Within the Dragon's Jaw (The Dragon Thief Book 2) Read online

  Now Ty had to use her.

  There had to be some way.

  He searched through the room, working his way around the emptiness, and finally lifted the mattress.

  He stopped for a moment. There was a small, curved dragon remnant. A dragon claw. It was pale, as dragon remnants often were, though slightly warm, which was unusual. When he touched it, he had a strange stirring deep within him, as if there was a burning coming off of the dragon claw remnant.

  Was that why Albion had taken it?

  Ty suspected his brother had stolen the claw, but he wasn’t sure why or what he hoped to accomplish by having it. Then again, Albion had proven that he had some connection to dragon magic. A connection that seemed impossible for Ty to even believe, so perhaps the claw had been his Dragon Touched tool.

  He didn’t find anything else. He had hoped to come up with something more that his brother had left here, something to help him interpret the note that had been left for him.

  It had to be for him, didn’t it? There was no reason to believe he had left the note for anyone else, or for any other reason. It was for him and him alone.

  He took a seat on the small bed, pulling the note out and unfolding it. The symbols didn’t make any more sense here than they had in their home. There was nothing here that helped him understand it.

  There had to be some reason, though. The more that he stared at it, the more certain Ty felt that there was something there. He just had to figure out what it was. As he stared at it, the answers didn’t come to him.

  The door started to open and he looked up.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be here…” Ty started.

  Ty didn’t recognize the man who came in.

  He was dressed in a black cloak, the hood pulled up, and as soon as he stepped inside he pulled his hood back and his cloak away, revealing a crossbow.

  The man made a sudden movement toward Ty, who reacted quickly. With a jump, he twisted, driving his heel toward him. The man was quick, and he jerked away from his strike so that Ty almost missed him.

  He watched Ty, amusement glittering in his eyes. “Where is it? You came back here for a reason. Where is it?”

  “Maybe if you tell me what you’re looking for, I can tell you if I have it.”

  He was quick, and twitchy, so that there was something a little unsettling about the way he moved.

  “I will make your suffering brief if you hand it over.”

  “That doesn’t sound like something that a Priest of the Flame would say.”

  Ty had backed up almost to the bed and put the man in front of him, though even as he did he wasn’t sure that he was positioned in a way that would give him the time he needed to run.

  “You’re mistaken, then.”

  Ty frowned at him. “I’m not the one pretending to be a priest.”

  Ty watched him. He still wasn’t sure if the man was pretending or if he actually was one of the Priests of the Flame. Albion might be many things, including the Dragon Thief, but he believed that he was also a priest. Maybe there were others like him, others who were willing to steal on behalf of the priesthood.

  Ty darted for him, lowering his shoulder, but at the last moment, he sprang up.

  As Ty drove his fist up, the man swung off to the side. Ty had expected that. He had anticipated his movement, though he hadn’t been sure which direction he would choose. That he darted to his left was fortuitous.

  His other knee had swung up.

  He connected with the man’s chin and continued moving up with his knee, slamming into him until he collapsed.

  Ty dropped to the ground, panting slowly.

  He dragged him all the way inside, closed the door, and rolled him so that he could get his arms pinned behind him. Ty tore off a strip of fabric from his cloak and bound his wrists, then moved on to his ankles. He hoisted him, groaning under his weight, and tossed him on the bed.

  Ty reached for the dragon claw and held it out. He had his dagger, its blade unsheathed, pointing at his attacker, but the claw was curved, and seemed even sharper, if that was possible.

  “The two of us are going to have a little conversation,” he said. “And if you choose not to answer, you will face my friend here.” He took the dagger and dug it into the man’s leg.

  It drew a small welt of blood but elicited no other reaction from him.

  He stared at him. “That’s fine. You can be as strong as you want. It doesn’t change anything.”

  “You won’t get any answers from me,” he said.

  “Then you’re going to have more pain than you need to.” Ty dug the dagger into the man’s leg again. The way that he figured it, it was warranted, especially considering how the man had shot him. “Now… do you care to tell me who you are and who you’re working for?” The man said nothing. “You know your buddies tried to attack me already and failed.”

  Ty suspected this was all connected. The priests within the temple wouldn’t have targeted him like this.

  He took the dragon claw and jammed it into the man’s thigh, twisting it.

  The man didn’t even react.

  “I’m going to bring you down to the priests. I wonder how they will feel having someone pretending to be one of them parading through the temple.”

  The man glared at him, saying nothing.

  Ty shrugged again. “Fine. Then we’ll go.”

  He reached toward him, and the man kicked.

  Ty wasn’t ready for it and was caught in the chest, forcing him to stagger back.

  He brought his arms around, and Ty pulled his hands up, blocking, and forced him back a step. Here he was, his legs bound, his wrists bound, and somehow he still posed a threat?

  Ty backed toward the door.

  “Enjoy your stay,” he said.

