“Truthfully, none of that matters to me. I left home long ago and have lived the life of a simple soldier for many years.”
He was still standing there, holding his plate as his pie cooled. She took pity and gestured toward the seat opposite her, across the wooden plank table. He sat, placing his plate in front of him.
“I’m Livia,” she introduced herself as he sat down. “Something tells me that you are no longer such a simple soldier though,” she said, before biting into her pie.
He smiled somewhat ruefully. “My life has taken some strange turns of late. One minute, I was training a company on the plain outside of Castleton. The next, a pretty blue dragon landed beside me and struck up a conversation. My life has not been the same since.”
“There was talk of a light blue dragon arriving recently,” Livia offered, still unsure if this man was for real, or just a spinner of tales.
“That would be Gen. Lady Genlitha, if you want to be formal. She trained here as a young dragon, and we were sent to take over for an injured knight while he recovers. We are learning our way as a new partnership, as well, before heading into battle. I hope.” He added that last little bit almost under his breath, but she heard it.
“You wish to join the fighting in the north?”
“We both want to do what we can to keep our land safe,” he replied carefully. “I do not revel in bloodshed. I have seen enough of it in my time.” His eyes took on a weary cast that made her heart go out to him. “Forgive me, I didn’t mean to stray into such dark waters.”
They ate in silence for a few moments.
“The gravy is a nice complement to the flavor,” he said a short while later, clearly wanting to change the subject.
She nodded, still unsure of him. Was he a fortune hunter, simply trying a new tack with her? She’d seen it all in recent years. Without her father here a lot of the time, she’d had to learn how to fend off unwanted attentions from scoundrels who thought to marry her and live off her father’s money.
“If you’re a knight, where is your dragon?” she asked, speaking her mind bluntly. It may not be polite, but she’d learned how to come to the point since running her father’s businesses in his absence.
Gowan chuckled. “She is teaching some of the younger fliers today while I went fishing.”
“Fishing?”
He nodded. “Yes, milady. I saw you out there with your dragon friend. I was duly impressed by him. Sir Hrardorr, wasn’t it?”
“He doesn’t like people from the Lair to study him,” she said carefully, not sure what her dragon friend would make of this. Perhaps it would be best not to tell him.
“He’s been avoiding Genlitha. She knew him when they were both youngsters. I think her feelings are hurt that he refuses to stand still long enough for her to say hello.”
“He’s still healing. He doesn’t like people to make a fuss,” she hedged.
“People, I can understand. I don’t much like being fussed over when I’m hurt either, but his fellow dragons?” His voice dropped to a lower, more intimate level. “Is it because he’s blind? Does it bother him that much?”
Livia didn’t answer. Few, if any, in town knew of Hrardorr’s handicap. She didn’t think it was her place to talk about it, so she remained silent. She didn’t really know this man. She didn’t know what his game was, but she refused to betray her new friend, Hrardorr, in any way.
“I cannot say,” she said finally, hopefully putting an end to this line of conversation.
Gowan sat back and regarded her. She held his gaze, refusing to give in. Finally, he shrugged.
“I can respect that. You don’t know me. We’ve only just met.” He leaned back, looking upward. “But maybe seeing Gen will help you believe me just a little bit.”
He pointed upward, and she followed his finger with her gaze, seeing a flight of dragons circling high above. There was an almost invisible sky blue dragon in the lead, several other colorful youngsters behind her.
“Lady Livia?”
A strange, rumbly, yet somehow feminine voice sounded in her mind. Was it the dragon?
“Can you hear me?”
“Yes,” she whispered, still looking upward, hoping her words would communicate silently to the dragon high above—if that was who was talking to her.
“Fabulous!”
came the feminine rumble in her mind again. Apparently her reply had gotten through.
“I am Genlitha, and you have met my knight, Gowan. He asked me to communicate with you for two reasons. First, he wanted to see if you could, indeed, hear me. Second, he wanted to provide you with some proof that he really was who he claimed to be. I can assure you, he is a knight, though he is newly chosen and knows little of our ways. He is still learning, which is why we were assigned here—to both teach and learn. I’m teaching these youngsters, and he’s learning how to be a knight. We’re also learning how to be a team. It takes time when a new pairing is formed.”
