Johan tried to placate his wife. “My dear, please believe that⁠—”

“No!” snapped Marja. She took a deep, shaking breath and, lip quivering with nervous energy, stared up at Johan. “I am queen! I will… I will be part of ruling. And… and I won’t allow any other business until you and I have decided what to do about the dragon.”

Anger flashed in the king’s eyes. “Marja, I⁠—”

“I won’t!” Marja declared. “I can stop things, too. I am the queen, and royal by birth!”

Ortson watched Johan’s face carefully. A shadow passed over the paladin’s scarred features, not of anger or malice, but disappointment. With a resigned sigh, the king pulled his hand down over his face, but when he looked up, his smile had returned as though applied like an ointment. “Of course, my love. But let us discuss it in the morning.”

Marja was undeterred. “Why not now? Everyone is here.”

“Well, everyone needed to discuss import tariffs on non-staple grains. I would not plan a defense of the kingdom without the Golden Dawn,” Johan interjected. “We shall call them to gather in the morning, and we will plan a glorious proclamation that will be on people’s minds and tongues for weeks to come.”

Chapter 14

“It had better be a big deal to get us up at this hour,” grumbled Burt.

“It’s the biggest scandal in at least two ages,” Gorm said. “And I called ye all together because every one of ye had a role to play in discoverin’ the secret.”

He glanced around the desk at the confidants gathered in Jynn’s laboratory, nodding to each as he mentioned them. “Burt’s been our contact with the Shadowkin united by the Guz’Varda.”

“Unofficial liaison,” corrected the Kobold.

“Kaitha, Gaist, Laruna, and I found evidence that Sowdock wasn’t burned by a dragon. Jynn helped us figure it was Imperial flame olive oil that the false dragon was usin’. Heraldin discovered how it was being sourced.”

“Don’t forget to sign over your ballad rights before you leave!” The bard held up a sheaf of paperwork and a quill with a helpful smile.

“Since then, Kaitha and Gaist joined me in tailin’ a wagon carrying that olive oil into the Winter’s Shade. And what we found there is hard proof that Johan’s a fraud who killed his own people. We’ll need all of your help to move forward. And when we do, all of ye will be in danger. Ye understand?”

The Dwarf looked at each of his old friends in turn. Each nodded back to him. “What did you learn?” Jynn asked.

Gorm took a deep breath. “This goes back, back to when Handor was king. Johan, who was Champion of Tandos at the time, took an enchanted gemstone from the Great Vault beneath the Palace of Andarun.”

“Impossible,” said Jynn. “That’s part of the Royal Archives, and guarded by the Heroes’ Guild and bannermen. Nothing goes in or out without proper requisitions.”

“Requisitions that were easy for the Champion of Tandos and confidant of Handor to get,” said Kaitha, setting a stack of papers on Jynn’s desk.

“So he took this. The ‘Eye of the Dragon.’” Gorm set the enchanted gemstone on the desk next to the paperwork. “With this here magic jewel, the Temple of Tandos spends years catchin’ wyverns and drakes, and usin’ the gem to learn to ride them. And all the while, they been developing fire weapons usin’ flame olive oil from Kesh. Oil that leaves no trace, and thus can’t be proven to not be from a dragon.”

“They’d need a lot of oil to simulate such an attack,” said Jynn. “And Imperial flame olives only grow in a very small area. They’d have to… they’d... they cornered the markets on flame olives for the flame olive oil.”

“Aye,” Gorm said. “With the help of the Goldson Baggs Group, they bought all the means of production a decade ago. With the help of the Temple of Tandos, they concealed their facility in Winter’s Shade. When the price of flame olives skyrocketed, they used Goldson Baggs’ market analysts to spread lies about seasonal growin’ patterns and cover up what they’d done.”

“We have invoices and correspondence to prove it.” Kaitha added more paper to the pile.

“It took time for them to work out how to use the dragon-kin and the flame oil. The first test attacks were few and far between. But once they got operations runnin’ smoothly, they spent years more attacking the Freedlands’ own cities and eliminatin’ competitors and inconvenient public figures under the auspices of the Dragon of Wynspar.”

“You think he’s framing the dragon?” asked Heraldin.

“I think there ain’t a dragon at all,” said Gorm.

His words reverberated like whispered thunder in the office. An unsettling silence fell on the room.

“But…” Laruna stammered. “But everyone knows there’s a dragon beneath Wynspar.”

“What everyone knows and a giltin will get ye a fish on market day,” said the Dwarf. “Think a dragon would tolerate grown drakes roostin’ in its mountain? Every legend I heard of ’em says they’re as territorial as they are greedy. If there was really a dragon below Wynspar, it’d have wiped out Johan’s plans before they started.”

Heraldin shook his head. “So… all these years… the dragon stirring…”

“I knew Handor was a bastard, but I never thought he’d kill Lightlings like that.” Burt shook his head, waving off clouds of blue cigarette smoke.

“Ain’t much evidence Handor knew,” said Gorm. “Seems like it was Johan’s idea from the start. It’s all there, plain as day in the documents. And now we have the bastard king by the throat!”

“Probably,” said Jynn.

“Ye think he can deny it?” demanded Gorm.

Gaist pointed to the Tandosian documents for emphasis.

“I’m aware of the evidence,” the archmage told the weaponsmaster. “But only a fool would underestimate the king.”

“We have proof!” Kaitha said.

“He has the kingdom,” Jynn countered. “The people love him. The temples see him as one of their own. The Wall is having its best run in years. They will be reluctant to give up their prosperity and security for something as insignificant as the facts.”

Gorm shook his head. “That ain’t how it works.”

“It is. I’ve lived it,” said Jynn. “For all my father’s evils, he did not kidnap Princess Marja. Yet people still tell each other the story of how Johan saved her. The public would rather have a hero for a king than a royal assassin, and contrary to what the Agekeepers say, it is public preference that writes history.”

“And the people won’t prefer his story once they hear it was him that’s been torchin’ their towns and blamin’ an imaginary dragon!” said Gorm.

“And what if the dragon is imaginary?” asked Jynn. “How many billions of giltin are invested in the Dragon of Wynspar’s hoard? What do you think happens to that gold if there is no dragon and no mountain of treasure for it to sleep on? Will the banks and their investors accept that their fortunes are invested in a lie?”

“Some things are hard for people to believe, especially if they’re true,” Heraldin added.

“But… we have proof!” Gorm protested, though the fuel had been pulled from his fire. “Every town crier would leap at the chance to holler about a scandal like this.”

“Not if the executives at the Town Crier Network are concerned about their stocks,” countered Heraldin.

“That’s madness!”

“Yes, but it’s also the norm.” Jynn retrieved the Wyrmwood Staff from a corner of his office. “We’re not saying we shouldn’t share the information you gathered, but we need to proceed cautiously.”

“Johan could claim that we are trying to frame him, to bring down the kingdom.” Heraldin steepled his fingers and stared at Jynn’s desk as though it were a thrones board. “So long as he maintains the dragon is real and we’re interlopers, the evidence won’t matter to people whose fortunes are on the line.”

The wizard ignored the commentary and began twisting reality around his fingers. “No, we cannot rush to the first town crier we find with the evidence.” The space in front of Jynn pinched into an onyx surface haloed by a faint blue corona. “We can store the evidence in this pocket dimension while we plan. Until we’ve carefully considered how to deploy this information, we must keep the evidence safe.”

“We’ll have to act soon,” said Heraldin. “If Johan knows what you took, if he has some inkling of the evidence we hold, he’ll be forced to make a move soon.”