Revelations

  “You haven’t, have you?” Rysha asked, mostly because she didn’t want to discuss Trip’s dragon blood.

  “What? Had sex with Bhrava Saruth?”

  “Yeah.”

  Kaika took another puff from the cigar. “I got permission first. From my steady fellow. Sometimes, if you get an opportunity to do something that crazy, you just have to do it.”

  Rysha stared at her. She hadn’t truly expected the answer to be yes.

  “I told him that if he ever gets the chance to sleep with a female dragon, I would be fine with that. He doesn’t have quite as adventurous a soul as I have, though, so I’m not sure he’d actually do that. Unless the dragon used her dragonly allure on him.”

  “It’s called scylori,” Rysha said.

  “Oh, there’s a term?”

  “Yes. And you’re right, dragons can compel humans to do things against their wishes. Or make them believe they aren’t against their wishes.”

  “I wasn’t compelled. I was just curious. And he was amenable.”

  “Was it worth…” Rysha didn’t want to say betraying her lover, because it didn’t sound like it had been that exactly, but she couldn’t imagine a man being excited about his woman sleeping with a dragon—or anyone else.

  “Nah, not really. He was very much focused on his own pleasure. You’d be better off with Trip. I suspect he’d be much more appreciative than a dragon. And that he’d be amenable to doing whatever you asked.”

  Rysha blushed. How did they keep ending up talking about Trip? She wasn’t sure if doing it in this context was better than discussing his blood or not.

  “You do know what to ask for, right?” Kaika grinned at her.

  “Of course I know. I’m not sixteen, ma’am.”

  “Yes, I forgot. You’ve kissed three boys. And had sex with one of them. That’s good. Just remember, it’s fine and good to polish his sword if he likes it and you like it, but make sure he knows how and where to use his tongue. You want to have a good time while you’re cuddling, right?”

  “Ma’am, we haven’t even—” Kissed, she was going to add, but Kaika kept speaking.

  “And once you’re familiar with each other’s tastes, don’t be afraid to bring in some props and toys. You know the Gilded Lady in the capital? Over on Aspen Lane? They sell some quality stuff, and everything comes with instructions and diagrams, so you don’t have to feel awkward about asking the sales woman. Take him along too. You can pick out things together. If you want a list of recommended products, just ask. I’d be happy to provide it.”

  “Ma’am, when you told General Zirkander that I was your protégé, I was very honored, but I’d really imagined you teaching me about guns and bombs and how to kick men’s butts rather than… products.”

  Kaika clapped her on the shoulder. “We can do all those things too. I’d be delighted to teach you about demolitions. And now that we’re not cramped up in those fliers, we can definitely practice with the swords. First thing in the morning.”

  “I would like that.” Rysha remembered her battle with the sorceress, how the woman had been more experienced and had been getting the upper hand toward the end, even with Dorfindral guiding Rysha’s movements. It would be a good idea to—

  “Ma’am?” Leftie called, jogging toward them. “Is that you, Captain Kaika?”

  “It’s me.” Kaika turned her back to the railing, propping her elbow on it.

  “Sorry to interrupt, but I wanted to ask you, er, warn you about something.”

  “Yes?”

  “It’s the Cofah sorceress. I think she might be trying to—” Leftie glanced toward the doorway he’d exited from. “I don’t know why she would pick him, but I think she might be trying to control Trip. Is that possible? I mean, I know women can seduce men, and vice versa, but Trip’s not very—I mean, he’s sort of the opposite of oversexed, you know? But if she’s a witch and has powers she can use on him—I don’t know why she would, but she came down to the gas room and wanted to talk to him alone, and was looking him up and down. Honestly, I don’t know why, except that he’s the highest ranking after you and Blazer. Well, and Duck, but Duck’s not a lady’s man, and Trip’s all-right looking, don’t you think? It’s not his face that gives him trouble with women. But what could she want from him? That sword, do you think? He seemed willing to give it to her without seduction.”

