The Weyrdragon and the Fire Agate Necklace: Keveren Auberel Mysteries, #1

By Nikki Bollman

A thief is stealing magic fire agate jewelry in the dock market, and the Mirella city mage guard thinks that Keveren Auberel did it.

Kev, the dockmaster's daughter, must clear her name to remove the mage mark on her hand and be allowed to return to school. And she thinks she knows who is behind the thefts.

But when fires start breaking out in the dock markets, a boy goes missing, and dragon riders get involved, the mystery keeps getting stranger. Can Kev discover the truth without putting herself in danger?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nikki Bollman
• Release date: Dec 19, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201998981

Book preview

The Boy at the Docks

Kev first saw the boy when she was on her way to visit her da at the docks. A great ship from the other side of the lake was disembarking as she passed by. The boy was among the passengers filing off the ship, and he clutched a crumpled pack in front of him as he clambered from the ship down the gangplank to the dock. His eyes were wide and he looked about him as if he had lost something. Kev frowned at this sight and pursed her lips, thinking that her da might want to know.

The last thing she noticed was that the boy’s light brown tunic had some strange brownish-orange smudges on its side. Then he disappeared into the crowd as it trailed into the streets that led away from the docks.

By the time she reached her da’s office, Kev had forgotten about the boy, lost in thought about her own problems. She had been thinking for weeks how to bring up her schooling to her da, and she still didn’t know. She just knew that she had to do it soon. Her teacher had recommended her to a spot in the scholar’s tower, as they called it, to study history and the arts and letters—everything but magic, really—and Kev wanted to do it more than anything. But she knew her father wouldn’t go for it. He or her ma. They would want her to go for a trade, something useful.

She’d figured out what her argument would be, though. She would study numbers with the scholars. She knew that some of them studied that. Perhaps it was a bit different than the way that traders used numbers in their ledgers, but she would still understand them well enough to apply the skill to a trade when she was done with her studies. She thought briefly about her teacher and about the scholars who went on to lifelong study in the halls of the scholar’s tower, but she let the thought pass. As a Senemi and dockworker’s daughter, she would never be free of the need to earn her way with a trade. Even if her father was now the dockmaster.

Kev wound through the brick lanes that lined the docks of Mirella on the shores of the great Lake Morna. Situated squarely in the middle of Arethia, Lake Morna proved to be the most efficient way to go from north to south, or vice versa. Thus Mirella, the port city on the northern coast of the lake, was home to many storehouses, carriage yards, and markets for all of the goods that traveled to the northern half of Areth over the great lake.

Spring sun glinted off the waves that gently lapped against the docks. Sails at rest fluttered against their masts lazily, and ropes slapped against the rigging of the ships in the occasional strong breeze that rushed through. Carts rattled back and forth between ships and the storehouses, some drawn by horses and others moving under the power of a mage perched atop the cart in the driver’s seat. Though she saw it every day now, Kev still had trouble getting used to seeing a cart with no horse or other beast pulling it. Being unable to perform magic, the Onami people had been had always used horses to draw their traveling carts.

Again Kev found herself shaking away her thoughts. Her life with the Onami had been a long time ago; she and her family were Senemi now. And she loved the open waters of the great lake as much as she had loved the plains of western Arethia and the hills and mountains in the south.

Da’s office was in its own square in the middle of the stretch of roads adjoining the docks. That way, he was as close as he could be to each end of the bustling port. Today the square was full of life. Market stalls spiraled out from the office building in the center of the square haphazardly, and Kev passed a flutist winding a merry, dancing melody. The smell of fresh spiced steaks roasting on a grill floated by, and Kev’s mouth watered. She bounded by all of these and through the door into her da’s office.

The dock station was actually much more than her da’s office, but Kev liked to think of it as his despite all of the other workers who bustled about in the space. Since her family had moved to Mirella and become Senemi when she was a little girl, this station had been her home in one way or another. At first her da had been just another dockworker hauling goods from the ships and helping the carts find their way around, but soon his knowledge of trade, gained as an Onami trader, had helped him ascend to higher and higher positions at the dockyards. Finally, only a few short years ago, he had become the dockmaster. Kev still beamed with pride to think of it.

She waved to the clerks seated at their desks directly in front of the entrance and walked past them. They smiled and waved back, then went back to scribbling in their ledgers. Her da’s office was at the back of the building, and of course it was the biggest room of all. Kev didn’t knock on the door; her da was expecting her to come.

