A broken chain still dangled from a hook wedged into the rock. Directly below it was a perfect circle, etched into the ground by some immense source of heat.
A sound of disgust came from the cave’s entrance, and Kett glanced around to see Dark looking like he could smell something bad. All Kett could smell was the scent of burned meat, but then she didn’t have the refined nose of a lion Nasc.
“Burned flesh,” he said to Kett.
“Human flesh,” Chance clarified. She too was making a face as she poked at the charred remains on the floor. Flakes of ash drifted away on the cool morning breeze.
“It was like that when I got here,” Kett said, which made her cousin smile.
“What are these?” Dark asked, examining the symbols burned into the wall. Now that the sunlight was filtering in, Kett could see the walls of the entire cavern were covered with them. “It looks like a language, but not one I recognize.”
“Thought you spoke everything going?” Kett asked.
“Exactly,” he said, frowning.
Chance moved closer to investigate but could offer no more clues. “It looks almost like kelfish, but…not,” she said.
“Helpful, thanks.”
Chance rolled her eyes and took out a notebook and pencil. “Here. Maybe someone at Koskwim will know.”
Kett pictured the vast library of the Order and nodded. If the answer was anywhere, it would be there.
She copied down as many of the symbols, in the correct order, as she could, and the three of them left the macabre place, riding down the mountain and turning north toward the Bridge compound near Tonshi. Chance handed Kett a few folded sheets of paper bearing the king of Peneggan’s signature and personal seal. Emergency travel documents.
Kett gave her cousin a sidelong look.
“He’s your uncle, not mine,” Chance said.
“Step-uncle,” Kett muttered. “How did you know I’d need them?”
“Darling, you always need them.”
The Wall shimmered before them, violet and beautiful. Mesmerizing, never still, and beautiful.
Beautiful and deadly.
Rather like a lot of people she knew.
The Bridge official waved them forward to be enchanted, and Kett prepared herself as she had a hundred times before. A grown human could pass through the Wall only under heavy enchantment. Children, animals and kelfs couldn’t pass through at all.
When she thought about it, the idea of being broken down into thousands of tiny pieces and reassembled on the other side made Kett feel vaguely sick. No wonder she was surrounded by green-faced travelers when she materialized on the Peneggan side of the Wall.
Dark came next, looking a little pale but otherwise healthy. Chance flowed into existence after him, looking no rockier than if she’d just stepped from a luxurious carriage ride.
“And yet we’re related,” Kett muttered in disgust, her hand on her queasy stomach. She followed her cousin out of the heavily fortified Bridge compound and up the hill, stepping around scorched areas of grass and breathing in deeply of the smoky air.
“Home scary home,” Chance said as they crested the rise, passed through a small wood and paused, looking down on the home of the Order.
“Really, I’m not sure I’m flattered that you keep bringing me here,” Dark said.
“I grew up here,” Chance protested mildly. “Most of the people here are lovely.”
“Darling, most of them could invent five new ways to kill a man before breakfast.”
“Only five? You haven’t been paying attention.”
Kett said nothing, looking down at the twisted red pillars of stone, the gleaming white tower, the glint of sunshine on the courtyard’s fountains. She could see small figures leaping and playing in the water, younger students not yet burdened with the full understanding of what they’d come to learn from the Order.
Thirty years ago…
Unlike everyone else in the Realm of Peneggan, Kett had never heard the rumor that the Wallside island of Koskwim was inhabited by dangerous dragons.
Unlike everyone else on the island itself, she hadn’t therefore laughed when she discovered the truth.
Dragons did roam the island, making their nests among the weird volcanic columns of rock, flying screeching overhead, terrifying the inhabitants of the mainland city of Port Jaret, just across the water.
But they weren’t the dangerous ones.
Hidden from the Bridge compound by trees and belief, a tall white tower gleamed in the sunlight. Seamless, the pale marble seemed to have grown out of the earth. And the Dragons who lived in it were indeed deadly. They just didn’t have wings.
At least, very few of them did.
On being brought to the island, Kett was tattooed with a number. Eight years later, her training completed, a pair of crossed swords was added to the design. They denoted that she, like all the other graduates of the Order’s elite training program, had attained the rank of Dragon Knight.
While the other kids had been learning to change their sword hand, Kett had been learning to change her shape. While they learned to pilot the carefully trained dragons, she’d been turning herself into one. While they learned the main languages of the other four Realms, she taught herself to speak.
She’d had to teach herself a lot of things.
“Kett?” Chance asked. “You still with us?”
Kett shook herself and started down the hill toward the white tower. “Sure,” she said. “Just thinking.”
“About Bael?” Chance asked slyly.
“Only how I’ll clock him one next time I see him,” Kett muttered.
“Will you be staying on the island?” Dark asked, and she shook her head.
“No. I’m going to look in the library for those cave symbols and unless the answer immediately presents itself, I’m going home.”
“Elvyrn?”
“No,” Kett said patiently. “
“They don’t speak at all,” Chance said, rolling her exquisite eyes.
“Thus the basis of their appeal.”
As they grew closer to the beautiful tower, to the still rocks, to the chattering water of the courtyard’s fountains, Kett heard the clash of steel, the thunder of hooves and the cries of unsuccessful opponents.
“You know, if you wanted us to track down Bael,” Chance began, and Kett shot her a venomous look.
“I’d honestly be quite happy never seeing him again. Besides, given his penchant for princesses, he’d probably go after Eithne or Beyla, and then Tyrnan would kill him. Actually…” She trailed off, considering.
“Have you considered that he might have something to do with why you were strung up in that cave?” Dark asked, and Kett shook her head.
“No. Well, I mean yes, I considered it, but I just don’t expect he’s got the brain power for it.”
“Harsh,” Chance said.
“Or the motivation. He don’t know me.”
“He could be an agent for someone else.”
“Someone else stupid,” Kett opined. “He was strung up with me too.” She chewed her lip, wishing she had a cigar handy. “The only starting point I’ve got is the Federacion.”
Thunder crossed Dark’s face. Even Chance’s radiant countenance dimmed a little.
“And there ain’t a lot of information on them,” Kett said. “And frankly, right now I’ve half a mind to just forget about it.”
“You could have been killed,” Dark said, and Chance nodded vigorously.
“The Kett I used to know would never-”