  Rysha shifted uneasily at the rapid flow of words—and the topic. She hadn’t heard Leftie babble and trip over sentences before, so it took her a few seconds to realize he was nervous. And worried.

  “She’s alone with him now?” Kaika asked.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And you’re sure—” Kaika glanced at Rysha, “—it’s not by his choice?”

  Leftie hesitated, also glancing at her.

  Rysha’s gut tied itself in a knot.

  “He did ask me to leave them in privacy, but he’s not—he never—it’s not like him.”

  Kaika scratched her jaw. “I suppose it’s possible that sorceresses can have magical allure too.”

  “I really don’t want to hear about this woman’s allures,” Rysha said, trying to sound tough and casual, as if she wasn’t worried in the least about Trip being allured. “But if he’s in danger, we should help him. He knows a lot about…”

  What? He’d just transferred to Wolf Squadron and the capital, so he wouldn’t know any military secrets there, and he didn’t have a background in dragons or archaeology or magic.

  “Very little?” Kaika offered.

  “Machines,” Rysha said sturdily. It wasn’t as if Trip was ignorant. He just didn’t have specialties that she could imagine an enemy caring about.

  “I’m sure she wants to seduce him to learn all about making gun mounts,” Kaika said dryly.

  “Ma’am,” Leftie said, frowning. “I don’t trust her or any of them, and I don’t think we should be unconcerned by things out of the ordinary happening.”

  “Don’t you think Jaxi will protect him if he’s in there against his wishes?” Kaika asked.

  “Is a soulblade more powerful than a sorceress?” Leftie sounded skeptical.

  “I have no idea.” Kaika looked at Rysha.

  “It would depend on what era the soulblade came from and the abilities of the original sorcerer,” Rysha said, the words sounding distant to her ears. She was barely aware of answering. As stupid as it was, she was imagining Trip down in that room, with that sorceress seducing him.

  Would he actually fall for that? The woman had been so antagonistic when they’d met, and that had been less than ten hours earlier.

  “It’s also possible the Cofah soulblade would interfere,” Rysha said, looking toward the door. She wanted to go check on Trip and make sure untoward things weren’t happening.

  But the door opened as she watched it. Dorfindral sent a thrum of excitement through her, and she knew who was coming out before he stepped into the light of the lantern mounted there.

  “Meyusha,” she grumbled to the blade.

  Some of the Cofah scientists were out on the deck at the opposite end of the ship, but Trip looked right at Rysha, Kaika, and Leftie even though they were in the shadows and their parkas hid their faces. He strode past the parked fliers and toward them. There were, Rysha decided, many clues that he had dragon blood, for those interested in looking.

  As he walked closer, his step determined, she tried to decide if he looked like a man who’d recently been seduced. Though what that would look like, she didn’t know. The sorceress hadn’t been wearing lip paint that she might have left on his clothing or his neck. His eyes didn’t blaze with triumph and self-satisfaction or with chagrin. She told itself it was unlikely anything had happened. Maybe he was coming to report that the woman had tried to seduce him and failed.

  “Two dragons, ma’am,” he told Kaika without preamble.

  “Shit. Where?”

  “Twenty miles that way.” Trip pointed to the left. “They flew to that distance quic
kly, and now they’re paralleling us.”

  Everyone looked in the indicated direction, even though, with the snow falling, they couldn’t see one mile, much less twenty.

  “They’re silver dragons,” Trip added. “They won’t be able to breathe fire, but they can destroy the airship with mental and physical attacks.”

  “We should get into the fliers and be ready,” Leftie said. “With passengers carrying those special swords.”

  “I’ll report to Major Blazer,” Trip said, and the two men jogged toward the wheelhouse together.

  “Looks like we’ll get all manner of sword-fighting practice on this trip,” Kaika said.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Rysha said.

  • • • • •

  Trip woke with a start to the sound of steel clashing against steel.

