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“You both still breathe, so yes, it could have gone worse,” Amory commented. After a few beats of silence, she added, “I will speak to her when she returns.”
“Amory?” I asked.
“Yes?”
I gave my head a shake. “I meant what I said. If there is a way to reverse this, I will find it. I am not sure only having four days left is enough. And I am going to need to be educated on how your Enchantment works. Until ten minutes ago, we thought you bondedwithsome of the creatures of your land. Not that you can become the creatures.”
Her lips twitched. “Yes, well, we rather like to keep it as quiet as possible.”
“But why?” Emric blurted out. “If I could change into a dragon, I would be flaunting that shh—tuff all over town.”
Amory gave him the barest of smiles. “Though Dra Skor is a land which fears almost nothing, our biggest fear has always been that another country would work to capture and weaponize us. Enslave us.”
Had my father known the full extent of their powers, that was absolutely something I could have seen him doing. But I supposed that would have involved acknowledging how powerful Dra Skor was to begin with, and that was something my father never would have admitted.
“Yeah, but you could just chomp them up,” Emric offered.
“The dragons could, yes. Each of our forms does have a weakness. Rather than be trapped or captured in our shifted forms, that is why, even before the disease, we have always handled foreign affairs in our human forms.” She paused. “Until now.”
“Until now,” I repeated, still watching the skies for the dragon queen. “Has she really been stuck in her dragon form for all these years?”
“Yes. Equally as painful as those of us who have not been able to shift into our other forms.”
I shook my head with disgust. Just when I thought I couldn’t hate my poor excuse of a father any more, something else happened which proved me wrong. He had always hated Dra Skor. They were the biggest land mass and he had always been jealous. But to crush their Enchantment like this... depraved wasn’t even an accurate enough word.
“There is more I wish to say but cannot until I speak with my queen,” Amory added. “I will see about getting you more time and either find you or bring you here tomorrow.”
I gave her a nod. “Until tomorrow then.”
CHAPTER7
Sleep was fleeting. We had discussed with John and the others long into the evening Dra Skor’s Enchantment and what that meant for our stay here. John was certain either through letters or words I could eventually charm the queen enough to work together with her. While I appreciated his vote of confidence, he hadn’t been the one staring directly into the eyes of a dragon and finding nothing but hate doused in rage.
I tossed the sheets off, used my magic to warm my body, and walked over to the balcony door of my room. I could not get past the fact that the queen of Dra Skor had been stuck in her dragon form for nine years.
Nine years.
Did she even remember what it was like to be in her human form anymore?
Nothing about cleaning up my father’s messes had ever been simple, but this was proving to be far more complicated than I had originally thought.
If we helped Dra Skor and got them their Enchantment back, what was keeping them from flying over to Wylan and laying siege to it? I had seen the size of Queen Estalena. She could fly straight up the walls and mountain and destroy Kavan Keep, if only she felt like it. There was something ironic about that too. The walls had been there to supposedly protect Wylan, yet the dragon queen could simply fly right over the top of them.
So much was hanging in the balance here. Now not only did I fear keeping all of our heads upon our bodies for the duration of the trip, I also worried for the peace of the entire realm.
And who was I to even try to fix this? If I couldn’t, and their Enchantment would never return, did that mean war? Could I really blame them if it did?
I sighed as I looked out the window. It was a clear night, the moon shining brightly. Tomorrow was going to be important, as was every day that followed. I prayed to any gods still listening that we would be able to figure out a way to get Dra Skor their Enchantment back. And once we did, that they wouldn’t want vengeance in the form of Wylan blood.
I came here for quite the opposite, but in being honest with the queen, it may have started a war.
* * *
After only a fewhours of sleep, right away in the morning I sent for approval in a letter to bring John with Emric and myself to see the queen and Amory today. We needed to learn everything we could about their Enchantment and how it had unraveled those years ago. Amory had replied that adding John, since he was a sage, would be acceptable.
We were dressed immaculately, all three of us, heading in the direction of the same library as the day before, which was where we were to meet.
“The only goal for the day is to not get eaten,” Emric offered lightheartedly.
