Corec was one of the last to arrive in the great hall for the midday meal.

“Where’s Bobo?” he asked. “I thought he was supposed to cook today.” Everyone had been taking turns as cook since the group returned from Cordaea.

Treya rolled her eyes. “He found something in the old records that he insisted was too important to wait, so he asked me to take his place.” She handed over a bowl.

“Fish stew? We have fish?”

“Leena brought back some lake trout from Four Roads this morning.”

“I don’t like fish!” Ditte exclaimed, pushing her bowl away.

“You liked it just fine before you knew what it was,” Katrin said.

The little girl crossed her arms and shook her head.

Katrin sighed. “Will you eat it if we take out the fish?” She gave Corec a pointed look.

He got the message. He and Treya had taken on the responsibility for the children, then left them alone with Katrin for over a month.

“Here, Ditte,” he said. “Sit with me. I’ll eat your fish.” He scooped enough out of the bowl that the girl would start eating again.

Bobo rushed in then, a sheaf of papers clutched in his arms and a wide grin on his face. “Guess what I found?” he asked.

“A work ethic?” Corec said.

“Very amusing, but you’ll like this.” He laid the papers out on the table. Some were roughly drawn maps of the area while others were full of notes in cramped handwriting.

Ellerie looked over one of the pages. “What is it?” she asked. “Numbers … numbers by the week? Cartloads?”

“Two coal mines, about twenty miles west of here. They’d only been open for a year when the dragon came, but the miners estimated that the seams run for miles. We should do something before someone remembers they’re there.”

“What were they doing with the coal?” Corec asked.

“Selling it to the caravans that came through,” Bobo said.

Corec nodded. “We’ll have to hire miners, I guess.”

Their decision to stay at the fortress seemed to get more complicated every day. Bobo was right—they couldn’t leave the mines unclaimed—but it was an added complication. The plan depended on being able to evacuate any non-combatants if Rusol’s armies invaded the area, and the mines were far enough away to make that difficult.

“It’ll give us something to export,” Ellerie said. “The numbers aren’t big, but it’s enough for twenty freight wagons each month. We could let Varsin Senshall handle it.”

“We should keep some for ourselves, too, so we don’t need as much firewood,” Bobo said.

Corec frowned. “You want to use it indoors?” he asked. “I don’t know about that.”

“This is hard coal,” Bobo said. “There isn’t much smoke. It’s not like the kind they use for smelting iron or burning lime. We’d have to get some of those new coal stoves, but it’d still be cheaper than the amount of firewood we’d need for this place over the winter.”

“If you think it’s better, we can try it.”

“They sell the stoves in Matagor,” Bobo said. “I’ll write to a friend there to try to arrange something.” He slid another sheet of paper over to Ellerie. “There’s also this, an old copper mine to the south. The notes say they think it was just about played out, but it was still producing when the area was abandoned.”

“We’ll need miners for that, too,” Corec said. “I don’t know where we’ll find that many.”

Ellerie said, “There are plenty of young men looking for work. We just need an overseer to train them—someone who knows how to run a mine.”

“Mother Yewen can probably find someone who’ll know what we need,” Treya said. “Or Mother Vera down in South Corner.”

“We should talk to them first before we hire anyone else,” Ellerie said. “I don’t know anything about mining, and we can’t afford to be paying people to sit around doing nothing. Money will be tight until we have traders coming through.”

Corec nodded. “When Nedley’s back, we can send him out to post notices on the mines. It won’t keep anyone out if they’re determined, but at least it’ll warn them we’re making a claim. His squad can start establishing patrol routes to make sure there isn’t any trouble.”

“I thought we’d have both squads helping to clear the roads,” Ellerie said. “That has to be our first priority.”

“No, our first priority is making sure we can defend this place from Rusol. How long will it take to repair the walls? I’d rather have the workers do that before we start on the roads.”

