Silverdale, the Present:

Returning to herself, Tarissa's fingers continued to wander through a muffled version of her Dragon Variations. After an evening at the Cat, remembering the day at the Silver River Fair made her heart ache. She took a deep breath and changed her thoughts. No more lost egg this night. The hour was late, and she had visited that valley of regret too many times. Instead, she picked out the melody of the song she had performed in front of the king and queen long ago in Tazzelton. And three years ago, at that same Silver River Fair, she had sung with Euphenny, the famous bard from Newham.

Tarissa sighed. She still sang for people, but she served drinks in a common pub and sang as part of her job. Yes, they cheered and applauded her songs, but they also pinched and patted her rear. She slept in a bed in her aunt's home, a long way from the capital city where the king and queen lived. She missed her mother. She missed her egg. But she also missed . . . Underneath it all, she had a restless itch to . . . and that was always the question that bedeviled Tarissa. What did she want?

The hour was late. Tarissa's eyelids drooped. She blinked several times and laid aside the mandolin. Working at the Cat in the evening left her body tired, but performing her own music before an appreciative crowd gave her a spark of energy that had to abate before she could go to sleep. This night, instead of finding sleep, memories of growing up in Tazzelton crowded her head. To reassure herself those recollections were real, she got out her mother's journal. Tarissa kept it hidden in the alcove where she stored her special things. Given little enough privacy by Aunt Rose, Tarissa knew her mother had intended her memory book for her daughter alone. Tarissa was too tired to read tonight, but she flipped the pages. The leaves were a little yellowed on their borders, but it was all here. Her mother's words were still alive, so it was real. She kept turning pages until she came to the last page of writing. By the time her mother had written it, her shaky, ill-formed penmanship made her weakness obvious. Sara was near her end, but the last thought she had penned for her daughter was clear. It still gave Tarissa strength. It said simply, "I love you, Tarissa."

She sighed wistfully and laid the book on the small table beside her bed.

#

The sun was well up and the morning old by the time Tarissa woke the next day. She blinked and sat up. In the middle of a forceful stretch, her eyes passed over her bedside table. Her mother's journal was gone. She gasped and swung her legs off the bed. Down on her knees, she searched the floor and under the bed. The floor was bare. The book was gone.

Aunt Rose. The thought twisted her stomach with alarm. Nothing of Tarissa's was private in Aunt Rose's mind. Even if Tarissa paid her every week for her room and board, her aunt still demanded a complete accounting of everywhere Tarissa went and everything she did. Aunt Rose had pretensions of belonging to Silverdale society, and she had not been happy when Tunis had found Tarissa a job at the Crooked Cat. However, that job had given her aunt an excuse to charge rent. Tarissa worked late evenings, a schedule that had brought her long lectures from her aunt about the implications for Tarissa's reputation. Immoral as her aunt may have considered it, the woman was happy enough to pocket the majority of Tarissa's earnings.

Tarissa was certain Aunt Rose had taken the missing diary. The woman had a habit of stopping into Tarissa's room at odd times. Tarissa also knew her aunt felt free to go through her things while she was gone. If Aunt Rose had come into her room while she slept this morning and had seen the diary . . .

She hurriedly pulled on leggings and a tunic. The more she thought, the greater her suspicion—and anger. Full of both fear and outrage, she left the room, careful to not slam the door. Stepping carefully down the hallway, she peered around the corner into the hearth room. Aunt Rose sat in her favorite reading chair by the window—studying her mother's diary.

Tarissa retreated back out of sight around the corner and leaned against the wall. Her heart hammered in her chest as she thought about what her aunt was seeing. That book was private—an intimate gift of a mother's life to her daughter. Sara had started the journal before she and her husband Arthera had been married. She had not made daily entries as in a diary. Rather, she had journaled significant events in her life, both happy and sad, important thoughts that occurred to her, and interesting people and places she had encountered through the years.

From the journal, Tarissa had learned much about her mother, but Tarissa had learned about herself as well. She had known for a long time that she was an illegitimate child. Her mother and her husband, Arthera Lathetta, had set up housekeeping in Silverdale. Arthera had been a sailor, a boatswain's mate, on a ship that had sailed a regular route from Silverdale to Tazzelton and back. He had been killed when his ship ran aground on Deadman's Finger in a storm. Tunis had been two years old at the time. The wreck had been three years before Tarissa was born.

Many times Tarissa had read her mother's account of that time of sadness and despair. Later, her mother had found love again, but she did not know who that lover, her father, had been. In her journal, Sara had referred to the man she had met as Rat, a pet name she used as a joke. She had always wanted another child, even after Arthera had been killed. Seven months after her first reference to Rat, Sara discovered she was with child. At that point, she had moved to Tazzelton to live with Arthera's brother, Mikk, his wife Leasha, and Leasha's mother. Uncle Mikk was a prosperous merchant in the clothing business. They lived in a large house in Tazzelton where Tarissa had spent her early years. The extended family was a great help to Sara in raising Tunis and baby Tarissa. Tarissa had read how terribly Sara missed her Rat, but she had poured that extra love onto her children.

