Page 38 of Enchanted Queen

I kept my attention on the vials. The queen evidently wasn’t going to say a word more.

“Goodnight,” I offered, increasing the magic so the whole vial was glowing rather vibrantly.

I am sorry,the queen offered weakly.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see her scoop up Amory to fly away. I supposed I should say something more, try to smooth things over with the dragon queen, but I found I just couldn’t.

I turned back to the vials and almost fell over entirely.

“Holy hell.” Dex came rushing over. “It worked.”

The queen had barely taken flight, but must have heard us as she turned around and came back.

“I can’t believe it,” I said more to the vials than anyone else. I lifted it, slowly spinning it. The water within the vial was clear. Crystal clear.

“It worked?” Amory asked after dismounting and coming right into my room to get a closer look.

“It worked.” I shook my head. It could have been that it was the final try in a long line of them which had finally done it, or it could have been the queen and Amory being here. I was thinking more so the latter. Coincidences when it came to magic were few and far between. “Maybe I needed to be closer to a source of your Enchantment for it to work.”

“May I?” Amory asked. I handed it over to her. “Of course.”

She walked it over to the queen, a silent conversation exchanging between them. The queen seemed to start vibrating, smoke rings puffing out of her nostrils.

Amory then walked the vial back to me and gave my arm a squeeze. “Thank you.”

I stayed where I was holding the vial, still half in shock that the water had actually changed, but I was growing more concerned about the dragon on my balcony. She looked . . . not well. “Esta? Queen Esta, I mean. Are you quite all right?”

And as her large head moved in my direction, one lone tear slipped out of her rather green eye.

No,was her simple answer before she scooped up Amory and flew into the night sky.

I noted the ring I had given her still lay at the ground at her feet. I walked back over and scooped it up.

Later that night after speaking with John to explain to him and the others what had happened, I laid in bed reliving the events which had turned the vial of water to clear, feeling real hope for the first time since I had arrived in Dra Skor. I had done it. I had turned one of the vials back.

We could change their water back. In doing so, would it free their Enchantment? There were still so many possibilities. This was a step in the correct direction, but it felt like it was one small step on a barely seen trail up a steep mountainside which was likely on fire.

I tried to shut my mind off and breathe deeply. For two days in a row now, we had made progress. I needed to take it where I could. Small steps were still steps after all. Consistency mattered. We hadn’t built the disloyal in one night. It had taken time. It had taken years.

But as I willed my eyes shut, all I could see was the one tear the dragon queen shed. That a creature so majestic and fierce would cry? It was criminal the dragon queen could feel that much pain.

CHAPTER13

“We will invite a hundred of Dra Skor citizens in their human forms, the queen, the advisors, and Kian and Savanna will also be present, of course.”

Amory was explaining the celebration ball for Kian and how it would all go down. I had Archer and John with me today. Archer was chatting in the corner with someone Amory trusted about our attire for the ball, so we weren’t overdressed but also did not insult anyone.

“That doesn’t seem entirely fair to the shifters,” I commented.

She let out a sigh. “I know.” She paused. “Trust they will celebrate in their own way though. The ballroom will be packed as it is with three dragons and Malachi and Whit. Unfortunately, we just cannot invite everyone. We don’t have the room.”

I couldn’t get the winged shifters flying around in a circle to celebrate out of my head. They hadn’t hesitated to celebrate Kian being alive. Yet most of them would be kept out of this party because of size issues. Space.

I hadn’t seen the queen since two nights before. We hadn’t changed another of the water vials yet, but being around the queen had been the thing that helped, and I hadn’t seen her again since. We were planning this ball first, and Amory thought that afterward, maybe we could bring the advisors in on what was truly going on with the water. Which I was all for; I thought some of the advisors suspected I was up to something by being there.

However, how honest we were could also get us killed. Would we tell them that I believed my father poisoned them? Or would Esta keep that bit to herself?

“So most of the people we will be inviting are close to the crown. You will meet the former king and queen. The advisors you have already met. And because Arava is simply the closest village to Halikaara, most of who we invite will presumably come from there.”

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