Page 28 of Red Dragon
If you trust your underlings with something as valuable as eliok meat.Iwould not.
I have excellent underlings.Syla thought of General Dolok and almost laughed. Though the castle staff had humored her so far when she made requests, she doubted she had even the cooks’ and maids’ loyalty.
At some point, she needed to decide if she wanted to attempt to claim the throne and, if so, make serious plans to thwart the competition. She would happily have stepped aside for another capable family member, but if her cousin Relvin was who sprang forward and wanted to rule… He wasn’t who came to mind when she envisioned someone capable. Ambitious, maybe. She also wouldn’t step aside and hand the Kingdom over to a Royal Fleet or Royal Protector officer to impose a military dictatorship or junta. Her people were mostly fishers and farmers; they didn’t want to be ordered around by troops marching through the streets.
“Your Highness?” Fel stopped at the theater entrance and looked back at her.
Musing and conversing, Syla had fallen behind and hurried to clamber off the stage and catch up.
“Sorry. I’m thinking.” She thought about mentioning Wreylith and seeing if Fel wanted to head to the courtyard with an empty tray, but he doubtless believed his duty was at her side, wielding a mace, not a meat platter.
“Not about Captain Vorik, I hope.”
“Only in that I might ask him for advice on dragons the next time I see him.”
“Are you planning to do that? See him again?” Fel squinted at her.
By now, he had to trust that she wouldn’t betray the Kingdom because of her feelings for Vorik, but he also had no reason to love the rider captain. Every time they’d tangled, Vorik had disarmed him and forced him to his knees or against a wall.
“I’m not, no, but he keeps appearing.”
“I’ve noticed.” Fel bared his teeth.
No, there was no love lost between those two.
In the back of the castle keep lay narrower hallways with sleeping quarters for the staff, storage areas, and a small infirmary. Syla entered one of the rooms and bared her own teeth when she found not only Teyla, lying in a bed and holding a compress to the side of her head, but Cousin Relvin.
Speaking of the competition that Syla needed to thwart…
Relvin’s focus was on Teyla as he alternated frowning and pursing his lips at her. “I can’t believe you wandered off and let yourself be captured by stormers.”
“I didn’tletmyself be captured.” Teyla lowered the compress and tucked her shoulder-length brown hair behind her ear, revealing a cut along her jaw to go with what had to be a contusion on her head.
Syla set her spectacles on a table beside her bed.
“Lieutenant Vanbarik said they must have toted you over their shoulders down into the tunnels and ordered you to apply your moon-mark to open the secret passage to the hidden shielder chamber.” Relvin raised his eyebrows toward Syla. Wanting verification?
Syla had no idea how the stormers had found and apprehended her cousin.
“Lieutenant Vanbarik wasn’t there,” Teyla snapped, lowering the compress with a pained grimace. She needed a healer, not a lecture. “Iwasn’t even there for most of it. Not with awareness.”
Teyla shifted into a sitting position and grimaced again, though the second gesture might have been less due to physical discomfort and more the awareness that she’d been used against the Kingdom.
“Two men in black leathers leaped out at me in plain sight,” Teyla said. “It was so unexpected. I did yell for help and try to fight them off, but they were so fast that I barely blurted a word before they dragged me into an alley, flattened me against a wall, and put a damp cloth against my face until whatever was in it caused me to lose consciousness. I didn’t expect— I mean, I wouldn’t have thought— The sky shield is back up, right? I didn’t think there would be danger in the capital.”
“Unfortunately,” Syla said, “the sky shield only keeps out aerial predators, not humans.”
Teyla slumped back against her pillow. “I know, but the military… I’d thought they’d reestablished order, especially in the core of the capital. I was near Moon Watch Museum—I’d heard that it and the temple and everything else on that block had been destroyed and wanted to see if there’s any hope for rebuilding. I always loved that museum. Do you remember when we used to play there as children?”
Syla, a couple of years older than Teyla, said, “I remember that I was training to become a healer, and you sneaked into the temple to steal antiques from the collection I’d recently started, thanks to a few foundational gift pieces from Uncle Savarik. As I recall, you claimed that such wondrous items should be on display in a museum instead of tucked away in my room.”
“I wasn’t wrong. Curator Landol praised me for being a conscientious contributor to the museum at such a young age.”
“You stole my tonsil guillotine.”
“You had it stuffed in a drawer and barely knew it existed. Iframedit and hung it in a room full of ancient torture implements.”
“It’s a medical instrument.”
