Evanescent (4 page)

“Would you care for a sandwich, Your Majesty? Then perhaps we could begin to discuss increasing the number of caravans that travel the trade routes in the White Mountains and lowering the taxes that you charge merchants coming into Nerissette from Bathune.”

John cleared his throat. “I thought this meeting was simply a picnic? Not a trade negotiation, Ambassador.”

Eriste shrugged and held out the platter of sandwiches toward me. “I didn’t think trade was a topic that was off-limits. Surely we’re all better off if trade continues between Nerissette and Bathune?”

“Let me.” Eamon took it and tore a small hunk off the end of one of the sandwiches. The woodsman took a bite, chewing carefully, and then wrinkled his nose before winking at me—obviously trying to make amends for his comments a few minutes earlier.

“Roast beef. Could use a touch more horseradish, but other than that it seems fine.” Eamon placed the sandwich on the plate in front of me and I picked it up. I took a small bite of the sandwich and tried to hold back my groan of pleasure at the taste. I had no idea what Eamon was talking about—this might possibly have been the best sandwich I’d ever tasted, and it had the perfect amount of horseradish.

“More horseradish. I’ll keep that in mind,” Eriste said drily.

“It all looks delicious,” I said. “If Eamon doesn’t drop dead I’m sure it’ll be wonderful.”

Eamon poured the water into one of the goblets and then took a small sip of the water. Then he popped two grapes into his mouth. Once he’d tasted them he took out a small knife and carved a small sliver off an apple, biting into it carefully. “The food is not poisoned,” Eamon said, his voice flat and emotionless.

Eriste glanced at the guard still hovering over us. “May the Pleiades be praised that the Golden Rose is safe.”

“May they keep us all safe,” I said, my eyes narrowed at him.

“This,” Eriste said as he picked up a grape, ignoring the tension between us, “is a rather lovely spot, I must say. It’s a shame we couldn’t use the hillside where your mother held her picnics, but this is a surprisingly nice second option. Although the flowers are unusual. Are they dryad plants?”

I looked over at the rose vines that had been set up along the perimeter of what was going to be the memorial walk and admired the dark-green bulbs that had yet to sprout flowers. “Yes, Darinda has taken charge of growing them herself. She says it’s her personal duty to those she lost.”

“Do you know what they are? The flowers?” Eriste asked.

“They’re war roses,” John answered.

Eriste stiffened beside me. “I see. An interesting choice for a memorial.”

“Fitting,” John said.

War roses?
“What are—”

Eamon caught my attention, shaking his head slightly.

“Your Majesty?” Eriste asked.

“What are…your plans for your time here in Nerissette?” I asked, trying to switch topics gracefully. Hopefully later, someone would explain to me the importance of the flowers that had yet to bloom around us. “You said you wanted to discuss trade?”

“Yes,” Eriste said. “I had hoped to initiate talks between you and Her Majesty, the Empress Bavasama. About trade routes, of course, but your aunt is also quite interested in meeting you and helping you to become accustomed to your new role. She’d like to get to know her niece.”

“Right. My long-lost aunt who I didn’t know existed until I arrived here and got myself sucked into a war. The aunt who didn’t help when I had an army of monsters at my front gate.”

“From what I’ve heard, there are a lot of things that were kept secret from you,” Eriste said, ignoring my last comment, and then glanced over at John, who shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

“My mother did what she thought was right.” I struggled to keep my voice even. “I’m sure she was waiting to tell me until I was older. She thought we’d have more time.”

“We always do, Your Majesty.” Eriste reached for my hand and held a sandwich in his other. “We always think we have forever with those we love, but somehow we always manage to leave things unsaid.”

“Right.” I felt myself choking up at the thought of my mother before I managed to swallow it down again. I wasn’t about to lose my cool in front of my aunt’s spy. “She would have had more time if it hadn’t been for the Fate Maker trying to kill her and all.”

“That is unfortunate, yes.” Eriste let go of my hand and took a big bite of his sandwich, munching down on half of it in one go. He swallowed, and then glanced over at me. “But since your mother is lost to us, your aunt would very much like to help you. To teach you the things your mother didn’t get a chance to. She cares a great deal for you.”

“She doesn’t know me,” I said as he took another bite, finishing the rest of his sandwich. And with everything I knew, I didn’t want to get to know her. After all, my aunt was such bad news that my grandmother had skipped over her and given the crown to my mother. Auntie Bav wasn’t really high on my getting-to-know-you list.

