The carriage was empty. I sniffed everywhere, trying to figure out where the treasure had gone, where the thieves had gone. The dirty, metallic scent of money, handled often by human hands, still hung in the air, along with the faint scent of blood. But there was no one here, and not a single coin.
As I leapt back outside, Bryden turned to me with confusion written across his features.
“They’re gone,” he said as I shifted back.
“Worse, the taxes are gone,” I said.
“But they left behind some dead tax collectors.” Morick nodded down the road, then nudged a fallen guard with the toe of his boot. “Stabbed them and threw them off the carriage.”
“Fuck,” I said. Pend and the other Olds tried to keep theft under wraps while hunting for us quietly; they didn’t want us to excite the people into rebellion. Better to pretend the thefts never happened than admit there were robbers who dared to steal from the Olds, then gave back to the people.
I almost thought of it as a silent agreement between my father and me: I had the chance to protect the people from his exorbitant taxes and protect some of the villages, and as long as I didn’t lead an army of peasants—openly—he pretended I didn’t exist.
Besides, he didn’t dare murder me. He could hurt Jaik and me, he could pretend he wasn’t our father, but my mother’s old magic had ensured the blood-bond would save our lives. The memory of the spell she’d used was a hazy blur to me, something I’d once thought perhaps I dreamt or heard in a story. But the longer my heart kept beating, the more I believed my mother had whispered words of a spell that lingered still.
“Pend might answer this, especially if this is only the beginning,” I said, studying the scene in front of us. “We need to find those thieves and make sure they don’t continue raising havoc.”
“How are we going to find them?” Morick sounded disappointed; the dread pirate was pouting. He was up before dawn for no reason.
Movement on the distant horizon caught my eye. Two horses, one rising on its rear legs as its rider waved at us, big sweeping moves of her arm. Her long hair floated in the breeze. The rider beside her was a big rock of a man.
“Thank you for the inspiration, Prince Caldren!” she called across the distance, her voice barely floating to us on the wind.
I turned into a wolf and charged, knowing it was unlikely I could cover all the distance to catch the two of them, as the two thieves turned and raced from the horizon down into the valley.
But I drew in a breath of air that carried scents that shouldn’t be there. Horses, not that far now. I felt the subtle shake of the ground under my paws, and I raced back to my friends, turning back into a man. It was exhausting, and I landed on my knees in front of them for just a moment, before scrambling to my feet.
“Those clumsy oafs are bringing king’s men down on us,” I said. “I don’t want to be blamed for crimes I didn’t even commit this time.”
I’d inspired imitators. If Pend didn’t have them killed, I might have to do it myself. We never kept the treasure for ourselves; the people needed that money back.
The four of us raced off into the woods, one step ahead of the king’s men.
Chapter
Fifteen
Honor
As Hanna and I walked outside, knowing that the servants would be packing for us, she said, “You know, you’d probably be better if I just stayed with you at the academy, I could work too.”
“No, you can’t, because if you start working like a peasant, they’ll never accept you as one of the nobility and you’re not losing your place. That’s not what Father and Mother would have wanted.”
“But what about what I want?” she asked. “Maybe I want to do something more with my life.”
Gods grant me strength to deal with adolescent angst. “That’s why you’re going to the Academy. You can keep your inheritance, keep your title, and you’ll still get the chance for a great adventure someday down the line.”
“I’ve discovered recently that having a great adventure can be a little bit overrated,” she said. “You just want to get rid of me so that you can have these men, all to yourself and never have to worry about me walking in on you when you’re—”
“Please end that thought, right there.”
She pouted at me, but all her angst was forgotten as we stepped out the doors, and she saw the rich emerald grass, stretching away to the blue lake. The sky above just as blue as the lake, and five dragons arrayed in front of us. I was beginning to be able to tell them all apart, even in their dragon form. The golden twins were a deep shade of bronze with red wings; Branok had more red across his back. Arren was the same deep scarlet as his family robes, changing to a deep, shiny black around his head and across his wings. Tal was purple and green, and Jaik was mostly black, but with purple and emerald and deep blue. They were all so beautiful it made me ache.
I wondered what I looked like in my dragon form. I ached to unfurl my wings again and feel that sense of power.
“I thought we were going to be riding back by carriage,” she said.
“No, we’re going to ride a dragon.”
“This is the greatest thing ever,” she said. “The first time, I thought you were going to die so I didn’t really savor getting to fly.”
“It really is,” I said, although the truth was, I didn’t think it was the greatest thing at all. The greatest thing was to be the dragon. Even though becoming a dragon shifter had ruined everything about my old life, I still was glad that I had this chance.
“Which one of them do you want to ride?” I asked, and she wagged her eyebrows at me.
“You know it’s not too late to take the carriage.”
“Oh, stop making jokes about how much better and more satisfying your life is than mine.”
“You’re twelve.”
“You’re crazy if you think I’m not already thinking about how satisfying life could be in the future.”
“Then I’d like to stay crazy and I’d appreciate it if you let me live in my bubble of insanity, thank you.”
I noticed that two of the dragons were already wearing reins and saddles, and it made my heart soften. These impossible men of mine were really good to my little sister, all five of them, even the ones that still kind of hated me. Maybe I could forgive them, someday, when the lies between us had been dissolved.
We soared over the beautiful, but cold, northern territory. Even dressed in my heavy down coat, and gloves, I shivered. Until I lay forward and pressed my cheek against the scales that flexed beneath me with every move of the dragon’s muscles. The heat coming off his body warmed me. He smelled a little bit like Jaik in his human form, even when he was a dragon.
He glanced over his shoulder at me, his gold flecked amber eyes bright, and I couldn’t resist grinning back. I couldn’t wait until one day he could see me as I truly was and we could fly together.
When we finally landed at the academy, I was tired, but Hanna just wanted to look around the school. “You never let me go to any of the dances,” she protested.
“You don’t like dancing.”
“I don’t like dancing, but I would like to explore the academy.”
“Well when you come here, you’re supposed to be a good girl. Stay in the ballroom and waltz.”