There you are, he muttered as Kev breezed into the room. He was glaring down at a fat book that lay open before him. His head rested one hand while the other hand slid a stylus up and down the page. Ah, he said, and his face brightened. That explains it. Then he wrote something in the book and closed the cover.

Kev, he said now with a smile. Our lunch just arrived. He gestured to the long table to one side of his office, which was set with two place settings and several large bowls of food.

They moved to the table and sat across from each other. Kev’s mouth watered as she scooped heaps of rice, vegetables, and seasoned meat onto her plate.

So, you’d like to talk about your upper level schooling, her father said after they had both finished their first bites of their food.

Kev finished chewing her bite and swallowed before responding. Despite the time she had spent thinking ahead on the conversation, she still felt a rush of dread as she prepared to make her request of her father.

I’d like to study as a scholar, in the scholar’s tower, Kev said. There. She’d said it. Ideally, she would have thought of some better way to introduce the topic, some kind of smooth introduction or transition into the idea of it, but she probably should have known that she would just blurt it out like that. Hurriedly, she took another bite of food and stared at her plate as she moved food around with her fork.

For a minute or so, silence was the only answer that greeted her from across the table. Finally, she drew her gaze up to peer over the dishes of food to her father’s face.

He wasn’t looking at her at all. He was chewing his food and staring thoughtfully at some unspecified point in the room behind her. Then his gaze met hers.

You’re sure that’s what you want? You’ve thought it through entirely?

Kev’s mouth dropped open. I—yes. Yes. It’s definitely what I want to do, she said. She had been expecting an objection right out of the skiff, and she’d prepared all of her statements with that in mind. This wasn’t how she’d envisioned this conversation going. Although, she couldn’t be too upset about the difference between reality and her imagination, in this case.

What does Mage Maren think of the idea, then?

She recommended me for it, Kev said, her cheeks flushing. She said that she wishes I had the abilities of a mage, that I could study for that, but that the scholar’s tower would be the closest choice. And she thinks I would like it there. Kev trailed off. She had let too much excitement show in her voice. She felt that giving away how badly she wanted this would hurt her chances of convincing her da.

But rather than show suspicion at her eagerness to talk about the scholar’s tower, her da’s mouth cracked in a slight little grin. His eyes twinkled. Kev frowned at him.

What? she asked. What is it?

Her da shook his head, still smiling. It’s just good to see you so happy. I’m glad that you have such a firm idea of what you want to do. I think being a scholar will suit you perfectly.

Kev dropped her fork in her bowl and pushed the bowl away from her.

You mean I can go? But I thought—You don’t want me to apprentice in a trade? Or, or something else?

Her father chuckled. You thought I would want you to choose something practical, he said.

Well…yeah.

He shrugged and took another bite of his food. He nodded as he chewed. Kev waited.

It would be very practical to learn a trade of some kind, especially one in high demand here near the docks. He continued to nod and pursed his lips. But there’s no need for you to be quite so practical just yet.

Kev squinted at him. Have you talked with Ma about it, then? That would be the next barrier. Perhaps Da was easier to convince than Kev had expected, but there was still Ma to contend with.

Well, we do chat about these things once in a while, Da said. You might be surprised by your ma’s take on it as well.

He was speaking the truth. Kev shivered, and then a grin spread over her; it seemed to take over her whole body. She beamed at her da.

You’re sure? You mean I can become a scholar?

We can go tomorrow to register you to begin in this autumn’s sessions.

Kev beamed at him. Thank you, she said. His smile matched her own.

She practically danced out of the dock’s offices and into the square after their lunch was finished. She was going to be a scholar! And her ma and da weren’t even against it! She couldn’t wait to tell Mage Maren on her next school day.

Kev stopped and took a deep breath while looking out over the glittering waters of Lake Morna. Then she descended the steps from her father’s offices and into the square. Now that she had the afternoon ahead of her, she decided to wander the market stalls and see if there was something she could afford to treat herself with for the good news. Perhaps a pretty journal that she could use in her studies. Or in preparation for her studies, if she couldn’t wait.

She breezed through the scattered stalls in the square; these were mostly temporary offshoots of the main permanent dock markets further down the way. She glanced at the pretty scarves, sun hats, toys, and other baubles the vendors had brought out to appeal to people out enjoying some of the first spring weather. They were nice, but the kinds of things she was interested in were further in to the main market.

