All Chapters of Called by the Dragon: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

Anzi didn't care about seniority. What she did care about was authority, and Bastien had none over her. He was neither an officer nor did he hold some bloated rank in the court of the Emperor's power, and his only purpose here was to acquire dragons for her. An old man with a young face who fancied himself an innovator, a laughing jester who thought himself so high above everyone else just because he had been gifted with immortality obtained from dragons.And where was his dragon, anyway? It was clear enough that he 'owned' one, as he would say, since he always made sideways mentions of it. And he'd never credited his longevity to anything but that, either. So where was his dragon partner; what noble creature was so unlucky to be bonded to a man like Bastien? She ached for whoever it was, felt their pain as real and sharp as if she could see them shackled and bound before her very eyes. To all the burning, dark hells with him. He might have gotten away with t

Anzi didn't stay at the palace. She returned only for a quick bathing and a woolen blanket that one of the palace maids had left in her room some days back as the weather took a turn for the frigid. With that, she departed again, flashing the vouch letter that she kept on her person at all times. She rolled it back up after it passed inspection with the gate guard, who didn't seem to recognize her."It's too late to go through the gate, it'll wake up everyone with the tremors. Go up the wall and they'll show you how to get down."She nodded and followed the direction of his pointed finger. The guardhouse wasn't far; she had already been expecting to be sent there. For officials and important guests, of course the stone golems could open the rumbling gates in the middle of the night, but for a single soldier? Never. Maybe if she'd revealed the sleeping Netra-hau inside the bundled blanket in her arms and informed the guard who she was, he wouldn't have hesitated to affo

"How are you feeling?"Anzi needn't have asked. Letti's sunken eyes and inability to get up when she had entered was indication enough, but on the other hand, she looked far better than she had before. Just yesterday, there had still been hints of bruises around her arms, but they were now as pale as ever as they lay folded on her chest over the sheets. Indeed, she looked almost at ease if not for the more obvious signs of her condition, and the harem girl sent her a beaming smile so sweet that it hurt her heart. Too bubbly by far for someone who could have died just a few days earlier."Anzi! You're here.""I was here yesterday, but you were sleeping." She grasped the back of the wooden chair by the wall and dragged it over on its back legs to Letti's bedside before taking her seat on it. "You don't look well, but you look better, at least."The girl clucked her tongue at her. "Never tell a lady they don't look well," she scolded. "That's just another wa

Anzi's chin jerked up when the Emperor grabbed a fistful of her hair, but when another blow smashed across her ribs, she doubled over again with a loud wheeze and stumbled back against the pillar once more. She didn't get the chance to straighten up on her own before a fist came crashing into her face in a swooping upward arc, the force of it so great that it lifted her off her feet and sent the back of her head crashing against the stone. She didn't know if her skull had caved in, but oh, it felt that way as she gasped for air past the thick streams of blood dribbling from both nostrils as well as her mouth. She knew the skin on the back of her head had broken as well; a wet sensation spread across the rear of her scalp and began to clump her tresses."You're still standing, so that's a good sign. They did tell me you're a hardy one."She didn't know what he hit her with this time. A punch, a kick, it could have been either, but it was so fast that her eyes interprete

Of course the healers were inadequate. Making excuses that her injuries were too extensive and serious for her to possibly get up and move around on her own anytime soon, and claiming she needed to waste several more days lying in bed and doing nothing at all - these were supposed to be the best in all the Imperial City? Anzi scowled at their efforts, and it was the only time she wished that she were surrounded by those more adept in magic.Damn them. She had expected to be back on her feet today. Experienced healers, her foot. Four days! Four days even with her preternaturally strong constitution, they said, and all that time, she was going to have to rely on someone else to care for Netra. Whoever was responsible for the task had not revealed themselves, nor had they brought the dragon to her. But she couldn't be surprised. Netra was probably terrorizing them according to her ways and would scarcely be manageable to toted around by strangers.All the more reason that

