But now here I was, being turned away once more.
“You heard the master,” Ernst said in a singsong. He wouldn’t be able to talk without singing for some time, but even that small spite didn’t bring me any measure of joy now. I deserved to be taught and to learn without constantly being turned away.
“Thank you for the ingredients, Malia,” Hansen said, still not looking at me. And that final insult was enough to drive me from the room and down into the kitchens to scrounge up dinner and maybe a sweet to assuage the bereft feeling in my heart.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
I woke the next morning to screams. At first I thought I was having a nightmare or that maybe there was a banshee in the castle complex, but when I opened my eyes I realized they were sobs of despair, and they were very near.
I didn’t stay in the sorcerer’s tower like most of the apprentices. Instead, Hansen had secured lodgings for me in the servants’ quarters. In hindsight I should’ve known right then that I was never going to get anything more in the way of training than a lot of time in the library, studying and translating.
Poor Malia, Molly, Meredith, too weak and useless to even bother training.
But Melie, she was going to stop wasting her time. I’d decided last night that I’d look into going abroad to study. Klydonia was not the only land with a High Sorcerer, and perhaps I’d find someone more amenable to teaching me someplace else.
But for now, I had to see what sort of disaster was afoot in the palace.
I got up and dressed quickly and went out to find the source of the disturbance.
A trio of maids sobbed in the hallway. They each wore a different-colored dress to denote the part of the government complex where they worked, but their skin was all the same reddish brown usually found in people of the north. Their hair was in the single high braid of northern ladies as well, and their tears gave me momentary pause. Northerners were rumored to be reserved in their emotions, but apparently these girls hadn’t gotten the memo. “What’s the matter?”
“Oh, Melie, it’s just terrible! The Minister of War’s son has been cursed! The most handsome boy in all of the castle, and he’s been turned to stone!” said one of the maids.
“The sorcerer said he’s helpless to undo the spell without the heart of a dragon, and now everyone has taken to the mountains to find one!” said another.
“And everyone knows that bothering a dragon is the fastest way to die!” wailed the third, which set the trio off on another bout of tears.
“There, there,” I said, quite awkwardly, patting one, then another, then the other of the maids. “I’m sure someone very brave will find the dragon’s heart and save the, uh, minister’s son.” I tried to sound concerned, but the truth was that these petty nobles were always getting themselves cursed in some way or another. Especially those fellas in the war department. It was a side effect of kicking over stones in places one didn’t belong.
Either way, the wannabe heroes in the castle could go adventuring for a dragon’s heart. I was going to spend the day studying in the giant complex library. Hansen might not want to teach me anything, but there were still books. I would just teach myself.
But less than a turn of the hourglass later, as I sat in the library translating a book on dragon lore, since it seemed apropos, I realized that everyone was looking for the wrong thing.
Hansen had sent the castle’s best warriors out to find a dragon’s heart. But the translation said enchantments could be broken by a dragon’s heat, which I took to mean its heated breath.
And I began to suspect that perhaps that terrible sorcerer had something else in mind. Because there was no way anyone with a basic understanding of magic theory would get a dragon’s heart and a dragon’s heat confused. There were plots afoot, but even though I didn’t know what they were, I had a responsibility to see if I could discover how to stop them.
Because whatever woe befell Klydonia would impact my small village as well. “Crap,” I muttered, closing the book.
I was going to have to find a dragon.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
Three turns of the hourglass found me riding in the back of a hay wagon through the foothills outside the castle, across farmland, and up into the aptly named Dragon Kill Mountains. Not because it was where dragons killed people, but because it was the spot where the last great king, who hadn’t been all that great in reality, had slain one of the last dragons before being slain himself. His death had prompted the people to cry “Enough!” and overthrow the crown, and declare a treaty with the mountain dragons, not just because the king had been stupid, selfish, and lazy, all very terrible traits to have in a leader, but because dragons were an endangered species and people were aghast to see a king spend his time hunting and killing such a majestic beast.
And yet, no one had seemed to remember that as they stormed out of the castle, up into the mountains, intent on returning with a heart. Fools.
On the way out I’d overheard a new piece of information. The Minister of War had offered some prize to the person who returned with a dragon’s heart: gold, a daughter’s hand in marriage, a firm handshake and whatnot, but I didn’t really care about that. I was determined that not only would I find the dragon, but I would be the one to reverse the curse on the minister’s son. An act of magic like that would prove that I should be taken seriously, that I wasn’t just some farm girl from the edge of the country.
I would prove that I could be a sorcerer.
First, I had to find a dragon.
But as I traveled farther from the castle complex it seemed clearer to me just how very suspicious everything Hansen had done was, when taken in full measure. And during the wagon ride I wrote myself a little spell for clear eyes, clear heart, clear mind. I was somewhat suspicious that Hansen had managed to cast a spell that had infected everyone in the complex with some kind of strange admiration. Bumping along in the back of the wagon, it seemed incredible I would want to work with a man who couldn’t even remember my name.
And the more I thought about the entire situation, the more convinced I became that I needed to find these dragons before anyone else did. Because they might not be enamored of Hansen this far from the castle, but greed was always an effective motivator.
The wagon dropped me in Grantham, a small town that was considered the last vestiges of civilization before one entered the rough part of the mountains. It was clear from the activity in the town that I would have some competition in my dragon hunt. Men and women in armor traipsed through the town, leading horses laden with provisions. I hefted my own bag, mostly filled with books, but also containing a few pastries and apples, and headed toward the winding road outside of town.
The trees grew closely together, tall pines with thick trunks, and the undergrowth was thick with ferns and waist-high anthills that I had no intention of disturbing. As I walked until the town was no longer visible through the trees, I wondered how all of those warriors had planned on finding a dragon.