Balanced on the Blade's Edge (Dragon Blood, Book 1)

  * * *

  Colonel Zirkander hadn’t been exaggerating about the library. Ridge, Sardelle reminded herself with a smile. He had invited her to use his first name. It wouldn’t be appropriate in public, with half of his men giving her hard, suspicious looks, but she would think about him that way. Nobody here had access to her thoughts, fortunately.

  She ran a finger along the backs of the dusty tomes lining the library’s single bookcase. She recognized many of the titles from his list. A few gaps on the shelves suggested that at least some of the prisoners had taken him up on his offer and were going to try to read the classics. Sardelle had been lucky so many of them were old enough that they had been classics even when she had gone to school. Albeit that book on flight hadn’t been anything she had read. Jaxi had coached her through summarizing it.

  You’re welcome.

  Sardelle smiled. Do you have any idea where the crashed flying machine might be?

  No good morning first? You simply want to send me straight into researching for you?

  I apologize. Good morning, Jaxi. I’d like to thank you for your discretion last night.

  Discretion? You mean the fact that I kept my mental lips shut so you could make the rocks shake with your colonel?

  Sardelle blushed, though it wasn’t as if she had any secrets from her soul-linked sword of nearly twenty years.

  Three hundred and twenty years. And don’t I always stay out of your head when you’re being intimate with someone?

  Yes, though it’s been so long that I thought you might have forgotten my preferences.

  As I recall, scrawny sorcerers with ink smudges on their fingertips are your usual preferences. I must say the colonel was a welcome change.

  Sardelle’s heart quickened at the memory of how much of a change Ridge had been, how enticing it had been to run her hands over his lean, muscular body… That’s why I want to find his flying machine for him.

  She made herself focus on the task at hand, pulling a journal from the shelf, one hand-written by a general from two decades past. It was too old to have anything to do with the crash, but maybe it would contain information on common flight routes or something of that nature.

  So he’ll feel so grateful that he will send his minions digging in my direction?

  Something like that.

  Just don’t forget your mission here. I doubt you’re going to have much time left to act freely.

  As long as Ridge is commanding, I don’t think I’m likely to end up in shackles.

  If swords could shrug, Jaxi did. If I were you, I wouldn’t presume too much. He’s loyal to his military, and you’re a problem as far as that military is concerned. Don’t get cocky because he slept with you. It’s not like there are many options here.

  Thank you for your bluntness. When you’re not busy sounding like a teenager, you sound like my grandmother.

  Just so long as you know I know what’s best.

  You’re just grumpy because you don’t think I’m working to free you, but that was my original intent in coming to the library. Sardelle sat at the room’s only table and opened the journal she had selected. If I can figure out what they’re looking for in these mines, and there’s a way I can help them find it… I’m sure I could get a tunnel dug in your direction.

  You haven’t figured that out yet? Jaxi sounded genuinely surprised.

  No…

  Laughter echoed in Sardelle’s head. A lot of laughter. She imagined Jaxi wiping tears before asking her next question. Why didn’t you ask?

  Sardelle scratched her head. I thought I had.

  Hm. I don’t remember that. Anyway, the magical mystical energy sources these soldiers would die defending are… lamps.

  Lamps?

  Yeah, those illumination prisms that hung on the ceilings in rooms and tunnels throughout our complex.

  Sardelle leaned back in the chair, picturing the glowing white light sources. And they call those crystals?

  The rock does take on sort of a crystalline texture when it’s melted and fused, then imbued with power.

  Well, I was right to be befuddled that they were mining in the backside of the mountain then. That must be where they first chanced across them. I guess we had tunnels—and lamps illuminating them—back there, though there would be a lot more in the main living areas.

  Yes, and I’m quite sure there are a couple in the room you left me in too.

  Sardelle nodded slowly. Yes, I can lead them right to you. Or close anyway. I’ll have to sneak back down there and pull you out myself. If they find you first, and I take you, they’ll call it theft and chase me halfway across the world.

