Aliya's life was turning out to be very strange lately. It had all started when she'd been starving. No one would help her and she was too scared to go to the brothel where her mother had sometimes made money. The man who ran that place scared her and she didn't trust him at all.
She knew it was wrong, her mother had always taught her that stealing was wrong, but she had been so hungry. That one little roll of bread was all she could see. It took up the entire range of her vision and before she knew it herself she'd picked it up. It was at this moment that the baker noticed her. His yell of outrage had scared her so much she'd bolted.
Looking back she could barely recall what events had led to what. There were people everywhere for some reason, she could barely get through the streets, but then again neither could the baker.
She'd finally seen an opening in the crowd and was going to bolt across this clearing and disappear into the crowd on the other side, but the baker had almost caught her. In her desperation and confusion, she'd ended up running into a table. Why was there a table in the middle of the city street?
It wouldn't be until much later that she would realize she hadn't been in the street but was in the square and that this day was the day the noble children lined up to touch the dragon eggs.
At the time she wasn't thinking about any of that, she could barely think at all. She'd turned her back to the table, dizzy, but looking for a place to run to next. It had all happened so fast. She was paralyzed. Her body was on fire. It had hurt like nothing she'd ever experienced, but when it was over it was over. The pain left her body and a new existence was sharing space in her mind. She'd looked behind her and seen the most beautiful creature.
It was a boy, she knew that instantly, and it was the color of a polished pearl. She'd only ever seen a pearl hanging from a rich merchant's earring before. She'd only seen the dragonling for a moment before her body gave out.
It wasn't until much, much later that she found out that the man who came to visit her after the Emperor had been the one who'd kept her from cracking her head open on the road. He was a nice man, she didn't know how else to put it. As much as the man who ran the brothel made her afraid this man made her feel safe. It was a very strange feeling for her because her mother had taught her specifically never to trust strange men.
He was a stranger but he didn't feel strange. She felt warm and comfortable inside when he was near, even when they didn't know what to say, she still felt that way. Kilnik also felt that way, but the way he thought about the man was more complicated and a bit beyond Aliya's understanding.
What Aliya was able to understand when Kilnik spoke of Tate was that he liked the man very much and seemed...almost in awe of him. He kept saying how "powerful" Tate was over and over again. When Aliya had asked him what he meant, Kilnik had simply said. "He just feels like he has the strength of a dragon, I want to be his friend."
Now it's like time had sped up and she was now going on a long trip with this man, she'd been told that he was taking her to a secret place for her protection. It would be a lie if she said the thought didn't make her uneasy. No matter if someone felt trustworthy or not, how could she throw away her sense of self-preservation, of being suspicious of everyone, to just blindly follow? She wasn't stupid, she knew who the Emperor was, and she knew he was the most powerful man that existed. She knew that his sending her away meant she had no choice. He could have sent her to her death, or to work hard labor and she wouldn't have had a choice. She was just another number in the Empire, the only reason he'd taken notice of her was the dragonling she'd hatched.
As overwhelmed, and although she would never admit it, scared, as she was about the future she did have to wonder. Would she be alive right now if it weren't for what happened? Maybe she wouldn't have died right away, but what would have happened if and when the baker caught her? Would he have beaten her, would she have been able to move or find food then?
As she rode the horse in front of Tate she'd fallen asleep thinking about these things. Her mind was full of turmoil and stress. The worst part was that Kilnik had been a large part of her keeping it together as much as she had been able to, but he was sealed away in a basket! Her sleep was troubled and light. Even though Tate's chest behind her was large and warm she couldn't get really comfortable, her neck rested at an odd angle no matter how much she drowsily shifted.
In her half-asleep stage, a question came to her fuzzy mind. It was a question she'd had since first meeting him and she'd meant to ask him this morning but when faced with leaving she'd been too nervous and had forgotten about it entirely.
Where was his dragon? She knew he had one, he had dragon rider marks. She had never seen him with one and he had not talked to her about his dragon in the few times they had spoken. Why wasn't his dragon coming? Her mind wandered along this path in a daze of sleepiness until she jerked awake. She must have finally fallen deeply asleep because her heart pounded but she felt murky and dull. She must have made a noise because Tate had put his hand over her mouth and they went off-road. He told her to be very quiet and she tried her best.
Her heartbeat thundered in her ears and her nerves tumbled over and over until she felt like she was going to throw up. She heard the voices coming and saw them coming up the road. They didn't look their way but Tate sharply inhaled and she got the feeling he recognized them in some way. Aliya had no idea who they were, but they looked like the kind of men her mother had warned her over and over again to avoid at all costs. They wore decent clothes in dark colors and they had a lot of weapons. Her mother had told her that men who dressed darkly and carried lots of weapons were not to be trusted. She said that they would do one of two things if they caught a young girl alone, they would kill her or make her wish she was dead.
Aliya didn't fully understand what this meant and she didn't want to know. She just hoped they moved on quickly. Her hopes were dashed when she heard what one of them said. "Kill the girl and steal the baby dragon."
Her heart dropped. They were after her? She knew that the Emperor had been afraid of people wanting to kill her, but that hadn't seemed real. Now her blood turned to ice and she began shivering in Tate's arms. She wanted to run away, she wanted to get out of there, but Tate held her tightly against him.
Her fear was so great that she started crying, Tate covered her mouth again to keep her from making noise. She tried to stop herself but all she could picture in her mind was the different ways the swords, the axes, and the knives she saw could cut her head from her body.
Tate was so tense behind her that he felt like a living rock. She tried so hard not to make any noise but she was terrified that she was going to make them look at her.
The sound of a branch breaking made her heart leap into her throat.