The Dragon Keeper

Alise was shocked to find she was trembling. For all his sly mockery of her, Hest had never raised his voice to her. And in all her years of knowing Sedric, she had never heard him speak so severely, with anger so plainly bubbling under his words. She clenched her hands together in her lap and tried to force steadiness into her voice. “I’m afraid that, yes, I did volunteer to go. You see, when I accompanied Captain Leftrin to a meeting with the Cassarick Traders’ Council, I discovered that they intended to remove all the dragons from here, transferring them upriver. No one quite knows exactly where they are to be resettled, but the Council is quite determined that they must be moved immediately. Malta the Elderling was there, and was very dejected that she herself could not accompany the dragons, but when I said that I could, she was—”



“Impossible.” He cut off her flow of words. His face had gone quite red. “I can’t believe what I’m hearing! I can’t believe what you’ve done! You left the boat without my knowledge and went off with that man, and now you’ve involved yourself in Rain Wild politics, making offers that we can’t possibly fulfill! You can’t go off on some harebrained expedition to an unnamed destination, with no fixed date to return. Alise, what are you thinking? This isn’t some sort of pretend game. They are talking of going upriver beyond any settlements, perhaps beyond explored areas. They may encounter all sorts of dangers, not to mention the discomfort and primitive conditions of such travel. You are scarcely fit to endure such things. You cannot even imagine what you are suggesting. Or perhaps you can, but that ‘imagining’ is all that you are doing. You have no concept of the reality. And there is the time factor to consider. Summer does not last forever, and we did not pack the clothing or make any arrangements for an extended stay in the Rain Wilds. You may not have real commitments to return to, but I do! This is ridiculous! And backing out of it will be endlessly embarrassing! Hest has trading partners here in the Rain Wilds. How is it going to look, that his wife agreed to do a thing that she could not possibly do and then backed out of it? What were you thinking?”



Between the time when he began his speech and the moment he finished it, a strange thing happened. The trembling inside Alise stilled, and then hardened. In Sedric’s outraged gaze she suddenly saw herself reflected as he saw her. Foolish and sheltered. Living out an imaginary adventure before fleeing home to her lifetime of no “real commitments.” Ignorant of the real world in which he and Hest moved so competently.



And perhaps she was, but through no fault of her own. She had never been allowed to gather the experiences she needed to be competent and independent. Never been allowed. That was the thought that burned in her like molten iron and suddenly hardened into cold resolve. She was not going to be “allowed” to do anything. Never again would she submit to being “allowed” or “not allowed.” She would follow her resolve if it killed her. For being killed by it would certainly be better than going home and dying of not being allowed to follow her dream.



So when he had asked her, so rhetorically, what she had been thinking, she replied literally. “I was thinking that I would finally study the dragons, as Hest promised me I could. It was one of the conditions for me marrying him, you know. That I would be allowed to come here and study them. If he had kept his word, I would have been here years ago, and all of this would have been much simpler. But as he chose, over and over again, to ignore the terms of our bargain, here we are. And the only way that his promise to me will be fulfilled is if I follow the dragons upriver and study them as we go.” She ran out of breath and had to pause.



He was staring at her, his mouth open. She saw him take breath to speak and beat him to it. “So. I have signed an agreement with the Traders’ Council. We will be going upriver with the Tarman to see the dragons resettled. And we’ll be leaving by this afternoon, so Captain Leftrin will need a list from you of what supplies must be picked up for us. I’ll see to balancing accounts with him when we return to Trehaug. I’ll be earning a wage aboard the vessel, of course, so I’ll have money to settle with the captain. And of course I’ll be speaking to him about changing the sleeping arrangements so that we can both be more comfortable during the journey.”



She tossed the last comment toward him as a peace offering, hoping he would focus on it and simply accept the rest. It didn’t work.



“Alise, this is crazy! We aren’t prepared—”



“Nor will we be, if you don’t go to work promptly and make that list! That is, isn’t it, the sort of duty that you perform for Hest? And isn’t that what he instructed you to do for me, on this journey? So do it.”