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Frankly, I could get lost in this room. It was inviting. Any scholar or lover of books would be right at home in here.
“We did not mean to keep you in your rooms forever,” Amory began.
Emric made a derisive snort from next to me and my eyes flew to his in warning. We both knew that was exactly what they had been doing. Waiting us out.
She moved to sit in the chair next to the couch. “I am afraid it just isn’t the best season for a visit currently. Dra Skor is very... busy.”
She sat with her legs tucked under the chair, crossed at the ankles, graceful even. She had a piece of parchment, whatever she had been working on, placed on top of two books.
“We did not wish to compound on that, in fact, we rather came to help.”
“So you say, but please tell me, why did you come, Prince Keiran?” Amory asked bluntly.
Emric wisely stayed silent next to me.
“Wylan has a new king,” I began. “We have opened the walls. My brother and father could not be more different as rulers.” I paused. “We rather recently came into some information about the disease, and we came here first, a show of good faith that though Dra Skor and Wylan might have been enemies in the past, Wylan is not the same Wylan you know of.”
“A nice sentiment,” Amory commented.
“It isn’t a sentiment,” Emric provided coolly. “We are here, are we not?”
Her eyes flicked to him and then back to me, almost as if she was bored. “What is this information you speak of?”
“I would rather speak to the queen herself about it,” I offered.
Her eyes squinted slightly. “A likely ploy.”
I put my hands in the air. “As you wish. Wylan’s forest and lake on the mountain went black as the disease spread across the realm. We know areas of the wetlands in Brakken went black as well. Yet recently, with the help of our new queen, we were able to turn our lake back. It is clear now. Healed.”
She blinked. Blinked again. “This is supposed to give mehope?”
“In nine years, there has been no change in the disease, yet finally something has changed. So yes, that should give you hope.” Even if our variation of this “disease” may or may not have just been the forest punishing my father for what he did.
“Forgive me if I do not fall at your feet, but while your country may have had the blackened lake water, you still have your Enchantment. So the disease did not hit Wylan the same.”
Dammit, she was smart enough to notice. “And that is valid, but we are still reaching out to the other countries to see if what we did can be duplicated with any success.”
“And has there been?”
That had been a quick response for someone who was so disinterested and without hope. And in her quick reaction, she had shifted forward a little. Enough for me to see the handwriting on the paper in her lap.
I responded calmly, “Brakken is sending us water samples to work with. Because of current tensions, you would understand why we wouldn’t load up our queen and take her from country to country to experiment.”
“Just a prince who recently abdicated the throne instead?”
I grinned. “Well, yes, but I have never lied about who I am, much unlike yourself.”
Her head jerked back. “Excuse me? Just what is that supposed to mean?”
Emric turned to me, eyes wide, not understanding the turn in conversation. I ignored him.
My eyes looked to the parchment in her lap. “Your handwriting is beautiful. I would know because I have seen it twice before.”
She again only blinked. If she was surprised, she did not show it.
I was so tired of dancing around this; if things were going to change, we actually had to start doing something. “Amory, forgive my frankness, but are you the rightful queen of Dra Skor?”
She cocked her head. “Unfortunately for you, no.”
