“Dragons don’t care about male or female.”
“But ogres are different. Only witches and the Queen of the Ogres get treated with respect around here.”
Father rushed over, arms wide and grinning like a maniac. “You broke the spell.”
I held out my hand, and he gave me a gentle shake and grinned at the others. “Good job, boys!”
“Thank you, Your Highness!” Niger stepped forward, bowed, and offered his hand. “Thank you for everything!”
He was probably referring to Father’s achievements as a half-ogre. Because of Father, Aunt Cendrilla had repealed the laws preventing those with human blood from inheriting the lands and titles of Noble Houses. He was also the first half-ogre to marry the Queen of Steppe, and had helped set up the dragon sanctuary, which was the only institution that offered employment to male ogres with human fathers.
Father gave Niger a handshake that turned his knuckles white. “You are one of the Griffon brothers?”
“Yes, sir!”
Father placed an arm around my shoulder and steered me through the palace gates. Niger walked on his other side, recounting the duel that had gotten me expelled.
A whimper sounded from behind us. I turned to find Evolene ducking behind Stafford. My eyes widened. I’d forgotten that her father might have told her of all the torments he’d endured, both as a serf on the Bluebeard estate, and as Father’s slave, when he’d killed the giant.
I shook my head. Father would probably have forgotten about her already. He was too busy running the country and dealing with the chaos King Magnar had wrought.
“I’ll stay out here,” said Stafford. He shielded Evolene from Father’s notice.
My brows rose. The Stafford from the week before would have rushed after Father and barraged him with questions about Aunt Cendrilla and his Sword of Lightning. I supposed he thought protecting Evolene was more important than meeting royalty.
“Anyone who can’t help their mate isn’t worth their scales,” said Fyrian.
I continued across the gardens with Father, Niger, and Captain Leo. Gravel crunched underfoot, and the scents of lavender, sage, and rosemary carried in the breeze. “What are you talking about? He’s only got a crush.”
“It’s true love,” she said. “A dragon knows these things. Just like with you and Magnar.”
“Don’t be ridiculous!”
She gave me a mental shrug. “It’s not me who loves him.”
“You need to work on your sense of humor. I’d rather be stuck in a room with king hornets and giant locusts than spend a moment making polite conversation with King Magnar.”
I ignored her reply and focused on what Niger was telling Father. He’d just gotten to the point where I’d reduced King Magnar’s magically enhanced leg and forced him to hobble about the dueling ring. Father roared with laughter and squeezed me to his side.
At the first pause in the conversation, I said, “We need to search the stables. Whoever took the eggs placed them in the royal carriage. That’s the only thing that the witches wouldn’t have searched.”
Father stroked his beard. “Very well.”
Instead of entering the palace through the double doors, we walked around the building. We passed yards of low shrubs. As only the dimmest of floor lanterns lit the path, I only caught a few glimpses of lavender shrubs in bloom and white flowers which might have been yarrow. The wind rustled the leaves from the grove of orange trees by the side doors.
“How could King Magnar’s witches think they would infiltrate the palace’s wards?” asked Father.
“They timed the activation of that artifact for when most witches wouldn’t be wearing protections against fairy magic. I’m guessing that they wanted all the witches too distracted with fighting each other so they could break through the wards unnoticed.”
The royal stables were set in a building around the back of the compound. Unlike the palace, it consisted of a single dome instead of several domed structures. Ogre grooms milling around the arched entrance bowed at Father. We stepped inside to a huge, round courtyard of sandstone. Around it were doorways into various animal stalls.
A creature poked its head out from a stall. I would have said it was a mammoth, except it had two straight tusks under its trunk in addition to the curved tusks on the side.
“Your Highness!” An ogre with prominent, blunt teeth rushed up to Father. He wore his glossy, chestnut-brown hair in a thick braid that reached the belt of his charcoal-gray breeches. “What brings you to the stables at this hour?”
“We need to see the official royal carriage,” he replied.
“The large one?” asked the groom.
“Aye.”
The Witch General and her lieutenants flew in, and my heart sank. If I was wrong about the location of those eggs, she’d likely say something cutting.
“Weren’t you listening to his reaction to the story about your duel?” asked Fyrian. “He was really proud of you.”
I shrugged. His attention didn’t count with Aunt Cendrilla not around to distract him. After all, I was no longer the lonely girl who pined for his attention.
The groom bowed and led us through a set of double doors into a chamber consisting of rows of alcoves holding different types of vehicles. Somewhere around the middle was the black carriage with its bat wings folded onto its roof.
“We need to check its boot,” I said.
Father inclined his head toward the latecomers. “Witch General?”
Her lieutenant flew ahead and opened all the carriage’s doors with her magic. She stuck her staff inside the boot, filling it with white light. Father walked ahead to watch her progress, and Niger went alongside him.
I chewed my bottom lip, trying to stave off the dragon moths flapping in my stomach. The Witch General stood by my side with her hands on her hips. It was hard to tell whether she was readying herself to chastise me for being wrong.
The lieutenant turned off her magic. “There’s nothing in the boot.”
“What about the bonnet?” I asked.
She turned to the Witch General, who gave her a nod of authorization.