The sparsely scattered stalls in the square soon led into the more densely packed tables and displays of the permanent market. The rows of stalls crammed together into all of the space between the storehouses here, and some of the displays even extended into the storehouses themselves. The market crowded between the buildings on several streets in this section of the docks and was collectively referred to as the Dock Market. Anything that a person wanted could be found here, sold directly after its arrival off the ships that traveled to Mirella. Whole sections of the market were devoted just to selling wares to wagon traders, mostly Onami, who would then take the wares by land and sell them in cities that didn’t have access to a ship port. Kev’s family had once been part of one of those Onami trading caravans, before they settled in Mirella and became Senemi.

The Dock Market was organized into sections for the different types of wares. Though lots of booths with similar items were grouped together, the order of the sections didn’t make a lot of sense. It seemed to have grown up from the locations of the different storehouses at the early days of the market. Kev walked past the household wares—linens, brooms, soaps, basins—and into the next section of all kinds of cloths and garments. She fingered some of the woven cloth but let it drop. She would need at least one new cloak before she could show herself in the Scholar’s Tower, but she didn’t need it yet.

When she caught the scent of tanned leather, she knew she was getting close to her favorite part of the market: the books. Mostly, the price of the books was out of her reach. She had to satisfy herself with the books available to her at the school library. But she loved to walk up and down the aisles between the tables and pick up the volumes, especially the ones bound in leather and neatly copied by hand. Sometimes she would find smaller printed books that she could afford, bound in thick paper or cloth, that appealed to her, and she had made a small collection of these in her room at home.

Today, Kev would celebrate her impending registration at the Scholar’s Tower with the purchase of a small journal. She would surely be able to afford a small leather-bound journal. Or maybe a particularly beautiful clothbound one. She found the area containing the stalls dedicated to books full of blank pages and commenced her wandering. It was not long before she found it, the perfect treasure of a journal. A soft, plain gray leather-bound book with a matching cord to wrap around and tie it closed. There were two strands to the cord and they wound around one another. At the end of each strand, a deep red bead was secured in place by tight knots. Kev unwrapped the cord and opened up the book. The pages were lined for ease of writing, and the binding had two ribbons glued in as bookmarks. The first page inside the front cover contained a box with a line at the bottom of it, and in swirling script the words, This book belongs to: inked above the box. Kev smiled and closed the book. She clutched it close as she approached the seller and offered a price. After a brief barter over the price, the seller took her coins and Kev slid the book into the satchel she wore over her shoulder.

Buoyed by the new circumstances that she’d hardly dared hope to find herself in, Kev continued on through the market and indulged herself in the fantasy that she might one day be able to walk through the higher-cost end of the market and actually be able to purchase its wares. Maybe if she could have been a mage, she could rise high enough to spend on things like finer clothes or jewels, but as a scholar she wasn’t sure.

It depended, she supposed, on the scholarly topics she would end up studying the most. But at the beginning of her course there, she knew she wouldn’t be choosing a specialty any time soon. Scholars were required to master the basic levels of every topic before choosing the area they would delve into the deepest. Mage Maren had explained to her that the scholar’s paths were similar to the mage’s paths through the academy, only without any of the magic. Scholars’ studies often mirrored those of the mages, and scholars would provide research and knowledge that would help the mages develop their own skills. Scholars could also follow many other paths leading to some sort of valuable employment, but right now Kev wasn’t worried as much about her final destination. She just knew that she wanted more time to discover all that there was to know in Arethia and the world.

She stopped in the small U-shaped space of a jewelry display and picked up a necklace under the watchful eye of the jeweler, who sat behind the display on a stool with a tray of beads and a piece in progress on her lap. The jeweler dipped her needle into the tray and scooped up a bead, somehow seeming to watch Kev and her own work at the same time. Kev smiled to reassure the woman. She knew that these works, made of smooth, polished agates and encrusted with intricately woven tiny glass beads, were out of her range. The only way she would wear something like this is if she could make it herself, and even then she wasn’t sure she could afford to purchase the materials in the first place.

Kev admired the necklace a moment. It had a polished fire agate for a pendant at its center, and tiny, rose-brown beads were woven around the edges of the pendant, then formed into the chain. It had to have taken hours to make. She placed it back on the cloth spread on the table, and with a nod to the jeweler, she moved to the next stall.

She had barely taken two steps into the stall of another jeweler when shrieks rang out behind her.

I’ve been robbed! Thief!

