The Last Dragon King (Kings of Avalier #1)(3)
Two jade coins? It used to be one. I’d heard a little about the Nightfall queen causing trouble with shipments coming into Embergate but hadn’t thought much about it. That evil woman was always starting wars.
I nodded. “I can give you the jade coins, or I just brought down a full-grown male cougarin. You can see my mom after closing to pick the best cut.”
Her eyes lit up. “I’ll take the meat instead, thanks kindly,” she said, and I nodded as she slipped out of the room.
Cougarin was gamey but delicious, with very little fat or gristle on it. Elkin was the only more desirable meat around, so I knew I could barter some good stuff with this kill. Maybe I’d get mother a nice new dress for the changing of the seasons festival in fall.
Stripping off my clothes, I let them drop into a dusty blood-crusted pile at my feet and then I stepped into the water.
A groan of pure joy and relief left me, and some of the ladies outside the thin thatch wall snickered. I didn’t care. It was too good. As I slid deeper into the water, I felt a few parts of my back sting. At one point in the hunt I’d tumbled and hit my back on a rock. There must be a scratch or two there.
The water continued to rush out of the tap as I daydreamed about having running hot water in our hut. I would take a soak every single night. I’d wash the clothes in hot water, and the dishes, and just for fun I’d stick my face in hot water in the mornings to revive myself.
I sighed in contentment.
“Coming in,” Naomie announced before she stepped into the small enclosure.
I didn’t bother to cover myself. Naomie had seen me naked hundreds of times. I’d been coming here since I was a babe with my mother. Besides, she didn’t look; she was a professional. She poured a stream of oil into the rushing water and the strong scent of sandalwood hit my nose.
Another sigh.
Cinder Mountain was known for its sandalwood grove trees, so the oil was plentiful here and the scent always reminded me of home.
A soap stone plopped into the water and slid under my back but I ignored it. I’d soap later, I just wanted to soak. Every muscle in my body was screaming out for joy right now.
“Got any cuts?” she asked.
Naomie tended to the men after they came in from a hunt, so she knew what the body sustained after such a trip.
I nodded and sat up, showing her my back.
She whistled low. “The bigger one looks infected. I’ll get the neem oil and add it to the bath. The cougarin meat is still a good trade.”
Neem was expensive, so it was kind of her not to charge extra or ask for more meat.
She disappeared and shuffled back in with the neem, pouring it into the bathwater as well. She then reached in and grabbed the soap stone as I sat up and hunched forward. She ran it along my back in the parts I couldn’t reach and I hissed when she lightly grazed it over the cut. Must have been bigger than I thought. I’d been so excited to kill my first cougarin that I’d lost all sense of pain and just wanted to make it back home.
After getting my back tortured by the old woman, she dropped the soap stone into the tub again and left.
Finally, I can relax.
I leaned back against the angled tub and slid as far down as I could go before drowning. My hair snaked out around me and I was shocked and slightly ashamed to see it looked brown and not blond because it was so dirty. The bathwater had a slight reddish tinge to it from all the blood, so I closed my eyes and just breathed in and out slowly, letting the scent of neem and sandalwood fill my nostrils.
Seven days of stalking the beast and sleeping on rocks and leaves was all worth it now. Gone were the days of hunting small game like rabbits and possums and being ridiculed by the males. I was a respected hunter now—Hades, the men might even let me join the hunters’ guild—
“The king’s men come this way!” a female voice shouted into the bathhouse and my eyelids snapped open, jarring me from my daydreaming.
The king’s men? Were they drafting for the war or something? Why else would they come here all the way from Jade City? Normally, we brought coal or sandalwood to them to trade; they never came to us. We were the dirty forgotten village of Embergate that the king tolerated but never visited or paid any mind to. There were no powerful dragon-folk here for him to draft into his army or be of any use. We were a bunch of mixed breed mutts.
“Listen here!” the same young woman said throughout the bathhouse and I sat up, reaching out to peel the thatch door open and look at her.
Kendal. I should have known. She was the town gossip and lived for any bit of news, especially news from Jade City and anything concerning the dragon king. She liked to think of herself as the town crier. We were friends, but I didn’t enjoy her company for too long.
Reaching into her coat, she pulled out some official looking scroll and opened it.
“King Valdren seeks a new wife to give him an heir.” She paused for the collective gasp that ripped through the bathhouse, mine included.
He’d only been married to Queen Amelia for three winters and lost four children with her before she finally succumbed to death in childbirth. He had been a young king, married at my age, and was now only twenty-one winters old. Their marriage was the reason I’d traveled to Jade City when I was fifteen. A royal wedding was an exciting affair throughout the realm. Queen Amelia had been gone only a single winter, and without an heir he was vulnerable to the Nightfall queen, who sought to take over this realm and purge it of dragon-folk magic. It was inevitable that he’d seek a new wife, but hearing it official like this was shocking.