A Ghost in the House of Iron

Chapter Twenty-One

My mother's chambers overlook the gardens, so it makes the most sense for me to come from east of the palace. The trick is finding a deserted enough street to take to the sky unseen. Even in a city full of wizards, flight isn't common. In my years living in the capital, I only saw armored Ironborn soldiers patrolling through the air a few times, when some major danger was reported and they were hunting it down. As far as I know, those kinds of spells are either extremely difficult or their use is strictly regulated. For me, flying has nothing to do with incantations and carefully measured components. I've got the heart of a sun dragon trying to burst out of my human skin. It is easier to fly nowadays than to keep my feet firmly on the ground.

In the northeastern corner of the city, where the walls surrounding the palace meet the even taller city walls, it is eerily quiet. The houses here are more like wooden sheds, ramshackle and stacked lopsidedly against the outer walls. Apprentice craftsmen or simple laborers sleep huddled inside the cramped quarters, lucky if they have a straw mattress of their very own. It would be too dangerous to have fires lit in stoveless dwellings such as those, so they'd probably wake up early to go to one of the workers' kitchens, where for a copper coin or two they could buy basic meals of rat-meat stew or boiled grain. My mother took me to one such place when I was young, to show me a glimpse at the life of the common people, who she thought would one day be my subjects. She wanted me to understand them better than my father did. To be able to see the world through their eyes.

The closest guard outpost to this corner of the city is by the forest gates, a couple blocks west along the palace wall. If I'm careful, and stay low, they won't see me fly up and over the wall, and I can use the forest beyond as cover in case someone in the city happens to be looking too closely up at the night sky.

What are you waiting for? Balsevor asks, clearly bored with my cautious surveillance of the surrounding streets. Let's just go already. Don't you want to see this mother of yours?

Part of me isn't sure, I realize. I'm full of nervous energy, muscles tensed and body restless. This is not how I wanted a reunion with my mother to be. I'm terrified of what I'll find when I finally reach her bedside. But if I don't go, and I never get the chance to see her again, it will haunt me for the rest of my life.

I bounce on the balls of my feet a few times, building courage, then on one particular jump I stay suspended in the air. I keep close to the wall as I launch quickly over it and soar into the thick canopy of the forest. I cannot see in the dark, but my eyes have adjusted enough to make out shadowy shapes of the trees around me, and I carefully navigate through them.

Balsevor dislikes the dark, which I've always found amusing. You'd think a powerful dragon would have superior vision than a human, but, as he loves to remind me, he is from the sun, and when its light is hidden behind our rotating planet, it unsettles him. As a creature born in an environment of searing plasma, he had no biological reason to adapt to such a cold and dark place. Regardless of his reasoning, it is comical for an ancient magical being to whine for the comfort of firelight in the middle of the night.

Careful! Balsevor grumbles as I get momentarily snagged on a thin and pointy branch.

"Oh, be quiet," I say under my breath. But I pull my long coat more tightly against my body, holding it there as we fly.

We head north for a while, past the sloping farmland nestled on the palace grounds. I judge the distance as best I can by memory, but what I forget is the crater. I slow down as the trees begin to thin out around me, flying lower so I can make out the small shapes of new growth dotting the area, like men standing huddled for warmth. And then they disappear, too, and there's just a deep black stain in the earth below me. Balsevor's grave. Not as huge and all-consuming as I recalled, but still a vast hole where forest used to be. I keep my eyes on it as we soar over, looking for some sign of the dragon's remains, a hint of glowing embers, a giant jutting bone. But there's nothing. Just darkness.