Page 19 of The Queens and the Kings
Britt laughed, but didn’t wave them off. “At least let us into the cave, will you? You’re not doing a good job of impressing Henrik.”
Britt was doing a thorough job of charming him herself, with her loose smile, relaxed posture, and genuinely deep joy. He’d never seen her so carefree.
Happy.
Truly, to the bones, happy.
Had he met anyonelike this before?
Not once.
Britt led him to the closest rock wall and peeled back a curtain of tightly-wound leaves. Darkness lurked beneath. Draguls squalled, fighting for a position on her neck. Denerfen fought and bested all of them, despite her breezy laugh and demand he share the space.
I get it,Henrik wanted to say to the dragul.Hold your ground. Keep her close.
As Britt passed within, the cave sprang to life. Golden light crawled from one wall to the next. Henrik leaned inside, studying the fragments of shining, golden metal embedded into the stone. The middle of the cave stood three hand spans above the crown of his head. He nudged aside dry grasses to find the ground also illuminated. Like walking inside a lit coal.
“It’s just like your undermountain.”
“Yes! Same rocks.”
“Is it gold or arcane?”
“Similar to gold, and infused with arcane.” Draguls cradled in the crook of her elbow, one of them electric pink. It blinked lazily at him. If draguls could smile, it would have.
“What’s it called?”
“Gyllene.”
“More arcane,” he whispered as the golden hues faded to low silver, then rose.
Britt’s head tilted all the way back, forcing Tesserdress to fly off her head. She studied the glimmering ceiling. “Arcane, yes. It’s been the most consistent lighting we’ve had, though. You were lucky to see the interior illuminated earlier today.”
Norr’s breath, was that only today? It felt like years had passed.
She ran her fingers along a particularly bright line. “For the most part, it works. Sometimes, it goes dark. We don’t know why. The Arcanist who put the arcane into the walls to illuminate the gyllene did it so long ago no one remembers who they were. We can’t fix it, so we live with it.”
“Interesting,” he murmured.
Studying his facade, she asked, “You really never knew about the arcane?”
He touched his thumb pad to a chunk of rock in the middle of a gyllene swirl. “I heard about it. Eventually. When I was fifteen or sixteen, in my classes. I didn’t see it until I started to do soldat missions. It’s . . . odd.”
“Very odd.”
Two draguls settled on her shoulders, where her water-drenched hair hung limp. Moisture darkened her dress and pants. Thankfully, the vapid air held more heat than cold. A bed poked out of the wall, covered with a wisp of a mattress similar to his in Stenberg. Rectangular windows peered out on the otherside of the mountain. Sunrise would bring a glorious overlook of the ocean.
“It’s cozy,” he said.
She scoffed. “Occasionally stinky, too. Rolf must have scraped the jord before the storm. We preserve every ounce of it.”
“You sleep here often?”
“Yes. When I don’t, Rolf does. He prefers it up here. He probably enjoyed having the space to himself while I was gone.”
“Are there more than two Keepers?”
“Notreally. A third one, Agneta, stays every now and then when she’s not midwifing on the islands. Mostly, it’s me and Rolf. He lives and breathes draguls. They make him happy, which I agree with. They offer a great escape from General Helsing or Malcolm when he’s being insufferable.” She added wryly, “Which is most of the time.”
