Falling for the Ashfather

Chapter 8

I was exhausted by the time I reached home again. I slipped through the dark of night, yearning for my bed as I crept up to my door. The woman had been still quiet when I had dropped them off at one of the safe houses I had set up. The people inside had reassured them and started to usher them off to their room. They wouldn’t stay there long — the safe houses were only safe for so long. Arrangements would be started in the morning to get them off to the next phase of their journey. If I could have, I would have warned them about the journey they had just found themselves on. How long it was going to take. How unsettled they were going to feel. But, eventually, we would get them out of the Ashfather’s empire, and they would find a safe place to call home.

Still, they weighed heavily on my mind as I stepped into the back of my shop, intent on heading directly to bed to get as much sleep as I possibly could before I needed to be up the next day for work once again.

“Again, Tahlia?”

I jumped at the voice and turned in the dark to see Clara, a girl who fancied herself my best friend and seemed to attach herself to me everywhere I went, sitting at my work table, arms crossed and eyes locked on me.

Being a dragon came with some benefits, like being able to see well in the dark, but it still didn’t keep my heart from racing when I realized someone was there. “What are you doing here, Clara?” I asked, not bothering to answer her question as I pulled off my hat and wrap, releasing my white hair from its confinement.

Clara stood and followed me up to my apartment, not once asking if it was alright she was there. She never asked. She just did what she wanted. “I know what you were doing.” She said as we walked.

My stomach twisted, though she’d said as much before, and it had never gone anywhere. “It’s late, Clara. And I’m very tired. I have to be up early, as always. Any possibility of us picking up this conversation at some point tomorrow?” Or never. I would be more than happy with never.

“Don’t think I know you’re never going to talk to me about this if I walk out that door right now.” She followed me into my apartment and took a seat at my kitchen table. Her brows were raised as she watched me, expectantly.

Sighing, I turned on the lamp dimly, not wanting the entire world to know I was up so late, and took a seat across from her.

“Now,” Clara started.

“No, I think I get to talk,” I interrupted her. “I have some questions of my own. Starting with why you’re awake, what you were doing in my shop, and why you knew I wasn’t going to be home.”

Clara’s cheeks went red, and she dropped her gaze to the table. Her fingers started playing with a piece of lace I had been trying to work on and failing miserably. “I may have been spying on you.”

I leaned back in my chair, looking the girl over. She had been trying to establish herself as my best friend since I had opened my shop. Constantly asking me to go for lunch, or trying to include me in her plans. No matter how many times I declined or brushed her off, she always asked me again.

When I was silent, she peeked up at me, her face filling with relief when she saw I didn’t look angry. The truth was, I didn’t know how to feel. There was a part of me that wanted to do all the things she was inviting me to. That wanted to get to know her. To let her be my friend. To trust her and tell her everything I had been up to. And there was another part of me that replayed Kami killing Konrad every time I even considered it. I didn’t want another friend, because I didn’t want to lose another friend. But how was I supposed to explain that to Clara?

“There are rumours, of someone helping the Wyvern families.”

I stiffened, and my eyes hardened as I watched her. “And you think I have something to do with that? That I’m a traitor to the Ashfather and all dragonkin?” I forced myself to sound offended, but she had hit the nail directly on the head. I knew if I was caught, I would be killed. Maybe even tortured. After all, what I was doing was treasonous. But, I couldn’t bring myself to care. These people needed help. And if I could spare any families what I had watched Konrad’s family go through, I was going to do it. They didn’t deserve their fates.

Clara was quiet for a moment, studying me, then her hands clenched. “I think that you’re helping people. People that really need help. And it’s working. I’m not here to threaten you, Tahlia. You’re my friend! I just, I want to help. In any way I can. Please.”

It took me a long second to find the words to respond. Of everything she could have said at that moment, asking to help was the last thing I would have expected. I had yet to meet any Dragonkin who believed any Wyverns should be allowed to live. Those who helped me in my safe houses were humans, all of whom had been carefully vetted before being allowed to help. Every single one of them knew the risks that came with what they were doing. All of them were still willing to help.

But a Dragonkin? How could I trust her? She had grown up the same as me, being taught the Wyvern were evil. That they deserved to be killed, and if we didn’t kill them, they would only do the same to us.

“When I was a kid, I watched a family in our town by killed in the village square for it. I didn’t know them, or anything, but my parents forced me to go watch it. I had already been talking about sympathy towards them, and they wanted me to know what would happen if I went any further. All it did was make me want to do something to help them. I just never could figure out how to find them before the Drakesworn did. But, you figured it out! How? How are you finding the Wyverns?”

Suspicion flared at her words, and I shook my head. “I’m not, Clara. I’m not this saviour of the Wyvern you think I am. I just can’t sleep well. And then I go for walks. That’s all that’s happening.”

Clara fixed me with a look. “In all black? You really expect me to believe that?”

“It’s the truth,” I told her. “I won’t tell anyone, though, what you told me. I promise. And you can believe that promise because, as you say, we’re friends. Right?”

She was still staring at me, and I had to steel myself not to react when I saw the disbelief in her eyes. She stood without a word and walked to the door, grabbing the handle, then she turned back to me.

“Maybe we’re not friends. Yet. But we will be. One of these days, you’re going to trust me with your secrets, and then you’re going to realize, all I want to do is help you.”