City of Dragons

Leftrin had deliberately taken his time. He’d gone to the bird handlers first, and there sent off the messages that had been entrusted to him before he’d left Kelsingra. It had cost him more than he’d expected. Some sort of bird sickness had put message service at a premium. Some of the birds would have a short flight. Several of the keepers had chosen to send messages back to Trehaug to let their families know they were safe. There had been two death notices to send as well. Greft’s and Warken’s families needed to know what had become of their sons. Greft had been a trial to the captain, but his death was still a tragedy and his family deserved to be first to know of it. Last, he had posted Sedric’s and Alise’s missives to their families in Bingtown. All the way downriver to Cassarick he’d agonized over the wisdom of sending those. He’d urged all of them to be circumspect in what they told people about Kelsingra and how they had arrived there, but he had not read any of the messages. By the time this day was over, people in Cassarick would know as much as he intended to tell them, and message birds would be flying in all directions. Best to see that the messages from his friends had a chance of reaching their families first.

By the time he reached the ship’s supply store, he’d acquired several followers. Two small boys tagged at his heels, loudly announcing to anyone they encountered that this was Captain Leftrin, back from his expedition. This led to handshakes and questions that he courteously refused to answer. One young man, probably a gossipmonger, had trailed him for some way, peppering him with a score of questions, only to be frustrated by Leftrin’s insistence that he would report first to the Council. One other, a man wearing a long, hooded gray cape, had hung back and not spoken to him at all but followed at a more than discreet distance. Once Leftrin was aware of him, he took care to remain so. The man was a stranger, and in the brief glimpses the captain had had of him, he did not move with the easy familiarity of the treetop born. He was no Rain Wilder. Dread uncoiled in Leftrin’s chest as he speculated about just who the man might serve.

At the ship’s supply, Leftrin ordered the preserved foods and basic necessities that would restock his ship’s larder. Oil, flour, sugar, coffee, salt, ship’s biscuit . . . Bellin’s list seemed endless. He also bought every sheet of paper and bottle of ink that the store possessed, as well as a stock of new quills. He smiled as he did so, imagining Alise’s pleasure at this trove. He asked that all the supplies be sent immediately down to the Tarman. He’d traded there for years, ever since the store had opened, and it did not take much to persuade the owner to accept his signature in lieu of coin. “Council pays me, I pay you within the hour,” Leftrin promised the nodding man, and that was that.

By the time he left the store, his legs ached. Walking the deck of his ship and even hiking the meadows around Kelsingra did not prepare a man for the many vertical climbs of a Rain Wild city. He took a lift down to the Council Hall level, paying the tender with his last coin as the man’s basket passed his own in transit. As he drew near to the Council door, he recalled that the last time he’d come here, Alise Finbok had been on his arm. It had been in the early days of their acquaintance, when his infatuation with her was dizzyingly new. He thought of her shiny little boots and her lacy skirts and smiled a bit sadly. Her finery had dazzled him as much as her ladylike ways. Well, her lace had gone to tatters and her boots were scuffed and worn now, but the gracious lady inside them prevailed as if wrought from iron. He suddenly missed her with a pang more powerful than hunger or fear. He shook his head at himself. Was he a mooning adolescent, to be so thoroughly engrossed with her? He smiled. Perhaps he was. The sensations she woke in him were wilder and sweeter than any other experience in his life. And once he was paid, he anticipated buying little luxuries and dainties to take back to her. The thought put a wider smile on his face.

When he pushed open the door to the Traders’ Hall, he was greeted with light and the murmur of voices and warmth. Braziers burned in scattered locations throughout the room, contributing heat and the sweet smell of burning jalawood. Light came from another source, the tethered globes that floated within the hall. Elderling artifacts unearthed from the buried ruins at the foot of Cassarick now illuminated the meeting place of the humans in a flagrant display of wealth. For a moment, he imagined the surge of greed that would be stirred if he spoke of an Elderling city that stood intact and virtually untouched. His eyes went to the tapestry of Kelsingra that hung on the wall behind the Council dais. Alise had once used that tapestry to prove to them that their destination had existed. And when he told the Council that its gleaming walls still sparkled in the sunlight? His smile tightened.