Garret
I was surprised to wake up to Mist's pale face hovering over me, and even more surprised when she's stated her case.
She insisted that she'd be my bodyguard and even though I still trusted the silvery dragon, I hated to tell that to Andrew or the rest of the Order. I shared my concerns with her.
"The one-handed guy? Garret are you serious? Any Viper would have killed him without second thought or any effort..."
I interrupted her with a gesture. I was lying in my bed, after I have been up for days. I was getting annoyed with her insisting on me taking serious decisions before breakfast.
"While you're guarding me, am I allowed to eat and shower?" I asked her on edge.
"... of course. I'm sorry Garret get dressed and I'll get some poison-free food ready for you, how do you like your eggs?"
This wasn't what I had in mind but I relented.
"Scrambled, let me tell Andrew you're here with my permission."
"Riley, Nettle and hopefully Wes are on their way." Mist added quickly and I sighed inwardly.
Andrew straightened invisibly, when after leading Wes, Riley and Nettle into Patriarch's library, where I decided to eat my breakfast, Mist resumed standing behind my left shoulder. The two would have to work it out on their own, I had problems enough.
Riley threw himself onto shiny leather sofa as soon as he stepped in. I nodded and swallowed a chunk of toast before I greeted them.
"Welcome guys. Thank you for your care, but it's really not necessary..."
"Would you mind telling us what "this" is? We only have Nettle's chaotic report..." Wes piped in and I gave up.
"Mist, would you?" I gestured to the three in front of me. At least I'd get to eat something more before deciding whatever was going to happen next.
"I was contacted by the Archivist this morning." Mist began and Riley's one brow shop upwards. "He was using a very secure, secret communication channel, that has never been used before or will again." Mist added and I smirked at how she still wanted to impress Riley.
"Ember have issued an order to kill Garret and the rest of the Order. She's made all the Order's addresses public within Talon this one included. The Archivist wants us to protect the Order of St George and especially Garret. I have headed here directly to take the task upon myself." Mist said with this strange mixture of obedience and pride, that she always displayed while following the Archivist's orders.
"And I have sent Nettle to you to ask for your help." She added.
Riley used this opportunity to scrutinize the ceiling, but Wes spoke up immediately.
"Of course Mist, I'll see into, what I can do for security here." And that reminded me of something else.
"Thank you Wesley. I'm really grateful. There's one more thing I'd like to ask of you though..." I told him about the Trove of the Order of St George and how the lore of it died alongside all the highest ranked officers of the Order.
"I don't know mate. I'll need someplace to start for sure." Wes answered carefully looking at Riley.
"Oh yes, help him however you can." Riley answered the silent question with dramatic eagerness, apparently placated by being again seen as the leader, if only by some of his "troops".
"How are the dragonells?" I asked.
"Fine, I would say great, but Kain might not like me over sharing about "dragon's business" where is he by the way?" Riley's voice were sweet like molasses. It was time for Nettle and Mist to look flustered.
"Kain doesn't want anything to do with the Order. He is... with the rest." Nettle said.
"Good. We don't need any ambiguity among us. Let dragons guarding Garret be hundred percent sure, they don't want him dead." Riley threw satisfied.
"I'm honored that you've called for me Mist, but I cannot see much I can do here. I will of course take watches by Garret's side, when needed, but you cannot expect me to run my underground from Order's HQ."
"No!" Mist exclaimed. "Never go to their headquarters Riley. There's a potent magical ward against dragons on it. It can even kill a dragon." She said and I saw Andrew's eyebrows shot up.
"If what you say is true... Talon can only send people there. Even decimated the soldiers of the Order should be able to successfully battle humans of Talon." Riley said thoughtfully.
"I guess so." Mist said looking unhappy.
"Then Garret is under his men's and his own protection when he's at the headquarters." Riley declared and Andrew scoffed.
"Don't glare at me old man. As far as I can see you only have one arm and you are all that the Order could spare to protect their Commander." Riley said.
I lifted my hand before Andrew could retort.
"Andrew is a trusted friend and I asked him to be the only one "guarding" me tonight and until I find out what happened to my Lieutenant " I said getting tired of Riley fast.
