Kyros Valen's Arc

Chapter 1 of 8

Kyros Valen had smiled once in the market, and now a woman in a green shawl was following him home. He kept his pace even. His boots struck the cobbles hard. Red hair fell over one blue eye, and he did not push it back, because pushing it back would look like fussing, and fussing would look human. Under his coat, hidden in the deep inner pocket, a tiny dragon shifted against his ribs and hummed. He pressed a hand flat against the coat to quiet her. If the woman heard that hum, every story he had built about himself would collapse by supper. He was known in this town as the cruel offworlder. He had earned it on purpose. Two winters of sneers, of shoving past children, of snapping at the baker until she overcharged him with satisfaction. He needed the reputation. It kept people away from the cellar he was digging under the old mill outside town, the room he was lining with lamps and soft cloth, the place he was building so that one day he could take off the mask and love someone in the open without it costing them their throat. The dragon was the first thing he had ever let inside that plan. She had hatched in his palm three weeks ago, lavender eyes, scales like river ice, and she refused to stop trusting him. The woman in the shawl was still behind him. He heard her sandals scuff. She had seen him at the fruit stall, crouched, letting the dragon lick juice from his thumb, grinning like a boy. He had stood up too slowly. Now she wanted to know why the town monster smiled at nothing. He turned into the alley behind the tanner's. He waited against the wall. When she rounded the corner, he stepped into her path. "You've been walking my road," he said. "You dropped this." She held out a scrap of cloth. Her hand shook. Her eyes went to his coat, where the dragon had gone still. He took the cloth. He made his face into the face they expected. He leaned close enough that she flinched. "Walk my road again," he said, "and I'll know your door." She ran. Her sandals slapped stone until the sound was gone. Kyros stayed against the wall a long moment. His hand was shaking against his coat. Inside it, the dragon pushed her small head up under his collar and licked his jaw. He closed his eyes. He had kept the mask. He had also just threatened a woman for the crime of noticing kindness. He could not keep the dragon in his coat any longer. Tonight he would move her to the cellar, finished or not. The sanctuary had to open early, because the mask was already cracking, and the next person who saw through it might not run.