“Would that be the guy who Scylla took into her cave with her?” I asked Verin.
Verin snarled in response, grabbed my hand, and pulled me out of the room with him.
“I'll take that as a yes,” I muttered as I picked up my pace so I wouldn't end up being dragged down the hallway by an angry dragon.
Verin started shouting for his guards. When a group of men ran up to us, he ordered that the castle be searched for Jae-ho, then demanded to be taken to Jae-ho's room. There was a bit of a flutter as some men ran to organize the search while the rest tried to find someone who knew where Jae-ho's rooms were.
“She killed him and switched places with him,” Verin muttered to me as we were finally taken to Jae-ho's room. “Scylla's accomplice had to have been there to make the switch and yet somehow, she eluded us.”
“She could have made herself invisible,” I suggested. “Or slid into a hidden room.”
Verin grunted angrily.
We entered a simple, orderly room—bed, small desk, side table, wardrobe, and lamp. An open door revealed a small bathroom as well. One look showed that Jae-ho wasn't there. Verin searched the room and in such a spartan environment, it took him only a few minutes. He found nothing out of the ordinary. No potion bottles or venom-filled syringes or suction cup prints.
Verin cursed under his breath and turned to face me.
“I know,” I said to his grim look. “Scylla's back in the palace and I can't sing to find her because she's evidently immune to my magic.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
The search for Scylla continued into the night. Verin's soldiers went through every room, including all of Verin's private rooms and his mother's, then started all over again—twice. During this tedious exercise in dragon stubbornness, palace security was ordered to amp up their patrols and stop anyone from leaving.Anyone. I thought this was a waste of manpower; Scylla wasn't going to leave. She wanted to be in the palace. Why go through the ruse if she didn't? And I had a feeling that she was there for me.
Verin had the same feeling. But where that feeling left me eagerly anticipating Scylla's attack so we could finally catch her and get some answers, it left Verin tense and short-tempered. When dinner time rolled around, he asked me to wait in his suite—with guards posted at the entrance—while he went to fetch our dinner himself. He intended to stand there and watch the chef cook our food, then bring the meal directly back to me. Considering that a Greek monster—who had already poisoned us once—was hiding somewhere in the palace, I considered his actions to be prudent, not paranoid. In fact, I would have preferred to have gone with him—out of the two of us, he was the more vulnerable—but he adamantly refused and started getting all twitchy when I pressed him about it.
So, I stayed put and worried. If he got injured while I was with him, I'd have a chance of saving him but as it was, he could be lying somewhere gasping his final breaths and I wouldn't even know about it until someone thought to inform me. I paced and wrung my hands and worked myself up into such a tizzy that when a knock came at the bedroom door, I flinched and yipped like a poodle. Then my heart starting beating frantically. Verin would have simply walked in so it couldn't be him. Had someone come to tell me he'd been injured? Or killed?
I ran to the door and threw it open. One of the men Verin had left to guard me stood there. He didn't look distraught so I relaxed a little.
“Yes?”
“Sorry to disturb you, Your Majesty,” the guard said. “But Lady Meilen is here to see you. She says she wants to apologize.”
I sighed deeply but nodded. “Okay, let her in.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.” The guard went down the hallway to the suite's door.
I watched him go and waited at the bedroom door while he spoke to Meilen and then let her past. She looked appropriately apologetic but I didn't trust it. No one goes from obvious hatred to meek remorse that quickly. Then I frowned and reconsidered. Verin had done that very thing after he learned that I wasn't enchanting him as he'd believed. Perhaps Meilen had been told a lie about me too and now knew the truth. Or maybe Verin had simply insisted that she make peace with me. Whatever the case, I'd wrongly accused her of attempted murder and I owed it to her to at least hear her out.
“Your Majesty.” Meilen bowed to me.
“Lady Meilen.” I waved her into the bedroom. “Please, come in.”
“Thank you.” She walked past me daintily, every inch the elegant lady.
I grimaced at her. Elegance was difficult for me. I had been raised to be strong and independent, but not graceful. Grace was something my mother had been born with; she never thought to teach it to me. I don't think she even considered it to be important. I suppose it isn't unless you're put into a role that requires it. When I'd first became Queen of Kyanite, I'd been nervous about presenting the wrong image to my people but after awhile, I realized that the best part about being a queen is that you could behave however you wished and no one would give you shit about it. Well, maybe other queens would, but not the people you ruled. However, my situation in the Azure Court was different. I wasn't their queen, I was their king's consort and that meant that I'd be judged. If I was being judged against women like Meilen, with her delicate femininity, I'd come up short.
“Would you like to sit down?” I waved toward a sitting area to the right of the door.
“No, thank you, Elaria,” she snarled as she launched herself at me. “I'm not here to talk.”
I fell to the floor beneath Meilen's slight body. She landed a punch purely because I was so startled. Then my brain kicked in and I grinned. This was more like what I'd expected from her. Meilen had probably seen Verin leave the royal chambers and decided that this was the perfect opportunity for some revenge. Perhaps she was even there to kill me. If she played it right, my death would be blamed on Scylla She'd have to kill the guards too, but it could work. And then she'd get to console poor Verin.
“You're a hard woman to kill, Spellsinger.” Meilen wrapped her hands around my throat and squeezed. “But I'm not leaving this room until you're dead.”
I speared my hands up between her forearms and swung them in an outward arc, breaking her hold on my neck. I may fight mainly with magic but I hadn't lived in the Beneather Bazaar for all of those years without picking up a few tricks—many of which had been taught to me by the Hound of Hades. I could fight and I could do it dirty.
I headbutted Meilen, then shoved her off me. As I jumped to my feet, she shook off my blow and stood. Her robe got in the way so she tore off the top layer and tossed it aside. I lifted my brows at that. All of that elegance and delicate beauty I'd been going on about had made me forget an important fact—Meilen was a courtier, which meant that she was a dragon. She grinned viciously and prowled back toward me.
