Page 17 of The Dragon Queen
A heavy silence fell across the table, and no one spoke. The tension rose like flames from a fire. My stomach was tight with sickness. My arms felt numb from flexing so hard for so long.
“Please clear the room,” Queen Eldinar said. “I wish to speak to Talon alone.”
I raised my chin to look at her across the table.
Her blue eyes had more confidence than any other pair of eyes I’d ever seen. It was a confidence that bordered on arrogance but never crossed that thin line. It was elegant too, full of wisdom from the millennium of her life.
Calista and Ethan left, and so did General Ezra.
It was just the two of us on opposite ends of the table, and the air was too thick to breathe. I kept my eyes down on my fingertips where they rested on the surface of the wood. Marks from the tree from which it had been crafted were visible, circles from branches that had been cut when it was split apart.
Queen Eldinar said nothing, her stare hot on my cheek.
I still didn’t look at her.
“There is no other choice, Talon.”
“I can’t let anything happen to her.” I counted the rings in the circle.
“We’re all risking our lives in this endeavor. It’s inevitable.”
“She’s suffered enough.”
There was a long pause. “I understand. But it’s very clear that she’s healed—and you’re the medicine.”
I continued to stare at the wood underneath my hand, remembering the wish for death in her gaze. She had been broken into pieces but was somehow still glued together. Shehadn’t trusted me for a long time, and now, she trusted me with her life.
“There is no other option.”
“If something happens, I’ll run in there and kill everyone.”
“So be it,” she said. “It’s a risk we’re willing to take.”
I lifted my chin and looked out the window across the room, seeing the leaves of the trees shift in the wind.
“She’s strong, Talon. She’s not skilled with the blade like you or me, but she has a fight in her blood that burns forevermore. I don’t doubt her intelligence or her intuition. No one is better suited for the task.”
My eyes stayed on the window as I felt the warm breeze come through the opening.
“It must be done.”
I sat with Ethan on the beach, our canteens in the sand beside us, the bonfire lighting up the sand and the water.
I took a drink before I twisted the cap back onto the bottle, my arms resting on my knees. I’d just finished telling Ethan all of my adventures, from when I left Bahamut’s lands to my rule over the Northern Kingdoms. I told him how I met Calista but spared the specifics of her suffering because those personal details were only hers to share.
“That’s quite the tale.” He took another drink, and once his canteen was empty, he tossed it aside on the sand.
“I know.”
“This moment is twenty years in the making, and it’s finally come.”
It was conflicting to want something so badly and dread it at the same time.
“No one else would have the perseverance to make it this far. I wish I could see the moment you behead your beloved uncle…”
“I won’t behead him.” Flashbacks moved across my mind, quick and painful. “I’ll burn him.”
“Even better.”