Page 21 of Ale Storm

“This dwarf has short blonde hair and is wearing a nondescript brown dockworker’s uniform. I wouldn’t have been certain she was following us, and not simply going to the market, but she glanced down at something in her hand a couple of times. It might be a magical tracking device. I’ve seen similar tools before.”

“You’ve gotten a good look at her and her belongings, considering I haven’t even noticed her yet.” Rylana headed for one of the large booths that sold vinegar and some of the herbs on Jildarin’s list.

“That says more about you than me.”

“That I’m oblivious when enthralled by you relaying the details of your date?”

“The details about female dragons plotting your demise, anyway.”

“The topic of my demise does typically hold my interest.”

When Rylana turned to pluck items off shelves, she spotted the dwarf for the first time. The blonde-haired female was indeed holding something, but she was too far away for Rylana to make out details, especially with numerous shoppers partially blocking the view. The dwarf passed their aisle without looking down it. If Sylin hadn’t mentioned their follower, Rylana wouldn’t have thought anything of her.

“You might want to check your quiver to make sure there’s not a magical tracker in it.” Sylin held her thumb and forefinger up to indicate something coin-sized. “Some devices can lead a person to all magic, but some need to be linked to a tracker that’s placed on the target.”

“Or in one’s quiver?”

“Quite.”

Rylana didn’t question Sylin. She’d also seen such devices employed during the war. One of the wealthier mercenary units had possessed a plethora of magical spy equipment and had engaged in numerous missions of sabotage and espionage.

After setting the ingredients she needed on the counter for a female half-elven merchant to tally, Rylana slung her quiver off her back to look inside.

“If you want to be helpful,” she said, “you could go capture and question the dwarf for me.”

“There’s a pillar twenty feet away and uniformed peacekeepers patrolling the area,” Sylin said.

“It could be a friendly, nonviolent capturing and questioning.”

“Those being so effective. Haven’t I done enough favors for you today? I dated your dragon’s self-absorbed brother and brought you a warning.”

“You have been a good friend.”

“Seven silver for everything, ma’am,” the merchant said, not commenting on what was probably an atypical conversation. Her eyebrows had twitched at the mention of self-absorbed dragons.

“Thank you.”

After Rylana exchanged her coins for the goods, she tilted her quiver upside-down. With a tranquility ribbon threaded around it and the fletchings of the arrows, they didn’t fall out, but the horn shifted inside. She pulled it out and also shook the quiver, in case someone had managed to slip a tracker inside. Nothing fell out, and she didn’t hear anything rattling around.

Gasps and a warning shout from people around them made her pause. An orc vendor pointed toward the sky.

Someone yelled, “To the pillar for safety!”

Sylin sighed. “That dragon is familiar.”

Rylana spotted the winged creature soaring high over the city, high enough that the pillar hadn’t started booming out its alarm gongs. Its black scales catching the setting sun, it flapped its wings easily, soaring lazily about like a great raptor sated from a recent meal and not looking for anything in particular. But it circled the area, so Rylana had little doubt it was looking for something. Someone.

“One of the sisters,” she guessed, though the dragon was so high that she couldn’t pick out eye color or much in the way of defining attributes aside from its dark hue.

“Foxvonla,” Sylin said. “The one I tangled up in a net on the beach at Lucky Island. I got close enough for her magical aura to imprint itself on me.”

“She’s probably as pissed with you after that as with me. I suppose it would be wrong for me to hope she’s here because she wants to slay you.”

“I’m not the one keeping her from mating with her desired male.”

“You think that’s a more egregious crime than ensnaring her in a magical net? Those peacekeeper tools zap you, you know.”

“She may be pleased to slay both of us,” Sylin said.