Rylen waited in a dim ally. He felt like he was doing something bad, but it wasn’t uncommon for people to stand about in alleyways out of the flow of traffic. Besides, he was waiting for Pahanna to return with word from Zufa. He knew the barrel had been delivered, so where was their order? They would run out of nuts within the next couple of days. They were already out of fresh fruits.

Well, technically, he was doing something bad. He was selling illicit wares. Not to mention he was using a boy to help him fence it.

The thought made him pause. He could go to jail for this. Flames, if the barrel had ever been found in their store, Hyrestl would have gone to jail too, and possibly also Pahanna or even Leyla and the waitresses.

He took a breath. The barrel had always been there, it had felt like he was just moving another keg. Of course, he had taken a bit of colored cloth to cover up the writing on the side. It also looked more like a present that way. He’d rearranged the barrels in the storeroom and put one directly where the Blood Harvest Brew had been.

He tapped his foot impatiently. Where’s Pahanna? He should have been back by now.

The sounds of quick footsteps on stone echoed from the other end of the dim ally. Rylen turned and put his hand to his money pouch. He had never had his money stolen before, but Hyrestl had taught him how to guard against attempts.

Pahanna ran up, panting. “Hey, Rylie! He says he sent your order with the people who delivered the barrel to him.”

Rylen frowned. “So, with the scribes? With Leyla?”

“Yeah.”

He hadn’t expected that. He turned his mind to the implications, and didn’t like where they were leading. He cleared his throat.

“Pahanna, I should be fine by myself now. They’ll need help for lunch too, so you’d better hurry.”

The boy nodded enthusiastically and ran off.

Rylen reluctantly pushed himself off the wall he’d been leaning against and started for the temple. If anyone knew where their order had gone, it would be Leyla.

He snuck in through the back way and said hello to the guard there. He kept to the edges of the gardens and kept his eye out for Leyla. Not finding her there or at the temple building, he decided to poke around her house, the old temple.

He moved carefully through the bushes just as Daywu had taught him. Or, rather, as best as he could without making much noise. He could count on one hand how many times he had hung around Daywu. They had usually turned into several days of camping out in the wild with Rylen feeling completely lost and at Daywu’s mercy, since the man wouldn’t go back to town from a hunt until he’d caught something to sell.

He ducked lower. Scribes occasionally walked from the new temple to the old on business, and he didn’t want them investigating what was crashing through the carefully manicured bushes.

He peeked around a tree and saw the old temple, with its unimpressive plain oak beams and columns.

Besides the domed roof, the only other notable feature to it was that it sat in a shallow pond of roiling water. The temple had been built on top of the spring that watered all of the gardens of the mansions and the fields of the farmers. This spring was also the headwater to the Sunrise stream that ran along the bottom of the valley of Edge. The Sunrise became the Sunset River which eventually fell in a waterfall into the valley of the capital.

The strong spring bubbled up from the middle of the pond where the temple had been built over it. The building’s walls came all the way down to the water, but the entrance itself was a full story above the water level. A person had to walk up and into the temple by way of wooden steps.

The pond broke up in a series of smaller streams heading off in different directions. There grew between these streams large oaks from before the days when the land was burned by dragon fire. The water from the streams was then distributed among the populace to satisfy each area’s needs.

The message was clear. The king gave prosperity and life to every person, but he also controlled it.

A scribe opened one of the solid oak doors and walked down the steps and up the path to the new temple. Rylen waited until he was gone, then stepped out from behind the tree.

“Rylen, I didn’t expect a visit from you today.”

Rylen spun and jumped backward. However, this only smacked his head into a low-hanging oak branch, as sturdy as iron. He crumpled to his knees holding the back of his head.

“Oh dear! Are you all right? I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

The man in a saffron yellow robe knelt and laid a hand on his shoulder.

Rylen looked at him through eyes squinted in pain. “Head Priest Kassim Gahne.” He winced as he made an effort to bow in respect. Kassim waved his hand dismissively.

