Chapter 9

CHAPTER 9

" W e will hunt him down, Your Highness," Zaire promised as our war room meeting wound down.

Our arrest of Mikael only led us on a wild chase for another man who was, of course, missing. All that work and finally feeling like we were moving in the correct direction just to feel we were at yet another dead end.

Mikael's empty chair at the war room table was a gaping hole in the room. Zaccai would fill in for a while, but Esta and Amory were adamant that another human fill that space, not another Enchanted, or else it would send a message to the people of Dra Skor. And after all those ridiculous rumors about the shifters turning more animalistic, it was best to ease the tensions, not engulf them.

Meanwhile, I wasn't convinced the advisor situation was fixed at all. Removing Mikael was the correct move. He had not come to Esta and the crown and had instead been swayed by the circumstances. Then again, those circumstances were his child. I didn't have a child, but I suspected the urge to protect them would surpass every bond and tie. I'd seen it all play out before me with Krew and Warrick. The extreme lengths Krew went to, all to keep Warrick safe.

As the rest of the people left, Emric and John waiting for me just outside the doors to the war room, Reyald Mallick spoke up, "You have to be pleased, daughter. To finally make progress on the threat to our crown."

My power flared with the weight of my anger. It wasn't their crown, it was hers. A fact that would do him well to remember.

Esta's eyes went to mine before going to her father.

Her father caught the strands of blue churning in my hands. "What, prince of Wylan?"

There was no sense in sugar coating it. Particularly not when he took every opportunity to remind me where I came from. I leaned back in my chair and looked him directly in the eyes as I asked, "Are you really this dense or are you grabbing ahold of Mikael's arrest to make you feel better about the role you yourself may or may not have played in all this?"

His head snapped back. "You think this has something to do with me?"

Esta gave me a look as if I should calm down a bit, but I wasn't about to do that. I was done dancing around this. Done coming up against dead ends, time and time again.

"The tension in the Mallick family. Word has it that you and your brother have never gotten along. Someone tried to kill Esta not once, but twice. If that isn't enough to bother you, not only Esta, but also Jagen might be at risk here. Are you really going to pretend like the tension in the Mallick family doesn't seem suspicious in the midst of all this? As an outsider I am telling you, this reeks of subterfuge within the royal family itself. I would know, because I planned something similar from within my own."

Her father was quiet a moment, taking in my rant. "You don't believe this is over? That we are getting close? "

"No."

"And you don't think my son has anything to do with it?"

I could be wrong where Jagen was concerned, but something in my gut told me it wasn't him. "If Jagen wanted to kill her, he would have done it before I came along."

He squinted. "And you don't think Esta is strong enough to protect the crown herself?"

I had to clench my jaw before responding. " Can she? Or is the better question should she have to? I think she is the strongest person I know, but I also think it isn't her responsibility to clean up everyone else's messes. She shouldn't have to go this alone. You are the one still coming to advisor meetings though she has been healed for the better part of a month, so please do not preach to me about what I think she can do as queen. Unless you would like to weigh your belief in her against my own, in which case, I can assure you, mine will win."

"I—" his anger chilled with his sigh. "I am worried. About the throne of Dra Skor, yes, but also just for my daughter. That is why I still come."

"Also, you don't like not knowing things and think your ways are always best. Though she kept this country together during the disease. A tragedy you never had to endure during your own reign."

"Keir," Esta warned.

My eyes reached for her green ones. "No. You are the queen of Dra Skor, and I am tired of him treating you like the crown is still his. Like you're borrowing it. His blood may have put that crown on your head, but you are the queen." I paused to push down my magic again. "And if he really is as worried as he suggests, he should be more forthcoming about the tension in the Mallick family. My father only let one of his siblings live to be old. I know exactly what royal blood can do to a family. "

"I may have been wrong about you," Reyald said, defeat tinging his tone. "My wife definitely gave me an earful."

