She considered telling dal Drezony everything, but for some reason wasn’t certain it was the right time. “Yes. Why?”
“He’s been making some pretty unreasonable demands of the Order recently. He was always overly ambitious and impatient, but I believed the core of what he was trying to achieve was good. Now I don’t know. The men he’s bringing into the Order—they represent the opposite of everything we stand for. I’m frightened, Solène.”
“I haven’t seen any trouble on the streets,” Solène said. “I’m sure we’ll be safe in the Priory. The new soldiers the Prince Bishop hired will be able to defend the walls, at least.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about. Promise that if he asks you to do something you’re not comfortable with, you’ll tell me.”
Solène nodded.
“Above all, don’t do anything that will put you in danger. He’s going to call on you to use your power, and sooner rather than later. We need to make sure that when he does, you’re ready. You can’t afford to spend all of your time doing whatever he tells you.”
“What option do I have?”
Dal Drezony sighed and thought for a moment. “Once you’ve found whatever it is you’re looking for, he’ll want you on the dragon-hunting expedition. I’ve tried to slow preparations down as much as I can—I won’t be complicit in the deaths of any more of my brothers and sisters because they were sent into danger under-prepared. Our new comrades are making that difficult. Say what you like about the Prince Bishop, one thing he’s good at is picking talent. Vachon and Gassot know what they’re doing, and if it were up to them, the expedition would be equipped and ready to go.” She let out a chuckle. “I’ve insisted that they interview pretty much everyone in the Order before selecting the hunting party. They wanted me to pick the best and most experienced, but I said they should make that decision for themselves. They didn’t like it, but deep down I think the idea of relying on anyone else’s selection was something they liked even less.”
The thought of dealing with another dragon sent a shiver down Solène’s spine, and for a moment she was tempted to tell dal Drezony about the Cup, the ritual, and how they had helped Gill. If there were more dragons, no one could expect Gill to deal with them all. Perhaps the Prince Bishop was right wanting to bring the Cup back to the Order, so they would have a proper chance of facing the beasts, and surviving. She didn’t like the Prince Bishop, didn’t trust him, but he was the man in power. There was the king, of course, but as best she could tell, his interest in running the kingdom was limited to delegating everything to men like the Prince Bishop.
Could she live with herself if she let the men and women of the Spurriers march against the dragons, and probably to their deaths, if she knew a way to give them a chance? She couldn’t. In addition, it would take the pressure off Gill. She knew that at some point the Prince Bishop would try again to kill Gill. If the Prince Bishop had the Cup, and whatever power this temple might bring him, he would certainly succeed.
She couldn’t stand by and allow that to happen. There had to be another way, one that wouldn’t give the Prince Bishop insurmountable power to do as he chose.
She decided against telling him what she knew about the Cup, at least for the time being.
“Solène? Solène, did you hear what I said?”
Solène smiled. “I’m sorry, Seneschal. I was lost in my thoughts.”
“I said, we’ll need to make use of every spare moment to squeeze in your training. You might not get much sleep over the next few days, but the Order’s physicians will be able to help you with that in the short term. We’ll do whatever it takes to make sure you can keep yourself safe. Increasing our ability to draw on the Fount is what takes most of the effort for us normal souls. Once you’re in control of your mind, you’re in control of your magic.
“Now that you know how to go about that, it’s simply a case of developing the confidence to be able to do it consistently. You could reach that point by tomorrow, or never. That’s a destination you will have to reach on your own.”
Solène nodded. Her frustration was growing as people tried to pull her in different directions. At least dal Drezony seemed well intentioned. Solène thought fondly of what it was like to be another invisible face in a city where no one cared enough to bother you, where her only worry was getting to the bakery in time to light the ovens. It felt as though the thing she had so long thought of as a curse, then so briefly thought of as a great gift that could change her life for the better, was very much a curse once again.
Dal Drezony smiled. “Don’t look so daunted. Nearly everyone manages it. I’m sure you can too.”
CHAPTER 26
Guillot spurred his horse to the gallop. There was nothing else out here that could cause a spontaneous fire, if the pull wasn’t already proof enough. The only question in his mind was what the dragon was burning. Val followed close behind. Gill untethered the lance he had kept on his horse and tried to calm his mind.
“Stay well back again, Val,” Gill shouted over the thunder of his horse’s hooves. “I’ll come back to you for another lance if I need one.”
They reached the stand of trees, and started to skirt its edge. Gill was pushing his horse hard, harder than he needed to, he realised. There was no one from Venne out this far. The dragon was most likely eating a stray farm animal or a chamois come down from the mountains, not a person. He was halfway around the trees when he heard someone shouting in the distance. Wrong again, Gill thought, urging more speed from the horse.
Both man and beast were breathing hard by the time they cleared the trees. Guillot’s gaze was immediately drawn to the black, hulking mass that was liberally spraying fire about itself. Gill was immediately taken back to the cave where he had first seen a dragon, a great, malevolent collection of sinew, fangs, and aggression. A shiver ran over his skin. This one was bigger than the last, much bigger, nearly the size of the first dragon he had killed.
Cabham, mounted, was circling the creature at a distance, the visor on his helmet up, lance in hand. He seemed to be trying to direct two armoured men who were not on horseback. It looked to Guillot very much like Cabham was trying to use them as bait. Piles of charred remains were, Gill assumed, all that remained of the other two men who had ridden out of Venne with Cabham that morning. It seemed that Cabham had learned that there was more to dragons than claws and fangs. Like all lessons relating to dragons, it was a hard one. Harder for his men than him, however.
Gill brought his horse to a stop and waited. He had no desire to get himself killed digging Cabham out of a hole. Val appeared at his side.
“It’s bigger,” he said.
The lad was perceptive, at least. That might benefit him when it came to swordplay, Gill supposed.
The men before him dashed left and right while Cabham tried to keep his horse calm. Gill assumed he was searching for a chink in the beast’s more developed scale plating. With the thing belching flame with every breath, Cabham would get only one chance, if that. Gill suspected the Humberlander was wondering if his fire protection from the previous day would still be effective. Gill wondered that too, and was glad he wasn’t the one testing it.
One of Cabham’s men changed direction a second too late. His scream would have been unlike anything Gill had ever heard were it not for the fact that he had been in that cave with the first dragon. The man was cooked in his armour like a chicken in a cook pot, roasting and boiling in his own fluids at the same time. It took a distressingly long time for the screaming to stop.