  Imagining the battle already underway—and why hadn’t anyone told him?—he lurched upright, cracking his knee against the flight stick of his flier. He stood in his cockpit, looking all around the deck of the airship, expecting to see sign of the dragons. He’d kept a mental eye on them the night before, standing with Blazer in the wheelhouse so he could let her know when they veered toward them, but the two silvers had maintained a course paralleling the airship and never drawing closer than twenty miles.

  He, Duck, and Leftie had finally been ordered to sleep next to their fliers so they would be ready to take off at a second’s notice. He’d opted for sleeping in his cockpit, buried under his fur and a parka. Daylight had come, though the snow continued to fall, and the gray clouds made it hard to tell what time it was. He stretched his senses out to check on the dragons and found that they continued to parallel the airship.

  Trip found the source of the commotion at the far rear of the airship, Kaika and Rysha leaping about and slashing with their dragon-slaying swords. It took him a moment to realize they were sparring with each other rather than battling some enemy.

  “Seven gods, that’s a racket,” Leftie said, lurching upright in the next flier over. He, too, had opted to sleep in his cockpit, ready for action. Sort of. His leg hung over one side of the cockpit, his arm over the other, and his hair stuck up in so many directions it looked like lightning had struck him while he slept. He spotted the women, then slumped back in his seat. “It would have been less alarming to wake up in a dragon’s jaws.”

  “Do you want me to contact the dragons to see when that’s scheduled?” Trip asked.

  “You can’t do that, can you?”

  “I can do it.” Trip patted Jaxi’s scabbard to imply she would be the one handling the telepathic communication. “I can’t guarantee the dragons would answer.”

  You’re asking that question yourself, hero.

  I wouldn’t think dragon jaws would scare you. You can’t be that palatable.

  True, but if my handler gets eaten, there’s nobody left to carry me to interesting places. To unfrozen places.

  Trip clambered out of his flier, shivering as soon as he removed the fur. After taking care of biological needs, he looked for Major Blazer in the wheelhouse so he could update her on the dragons. But she was standing on the deck with Jylea, the two women holding mugs of coffee while watching the sparring match. Blazer also held a magazine in her gloved hand, though she seemed more interested in the swordplay. It amused Trip that the airship had a kitchen and a stove. So much more luxurious than travel by flier. But he wouldn’t want to be stuck on the lumbering craft when enemies attacked.

  He spotted Kiadarsa near the railing, gazing off in the direction of the dragons. Trip hurried past her, but not before she looked back at him, a long look over. He didn’t acknowledge it. He didn’t want to do anything to encourage her to make contact.

  Blazer and Jylea stopped their conversation when they noticed Trip approaching. Irritation flashed across Blazer’s face, and he hesitated. She tucked her magazine under her arm and reached for her sword hilt—the hilt of the chapaharii blade—but halted before she touched it. Her hand hovered there for several long seconds. She took a deep breath, pulled her hand back, and withdrew her magazine again. It was folded open to what looked like sewing patterns for decorative squares. Not what he would have expected Blazer to read, but what did he know about women?

  “Didn’t mean to interrupt, ma’am,” Trip said as he walked up warily, “but I thought you’d want an update on the dragons’ location.”

  “We’ve been getting updates from Kia,” Jylea said blandly, looking toward her sorceress.

  Trip tried to decide if the statement contained censure. He didn’t know what time it was, but feared he’d slept later than most people. That was surprising because he’d dozed off worried about the dragons, but he hadn’t slept at all the previous night. His body had apparently decided to knock him out for as many hours as possible.

  “Good,” he said. “Did they do anything in the night?”

  “They’re maintaining their course and speed,” Jylea said. “I’m hoping that means it’s a coincidence and that they have nothing to do with us.”

  “I don’t think so, ma’am,” Trip said. “Even if they just happened to be heading the same way, it’s unlikely they would perfectly match our speed. Dragons naturally fly faster than fliers and most certainly faster than airships.”

  “Did you just call my vessel slow, young man?”

  “I believe he did,” Blazer said.

