She paused at a fist-sized, red glass figurine of a dragon. Given the day she’d had, she ought not to want anything to remind her of their kind, but her father had left her the antique. Even though the great scaled beasts were a constant threat to the kingdom, he’d always found them beautiful. Once, he’d taken her to Eyrie Point, a rock formation perched above a beach miles east of the capital, where dragons fished just outside of the shield. Breathtaking, he’d called them as they’d soared and dove. Back then, she’d also admired them and found the idea of riding one wondrous, but now…
Her fingers clenched, and she almost threw the ornament across the room. But she couldn’t destroy something that had been special to her father. Besides, it had some magic about it. He’d never told her what it did—maybe he hadn’t known himself—but through her moon-mark, she’d always sensed its power.
“Maybe it’ll help somehow.” That was wishful thinking, but Syla tucked it into the bag with her other belongings.
“Lighter than books, anyway.” Fel had watched her pack.
“Books are wondrous founts of knowledge that can either guide us in the world or enrich our imaginations while allowing us to visit other realms.” She wished she could take more of her old tomes; in the coming days, she would need an escape for her mind. She had no doubt.
Fel grunted. “They’re heavy.”
“They’re worth their weight in gold, diamonds, and sapphires.”
“That’ll soothe my mind when I end up carrying your pack.”
“You won’t have to do that.” Syla adjusted the straps and snugged the bag on her back. That old bookwasa touch heavy, but she lifted her chin, determined to carry her own load.
“Unless you heal someone and faint?”
“Well.” Syla noticed he was leaning so that one of his legs tookmore weight than the other. She might have healed his acute wounds, but she remembered his earlier strains and grimaces. He endured a number of chronic issues. “Maybe you could find a horse with a cart to haul me and my books around.”
Fel took the lantern and stepped into the hall. “Sergeant Horiks, the man who drilled all the bodyguard rules into me, said we must do what we can to ensure a royal’s comfort while simultaneously prioritizing their safety.Carriageswere mentioned, not carts.”
“You can throw me in a sledge fashioned from whale bones,” she said, following him, “as long as I can keep my book.”
He glanced over his shoulder. “You’re quirkier than your siblings.”
Yes, and she’d never fit in with them. Part of it had been the seven-year age gap between her and the next youngest of her siblings, but part had been that they’d been athletic, outgoing, and at ease in their bodies. She’d always been the opposite: awkward, introverted, and more at home in a library with her books.
“Is that why you don’t call meYour Highness?” Syla had always heard him use that deference when he’d been Nyvia’s bodyguard, but she was heir to the throne and naturally exuded authority.
Was orhad been? The unsettling reminder made her shoulders slump. What she packed was hardly important in light of everything else.
“No. That’s because I’m almost retired, and I don’t care that much about pomp and propriety anymore.” Fel hurried her past a body, maybe realizing she could see them now.
Doing her best to avoid looking down, Syla was relieved when the doorway to the courtyard came into view. Until she spotted the green wings of a wyvern feasting on the dead.
She groaned and halted. The creature lifted its reptilian head, slitted yellow eyes turning to peer through the half-blocked doorway. The nostrils at the end of its long snout twitched.
“Is there another way into the underground tunnels?” Fel asked. “I know of the routes from the queen’s suite and the stables, but neither are easy to reach now. The tunnels would be our best chance for escaping.”
And finding the shielder. Fel didn’t yet know it, but the hidden doorway to its chamber lay under the castle.
“There’s an access door in Serk’s suite,” she said, naming her oldest brother.
“The way to that was blocked too.”
“I know.”
The wyvern cocked its head, slitted yellow eyes focused on them. Those eyes looked hungry. Clearly, the beast hadn’t yet eaten its fill and wanted more.
Though wyverns weren’t much taller than men when they stood on the ground, with wingspans of ten or twelve feet, they were lean and powerful with dense muscles under their scales. The fangs weren’t quite as long as those of dragons, but that didn’t mean they weren’t deadly. And this one stepped toward them, looking far too interested in devouring them.
Fel held up a hand, though they’d both already stopped. “That’s what I was worried about.”
“That we’ll have to wait for them to go away?”
The wyvern took another step, wings flexing, nostrils twitching again.
