Rebirth

by Maester_Aemon_Heterodyne

Summary:

Inara, a simple farmgirl, is out hunting one autumn when she finds a strange blue stone in a burning crater. Fascinated, she takes the stone back home, thinking of selling it. Before too long however the stone hatches, and out comes a dragon, upending her once simple life. This sets her on a long and dangerous journey, one that takes her to every corner of the world and into the struggles of a great war, one she must fight to win lest the world be swallowed forever in darkness.

A complete rewrite of the Inheritance Cycle, and a thorough reconstruction of the world of Alagaësia, all with a female protagonist.

Notes:

Please note, this story is inspired by Christopher Paolini, and to a lesser degree by LittleCharlie's Nari, but is like them only in broad outline. This is meant as a complete re-imagining of the entire world Paolini created, not simply as a rewrite of the Inheritance Cycle, though it is also just that. I intend to radically alter the nature of everything in the world, from the Ancient Language to the elves and even the very shape and name of Alagaësia.

The main goal of this work is to make the series less like a shot-by-shot recreation of Star Wars set in a knock-off Middle Earth, and to make the world itself richer than Paolini's.

Chapter 1

A preliminary map of Alagaësia, or Alagasia, as I have redesigned it. I will be updating it as I introduce new details, and posting new versions to account for territorial changes. As lines of latitude and longitude are not labelled, consider the southernmost reach of Alagasia (the mouth of the Arathi River) to lie at around 28° N, and the upper edge of the map to end around 55° N, a span of some 27°, similar to the span from northern Florida to southern edge of Hudson Bay, or 3000 kilometres (1900 miles). The Prime Meridian passes through the Grand Godshouse in Illyria (itself at 37° N.) Tarim sits at some 10° W, and Alagasia's east coast at some 23° E, spanning 33° and 4500 kilometres (3000 miles). All told, the pictured reaches of Alagasia cover over 13 million square kilometres, or a little over 8 million square miles. (Scroll right to see the eastern portions of the map.) 

 

 

A doe had come through here not long ago. Fresh tracks were imprinted in the riverside mud, their size and spacing revealing them to be of the same wounded doe that Inara had been chasing since the early morning. It was slowing down. Just a few hours ago, it had been hours ahead of her, but now it was much nearer, probably just half an hour away, especially if it had stopped to rest. Inara felt her heart grow faster. She needed this kill; she'd been out in the hills for several days, and her supplies were lower than she'd have liked. If she missed this doe, she would likely go home with nothing but those rabbits which she could catch on the way back, which yielded little meat for the effort of the catch, and would not last for long into the coming months. 

Another, equally pressing need also merited consideration: it was nearly winter, and while no snow had fallen this far down on the mountains yet, it would soon. Winter always came rapidly to the slopes of the Spine; a distant observer might watch as snow descended, a cold blanket slowly unfurling down the slopes. Already, nights were freezing. The last two had been colder than what Inara's bedroll had been made for, and she didn't want to put herself in any unnecessary danger from exposure if she could help it. Winter's approach also meant that the best trails would be closed until spring, and her family would have to spend money it likely wouldn't have on meat. Her village's butcher, a man named Sloan, had never been particularly cheap or empathetic.

Nimbly hopping the small stream, just as had the doe, she continued to follow the nearly invisible game-trail that deer and bears had cut through the hills and valleys of the spine. Had she not followed the trail before of many occasions, Inara knew she would have missed it. In many places, it ceased to be visible even to her, and she had to let her instincts take over. By the time the sun was low in the sky, she was hot in pursuit; the doe was occasionally visible to her, and she could hear it regularly. Patter patter, crash crash, nothing, nothing, patter patter, crash. When it finally hobbled into sight in a clearing next to another little river, a clearing she knew well, Inara's breath was coming out in clouds of frost and steam. From behind a tree near the little glen, out of sight of the doe, she drew and took her shot. The arrow landed right in its flank with a sickening, satisfying thunk. 

Before she could even smile at her catch, a blast of noise, a thunderclap at arm's length, enough to leave a ringing in her ears, exploded out through the forest, shaking the ground like an earthquake, accompanied by a flash of almost blindingly intense blue-white light. Inara froze, then crouched, sitting huddled against the tree, waiting for something to happen. Nothing else did. After a few long minutes, still nothing happened, and it didn't seem like anything would. Inara rose, and tentatively looked out from behind the tree. 

At first, she couldn't see anything out of place. The doe was still in the little glen, still dead, and the little trickling stream still trickled. Then she looked up. Several of the trees in the next clearing had had most of their lower needles stripped away cleanly, and several emitted breaths of steam. Smoke, clearly distinguishable from the steam rising off the trees, trickled silently into the air. Even as she watched, the smoke gradually diminished. Though fear and consternation slowed her, there was never any real question in her mind as to whether or not to investigate, and once she felt confident there was no danger, Inara strode out into the glen, passed the doe, and then into the next clearing. 

It was much of a proper forest clearing, however. The ground had been hollowed out, given the shape of a bowl about thirty feet across, and blackened like charcoal. A couple of small trees were completely stripped of their leafs, and another was torn in half. The glen felt pleasantly warm in the freezing air. Right at the centre of the destruction, in the bottom of the bowl, there was a curious blue stone, around which smoke slowly swirled. Inara stared in awe at the damage wrought, evidently, by a small rock. Had it fallen from the sky? She'd heard about rocks that sometimes fell from the heavens. Meteorite, said a voice in the back of her mind. Was this a meteorite? If it was, was it meant for her? Had she simply been in the right place when it fell? Had the gods sent it to her? What if it was a person who sent it to her? Could people even do that?

When Inara went to investigate the rock, a meteorite, surely it must be, more closely, she saw that it was a completely smooth oval, almost carved in its evenness. Rather like an egg, in fact, but long as a man's forearm. It was sapphire blue, with the lighter shades of a robin's egg tracing crack-shaped lines all around the surface. Just being near it, she could tell that it was special in a way she couldn't quite make sense of. Was it magical, perhaps? That was as good an explanation as any. Were meteorites always magical? Were any of these questions answerable? 

Giving in to impulse, Inara reached out ant touched the rock, laying a finger against it softly. Though the ground around it was charred, still warm, the stone was cool to the touch, and smooth as polished ice. She gave it a gentle shove. It proved surprisingly light. Given its modest weight and fascinating appearance, Inara decided to take it and return it to see if this rock might be worth anything to one of the merchants who were coming to the village soon, and so stowed it in her pack before going to deal with doe. 

Chapter 2

The high peaks and valleys of the Spine, a long mountain chain running for well over two thousand miles along the edge of the world, were one of the few wild places left in the Empire. Though the Emperor had more than once sent a grand army into its depths to conquer and explore, not one man of those expeditions were ever seen or heard from again. The vast, untamed mountains formed the western boundary of Palancar Valley, which was home to Inara's little village of Carvahall and a thousand other little villages just like it, and a few larger towns, a couple of which even had walls and noblemen, but such things were far removed from life Carvahall. 

Palancar Valley itself was a long, broad, flat river valley, bounded on the west by the mountains of the Spine and thirty leagues to the east by the somewhat lower hills of the Cossacks, beyond which lay Corsica. The Palancar River, which defined the valley and neatly cut in into east and west halves, ran swiftly northwards until it reached the Northern Sea over another thirty five leagues north-east of Carvahall. It represented the Empire's north-westernmost extremity. It was a cold place, one of short, pleasant summers and long, freezing winters, and a place few from the southern regions went without specific cause. The valley was thinly settled, having probably fewer than a quarter of a million people in all its extent. Carvahall, even among villages in the Valley, was cut off, standing as it did in the foothills of the Spine, through which few easy roads were carved.

Inara often found herself retreating into the wilds of the Spine, mostly to escape the disapproving looks of the village women. The men of the town weren't so bad; though dismayed initially at her boldness, once she'd shown that she could hunt as well as the lot of them most of the men of the village had left it at that and said nothing more. Not all had, but most. The women of the village were worse. They had stronger opinions about the proper behaviour of young women, behaviour that certainly did not include venturing into the wilds to hunt and butcher game, and few would allow Inara to corrupt their precious daughters. This was almost certainly why her closest friend had no mother.

The Spine was not a place most people who had something to lose went with any frequency, and over the years, Inara had learned many secrets of these woods and hills that no one else in the village knew. Most of the men who hunted never ventured as deep as she, or took the challenging routes she pursued. Not that they needed to; game was plentiful everywhere in the Valley for those with the skill to take it. She chose the longer route she did out of a desire for solitude, and for adventure. 

There was a storyteller in the village, a man named Brom, a friend of her father's, who told her stories about the Spine, about the deeds of the old Dragon Riders, and of the adventurers who'd wandered the woods and mountain trails seeking themselves. They were stories Inara never tired of hearing. These stories also told of the danger of the Spine. Especially when told by other villagers, the Spine was a land of hardship and death, a place where demons prowled the night and Urgals, the horrid beast-folk of the mountain vales, hunted for the flesh of unwary travellers. 

There were no Urgals here, though. Just bears and deer and wildcats and mountain goats. Everyone knew the Empire was responsible for spreading around the darker rumours, to cover for their embarrassment. Travelling about, especially alone, took caution, and one had to be wary of bears, wolves, storms, and most of all, the cold, but vigilance and a healthy respect for the power of the forest was enough to keep you reasonably alive.

Though it took her longer than she would have wanted, toting as she was a heavy deer on a small sled down a rough-and-tumble trail, Inara eventually made it back to Carvahall, where in the cool mid-morning air the townsfolk buzzed with activity. Children ran and screamed between houses and through the fields, and the adults wandered to trade their bread, eggs, fish, and other goods. Usually, the village was a quieter place, but now the coming of a group of merchants to trade wares before the winter set in prompted a wave of hurried activity and general busyness. 

Inara made her way purposefully through the village, avoiding some of the more disparaging looks she received, towards Sloan's butchery. The inside of the shop was a warm and pleasant place, lit by a large hearth and all covered in hanging furs. If not for the man who owned it, Sloan's shop would have been a somewhat pleasant place. The loud, contemptuous eyeroll he gave her was the same one he'd given her every single time she'd brought him something to butcher over the last four years, and whenever else he could. Her first kill, a squirrel from when she was nine, was one of her proudest moments, but Sloan had spoiled the day by berating her about it when she'd shown some her fellow villagers. She was just shy of seventeen now. He'd long since stopped giving her his 'improper girl who doesn't her place' speech, but the look was still there. 

He was also physically intimidating. At six and a half feet tall, he was nearly the largest man in the village, surpassed only by the towering blacksmith Horst. Inara had never seen him fight anyone, for luckily he was not a violent man, but between his size, stern face, and a butcher's familiarity with knives and flesh, he was not a man anyone took lightly. 

"What's your catch this time, girl?" he said, as she walked in. He was cutting up a goat, presumably for some other farmer. 

"Deer. You can keep six pounds of it," Inara offered.

"You're joking, girl. Are you trying to starve me? Ten pounds, at least." 

"Seven and a half, and I'll bring you a rabbit after the festival. You know how Katrina loves rabbit stew." 

"Are you trying to rob me? Six rabbits at least, then maybe you have a deal."

"Three rabbits. I can't live my life hunting rabbits for you, old man."

"Five at least, girl." 

"Four. No more." 

"Fine, seven pounds of the doe and four rabbits," Sloan huffed, adding another eyeroll for effect. He must have been in a good mood, or at least distracted; he usually haggled much harder. "Bring your catch." Inara complied, dragging the sled behind the outer door of his shop for him to deal with. 

"Oh, Sloan, I'm looking for Katrina. Is she down by the river?" Inara asked.

"She should be. I think she said something about the river, so you might try there," he said. "I'll be finished in two hours. Come back then."

Katrina was Sloan's only daughter. Although in most respects as different as the sun and moon, she and Katrina had been friends since birth. Katrina was a small, sweet, ladylike woman with lovely fair skin and rich auburn hair that excellently complemented her leafy-green eyes. Her greatest ambition was to become a farmer's wife, possibly a midwife besides. Inara had never quite understood that aspiration. 

Despite her close relationship with his only daughter, Sloan was so reclusive that she rarely even interacted with him except from his butchery and other family business. He had never approved of his daughter's friendship with Inara, but everyone knew that Sloan didn't rule his daughter the way he loudly and frequently said a father ought. 

Sure enough, Katrina was washing clothes and bedsheets along the river bank. Absorbed in her work, she didn't notice Inara behind her. Obviously a surprise was in order. Inara jumped her and made a loud shapeless noise. Katrina squealed and flailed about until she'd gotten herself turned around. "Oh!" she exclaimed. "Gods, 'Nara, didn't see you there," Katrina said, threw her arms around her and squeezing tight, grinning ear to ear.  "So, you're back. How was your hunt?" 

"A good one," Inara replied. "A doe, up near a beautiful little creek. You'll have some fresh venison to cook with tonight. I promised you two some rabbits after the caravan too." 

"Mmm. Your deer always do taste the best. Did Roran send you with any messages before you took off?" 

"You two are so silly about this," Inara replied with a smile. "I keep telling Roran he should have the courage to just show up. It's not like he doesn't have excuses for talking to you, if, Gods forbid, your father catches you two at all near each other. 'But no,' he says. 'I have to stay here on the farm. Work to do, animals to feed. Couldn't possibly go talk to a girl a half hour's walk away.' As it happens, though, he said that you're the loveliest girl the world has ever made, and that you should meet him at Ardorn's tavern tomorrow."

Roran, technically Inara's cousin but more of a foster brother, had started courting Katrina in the late spring, and Inara was thrilled to see her best friend marry him. She'd always felt Katrina to be like a sister, and soon, perhaps within a few months, she actually would be. The two were moving so slowly, wary as they were of Sloan's wrath. Katrina's father had always had it out for Roran's father Garrow, as Garrow had always resented Sloan, for no reason either had articulated to their children. All three feared what might happen if Roran and Katrina made their intentions clear, though Inara felt the delicate care they approached the whole matter with to be quite ridiculous. Even so, she'd agreed to be their go-between, since she had business that brought her into town frequently, where Roran's labours kept him at the farm except on occasions such as the coming of merchants. 

Katrina blushed a pretty pink, smiling like an idiot. "Could you tell him that I'll be waiting eagerly for him, and that he's the sweetest boy I've ever met?" 

"Of course. Are you going to stay there to see the bards sing?"

Katrina smiled even more broadly than before. "Of course, silly. Would I miss it? It's the event of year." 

The merchants, when they came to town, always brought with them a great gaggle of storytellers and bards, who never failed to enchant the simple villagefolk of Carvahall. Since only a half-dozen villagers were even literate, including Inara, and given that books were an expensive luxury with little use to a farmer anyways, most villagers got their stories no other way. It was the highlight of every caravan's visit. 

"I thought you might want some time alone with Roran, y'know, for, ah, courtship rituals," Inara said, nudging Katrina with her elbow.

Katrina hastily turned away blush went from rosy pink to beet red at the jape. "I th-think we'll stay at the inn with everyone else, thank you." 

Inara snorted. "Suit yourself. You should rent a room afterwards though."

Perhaps she wasn't being fair to her friend to tease her so, but Kat's ruddy face whenever sex was mentioned was enough to make her jesting worth it. Inara had never understood what about it would make someone so bashful; she'd occasionally gotten in bed with boys herself, and it was good, but . 

Inara also wasn't entirely certain the extent of her friend and brother's relationship, since Katrina got tight-lipped whenever Inara so much as alluded to more than kissing and Roran somehow glowed redder even than Katrina when she tried to talk with him about it. Not that it wasn't uncomfortable for her, too, talking about it with her brother, but she could at least utter words 'sex' or 'fucking' or 'cock' in front of her friends without her cheeks getting hot enough to light fires. 

"How 'bout you? I know how much you love stories, 'Nara. Did you hear Baelish the Bard will be coming?" Katrina asked, redirecting the conversation. 

"Baelish Goat-throat? I'm sure he'll be lovely to look at-" and every girl in the whole damn village but her seemed to think so "-but he's got the voice of a sickly sow, and his lute sounds like it's falling apart whenever he plucks a string, which he does only rarely, thank the Gods. He's hardly the singer Merillion is. That man knows how to tell a story. And yes, of course I'll see the bards. I'm always there before they even have time to down their first drink." 

"Always, I know. They're your favourite. Even I can't compete for your attention when stories are being told." 