I didn't back down. "So tell me, what is going on with you and your brother and why is he still free if threats are being made on Esta? The person with the most to gain, aside from Jagen, if she were to perish." Even just speaking those words made me want to burn the realm to the ground. It was a good thing I couldn't breathe fire.

"My brother I doubt could be behind all of this," Reyald admitted. "He is... not well. And hasn't been for years. Not from the disease, rather it is his heart. He is deteriorating quickly."

People who were on their deathbeds could be motivated in the most visceral of ways.

Her father continued, "He always resented me for being born first. For being the heir. For the favoritism I received, not from our parents necessarily, but from others. From commoners to the generals. They all looked upon me differently than him. Though I do not wish for him to die, I do look forward to the day where all that hostility can finally be gone."

"There is none of that between my brother and me. We worked hard to make it that way."

"I tried," Reyald admitted. "Maybe not as hard or fast as I should have. I was too busy being groomed to be king. By the time I heeded my sister's and mother's urging, it was too little, too late, I'm afraid."

Esta added, "Lennix gets treatments multiple times a week from the healers. Soon there will be a healer assigned to him to be at his bedside. That is why I didn't suspect him in the first place."

"The cousins and your sister then?" I asked Reyald.

"Amaya would never," he said without delay. "Nor her children. We have always been close, her family and ours. I can be man enough to admit that I have at times treated you poorly, Keir. I had too many dealings with your father. Too many notions I did not wish to let go of while finding out my country was wounded by that man. But I can see the way you look at my daughter. The way you are working to heal Dra Skor. And if you truly think there is something going on within the Mallick family, then you need to speak with my mother."

Esta inhaled sharply.

I looked to her in surprise. "Your grandmother is alive? You didn't tell me this." Granted I'd been a little distracted the last time we spoke of her family.

"She was queen consort to my grandfather. And is the reason as a woman I was able to take the throne as the Mallick heir. She made it law that no matter her heir, whoever was born first would rule. Nana Isolde is..." in her pause Reyald grinned. "Well, we always called her Nana Ice behind her back. She's cold ."

Reyald added, "But no one, no one , knows us all better than she. And if your interest in my daughter happens to be long term—" he held up a hand, "despite my interferences—you are going to have to meet her eventually anyway."

Was it truly necessary to bring up the fact that he had tried to marry me off to Amory? I was actively trying to forget it.

Esta ran a hand down her face. "I should have spoken to her long before now."

"She was not at any of the balls?" I asked.

Reyald shook his head. "Hated them when she was queen, so avoids them all now. Lives as quiet a life as that woman can muster in Arava. Let's see what she has to say."

Was Reyald truly trying to help me here or was he wanting me to meet a woman he knew I would never gain the approval of?

Esta flew us to Arava to a small cottage on the outskirts of the city. A cottage so small I wouldn't have thought a former queen lived here, were it not for the pair of guards on either side of the door.

Whit and Zaccai were flying with us, Reyald on Zaccai as we began to land.

"Looking forward to the day I can finally shift again," Reyald admitted as we landed.

I couldn't say I was looking forward to healing him; he wasn't on my short list.

"Any words of wisdom?" I asked Esta as she shifted back to her human form.

She gave me a shrug. "Don't mess it up? At least she is stuck in her human form. She has the most beautiful turquoise tint in her dragon form, and she was absolutely ruthless."

The door before us creaked open and there stood a woman with gray hair in a long braid resting her weight on her cane. She moved and smacked said cane on the doorframe. "I can hear you, you know."

Esta bowed her head quickly. "Sorry, Nana."

"Child," her grandmother said, taking her in. "The rumors are true. Come here."

Esta walked to her grandmother while the latter took her in, head to toe, toe to head. "You are as lovely as ever. As fierce as ever, I see."

Without warning, the cane came down on Esta's toe.

Esta grunted her pain.

My magic flared, wondering what in the hell was going on. Was her Nana a threat? Should we consider this old woman a suspect?

"You should have come sooner," the old bird croaked.

