CHAPTER 56
Keenan
Keenan leaned against the narrow entrance to the forgotten servant passage as Queen Arisa whirled to face him, her jaw dropping a bit. After the evening he’d had, combined with an hour spent wriggling out of Kasumi’s spontaneous bonds, he was worn out.
“Is this a bad time to mention that I lost a baby dragon somewhere in the castle?” he added with a weary smile.
“Keenan!” Dodging around her mother, Sakura raced toward him. She stopped a few feet away and rubbed her left elbow. “Are you feeling better now?”
He couldn’t quite meet her eyes. “Depends on your definition. But my mind is my own again, if that’s what you mean.”
“Guards!” Queen Arisa yelled. She glared at Keenan. “What have you done with my husband, you miserable wretch?”
“I can’t disagree with her assessment,” Keenan said sadly. “Though not for the reasons she means. I’m so sorry, Sakura.”
The princess glanced over her shoulder and then back at him. “You need to leave. Mother intends to—”
“I know,” he said quietly. “I’ve been listening at this door for a while.”
While she gave him a distressed look, he turned to face the queen. “He should be watching over the prince. But we parted company…” He looked over his shoulder, trying to picture his route. “About five turns ago. So I can’t guarantee that he’s found him.”
“Lies!” the queen insisted. “If Banri were free and well, he would have come to ease my worries.”
Keenan lifted the shoulder that wasn’t propping him up. “If we’d realized that you knew something happened, maybe he would have. But I guessed that Oliver and Sakura would come to you since they expected the tinderbox to be in your possession, so he let me have this post.”
“But why would he be concerned about Hari?” the princess asked, wrinkling her forehead. “He’s everyone’s friend.”
The hallway entrance flew open, and a pair of guards burst into the room. Sakura rushed toward them. “Please return to your posts. It was a simple misunderstanding; all is well.”
When they didn’t move, she stepped next to her mother and whispered something in the queen’s ear. The queen didn’t look pleased, but she nodded. “You may return to the hallway. I will advise you when you are needed.”
Once the guards were gone, Sakura grabbed Keenan’s arm and tugged him farther into the room. “Come sit down. You look like you’re about to fall over.”
“I feel like I’m about to fall over,” he admitted as he stumbled forward. “Have you ever contorted your body for ten minutes at a time? I don’t recommend it.”
Her eyes flicked to Oliver. “No, but I have held my breath for the length of time required to travel a hundred feet up an underground stream.”
He sat up a little straighter. “What?”
“You mentioned the queen being enchanted,” Oliver cut in, stepping forward cautiously. “Why do you say that?”
“Kasumi said she enchanted the queen to let her trap me in a bargain.” Keenan let his head fall back against the chair’s padded back rest. “She also mentioned mercenaries sending her someone – me, by the sound if it. I’m pretty sure she’s responsible for the bandits that attacked us, the queen’s strange behavior… everything.”
The queen looked faintly insulted, but Sakura’s lips were parted in shock. “Kasumi? But why—why would she do such a thing?”
“Before she took Cherry to solve her problem of kidnapping the king before she meant to, she said something about fixing Ryuni. I don’t think she took her brother’s treatment well.”
“Dai?” Sakura whispered. Her right hand crept up to her elbow.
“Who?” Queen Arisa asked.
Sakura frowned. “Daichi. Hari’s former guard, the one you had reassigned to a ship hours after my prophecy was declared?”
The queen waved a dismissive hand. “I don’t remember all their names, Sakura dear. What would be the point? They’re always coming and going, and more common than the fox you dote on.”
“They are still people, Mother!” Sakura hissed. Her eyes darted over to Keenan. “They should be respected for that, even if they were not born to privilege.”
The queen sighed. “If it turns out that he is not responsible for your father’s disappearance, I will not stop you from marrying your commoner if you truly desire it. But we cannot overthrow our entire way of life simply because you ignored my teachings and entangled yourself with him.”
Keenan opened his mouth to point out the holes in her reasoning, but Sakura beat him to it.
“Your teachings? Do you mean the part where you spent a week forcing me to spend time with him? Or when you encouraged me to lead him on so he would do whatever I asked? Maybe the bit where you sent me after him with the key he needed to find the tinderbox?”
“To be fair,” Keenan interjected, even though being fair to the queen was the last thing he wanted to do, “I think she only did those things because Kasumi made her.”
“It would take a hefty bit of magic to force her to do those things.” Oliver’s voice was quiet. “More likely, Kasumi convinced the queen that it lined up with her own goals. It takes much less magic to overcome someone’s will that way.”
“Or when you taught me that I should consider certain types of people to be beneath my notice?” Sakura continued.
Her eyes blazed like Keenan had never seen.
“If you had not punished her brother for being a decent human being, Kasumi might not be plotting against us now. If I had comforted her in her grief instead of withdrawing because it was clearly hazardous for commoners to be my friends, perhaps she would not be persuaded that she needs to betray us to correct the kingdom.”
Keenan reached for her hand. “Her choices aren’t your fault, Sakura.”
“No,” she agreed, her eyes still bright with emotion. “But mine are. And if at any point in my life before the last couple of months, I had made the choice to reject my mother’s principles, perhaps Kasumi would have made different choices of her own.”
The queen didn’t look repentant at Sakura’s speech. If anything, she was scandalized. “The idea that you could be responsible for the reprehensible actions of a maid! You are a princess, my dear.”
Sakura shook her head. “That means I have more responsibility, not less.” She turned to Keenan. “You said you took the post here while my father sought out my brother. What is Kasumi planning, and how can we stop her?”