"Wes, if you don't mind venturing where dragons cannot follow, you can walk with me to the headquarters and talk to Order's hacker and the other Commander about the Vault?" Wes was visibly displeased at the mention of Jason Knight and once more, I wondered, how jerks like him and Ward, seemed to naturally float to the top within the Order.
And they've cost me first my parents and then Ember... I stopped my thoughts before bitterness took over.
"I'll go with you. But if you cannot keep me safe among your soldiers, Talon will be your least concern." Wes said smiling sincerely and Andrew frowned at the threat in his message that didn't fit his expression.
Entering the headquarters I wasn't expecting Spanish inquisition in form of Commander Knight, Lieutenant Ward and St Christopher clearly awaiting me in the lobby. To confront me openly in front of all the soldiers gathered there, good old Order style.
"Commander Sebastian, we have numerous issues to discuss with you about your plans of becoming next Patriarch." Jason Knight proclaimed seriously.
"I am sure you're perfectly capable of dealing with any issues that may arise Commander Knight. So that new Patriarch can take over full leadership of the Order for everyone's best." I said just as seriously and continued. "Where is Madison? I want my friend here to look at the trove..."
"An outsider?! Look into Order's most sacred secrets?" This exclamation come from St Christopher and I ignored it looking hard at Knight, to let him know that I meant, what I said.
"Madison is not a soldier of yours. She's helping out if her free will, you cannot order her anything." He retorted and I carefully kept my face neutral. Was he really that delusional? He's already abused Madison's good will in a way that I hopefully never would.
"I will not order her anything. I just want to talk to her, if she wishes to. In my office, when she wishes to." I answered and led Wes to severe seriousness of the office. I closed the doors behind us and it took Wes no time to hack into former Patriarch's PC.
Then a soft knock sounded on the doors and Madison slipped in with her laptop pressed protectively to her chest.
"You called for me..."
She stopped seeing Wes beside me in the Patriarch's armchair. I wasn't interested if any of this was another sacrilege.
"Hi, Madison. Wes is a hacker and I asked him to look at the Vault, would you show him what you have so far?" I said before she could ask any uncomfortable questions.
Madison looked at me with large green eyes and then decided on something.
"My father will not be happy about it. He doesn't support you as Patriarch and only the Patriarch has right to these resources..." She said visibly uncomfortable.
I couldn't put my finger on it, but something happened just then. Maybe it was the defiant sparkle in her green eyes, or something else completely but I decided to trust her.
"Sit down please." I led her to one of the chairs by the meeting table. I sat on a chair beside and leaned slightly towards her.
"Will you promise me to keep what I tell you now a secret?" I asked and she nodded slowly.
"I will use these resources to end the Order of St George Madison." I said and seeing the shock on her face I continued. "The Order's cause is void, and there's no need for any more men to die fighting dragons. But there are still soldiers alive, families who's lost their close ones. They deserve some sort of retribution. A chance for a fresh start. I want to give each former soldier and each child orphaned during the Night of Fang and Fire and the aftermath of it a trust fund. So they can live in peace for the rest of their lives, have a choice. I can only do this as a Patriarch. That's why I need your help." Madison looked conflicted and even Wes was visibly surprised.
"You don't have to decide right away. Think about it. Sleep on it, if you need." I said and leaned back giving her space.
Madison rose slowly and left without a word.
"What if she runs straight to her dad?" Wes asked.
"Then I'll be free of a very difficult task." I shrugged and was surprised by how true this felt.
Once more I was handling Order and its burdens when all I wanted to do was to face Ember and see if she would kill me herself.
Some part of me insisted that she was the only thing that mattered, that I should be with her even if this was the last thing I'd ever do.
"Let's see what we can find about the last election of a Patriarch and the trove." I said to Wes and we resumed leafing through documents on the computer.
The process of election was unchanged for four hundred years and very simple. The Patriarch was chosen unanimously by all the soldiers of the Order of St George. I was too young to be alive, when former Patriarch was elected, but I knew the Order and couldn't imagine any of the grunts speaking up against whomever was nominated. I needed as many details as possible, to ensure my victory and time was scarce.