Esta looked back to me briefly before looking to her grandmother, a queen I could already tell Esta fashioned her own rule after. "A lot has been happening at Halikaara. I am sorry."

"Well let's have tea and biscuits, they always make things make sense." She did not move to hug Esta, but somehow that offer had the same effect on the tension in Esta's shoulders.

Before the rest of us could move far, that cane flew out of the old woman's hands faster than possible to smack into Reyald's shoulder.

"Mother?" he asked, clearly annoyed.

"Trying to force people into marriages? Not the way you were raised, son. You are so lucky I cannot shift."

"I—" Reyald stalled. "There were other motivations at play."

As Reyald entered the doorway to the cottage, she stared him down. "Oh, of that I am sure, but you still know better."

Finally, the old woman's brown eyes landed on me.

"Going to use that on me too?" I asked.

Her lips turned up in the slightest. "Going to give me a reason to?"

"No, ma'am."

She gestured with her head, "Come on in then."

As the door shut and I took in the airy little cottage, my eyes snagged on an easel with paints, a gorgeous painting of a sunset more than halfway done near the largest window. I felt a pang of yearning in thinking of my own mother who had loved to paint with watercolors. If she could have had a cottage like this and lived life away from the castle after all my father put her through, she likely would have loved it.

"Do you not like art?" Isolde barked. "Too blasé for a prince of Wylan?"

I gave my head a shake as I moved to look her in the eyes. "On the contrary, your artwork only reminds me of my mother."

"Is she well?" Isolde asked.

"Nana," Esta scolded from the seat she took at the circular dining room table which took up a fair portion of the cottage.

"She is dead," I stated. "My father made her siphon so much of her magic into a sword that she slowly faded away. A sword we later used to remove him from Wylan's throne."

"And there he is," Isolde said with a slight smile. "The Wylan prince who wages war on us all. Challenging us to constantly consider who the real enemy is."

Esta gestured with her head to the seat next to her, so I sat there.

"That is why we are here," Reyald jumped in to say. "Keir?—"

"Prince Keir," Isolde corrected as she sat a container of biscuits on the table and busied herself with the tea at the stove. "Come now, it has been a while but are your diplomat skills this rusty? He is a prince, is he not? Even handed down being king, from what I hear."

I was certain there was very little this woman didn't hear. She had likely already known my mother was dead before I even told her.

" Prince Keir believes there could be something amiss within the royal bloodline. I assured him no one knows all of us as well as you do."

Isolde didn't turn from the stove. "You should know me well enough, my boy, to know that flattery will never work on me, but you are also not wrong in this instance." As she turned toward us, her eyes met mine. "What is it that you suspect?"

I let out a deep exhale before explaining everything. I finished with, "I have this lingering feeling that will not shake that it is somehow within the family. A tension I cannot grab a hold of but feel, nonetheless."

Isolde sat our teas down before us. "I love all of my children dearly. I would like to begin by saying that. Royal children, brats at times, all of them I love with my entire heart." She paused for a moment, and I wasn't sure a ghost of some memory wasn't chasing her. "Lennix has always let the bitterness of not being first-born fester. And I fear I wasn't always as gracious to his denied yearnings as I should have been."

"Mothe—"

Isolde cut Reyald off. "He once asked me if birth order were not of issue, which of you would have ruled."

"Amaya," Reyald said without hesitation, as if it were the easiest answer he had ever given.

She gave her head a sad shake. "No, I said it would still be you. From a young age you had the cunning ability to foresee possible futures. Rather than bluntly force the one you preferred."

That seemed to stun Reyald.

"Amaya is gentle and far too kind for the cunningness the crown requires," Isolde finished explaining.

"I understand Prince Lennix is not well," I said. "Could it be any of the cousins of the queen stirring up this strife?"

Isolde answered without delay. "It could be any of them. Lennix as well." She let out a sigh that seemed to torment her. "The crown changes most. Turns others. And does things to those who will never wear it that I rarely understand. If only we were to treat one another like humans and not royals, our family would be the better for it. It was my urgings to make Esta queen so young, hoping that her rule could finally kill the tension between my sons. She and Jagen have never acted as Lennix and Reyald."

