Page 11 of The White Dragon's Dilemma

“Hmmmm. Not in the aspirational way that Jahara is.”

“You’re just… a little scarier.”Caden grinned.

“Jahara would not actually be pleased by that,” Valerius said dryly.“At least, she wants her enemies to fear her and her friends to love her, though she has few of those.”

Caden cocked an eyebrow in surprise.“I know that she pretty much has instituted a matriarchy in her territory, and that took some violence in the beginning, but things are pretty peaceful there now, aren’t they?”

“They are, because she has an iron grip on her people as strong as Illarion does, but in a slightly different way,” Valerius explained. “She has more of a velvet glove over that iron fist.”

“Oh, that’s not what I expected,” Caden said.

“She does not trust people easily,” Chione remarked mildly, which really was mild.Jahara believed the worst of people, but, then again, she’d been given reason to by the nearest and dearest to her.

“Why?”Caden asked, his gaze flickering between him and Chione.

Their eyes met.How much to tell?Normally, Dragons were reticent about telling others of their creation stories.But each of them knew one anothers and Caden was now one of them.

Valerius said, “Her father bartered her to others to pay his debts.”

“Bartered?”Caden’s forehead furrowed and then cleared as horror crossed his face, “You mean sold her--her body to--”

“Yes.”Valerius frowned.Just talking of this angered him.What had happened to Jahara had left a mark that had not left her to this day.She had an antipathy towards men that was well earned. But she was suspicious and quick to suspect treachery from everyone.“But she was very smart and very patient.She slowly stole and hid the things she needed to escape her father and her abusers and for her to take her revenge.”

“How?What did she do?”Caden looked to be all huge eyes at that moment.

“One day, when her father went to town, she slipped her bonds and managed to elude her jailors,” Valerius explained, imagining her fleet-footed race on bare feet into the thick jungle, heart in her throat, eyes wide with adrenaline and fear as she looked for predators both animal and human.“Her father and three others tracked her, but what they did not understand was that she was tracking them in return.”

“Things did not go well for them, I take it?”Caden guessed.

“She used poisoned blow darts to take down three of the four men.Her father first,” Valerius explained dryly at Caden’s wince.“But the last man caught her.She is not a large person.She struggled, but physically, she was no match for him.”

“Please tell me that her Spirit found her then.”Caden’s eyes glowed for a moment with a white light much like his did when anger suffused him and Raziel surfaced.But Valerius’ eyes glowed red while Caden’s glowed white.

“Zephyra found her,” Valerius assured him.

“I can well imagine what happened to that guy attacking her.”Caden was grinning.

“Yes, you can.One of Zephyra’s abilities is to create a scalding mist.His meat was cooked on the bone,” Valerius explained.

“Oh, gross!Deserved but gross!” Caden twisted around to look at the fog bank that glowed of its own accord.He squinted and let out a gasp.“I see--see a line of cars?”

“Yes, Queen Jahara--unlikesome people--would not assume Dragon form in my territory without permission,” Valerius stated with a side-eye at Illarion, who pretended not to notice.

“So she’s able to use one of her gifts without shifting,” Caden mused.

“All of us can to a certain extent,” Illarion said, which surprised Valerius.The Green Dragon King held what gifts he had and could use very close to his chest.

“What can you do, Illarion?”Caden asked innocently.

Valerius met Illarion’s gaze.He shrugged at the Green Dragon King, basically telling him that he had opened the door now he had to decide whether to walk through the open doorway or have it hit him in the face.

“I can do… things,” Illarion muttered.

“Things?”Tez smirked, scenting a teasing moment appearing.

Illarion’s eyes narrowed at him.“Yes,thingsthat I will tell Caden at another time if I so choose and--”

“Telling him you have poison breath is hardly news” Tez pointed out. “I’m betting that’s all you can do.”

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