Allie’s destroyed her way out of the deadly realm of Nerissette, unless she can find two elusive artifacts that have the power to make her a goddess. But she’s got even bigger problems: she also has to find a way to unite Nerissette behind her as their new queen, and capture the Fate Maker before he can find another army of invaders willing to help him return to power.
In the meantime, Allie is having to deal with her growing feelings for the guy who she’s certain is the love of her life. She and her shape shifting champion must both learn about the subtle, shifting layers of bravery and what it means to open your heart to another, regardless of how frightened it may be.
Information:
Title: Evanescent (The Chronicles of Nerissette)
Author: Andria Buchanan
Genre: YA Fantasy
Length: 304 pages
Release Date: October 2013
ISBN: 978-1-62266-018-6
Imprint: Entangled Teen
Excerpt:
© 2013 Andria Buchanan
Chapter One
I stood in the middle of the square in front of the Fort of Neris as the sun came up—alone. Which was strange because the square was never empty. There was always someone around, even if it was just a guard standing watch, waiting for the giants and trolls that could attack our home at any moment. That was my first sign that this was a dream.
The sun peeked over the horizon, and I watched the red-gold light fill the sky, heralding the dawn. Something slithered against my ankle and I glanced down. The square was flooded, and blood-tinged water lapped at my ankles.
Definitely a dream.
I lifted the heavy, impractical skirts that Dream Me had apparently decided to wear and sighed. Whatever it took to get out of this dream, I wasn’t going to find it standing here in a crappy dress, getting waterlogged. I turned toward the main gates, prepared to start the long hike uphill to the Crystal Palace. I really didn’t feel like hiking five miles—even if it was a dream—in a floor-length gown, of all things.
“They’re coming.”
I jumped at the sound of Esmeralda’s voice and saw her sitting on top of the water. I stared at the sorceress-turned-black-and-white cat. She had gone missing three months before, during the first days of the war against the Fate Maker for control of my kingdom, and no one had heard from her since. “Es? What are you doing here? Where have you been?”
“I’ve been forgiven,” Esmeralda said. “I have been released, but I still choose to protect you because you are the greatest thing—the only good thing—I have ever done for my people.”
“That’s not—”
“They are coming,” she repeated. “No one is safe. You are not safe.”
“Who’s coming?” I asked.
She looked over her shoulder, and I followed her gaze. On the horizon a huge black dragon circled in front of the sun. Kuolema. The Soul Eater. One of the four guardians of the Bleak, an eater of the dead, a dragon who called the darkness between worlds his home. The dragon who always haunted my nightmares. But this time there were two figures sitting atop his back. There had never been anyone with him in my dreams before.
A man, raven-haired, hunched his long, thin body over the dragon’s shoulders, his black and silver robes flapping around him. The Fate Maker. I tried to stay calm as I moved my attention to the person behind him. All I could tell from this distance was that it was a woman, her crimson skirts draped delicately over the dragon’s flank and her red hair gleaming like fresh blood in the sunlight as she clung to the Fate Maker’s waist. The hair on the back of my neck stood up and all I wanted to do was run. Run as far and as fast as I could away from her. If she was on the back of a dragon with the Fate Maker, no matter who she was or what she wanted here in Nerissette, it was bad. Very, very bad.
“No.” I shook my head and stepped back, lifting my skirts even higher so that I could make a dash for it if need be.
“The world they bring with them is too evil to contemplate.”
“But he’s dead.” I swallowed. “All of you are dead. You. The Fate Maker. Heidi and Jesse. We have their bodies.”
“Are you certain?” Esmeralda asked.
“There were bodies. Skeletons.”
“Are you sure they’re the right bodies?”
“No, but dragon fire is hot and we did our best to identify them. We buried Heidi and Jesse.”
“When you looked at them, what did you think?”
“I didn’t actually see them myself, but we buried bodies. They’re dead. They died that day and nothing I can do will change that. They died, Esmeralda, and we buried them. We buried their bodies.”
“And me? Did you bury me? The Fate Maker—did you bury him?”
“You and the Fate Maker just disappeared into thin air! Like you spontaneously combusted or something. So you’re dead—you have to be. Aren’t you? What are you if you aren’t dead?”
“I am at rest,” Esmeralda said. “Or as much at rest as I can allow myself to be now that you’re in danger.”
“And the Fate Maker?”
