Page 12 of Blood of Dragons

If I wanted to look through the desk and the hiding spot underneath, I would have to move his body, and the very idea made me sick. Tears pooled in my eyes at the thought because it was far more traumatic than anything else I’d endured. I would take a night with General Titan over this prospect.

I looked at the desk, but he wasn’t there.

I inhaled a breath that came out as a gasp, and the tears spilled down my cheeks in relief. If he wasn’t there, then I didn’t know where he was, but at least he wasn’t in front of me.

ARMED MEN APPROACH THE CASTLE.

How many?

TWO.

I got to work and moved behind my father’s desk. The window was still intact, the curtains still secured apart to let the sunshine spill onto the rug. The dust was visible as particles in the air, floating in suspension.

I crawled under the desk and lay on my back, seeing the panels of the wood above me. My father had shown me where he hid his private things, showed me if I ever needed something. He’d designed the desk with the carpenter to make it undetectable, and the craftsmanship was solid because it took me several moments to remember how to make it come apart. It had to be done in a specific order, with three different steps. I slid one panel down, which released a hook on the other side, underneath the wood. Then I turned the panel clockwise, which released another hook. Then the panel suddenly came loose and was able to be slid sideways. I pushed it aside and saw the box secured underneath.

“It’s still there…”

I pulled the box free then crawled out from underneath the desk so I could open it on the rug. I removed the top and saw the parchment inside, just a couple of sheets, and a gold necklace.

Footsteps sounded in the hallway, and I clenched my jaw in frustration because I desperately wanted to see what my father had left behind. But I was forced to shove the papers and the necklace into my pocket and right myself, unsheathing my blade and gripping it in my hand.

The first soldier rounded the corner and stilled when he saw me, dressed in armor with my sword drawn.

I stared.

He stared back.

“I don’t want to hurt you.” I was the one who spoke the words, but Talon’s voice said them in my mind. I got a flash of his stare, of the way he said it with such anger and sincerity at the same time. These were still my people, even if they served a new king.

The soldier didn’t reach for his sword. He was older, my father’s age when he passed, and his eyes seemed kind rather than hostile. “Princess Calista…?” His eyes narrowed in disbelief, like he couldn’t believe the sight.

My grip loosened on the sword. “Yes.” I said it proudly, unashamed of my identity, of the blood in my veins that was mixed with fire.

“I don’t expect you to remember me, but I served your father. My name is Ronan.”

“As did I. Arthur.” The other soldier stepped in the doorway. “Is that your dragon?”

“He doesn’t belong to me, but yes, we came here together.”

“King Talon isn’t here, then?” Ronan asked.

“Just me.”

“Have you come to take back the throne?” Arthur asked with hope in his eyes, like they hadn’t forgotten what had happened to this castle either, like they would never forget how our king had been stolen from us.

“Yes—but not today. I was looking for something.”

“If it’s your father, we buried him in the cemetery,” Ronan said. “You can see his headstone.”

Tears welled in my eyes and blurred my vision. My father had claimed his own life, but his people still honored him. They buried my father when I couldn’t, and that gesture meant the world to me. “Thank you.”

“He’ll always be our king,” Ronan said. “And you’ll be our queen…when it’s time.”

He had been laid to rest with his forefathers, in the royal cemetery reserved for my ancestors. Generations of kings and queens were at peace in the soil, the tombstone the only marker of the lives they had lived.

He had been placed beside my mother.

The tombstone was engraved with a sword and a crown, my family’s royal crest. His name was easy to make out because it was only ten years old, while the other tombstones were almost so degraded they couldn’t be read.

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