his riders were skilled in dragon-rearing, but Kalai didn’t know them like he knew Tauran. And Tauran knew dragons. That much was clear.
He swept carefully to avoid pushing the dust into the air, filled the dustpan and tipped it out of the window, then returned to the center of the room.
He pursed his lips at the rug. It really could do with a good cleaning, too. A few spots revealed a beautifully bright color scheme, but dust had turned most of it dull. The dragon motif was gorgeous. It’d be a shame not to...
Kalai tilted his head. A dark splotch covered one dragon’s extended wing. At first, he thought it might be a part of the design, but the rest seemed symmetrical, and the spot didn’t fit the pattern. Heading into the kitchen, Kalai filled a bucket with warm water and soap, grabbed a cloth and returned to the rug. He pushed up his sleeves, wet and wrung the cloth and started scrubbing.
He scrubbed hard, but the stain was stubborn. Rinsing the cloth, he tried again, groaning as he put his strength into it. Slowly, it lifted, although not nearly as well as he had hoped. He rinsed the cloth again and was about to wring it out when he paused.
The water was pink.
He frowned. He had thought perhaps the stain was tea. Or some kind of food.
It couldn’t be blood. That would be absurd. What else could it be? A berry juice of some kind? Or maybe it was blood and had simply been the result of a minor accident.
Still, Kalai placed the bucket aside. He moved back, grabbed the edge of the rug and flipped it over.
Most of the rug’s underside was stained a dull brown, so much so that Kalai at first thought it was simply the color of the thread. But the corners were an entirely different color; a pale beige, in stark contrast to the color of dried blood.
Kalai was about to drop it when something else gave him pause. Dragging the rug aside, he returned to the spot it had covered. The wooden floorboards were clean, but small light scratches in their surface drew his attention. He crouched, tracing the clearly Sharoani letters with a rising sense of dread. It was the old language, three angular, uneven letters, but it read clear as day:
SKY GUARD.
* * *
It seemed a terrible oversight that, in the midst of the excitement of hatching a dragon and moving into the Sunrise Tower, Tauran had forgotten all about the height of the building he now had to call home.
The nests were on the top three floors, and while Tauran managed to talk Falka into letting him keep Leyra in his own private rooms for now, a baby of the world’s largest breed of dragon would no doubt outgrow a human-sized bedroom alarmingly fast.
But the issue of accommodation could be a problem for a later day. For now, Tauran’s meager belongings had been moved to his own private quarters on the fifth floor, along with a nest for Leyra, and a cage in case she grew unruly during the night, although Tauran had no plans to use it. Normally, the private quarters were reserved for generals and commanders, but since the Sky Guard had been so severely decimated, there was plenty of room for all of them.
Tauran grabbed his clothes from his bag. The folded paper dragon Kalai had made him sat atop the dresser, well out of Leyra’s reach.
“You’ve already gotten a taste for beds, haven’t you?” he asked dryly, looking over his shoulder at her prancing back and forth on the bed while he put away his folded clothes. “Just don’t chew up my blankets. I’m serious.”
Leyra croaked, pushed her head under the blankets, then dug the rest of the way underneath. Tauran laughed and tickled her through the fabric. She kicked and writhed under his touch.
“Ow!” Tauran yanked his hand back when Leyra’s sharp teeth closed around his finger. “You better quit that when you’re older or you’ll take my whole damn arm off.”
Leyra shuffled toward the edge of the bed, and Tauran caught the blanket-wrapped bundle of dragon before she could fall. “All right,” he said, unearthing her from the blanket and setting her on the floor. “Let’s find you something to eat.”
Tauran made sure to lock her in when he left the room - one never knew what a baby as wild as her was capable of.