His eyes shift to me, and I don’t like the sympathy I see there.
“We don’t know, but she’s calling for aid.”
24
By mid-morning the next day, word has spread: Princess Serah of Vasna, the future queen of Tirenth, has offered to draw water for the enemy.
Lord Tallin arrived shortly after dawn with a subdued entourage of wyverns, each of them bearing chests of jewels and precious metals, and one containing a glistening heap of golden sugar. The gift made, I offered mine in return—water for the wyverns.
Traitor. Wyrm. These are the words I expected from Tirenth’s citizens. To my shock, they said none of them, instead taking the arrangement with Tallin not as a sign of my disloyalty but of their soon-to-be queen’s political prowess.
“They may not say it, but dragons respect battles won with words almost as much as they do those won with their teeth,” Marta informed me when she stopped by this morning.
She spent the pre-dawn hours making loaves of cinnamon-laden bread she could share with those around her under the guise of a casual visit, while her true intention was to hear what Tirenth made of my actions.
“Female dragons tend to be submissive,” she said as I quietly chewed the bread she brought. “But strong queensare a point of pride with them. There hasn’t been one in some time.”
I nodded and thanked her. Soon after, she left, giving my knee a maternal pat on the way out. I must have seemed distracted.
Iamdistracted.
Nothing else has been heard from my mother. Immediately after receiving her message, Soren sent Rally and Ty to find her ship. The king assured me no one could reach her faster than a dragon in flight. Initially, I took comfort from his words.
Until he left last night as well and didn’t return.
I suppose I could have asked after him when Hiln and her girls came to dress me for bed, but my worry over Mother only seemed to strengthen her voice in my mind.
A man comes to you, not the other way around. Never make him think you need him.
I went to bed, alone and confused.
He came when the wyverns did, of course, appearing like a wraith out of a thick morning fog gusting off the ocean. He looked as cold and distant as he did when I met him on the docks, and he spoke little. I couldn’t understand it, and though he accompanied me back to the tent, he disappeared with the morning mist before I could ask him anything.
Alone again now, my hands tighten on my knees. If Tirenth is to share water with the wyverns, I must concentrate. I must draw faster. The tent is quiet, the sound of the crowd camped along the lakebed’s rim softened to a dull murmur in the absence of a challenger. Everything that can be done for Mother is being done. There’s no excuse for delay.
Straightening my back, I shut my eyes and center my attention on the water beneath me. Mother would tell me this is what I’m here to do—draw water, not fret over her or my betrothed’s mercurial moods.
But why tease me like he did? Why speak of marriage and say nonsense like I’m too good for him, then disappear? And what could possibly make my mother ask him for aid when she was so angry with him?I shake my head in an attempt to clear it.
Water, I tell myself sternly,not Mother. Not Soren. Water. Once again, I seek the lake below.
Wake, I call for the hundredth time. I wonder if Tilly would be as amused as Selena was to hear that drawing large bodies of water was less mystical magic and more incessant badgering.Wake, water…
Days can be spent on communicating a single word to a body of water this big, so I try not to be discouraged by the lack of response. Because this water had already responded to me, I had hoped it would be more alert.
That does not seem to be the case.
I draw a deep breath. All I have to do is stay focused.
Water, wake, I say.Come. Come see the sun…
What comes instead is an image of my mother and Soren on the docks, her face twisted with fury while he watched her without a hint of concern. So much has changed since then.
Sighing, I chase away thoughts of them both and set my mind on the water below.
###
The last rays of sunlight are slanting through the gaps of the tent when I finally give in to exhaustion. I fall backonto the bare sand, staring with glazed eyes at the tent ceiling.