  He darted toward the door, and though the man lunged toward Ty, he wasn’t quick enough. Ty grabbed the door, tossed it open, and stepped outside before pulling it closed. He jammed the dragon claw into the lock and pushed it. Surprisingly, the dragon claw started to glow, and it melted the metal of the lock.

  That was unexpected.

  He stood there for a moment.

  Ty had come here hoping to find answers from his brother, but instead of answers he had found more of the same danger.

  There were no answers in the temple.

  Chapter Eleven

  Ty started down the hall and hadn’t gone very far when he saw shadowy movements and then heard the sound of feet pounding along the stone. He raced toward the nearest staircase, the opposite direction that he needed to go, and hurried into it. He had started down when he heard someone below coming up.

  He swore under his breath. He had to go up.

  Where would he go?

  Ty didn’t know the temple that well. If he could find a priest, maybe he could use Albion’s name.

  He hurried up the stairs. Lanterns hung on the walls, shaped like Ishantil, glowing brightly with a vibrant flame.

  The next level was nothing like the last.

  Whereas the lower level was a long hall, with rows of doors leading off it, this was an enormous chamber filled with shelves, and resting on the shelves were books and dragon relics and all sorts of things that he once would have longed to steal.

  Many of the relics were made of obsidian, and as his gaze skimmed across them Ty recognize them as authentic. It was a trick his mother had taught him. There was something to true dragon relics that he could easily identify. Other sculptures could be made out of obsidian, but they didn’t carry the same qualities as the ancient relics did, those that were truly valuable and prized by the king. It was almost as if those relics had an energy to them.

  How many of these had Albion stolen?

  Ty hadn’t gone very far when he heard the sound of voices behind him.

  He didn’t have much time. Ty knew that. How long was the ceremony going to last? Too long, he suspected. It wouldn’t take much for his pursuers to come in here, find him, and then they wo
uld take the letter that Albion had left him. They might even be able to interpret what it said.

  The chanting drifted up from within the main part of the temple, surprising him that the sound would continue to rise all the way here. Ty paused for a moment, listening to it. At least he knew that the service still went on. When it ended, he would have to get moving. He couldn’t be caught here when the ceremony was over.

  He glanced at the shelves.

  Maybe his brother had intended for him to find something here.

  With all of the books around, it was possible he’d wanted him to find something in one of those, but where would he even start? Ty certainly wasn’t a scholar, and he didn’t have much experience researching in libraries, so figuring out where he needed to look wasn’t going to be very easy. Still, the answer had to be here somewhere.

  He wandered along the rows of books for a moment before he found a strange-looking object. It was spherical in size, reminding him a bit of a dragon pearl, and there were strange markings all along it. Not quite like the markings that his brother had written in the note to him, but enough that it made him wonder if they were similar.

  Ty took it off the shelf before turning it and holding onto it for a moment. It was a little heavy and warm, much like the dragon pearls. That couldn’t have been a coincidence.

  Ty started to turn, knowing that he didn’t have time to waste in here. It was only by chance that he had ended up on this level, anyway, chance and the pursuit that had come after him. He needed to get moving. Distantly, he could hear the chanting below fading.

  The ceremony was ending.

  As he started to leave, something caught his eye.

  It was golden and looked something like the dragon claw that he had just jammed in the door. He held the golden claw up, twisting it from side to side as he looked at it, but other than looking like it was made of gold it didn’t actually seem to be a real dragon claw.

  What was the point in that? Why would the priests have a fake dragon claw here? It didn’t make any sense, but then again when it came to things that the priests did he wasn’t sure that anything made a whole lot of sense.

  He paused in front of a massive painting depicting a map of the known lands, noting how Ishantil and the mountains rose to the north, separating their lands from the Lothinal. The steam swamps were marked in the south, and farther to the west he saw markers for the fire fields.

  Ty paused again, listening for the sound of the chanting deep beneath him, though he couldn’t hear anything. He shouldn’t stay here any longer. He didn’t know if the pursuers had found the man he trapped in his brother’s room. Voices came from the hall, though. Here he had thought to outrun his pursuers. That was a mistake.

  He looked down the hall, noting a man in a dark cloak that looked so much like the one he had trapped in Albion’s room. This one had darker hair whereas the other was thin and had light hair. There was another person standing alongside him with a cloak like the one of the person who’d jostled him coming into the temple.

  Ty jumped back, ducking behind the door. He wanted to close it behind him, but more than that he wanted to figure out why they were here. Maybe they knew that he was here. Maybe these were just priests heading where they normally would go.

  The priests came into the library.

  “I thought I saw something in here,” the dark-haired man said.

  “We need to find it quickly. We do not have the time that we once did. If we fail him…”

  Their voices became unintelligent for a moment, leaving Ty to wonder who they feared failing. A priest? The king?

  No. No one serving the king would have chased him like that.

  A niggling doubt in the back of his mind warned him that wasn’t exactly true. The Dragon Touched might. Roson James might.

