Dragon Bones

"I know you don't want to give the dragon bones to Kariarn, but I don't see any way to prevent it," I said.

"She was beautiful," he replied obscurely. "Rose and gold with a voice that made the waves leap to her music. And Seleg killed her for fear of losing Hurog. He wept and sorrowed, then justified his actions. He cursed his family even down to this generation, and he justified it because he didn't want to admit he'd been too frightened that he would lose Hurog to the invaders to try to stop them without the magic he gained from the dragon's death." Oreg took a small step away from me. "He'd learned by then what killing the dragon meant. The Hurog bloodline was thick with wizards, but Seleg was the last wizard born to your family until your birth."

I stared at him, remembering little things he'd told me, things Axiel had told me. "That's what drove the dwarves away, wasn't it? Not that the dragon had been killed. If they'd have known that Seleg killed the dragon, the dwarves would have attacked Hurog, and there's no record of it. But the dragon's death did something to Hurog. Something that made the dwarves grow ill and stunted their magic." Oreg nodded. I took a deep breath. "That's what caused the mines to quit producing and brought salt creep to the best fields. I've seen the records of the crops that used to come from those fields. We bring in less than half of that on a good year."

"Yes," whispered Oreg.

I stood up and began to pace. "It's not just the dwarven kingdoms though, is it? I stood on top of the remains of the temple at Menogue and looked down on Estian. It's shrinking and has been for a long time. It's not just Hurog that's become less than it was, but it's spreading from Hurog."

"Yes," whispered Oreg again.

"And the curse on the family isn't just that there are no more Hurog mages. I remember my mother when she was happy, but the longer she stayed at Hurog, the stranger she got. Then there is my father." I remembered what the Oreg I'd dreamed of had told me about Hurog. I said, "Hurog poisons the people who live there. My grandfather had eight legitimate children of whom only two survived childhood: my father and his brother, who were sent out for fostering at a very young age. Ciarra can't speak, and Tosten was suicidal." The strain of the voyage was telling on my temper so that the results of that ancient stupidity made me want to hit something.

"And you lost the ability to work magic."

I waved my hand, and all of the oil lamps in the room flared brightly. "Not completely."

Staring at him, I realized that the reason he hadn't moved was because he was afraid of me. I'd been agitated and ranting like my father used to, and for little cause besides stress and fatigue. I inhaled and closed my eyes and carefully pruned away the anger I felt toward Seleg, who hadn't been the hero I needed him to be; toward my father; my mother; and finally, toward Hurog, whose magic filled my soul and took my sister's voice and my mother's reason; but most of all at Oreg, who hadn't believed in me.

"Anger is stupid, and stupidity will kill you more surely than your opponent's blade." My aunt's voice echoed in my head, and so I pushed anger aside with reason. It was not Seleg's fault I'd chosen him for my hero. It was not my fault my father had hated me, and my mother had run away. When I was certain it was gone, I looked again at Oreg, who'd been betrayed far more than I.

"I can't change what Seleg did," I said at last. "There is nothing I can do to make it right."

Oreg's purple eyes were still wide with fear or some other strong emotion, watching me so he could tell which way to jump.

"I could have you get the two of us into Hurog when we are close enough. We could help my uncle hold her."

"Duraugh can't hold Hurog, Ward," said Oreg. "There are too many here. Even with all of the Blue Guard, Hurog could not withstand this many men. Not in its current state. It's not ready for a siege."

I thought again. "Could you move the bones out?"

He shook his head. "Out of the cave and its protections, every wizard within a hundred miles could find the bones, but it doesn't matter. Seleg bound me past my death to keep the bones hidden in the heart of Hurog."

"Do you see any options that would keep Kariarn from the bones?" I asked.

"No." He turned his head away from me.

"Oreg." I waited. "Oreg."

Finally, he looked at me.

I cleared my throat to hide how much his answer mattered to me. "Do you think that I would kill my uncle just to become Hurogmeten again?"

His face worked suddenly, and he dropped to his knees before me. "I believe that you would never have killed a dragon to save yourself. I believe that you would never knowingly betray a trust."

It was a powerful speech, and I wanted to believe him, but I'd been around slaves. They told their masters what they thought their masters wanted to hear, then tried to believe it themselves.

When he looked up, there was a strange expression on his face, one I'd never seen there before. It took me a moment to identify it as hope. "You would not betray Hurog," he said. "You would do the right thing, no matter what the consequences." There was something about the way he said it that made me want to question him, as if his words meant more than they said.

From the shadows beyond the chest, a shadow darted, chittering loudly, distracting me. Oreg laughed suddenly and picked up the trillie, ruffling the gray green fur behind the rodent face. He said something to it and set it down to disappear once more in the shadows of the cabin.

He pulled up his knees and buried his face in them. His shoulders shook with—laughter. "There's a rotten fish in your blankets," he said.

"The sail master says we'll reach Tyrfa

"What?" he said. Apparently the floor was more interesting than I was.

"Quit watching the cracks go past, and listen to me." I paced as I spoke. Two strides, heel-turn, two strides, heel-turn. Our cabin was the second largest on the ship, but that wasn't saying much. "As soon as you can, transport yourself to Tyrfa

"Calm yourself, Ward," soothed Oreg, rolling over and bouncing out of the hammock in one easy motion, effectively stopping my pacing because there was no more room. "I know, I'm to tell the townspeople to hide themselves until the armies have passed by. Then, as soon as we're close enough, I'll transport both of us to Hurog and you can warn Duraugh."

Something about Oreg had changed in the last few days. Perhaps it was just that he trusted me; but I'd never seen him in such calm good humor. It made me nervous. All right, more nervous. Waves of panicky self-doubt had been rolling over me since I awoke on board Kariarn's ship. My plans were so tenuous as to be laughable. Nothing I could do would guarantee my uncle's safety.

Even without experience in siege warfare, I knew that Hurog couldn't stand off a siege before harvest. So the only answer was to get the people away from Hurog and hope that Kariarn would leave with the bones. Oreg seemed strangely unworried about that part for all of his earlier histrionics. He spoke confidently of our weak plans, while I wasn't even certain my uncle would trust me when I told him to get our people out of Hurog.

"If I'd slept with Bastilla, she might not have gone back to Kariarn," I threw myself back on the bed, since Oreg had the hammock.

"It wouldn't have mattered, Ward. She is bound to him."