Ellerie frowned. “I promised Duke Lorvis we’d … Never mind. Let me think.” She was quiet for a moment. “I’ll need help hauling the fallen stone back up on the wall, but we can’t do that until the carpenters build the frames. It’s like using a mould for metal-shaping—it’s easier if there’s something holding it all in place so I can focus on the smaller details.”

“How many men will you need for that?”

“I don’t know. We’ll have to use ramps and ropes to get the larger blocks back up on the wall. It’ll take a while.”

Bobo held up a finger, looking thoughtful. “Did you ever see the windlass cranes Senshall uses to load their larger ships? There are plans for one in the library in Matagor. If the carpenters build one of those first, it’ll be easier and faster to lift the pieces up to where you need them.”

“That would work,” Ellerie said. “The carpenters could handle that on their own, maybe with some help from Nedley’s squad when they aren’t out patrolling. That would leave the second squad free to work on the roads.”

“All right,” Corec said, “but leave the Larso road alone until we’re ready. No sense in giving Rusol an easy way to reach us.”

“We’ll start with the Matagor branch.” She turned back to Bobo. “Any more surprises?”

He gave her a self-satisfied smile. “As a matter of fact, yes. There’s an old sawmill just two miles east of here—or there was, at least. I haven’t gone out to look.”

That would mean even more people they would need to hire, but if the sawmill was still there and still operational, it would be faster than hauling cut lumber from Four Roads. And if it was to the east, it would be away from any potential attacks by Rusol’s forces.

Before Corec could respond, Leena appeared from out of nowhere. She blinked and looked around as she got her bearings.

She greeted everyone, then said, “I went to check on Boktar and the others since I’ll be gone for a while. They’re two days out from Four Roads. They’re escorting some of the refugees home along the way.”

“Was he able to hire everyone we need?” Corec asked.

“The road crew and the carpenters, but not all of the servants. He said your friend—Mama Wenna?—was able to find a cook for us, but she didn’t know of any housekeepers looking for a job.”

“We might have to look in Tyrsall for that,” Corec said. “There aren’t too many people around here with the right experience. What about the others?”

“Boktar says he hired two sisters as maids, and one of the soldier’s mothers will cook for the barracks, but he only found one woodcutter willing to make the trip and he hasn’t found any kitchen maids yet.”

“Maybe the other men have family looking for jobs,” Corec said.

Ellerie nodded. “And once the roads are clear and caravans are coming through, it’ll be easier to find workers willing to come here.”

“What was this place called, anyway?” Corec asked. “We can’t just keep calling it the old keep.”

“The Free Lands Trade Keep of Matagor,” Bobo said, “which is why no one ever used the name even before it was abandoned. The village was called Hilltop.”

“Hilltop Village is fine. I guess we’ll need to come up with a new name for the keep.”

#

Leena woke before dawn, kissing Ellerie’s forehead and slipping from the blankets they’d laid out in front of the fireplace. The room had a wooden bedframe, finally cleaned up and even polished, but it was still waiting for Boktar to return with straw, wool, and canvas to make new mattresses.

As the group had cleaned the keep, they’d had to throw out much of what had been left behind when Matagor abandoned it—not just the mattresses but also clothing, bedding, rugs, and woven wall hangings. After five decades with no fires being lit in the place, the dampness had gotten into everything. While Leena had been busy in Sanvar or running errands for her friends, Ellerie and the others had spent their time scrubbing away mold and mildew and getting rid of the musty smell which pervaded every room.

They’d cleaned the residential apartments first—six on the second floor and six more on the third, all set in the front half of the building so they could have small windows with a view of the bailey. Leena and Ellerie’s suite was on the third floor, overlooking the stables. The apartments were simple, consisting of just a sitting room and bedchamber. They hadn’t been designed for noble lords and ladies, but instead for the administrators, clerks, and military officers Matagor had stationed in this distant location.

Leena went out to the sitting room to get dressed, trying not to wake Ellerie, but the elven woman joined her before she finished.

“You’re leaving in the dark again?” Ellerie asked, her face illuminated by the mage light they’d left out overnight.

“The sun’s already up in Sanvara City,” Leena told her.

