War of the Princes 02: Dragoon Read Online Free

questions I desperately wanted to ask him. I couldn't bring myself to speak the words, after what I'd done.
    A sigh escaped my chest and I bopped my head against the doorframe.
    “Something wrong with that?” he asked, looking over at me, trusting that our pony would continue to follow the road.
    “What? No,” I said, forcing myself back into a more regular posture. Another question was nagging at the back of my throat. It demanded to be released, above all the others. There was no smothering it, no waiting. “When was the last time you saw mom?”
    Asking the deceptively simple question left me feeling exposed, like a bird without feathers. There was no protective covering to shelter me from the damage of a hard answer. Part of me wondered if my dad would finally yell at me, for the first time in my life.
    “This morning, when she gave me an omelet,” Dad answered casually. He wasn't angry with me, as usual.
    I slumped as if struck by the anticlimactic response. Time to try to form the words again.
    “No Dad, I mean my mother,” came my clumsy correction.
    “ Oh, I see. Kendra. You never call her Mom,” Dad commented, keeping his eyes carefully fixed on the road. “Well, not since she left, I suppose.”
    “ Do you have any pictures of her?”
    “ No.”
    “ What did she look like?” I persisted.
    “ Busy,” he half chuckled. “Most of the time. And a bit like you.”
    “ Her hair was black. That's all I remember.”
    “ Yes it was, and curly, more so than yours. She wouldn't leave the house if they weren't in perfect spirals. Took us two hours to even get out for lunch.”
    “ Do you know if she ever came back to Rivermarch?”
    “ Not that I know of, and we're lucky she hasn't.”
    But she must have. It meant, at least, that he didn't know about her work here, and certainly not her disappearance.
    It wasn't easy to ask the questions, but I trudged on. “What did she do for a living?”
    Again came his shallow laugh, like a dangerous joke had just presented itself. “You have no idea how difficult it was to get a straight answer out of her. She worked with the Historical Society, but that's all I ever knew. Why the sudden interest?”
    “ Uh,” was all I could say.
    There was silence for a time, but my dad said, “Ah,” as though I had actually given him an answer.
    He reined Grendel onto the grounds of the weather station, and the carriage rocked to a stop.
    “ You've been through a lot today, I understand. I wish I could tell you more, but trust me, Bug, there's a reason for everything. We're all pieces of a machine. Don't roll your eyes. We all have to do what is needed of us. Your mother knows that, better than most.”
    He had no idea about the danger my mother was in, or the offer Agent Loring had made me, but somehow, what he said made sense. It was eerie. There were still things he wasn't telling me. What was he holding back?
    “ What about you? Are you doing what Haven needs you to do?”
    “ Of course. Being a weatherman for Eastern Haven County wasn't exactly my first career choice, but it's where I was most needed at the time, and here I am,” he gestured to the smooth stone architecture of the three-story building across the broad lawn. “That teacher of yours, Professor Block, he's a good example. You liked his classes, did you have him this year?”
    I shook my head. “No, he took the year off or something.”
    “ Well, years ago he was something of a prodigy. Razor sharp mind. Every prestigious organization in Pinebrook was clamoring to give him work, even our own government. It turned out that being a teacher was where he was needed most. Guiding students toward the path of knowledge was more important than wealth, pride, or excitement. He did what he had to do. We all do, and you will too, when the time comes.”
    Or maybe he'd been forced to teach, after shaming himself and being arrested for trying to find a way out of Haven. So far, we don't seem too