  “He can’t evade us indefinitely. The fire should have chased him out of hiding.”

  They knew about the fire.

  Which meant they had to have been responsible.

  Not the Dragon Touched, but the priests. Or fake priests, whatever the case may be.

  “And if he finds it first?”

  The voices drifted down the hallway, leaving Ty unable to hear what they were saying. What would he find first?

  It had to do with the paper Albion had left him.

  Ty poked his head around the door, testing to make sure that they were truly gone before slipping down the hallway again. When he was convinced he was alone, he hurried to the end of the hall and then started down the stairs. He did so carefully and cautiously, moving quickly.

  It was only when he reached the bottom of the stairs that he started to relax. He slipped forward and reached the main part of the temple, noticing that everybody had already started to depart. There was no sign of the priests.

  “There you are!” a voice shouted behind him.

  Ty spun and almost kicked.

  It was Bingham.

  “Don’t startle me like that,” he snapped.

  “You disappeared. I thought you were going to”—he leaned close, looking around before lowering his voice—“go and see if your brother had anything in his room.”

  “I did, and then I had a visitor.” He looked around the inside of the temple, motioning to Bingham. “We should get going. We can talk about this outside.”

  He grabbed Bingham’s arm, pulling on him. He half expected Bingham to resist and was surprised when he didn’t, instead shuffling along the hall and away with him.

  They headed out, and it wasn’t until they were down the street and away from the temple that Ty finally let out a relieved sigh. He turned his attention back to the temple. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but the priests are involved. Well, I’m not sure what they are. Priests or not priests. They were talking about someone and about something Albion was supposed to find, and they needed to reach me, for whatever reason. They used the fire to try to get to me.”

  “Maybe you’ve got it wrong,” Bingham said.

  The temple rose overhead, the massive structure looming over the city, the glowing light of the Flame atop it calling out as if it were a promise of safety, though to Ty, it didn’t feel like one. He had never felt drawn to the temple, but now it felt like something else. Now it felt more like a threat.

  He took a deep breath and turned to Bingham. “Something’s going on within the priesthood. There are some within the church who aren’t who they say they are.”

  He started laughing, and Ty arched a brow at him. “You’re only now seeing that?” Bingham asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Given what happened with your brother, I figured that would have been obvious by now. Think about what you’ve dealt with, Ty. Think about what your brother did. Of course there’s something going on with the church. There probably always has been. They battle with the king and those who serve him for supremacy.” He shrugged. “And we, situated as we are out here on the outskirts of the kingdom, so close to Ishantil, feel it more acutely than others. Elsewhere within the kingdom, they serve the Flame, but they don’t serve it nearly as they do here. There’s a balance we have to strike.”

  “This is more than just a balance,” Ty said.

  Ty stared into the city, toward the palace, then his gaze drifted toward Ishantil.

  This was more than just a balance, much like he had said to Bingham. He wasn’t exactly sure what it was. Albion had left him something, though. The note meant something, and he had to figure out what it was.

  All along, Ty had been thinking that he would have to steal some dragon relics, bargain his way to Albion.

  What if this letter was his way to get to him?

  Chapter Twelve

  Ty clutched the letter as he sat on the outskirts of the city. It was unusual for him to come here. Unusual mostly because he didn’t necessarily feel a connection to this part of the city, at least he had never thought that he would, but ever since Ishantil had nearly erupted, he had a very different feeling about t
his area and his place within it. Perhaps that had to do with his brother and the role that he had played in what had taken place, a role that Ty still didn’t fully understand, but it was a role that he increasingly thought that he needed to learn.

  A figure separated from along the street’s crowd, scarf wrapped around his head, but the muscular build told him all that he needed to know about who it was. Eastley plopped down on the grass next to Ty.

  “I followed you,” Eastley said.

  “Why?” Ty folded the paper up again, stuffing it into his pocket. There was no point in showing the document to Eastley. He didn’t really know what he would find with it. Probably nothing.

  “Because I have a feeling that you and Bingham are caught up in something dangerous.” Eastley looked over to him. “You don’t have to tell me about if you don’t want to. By the Flame, Ty, it’s not like I’m trying to steal some job from you. The last job we did was…” As he trailed off, Eastley—all massive, muscular form—wrapped his arms around himself and shivered slightly. “I know what the last job was like.”

  Ty glanced over. They hadn’t talked much since Eastley had been freed. Not nearly enough. “I’m sorry. After they let you free, I guess…”

  “You don’t have to say anything,” Eastley said.

  “I think I do. It’s my fault. You went into the palace with me—”

  “I went into the palace to score the prize. Not for you.” He held Ty’s gaze for a long moment, his eyes blazing with irritation. “But you didn’t have to do what you did for me.” Eastley glanced up the mountain, before turning and looking out over the city. He took a deep breath, letting it out with a heavy sigh, and then shook his head. “She told me what you did.”

  He glanced over to Eastley. “She being Olivia?”