  Nah, I can make sure they have no interest in me. Rashes are the least of the things I can do to any grubby miner who puts his hands on me.

  Sardelle choked at the imagery that flashed through her mind, courtesy of Jaxi. I think your three-hundred-year imprisonment has made you punchy.

  If by punchy you mean filled with bitterness, loneliness, and barely contained vitriol, you are correct. I’m aching to return to work. And I’m quite curious to see how the world has changed. A ride in an airship would be fabulous.

  I’ll see what I can arrange once we’re the masters of our own fate again. Now, if I can just find that wreck, I’ll have a reason to report to Ridge’s office.

  Get a map. I’ll show you where it is. I don’t know how serviceable that flier will be after ten years in the sun, wind, and snow, but if it’ll make your man happy…

  You already found it?

  Yes, did you think our conversation was consuming all of my vast mental resources? I am a soulblade, you know. Powerful and gifted.

  And cocky.

  Naturally.

  Sardelle was poking through a rack of maps, searching for a topographical one of the mountains, when the door creaked open. She looked up, hoping for Ridge, though she couldn’t imagine what would have brought him by so soon. It had only been a half hour. He couldn’t be missing her yet, though maybe he had been thinking of her and how delightful it would be to share that coffee with her…

  Now who’s cocky?

  Hush.

  It wasn’t Ridge but a young soldier who entered, a soldier carrying a steaming mug of coffee and a couple of books under his arm. He was watching the black liquid carefully as he walked; it was filled to the brim and threatened to slosh over. Her first thought was that he had the morning off and had come to use the library as well. She started to push her book to one side so he would have room to join her if he wished, but he stopped at the head of the table and set the mug and the books down in front of her. He also dug a slightly smashed muffin out of his pocket and laid it next to the coffee.

  “Ma’am, Colonel Zirkander sends these items with his well wishes for the success of your research.”

  “Oh, thank you. Thank him for me, please.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  He remembered, Sardelle thought as the soldier strode out, closing the door behind him. I think I’m in love.

  I may gag. Do you have my map yet?

  Just a moment. Let me see what he sent. Sardelle opened the first book. It was a journal like the other one, but more recent, written by a general’s assistant from… yes, dates ranging from twelve to nine years ago. The crash should have happened during that time. The second book was an atlas.

  There you go. Don’t you love him now too?

  He does have a sexy chest.

  Sardelle snorted and flipped through the pages, finding the correct mountain.

  That’s the spot. Jaxi used her finger, guiding it across the contour lands. Sardelle always felt it a little strange when the soulblade took control, but, as an early instructor had pointed out, it was only fair given that humans got to swing swords around whenever they wished. Once Jaxi had even ambulated her unconscious body after a battle, moving Sardelle to a safe spot where she wouldn’t be captured by the enemy.

  An image flashed through her mind of a
narrow, snow-covered plateau overlooking a ravine with a river and a lot of jagged rocks far below.

  You’re saying it will be difficult to retrieve, eh?

  There’s a reason the only thing the soldiers recovered after the crash was the power source.

  Maybe Ridge can… disassemble it somehow. Or bring out a team and repair it up on that plateau. If I had a schematic, I’m sure I could help.

  Better leave it to him, Jaxi thought. I doubt he’s going to believe you’re an engineer and an archaeologist.

  Possibly right. Sardelle pushed back her chair.

  Where are you going?

  To tell him, of course.

  You’ve only been in here for thirty-seven minutes, and you’ve only had his books for seven. Don’t you think he might find that efficiency a little unlikely?

  You may be right. Sardelle settled back in the chair and picked up the coffee mug. She took a sip. It wasn’t as sludgy as Ridge had threatened. Maybe he had put someone else on coffee-making duty this morning. An hour? That would be long enough, wouldn’t it?

  You just want to see him again, don’t you? I am definitely going to gag.

  Careful. You wouldn’t want to inhale a rock.