The Tears of a Dragon


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Copyright © 2022 by Intisar Khanani
 Cover Art © 2022 by Jenny Zemanek
 Published by Snowy Wings Publishing
 https://www.snowywingspublishing.com
 All rights reserved.
 No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 CONTENTS
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 The Tears of a Dragon
 
 
 
 
 Acknowledgments
 
 
 About the Author
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 “Well, look at that,” says one of the aunties on the corner.
 “I know. Isn’t she a beauty?” I squat down to pet the sweet little brindled mongrel that’s trotted over to say hello.
 “Not the dog, my dear,” the auntie says, standing on her tiptoes to peer out over the busy market square.
 “What?” I ask, affronted. The dog swipes my hand with her tongue, then turns to nose along the edge of the building, searching for scraps to eat. I stand up and try to look out over the heads of the market-goers, but all I see is a whole lot of heads. And hair, of course, mostly black with a bit of brown mixed in. And the occasional head with a shawl draped over it, for variety’s sake. None of which is helpful.
 I slip away from the knot of aunties and rejoin my sister Rae. She’s paused halfway through buying carrots to look across the square as well, one hand braced on the carrot lady’s table to help keep her balance as she comes up on the tip of her good foot. I accidentally jostle her market basket as I fetch up beside her and quickly reach out to steady it.
 “Bean,” she says, glancing at me with some amusement.
 “Can you see what it is?”
 “Soldiers on horseback.” Rae, by dint of being four years my elder is also, unfortunately, taller. Well, really only a little. “There’s a mage,” she adds, her voice just loud enough for me to catch. She comes back down on her heels and turns to inspect the carrots again, as if it doesn’t matter at all. Which we both know isn’t true.
 While Rae bargains with the carrot lady, I glance around for our middle sister. Niya separated from us a quarter of an hour ago to pick up a jar of honey and search out something we’ve run out of—I forget what. Garlic, probably. But if there’s a mage, we ought to find Niya and get away soon.
 “I wonder what they’re doing here,” Rae says as she sets her chosen bunch in her market basket.
 “I heard they arrived yesterday,” the carrot lady says. “Been out on the plains for something or the other. A few of them came by in the evening to talk to your friend Ani’s father.”
 Rae hmms and continues on from the market stall. Ani’s father is the local blacksmith; I suppose it makes sense for soldiers to need a smith.
 As I turn to follow Rae, the dog bumps her nose against my hand, looking for food or pets or both. She’s in good health, though, and seems relatively well fed.
 I start after my sister. The dog watches me leave with big, sad eyes. Oh, poor thing. “Don’t suppose you have a spare carrot,” I ask Rae hopefully.
 “A spare—oh, Bean.” Rae turns back to the carrot lady, but her eyes are laughing. “Do you have any broken carrots we could pass to the dog? I’ve a spare copper.”
 The carrot lady looks between us, but I’ve enough of a reputation that she just grins and pulls a few sad specimens from a bucket at the back of her wagon and tosses them to the dog. “It’s on me. Come back next week, hear me?”
 “We will!” I promise, watching with delight as the dog scoops up the carrots and scurries off to eat elsewhere.
 “Come on,” Rae says. “We should head out. Have you seen Niya anywhere?”
 “No.” I search the crowd for our sister. There’s a mage here, and part of me wants to find Niya’s hand and drag her away, even if we know by now that no one will recognize her magical talent just by seeing her. She’d have to do something, and she’s smart enough never to risk herself that way. Not when hiding a Talent from the Circle of Mages is the sort of thing that’s considered treason. More or less. They wouldn’t execute us, but imprisonment isn’t a lot better, and they would turn Niya into a magical slave, which seems like a lot worse.
 “I think,” Rae says, her voice barely audible over the sustained roar of the market, “that I would like to have a little chat with the women over there. If anyone knows what our visitors are about, it will be Auntie Jessima.”
 “Ani might know,” I point out.
 “I know, but we haven’t seen her at all today. Auntie Jessima will definitely know.”
 Jessima is the most gossip-ridden old auntie ever to grace the streets of Sheltershorn. While it’s unlikely the mage is looking for Talents among the children, and even less likely they’re searching for hidden Talents among the older boys and girls, it would be wise to learn their business quickly. Just so we know. And Jessima is the fastest way to find out. “Better you than me,” I tell Rae with feeling.
 She snorts. “Can you find Niya on your own?”
 “Course I can!”
 “Just do a circuit of the square and if you don’t spot her, come back to me,” Rae says with absolutely no faith in me.
 “I’ll find her,” I say pointedly. “Do you want me to check with anyone else about the soldiers?”
 Rae