“He is coming and bringing an army of monsters with him like this world has never seen. If you are not prepared to stand up in front of the gates of Nerissette and face him, he will drench this world in a river of blood and tears that will wash Nerissette back into the Sea of Nevermore. Then he’ll march into the World That Is and burn every world between here and the stars.”
“So what do we do?” I begged, my eyes fixed on the dragon, drawing ever closer to us. “What do I do?”
“Don’t let him find the rest of the relics that I’ve hidden. Stop him and stop Fate once and for all. Destroy any monsters that they put in your way, and don’t let them find a way to get into the World That Is.”
“But how?” I asked.
“That…” Esmeralda bowed her head and I watched in horror as she began to fade away. “I do not know.”
“Esmeralda!”
She looked up at me again, her eyes glowing constant even as her body started to shimmer like a heat mirage.
“Don’t.” I held out a hand to her. “Don’t go. Stay and help us defeat him. Then we can all be free. All of us.”
“Oh, Your Majesty,” she sighed. “I am always with you.”
The cat disappeared then, and I heard the beat of the dragon’s wings as it flew closer.
“This world, Nerissette, is mine,” the Fate Maker’s voice taunted from inside my mind. “And I’m coming for it.”
Instead of fleeing I stood my ground, waiting, terrified but holding my head high as the dragon swooped lower. He veered toward me as if to tackle me to the ground. No matter what happened, though, I knew I wouldn’t move. I was firm, steady, and this—this—was nothing more than a dream.
“Your Majesty?” A soft voice sounded next to me, and I felt a touch on my shoulder, jerking me out of my nightmare. The small, smiling maid was leaning over me. “Your Majesty, you were screaming in your sleep. Again.”
“Right.” I swallowed and then sat up. “Sorry. It was just a dream. Just a very, very bad dream.”
“Of course it was, Your Majesty,” the maid said absently. “Now come on, up you get. You’ve got your Great Hall after breakfast.”
The Great Hall. That was today. The one day a month where I sat on my throne and allowed my subjects to come to me so that I could pass laws and judge disputes and basically rule them. Otherwise known as the worst day of the month since I’d become the Golden Rose of Nerissette, the rightful queen of the World of Dreams.
“Thank you.” I studied her face, trying to remember her name. There had been a lot of new faces around the castle since my coronation three months ago, and I still couldn’t keep everyone straight.
“Brigitte,” the maid replied. “From Sorcastia. I’ve only been here a week.”
“Oh.” I nodded. “So how is it? Working in the palace? Do you like it?”
“Much better than working on a farm, Your Majesty.” She smiled. “That was what had been in store for me, but once you came, I knew that I could do better and, well…”
“Here you are.” I couldn’t help thinking that if war came again Brigitte, and all the others who’d flocked to Neris, would have been better off if she’d stayed put. They still believed the lie that their lives were controlled by the invisible, nonexistent, goddess Fate.
“Here I am.” She laid out a brilliant sapphire-colored dress with silver vines embroidered on it and placed my sword beside it. “Maid to the Golden Rose herself. Dressing her for her Great Hall.”
“Right.” I rolled my eyes at her. “The Great Hall. Yay. Bring on the Great Hall.”
She giggled lightly. “Master Timbago said that you might say something like that. So he told me to tell you that the cook is making eggs in honor of your big day.”
“Because that’s supposed to make everything better.” I rolled out of bed and started tugging off my nightgown.
“Yes, Your Majesty,” she said and then smiled at me.
“Come on, let’s get me ready to go administer some justice. Deal with some land disputes and maybe argue about a pig or two.”
“I heard about your decision on the pig,” Brigitte said. “It was particularly inspired. Telling them that they had to split the pig exactly in half or they both had to forfeit their land in repayment? That was brilliant.”
“Yeah, who said the Bible didn’t occasionally come up with a good idea or two?” I shrugged.
“The what?” she asked.
I picked up my dress from the bed and slid it on before turning so that she could do up the laces. “Never mind.”
Chapter Two
“Okay, so let me get this straight. Because I’m not really sure I know why you’re both here.” I looked first at the farmer standing in front of my throne wringing his hands. Then I turned to the tall, red-haired man standing beside him.
The first guy was big, but the other one had broad shoulders and arms the size of tree branches, and moved like a mountain settling as he shifted from foot to foot. He’d have been creepy except for the scrawny, freckle-faced boy cowering behind him, his own curls standing out against the dark brown of his father’s shirt.