“Believe it or not, she didn’t fill me in on all her evil plans.” He gave her a tired smile, then levered himself to his feet. “But if I had to guess based on what she did say, it has to do with Cherry and her friends and family. And your family, of course.”
“And who is Cherry?” the queen demanded.
“The little dragon,” he said carelessly, even though he wanted to pound something every time he thought of her being under Kasumi’s control. “The one whose mother makes her look like a mouse in comparison.”
The queen’s face paled, and Keenan felt a small surge of satisfaction. Let her feel fear at what her policies had caused. He might not have met Sakura without them, but that hardly seemed like a reason to applaud them.
He turned back to the princess. “We don’t really have a plan. It’s hard to counter her when we don’t know what she’s planning. And since Cherry created an illusion that kept anyone from seeing the king marched through the halls, we could search the entire castle, and we might not find her.”
“Churippu has limits, just like any other being of magic,” Oliver supplied. “She can’t use her magic indefinitely.”
“But Kasumi also said that dragon parents might be able to feel the distress of their children from long distances,” Keenan sighed. “Even though Kasumi hasn’t met them, we might be short on time.”
“What a lovely thought,” Sakura said blandly. Folding her hands at her waist, she took a step toward the door. “We should locate my father and Hari so that we can formulate a strategy.”
Keenan caught her arm. She flinched, and he released her with a wince.
“It’s not safe to wander the halls right now.
” He gestured toward the door he’d entered through.
“The servant passages will take us anywhere in the castle. And the king said no one uses them anymore, so we can get there without being seen.”
Sakura considered him for only a moment before heading toward the hidden entrance. “Then let us be off.”
Oliver and Keenan moved to follow, but the queen straightened her back and peered down her nose at them. “I am not setting foot in that tiny passage intended for servants.”
Keenan gritted his teeth and opened his mouth to reply, but once again, Sakura beat him to it. “Then stay here, Mother. If my maid wishes to harm our family, it is probably best that we not gather in one place anyway.” Then she marched off to the door.
Keenan exchanged a look with Oliver before turning to the queen. “You might ask one of the guards to stand in here with you,” he told her. “No sense in making it too easy for Kasumi.”
“Did my father give you any indication where he expected to find Hari?” Sakura asked once the three of them were enclosed in the servants’ passage. “Or were you planning to wander through the entire castle until we find them?”
Keenan raised his hands. “I’m not a strategist. I showed you the passages, but I’m doing good to be standing right now. Can’t I stick with that?”
“I suppose,” she said, giving him a little smile before looking down the hall with a focused expression. “This would be an ideal time to have the way-finder. I could find them in a moment.”
“Is it too special for such a common task? Or do you need permission to borrow it?”
Her head slowly pivoted toward him. “I know where it is kept. But no one ever uses it. There must be some reason they didn’t use it to find me earlier.”
“Guess we’ll have to do it the hard way.” Keenan leaned against the wall. “Where do you think your brother would be at this time of night?”
But she didn’t appear to be listening. Her eyes looked distant, and she swiveled in another direction. “If finding the tinderbox was a worthy cause, so is recovering it and protecting my family.” The princess finally looked at him and then Oliver. “We’re going to pick up a little assistance.”
~
Despite having been unaware of their existence an hour ago, Sakura maneuvered quickly through the passages to a door that she claimed would take her to the way-finder. Keenan sat down next to the wall to wait, but he was barely down before she returned with her prize.
From there, she took them to recover his sword and dagger – again.
There wasn’t a direct entrance to this one, since the kings who didn’t want to see servants in their halls were smart enough to keep those same servants from having easy access to the armory.
But she assured them that she would return shortly when she slipped out of the passage.
And much to Keenan’s surprise, she did. With his beloved weapons in hand.
“Where to next?” he asked, fastening the belt around his waist even though he wasn’t sure he had the strength to wield anything.
Not that he was eager to use his blades around the princess again so soon, even if she didn’t flinch when she offered them to him.
“I assume you can find your father as easily as you did these. Or does it not work on people?”
Sakura wore an absent expression again. “It does,” she replied. “That’s how I found you in the mountains. And when Mother first gave it to me, it tried to show me Dai.”
He frowned. “But isn’t he—”
“Yes. I don’t understand it either.” She stared at the emerald in her hand. “And since I can find people…what if instead of using it to lead us to my father, I find Kasumi?”
“We wouldn’t have to wait for whatever she’s planning.” A grin spread across Keenan’s face, even as the weariness of the day bore down on his shoulders. “We could find her where she thinks she’s safe and stop her before she has the chance to hurt anybody.”
She nodded, but Oliver held up a hand. “Are you certain we shouldn’t visit the king first? He may not agree with sending his daughter in search of the enemy.”
“We don’t have time,” Sakura argued. “I’m the only one with recent experience using the way-finder.
My father will require time to convince, and adult dragons could be on the way.
Also, the longer we wait, the more time Kasumi has to discover that Keenan and my father escaped to warn us of her perfidy.
If we want our best chance at preventing whatever mischief she has planned, we need to act now. ”
Keenan leaned back against the wall, watching her with admiration. She truly was born to be queen, despite the outdated law. “I think Oliver’s point might have something to do with your lack of fighting experience.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “Why do you think I retrieved your swords?”
He barked a laugh and straightened. “Well, if your plan is to rely on fighters who will follow you with or without the king’s orders, I think I know where we can get a little more help.”