“You’re family. She doesn’t have to know you to love you with all her heart. Perhaps in the spring we can arrange for a visit? It’s too late in the year for you to leave for Bathune now—too much of a risk of you being caught in an early autumn snowstorm in the White Mountains on your return to Nerissette—but after the snows have melted a bit we can arrange it. Yes?” He took an apple from the plate and bit into it.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said. “I’ve got a lot going on here, rebuilding Nerissette. I can’t just take a vacation.”

“I’m sure Her Majesty would love a visit from her aunt, though,” John said quickly. “If the Empress Bavasama is willing to cross the border. Perhaps a meeting at Her Majesty’s stronghold in the White Mountains would be best? Then neither of them would have to worry about being away too long.”

My
stronghold? What stronghold? The only castle I knew about in the White Mountains was the one that Rhys oversaw, and it was nothing more than a stone tower surrounded by a fort that housed soldiers. And, according to Rhys, it wasn’t even much of a fort. In fact, he’d called the place a dump.

“Her Majesty, the Empress Bavasama was hoping that Queen Alicia would join her at the Palace of Night,” Eriste said, and wiped his mouth with his hand.

“I don’t think that’s going to be possible.” I shook my head and handed him a white cloth napkin from the picnic basket. “And you’ve got roast beef in your mustache.”

“Thank you.” He took the napkin and dabbed at his mouth. “Surely a short visit wouldn’t be too much trouble? You could finalize some trade treaties while you’re there. Or sign an act of alliance, so that our armies can join to battle the trolls and giants that plague both our lands.”

“I don’t want to leave the throne empty if I can help it,” I said. “But like John said, my aunt is more than welcome here. We can discuss trade, and her lord general and Rhys could work out a plan so that our armies can assist each other.”

Eriste gritted his teeth. “Perhaps we can come to some arrangement at a later date? After I’ve heard from your aunt.”

“Of course.” I nodded, trying not to gloat.

“Your aunt just wants to get to know you. You are family, after all.”

“The people of Nerissette are my family,” I said, looking him directly in the eye. “And if anyone thinks they’re pushing my family around ever again, I will crush them.”

Eriste’s eyes widened. “I see.”

“Good.” I smiled at him, fighting back my anger. “Then it’s probably time we get back. We wouldn’t want to be late to the ball we’re hosting in your honor tonight, would we?”

“Of course not, Your Majesty.” Eriste’s lips were set in a thin line, the skin around them a pale, bloodless white. Obviously he hadn’t expected me to be quite so willing to stand up to him or my aunt’s suggestions. But if she wanted me to not suspect her of trying to take my throne, she was going to have to come to me.

“Let me escort you back, my queen.” John stepped forward and held out his hand, helping me to my feet. Strength flowed from him to me, keeping me upright.

“I think perhaps I’ll enjoy the gardens a bit more.” Eriste waved his hands again, twitching his fingers toward the now-empty platters, and the various bits of our picnic packed themselves back into his basket. “Your Majesty.”

“As you like,” John said. “We’ll leave the woodsmen guard with you,
for your protection.
”

“Thank you,” Eriste said, his voice tight and eyes blazing. So much for him using magic to send a message to my aunt now. Not with Eamon and the rest of his wizard-hating guardsmen standing watch. “But I don’t think that will be necessary.”

“Oh.” I smiled at him. “I insist. After all, there are giants out there. And trolls. And all sorts of creatures that have a bone to pick with wizards. I want to make sure that you’re safe.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Eriste said through clenched teeth as he gave me a quick nod.

“It’s my pleasure.” I wrapped my hand around John’s forearm and gave my new ambassador the tiniest possible nod before turning on my heel and letting John escort me back toward the castle. The guardsmen around us stood at attention, their backs stiff and chins raised, as we passed.

“You know he plans on sending a message to Bavasama the minute he’s alone, don’t you?” John asked as soon as we were far enough away that Eriste couldn’t hear us.

“Yep,” I said, “and I’m pretty sure my aunt’s not going to be too pleased that he didn’t persuade me to come and stay with her.”

“I think you’re right.” John tightened his grip on my arm. “So, I take it that Timbago and I are not alone in our distrust of your aunt and her new ambassador?”

“Nope. I don’t like them, either. Any ideas she had about us being one big happy family should have disappeared the minute she left us here to die at the Fate Maker’s whim. I may not know a lot about families, but even I know that’s one of those big no-no’s.”

Chapter Four

“So how was it?” Winston asked about my meeting. It was later that afternoon, and we’d managed to sneak away for a bit. Winston had found a bench in a secluded spot of the formal gardens where we could sit, watching the sun set over the trees. Just like any other normal couple out for a walk, a couple whose biggest worry was school and prom and who was throwing a party this weekend.

