Chapter Two
Manny ran into the solar and bounced around at Drake’s feet. Elda watched with an amused expression because the gnome usually impatiently waited for the prince to look down at him before speaking, even when he was really excited about what he wanted to say.
“Yes, Manny?” Drake asked, peering down.
“Falls awake!” the gnome said, smiling. “Water coming!”
“I don’t hear it.”
“Small water. Starting now. Come, come!”
“Alright.”
Taking Elda’s hand, Drake led her out of the front of the castle, and they could immediately see the space in front of the platform was brighter, even though a wall of rock was still blocking their ability to reach the valley on the other side.
However, looking up, there was a part of the rock wall on the right side of the cavern that had a wide gouge in it.
The sound of water, almost like a stream, began to trickle into the cavern just before water droplets started to fall over the side of a dark opening near the ceiling.
Then all at once, a gush of water burst out and fell down, disappearing into a hole in the floor that Elda hadn’t even known was there.
“It’s beautiful!” she said, grabbing Drake’s arm and leaning against him.
“We use it for security, actually.”
“A waterfall?”
“The entrance to the kingdom from the Deadlands and the desert trails is back there. The waterfall is enchanted. You have to travel through the falls in order to enter. Here, let me show you.”
Elda let Drake lead her up a stone path toward the falls, which wound behind it and she realized that a smaller waterfall actually crossed the path in front of them.
She grabbed hold of her crown so it wouldn’t fall from her head, but when they walked beneath the water, she felt a gentle whisper across her skin and nothing more.
Emerging on the other side, she was still dry. Except…
“Why is my crown so heavy?” she asked, looking up and taking it down off her head. It was larger than it should be, but she couldn’t see it very well in the torch lit walkway.
“I don’t know,” Drake replied, taking it from her.
They left the way they came, heading back toward the platform and Elda giggled when the waterfall brushed over her again.
She understood what Drake meant by the waterfall being enchanted, even though she wasn’t sure how it was used for security.
Once they reached the platform again, she got her answer.
“That’s not my crown!” Elda gasped. “What happened to it?”
“It’s the same crown, Elda,” Drake replied, shaking his head. “The waterfall reveals any charms or enchantments someone might try to use to sneak into Athera.”
“Wow.” She looked at the changed crown and frowned. “So my crown had been enchanted?”
“It appears so.”
“Why in the realm would someone do that?” She took the crown in question and studied it. It was larger, heavier, and covered in many more stones than her own had been. “I’ve seen this crown before. It belonged to someone. A king. The King of Taten!”
“A king?” Drake growled. “Just how many royal men am I going to have to murder for your hand?”
“No, it’s nothing like that. Sure, he was quite handsome,” she said, then closed her mouth when the prince’s chest began to rumble. “I mean to say that he was never interested in me. He arrived in Carroway with another princess. The same one that he recently married, in fact.”
“Mmmm... Fine.”
“It’s just so strange,” Elda said. “Do you think the king took my crown? My real one?”
“I don’t know.” Drake took the crown and looked it over. “This is a very fine crown. It reminds me of my father’s crown, the king’s crown. The one I was supposed to inherit but was lost with him. I wonder who made it?”
Elda knew the answer to that, explaining how Taten refined metals and jewels from Valerian mines, so it’s likely that Taten made its own crowns, including this one.
When they went back inside the castle, she placed the crown on the table in the solar.
It was too heavy and large to wear now, and she had no idea what she was going to do with it.
The entire thing was an odd problem for another day.
~*~
Lukas slid down from his horse and looked around the town they had just arrived in.
“Finally!” Willow said, jumping down from the other horse. The nymph rubbed her rear and cringed. “Horse riding is hard on the bottom.”
“Yes, it is,” Sage agreed, laughing. “Especially, in these clothes.”
“I’ll stable the horses and rent rooms,” Lukas said, taking the reins from Sage and walking away before the fairy could argue.
He didn’t want her to ask—yet again—if he was alright.
He’d just have to lie—yet again—and it felt wrong to lie to her.
But he wasn’t alright and he still didn’t know how to handle it.
Learning from the nymph that Sage, his friend since childhood, was apparently in love with him, still hadn’t fully sunk in.
Thankfully, the women had been able to keep up a conversation without much input from him as they grew closer to the mountain range they were aiming for. According to the map, this was their last town until they reached Tessera Pass and the entrance to the Blackfoot Mountains.
“Can we get an ale again?” Willow asked when he returned, nodding toward the tavern.
Light and music spilled out of the tavern windows into the darkened street. They had arrived later in the evening than they’d hoped to, and the tavern appeared to already be bustling.
“Sure,” Lukas said. “I won’t be long.”
He went into the inn and the innkeeper, an older woman, was sweeping up. She put down the broom and hurried over when she saw him.
“Two rooms, please,” Lukas said.
“Only have one tonight,” she replied.
“How many beds?”
“One, but it’s large.”
“That’s fine,” he said, frowning but handing over enough coins for the night. It certainly wasn’t ideal, but they would have to make do. None of them wanted to sleep on the hard ground tonight. He took the key when she slid it over. “Thank you.”