The red-haired man huffed and a short plume of smoke curled out of his nose. Dragons. They were notoriously impatient, and the red dragon clan was the worst from what I’d seen.
“You”—I pointed at the farmer—“have a farm outside Sorcastia, and since it’s the beginning of summer your fields are full of…”
“Wheat.” The farmer glowered at the other man before turning his wrath on the boy. “Wheat that is turned into fine bread for your gracious Majesty’s table. Not that these barbarians would know anything about fine bread or the hard work it takes to grow the crops we eat.”
“Barbarians?” The redhead’s muscles rippled over his chest. “Who are you calling a barbarian, you dirt lover? I am Lavian, son of the great dragon warrior Cathane. I’m the delegate to the Council of Dragos and war chieftain of the red dragon clan. How dare you—”
“Hey.” I turned to him. “Nobody’s daring anybody to do anything. Now, like I was saying, he had a crop of wheat. You took your son out to fly, and you ended up in Sorcastia near his field. What happened next?”
“My son may have let out a few plumes of smoke as he was flying overhead. But accidents happen.”
“Accidents!” the farmer raged. “You call what that boy did an accident?”
“He is learning to manage his transformation. He’s come of age and it’s time he embrace his fire.” Lavian stomped one of his large, booted feet. “It is time he takes his rightful place in our clan. He is a dragon, not a weak child of men. You wouldn’t understand.”
“Careful. That’s the Golden Rose you’re insulting,” Winston said, his voice a low growl.
I turned to see my crown prince, the new head of the Dragon Nations, war chieftain of the black dragon clan, head of the blah blah blah, otherwise known as my boyfriend-slash-official-consort and possibly ceremonial husband. Did he have to be so protective all the time?
Lavian stepped forward and Winston rose swiftly from his seat beside me. His form started to waver between his usual shape—a sixteen-year-old boy with close-cropped black curls and coffee-colored skin—and his other form: a very big, extremely intimidating, black dragon. He didn’t shift completely into dragon form but his point was clear. If Lavian wasn’t careful, he just might end up a piece of charcoal.
“I would—” Lavian started.
Winston’s form wavered again, his blue-black scales visible this time. “Apologize,” he said, his voice cold. “Now. Or your son may not be the only member of your clan cowering in fear before this throne.”
“My apologies,” Lavian said through clenched teeth.
“Right. Sure. It’s fine.” I turned to Winston, trying to project just the right mixture of appreciation for stepping in and back off already, numbskull. Somehow I had to manage the rest of my Hall without two dragons getting into a fistfight. “Isn’t it?”
“As long as he remembers you’re his queen, and that means he either speaks to you with respect or not at all.”
Lavian hissed under his breath and took a step forward. Winston started toward him and I grabbed his jacket, pulling him back.
“It’s fine. Stop showing off your scales and breathing smoke at each other so we can get this figured out,” I snapped.
“My Queen.” Winston shifted fully back to his human form and glared at Lavian, his upper lip curling like the dragon version of a German shepherd. Winston took his role of protector seriously, and while it shouldn’t have made me go all wibbly, I wasn’t embarrassed to admit that it did. Almost as weak-kneed as the few stolen kisses we’d managed since our defeat of the Fate Maker three months ago when I’d reclaimed my throne.
I shook my head and tried to focus on the two men. Now was really not the time to be thinking about kissing, not even really good kissing. Which made me wonder, how the heck did I end up stuck here listening to other people’s problems instead of kissing the boy by my side under the school bleachers?
Oh wait, that’s right, I fell through a book that was actually a magical portal between worlds, watched my friends get turned into magical creatures of myth and legend, was crowned Golden Rose, started a war, and destroyed our only doorway between here and home. That obviously meant I had to spend one day a month dispensing justice in the kingdom as my punishment. Yeah, now I remembered. I resisted the sigh that wanted to escape. Stupid me, I had thought biology class was the worst thing that could happen in my day when I was back in the real world. If only I had known there were things that were way, way worse.
“Okay, so you…” I nodded to the farmer. “You grow wheat. And you…” I swung my finger over to Lavian. “You have a son who needed to learn how to manage his transformation between human and dragon form. None of that tells me why the two of you are here.”
“The barbarian and his son—”
“The dirt lover insulted my honor and—”
“Enough!” I yelled, and then stood, glaring at both of them with my hands on my hips.
“You.” I motioned to the small red-haired boy, and he cowered farther behind his father’s large form. “Come out and tell me what happened. If we let the grown-ups do it we’re all going to die of old age before they ever tell me what’s wrong.”
