Chapter 8
Syla’s entire body ached, but she endured the discomfort and remained to direct the soldiers to clean out the shielder chamber so she could close the hidden passageway again.
She also asked them to carry her cousin, who’d remained unconscious throughout the event, to one of the infirmary rooms in the back of the castle.
As soon as one of the higher-ranking officers arrived and could take over, she would go up to help Teyla.
How her cousin had ended up down here, Syla didn’t know.
All she could guess was that the stormers had found her in the city and kidnapped her.
Where the higher-ranking officers were at the moment, she also didn’t know, but she assumed they’d been out in the harbor, overseeing attempts to take down the dragon ship.
Even if that vessel had held the two tribal leaders, it hadn’t been the problem.
It and its fireworks display had been a distraction, the same as Vorik.
Thinking of him made Syla grimace, a conflicted mishmash of feelings tangling inside her.
In the throne room, he’d cheerfully served his purpose, keeping her busy while trying to extract information from her, but in the tunnel outside the shielder chamber, he’d delayed his own side and deliberately given her a heads-up that Jhiton was coming.
And then he’d stood in front of the general to keep him from killing her or capturing her or whatever the man had planned.
“My death probably.” She well remembered Jhiton's icy tone and the granite set of his jaw.
Fel, who’d been helping the soldiers drag out bodies, despite his own injuries, looked over at her.
“I’m just thinking about how we’re lucky to have survived that.” Syla touched her thigh. She’d removed the shard of rock and stopped the bleeding but hadn’t yet healed the wound fully. Later.
“Yes.”
“While acknowledging that you would have preferred it if I’d stayed in the castle.” She smiled apologetically at him, though she would make the same decision again.
She looked around the shielder chamber to see if the stormers had managed to sabotage anything before she’d arrived. Reminded of the man who’d been plucking up scrolls, she headed for the nook that had held them.
“I would have preferred that, yes.” Fel straightened, winced, and rubbed his lower back. “But I think the stormers might have gotten the shielder if you hadn’t been here.”
“I think so too. I had no idea they had Teyla. Her brother didn’t seem to know she’d been kidnapped.”
“I also think the stormers would have gotten me if you hadn’t been here.” Fel gazed thoughtfully at her. “And your… suborned captain.”
“He’s not that.”
If only he were. Not for the first time, Syla wished Vorik were on her side, that he could be an ally.
“He defied his general to keep you alive,” Fel said.
“It’s complicated.” She smiled and wished she’d been able to get some baked goods into Vorik’s hands. Mostly for him, but maybe he would have shared a cobbler with General Jhiton and the sweet would have prompted the man to become less villainous for a time.
Syla swept her hand through the nook. It was partially hidden by a sarcophagus so she checked it twice. The tools her aunt had brought back were still there, appearing innocuous and plain to one who couldn’t sense their magic. The scrolls, however, were gone. She slumped.
“I think they got the schematics and that list of components Aunt Tibby was talking about,” Syla admitted.
“For the shielders?”
“Yes, everything Aunt Tibby has been studying.”
“The scrolls she began studying while we were all supposed to be pushing the Harvest Island shielder miles to that cove.”
“Yes, those are they. She found them fascinating.”
“I recall.” Fel rubbed his back again, probably remembering that he’d done the majority of pushing on that trek.
Syla bent forward and gripped her knees. “I hope Aunt Tibby made copies of the scrolls.”
A soldier peeked into the chamber and looked around for more bodies, but the last of the dead had been removed.
Only one stormer had fallen while many Kingdom soldiers would not see another dawn.
Syla regretted sacrificing them. Or rather being the reason they’d sacrificed themselves. She and the shielder.
“Corporal, thank you for your help.” She straightened and faced him. “Will you have someone get Aunt—uhm, Lady Tibaytha and bring her to the infirmary?”
Hopefully, Tibby was staying in the room she’d taken in the castle and hadn’t gone all the way back to the farm. As soon as possible, Syla needed to know if she had copies of the scrolls. If not…
What? She would stage an infiltration of whatever cave the Sixteen Talons were headquartered in and steal them back? She would politely ask Vorik if he would steal them back? She knew he wouldn’t. Instead, he would talk to her about peripheral vision and juggling.
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“Thank you.” Syla waved for Fel to leave the chamber with her, then closed the hidden door before they headed through the tunnels.
Later, she would have to find a new resting place for the shielder or booby-trap this one again.
“Both,” she murmured, thinking of all the relatives she’d invited to meet her in the castle.
Were any more missing? She would have to check on that too. “I want a vacation, Fel.”
“I was supposed to retire this week,” he said.
“The ultimate vacation.”
“It was supposed to be.”
“What were you going to do?”
“Visit my mother and cousins in Promontory Peak. Fish. Lie in the sun. Walk nude on the beach. Well. Hobble nude on the beach. I don’t know if I’ll ever recover from all my injuries, but I had plans to try.”
Syla didn’t remark on the imagery that popped into her mind of her nearly six-and-a-half-foot-tall scarred bodyguard limping naked as he collected agates and sand coins. “I believe you would be bored after two weeks of that. Think how much more exciting your life protecting me is.”
“I’ve nearly been killed half a dozen times this month. Maybe a dozen.”
“Exciting,” she assured him as they climbed the stairs toward the theater.
The domesticated dragons are again attacking healers, a female voice boomed into Syla’s mind. Wreylith.
Syla blinked in surprise and looked up, though she of course couldn’t see the sky through the multiple ceilings above her head. She sensed, however, from the telepathic origins of the voice that the dragon was close. Perhaps directly overhead, skimming above the sky shield.
They vex you and this island instead of taking the opportunity to hunt on the now-exposed Island of Eliok. Were they wild dragons, they would know to enjoy such activities instead of servilely obeying the mandates of puny humans.
I think they’re idiots too, Syla replied.
Yes. I have brought you meat.
Uhm, meat?
A haunch of sumptuous eliok. As a powerful dragon who has seen many centuries, I neither need nor want the advice of humans on where to seek game, but I did find many delicious prey in the trees near the mushrooms that you described.
So you’re appreciative.
I have brought you meat. Since the haunch is neither a dragon nor other winged predator, it may fall through your sky shield, but I do not wish for it to land in the dirt and be sullied.
You want me to run outside and… catch it? Syla imagined a huge bloody, furry eliok leg plummeting from the sky and smashing her to the ground.
Prepare a proper receptacle, and I will release the haunch onto it.
Now, Syla imagined herself holding out a platter and trying to catch the meat as it landed, spattering gristle and blood onto her dress.
How did one politely refuse a gift from a dragon?
Maybe she would ask Vorik later, but she had a feeling it was unwise to turn down presents from beings capable of breathing fire.
I’ve family that I need to heal, but let me see if I can send someone from the kitchen staff to lay out a tarp in the courtyard. Will that suffice?
If you trust your underlings with something as valuable as eliok meat. I would 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.