“Of course,” Lord Lyken says.
“The wyverns, they are…different from dragons?”
He huffs out a laugh. “Oh yes, they are different.”
“In what ways?”
“Venom, for one,” Rally rumbles.
Ty springs forward a step and waves his arm behind him in a menacing manner.
“In the tail,” Rally clarifies.
“I see,” I say.
“And,” Lord Lyken adds, “in their barbaric forms, they have two legs, not four.”
In their barbaric forms…is that what they call their original bodies? It seems a sad way to refer to oneself, wyvern or no.
At the arched doors leading inside, Lord Lyken stops and bows once more.
“Until we meet again, Princess Serah,” he says, and with a final wink, he’s gone.
Inside is cool, and though I would like to stop and marvel at the fine marble and mosaic walls, Rally and Ty rushme up the winding stairs like a jaguar is snapping at our heels. Down a hallway and through a doorway I’m taken, until I find myself standing in a room with a balcony, a canopied bed, and a great many rugs.
“Your maid will be with you shortly, Princess,” Rally says, and with that, the door shuts.
For several moments, I just stand there and breathe.
The bedchamber in front of me is larger than any I’ve stayed in, with several doorways leading off in different directions. The room is far larger than any my mother has stayed in even, and she’s a queen.
As I am to be.
The thought causes my stomach to clench, so I distract myself by going to the balcony. To my surprise, it looks out on a small, private garden teeming with blooms and butterflies. A large fountain in the center burbles pleasantly, and I feel my tension trickle away as I listen. Whenever my things are delivered, this will be an excellent place for my telescope.
On the far side of the room, a door—one for servants, I assume—swings open, and a young woman walks in humming to herself. She’s also bearing an armful of towels, which is why she doesn’t see me until she’s leaving the bathing chamber on her way out.
“Your Highness,” she gasps. She drops into a curtsy so deep, I worry she might fall. “Forgive me. I did not know you were here yet. That is, I knew that you’d arrived, but I didn’t know you werehere, and I worried you might not have enough towels, you see…”
I give her my warmest smile as she rises. She looks to be several years my junior. “It’s quite all right. Thank you for tending me so well.”
The girl stares at me, eyes large in her pale face.
“Are you to be my maid?” I ask. As I’ve never had a dedicated maid in my life, the question feels supremely awkward, but all my married sisters have ladies’ maids now; I’d steeled myself for it.
The girl points at herself. “Me? Oh, no, I’m not a maid. I mean, I am. Just not a ladies’ maid, Your Highness.”
“Oh,” I say, trying to hide my embarrassment. “I apologize.”
She looks mortified. “There’s no need for you to apologize, ma’am. Not to me.” Her gaze darts toward the door she came from as if she’d like to make her escape, but something catches her eye. She points a hesitant finger at the bed. “D—did you know you had a visitor?”
I glance that way in alarm but don’t see anyone. Moving closer, I find a scruffy, orange tabby with notched ears spread across the end of my bed. He cracks one eye open to peer back at me.
The girl clasps her hands together. “It’s so nice to be picked, and on your first day here, too.”
“Picked?” I ask.
“By a cat,” she says, gesturing at the tabby. “I remember the first one who picked me. Fireball. He was an orange one, too.”
