“Gaven!” She heard the desperation in her own voice.
“Rienne!” The voice was not his, and she barely recognized her own name. A dragonborn was running toward her-the one who had led them to this city and shown them the shrine. Lissa.
As the dragonborn drew nearer, Rienne clenched the hilt of Maelstrom more tightly and called out. “Where is he?” Even as she said it, she realized the stupidity of it-Lissa didn’t understand Common, and Rienne knew only a few words of Draconic, mostly words related to obscure aspects of the Prophecy that resisted translation.
Lissa’s axe was slung at her belt and her shield at her back, so Rienne sheathed Maelstrom out of courtesy. The blade could be back in her hand in an instant if she needed it. When the dragonborn reached her, spewing a torrent of Draconic babble, she put a hand on Rienne’s shoulder and tried to guide her back into the shrine. She seemed anxious, so Rienne followed.
When they were in the shrine and safely out of view, Lissa slumped against the wall beside the archway. Rienne could read the fear on her face, but couldn’t determine the cause of it-was she being pursued? She should, perhaps, not be here with Rienne.
“Gaven?” Rienne asked desperately. Could Lissa give an answer she could understand?
Another gush of Draconic, but Rienne heard Gaven’s name. She stared blankly at the dragonborn, and Lissa started again, slowly as if talking to an imbecile, but accompanying her words with pantomime, watching to make sure that Rienne understood each concept.
“Gaven,” she said… hands bound together-a prisoner. Lissa pointed at Rienne… go, go quickly, Lissa wiggled her fingers like legs at top speed. Run. Run away. Lissa shook the axe at her belt and then pointed again at Rienne.
Flee or die.
“Not without Gaven,” she said, more to herself than Lissa. She took the dragonborn’s hands and put the wrists together, as Lissa had done to show Gaven’s imprisonment. Pointing at Lissa, she said, “Gaven.” Then she pointed at herself, and chopped her hand between Lissa’s wrists. “I must free him.”
Lissa’s eyes went wide with fear, and she shook her head. Rienne guessed that meant the same thing to the dragonborn that it did to her.
“I can’t leave him here,” she said, her voice pleading. Lissa’s eyes softened-she recognized the tone, at least. Rienne held up one fist-“Rienne”-and the other, “Gaven.” She brought the two hands together, entwined the fingers. “Together.” Hands still together, she moved them in imitation of the gesture Lissa had used to mean go away. “We have to leave together.”
Lissa’s face mirrored her own sadness. She took Rienne’s wrists gently in her big, clawed hands and slowly pulled away the hand that was Gaven, lowering it back into Rienne’s lap. “Rienne.” Rienne alone.
Tears welled in Rienne’s eyes, and she shook her head. “How can I leave without him?”
Lissa took the Gaven hand back in hers and led Rienne to the back of the shrine. High on the wall behind the stone tablet of the Prophecy, a mural depicted a dragon’s skeleton, proud and erect, its eyes burning with purple flame and its entire form surrounded by a nimbus of deep violet. The dragon’s bones were carefully marked with writing-perhaps another fragment of the Prophecy, Rienne couldn’t tell.
Still holding Rienne’s wrist, Lissa pointed at the undead dragon and said a single word, “Drakamakk.” Then she lifted Rienne’s hand up toward the dragon. Rienne understood. Gaven was a prisoner of this undead dragon, who was perhaps the ruler of this city. Lissa shook her head slowly, sorrow in her eyes. There was no hope of freeing him.
Rienne wrenched her hand away from Lissa and drew Maelstrom. She swung the blade high, toward the image of the undead dragon. Lissa caught her wrist again, stopping Maelstrom a hand’s width from the mural image. Her eyes had hardened, just slightly. So Lissa was willing to help Rienne flee, but not to help her fight the dragon-king.
Thoughts racing, Rienne turned away from the dragonborn. What could she do? She couldn’t hope to be inconspicuous in a city where she was the only half-elf-the only one these people had ever seen, as far as she knew. She couldn’t secure help, couldn’t bluff her way past the guards, couldn’t exert the influence of her noble birth-she couldn’t interact in any meaningful way with the dragonborn without speaking a word of their language. She wasn’t sure the money she carried would buy her food or assistance. And if Lissa wouldn’t help her against the undead dragon, how could she expect anyone else to?
She blinked back tears. “I can’t leave him, I just can’t,” she said. “All those years he was in Dreadhold, I died without him.” Lissa laid a hand on her shoulder, and Rienne was surprised at the tenderness of the gesture. The dragonborn seemed so large, so strong-so inhuman.
Rienne looked down at her feet, at the fine silver chain wrapped several times around her ankle. With barely a thought, it would take her home. Gaven had one, too, unless they took it from him. She could look for him, even in the palace of the dragon-king, and break the chain if she found herself in trouble. But using it would seem so final. If she fled at the first sign of danger, she would never have the chance to return.
“I have to look for him, at least,” she said.
Lissa seemed to read the resolve in her face. She shook her head, breathing a hiss from the corners of her mouth, then stepped back toward the shrine’s arched entrance. The dragonborn said a word of farewell-or perhaps it was a blessing or a warning-and then she was gone.
It was worse than Rienne had imagined. She was accustomed to the gawks and rude comments of the lowest classes in the streets of Khorvaire’s cities, even used to fighting off attackers in the most dangerous neighborhoods, when business took her there. But she also expected polite treatment from her social equals and the middle class, and in Rav Magar she found none of that. Everyone stared at her, nearly everyone pointed, and many gave threatening hisses in her direction. Several dragonborn accosted her, puffing out their chests and shouting, sometimes roaring, until she guessed their meaning and made her best attempt at a display of submission.
She wandered through the city, searching for roads to take her to the higher parts of the city, toward the dragon-king’s lofty palace. Few roads connected the city’s different levels, but each time she did find her way to a higher tier, the size of the buildings, the ornateness of the decoration, the sheer displays of wealth grew more impressive. The layout of the city enforced the division among the different castes of its people, she realized. Silver inlays and then gold, marble, and alabaster taking the place of wood and granite; silks and jewelry adorning the people she passed-they all spoke of the greater status of the residents of the higher tiers. More elaborate displays also marked the distinctions between these dragonborn and the lower-tier citizens who did business in the higher levels.
When the sun had not yet reached its zenith and she had climbed only as high as the fourth tier, four armed dragonborn challenged her. They wore metal armor like what Lissa had worn in the forest, and sashes of rich black silk draped across their chests seemed to indicate some official status. As a reflex, her hand started for Maelstrom’s hilt, but she pulled it back-four dead soldiers would not help her any. She held her hands out in front of her.
What if I let them take me? she wondered. Will they bring me to Gaven? Then I might not be able to help him, but at least we’ll be together. But what if they don’t?
The guards inched forward around her with wide eyes. Rienne dropped her hands and ran.
The streets of this tier were wide, and no narrower alleys ran between buildings. Unencumbered by armor, she had a speed advantage over the dragonborn, but she kept slowing to avoid colliding with bystanders who stepped into her path and reached their clawed hands to grab at her. For a moment she imagined she felt the wind hurrying her along, as it had when she and Gaven ran through Stormhome, and tears sprang to her eyes again.