Hoard

“Yes, that sounds fine,” Emeralaphine said vaguely, waving a claw at him without looking up from her books. Kaln had never seen enchanting being done before, and the spectacle was fascinating: she had one volume centered on a table, with the others waiting off to one side, and surrounding it was a veritable constellation of afterimages, glowing and translucent versions of different facets and surfaces of the book. Currently in her smaller form, the dragon was carefully moving them about with delicate swipes of her claws, as if… Well, actually, he couldn’t begin to guess at the mechanics of this.

Kaln cleared his throat after a moment. “Ah… I apologize for even asking, but having known more than my share of people concentrating on books like that, I have to. Are—”

“Yes, husband, I am actually listening to you.” She glanced up, fleetingly, her expression both amused and a little irked. “I am capable of multitasking, thank you very much. You want to ensconce that human girl here, as she requested. I’m telling you it’s fine. She is not to be in my lair or get in my way; she has permission to use the library so long as my rules are respected. Other than that, I don’t care.”

“Well,” he said, “that’s a great relief. Thank you for being so accommodating, Emeralaphine. I will do my utmost to ensure this doesn’t interfere with your pursuits.”

“I’m not Atraximos or Izayaroa, you know; I don’t have strong feelings about mortals generally, for or against. My opinion about mortals is that they shouldn’t bother me. If you start moving all your little bipedal friends into here, husband, we are going to have a problem, but one girl won’t bother me so long as she follows the basic rules. Besides, my Pheneraxa likes her, so I’m strongly motivated to approve.”

He blinked. “She—now wait a moment, you weren’t even present doing their conversation.”

“Continuing to get along, are they?” She glanced up at him with a faint smile. “Good. Give me some basic credit for knowing my own daughter, husband. Remember how violently she bridled at the prospect of carrying you around, and then how willing she was to hoist that princess? Maybe it was the chanting star names—I’ll admit I’m just a smidge curious about that myself—or maybe it’s just because she’s pretty. Whatever, Pheneraxa needs life experiences. A friend apart from that insufferable wizard will be greatly to her benefit. It’s not to the point I’m willing to evict her from the lair, but in recent years I’ve begun to worry. I have never known a dragon so averse to going outside and doing things.”

“Except possibly her mother?” Kaln asked innocently.

She looked up at him again, eyes narrowed in annoyance. “Was that all you needed, Kaln?”

“I suppose so,” he said with a heavy sigh. “The needs of the moment call for me to backtrack all over this place having conversations with everybody; I was just indulging in being able to look at you and hear your voice for a bit longer.”

“You are such a…a flirt.” She scowled at him, ruining the effect by going bright pink in the cheeks. “All right, go on. Be about your business, head of household. I am busy.”

“Your wish is my command, my lady. I look forward eagerly to gazing upon your loveliness once—”

“Out!” She had turned her back now, but her ears were so bright red it seemed they should be steaming.

Kaln was grinning as he turned and departed the library. Nope, that still hadn’t gotten old.

Re-entering the central vault, he reached out with his mind to check the family’s status. All three of his consorts were exactly where he’d left them last, and Pheneraxa was still with Izayaroa. Presumably Percy was with them. It was a funny thing, how quickly one could become accustomed to even the most bizarre developments; here he was, finding himself worried about having someone around whom he couldn’t instantly locate and diagnose in detail just by thinking about it, as if that were normal.

Ah, and there were Vanimax and Vadaralshi coming back. Together, still. Kaln had to wonder what had transpired out there. Vanimax taking a few minutes to cool off seemed like a good idea; he’d wondered momentarily if he wouldn’t come back at all.

This seemed like an opportune moment to try something he’d been wondering about. Extending his concentration, he focused on the presence of Izayaroa, sensing the complex blend of her present emotions: amusement at something one of the girls was saying, a general warmth toward how well their discussion was going—liberally seasoned with carefully restrained fury at Vanimax and embarrassment at his actions.

Hmm…nope. He knew he couldn’t detect actual thoughts; it now turned out he couldn’t transmit them, either. But concentrating, Kaln managed to send…something.

