Page 31 of Ale Storm

“Yes, that.”

“I’ve got a drawing to send along with my letter.” Rylana held up the envelope she’d already sealed. “I would be afraid to post something magical. What if it exploded or started shooting deadly rays while in the pack of a poor messenger carrying the parcel on the back of a donkey?”

“Judging by how much detail you put into describing that scenario, you’ve already imagined it.”

“Maybe not exactly, but similar concerns are why I haven’t given the horn to my brother. Though I wouldn’t mind getting it off my hands.”

“Hence why you’ve tied it to your chest.”

“I thought about throwing it in the lake.” Rylana had considered that numerous times the night before while she’d been cleaning the storeroom.

“And yet…” Sylin extended her hand toward the horn.

“And yet.” Rylana shrugged, not certain why she was hesitant to discard it. Maybe because she didn’t want a bunch of shifty dwarves to get it.

“You could do some independent research on it. Maybe it’s mentioned in a dwarven history tome in the university library.”

“I do enjoy research. I’m hesitant to leave the diner for long though.”

“Are your ledgers in an execrable state?”

“No, but a new dragon came by this morning. Jildarin walked off with her, was gone an hour, and, when he came back, he was pensive and didn’t say much. He went to the kitchen to start preparing for the lunch service.”

“Was it a female dragon? Not one of the sisters, I assume, or you would have said so.”

“I hadn’t seen her before. He called her… Killaynia, I think it was.”

“Was she beautiful?”

“They’re all beautiful when they take human form. Or, in this case, elven form. They seem oblivious or indifferent to what our peoples like and value, but they all know how to make themselves sexy.”

“A dragon would probably think it beneath him or her to take an unappealing form.” Sylin pointed at a sign for the post office, and they turned off the waterfront street to jog uphill.

“She didn’t glare daggers in my direction, so I’m telling myself not to worry about it. If she was another threat I needed to watch out for, Jildarin would have warned me. And ordered me to stay close to him.”

“Something that’s probably easier to do when you know where he is. How’d he miss the arrival of the fire-breathing sisters last night?”

“I didn’t get the full story, but I think he might have been proving himself to my father. Or trying. That’s not something my brother or I ever managed to do.”

“Your father must think favorably of you if he wants you to take over the family business.”

“He just wants me to work in it, not take it over. The last I heard, when my cousin visited, was that he’s hoping I’ll marry someone appropriate and have smart babies who grow up academically and entrepreneurially inclined. Then one of them could take over the business.”

“Is a dragon appropriate?”

“I... don’t know. I’m fairly certain we couldn’t have offspring though.” Rylana recalled Captain Tassani sharing a story of an elf ruler in the deep past who’d been part dragon, but that had sounded more like a legend than historical fact.

“Not without involving magic, no. And possibly test tubes and laboratories.”

“Romantic.”

“Practical.”

“It’s a little early to talk about offspring,” Rylana said. “We haven’t even had sex yet.”

“Which makes the use of laboratories even more practical.”

“Is it strange that I’m happy you didn’t leave me to go south to assume your role as elf princess?”