Page 27 of The Forgotten Throne

“You should never have come here, little girl. This situation is far too much for the likes of you to be able to handle,” Naytan spat.

“That is your belief in the matter but I know for a fact that you aren’t the right person to be able to handle this either—none of you are.” Shifting my gaze, I turned to the king and queen. “Tell me are the rumors that you are looking to dissolve our alliance in favor of a deal with these men? Did the fact that they are willing to betray their own queen not give you any pause to the fact they could turn on you as well? If this is how you run your kingdom, it’s no wonder that it was taken from you.”

King Edward did not like that one bit as I watched his face start to turn purple with his building rage. “You dare to speak to your King in such a manner? I’ll have you head for that!”

“You and what army?” I asked truly curious how he thought he was going to back that threat up. “I don’t remember rescuing more than you and your sons from the castle. Did you manage to regain some of your military without me knowing?”

“Cassarah,” Dayson whispered behind me. “Let’s try to stay alive through this. Making them even more angry isn’t going to help.”

Ignoring my guardian’s advice, I kept my gaze locked with the once king of Norden. “These men with you, they are from Sheca and that makes them my subjects. In helping you with whatever plan you have to remove me from my throne are doing so in an act of treason and shall be faced with death. If you do not have an army or even your own men to defend yourself with then how do you see this as a valuable alliance? The Clan Leaders have now sealed their fate and will no longer be of use to you, all that is left is me. No one knows that you are still alive after that battle, I could kill you and place your son Phillip on the throne who is proving himself to be a valuable asset, unlike you two.”

My words were cold and ruthless but I was done giving them chances to prove themselves when time after time they betrayed me. Never would I be safe in my own lands if I let these men continue to walk freely thinking they have the power to usurp my rule. I could feel the other dragons listening to my words and being the wise creatures that they understood my choice was one of sound logic. They retreated leaving me to deal with the humans, the only dragons who fought my touch were the king and queen’s dragons. The need to protect their pair-bond was all that mattered to them even if they didn’t have the backup of the others.

“That’s some big talk little girl. Who’s to say I can’t just shoot you down where you stand and end this all right now?” Naytan said, signaling to the soldiers. “If they are going to die for treason as it is, what do we have to lose?”

Out of the group of six men four raised their bows while the other two drew their swords ready in case shooting me didn’t work. “You can take that chance but what makes you think I came alone?”

As I spoke, I could feel Tahir, Ifra, and Ninnat were right upon us just in time to prove my point and settle this once and for all. The dragons that belonged to the soldiers snarled and gnashed their teeth at the newcomers, but they backed off leaving us more room for the fifteen dragons that landed with doubled up riders. I now had thirty people to back me up and by the looks on my guardian’s faces they were pissed as hell.

“What is going on here Naytan?” Alsten barked as he leaped off his dragon’s back. “You were warned what would happen if you didn’t come to terms with Cassarah becoming our Queen.”

“I took your warning under consideration and decided that I didn’t care. I’m not going to bow to some child who claims to be the savior of our people, it’s not right, and you won’t ever convince me otherwise,” Naytan snarled.

“Cass, I need you to step down now that the others are here. It seems I’m in luck of finding a late-night snack.”

As much as I wanted to preserve life, Naytan made his bed and there was nothing I could do about it. With Dayson’s help, I slid off Vasin’s back with him right behind me, ready to spring into action if it was so needed once our feet hit the ground. Someone pushed through the crowd of guards and dragons that just landed, surprising me when I saw it was Phillip.

“Mother, Father, what have you done?” he demanded. “Are you so determined to get out of this alliance with Queen Cassarah that you would stoop to this level? Do you not realize that this whole thing is your fault? The Lost King claims to be my half brother and I’m inclined to believe him. If you’d kept better tabs on your first born, Father, then we might have avoided this whole issue but instead you hid him away like the bastard you believe him to be. Now look at us, chased out of our own kingdom and at the mercy of the kindness of these people who you are slapping in the face with this kind of stunt.”

“Son, you aren’t king yet, but when that day comes, you’ll understand why we are doing this. There is more going on here than just an alliance with Sheca, here in this land that they are so close to are thousands of dragons up for the taking. We can bring back the days when we were feared for our dragon army and crush those who oppose us,” King Edward explained, his eyes wild with excitement. “Wouldn’t you want your own dragon, Son?”