It was just a little pulse of sorts, a brush of mental pressure. He instantly felt Izayaroa go on the alert, turning her focus on him. Then she began to move, as did Pheneraxa.

Good.

In fact, the timing was very good. Vadaralshi came trotting into the vault from the front entrance, looking particularly pleased with herself, and moments later Vanimax followed at a much more sedate pace, his head down and expression closed. At the same moment, the party emerged from his own quarters on the opposite end of the huge room. Kaln gave Izayaroa a smile in response to her questioning look, holding out a hand toward her. She glided forward to take it, Pheneraxa meandering along behind and licking something off her claws, while Percy followed, clutching her skirts in both hands and looking nervous.

The trio arrived at the head of the stairs, where Kaln had gone to extend his senses, just as Vadaralshi and Vanimax had made it about halfway toward them. Both dragons stopped, falling still under Izayaroa’s suddenly cold stare.

“Good, everyone’s here,” Kaln said. “Well…everyone with whom I haven’t already had this discussion individually, anyway. Ahem. Princess Perseverance, I am glad to inform you that I’ve resolved my last lingering concerns and verified that there will be no objection to your presence. While I don’t speak for Rhivkabat as you initially requested, I am willing to offer you asylum here—or I suppose, since we’re not much of a political entity as such, simply our hospitality.”

She drew in a deep breath, and executed that formal-looking dipping motion again. “Thank you very much, monsieur Zelkhar.”

“Zelekhir,” Pheneraxa corrected. “Anyway, you can just call him Kaln.”

“Or Mr. Pants!” Vadaralshi said brightly.

Perseverance blinked thrice in rapid succession, looking as if her mind had just been brought to a complete halt trying to process that.

“Anyway,” Kaln continued with a sigh, “you are our guest, Percy, not a prisoner. I’ll do everything possible to make you comfortable, but I may have to ask for some patience at first while I…somehow acquire the means to do that. We’re, ah, not really set up for hosting mortal guests.”

“Yes you mentioned that,” she said. “I will not get in the way or make any complaints. I’m very grateful for all of this.”

“And of course, you will be welcome here as long as you need a place to stay. Should you decide to return home—or wish to go anywhere else, for that matter—we’ll make it happen. Just let me know what you need, Percy. You’re owed that much at least.”

“Of course, yes, thank you,” she said, nodding earnestly. “I’m sorry, I am running out of pleasantries. People don’t usually talk to me this much.”

Pheneraxa grinned and Izayaroa looked rueful; Kaln decided that was a good cue to take the focus off Percy for the moment. Turning to face the other dragons, he continued.

“Everyone in this household needs to keep in mind that humans are fragile, at least compared to what you’re used to. Please be careful where you step, and if you find need to interact with her Highness, be as gentle as you possibly can. In fact, it’s probably best if you refrain from touching her at all, particularly in larger forms.”

“I don’t think I like how you looked directly at me while you said that part,” Vadaralshi complained.

“Yes, well, I’ve met you.”

“Oh, nice. That’s great, Pants. You really think I’m just some meathead, don’t you?”

“Vadaralshi, I want you to think back over our interactions thus far. All of them. Really ponder these exchanges, and then name me a single one that you think would have given me an impression other than that.”

She stared at him, jaws hanging agape. Vanimax peered at her sidelong, visibly trying to conceal his own amusement. After a second, Vadaralshi shut her mouth with an audible snap.

“Pants, I’m gonna need you to desist being right. It is very annoying.”

“Not the first time I’ve heard that. Percy, I think the best place for you to set up some sleeping quarters would be in my chamber.”

“Oh,” she said, suddenly nervous. “Um…”

“Relax,” Kaln said gently, smiling. “Thanks to the magical wards, I have a high degree of control over the physical arrangements in there. I need to make better arrangements anyway; I’ve just been sleeping in Atraximos’s museum, which is…not fantastic for a host of reasons. There should be a way for me to subdivide the space, or at least put up barriers and screens, and it’s certainly big enough to have sleeping areas far apart. I’ll find a way to arrange a private space for you and make it as comfortable as possible.”