As the conversation lulled momentarily, it occurred to Inara that it had been long enough by then that she had other business in town. "It's good to see you Kat, and I'd love to stay, but your father's got my deer and Missa's got my good cloak out drying, and frankly, I need a nap. I've been out in the woods for days. I'll see you tommorow?" 

"Yes, tomorrow. Tell Roran I'm excited to see him!"

"I will. Good bye, Kat!"

"You too, 'Nara!" 

After retrieving her deer and cloak, Inara took off on the road home, which for her, wasn't in Carvahall proper. A mile or so outside town sat her uncle Garrow's little farm and farmhouse. It was a cozy place, though there wasn't much in the house but a fireplace, dining table, and walls to give people private bedrooms. The farm also had a small barn where they kept a few horses and a pair of draught oxen, as well as a couple of sheds for tools and firewood. Walking there from the town took around a half hour, and the sun was well past its highest for the day by the time she finally plodded through the front door. 

Garrow was not a man to stand much on ceremony, nor one to display great fits of passion. When Inara walked in, he sat at the table whittling some trinket for sale from wood. He smiled mildly to her. "Good hunting?" he asked. His voice, even when he spoke quietly, was a powerful one, projected as it was from his great barrel of a chest. 

"It was, Uncle. A doe and some rabbits." Inara had, with her uncle, adopted his clipped abbreviated way of speaking, despite her otherwise chatty nature. He never simply sat and talked at length, and it was ahrd to have a conversation without a proper partner "Is Roran around?"

"In the fields. He'll be in soon. Did Sloan try to swindle you again?" Enormous bushy eyebrows knitted with concern beneath his hairless head. 

"Seven pounds of deer, some rabbits."

"Not bad, then."

"Not bad. I have to sleep now, though. Hunting is hard work. Can you wake me for supper?" Garrow nodded, leaving his niece to depart without another word.

Inara had, in her earliest days, been raised to think that Garrow and his wife Abigail had been her birth parents, and Roran her brother. When Inara was seven, Abigail died in a fit of fever, and Garrow soon told Inara and Roran the truth. Garrow's sister, Selena, had died giving birth to Inara, and so Garrow had taken her in as his own. The memory of learning that somehow hurt at least as much as losing Abigail had. In the years since, Inara had decided that her birth didn't make Garrow any less her father, or Roran less her brother, though she'd largely stopped using the words to talk about them. 

While she considered Garrow her father by choice, her blood father still eluded her, as Selena had never revealed her lover's name to Garrow, leaving her family in the dark as to the heritage their newest member. Especially in those first few years after learning of her true birth, Inara had wondered endlessly who her father was, and how finding him might change her life, imagining being some mighty knight's bastard daughter. She'd dreamt many a time of a mighty lord or rebel hero coming to whisk her away from her little corner of the world and into adventure, but those dreams were rare now. Thoughts of her birth father came to her infrequently and had long since ceased to trouble her overmuch. Still, the question remained.

Inara deposited her catch on the table for Garrow to manage before heading to her bedroom, putting away her bow and other equipment, and starting a pack for merchant day. Before she even started, however, she found in her pack the blue stone that had appeared in the mountains. Somehow she'd managed to forget all about the strange blue rock. How could she, though? Was it so strange her mind simply refused to deal with it and moved on to other, more pressing matters? It was such a beautiful stone, really. Smooth, unblemished, sky-blue, patterned with hairline veins of white... perhaps one of the merchants would pay well for it. At the very least, one of them might be able to tell her what it was. Inara shrugged and put it back in the bag after removing her hunting gear, along with other goods for the market. 

It never once occurred to her to show her marvellous stone to her uncle or cousin. 

Chapter 3

When the merchants came to Carvahall, all of Carvahall turned out to meet them. Just about every single man, woman, and child in the village was bustling about the town's little market square. The warm alien smells of southern spices and foods filled the cool Autumn air. Even so, for all the excitement, there was a distinctly subdued feeling to the whole event, and among the merchants almost a feeling of melancholy. They were not half so many as in Autumn festivals of past years, nor half so rich as they'd previously been. 

Inara, Roran, and Garrow arrived in town around noon, with the golden high in the sky. Garrow handed Roran and Inara small bags of goods to sell, and some money for food and trinkets. "Get yourselves some treats. Make sure you can good prices on those hides. Hate to see those go to waste. And be at the inn before sundown," he said to them. The cousins nodded vigorously and ran off almost before Garrow could finish speaking, and Roran headed off purposefully towards Sloan's butchery to find Katrina, leaving Inara to her own devices. This suited her. She had her own mission. 

Inara first sold the hides Garrow had given her to Mord the tanner, a Carvahall local. He had always been fond of her, and his prices were generous. After collecting her coin, she spent a couple of hours wandering and trying out the strange and delicious southern treats the travellers purveyed. Somewhere in the early afternoon, she came across a merchant with a dozen or so books. These were a rare sight in Carvahall, since only about a score people in the village of a couple thousand could read them. Inara had learned how several years ago under the tutelage of Brom, the old storyteller who loved to fill her head with tales of the world abroad.

Most of the the books the merchant displayed were simple ones, consisting of a few copies of the Holy Writ, a somewhat shabby-looking Official History of the Empire, and a few short romance stories, all which Inara was already familiar with. All his books had a look of age and wear. One, however, stood out: it was bound in dark leather, and looked quite new, like it was fresh from the printer. Its title was not one Inara recognised, or could even read properly. It was spelled Òdhan  Abhr  Weirdha, which must have been in another language, maybe one of the ones spoken in the South or the eastern deserts. 

"How much for that one?" she asked, pointing to the strange tome. 

"Five crowns," said the merchant. He was a skinny old gray-haired man with a bored, dispassionate gaze. 

"How about four?" Inara offered. Though four bronze crowns was not an inconsiderable sum for a farmer, it was astonishingly cheap as far as such clearly fine books went. Commonly printed books were usually no more than a few crowns apiece, sometimes more, but old, handmade volumes from before printers came around were so expensive Inara had never been able to buy one, and had never even seen one for less than a handful of silver shields. 

"Four crowns, ten pennies, and the rest of that sweetmeat you're holding," he said. A curious offer. Most merchants would have asked for far more, but the man didn't seem terribly interested in the foreign book. Inara accepted, handed him the money and the food, and took her odd book in hand. "You know, I've had that book for years," the merchant said to her as she departed, "but you wouldn't know it by looking at it. It got soaked in a puddle once, but when I pulled it out and it was already. It doesn't even collect dirt. I've been trying to get it off my hands for a long while, but you're the first person to make an offer in all that time. No one else seems to notice it. Cursed, if you ask me."

After walking off to find a place to sit down, Inara opened the supposedly cursed book to see what secrets it kept. The pages of the strange tome were of a strangely thin and flexible paper, not the rough, thick materials most common in the Empire. Many contained strange illustrations full of abstract shapes, and all the written parts were in the other language that Inara couldn't decipher. Many of the letters had little lines and dots sticking off them, like í, ó, and á, or ö. Every bit of the book was obviously handwritten, and every pen-stroke dripped with artistry. Though she could read better than the Carvahall parish priest, she could barely write more than her own name and knew nothing of the craft that was penmanship, but she didn't need to to see how excellent a work she held. How curious this was. Brom was going to love it, of that was certain. 

For the last two years, Brom, an old storyteller who lived a little ways outside the village, had been teaching Inara her letters. At first, it had been slow-going, and the letters seemed to turn into ink soup after none too long looking at a page, but in the end she'd learned, and could read most common books like the Holy Writ and Official History. Brom, at first, hadn't been interested overmuch in teaching her, but something in her persistence had eventually convinced him. Brom's house, ever since she was small, had been one of Inara's favourite places. Every child in the village visited Brom when they could to hear his tales, which never failed to be exciting or puzzling or frightening. Inara had, among all the other children, taken the keenest interest in Brom's tellings, and for his part he'd seemed to take especially keen interest in Inara and her incessant questions about the world as well. In all the years she had known him, for all the times she came to his house without warning to pester him with endless batteries of questions about anything and everything, he had never once turned her away. 

When she put it into her bag, she saw the blue stone, and suddenly remembered the mission the book had distracted from. She still hadn't told anyone about her find, or gift, or burden, or whatever it was. The oblong rock almost seemed to stare back at her every time she looked at it, which was exceedingly disconcerting, and so beautiful or no she wanted it dealt with soon and at a minimum of fuss. She wasn't sure, however, what kind of merchant might be interested in a large blue rock. Probably a jeweller? That would be a good place to start, at least. There was one in the caravan, by the name of Morloch, who might buy such a thing, so Inara decided to search for his stall first. 

She found him behind a booth, displaying brooches to a group of women. As each new piece was revealed, exclamations of admiration followed. Inara knew that more than a few purses would soon be depleted. Morloch seemed to flourish and grow every time his wares were complimented. He wore a neat goatee, held himself with ease, and seemed to regard the rest of the world with amusement.

While the gaggle of young women prevented her approach, Inara waited against a nearby tree. The moment he was free, she swooped in. "Good day, Morloch."

"Hello, young lady. And what might I help you with? Those eyes of yours, such a lovely dark blue, would be brought out so well by this azure necklace," said the merchant, his voice sweeter than honey. With a twirl he pulled out a delicately crafted bronze vine of on a chain, a little azure rosebud flowering from it. The polished metal and stone caught Inara's attention, and she eyed it appreciatively. Inara had never felt comfortable with the jewels or dresses or complicated hair styles that so fascinated most other other girls in the village, though she had always appreciated what they did for the looks of those who wore them. Her eyes weren't a proper blue, either, more a sort of flat grey, which went rather regrettably well with the flat brown of her hair. The trader continued, “Not even seventy crowns, though it has come all the way from the famed craftsmen of Belatona.” 

"I'm afraid I'm not here to buy, but to sell. I have something you might want." She didn't really have much choice, though; seventy crowns was almost ten times what money she had left. In truth, there were probably only half a dozen families in the village who could have bought it at all. Palancar Valley was no proper place to sell finery. Even if he bought the rock, she would have far better uses for anything short of its weight in gold than necklaces.

The merchant looked at her with a newfound interest. "I see. And you think this item might be of value? Perhaps to trade it for one of these fine pieces?" he said. He stared for a moment of uncomfortable silence. "You do have this item on you, correct?"

"Yes. Um, I'm not sure I want to show it to you here. Do you have somewhere else?" she asked. 

"I do. Come right this way," he said with a look of intrigue, guiding her into the tent behind his stall and depositing the cloth that held his wares into a bound iron chest and carrying it inside with him. Having stored the chest, he turned and stared into her with curiosity. "So, what have you for me?"

Inara withdrew the blue rock from her pack. She tried several times to say something about it, but looking at the stone, nothing felt right. Morloch must have felt the same, for he simply took it in silence. He sat down on the rug thrown over the dirt beneath the tent, and placed the stone in his lap. Using a set of brass scales, he weighed it, recorded his results in a little journal, then withdrew from his shirt a jeweller's glass and inspected the stone's surface. He proceeded to tap it gently with a wooden mallet, and drew the point of a tiny clear stone over it. He measured its length and width, recording as he went, then sat, looking pensive. He considered the rock for several minutes, doing nothing while Inara fidgeted impatiently. 

"Do you know how much this is worth?" he said eventually. 

"No," Inara answered. "I have no idea. That's why I'm here."

Morloch grimaced. “Unfortunately, neither do I. But I can tell you this much: the white veins are the same material as the blue that surrounds them, only a different colour. What that material might be, though, I haven’t a clue. It’s harder than any rock I've ever seen, harder even than diamond. Whoever shaped it used tools the nature of which I can only speculate—or magic. Also, it’s hollow.” 

Inara was incredulous. "Hollow? You must be joking." 

"Joking? I'm afraid not. Did you ever hear a rock sound like this?” Hes said, and produced a dagger from his coat and slapped the stone with the flat of the blade. Instead of the high striking note it might have produced if it were an actual rock, the knife made a scraping noise and a dull thud. Inara worried for a moment about possible damage to the stone, but when merchant tilted it towards her, she could make out none. “You will find no scratches or blemishes where the dagger struck. I doubt I could do anything to harm this stone, even if I took a splitting maul to it.” 

An unbreakable stone appeared in front of me deep in the Spine. I thought it may have appeared in the Spine through magic, but made through magic? What's it for? Or Who? Almost without thinking about it, she blurted, "but what's it worth?"

“I can’t tell you that,” said Morloch. “I am sure there are people who would pay dearly to have it, but none of them are in Carvahall, or anywhere else in all of Palancar Valley. You would have to go to the southern cities to find a buyer..” 

That still didn't really answer her question. "Will you buy it from me?" 

The merchant answered both forcefully and immediately. “It’s not worth the risk. I might be able to find a wealthy buyer during my spring travels, but I can’t be certain. Even if I did, you wouldn’t be paid until I returned next year. No, you will have to find someone else to trade with." His demeanour was of of fear, though, not disappointment. What did he know? What was this stone? "I am curious, however... If you know nothing of this, why did you insist on talking to me in private?”

Truthfully, Inara didn't know. Something about it made it feel... important. As if it weren't something to be bandied about in broad daylight. "Because I found it while hunting up in the Spine. A lot of people here are suspicious of the mountains, and of anything but game that comes out of them. I didn't want anyone making a big fuss of it." Though generally true, as most who lived in Palancar Valley did not trust the Spine, this was only a half-truth, since showing it to her uncle would not have created such a fuss. Yet, she hadn't. As an answer, she hoped at least it would satisfy; most outsiders had no trouble believing the locals to be so superstitious.

The merchant gave her a startled look. “Do you know why my fellow merchants and I were late this year?” 

As it happens, Inara had not thought deeply on it. They were later than usual, yes, but not so much as to be worrisome. The diminished size and grandeur of the caravan was of greater concern to her and the other villagers. So long as it arrived before winter set in, nobody cared exactly when, but if they didn't come with enough trade goods, the harsh winters of Palancar Valley were made harsher still. "No, not really."

“Our wanderings have been dogged with misfortune. Chaos seems to rule Alagasia. We could not avoid illness, attacks, and the most cursed black luck. Because the Varden’s attacks have increased, Emperor Galen has forced many to send more soldiers to the southern lands, men who are needed to keep the peace against hill bandits and Urgals. The brutes have been advancing to the southeast, toward the Steppe. No one knows why and it wouldn’t concern us, except that they’re passing through well-peopled areas. They’ve been spotted on roads and even near cities. Worst of all are reports of a Shade, though the stories are unconfirmed. Few generally survive such an encounter.” 

Inara was taken aback. "Why haven't we heard of this yet?" 

"It's only been in the last few months that it's been happening. News does not come so quickly to the fringes of the Empire. Just in the last month entire villages have vanished or been forced to move because of these attacks."

"The only Urgal around here has its horns mounted in Armond's tavern," Inara protested. 

The merchant stared at her, arching an eyebrow. “Maybe so, but this is a small and remote village, hidden by high mountains. It’s not surprising that you’ve escaped notice. However, I wouldn’t expect that to last. I only mentioned this because strange things must be happening here as well if you found such a stone in the Spine.” With that sobering statement, he gave her back the stone, then bid her farewell with a bow and slight smile, ushering her out of the tent rather hurriedly.

Inara was momentarily at a loss, and for a long while meandered about the market aimlessly, not really seeing any of the wares merchants sought to shove into her arms. Urgal attacks? Destroyed towns and villages? It seemed so incongruous with the joyous noises that flooded the air of Carvahall, and so unreal. How could it be true? On top of that was the matter of the stone. Morloch's actions betrayed that he knew what it was, and that he thought it both priceless and important, yet refused to take it, almost as if it were dangerous. During her wanderings, as the immediacy of her worries faded, she started asking other merchants for news of the world, and a clear and unpleasant picture of the south's troubles began to emerge. An image that resembled Morloch's in uncomfortable detail. Rebels, outlaws, and mountain beasts plaguing the land, and an emperor more intent on challenges to his rule than the men and beasts raiding his fringes. 

Eventually, her aimlessness was drawn to a close with the onset of the evening. As the light was fading, Inara made her way to Armond's tavern, where the bards would start their singing presently. In the beauty of the setting sun, she began to feel less frightened, and soon enough thoughts of magic rocks and Urgals and the Varden drifted gently away from her. 

