This place was a treasure trove. I would have given anything for the chance to explore it and find all its secrets, but the thin, rat-like man who’d brought us in, muttered orders at two women who were seated and sewing leather with the kind of machines I’d only ever heard about—pedals that swung under their toes moving a number of parts, including a needle that was sharp enough to punch through the dragonhide.
How was that even possible?
“They’re diamond tipped,” the Commander murmured. “Don’t tell our enemies. If they haven’t discovered it for themselves, we don’t want to make it easier for them.”
I looked up at him, uncertain if he was joking. But he looked back at them without smiling.
Moments later I was being stretched and measured, peppered with questions, and discussed as if I was not present.
“We have the leggings for the handlers in training—she’s not much smaller than the boys. I could cut them to length, though they wouldn't be properly hemmed.”
Both women looked at the Commander, who had folded his arms and was watching on. “Whatever will do. I need her out of the dress, andclothed to stand with dragons in… half an hour,” he said with a quick glance at the clock on the wall.
There was a squeak and a scurry of activity around me as the women darted through another door on the other side of this strange room. Moments later, one of them was back to grab my hand and tug me through with them.
“We’ll be just a few moments, Commander!” she said breathlessly. “She won’t have a jacket, but we have a vest, and a sheath and—”
“Whatever you think is best. That will do. She just needs to look like shebelongs.”
The woman nodded once, then yanked at my arm again and we were off.
A few minutes later, I stood in front of a full-length mirror, stunned.
Except as a silhouette in a window during a long ago trip to the city I’d never seen my entire reflection at once. It was unnerving.
The woman in front of me looked surprisingly capable.
Her hair was tightly braided. The white shirt had no collar, but it hugged her shoulders and tucked into the black leather leggings which were reinforced inside the knees. A thick, black belt with a tongue that was too long, but tucked into the back so it was hardly noticeable kept the leggings from falling down, and the shirt from falling out.
A black leather vest made her shoulders look flatter, and emphasized the trim muscle in her upper arms. It also flattened her chest and was loose around the waist because it was made for a boy. But under the circumstances, that wasn’t a bad thing.
She had a second belt draped across her hips, a blade sheath hanging from it, though no blade.
“I look like an assassin,” I squeaked.
I didn’t sound like one.
One of the women giggled. “Not quite—they wouldn’t wear the white—but you look a lot more like a Furyknight than you did when you entered!” she said gleefully.
“Oh, I’m not a Furyknight—”
“Flameborne, Furyknight, same thing. It’s quite exciting to know that any of us could be Chosen if the dragons were willing,” she said wistfully, reaching to tug at the chest of the vest, as if she might find more room in the leather somehow.
“I… thank you for your help,” I said nervously.
“Get out there and show them how it’s done!” the woman whispered, then winked at me. Her aide seemed a lot less confident of my ability to show anyone anything. I tended to agree with her. But I couldn’t deny that I walked a little taller when I stepped out of the room and back into the space where the Commander stood with the wispy, sharp-featured man who’d greeted us when we entered the Store.
The Quartermaster.
“Thank you,” I said quickly as both men turned to look at me, and to stare.
At first, my heart dropped to my toes. Whatever they saw, it was not smiles of delight on their faces as it had been for the women.
I looked down at myself in case I’d left the fly of the leggings unbuttoned or… but no. There was nothing.
I looked back at the Commander, pleading with him to understand. “They said there were few appropriate things that would fit—”
“No, no. It’s better than I expected,” he said faintly, then turned to the women who’d come in behind me and thanked them personally, before tipping his head to me and marching back out.
