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CHAPTER 3
The ride to my castle along lush fields and fairy-tale towns was of mixed success. As most of my army was on foot, traveling with it had slowed me significantly, yet it was important for people to see me lead it.
While some communities welcomed me by throwing flowers onto the road and cheering my name, others were dead silent and stared at me as if I was the Black Death.
“I count six out of ten people in Your Majesty’s favor,” Dieter said as my gaze met with a farmer’s, whose tense face held nothing but contempt.
“You say that as if it were a good thing,” I said, looking away.
“It is. It’s the majority.”
“You are too kind, but don’t trouble yourself, Dieter. I know too well what my people think of me. Have you not heard the rumors about me at the castle?”
Dieter stretched his back—for the tenth time. I wondered if that metal armor was as uncomfortable and heavy as it looked.
“I heard you threw a boy into the dungeon once to be eaten by rats,” he groaned, still stretching.
“I’m afraid that one is true,” I confessed with a frown. “I would do it again in a heartbeat.”
“Jesus,” Dieter said.
“He truly deserved it.”
Dieter nodded. “Then it doesn’t count.”
We both smiled.
“And the one about spitting fire is true as well, I assume?” he joked.
“I wish. The title Night Queen would work quite well for a dragon queen.”
Dieter smiled, then adjusted his eye patch. Out of respect, I looked away when the burnt scar revealed itself for a second. Dieter still noticed.
“Many people look at others with their own expectations and needs in mind, not with an open heart to who one really is.”
I lifted my eyebrows curiously.
“Did I never tell you the story of how I got this scar?”
I shook my head as Dieter rode his horse closer to mine. “At a bar fight.”
“No!” I exhaled in shock.
His mighty chest moved up and down as he laughed. “I swear to God, it’s the truth. After a battle I almost lost my life in, I got so drunk in my tent, I fell into the fire and a coal burned my eye right out of my skull.”
I shuddered.
“But people like to think it was during an epic battle with a fairy-tale monster of some kind. I let them believe it. Not many of my soldiers would fear a drunk but would die for a hero. So, you see, things are not what we think they are...Night Queen or monster hunter.”
I chuckled and was about to ask if my father knew about this story when a rider thundered along the road right toward me.
A messenger.
“My Queen!” he shouted.
That familiar tingle of excitement rushed through my stomach. Maybe it was a message from Alrick?
Swirling up a cloud of dust, the messenger brought his sweating horse to a standstill in front of Dieter, who quickly grabbed the note from the messenger’s hand and passed it to me.
