Total pages in book: 182
Estimated words: 171176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 856(@200wpm)___ 685(@250wpm)___ 571(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 171176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 856(@200wpm)___ 685(@250wpm)___ 571(@300wpm)
“Fuckstains on wooden shoes, don’t challenge that dragon,” Hadriel murmured out the side of his mouth.
The queen’s eyes sparked fire. Weston took a step closer to me. The king leaned forward, and suddenly I wondered if I’d made a huge mistake.
Chapter 14
Aurelia
The dragon had a vicious gleam in her eyes, but I didn’t back down. I’d heal faster now.
“We sell that elixir at cost. In all kingdoms but yours, it is offered at that price. Yours, however, has a heavy tax applied to it that we have no control over. Your royals are price gouging, not us. As for the rest of your accusations?” She shrugged. “I’ll just have to make sure you aren’t able to tell on us. But know I have no qualms about breaking the rules of your kingdom to stop people from dying. If they weren’t so greedy, no one would be in this mess. Now it’s gone way too far.”
Learning about the cost took the wind out of me. They’d been trying to do the right thing, and were clearly the only people who had.
I sagged, not really caring about the rest. I’d thrown it in there to add weight to my claim, but it was clear their primary goal was to stop Granny’s drug trade. They were taking desperate measures, something I understood.
“I understand.” I felt defeated, but it served no purpose to challenge the dragon queen further. Doing so would certainly end with me thrown in a dungeon.
I sat back down.
The queen tilted her head, her confusion evident. “That’s it?” She looked at Weston, and then back to me. “No follow-up? No rage?”
“She’s not a dragon, love,” Hadriel said, still behind me. “She’s as balanced and easy as Weston usually is.”
“Not always,” Vemar offered.
“I’m almost disappointed,” the queen muttered, turning for her throne. “I wanted to see how fast she is.”
“Lightning,” Vemar said. “That little thing ran around me so fast I didn’t even know what was happening.”
“Calia,” the queen said.
The woman with the beautiful indigo eyes and white-blond hair reached beside her and came back up with my lantern. I frowned at it in confusion. I had no idea why this would be involved in the questioning. The product I took kicked in at that moment, though, making it almost hard to care.
“Where did you get this?” Calia asked, holding up the lantern.
“It was a gift.”
“From whom?”
“Granny. Like I told you, she knew I liked fairies. She brought me a fairy lantern.”
“Why did you travel with it?”
I frowned at her as I leaned back farther into my chair, getting more comfortable. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, enjoying the pleasant sensation.
“I said, why did you travel with it?”
I opened my eyes. “Why does anyone travel with a lantern? To see by. I didn’t have access to my animal until recently, remember? I had it with me when I was captured . . . in the dark.”
The queen’s eyebrows slowly lifted. The golden-eyed king continued to stare menacingly. Thankfully, the product made it much less terrifying.
“Yes, but why did you have a lantern that didn’t work?” Calia pushed, and I squinted an eye at her.
“It works if you know how to turn it on. It is magical. Like the fairies. Here, give it to me and I can show—”
She ran her finger along the top then the bottom in a practiced motion. The lantern flared to life, the color within perfectly matching her eyes.
I furrowed my brow. “Well, if you knew how to turn it on, why did you say it didn’t work?”
She turned it off before walking over to me and holding it out. “You do it.”
“She is really, really confused,” Hannon said, grinning. “And very relaxed. The latter must be the drugs.”
“Yes, Hannon, we could tell by her really, really confused expression and really, really laid-back posture,” the queen replied, and I grinned. It was like two siblings talking instead of a queen and her advisor. Surreal.
I took the lantern, repeated the process, and watched it flare to life.
I held it out to her, shrugging one shoulder. “I’ve dropped it a couple times, but it’s really resilient. I guess I won’t need it now, though. Too bad, kinda. I really enjoyed it. It’s so pretty.”
“I wasn’t able to turn it on,” Weston said.
Calia’s frown down at me was pronounced. “This lantern was a gift from the fairy kingdom court to the royals of the Red Lupine kingdom.”
“Oh,” I said on a release of breath, realizing what she was getting at. “It was stolen?”
“It appears so . . . unless their royals gave the lantern to Granny. Which, in all honesty, they might have. With the gift was a note telling the Red Lupine Kingdom that when they were worthy, they could make this lantern glow.”
She continued to stare down at me.