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Ava Richardson

Dragon Quest

(The Stone Crown Series Book Two)

Chapter 1

Nightmares in the Wind

Just as it always did in my dreams, dappled sunlight played over my face from the thin trees around me, and their branches sighed with the rising Sousa winds of the Plains.

Good, I thought. The sound of the breeze would hide my approach, and I took a careful step out from the straggly copse, towards where the tall grasses—like a blanket of gold and yellow—started.

My short bow was in my hands, and at my hip was my knife. I had everything I needed to complete the hunt…

There. A flicker of movement from the tall stalks. It went against the flow of the Sousa, I registered. My quarry was in there, trying to remain hidden. I crouched, trying to ease the excited hammer of my heart. My first solo hunt! If I could complete this—then everyone at the village could see that I was ready to start my responsibilities as the Imanu’s daughter. My mother would start teaching me the more complicated stories of the Daza, the tales that only the wise women and elders called the Imanu would share with each other. I would learn the true names and properties of the Twelve Sisters—plants and herbs whose use was restricted.

I would be trusted in village council meetings; my voice would be listened to, and they would ask me—Narissea of the tribe of Souda—how I would shape the future of our people.

I paused, nervousness playing through my body in flashes of heat or cold. I wondered if I was truly ready. Even after three days alone in the Plains, surviving just by my wits and what I had been taught—I still felt anxious.

But this was what I had been trained to do, wasn’t it? I steeled myself as the winds plucked and picked at my dark hair like it was attempting to soothe my spirits. ‘Step into your life, fierce little Nari…’ I remembered the parting words of my mother.

Yes. My future was waiting there for me, out in the Plains—and all I had to do was reach out and grab it—

Crunch. There was a sound from the grasses ahead, and I tensed—before remembering to unwind the knots in my shoulders and arms. You had to be calm to perform a successful kill. If I was going to take a life of the Plains, then I had to do it swiftly and as respectfully as possible. The animal that gave its life so that we might feast should suffer as little as possible.

A shadow appeared in the near grasses—dark, and taller than I was expecting.

I breathed in, pooling the breath in my chest as I raised the bow—

The creature stepped nearer, and the grasses wavered in front of its approach.

Calm, Nari, I told myself, before offering a heart’s prayer that I would get this right—

Slave!” A man burst from the grasses, his face twisted in a snarl of rage as he spat the word straight at me. He limped on a twisted leg, and his eyes were like small sparks of flint. And in his hand was the small leather-tailed whip that he had beaten me with many, many times.

It was Dagan Mar, the Chief Overseer of the Mines of Masaka.

And there on the left-hand side of his chest, jutting out horribly and spreading a sheen of red down his tunic was the handle of the knife I had used to kill him.

“Slave scum!” Dagan roared. Not even being killed could quench his anger as he lurched towards me—

Argh!” I screamed, kicking at the coarse and heavy blanket that had been given me for a bed. I was not out on the Plains. I was not performing my three-day Testing.

And the undead shade of Dagan Mar had not returned to take his revenge on me.

“Dear Stars…” I breathed as I gasped and struggled to a crouch. Around me was the canvas tent, half-filled with boxes and barrels and sacks of our provisions of our expedition.

Well, Inyene’s expedition, I corrected myself as I reached for the skin of water I had left by the side of my makeshift bed. Unlike the other Daza slaves who had been ordered along on this crazy mission, I was allowed to sleep in the store tent, on my own. To be honest, I would have preferred spending the night with the others—even if that did mean having my feet manacled together with everyone else’s. As absurd as it was to admit—the gentle murmurings of quiet talk or soft snores reminded me of the Tribal Hall of the Souda where there were always people day and night—either working or sleeping. Many times, I had fallen asleep before one of the fires, competing for space with our hunting dogs as the voice of the Elders told one of the old tales.

And now, of course, I thought, most of my people apart from the ones here were all back at Inyene’s Mines. Who knows how many of the faces that I knew so well were still alive? And I was the Imanu’s daughter. If it was anyone’s task to keep them safe right now—it had to be mine.

I sighed. Sometimes I didn’t feel like I had done a particularly good job of that.

A foot stamped outside—it had to be my guard. Even though I had garnered enough trust for saving Lord Abioye D’Lia’s life—the younger brother of the self-styled ‘Queen’ Inyene—to avoid being manacled, that ‘trust’ didn’t go so far as not being kept under watch, as the canvas door flap was pushed aside and the gruff voice of one of Inyene’s guards called in. “Hoi, what’s going on in there!”

Ugh. I ignored him as I stood up and stretched, irritably grabbing my few possessions. The scowling guard at the tent flap didn’t really care if I was having nightmares or not—just that I wasn’t attempting to run away, or eating all of the provisions or something. I picked up my cloak and my belt pouches containing the few belongings I was allowed—a flint, some twine and hook for a fishing line, and a few of the dried and gathered herbs that I had managed to harvest so far—as the guard grunted again and stepped away, seemingly satisfied that I was just crazy—but not disobeying Inyene’s rules.

Inyene’s rules and her damned Laws! I kicked one of the sacks of grain, before wishing that I had at least thought to put on my sandals before I had done that. “Ow!” A sack of packed grain seeds was surprisingly solid.

That ‘lady’ of the Middle Kingdom had terrorized the Daza people of the Plains (what the Western Three Kingdomers called ‘The Empty Plains’), and, from what both her rebellious brother, Abioye, and the young mage, Montfre, said—using a strategy that she had long been developing. She believed that she and Abioye were descendants of some long-dead High Queen Delia, and that gave her the right to do anything and everything to win her throne back… including murdering people, hiring mercenaries, twisting the laws to her own ends, and enslaving entire villages to work in her Mines, collecting ore and Earth-Light crystals to create her army of mechanical dragons. Inyene had even resurrected ancient ‘Laws’ of the Middle Kingdom, tying them to her offerings of loans and supplies, only to increase what the Daza owed by adding debt and forcing them to work for her.

“Sssss!” A hiss of annoyance filled my mind with a sense of reptilian outrage. It was my bond partner, Ymmen, the black dragon whom I had helped heal in the mountains of Masaka.