Chapter 4

The inside of Armond's inn was hot and filled with greasy smoke from sputtering tallow candles. A pair of shiny black Urgal horns, each twisted branch the length of a man's forearm, were mounted over the door. The bar was long and low, with a stack of staves on one end for customers to carve. Armond himself was tending the bar, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He was a short but very broad man, built like a load of bricks with a thick beard and head of shaggy hair. He'd always been fond of Inara and Katrina, who sometimes snuck in to drink and chat with boys without their parents about, and often gave them discounts on mead or ale when they came by. 

When he noticed her come in, he put down the mug he was cleaning to greet her. "Good to see you, 'Nara. Where's your uncle today?" 

"Buying. He'll be a while, I think." 

"What about Roran? No sick livestock to keep him home this time?" 

"None. He'll be here with Katrina in none too long." 

"Good, Good." 

Inara looked around the room, where people crowded the long tables to quaff ale, chat, and tell tales, and noticed a group of bedraggled looking men huddled in a corner drinking loudly. “Who are they?”

“Grain buyers. They bought everyone’s seed at way under normal price. Something about shortages to the south. They're spinning some crazy yarns, expecting us to believe them."

Reminded of the merchants' tales, Inara's began to worry. "What kind of stories?"

Armond snorted. “They say the Varden have formed a pact with the Urgals and are massing an army to attack us. Supposedly, it’s only through the grace of our Great Ruler that we’ve been protected for so long—as if the Emperor would care if we burned to the ground...  Go, listen to them. I have enough on my hands without explaining their lies.”

The first trader far overfilled a sad-looking chair with his enormous girth, his every movement prompting it to protest loudly. There was no hint of hair on his face, his pudgy hands were baby smooth, and he had pouting lips that curled petulantly as he sipped from a flagon. The second man had a florid face. The skin around his lips was dry and corpulent, filled with lumps of hard fat, like cold butter gone rancid. Contrasted with his neck and jowls, the rest of his body was unnaturally thin.

The first trader tried vainly to pull back his expanding borders to fit within the chair. He said, “No, no, you don’t understand. It is only through the Emperor's unceasing efforts on your behalf that you are able to argue with us in safety. If he, in all his wisdom, were to withdraw that support, woe unto you!” His syrupy-thick southern accent made him sound flowery and uptight, when he could be clearly understood at all. 

Someone hollered, “Right, why don’t you also tell us the Riders have returned and you’ve each killed a hundred elves and ten dozen dwarves. Do you think we’re children to believe in your tales? We can take care of ourselves.” The group chuckled.

The trader started to reply when his thin companion intervened with a wave of his hand. Gaudy jewels flashed on his fingers. “You misunderstand. We know the Empire cannot care for each of us personally, as you may want, but it can keep Urgals and other abominations from overrunning this,” he searched vaguely for the right term, “place. You’re angry with the Empire for treating people unfairly, a legitimate concern, but the Crown cannot please everyone. There will inevitably be arguments and conflicts, and someone will always be left behind. However, the majority of us have nothing to complain about. Every country has some small group of malcontents who aren’t satisfied with the balance of power.”

“Yeah,” called a woman, “if you’re willing to call the Varden small!”

The fat man sighed. “We already explained that the Varden have no interest in helping you. That’s only a falsehood perpetuated by the traitors in an attempt to disrupt the Empire and convince us that the real threat is within our borders, not without. All they want to do is overthrow the Emperor and take possession of our lands for their pillaging. They have spies everywhere as they prepare to invade. You never know who might be working for them.”

Inara did not agree, but the traders’ words were smooth, and some of the visiting merchants were nodding along with him. She stepped forward and said, “How do you know this? I can say that clouds are green, but that doesn’t mean it’s true. Prove you aren’t lying.” The two men glared at her while the villagers waited silently for the answer. 

The thin trader spoke first. He avoided Inara’s eyes. “Aren’t your children taught respect? Or do you let little girls challenge grown men at will?" 

After a tense moment, one of the villagers said to the fat man, "answer the question." Inara silently thanked him, but couldn't tell if he saw. 

“It’s only common sense,” said the fat one neervously, sweat beading on his upper lip. His reply riled the villagers, and the dispute resumed.

The exchange left a bitter taste in Inara's mouth as she returned to the bar. Hatred and resentment for the Empire in Carvahall, as in most of Palancar Valley and the Northlands more broadly, was overwhelming, almost hereditary in nature. Emperor Galen gave them no help in years of starvation, and his tax collectors and recruiting officers were ruthless and relentless. Inara hadn't met many people in her life who so openly supported the Empire. That was why she felt so justified in challenging the southerner's word despite, as noted, being a girl, and why the other villagers, themselves generally contemptuous towards the opinions of young girls, backed her up. She wasn't so willing to speculate about about the Varden, though. 

The Varden were a group of anti-imperial rebels, though truthfully, that was all most could ever agree about them. Some said they were a mighty army, nobly launching daring attacks on the fringes of the Empire to combat the evil reign of Galen, while others said they were nothing but a band of ignoble thieves who stole from honest imperial merchants. The way the Empire's agents talked about them, one might think them an all-seeing conspiracy of sorcerers and other dark characters intent on, and capable of, murdering all the Empire's people, and destroying all the good in the world for the sake of chaos. Little was known actually known for certain about the Varden except that if you hated the Empire and wanted to fight it, they would accept you. The only problem was finding them.  

Armond leaned over the bar and said, “Incredible, isn’t it? They’re worse than vultures circling a dying animal. There’s going to be trouble if they stay much longer.” 

“For us or for them?” 

"Them," said the bartender. 

Inara escaped the tavern as voices began escalating beyond her comfort level, and angry people started standing up. She could hear a crash and shout as the door closed behind her. The sun outside nearly touched the horizon, and cast the the whole village in its rich glow. As she walked down the street, looking for some possible distraction, she found Katrina outside Horst the blacksmith's. 

"Kat!" 

"'Nara. Find any good books this time?" Books were always Inara's first priority when merchants rolled in. When she'd convinced Brom to teach her, in the hopes that reading could take her places in a way that hunting and farming couldn't, she'd started finding every book she could. She'd amassed only a dozen and a half, given the cost of even the cheapest books, and several were those on loan from Brom. He'd never asked for them back, despite her having had at least one of them for nearly two years, but still, they weren't really hers.

"One."

"Is it any good?" 

"I'm not sure what it's about yet."

"Why? That seems important to know." 

"It's in some other, maybe foreign language. I can't read it." Inara withdrew the book from her pack and showed it to Katrina.

"Oh. That looks exciting." Her voice, however, betrayed her disinterest. 

"It might be, even if it's just a recipe book. Maybe it'll have some exotic stew for me to cook up."

"You? Make a stew? I love you, 'Nara, but I won't eat your cooking again unless you offer me chests of gold and silver and maybe a nice southern estate for it, and I still wouldn't pretend it was good. I've never met someone who could burn water before." 

"I didn't burn the water. It just boiled away, and then the pot's handle melted and then it fell in the fire. How was I suppose to know a mostly stone stove would burn? Besides, what's in the book isn't important. It's knowledge. It's something new, and something I don't know, but soon will. That's exciting, no matter what you learn." 

"If you say so."

"I have, many times." 

"Don't think I don't remember. You never get enough of your adventure books."

"Oh, not just books. I want a real  adventure. I want to go places, Kat."

"And I hope you do, one day. Tonight, though, there are stories to hear, for both of us."

There was a certain lull then, the same one that followed this familiar conversation. Inara looked around for a moment, and it occurred to her that Katrina did not commonly spend her time outside Horst's smithy, especially without any apparent task at hand. "So," she asked, "what're you doing here? Need a new knife for your father?" 

"As it happens, yes, but I've already got them. Roran's inside, actually, and he says he's got a special gift for me."

"Oh? A special gift? Any hints as to what that might be?"

"I wanted to ask you. You live with him, you would know better than me."

"Not really. I can't even mention your name at home without making him glow like a beet. Besides, we haven't exactly been in close contact the last couple of weeks, what with my hunting and his harvesting and winter preparations." 

"I hope it's something good."

"It will be. Roran's known you his whole life. It's hard to imagine he wouldn't get you something good."

The door to Horst's opened at that moment, revealing a grinning Roran. He cut an impressive image, standing there. He was not a short man, though not a terribly tall one either, being roughly of a height with Inara, and had Garrow's barrel chest and thick, muscular build, as well as the full head of brown hair his father had lost long ago. His eyes were gray, like Inara's, but bluer and clearer, and were bounded by thick yet mostly neat brows. He carried in his hand a small package, one wrapped in the green cloth that the smith used. 

"Hello again, cousin!" he said, descending the short steps down from Horst's door. "Here for the presenting of my gift?" 

"Not originally, no, but I am now," Inara replied. "I've not seen the two of you together much. Gotta make sure you're treating my friend right."

"Oh, I think you'll be suitably impressed. We should go into the alley, though. Best not do this out in the street." Inara and Katrina both assented, and the three bustled into the little alley between the smithy and Tom's bakery. 

Once all was clear, Roran straightened up, and did his best to present his gift to Katrina formally, though his bow was poorly executed and his manner probably would have been laughed at in other company. Katrina, for her part, managed a much more elegant accepting of the little package, and performed a proper curtsy.

She made much drama of opening the cloth, but dropped all pretense when she saw what lay within, and gave a sharp gasp before freezing like a statue. It was a necklace, an exquisitely shaped burnished copper bird with outstretched wings, tied on a chain. A nightingale, it looked like. It wasn't small, either, and must have been worth a small fortune for a farmer. Inara loved books, something near useless to her, but books were mostly cheap. Fancy jewelry though, especially like this, was... absurd. The necklace Morloch had offered was barely half its size, and though more delicately crafted, likely wasn't worth anywhere near as much. "How did you ever afford this, Roran?"

"I didn't. I found a lump of copper out in our fields when I was tilling this spring, shaped like an axe head. It had a little etching on it, like an engraving. All those jobs I worked this summer, I did to get Horst to shape it into something nice." 

"There are treasures in our field?" Inara said, incredulous. "I don't know if I believe that. There's barely any good dirt in our fields, let alone treasures."

"Treasure, not treasures. I looked for weeks, but I couldn't find anything but that one piece. Even so, I managed to sell most of it for a pretty penny. This was only what Horst needed, not the whole axe head." 

"You could have sold the whole thing, and we could have finally had enough money to make to spring."

"We will anyways, cousin. The harvest was good this year, and between what I've made with working and the rest of the copper I think we can buy whatever else we need without any major debt. No more than last year, that's for sure." Roran was right, at least, that the harvest had been good. Last year had been difficult for everyone. Winter's cold had persisted unusually long into the spring, delaying planting too far into the year. Many families, especially those on marginal land like Inara's and Roran's, had gone into debt trying to feed themselves. 

"Perhaps so," Inara conceded. 

"I know it feels irresponsible, but trust me here, we're going to do alright."

"It's beautiful..." Katrina said, almost inaudibly, breaking the argument. "I... thank you, Roran, I don't know...."

"Put it on! Put it on! I want to see it on you." 

And so Katrina did, and the effect was both immediate and breathtaking. The burnished copper almost exactly matched her hair, making both shine as if from within. Her blue eyes, now framed all around by the copper of her hair and jewelry, stood out in a way Inara had never thought possible. Perhaps this was worth it, after all. 

"Do you see why, now?" Roran asked. "This moment has been on my mind for months."

"You're right, Roran," Inara said, though at heart she still wasn't certain. "This is beautiful... almost enough for modest dowry, if Sloan went in for something so old-fashioned as that." 

"He might insist on it, for Garrow's son," Katrina said. "Roran, this is... more than I could have hoped for. Thank you, thank you a thousand times over. But, I won't be able to wear it, not for a long time."

"I know," said Roran, "don't think I haven't considered that. But I intend to marry you, and when you're mine, the world shall see you in it, like proper lady."

Katrina threw her arms around him, kissing him deeply. Inara found herself grinning like an idiot at the sight. Yes, my brother and my best friend will do well together. And Kat always joked about being my sister when we were little. 

"I think it's time we should go listen to the bards," Roran said upon breaking the kiss. "The sun's all but gone, and we don't want to miss a moment." 

"Yes," replied Katrina, "let's go drink and be merry."

"Oh, that reminds me. Have you heard those grain traders, and some of the nonsense they're spinning?" Inara asked them. 

"We have," Roran said, his voice dripping with displeasure.

"Those idiots," Katrina said with sharp dismissal. Sloan, and by extension his daughter, had a deep-seated and unusually passionate hatred for the Empire. Apparently, some years ago, back in the days of his youth, Sloan had been robbed and beaten by a group of imperial soldiers, which had left a permanent mark in his mind. This wasn't a difficult tale to believe; Imperial troops were notorious for their abuses here in the Northlands. They rarely came to the Valley, though. Palancar Valley in particular was a vast, cold place with few people and little money. Even as Northland provinces went, the Valley was an afterthought, far removed from the warm, fertile imperial heartlands. Even the language was different, and people from anywhere further than the southern Midlands had so much trouble understanding a northman that they often had to have an interpreter. 

"Do you think we should go find Garrow? There's a fight in the tavern right now, but I think that it'll be over by the time the bards get there."

"Sure," Roran said. "I have something for him anyways." Katrina agreed, and so the three of them went off to find the wayward farmer. 

Later that night, as the bards were readying their instruments and the southerners were nursing their not inconsiderable wounds, Inara, Roran, Katrina, and Garrow found a table together and began enjoying drinks. There was some talk of when Roran and Katrina might announce their intentions to Sloan. Though he did not approve of Inara's less than ladylike inclinations, and considered Garrow unworthy of breathing for no reason anyone but them knew, he'd never said a bad word about Roran, and so Katrina was hopeful he might not beat him away with his cleaver the way he had with Katrina's previous suitors. 

As the night gradually wore on, many acts were performed, and the bards sang and put on plays about anything and everything, all about the room a sense of warmth and contentment settled in, and many patrons began to fall asleep at their tables. However, near the end of the night, long after the foreigners had left, something very unexpected happened: Brom, the old storyteller, took the stage. He was well-liked in the village, but rarely seen. His presence was enough to rouse even the drunkest of the drunk and hush the whole crowd into expecting silence. 

Brom was a very tall old man, with thick greying hair and a neat, snowy white beard flowing down to the middle of his chest. With his long dark cloak and somewhat grim expression, he cut an impressive figure. He spread his arms with hands that reached out like talons and recited thus:

“The sands of time cannot be stopped. Years pass whether we will them or not... but we can remember. What has been lost may yet live on in memories. That which you will hear is imperfect and fragmented, yet treasure it, for without you it does not exist. I give you now a memory that has been forgotten, hidden in the dreamy haze that lies behind us.” Keen eyes swept over the captivated room. His gaze lingered on Inara last and longest.

“Before your grandfathers’ fathers were born, and yea, even before their fathers, the Dragon Riders were formed. To protect and guard was their mission, and for thousands of years they succeeded. Their prowess in battle was unmatched, for each had the strength of ten men. They were immortal unless blade or poison took them. For good only were their powers used, and under their guidance tall cities and towers were built out of the living stone. While they kept peace, the land flourished. It was a golden time. The elves were friends of men, the dwarves our allies. Wealth flowed into our cities, and the realm prospered. But weep . . . for it could not last.” This was not a story Inara knew. Though Brom's past was mysterious to her, she had been listening to him since she was old enough to hear, and thought she heard all of them. Why hadn't he told her this one?

Brom looked down silently. Infinite sadness resonated in his voice. “Though no enemy could destroy them, they could not guard against themselves. And it came to pass at the height of their power that a boy, Galen by name, was born in the province of Inzilbeth, where now there is only the Moorlands. At ten he was tested, as was the custom, and it was found that great power resided in him. The Riders accepted him as their own.

“Through their training he passed, exceeding all others in skill. Gifted with a sharp mind and strong body, he quickly took his place among the Riders’ ranks. Some saw his abrupt rise as dangerous and warned the others, but the Riders had grown arrogant in their power and ignored caution. Alas, sorrow was conceived that day.

“So it was that soon after his training was finished, Galen took a reckless trip with two friends. Far north they flew, night and day, and passed into the Urgals’ remaining territory, foolishly thinking their new powers would protect them. There on a thick sheet of ice, unmelted even in summer, they were ambushed in their sleep. Though his friends and their dragons were butchered and he suffered great wounds, Galen slew his attackers. Tragically, during the fight a stray arrow pierced his dragon’s heart. Without the arts to save her, she died in his arms. Then were the seeds of madness planted.

