Evanescent (2 page)

“My Queen.” John of Leavenwald, head of the woodsmen and my unofficial adviser in all things diplomatic since my coronation, stood next to one of the windows on the far side of the room, his pale hair bright in the sunlight and his gray eyes obscured. “If we could speak for a moment, please?”

I nodded weakly. “Sure. What do you need?”

He came forward and bowed low before stepping onto the dais and leaning down so his lips were next to my ear. “I would not second-guess your ruling, Your Majesty, but what will you do about the boy and his training? People could have died because of his father’s refusal to follow the rules. You cannot let such a thing go.”

The boy. Crap. I’d forgotten about him. Well, okay, not really. I just didn’t want to punish him. Sure, he’d burned down a guy’s field, but he hadn’t done it on purpose,
and
he’d done the right thing in the situation.

Besides, I didn’t feel like I could punish him. After all, hadn’t I been doing basically the same thing since I’d gotten here? I’d been trying to figure out how to be a leader while fighting a war and guessing what the best possible outcomes could be. The only difference between us was that if I failed, there was a lot more at stake than one forest.

“Do I have to? I mean, he’s a kid,” I whispered. John’s eyes softened for a split second before going back to their normal iron gray. “And I really don’t want to punish him just because his dad’s a jerk. That would make me a tad hypocritical considering who my father is.”

John flinched. The most likely candidate for my father was the evil wizard intent on killing me and taking my throne. Yeah, after having my “dad” try to kill me and take over my kingdom I didn’t feel like I could punish anyone else for having lousy parents.

“Then give him the chance to grow into a
good dragon
. An honorable dragon. Let him have a worthy fate instead of one that’s marred by the mistakes of youth.” John’s eyes were fixed on mine.

“He needs to be trained properly,” I said, nodding. “So that next time he’s flying he doesn’t accidentally kill someone.” I looked over at the boy, who was still clinging to the back of his father’s shirt. “Lavian, your son—”

“Dravak.” The boy sniffled and then peered up at me with red-rimmed eyes.

His father could have turned him into a murderer, a monster, if the boy hadn’t changed course. And he would have had to live with that. He’d have been forced to spend his life remembering the people who’d died because of his actions. That was a miserable fate, one I didn’t want to share with anyone. Especially a young boy.

“Dravak,” I said, trying to keep my face stiff and all queen-like instead of letting tears well up in my eyes at what I was about to do. “Dravak will stay here, in the care of the tutors at the aerie until he completes his training. Then he can go back to Dramera and take up his duties in the red dragon clan.”

“I will not turn my son over to a bunch of dirt-loving—”

“Really?” Dravak pushed past his father and dropped to his knees in front of the throne. “You’re going to let me join the aerie? Only the best dragon warriors are allowed to live there and protect the Rose and her throne. Fate herself chooses them. The warriors of the aerie are touched as her own.”

“Well.” I swallowed and tried to forget the fact that so many people here believed their lives were ruled by some divine goddess they had never seen, who had laid out the paths of their lives before they were even born.

I knew better, of course. Esmeralda had told me Fate was fiction. She’d made up the idea of the goddess and her prophecies to keep one of my ancestors on the throne and prevent a civil war. But the idea had taken root and now, and no matter what I said, the people here were determined to live by a fake goddess’s will.

“Your Majesty?” John asked.

“Indeed, Fate herself told me in my orb,” I said, my voice shaking. “She told me that a brave dragon warrior in need of shaping would come into my throne room today and I was to take him into the aerie. Fate herself told me to look out for you, if your father approves.”

Hatred burned in the blacks of Lavian’s eyes. He knew I was lying. He knew Fate wasn’t taking his son away from him, but me, Alicia Munroe, the not-quite-seventeen-year-old, brand-new Golden Rose of Nerissette.

I kept my eyes on his and let them both pretend that Lavian had a say in whether or not his son trained here. That we were united in making sure that Dravak met his destiny. That this was something to be celebrated.

“It’s a high honor that Fate and her handmaiden, the Golden Rose, have bestowed on you,” Lavian said stiffly, his eyes never leaving mine as he spoke to his son. “Always act in a way that proves you deserve her trust and that Fate has chosen wisely in bringing you here.”