Every part of Anzi's body still ached, but she had no regrets about remaining firmly grounded in her own body last night. After Kai told her that it was her doing and not his, she made sure to remain especially vigilant so that she wouldn't make the same mistake again. Her? Wanting to see him? If that was what he thought, then she was only too happy to prove him wrong. From now on, she would stay well away from him and deal with this on her own. If things became so dire that she needed his help, or that of his strange distance-healing magic, at least, she would consider compromising - but as it was, it would be suspicious if she recovered too quickly. Especially since she strongly suspected the Emperor had instructed the physicians to delay her recovery, too.She could never let him discover the extent of Kai's magic. If she were ever forced to ally with him against the Emperor, she needed his advantages to remain a surprise. Tet was strong, stronger than she was. If sh

She had talked.When was anyone going to tell Anzi that not only did dragons speak, but they could also barge into someone's mind to do so? She had always thought there was a special bond between a dragon and its partner that would allow for some kind of special communication, but firstly, she had assumed all such communication would be something more instinctive and primal, and secondly, she had dashed away all such suspicions when she learned that riders enslaved their dragons rather than bonding with them.How could she have known that she was right all along - or at least half-right? Bastien had said nothing about this, certainly. Or was it possible that this had only happened because her relationship with Netra was so different? Was it because Anzi treated her with the respect and dignity due to another living being, one that thought and felt and deserved more than the future it had been promised?Or maybe it was something else entirely. What was i

Surprisingly, Netra remained soundly asleep as Anzi carried her in her arms all the way down to the palace courtyard. The hatchling was an enthusiastic sleeper, but not a heavy one, and she typically screeched at disturbances that dared wake her from her post-gorge slumber. Not today, however, and that was a turn of good fortune: Anzi dreaded to think what might happen if the colonel realized that Netra could speak. It was better this way.The man was waiting for her on top of his dragon already when she arrived. As she crossed the remaining distance over the grass, the enormous creature extended her wing and blanketed the ground with a rumbling, leathery sound. The clinking of heavy scales made Anzi's hair stand on end, and although she never slowed her stride, her gaze fell away from the colonel's stern face to land on his dragon's instead.What a truly massive leviathan. Her twelve meter body lay flat on the grass, but the relaxed stance did nothing to make the drag

Before departing, Anzi had changed into lightweight desert garb in anticipation of boiling heat, but the sunlight that streamed down over her was more comforting than hot. It had been a long time since she had last trekked this far into the desert, although this wasn't anywhere near the true deep sands at all. They'd gone no more than twenty kilometers, roughly, and the stallion was still trotting comfortably over the dunes with no signs of tiring. Large, fanned ears flicked this way and that, and over Anzi's head, the creature's long, tufted tail did the same, providing both of them shade.Captain Gorien had been telling the truth: this stallion was a remarkable specimen. Well-trained, intelligent, strong, and possessing even greater stamina than its kind typically had. Anzi was sure they could go another twenty kilometers before they had to stop for a rest, and that only because of her own limitations, not the sand horse's.Then again, her bruises felt far less uncom

Anzi lasted all of three more hours before her spite-fired endurance ran out. Searching for dangerous serpents in the Adaraat's sands with not a hint of a scale or tail around was fast becoming torturous. She wanted to go back. Netra would definitely be awake now, and she would getting hungry. Anzi had already guessed that Bisset wouldn't lift a finger to feed her and had asked the guard on duty to tend to her instead, but she dreaded to think what the colonel might do if the hatchling irritated him with her insistent screeching in the meantime....She should go back, but she hadn't decided whether to report the encounter with the old witch crone in her head along with the information that something had triggered the migration and swarms yet. Should she? But if she did, that would be one more reason for Bisset and everyone else to keep an even closer eye on her. She didn't want to attract more attention. She needed to blend in.Yet if she didn't report the incident, sh