“I wish you didn’t have to be away for so long.”

“Five days of night duty, then I’ll be back to my normal schedule.” The empress’s cadre of Travelers worked five days on and one day off when they were part of the active roster, but two Travelers had to stay overnight in the capital on any given day in case the empress or the army needed to send out urgent messages. It meant Leena would have a lighter day shift than normal, to leave her with enough strength in case she was needed later.

“Well, don’t go yet,” Ellerie said, beckoning her over.

Leena grinned and went to her.

Half an hour later, with her hair mussed up again, she appeared in a room painted with patterns of green and blue circles. The same pattern repeated in the colorful tiled floor. It was the circle room at the Sanvara City Travelers’ Post. Each post had its own unique two-color designation, while the geometric patterns repeated across different locations. Sanvara City had the most rooms, at twelve, while some of the smaller Posts at the edges of the empire had only two.

The Travelers in the empress’s cadre had to memorize the signatures, patterns, and colors for each of the rooms at every post. The less energy their minds spent trying to find the correct spot, the more trips they could make each day.

Conserving energy had become more important since the attacks on the camps. The cadre normally held thirty-six of the strongest Travelers in all of Sanvar, with twelve active at a time, each working four months out of the year. Now, though, they were short-handed, with Leena bringing the number up to twenty-seven, but that included four who’d come out of retirement. They needed more people, but most Travelers weren’t strong enough to handle a full shift in the cadre. After three weeks, Leena was still getting used to the workload.

A short corridor led to a circular room at the center of the Post. The back half of the chamber was a single curved wall entirely covered with shelves labeled at regular intervals with Post names and color designations. Round message tubes and small packages were waiting above many of the labels.

A woman in a Zidari-style dress much like Leena’s own stood working behind a counter. A scrying orb rested on a small pedestal nearby.

“Good morning, Chaaya,” Leena said. “What’s my pattern today?”

“Triangle, but only for the morning,” the clerk replied. “You’ve been called to the palace this afternoon.” She handed over a formal invitation, but none of the details on the slip of paper made any sense, seemingly intended as shorthand for the bureaucrats who handled visitors.

“The palace? Why?” If someone at the palace had a message to go out, they’d have sent it to the Post. That likely meant an upper-level bureaucrat needed personal transport, but that would take a lot of strength—she shouldn’t be teleporting other people if she was on night shift.

“You have an audience with Empress Shereen.”

Leena drew in a sharp breath.

Chaaya saw her look of consternation. “It’s nothing to worry about. The empress meets with all the new Travelers.”

That might be true—Rohav and Pavan had both mentioned talking to the empress on occasion—but it wasn’t reassuring. Leena’s situation was different than the other Travelers. How much did Shereen know?

#

“Are you almost ready with the rabbit?” Shavala called back to the tavern’s small kitchen.

“You didn’t finish butchering it!” Katrin said in response.

“There wasn’t time. Just take some off the haunch and cut it into little pieces, and mix in some of the blood.”

“Blood?” Katrin poked her head through the doorway between the two rooms. “Why?”

“Dragons don’t drain their prey before eating it,” Shavala said.

Katrin wrinkled her nose but returned to the kitchen while Shavala watched the yellowish-white egg rock back and forth. The creature inside had been fully formed for days now, and when her elder senses had shown it moving around inside the shell that morning, she’d gone hunting. It had taken longer than she’d expected. The deer and cattle in the area had long since been chased off or eaten by the dragon, so she’d finally settled on a rabbit. Smaller creatures apparently hadn’t been of interest to the beast.

The rocking motion turned into more of a tapping, and a crack formed near the top.

“Hurry!” Shavala called out. “It’s starting to hatch!”

Katrin ran out of the kitchen and handed over a bowl. “Is this good?”

“The pieces need to be smaller,” Shavala said, grabbing her belt knife and getting to work. “The outlander told Zhailai that when the hatchlings are very young, mother dragons regurgitate their prey to feed them.”

“Regurgi—? Oh! That’s gross!”

