“Because elves can only unlock one era of existence at a time. We lose the skills we learn in each, having to train for a new trade each time we undergo the change. We lose most of the memories, too.”

  “Like those of Jambil?” the dragon asked, in a sly tone.

  “Yes!” Gulvane snapped. “Like those of… What have you done?”

  “I left the door ajar,” the dragon replied, and Gulvane felt panic flutter through his chest.

  The dragon watched him, like a mountain cat stalking a rabbit.

  “Do you hurt?” it asked.

  “I…” Gulvane paused, giving himself a quick once over.

  “No,” he said. “Why is that?”

  All the teaching he’d ever had said that no elf could hold two lifetimes in their head at once, and yet…

  This time he felt the dragon give the door a definite nudge, felt his earliest memories creep into the corridor and spread slowly through his mind, finding a place where they might fit. He watched as they met, and tangled with the current era of wizardry, sometimes with a minor clash, and sometimes like old friends. He glanced up at the dragon.

  “Is it working?” the dragon asked, and Gulvane gave a nervous swallow, as he nodded.

  They remained in companionable silence, the dragon watching Gulvane; Gulvane watching the dragon.

  “Will it take long?” Gulvane wanted to know.

  The dragon shrugged.

  “It will take as long as it takes,” he said. “Are you ready to remember what it was like to be a guardian of merchandise?”

  “And lives,” Gulvane told him. “Don’t forget the lives. It was how the assassins found me, remember?”

  The dragon favored him with a long careful stare, and Gulvane felt suspicion stir.

  “Tell me you didn’t send the assassins after me,” he said.

  The dragon didn’t say a word, just nudged the bronze-colored door wider, until Gulvane remembered the utter exhaustion that had claimed him at the forest’s edge. With that memory came the knowledge that he had fallen almost a mile from the nearest trader’s camp. What was a guard doing so far from his client? It was too far for a simple toilet stop.

  The dragon cleared its throat. It almost sounded embarrassed.

  “Jambil’s mate was worried. She insisted I make sure you were all right. I made sure the guard kept walking until he found you.”

  “But…such a long way?”

  “He kept hearing noises, seeing shadows that might be bandits…and the camp was always close by when he looked back.”

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  “You obfuscated his mind.” Gulvane couldn’t keep the accusatory tone from his voice.

  “He found you, didn’t he?” The dragon was unrepentant.

  “And you left him to carry me back on his own.”

  “He was strong enough.”

  “He was an old man!”

  “But not as feeble as he let you believe.”

  Gulvane had always suspected it, but he made the excuse, anyway.

  “He was nearing retirement.”

  “And he needed a legacy,” the dragon said. “You gave him that.”

  Gulvane had given him that, indeed. That thought comforted him when he remembered laying a farewell kiss on the old man’s brow. His father had died in his sleep on the road. Gulvane had come to wake him for his shift, and found him cold beneath his blankets. He would have been sadder if the man had not worn a faint smile, and had his face turned in the direction Gulvane had been standing.

  They’d taken the time to bury him, before the caravan moved on. Gulvane had used every fight, in the weeks after, to vent his grief. He had saved more lives than he’d ended, and thwarted attacks both bold and underhanded. He had thwarted enough of the latter for his prowess to be noted and a more specialized line of work to open.

  “I knew you’d meet the assassins eventually,” the dragon said, “and by that time, I foresaw a need.”

  “You did send them after me!” Gulvane felt anger and let it bleed into resignation; it had been a long night and he no longer had the energy to care. The truth of it was the dragon could end him any time it chose.

  The first prickle of curiosity touched his mind “Did you also pay them to end my life?”

  “No.” The dragon looked at its boots, shifting its feet as though the question caused him discomfort. “I merely asked that, should they find you worthy, I would pay them well to have them train you in their art.”

  Gulvane watched as the dragon raised its head, met his gaze.

  “At least I know she did not miss,” he said.

  “No. I was furious. She said she did not train to another’s whim. Your skills impressed her, but only strength of heart can overcome every effect that poison has. I contemplated killing her for her impudence.”

  “Yet you did not.”

  “She was the best of her time, and you have turned out well enough.”

  “Was?”

  “She was human, Gulvane. They do not live as long as we.”

  Gulvane frowned at the response. It was too rehearsed by far.

  “You have a way of avoiding the truth,” he said.

  “Even legends make mistakes,” the dragon admitted. “I ghosted her when she accepted a contract on my life.”

  “The laws of her guild would not have let her refuse.”

  “She could have retired.”

  “It’s not that easy,” Gulvane said, and wondered why it was important that the dragon should understand.

  “You managed.”

  “I took a somewhat unusual path—the kind that opens only once, if it opens at all.” He remembered bloody nights, and weeks spent in the ecstasy of walking on the edge of life and death. He remembered striking a bargain with a wizard who thought he’d come to kill him, earning the right to inherit, instead. “My mistress had no such path, although she dared much wrath to object.”

  “She did?” The dragon asked, eyebrows raised. “She never mentioned it.”

  “When you say ‘ghosted’,” Gulvane said, a terrible thought crossing his mind, “do you mean—”

  “I ended her life, and forced her to my service in unlife. It seemed only fair. My opponents had to rethink their strategy, and you had time to learn.”

  Now, they came to the crux of the dragon’s visit. Gulvane leaned forward, staring intently at the dragon’s face.

  “And?”

  This time the dragon’s gaze captured Gulvane and held him, until its eyes were all that he could see. Bronze pools, full of banked heat and fire, they seemed to encompass worlds.

  “You have had time enough.”

  “And you have time no more.” Gulvane broke the spell, shuddering at the power he’d seen inside the dragon’s skin.

  “Impudent elf. I don’t know why I persisted when I saw what you would become.”

  “Because you need me, and I have exceeded all the hopes you had for me.”

  The dragon managed another sly smile.

  “Perhaps I only needed a pet.”

  “I am no honey possum.”

  “You come close.” The dragon smirked.

  “And is some dragon forester coming to take me out of my tree?”

  “This time I have beaten the forester to the nest.” The dragon raised its head. “Although I fear he is on his way.”

  Fantastic, Gulvane thought. I’ve caught the attention of two dragons.