The king took a sip from his goblet. “Good,” he nodded. “You’ll resume your training with Cash then.”
I stiffened, noticing the way Cash’s eyes glinted as he soaked me in.
The table slowly picked up conversation, and I had to remind myself that this wasn’t the time to shut down. I could worry about Cash coming to my room later.
But right now, Ihadto focus. I had to figure out who this Hael person was. I looked across the table again, assessing everyone who wore the drakin leathers, wondering if one of them was the leader I was hunting.
Chapter Fourteen
Kindness
MAGNOLIA
Irealized I needed a new tactic. In the past two days, I’d only been able to snoop for information a few times. I was used to sneaking off at night. It was when most of my hunts for Dahes took place—I was used to blending into the fog, used to the limited people awake, used to the isolation—not that it mattered that much in Moriann since it was always dark, but everything was so much harder during the day here.
I was definitelynotused to the suns.
The king forced me to eat every meal with him—which was three a day. My stomach was so bloated it hurt. I ate way too much at breakfast the first time that I threw everything up an hour later in my room. I knew I should have stuck to eating the meat to not upset my stomach, but I couldn’t help it. I kept eating the fruits, the breads, the pastries—literally anything and everything that Dahes detested went into my mouth. And despite the cramps and nagging headaches, I loved it.
I tried to pay attention to the politics during the meals, but it changed too frequently to draw any clear conclusions. The people rotated from day to day. The only thing that stayed the same was their seats. Whenever someone attended another meal they were previously at, they’d sit in the exact chair as before. Well, at least, I noticed thedrakin rider did. I was always to the right of the king, and Cash—the leader of the Wielders—to his left, and whenever the rider with the pale brown eyes ate with us, he was diagonal from me.
Some part of me hated that whenever he showed up, the female with veracity always sat next to him. I learned her name was Lira, and that she was a powerful Wielder the king kept close. Every meal I ate with her, I was on the edge of my seat, trying to phrase my wording perfectly, terrified that she’d out me with her Token.
I knew she wanted to. She eyed me the most at the table, studying my mannerisms in a way that unnerved me, and the king didn’t shy away from asking questions regarding Moriann. Every meal felt like a silent battle no one knew I was fighting, like I was being held in the middle of an interrogation and one wrong move would cut me to pieces.
It made it harder to figure out who Hael was. The more questions I had to side-step to answer, the less I could eavesdrop on what else was being said.
The moments between meals, I was usually free, which turned into my only time to hunt. Bran escorted me back to my room, and it was my cue to gather as much intel as I could. A lot of it came from Bran himself whenever he was in a good mood. But some of it I found out from walking the gardens and overhearing hushed conversations.
Bran told me as long as I didn’t leave the castle, I could explore the grounds—I just couldn’t take the stairs down to the Dome or walk either of the paths that led to Soffikane or the Grigg.
It was still a leash, just a much looser one that made it easy to forget I had limits.
But I didn’t mind. If Hael was at the castle somewhere, I didn’t have a reason to leave,for now.
The strangest thing to get used to was having dragons fly overhead. No one was alarmed. No one was running. In Moriann, if you heard anything inhuman, you ran. If monsters were on the streets, it only meant one thing. Dahes sent them to kill.
But in Viven, the people acted like seeing a dragon was nothing more than having a northern singing bird above you. Maybe that washow it was supposed to be, how peace could look when you weren’t terrified that everything was going to kill you.
I kept having to remind myself not to gawk, that people didn’t openly stare up at the sky with their mouths hanging open whenever I was exploring outside.
So far, I walked through two different gardens and a circular pit that I guessed was where Wielders trained.
The only problem was, none of the information I was gathering was useful.
The only thing I learned was that whoever this Hael person was, most people found him attractive. There was a lot of talk revolving around who he’d sleep with during the Vargothi, and in general, which drakin they wanted to hook up with. I didn’t understand the culture and had no idea if the Vargothi was known for that sort of thing, but I was starting to think it was just as much of a sex event as it was an actual tournament for dragon riders.
The only conclusive thing I gleaned was that he was at the castle.
Somewhere. I just had no idea where.
It was infuriating.
I knew it would have been easier to gather intel at night. It was usually when people had conversations they didn’t want anyone else to overhear, but Cash stayed in my room almost the entire night.
And by the time he left, I was so mentally and physically drained from using my Token, that I crashed.
To make matters worse, Cash’strainingwas relentless. I was starting to dread it as much as when Dahes used to visit my room. He constantly pushed me past what I was comfortable with. He kept trying to grab me, kept taunting me, kept making his own assumptions of what caused my Token to manifest just to make my cheeks heat and my blood boil.