Stepping outside, he followed the fairy and nymph across the street, trying desperately not to look at Sage’s legs or ass, but failing miserably.
This madness could not continue. He was a prince for heaven’s sake.
He should be able to admire a fine woman openly, yet he couldn’t bring himself to admit his attraction to the fairy even to himself, let alone her.
However, when he entered the tavern, all thoughts of Sage, her legs, or her ass fled his mind. Instead, he jerked to a halt beside Sage, who also stopped to stare at the stage on the other side of the room. What he saw left him both speechless and baffled.
“Is that… Baz?” Sage gaped. “And the princess? Angelina?”
Sure enough, his missing older brother, Prince Sebastian, and the younger Carroway princess were not, in fact, missing any longer.
They were right there in front of them, both up on the stage.
Baz was playing the lute, and Angelina was dressed in a rather revealing outfit and singing, quite skillfully.
The song she sang was a popular tavern tune that Lukas had heard often, and he’d seen his brother play it many times in Orious. Only, they were very far from home.
“What in the absolute hell is going on here?” Lukas barked. But of course, neither Baz nor the princess could hear him over the loud and raucous crowd.
In fact, the moment the song ended, the pair immediately began another one.
This song’s lewd lyrics made Lukas’ mouth drop open and Sage clamped a hand over her own to suppress a laugh.
Even above the shock of finding his brother and the princess here in a random town tavern, the song was certainly not one he would expect a princess from Carroway to know.
The people in the tavern loved the tune, cheering loudly when Angelina turned to Baz with a flirty smile and blew him a kiss. To Lukas’ surprise, his brother then took his hand off the lute and gave Angelina’s bottom a playful slap, which was followed by whistles from the crowd.
What in the realm?
These two were supposed to be missing. Abducted from the castle gardens and teleported somewhere else in the realm and their disappearance was the entire reason Lukas and Sage had even escaped Carroway to come find them.
Yet, the pair were here, performing on a stage as if there wasn’t a kingdom in disarray because they were gone.
“Unbelievable,” Lukas mumbled.
At the end of this song, Baz handed his instrument to a man standing nearby and pulled a laughing Angelina into his arms, dipping her down and taking her mouth in a fiery kiss, right there in front of everyone.
The tavern went wild with applause and Lukas felt as if he was either dreaming or losing his mind.
When the pair bowed and left the stage, a group of musicians took their place, playing a song that had people pairing off to dance.
Lukas immediately started toward his older brother, intending to first hug him and then murder him right after that.
However, when he found the couple standing near the tavern counter, in a heated embrace, he could only stop and stare at them.
“Ahem!” Lukas said, crossing his arms. He had to say it again to get the attention of the kissing couple. “Ahem! Sebastian!”
“Lukas!” Baz said with a smile, noticing his brother. Then when recognition actually hit, Baz’s smile dropped and he pushed the princess behind him. “Luk? Is that really you?”
“Oh, it’s really me, alright. Standing here in a tavern in the middle of the realm, watching my brother kiss the face off a woman he is not betrothed to!”
“It’s not what it looks like.”
Lukas felt his patience begin to snap and then a wave of calm washed over him. Looking down he realized Sage had her hand on his arm. She must be using her fairy power on him, and it was helping just enough that he no longer wanted to murder his brother, but he still might punch the jackass.
“Maybe we should take this outside,” Sage said, giving Lukas a stern glare.
“Fine. Whatever.” Grumbling under his breath, he marched out of the tavern and soon found himself standing with the others in a circle on the street. “What in the hell, Sebastian!”
“Like I said,” Baz replied, calmly, “it’s not what it looks like.”
“Really?” Lukas balked. “Because it looks like we were worried sick about you, escaped from Carroway to come find you, and then when we do, you’re having the time of your life! Singing and laughing and kissing—”
“Luk,” Baz said through clenched teeth. “May I have a word with you?”
“Is that—”
“Now.”
Lukas rolled his eyes but followed his brother over to the corner of the tavern and then proceeded to punch Baz in the shoulder, following with, “That’s what you get for making me worry about your dumb ass!”
His brother retaliated with a punch in the chest and hissed, “What is the matter with you? You never get angry like this. Ever!”
“I’m not angry.” When Baz lifted his brow, Lukas sighed. “Fine. I’m struggling with something but it’s entirely unrelated to what you and the princess were just doing in that tavern!”
“Can you act like a respectable adult long enough to let us explain?”
“Ugh.” He ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “Fine. Let’s go.”
Lukas followed Baz back over to where the women were standing and watching them, cautiously.
It was then that he realized he may have allowed his temper to get the better of him.
It wasn’t typical for him. He was always the calm one.
The brother that was hardly bothered by anything.
His reaction was concerning but a problem for another time.
Baz led them into the inn across the street and to a table in the back of the empty room.
The innkeeper was nowhere to be found, which was probably for the best because the wild story Baz told about being teleported from the gardens in Carroway to the middle of the forest, meeting gypsies, finding Elda, and then discovering Elda’s new prince was a dragon, would have made anyone listening nearby think they were all insane.