Dragon Pearl(36)

Haneul frowned, then picked up a white stone, gripping it between her forefinger and middle finger in the proper manner. She snapped it onto the board. I responded after a moment, and we exchanged moves without speaking for a time. I was starting to get rattled, because even with the handicap stones I was struggling to keep up.

“You’re doing better than usual,” Sujin said at last. I hadn’t realized they were paying attention in between reading about chemistry.

I laughed nervously. “Lucky today, I guess.”

“Haneul never gives me a handicap,” Sujin muttered.

“You don’t need one,” she retorted. “As for you,” she said, turning back to me, “never count on luck. You used up almost all of yours in surviving that attack!”

I didn’t want to talk about that—it was too dangerous, because I didn’t know what had happened during Jang’s last moments. I decided to distract her by asking questions, which I needed to do anyway.

“It could be worse,” I said. Time for some more Charm. “At least I didn’t end up missing, like Jun and the rest. . . .” I apologized mentally to Jun for bad-mouthing him. But how else was I going to find out what was going on?

Haneul glanced around the room. The air grew crackly with static, as in an electrical storm, and the players nearest us scowled and got up to leave. I was starting to understand why dragon folk rarely went into spy work. She lowered her voice and asked, “Do you believe the rumors?”

I pounced on the opening. “Which ones?” I asked.

Haneul squirmed. “It wasn’t like any of us younger cadets knew Jun well, but he seemed solid enough. I was surprised when the captain declared him a deserter. Some of the others, like Corporal Hyun-Joo, sure. She was always so sour-faced, I’m not surprised she was up to something. But Jun was a good soldier.”

At least Haneul remembered my brother. That was a start. “I bet pirates got him while he was on a mission,” I said, because gossip about mercs was so common no one would think twice of it.

“Well, from what I heard, he and his comrades weren’t on a regular assignment,” Sujin said in a whisper. “They really did leave on their own.”

I tried not to reveal my shock. So Jun actually was a deserter!

“I wonder whose idea it was, and why they were all so desperate to get away,” Sujin went on.

Haneul studied the board, narrowing her eyes at a pattern in the center. Finally she placed her stone. “It can’t have been Jun’s idea,” she said in a hushed tone. “I mean, one of the people with the group was a lieutenant. And everyone said she was loyal. Even if it’s true what people are saying—that they decided to chase after the Dragon Pearl—it doesn’t make sense.”

So my theory that Jun had been forced into going might be right. I remained convinced that Jun’s motives were pure. He’d never cared about money. . . .

“I don’t know about that,” Sujin said, cynical. “A lot of people are eager to get their hands on that thing. I know you don’t like hearing about it, Haneul, but the Dragon Society in particular would pay handsomely for it. If they control all the ways to do terraforming magic, they can raise their fees as high as they want and no one can do anything about it.”

“The Dragon Society wouldn’t stoop so low,” Haneul said stiffly. “Besides, it’s a wild-goose chase. The Pearl probably got destroyed long ago.”

Sujin shook their head but didn’t press the point.

I forced myself to relax. I couldn’t let them see how much I cared about this. “Let’s say a soldier deserted and somehow retrieved the Pearl,” I said. “What would they do? They’d be a fugitive the rest of their life.” I glanced over the board, then placed my stone to keep one of my groups from being captured. Haneul might be beating me, but I was determined to make her work for it.

“That bothered me, too,” Haneul said. “Maybe they have debts we don’t know about and are really desperate.”

I thought of Captain Hye at Nari’s gambling parlor and grimaced at the memory.

“If so, Jun, for one, hid it well,” Sujin said. “He worked hard. Even when some of the other cadets made nasty remarks about his steader heritage, he kept his cool.”

I had to keep my mouth from twitching into a smile of pride.

“The ones in Bunk Two straightened up fast after he vanished,” Sujin went on. “I mean, they got questioned more than anyone else about what happened.”

I made a note of that information. While I didn’t get much chance to talk to people outside of class, it would be easy to look up which cadets had bunked with Jun. Figuring out a good excuse to approach them would be harder, even with the aid of Charm.

I finally plunked down a black stone on the game board. It was a weak move, and I knew it. Fortunately, Haneul’s mind wasn’t on the match anymore. The air crackled again, and a small wind swirled around us. I hadn’t realized this topic would bother her so much.

Haneul caught me staring at her and blushed. “Sorry about that,” she said. She closed her eyes and recited a chant under her breath until the energy in the air dissipated.

“Do you think we’ll ever catch up to the deserters?” I asked after Haneul had calmed down.

“I hope so,” she said. “They need to face the captain’s justice.”