The fourth little ring rung out, and you''d be forgiven for thinking we''d worked on a schedule. Almost on time — but not really on time — the last of the guards lighted down in this little blocked off area. What started as a slow pulse of guards coming in, or (some) leaving — too slow to call it a flow or even a trickle — had accelerated until here came dragons that, if not familiar, had become recognizable after the big gathering earlier.


    have a human corpse as their finding. Instead, they had a H?gre hog. Maybe it was an easy mistake to make if you had never seen a human. But didn''t they at least have a sketchmaster drawing an impression or something? They should at least know what they were looking for.


    That messenger returning?


    feel?"


    confused. Baffled, even. I don''t have the simplest idea what''s going on, and I''m hoping this debrief might make something of any of this."


    someone had to have betrayed us. Could it have been him? I peered, trying to find some tell. He kept scratching the gravel, twisting his frills, and glancing around. But they didn''t really line up with his speech the way a real tell would. He just looked nervous.


    real. "If you think it will help. This is collaborative, to an extent."


    <hr>


    I did it! I just bought this sword to defend myself, honest."


    any day now." Digrif shook his head and clicked his tongue.


    Someone had to have betrayed us, right? Could it have been cute, handsome Digrif? Who smelt so deliciously? Hinte said it was suspicious that he decided to buy a sword when he did. And he''s the only one we can''t definitely trust. I''m me, Hinte was there to kill the apes in the first place, Adwyn wouldn''t need all of this scheming, and maybe Gwynt was still hiding something, but he only came into the picture after the betrayal had already happened.


    would Digrif do something like that? It doesn''t make sense. And the sword doesn''t mean all that much, when he doesn''t know how to use it and his reasoning for buying it, well, it fledged sense. For him.


    suggested a conspiracy exists. Gronte? Versta? Staune? It was even sparser. Staune seemed trustworthy enough, and Versta probably didn''t have a scheming bone in his little bird body. Gronte didn''t want a war between humans and dragons.


    someone I should be looking at. I just… really didn''t want to. Didn''t want to think of it.


    * * *