Note: And... we're back! (With a new POV. Bear with me.)Cressida and Joy emerged from the Green-carded portal with a contingent of dragons behind them. Turning around in the saddle, Cressida overlooked the flight of dragons, noting that they had maintained their arrow position with her and Joy, of course, and gave a nod of approval.
She had chosen this captain as he was malleable and inclined to listen to the "new guard," as they called Arthur's group when they thought nobody was listening. But, unlike many of the other captains in the Blood Moon hive, the man was actually competent.
I'll have to speak to Arthur about that, she thought, though she was loath to pile more on his plate.
He handled stress very well, and there wasn't much he could do about incompetent Rare captains, considering many of the Uncommon riders had been beaten down and drained by years of Chester's tyranny.
Rare dragons were, excuse the pun, a rarity anyway, and those who had ambition and any sort of spine had left the hive. That left the dregs behind.
Well, the problems of the hive could not be fixed in a few weeks, a season, or even a few years. First, they all had to survive the latest challenge the scourglings had thrown at the kingdom.
"Uh-oh," Joy said.
Cressida turned to her. "Uh-oh what?"
And then she got it.
New Quest!
Save the people of Icehouse estate and surrounding territory.
Reward: Variable up to a Rare card, contingent on how many are saved from Icehouse's certain doom.
Certain doom. Her blood went cold. The quest card certainly did not pull its punches.
You knew what you were facing, she told herself sternly, not allowing any emotion to reach her expression. She kept herself cold and remote, as a lady of this house ought.
"The good news is that we do get a new Rare card out of it," Joy said, with unusual callousness. "I have room in my core for one. Do you think it will be good?"
"I think," Cressida said tightly, "that it will depend very much on how many people we get out of here."
And that was going to be a problem.
Finally, she allowed herself to take in the vista below her. Icehouse, her home estate, was located in the nest of very high northern mountains on the edge of the tundra. It was a rich estate, though very much different from Rowantree. There were no agricultural lands except for the bare minimum that could be managed during the short growing season.
Instead, her people raised animals: prized cattle known for their woolly hides, reindeer that provided transport as well as more hides and meat, fish larger than a full-grown man that came from both the sea and the streams, as well as the occasional whale that somehow survived the scourglings and came close to shore.
But the majority of the goods that came out of Icehouse were, of course, the gems and ice that they were able to transport, under some card power, to the southern half of the continent.
Growing up, it had amazed her how much ice was valued by the rest of the population when it was such a constant in her world. Ice could be found only a few feet down into the ground, even during the summer. That was until she got out of her estate for the first time and felt true heat that she understood its value.
This estate was in a harsh place, and it bred tough, harsh people. Not many would voluntarily leave.
Her family's estate might present itself as a challenge to most, but the house itself was grand, with sharp rooftops that shed both ice and snow, and bare fields waiting for the upcoming fall. It seemed that the berry picking was over with—yet another export that brought them a great deal of money.
Beyond the main building were many homes carved into the mountains, visible with colorful doors that showed which family line belonged to whom.
That was before they got to the buildings themselves, all decorated with glass, both to let in the watery sunlight and to pretty up a place that could feel very bare and the same for three quarters of the year. From afar, all of the glass looked like ice.
She could hear distant chimes which were tied to bare branches and clanked together in the wind.
The wind came up, immediately numbing her nose, and Cressida was struck with a wave of homesickness.
Ruthlessly, she pushed the feeling away. They had very little time.
With that in mind, she turned to the captain and called, "Captain Blake, do you see each of those doors? Similar colors belong to similar families. Go to them and start gathering the people up for evacuation."
"Just like that?" Blake called back. "But where will we put all of them? The hive does not have unlimited resources, my lady," he added hastily at the end. She had already verbally torn into him earlier for forgetting himself.
"This evacuation has already been approved by Leader Arthur," she snapped. "Believe me, he will be more upset if people stay here to die."
The captain, frankly, didn't look like he believed her. But she counted on the fact that he was more afraid of Arthur than he was of hard work or any pushback from the peasants.
If only Arthur truly understood that people were terrified of him, and especially of his dragon.
It was why Cressida was both fond of him and exasperated. She could feel the power of his multiple Legendary cards radiating off him in unguarded moments when he wasn't using the Knockback card. That power had grown stronger after he added his Master of Cards.
Arthur wielded tremendous power... and seemed not to realize it at all. Or if he had an inkling, he didn't seem to care. It was not as if he would ever use power against someone who could not truly fight back. That was one of many reasons why Cressida loved him.
