Page 44 of Shadow Wings
Her sickness seemed to rear its head at the most convenient times, in my humbleopinion.
Dyter bowed. “We will leave you to rest, Queen Alani, and rest from our journey as well. Thank you for this audience. May your health return, and I hope to speak with you againsoon.”
I didn’t bother curtseying or even inclining my head. If she could be conveniently ill, I could conveniently forget my manners. I stalked out of the chamber after Dyter without a word to anyone. To be gracious would be a lie, and I wasoverthelies.
“Wait,” my mentor cautionedme.
Blue scales erupted on my forearms, and my face burned. A pulsing need to transform and burn my way to the truth seized me. I was holding myself together,barely.
Dyter shoved me into the room where Tyrrik lay and muttered a hasty dismissal to the threeguards.
I sat on the bed next to Tyrrik, glancing at him to check if he was still breathing. His chest rose and fell, and I rested my hand where the spike had torn through hisaketon.
“What—” I started, but I cut off as Dyter held a finger to his lips. We listened in silence as three sets of footstepsreceded.
Dyter popped his head out of the door and, after he’d closed it again, asked, “Hearanyone?”
With the threat in the air, my mood was heightened; focusing my hearing wasn’t hard right now. I turned my head side to side. There were no sounds of life in this hall. I stretched my senses farther, but something, maybe the rose quartz, had to be dampening my Drae-hearing. I couldn’t hear the queen’s breathing two halls away, though I knew I should be ableto.
I shook my head at him and crossed to pick up a wash cloth, dipping the spongy material in a basin of cool water. I wrung the cloth, returned to sit by Tyrrik, and began to wash hisface.
“Ireallydon’t like that woman,” I saidquietly.
“I’d be worried if you did,” Dytersaid.
He sighed, sitting heavily on the other bed. “I’d thought they would be more willing to help, judging by Kamoi’s eagerness to get ushere.”
I dabbed at the black-and-blue blood spots caked on Tyrrik’s skin and studied his smooth face. Heavy despair settled over me, pulling my heartstrings with hopelessness. “They seem to hate us here. I don’t get it. Why was Kamoi so friendly tous?”
“You have noidea?”
Pausing in my ministrations, I lifted my head to study Dyter. He raised his eyebrows, and I asked, “What? You knowwhy?”
Shaking his head, he leaned over to pull off his boots. When he sat back up, he gave me an exasperated look. “Rynnie, you need to start thinking of yourself as a power of this realm and not a farmgirl.”
I snorted. “I was never much of a farm girl,anyway.”
“Fine,” he chuckled. “A soapgirl.”
“NowsoapI can help youwith.”
We shared a briefgrin.
Dyter drew closer, standing behind me, and together we leaned over Tyrrik’sface.
“You were able to bring Tyrrik inside the barrier when Kamoi was adamant a Drae couldn’t enter. And those moments you had with the trees earlier . . . you should’ve seen Kamoi’s face. The queen sent her son out of this place to find you, and I have a feeling these people don’t leave the forest lightly. Rynnie, what if you possess the ancestral powers needed to strengthen their barrier?” he asked in a low voice. “It would explain alot.”
I dropped the wet cloth, hitting Tyrrik in the face, and quickly picked it up. “Drak.”
Dyter was right. Sending a prince to go locate a stray Phaetyn was going overboard. Had something happened when Luna poured her powers into my mother so I could live? My jaw dropped and a long moment passed before I stuttered, “I-I think you may beright.”
“Drak,” Dyter repeated. “And, unless I’m misunderstanding their hierarchy, the fact that you have ancestral powers poses a threat to the current queen’s rule. Possibly a seriousthreat.”
I dropped the wet cloth on the Drae’s face again, and this time, Dyter picked the washcloth up and rinsed the blood off in the basin. He handed the cloth back to me and pointed at Tyrrik’s blood-smearedarms.
“I’m not here to be their queen,” I said, my chest tightening just at the thought. That queen better notdie, even if I wasn’t in her room at the time. I wasn’t the queen type. I wiped down Tyrrik’s arms and then went to the basin to rinse the cloth again. The blood settled to the bottom of the large bowl, leaving the water crystal clear. Heaving a sigh, I returned to the bed, but Dyter had taken my place. He held out his hand for the washrag and then said, “Iknow that. But, judging by the division of Phaetyn here, I’m not sure everyone elsedoes.”
My legs turned to jelly, and I collapsed on the wooden floor with a thud. Resting my forehead on the bed frame, I mumbled, “I’m not the reason there’s a civil war out there, right? You think their problems started when we gothere?”