Page 56 of Demonchild

“Your Highness?”

Malissa held her breath as she tried to decide what to do. She wanted to run, but—

A louder knocking.

“Your Highness?”

Malissa exhaled. Better not to rush, she decided. The fact that the king was home changed nothing. She would have preferred to leave without having to see him again, but she wasn’t going to risk getting caught now that her freedom was finally within reach. She would stick with her plan and wait until night. Then she would slip away.

She went to the door and opened it. A pair of guards were waiting in the corridor. Tall men dressed in chainmail and the colors of Drachenval. They bowed when they saw her.

“Your Highness,” one of them said. “Dr. Jaeger sent us to fetch you. The king is returning. We are to escort you down to the courtyard to greet him.”

“Very well,” Malissa said, forcing a smile. “Lead the way.”

CHAPTER 29

Agreat feast was prepared in honor of the king’s return to Drachenval, as well as the queen’s pregnancy, which had not been properly celebrated during Wulfgang’s absence. It was, Malissa thought, a somewhat premature celebration. The king might have returned, but he had not returned victorious. As for his supposed heir, the child had not arrived yet—and by the time he did arrive, Malissa would be long gone.

Of course, she did not say any of those things out loud.

She just smiled as best she could and pretended to enjoy the festivities.

She was seated next to the king at a table on a raised platform at one end of Drachenval’s great hall. Several other longer tables were set out on the floor below, their tops laden with platters of steaming food, their seats filled with men eager to eat and drink themselves into a stupor. Their raucous voices rang throughout the great hall and mingled with the smells of roasted meat and freshly baked bread filling the air. Sputtering torches lined the stone walls, and their smoke gathered amid the high rafters like a cloud.

Malissa, however, barely even noticed anything that was going on around her. Her body was still at Drachenval, but her mind was already far, far away. She was thinking of the darkstone ring, of Beliath, and of the freedom they soon would share. The time was already approaching midnight, and she was eager to leave, but it was still too early to slip away unnoticed. The feast couldn’t go on forever, though. Sooner or later, the king would need to sleep, and when he did—

Suddenly, a voice roared out beside her.

“A demon!”

It was the king. He had been drinking heavily for several hours, and now he was drunker than Malissa had ever seen him before. He looked terrible. His face was gaunter than she remembered, the shape of his skull clearly visible beneath the skin, and his hair, which had been iron gray when he had departed a few months before, was now nearly white. He slammed his fist onto the table, rattling the nearby goblets and trays and snapping the queen out of her reverie.

“I’m telling you, that woman is in league with a demon! I’veseenit with my own two eyes!”

For a moment, Malissa thought he was talking about herself and Beliath, and her heart jumped into her throat. But after another moment, her tension eased as she realized who the king was really talking about—the Galadonian queen.

“She’s been calling upon dark forces to thwart us,” the king went on. “First, she swelled the Ibad River to block us from advancing. Then she sent hordes of rats to deplete our food supply. Lightning to set fire to half our siege engines. A pox to sap the strength of our warriors.”

“Those are all most unfortunate events,” said Dr. Jaeger, who was seated on the other side of the king. “But it does not mean dark forces are at play. I’m sure the tide of battle will soon turn in our favor.”

The king slammed the table again.

“Don’t contradict me, Jaeger! I’m telling you, that Galadonian bitch is in league with a demon, and I’ve seen the creature withmy own two eyes! Great, black wings like the wings of a dragon, and horns like the horns of a ram. The beast flew above us one night when the moon was full and scared the men out of their wits. A third of them fled, a third abandoned us to join the Galadonians, and the other third, well…”

He looked out over the banquet hall.

They had returned by sea, which explained why they had arrived home so much earlier than expected. They had used ships stolen from one of Wulfgang’s supposed allies, and that was the real reason Malissa had not received word of the king’s imminent arrival. No messages had been sent, for fear that the information might end up in the hands of the king’s former allies, whom he had betrayed.

Needless to say, the war against the Galadonians was not going well.

“Will the Galadonians besiege Drachenval?” Malissa asked.

Wulfgang gave her a lopsided smile and placed his hand on top of hers. The gesture was meant to be reassuring, but it only made Malissa’s skin crawl.

“Let them try! Even a demon cannot bring down the walls of Drachenval. This castle has belonged to my family for more than two centuries, and in that time, it has never once been breached by an enemy force.”

Malissa wanted to remind him that the reason the castle belonged to his family was that his ancestors had taken it by force to begin with—but she decided to keep that to herself.

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