Kev whirled. It was the jeweler at the stand she had just left. The woman stood behind her tables, and she was pointing straight at Kev as she shrieked. Kev froze for a moment, unsure what to do. Footsteps pounded down the market lane as uniformed mage guards came rushing toward the commotion.

Shaking her head and opening her mouth wordlessly, Kev held her hands out at her sides. The mages who’d come running barely paused as they arrived at the jeweler’s stall. They saw where the seller was pointing and, with a gesture, cast magic bonds around Kev’s arms and legs. She felt the grip of magic hold her in place.

I didn’t do it, she said, finally able to squeeze the words from her throat. The mages approached her and took her arms, one on each side. Now that they had her in their hands, they loosed their magical bonds and guided Kev back to the jeweler’s booth.

She was holding one of my fire agate necklaces, and when she left it was gone, said the woman with narrowed eyes. I knew I shouldn’t have let you touch it. You couldn’t pay for it in a year’s worth of wages.

I didn’t take it, Kev protested. She wished she could pull out her satchel and show them that she didn’t have the necklace, but the mages held her tight. Soon the mages took her satchel anyway and searched through it. As Kev knew, they didn’t find the necklace.

Search her clothes. She must have hidden it under them.

Now Kev glared at the woman. She almost seemed to be enjoying watching the mages search Kev’s belongings. Kev felt a tingle pass over her skin and realized that the mages had searched her with magic. She closed her eyes and bit her lip.

I’m sorry, said one of the mages. She doesn’t have it. Perhaps you had another customer visit your booth?

The woman crossed her arms. She was the only one this afternoon. She pointed at the empty spot on the table where the necklace had lain. It was right there until she looked at it, and now it’s gone. Of course it was her. She jabbed a finger at Kev. Where did you hide it?

Kev opened her mouth to protest, but the words caught in her throat as her eyes landed on the necklace’s former resting place. What’s that? she asked.

What? the jeweler snapped.

That smudge, Kev said. An orange-brown stain now marred the light tablecloth, both where the necklace had been and along the back edge of the table. I saw that somewhere before.

Momentarily distracted from her tirade against Kev, the jeweler wiped a finger across one of the stains. The smudge spread a bit at the edges. The woman’s eyes hardened again.

Not only did you steal my necklace, but you’ve ruined my good tablecloth. She looked at the mages. I’ll expect a replacement tablecloth to be included in the claims against her.

Kev rolled her eyes but continued to stare at the smudge. Where had she just seen that same color? She continued to wrack her brain for the memory as the mage guards took her hands and each lay a spell on them.

You’ll be free to go, but you will be marked until the crime has been solved or your responsibility has been proven or disproven, the female guard intoned. Swirling symbols began to draw themselves on the backs of Kev’s hands. A three-pointed leaf, the Mirella city guard symbol, was surrounded by a circle of vines.

As the guards released her hands, it finally came to Kev where she had seen the smudgy color before. The boy at the docks, the one who had looked frightened.

I know who did it, Kev said.

Hmph, said the jeweler, her arms still crossed.

Oh? said the guard.

Well, I don’t—I don’t know who it is, but I saw a boy get off the boats this morning who had that same brown smudge on his clothes, Kev said.

The mage guard let out a big sigh. Then you’d better hope we find him before your thirty days are up, she said, shaking her head. They didn’t believe her.

Kev wasn’t sure she would have believed her, either. She felt a chasm open up in her chest and settle in her gut. In thirty days, if she didn’t prove she hadn’t stolen the necklace, she would be sentenced to work off her debt with the jeweler. From the look on the jeweler’s face, she wouldn’t like her time in service.

The male mage took a breath and then finished the second part of the notice they were required to give when they laid the marks on an accused’s hands. You’re to report to the mage guard station nearest here—the end of the dock market road, that way, he gestured as he said it, tomorrow afternoon at one o’clock on the hour.

I’ll be there, Kev said sullenly. The guards only nodded. Of course she would. If she weren’t, the marks on her hands would glare from black to red and eventually begin to burn her.

I really didn’t do it, Kev said to the jeweler as the mage guards released her. I’m sorry your necklace got stolen.

The jeweler just sniffed and continued to glare at Kev as she walked away. Kev pulled her hands into her sleeves to hide the marks on them and walked briskly back through the market with her head down. She headed back across the square around her father’s office and toward the docks she had passed before. She would need her father’s help, but first she had to find the ship she had seen that boy come from.

Scholar's Tower

The next morning, Kev dressed