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“Aye, fearless leader.” Cy slid off the bed and went to the wardrobe. “We shall don our masks and see you soon.”
CHAPTER 9
Adira
Positives:the carriage was smooth, warm, and comfortable. The company wasn’t so terrible. The landscape was, well, it was stunning. Knolls and hillsides waving us by with brilliant blossoms, distant forests with emerald leaves that only emboldened against the storm clouds.
Negatives: I was either in a coma or trapped in another time. Perhaps I should consider a new dimension. I didn’t think the light that swallowed me from the casino took me to heaven. Too much stress still tightened in my shoulders for this to be heaven.
Another negative, I’d been robbed, and I was still fuming. I never let arrogant others get the drop on me. Lesson one when working for dickheads—you don’t let them play you.
In truth, what pissed me off the most was there was something about Skull Mask that I could not shake.
What a pathetic woman I was turning out to be when my attacker, when a fiend of a highwayman, stirred some dormant attraction. Like my heart screamed to get a little closer to the hard body he certainly had buried under that cloak and getup.
I wasn’t one to ogle men, but I knew a carved body when I saw one.
I slouched against the plush velvet bench and glared at the cottages strewn about the fields. The homes reminded me of old storybooks I’d read during library hours in elementary school. Sod rooftops on some, others with roughly cut wooden shingles. Most walls were made of river stone tiles, and chimneys were crooked and bent with plumes of smoke.
A few were longhouses, straight out of a Viking wonderland. There were haystacks and wooden stables with braying goats and horses and fat hogs. The carriage bounced and the hooves echoed over thick wood. My eyes widened. A moat?
The river below was as though glass flowed in the ravine, clear as a window with rippling river grass and vibrant fish lazily swimming with the current.
This was a damn fortress. The sort I’d watched on TV from medieval shows. Towers and parapets, trebuchets, and a portcullis.
The great walls surrounded a pale stone palace. It glittered with chipped crystals along every curve and edge. Arched lancet windows dotted long walls and rounded towers. There was an uppermost tower that seemed to peer over the vast land at our backs.
“Half expected to see a dragon on that thing,” I said, chuckling.
“Dracon folk don’t often journey to Magiaria, milady,” said the rider trotting on a tall palomino beside the coach. “Our climate is rather shocking to them. Typically, we trade on their shores in Draconia.”
“Dracon? What’s a Dracon?”
“Dragon kind.” Beneath the brim of his hood, one of his thick brows lifted. “Do you know of them at all?”
Why did it feel like I did? I propped my chin on the claw of my hand. The past was crossed off the list. No history book I knew spoke of true dragons.
“Sorry, I misheard, I guess. Yes, obviously there are dragons,” I said, forcing a grin to conceal the shudder in my voice. “But Magiaria, um, that’s where we are, right? As I said, I’m not from here.”
“Yes.” He grinned like he knew a secret. “This is the kingdom of Magiaria, but the royal city is in the province of Vondell.”
“Vondell.” The name rolled over my tongue like a burst of sweet. I’d matched the rider’s accent as though the word was something I used in my everyday chatter. As though I’d already known it before he’d uttered a sound.
A shiver danced down my spine.
Keep it together. “What is your name?”
“Hugo, Milady.” He gave me a dip of his chin. “Hugo of House Byrne.”
Right. They spoke a great deal about houses. I attributed the coincidence to my subconscious and coma, or the magical curiosities of this place if it was real.
“Forgive my boldness, we have so few histories, so I do not know or recall a great deal about the last heir of House Ravenwood,” Hugo said a little sheepishly. “But was your partner also a Soturi mage?”
“My partner?”
He used his chin to gesture at the tattoos scrawled along my fingers. “Your marital bands. I apologize for adding to your confusion, I’m certain your return was quite disorienting.”
My return? Without pressing him on word choice, my fingertips traced the coils of my tattoos. By now, it was obvious these meant something here. Every time anyone caught sight of them, confusing words and accusations followed.
