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What is he talking about? Harper clutched the pot between her hands and returned to camp, the tense atmosphere there dissipating with her arrival.
“Ah, thank you, Harper. Much appreciated. You’ve saved my old hands and knees.”
She set the pot down and smiled, but it did not quite reach her eyes. “Oh,” she said, struck by a sudden thought. “I might be able to help with your hands.” She had noticed how he sometimes struggled to pick things up and fumbled when he held things.
“May I?” She gestured toward his hands.
With a quizzical glance, he offered one to her. Harper settled on the ground at his side and took his gnarled hand between her own, massaging it slowly from palm to fingertip. Ragnar groaned in bliss. She worked on one hand in silence before transferring her attention to the other. He sat back with a sigh when she was done, flexing his fingers and examining his hands.
“That was wonderful, Harper. Thank you. That’s really eased my aches. Where did that come from?”
“My old—” She wasn’t sure what Betta had been—part mother, mentor, caregiver, friend. “—friend suffered terribly with arthritis, and this used to help. She couldn’t pick things up, her fingers were so overworked. In the winter, it got that bad she could barely use her hands.”
“Well, I thank you.” Ragnar’s smile was genuine and warm, reaching right to the corners of his crinkled eyes. “That feels much better.”
“Are you offering those to everyone?” A swoop rushed through her belly as Aedon seemed to appear from nowhere beside her, his voice low and suggestive, and the heat of his body close enough to radiate to her. The skin on the back of her neck prickled at his proximity. “Can’t be giving the old dwarf an advantage over us at chatura, you know.”
Crashing through the bracken spared her from answering. Erika returned. There was a long moment of awkward silence. Harper held her breath.
“Here,” Erika said abruptly, thrusting a handful of berries toward her. “Red ones are occa berries. Edible. Nutritious. Green ones are poisonous. Don’t eat them.”
“Thank you.” Harper caught the berries before they tumbled to the ground, and Erika strode away again. Harper examined the berries for a long moment, noting their shapes, sizes, tones, and distinguishing features. They were nothing like what she foraged for in Caledan.
She offered the red ones to Ragnar for his tea, but he refused. “Have them as a snack. I think we’ll drink up and move on. Slim pickings here if Aedon the Great Hunter hasn’t found anything.”
Aedon held up his hands apologetically.
“Jerky it is.” Ragnar pulled some strips of dried meat from his pack and passed them around.
Harper ate it without complaint. It was rich, tangy, and extra salty, but too small to fill the gnawing hunger in her stomach. It was as if Aedon could read her thoughts, for he offered her some of his own.
“You don’t have to do that.”
He shrugged. “You need it more than I. Did they starve you in Caledan?”
Harper pulled her cloak around her self-consciously. “No. I mean… It’s just a hard place to live. The king takes his tithe, then the lord takes more. There’s not much to start with, and even less when they’re through.”
“That doesn’t seem fair.” Aedon shared a glance with Brand.
“That doesn’t happen here?”
“The king is greedy, but not so much for peasant’s food. He prizes dragons and magic.”
“You said all dragons belong to the king. How is that?” Harper could not imagine the dragons from her stories being subjugated.
“By law, all dragons in Pelenor belong to the king, who can do with them as he pleases. Of course, all of them become members of the Winged Kingsguard, his personal winged army. He has no other use for dragons. Besides, I hear they’re a bit more malleable if you can train them out of the egg. Otherwise, they’re rather hard to tame.”
“That doesn’t seem fair, either.”
“It’s the law,” Aedon said, as if it were that simple.
“You’re quite right,” Brand said, catching Harper’s gaze and scowling. “Just because it’s law doesn’t make it right.”
“Exactly my thought,” Harper murmured.
“You’ll find a lot of that here in Pelenor,” Brand said, “though I’m guessing Caledan is no utopia, either.”
“No,” said Harper sadly. “There are plenty of people with power who abuse it, plenty of outdated or unfair laws, and just those who think they can take what they will.” She meant the lecherous men in the inn, but as her gaze strayed to her companions, she realised they were quite possibly the same, though in a different manner. Something uncomfortable settled in her stomach at the thought.