The storyteller clasped his hands and looked around slowly, shadows flickering across his worn face. The next words came like the toll of the mourning bell. 

"Alone, bereft of much of his strength and half mad with loss, Galen wandered without hope in that desolate land, seeking death. It did not come to him, though he threw himself without fear against any living thing. Urgals and other monsters soon fled from his haunted form. During this time, he came to realize the riders might grant him another dragon. Driven by this thought, he began the arduous journey, on foot, back through the Spine. Territory he had soared over effortlessly on a dragon's back now took him months to traverse. He could hunt with magic, but oftentimes he walked in places where animals did not travel. Thus, when his feet finally left the mountains, he was close to death. A farmer found him collapsed in the mud and summoned the Riders. 

"Unconscious, he was taken to their holdings, and his body healed. He slept for four days. Upon awakening he gave no sign of his fevered mind. When he was brought before a council convened to judge him, Galen demanded another dragon. The desperation of the request revealed his madness, and the council saw him for what he truly was. Denied his hope, Galen, through the twisted mirror of his madness, came to believe it was the Riders' fault his dragon had died. Night after night he brooded on that and formulated a plan to exact revenge."

Brom's voice dropped to a mesmerizing whisper. Inara closed her eyes, and focused deep within herself to better remember his words. 

"He found a sympathetic Rider, and there his insidious words took root. By persistent reasoning and the use of dark secrets learned from a Shadowbinder, he inflamed the Rider against their elders. Together they treacherously lured and killed an elder. When the foul deed was done, Galen turned on his ally and slaughtered him without warning. The Riders found him, then, with blood dripping from his hands. A scream tore from his lips and he fled into the night. As he was cunning in his madness, they could not find him.

"For years he hid in the wastelands like a hunted animal, always watching for pursuers. His atrocity was not forgotten, but over time the searches ceased. Then, through some ill fortune, he met a young Rider, Morzan - strong of body, but weak of mind. Galen convinced Morzan to leave a gate unbolted in the citadel of Ur Ibhán, which is now called Illyria. Through this gate Galen entered and stole a dragon hatchling.

"He and his new disciple hid themselves in an evil place where the Riders dared not venture. There Morzan entered into a dark apprenticeship, learning secrets and forbidden magic that should never have been revealed. When his instruction was finished and Galen's black dragon, Shruiken, was fully grown, Galen revealed himself to the world, with Morzan at his side. Together they fought any Rider they met. With each kill their strength grew. Twelve of the Riders joined Galen out of desire for power and revenge against perceived wrongs. Those twelve, with Morzan, became the Thirteen Forsworn. The Riders were unprepared and fell beneath the onslaught. The elves and dwarves too fought bitterly against Galen, but they were overthrown and forced to flee to their secret places, whence they come no more.

"Only Vrayel, leader of the Riders, could resist Galen and the Forsworn. Ancient and wise, he struggled to save what he could and keep the remaining dragons from falling to his enemies. In the last battle, before the gates of Adoran, Vrayel defeated Galen, but hesitated with the final blow. Galen seized the moment and smote him in the side. Grievously wounded, Vrayel fled to sacred Uitgàrd Mountain, where he hoped to gather strength. But it was not to be, for Galen found him. As they fought, Galen kicked Vrayel in the fork of his legs. With that underhanded blow, he gained dominance over Vrayel and removed his head with his poisoned sword.

"Then, as power surged through his veins, Galen anointed himself king over all Alagasia. And from that day, he has ruled us."

His story complete, Brom slipped away silently. Inara wanted greatly to to follow Brom and hear more, but knew that her family would be headed home soon. 

"Be lucky that you have heard this story, young ones," said Garrow. "That is only the second time I have ever heard it, and I have known Brom for many, many years. Do not expect to hear it again; the telling of it is forbidden, and not taken lightly by the Emperor's servants. It would do you best not to repeat it."

Notes:

Note that Bh is pronounced as a sort of soft v, making Ur Ibhán sound like 'oor ee vain.'

Chapter 5

Some three weeks after the departure of the merchants, after the autumn equinox festival had come and passed, the first snows and major cold snaps were rearing their heads. The first snowfall had not quite melted before another came around. This did not melt, for the the days were cold enough to let it stay. More snows would fall in the coming months, and the air and sun would grow steadily cooler and cooler until eventually even the Anduin River next to Carvahall froze over near the winter solstice, and would not unfreeze until March. Light snows would keep falling sporadically until the start of May. 

Inara was laying in her room that evening, reading through a section of the Holy Writ called the Tale of Jeyod and the Beggar. Jeyod, so said the book, was a nobleman who decided to be generous and caring towards a blind old beggar instead of ignoring him as others would, and found eternal reward for his goodwill. It wasn't one of her favourite stories, as Inara cared little for the stories of the Book of Piety. They were children's stories, really. Tales to tell young people how to be kind and pious, not that teaching children piety ever did much of anything. The other books of the Writ, like the Book of Heroism or the Book of Hope, were much more fun, and had tales of war and adventure that in her younger days had kept Inara riveted through otherwise boring sermons from Carvahall's dull-witted village priest, Albor. She hadn't attended a sermon since she was twelve, when Garrow had told her that she had a choice. 

As she read, she found her mind drifting slowly yet persistently to her stone, preventing her from focusing on the book in front of her. She hadn't looked at or even thought of the curious rock at any length since market day, as the rock didn't seem have any value she draw from it. Morloch's words, and implications, kept coming to the forefront of her thoughts tonight though: hollow, unbreakable, invaluable, unsalable. What was it? What was inside? What was it for? Who made it? Why? After none too long, for the third time in as many days, she found she couldn't focus on her reading. She put the heavy old holy book away on its shelf. 

After a moment of hesitation, she left her room and retrieved several tools including a couple of hammers and chisel. Back in her room, she withdrew the stone from where she'd stashed it, and placed it on her bed. After another moment of uncertainty, gripping the small wooden mallet first, she tapped the stone lightly. A small humming sound buzzed from the stone. Next, she picked up the heavier leather hammer. When she struck the stone, a long, sad cry filled the air. Then she picked up the metal chisel. She was hesitant to use it; she did not at all want to damage the stone. What if it broke? It didn't, however. After striking the stone with the metal chisel, a long, sad note filled the air. She could almost swear that she'd heard a squeak.

Morloch said the stone was hollow; there could be something of value inside. I don’t know how to open it, though. There must have been a good reason for someone to shape it, but whoever sent the stone into the Spine hasn’t taken the trouble to retrieve it or doesn’t know where it is. It's hard to believe that some kind of wizard with enough power to transport the stone wouldn’t be able to find it again. But what if they can't? Or, what if someone's preventing them from finding it? What if they're in trouble? The notion that whoever had made this might be in some kind of trouble bothered her. After what the merchants had said about trouble in the south, it would not bode well that such a strange object should appear here, though even in the best of times, it wouldn't have been a good thing. There was one notion, however, that was stranger still, and improbable to say the least: that Inara was meant to have it. She could think of any reason why that might be, but gods and men alike were hardly predictable. 

She could not answer the question. Resigned to an unsolvable mystery, she replaced the stone on its shelf, put her tools away, and went to bed.

Later in the night, she was awoken suddenly by a sharp cracking noise, like the shattering of glass. Startled, she shot up and grabbed her skinning knife from her bedside table, but couldn't see anything amiss in the dark room. She sat very still for several minutes, listening intently, but could hear nothing, and eventually consigned the noise to her own imagination and laid her head back down, though she kept her knife in hand for the time being.

Almost the same moment she did, a loud squeak, as if from some giant mouse, pierced the silence. Inara shot up in bed again and looked around, though nothing could be seen. Something beneath her awareness drew her to the resting place of the stone. When she took it out of its wrappings, it seemed to wobble in her hands. She put it in her lap, clumsily lit a candle with her tinderbox, and examined the stone carefully in the gentle light. Another squeaking pierced the quiet, reverberating through her fingers like the twanging of a bowstring. The sound was coming from the rock.

She stared incredulously at the bizarre magic rock for several more minutes, during which time it occasionally jiggled about, all the while persisting in its squeaking. What possible purpose could this serve? Was it ever going give her peace? "For fuck's sake," she muttered. "What the hell are you?." She was about to pick up the stone so she could examine it more closely, only to notice a faint crack in its surface as she did. As she watched, it started rocking violently, and with much noise the crack lengthened, and connected to a crack that she hadn't seen before. And then another. And another. As Inara stared, transfixed, the cracks bloomed across the surface, concentrating on the narrow end. Inara quickly took the stone from her lap and put it n the ground. 

At the top of the stone, where all the cracks met, a small piece wobbled, as if it were balanced on something, then rose and toppled to the floor. After another series of squeaks, a small dark head poked out of the hole, followed by a weirdly angled body. Inara gripped her knife, and regretted having put the hammer away earlier. 

It occurred to her now, finally, that this strange egg-shaped blue stone was in fact a blue egg that was harder than stone. She knew of only one creature that might possibly produce an egg so large. And sure enough, the strange, angular creature slithering out of the egg unfurled a pair of long, translucent, bat-like wings. Out of the egg had hatched a dragon.

The creature was no larger than a cat, yet seemed as dignified and noble as a great stallion. Its scales were a rich sapphire blue, the same colour as its egg, which added to its sense of nobility. Its translucent blue wings were several times longer than its body, and as wide as a man's outstretched arms. They were webbed, like a bat's, and each long finger-like bone ended in a tiny claw. From the leading edges of the wings, only one small thumb-like talon sprouted. Along its back were a row of tiny spines, which shrank and vanished about halfway up its long, snake-like neck and after about a third of the tail's length. There was a small hollow between the spikes, right at the base of the neck and shoulders. The dragon’s head was roughly triangular, and two small horns jutted from the back. Two diminutive white fangs curved down out of its upper jaw. They looked very sharp, and were clearly serrated on the inside curve. Were they venomous, like some snakes'? Its claws were also white, like polished ivory. Its long, slender tail ended in a small diamond with a single pale spine.

Inara, motionless since the egg had started to crack, shifted slightly. The little dragon's head whipped around to see what made the noise.

After staring briefly it seemed to lose interest in her and started clumsily waddling about the bed. Once it found the edge, it didn't hesitate to tumble off awkwardly onto the floor, where it landed with a dull thud in a tangle of limbs and tail and wings. Collecting itself, it started wandering about about the room, sniffing everything in sight and squeaking like a kitten. Its open mouth revealed rows of tiny white teeth.

Inara manoeuvred herself over to the edge of her bed and sat down. She leaned down, and put her left hand down to the floor, offering the dragon a proper introduction. The little creature sniffed at her hand, then her foot, and nibbled on the edge of her pant leg. Becoming bolder with its lack of caution, Inara reached out and touched the dragon's flank.

That was clearly a mistake. White hot, icy pain shot through her body. Energy surged through her hand and arm, freezing her body like a plunge in a frozen lake. Inara fell to the floor, paralysed, as bright light filled her eyes from within and an iron bell toll waged war against her ears. For what felt like hours but probably wasn't Inara struggled unsuccessfully to move.

When warmth slowly, finally seeped back into her body, she found that she could not feel her left hand. In fact, she couldn't even move her left hand. Panic surged through her. Her hand was numb, no feeling in it at all, and she couldn't move it . If she couldn't use her hand, couldn't string a bow or use a knife, how would she hunt? How could she work? How would she do anything with only one hand? She knew from personal experience that it was much easier to say that someone should learn to do everything with their other hand than it was to actually do it. She'd broken her right arm by falling out of a tree when she was eleven. Hallia, the priest's wife, had told her that she'd better use her right arm, or risk worsening the break in her left, which opened her to infection or failed healing. She'd not listened, and ended up needing to have her arm re-broken so that it could heal correctly. Then again, she thought, there would likely be less chance of using her left hand when she couldn't even move it. 

Flopping it over to inspect it, she found that her palm was glowing. Mesmerised, Inara stared at the strange silvery light shining from her palm. Even as she did, the cold, silvery glow began to fade, its diffuse shape gradually resolved itself into an oval. When the glow was nearly gone, warmth and feeling returned to her hand, and she eventually found she could move it again. It still itched.

What was this? Was it some kind of trap set by the dragon's former owner? What kind of sorcery would mark her like this? Perhaps it was some way of marking a thief. Maybe dragons marked their Riders that way. Whatever it was, unless it could be used to track her at a distance, she could cover it up with gloves. Winter was already here, and that she might choose to wear gloves most of the time would not be out of place. 

As she thought about it, her panic gradually lessened, and through much conscious effort Inara managed to calm herself down. Looking at the little dragon in her room, lazily crawling about inspecting things still, Inara felt awed. There was a dragon in her room, and it had just done some kind of magic on her, marking her hand. She had hatched - or at least witnessed the hatching of - a dragon. This meant that she could become a Rider. She would be the first new dragon rider in over a hundred years, and the only one in the world other than the Emperor himself.

The Emperor. With that thought, all of Inara's hard-fought calm evaporated. She was in danger now, in more danger than she'd ever been in in her life. The Empire was going to pursue her, and would either kill her or enslave her to Galen's will. They wouldn't just go after her, either. All of Carvahall would be a target, every man, woman, and child. So long as she kept this dragon, no one would be safe.

The easiest thing would be to kill it while it was young and defenseless, but as she watched the creature, Inara realised how unthinkable that was. Dragons were too revered, too sacred, to simply kill, especially as hatchlings. She would have to raise it, or at least keep it until it was large enough to hunt on its own.

Her thoughts were suddenly interrupted by the sensation of a finger being trailed down her spine. It wasn't quite that though; it was more the sense of someone or something touching her mind, some other person's thoughts brushing against her own. She could feel emotions that weren't her own, half-formed thoughts she wasn't having. Was that even possible? Probably, though it must have been through some kind of sorcery. How else could it be? The sense of something touching her thoughts strengthened by the moment, and there was in it a kind of uncomfortable curiosity, like someone wanted to know her. Inara pulled away, physically and otherwise, shuddering as she did, trying to close her mind to this frightening other, but it didn't really work. The contact lessened briefly, then came back.

After another few moments of seeking escape, she began to realise that whoever, or whatever, this mind belonged to, it wasn't trying to harm her, and felt more curious than malicious. Inara finally stopped fighting it. The other mind, it was soon clear, wasn't really thinking; what she could feel of it was a sort of directionless childlike wonder, overwhelmed by novelty. Inara, looking at the dragon, realised that despite not having lips it clearly had that same sense of wonder allover its face. The mind she felt belonged to the dragon.

It made sense now; whatever sorcery had marked her when she touched the dragon, it must have linked their minds. Inara closed her eyes and focused on the feeling of curiosity, trying to tell the dragon that she had it too. Was that even something she could do? Did it work both ways?

The dragon, for its part, seemed to understand. It gave a loud squeak, then several times chirped softly as it made its way over to her and rubbed against her leg. Inara bent down and stroked its face, tentatively at first for fear of another shock then more boldly after she felt none, and the little creature arched its back into her hand. Just like a cat, she thought. Inara giggled slightly at the notion, and sight, of such a creature acting this way.

After a minute or two of proper greeting, Inara felt a sudden change of mood. Hunger, the aimless, insatiable hunger of one who'd never tasted food, radiated from it. "Hatching must be hard work. I've heard that human babies are hungry when they're born too," she murmured to the little beast. It started to whimper plaintively at her, desperate for a bite. If nothing else, she needed to feed it so that its chirping didn't wake Roran or her uncle.

Inara went out as quietly as she could and retrieved from her family's stores two strips of dried meat, and returned to find the dragon on the windowsill staring fixedly at the bright half-moon. Inara sat down beside the creature, and tore the meat into smaller bits. She proffered one to the little beast, and after a quick sniff the dragon snapped it up faster than Inara could even watch. Its excitement at the meat was tangible. She tore the rest of the strip into small pieces and fed them to the dragon one by one.

When she finished the first strip, the dragon chirped at her and stuck its head out at the second, evidently still hungry. Inara tore the second strip into bits, and fed the dragon from it. By the time she got around to the last piece the little dragon was looking positively round, and she could feel its contentment coming off in waves. It almost didn't eat the last morsel, sitting and staring at it in indecision, but ultimately opted to eat and gobbled it up. Finished, the dragon waddled heavily over and sat itself down on Inara's lap before promptly falling asleep. Inara carried it over to the bed and lay down with it there.