I left Wes to his work and went to check up on my men. We had supplies and weapons in the building. Alexander's shoulder was healing nicely. Amanda Knight and Archie have taken over one of the rooms and were making it into first help room. I really hoped we would not need it.
St Christopher and St Patrick were low level administrative employees and have handled drift of the HQ, why they slept here during the Night of Fang and Fire and survived. They were positively conservative and this meant something, when even I deemed them so. But none of this would be any problem once I was a Patriarch. Their obedience would make my task easier.
I spent the rest of the day on talking to soldiers and organizing them a bit. It wasn't necessary, but I wanted them to feel my leadership, as I was going to ask it of them in a couple of days. We ate a lunch prepared by Lieutenant Ward and his men in an impromptu cantina and I said a couple of words about passing of Joseph.
His death felt nasty. Unnecessary and futile, it gnawed at my heart, but a display of despair would not help my men now. Instead I acknowledged his effort, expressed my sincere grief and hope, that such deaths would not continue. I was not so subtly making my men listen to such notions without protests.
It angered me, how the Order have groomed us to accept such casualties and expect more and be willing to be next... Joseph was older than me, but he was twenty years old and has lost his life because the Order of St George existed.
Wes left after lunch to take care of digital security at the mansion. Before he'd left he asked St Christopher to be shown around the building so respectfully, that the old man gave him an hour long guided tour.
In the evening I decided to go back to the house. I felt well connected with my men, but needed to give my opponents a room to play a bit. Only a bit, not enough to win over me.
As I walked away from the HQ I felt growing irritation, an inner voice prompted me to be elsewhere do something way more important.
I was so focused on convincing myself, that I couldn't be with Ember just yet and was crazy thinking about it, that I started when Mist rose from a bench on my way towards the Underground.
"Hi." She said without a smile.
"Hi." I said and let the awkward silence settle. I never felt much connected to the silvery-white dragon, she was too much like me maybe. She was not a soldier but she also a dutifully accomplished the tasks given by others. And didn't question them. Even if she was to protect me... If that was what she was doing. I suppressed a shudder at the thought of her slitting my throat while I slept.
These worries dispersed slightly as Nettle joined us in the house later on. She would have a night watch. I found this weird.
"Do you guys need a room to stay in, while you're here?" I asked them over a supper, that Mist have picked up on our way home.
"No, at night we rather be in dragon form, as it enhances our enhanced senses." Mist winked and I gave up the topic even though she misunderstood my concern.
Andrew stayed in one of the other suits. And I felt strange thinking about Nettle perched on the roof tonight... in the rain.
The time had come and passed for me to ask Riley to look for Tristan again, and I didn't. If he was dead, I needed all the time I could get, not knowing for sure. He stayed in the Order for me... He wanted to leave, but came back... for me.
I needed to focus on the task at hand. We've planned this coup together and if it's just me now, I had to finish what we've started.
After Mist left, Nettle put her feet up onto the sofa, she was sitting on stuck her nose into her phone and texted incessantly.
I only got a message from Wes, that he was working on something.
I decided to work out before trying to sleep. I first took a quick run around the block and then done all body weight training I could think about. I tried to ignore Nettle in her dragon form watching me from where she perched on the oblique roof of the huge mansion. At some point I got tired of it and ran deeper inside the elegant garden, that was only a bit less immaculate more than a year after Patriarch's death.
Dark shape crossed from the roof to the crown of a huge beech tree, one af a dozen forming a tiny copse in the middle of the ground.
"Cannot you glitch to me in no time wherever I am?" I said feeling exasperated. First cold Mist now Nettle guarding me, like I was a thing or a toddler.
Nettle swooped down landing in front of me and said.
"I cannot glitch back in time, to when you're not dead yet. Garret, you do know what can happen. I hope if I stay close to you my... other senses will catch any... shifts of energy and I get to react before it's too late. You yourself taught us about snipers remember?"
I did remember. The misguided combat training we've given them on the farm. I wondered briefly if I had a death wish and decided, it wasn't that.
"Ah that. Much it have helped all these hatchlings that fell." I said bitterly and Nettle flinched.
"It won't help them if you die now."
"I don't want to die Nettle, okay. It's just so strange to be followed by you everywhere. I am a soldier, I can protect myself and I don't need a wisp of a girl to spend night out in the rain for me."
