Page 131 of The Storm of the Empire

“We thought he was ill. We couldn’t figure out what was wrong with him. We even had Gran look at him,” Kiera said, inching closer to her Gran to elbow her.

Gran glanced between us. “They thought he needed a mind healer.”

“Won’t he?” The King narrowed his eyes. “Koen the Great lost himself to madness. Have we had another fae with foresight since his time?”

Everyone shook their heads, muttering that they didn’t believe so.

“What did he say? I only caught a few lines.” the King demanded.

“I didn’t quite hear him. I was too astonished,” Nyx said, lifting his shoulders. His face gave no hint of deception.

“Anyone else?” The King glared at all of us, and the meaning was clear. We had better speak up.

“We barely caught the end. Gran came to get us because she didn’t know what was going on.” Kiera said with such innocence even I almost believed her, and I had seen what happened with my own eyes.

“He looked a little like he was throwing a fit, so I went to fetch my granddaughter to help me,” Gran said indignantly. “His body contorted, and he was unintelligible.”

The King studied each of us individually and everyone held their tongues. It was clear he was not satisfied but he didn’t press. Instead, turning in a flourish and stalking from the healers’ wing.

Once the King departed we all took a stunned breath, but as two healers entered Kol’s room to perform their hourly checks everyone wordlessly departed to go about their day. We would need to discuss this further, but now was not the time. I waited until the healers left, to speak with Nyx privately.

“Why are we lying to the king?” I asked Nyx when I had him alone.

“I don’t know. He’s been taking everything so strongly I didn’t want to bring it to him before we knew what we were dealing with.” Nyx didn’t meet my eyes, but I couldn’t imagine what would trouble him this much him after many years working closely with the King.

“What did you want to meet about?” Jaxus asked.

“The high priest came to speak with the King this morning with very alarming news.” Nyx clipped his words, clearly being very careful about what he was saying. “One of their nurseries has been raided.”

We all exchanged looks.

“Which one?” Luka asked, flexing his jaw.

“One here, right in the First Kingdom.”

We all stared at Nyx.

“Who would want to do that?” I barely kept the tremble out of my voice.

“I don’t know, but the King wants me to quietly assemble a team to help locate the eggs. They don’t want to draw a lot of attention to it yet because they don’t want to create panic.” Nyx exhaled slowly. “So we will have to talk more about that.”

Faolan leaned over and whispered to Jaxus.

“Don’t keep secrets,” Gran said. “Share with the class.”

“Faolan was merely bringing up something from his childhood. A strange story told as an anecdote about the types of people who would steal eggs. I can tell the story later. It doesn’t matter. This is a very grave matter.”

Gran glanced around then pulled something out of her belt and threw it into the air. “Speak plainly. This shields us from prying ears for a few minutes.”

Kiera moved behind her to lock the door.

“Finally, someone with some sense. I need someone to tell me where we can set up blind spots to have these conversations and not here. Not with the King coming over here on every whim.”

“I agree.” Nyx looked at Kol, nostrils flaring.

“Especially if you think the king has been odd,” Gran said to Nyx. “And I want to hear more about that.”

“Later. We only have a few minutes, so we need to talk fast.” Nyx finally seemed at least partly himself again. “First, if the priests are on to us, we are going to have to play this very carefully.”

---