Watching it sleep in her arms, and feeling its content through whatever joined her to it, Inara began to understand just how painful dilemma she faced. By raising a dragon, she might one day become a Rider. Myths and stories about Riders were treasured, and being one would automatically place her among those legends. Inara had often dreamt in sleep and waking of simply flying away from this little place, flying through the sky to parts unknown and land unseen, and being a Rider might take her farther than she could have ever imagined.

However, there was still the problem of the king. There was no way in all the nine hells Emperor Galen would allow a dragon to exist outside of his control. She and her family and maybe even her village would be forced to serve him or die. No one could, or would, help them. Yet, the idea of raising a dragon was too attractive. She couldn't really think of anything better than that, and the only other options she could think of, being either to kill it or drive it off once it could fend for itself, were both repugnant, and it didn't take much consideration to rule them out. What would betray us, really? We live in a remote area, and have done nothing to draw attention to ourselves.

Probably the biggest problem would be getting Roran and Garrow on board with this idea. Letting her keep a dragon was not a decision to be taken lightly, and both of them would know the danger posed by a dragon. Neither of them would care to have it around, unless circumstances simply forced the issue. Besides, once the Empire found out about it, they would be far safer if they weren't lying when they said they had no idea the dragon had even existed. Inara resolved not to tell them. 

Next came the problem of hiding it. She certainly couldn't keep it in the house, not if she didn't want Roran or Garrow finding out. But would it survive the cold? What if there was another snowstorm? Perhaps she could make it a nest to keep it warm. They had old clothes that no longer fit any of them, and blankets that were too ratty to be of any use. She could cut them into rags and line something to create a warm nest. Feeding it would also be a problem: though no larger than a cat, it had already eaten two whole strips of meat in a sitting, enough for an adult man's meal, if supplemented perhaps with bread and cheese or some such. Eventually it would be large enough to hunt for itself, but she would need to do so for it until it was, and the farm, even with Roran's fortunate find, could not too long bear the weight of a growing dragon. 

She couldn't keep it on or near the farm, either, as Roran and Garrow were sure to discover it. And not just them. Though their farm saw few guests or visitors, it was not the only farm north of the village, and inquisitive neighbours might stumble upon it too if they were to drop by for something or venture into the forest for game. That would be worse than Roran and Garrow by far. Yet, if she took it too far away, far enough that mere visits were an expedition, she would lose the ability to effectively care for it. 

She thought on it for a long while as the dragon slept in her arms. Eventually, a thought came to her. There was a little glen a few miles into the hills above the farm, in a place where the maples, birches, and oaks of the lower valley gave way to endless tracts of giant hemlocks and cedars that crowded out smaller plants, where fallen logs thick as a house is tall covered the ground and made travel impossible without knowing your way. There, she could leave the dragon not too far from home, yet in a place she knew beyond a doubt the villagers never ventured and thought haunted. There was a little stream near the clearing as well, one that somehow kept running all through winter, when even the mighty Palancar had frozen over. She would be able to bring it food and other necessities, whatever they may be, and whenever it was old enough, there would be plenty of small game for it to hunt on its own. 

As she thought of dragons hunting, it began to dawn on her how little she knew for certain of dragons. She knew now that they had wings, and that they seemed to eat meat, though she wasn't sure that was so to the exclusion of aught else. It had devoured her meat strips readily enough, but what if it liked grass? The thought of the little dragon mooing and munching lazily on grass threatened to send her into a fit of uncharacteristic giggles. Somehow, that didn't fit. 

Inara also didn't know if the dragon could breath fire, as she had often heard in the stories. It hadn't yet, but it was mere minutes old, so that didn't mean much. Perhaps it would burn her house down in the morning. Maybe it couldn't yet, and only adult dragons could do that. 

And what sex was the dragon? Did dragons even have sexes like common animals? Would its sex matter? Maybe dragons only allowed a member of their same sex to ride it, or maybe only a member of the opposite sex. 

Most pressingly, how fast would the dragon grow? How long until it could fend for itself, how long before it could defend itself against attackers, man or beast? How long before she could ride it, or it allowed her to? And how big would it ultimately grow?

Would any of this matter if it was discovered early? 

Questions upon questions swirled through her mind. Eventually, her mind began to slow down, and proper thought began to return without panic. She didn't want to go anywhere in the night, so she'd wait until the day. Roran and Garrow were leaving for town tomorrow morning, luckily for her, and would be gone all day, which would give her plenty enough time to get get the dragon situated. She was expected to go with her cousin and uncle, but she could make up some excuse, and be back before they suspected anything. 

For now, though, she needed to make sure that no one entered her room, and that required her not to go to sleep. She'd had much practise at staying awake out in the wild, but in the comforts of her own bed, she wasn't so confident. Perhaps trying to lie awake in bed wouldn't be wise. Inara instead blew out her candle and seated herself in her wicker reading chair, readying herself for a long vigil.

 

Chapter 6

In the morning sunlight that slanted through cracks in her shutters, the dragon was glorious. It stood as might some ancient sentinel statue from one of her bedposts, he golden light made the little creature's jewel-blue scales glow as if from within. It faced into the light, seemingly basking in it.

There came a knock at the door, which broke the near perfect silence Inara had been enjoying for the last few hours. The dragon jerked its head sharply towards the sound, hissing almost inaudibly.

"Inara!" said Roran, his voice muffled through the wood. "Are you coming at all today? Me and Father are ready to go. We've been waiting for you." They were supposed to depart at first light. The sun had already been up a full hour at the least. She was surprised they waited this long.

"No," she replied, "I'm going to stay here. Don't feel so well this morning."

"If you say so. We'll be back by nightfall." She could hear his footsteps fading slowly as he walked away.

After waiting several more minutes to make sure he was gone, Inara turned to the dragon. "Time to get you some more food," she said to it. At her words, it perked up, and sat on its back legs just like a cat. Inara couldn't help but giggle at that as she left the room.

After retrieving a rabbit, Inara gave it to the little dragon, which was only about as large as the rabbit. Upon seeing the carcass, the little beast dug right in, playing at it for a while, looking for the best places to get easy meat. While it toyed, Inara watched it almost effortlessly snap of the rabbit's ribs in its jaws. The little creature was much stronger than one might first guess.

Inara soon found herself smiling like an idiot. There was something so pure in the joy it took in tearing apart its "prey." It looked alarmingly like a giant blue kitten playing with a fish or such, and even sounded vaguely like one with its squeaking. Though she'd never been one to be taken with small animals the way Katrina was, the dragon had her captivated and unable to look away. She knew without needing any other proof now that no jewel could approach the beauty of dragon scales, which glistened as if wet, glinting with every motion of the dragon's body. How did that old song go again? All the roses of the garden, must bow and ask for pardon, for not one could match the beauty of the Queen of All Nine Isles?. And this little dragon was but a hatchling. The young of many creatures, from birds to humans, were considerably less attractive than their adult counterparts. If other creatures were anything to judge by, this little beast would grow to be a sight the likes of which the world had not seen for a century and more.

Though she could have stared at the little creature for hours, and might have accidentally done just that, she knew that she couldn't just sit here all day. She needed to get the dragon away from the farm, away to the glen she'd decided in the night. There was still a mess to clean up here, though. Egg fragments were still strewn about the floor where the dragon had hatched, and it would not do to have Roran or Garrow return home early to find a giant egg in her room. She'd need to bury it somewhere, and nowhere near the farm, so she swept all the fragments she could find into a roll of cloth and put it in her pack along with her other supplies.

The dragon was slowing in its pursuit of meat by the time she was finished gathering her necessaries. When the creature finished, it flopped on its side, exhausted yet satisfied. They didn't have time for satisfaction, however. "I'm sorry, little one," she began, "I don't want anything bad happening to you, so I'm gonna move you somewhere safer." The dragon made no response except to glare at her, presumably for the audacity of making noise.

Inara bent over the creature and scooped it up like a swaddling babe. At this, the dragon protested vigorously, eventually managing to escape her grip. Strong beast, for its size. When it plopped gracelessly to the floor, it glared unhappily at her again, peeping under its breath like an annoyed old lady. Obviously, simply carrying it to the glen wouldn't work.

But what other options where there? She had a length of rope, but only a small portion of the dragon's whole body was thicker than the rope, and she was almost certain it would find a way to slip any leashes she tried to force upon it. Even if she succeeded with leashing it, the dragon was small and mere hours old, and probably wouldn’t make it too far walking through the old forest. She could try wrapping it in cloth, as she had with the egg, but then she might crush or smother it.

There was a third option: she could try thinking at it. She’d done it before, when the little creature was freshly hatched, but hadn’t thought on it since. She still wasn’t certain that part wasn't dreamt, but then, she might still be dreaming. Besides, the dragon had initiated contact last time, and she didn't know if it was possible to do it on her own. Even so, it was worth a shot.

Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, Inara tried to put herself in that same state of mind she’d been in when the dragon’s mind had first touched her own. She couldn’t think of any words that quite fit or conveyed what she wanted, so instead tried to focus all of her fear and sense of urgency without any. And, to her immense relief, the dragon understood almost immediately. Without hesitation, it waddled its way over to her and started rubbing up against her leg like a cat.

Inara reached down and scooped it up once again, but the moment she had it comfortably at her breast, it gave three quick jerks and escaped her grasp once again. This time, however, it clawed its way deftly up her fur coat and onto her shoulder, where it perched itself like a bird on a branch. The sight of it reminded Inara of a raven she’d seen on the shoulder of a merchant many years ago. Inara stroked the dragon’s outstretched head gently, and it gave a squeak.

Inara gave the house one final go-over to make sure she had everything she needed. She did. All the evidence of the dragon had been cleaned up, too. Time to leave, then. Petting the dragon’s head again, she walked out the front door and into the cold winter air.

She’d been concerned, at least briefly, that the dragon wouldn’t like the cold, yet the beast didn’t seem to notice it at all. As it examined the outside for the first time, it radiated wonder and curiosity at the open sky and shining sun, but no lack of comfort was forthcoming. When it saw the light blanket of snow that had fallen the night before, it immediately jumped from Inara’s shoulder and glided gently down into the white, where it landed with a muffled thump and started frolicking, tossing snow everywhere and rolling around around like a pig in a mud sty. Inara couldn’t suppress her giggles it that.

“I’m sorry, little dragon,” she said, “we can’t stay here. But there’s plenty of fun to be had at where we’re going.” The little creature’s disappointment was palpable as it returned to her. Inara placed it directly on her shoulder this time.

As she carried it through the hills, the dragon chirped endlessly at everything they passed. At every slight noise, its head whipped around to investigate. When birds sang, it whistled back with shockingly accurate imitations. Now that’s something you certainly don’t see every day. It sniffed forcefully too at every scent the forest offered, and several times took off from her shoulder and glided into the undergrowth. It kept waddling back, though, so after the second time it glided away she stopped worrying too much.

The way that it waddled back, even in areas without ground clutter, told her too that the dragon couldn’t properly fly yet, despite managing a glide from high places without issue. This was troubling, as a dragon as much as a bird that couldn’t fly was an easy target for predators. Foxes, wolves, large birds, bobcats and mountain lions, all would seek their fill. If the dragon didn’t learn to fly soon, it might not get the chance.

On the other hand, it might not need to. More than once she saw it claw its way deftly up trees, doing so far more gracefully than it walked. So long as the instinct to climb trees when threatened held, it would be in danger from nothing but bears, and a bear would have little enough reason to pursue such a tiny morsel up a tree.

It took Inara and her dragon a couple of hours longer than she’d anticipated. The glen she sought she had not visited in several years, and some of the trails and passages had changed in the time since her last visit. Fortunately, there was no sign of anyone else using these paths either, much as Inara had expected. As few villagers ventured far from home in the cold winters of Palancar Valley, that would afford them at least several more months of protection.

The old forest itself would afford more protection than the cold. It was not for nothing called the old forest; even its youngest trees felt older than the earth itself, and even old men felt hopelessly young and mortal amongst its aged tracks. Tall, ancient hemlocks and cedars dominated, interspersed with many pines and firs and sometimes spruces, arranged loosely across the forest floor. Even the smaller trees in these hills were hundreds of feet high, and the largest were wider than the span of a man’s arms by half. Mosses blanketed every trunk of every tree live or dead with green, and dripped like icicles from every bough. The giants of the hills reached up to form a dappled crown high above the ground, giving one the impression of being in a giant room, like the majestic godshouses of the south. The ground was so covered with great fallen trees that if one wasn't familiar with the trails, they would have untold troubles taking even the first steps. Up in the Spine, the cold of winter made the trees sparser and smaller than down in the valley, and one could walk over gentle slopes without worry, but not here. It was an excellent place to go for one who did not wish to be found.

The glen itself was much as she’d left it years before, despite a blanket of snow. It was a small meadow, a gap in the trees, really, where wildflowers bloomed in the spring and summer. She’d discovered it on one of her first long summer hunts when she was fourteen, and it had left her enchanted from her first sighting of the place. Over the course of that summer, she’d picnicked many times on the peace of the glen. The following year, she thought of returning, but game wasn’t so plentiful in the old forest as further up the mountains.  

The dragon, much as she had, seemed to be taken with it right away, and leapt once again from her shoulder to frolick in the snow. Inara watched it for a time, smiling to herself, but eventually forced herself to focus. She had work to do yet.

Out of her pack, she withdrew a trowel and the cloth of eggshell. The soil beneath the snow was not yet hard-frozen, as it would be soon, and had only a layer of frozen earth atop fresh earth. The trowel cut through the frosted dirt as might a knife through bread crust.

As Inara worked, the dragon came over to investigate, and started pawing and squeaking at her growing pile of overturned earth. After a few minutes of pawing gently, it struck into the dirt with lightning speed, and withdrew an earthworm. Its first live prey. The little dragon beamed for a moment before devouring the worm in a single slurp.

After a few more minutes, when she’d dug a satisfactory hole and the dragon had discovered several more worms, Inara deposited the egg-cloth into the hole, and set about burying it. The dragon whimpered when the last of its dirt disappeared and was covered again with snow.

Now came the hardest part, the one she didn’t want to face. Now came the time when she had to leave the dragon here. Now was the moment she had to abandon the little beast out in the cold, at least until tomorrow. Would it hate her for it? She expected it might.

Inara procured the rabbit she’d given the dragon that morning and tossed it across the clearing. The dragon chased it, half gliding half awkwardly running, and set into it immediately when it caught up to the carcass. Inara watched it for several minutes as it tore meat off the bones and broke the smaller bones apart before turning to leave. Every step felt like lead on her way out of the clearing, and like jelly once outside.

The dragon, however, was not so distracted as she thought it. She heard its characteristic waddling in the snow behind her after less than a minute, and turned to see it as it attempted to catch up with her on its tiny legs. “No, little dragon,” she said to it, her voice somehow thick and hard to manage, “You have to stay here.” The dragon kept coming, though.

She would have to use her mind, again. It had understood the need to leave before, or at least it seemed to. Would it understand the need to stay now? More importantly, would it understand the need to be separated from its mother? No, not mother: Rider. She hoped desperately that it would. If she’d cared much for the gods, she might have prayed, but instead she simply closed her eyes and once again focused her thoughts at the dragon. Stay. This time, she focused all her fears and hopes for the future into a word, into that one word. Stay. Stay. Stay.

And the dragon understood. It stopped in its approach, as if hearing her, and squawked mournfully. Inara could feel its distress in her mind, but forced herself to continue, and took a slow step backwards. The dragon made no move to follow her. She took another step, and still it stayed. Then a third, and a fourth, and on her fifth she stumbled on the uneven ground and had to turn around to look where she was going. She took a sixth step, and a seventh, and still the dragon did not follow.

After her eleventh step, Inara lost count. It took several minutes before she couldn’t feel the dragon’s mind in her own. When her dragon’s mind finally fell away, it was as if a part of her fell away with it.

Chapter 7

Inara did not see her dragon again for three days.

The work of a farmer is never done, and Garrow kept Roran and Inara well-occupied about farm, from caring for the cows to chopping ever more wood for winter fires. Eventually, she managed to slip away only with the excuse of a rabbit hunt.

The dragon had been overjoyed to see her when she arrived, crawling all over her the moment she arrived and squawking triumphantly as it did. She’d been relieved to see a second, fresher rabbit carcass next to the one she’d left for it, showing at least that it could already hunt for itself, and that she wouldn’t need to worry about emptying the larders of any more meat, nor about it running away from the hiding place she’d found for it. It was also heavier than when she’d left it, more obviously covered with muscle and less like the skin-and-bone hatchling it had been days before. When she’d come back two days after that, the effect was even more pronounced.

