Dragon Shadow

by Alicia Wolfe

  Queen Calista smiled down at us. Her throne was raised, and she was just above our eye level. But not much. She was no cold and lofty ruler, but warm and personable. But still a ruler and very respected. It was clear she had the love of her people.

  “Thank you for gracing us with your presence, my dear,” Queen Calista told me.

  “I wouldn’t call it gracing,” I said. “More debasing, really.” Hadn’t Davril just told me I was a no-good criminal?

  One corner of Davril’s mouth quirked. “I think that was for me, not you, Your Majesty,” he told his queen.

  “I don’t understand,” she said.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “Look, I’m sorry. It was a stupid thing to say. I’m really glad to be back. You’ve really done a lot to fix the place back up.” I realized I was sounding like a jerk but wasn’t sure how to not sound like a jerk. It was either be overly impressed and look like a dweeb or act aloof and above-it-all. I tried to find a third option, but it just wasn’t working for me.

  “Why, thank you,” Calista said, as if I hadn’t been so classless. “We have you to thank for it.”

  “Oh. Um, it was nothing. The least I could do.” I mentally kicked myself. Was I trying to piss her off? My foot was like magnetically compelled to insert itself in my mouth.

  “You did us a great service, and we treated you abysmally,” Calista said, still as graceful as anyone could be. “Isn’t that right, Lord Stormguard?”

  I could see him grinding his teeth. Sometimes, he wasn’t very stoic at all. Had I done that to him? If so, that somehow made me happy. I was getting to him.

  “It is, Your Majesty,” he said. “I…was wrong to distrust her.” He swallowed a deep breath, then turned to me in a strangely formal way. “Mistress Jade of the House McClaren, I beg your apology for mistrusting you.”

  “Didn’t we already do this?” I said.

  “I…want the Queen to witness. I do apologize, Jade.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Why?”

  He started to narrow his own eyes, and I could almost see the thought Are you really going to make me say it? flash across his face.

  I planted my hands on my hips. I am.

  He steeled himself, then said, “Locking you up nearly cost you your life, Jade. What’s more, it nearly cost Her Majesty her life. If I’d just trusted you to begin with, none of that would have happened. Do you accept my apology?”

  I made him wait a moment, then said, “I do.” Then I added, “I guess.”

  “Very well,” Queen Calista said. “I’m glad. Now, Jade, if I may call you that, I have something to discuss with you.”

  I started to say Yeah?, but then made myself take my hands off my hips, lower them to my side, and say, “Yes, ma’am?”

  She folded her hands in her lap and her face grew serious. “We have prevailed over our enemies, thanks to you, Jade, but they are still out there, are they not? Mistress Angela was foiled in murdering me and installing my son on this throne, but she did succeed in accessing the Compendium.”

  I remembered Greenleaf mentioning that. “What for?”

  “We don’t know,” Davril said. The thought clearly bothered him. He didn’t try to hide it.

  “She took something,” Calista said. “Some piece of knowledge that might help her cause.”

  “Which is?” I said.

  “The Shadow. I could feel its mark upon her when we fought.”

  “Damn.”

  “Yes. She was hoping to replace me with Jereth so that he would open the portals back to the Fae Lands. Obviously her master can’t do it from his side. I’m afraid that whatever information she stole from the Compendium will further that end.”

  “Can’t Federico tell you?”

  Calista’s lips thinned. “Unfortunately, when I say she took information, what I mean is she took Federico.”

  I put a hand over my mouth. “My God! Poor Federico. Is he okay?”

  “I don’t believe he’s in danger. She’ll need him to succeed…with whatever her agenda is. And it’s not just her we must contend with now, but this Vincent Walsh as well.”

  “I’m sorry about bringing him to your doorstep.”

  “Don’t be. I’m glad you revealed him to us. He would have shown himself to us sooner or later. He has not hidden from us since our arrival because he’s a friend, after all.”

  I snapped my fingers. “That’s why I haven’t been able to find him. He’s been hiding from you guys. But why?”

  “Again, we don’t know.”

  “We also don’t know what he wants with the antler,” Davril said.

  I nodded. “We got Ruby back, but he got something, too, didn’t he? And if he’s no friend of yours, that could be something to use against you someday, right?”

  “That is what we’d been thinking, yes,” Calista said. She drew herself up and fixed me with a stern yet warm gaze. “Jade McClaren, because of all these reasons, we have concluded that we need an ally. A human ally. And I don’t mean the police or the politicians. We have plenty of them. We need a smart, capable person aware of the magical world, but also with a toehold in the criminal underworld, as that seems to be where our enemies operate from. We need you, Jade McClaren.”

  “Me?”

