Chapter 11

CHAPTER ELEVEN

" S urely you must understand the irony." Duncan's voice boomed on the other side of the heavy wooden door. He was sitting on a bench outside the dressing room where Carys was taking a bath. She didn't know why she wanted the grumpy man close, but she did, and Duncan seemed reluctant to let her wander far even in a castle surrounded by guards.

Guards you managed to elude today before escaping to the forest.

They seemed to be watching a little more closely since she'd returned.

"What irony?" Carys poured the steaming water through her hair. After the fight with the kelpie, the long trek on horseback, and hours of walking in too-big shoes, the warm water brought tears to her eyes.

Even after Yasmin's healing, she was sore everywhere, and the bed in the room outside looked like heaven.

"The irony that you want to stay here now so that you can meet your father's twin—hoping for some kind of connection—when that's exactly why you're angry with Lachlan."

The cup she'd been holding fell in the water.

Dammit .

All I wanted was to find you and see your face and know that part of her was alive somewhere in the world.

She closed her eyes and sank lower into the heavy wooden tub.

Damn, damn, damn.

"You know I'm right," Duncan said.

"Shut up."

"See? That tells me you know." He let out an audible huff. "He's not the same man, Carys. Lachlan said your father was a teacher."

"Yes."

"Who had a quiet life in California and raised a wonderful daughter. Seren's father is the king of a small but very powerful country who can speak and bond with living weapons of mass destruction."

Dragons. She felt a flutter of excitement in her chest. Could she really go back home without seeing a dragon?

She lifted the cup and rinsed her hair. "I know Seren's father and my father are not the same man."

"But you want to meet him anyway?"

"Yes." Her heart softened toward Lachlan because how could it not? She understood his motivation in a fresh way because the idea of even laying her eyes on her father's face one more time filled her heart with aching hope. "I need to see him, Duncan."

"Then I suspect you'll see him. You'll have to get permission from Lachlan's father to stay in the castle, but you know I won't kick you out of the cottage. And the way rumors spread in this place, the king of Cymru might have already heard that his daughter's twin is in the Shadowlands."

"Would it take him a long time to get here? Without cars or trains?—"

"Dragons."

"Right." She couldn't stop the grin that spread over her face. "I'm going to see a dragon."

"I can't even see your face, but you sound so Welsh right now."

She couldn't stop smiling. "Are dragons bad? "

"Are dragons bad ? Are you actually asking that question? They fucking breathe fire , Carys."

She didn't want dragons to be bad. She'd been raised with images of them all over her home. The majestic creatures in her mother's paintings. The red dragon of the Welsh flag, the Ddraig Goch. Dragons were a part of her childhood dreams. "You said they can bond with humans though. Doesn't that make them… kind of good?"

"They're not bad if you're their friend." His voice dropped. "Course they're terrible if you're their enemy."

She could be a dragon's friend. She could definitely be a dragon's friend.

"Then again," Duncan continued, "dragons don't really have friends . Dragons care for no humans but their lords or ladies. In human or animal form, they are single-minded, fiercely loyal, and absolutely ruthless. Highly destructive."

Her sister had been a dragon lord. Dragon lady? How did that work? She was nêrys ddraig according to the portrait in the gallery. "Seren had a dragon."

"Yes."

"What happened to… it? Her?"

"Him. I wasn't here when Seren died." Duncan's voice grew softer again. "And Cadell was gone by the time I returned. He left the castle as soon as Seren was gone."

She narrowed her eyes. "Wait, you said human form? Dragons have a human form?" She sat up straight and blinked the water from her eyes. "Like the unicorns?"

"Yes. They'll occasionally speak to humans in that form, but only a dragon lord can speak to them while they're in animal form, and honestly, that's the body they seem to prefer."

She smiled. She didn't care if they were scaly or scary or single-minded or destructive. Her heart raced at the idea of seeing a dragon in the flesh.

"Duncan?"

"Carys. "

She wrapped a soapy flannel cloth around her cold neck. "Do you think Lachlan really loves me? Me, not Seren."

There was silence from the other side of the door for a long time, and Carys wondered if he'd left. Duncan wasn't her friend. If anything, he was more loyal to Lachlan than her despite his anger with his twin.

She lifted another cloth to wash her face. "I'm sorry, that's not a fair thing to?—"

"How does anyone know another person's heart?" Duncan's voice sounded softer. A little. "We can only see their actions. But I think that when you love someone— really love them—you'll cross an ocean to find them again. Maybe even cross a world."

"Like Lachlan went looking for Seren?"

"No," Duncan said. "Like you went looking for him."