Page 13 of Betrayed By Dragons

I chuckle, relieved. If she's already moving on to policy, then she's not exactly heartbroken.

We say our farewells, and she takes her leave. While I feel a little better for having that resolved, I'm still rattled by the encounter. I need to look into these rumors circulating through the castle about my having found my True Mate. It's hard to believe that one of the royal guards who attended the summit could be spreading them, but someone must be.

I add it to my long list of things to investigate, but I don't have time to dwell right now. I'm already late for my first appointment of the day. Pushing down my feelings--about Tsing's words, about sharing Ember, about everything--I make my way to the conference room, my composure on full display.

It's exhausting.

But it doesn't matter how sick of it all I am. From there, I'm swept from meeting to meeting. Most of them are bullshit; it doesn't escape my attention that my father's been throwing me into every bit of diplomatic and political busywork he can find. I don't know if he's trying to distract me from investigating the bombing or keep me away from my mate, but he's up to something.

I grin and bear it, though, tending to my obligations without giving in to his diversions. My father won't have a thing he can complain about the next time we meet. I turn his busywork on its tail. Behaving in a way that puts me beyond reproach gives me capitol to spend.

"How are things going?" I ask Li in a brief respite between engagements. "With that project we discussed this morning."

"I have some leads."

I nod in acknowledgment and continue on.

Two meetings later, though, when Li approaches me, it's not with his normal expression of quiet competence and efficiency.

"Your highness. I've just received an urgent message from your father. He'd like a word."

My stomach clenches automatically. A flitting thought tells me to blow the old man off, but I know better. I flex my jaw and work my hardest to maintain a neutral expression.

"Of course."

I find my father in his study, seated at the old, mahogany desk. I've heard its history a thousand times. My ancestors--the great Stone Dragon kings of old--used to sit in this room and pore over maps as they planned conquests.

Anxiety rises in my chest, but I keep my shoulders square and my chin up. "You wanted to see me, Sir?"

He glances up. His mouth is a flat line, his eyes unreadable. "Close the door."

A sinking feeling in the pit of my abdomen has me pulled and twisted in every direction, but I do as I was told.

"I have exactly twenty-two minutes to eat lunch," I remind him.

"You have a death wish," he intones, and forget anxiety; forget dread.

Actual fear seeps into my bones. I suppress my shudder. The door closes silently, the handle cool in my palm, and everything in me tells me to throw it wide. To escape.

Acting on instinct has been trained out of me, though. My entire life, I've learned over and over to think with my head and not with my heart.

I turn and flex my jaw.

My father rises to his feet. His eyes are slits, his dragon peering out through them, and my fear redoubles, but I remain strong.

"Excuse me?" I grit out.

"You want to question someone from Bedrock."

In my head, I curse Li. The man is discrete, and he's always handled sensitive matters for me in the past, but whoever he tapped must have had loose lips.

Or they must be more powerful than I imagined. Able to bend the ear of someone close enough to the king that this would come back to me so soon.

I dare not ask who informed him, though. He'd never tell, and even if he did. Demanding the name of the leak would only incriminate me. It would prove that I knew full well that what I was doing was illicit.

So I own it. "Of course I do. Perhaps you've forgotten that someone bombed that summit, but I have not."

"I forget nothing, boy." Warning fills his tone, but I ignore it.

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