“Regardless,” Zilek continued, “Mother may come to visit you.”
Jildarin set his knife down with a thunk. “She’s coming to Tranquility? Where she’ll be forced to give up her dragon form and obey the rules of gnomes?”
“I don’t know if she’ll deign to enter the city and take a non-dragon form or not. She may simply light a few buildings on fire and tear the golems to pieces. As I said, she’s irked.” Zilek turned for the door.
Rylana let out a sigh of relief, but he paused and looked over at her. She grabbed a towel to dry dishes.
“Yourbusiness partnermay want to disappear from the area when Mother comes,” Zilek said.
Rylana started to bristle at the way he said business partner, but it was better than being called a servant. Marginally.
“What does she have to do with anything?” Jildarin asked.
“Loxvonla suggested to Mother that you’ve been mating withherand that’s the reason you’ve turned your back on your own kind.”
“That’s preposterous,” Jildarin said.
Rylana shouldn’t have been disappointed by his swift dismissal of her as a possible romantic partner. If there were families she didn’t want to get involved with, a clan of dragons was at the top of the list.
“I haven’t turned my back on my own kind,” Jildarin added, “just the ones who are trying to force me to serve them, as if I were the runt of our brood, not one of the strongest warriors who led elves and dragons to drive the kingdoms from our mountains.”
“That’s the problem. You made yourself too desirable with your competence. You should have been more… what is the human term?” Zilek looked at Rylana. “Half-butted?”
“Something like that,” she murmured, focusing on the dishes since she didnotwant to be included in the conversation.
“Whatever humans say,myexploits weren’t enough to make all the females horny and long to create offspring with me.” Zileksounded more bitter than smug. “Consider yourself warned. More than golem heads may be bitten off if Mother comes in her irked state.” Zilek looked at Rylana again as well as Jildarin before walking out.
She shook her head. Maybe she would join Sylin in sleeping across the lake in the boathouse. Though if someone came looking for her, her family’s estate wouldn’t be the smartest place to hide.
“Dragon families are complicated,” Jildarin stated.
“I thinkallfamilies are complicated.”
A shelf holding mugs fell off the wall, landing with a crash of shattering ceramic. Rylana jumped in surprise. Neither she nor Jildarin nor anyone else had been near the shelf.
“That was startling,” she said.
Frowning, Jildarin eyed the mess.
“You don’t think that heralds your mother’s arrival, do you?” Rylana set her towel aside and grabbed the empty tub so she could toss the broken ceramic shards into it.
“I do not knowwhatthat heralds, but it can’t be anything good.”
7
“I’ll haveto pick up groceries tomorrow,” Rylana told Jildarin when he leaned into the office at the end of the dinner shift. The cashbox sat open in front of her, and she was counting and recording the revenue in the logbook. “We had as many visitors today as the day after you won the Golden Whisk. So far, business isn’t dwindling.”
“The food is excellent,” Jildarin stated, “and those who eat it return and also tell others to come.”
“Yeah, word-of-mouth works wonders. Let’s hope no irate dragons come and rip the heads off your customers.”
Jildarin grimaced. During the day, they’d both been busy and hadn’t spoken of Zilek’s warning. Rylana wished she hadn’t brought it up and lifted an apologetic hand.
“It is unlikely that Mother would target bystanders when her issue is with me,” Jildarin said.
And possibly me, Rylana thought but didn’t say out loud. To think, she’d been feeling guilty that the elves were after Sylin while ignoring her. Now, she might have adragonafter her. Thatwas even worse than having all the members of the elven enclave loitering in the area.
“Unlikely but not impossible?” Rylana asked.