“Don’t worry about formalities. How many times have I told you that?”

“Habit.”

“Yes, I suppose it is. Are you sure you’ll be all right?”

Rylen smiled wanly. “I’ll just have a bit of a bump for a couple days.”

“I imagine so! Now, what brings you here today?”

“I was looking for Leyla.”

Kassim nodded. “She really is a very hard one to find during the day. I can’t even keep up with all that she does.” He straightened the cuffs of his robe and eyed Rylen. “Why did you need her?”

“I, um, just needed to ask her a question is all. I thought I’d start here before I looked elsewhere.”

“I heard she was busy handing out gifts from the king. She is usually quite busy with that kind of thing this time of the year.”

“It seems to start earlier every year,” Rylen said, shaking his head.

Kassim smiled. “We have had many years of prosperity, and this one is no different. People want to give back some of what the king has given.”

Rylen thought about his own “gift” to the king. It had reached Zufa; however, Zufa’s gift hadn’t come back to Rylen. He dearly hoped the food wares hadn’t been shared around to the poor families in the neighborhood.

He caught himself. That wasn’t a good thing to think. That was what was supposed to happen to gifts, anyway.

He rubbed his head gingerly again and slowly got up. “I should be good now. Thank you.”

Kassim smiled sadly. “I would say you should come by more often, but that might have been more appropriate years ago. Nowadays it’s more of a risk for you.” He looked pointedly at Rylen’s head. “In more ways than one.”

Rylen smiled and waved as he carefully made his way along the edges of the gardens to his exit. He decided that today would be the last day he would enter the temple grounds. With the coming of the festival, more and more people would be enjoying the gardens. It wouldn’t be safe for him to walk about any longer. He whispered goodbye to the now-sleeping guard and crawled through the wall and into the unkempt garden on the other side.

He wandered around town looking for Leyla. He asked a few people if they had seen her, something he usually never did. Mainly because they didn’t respond or ignored that he was there at all. However, he was willing to pick up whatever scrap they might drop.

He saw Kaden, one of the farmers who came to the inn in the morning. He jogged up to him.

“Hey, Kaden! Have you seen Leyla around?”

The man turned, his weathered and bearded face curious. When he saw Rylen, an uncomfortable, pained look came to his face. He glanced at the people around him and looked down.

“Ahem, uh, yes. I have. Saw her going to the widow’s house about two hours ago.”

The message of the look he had given the younger man was clear: Yes, I know you, but I don’t want the people around me to know. Why are you making me do this? He slouched quickly away.

Rylen mentally kicked himself. Stupid! Stupid! I’ve just made him look like a sympathizer to Ara-Era to all these people. He could already feel their gaze upon him. He hurried away himself. He’d have to apologize to the farmer later, but at least now he knew where to go.

He made his way through the meandering streets that followed the small rolls in the land. The widow’s house wasn’t far. He was about to knock on her door when he saw something out of the corner of his eye: Leyla walking in a bright yellow robe. He abandoned knocking and caught up to her. Leyla heard his approach and greeted him with a smile.

“I take it you’ve been looking for me?”

Rylen nodded, and they began walking again while he caught his breath.

Leyla’s chin lifted by a finger’s breadth. “So, why were you looking for me?”

Now that he was with her, he found that he didn’t have the slightest clue how to broach the subject. Instead, he held up a hand in suggestion that he was still catching his breath.

Hey Leyla, I was wondering where Zufa’s payment for my barrel went. I heard your scribes took it. No. That was…wrong. Zufa had made a gift and given it to the temple as an offering. It would sound like he was accusing her and the scribes of theft.

Sooo, I hear people are giving lots of offerings lately. Have you noticed anything unusual? That was dumb. Of course people would be giving more. Not to mention, shopkeepers and merchants almost always gave from their wares.

“Have you caught your breath yet?” Leyla smiled sweetly at him.

He smiled back.

