My head spun, my lip split, and I tasted blood.
The goblin’s smile slid off.His dragon feet pattered rapidly as he hurried to put distance between himself and the backhander.
The goblin called over his shoulder to him, “You’re going to live to regret that.”Then, under his breath so that no human would hear, he muttered, “For however long you live.”
Indignation vibrated through my veins in imitation of my blood power.“He’s right.”My fury tingled through the balls of my feet as they touched on the cobbles.Nearly at the entrance now.
“You wouldn’t have done that if you knew who I am.”
“I wouldn’ta done that if you kept your mouth shut.Need me to hit you again?”
I smiled like I was brimming inside with the richest nectar.“No, the once was plenty.”I batted my lashes a few times while my grin spread.
“Oh, fiery flames.Here we go,” mumbled the goblin, holding a satchel he wore across his chest tight to his side in case he made a run for it.
“What’s your name, soldier?”I asked sweetly.
The guard’s eyes darted from my face to my boobs to my lips.I’d gone too sweet.
“Name’s Arno.”
I beamed.“Great.Arno.I’ll be catching you later, Arno.”
He sucked on his lower lip with a sibilant hiss.“I’ll be looking forward to it.”
“Shouldn’t be,” breathed the goblin.I didn’t think even the ever-observant Cosette heard.
I chuckled.
Then my smile fell.
Zaraga’s royal palace hugged the cliffside, with nothing between it and the ocean but a sheer drop capable of breaking even a sänglure upon jagged rocks.
We rounded the palace, and with sight as sharp as a feethle’s, I forgot all about curious goblins and idiotic brutes, and stared.
The palace was built of stone quarried from the opposite side of this very cliff.It first hunched atop the crest and then rose, as if caught midway through diving into the crashing water below.It looked largely the same as when I’d last seen it: dark stone, narrow windows, turrets high up.That was something.After all the unnerving variances I’d been noticing, it was a whole lot, actually.
But then Arno guided me with a hand—which he wouldn’t be keeping for much longer—to the small of my back straight up to the main entrance of the palace.
Matching crests adorned the bronze-wrapped wood of the double doors that stood three floors in height.The familiar crown with a pair of broadswords crossed beneath it had been a symbol of the D’Arco dynasty since Alonso’s ancestors first claimed this land.
To either side of each D’Arco crest, another bracketed it.Two dragons standing back-to-back, spewing flame, with a single crown hovering above their heads.The crests of the Rubors.The ruling dynasty of Domdurro, carved in bas relief, their edges were worn soft.
The first pair of guards didn’t slow before banging through the doors.The goblin gasped, running to block their progress.He held out knobby arms to both sides.“Halt!”
The guards hesitated but obeyed, glancing back at Cosette.
“Proceed,” she said with a flourishing hand wave, as if she were the hostess here.
“You shall not,” the goblin thundered.
Dragon-footed pitter-patter began dashing toward us from the halls leading off from both sides of the grand foyer.
“This is the House of D’Arco.You shall show appropriate respect or leave.”
The pitter-patter sped up, and also pounded down an upstairs hallway.Lumoons floated downward from where they’d bobbed along the arched ceiling.
Cosette zipped to the front, buzzing in front of his face.“This fortress is the seat of a territory belonging to the empire.I am a soldier of the empire.Aninvestigatorysoldier.I am under the authority of the emperor here, as are you.And asIam an officer of the empire, your obedience is to me.Your duty is tome.”