My pulse pounded in my eardrums, drowning out the sounds of Father and Niger’s conversation. Would I really need to hide in the United Kingdom of Seven, as Master Fosco had suggested, if I couldn’t find the eggs? And what would Uncle Armin say when he discovered that my disguise had been mistaken for one of the twins?
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I briefly wondered if Father was friends with their older brother, Albens, the mage who had been taught by Aunt Cendrilla herself.
The lieutenant walked around to the front of the carriage, opened the bonnet door luggage space. She performed the same magical search as before, but this time, it stretched out for what felt like an hour.
Eventually, she stepped away from the carriage and turned to the Witch General. “It’s empty.”
Father and Niger turned to me, both furrowing their brows with the same quizzical expression. The Witch General tilted her head, fixing me with her hard glare.
A tight band wound around my chest, constricting my breathing and making me feel light-headed. “They have to be there!”
“I checked.” The lieutenant shrugged. “There’s no sign of dragon eggs.”
“Did you check for fairy magic?”
She didn’t reply.
“Do it,” said the Witch General.
I stepped forward, but the Witch General grabbed my arm. “Don’t get in the way of her enchantment.”
“Oh, of course.” I shook my head. Even if I couldn’t express it like Aunt Cendrilla, I still had fairy magic.
The lieutenant walked backward, putting space between herself and the entire carriage. Then she raised her staff and bathed it in white light. Her eyes widened. “General, I’ve found something!”
“Report!” snapped the older witch.
“Two separate traces of non-regulation magic belonging to the same bloodline…”
I held my breath, waiting for her to confirm that the witches had used a fairy artifact to hide the eggs.
“Anything else?”
“Yes, but it’s hard to tell whether it belongs to Her Majesty’s offspring or not.”
The Witch General and her lieutenant crossed the space to join their colleague. Both witches added their power to the first spell, filling the entire chamber with light.
Father and Niger looked at me, but I couldn’t meet their gazes. Ninety minutes had passed since I had made an unrealistic promise to the sleeping dragons. I’d run out of ideas, except for invading the Savannah Empire in search for the eggs. Swallowing hard, I sent out a silent plea to whoever was listening that the eggs were still in the carriage, concealed under strong magic.
When the witches turned off their power, I stumbled forward on legs that felt as shaky as a fawn’s. “D-did you find anything.”
“Yes,” said the Witch General. “The magic of an unfamiliar fairy.”
“Vanus?” asked Father.
She shook her head. “This individual’s magic was more… unsettling.”
“An artifact?” I asked.
“It could be,” she said. “You were right about the eggs, though.”
My shoulder muscles relaxed, and I glanced at the carriage. “You’ve found them?”
One of the lieutenants opened the passenger door, stepped inside, and knelt at the seat. She lifted the cushion, revealing more storage space.
My heart leaped. “What did you find?”
“Whoever hid the eggs in the royal carriage has already taken them away. But they left their magic on the seat.”
“Anything else?”
“Yes.” She reached inside and pulled out a broken piece of eggshell.
Chapter 22
The Witch General raised her staff and frowned over the piece of eggshell. My own stomach twisted with a combination of guilt and nausea. If I’d arrived earlier, the thief wouldn’t have damaged one of the eggs.
“Our eggs are indestructible,” said Fyrian. “That one probably hatched on its own.”
“Then there’s a hungry hatchling out there being held prisoner!”
“Yes.” The sadness in her voice made my heart splinter.
Shoulders tensing, I stared from Father to the Witch General, wondering what they were thinking about the eggs. Would they blame me for not mentioning my theory the time I’d spoken to them through the enchanted mirror? I shook my head. This was no time for self-pity. A vulnerable baby dragon was out there, being transported across the country to people who knew nothing about dragons!
“New hatchlings don’t open their eyes for the first month,” said Fyrian. “They need a special mashed feed within a few hours of hatching, or they’ll die.”
I was about to grab Niger and rush out toward our dragons, when the Witch General said, “Perform an analysis on this eggshell. We should be able to identify who last handled them and when.”
The lieutenant raised her staff and bathed the eggshell with white magic. “The two witches I identified earlier, and they left two hours ago.”
The Witch General folded her arms and smirked. “They won’t get very far. We’ve blocked the entire capital with a dome of magic.”
“In that case, Witch General,” said Niger, “we have disturbing news.”
The Witch General turned her glare at me and not at the bearer of bad news. I held a hand over my churning stomach. We’d spent about twenty minutes traveling through the capital and helping with the rioting witches and another ten in the palace, investigating the situation with the eggs. There was no telling how quickly King Magnar’s sisters had progressed across the country.
“What did you do?” asked the Witch General in a voice that could freeze lava.
“We…” I licked my dry lips with an even dryer tongue. “Umm… we made a hole in the dome’s magic. A-and patched it up with a mesh.”
“Of what type?” She bared her teeth, gripping her staff so tight, I thought she would snap it in half.
“It paralyzes locusts, so they can’t enter the capital.”
“And allows larger animals to enter and leave?” she asked.
I gave her the tiniest of nods.
