Purpose
Breakfast had been laid out on a broad rock ledge that jutted a little way from the mouth of the cave.
Though it was called a ledge, the space was wider than most house yards, and a low stone railing ran along its edge, offering a comfortable view of the canyon spread out below.
The cool breath of dawn had not yet fully faded.
A thin mist lingering deep in the gorge was slowly lifting under the sunlight, and the river winding between the cliffs shattered the morning light into silver glitter.
In the distance, smoke was already rising from several chimneys in the orc village.
Orcs with massive logs balanced on their shoulders came and went along the paths, while children still too young for work chased one another through the center of the village. A few small hatchling dragons darted among them, and every so often one would flap its wings and leap over the children's heads, sending peals of laughter echoing through the canyon.
Higher still, an Adult Dragon crossed above the gorge, its vast wings moving in slow, measured strokes. Each time those wings blocked the sun, a broad shadow slid across the ground below — yet no one startled or sought cover. One small child even waved up at the sky, and the passing dragon tilted its head in what might have been a reply before vanishing beyond the cliffs.
Leon sat cradling a warm wooden cup in both hands, watching the scene. The cup held tea steeped from finely dried leaves. The fragrance was one he had never encountered before, but the bitterness was mild, and a faint sweetness lingered on his tongue after each swallow. His throat had gone a little raw from the flood of questions he had poured out through the night, and every time the warm tea slid down, that discomfort eased a little further.
The food set before him was the sort of fare one rarely tasted on the road. Thick cuts of meat grilled over an open flame and finished with a scattering of finely chopped, fragrant herbs; freshly baked round loaves of bread; a jam simmered from red berries; and root vegetables roasted in their skins until the insides had gone soft and tender — all arranged neatly on a large wooden platter.
Each time he tore the bread, warm steam rose from within, where a thin layer of soft cheese had melted into the crumb.
Leon took his first bite and then paused, his hand stilling.
Not because it was bad. On the contrary — it was almost too good.
For the past several months, what he had called breakfast had mostly been rock-hard dried bread and jerky soaked in water, with the occasional roadside berry or thin soup on a lucky day. There had been warm meals at city inns now and then, but even those came only once every few days. A spread like this — fresh-baked bread, warm meat, and fragrant tea all on one table — was something he had not experienced in a very long time.
Stranger still was the fact that every bit of it had been prepared for him in the dwelling of the Dragon's Witch.
In human records, Liberia was forbidden land from which almost no one returned alive, and the Dragon's Witch said to dwell at its heart was painted as a calamity who burned people to death for no reason at all. And yet here Leon sat, eating breakfast from a clean plate in the very middle of that forbidden land — having just stepped out of a room where, only a short while ago, a baby dragon had been perched on his chest waiting for him to wake.
Decades of stories and the landscape before his eyes simply would not fit together.
Leon tore off another piece of bread without a word.
To his right sat Ugalu. Or rather, it was hard to say the little dragon was sitting quietly. At first the hatchling had pressed close against Leon's leg, staring up at the table; before long both front paws were planted on the edge of the stone surface. Once his snout reached plate height, Ugalu began sniffing the food with flaring nostrils. His head swung toward the meat, then the bread, then back to the meat again. In the end, the grilled meat seemed to hold the strongest claim on his interest.
His gaze tracked Leon's hand every time it reached for a piece of meat. When Leon brought it to his mouth, Ugalu's head rose with it; when he began to chew, a little pink tongue peeked from the corner of the hatchling's mouth.
Leon tried several times to pretend he hadn't noticed. But the young dragon sitting before him showed not the slightest intention of giving up. Those wide golden eyes were full of the absolute conviction that he, too, deserved at least one bite.
At last Leon tore off a small piece of meat. Ugalu's eyes went even wider. His tail began thumping the floor. When Leon lifted the morsel a little higher, Ugalu's head rose to match.
Leon did not hand it over at once. He looked at the hatchling for a moment.
"Shouldn't you ask first whether you're allowed to eat this?"
"Kkyu!"
Ugalu cried out with great energy and opened his mouth wide.
