“Where are these letters then?”
“Burned.”
How convenient.
Before I can continue interrogating him, Serah reaches her fingers up to touch my own. Some feeling passes over Tallin’s face at the sight of her hand on mine. Regret? Sadness? I think again of the thin, pulsing skin of his neck and how easy it would be to seize the artery within.
“If what you say is true,” Serah says, “you have given us a great deal of confidential information. Why?”
Tallin gazes down at his outstretched hands for a long moment. It grates on me. “Because,” he says finally, “it’s all I have to convince you to come. You asked me why I’m here without my wingmates, and I gave you the truth.”
He lifts his head to look at her.
“I’m not the wyvern leader, and the one who is, he’s going to let us all die.”
23
In all my imaginings of life in a foreign land, never did I think I’d find myself in a tent surrounded by guards while I hold the hand of my dragon betrothed as we uncover a wyvern plot.
What have I gotten myself into?
I reached out to Soren only that I might ask Tallin a question, but now I twine my fingers with his, taking strength from the grip that tightens on me.
I wish Cassandra were here. Or my sister Ambril. Both of them excelled at exercises in political machinations, while I would rather have been practicing weaving, or seeking out rare flora for Mother in the forest, or doing anything else, really.
As it is, I’m the one here, so I must act as a queen. I clear my throat.
“This leader,” I say, “he denies your kind water then?”
Tallin shakes his head. “No, there is no water. As I said, what is left we’ve rationed. There is enough for three more days, four at the most. For weeks, I’ve waited for direction, for some sign he’s aware. I’ve received nothing.”
“Has he responded to crises before?”
“Yes, which makes his silence all the stranger.” A shadow of discomfort, or perhaps guilt, passes over his face.
I lower my voice. “You worry he is…gone.”
“Dead,” Soren says.
Tallin sighs. “I have considered it.”
I ponder this. Though I’ve offered to draw water for the wyverns, Tallin may not realize how much time this could take. “Forgive me for my ignorance, but are there not other areas you could seek? Temporarily even?”
The wyvern looks decidedly uncomfortable now.
“We cannot. Nialan, our mountain,” he clarifies at my look, “is sacred to us. She sheltered us when others would not.”
Soren looses a low growl, and though my guards stay silent, their expressions curdle with contempt. It seems I’ve touched upon some old grievance, one I’d rather avoid.
“If that is how it is,” I say quickly, “then what I told Seltzen, I tell you. I will draw water for the wyverns, but I can only do so after I draw for those here.”
Desperation swells in Tallin’s eyes. “We will not survive that long, Your Majesty.”
I know this, and taking a deep breath, I pray I’m not being a fool; I pray I’m not overplaying my cards.
I pray Soren won’t think I’ve gone mad.
Lifting my chin, I fix Tallin with what I hope is a regal look. “Then if His Majesty approves, you will share Tirenth’s water until I can come.”
