Free Dragon in Exile - eARC by Steve Miller, Sharon Lee

and which can be made into something drinkable. I mention this, as your brother, for our cellar will not last forever.”
    Rys laughed.
    “I see that you mean to be a tyrant.”
    “Only when necessary. And, now, if it is not precipitate—will you tell me how I may serve you?”
    For a moment he had no answer, for surely there was nothing he wanted, or needed, that was not provided by the kompani …
    Then, he recalled himself.
    “I have a gift for you, Brother.”
    Val Con raised his eyebrows. “A gift?”
    Rys nodded, and reached into his vest for the three tiles in their silver frame, the whole no larger than his palm.
    Val Con moved forward, but he did not take the gift. Instead, he looked closely at the palm on which it rested.
    “Am I permitted to say that your hand is a work of art, Brother?”
    “Beautiful and fully functional.” Rys smiled. “Rafin insists that his creations be both. Truly, I am fortunate in my brothers.”
    “As I am fortunate in mine. Now, tell me—what is this? An ornament?”
    Rys shook his head. “It is a dream.”
    He drew a breath, trying to slow himself, but the fever—temporarily cooled by the demands of courtesy—the fever was upon him again, to see the thing well on its way, now that he had completed his part—and he rushed onward.
    “I will tell you that the gift comes to you only so that you may use it in the service of those—those others, who are yet what we were, and who are held in your care.”
    Val Con’s face closed like a door slamming.
    Rys gasped—and shook his head even as surety rose. Those who had been held beneath the Dragon’s wing…surely he would not, who had been…who knew—and yet, what choice had he, with a clan to keep, his resources straitened…
    He was beginning to shiver, and his eyes were damp again. The hand and arm that Rafin had built for him could not tire, but the dream chimed softly against his metal palm.
    “Peace.”
    The tiles were plucked from his hand, and a warm arm slipped ’round his shoulders. He was guided down-room and pressed softly into a chair. The glass was taken from his hand and placed on the table at his elbow.
    “Peace,” his brother said again, settling into the chair opposite. “You caught me on a new wound.”
    “Forgive me,” Rys murmured, while he mourned them in his heart, who had not had the chance…He had been too slow!
    Val Con moved a hand in dismissal. “It was nothing you could have known,” he said, and held out the tiles. “Now, please, tell me what you have done. I will undertake not to come the ogre.”
    It was useless now; those he would have benefited gone, as Silain would have it, ahead, into the World Beyond. Yet, he reminded himself, Korval had captured eight, only; the Department enslaved many multiples of that number. Perhaps there would be others…
    “Rys?”
    He looked up, startled out of his thoughts, and smiled wryly.
    “Your pardon,” he said. “I would order myself, but you see how it is with me.” He picked up the glass from the table at his side, and sipped, letting the wine soothe him.
    “So.” He met Val Con’s eyes once more.
    “After you released me into the care of my brothers, I had time to think while Rafin repaired the leg brace, and created my new arm. I thought…a very great deal about what you had said to me, on the occasion of our last meeting—that we two alone have broken the Department’s training and won back to—to some semblance of our former selves. And I realized what I—what we —had done, in order to achieve it. I—prayed with my brothers, and with the luthia , who taught me the art of dreaming. When I was proficient, she guided me—in very small sessions, for to relive what I had done was…distressing in the extreme—she guided me in making this dream.”
    He leaned forward, holding his brother’s gaze.
    “I believe that it can be used to—to offer a moment of choice, such as came to me, to those still in thrall.” He paused, and