“Crappy.” I leaned against his chest, and he brought his hands up and started massaging my shoulders. “It would have been better if you and Rhys had been there instead of taking off on me.”

“John thought it best that you meet the ambassador from Bathune without ‘your guard dogs.’ You know that’s what he calls us, right?
Your guard dogs
.”

I huffed and tugged at my braid. “That’s funny. He was there for the meeting. Him and the woodsmen guards.”

“Yeah.” Winston’s fingers kneaded deeper as he found a knot in the muscles along the top of my spine. “We talked about that, too. He thought you might need an adviser to keep the ambassador from bullying you, but he didn’t want too big a presence because he was afraid it would make you look weak.”

“The three of you shouldn’t be talking about me when I’m not there.” I pulled away and turned to glare at him. “I am the Golden Rose after all. I should be the one making the decisions.”

“We just didn’t want—”

“Don’t say you didn’t want to bother me with it. I’m supposed to be bothered. It’s my job,” I said, my fingers clenching in my skirt as I tried to swallow back my annoyance. They all seemed to go around me, making decisions
in my best interest
. Like I was just some kid and not a queen.

“But—”

“It’s my job.”

“Fine, you’re right. I’m sorry,” Winston said. “We were worried, though. The ambassador is dangerous.”

“I know he is, and I know it was better if I faced him without you and Rhys breathing down his neck, but you should have talked to me about it. This should have been a decision we made together. As a team.”

He leaned forward, his eyes glinting, a teasing smile playing on his lips. “Yes, Your Majesty. Is there anything else you want to tell me off about, Your Majesty?”

“Don’t start that Your Majesty stuff with me.” I gave him a quick kiss on the tip of his nose, thawing a little at the sight of the dimples that creased his cheeks. “Otherwise, the next time you’re in dragon form, I’ll have one of the soldiers use their pikes to shove your dirty socks up your own snout. And you know how helpless you are at picking things up once you no longer have thumbs.”

“You will not.”

“Right in the snout.” I tapped him on the nose and we both smiled.

“Oh yeah?” He wrapped his fingers around mine. “Then I guess I’ll have to become the big, bad dragon from all those fairy tales and burn down your castle.”

“You think you’re tough enough to manage that?” I stuck my tongue out at him, teasing.

He let go of my hands and started tickling my sides. “I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll burn the entire world down until I find you.”

“Really?” I laughed. “I bet the other dragons would be pretty ticked off if you tried. Since you and Ardere have put the rest of the aerie at work hauling stuff up to the roof for the guys to rebuild.”

“True.” Winston tapped his chin, trying not to smile and failing. “I’ll just have to come up with something else to do to you.”

“Like what?”

“Whoopee cushion on the throne during your next Great Hall thingy?”

“Oh, shut up and kiss me.” I latched my finger into the collar of his black, cotton tunic and pulled him forward.

“Is that a command, Your Majesty?” He pressed his lips against mine for a quick kiss and my toes curled. Somehow I was pretty sure kissing the handsome dragon who used to live across the street from me in the real world was something I would never get used to. Not that I would mind trying.

“Stop it with the Your Majesty stuff,” I muttered as he nuzzled along my chin with his nose. “I spent all day being Queen Alicia Munroe, Golden Rose of Nerissette. Right now I just want to be Allie.”

“Okay, then.” He wrapped his arms around me, pulling me closer. “So,
Just Allie
, will you go to the dance with me tonight?”

“I don’t know.” I leaned my head against his shoulder. “I might want to go with someone else.”

“Who?” Winston asked as he ran his fingers down my back. “The only other guy you could take is Rhys, and I don’t think Mercedes is going to be okay with that.”

“I could take Gunter of the Veldt. He’s out of the infirmary and his mother, the Lady Arianne, told me that he’s coming back to court tonight. It’s his first public outing since the battle. I told her I’d dance with him.”

“Hmm.” Winston kissed the top of my head. “I’ll have to talk to him then. See how he’s feeling.”

“Oh, stop.” I pulled back and smiled at him. “It’s one dance.”

“No, seriously.” He quit smiling then and tightened his hold on me for a second. “I want to make sure that he’s okay. That he’s over his injuries.”

“
You
want to go check on Gunter?” I asked. Winston and Rhys couldn’t stand Gunter. Or his mother.

Not that I could blame them. Ever since we’d first arrived in Nerissette, the Lady Arianne of the Veldt had been nothing but a pain in my neck, always trying to steal land from other nobles and doing her best to convince me that her son should have Rhys’s job. Or at least she had pushed for him to become lord general of the army—until the day we had fought the Fate Maker outside my palace and Gunter had lost his left hand in the battle.