“I will, Da.” Dravak nodded vigorously at his father and his eyes shone with happiness, as if I’d just given him the world’s best gift instead of taking him away from his family. “I’ll be a great dragon warrior. I’ll fight bravely for the Golden Rose and her throne. I’ll—”

“I’m sure you will,” I said, and tried to ignore how much this decision utterly sucked. “Now, by the light of the Pleiades, thank you all for coming. My royal audience is over but there’s food on the tables in the formal gardens for anyone who’s hungry. Please, make yourselves at home.”

“Allie?” Winston asked.

“I need a minute.” I pushed myself out of the throne and headed for the door behind my throne. “Just one minute.”

“Your Majesty.” John opened the heavy wooden door and motioned me through. “You need to meet with the newly appointed ambassador from Bathune. His delegation will be here soon, and they won’t wait for you to have a snack.”

“I know. I know. Meeting with the new ambassador four hours before the ball to welcome him to court with three hundred guests and—”

“Your Majesty,” Timbago said, hurrying after us, his long, hoop-pierced ears trembling. The small green goblin only came up to my knee but he still managed to keep my palace running efficiently, and apparently keep up with our full-length strides. “Are you well?”

“I just…” I squeezed my eyes shut and took a deep breath. I’d just lied to a little boy. I’d taken him from his family and I’d justified it by lying. By telling him that it was the will of Fate. I’d lied to him like I’d been lying to everyone else, and it was finally catching up to me. Everything here seemed to be built on lies.

“Just take a minute.” John took my hands in his and squeezed them.

“Thank you.” I closed my eyes and leaned back against the wall of the darkened servants’ hallway that led from my throne room to the kitchens. “It was all too much. I mean, if that boy wouldn’t have changed course—”

“Don’t think about it,” John said. “It’s a battle you don’t have to fight, so let it alone. The forest was safe, and you’ve punished the dragon responsible. No one else will consider such a foolish action again.”

“But he’s so young… That boy. I took him from his father—and his mother! I didn’t even think about her—”

“He could have massacred everyone on that side of the lake,” John said. “He wouldn’t have meant to but his father’s reaction was rash and he could have turned the boy into a murderer because of his lack of thought and his ego.”

“I know that I had to protect Dravak before something more serious happened, but that doesn’t mean it sucks any less that I had to be the one to take him from his parents.”

Timbago pressed a hand against my knee. “You did the right thing.”

“Well, it still feels lousy. I took a kid from his parents and now he’s going to be trained to fight, whether he wants to or not. Because he thinks that this is what
Fate
wants.”

“Sometimes it’s better for children to be away from their parents and safe, than with them and in danger,” John said, looking away for a moment.

“Is it? I was apart from my parents and I’ve got to tell you I never felt any better off—at least not after I lost Mom.”

John slowly met my eyes, his gaze direct. “You’re young. Perhaps one day you’ll understand. Until then, just know that sometimes even the right decisions can make you feel bad.”

“John?”

“Yes, Your Majesty?”

“Thanks. For everything, I mean. Watching my back and getting me out of there for a few minutes and…”

“You’re welcome. Now, are you ready to watch the new ambassador of Bathune grovel at your feet?”

“Grovel?”

“The last ambassador from Bathune—Sarai—fled during the Battle of the Hall of the Pleiades,” John explained. My stomach clenched at even the mention of the day I’d been crowned queen and promptly tumbled my kingdom into civil war.

“And he ran away because your aunt, the empress of Bathune, was in league with the Fate Maker,” Timbago added. “Even though she’d like you to believe otherwise. There are even those who say they saw your aunt’s ambassador fighting beside the Fate Maker.”

“But my aunt keeps sending me notes that say she had nothing to do with the war and is simply waiting for us to hammer out a peace agreement before she sends Sarai back here to Nerissette,” I said.

Not that I necessarily believed any of what she wrote. Her former ambassador, Sarai, was a wizard and that group as a whole wasn’t particularly fond of me. Plus, he was my aunt’s ambassador, and from everything I’d heard and read about her since I’d arrived in Nerissette, I wasn’t sure I could trust her. Especially after she’d left me to fight a war on my own and didn’t even bother to ask if I needed any help.

“We have been at peace for a while now,” Timbago pointed out. “Your aunt has sent trade groups across the White Mountains. Why hasn’t Sarai returned with them? Why is she sending a new ambassador in his place? Unless she knows that we don’t trust him?”

