“Delightful. Do knock if you find that you’re in need. Someone will see to your every desire. Thiswillwork, Your Majesty. In time, you’ll see it too.”
If he were so sure of that, there was no reason for him to lock the door the moment he slipped out of it, but he did.
18
ADERYN
The whole of Atheldinas was like a kicked beehive when I returned, people swarming everywhere, and tension thick in the air.
Usually when dragons arrived at the palace, people stopped and stared as we landed, because while it wasn’t the impossible thing it had been when we were children, it was still an unusual event. Today, no one stopped moving. Hardly anyone looked at me.
That continued to be true as I shrugged on a cloak hanging near the open gate and went inside. The courtyard was bustling with people, but none had time for me. The halls were full. The rooms were stuffed to bursting with humans and motion and strain, and hardly anyone looked my way.
On the few occasions that wasn’t true, it wasn’t all that helpful. The head of the palace guard looked at me, winced, and immediately let his eyes slip away, to the ground. As though he was ashamed and didn’t want to meet my eye.
Ashamed because Roland had been taken again, this time under his watch.
I could have told him that if someone had managed to take Roland from Bet when we were children, no one was going to hold him responsible for this happening now. Not unless he was involved in the plot, and having known Sir Alf since I first came to the Spires, I didn’t believe that for a second.
Still, he was probably in utter misery.
Everyone was.
Roland was a beloved king, and not just by me. I’d heard stories about his grandfather, who was apparently a solid, reliable fellow, who did a good job as king for many years. The stories weren’t exactly romantic, though. People didn’t clutch their hands to their chests and wax poetic about how wonderful he was and all the incredible things he’d done. They just said that he was a good king. Strong. Reliable. Hard-working.
Roland’s father, they only spoke of in hushed tones. The madman who’d been eaten by a dragon he was trying to have executed. Most of them even knew Rhiannon was the one who’d killed him, and didn’t hate her. Some quietly celebrated her, convinced she’d saved them from utter disaster, and from what little Roland had told me of his father, I suspected they had the right of it.
But Roland... the people were panicked at the idea of losing Roland.
He was a hard worker and reliable, yes, but he was also beloved of the people. Beautiful and clever and quick-witted and caring. The people had appreciated his grandfather, but they adored Roland.
This was most apparent in the throne room itself, where Tris was sitting in a chair in front of the throne, talking to a group of guards. He’d been forced to rule Llangard from the shadows for years before Roland had been entirely ready, but never once had I seen him put his ass on the throne. And now? He wouldn’t havedreamed of it, even being the one who was in charge in Roland’s absence.
I ignored the guards, and they largely ignored me as well, as I went to stand by Tristram’s side. I thought I would wait until his meeting ended and speak to him then, ask what had happened, but it was... well, it was a lot. The guard was reporting to him on what they had—and hadn’t—found while looking for Roland.
Their faces were bleak, and it was clear none of them thought they had any information that would help. I hoped that Tris would find something in one of their stories that would change things, but as much as I trusted Tris to be clever and squeeze out any information that was there, me standing there listening wasn’t going to help.
That was when movement caught my eye.
Bet, standing next to the side door, looking dark and forbidding as ever.
His jaw was set, clenched, and his hand was wrapped around the hilt of one of his daggers. When I looked up at him, he met my eye and nodded.
It relieved a bit of the shame that had been growing inside me. I had abandoned Roland, and he’d been almost immediately kidnapped.
It was all my fault.
Except that Bet was never one to reassure people when he thought things were their fault, and he wasn’t looking on me with anger. Well, no more than the situation itself warranted. He didn’t look at me as though he wanted me to leave.
I skirted around Tris and walked over to where he stood.
“Nothing?” I whispered to him.
His jaw clenched a moment, then he shook his head. “There won’t be anything.”
The bottom dropped out of my stomach, and I sucked in a chaotic lungful of air. Wouldn’t be anything? Did he think Roland was dead? Did?—
“The Destovians have gone,” he went on, a sneer on his lips. “They said it was terribly rude of Roland to disappear while they were in the middle of diplomatic discussions, and they wouldn’t ‘countenance such rudeness,’ but no one with half a mind believes it.”
