“Yes, but?—”
“When the workmen attempted to clear the rubble pile from in front of the door,moreof the roof collapsed.”
“With a few slight renovations and some tidying, it’ll be fine,” Syla said.
“It’s raining on your bed as you speak,” Tibby said. “I checked there for you first.”
“I’ve been in the library writing letters to all the island lords to assure them that we’re working on our mutual problem and… Well, I can’t go into much detail in them in case they’re intercepted. The dragon riders areveryactively patrolling the unprotected seas between our islands and attacking our ships.”
“You should have cut Captain Vorik’s throat when you had a chance,” Tibby said.
Hearing his name brought to mind the steamy night that Syla had spent in a cave with him, being brought to the greatest heights of ecstasy she’d ever known.
All she said was, “I didn’t have a knife the last time I saw him.”
“You should have given his location tome,” Fel said. “I always have a knife, one that would delight in severing that man’s arteries.”
“Was its potential delight in that ability listed as a product feature when you purchased the blade?” Syla asked.
“It was implied.”
Syla shook her head. “Captain Vorik isn’t the problem.”
Three sets of eyebrows flew up. Even the chamberlain, who’d presumably never met the powerful dragon rider, clutched his chest in disbelief.
“He’s not in charge,” Syla said. “He’s a military man following orders.”
Unfortunately. If only she could havetrulyseduced Vorik and lured him over to their side. Instead, all she’d managed was to buy a few hours of time by rendering him unconscious, thanks to the stormers’ lack of knowledge about Candles of Serenity. In the end, that few hours had been enough. Her team had gotten away with the sky shielder.
Had Vorik forgiven her for that? Since he’d been ordered to seduceher, her actions had seemed fair, but she had no way of knowing if he held a grudge.
“He fights with the power of a dragon, if not agod.” Fel rubbed the back of one of his sore knees, no doubt remembering Vorik kicking him there. “That he’s available to take orders and work against our people is egregious.”
“We need to negotiate with the tribal leaders of the stormer people, not their captains or even their generals,” Syla said.
“Negotiate?” Fel asked as all three sets of eyebrows rose again.
Tibby eyed the lap desk that Syla carried. “You didn’t send letters tothem, did you?”
“To a couple of their chiefs, yes. And I also sent a messenger to try to find the leaders of the Freeborn Faction, but I have noidea where to look for them. Even the well-established stormer tribes are hard to pin down since they move from cave camp to cave camp throughout the year to hunt and forage.”
“When they’re not attacking our respectable, established, andcivilizedkingdom,” the chamberlain murmured.
After spending time with Vorik, who’d nearly fallen over in delight at the opportunity to pick and eat blackberries, Syla had a better understanding now of what drove the stormers, that the climate across the world had grown harsher, making it difficult to find food to feed their people. The mad storm god’s creations—dragons, wyverns, gargoyles, cloud strikers, and other deadly predators—had always made it challenging to survive outside of the shields, but the stormers had previously been willing to endure those threats to keep their freedom. It was the famines that motivated their choices now. A part of her could sympathize, but a bigger part of her didn’t understand why they’d chosen war—to attack andkillher people—rather than negotiating for protection within the shields or maybe trading for food. The stormers werechoosingto be difficult, and she doubted anything would come of the letters she’d sent.
“Any update on the sky shielder repairs?” Syla asked Tibby, both because it was of paramount importance to the kingdom and to turn the topic from Vorik—and her relationship with him. Though she hadn’t told Fel or Tibby that she’d spent a very active night with Vorik in that cave, she suspected her aunt knew. Maybe theybothknew.
“Yes.” Tibby’s grimace didn’t suggest it would be agoodupdate, but it must have had some importance because she waved at the chamberlain in a silent request for privacy.
Julan bowed and entered the suite to turn down the bed, as if he was certain Syla wouldn’t be able to resist sleeping there that night.
Tibby made the same privacy-requesting motion to Fel. He crossed his arms and didn’t move. Since he’d been with them on their journey and helped push and shove the two-hundred-pound Harvest Island sky shielder to the coast for transport, he was already deeply in the know.
“He’s fine,” Syla said. “Go ahead, please.”
Tibby sent Fel a peeved look. Her objection to him probably had more to do with the magical tractor he’d destroyed—one of her creations. Apparently, she hadn’t forgiven him for that.
Fel turned toward the wall and stuck a leg out to stretch one of his calves. Hedidhave a lot of old injuries that vexed him, but the gesture seemed more about pointing his butt at Tibby than a genuine need for limbering his muscles at that particular moment.