For three weeks after her first return, Inara had gone nearly every other day to see her dragon, and watched it grow between each visit. On one visit in the third week, the dragon took off from the ground and flew for a short way on its own strength several times. It seemed to grasp that it was showing off to her, as it kept looking back towards her when it flew, which resulted in its crashing into a tree.

Roran and Garrow did eventually notice the increased frequency of her absences and hunts, but neither made much of it; she’d sought to escape the routine and work of the farm plenty enough before, and since she brought back rabbits and other game most days, the matter soon passed from their minds.

How quickly the dragon grew over those short weeks soon began to worry her, and eventually she decided that she’d need to learn more about dragons, and quickly. There was, in all of Carvahall, only one man who knew anything of dragon-lore, or even history of any kind, and that was Brom. She’d been trying to organise a visit for a while now, ever since she’d found her mysterious foreign book, but hadn’t found a full day to take off for the journey. It didn’t matter that Brom’s house was closer to the farm than either was to the village, any trip there invariably lasted at once all day and never long enough.

Near the end of the fourth week, she finally found a time when she could escape. She slipped away in the early morning, when the sun was still weak and fettered by the shadows of trees, and made her way to Brom’s little cabin. Despite the early hour, she knew he would already be up. He always was, somehow; she’d visited him in the late night, when though she could not hear them from far away she was sure the godshouse bells tolled perhaps two or perhaps three hours past midnight. He’d always been awake, and had always given her as much of his time as she demanded, with only humourous complaint.

Sure enough, he was already, or perhaps still, awake, to invite her in when she knocked. “Good day, Inara,” he said by way of greeting, “I’ve been expecting you since market day. Frankly, I thought to see you sooner. Has Garrow’s driving kept you from me? No matter. Come in, have some tea.”

Inara’s family could not afford tea. How Brom could, she hadn’t the slightest notion, as she’d never been able to figure out what exactly it was Brom did for money. He never elaborated beyond, ‘oh, this and that.’ Yet, he always had tea in his stores, and usually more than one kind. She’d always loved the variety he called ‘black,’ though it always looked far more golden-brown to her. Tea alone was reason enough to bring her back again and again when she had nothing else specific to see him for, and he’d told her much of what he knew of the stuff, such as how almost all tea in the Empire came from the Nine Isles or the Kingdom of Aeron in the far south, and had to be compressed into bricks for transporting across two thousand miles that lay between there and the Northlands.

His house, a place Inara had always loved simply to be in, was larger and far better furnished than hers. Woven carpets covered the finished hardwood floor, and his day-couches alone were finer than her bed. Every flat surface in his house, from the dining table that she’d never seen him eat at to the common room table where he taught her her letters, and even many the couches and the chairs she’d never seen people sit in, was covered three layers deep in books, papers, vellum scrolls, maps of lands near and far printed on every imaginable material, inkwells, pens both feather and metal, waxes and seals that used them, and every other possible tool imaginable for the educated, literate man. There were scrolls hanging on his walls, too, though most had no words on them, only beautiful, colourful, sometimes faded paintings. The paintings were of anything and everything, from knights and other heroes from before the empire to images of dragons and sea leviathans and strange, distant lands Inara could not name.

Inara half found, half forced open a space on one of his couches and sat down, taking off her gloves and coat in the warmth of the indoors and putting down the bag with her foreign book. While she waited, she caught a glimpse of silver on her hand, and nearly fell into panic. She’d kept gloves on so consistently in the chill of the last few weeks that she’d near forgotten about the mark touching the dragon that first time had left on her. Brom would notice for certain when he came back. She looked around her shakily at the mess for something other than her own gloves to cover up with, and after a couple of nervous minutes found a roll of gauze bandage lying on a shelf. As quickly as she could, she wrapped her left hand and wrist in the gauze. If he asked her what happened, she could say it was a burn, or that she’d sprained her wrist.

When Brom arrived with his cups and kettle, he made no mention of her hand, thankfully. He poured copious amounts of the rich brown drink for both of them before sitting back into his customary cushioned wicker armchair. “So,” he began, “what have you come to see me about today? I expect you have questions concerning the story I told at the inn.”

"I did. I mean, I do, yes," Inara said, taking her tea.

Brom looked pointedly at her new bandage but didn't question it as he took his own cup. "But you have something else on your mind?"

"Well, ah, sort of." Inara bit her lip for a moment. "I wanted to know more about dragons. And about the people who rode them."

He looked at her significantly, his brown eyes burning into her. After considering for a moment, Brom said, "so ask, and I shall answer."

Inara was quiet for a moment. "What were the dragons like?" she said, unsure of where to start.

"I'm not sure I'm the man to ask about that. I've never met a dragon. I'm not quite that old."

"I know that. But you must know something."

Brom regarded her oddly. "I must? Well, yes, I do. Would you like to know why it was that men rode dragons?"

Inara nodded. "How did they tame them?" If her dragon proved difficult when it grew, and her ability to talk to it mind-to-mind somehow failed her, she would need to know how to control it. 

The old man snorted. "Tame them? Ha! Dragons were - are - not beasts to be tamed. They are intelligent. They are people. Men did not tame dragons, no more than a man tames his siblings.”

"How? Could dragons talk?" Inara almost accidentally added, with words? That they could talk in their own way was long since clear to her.

"That, I do not know." Something about the way he said that suggested Inara he was lying, but she couldn't quite place what it was. "Wild dragons, at least, could not speak as men, and many thought them beasts for it. It's said that the riders share a special bond with their dragons, a magical one, and perhaps that let them speak, but I do not know much of that beyond rumour. I do know that for a dragon or a rider to lose their partner was a fate worse than death."

"That's what drove Galen mad, right?."

"Yes, indeed it was. The loss of his first dragon tore his soul apart, and he has never healed."

Inara considered the thought-speaking she shared with the dragon. Was that the special bond she was experiencing? It made sense if it was. Perhaps she really was a Rider, or was on her way to being one. Eventually, she settled on another question. "Where do dragons come from?"

"Nowhere. Everywhere. Dragons are as old as time. They were old in the world when gods were young and men unborn. The dragons ruled this land since time immemorial. There are older than even the dwarves, who lived here long before the elves."

"Elves and dwarves? Do they still live?" Inara said, jumping on his words in eagerness. "I always thought they were dead and gone... or, what's the word you used... eelgoary? Just stories about how the Empire destroyed what was good in the world."

"Allegory, good memory. And no. Not just myths. They were real, and they are real, but when they disappeared, most unlearned men forgot that they were. They live still, for Galen did not destroy them. They hid from him, and still they hide, for neither race is as numerous or powerful as men, and cannot stand against him. "

"Where do they hide?"

Brom guffawed. "In the shadows of the world. In the deep places, in the high places, in the far places and the near, in the hidden lands of north and south and east and west. In the end, it is not for me to say. They are not fond of uninvited guests, or curious farmgirls."

That stung, but Inara knew better than to question him when he refused an answer of her. One may as well seek to wring water from a stone, or approval from a priest. Inara decided to move on from her detour. "What made the dragon riders special? You made much of their works, and how they had the strength of ten men, and the way they were immortal..." Thoughts of immortality began to flash through her mind. What adventures could she have, if she could live forever? What strange and exotic lands would be open to her, if growing old never concerned her? But how was that possible? Inara had never heard of a human living longer than maybe a couple of years past a hundred, and that was already exceedingly rare. And if immortality wasn't attainable, would her own little dragon outlive her by an aeon? "How is it that Riders were immortal? That's impossible, isn't it? At least, shouldn't it be? Humans don't live for centuries. They can't."

"Can't?" Brom smiled wryly. "You forget that dragons are deeply magical. They affect everything they touch in strange ways, and sometimes even perform great feats of magic themselves. Riders, so bonded as they were with their dragons, felt this magic, most visibly in the form of extended life, though a Rider would also find themselves faster, stronger, and more graceful than any human ought to be."

Inara reflected on that for a while. Would she live forever? At least, could she, if she survived to see herself and her dragon to adulthood without dying at the hands of the Empire? Really, she'd have to wait and see, and try not to die on the process. "Where do they come from?" she asked, moving on. "The Riders, I mean."

"That is a long story, one that might keep us here until winter has come and passed and come again. To tell of it now, I must leave much of it out, but I shall do my best.” Brom took a long quaff of tea before beginning. "Long ago, when even elves were young in the land, they regarded dragons as beasts. Eventually, one young and brazen elf took it upon himself to hunt a dragon for sport. The dragons did not simply sit idly by, however. When the knowledge of it spread through them, the dragons unleashed a fiery rage upon the elves of Alagasia. As legend would have it, the two races warred for forty years, until both were all but extinct. In midst of the chaos, however, a young elf named Inaros, your namesake, as it happens, encountered a lone dragon egg, abandoned."

"What? I'm named after an elf?" Inara had never considered that she might be named after anyone, let alone anyone who wasn't a human. "How do you know that?"

“Few enough among men are so named. It is not a name one sees in the Holy Writ, or in the annals of the great heroes and beauties in the history of men. And, because I knew your mother when I was young."

"You knew my mother?" This was not as great a shock as learning she was named after an elf, but Inara was always eager to learn what she could of her mother, about whom Garrow would say little. She'd spent most of her life outside Carvahall, and most who knew her well were dead or elsewhere. 

"I did," Brom confirmed, nodding. "I told her this same story, when we were scarce older than you. I do not know why it was she chose this name for you. I digress, however.

“Inaros, having found an abandoned egg, decided to hatch it and raise it. As the dragon grew, he found in its heart great love, and learned to speak with him as friend and equal, and gave him the elvish name Bhai Rén, or Great Hope. Soon, the pair showed themselves to the world, and the dragons and elves were all dumbfounded. The pair travelled far and wide, and after many long and difficult trials, they together helped to end the war. The last elves and dragons gathered together to make peace, and together created the Dragon Riders. Originally, they were meant only as a means of communication between the two races, but in time, they became so much more. The Riders built a great city on the island of Doraea, and named it Adoran. There, the Riders secluded themselves from the world, intervening occasionally in the name of peace, and their city became a great beacon of learning and wisdom.

"Nine hundred years after the joining of elves and dragons, the first men arrived on the shores of Alagasia. When they came, they brought destruction and death. In the span of a few decades, men had destroyed countless tribes of elf, and conquered half the land. The riders were too few to stop them, and the elves were broken and divided.

“It took three hundred years after the first landings of men for the elves to recover much of what they had lost, and when they did, they formed a grand alliance to retake their lost land from men. For generations thereafter, they burned across the North and the Midlands, reconquering their homelands and rebuilding their meeting-halls and forts.

“For their conquests, however, they paid in blood, and elves cannot shed blood like men. It’s said in the Writ that for every man that falls in battle, another five spring up to take his place. But elves, who live their long lives, bear few children, and for every warrior they lost, that was nought but another warrior lost. By the time they reached the once-mighty meeting-hall-turned-human-city of Ur Ibhán, they could fight no longer. Yet, in this dark hour when men and elves sought to wipe the other from the face of the earth, a new voice was heard.

“As we have talked about before, the race of men before the Empire was divided, and every local lord had his own army and many knights and armed retainers, and above the head of such lords kings came and went freely. One such king, named Pallan, was forced off his throne during the second century of men, and brought a band of loyalists with him to lands far afield in search of safety. During their long march, they found a secluded valley to the far north, once ruled by elves, but mostly abandoned.

“There, the elves sought to destroy Pallan and his loyalists for their incursion, but Pallan and his followers were unarmed and lost. Pallan suggested to the elves that he and his followers could live together with them side by side, in peace, and because he was unarmed and on his knees, the elves agreed to let King Pallan live in this secluded valley, and where he and his followers settled, Pallan built a monument of stone to honour this pact. For many generations thereafter, the northmen and the elves lived in peace. Pallan's monument, known as Pallan's Cairn, eventually gave its name to the valley in which he settled, becoming Palancar Valley, where we now live.

“Two hundred years after that settlement, the men and elves of the Valley were still living in peace. As the elves of the east, who waged war upon men, approached Ur Ibhán, the men and the elves of Palancar Valley journeyed to that great hall, and with the help of the last remaining Riders, managed to put an end to the war, much as Inaros and Bhai Rén had done thirteen centuries prior.”

"I've never heard that story before," Inara interjected. She knew enough people were destructive, but she hadn't considered that they'd conquered the whole world from others. It was stranger still to think of her home as having been important to the rest of the world. "Why?"

"Few know it. Most men have forgotten that they are newcomers, and that the world once did not belong to them. We are too short-lived to see that the world is changing all the time, and that it existed long before us and will long after."

"I always thought Palancar Valley insignificant. It's always just been a forgotten land to me."

“Nowadays, it certainly seems that way. Part of the reason that story could ever have happened in the first place, however, was precisely because of that: Palancar Valley is remote, cold, and undesirable to most, which kept the men and elves who lived together safe from the world to the south.

“Again, however, we digress. From that day of peace, men were included in the ancient pact between elves and dragons, and the pact that had kept the balance between those two ancient races created peace between those two and a third. And from that day, men would become Riders, and their deeds would be great and many. We have talked of some of them before, such as how Arstan Whitebeard slew the Black King of Elion when he tried to conquer Belon.

“The shining jewel of this new order was Ur Ibhán, which was built up into the largest city in the world. Elves and men came together to build the great meeting place, which soon became a home away from home for the Riders, and a great city of both men and elves, the only of its kind. And for three more centuries, this order reigned supreme in the world, and peace governed the relations of the three races."

"Then Galen happened?" Inara asked, remembering his story.

"Yes. Then Galen happened." There was a distance to Brom's gaze, and obvious pain in his eyes. "Two hundred years after men first became Riders, one among them betrayed everyone and everything the Riders stood for, bringing death and destruction everywhere in his twenty-five year war to conquer the world."

The Official History of the Empire told a radically different story, Inara knew. Nobody really believed it, but without the truth to point to, what was there to give it the lie? And who would dare try, truth or no? “You mentioned the Forsworn in your story. What happened to them? I know they’re gone now, but how? What happened to the last Riders?”

“They fell prey to power, one by one. Two of the thirteen died in the war of conquest, and a third in the Surdish Wars. Two killed each other in a duel. Five were assassinated, by persons or groups unknown. One killed himself, after losing his dragon. One was killed in a riot in Dalgon, trying to keep the peace.”

“But that’s only twelve,” Inara protested. “What happened to the last? He is dead, right, like the rest?”

“Yes. The last of the Forsworn, you see, was also the first: Morzan. He had always been the greatest of their number. When all the others had gone, fallen to their own ambition every one, Morzan lived, and lived yet fifty years after the last of his counterparts was killed, and became the only Rider most living men have ever seen. He died for a woman he loved, not the power he sought, which is why I didn’t include him at first. But that itself is a story for another day.”

“Why?” Inara asked. This was getting interesting.

“Because I will not tell it to you yet.”

“That’s not an answer,” Inara said, though she knew well where this conversation was already headed.

“I refuse to tell it now. Be happy at that.” Brom’s dismissal was sharper than usual, and the pain she’d heard in his voice came back. That story is personal to him, Inara realised after a moment. He knew Morzan. Brom is suddenly a far more interesting character than I thought him. “Have you other questions today?”

Inara eventually decided to return to her original purpose. “How big were the dragons?” she asked.

"As big as high hills, as big as great ships, as big as time would let them. Dragons never stopped growing. When they reached adulthood, their bodies were as big as a small ship, and even the smallest had wings a hundred feet across. The skull of the largest dragon was no vast it could have swallowed a wheelhouse whole."

Inara tried to think of the little blue cat-lizard-snake in her glen being the size of a house, but couldn't summon the image. "I heard their scales shined like jewels."

"They did, yes. Every dragon was a unique colour, or combination of colours, and all were beautiful as living diamond mountains. But who told you that?"

Inara scrambled for an answer. She hadn’t expected to be questioned about this. “A merchant,” she said, hastily, “on market day. He said that he had jewels than shone like dragon scales. I didn’t ask any more about it.”

“You didn’t happen to catch that merchant’s name, did you?”

“N- no. He never said, I never asked.”

“Too bad. I would have loved to know where he learned that.” Brom’s gaze became distant. Uncharacteristically, he didn’t touch his tea.

Why did that detail raise his alarm? Inara decided against pursuing that further; down that path easily lay exposure, which she couldn’t have. Though she trusted Brom as far as normal matters went, living dragons were anything but. "How long did dragons live?"