“Amazing,” Livia breathed.
“Yes, she is,” Gowan said softly, drawing Livia’s attention from the sky, back down to earth and the man who was sitting opposite her. Gowan was smiling at her, but she wasn’t as easy to impress as he thought—or at least, she didn’t want to appear that way.
“All right. I believe you are who you claim to be.” She shot him a narrow-eyed look. “But you are not the first person from the Lair I’ve met, and you likely won’t be the last.”
“Ouch.” He winced, smiling broadly. “I see I will have to work harder to earn your regard. Good. I like a challenge.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Livia allowed Gowan to walk her to the door of her father’s offices, and he left her with a kiss on her hand. It was a courtly gesture from his youth at the keep that just seemed right in this particular situation, though why that was so, he wasn’t sure.
He only knew that she seemed to bring out the gallant in him, and making her smile made him feel good. So good, in fact, that he whistled a jaunty tune all the way back to the Lair.
He was happy because she’d agreed to see him again. They’d made a date for the weekend, and he was looking forward to it with a great deal of enthusiasm. If he’d paused to ask himself why he was so excited to be seeing this young woman, he couldn’t have answered. There was just something about her. Something unlike any other woman he’d ever met.
She drew him like a loadstone. Her smile made him want to be around her. And her wit challenged him in ways he hadn’t known he liked to be challenged. She was the full picture. The kind of woman a man could get serious about and consider spending the rest of his life with.
And the very fact that such thoughts didn’t have him running in the other direction was surprising as well. Gowan had known that he would need to start searching for a mate because of Genlitha. It would be unfair to his dragon if she had a mate she could never claim because he couldn’t get off his ass and find a woman to share his life. He’d known that academically, but he’d always shied away from commitment before. Frankly, he hadn’t been sure he’d be able to adjust his thinking so radically, or so quickly, but it seemed meeting the right woman made all the difference.
When he returned to the Lair, Gowan retrieved his fish from the cool water chamber in which he’d stored them temporarily. He’d been taking all his meals in the great hall with everyone else, but the rooms he and Gen had been assigned had a small, serviceable kitchen. Tonight, he would eat the fruit of his labors and spend time with his dragon. They’d been either working or off on their own since they’d arrived, and he missed just spending time with Genlitha, he was surprised to note.
Gowan cooked the fish and knew Gen had stopped to feed with her small class of young fliers. When she arrived back to their suite of rooms, she went directly to the giant sand pit in the center of the suite, around which everything else had been designed. The sand was warm—heated magically from below, somehow—and sized perfectly for a single dragon. The rest of the circular cavern held chambers for various needs of the human half of the partnership.
There was a bathing chamber, a kitchen, storage rooms, closets, and of course, a bedroom. The quarters for single knights and their dragons were said to be more utilitarian than those designed for families. For one thing, the sand wallow would be double the size to accommodate two dragons and perhaps one or two offspring. The rooms circling the wallow were also larger and more plentiful, for the human side of the family.
Gowan was in the kitchen, cooking his fish when he heard a voice in the outer chamber. He poked his head out and saw Seth standing behind Gen on the edge of the sand pit, looking at her wing. Concerned, Gowan took the hot pan off the flame and went out to see what was going on. He wiped his hands on a towel as he went out into the main chamber.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, approaching Seth from behind.
The other man turned his head, keeping his hands on Gen’s wing joint, just where the wing met her torso.
“Lady Genlitha asked me to bring some liniment. She may have strained her right wing during maneuvers today,” Seth explained, continuing his examination.
“Gen? Are you hurt?”
Gowan asked silently, frowning as he walked around to catch Genlitha’s eye.
“It’s sore,”
she admitted, somewhat reluctantly.
“I guess I was showing off a bit and over extended. I hope you don’t mind that I asked Seth for help. Normally, this is something you could do for me, but you need to learn how, and Bronwyn said Seth was doing all this kind of work for her now that her hands are too gnarled to do it properly.”
