68. Chapter 68

Chapter sixty-eight

T he rest of Havens training session went swimmingly, both with magic and weapons. Then, on the way to her lesson with Elanor where they had done a trial run of her coronation tomorrow, Delroy stopped her in the hall and told her to meet him outside the crown regents office to look through everything. She knew it was trashed but still hoped to find something, anything, that might clue them in to his plans.

Havens stomach grumbled as she came to a stop outside the door to the crown regents office. Putting her back to the entrance, she looked down the hall, finding Delroy nowhere in sight. She hoped that when he did show up, he brought food.

A moment passed before Haven heard the creak of a door, glancing down the hall she saw none opening. The thought occurred too late that it might have been the door she had her back towards that was opening. A strong hand grabbed her arm from behind, tugging her inside the decent sized room. A yelp left her before her reflexes kicked in and she swung her arm out and behind her, hitting whoever had grabbed her in the jaw.

The hand that had a hold of her let go. She turned just in time to see Delroy use that same hand to cup his jaw where she'd hit him. He was wearing his guard uniform, complete with a leather breastplate. Haven assumed he'd either snuck away from wherever he was supposed to be guarding or was on his lunch break.

"Ow" Delroy groaned

"Sorry" Haven tried to hold back her snicker but in the end, it slipped out.

"Shut up" Delroy snapped, which only caused Haven to laugh more.

"You hit like a fae" He grumbled, finally bringing his hand away from his jaw where Haven could already see the beginnings of a nasty bruise forming.

"Did you expect anything else? After all, I am one." Haven snipped, beginning to inspect the room. Trashed didn't even begin to cover it, all the cabinets were open and papers were strewn everywhere. The desk was even overturned.

"Yeah but you were raised in the human world. I don't know, I guess I wasn't expecting that to hurt so bad." Delroy wasn't rude with his words like she would have expected, if anything they seemed playful.

"Well maybe you shouldn't have grabbed me, you could have just opened the door. I would have seen you and come in."

"But how was I supposed to know you'd swing? It's not like I yanked your hair or something" Delroy jested, wearing a small smile. It was clear he was messing around at this point. Which was good, Haven may have gotten that shot off but she had a feeling that if it came down to it, Delroy could and would kick her ass. Likely without even breaking a sweat.

"You're gonna need ice for that" Haven bantered back

"Already one step ahead of you." He told her while walking behind the overturned desk. Delroy moved things on the ground out of the way and then righted the desk. Picking a basket up off of the ground, he set it on the desk before opening it. Removing wrapped sandwiches and bundled snacks, he set everything to the side before finally pulling out a sort of ice pack that had been on the bottom of the basket, likely to keep the food cold.

Delroy held it up to his face before stating,

"Much better"

"Ha," Haven laughed, "Did you pack us a picnic to accompany our snooping?"

"First, we are not snooping. As you are now unofficially queen, soon to officially be queen, this all belongs to you. Second, I packed ME a picnic. If you wanted food then you should have gotten some before you came here."

He made a good point about everything in this room belonging to Haven. It eased her almost nonexistent guilt about invading the crown regents' space.

She would think Delroy was serious about the food if not for the fact that he was actively handing her a wrapped sandwich. It seemed she might finally be growing on him. She secretly hoped that one day they could actually be friends and he'd tell her about whatever was going on between him and Roman. She was curious about it but not curious enough to find Roman and ask seeing as she was still pissed at him. Plus, Haven wasn't entirely sure he'd tell her.

Haven unwrapped what appeared to be a sliced ham sandwich and began munching while taking in more details around the room. Nothing obvious was taken, although she'd never spent any real length of time here so if something had been taken it likely wouldn't stand out.

She began sifting through some papers on the ground near a wooden file cabinet. Most of what she found was expense reports for the castle and kingdom, papers she had access to and went over often with Elanor. A few minutes of searching turned up nothing special. Mostly just more basic papers.

Turning to where Delroy was searching the other side of the room with his back to her, Haven asked,

"What exactly are we looking for?"

Delroy turned slightly, meeting her eyes for a second before turning back to whatever he was digging through. For a moment she thought he wasn't going to answer her question. Haven almost gave up before she heard his low voice,

"I'm hoping to find evidence that Niks father planned his kidnapping."

"Oh" She responded. Apparently Delroy was dealing with Nik possibly being responsible for his own kidnapping the same way she was, by denying it.

"I don't know why he would have done it, I'm just hoping that maybe we're wrong." He didn't have to say anymore for Haven to know exactly what he meant.

Attempting to change the subject Haven asked,

"What are people saying about it?"

"About what?"