  “Tell her, Lord Stormguard.”

  Davril switched his gaze from his queen to me. I could see the urgency in his eyes, the sincerity. But also, annoyingly, the reluctance. He didn’t want to ask for my help, but he knew that’s what his queen wanted. Maybe even that that’s what the situation demanded.

  “We…need your services, Jade.”

  “My services?”

  “That’s not—I mean that we need you to help us. Only…”

  “Yes?”

  He grimaced. “We don’t deal with spies or assassins, Jade. Our agents are Knights of the Enchanted Realm. Knights of the Nine Thrones. Noble and above reproach.”

  “Well, that leaves me out.”

  “Not necessarily,” Calista said. “You…could join us.”

  “Become a Fae?”

  “Well…an honorary one, anyway. An honorary citizen of the Nine Thrones who can be granted titles and offices.”

  “Will that mean giving up my U.S. citizenship? Because that ain’t happening.”

  “We both allow dual citizenship, Jade.”

  “Well…good.” I wondered what Ruby would say. “Then that’s one thing.” I could sense there was another shoe waiting to drop.

  “You would need a sponsor,” Calista said. “A trainer. Also, we will need you, as our first human field agent, if you like, to have a liaison with us. An intermediary between this Court and your, well, agenting. It makes sense that this should be the same individual. In other words, you’ll need a partner.”

  Davril looked sharply at Calista. “You can’t mean…?”

  I almost laughed at his shock. Obviously they hadn’t rehearsed this part.

  “I’m afraid I do,” Calista said.

  “Jessela,” Davril said. “Make it Jessela!”

  “Now now,” Calista said. “Jade needs to partner with someone she already has a working relationship with. That person can only be you, Lord Stormguard.”

  He gnashed his teeth and clenched his fists at his side, for once completely uncaring of how he was seen. Or maybe he wanted me to know how annoyed he was at being saddled with me. That was more likely, I thought. And it might even mean something. Because if he was putting on a show, then maybe…well, maybe he wasn’t so annoyed, after all.

  It wasn’t much to cling to, but I would take it.

  “Well?” Calista asked me graciously. “Will you accept, Jade? The duty will be dangerous, I know it, but it is vitally important, to your people and mine. And it may help put you on the trail of this Vincent Walsh.”

  “So you know about that?”

  “Indeed I do, and you should know the Fae believe in blood feuds strongly, and in righteous vengeance. We will help you if we can. Or give you the tools to he
lp yourself.”

  “But only if I join up.”

  “Only a Fae Knight would have access to those resources.” She paused. “Like I said, it will be dangerous. Maybe even deadly. I won’t lie to you about that, Jade. If you join with us, you might not live to an old age. But, as a reward, you will be made a knight…and a lady.”

  “Me…a lady?”

  “That’s right. A knight must be a lord or lady.”

  I grinned at Davril, then flashed a thumbs up to Greenleaf behind us. He’d gone rigid.

  “Then that seals it,” I told Calista.

  “Think about this,” Davril said.

  I looked him right in the face. Oh yeah, I would do this to nettle him if nothing else. And there was a lot more else. Hell, the entire world could be at stake, maybe even two worlds. I would do all I could to stop Walsh, Angela and the Shadow, whatever the heck that really was.

  And I did like the sound of Lady Jade.

  “Is it really so bad?” I asked Davril. I wanted to know. I mean, if it was a torture for him to be around me, maybe this was a bad idea, after all.

  He was silent for a long moment. His anger had drained away, and there was something different in his eyes now when they looked on me. But it wasn’t sadness. I remembered Jessela saying that he was always sad, always tortured, and I remembered him being like that in the beginning of our, for lack of a better word, relationship. But he wasn’t like that now. Maybe it was me annoying it out of him, but one way or another, I’d had an impact on him. An impact, I thought, for the better.

  “No,” he said at last, and his voice was a rasp. A thrill ran through me. He added, “It wouldn’t be so bad at all.”

  I turned back to the Queen and bowed. Standing up, I beamed, and I could feel my eyes burning.

  “I’m in,” I said.

  The End

  A Note from Alicia Wolfe

  Want to be notified when the next book in the series, Dragon Knight, comes out? You can sign up for my email update list here: http://eepurl.com/cWPS55 . Come on in! The water’s warm! I promise not to spam you.

  Oh, and thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed reading Dragon Shadow as much as I did writing it. Please leave a review on Amazon. A review means so much, not just to me but to other readers. It's the best way for readers to discover new writers, and it's very nice for me to see how people are responding to my stuff, and also find ways I can improve.

  Till next time!

  Hugs,

  Alicia Wolfe

  Email: aliciawolfebooks@gmail.com