Page 5 of The Forgotten Throne

“I gather this one didn’t like your plan?” Vasin mused as I walked up to them.

“You know he didn’t and neither did you, I might add.”

“True, but you don’t get mad at me like you do with them.”

“I get mad at you.”

Vasin snorted as he tilted his head to look at me. “Name one time that you were mad at me directly?”

I searched my memory and discovered that he was right. I have been frustrated or disagreed with something Vasin had to say, but never mad. “Okay, so I don’t get mad at you. What does that have to do with anything?”

“Nothing really, just wanted to point it out before I tell you that you should apologize before we leave. He was right to be upset with you.”

Gaping at my dragon, I couldn’t help but laugh at the corner he backed me into. It proved his point, because if anyone else had said that to me, I would be mad. Vasin gave me a nudge with his nose, sending me stumbling into Jade, who swiftly caught me before anything bad happened.

“This is not making me feel better about letting you leave without me,” Jade grumbled.

“I’m going to bring Abbott and Izel with me. You were right. I shouldn’t go with only one guardian into another country when we have no idea what I’m walking into,” I said, resting my hands against his chest, with his arms wrapped around me. “I shouldn’t have doubted that you were just trying to look out for me, not that you didn’t trust my judgment.”

“Little bird, I trust you completely in most areas, but when it comes to your own safety, you seem to have blinders on. It’s a lot harder being your guardian than I thought it would be,” he teased, giving me a squeeze. “Come on, help me get these last few straps buckled down.”

Pulling out of his arms, I moved to the side and finished off the buckle he’d been working on before he caught me. “It’s not true that I only listen to Cole, is it? I feel like I try to keep an open mind about input.”

“When it comes to things about the clans, yeah, you seem to be open to all suggestions. The few times it comes to your personal life, it’s typically a tag team between Cole and Abbott. You’ve known them longer, so it makes sense. I wouldn’t be too bothered by it. We each have our role we play,” Jade explained as he finished the last buckle. “Looks like you’re all set. We’ll make sure things are running smoothly here, so we’ll be ready when you get back.”

I didn’t want to admit it, but I was starting to get nervous about what would happen if they wouldn’t help us. Without Sheca to turn to, that didn’t leave us with a whole lot of options other than maybe trying Creisal, since Queen Mary’s sister ruled there with her husband.

“Cass, they will aid you in your hour of need. I reached out to the dragons that call that place home, and word is already spreading that the Dragon Queen is coming home. It would seem Zan shared the news when he returned for his things.”

Why I didn’t think of that before showed just how much I had on my mind. Of course they would want an explanation as to why Zan was leaving. He was a soldier, after all. They would need to know why he was abandoning his duties at the drop of a hat. This would certainly help with the fact that they now know I existed and wouldn’t be showing up out of the blue.

“Cassarah, we should be heading out if we want to make it there and back by morning,” Zan pointed out.

Nodding, I turned to my other guardians. “Abbot, you’ll be with me. Izel, you’re with Zan. As for the rest of you, I’m putting you in charge of making this evacuation happen as smoothly as we can. We’ll be back as fast as we can.”

“Be safe, Cassy-bear,” Dayson called as I climbed up on Vasin’s back. “I’ll make sure my father doesn’t cause any trouble.”

“With two of us keeping an eye on him, he won’t have the chance,” May added, knocking shoulders with her cousin and giving me a nod of reassurance.

Abbott settled in behind me, securing himself in for the ride before he placed his hands on my hips. I waved at the others before Vasin leaped off the ledge, and with a powerful beat of his wings, shot us up into the sky in the direction of Sheca. Ifra led the way, but I knew thanks to the dragons’ ability to share memories, Vasin knew where to go already.

Flying quickly became one of my favorite things. It gave you a level of freedom you couldn’t get anywhere else—the wind whipping through your hair, the scent of nature around you, and all the wide-open space you could ever ask for. There was the warmth at my back, a constant reminder of Abbott being close, something I was still getting used to after a life of being taught never to be alone with a man. I knew that the world wasn’t what my mother had painted for my future, being forced into a loveless marriage just to gain status or money for my family. Now I was given the choice of who I wanted to be with and a group of men who were all worthy of being loved wholeheartedly by someone. I knew they hoped I would be that someone. The fact that I didn’t have to pick between them made things more complicated. Never having been able to build a romantic relationship with a man, I didn’t know what was expected. I knew for sure I didn’t want what my parents had. My father loved my mother, but I don’t think she was capable of loving anyone but herself, and certainly not me.

Many of the kings and queens before me had taken more than one lover out of their guardians—Miranda went so far as to take five of hers. Granted, I found myself with eight men to pick from, and most of them had expressed interest in becoming a consort of mine. Zan and Paxton had only been with me a short time, but they knew the customs and that it was an option for me to pick them. I knew that I wouldn’t take a man who didn’t love me or feel about me the same way I did for them. To trap someone in a loveless life or marriage was cruel and nothing I wanted to be a part of. Hopefully I would be given time to make the right choice for myself, but I had a gut feeling things would happen much faster once we reached Sheca.

Chapter Four

Welcome to Sheca

Just as the sun was starting to set, we crossed over a ridge of mountains covered in fog. When we came out the other side, there was Zan’s home. An ancient-looking stone castle stood on a cliff that jutted out from the side of a mountain. It showed all the age of being abandoned for the past two hundred years. Below the castle was a winding path that was wide enough for us to see from the air that led to a village in the valley. Lush green vegetation set the land off from the cool gray of the mountains around it, with a river running through the middle of it, feeding the plots of various crops. Homes were built into the mountain side off the main path to the castle, but there were others in the flat land of the valley itself.

People were working in the fields and gardens, pausing to look up as the dragons’ shadows crossed over them. No one seemed at all startled or surprised at the sight, leading me to believe it was more common here than it had been in Norden. As if they heard my thoughts, four dragons with riders appeared from the slopes around us, heading right towards us. Ifra let out a bugle and Zan waved a greeting to them once they got closer. The other dragons returned the call as they wheeled to fly alongside us as an escort to wherever we were to land. I took a moment to reach out to the new dragons, trying to get a feel for their emotions or thoughts, but like Ifra when I first met him, they were closed off and unwilling to let me talk with them. Pulling back, I observed more of the town around me, noticing there was a town center at the base of the main road before it led out into the fields. The call of the dragons must have alerted everyone to our arrival since they started to flood the street, looking up at us. Kids yelled as they pointed at me, waving their arms in excitement while the parents didn’t quite seem to feel the same.

“What do you think Zan told them about you?” Abbott asked, his lips brushing my ear.

“He keeps calling me the Dragon Queen, but I don’t really know what that means to him or them,” I shared with a shrug. “I’m just thankful they aren’t shooting at us or running to get their pitchforks.”

Abbott chuckled at my worries. “I truly don’t think Zan would bring you here if he thought you were going to get killed. He might be new to our group, but that man has more honor in him than anyone I’ve met in a long time.”