Page 62 of The Kingdom's Crown

Aric frowned and glanced at me over his shoulder. "Try…? I suppose you might."

I nodded and waited for him to step aside. I didn't know even a quarter of the charms and spells and structures as Aric, but I didn't really need to.I am the source, I thought, pressing one hand over the lock and taking the knob with the other. There was magic in the door, yes, but it wasn't as fresh and eager as my own. Aric wanted me to show these mages a demonstration so I needed to save most of my power, but I spared a little then, letting it leak into the door and the seam where the mage's charm held.

"Well that's just not fair," Aric muttered, but he grinned at me with pride as the spell grew muddled with the touch of my magic, like hot water dissolving thick honey until the two blended together.

The knob turned, and I bounced into the room on light feet, delighted with my own victory.

"Oh, now what do you wa—Ahh!"

The young man who'd come storming in to find me nearly toppled over in surprise, but I didn't pay him any attention, transfixed by the sight in front of me. My Hunger rose, not in arousal, but in something like jealousy or anger. Here was power, glowing and gilding anddense. Not just my mother's, but generations of the queen's line's magic all mixed together and trapped in glittering facets of this conduit.

"Bryony," Aric said.

"Who made this?" I snapped out, looking directly to the young man, who'd gone pale and frozen at my arrival. "Who created this? Whose idea was it to takeourpower and let you men hoard it like some greedy wasteful creatures?"

"N-N-Nathan!" the young man howled.

I stiffened as a gentle palm rested on my shoulder and then sighed as Aric drew me back from the prism in its cage at the heart of the room.

"I'm fine," I said, a little breathless, but I turned to face him so he would know I was still here with him, and not overtaken.

"Ah, Chosen. Now you've done it."

I spun and found two more men in the opposite doorway, one elderly and annoyed, the other middle-aged and smirking at Aric.

"He's-he's broughtone of themhere, Nathan!" the young stammering man cried.

"I see that, Kenneth," Nathan, the eldest mage snapped.

Aric was right, these men didn't look at all as I imagined mages to look. And not one of them had so much as bowed since my arrival.

"Martin," said the third man. That must've been—

"Simon," Aric greeted with a nod of his head.

"And Your Highness, welcome," Simon added to me, tipping forward in a jaunty maneuver. He was a stocky man, with unruly hair in shades of blond and red and gray, and a beard that actually looked as though he'd burnt the end and not bothered trimming it since.

"Sir!" Kenneth cried.

"Oh, go and get back to counting stores, Ken. She's not going to make the palace explode just by seeing the conduit," Simon barked at the younger man.

"Shebrokethe ward," Kenneth snapped back.

"Seeing as how that was my little test, I don't see why you're so offended," Simon answered back.

"Enough! The both of you. Your Highness, how may we assist you and see you on your way again?"

Aric was shaking with barely repressed laughter, and Nathan's cheeks darkened as his own impertinence caught up with his good sense.

"That is to say—"

Aric cleared his throat before I could think of the right way of cutting this mage down to size. "I am, as usual, to blame for the disruption. I thought the princess and I might speak to you on the nature of the source."

"Absolutely not," Nathan said as Kenneth gasped.

"Sounds like a better use of my time than recording this week's temperature," Simon said with a shrug, earning a glare from the others.

Angered by Nathan's words and Kenneth's expectation that at any moment I might set the roof caving in on them, I acted impulsively. Aric would have his revenge on me later, but that was half the fun.

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