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“He’s dead,” my father says again. “I found out in the Golden Isles. Some dipshit from the southern continent tried to sell me dragon scales, and sure enough, they were his. Said they came from the Deep Forest.”
I blink. The stuffy air in this crowded little cabin suddenly feels colder.
“W-What was the Historian doing on the southern continent, let alone in the Deep Forest?” I stammer.
My father shrugs.
“Trying to find an old god?” he says, like it’s a joke.
No one laughs. Somewhere outside the window, a seagull cries, and its sharp, lonely call echoes through the small chamber. The shot of rum I took churns inside my gut, and for a heartbeat, I almost feel like I might throw up. My father pulls the black scarf off of his head and runs his fingers through his greasy hair. I see a few strands of silver winking amongst the black, which shouldn’t surprise me; dragons age just like everyone else, albeit much slower. Still, I somehow never quite expected to see my own parents grow old. Or to die.
My father looks up suddenly, narrowing his eyes.
“Who else have we got?” he says.
I open my mouth to say that we have no other contacts and basically no chance, but another answer comes to my lips instead.
“Wendolyn,” I say.
A slight frown crosses Rayne’s face, there and then gone. My father’s forehead creases like he’s trying to remember who Wendolyn is, and then his expression shatters and he explodes into laughter.
He laughs for much, much longer than the occasion warrants, doubling over and slapping his own knee as he shakes his head with a riot of raucous laughter. Rayne looks at me with an expression that suggests she’s considering climbing out the window. I frown.
“It’s not that funny,” I mutter.
My father shakes his head, then wipes an actual honest-to-Mothers tear from his eye.
“Whew,” he says, pronouncing the word as though he were reading it in a script. “Your ex-girlfriend Wendolyn? The one you’ve been mooning over for all these decades?”
That little line reappears between Rayne’s eyes, then vanishes. Her body looks as stiff as an iron blade.
“I have not been mooning,” I snap.
“That woman fucked half of the Iron Mountains while you were living with her,” my father continues, and he’s still smiling like this is the funniest thing he’s heard in an age. “Why in the Mothers’ many names would you think you can trust her now?”
I scowl as something deep inside my chest twinges. It still hurts, that messy history between me and the beautiful green dragon I thought I’d love forever. It probably always will. I clear my throat and lean forward.
“It has nothing to do with me,” I reply, “and everything to do with her.”
My father manages to suppress his smile, although his lip twitches like the effort is almost painful.
“Do tell,” he says.
“Wendolyn wants to be queen,” I say. “For as long as I’ve known her, that’s her focus. That’s her driving ambition.”
My father frowns like he’s not following me.
“And?” he says.
“And Rensivar wants to attack the Queensmoot,” I reply. “I can’t imagine Wendolyn would agree to any scheme that would endanger her path to the Throne of Claws.”
My father huffs, and the whiskers above his lips flutter. I’m fairly certain my mother would hate that beard.
“It’s risky,” he finally says. “Why would she believe you? And what if she’s flapping for the other side, huh? What if Rensivar agreed to put your hot little ex on the throne if she joins his evil schemes?”
I shake my head, hoping to dislodge any memory of my father calling Wendolyn my hot little ex.
“That would be risky for Rensivar too,” I counter. “Wendolyn has lived in the Iron Mountains her entire life, and I don’t think Rensivar has dared show his face there. Not yet, at least. If he was going to put someone on the throne, why choose her? Wouldn’t he choose someone he knew, and knew well? And why would he bother to put someone else on the throne anyway if he could just take it for himself, or hells, maybe destroy it altogether?”
