Sandfire snorted at the air, snuffling down the sweet currents blowing up from the plains lapping at her mountain’s feet. She raised her snout and flicked out her tongue, tasting the sweetness, making sure the faint touch of sharpness was still there, that somewhere amidst the grasses below, a seeker came. When she was sure, the dragon trumpeted the news to the mountain heights, and launched herself into the wind. Hers was the honor of the first overflight, and the capture, if she could take it.

  * * *

  On the plains below, Vestera heard the bugled notes ring out in the distant range, and curled her lip. If they thought she came looking for one of them, they had another think coming. She did not want to become a dragon’s pet. She had merely fled the city before the royal guard could find her. Charlatan, indeed! What would they know?

  Nothing, she decided. They can know nothing. And that was the way it as going to remain. Them, ignorant and empty-handed, and she free to roam whatever lands lay beyond the mountains. She looked up at the towering peaks, and felt the first sliver of doubt. Of course, first she had to cross those forbidding heights.

  Vestera adjusted the weight of her pack, and hoped she had enough to make the journey. She’d brought food, and what water she could carry, rope and pitons—although she was no climber—a tent for shelter, warm blankets, sewn together at the edges to make a pouch she could slide into at night, flint and tinder, and a cooking pot.

  Truth be known, she was hoping to find snow further up, or a stream. She could eat the rations dry, but she could not drink them, and they tasted better softened. First, though, she had to take cover. She had no desire to be scooped up by the dragons, and taken from her intended course.

  Fortunately, the plains were not as flat as many assumed. They rippled and undulated, their grasses concealing gullies carved out by hidden streams that came and went with the seasons. Vestera looked for one of those and, when she couldn’t find one, contented herself with sinking below the level of the grass stems and curling herself around the base of one of clumps. In this way, she would be covered by the outward spreading stalks, her form invisible to the sky.

  She had not counted on the powerful downdraft created by the dragon’s wings as it pivoted mid-air above her.

  “We do not have to be overhead to see you,” it said, and Vestera cursed the smug sound in its voice.

  She knew it would do her no good to stay where she was, felt the softest of tremors as the creature set down. With ill-grace, she stood up and brushed the dirt from her clothing.

  “I do not want to go with you,” she said, and it snorted.

  “What you do or do not want is of no consequence to me,” it said. “You have the scent of a seeker.”

  “The scent of a seeker? What does that even mean?” Vestera demanded. “I do not want to go with you. I do not seek you. I only wish to cross the mountains and hi…explore the cities beyond.”

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  The dragon cocked its head, first one way, and then another, as it studied her, each liquid eye taking her in from a scant five yards, and then it turned its head.

  “You could still try to make the mountain,” it said, “but I think the riders would overtake you.”

  Vestera felt a frisson of fear. So soon?

  “Riders?” she asked, unable to see past the dragon’s bulk, but she knew it was true, could feel the thunderous vibration growing beneath her feet.

  “Yes,” the dragon said. “They are riding hard, guided by a figure in blue.”

  Well, that explained a lot. Only the Guild of Seekers wore blue. It puzzled Vestera, though. The Seekers were not cheap, and she was not that important. What could the royal guard want with her that would even have them thinking of authorizing the payment?

  “They will be upon us in a few grains’ time,” the dragon told her. “And I do not wish to fight them. Will you come willingly, or must I carry you in my claws?”

  “Willingly?” Vestera asked, although she wasn’t sure she didn’t want to take her chances with the guard.

  “Good,” the dragon took her question as assent. “Climb onto my shoulders. Quickly, now. I have no desire to be peppered with arrows.”

  Vestera didn’t know exactly what made her decide to go with it. Perhaps it was the mention of arrows, perhaps not, but whatever it was, she crossed swiftly to the dragon’s side and clambered just as fast onto its back. Finding herself a space between the ridges of the crest running down its spine, she settled herself in for the flight.

  “Hang on,” the beast ordered, and Vestera wrapped her arms around the ridge in front of her as it leapt from the ground.

  “Dragons cannot fly.” The words came to her unbidden, as the creature left the ground.

  Oh, yeah? Vestera thought, glancing down to see the plains diminishing far below her. This one does.

  “Who are you talking to?” the dragon asked, and Vestera was glad she was holding on, or she might have slipped from her seat, and fallen. Contrary to popular belief, the dragon’s crest wasn’t rigid, even if each ridge had a hard central support. The dragon laughed, inside her head, and Vestera glared at it.

  Her glare had no effect, but that was probably because she was really glaring at it, the expression pasted across her face, and not inside her head.

  “So,” the dragon said, oblivious to her discontent. “Who were you talking to?”

  “No one,” Vestera answered, and the wind of their flight whipped the words from her mouth.

  “Just think the words,” the dragon advised. “I will hear them.”

  And it probably would, too, Vestera thought, suddenly aware that she had not heard its voice when they’d been talking on the plains, that that part had been an illusion, too.

  “Of course not,” the dragon interrupted. “Our vocal cords might produce sound as yours do, but our mouths are not the same. And I have not learned to make the sounds of your language, yet, so this is much more economical.”

  “You are putting the pictures and concepts straight into my head?” Vestera asked.

  “In a way, but now that I am inside your head, I can learn your language much more quickly.”

  “You should have asked permission.”

  “When those riders wished to acquire you whether you were willing or no?”

  It had a point there.

  “Could… Could you see inside their heads, too?”

  “No, but…” The dragon paused. “I couldn’t see inside their heads.”

  It sounded just a little puzzled by that, as though such a thing wasn’t natural.

  “Why couldn’t I see into their heads?” it wondered.

  Vestera couldn’t answer its question, but the ideas puzzled her as well.

  “Don’t the peoples of the city trade with dragons?” she asked.

  “It has been known, but we make them climb the mountain, first.”

  “Why?”

  “So they know how hard it is, and value the opportunity.”

  Well, that made sense, but why did they want her?

  “Because you have the scent of a seeker,” the dragon replied.

  But what was a seeker? She did not want to become a dragon’s pet; Vestera was sure of that.

  “Seekers are not pets.” The dragon sounded amused.

  “What are they then?”

  Vestera felt the equivalent of a mental shrug roll over her.

  “That, even we do not know.”

  “Then, where are you taking me?”

  “To the Seekers’ Gate.”

  “The what?”

  “The Seekers’ Gate. It is our task.”

  Who dared give a dragon tasks? Vestera wondered, feeling a little off-balance. No-one told a dragon what to do. No-one could.