Chapter 11

It took Reynolds, Luther, and Waltman a little over three days to cross the border between Befelyn and Gruidarid. They'd flown as fast as possible, stopping only when absolutely necessary. Reynolds wasn't sure how long it would take to fly to the capital, but he knew that they needed some food and rest before they attempted it. Spotting a little village on the road that wound down the Thurman Mountains on Gruidarid's side, he signaled his friends to land in a meadow full of yellow, brittle grass just north of the village.

His dragon heart beat fiercely in his chest, but he ignored it and focused on his shift. The spikes that lined his back receded, his muscles and bones shrank slowly into his human form, and his scales softened into the skin again. Quickly, he pulled clothes out of his pack and put them on, the grass beneath him crunching with his every move.

"We need a decent meal and a drink," he said.

Waltman's eyes lit up. "A drink! I knew there was a reason I agreed to follow you to Gruidarid. Do you think they serve spiced mead?"

"You're impossible," Luther said as she wrapped a leather belt around her waist and pushed her short dark hair behind her ears.

"Look at this." Reynolds motioned at the ground. Bending close, he ran his fingers over the ground. The soil was pale and crumbled easily beneath his touch as if it was nothing more than air. The grass that clung to it was a sickly yellow that turned brown with rot at the roots. "If it's like this across the kingdom, Elinor should be looking for a way to save her people." Reynolds clenched a fistful of dirt, and it dissolved into a trickle of dust.

"Come on." He wiped his hands clean and stood. "Let's go get a meal and a room so we can sleep in real beds tonight and be rested when we reach the capital."

"Do you think they have a room with three beds? Or will we be sharing?" Waltman raised a brow at Luther. "I'm good at sharing."

"You get to sleep on the floor." Luther stepped in front of Reynolds and began moving toward the village.

Waltman moved to Reynolds's side. "Somehow my considerable charms never work on her."

Reynolds and his friends entered the open gate that led into the village and moved down the main road toward the heart of the town. A handful of children playing in the dirt near the gate stared at the Befelynians, their eyes wide, and then took off running toward the village, yelling something about visitors.

"Their welcoming committee is kind of creepy," Waltman said as they passed rows of tiny cottages with thin wisps of smoke curling from their chimneys and barren ground surrounding their foundations.

"Maybe they don't see many outsiders here," Reynolds said, but as they neared the village proper, a din of voices on the road ahead of them sent his dragon heart pounding. They rounded a corner, leaving behind the cottages for the brick and board storefronts that made up Homard's main street, and a crowd of villagers was waiting for them. The children from the gate were standing off to the side, staring at the Befelynians as the crowd surged toward the visitors.

"Need some cloth?" A woman lunged in front of Luther and held up a length of pale pink linen. "Make a trade for a jewel."

"I have buckets. And bricks." A man grabbed Reynolds's sleeve. Waltman growled and slapped the man's hand away. Reynolds's dragon heart pounded faster, and the fire in his chest burned.

"I can launder your clothes." "I'll polish your boots."

"My family is hungry. You can spare some food, can't you?"

"I have a sword to trade. Please. A jewel from you might be enough to convince a merchant from Súndraille to take my family out of Gruidarid."

Villagers surrounded them, and more were coming. All of them were calling out, offering services, trying to trade, or simply begging for riches the Befelynians didn't have to give. Reynolds had brought a few bronze coins and some small jewels, enough to give them a night or two in an inn with a meal when they needed it, but with his army steadily losing ground to the ogres, he hadn't had time to make a formal request for funds from the royal purser. Instead, he'd taken what was left of Hemma's monthly stipend and borrowed the rest from his friends.

"We can't help you," Waltman said gruffly as he pried yet another hand off Reynolds's arm.

"Let us pass or it will go poorly with you, humans," Luther snarled as a man grabbed her hands and implored her to buy a pair of teacups from his wife.

The man reached for her again, and Waltman shoved himself between the two, his dark eyes glittering with his dragon's fury as he said, "Touch her again, and she'll destroy you. And if she doesn't, I will."

People surrounded them, pressing in from all sides. Above the gathering crowd, Reynolds spotted a sign that said White Wheel Tavern. Beneath the sign, a girl with curly dark hair and pale skin stood staring at the crowd, her gloved hands fisted in the skirt of her green dress. She met his eyes and jerked her chin toward the tavern. He frowned, and she lifted one hand to beckon sharply. Unlike the wild desperation he saw on the faces around him, she looked calm and focused.

It was trusting her to deal with the mob himself without giving in to the violent pounding of his dragon's heart. He made a split-second decision and nodded to her. She whirled and disappeared inside the tavern. A boy with the same pale skin and curly black hair followed in her footsteps.

"Come on," Reynolds said as he shouldered his way through the throng, Waltman, and Luther at his side. "We're going into the tavern."

"Maybe we should just shift and get out of here," Luther said.

"The second we stop to shift, this crowd will be all over us." Reynolds firmly pushed a man's arm aside and ducked beneath the outstretched hands of another. "And since we have to give in to our dragon hearts to shift—"

"Our dragons would attack," Waltman finished for him.

"Maybe that's a lesson these people need to learn." Luther shoved past a girl who was holding a dirty rag doll up for trade and motioned Reynolds toward the tavern.

"They're desperate," Reynolds said quietly. "They're just doing what they can to survive. We can't hurt them for that. Besides, if we attack Gruidarid citizens in our dragon form within Gruidarid borders, we violate the treaty my father signed with Elinor years ago, and we'd lose our opportunity to have any upper hand in the negotiations."

They reached the wooden sidewalk that ran in front of the tavern, and Reynolds immediately moved toward the door.

"If we go inside, we'll be trapped," Luther said.

"I think there's a way out." And, skies above, please let him be right about the girl and her intentions. If he led his friends into a trap, they'd have no choice but to shift.

Behind them, the villagers shouted and begged, but the pleading had disappeared from their tone, and anger had taken its place.

Reynolds, Luther, and Waltman raced into the tavern seconds before the mob of furious villagers began shoving through the doorway, their eyes wild as they screamed for the Befelynians' cloaks, boots, and coin.

"This way!" The girl waited by an open door in the far wall that led to an alley. "Hurry."

In the alley beyond her, a man with dark skin and Gustaving hair stood with his hand on the hilt of the sword strapped to his waist while the boy who'd followed the girl into the tavern was looking both ways. "It's still clear. Let's go," he said.

The mob behind the Befelynians surged forward, and a man with sunken cheeks and a patched shirt that hung from his frail shoulders launched himself at Reynolds, his bony fingers grabbing at the small leather satchel tied to Reynolds's belt. Two more men leaped forward and snatched at Reynolds's cloak.

"Get off him!" Waltman roared and slammed into the men, sending all three of them flying into the closest wall.

More villagers—starving and desperate to get their hands on anything of value—poured into the room and surrounded Luther while Waltman shoved his way to stand in front of Reynolds.

Reynolds's chest burned with dragon's fire, and pain rippled over his muscles as his body fought to shift. He drew a deep breath, tasting smoke at the back of his throat, and focused on keeping his human form.

Luther's laugh raised the hair on Reynolds's neck. "You picked the wrong girl to mess with today, humans." Her fingernails lengthened into talons, and a shudder rippled across her skin as it began hardening into scales.

"Who wants a piece of this?" Waltman shouted, smoke pouring from his nose as the crowd pressed in on all sides. Some of them raised crude weapons

—planks of wood, butcher knives, and hand-carved spears—and waved them at the Befelynians.

"No!" Reynolds shouted, panic slicing into him. "Don't shift. I forbid it."