“By the way,” Leyla said, trying to engage him in the conversation, “I delivered that barrel of yours.”

Ah! Good! She brought the subject up herself. “Oh, thank you. I know it was a lot to ask.”

Leyla waved a hand at him. “Pfft, not at all! Don’t worry about it.”

Rylen opened his mouth to speak, but she continued.

“But you should worry about what he gave me in return for it.”

Rylen wanted to shrink away. “Oh? Um, what do you mean in return?”

“We gave him the barrel, and he was quite pleased. So pleased that he took some bags and fruit crates that he had already prepared and gave them to us.”

Rylen felt something drop in his gut. He cleared his throat. “Uh, he did?”

“He did. It was quite the order of sugar, nuts, and fruits. I’d say it was enough to tide a certain inn over until the festival.”

Rylen sighed. “Yeah.”

Leyla stopped. Her smile hadn’t left her face. “The temple isn’t some…some…” she searched for the word “some merchant or moneychanger you conduct business through.” She chuckled. “I didn’t think you were doing something like this when you asked me to bring the barrel to him.”

“I…didn’t expect him to do that.”

“No, you wouldn’t. You haven’t been outside of Edge. Even in the next town over, it’s much different from here. People do that kind of thing all the time. It makes them look good and allows them to exchange goods with a much smaller tax.”

Rylen’s face went from chastened to embarrassed. She wasn’t saying it outright, but it was obvious that he was out of his league here. She was telling him nicely that he was naïve and she knew exactly why he wanted the barrel delivered in the first place.

“I’m sorry.”

Leyla moved off, and after a moment of hesitation, Rylen followed.

“We still need those supplies, though. The inn isn’t doing very well. That’s why we had to barter.”

“One barrel of beer? For all that he gave you?” Amused, Leyla shook her head. “And for some reason you couldn’t sell whatever it was to him directly and tried to cover it up as a gift.”

Rylen knew it was extreme. He certainly didn’t want to tell her the beer had been illegal on top of everything else.

“Uh, perhaps he was trying to make it look less like he was buying the barrel. That’s why he gave so much.”

“Perhaps. I haven’t done anything with the supplies yet.”

He waited. He couldn’t just ask her if he could have them back. Technically, the goods were in the temple’s possession now. He could tell that she was thinking.

Finally, she shrugged. “I guess you’ll have to work for them.”

“How will I do that? The temple grounds are almost crawling with people now. It’ll only get worse.”

They walked again in silence as each tried to think of the ways he could work hard enough to pay for an entire order of food.

“Well,” she said eventually, “I don’t think you can. I don’t know how you could. Oh, and I think it serves you right.”

Great, I’ve misered away the inn’s best barrel of beer and gotten nothing for it. That wasn’t the worst of his problems. She likely wasn’t about to forgive this anytime soon. He didn’t have a single idea of how to make it up to her. He was clearly in the wrong.

They were walking along the main thoroughfare of Edge now. It came in from the valley’s side and down into the town. It then wound around the foot of the hill the temple was on top of, then curved up to the main gates of the temple wall.

It was crowded despite the street’s wide girth. They had to weave their way through people and avoid bumping into stalls and getting run over by carts. It didn’t give them much opportunity for talking. Traditionally made shops and homes lined the road. They had chiseled stone foundations and log walls, and wood shingles topped the roofs. These buildings created a dark background to the colorful awnings that leaned against them. Shops built these awnings outside their buildings to catch travelers who might not otherwise be familiar with their wares.

They were almost at the curve of the road that led up to the temple when someone shouted, “Dragon!”

Instantly, the flow of people froze in a jumble as everyone craned their heads skyward.

Rylen and Leyla looked too, out to the east where the cliff was.

“Dragon!” someone else yelled as if to confirm the first’s suspicion.

