Dragon Blood

The buildings on the streets grew smaller and less well kept. Businesses were mostly run out of single-room dwellings without public licenses or signs. Here an old woman sold bruised fruit purchased at a discount from a regular merchant, while across the street a younger woman advertised her trade with bared breasts and fluttering eyes.

Tisala pulled up the hood of her cloak as if she were cold and turned down an alleyway to find the place where she had lived. It had been a small building built behind a narrow two-story house that faced the street. The only way into or out of it had been through the alley, and even then it was easy to miss behind the tall, old stone structure that had once been a part of an outer city wall.

She stepped behind the wall and stared at the scorched timbers that were all that was left of her home and the people who'd lived there. She'd sent a message to tell Haverness she was alive, but he wouldn't get it for a few weeks yet.

Death hung over the blackened ruin.

She'd lived with nine other people here, mostly actors and whores. They had shared cooking and cleaning—the small chores of living together. Tisala's nose burned and she rubbed it furiously: She would not cry for them. Their deaths would not be a small deed—little remembered—but another crack in the wall that held Jakoven on his throne. Her determination gave her little comfort.

Cold and depressed, Tisala walked back to Rosem's home, a basement apartment below a chandlery. She opened the door without knocking and found him in front of the tiny fireplace stirring the contents of a pot hanging over the fire.

"Find your man?" he asked without looking up from his task.

"No, but he said he'd get me into the mage's section tomorrow." They didn't use Kellen's name outside the Asylum.

Rosem nodded. "He enjoys your visits." He stopped stirring and set his spoon aside. "Do you really think that this mage of yours can get the Hurogmeten out?"

"He seems to think so," she said.

"Would he agree to get someone else out, too?"

Her heart picked up, but she said, "Is this the right time? I thought that we needed to wait until things were properly supported. Wouldn't want the whole structure to fall for want of underpi

"We are supposed to get word when the time is right," she said. Alizon swore he'd tell Rosem as soon as there was any kind of hope for a rebellion against Jakoven.

"I don't think he'll last much longer in there," said Rosem heavily.

In all the time she'd known Kellen's man, she had never seen him nervous before, but the blunt-nailed hands that used toweling and pulled the hob out of the fire were shaking. "Until last season I used to get him to wrestle with me, but he won't do that anymore. I don't think he believes he'll ever get out. I think he's just humoring me because he can't bear to hurt me. He's lost more weight, did you notice?"

She nodded her head. "Ward's man would do it, I think. But he'll need to know what he's getting into. I won't have him unaware of the magnitude of what we want."

"Let me meet your wizard," Rosem said.

"After I get out of the Asylum tomorrow," agreed Tisala. "I'll talk to him."

"Just ask him to meet me. Don't say anything else. I want a look at him before I trust him with this."

Tisala frowned as she walked. Bringing Oreg into this made her feel uneasy and she thought until she pi

Oreg liked to bait people. She'd seen him do it with Tosten in particular, because Tosten rose to the occasion. Ward mostly enjoyed it. But if Oreg tried it with Rosem, as uptight as Rosem was now, he would try to kill Oreg.

Rosem was good with any weapon at hand, but Oreg was a wizard—a dragon.

Tisala sighed and rubbed her forehead.

Oreg was waiting by the oak tree in the park when she got there. His face was peaceful in the moonlight, all the signs of stress she'd seen in the tavern were gone as if he'd do

"Oreg," she said when she was close enough. She'd decided to approach him here, rather than in Duraugh's house. "My contact at the Asylum wants to meet you tomorrow."

"Why does he want to see me?" The wizard's eyes were hidden in the shadows. For a moment she felt a shiver of fear. Around Ward and the other Hurogs, Oreg went out of his way to appear boyish—but she was too skilled a hunter to believe his camouflage.

"I can't tell you," she said. "But you are free to refuse what he asks. Just don't play games with him."

"Play games?" He smiled at her, showing his teeth. "Why would I do something like that."

No, she thought wryly, she was not imagining the menace he projected. He wanted her to be afraid. "I care for him and I don't want to lose friends. Rosem doesn't have much of a sense of humor. If he believes you'll betray us, he'll try to do something about it."

"You think I'd deliberately mislead him?" His hand came out and touched the rapid pulse on her neck.

"Yes." The touch made her lose her temper. "I think you'd enjoy it. You may have everyone else fooled, but I know what you are."

"You do," he agreed.

She waved her hand in dismissal. "Not the dragon part. Ward treats you as if he needs to protect you—just like he treats everyone else. Stala thinks you a bumbling wizard, powerful but shy. And Tosten … " She considered a moment. "Tosten's worried you're going to hurt Ward."

He'd been watching her complacently until her last statement. "Hurt Ward?"

She nodded. "He knows that Ward sees you as one of his strays—like me, that young girl with the birthmark across her face, and the little boy with the crippled foot whose father is in the Blue Guard. But he thinks that means that Ward doesn't know what you are, what you're capable of doing."

"I'd never hurt Ward," Oreg said, his voice low.

"I know that," she said. "Tosten does, too now, I think. No one could miss how you felt about Ward when you came to tell us you'd lost him."

Oreg took several strides away from her. After a moment he came back, his face and body relaxed once more.

"So you know me better than anyone?" The threat was back in his voice.

She raised her chin and smiled coldly at him. "You are a predator—like me. I think you would give your life for those at Hurog—but you care little or nothing for anyone else." She could feel the menace gathering around her. A chill wind cut through the trees, rustling the old leaves that waited for spring budding to fall. "It worries me to take you to Rosem," she said. "You are too careless with other people. But I want what he wants enough to risk exposing him."

He laughed suddenly, sinking bonelessly against the oak tree. "I'll make a deal with you. You find Ward and I'll listen to what this friend of yours has to say. I'll be a sincere, i

She considered him warily. Probably, she thought, there had never been any danger at all. "What if I promise to try not to subject you to speeches? I have a weakness for them, which I'll try to curb in your presence."

He gri

She half thought he would work some wizardry that would transport them into the house, but he merely extended his elbow in invitation. When she tucked her arm in his, he patted her hand and let out another snort of laughter.

"If you think I am so dangerous, why are you so easy with me?"

She smiled. "Because I am no threat to Ward and you know it."