Broken Path, Starless Tail - 16. Chapter 16

Beckett should have waited until she had the spell and crescents, shouldn’t he? “Will she come back out?” he asked Valrinda.

“Of course. A wizardess who doesn’t keep their word doesn’t get much business, would they?”

Oh. Good point. “Okay.” He’d just wait.

An incredibly tall, green-skinned man with yellow eyes and three black horns opened the door. “Here.” He thrust out two huge hands, one holding a bag and the other a water flask like the one Beckett had seen on other’s belts. Beckett nearly fumbled both as he took them. Dragging a miniscule paper from his pocket. “And this.”

Somehow he grabbed that too. “Um, thanks.” The door slammed in his face again, and Beckett turned with wide eyes to Valrinda. “What was that?”

“Her familiar, probably. Or slave.”

“Slave!” Beckett’s voice rose dangerously high, and he stared in shock at Valrinda. “You have slaves?”

“Only if they enslave themselves to gain something. In his case, probably a spell.”

“He traded his body?” Indentured servitude. “We used to have something like that, once upon a time.” That was freaking crazy. The bag he clutched in his right hand was heavy and clinked when he shifted his grip. Beckett went over and leaned against Valrinda. “Can you hold this?” He held out the flask.

“Uh-huh.” Valrinda clasped it in his claws delicately.

“This paper is what, the spell to fill the flask?”

“Yep.”

The writing on the torn section of rough paper was spidery and faint, done in a brown ink only slightly darker than the paper. He squinted at the words, mouthing them silently, not sure if he could figure out the syllables. “Shouldn’t she do that?”

“Do you want the flask only to fill up the first time? You need the spell keyed to you.”

“What if I say it wrong?”

“It’s magic.” Valrinda did his shrug thing. “It’ll work out just fine since she gave you the spell.”

“But she didn’t. Her familiar slash slave person did.”

Valrinda sighed. “But she wrote it for you and did the spell on the flask for you. It’ll work, so stop worrying.”

“You know an awful lot about magic.” Beckett grabbed the laces holding the other bag closed and loosened them to peek inside. Okay. So, azure crescents were literally little shaved pieces of curved blue stones.

“Wait, are these gemstones?”

“What did you think they would be?” Valrinda leaned over him to peek inside, his hot breath gusting and blowing Beckett’s hair into his eyes. “Oh nice. She must have really liked your human tech. She gave you premium crescents. You’ll only need one or two to get a belt and coat.”

Beckett shoved his hair back. “Personal space, remember?” Why did none of the beings in this place respect his space? “I thought they’d be metal coins.”

“You’re leaning against me. And who would use metal to trade? It’s worthless.”

Beckett’s face went even hotter than it had been when Valrinda had been breathing on him. “Oh. Yeah. Sorry.” Wow, how to explain money? Wait… why try? Moving on. “Where do I get a belt and jacket so I don’t freeze while we’re flying or at night. It’s cold at night in the desert, right? Back to the gnome store?”

“No. You’ll need a special seller for this.”

Traipsing through the city with Valrinda at his side, Beckett continued to try not to look like a complete idiot staring at everything and ignore the way everyone stared at him. They found a stall instead of a store that sold dragon armored coats, and he even found one that had scale colors similar to Valrinda’s. “These weren’t… skinned off a dragon, right?” he whispered even as he stroked the smooth scales that went down the long sleeves and all down the split sides of the coat that would hit him about mid-thigh. It even had a hood.

Valrinda and the stall owner’s laugh echoed over the thrum of the market noise. “No, they shed out when we go through a growth cycle, and we sell them. Very popular for armor and for jewelry,” Valrinda said.

Armed with a flexible metal belt that belted around his hips to attach his flask and crescents to and a lightweight jacket that promised to keep him warm while flying, Valrinda and Beckett grabbed food at one of the victualer stalls on their way toward the gates for another crescent that went into Beckett’s bag.

“Should we check how the coat works for you?”

“Yes!” He’d loved flying, it had just been too damn cold. As soon as they were back on the road, Valrinda crouched so Beckett could climb on. Pulling his jacket closed, he leaned down over Valrinda’s neck and grabbed on. “Ready.”

Valrinda’s muscles bunched and he launched himself upward, his wings beating up and down with hard thumps and taking them straight into the sky and leaving all the stares and other creatures behind within a minute. As soon as he leveled out, Beckett lifted his hood and covered his ears and head, but he was able to stay sitting up without getting all wet or freezing.

“This is great!” he shouted. The ground whizzed by underneath them, trees and bushes and streams glinting in the slowly setting sun.

Valrinda looked back, his grin wide enough to show even his sharp back teeth. “I’m glad you like it too!”

“How far can we go tonight?”

Valrinda pointed ahead of them. “How about to the river? There are some traveler cots built near the fords you can use tonight.”

Not sleep outside under the stars with Valrinda? He’d check it out, but maybe he could say it was too cold or hard or something. “Sounds like a place to check out,” he said noncommittally. In the meantime, he had a whole new world to see from the sky.