Page 66 of The Lost Princess

I felt drawn to her but didn’t understand why.

Then the air erupted with a piercing scream.

I whipped around, eyes wide and wings flared at the gaggle of women before me. They all flinched at my sudden movement.

“Did you hear that? Who screamed?”

They glanced at each other nervously.

“We didn’t hear anything,” one volunteered.

“No one?” I pressed, indignant.

I shook my head and let the forest swallow me once more, visions of another age swimming in my head.

ChapterTwenty-One

KAIDA

Ididn’t want to wake up. I was trapped in a nightmare, and I had no one to blame but myself. I’d pushed Nasi away. I’d ruined any chance of a normal life with my father—No, Alfred. He was no father of mine. It still hurt to find out that the father figure I’d looked up to for so long was just another man trying to use me for his own gain.

Nasi.

He was the only one who’d ever truly cared.

I kept my eyes closed. I didn’t want anyone to know I was awake. The cold, metal floor of the cage was hard and unyielding under me so that hadn’t changed. A thick bundle of fabric had been jammed in my mouth and tied tightly around the back of my head. My inner draken raged at this treatment, wanting to do nothing more than spit or claw it out.

I resisted and kept still. Don’t panic. Don’t move.

It was stupid to show my hand early, but I’d panicked when I realized I was in my mother’s cage, surrounded by her blood. I’d tipped my hat prematurely and now I’d lost access to my voice magicks. Unless I could get the gag out.

My ears pricked, trying to get a feel for what was around me. I sank into my inner draken, embracing her and her instincts. The ambient sounds around me sharpened, and I worked at cataloging them one by one.

The first was shuffling boots on the marble floor, with slight ting of metal with every step.

Guards.How many? It sounded like just the one, but it echoed oddly. They must have moved me somewhere larger; perhaps the audience chambers? I hoped not.

My heart stopped as someone coughed next to me, followed by the soft rustling and scrape of metal on metal: chain mail.

I tallied it all up mentally: one guard patrolling ahead of me, two likely on either side of my cage.

The urge to sing and incapacitate them was overwhelming, to make them stare at me, doe-eyed and lost as I cajoled them into opening my cage and letting me out.

They’d thought of that though, hadn’t they? The cloth in my mouth had a bitter taste that I didn’t like.

Tears escaped from the corners of my eyes. I’d lost the one advantage I had. Without my voice what power did I have? I shouldn’t have screamed. It was stupid, and it was impulsive. I’d given into my draken instincts in a moment of weakness, and look where it got me!

No, that wasn’t right. I was frustrated with myself; that was true. I had to admit it here and now; I was heartbroken that I’d called for help, and no one had come.

Nasi had always come when I needed help.

No one had come.

I tried to rationalize it. Maybe he was too far away. Maybe he took my advice of trying to find his homeland and crossed the mountains to see what lay beyond. Another possibility occurred to me, tightening my throat as I pondered it: what if he had found his homeland and simply forgotten about me?

No. I couldn’t think like that. I couldn’t give up hope, and I certainly couldn’t blame Nasi for how things had turned out. I had no one to blame for my predicament but myself.

And Alfred, of course.

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