Nettle locked her eyes with mine and the rain started to sizzle and steam off her scales.
"You'd rather have me lay at the foot of your bed?" She asked in strange otherworldly voice.
"No." No doubt about it. I was getting cold standing in the rain. As if reading my thoughts Nettle radiated heat like a huge bonfire that almost dried the rain before it could reach me.
"I'd rather you treated me like a friend, not an item you're guarding. If you've something to tell me, tell me. I know I've done plenty wrong and maybe I still am. But don't follow me mute and aloof. You used to have no problem speaking your mind to me."
That stopped her in her tracks. Black eyes got bottomless and I almost felt them sucking some part of my consciousness in, the feeling was slightly scary and then it disappeared and Nettle sat down and said in her normal voice.
"And what happened to you friend? You're leading the Order against Ember as if this was nothing?! Ember! I don't know what Riley have told you, but I know Ember. She is good, she would never do anything like this of her free will..."
"She told me to my face, that she'll kill me" I interrupted not wanting the hope, stirred by Nettles speech to unman me.
"Maybe she bluffed?! Maybe it was a cover to save your life? We don't know how many powerful dragons in Talon have access to her, what they could do..." I could hear echo of my own thoughts in Nettle's insisting voice and I couldn't bear it. But I couldn't bear Nettle's coldness either.
"I don't know Nettle." I said softly and hated how weak and helpless I sounded. "I don't know. You've been under attack yourself. You've seen what Talon does now, that Ember leads it..." A soldier needed to take facts into account. A strategy based on wishes was a suicide. I needed some facts to launch a rescue mission for Ember.
Nettle hesitated.
" Okay, I don't know what's going on either, and I understand that we need to regroup and regain our strength. I just think it should be understood, that as soon as we can, we go after saving Ember. She's a dragon, she can wait. But we mustn't forget her..."
I could burst into tears, at her words and the sentiment behind them. I had no right to berate her either, her was the pure honest heart. I didn't need her to change her mind about Ember. I relented. I outstretched my fisted hand towards her.
"It's a deal." I said against my better judgment.
"O.M.G! Garret are you crying?" She said bumping her talon against my fist.
"I'm going in. I'm getting cold" I said quickly and jogged back towards the house. Or a prison?
The shower felt fantastic at least. Patriarch's bathroom had a bathtub, but lounging in a tub was foreign to me, used to life of a soldier. The huge corner tub took up more room than most bathrooms, I've been to and made me curious about the real man behind the ascetic Patriarch the rest if the Order knew... If he could dupe the Order at its full strength for years, I should be able to get remaining couple percent where I needed them to go.
I changed into a t-shirt and boxer shorts and was ready to try to get some sleep, when there was a commotion downstairs. I grabbed my gun and went out getting a pair of jeans as I went.
I snuck through the carpet covered hall and stopped by the stairs just out of sight and risked a taking a look.
Andrew was holding the door with his foot as he discussed with someone outside, whom he was holding on the point of his firearm...
"You cannot come inside without authorization." He said.
"Trust me, he's got authorization." This was Nettle.
"So you say dragon! I didn't mean your authorization." Andrew spat with vitriol, that I haven't heard so openly expressed in a while. I decided to step in before something bad happened...
"Why don't you ask Garret? We'll wait right here." Another voice said. And I switched on my guns safety lock and ran down the stairs shouting.
"Andrew stop! Let them in!"
Andrew stepped stiffly to the side.
"Thank you for guarding my doors so well." I managed to tell him, deciding to address his clear disrespect of Nettle another time and in private.
"And where the hell have you been?!" I said to Tristan standing in the doors. Whole and hale dressed like it's holiday.
"It's raining, can we go inside?" He answered in the same tone.
"You go, I'll keep watch outside." Nettle said leaping out of sight.
"Have a good night! Thanks for your help!" Tristan shouted behind her and stepped over the threshold.
Again I was struck by the ease with which he adopted to changes. He was always smooth with girls and now Nettle was just a girl and that he very well knew how to handle.
Inside I quickly introduced Tristan and Andrew to each other and then Andrew stayed to keep watch and we went to the library to catch up and synchronize after this... disruption.