“I would be honored if one picked me to be its pair-bond, but I don’t want a dragon for the power it would provide. I’ve done my own research as well in the lore of the black dragon and I know the bond they have with their chosen human is far deeper than what I’ve seen from you and your dragons. What they have was created by choice and honoring that bond not by stealing or lying,” Phillip countered. “It’s time to back down, Father. Surrender from being king, and live to see another day, if you don’t I can’t help you.”

“Never!” the king shouted, triggering his dragon to open its jaws and hurl fire at us.

Vasin moved forward spreading his wings blocking the flames from hitting us but I could still feel the heat of his on the wind that blew around his wings. The king of Norden just declared war on me and almost killed both of his sons in the process. I could hear the queen screaming on the other side but our view was still blocked, and I didn’t trust being able to move from behind Vasin. The other dragons and their riders didn’t hold back, they moved in ready for battle, teeth bared and swords brandished. Dayson grabbed my arm pulling me away but when I didn’t move fast enough for him he tossed me over his shoulder and darted behind a boulder. Phillip was right on our heels diving out of the way as a dragon tail sailed through the air right where he’d just been. I tried to wriggle out of Dayson’s hold as he set me on my feet but his arms were like bands of steel keeping me trapped against his chest.

“Cassarah, I can’t let you go out there until things have calmed down. Trust our people to take care of it, they are trained to deal with situations like this and we can’t afford to have you get hurt right now,” Dayson said, trying to reason with me.

“Why... Why would they do this? It doesn’t make any sense?” I stammered, rattled at how fast everything just devolved. “He could have killed everyone with his dragon reacting like that.”

Phillip sat on the ground and started to laugh which caught me completely off guard. “If you truly knew my father, the man behind closed doors, you wouldn’t be so surprised at this. The Lost King didn’t get his crazy out of the blue. Let’s just say he didn’t fall far from the tree.”

“Are you saying that your father truly didn’t care if he killed everyone?” I demanded, shoving out of Dayson’s grip. This time he let me go but he wasn’t far away.

“The kingdom is ruled by my mother, pretty much has been their entire reign. Good King Edward is always thinking that someone is out to get him or that there is some conspiracy to take the throne from him. It’s even been bad enough that Mother had to keep us away from him when we were little. She managed him well, and he had a personal doctor in the castle that would keep him medicated with some herbal remedy or another to keep him calm. My guess is that since he has been off whatever concoction they were giving him his mental stability cracked,” Phillip explained. “I’m surprised Gavin didn’t tell you about the family secret seeing as you wanted an alliance with them.”

Gavin never would have divulged something like that unless he felt it was necessary and since I’ve mostly been interacting with the Queen, there wouldn’t be a need. Although now that Phillip shared this information it connected the dots of seeing how his father has been unraveling. Every altercation I’d seen has been from the King although the Queen seemed to agree with him but I doubt that at this moment she was feeling that way. She might be pragmatic when it comes to ruling, but she is still a mother and I’ve seen how she looks at her sons.

“This is why you wanted him to step down and let you take over, the stress of war and not being medicated would be too much for him to handle,” I said as realization hit me.

“Gavin knew he didn’t want to be king, and that I was better suited to it even if I was younger. Over the past two years, Father has become even more unstable, and it’s harder to keep it a secret and once the wolves smelled blood they would be ready to attack. So to keep that from happening we’ve been trying to find the best way to get him to step down. Mother wasn’t in agreement with our plan saying she could still rule like she always has but we knew there would come a day that Father did something like this and we could be screwed.” Phillip sighed, dropping his head into his hands. “Now my father has declared war with Sheca and their new Queen.”

Looking over my shoulder at Dayson he just shrugged his shoulders not really having anything to add to this situation. It was then I noticed the sound of battle had quieted so I moved to peek around the boulder blocking us. My heart broke when I saw, causing me to step out to take in the whole scene before me. Queen Mary sat on the ground sobbing as she clutched her husband to her and even in the dark I could see the blood pooling under him. Naytan and a few of the soldiers with him were also dead along with the King Edward’s dragon and one other while the third was still breathing but was bleeding out. Carefully I made my way over to the dragon.

“Cassarah, what are you doing?” Dayson yelled.

“Don’t even think about walking up to that dragon, Cassarah,” Jade shouted at the same time.