The Dragon's Rogue

Chapter 14

I paced the small room I had been given, picking at the cream blouse as I moved. Shelves surrounded me, and a nice sturdy worktable. One that I didn't have to crouch or find a tiny stump to use.

Pale light streamed down through an ingenious vent system, which I had checked out thoroughly. It was lined with mirrors, allowing the sun to reflect in from somewhere outside. So that even though the room was windowless it appeared sunny and bright. The white stone that formed the construction for this aerie reflected the light too. A much more pleasant space, than the corners of my tent in the forest.

On the shelves lay piles of empty clay vessels. Vessels I was to fill with poison.

I frowned.

I had been unaware that Scet had reported my part in the battle with the creature already. He might not have stuck around afterward, but the damage was done. The Archon wanted the poison, especially if it had the effect of stalling the possessed Shifters. Not that I could blame him, it was wise to take any advantage possible against this new foe.

The trouble was, did I want to make it?

I barely knew these lords, or this aerie. And what I had seen of the race from my own beginnings hardly spoke well to supplying them with more powerful weapons. The poison would do even greater damage to an unpossessed Shifter, if they used it against my kind. Plus it went against every single aspect of pack code. Never, ever was it alright to give such weapons to those outside the pack. In fact, great lengths had been gone to throughout history to keep such powerful, balance changing advancements secret. And combined with their physical advantages the poison could be balance changing.

But I wasn't really pack anymore.

I sighed and rubbed my aching forehead. I didn't really know what I was anymore. But I would make the poison, as the Archon requested. People were dying, Shifters were dying, horribly, and there was not time for waffling over old laws.

A noise in the hall stopped my pacing, Cillumn, at last, delivering my satchel. I had everything within to begin constructing poisons.

Only the footfalls and light murmuring did not stop at my door, they continued past.

"If we had retrieved the orb things would be different," someone muttered. A male someone, with clean precise words.

A soft sound was made in response.

The door to my workroom was cracked slightly open, no one but Cillumn and the Archon knew I was there, and Cillumn had assured me he would be right back. Actually, he had suggestively mentioned that his own room was quite close and urged me to come along with him to retrieve the satchel. But after his words in the audience chamber I felt it prudent to stay a very long distance from his room, and anywhere else there might be a bed. I had, instead, elected to stay in the workroom, alone with my thoughts.

But it turned out I wasn't quite alone. Feeling odd, and a little guilty for secretly standing in my own space while others were unaware of me, I crept toward the door, intending to snick it shut. I was not snooping, but if I were to be discovered hovering where I was undetected it might seem as though I was.

"Fools we were, to think that idiot Celcath had discovered one."

The second voice I recognized, it was the oddly rasping tone of the Aerie's medic. It wasn't surprising to hear his voice, considering my workroom was simply an unused part of the medical wing. But he was obviously unaware of my presence.

I was nearly to the door, moving slowly, hoping to close it without being noticed. I probably didn't need to use so much caution; the senses of the Dragon Lords were not nearly as refined as those of Shifters, not their physical senses anyway. And I had learned as a young child to shield my emotions and presence. Still, I couldn't help but feel as though I was the one intruding. Should I say something? Or maybe make a noise loud enough to suggest my presence?