While Shea and Marion spoke with Jason, who repeatedly repelled the smallest notion that he somehow was Torvin’s successor, Quil continued with Amaya’s interrogation. Thanks to Joyce he already knew that Jason and Amaya shared some sort of connection and power in their fire, in addition to both being fire hatchlings that, best he could guess, transformed into their natural form piece by piece instead of at once. How that all came to be would likely remain a mystery until they searched the Old Country for answers, but learning of her past and how she came to be a fire hatchling could be learned and were needed now.
“From what I could hear it seems you likely already had your suspicions or you already knew when you woke, fire hatchling,” Quil interrogated. He would not hesitate or be as easily distracted as Shea had been. He was an Advisor and the largest part of his job was to gather information, no matter where or how it was stored.
For Amaya, being interrogated was a routine thing which she let show in her casual approach to Quil’s implication that she already knew about them before she woke up in this damp, cold place, “Suspicions. I’m a quick learner and the kid over there confirmed it. I take it he’s probably around a week old, dragon wise anyways. I’m just a little baffled how you all were caught by surprise by something as basic as when fire hatchlings grow scales. He clearly could have used the warning,” she chided, still laughing to herself.
“And I’m a little baffled as to why you think it is summer,” Quil calmly retorted, not missing her comment earlier.
Amaya squinted her eyes, confused, “Why wouldn’t it be summer? We must be ridiculously far north, but it was summer last I checked. Though I have to admit it’s impressive that the chamrosh haven’t found you yet.”
From what Amaya’s comment about the chamrosh, Quil could tell that she believed she had already figured out where they were at, which she thought was the mostly barren tundra north of Avonous called the Glacial Expanse. To the humans, it was considered inhospitable, but to dragons and other the creatures like them, it was the Griffin Clan’s and Chamrosh Pack’s territories. While griffins, half lion and half eagle, were a fairly well-known creature who mostly resided in and around the cliff-sides near the border of Avonous and Torvis, the lesser known chamrosh, similar to griffins but were half wolf and half raven instead, lived the pockets of the wooded lowlands further north that were surrounded and protected from the reckless cold by high mountains. They often were inaccurately described as being similar to the woods that they stood in right now, but Quil had personally been to the chamrosh’s forests, preventing yet another war between the two hotheaded northern groups. With firsthand knowledge, he knew that even in summer there would still be snow on the ground, no broad, leafy trees and sparse gatherings of hardy ground foliage, not the abundant moss, fungi, and ferns they walked through here. Without her having been there, interrogating Amaya would likely go easier unless she was bluffing to pull out information about where they really were. So he decided to play along with her first guess and see who she responded.
“You’re well-traveled too I see. We currently have a truce with the chamrosh and so they granted us sanctuary,” Quil calmly replied, formulating an alternate story for their circumstances.
“Impressive, are those the skills of an Advisor then?” Amaya asked.
Quil had made no attempt to hide his position, it was a benefit to him if she knew what his job was and it would make it her reactions more predictable, “Only a small part of them. Though I also hear that the Layan’s can be quite persuasive as well, if by other means.”
Amaya’s face froze for a second at the mention of the Layan’s, before she quickly cast it off and tried to play coy, but with notable difficulty, “Yeah, I’ve heard. Not exactly the kind of people you want to be on their bad side.”
Quil dug into his pocket and pulled out a piece of the ripped up gown she had been wearing with the Layan family’s crest of a wave and a pearl embroidered in silver on the rich purple cloth and held it noticeably out to Amaya, but still hidden from the others, “I think you know of their methods in more than passing rumors.”
Amaya lunged toward Quil who did not flinch or tried to move. She only grabbed the cloth from his hand, quickly hid it in the pocket of her cloak and whispered to him, “Why do you have this?”
Quil remained calm, “So that no one else would.”
Amaya took a moment to think, “…Why?”
“I’m an Advisor, it is my job to gather information,” Quil replied coolly.
“And hide it?” Amaya pressed.
“Would you prefer that the others knew your family name too?”
“No! It’s…it’s not my family name!” Amaya had started to panic.
“Then explain how a girl from the streets was able to obtain a garment that is traditionally is only passed down to the female heirs of the Layan House, how she came to be fire hatchling and why she was in the northern parts in the first place,” Quil steadily stared at her, waiting to see how she would respond.
It took a moment but finally, Amaya spoke up, but in a hushed tone asking, “Will you keep what I say a secret like you did the garment?”
“Yes. This does not concern the others, for now. The garment you were wearing strongly ties you with the Layan’s and given your history with us, I have to be cautious. But if I had thought you truly were a threat to us, you would already be dead. That is the only comfort I can give.”
Amaya pursed her face and let out a small breath, conceding to Quil’s questions, “…Alright. If I don’t tell you I figure that kid’s mom will kill me anyways. First I’m not lying when I say Layan is not my family name. It’s Auster, a large family in the Southern Alliance. I was to be married to one of the Layan sons about three years ago to help my family establish ties in Avonous where my father was expanding his influence. It was all business as usual.
