He then had to get past the two guards outside the cave entrance and still navigate whatever was inside the caves to find the magic receptacle.
They had been fools to even attempt this. So much could go wrong. But her heart still beat with excitement. This was something she couldn’tnotdo.
For her part, she had to get past the kitchen and into the cellars. Then she had to distract the guards on interior side of the tunnel system. The the most successful scenario, she would distract them, somehow ascertain if there was a key and acquire it, get through whatever door led into the tunnels, then meet up with Neven and help him find the receptacle.
The most likely scenario was simply her distracting the guards so they did not notice any sounds behind the door, and to stall for time if anyone—such as Jules or Younn—tried to get to the magic receptacle.
Hopefully Neven could handle finding and draining it. Or better yet, Sol might be with him to help.
Meena knew it was foolish to hope, but she had promised to keep her thoughts on the fun of tonight’s adventure. It was the only way fear wouldn’t freeze her.
“Princess, you’re awake.” Ezra’s voice sounded from beside her in the dim archway. “Jules said you were resting, are you feeling alright?”
Confused, Meena couldn’t answer immediately. Ezra sounded ... genuinely concerned about her. “Yes, I am feeling much better,” Meena lied. Or, at least, she had been feeling better before Ezra appeared.
“Would you like to go back to the house?” Ezra asked. “I can have a soldier escort you.”
“No, I am feeling fine, really,” Meena responded. She couldn’t let Ezra send her home.
“Come, grab a drink with me?” Ezra asked. “I feel like we have not gotten to know each other very well. And I was just feeling like we might become great friends.” A broad smile filled her face.
Meena instinctively leaned closer to the other woman. She knew exactly how this game went. She’d been playing it since she arrived in this stifling kingdom. “What game are you playing?” she whispered, trying to be as menacing as she from her shorter height. “I can tell when someone is trying to steer me to their will, it’s my own specialty. I play it best. Did your husband send you to distract me? Where is Jules?” She glanced out toward the crowd.
“What’s game have I been playing?” Ezra shot back, dropping her sweet facade. “You have the audacity to show up at my house, demanding to be treated like a princess.”
“I didn’t show up. It’s not your house. You stole it. And Councilor Younn set it all up.”
“I know it’s not and do you think that doesn’t bother me? We couldn’t say no to Younn. He wields Gareth’s wrath.”
“What are you doing here? And where is Jules?” Meena felt more uncomfortable the longer this conversation went on. Somehow, she knew Jules’s absence was the key piece to solving the puzzle.
“What are you doing here, Princess?” Ezra shot back.
“I didn’t come all this way with a man I didn’t know just to be stopped in the end by a power-hungry woman who pretends to love her own husband!” Meena didn’t hear the harshness of her words until they were out of her mouth. They had been spoken in anger and frustration, not in jest.
But to Meena’s complete surprise, Ezra’s face relaxed into an amused smile.
“You’ve been playing it this whole time, too? Come.” Turning on her heel, Ezra beckoned Meena inside the fort itself.
Not even stopping to consider that she run in the opposite direction, Meena followed Ezra into a more private room.
“Jules and I instantly noticed that you were both suspicious,” Ezra explained without actually explaining anything. “But you were directly from the royal family, so of course we couldn’t trust you.”
Meena was still not following. She didn’t have time to play games. “Where is Jules?”
“He’s on his way to the ship to free your husband Solano, or is it just Sol?”
Meena relaxed, the tension in her body turning to excitement. “To free Sol?”
“We’ve been waiting for word from our contact in Chendas. We knew a Majis was supposed to arrive soon. And then you showed up and started poking your noses everywhere and we had to do our best to keep you occupied so you wouldn’t interfere at the fort at the same time as the mystery Majis did. But this whole timeyouwere the Majis. Or your husband was.”
“You mean this whole time we could have been helping each other instead of getting each other’s way?” Meena snickered in laughter. “Do you want to that right now?”
“Getting in each other’s way?”
“Helping each other.”
Ezra stared at Meena. Her demeanor no longer looked cold, rather Meena realized it was thoughtful and focused. Rather like Sol’s.