The Witch General pinched the bridge of her nose. “Please tell me you made it high up in the dome, so the witches couldn’t reach it with a magical slope.”
“It’s at ground level,” I whispered.
She was about to say something, most likely disparaging, when another witch interrupted. “I’m no expert on fairy magic, but underneath the witches’ imprints on the eggs are those of a fairy.”
“What type?” asked the Witch General.
“I-I don’t know.”
The Witch General performed her own spell. At over two centuries in age, she was old enough to remember the time when fairies, witches, and ogres had worked together to banish the Snow Queen to Tundra. If anyone had met a variety of fairies, it would be her.
She pursed her lips. “It belongs to a very powerful high fairy.”
My shoulders drooped. I had hoped for more substantial information.
“This is a waste of time,” snapped Fyrian. “We should go after the eggs now!”
“If that’s all the information, I’ll set off and capture the thieves before they reach the border.” I held out my hand. “Can I have one of the shells as proof when I confront them?”
Father furrowed his brow. “You said these witches were King Magnar’s sisters?”
“Yes.”
“Then they are Princesses with diplomatic immunity.” Father sighed. “You cannot forcibly search their vehicle without risking war.”
The Witch General shook her head. “The evidence only tells us that a corrupt being of fairy origin and two witches worked together to steal the eggs. Nothing definitively points toward King Magnar.”
I pressed my lips together staring from Father to the Witch General. Since when did two of the greatest warriors in Steppe become so cautious?
“All right, then,” I said with a sigh. It was clear that they just wanted to deal with the aftermath of the riot. The civilian witches were no longer enchanted to revolt, and locusts still swarmed the capital. I had to say something to keep them interested. “Why don’t we call on Prince Vanus?”
“Whatever for?” asked the Witch General.
Before I could answer, Father said, “He would not steal the eggs.”
“Of course, he wouldn’t,” said the older witch. “He’s a young fairy who doesn’t hold any grudges against ogres or dragons.”
“And the only one who helped to build Mount Fornax,” added Father.
The pair of them continued extolling the innocence of Prince Vanus, not giving me space to talk. I turned to Niger. He gave me a one-shouldered shrug, which I took to mean that dealing with the Prince Regent and the Witch General was my area of expertise, not his.
Shaking my head, I reached into the carriage, picked up both pieces of eggshell, and wrapped them in a handkerchief. Maybe Fulmen could track the scent.
“They’re right, though,” said Fyrian. “Prince Vanus only cares about himself and his family. He couldn’t betray Auntie Rilla.”
I hadn’t even been accusing him. With his contacts in Elphame, he might be able to identify who had helped King Magnar’s sisters. “Come on,” I said to Niger. “Let’s go and meet the others.”
Niger and I left Father and the Witch General to their discussion, and we walked out of the stable, around the palace grounds, and toward the exit. The Queen’s Guards peered down at me but didn’t comment. They probably thought I was one of the twins who had come to visit. It wasn’t like they went to Steppe often enough for the guards to tell the difference.
The courtyard outside the palace was a deserted mess of charred vehicles, broken weapons, trampled bedsheets, and the odd garment. Fyrian and the yellow dragon turned their gazes toward us. I had no doubt that she’d been updating her companion on what had
happened inside.
“I’m going to call Prince Vanus,” I said.
“Right.” Niger rubbed the back of his neck, gaze darting toward his yellow dragon. “I will check on the others.”
I nodded. Decades of war had left ogres wary of high fairies. And he was probably worried about the reaction of his dragon, too. With an inhuman speed, Niger mounted his dragon and flew to the back of the palace.
Moments later, I raised my head to the roof of the dome. “Prince Vanus?”
Nothing happened.
I pursed my lips. The fairy godmother thing only worked with an official bond. Prince Vanus was only related to me by marriage, and with Aunt Cendrilla in an enchanted sleep, there was only one fairy I knew who would answer my call.
“Are you sure about this?” asked Fyrian.
“What other choice do I have? I need someone who can call Prince Vanus for me.”
Fyrian sent a mental shudder through our bond. “But still…”
“You’re big now. He won’t be able to pull your tail.”
“Let’s hope not.”
“You can fly around the corner and hide if you want.”
She sighed. “No. It’s all right.”
I raised my head to the sky again. “Chrysus?”
For a moment, nothing happened. I clenched my teeth. Now that he knew I was calling him, the mischievous little brat wouldn’t show up. He had to be the most immature eleven-year-old in both the Known and Unknown World.
“Oh, Fyri,” I said out loud. “Did I ever tell you about my cousin, Chrysus? He’s a little—”
“Albie!” said a little voice.
I looked down to find what appeared to be a three-year-old glaring up at me with eyes as green as an owl’s. Chrysus was born when I was six, making him eleven years old. Yet he remained a baby for five years. It was hard to tell whether fairies genuinely took a long time to grow, or if Chrysus kept this small size so he could be coddled by everyone who thought he was cute.
His huge eyes glowed in the dim illumination, as did the golden ringlets that framed his cherubic face. He wore a white, silk shirt with matching breeches I’d seen on Prince Vanus.
“Hello, Chrysus,” I said.
Dragon Mage Academy Box Set Page 41