“You cannot go in there,” Curtis was saying to someone. “The queen is in a meeting!”
The confrontation was getting physical. I could hear someone arguing with Curtis, but his voice was muffled beneath Curtis’s strict commands.
Finally, a lanky arm poked into the room. I caught sight of a shock of blond hair. And then that sweet, familiar voice. “She is not a queen to me. She is my friend. And I need to see her.” Then louder and more desperate, he yelled, “Tess! Let me in! Tess!”
“Let him in,” I echoed, taking my first real breath since maybe he left more than a month ago. A sob trembled through me at the promise of his presence, but I bit him back and shouted my command. “Let him through! Dragon’s blood, Curtis, he is always allowed through.”
Oliver appeared in the doorway, bedraggled and beat up as one would expect after his travels. His hair was singed on the ends, and he was covered in dirt and grime. His lips were cut, bloody in the corners, and he sported a black eye that seemed to be just on this side of healing.
Tears pushed at my eyes, hot and desperate. I had not known how much I needed him until this moment. Until he was standing in front of me as familiar and Oliver-like as ever.
I pushed past the men who thought they knew everything and leaped into his arms. “How is this possible?” I cried against his shoulder.
“I’ve been riding nonstop for days. The Temple, Tess...” His voice broke at the mention of it. “The brothers.”
We clung tighter, only now just letting the full weight of what had happened hit us. “Father Garius?” I sobbed.
“I do not know. I... I did not find his body. But many had been—” His voice cracked again, and he took several deep breaths to compose himself. “But several had been burned. The whole kingdom was just as bad. They flattened it all.”
“Was Taelon with you?”
“He’s all right, if that’s what you’re worried about. He has the demons of Denamon in him, I’ll tell you that. He’s ready to go to war today.”
“We’re already at war,” I told him boldly, realizing how much he’d missed if he’d been riding nonstop.
I looked around the room at the men who were supposed to lead my kingdom into battle, the old, ostentatious men who were to protect and defend this realm. I did not know them. I did not know their intentions or plans or families. I did not know their loyalties.
But I knew this man’s. I had already decided to make him my advisor long ago. He was the only advice I trusted. He was the only voice I truly listened to. The only heart I fully believed.
“Out,” I told the room of career counselors and politicians. “Get out.”
“But Your Majesty,” they all protested.
“Your Highness, you can’t be serious.”
Leffenmore shouted, “We have a war to wage!”
“And we will,” I answered him specifically. “We will go to war. We will fight back. We will defend not just this kingdom or even this castle but the whole of the realm. From Blackthorne and her army. And from the very nature of this rotting rebellion. We will do something before it’s too late. But I will not take advice from any of you. You are dismissed. You may wait for my orders elsewhere.” I looked around the group of men once more, at their sneers of disapproval and their haughty glares of superiority. “Or your dismissal,” I finished, making it clear that not all of them would have the inflated positions they had enjoyed under my uncle for much longer.
When they opened their mouths to start squawking again, Curtis made a grand gesture of opening the war room doors. “The queen has spoken,” he boomed.
Which shut them up. Who would have thought?
I would have smiled had our circumstances been less dire.
They filed out, grumbling the whole way. And when they were finally out of the room, I let go of Oliver and walked back to the map. Sweeping a hand over the vastness it represented, I said, “I wasn’t kidding, Sir Oliver. What should we do first?”
Oliver’s mouth dropped open. “You cannot be serious. Tess, I don’t know the first thing about warfare.”
I shared a glance with Katrinka. Her eyes were growing sharper, more in-tuned. She was slowly shaking off the shock of the bedlam that had only just happened and fully joining us once more.
“Now, that’s not entirely true. Father Garius prepared us for this, Oliver. How many battles did we read about in the Temple? How many strategies by generals? Both failed and successful? How many countless hours in the ring, learning to fight and defend? He knew this day was coming. He prepared us for it. We just need to figure out where to start.”
Curtis stepped back into the room and shut the doors behind him. Dover stepped in front of them after locking them.
“Might I suggest you start with this?” Curtis said, walking over to where a large stone fireplace was set into the wall between towering bookshelves. I had not noticed before now that it was identical to the one in my parents’ rooms. The one where I found the grimoire.
Curtis’s fingers followed a similar path to how I’d found the secret drawer. He pressed on gemstones and worked his way down.
