that. My concern is the plot to kidnap dragon babies, which he didn’t share.”
“Because I didn’t know about it,” Trysten says.
Dain sputters and waves at me. “You just told Rowan—”
“I told Rowan I might know what might be happening. What might be upsetting Momma Dragon so much. As a hostage, I wasn’t part of Geraint’s troop, and I wasn’t allowed in on their secrets. It was a temporary situation. My mother isn’t going to spend the rest of her life trusting that I’m safely in the care of Queen Mariela. The only thing keeping her from visiting me so far is…” He waves at the mountains.
“She can’t easily come visit you,” I say. “Nor can she expect you to easily come visit her.”
He nods. “By now, though, she’ll be insisting on a visit, and the more my father denies her, the more suspicious she’ll become. Geraint wasn’t telling me anything he wouldn’t want me taking out of the settlement. For six months, I believed them when they said the baby monsters were orphans, and they were taking