Brom stirred from his near-trance. "Hmm? Oh. My mind escaped me. Yes, dragons. Dragons lived for as long as the world didn't kill them, growing all the while. It was said that some got over a thousand years old, older than any elf."

Inara considered that for a long moment. Not only would her little dragon be the size of a house, but a mountain. She had one last question she had to ask. "I think the merchant mentioned a specific dragon, known for its sapphire scales. That was the gem he was peddling, a sapphire."

"There were many dragons famed for blue scales. Éphyra, Nyaçes, Rainón, Bhai Rén, as it happens, Melios, Meraçes, Kerakhòs, Eirgan, Lonnos... Saphira." He said the last word so quietly Inara could barely hear him, but the reverence in his voice was obvious.

“Saphira? For a blue dragon?” It struck her as lacking imagination. One may as well name a green-eyed daughter Emerald.

“Yes, Saphira, for a blue dragon. Not for the gemstone, but for the moon; Saebhérn, in the tongue of the Lake-Elves.” Now Brom speaks Elvish? Stranger and stranger. “Were any of those names the one he mentioned?”

“No,” Inara said, “none of those, I don’t think.” Though she burned with more questions than ever about her dragon, she didn’t dare voice them. How could she ask when dragons matured and breathed fire without giving herself away? Perhaps she could ask another time, when his guard was lowered.

There was yet one last question for her to ask, one she’d been pondering since well before the dragon had hatched and upended everything. Inara took her foreign book out of her bag and presented it to Brom. “I got this on market day for a few coppers, no more than a cheap copy of the Writ. I thought you might be interested in it.”

Brom’s eyes went wide. He took the book from her and started leafing through it rapidly, all the while muttering to himself about something she couldn’t quite make out. "How did you... do you know what that is?" he said. He never gave her time to say she didn’t. "No, of course you don't. That's why you’re here. This book... the title, Òdhan Abr Weirda, means 'Dominance Over Mind' in the language of the Lake-Elves. Yet, it is not a foreign book. It is a history of Alagasia, one written by human scholar-monks some years before Galen’s rise. I have seen in all my years only one old and faded copy, written by hand in Udenese, and I was not able to read it at any length. This one is new, and printed.”

“It’s not actually new,” Inara said, remembering back to her encounter with the book-peddler.

“What?”

“The merchant said he’d had it for years, but it never seemed to show any wear.”

Brom took another long look at the book, a puzzled expression on his face. “Hmm,” he intoned, “I can understand why. Elves are known for their superior, even magical crafts.” A magic book! Even with a dragon in her woods and the mark of a Rider on her palm, this was still a wonder to her. “It is dangerous for you to have this, Inara. If the Emperor’s servants discovered this with you, this whole village would be under suspicion for aiding the Varden and might even be put the torch and knife.”

This didn’t scare Inara as much as it might, for she’d had that exact thought concerning her dragon at least twice every day for the last few weeks, yet that the imperials might give the order over a book was still unsettling. “Keep it,” she said to him, after some consideration. “Keep it. If you can read it, you have more use of it that I do. Hide it. Keep it safe. Keep me safe.”

“I will,” said Brom. “I shall hide this book. Do not speak of it again, unless you are sure we are alone. When next you come to me, I will have new stories for you, some new even to me. Go, now. It is best you do not tarry here while this is in the open.”

Inara complied without question, quickly donning her coat and gloves, recovering her bag, and rushing out the door without a goodbye.

It occurred to her as she left that this was the first time she’d gone from his house without finishing her tea.

Chapter 8

Six months of snow and freezing nights passed in Carvahall after Inara’s first visit to Brom. With the onset of true winter, work all across the village ground to a halt. The sheds were by then stocked with firewood. Larders were stuffed with meat and flour. Barns overflowed with hay to feed the animals. The ground, frozen solid, was unworkable, rendering moot most of the summer chores of farmers.

Winter was not, to the people of Palancar Valley, a dismal time. Children played in the snow, adults fished the icy rivers and sometimes immersed themselves in their bracing waters, and everyone young and old joined in harvesting the sticky sweet sap from the maple trees of the north. Tapped from the bark like a spigot in a barrel of mead, the villagers let the sap drip into pots resting in the snow, then sealed the pots with candle wax and stored them to sell to the spring merchant caravans. Children covered sticks with the sap and ate it straight, while adults spread it on the sweet, fluffy bread village women would bake for the occasion. The more drink-motivated village men sometimes added it to their awful whiskeys and other liquors, to make them more palatable.

Maple sap was the only good besides grain and iron that southerners wanted to buy from the north. It was oft claimed by the merchants that it was sold all the way to the Southern Kingdoms and to the lands of the Arathi River. Inara had no idea how far northern maple sap really made it. She often wondered each winter what might happen were she to follow a jar south. Would she find the emperor himself serving Carvahall's maple sap at feasts? Would she see the merchant lords of the Nine Isles spread it on their bread, as northern villagers did? Would they add it to their strange, exotic liquors as northmen with whiskey and gin? If she tried it a hundred years ago, would she find the dragon riders serving it in their halls on Doraea? 

At the very least, they probably hadn’t served to their dragons. Inara had tried, but just as with everything else she’d tried to serve her dragon that wasn’t meat, it had rejected maple sap as if it were poison.

For the seven months since the hatching of the dragon, Inara kept her routine of seeing the dragon every day she could, bringing it treats, talking to it constantly, and watching it grow. And grow it did. By the time of the Solstice festival, it had grown level with her waist, and was able to fly as well as any bird and hunt nearly any prey but deer bears. She even found a wolf skeleton in its meadow, which looked ever more like some bizarre battlefield. By the time April came around, it was near as tall as her shoulder, and was regularly eating deer.  

As she visited, she could feel its thoughts growing more complex. Where once it had only projected raw feelings, the dragon by its sixth month could tell a story by showing Inara its memories. Inara had quickly figured out she could do the same, and soon enough she was talking to the dragon without words. She kept talking out loud, though. That was what all the women of Carvahall said you were supposed to do with babies and small children.

While the dragon could imitate birdsong and other noises, it had yet to show any propensity for true speech, but Inara thought it might be able to think in words the way humans did. Its voice was something to behold, nevertheless. Its growl was louder than a wildcat’s, and several times now it had roared, making a sound unlike any Inara had ever heard. It made to make her skin crawl, even as her heart swelled with pride, and was powerful enough to make her want to cover her ears. She could even feel it through her feet, the way a tree’s fall could be felt.

It began to show behaviours too that Inara would never have anticipated or imagined of a mighty beast like a dragon. Among others, its kitten-like quirks hadn’t faded in the slightest, and like a cat it rubbed against trees and sharpened its claws on them, creating inch-deep gashes in the process. It enjoyed being pet on its snout like a horse, hugged around its neck, and scratched rather forcefully at the base of its skull. On the days when she came to it in a foul mood, it offered her carcasses, though eventually realised she didn’t eat raw deer and stopped. It would also sense her discomfort in falling snow and rain, used its ever growing wings to shield her from them.

Brom had said that dragons were intelligent, that they were as clever as men, and Inara was willing to believe it. The dragon sensed her moods with ease, and expressed its own equally well in ever more complex ways. There were even times she thought it was trying to be funny, to tell a joke. When Inara’s name-day had come, ushering in the age of seventeen a few weeks after the new year, she told the dragon of the day’s significance, and it had nuzzled her and shared pictures of eggs hatching. She’d shared her memories of cows and sheep she’d seen giving birth, and the dragon had been incredulous at first. She’d asked it then if it had ever seen a rabbit egg, to which the dragon had not responded.

The dragon, as it grew, also became more independent. It tried to follow Inara back to the farm more than once, and she’d had to push it back towards the clearing. When it asked her why, she showed it images of people trying to kill it or chain it underground, away from the sun and sky. It tore at her heart to see it slink away whenever she did, but once it was gone, she would try to comfort herself in knowing it was safer that way. Sometimes it even worked.

Was that what raising a baby was like? Was her pride and fear the same that mothers felt, to see their children grow up in front of them? Inara had never thought long about children in the context of her own life. Babies seemed to be a lot of fuss over nothing, and she’d never understood the fervour with which the women of Carvahall, even Katrina, spoke of them. If babies were anything like her dragon, Inara felt she might understand them better. She thought about that nearly every time she returned home from a visit.

As the winter bore on, the dragon grew more difficult to hide. There were always rumours of monsters coming out of the Spine to prey on travellers and wayward livestock, and most villagers dismissed them, but hearing about the broken skeletons of sheep or deer being discovered in the near woods were enough to make Inara’s heart skip a beat. Hopefully, she could find a better place to hide the dragon before the villagers started finding its ever-growing piles of dung. The high hills north and west of Carvahall were enough to prevent sightings, but that more than anything kept her occupied. The dragon, from a good distance, might still be mistaken for a bird, but soon enough would be far too large for any doubt.

Beyond the practical difficulties of trying to hide a dragon near the village, the difficulties of living her double life wore at her steadily. She could pass off many of her disappearances as hunting, but after several months of constant travelling, Garrow had even been moved to comment, but had not inquired after her.

Roran and Katrina were, for a while, certain she’d found herself a man, which irritated her, but was better than the alternative. Both had teased her mercilessly for her refusal to answer, but had eventually dropped the subject.  

They, however, had precious little free time to think on such things, what with their nuptials. The two had announced their engagement during the winter solstice festival. Garrow had not been surprised in the least, and Sloan, remarkably, had taken the news better than expected, and though not without grumbling had decided that he would not object to the match, and had even agreed to help furnish the young couple with money for a new farm, though he’d been characteristically stingy where the specific funds were concerned. Roran and Katrina had feared he might break with that tradition, but such would have amounted to disowning his only daughter.

Ultimately, Sloan and Garrow had agreed to hold the wedding in the spring, when all the townsfolk had finished planting. The months of winter leading up to the wedding were mostly spent clearing a patch of land next to the family farm for Roran to plant. A man, it was said, needed to plant crops the same year he married, to bring good luck and bounty to his marriage. The day after he’d started his crop, he would start his marriage by bringing Katrina to live on the family farm.

Inara had not helped Roran with his crops. She’d been visiting the dragon, and planting was men’s work anyway. That, however, was yesterday. Today was the main event. Roran and Inara rode to town under the warm, late-morning sun in the back of the family oxcart, which they had cleaned and covered with good sheets for the occasion, to keep all their nicest clothes free of the road’s blackish mud and dust.

Roran, frankly, looked ill. “Nervous?” Inara asked him with a smile.  

He nodded gently.

“Come now, cousin, you’re marrying Katrina. She loves you, and you love her. You’re good for each other. What’s there to be nervous about?”

“Everything. Everything, Inara. Will she still like me after we share a bed for a few months? Everyone knows old man Pennod’s wife hates him. Did I even plant my crops right? Maybe Katrina’s barren. What if she is and she hates herself for it? What if I’m not good enough?”

Inara had no answer to that. Reassuring people had never really been her strong suit. Katrina had always been the one with the effortless kind words and the enchanted sweet voice that tears fled before. She’d always been the one to comfort Inara, to assuage her worries, not the other way around.

For lack of kind words, she threw her arms around her cousin. She could feel his breathing slow beneath her, and when she pulled back he was smiling, so she decided to chalk that up as a victory.

“I’m an idiot, aren’t I?” Roran said sheepishly.

Inara said nothing, and pulled him in tighter. 

But things were not going to be alright. On some level, Inara knew that already. The transition moment to moment from dragons and myths to weddings and farming and friends was already jarring enough. As the wagon drew ever closer to Carvahall’s godshouse, her sense of being a trapped animal dug itself ever deeper in beneath her skin. It was far from the first time she’d had that thought, not even the first time that day, but the thought of Katrina living on the farm with her seemed to shrink what little distance there was between her two lives.

Even knowing that she could easily be in danger did little to prepare for seeing soldiers in the market square. When she did, her blood froze, and her heart seemed to miss a beat before racing faster than that of a terrified mouse. She’d never seen imperial soldiers before, only read about them and their red and blue and white coats and shiny steel armour. Twelve men she counted standing, two more on horseback. The officers, probably. Both were fully armoured, with helms covering their faces. None on foot wore such heavy armour, but all were dressed in near-identical coats over chain-mail. Black Imperial insignia were painted on their white breasts. All their uniforms were mud-spattered from the road. Every man was clearly armed with a long, straight sword or tall spear, the men on foot with both, and there were lances high and proud mounted on the saddles of the horses.

Had her dragon been discovered? Had these soldiers come for it? Maybe there was a different reason. But what else? Why would soldiers come to Carvahall? There weren’t any rebels here. The Imperial Army had been only a token force in Palancar Valley for a generation at least. Most of the Northern Corps was kept further south, to guard against rebellion in Gilead and the lands of the Trident. All Palancar was smaller even than the city of Gilead, too weak and too sparse to be a threat.

But the soldiers took no notice of Inara or her family. Inara breathed a tentative sigh of relief as they passed from view in the cluster of shops and houses. As she did, she heard a similar sigh from Roran. “What in the hells are Imperials doing here?”

“Nothing good,” said Garrow. He was, quite to Inara’s surprise, visibly angry. He was not a typically expressive man, and his few moments of feeling were of kindness or sorrow. Anger of all things came rarest. “Never trust them. Never approach them. Never speak to them, unless approached, and reveal nothing more than they demand, less still if you can help it.” Inara wouldn’t have done any of that anyway, but it was sound instruction. She and Roran both nodded silently.

By the time they reached the godshouse, Inara’s panic was receding. She’d been paying attention to rumours in the town, and there’d been nothing specific about her dragon. They really must be here about something else. That sounded right. They must be. She was safe.

The godshouse itself was an eight-sided mortared-stone building, built on a low hill just above the main centre of the town. The back wall, behind the priest’s platform and altar, had one of the only large glass windows in the village. Guests for the wedding were milling about in front, but the mood was clearly subdued. The last wedding Inara had seen, when Priest Albor and his wife Halli’s daughter Serra had wedded a farm boy, had been a joyous affair. Guests had mingled happily, and children ran and screamed all across the yard. Though there had been a fistfight after the ceremony, both men had sat together and laughed about it at supper. Today, however, there was no joy on the faces of the guests, for the sight of imperials could sour even the gentlest moods. Children were all but absent; the only ones Inara saw were held gently but firmly in place by their parents or older siblings. There was a look of relief that went through near every face at the sight of the groom and best lady. 

The moment the cart stopped, Inara peeled to find Kat, wishing Roran a final ‘good luck’ on her way. The bride traditionally spent her final maiden night in the guest-house behind the altar, to make the gods her guardians rather than her father’s family, and so the groom could accept the blessing of the gods through his new wife. Knowing Katrina, she’d almost certainly spent her Holy Night with her hands up her skirts, as she might jest, blessing the bed with holy water. The bride would remain in her chamber until escorted by the best lady, in this case Inara, to the altar. When Inara got through the guests to the back room, Albor waived her through to find the bride.

And the bride, she saw, was a real vision. Katrina had styled her rich red hair into a magnificent river of fire that tumbled down her shoulders, framing the necklace Roran had gifted her and contrasted beautifully against the blue of her dress. The gown itself had no sleeves or even shoulder supports, and did only the barest minimum it could have to cover her large, pale breasts. Even then, it showed the near-perfect details of everything it actually managed to cover, being both tight and mostly see-through. This was as it should be; a marriage was the end of maiden modesty, and a maiden should not be afraid to be seen immodestly. Even noble ladies who dressed with reserve on any other occasion wore precious little to their weddings.

On seeing Inara enter, Katrina ran to her and hugged her tightly for what felt like an hour. “The big day’s here,” she said after a long while.

“The big day,” Inara agreed, hugging her back. “Are you ready?”

“No. Maybe yes. Ready or not, I want it,” Kat said, pulling back. “I want Roran.”

“And he wants you.”

“After he sees me like this, I won’t blame him.”

“Seeing you in that, even I want you,” Inara said, only half-joking. Katrina was radiant, and Inara felt a strong urge to reach out and touch her again, though she stopped short of doing so.

“You know,” Katrina said, “I was afraid for a long time that I wouldn’t see you at all after I married, that I would be stuck on someone else’s farm far away. Instead I’ll be stuck with you. Do you remember when we were little girls, dreaming and joking about being sisters?”

“Prophetic, wasn’t it?”