After briefly discussing Jagen and the order of the throne, I found out Morana would be next in line for the crown. Her brother Oziel after her. Then Samori and his siblings.

"But the thought that any of my grandchildren have been capable of this? This is not the workings of someone who snapped after missing out, this is someone who has waged a war to attack us from within." Isolde gave her head a shake. "I do not want to believe that any of my grandchildren are capable of all this. But if they are, rest assured a lot more than my cane will be involved."

I took a sip of my tea as I mentally moved Esta's cousin Oziel to the top of my suspect list. While Morana at least held the power of being a general, Oziel was left out entirely.

"Now," Isolde began, turning toward me. "Don't think I didn't notice that your tea was weaker."

I gave her an innocent shrug. "Tea is different in Wylan, but Dra Skor tea is finally growing on me."

"Not the only thing growing on you, is it?" she bantered, never skipping a beat.

"Nana!" Esta again scolded while I put my teacup down, certain I needed all wits about me when facing the scrutiny of this woman.

Isolde batted a hand at her like she was nothing more than a pest. She got up just to grab a bottle of something off the counter, dumping a generous blob into my tea. The smell told me a liquor of some kind. "Try this. Now. Are you going to marry my Esta or not?"

I was sure to look her in the eyes as I said, "I would love to, should she have me."

Isolde's eyes went to Esta. "And you?"

"I—" she paused. "Do we have to talk about this right now?"

"Your father already tried to marry him off on someone else to keep him away from you. And I heard we are quite fortunate Reyald avoided a front row seat at his own funeral."

Reyald, who had been taking a drink of his tea, choked on his drink and began coughing.

"So dear," Isolde continued, "do you, or do you not want to marry this man?" She leaned in and whispered, "He is quite handsome. Far more handsome than his father ever was. Must have got the looks from his mother."

"He can hear you," Reyald said from around his coughs.

"She knows," Esta laughed before turning to her grandmother. "Nana, it is not that easy when crowns and thrones are involved. No matter how much I wish it were so. You should know that better than most. "

She leaned back into her chair. "Isn't it, though?" She took a sip of her own tea. "Change is on the wind. The land is healing. Ours now, the rest of the realm soon to follow. The former king of Wylan was savage, but that doesn't mean the current one is. Each king may only be judged on his own rule." A long pause. "Imagine your skills and his joined together. Now that would be a Dra Skor which would truly be... unstoppable. "

Her words blanketed the table, and I found I was barely remembering to breathe. Had this woman, who I was certain I would never gain the approval of, somewhat approved of a union of a Dra Skor queen and a Wylan prince? She had lived through my father's rise to power and unraveling because of it. Yet she still found me worthy?

All this time I was looking for someone to see me as something other than my father's son. I had found it in the most unsuspecting place.

"I see I have given you all much to think about," she said with a smile. Her first true smile of the day. "And you have given me equally as much to think about."

Esta grinned. "We hope to see you again soon."

"No you don't," she countered.

"You don't even really need your cane," Reyald said, having watched her walk around the cottage our entire visit without it.

She scoffed. "A frail old woman like me? Of course I do."

"I get the sense though you might be old, you have never been frail," I admitted, taking a sip of my tea that I had to admit was damn good.

She laughed. "Your instincts are spot on, Prince Keir. It was lovely to have met you."

On the way back to the castle, I asked Esta to fly over Arava. There was still so much of her kingdom I hadn't seen. It was a sprawling city, but a mostly clean one. By the time we headed for Halikaara, lights dotted the landscape, laughter and meals sure to be had behind closed doors. It would be difficult to power a city this large, electricity being part of the treaty. Krew and I were already discussing using the newest form we had in Wylan, lanterns and even buildings powered by the sun.

Keir? Esta asked, interrupting my focus on the city. Plans already beginning to slide into place.

"Yes?"

Can we visit Wylan?