“Oh!” She looked relieved enough to be curious again, at least. “And…wards can do that? I thought those were just for detecting intruders.”

“That’s the most basic function of a ward network,” Pheneraxa explained. “But in the end, it’s a type of control magic tied to a discrete physical area; with more time, attention, and power, you can design it to do all kinds of things. Atraximos spent a long time on this one. I gather it’s quite sophisticated. And Kaln has control of it now, don’t worry.”

“Pheneraxa can show you around,” Kaln said. “Let’s see… That door over there goes to the library. Emeralaphine said you may use it, so long as you follow all the rules, which Pheneraxa can also explain. The other three large doors on that level go to private lairs, and I’d recommend you stay out of them for now. That one specifically is Emeralaphine’s and she has said in so many words that she wants no intruders. Best not risk it with the others unless they specifically tell you otherwise.”

“Yes, definitely,” Percy said emphatically, nodding.

“There are other corridors and things… I haven’t even explored most of it yet, I think I’ve only seen the baths.”

“There are baths?”

“Pretty nice ones, too.”

“In fact, that sounds like an excellent place to begin a tour.” Izayaroa’s voice was even, and cool, but her golden eyes were fixed upon her son with an intensity that Kaln could feel almost physically even without being directly in the line of her gaze. “Pheneraxa, as you two seem to have hit it off so well, kindly take a few minutes to show our new guest the complex. I now have another matter to…address.”

Vanimax physically wilted, letting both his head and wings droop. Then, seeming to catch himself, he deliberately raised both, managing to look, if not proud, at least relatively poised. Vadaralshi edged delicately away from him.

“Um.” Percy blinked again, rapidly glancing between Kaln and the various dragons. “What if—”

“Shh.” Pheneraxa gently steered her away with a claw against her back. “Plenty of time to chat more with everyone later. That’s all we have around here, time to chat. Right now let’s go be in a different room.”

“Ohhh, that was a hint. I apologize, I’m bad at those.”

“You’ll do just fine here. We don’t go for subtlety in this joint.”

Izayaroa began to pull her hand from Kaln’s, taking the first step toward Vanimax, and Kaln was suddenly seized by a strange certainty that compelled him to take an action he had just specifically decided not to.

“Roa.” He tightened his fingers on her claws, stopping her movement, and she turned her golden stare on him. Kaln lowered his voice to be just barely audible to her and not the dragons below. “Go easy on him.”

Izayaroa’s expression hardened, her eyes narrowing; this time the anger was at least partially at him, the first time he’d ever been its direct recipient. It was intimidating on multiple powerful levels—and more to the point, Kaln was suddenly unsure on rational grounds what the hells he was doing. Yet he met her gaze, refusing to retreat or flinch.

“Husband.” There was steel and ice in her tone, and a fire carefully banked for later. “You are awarded many privileges here, and over me personally, but your intervention in my raising of my son is not welcome.”

“Yes, I very much agree with that,” Kaln said, nodding earnestly. “Which is why I haven’t said anything up till now, despite…y’know, Vanimax in general. Believe me, I don’t want to get in the middle of this, but it’s important.”

“And you have somehow concluded that you are proficient in the raising of children? Of dragon children, in particular?”

He was raised, was the problem. Vanimax was physically an adult dragon; he was a great-great-grandpa in human age. The fact that he was so immature—

Nope, that was definitely not the right thing to say here.

“What are you planning to do, exactly?” he asked instead, still keeping his voice discreetly quiet.

She answered in a much less circumspect tone, audible enough to make Vanimax flinch and lower his head clear across the room. “This really is quite simple. The boy clearly needs a reminder where his boundaries lie, and the consequences of crossing them.”

That was when Kaln caught up with himself, when he finally parsed consciously why he’d felt such a compulsion to step in here. Vindication, however, was not reassurance. His instinct had been right; he needed to lay this out in so many words, but gods uncounted, this was not going to go well.

“The errors in judgment Vanimax has made recently all reflect his father’s philosophy that might makes right. Beating him down again will only reinforce that.”