Through the diary, Tarissa had encountered family milestones of her own childhood that she remembered only vaguely if at all. The diary let Tarissa see through her mother's eyes. But much more importantly, her mother's journal spoke directly to Tarissa now that Sara herself was gone.

"I know you're there," Aunt Rose called. "You may as well come out."

Her aunt's words startled Tarissa, then embarrassed her. Yes, she had been hiding from her aunt, but her concealment had hidden Tarissa's rising anger at Aunt Rose's violation of her privacy. Tarissa stepped into sight and frowned. "You shouldn't be reading that."

Aunt Rose looked up from the book, eyes fixed on Tarissa over the top of her reading glasses. "I'd always wondered what had happened to my sister's journal." She smiled thinly. "Always Daddy's little favorite, but she never fit into proper society once we moved down here to Silverdale."

"Give it back." Tarissa approached her aunt with her hand out.

"I think not." Aunt Rose smiled but not pleasantly. "I'm trying to figure where you came from. Who she consorted with to whelp you." Her eyes dipped back to the journal. "Sit down. I want to ask you some questions."

Tarissa did not sit. She was in no mood to give answers, particularly so because she was dragon-bound. The dragon-bound could not lie. Whatever she said would have to be the truth no matter how damning. She thought furiously as Aunt Rose continued to read.

At one point, her aunt sniffed and muttered, "I never liked her either." Several pages on, she paused. She turned back two pages then flipped ahead. After going backward and forward several times, she looked up at Tarissa. "Who was this Rat? What did your mother say about him?"

This was a question Tarissa was happy to answer. "I don't know. She never said anything to me," Tarissa said. She could not lie to save herself, and it gave her great pleasure to honestly frustrate the woman.

Her aunt scowled and went back to the diary. She frowned and murmured a question, "The celebration of the solstice fest?" under her breath. She sat up with a gasp, and in the same low voice asked herself, "Rairatte?" Aunt Rose looked up at Tarissa. Now with her full voice she demanded, "Did your mother ever mention the duke?"

"What duke?" Tarissa asked it innocently, but she knew exactly who Aunt Rose meant. Beddo Rairatte had been the Duke of Silverdale for years. Her aunt had obviously made a connection between the duke and her mother's lover, Rat.

"Our duke, you thick-wit."

Tarissa shook her head slowly and frowned, knitting her eyebrows as if confused. "I can't ever remember her saying anything about the duke." But she remembered her mother had always celebrated the summer solstice festival with a special wistfulness—a bit of information Aunt Rose did not need. And it was exactly true that her mother had never said anything about the duke to Tarissa.

While her aunt flipped here and there in the diary, Tarissa thought about what she had read in those pages. Everything her mother had written about Rat had shown growing affection right up until her mother left Silverdale for Tazzelton. Could Duke Rairatte really be her mother's Rat? Was the duke her father? If true, she was the love child of a duke, a bastard child who would be a danger to the duke's marriage and his reputation—maybe even his position.

Her mother had never told her who her father was. Tarissa had assumed it was because she had felt guilty about the affair. But now she understood it was not shame that drove Sara. As much as she had loved the man who had fathered Tarissa, she had also recognized danger. Yes, her daughter was a danger to the duke's position, but the political powers of Silverdale would be a danger to her baby as well. Sara had chosen to hide herself and her child in Tazzelton.

Aunt Rose had given Tarissa important information, but her aunt still had the diary. "Are you done with my mother's book?" Tarissa asked. "I want it back."

Aunt Rose smiled slyly. "No, I think I have a better use for it." She looked down at the book and flipped the pages idly. "Much better," she chuckled to herself. She snapped the diary shut. "Go to your room," she snarled, "you unappreciative little tavern slut."

Tarissa went to her room, but she did not stay. She could not stay. She burned with a fiery rage at Aunt Rose and what she had done. Tarissa had controlled it while they talked, but now it would not let her remain in her aunt's house. Once dressed for the day, it was near enough time for lunch. Usually, she had something before she left. She could have eaten free at the Crooked Cat before she started her work there in the afternoon. This day, however, she wanted to do some thinking away from the busy clutter of the inn. For a copper she bought a pastry and some nuts from a street vendor and walked to the west, toward the heart of the city of Silverdale.

She walked until she was at the outskirts of the wealthy Schloss district. From there she had a view to the uplands that overlooked the bay. Set in among the trees above city proper was the duke's official residence. Its garden balcony overlooked the city below. The duke lived there, Duke Beddo Rairatte. Her father? She turned this new idea over in her mind.

Until today, the troubles of Tarissa's life had been personal affairs, important to herself and her brother. As for Aunt Rose, she took notice of Tarissa only when Tarissa said or did something that created a bump in her aunt's social schedule.

Tarissa was a singer, or at least she sang as part of her job at the pub. More than anything, Tarissa wanted her egg. But she also wanted to be a singer. However, if she were the love child of the duke, she tottered on the edge of a snake-filled abyss of politics and the struggle for power. What did it mean for her life if she was the duke's bastard?

She could not ponder overlong this day. She heaved a deep sigh and turned away. It was a long walk back to the Crooked Cat. Back to the ratty side of the city. Back to her life.