“I’m not going to do it, but that’s why it needs to be so small. I’ll mix in some bone next time. I didn’t have time to grind it up safely.”

More cracks appeared and a section of shell broke off as the little dragon poked its snout through, making a quiet chirping noise—likely meant to attract its mother’s attention without alerting any nearby predators.

“It’s coming!” Katrin squeaked. She looked as if she wasn’t certain whether to stay or flee.

“It can’t hurt you,” Shavala said, cutting as fast as she could. “It’s just a baby. Get ready to catch it if it tries to run.”

“Me? Catch it?”

“I don’t know if it’s more like a bird or a lizard. If it’s like a lizard, it’ll be able to run as soon as it’s hatched.”

“But I—”

The egg split down the side, and the tiny dragon, which had been pushing against it, fell flat to the ground. It was the size of a large house cat, but with a longer neck and tail. Its mottled brown scales were darker along its back and its legs and lighter underneath. Its chirps took on a distressed tone as it struggled to move.

“I’m almost done,” Shavala said. “Will you help it up?”

Katrin tentatively touched her fingers to the creature before jerking back as if worried she’d be bitten.

“Oh, it’s warm,” she said. “And dry. I thought it would be wet.” She reached out again and carefully lifted the hatchling up to its feet, then supported it to see if it could hold itself up. When it did, she grinned in delight. “I touched a dragon! It’s so small!”

“I’m ready,” Shavala said, setting her knife to the side. “I’ll take it now.”

Katrin half-lifted and half-nudged the creature over to her. Shavala sat cross-legged and lifted it to her lap, then grabbed a few tiny pieces of rabbit from the bowl. She held her hand in front of the creature’s snout to see if it would open its mouth.

“It’s not hungry?” Katrin asked when it didn’t try to eat.

“Zhailai said the outlanders told her it would be, but maybe it’s more like a bird, and is still full from digesting the yolk sac.”

But then the dragon sniffed Shavala’s fingers and licked at the blood. She slipped a bit of meat into its mouth and waited. Had she cut it small enough? It swallowed and opened wide, squawking for more. She fed it one bite at a time until it chomped down on her finger.

“No!” she said. “Be good!”

She wiped her hand off on her tunic to make sure none of the blood was hers, then grabbed more meat from the bowl.

“Is it a boy or a girl?” Katrin asked.

“I can’t tell,” Shavala said. Dragons had cloaca like birds, but while she could identify the sex of an adult bird by looking at the plumage or using her elder senses, she wasn’t sure what to look for in a juvenile dragon.

The little creature lost interest in eating after getting through a third of the bowl. It curled up in Shavala’s arms and peered curiously at its surroundings.

“It’s cute,” Katrin said. “But how are you going to keep it from hurting anyone when it gets bigger?”

“I’ll train it, and … I don’t know,” Shavala admitted. “I’ll figure it out.”

Was she doing the right thing? Dragons were predators. Was this small creature’s life any more important than the life of the rabbit she’d killed to feed it? Was it more important than any of the hundreds of other animals it would hunt and kill over the course of its existence?

Predators ate prey—that was the way of life. Every ecosystem needed that delicate balance to survive, and predators had the right to live and follow their nature. But dragons weren’t part of the natural world. Did that change things?

Elves were predators too. Were elven lives more sacred than their prey? Elves were thinking beings, but that didn’t make them more important. It just meant they could choose to change their own nature. Perhaps in exchange for the dragon’s life, Shavala would stop hunting for herself. She wouldn’t be the first druid to give up eating meat.

It wasn’t an equal exchange, of course—the dragon would grow to be much larger—but it would mean something. And keeping the dragon under her supervision would allow her to see if it could learn to live in peace with people. Dragons were too dangerous to be allowed to roam free and unhindered, but for much of a dragon’s life, it wouldn’t go out of its way to kill a person. Shavala wanted to take that natural instinct and expand on it.

Watching the little hatchling as it slowly fell asleep in her arms, she could only hope she’d be successful.