“Exactly,” John agreed. “We know it and so does she. She can’t send Sarai back here when we know he’s a spy for the Fate Maker that his allegiance is to the wizards and not to us.”

“Are we sure that he was fighting with the Fate Maker’s army?” I asked. “We’re certain that he fled, but do we know without a doubt that he was fighting for our enemy?”

“Gunter of the Veldt insists that Sarai was hiding in the forests with the wizards, and when the forest caught fire, he ran,” John said.

The fire. I bit my lower lip as my heart thumped painfully in my chest and I tried my hardest not to think about how I’d ordered Winston and the rest of the dragons to set fire to the forest outside my palace during my last battle with the Fate Maker. We’d been trying to flush out the wizards who had been attacking us from the cover of the trees, but instead, two of the other teens who’d fallen through the book with me—Heidi and Jesse—had been trapped there with the wizards. They were caught in a fire that
I
had started. I was the reason they were dead.

“But if he was with the Fate Maker’s army, he may
still
be with them,” John added.

Timbago looked wary. “The Empress Bavasama says that he returned to Bathune though.”

“Since when do we believe anything that Bavasama says?” John snapped.

“We don’t.” Timbago glared at the other man. “But unless we have proof, which we don’t, we can’t just accuse the empress of Bathune of waging war against the Golden Rose. Against her own family.
Her only remaining family.
”

“Even though we all know that she did it,” I said quietly. “My aunt wants my throne, and she’ll do whatever it takes to get it.”

“Yes.” John nodded.

I turned to look at the goblin standing across from me, focusing on his bulging, red-veined eyes. “Timbago?”

“Yes, she has sided with your enemies,” he said softly, “and she will kill you if she gets the chance. But right now we aren’t in a strong enough position to start a war that will stop her. Right now we must bow our heads and make peace with your aunt. Until we’re sure we can win a war against her.”

“I agree,” John said. “I don’t like it, but Timbago is right. Today we have no choice but to maintain the peace.”

“And what about Eriste?” I asked. “The new ambassador? What do either of you know about him?”

“He makes Sarai look like a kitten dressed up in trollskin.” Timbago snorted.

“You’ve dealt with him before?” I asked.

“More than I would care to admit,” Timbago said. “I wasn’t unhappy to see him leave when he went with the empress to Bathune, and I’m not pleased to see him return.”

I raised an eyebrow at Timbago. “So you don’t like him?”

“I never liked him, Queen Allie.”

“Why?” I asked, trying to get a feel for the ambassador I would be meeting before we were actually face-to-face.

“Before your mother became the Golden Rose, when your grandmother ruled, Bathune and Nerissette were one country.” Timbago looked away. “The old queen split the lands at the White Mountains when she died, so that each of her daughters could inherit part of the kingdom, which she’d hoped would prevent a civil war between them.”

I knew this already. When I hadn’t been going over paperwork and trying to rebuild the parts of my castle that had been damaged in the Fate Maker’s last attack, I’d been studying the history of my new home and how my ancestors had ruled it. “And?”

“A lot of the wizards felt that the kingdom shouldn’t have been split, that it should have gone to the oldest daughter—Bavasama—as a whole kingdom. Eriste was one of them,” John said.

“So you think he wants to get rid of me and put Bavasama on the throne?”

“I know he does.” Timbago’s eyes fixed on mine now. “The only question is will he do anything about it?”

“Do you think that’s why my aunt sent him?” I asked. “Do you think Bavasama is going to try to force me from my throne?”

“I think she would not be sad to see you gone,” John sidestepped. “You are the queen of a large kingdom, a kingdom larger than her own, and one she will inherit if you die. She has much to gain. And you didn’t die in battle the first time…”

John had helped Rhys after the war, making sure that the wounded were treated and the dead were taken care of while I was still too weak from my own fight with the Fate Maker to take charge. Since then he’d moved into the palace and his son, Eamon, had joined the Royal Guards with several other woodsmen. Whenever I needed John he’d been there, ready with advice or information to help me make decisions in the day-to-day running of the kingdom. He was never pushy, though. Never demanded that I do things a specific way. He simply gave me the information I needed and helped me keep the country under control while I figured out how I was supposed to manage. He was doing it again now.