“When did you become so perceptive?” I ask, raising my eyebrow. She’s right, of course, they are very stiff compared to the rest of the visiting kingdoms. Though, part of that could possibly be due to the fact that they’re surrounded by strangers in a kingdom they’ve never visited before. Nerves and fear have strange effects on people.
“Of course, I noticed it about the knights first,” she whispered. Dary coughed to cover his laugh and Mira narrowed her eyes. “Still, I’m right.”
“You are,” Dary admits. “But let’s gossip later. It’s a night for celebration, is it not? The jubilee, the lottery, so many things to be thankful for.”
“Congratulations again, Mira. I know someone fantastic will win,” I laugh.
“Now,” Dary says cheerfully, clapping his hands together. “Which one of you ladies is going to dance with me?”
I’m already shaking my head when Mira pushes me toward him, laughing. “I think it’s Taryn’s turn to show you off,” she laughs.
“Dary, no,” I hiss as he slips his hand into mine, already pulling me toward the dance floor. I look over my shoulder in time to see Lord Terrick approaching Mira, offering his hand with a similar promise. She blushes and follows him toward the crowd swarming the dance floor.
“Why do you always tell me no?” Dary asks as he spins me into the steps we’re meant to follow for this song.
“Because only Mira and I ever do,” I answer honestly.
“That’s true. I’m not sure how you two ended up so immune to my . . . charms,” he chuckles, crossing our arms one over the other. “It’s disheartening.”
“I’m sure you’ll survive it, love.” As he spins me around the floor, maneuvering us between other couples, I can’t help but laugh and enjoy the music. Dary is a good dance partner.
He spins me in a small circle, my dress twirling out far more than appropriate for someone of my station, but I don’t have the heart to stop. It’s exhilarating, this freedom.
A loud bang—louder even than the music—interrupts my fun. I stop spinning, steading myself with my hand on my stomach as I search out the source of the commotion. The music stops as my eyes fall on the wooden doors to the ballroom bouncing off the walls. A harried knight pushes through the crowd, murmuring his apologies as he searches out his intended target: my father.
“My king,” he calls out when he reaches the table father rests at. The knight drops to his knee, holding something in his hands. At first glance, I wasn’t sure who he was, but now I can tell. It’s Morgan. I move a bit closer, trying to see what he holds in his hands.
A grey cloth covers the object as he bows his head to my father.
“Rise, Morgan,” Father sighs. “What could possibly be so important you’d interrupt the jubilee in such a way?” He glances around the room to the curious nobles and visiting rulers. As he strokes his white beard, Morgan unfolds the cloth, revealing something precious that was lost long ago.
Father goes still and I gasp, moving forward to see the heirloom up close. In his hands, Morgan holds a crown. At the center, where crown jewels would normally sit, instead rests a teal rose, glittering with the small gems that comprise it. My hand flies to my chest as fresh grief and shock rush through my veins as strong as any river.
Where did he get my mother’s crown?
It was lost during the raid that killed her.
“Where did you find this?” Father snaps, rising from his seat. He quickly takes the crown from the knight, his hands shaking as he examines it. But I can tell, even from this distance, that it’s hers. That teal rose was my mother’s family crest. She adopted it as her seal when she married Father, because she couldn’t bear to part with something so important to her family’s heritage. She came from an old blood line, old royalty. Before Vanir and Tabistak were split into two separate kingdoms by a long ago war, my mother’s people had ruled them as one.
“Roses are important,” she’d say when I was a child. “They’re beautiful and deadly. They adapt to whatever environment you give them; they can grow as vine or bush. People are like roses, Taryn. They’re beautiful and adaptable, but you have to be careful which ones you get close to. The thorns are always a pain.”
“In a dragon’s mountain,” Morgan answers as he stands to his feet. His armor sports black marks across and I wonder, for a moment, how close he must have come to losing his life to return this to us.
“Then it’s true. The beasts killed my Nadia,” Father growls, his grip on the crown tightening. “We will mobilize an attack against them, at once!”
“Father!” I cry out, taking the last few steps to stand by his side. My eyes well up with unshed tears, tears I don’t dare cry—they’ll only stoke his rage higher. We can’t attack the dragons, it would be disastrous for our people. I wrap my hands around the other end of the crown, choking back a sob when he releases it to me. My fingers stroke the delicate metalwork as I speak, my heart heavy with the renewed grief this precious trinket brings. “It’s been so long since we lost Mother. I miss her every day. But a war . . . with the dragons—”
“You’d let them go unpunished for taking your mother from us?” he snaps, his cheeks flaming red with his anger.
I shake my head, rushing on. “That’s not what I mean, Father. We have to think of our people. She’s gone. We lost her already, but we don’t have to lose any of our people, now. It’s a vile deed that was done long ago. We can’t be sure the dragon who had the crown is even the one who struck mother—”
“Quiet, girl,” he snaps, his bright blue eyes flashing with an anger I’m unaccustomed to. I gasp, stumbling backward as if he struck me with his words. And in truth, it feels as if he does.
He never speaks to me like that. And any reprimanding he’s ever done has always been in private. I know he’s grief stricken and angry . . . but he’s not seeing reason. I shake my head, laying the crown softly on the table before backing up. Tears sting the corner of my eyes and I try to hold them there, but it’s impossible to hold back a storm. As I make my way back to my friends, tears streak down my cheeks.
“Tabistak will stand with Vanir as always,” Dary’s father calls out. The queen nods her head in agreement with her husband.
“As will I.”
“And us.”
“We will, as well.”
Voices ring throughout the ballroom, all of them rushing to agree with the king. I watch as my father nods to each of his peers before his eyes land on Aeron of Izvora. The blonde king scratches his jaw before shaking his head, breaking the awkward eye contact.
“War with the dragons is unwise, even for such a just cause as this . . . tragedy.”
“You’d never hold them accountable?”
“I’m not saying they’re blameless creatures,” Aeron replies, his eyes narrowing as his face hardens. “But winning a war against beasts such as that would be hard and you would suffer heavy losses.”
“I thought Izvora was famed for dragon hunting?” someone calls out from the crowd. Aeron’s eyes never leave my father, but he answers the voice just the same.