There was a scream, and suddenly people scrambled to flee into the leeward sides of buildings. Shopkeepers abandoned their goods and raced inside their homes. A horse reared. Leyla pulled Rylen to the side of a house and into a low lean-to that was used to keep firewood dry. He almost cracked his head on its roof. People ran past them, their legs a blur as they fled into the side streets. One stall was knocked over, and it clattered across the stones, scattering its baskets of flour.

Soon, the street was still except for more distant sounds of shouts and screams and general retreat. A moment passed, and a horse and rider galloped past on the road, the sound of it deafening. Rylen waited a moment. He hadn’t seen the dragon. He moved to peek out. Leyla grabbed his arm.

He looked back at her, and she mouthed Stay. Her eyes glanced upward as though seeing through the lean-to roof. He could feel her trembling. Rylen tugged and found she was gripping his arm very tightly.

“I just want to take a look, okay?”

She became self-conscious and loosened her grip but didn’t let go.

“I’ll come back.” He pulled himself away. His heart was beating quickly.

Slowly, he crept out into the street, his eyes on the sky. He looked to the east. There was nothing there. Nor was there anything in any other direction. He stepped farther out into the street so the houses wouldn’t block his view.

He looked up at Night’s Eye, the tall watchtower to the south and on the easternmost mountain. Ara-Era’s ambassador often arrived on a dragon and stayed in the tower. However, his arrival was always announced a week in advance. The people of Edge made sure to spread the word.

And no such word had been given.

A shout from down the street. Rylen looked but didn’t see anyone. Something moved in his peripheral vision. He looked. Had it been between the mountain tops to the north?

“Psst!” Leyla beckoned.

He held up a finger. He had always been inside the inn when the Eran ambassador came to Edge. He’d never been able to see what a dragon looked like. Paintings just didn’t cut it.

A flock of white birds, flying from around one of the northern mountains that made up the valley’s side, were chirping and cawing excitedly. As he watched, a huge flying form whipped out from behind the mountain and quickly overtook the flock. The sun glinted upon the green form as it rushed through the flock, scattering it like shattered glass. Soon, it dived into the valley and was upon the town before Rylen could think of running back to the shelter.

It disappeared for a split second, then it flashed over him and was gone. In that moment, he saw forest-green scales, massive shadow-casting wings, huge teeth and claws, and a man armored in green and brown upon the dragon’s back. The wind buffeted them as it passed, kicking up dust and flapping awnings. Another stall fell over in a heap. People screamed in fear.

A moment later a loud roar assaulted the mountain sides and echoed down the valley. Rylen could almost swear he felt the vibration of it on his skin. More shouts and panicked footsteps, this time kept to the side streets. A woman shrieked in fear inside the house next to Rylen.

He turned and looked, trying to find the dragon again. A large green form flew directly over the temple. The great wings of the beast made it appear like it was many times the size of the temple itself. It soared, gaining height so quickly he almost felt dizzy tracking it. Soon, it looked hardly any bigger than a small bird. At the height of its flight it seemed to stop and hover, its wings beating over its suspended body.

Rylen stared, awestruck.

Suddenly, a huge gout of fire burst from the dragon’s throat, and the beast circled around. The flame mushroomed into a bright orange and red cloud. The dragon emitted a deep, rumbling growl, which mixed with the roar of the flames. They almost seemed to scorch the tops of the mountains as they billowed out, but they dissipated before they did. The dragon was dwarfed by its own show of strength.

Suddenly, it lazily turned on its side and fell. It snapped its wings out before falling to the city and performed a roll in the air like a ribbon crossed over a barrel. Then, it flew up to the mountain under Night’s Eye.

The town held its breath, and Rylen stared after the dragon even after it left his sight. Strangely, he wasn’t afraid. The fear of the cowering townsfolk was palpable, and they hid as if their greatest nightmare had visited them. But Rylen wasn’t Gwyanian; he was Ara-Eran.

He turned to Leyla, whose eyes were wide with fear and knees pulled tight to her chest. She recoiled beneath the lean-to as if it could offer some kind of protection.

Rylen realized he was grinning like a fool.