Then again, her mother used to tell her something like that about her father, and look how that had turned out.
"You deal with the peasants," she said to Blake, "and I will deal with the main house."
With that, she signaled Joy downward toward the great courtyard below.
Of course, she expected pushback. That was why she and Joy had received the quest. It would not have such great rewards if getting them would not be difficult.
As they descended, Cressida put her hand on her dragon's neck and spoke quietly. "Do you have any bad feelings about this place?"
Ever since the Dark Heart had given Joy more intuition, Cressida had learned—painfully, many times—that even though hearing potential bad news could be inconvenient at times, she needed to listen to it.
"I don't feel bad," her dragon said, "but I do feel strange."
"Strange how?" Cressida asked.
"I don't know," Joy said, and then went quiet, which was completely unlike her talkative dragon.
Cressida had half expected her to be thrilled to be visiting Cressida's hatching grounds, but instead, her dragon seemed oddly distracted.
Well, maybe she was worried about what the kingdom was facing ahead of them.
Or more likely, she thought, she is missing Brixaby. Those two had been growing close.
She slid off Joy's neck and had time to put her skirts back into proper order before there was any movement from the courtyard doors. This in itself, she knew, was a slight.
There were no large trees at Icehouse, and the flight of dragons had been perfectly visible upon approach. They were making her wait.
Finally, though, the doors opened, and her younger brother, Villiam, strode out. She caught her breath.
Dear Villiam had finally gotten that growth spurt he had wanted. Now he was nearly man-grown, standing with his head over hers, though he was stretched thin and had no sign of a beard. He smiled when he saw her, and she smiled back. Something in his countenance always made her think of Marion. He was... gentle, which was all the more unfortunate because he would have to vie with the rest of the younger brothers for control of the estate once their father passed. She did not envy him.
"Sister," he called, not quite breaking into a jog but at least increasing his pace to meet her.
They did not hug. That was not done in their family. Nor did Cressida curtsey to him. She was a dragon rider now.
"You've come to see us at last." Villiam looked up at Joy. "This is yours? A Rare?"
"Yes, this is Joy. Joy, this is my brother Villiam," she said.
Joy made a grunt in reply, swinging her head back and forth to check the progress of Blake's riders. Dragons were not overly known for speaking to people outside the hive, but Cressida would have thought that Joy, of all dragons, would be pleased to speak to somebody new. But she seemed distracted.
Villiam, of course, didn't know better. "She is quite beautiful," he said. "You have done well, sister, though I'm afraid Father..."
"I know," she said, "but I would not have come here if I had any other choice. Villiam..." She looked around and then stepped closer. There was no indication that they were being observed from the courtyard windows, but there were always card powers.
Cressida cast her mana bubble to encase them both, which was unpardonably rude, but she was beyond that. Hopefully, the shield would disrupt any eavesdropping cards.
She spoke quickly. "Do you still have keys to the card library?"
He took a half step back. "Sister..."
That was as good as a yes.
Reaching out, she gripped his wrist. "Go to it now. This entire estate is in danger and must be evacuated. Whatever heirloom cards you take can be put back if we're able to return, but you must secure them while there's still time. I've sent the rest of the wing to evacuate the commoners. Afterwards, I will collect the people from the estate."
There would be only one reason why a rider would command such a thing. "An eruption? Here? Oh... Father will not like that," Villiam said faintly, and it said something that he was more worried about their father's reaction than the threat of scourglings on their doorstep.
"It doesn't matter. We're beyond what he likes and does not like. I will speak to Father and see if I can... if I can speak sense into him," Cressida said. "You must go, save what you can before he locks you out of the library. And—" She caught herself for a moment. "Lysandra's children?"
His lips thinned. "They are in schooling."
Their half-siblings, and Villiam's competitors for the estate, were only recently out of diapers.
Cressida dropped the shield. "Joy, signal to one of Blake's riders. We have children to evacuate as well."
"Yes, yes," Joy muttered, then stood on her hind legs and bellowed.
Well, that would definitely gather attention. If people weren't watching from the windows, they certainly were now.
Villiam, however, stared at Cressida. "You're... you're serious?"
"Have you ever known me to joke around about such things? Get what you can, we have little time. What are you waiting for?" she said sharply when he didn't move. "Go!"
Without waiting for his answer, she started crossing to another courtyard door that she knew too well, one that would lead up to her father's private office.
I can only hope there is still enough good in him to listen, she thought.