“What? How?” Teyla rocked back and looked at Vorik, as if he were a likely suspect. After a heartbeat, she shifted her gaze to Wreylith, who’d perched on a log and was nipping at scales under her armpit like a preening bird—or a dragon with an itch.
“We don’t know,” Syla said.
“We know thehow,” Vorik murmured.
“Well, yes.” Syla made a throat-cutting motion over her own neck. “After hearing you’d been taken prisoner and that Fograth—I willnotcall him king—wanted to force your hand in marriage… we came to rescue you.” In Syla’s mind, the wordkingbrought to mind her own father—her kindly father who’d always made time for his children, even the youngest by many years who’d so often been left out of things. She had no interest in changing that association. “You were gone, and your father was dead in his suite.”
“I don’t understand,” Teyla whispered. “He was… I spoke to him before bed. Well, we exchanged yells more than speaking, but that’s not my fault. Heagreedto that marriage without asking me. I thought he was angling for Relvin to get the throne, but he threw his weight behind Fograth in the end. I didn’t realize why until the marriage thing came up. Andbabies.” She touched her abdomen. “Having Fograth’s babies would be even worse than getting pregnant from—” Teyla looked around. “Where is Sergeant Fel? Is he all right? Is he still with you?”
“Yes, he’s fine. Aside from the usual stiff hips and tight calves.”
“He moves more agilely than you’d think for a man with all those issues.”
“I’ll take your word on that.” Syla frowned, not wanting to think about her bodyguard having a sex life—even a magical-cactus-flower-induced one. “He’s with Aunt Tibby, making sure nobody disturbs her while she works. Were you aware that enforcers are rounding up people with moon-marks? And imprisoning them? Or worse?”
“Yes,” Teyla said emphatically, then waved in the direction the uniformed men had fled. “That’s what those idiots were doing. Or so they said. But do you think it was just chance that they saw my carriage and stopped it on the road to search for people like us?” Teyla held up her marked hand. “The carriage has my family crest on it, so they could have guessed one of us was in it, but I don’t know. How long have you been back? I was locked in my room for two days, but before that, I was in the capital, trying to dodge the chaos. Castle Island feels like a lagoon full of electric eels right now. You have to be careful where you go and who you talk to. I don’t know how everything fell apart so quickly. It’s like Lord Fograth was poised and ready to swoop in as soon as you left. He basicallydid. That very afternoon after you sailed away with the weapons platform. Oh, do you still have that? The rumor he’s spreading is that the stormers sank the ship carrying it, and you went down with it.”
“Someonedidsink that ship.” The memory was strong enough that Syla couldn’t refrain from giving Vorik a perturbed look. Even if she trusted him fully—he kept saving her life, and he was working with her now—it would be hard to entirely forgive all his past indiscretions.
“My apologizes, my queen.” Vorik managed a smile, which always dashed away his stormer fierceness and turned his face brilliantly handsome, and he bowed to her. “Orders, you understand.”
“I do. And, yes, Teyla, the weapons platform is… Well, I hope Major Hixun has managed to avoid the fleet and has retained possession of it.” Syla admitted that she’d given him a tall order in regard to that. The fleet had so many ships it could send after him, and if the handful of vessels her team had brought from Bogberry Island ran out of room around Castle Island to flee and maneuver, they would have to sail into the unprotected sea. Whatever those dragons were doing around the Harvest Island volcano probably wouldn’t keep them from noticing vulnerable ships nearby, and there was nobody on board who could fire the weapons platform. “Teyla, I’m sorry about your father’s death, but I need to know everything that’s been going on in the capital. There’s not much time.” Again, she looked at Vorik. Time was of the essence formanyreasons.
“I was heading that way when the enforcers waylaid me. You said you came to rescue me?”
“Yes, but from your locked bedroom. We didn’t know about the enforcers. Did you get away from your manor when… You said you were there this morning? Howdidyou get away?”
“I had a guard outside my door for the last two days and nights, one of my father’s loyal men, someone who couldn’t be suborned by flirtatious smiles. I did try, but Jokam is an old stick, and he always believed the lies Relvin told about me when we were growing up. I’d be less disturbed ifhe’dbeen slain, though I guess I won’t wish for that.”
Teyla didn’t appear that disturbed about herfather’sdeath, and a niggling part of Syla wondered if her cousin was telling the truth. But she also knew it had been her mother that Teyla had been most alike and close to, not Relvin or their father.
“We didn’t see a guard,” Syla said. “Just some staff doing laundry who ran off when we arrived.”
“Were you on your dragon’s back?” Teyla asked.
“Yes.”
“It’s not shocking then that they didn’t stick around to chat. Anyway, Jokam was gone this morning when I looked out, planning to go down for breakfast. I didn’t question my luck. I grabbed a few things and sneaked out. I kept expecting someone to spot me, but it was early enough that most of the staff wasn’t working yet. Only the coachman was in the stable, and he was willing to put together a team and a carriage for me.” Teyla waved across the field. At the far end, a fence had stopped the mad run of the horses—maybe the animals had believed they’d gone far enough to escape the dragon. “I thought about taking a single horse, but he happened to be in the stable and is on my side, agreeing that my father locking me up was egregious. Besides, it’s harder to hide your face on a horse than from inside a carriage, and I knew about the enforcers searching the cities. Ihadn’trealized they were also scouring the countryside.”
“What were you going to do when you reached the capital? If that’s where you were captured, I’m surprised you wanted to return.”
“I was going to try to find out if you werereallydead, and, if not, see if there was anything I could do to help you. I also want to find the moon-marked people and free them. Syla, a lot of them are ourrelatives. It’s bad enough you lost… everything you lost.” Teyla swallowed and looked at Vorik again.
He’d dropped his smile and didn’t try to deflect the implied accusation.
“They’re technically all our relatives,” Syla said with a nod, “if you go down the family tree far enough.”
“Oh, I know. I did a genealogy study when I was in school.” Teyla tucked an escaped lock of hair behind her ear. “We have to stop Fograth—I’m afraid he only wants to keeponemoon-marked person, so that he can get into the magical doors around the Kingdom, and get rid of the rest. As if I wouldmarrysomeone who did that. It also crossed my mind to… take care ofhim if I get the opportunity.” Teyla hadn’t sheathed her sword, and she lifted it and made a stabbing motion in the direction of the capital.
“Lord Abbingdar didn’t have a moon-mark,” Vorik said.
“No, Mom was our link to the royal family,” Teyla said.
“So, whatever he was murdered for, it didn’t have anything to do with that.” Vorik raised his eyebrows. He didn’t give a significant look to Teyla, but he had to also wonder if she’d been responsible.
Even if she had been, Syla doubted her cousin was a threat to her. If bloodlines were followed as they were supposedto be when determining succession, Teyla was in line for the throne right after Syla, but Syla didn’t believe Teyla wanted the position. If she did, she had hidden that ambition well. Just a couple of weeks ago, she’d spoken longingly of taking an archaeology team back to the Dire Desert to further investigate the storm god’s laboratory for interesting relics. It was hard to rule a kingdom while scouring the world for artifacts.
“I don’t know who could have wanted my father killed, or why,” Teyla said. “He’sonthe right side. Well, not therightside, definitely not that, but the side that’s currently in power. Until you show up with your stormer and your dragon and fix everything, Syla. That’s the plan, right?”