“I don’t mind at all, Gen. Anything that helps me learn how to help you is all right in my book. I’m just sorry I don’t know all these things already. You would have been better off choosing a partner who had grown up around dragons, like Seth.”
“Seth will be an excellent knight…”
Gen surprised him by saying,
“…but he’s not for me. You’re the man meant to fight by my side, Gowan. Don’t worry. You’ll learn. And I’ll learn how to partner you as well. I’ve never had such an able soldier as my partner before. It will be fun to learn how to fight and fly with you so that we make the best possible team.”
“I look forward to that too, milady. Now, I’m going to find out how to tend your sore muscles from Seth here, and please sing out if I do anything wrong. It’s been a long time since I was a student, but I’m very willing to learn.”
Gowan had to hide his smile as he returned to Seth’s side and spoke aloud to the other man. “I’m not well-versed in dragon keeping, as you know. Would you mind showing me what to look for and what to do to help her?”
Seth smiled up at Gowan as he manipulated the large muscle that joined wing to body. “I’m glad to show you. It’s not all that much different from our own muscles, just on a much larger scale.”
What followed was an hour of intense study of dragon musculature. Seth was a thorough teacher, and he showed Gowan how to check the muscles for integrity as well as the best method for massage and application of soothing salves.
Gowan managed to surprise Seth a time or two by recognizing the herbal scents in the salves and their uses too. They got to talking, and Gowan mentioned how his mother had run the stillroom in the keep and how Gowan had helped her gather and prepare medicinal herbs from the time he was a young boy.
By the time they were finished tending to Genlitha’s strained wing, Gowan had invited Seth to join him for dinner, since the meal in the great hall was pretty much over. Plus, Gowan had caught plenty of fish and had more than enough to share. He went back to cooking, picking up where he’d left off, and soon, dinner was ready.
“You caught all this yourself?” Seth asked when he saw the bounty of fried fish on the table in front of him.
“I had a good day on the water,” Gowan said modestly.
The more Seth was around the new knight, the more he liked him. Gowan was willing to learn how to treat Genlitha’s minor injuries and had paid more attention to Seth’s instructions than he was used to getting from knights in this Lair, most of whom didn’t take him seriously or saw him as a failure. Or both.
But not Gowan. He freely admitted his own shortcomings when it came to knowledge of dragons and Lair life. He was a willing student, though he was obviously a seasoned warrior.
“Where did you learn to fish?” Seth asked as they served themselves and dug in to the succulent fish.
“Oh, I’ve been fishing since I was a boy. My father’s lands ran alongside the River Arundelle on one side, so there was ample opportunity. It’s very relaxing, and I try to get out on the water whenever I can. Sea fishing is quite different from what I’m used to, though. Different creatures and deeper waters.”
They ate in silence for a while, but it wasn’t uncomfortable at all. Gowan was easy to be around. He seemed to have no preexisting ideas about what or who Seth should be, which was refreshing. So much of his life in this Lair had been spent trying to justify his decisions. It was nice to be around someone who didn’t judge him—at least not openly. If Gowan had any opinions about the choices Seth had made in his life, he kept them politely to himself.
“So you come from nobility, then?” Seth asked sometime later.
Gowan took a sip of the ale he’d served alongside the fish before answering. “I’m the youngest son of a lord. When my father died, my brother kicked me out with little to call my own. Noble birth doesn’t mean much when you’ve got nothing to back it up. I started soldiering and have been on that path ever since.” He paused a moment, the mug of beer halfway to his lips. “Until Genlitha showed up. She took me in a whole new direction, and I still have a lot to learn about how to be a knight.”
“You’re doing very well for a newcomer to dragons,” Seth said honestly. “Even some of the men who grew up here had a hard time adjusting to their dragon partners when they were newly chosen. But you and Genlitha…” Seth looked out the archway that led to the central sand wallow where the dragon rested. “Your partnership looks to be one of those that was always meant to be. Easy. Pure. Natural. I doubt it will take you long to get accustomed to your new role. You were already a veteran fighter and leader of men. All you have to learn is how to be that with a dragon under you and in your mind.”