A Destiny of Dragons (Tales From Verania #2)(19)
“It usually does with them,” Ryan said. “Let’s just be thankful Gary isn’t glittering yet.”
“Do I need to glitter?” Gary asked him, narrowing his eyes. “Does Gary need to bring the—”
“Nope,” Ryan said. “Absolutely not. Everything is fine. There’s nothing—”
And since I felt just awful about this whole thing (and was probably not the most sensible person to have existed), I blurted, “A strange woman broke into the castle and bad-touched me and I had a vision about a white dragon in the middle of the Dark Woods and then Ryan domestically violenced me back to reality and now we think there’s an assassin trying to murder all of our faces.”
It was rather quiet after this pronouncement.
Then:
“You got to third base with a woman?” Gary screeched.
“I didn’t domestically violence you. Stop saying that,” Ryan snapped.
“I smash Knight Delicious Face?” Tiggy said, frowning at Ryan.
“Assassins?” Dad asked. “I hope they don’t try and assassinate anyone I know. Why, that would just be rude and uncalled-for. And cool, because I’ve never seen an assassin before.”
“Visions of white dragons?” Mom repeated. “That’s not ominous or anything. And why can’t you have visions of white weddings like I want you to have? You would look so good in white.”
“What woman?” Pete asked, and since he was the only sane one out of the bunch (mostly), I turned to him.
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen her before.” I glanced at Ryan, who shrugged. “She was old. Dark skin, dark hair. Bracelets on her wrist.” There was something else. Something that she’d— “She called me chava.”
“Chava?” Mom said, sounding slightly choked.
“And dook?” I said. “She said it couldn’t touch her? I don’t know what that—”
Dad paled as he looked back at Mom. “You don’t think…?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. It’s—I suppose it’s possible. Why here? Why now?”
That didn’t bode well for me. “What are you—”
The door to the offices opened behind us. The knights spun on their heels, drawing their swords, closing in around me. While my focus was Justin and the King, theirs included me, which was touching but extraordinarily uncomfortable.
But it was just Morgan, glaring at all of us, though it softened slightly when his gaze fell upon me. “Do I even want to know why you’re all just standing around out here? Let them through. Quickly, if you please.”
“We were trying, you old codger,” Pete said. “Except we learned now that Ryan beats Sam or white dragon assassins or something. Who even knows anymore.”
“I don’t beat him, oh my gods, that’s how rumors start—”
“He punched me in the face,” I said morosely. “But he’s gonna change for the baby, I swear.”
“I taught him that,” Gary said quite loudly. “In case you didn’t know.”
“Would you get in here,” Morgan said as he pushed through the knights. He grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and started pulling me toward the offices of the King. It was meant to be rough, his grip harsh, but as soon as his hand touched my neck, I felt calmer. Stronger. The tripping of my heart slowed, and I thought maybe I could finally catch my breath. Morgan was like that for me. He always had been, ever since the beginning. He knew it too, if the way he gently squeezed my neck meant anything. “Knight Commander, make sure your knights are prepared and then join us inside if you please. Gary, Tiggy, bring Joshua and Rosemary. Step to it.”
When Morgan spoke, everyone obeyed.
Or at least it sounded as if they did. I wouldn’t know, because Morgan wouldn’t let me turn around and look behind us. He kept a firm hand on me, pushing me inside the offices.
Inside, there were three more knights that I recognized, shields and swords drawn, standing in front of a large, ornate bookcase. They nodded at me, relief palpable on their faces.
The office was large, the walls and floors made of stone, the ceiling high, a massive candle chandelier hanging from the middle. There were two fireplaces, one at either end of the room, both roaring. The far wall was adorned with an intricately drawn map of Verania, which had been a gift from the elves upon his coronation. It was supposed to show when the country of Verania herself was in danger, imbued with some sort of elven magic that not even Randall understood completely. It’d never moved, not even once, since the King had received it, not that we knew of. Sure, there may have been a blip when the Darks had tried to take the castle last year, but no one had been in the room to see it. I glanced over it now, just to be safe. It looked the same as always. The frozen mountains of the north. The Luri Desert in the west. The jungles of the east. The coastal south. The Port. City of Lockes. Meridian City. All the villages, no matter how small.
Still, it didn’t move. Not even now. Which, if there was a threat upon the King, I would have hoped it would have done something. But it hadn’t even done anything when Justin had been taken by Kevin. For all we knew, the elves were full of shit, which wouldn’t surprise me.
There was a desk made from trees in the Dark Woods, heavy and foreboding, sitting in front of the wall of bookcases. Scrolls lay strewn across it, the King’s feather pen discarded hastily across the top. Like he’d been in the middle of something and pulled away as soon as the alarms rang, which was probably exactly what happened. It’s what should have happened.