Storm's Heart (Elder Races #2)(82)

Oh God, Rune was right, this wasn’t going to work.

She looked from Tiago to Aubrey then to Naida’s shuttered expression.

Too many things were already happening in the room, and nobody had yet said a word. Panic threatened to take her over. She tried to stomp on it. She was too tired, overstimulated, stressed by just being on Urien’s home turf and surrounded by all the evidence of him, and in the last thirty-six hours she had taken a whirlwind sightseeing tour of all the major stopping points on the emotional map.

She would much rather have gone on a sightseeing tour of Europe. How convenient, her bags were already packed. Maybe running away would solve all her problems. Okay, so that seemed like a long shot, but she could be willing to give it a try.

Tiago turned her toward him and gripped her shoulders. His Power had never left her once since they had arrived, and now it enfolded her, an inexhaustible wellspring of strength and warmth. He said in a calm, quiet voice, “Take your time.”

She nodded and looking up, met his gaze.

Steady. Adamant. Bedrock.

She flashed back in memory to the last private conversation she’d had with Dragos. They had been in his office. The French doors and blinds had been open to a scorching morning sun. The room had been filled with hot yellow sunshine and sharp gusts of air.

They sat as they had so many times over the last two hundred years. The black-haired dragon had lounged back in his chair, his eyes more golden than the sun, booted heels propped on his desk. She perched on the desk beside his feet, cross-legged with her shoes kicked off.

“They may give you the throne, but you will have to take the power,” Dragos said.

“That sounds a lot easier said than done,” she muttered as she scratched at the tip of one ear. “Any advice?”

Dragos shrugged. “Assume you will make enemies. Work to make allies. Don’t expect to make friends. Friends are a gift that happens over time. You have a lot of good things going for you. You’re diplomatic, you’re smart and you think fast, you see consequences and nuances, and you know how to cheat. But you have one great flaw when it comes to taking the throne.”

She scowled. The gods only knew what would come out of Dragos’s mouth next. She couldn’t shapeshift, her swordplay was laughable, she had no fangs or claws with which to defend herself. It could be anything. “What is that?”

The dragon said, “You want to be liked.”

Whatever else he had done or failed to do, Urien had never made that mistake.

She lifted up her chin, grateful more than she could say for the silent supportive oasis Tiago had given her. He gave her that subtle smile again, squeezed her shoulders and stepped back.

She should have a new personal slogan. WWDD—What Would Dragos Do? She turned back to Aubrey and Naida. Naida, who had apparently decided to join them uninvited for their private chat.

She said to Naida, “Thank you for requesting the refreshments for us. Please shut the doors on your way out.”

Okay, she wasn’t so sure Dragos would have said “please” and “thank you.” He had only just started experimenting with trying out those three new words on his inner circle. But the message was still sent and received. Naida bowed her head and walked out. Tiago watched the Dark Fae woman leave, his expression impassive.

Niniane expelled a pent-up breath. She walked to an armchair and sat. Her legs felt rubbery again. Tiago moved in silence to take a position behind her chair.

Aubrey said, “Naida means well.”

Niniane looked up. The Dark Fae male was watching her, his face troubled. She made a gesture of negation, waving away what had happened. She said, “Would you both please have a seat?”

Aubrey’s gaze went to Tiago in quick surprise, but the Chancellor moved to sit at the end of the couch closest to her on her left. Tiago chose the armchair to her right.

Niniane tilted up one shoe to look at it. She said to the shoe in a flat voice, “I was in the palace when my family was killed. Tiago already knows. Taking this journey is bringing up a lot of old bad stuff, Aubrey. I get close to something of Urien’s, like when I walked in this room, and I want to set it on fire.”

Aubrey’s brows pulled together. “I had no idea.”

She said to her shoe, “Of course you didn’t. How could you? You didn’t even know I was alive until recently.”

“Do you know how famous you are to the Dark Fae?” he said. That caused her to raise her gaze to his. The older male regarded her with a bittersweet expression. “You had simply vanished. There was no body, no evidence of your death. It was assumed you must be dead, but the question always remained, a rumor that you were alive and in hiding somewhere, and that one day you would return to rule. At first it was a comfortable whisper, one of those ghost tales told around a campfire, but over the last couple of decades the rumor grew to have quite a bite.”

Her eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

Aubrey said, “Urien, and those who supported him, were reacting to many things when they overthrew your father. One of those things was the British losing the American War of Independence. I agreed with your father. When change comes, you must change to meet it. But his opponents claimed they were protecting the Dark Fae’s status quo against being overrun by what they saw was a barbaric horde of heathens. They were really protecting the Dark Fae’s Powerful elite, protecting themselves, but over time it came at the expense of the more ordinary of us, who might otherwise have thrived with all the advent of fresh opportunity that came along with those barbarian hordes.”