“Kaln.” The warning in her voice now was beyond clear; her vocal control was sufficient to express that this would be the last warning.

Gods help him, he wanted to drop it.

But gods help him, he was right.

“Can you explain why I’m wrong?” he asked in the same quiet tone. “It is incredibly uncomfortable to me to be challenging you on this, Izayaroa. I would love to be wrong. Just tell me why and I’ll be happy to drop it forever.”

She bared her teeth, and he had the vivid thought that it was not the expression of a woman running out of patience with her husband, but a predator eyeballing his throat.

“All of you clobber the kids for every little thing,” he continued when she failed to provide a rebuttal. “I’ve been wondering for a while what that’s meant to accomplish, since they always seem to need it again an hour later.”

“Do not compare my rearing of my son with that of anyone else,” she hissed. “Especially them.”

This was going more or less the way he’d expected. Kaln wanted desperately, more than anything in the world at that moment, to backtrack and leverage every iota of silver-tongued skill he possessed to smooth this over. To apologize, reassure her she was right, and then stay out of her business.

But she wasn’t right, and not only could he no longer avoid seeing it, but this was going to continue being a problem if someone didn’t get through to Vanimax.

“That’s fair,” he agreed quietly. Damn it all… Well, here it was. “There really isn’t much of a comparison. Both of them I can see being a reflection of their mothers’ tutelage. But…Vanimax doesn’t reflect you at all. You understand social and political intricacies better than probably anyone else on this continent. How did your son end up with only his father’s—”

Her claw was jerked from his grasp at her abrupt transformation; Kaln was forced to step rapidly backward from the full-sized dragon he was suddenly facing.

Izayaroa whipped her neck around to glare at him from barely a pace away, opened her jaws and hissed ferociously. Hells uncounted, that was bad enough when Pheneraxa did it that close. She was more than twice the size; she could swallow him without chewing. He could see right down her throat into the glow of burning destruction that she obviously wanted to unleash in that moment.

She turned so rapidly he had to duck under her tail. It would, of course, have bounced off him like a Timestone pillar, but… In that moment, Kaln really did not want to add any further insults to his tally. He already had no idea how he was going to recover from this debacle.

Izayaroa stormed toward the front exit. Vanimax ducked his head further at her approach, while Vadaralshi backed up rapidly until she was squished into the far corner.

“Mother—”

She whipped her head at him and snapped her jaws hard enough to echo powerfully through the whole chamber.

And then she was gone, her claws grating on the Timestone as she raked it furiously on her way out. None of them dared move until they heard the distant whoosh of enormous wings beating, and then fading into the distance.

“Damn, Kaln,” Vadaralshi said quietly.

“’Bout sums it up, yeah,” he agreed.

Vanimax was left standing there, looking… Confused and so disheartened that Kaln couldn’t help but feel for him, despite what a general menace he’d been lately.

Well. This still had to be addressed, and apparently nobody else was going to.

He flashed across the room directly toward Vanimax, reappearing just outside of clawing range. The young dragon twisted his head around to stare at him. It was…certainly not a friendly expression, but less aggressive than Kaln would have expected.

“So, Percy’s nice,” he said.

Vanimax narrowed his eyes, then snorted. Turning, he began pacing around Kaln toward his mother’s currently unoccupied chamber.

Kaln flexed his mind and lifted him bodily off the ground, then held him in midair.

For a moment Vanimax thrashed, first scrabbling for the floor with his talons, then beating his wings in an attempt to move himself the way he normally did when aloft. Obviously, none of this had any effect. Kaln kept him firmly fixed in one spot, with the momentary exception of rotating him until they were again face to face.

Based on previous experience he’d expected no end of raging at this, but Vanimax appeared to have worked at least something out of his system. His expression was long-suffering and disgruntled, and otherwise he just hung there limply, like a wet cat. Only his tail was able to reach the ground and he just let it lie there, the tip rhythmically tapping the floor in weary annoyance.