“He set fire to my crops!”
“What?” I froze, and then whipped my head around to look at the farmer standing in front of my throne. Suddenly this seemed a lot more serious than a couple of guys yelling at each other for the heck of it. “He set fire to your fields? Why?”
“They were barely singed,” Lavian huffed.
“He burned the entire crop. There are scorch marks on the dirt itself. I won’t be able to plant again in that field for at least another season. A year’s planting gone. Another year’s crops lost as well, and he claims they’re barely singed.”
“Do you have any explanation for this?” I asked Lavian sternly.
“It wasn’t intentional,” Lavian said, his shoulders tensed around his ears. “My—”
“It was an attempt to steal my lands,” the farmer interrupted. “The dragons would destroy the land of Nerissette and place one of their own on your illustrious throne if they could. They can’t be trusted. None of them can be trusted.” He turned toward Winston and narrowed his eyes, in case I hadn’t somehow already gotten his drift.
“Why would we want a dung heap?” Lavian ground out. “It serves no practical purpose for us. Besides, due to the alliance between your Rose and the war chieftain for the black dragons we are joined with your precious throne. We have yoked ourselves to the dirt lovers and their petty squabbles.”
“One more ‘dirt lover’ out of you, one more insult against the race of men, just one more,” I said, “and you’re not going to like the result. Trust me.”
“I highly doubt—”
“Lavian,” Winston said, letting his form waver again. The other dragon immediately dropped his head and stretched out his neck in what I’d learned was the way that dragons kept themselves from getting barbecued and eaten. Not that I thought it was going to do Lavian much good with the mood Winston was in. The man was going to become flambé in about ten seconds if he didn’t get his act together.
“Now, you tell me what happened,” I said, my eyes fixed on Lavian’s son.
He stepped forward, staring hard at the floor, and his shoulders started to shake. “I’m—” He gasped and his entire body began to tremble. “I’m so sorry,” he sobbed.
I had to grab the arms of my chair to keep from wrapping my arms around him. He’d set fire to a field. I couldn’t just tell him that it was okay. I didn’t want to punish him, but he could have killed people.
“Your Majesty—” Lavian said.
I held a hand up to silence him before I stood and made my way to the boy. I may not be very good at being a queen yet, but I knew what it was like to be a scared kid. I’d been just as scared as he was ever since my mother had ended up in a coma and I’d gone into foster care.
I dropped to my knees beside the boy before looking up at the two grown men staring down at us. “You two stay quiet. Otherwise I’m going to send you all to the dungeon to think about your manners.”
Rhys, the head of my army and one of my closest friends, let out a barely muffled snort from his post behind my throne. I reminded myself to make a list of all the things he’d missed in the five years he’d been in Nerissette later and then spoil each and every one of them for him. Didn’t he see I was trying to do my queen thing right now?
“Sorry,” he said, his British accent crisp among the softer, more slurred accents of Nerissette. “Must have been something in my throat. Go on, Your Majesty.”
It wasn’t bad enough that I doubted my ability to rule an entire country. Now I had him undermining me? Just what I needed from a supposed friend.
I paused a moment. “Thank you. As I was saying, one more word and someone’s going to the dungeon.”
Rhys coughed again, and I shot him a disapproving glance as the young dragon leaned toward me and sniffled against my shoulder. Obviously someone didn’t want to keep a lid on the fact that the Crystal Palace of Nerissette was lacking in dungeons. The jerk. Didn’t he realize that occasionally white lies were necessary when you were making completely unsupportable threats to show your authority? As well as not-so-white lies about other things just to keep your people calm? Like the unknown status of certain power-hungry dark wizards with an eye on world domination, for example.
“I was flying with Da,” the boy began. Putting aside thoughts about dungeons, I tried to focus on how the farmer’s field had been set on fire. “He was teaching me how to dive and do loop-de-loops and how to race.”
“Then what happened?” I tried to keep my voice even and nonthreatening so he’d continue talking and I could figure out what the heck to do about all this.
“I was flying really fast, so fast that even Da couldn’t keep up with me, and then I got this smell in my nose and everything started to itch and I couldn’t help myself, Your Majesty. I tried and I tried but it was either sneeze where I was or take the chance of setting the Forest of Ananth on fire. There hasn’t been much rain lately so I was afraid that if I sneezed in the forest—”
“You’d set the trees up in flames, and we’d be fighting a fire in half the villages on that side of Wevlyn Lake?” I turned to look at the two men, stunned. The boy had almost set a forest on fire and they were in here fighting over a field? One field?
