Chapter 10
The night is a strange one.
Upon our return, Soren does call for cake, and while a host of servants transform the interior of the tent into a bedchamber rivaling my own in the palace, we enjoy a delightful discussion on favorite desserts, with the king speaking with particular animation of a decadent pudding he once enjoyed in the distant kingdom of Gallent.
Once the servants leave, however, he quiets, and after bidding me a good night, spreads out on a rug beside the bed and says nothing more, leaving me mystified.
Until I remember how I undermined him in front of his entire kingdom.
Hiln arrives alone soon after and helps ready me for bed. She makes no comment on the king’s sleeping arrangements; she doesn’t even seem to notice him.
“Sleep,” she says when she leaves.
With a sinking heart, I traipse to the bed, crawl beneath the mound of blankets and furs, and lie there, silent and shivering against the desert chill.
“Are you cold?” the king asks some time after.
“I’m all right.”
He comes anyway, slipping under the covers and arching his back against mine.
I force the sharp breath that rises in my throat out between chattering teeth.
How can he possibly be so warm when the night is so cold?
I’m desperate to nestle into his warmth, but he holds himself rigid, as if he’d rather not touch me.
After everything that passed between us today, I thought…
I stop myself there.
You thought what? I demand of myself. That you had won his heart because he kissed you?
I lie there, eyes smarting from unshed tears, and wonder how I could be so foolish.
In the morning, the bed is warm, but Soren is back on the ground.
“Fell out of bed,” is his clumsy excuse.
He retreats behind a partition before I can respond and only emerges—now robed—after Rally and Ty arrive.
“Seltzen has arrived,” Rally says after a bow in my direction.
Soren focuses on cinching his robe. “I assumed.”
Ty, nudging his brother, brings his joined fingers to his mouth in question. Rally’s eyebrows lift as he glances over the tent.
“Have you had breakfast?” he asks Soren.
“No.”
The brothers exchange a look of incredulity, and when they then look to me, I glance aside. Soren starts for the entrance.
“I’ll be back shortly,” he says.
“What?” He means to leave me here? I throw the blankets back. “But I’m coming to watch.”
The king stops mid-stride. “You wish to watch me fight?”
“Of course I do.”
When his eyes soften on me, I harden myself. I’ll not be yanked back and forth like a child’s plaything. “Your subjects expect me, do they not?” I say in a flippant tone. “I’ll return to my drawing as soon as the bout is over.”
A shadow, fleeting but plain, passes over his features as he gazes back at me. “I’ll wait for you outside then,” he says.
And he strides out, his shoulders held tight.
Hiln returns once more, this time with her army of girls. They fix my hair in a loose braid and sheathe me in a flowing gown of cobalt blue, the shade an exact match of a shadowed reef.
“Did you choose this?” I ask Hiln as she packs up her styling tools.
“Of course.”
I marvel at her insight. Mother always says there’s power in attire for those who know how to wield it. Yesterday, Hiln dressed me to stand in defiance of my attackers, but today, I’ll stand as a symbol of the water to come, of relief.
“It’s brilliant,” I say.
The woman pats my cheek like a grandmother would. “I know.”
I nearly startle when I exit the tent and my newly-sworn guards materialize at my side.
“I hope you all slept well,” I say in an effort to hide my surprise. Did they sleep right outside my tent? Did they sleep at all?
How am I ever to grow accustomed to this?
“We slept excellently, Your Highness,” Yarl says with a smile.
On my other side, Fuller bows his head and says, “I hope you’ll forgive me, Your Highness, but I took the liberty of ensuring your cat—”
Now I do startle. My cat friend! I completely forgot to ask someone to feed him last night. I begin to turn back toward the tent—for what, I don’t know—and nearly barrel into Boyd.
“No need to worry, Your Highness,” he says. “Fuller made sure he was taken care of.”
“Did you?” I say, facing the man. “Thank you. I’m most grateful.”
He bows. “Of course. I’m happy to be of service.”
My brow creases with a sudden question. “How did you know I had…well, that there was a cat?” I’m not sure I can quite claim him as my own yet.
“Oh.” Fuller suddenly becomes intensely interested in his feet. “I am acquainted with one of your chambermaids. Cora?” Her name he says as if asking someone’s permission to speak it.
I withhold my smile. “I see. Well, I thank you and her.”
A prickle of awareness warms the side of my face, and when I glance that way, I find the king standing there, arms crossed, morning sun glinting off his horns as he studies me. Without a word, he turns to the open sand of The Pit, and we follow.
The crowd is already murmuring, and when the king walks out from amongst the cluster of tents, they loose a deafening cheer.
Alongside him, Rally and Ty each lift a fist into the air, and the crowd roars even louder.
My heart thunders at the sound, at the sheer number watching him cross the sand, yet Soren seems not to notice them or anyone else. His posture remains stiff. Withdrawn.
Worry trickles through my veins.
“Should we be concerned about the tents?” I ask the guards, my eyes on Soren’s back.
Yarl actually chuckles. “No, Your Highness.”
My spirits lift to hear him so confident. My mind, though, it plays through an alarming amount of scenarios as we move toward the distant wyverns.
What if the king is hurt?
What if he loses?
What if the wyverns try dragging me off to that foul Tallin?
What if what Soren and I shared yesterday meant nothing to him?
This last concern is laughably insignificant compared to the others, yet it clings to my heart with all the pain and persistence of a sea urchin spine.
I shake myself. This isn’t the time for sentimental musings. Soren is about to fight for his throne.
And my freedom.
There’s no reason to worry, I tell myself as I eye the waiting Seltzen. Soren easily won the last fight. The way he handled Seltzen in his human form should be assurance enough that he’ll win this one. Still, I don’t even know what a fully transformed wyvern looks like.
I don’t have to wait long to find out.
I expect some announcement, some proclamation of rules like a grappling match, but there are no words.
Seltzen—teeth bared, eyes locked onto Soren—flares his wings wide and drops low, veins standing out along the knotted muscles of his arms. His back arches.
The bones of his spine roil along his skin in a nauseating procession.
The mouth of his cheeky companion ticks into a satisfied smirk.
Then Seltzen begins to grow.
The neck lengthens, the legs thicken, the shifting bones of his back rise into jagged black ridges. My eyes climb up and up as his form grows taller, darker, as the wyvern emerges and blocks out the rising sun, as his widening shadow swallows us whole.
When the behemoth before us throws his head back and releases a guttural cry, my blood runs cold.