“He’s an idiot, but he’s our idiot,” Winston said. “And, according to Rhys, he was brave that day.”

“I know. That’s why I promised his mother I would dance with him tonight. She says he’s sort of worried about what people will think of him, now that he’s missing a hand.”

“They’ll think he fought bravely for his country, and his people, and for your throne,” Winston said. “And anyone who says otherwise will have to face me and Rhys and everyone else Gunter stood beside that day. Like I said, he’s an idiot, but he’s ours. And we protect our own.”

“So you don’t mind me dancing with him?”

Winston pulled back from me and shrugged. “Not really. While you’re dancing with Gunter, I’ll just dance with his sister.”

I felt my hackles rise at the idea of Winston anywhere near Gunter’s younger sister, Carolina of the Veldt—otherwise known as the biggest flirt in Nerissette. She’d done her best to throw herself at Winston during the
Welcome Back, Princess Allie
ball that had been thrown when I’d first arrived in Nerissette. I’d heard rumors that she’d flirted with him before the battle, too. But while the rest of us were fighting for our kingdom she’d run back to the Veldt, taking some of her mother’s best troops along to guard her inside their family fortress until the Fate Maker had been defeated.

“I really need to work on getting dungeons built in this place,” I grumbled.

Winston laughed. “Speaking of dungeons, tell me about your meeting with the new ambassador.”

“He’s a pain.”

“Duh, he’s a wizard. They’re all pains.”

The sun dipped behind the horizon and the chirp of night crickets began as the sky dimmed. I could smell the flowers of night as they bloomed, their dark-blue petals unfurling to release the night pixies that lived inside my gardens. The first of the tiny creatures woke, her feet blinking softly as she flitted from flower to flower, touching their petals and putting them to sleep for the night.

“He wants me to leave Nerissette, go visit my aunt in Bathune at the Palace of Night, and have some sort of family reunion with her.”

“Oh yeah, like that’s going to happen.” Winston wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “You’re just going to go to Bathune and trust your aunt to let you come home when it’s all over.”

“Yeah.” I snorted. “But just because she’s got a castle full of wizards doesn’t mean she’s bad. Does it?”

“No.” Winston smirked at me. “It doesn’t make her bad at all. Neither does the fact that she was willing to let you die in a civil war while she sat on her throne, munching on popcorn as she watched everything going to crap here.”

“You weren’t supposed to catch onto that.”

“So how are you going to brush her off?”

“I’m not.” I shrugged. “We invited her to come here. A nice, happy family reunion right here in Nerissette. With my guards surrounding us. Just in case she decides to try to kill me herself.”

“You think she would?” Winston asked. “Try to kill you, I mean.”

“No.” I shook my head. “Everything I’ve read about my aunt is that she doesn’t do her own dirty work. She won’t even send an army to attack me, she’ll use the wizards to trick me. Like Eriste.”

“Hmm…”

“What?” I asked.

“I’m just thinking that we may need to double our patrols over the White Mountains.”

“Why?”

“If the wizards are going to attack us, they’ll do it when we least expect. And that’s right now—when you have an ambassador in your court, trying to hammer out an alliance between you and your aunt.”

“You have a point.”

“So do you think we should?” he asked.

“Do I think we should what?”

“Increase the number of patrols that the dragon warriors are flying over the White Mountains? You just told me that you were sick of me and Rhys and John making decisions without asking your input, so I’m asking. Are we increasing the patrols?”

“Yes. You’re right. If the wizards are going to try something they’ll do it when they think we’re distracted.”

“I’ll go talk to Rhys. We can get the first patrols in the air before the ball starts.”

“Yeah, and since we’re talking about the ball, I should go. I’ve got to get ready.”

“Right.” He leaned in to kiss me quickly and I smiled against his lips. “So I’ll see you in a few hours then?”

“Yep.” I kissed him again, slightly longer this time. “I’ll be the one in the big, uncomfortable dress and the crown, standing in the doorway while a goblin announces me and everyone bows.”

“I’ll keep an eye out,” he said. “But just in case I miss you, just look for the guy all in black standing next to the throne waiting for his date.”

My heart fluttered at the idea that he was going to be waiting for me. He was my date.
I
was the girl with the most handsome dragon in the kingdom as a date. Even with all the crap I had to put up with there were definite advantages to being a queen. “I’ll try not to keep you waiting too long.”

“You better not.” He stood and helped me to my feet. “Otherwise I might have to dance with Carolina of the Veldt instead.”

“You wouldn’t dare.” I swatted his arm and we started toward the palace.

“What would you do if I did?”

“I might have to bring back beheadings.” I grinned at him. “Then I’d have to find something really nasty to do to you.”