“Prophetic! That’s a perfect word. I’ve never heard that one before.”

“Brom taught it to me a while back.” Inara realised then that she’d seen Brom in the crowd on the way in. He never attended weddings or sermons or anything else even remotely social except to tell the occasional story at Armond’s, and she hadn’t looked for him, but now she was sure of it. Despite having been distracted coming in, Inara was sure he was there. Maybe getting out more would be good for him. He wasn’t the most social of men, and other people generally irritated him by existing.

Katrina’s face darkened slightly. “Are you sure about this?”

“About what?”

“Being my best lady.”

“Of course I am, silly. Don’t ever think otherwise.” Tradition typically dictated that a maid’s mother deliver her to the groom. If not, another female relative would usually fill the place, or sometimes the priest’s wife, and Inara had agreed to step in as a relative, since they had grown up so close. “We agreed to this for each other when we were nine. We were close as sisters then, and I know we’ve drifted a little… I want to do this for you, and I want you to do it for me.” Inara had serious doubts as to whether she’d ever get a chance to marry, but on the off-chance she did, there was no one she’d rather have.

Katrina smiled, but did respond, for there came a knock then on the door. “It’s noon, girls,” said the voice of Albor.

“We’re coming!” said both girls in unison.

Inara took her best friend’s arm in hers, gave her most reassuring smile, which, judging by the look on Kat’s face wasn’t so good as it might have been, and moved to lead her out into the room.

Light was streaming through the stain glass. Facing south, the window opened the godshouse to the noon spring light, and the whole room glowed in a rainbow of soft colours. When the light caught Katrina, she caught fire . Even Sloan, sitting in the front row, mustered a faint smile.

As per tradition, Inara walked Kat around the circular edge of the godshouse, starting from her father’s side, then going around through the light of the window, and finally around her finacé’s father’s side to the altar, in a miniature repeat of her leaving her father’s house, to that of the gods, to that of her finacé’s. All the while, Albor spoke the traditional blessings to newly-wed couples, blessing the houses of both families and praying for many fine strong children and bountiful harvests. Every eye in the room ogled Kat and her essentially exposed body, but she seemed to like it. Not all brides did, but Kat had never been shy, and there were few occasions one could really show off like this. Roran, for his part, looked quite dumbfounded as Inara led his bride up to the traditional spot beneath the altar.

Reaching the end of the path, Inara stopped, and let go of Katrina’s arm. She looked uncertain for a moment, like she was about to walk off a cliff, but her hesitation was but momentary, and she took the her final steps meet Roran.

After several more minutes Albor finally made his slow, plodding way to the wedding vows. “Roran son of Garrow, do you accept Katrina daughter of Marin to be your lawful wedded wife, before the eyes of gods and men, to love and cherish and protect her with all your strength until the end of your days?”

Roran swallowed, then smiled. “I do,” he said, determined.

“And Katrina Marin’s daughter, do you accept Roran Garrow’s son to be your lawful wedded husband before the eyes of gods and men, to love and cherish and honour him until the end of your days?”

Katrina beamed with pure pride. “I do.”

“Then you may tie the knot.”

Around Katrina’s left wrist was a long green ribbon. She unwrapped half of it, and with graceful movements tied the loose part around Roran’s right wrist. Once tied, Roran brought both his hands to her face kissed her fervently, as if life depended on it. The gathered guests erupted in applause.

“And now,” said Albor, “we feast.”

Wedding feasts could easily last from noon to nightfall and invariably left every guest so stuffed they’d be more food than flesh. Some wedding feasts were held in house of the groom, or out in the open air if they happened in late summer, but the poorer residents of Carvahall typically held theirs in Armond’s tavern. The hundred or so guests who’d turned out for Roran and Katrina’s all rose as one to descend down the rise and devour their way through the tavern’s stores.

The afternoon passed for Inara in a blur. She and several other youths had worked together to carry the bride and groom down to the tavern, and she sat by them for many courses. Speeches were given by the fathers of the couple, and by the friends and other family. Inara chose against the tradition of telling the most embarrassing stories she knew about the both of them, and in the end felt rather satisfied with the speech she’d come up with. The revelries, initially, were somewhat muted, that the soldiers who’d been there just hours ago had ridden off without word helped to improve the general mood.

By the time the feast was petering out, the sun had vanished behind the peaks of the Spine. Inara went out then to get a breath of fresh air after the smoky confines of the tavern. Walking carefully through the haze of mead and a full stomach, she walked around to the side of the building and sat on the ground against it, closing her eyes and enjoying the cool evening air for some indeterminate time.

“Where is it?”

Inara jumped sideways, startled, and was immediately sick head to foot from the way food sloshed around in her stomach. Twisting about to see who’d spoken, she saw Brom looming over her. He was dressed in all-black, and armed with a sword. “Wha…” she managed inarticulately.

Brom bent over to get closer. “I asked you,” he said quietly, “where is it?”

“Where’s… what?” Inara’s mind was still cloudy, even through the fright.

“The dragon, girl. Where is the dragon? Is it still hidden in the woods?”

Inara’s heart went cold, for what felt like the hundredth time that day. She was caught, a rabbit in a snare. Could she lie to Brom? Not credibly, she knew. “How did you know?” She said instead, trying to deflect the question.

“Because I know. Does anyone else? Does Roran? Katrina? Garrow? Anyone?”

“No,” Inara said. “I didn’t tell anyone.” She made the effort to stand, and succeeded.

“Nobody else knows? Nobody else knows?” Inara nodded again. “You’re telling the truth? Hmm. I suppose you probably are. No matter. Come with me.” He grabbed her by the arm and dragged unceremoniously away from the tavern and away from the main part of the town.

“Where are we going?” Inara asked, pulling her arm away but not daring to try and run.

“My house. It’s the safest place, for now.”

As they walked, the full moon rose in the east to illuminate the path. It was a long walk, made longer by booze, and by the uncomfortable pace Brom set. As she followed him, she tried to figure out how she’d been exposed. Brom had spent the whole winter translating stories to her from the book she’d brought him. He was careful to never let her see it, lest she know its hiding place. She learned from him about the great knights of men who’d lived in the days before Galen ended the tradition of knighthood over a century ago, about the elves and the dwarves and the heroes of those peoples, about ancient kings and lords, about the Faith and how it had been sewn together from local cults and grown in the centuries after the coming of men into its modern state, and about all the lands of the world, the sheer multitude of which made her realise soon enough  how small her home really was.

Brom had also given her a map of Alagasia to help her in her learning. It was a colourfully painted cloth, four feet across, suspended between two wooden dowels on the top and bottom. She’d hung it on the wall of her room, and examined it frequently. It had been made in the Empire, and as such gave label to no lands beyond its frontiers, but Brom had told her of how the Lake-Elves called their land Kánnatha, and had shared some of the unpronounceable sound-salad names the dwarves gave their own lands.

Inara tried at least once every visit to find out where he’d learned to read Lake-Elvish, since surely it must have been in Kánnatha, or at least from elves who were from there, but Brom remained tight-lipped. He also remained stone-silent on the matter of Morzan, and how he had come to know a dragon rider, though she’d not pressed so hard on that point.

She’d also pried him for every bit of information she could about dragons without raising suspicion. That, more than anything, had probably given her away.

Inara tried to talk to him several times on the walk, but each time he shushed her as if she’d committed some unforgivable act. They were alone out here, though. Who would hear?

Thoughts of what this discovery might mean drifted forcefully through her mind, like an angry drunken bull loose in a fancy house. The village, of course, would burn. They’d be complicit in hiding a dragon rider from the Empire. Many of the villagers would be tortured for information on the Varden, because of course they’d have been working with them, truth or sense be damned. Inara would, if she lived, never see her family or neighbours ever again. No more Brom, no Katrina, no Horst, no Roran, no Garrow. All would be dead or imprisoned, never again to see the light of day. If she lived, she’d almost certainly face torture herself, and likely would be enslaved by the Emperor through some eldritch power, made into the beginning of a second Forsworn. All that was the best-case scenario, too; she might just be killed, her dragon stolen. Or killed along with her. That would be more merciful, really; dragons were not meant for slavery.

It occurred to her too how selfish the raising of a dragon in this little village was of her. She had put everyone in the town, possibly much more of Palancar Valley, at risk for her own illusory dream. She’d told no one, warned no one, and involved no one, and now they might all suffer for the ignorance she’d kept them in. Between her roiling shame and confusion and the mead she’d drunk and food she’d eaten, her whole body seemed to be broken and ready to burst.

When the two of them finally reached his house, Brom ushered her inside with a shove. The inside of his house was pitch-dark. “Was anyone following us?” he asked her, closing the door to the last of the moonlight.

“What? No, I don’t think so…” Inara said, suddenly uncertain. She hadn’t been paying attention. A hunter like her should have been paying attention.

“Lucky for you, there wasn’t.” Brom started shuffling about in the darkness. Inara didn’t move, afraid to trip over something.

There came then the sound of a striking match, and candlelight began to fill the room. Inara nearly gasped out loud at the sight, for every single book, painting, scroll, pen, even blanket was gone, leaving behind nothing but some drab furniture. She’d never seen a single flat surface in his house anything less than completely coated with such items, and to see them all gone was shock.

Brom went about setting a fire in his hearth, and placed a kettle above it. Once satisfied, Brom made his way back to Inara and directed her over to the unfamiliarly bare couch, where she sat. Brom sat opposite her on the edge of the half-table in front of it. “Well, let’s see it,” he said, with a touch of resignation.

“See what?”

“Your hand, girl. More specifically, your left palm.”

Inara complied clumsily, taking off her left glove to reveal the silvery mark left by the dragon. She’d examined it herself at many times; it was a featureless silver oval, covering the center of her left palm, and appeared to be nothing but the discolouration of her skin.

Brom took her hand in his own rough fingers and looked intensely at the mark, touching it gently. He gave her hand back after a few moments. “Cover that back up. Has anyone seen that?”

“Only a few. My family, Katrina. I told them it was a scar.”

“They never asked further?”

“No one ever did.” That had been itself a little strange, but Inara had mostly left it alone once anyone else dismissed it.

“You’ve been wise to keep that hidden, young rider.”

Inara stared blankly into nothing for a long while, saying nothing, but eventually managed a few words. “How’d you know?”

“You, mostly. I don’t think anything’s ever kept your focus for more than a couple of visits, but you’ve been pursuing dragons and riders for months. That, of course, was after seeing the mark on your hand last winter, before you rather clumsily covered it with my own gauze. That mark you have, the gedweïs , it’s unambiguously the mark of a Rider. There were other clues, certainly, but your hand alone would have been enough. But those soldiers in the square today were the dead giveaway. They might have been dressed like common soldiers, but they were part of the empire’s anti-magic corps.”

A knife twisted in Inara’s gut, hot and cold all at once. They really had been there for her. Or, at least, for her dragon. But they hadn’t found it. Had they?

“In light of that,” Brom continued, “I must ask again: does anyone else know about the dragon?”

“No! I haven’t old…. anyone….” Her words failed her as she spoke. Thinking harder about it now, she’d never told anyone about her dragon. But she had shown someone the egg.

“Who was it?” Brom demanded.

“It was… Morloch. The jewelry merchant. I think Morloch knows.”

“A gem merchant? Why would he… Oh. You tried to sell the egg, didn’t you? That’s better for us than it could be, I think. They don’t know it’s hatched. The search may not be so urgent, if they’re merely investigating the rumour of an egg. If you’ve told no one else here about it, they’ve probably moved on.”

“Oh,” Inara said dumbly.

“Now. About that dragon. It’s what, six months old now? Seven? It must be the size of a horse. Where do you manage to hide it?”

Though she thought briefly about lying, there seemed little point. Brom knew enough already there wasn’t much reason now to hold back. He’d probably be able to find the dragon on his own regardless of any lies she told. “In the old forest, up behind the hills. There’s a little meadow no one else knows. Lots of game, no obvious trails. I’ve been careful to hide my tracks on the way in.”

“The old forest, yes, good thinking. Hurrah for superstitious villagers,” Brom said, stroking his short beard. “Now, girl, what were you planning to do with a dragon in Carvahall? Surely you didn’t think you could just raise it here, and nobody would be the wiser. It didn’t give you a choice in the matter, though, did it? It hatched and claimed you without your saying so. I do wonder, though, how it is one such as yourself acquired a dragon egg? If I did not know you, I might think you’d stolen it, but you are no thief. So how?”

“I was in the Spine,” Inara said. “Before market day. It just… appeared, in a hollow of scorched earth, making a loud noise, like a crash, and a flash of light. I thought it was a meteorite at first, but it looked so… crafted, or intentional.”

“And then you showed it to a merchant.”

“I didn't know what it was!” The idea of selling the egg somehow seemed preposterous now, as if she’d never intended to sell it at all. She knew, on one level, that she absolutely would have if Morloch had offered, yet now it seemed like she would have been giving up a child.

“Of course not.”

“I think Morloch did, though. He didn't tell me what I had, but he looked more like he was afraid to.”

“The last market day was months before you came to me with a marked hand. How long did the dragon take to hatch after that?”

“Not too long. A few weeks, maybe a month.”

Brom was silent for a long while. “I suppose this as good as you could be hoped. The empire likely doesn’t know for certain where the egg is, that it hatched, or that you have it. Count yourself lucky beyond reckoning they don’t; all the fury of the nine hells would be a summer dream otherwise.” The whistle of the kettle whined loudly as he finished speaking, punctuating the conversation like the offstage sounds in a mummer’s show. It startled Inara when its scream tore through the house; she’d forgotten completely about anything but Brom’s words and her own troubles. Brom left Inara to stew, or rather melt, where she sat.

What was she to do now? She was discovered, and by a man who grew more mysterious it seemed every time she talked to him. A man who’d known Morzan, it seemed, and knew more about Riders and dragons than anyone not intimately familiar with them would; a man who spoke at least one form of elvish; a man who could identify magical crafting; a man obviously well travelled within the lands of the Empire; and a man, most of all, who had more secrets than most men had blades of grass in their fields, whatever they may be. How many others could one man even hold before he burst, or overflowed?

There weren’t any good options for her now that didn’t involve Brom. He had all the power, now that he knew about her. He seemed intent on helping or at least working with her. Perhaps it’s best to give him the benefit of the doubt, Inara thought. Though, given all I don’t know, trusting him completely seems unwise.

Brom wasn’t long in coming with the tea. He didn’t speak for a long while as he poured and let his tea steep and cool. He seemed through it all nearly as divided as Inara herself, unsure of what to do. He seemed, in short, a man with his life suddenly upended, very much as he had just upended Inara’s.

When he eventually spoke again, he did so in a quiet, considered manner, not so rushed or forceful as before. “You can’t stay here, Inara. You know that, don’t you?”

And Inara did know. She’d known from the start that her dragon’s hatching was the beginning of the end for her life in Carvahall. That had been part of the excitement of the whole affair as much as the fear, for she’d yearned to see the broader world her entire life. Just, not while being hunted, which now surely she would be. She answered Brom by way of a slow half-nod.

“It will have to be soon,” Brom continued. “Not now, no, but soon. If, as we suppose, the imperials have only traced the egg to this valley, not to our village, and have already left for others, then we have some time. Little enough, but some. You need to go home tonight. Pack your hunting bag and your bow, and whatever your warmest clothes are. You may say goodbye, but we must leave on the morrow, before the imperials have a chance to come back in force.”

Tomorrow. I leave home, forever, tomorrow. Wait, did he say what I think he said? “‘We?’”

“Yes. We leave on the morrow. I would not set you off alone, young rider. There are few so travelled as me, or so learned about what you must be taught.”

“You’re really coming with me?” Inara had never imagined she’d have much in the way of help when she left, or was forced out, though her nebulous plans had rarely consisted of much more than flying off to the south at sunset, sometimes while the Empire’s stooges followed her vainly from below. It was more of a fantasy, and against the reality of actual soldiers in her town, her dream was suddenly small and insignificant.

“Yes. I’m coming with you, Inara. I will accompany you home tonight. At first light we will make for the hills to the west, to be gone before the imperials can know.” Brom’s face was one of calm and resolve, and Inara could feel his focus bleeding off into her, cutting through the confusion and darkness.

Perhaps things aren’t all so bad as they seem. Perhaps I’ll live through this after all.

 

Notes:

Edit: Originally, this chapter ended with Brom sending Inara home alone, with the promise to meet her at first light. I have had to change this to make it mesh with my plans for this story.