Page 43 of Earth Dragon
“Do not speak his name,” Ewan gritted out.
“Carpenter, was it?” Sir Patrick asked. “A refuge, if you ask me,” he added over Ewan’s shoulder to Shannon. “Because you would rather hide yourself away in safety than face the everyday dangers that come with being a monarch.”
Ewan took a step forward, fists clenching. “Shut your mouth,” he said. “I don’t care for your opinion.”
“You should,” Sir Patrick retorted. “I have spent a year forming it, and I can assure you it is rather glorious.”
“What of Lord Taggart at the moment of transference?” Ewan gritted out, increasingly aggravated that he had to rely on the knight in any sense of the word.
“I presume that your father will invite him, or the lord will make sure that he does. Just as he secured himself an invitation to the Bell of the Ball. Shannon was his obvious excuse, but he doesn’t wish to be near her—he wishes to be near you.”
“That’s why he wanted me to…” Shannon trailed off before she could finish, her eyes widening as she had clearly almost let a piece of information slip. Ewan kept himself from looking at her.
Her father had wanted her to do what? Seduce him?
Mission succeeded.
Ewan scoffed again, widening the gap between himself and Shannon by a few paces.
Sir Patrick rolled his eyes. “All right, are we done?” he asked them both. “Can we all focus on what’s at hand?”
“And what is it, exactly? Spell work? And I’m meant to simply… tell you when the moment of transference is happening so that you and Shannon can help stop this plot? It sounds to me that you two have been working together all along, that you’re trying to use Lord Taggart as a threat to pin the blame on so that I will tell you every last detail you need to complete your spell and render my bloodline undone,” Ewan retorted.
Sir Patrick raised his hands in soft surrender.
“And I cannot convince you otherwise,” Sir Patrick agreed. “But there is something that might.”
“What is it?” Ewan asked, ready to call on the nearest guards.
This is what happened when the people he trusted to do a job went off to have dinner. All guards would eat at their posts from now on.
“The earthmagic itself,” Sir Patrick said. “I know a spell that will allow you to access my memories through the magic in your blood. You will see what I have spent this last year pursuing. There will be no hiding, no lying. You will know it all.”
“I’ve never heard of such a spell,” Ewan said.
“Neither had I, until I went searching for some way to convince you to trust me,” Sir Patrick said, earnestness in his gaze that was difficult to believe was artifice. “Queen Maize offered it to me,” Sir Patrick added.
“Queen Maize?” Ewan asked, eyes going to Shannon’s before he could stop himself, her expression reflecting the surprise he felt. “You’ve told her?”
“I came from Aeris straight here,” he said. “I rode for two days to get here for the Bell of the Ball. I had a niggling feeling that something would happen on such an auspicious occasion. Your father has always had a knack for choosing dates that had a blessing attached to it for any official business.”
Ewan bristled at the familiarity the knight used in speaking about a king, and yet he could not deny that his father did enjoy the superstitions attached to certain dates. The Bell of the Ball was known for promoting new beginnings and starting afresh. It would make sense that wanted the moment of transference to happen with the shifting of the seasons.
“Did she say anything?” Ewan asked. “About the elemental magics?”
Sir Patrick met his gaze, held it, recognizing that the questions denoted the beginning of possible partnership. Ewan wasn’t certain he’d go that far but waited for the other’s reply.
“No,” Sir Patrick said. “Only that it won’t inhabit a vessel that is not ready to keep the balance it wishes to promote.”
“I do,” Ewan declared, a little too forcefully.
He glanced at Shannon, knowing how well she knew that he did not. Here she had it confirmed. Is this what you want? No… Perhaps it is not.
But he had wanted her. For a glorious handful of breaths, she had been all he had ever wanted.
And now he couldn’t stand the sight of her.
The anger flared through his veins. He wished he had never kissed her. What spirit had possessed him that would have brought him to forget all his concerns and simply follow some basic urge. Never again. Especially not when it put him in situations such as this one, having to rely on two known traitors for morsels of information his own prince-guard should have brought before him.