Instead of answering, Leon looked across the table at Lakia. She was watching the whole scene with one hand propping up her chin. Her silver hair was neater than it had been earlier, though a few strands still drifted along her cheek, catching the morning light. The same food sat before her, but her plate had barely diminished. Watching how Ugalu clung to Leon seemed far more entertaining than eating.
Meeting Leon's gaze, Lakia glanced once at the scrap of meat and gave a light nod.
"That much is fine. As long as there's no bone, you can feed him."
Permission granted, Leon held the meat out in front of Ugalu's mouth. The hatchling stretched his neck forward as if he had been waiting for exactly this. Tiny teeth came close to Leon's fingers, yet Ugalu took only the meat with surprising care, never once brushing skin. Then he lifted his head and chewed a few times. Even thick meat didn't take long. He swallowed quickly, licked his chops with his tongue, and immediately fixed his eyes on Leon's plate again.
Leon let out a small breath at that shamelessly honest reaction.
"I never said I'd give you only one piece — but I never promised to keep giving them, either."
"Kkyuu..."
Ugalu's wings drooped. His head sank with them. Those eyes that had been sparkling a moment ago now wore the look of a creature who had just suffered the greatest injustice in the world.
Leon regarded him in silence. Ugalu kept his head down and peered up at him with only his eyes. After a moment, Leon tore off another piece of meat. Ugalu's wings snapped open at once.
"This is the last one."
"Kkyu!"
The corner of Lakia's mouth curved slowly upward. Even while feeding Ugalu the second piece, Leon did not ask what that smile meant. He had a feeling he would not like the answer.
Having accepted the meat, Ugalu did not beg for more this time. Looking satisfied, he curled up beside Leon's leg and began licking his own front paws. He glanced up at Leon now and then, but no longer stared so blatantly at the plate.
Only then did Leon resume his meal. He spread a thin layer of red berry jam on the bread and bit into a piece of roasted root vegetable. The outside was lightly charred, but the inside was soft, and the more he chewed the more a rich, nutty sweetness came through. The meat was seasoned with just enough salt and spice — not so strong as to feel heavy for breakfast.
Even while eating, Leon surveyed his surroundings out of habit. A basket of unfamiliar fruit sat beside the table, and a short distance away wooden shelves and cooking tools were arranged neatly against the rock wall. There were traces of a fire having been lit, but he had never seen who actually prepared the meal. Lakia might have made it herself, or the orcs living nearby might have brought it.
After turning it over for a while, he asked,
"Who prepared this food?"
Lakia took a sip of tea and set her cup down.
"The kids from the village below brought it. Once they heard a guest had arrived, they sent over a mountain of stuff first thing in the morning. There was so much I gave half of it away to the others, and this is still what's left."
Leon looked again at the plate and basket in front of him. It was hard to believe this was less than half.
"So the fact that I've come is already known?"
"There's not much you can hide in this canyon. Especially not a human walking in. Everyone's been watching from a distance since yesterday."
Leon's hand paused. Almost without thinking, he looked down into the gorge. Among the orcs going about their work, several really were looking this way. A large orc whose eyes met Leon's raised a hand high and waved without the slightest hint of embarrassment. Leon hesitated a moment, then bowed his head in greeting. Looking satisfied, the orc hoisted his log back onto his shoulder and walked on.
Lakia watched and smiled quietly.
"No need to be scared. They all know you saved Ugalu. The kids don't much care for forgetting a debt."
"I wasn't scared."
"Your face looked a little tense just now."
"Anyone would be tense under so many stares in an unfamiliar place."
"Says the man who snuck into a royal palace with a sword?"
Leon stopped tearing his bread. It was unexpected that Lakia had remembered one of the stories he had told her the night before so precisely. He looked at her for a moment, then answered evenly.
"I wasn't seen then, so I wasn't under anyone's gaze."
"You got caught and chased out in the end, though."
"I was caught on the way out."
"So you failed."
"I copied the documents, so I achieved my purpose."
Lakia closed her mouth for a moment. Her lips moved as if she meant to argue, but in the end she simply shook her head.
"You're pretty stubborn yourself, aren't you."