  “Just in comparison to a dragon.” Trip wondered if it was a good thing that Blazer was standing with the Cofah leader, jointly picking on him. Bonding with the enemy? “Is there any terrain ahead of us that could potentially be hazardous? That an enemy might consider a good spot for an ambush?”

  Blazer tilted her head. “Would a dragon feel it needed to use trickery on us? To lay an ambush?”

  “We do have the swords. We drove off the other one and hurt it.”

  “Kia!” Jylea called across the deck, waving for the sorceress to join them.

  Trip groaned inwardly and was tempted to slink away before she arrived. He could check on Kaika and Rysha. How long had they been sparring? Maybe they needed him to bring water.

  Kiadarsa strode down the deck, her head high, looking much more like the sorceress from the cave than the woman who’d touched his shoulder in the gas room. She did not look at Trip as she approached. That relieved him. He felt more comfortable handling the tough sorceress than the odd one.

  “We’re about twelve hours from the ruins site we’re going to check again, right, Kia?” Jylea asked when she reached them.

  “Yes.”

  “Again?” Blazer asked.

  Kiadarsa and Jylea exchanged looks.

  “Someone who proved untrustworthy was the one who reported there was nothing significant there,” Jylea said. “Upon further research, we believe it may indeed be the place we seek.”

  “Where is it?” After sleeping for hours, Trip wasn’t sure where they were. He sensed the ice fields stretching in all directions, but trusted Blazer, who’d been helping with navigation the night before, had a better idea.

  “You’ll find out when you need to,” Jylea said.

  “I’m just trying to figure out if there’s a place we might be ambushed along the way.”

  Jylea’s lips pressed together, and she looked toward Kiadarsa.

  “It’s flat the whole way,” Kiadarsa said.

  What had they said the day before? That they couldn’t reach the ruins site by dog sled because of places where the ice had melted? Creating an inland sea or lakes or some such?

  Trip gazed at Jylea, wishing he could pluck some information from her brain.

  He’d no sooner had the thought than an image of a map floated into his mind. He recognized it as the one from the building in the outpost, the one with all the notes scribbled on ruins locations. He focused on the spot that Rysha had pointed to back in the Black Stag and that she’d also pointed out in the outpost. The words, what had they read?

  The words appeared in his mind, as if he were reading
them right there. Mount Eldercrag. Ice Caves. Cave. Dragon statues carved into a fissure. Three thousand years old, no markings. No evidence of recent use. Cave explorations unfruitful. Dragons in area.

  Trip twitched, realizing that sounded like an excellent place for a portal. Perhaps the words on that map had been inaccurate. If that proved true, the Iskandian team might not have needed to link up with the Cofah researchers, after all. They could have gone straight to that spot and—

  Wait, had he truly seen what Jylea was thinking? That wasn’t one of his meager abilities.

  Guess again.

  Good morning, Jaxi.

  We are heading to that location. I thought about mentioning it earlier, but you were snoozing like a dog in front of a fire crackling in a hearth.

  I wasn’t nearly as warm.

  Yes, it’s odd that the Cofah didn’t outfit an airship going to the Antarctic Circle with hearths, isn’t it? And dogs. Since you haven’t suggested to your lovely lieutenant that she should cuddle with you, you could at least keep warm with some dogs pressed against your back.

  Instead of answering, Trip considered the route ahead again. Now that he knew their destination, maybe he could better gauge what might be prompting the dragons to bide their time. He had no personal familiarity with the area, but he’d studied the maps.

  Would the dragons simply wait until the airship made it to the ruins to attack? Maybe they had more allies there, or something else that would make humans easier to slay. Or maybe—

  The inland sea, Trip thought with a lurch. The melted areas. If the dragons attacked there, they could sink the airship—and the swords. To be lost forever in the depths of the Antarctic.

  He looked toward the bow of the ship, wondering how close they were to that area now.

  “You should learn to guard your thoughts better, Jylea,” Kiadarsa said, squinting at Trip.

  Jylea’s eyes flew open, and she also looked at Trip.

  Blazer’s brow furrowed, but she sipped her coffee and didn’t comment.