"You know what. One day the crown regent is here, slinking around and putting the fear of the gods into his people and generally doing shady shit. The next day both he and his son are gone with no explanation." Haven tried to use her best joking tone to help ease the tension and it paid off when she heard Delroy snicker. He might deny it had happened but Havens fae hearing certainly heard him. He thought she was funny.

"And how would I know what gossip is spreading?" He asked

"Because you're a guard, don't you hear things?"

"No, no one really gossips around me because they know I'm close with Nik. We tried to make it not so obvious because Nik didn't want his father to know but anyone who paid close enough attention knew it. Fae walking by even quit talking when they see me patrolling."

"Oh, I'm sorry." Haven didn't know why she felt the need to apologize but she did.

"It's fine, not a big deal. I never really cared about what they had to say to begin with."

Haven didn't know how to respond so she didn't. Turning back to the papers she'd been looking through, Haven decided she might have better luck somewhere else, somewhere a little less obvious. Swallowing the last bite of her sandwich, Haven looked around the room until something caught her eye.

In the corner near where Delroy was digging through a cabinet was a plush black armchair. It wasn't the armchair that caught her eye, but rather a slight sliver of paper sticking out of the fabric stapled to the bottom of the chair.

"Hey, look at this." Haven said as she approached the chair.

Bending down, Haven felt around the upholstery on the bottom of the chair. Just beyond the paper that originally caught her eye was a loose sewing pin. Pulling out the pin loosened the fabric enough to slip the paper out.

Haven squinted her eyes in the relatively low light, trying to make out the details. It was a map of Shaston, Drailias neighboring kingdom. It was also the kingdom the crown regent had taken over, where her father was from and where she'd soon be traveling to so she could accept the crown there.

"What do you think this means?" She asked Delroy.

"Hell if I know" He responded.

Haven reached back into the pocket. Feeling a stack of papers there, she grabbed a hold of them. After handing half to Delroy, she began looking through the top few.

Haven moved over to the desk so she could get a better look at them. The room was fairly dark since only one of the sconces on the wall was burning. There were three others in the room but they were very obviously broken. So she could see better, Haven used her magic to summon a ball of flame which she moved to float in front of her, casting light onto the papers spread out on the desk.

"Wow, you're getting good at that," Delroy commented.

"Thanks"

Now that she could see a little better, Haven recognized the papers as maps of other kingdoms and the castles where the royals lived. Some areas were highlighted, mostly entrances and exits.

"Look at this" Delroy nudged her shoulder.

Haven looked over to see what he was talking about. Where she had maps of the other kingdoms here in the fae realm, Delroy was holding maps of the human world. Certain places were marked on the maps. Haven recognized some of them as places the fae used to live before the war with the humans.

"What do you think this means?" Haven repeated her earlier question.

"I don't even have a guess"

A chilling thought occurred to Haven, one she wished she could make disappear.

"What if," She said slowly, "What if the crown regent was planning to take over the other kingdoms like he did with Shaston. The marks on the maps could potentially be weak spots he could use to get into the castles and take over. I know he did it slightly differently with Shaston but intimidation won't work with the other rulers."

A look of horror crossed Delroys face.

"You might be right," He told her, appearing to think for a moment before continuing, "But what about these." Delroy slightly shook the map in his hand, "These are of the human world. How would that help him?"

Haven considered before turning her thoughts into words,

"What if he was planning to take over the other kingdoms so that he could use their armies to infiltrate the human world and take back control? Ever since I came here I've heard whispers about the crown regent and how much he hated that the fae were forced into our own realm and then removed from human history."

"Unfortunately, I think you might be right. Long ago, the rulers had to create our realm because while the fae are more powerful than humans, we are no match for their numbers but since coming here our population has boomed. All seven kingdoms' armies are no match in a war with the humans even with their now advanced artillery. We know the various kings and queens are unlikely to stand behind Niks father but I have no doubt that the crown regent wouldn't hesitate to take their control if he thought he could"

Silence stretched for several minutes after Delroy finished speaking. Haven knew the words they had spoken would likely haunt her thoughts for the rest of her natural life even if they didn't turn out to be true. They had been standing there, agonizing over the papers in front of them and their more unsettling thoughts for so long that the only lit sconce on the wall had gone out. Now the only light allowing them to see was Haven's fire.

"We better hope we're wrong about this" Delroy spoke lowly, breaking the silence.

"Why?" Haven asked, although she felt she already knew the answer.

"Because if we're not then we either need to track down Niks father and kill him, something I'm not sure we'll be able to do without Nik, or we're headed down a very short path towards a very long war."