“Actually, she’s a little awkward,” Kaln continued as if he hadn’t been interrupted. “Not at all what I’d have expected from royalty. But she’s pleasant—very earnest, I would say. An easy person to like, even if she seems to have a bit of trouble figuring out how to express herself. If anything, it’s kind of charming. Pheneraxa seems to get along with her well. I have to say, I wasn’t expecting that.”

Vanimax stared at him.

“I get the impression her situation at home is very complicated,” Kaln continued seriously. “She is very fond of her family—I can tell she’s going to miss them, and apparently they will her, as well. She’s upset that they probably think she’s dead, because they will grieve that the way anyone would their daughter. But evidently her presence created political complications for Boisverd and her absence will make things smoother for them. I don’t understand enough about the local politics to even guess how that works, all I know is it must’ve been a real challenge for her to live with. That takes a lot of character, you know. To put yourself in a situation like this, because it’s what’s best for your family. Even if it hurts them, and you. I definitely don’t grasp the situation enough to know whether this is the right choice on her part, but I deeply respect the courage it must have taken. Especially when it means living with a bunch of dragons.”

“What are you doing?” Vanimax demanded.

“Disciplining you. I want you to understand the consequences of your actions. What you have done to the thinking, feeling person you decided to make a toy in whatever you were trying to accomplish. And to the others who have been affected by this.”

The dragon bared fangs at him. “You think I care for the feelings of some human? In a few decades she’ll be gone and there’ll be a bunch of others. That is the lot of your kind! You expect the likes of us to become invested in every insect that buzzes across our path?”

“Dragons like treasure, right?” Kaln said with a thin smile. “Tell me, what is it that makes things valuable? Based on the hoards I’ve seen thus far, shiny is one desirable trait, but probably the least compelling one. Mostly, it seems to come down to rarity. How unique a thing it is, and how difficult to replace.”

“What in all the hells are you blathering about?” Vanimax exclaimed.

“I am making a point: that you of all creatures should understand that a life is more precious, not less, because it is brief and fragile.”

Vanimax stared at him, mouth slightly open in apparent stupefaction.

“Your father would have disagreed with me, of course,” Kaln said, watching him closely. “Perhaps you are more inclined to honor his perspective?”

At that, finally, his captive began squirming, baring fangs and clearly trying to claw his way through the air at Kaln.

Good. He was getting somewhere.

“It’s not a good feeling, is it,” he said aloud. “Being held there, completely helpless at the whim of a power utterly beyond you.”

Vanimax snarled and snapped his jaws at him. “What do you think it was like, living under the very shadow of Atraximos? Since you’re so eager to invoke him, think for one second about what that means! You think I don’t know what helplessness feels like? I’ve lived for a century in the constant fear of provoking a selfish, brutal creature who could peel me like a banana! And you presume, you dare to lecture me about helplessness? Compared to him, you and all your tricks are nothing!”

“Well, see, that’s the thing I’m having the hardest time understanding,” Kaln said, making his quiet voice a counterpoint to the dragon’s fury. “You know that and hate it so much… So how could you be so willing to inflict that on someone who’s done you no wrong?”

This was the real moment of truth—the place where he feared it would all go wrong. Disdain and more bluster from Vanimax at this point would mean he had a real problem on his hands, one he had no idea how to go about fixing.

But the worst did not happen.

Vanimax jerked his head physically back as if Kaln had punched his nose. He watched the dragon’s incredulous expression twist through realization, then… Shame. He could only hold Kaln’s stare for another two heartbeats before it became too much to bear, and he first lowered his eyes, then twisted his head away entirely to stare at the floor.

And that told Kaln that he wasn’t wasting his time here. Not that he was getting anywhere, necessarily, but that it was worth trying. That whatever issues Vanimax had—of which there were surely a lot—there was still a feeling heart in him. Someone who could understand the pain of others, in a way that mattered.

Everything else could come with time, and effort, and practice.

For now, Kaln let him down.

And then frowned, suddenly raising his head as he was suddenly distracted by a new sensation.

“Why do I smell wood smoke?”

Vadaralshi coughed. “Oh. Um, that’s a funny story.”