“That would have been bad,” the boy said quietly against my shoulder. “Wouldn’t it?”
“Over a thousand people could have died because a dragon fledgling needed to sneeze.” I rubbed my face and tried to ignore the headache forming behind my eyes.
“It’s as I told you,” the farmer said, his face now a brilliant red. “They want to burn us all and take our land.”
“Why didn’t your son follow the training guidelines?” Winston asked Lavian as I held the young fledgling closer to me as his sobs slowed. “Everyone knows that fledgling dragons are only to fly over water until given further approval by the Dragos Council.”
“It’s possible I was shortsighted,” the dragon said, his voice quiet and his face the same color as the farmer’s standing next to him. “He is a red dragon and we are known for our flying abilities, as well as our ability to control our transformation. Even still, I should have been more cautious about his training.”
“Right. So.” I looked back and forth between the two men before settling on Lavian, shaking my head. “You, Lavian of the red dragon clan, member of the Council of Dragos, so on and so forth, will pay for the value of Farmer Salvachio’s wheat.”
“What?” Lavian said, his eyes bugging out of his head for a moment.
“Mr. Salvachio.” I ignored the angry dragon. “I am going to request that the dryads come to your fields and see if they can’t heal it so that you can plant again. If it works, we’re done here. If the dryads tell me that you won’t be able to use the field next year, Lavian will have to buy those crops as well, at the same price as he’s paying for these.”
“I—” the red dragon protested.
“As my mom used to tell me: you did wrong, and now you’ve got to pay for it.” I narrowed my eyes at him as I hugged his son tighter. “Your son burned down a field because you weren’t watching him. That means it’s your responsibility to pay for the damages.”
“Who says he’ll actually pay?” Salvachio asked. “Everyone knows dragons never pay their debts.”
“Enough,” I snapped. “I’m not only sick of the dirt lover comments, but I’m really sick of the constant anti-dragon things I hear as well. We’re all Nerissetteans—”
Rhys coughed behind me—again—and I had to fight the urge to turn around and smack him. Last I checked he hadn’t been around to make a suggestion on the whole naming-the-people topic. He and Winston had both skipped that meeting to go hunting instead, and I really wasn’t in the mood for him to second-guess me now. If he didn’t stop it, I was going to get his girlfriend—my very best friend, Mercedes—to use her super-special dryad powers to turn him into plant food. Or even worse, a fern. I was pretty sure she could manage to turn him into a fern. Then I was going to forget to water him.
“We’re all in this together. So no more interspecies bashing, got it?”
“Of course, Your Majesty.” Salvachio bowed his head before me. “I shall endeavor to be more tolerant, if it pleases you.”
“As will I,” Lavian said, his face still mottled red.
“Good.” I clapped my hands together and nodded at them both before letting go of the fledgling and returning to my throne, squirming to find a comfortable spot as I straightened my overly long skirts. “That settles that. Lavian, you’re paying for the wheat. Salvachio, I’ll set things up with the dryads. If everything’s good, then court is in recess until I get back.”
“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.
“So, long story short, she’s going to try to be my friend while she looks for a way to stab me in the back.” I blew out a long breath. No one had ever told me that running a country was going to be like living inside a high school but it was. Between the squabbling cliques of nobles and the gossip and the general he said-she said crap that floated around the place it was like being at boarding school or something. Except, unlike Harry Potter, I didn’t have a cool professor like McGonagall to keep everyone in line for me.
“That’s politics, Your Majesty,” Timbago said. “Eriste means you nothing but harm and is not to be trusted.”
“Okay.” I nodded. “Don’t trust him. Don’t trust her. That shouldn’t be hard. It seems I can’t trust most people anymore anyway. Just you two, Winston, Rhys, and Mercedes.”
“Can I give you a piece of advice, Your Majesty?” John asked as he led me back into the throne room. “You shouldn’t trust anyone. Not even us.”
I stopped, my hand going for my sword. “Why not?” I eyed him warily.
“We all have an agenda.”
“Even you?”
John lifted an eyebrow. “Even me what?”
“Do you have an agenda?”
“Yes. It involves keeping you on the throne and seeing the Fate Maker dead.” He cleared his throat. “Now come along, there’s an ambassador you need to impress with your queenliness, and it won’t help if you’re late.”