“I’d been in Avonous for about a year, the Layan household was at least kind enough to allow the brothers to court me rather than completely arranging it since the two eldest already were married. The youngest one, Hunter Layan, had decided to take me to Dawnbraught for their summer festival, but on the way there a horde attacked us…he left me to die. I would have, except this dragon, covered in thick, black scales and boney plates, killed them all off, but I was already infected. I guess he took pity on me since he looked like he was going to leave but decided to share his fire with me instead.
“Next thing I knew he was gone and I was left in the woods, but somehow I had gone from being or I guess looking like I was twenty-two to a fourteen-year-old. And after that, my scales, wings, claws, and tail showed up, I kept spitting up fire and anytime I got near a human settlement it reeked so bad it made me sick. It took another year of living in the woods to control it all enough to live in around humans in Densai. I was actually about to trade in that dress, a small piece of that fabric is worth more than most horses so I had saved it and planned on cutting it up later. So I was going to buy some new clothes, supplies and stuff, and make my way back to the Southern Alliance when Densai was attacked by a horde, but it was the freakiest horde I’d ever seen.”
Amaya stopped. She was clearly afraid to speak about what had happened, but Quil had more than a hunch of what this horde was like, “If you’d allow me to guess, this horde didn’t run rampant and seemed like it was, intelligent. Hunting for something.”
Amaya nodded, “Yeah…they were looking for me.”
“…But you escaped.”
“I…I don’t know. The last thing I remember was this huge dragon with black wings lit up by veins filled with fire and covered in scales that were rough, glowed and cracked, like glass that got too hot and shattered over coals. It dropped from the sky on top of me, pinned me to the ground with its claws and shot this big blast of greenish-bluish fire at me. After that, I’m guessing you guys must have found me. Otherwise there isn’t anything else.”
“And why do you think we are in chamrosh territory?” Quil would have Joyce use her power later to confirm Amaya’s story and he trusted that she would know that Amaya’s connection to the Layan’s was to be kept secret until it needed to be known. But first, he needed to decide for himself, as he normally did, whether she was lying or hiding anything.
“Originally I had thought this was near Dawnbraught, but the temperature is too cold and that place is packed in the summer. But in Densai I heard a couple of travelers complaining about the chamrosh, how cold it was where they lived and that it was hard to travel there except in the summer. I think they must have been dragons too since they didn’t smell awful and none of the others that came through there had ever mentioned the chamrosh, only the ice, and tundra. That was a few months ago, March or so.”
“Was there anything odd about what the travelers said?” Quil asked.
“Well if you nix the whole chamrosh part, the guy that was listening to the gal doing most of the talking looked like he wanted to laugh or something, but I didn’t get what was funny,” Amaya said with a shrug.
Thankfully for Amaya she gave Quil just what he needed. It was over a year ago when he had been sent to calm the chamrosh and griffins over another Advisor named Gloria, decided to take it as an insult and flew away from Torvis in a huff. When Quil got back he found out that she had been boasting about being chosen for the difficult task, but after it had been given to Quil, she made up that it was too difficult to travel outside of the summer months and that was why she had not left. The way an Advisor acted was always a direct reflection of the Monarch they represented and served, and the Monarch she served had dealt with one too many childish reactions. Now she works as an assistant in the back of the Torvis Archives until her mannerisms genuinely improved.
With Amaya, it seemed to Quil that whatever Jason had done to revert her back to her normal state had also reverted her memories back to when she had most likely become a Plagued. But her description of the dragon deeply bothered him. Nowhere had he read or heard of a dragon like that. Course Amaya’s Plagued form had been altogether new as was Jason’s other form and there was no way of knowing if the archives in the Old Country held any knowledge until he found them. And there was still what Joyce had said when Amaya had attacked, that Amaya was, or had been a willing traitor. For now, he planned to keep to himself most of Amaya’s past and would cross-reference the two dragbeast attacks with Jason from when he was in the King’s Guard.
Amaya looked down and anxiously gnawed at her lip while she waited for Quil to make a decision. So Quil gathered his thoughts and replied, “For now you can travel with us and I will keep your history with the Layan’s between us and my apprentice who will validate your story along with the High Court Truthseekers in Torvis. Otherwise, consider this a probationary period. You are to obey everything we tell you and everything you do will be under scrutiny. Is this understood?”
Amaya nodded as the tension she had been holding in her posture eased, “Yes.”
“Good. Now, do you have any questions?”
Amaya looked over at Jason, who was now absent-mindedly scratching, unsuccessfully processing what Marion and Shea had told him, while the others were either talking quietly amongst themselves or watching her and Quil intently, “Yeah, I’m kind of getting the feeling that he became a dragon is similar to me and I’m guessing that…it’s not normal.”
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