Legions of Bone: Dragon Rider Book 3

Chapter 7: Super Secret Dagen Fan Club

But honestly, Dagen is both^^
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Dagen

At eight in the morning, the market streets were filled with people. All bleary-eyed and yawning, they drag their feet over the cobblestones as they made for work. Some walk beside hulking dragons, other's, he figured, were mages and commoners.

Even wearing his black cloak, standard attire in Raider City, no one spares Dagen a second glance as he weaves his way through the crowds with lithe grace.

But that had been Dagen's plan. To come into the streets everyday around eight or four, times when the streets were busiest and there were too many faces for the clerks to keep track of. It wasn't very hard to go unseen when the streets were crowded. Especially as more and more refugees sought shelter and were put to work. As he wandered the streets, it was easy to pick out who had lost their homes, their families. Their eyes were empty or filled with sorrow and they moved without purpose.

Dagen passed a coffee shop with giant windows as the front. Lines of people clumped together, all dragging their feet and staring at nothing while the baristas hurried back and forth behind the bar.

Eoin skipped a few feet in front of Dagen, pointing to different things that caught his eye. People phased through him as they went but after several years, Eoin no longer seemed to notice.

"I found one!" Eoin shouted, grey eyes lit with triumph as he pointed to a cloak.

Dagen slowed, people fanning around him like a school of fish when a shark swims through. He eyed the cloak hanging on one of several outside racks of a thrift shop, its doors open despite the snow and wind.

"Can you get it?" Eoin wondered, as if he couldn't. His face fell flat as Dagen snatched the cloak and carried on. "You steal too much."

Dagen's lips quirked as his fingers slipped into a person's pockets, then into another. Unlike the other shoppers, he went into stores and left with even heavier pockets then he came in with.

He could almost yawn--stealing here was child's play. And quickly becoming boring.

There were no runes to protect against thieves as Raider City had. Still, Dagen wasn't stupid enough to test his luck and continued using his abilities to scan for alarms. And if he came early in the morning or near dark, the clerks were too tired to pay him much attention. He mentally clicked his tongue at them--too trusting.

Stealing was losing its usual thrill so he did what any bored person would do--he made it into games.

Most of the refugees here had little to no money and doing his usual rounds, he found far too many dragon riders setting prices four times higher than standard. He'd listen, wander through the store pretending to look interested until the customer left without their product or having overpaid for it. And then Dagen would leave with them, slipping things into their pockets--sometimes food, sometimes money.

As dawn faded, Dagen made way to the tram stations, making eye contact with every ghost he could until they followed behind him like a pack of sheep. It was an effort to stomp down the smile threatening on his lips.

Guards were posted at each carriage, some hidden beneath the roofed passageways. He watched them in his peripheral as he found a seat inside a carriage. Before long, the ground disappeared behind clouds. Dagen stared up to where the clouds were thick and grey and had to stop himself from imagining what would happen if the magic in the carriage failed and everyone fell.