Leon did not deny it. Wandering a continent alone for years, hunting down records no one else cared about, required a certain amount of stubbornness. If someone had asked what he had gained from it all, he would have answered, until yesterday, several dozen notebooks. And now he knew that a considerable portion of what was written in those notebooks was wrong.
He drank the last of his tea slowly. Lakia waited in silence until he set the cup down.
The morning sun climbed a little higher, and the breeze sweeping the rock ledge grew warmer than before. From far off, the sound of a hammer rang out at steady intervals.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Between those beats, the cries of hatchling dragons and the laughter of orc children overlapped. It was a peaceful morning.
But Lakia's red eyes had grown a little more serious than when the meal began. She slowly rubbed a finger along the rim of her empty cup, then finally looked at Leon and spoke.
"So — what purpose will you wander for now?"
Leon could only look at her, unable to answer.
The question itself was not difficult. He had heard it countless times on the road. Where are you going? What are you looking for? How long do you plan to keep wandering? And every time, Leon had given the same reply: that he was searching for the truth about the Dragon's Witch. That he wanted to gather the records scattered across the continent, compare the stories that did not match, and find out what had actually happened.
That answer had not changed once in more than a decade. Whether he was walking mountain paths in the rain, spending nights in the archives of crumbling monasteries, or digging through ruined storehouses for records the royal court had discarded, he had moved with that single purpose before his eyes.
But now that purpose was fulfilled. The Dragon's Witch he had spent a lifetime seeking sat right in front of him, and the countless events written differently in every record he had heard from her own lips. The reason that had driven him forward until yesterday had simply vanished.
For a long while he could not open his mouth. He set the wooden cup down carefully, then looked at Ugalu, who sat with his chin propped on Leon's knee. Whether the hatchling understood their conversation was impossible to tell; he simply blinked up at them. Leon rested a hand on the little dragon's head and slowly stroked between the horns.
Only then did his tightly closed lips move.
"...I don't know."
Lakia did not look surprised. She watched him calmly, like someone who had already expected that answer.
Leon continued with his gaze lowered.
"Finding the Dragon's Witch was the purpose of my life. I had decided long ago what I would ask if I ever met you. But I never once thought about what I would do after every one of those questions had been answered."
He paused. More than a decade was a very long time. All those years he had walked looking in only one direction. He had thought only of reaching his destination, and so he had never prepared for which path to choose once he arrived.
He added in a low voice,
"Right now, I truly don't know where I should go, or what I should be looking for."
Lakia said nothing for a moment after hearing him. The morning wind swept across the rock ledge, lightly stirring the cloth on the table and her silver hair. From far below came the mixed sounds of orcs hauling timber and young dragons calling out.
Lakia seemed to listen to those peaceful noises as she looked down into the canyon, then turned her gaze back to Leon.
"Until you find that reason — you can stay here."
Leon's hand stilled on Ugalu's head. He looked at her as if to confirm he had not misheard.
"...Truly?"
Lakia gave a light shrug, as if she were mentioning something of no particular importance.
"Yeah. You said you don't have anywhere to go right now anyway. Stay here and think it over slowly. What you want to do from now on. What you need to find."
When she finished, she looked at Ugalu. The hatchling was still pressed comfortably against Leon's knee, swaying his tail. A small smile touched Lakia's lips.
"And Ugalu only likes kind people. Except for me."
Leon blinked, as if he hadn't quite caught her meaning. Then he turned her last words over carefully and asked,
"You're the exception?"
"I'm his mother."
Lakia answered as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
"You have to love your mother whether she's kind or not."
"Kkyu!"
Ugalu cried out vigorously, as if in firm agreement. Lakia nodded with satisfaction, and Leon looked from one to the other before a small laugh finally escaped him.
The first permission he had received from the Dragon's Witch he had spent more than a decade seeking was neither a grand oath nor a solemn contract. It was a short sentence offered because a baby dragon happened to like him.
"Come to think of it, Leon. I never heard your family name."
"Ah. Didn't I give it? It's Hart. Leon Hart."
Clatter!
Lakia dropped her utensils.
"...Leon Hart?"
Knowledge that had lain quiet for a thousand years suddenly stirred to life.