The Last Dragon King (Kings of Avalier #1)(8)
I wasn’t prepared for that answer and it must have shown on my face.
“Please do not judge. It is a very much common thing to do, and there was no love or passion between us,” she rushed to say.
I wasn’t judging, I was just… in shock. My father had been a jealous man who once threatened to rip Bardic’s balls off if he looked at my mom’s cleavage in the tavern. I just didn’t see him allowing her to lie with another man.
“He felt guilty he couldn’t give me the children we wanted,” she said finally. “Tell me you understand?”
I needed a drink. I wasn’t normally keen on wine or mead but right now I could drink an entire bottle. I nodded. “I understand.” I also wanted to know what man in the village was Adaline’s birth father but I didn’t dare ask. It wasn’t important.
It made me miss my father even more now. He loved my mother so much and wanted another child with her so badly that he let her crawl into another man’s bed to have one. It was just another testament to his kindness.
“You must go,” my mother urged. “Just say you are going on another hunting trip and return in a week’s time. I packed your bag for two weeks just in case.”
Another week on the road. The dust, the constant vigilance for looters or stalking animals. Sleeping on a bedroll, bathing in the river, the cold nights… I just got back from doing that. I didn’t want to go again, but I knew that I must after what my mother had just told me.
“I’ll go,” I murmured.
She sighed in relief. “This whole thing will blow over in a week’s time. The king doesn’t do a census of Cinder Village, so the sniffers won’t even know they missed you.”
I tightened the straps on my pack and gave her one last hug. “Tell Ada I’ll miss her.”
My mother nodded and smoothed my hair.
I took one last look at the stew simmering on the stove, a stew that I would never taste, and the skinned cougarin drying out on the back porch, and stepped up to the front door.
“Oh wait!” my mother called. “I almost forgot. The highborn woman also said that she’d put a protective spell on your magic but that it would wear off with time as you come of age. If the sniffers do catch you, play dumb. Say you are mostly human with diluted dragon blood.”
“Well, I thought that’s what I was my entire life,” I mumbled. I did have an uncanny sense of balance, I was the fastest runner in my class, and I could track any animal within a mile. I thought it might be the small amount of dragon magic in me from my father.
“Goodbye, Arwen,” my mother said, like she would never see me again, and that was unsettling.
“Goodbye, Mother,” My voice cracked as I swallowed my emotions.
As I slipped out into the bustling village, I wondered just what in the Hades had become of my life.
THREE
There was such an excitement in town from May Day and the arrival of the Royal Guard that it was easy to sneak through the village unnoticed. All of the ladies in town, whether young or old, dragon-folk or human, it didn’t matter, they all crowded the meeting hall to check in with the sniffers and ogle the males in the Royal Guard. I’d never seen a sniffer before but I knew that they were a magical mix of dragon-folk and fae, with an uncanny knack for smelling magic. The Royal Guard was likely present to make sure things remained orderly. As much as I wanted to walk over and inspect their armor and look at the crest up close, I had to leave.
Cinder Village wasn’t in any way fortified. We had a front gate, but it was more of a formal entrance than something that would keep an army out. So instead of risking seeing someone at the front, especially Nathanial, and have them ask where I was going, I decided to slip out the side and head for the Great River. The giant body of water divided Embergate from our mortal enemy, Nightfall, and the festering queen who ruled there. She was an elitist that believed humans were blessed by the Maker, and anyone with magic was possessed by darkness. If she had it her way, the entirety of the Avalier realm would be purged of every magical creature and her “pure ones” would rule and multiply.
Shaking off my thoughts of the queen, I made my way to the side gate that was never monitored. Our village walls were thatch; I could cut my way through if need be. These walls were mostly for decoration or to keep muskrats out, not really to deter anyone from coming or going. As I approached the gate, ducking behind a row of huts I was happy to see that it was not only unmonitored, it was open.
Thank the Maker.
Taking one last look over my shoulder, I stepped through the gate and mentally prepared for the week-long journey.
“Where do you think you’re going?” a deep male voice called beside me.
I yelped, stumbling backwards, and nearly tripped over a bush as I turned to face the speaker. He wore a deep, black-hooded cloak that covered his face, but I could tell from the brief glimpse at the golden dragon insignia on his chest, and the fine metalwork of his armguards, that he was a member of the Drayken, the elite special operations team within the king’s Royal Guard. They were so powerful, I heard that they could light you on fire with a sneeze. Why were the Drayken here? Surely this was a task the regular Royal Guard could handle?
“H-h-hunting,” I stuttered.
“Women in Cinder hunt?” he asked, surprise in his tone.