“You are,” said Qadir, inclining his head.
Lucy looked at Eamon questioningly. She had no idea what he was getting at.
“Would…would you be willing to take a message to Elddreki on our behalf?” the prince continued. He swallowed. “I don’t mean to be disrespectful with such a paltry request, but since you said you were in Lucy’s debt…”
Qadir paused, his gaze passing from the prince to Lucy. “Do you wish me to render you that service?”
“Yes,” said Lucy quickly. “I would be grateful if you would tell him what I’ve told you, about Rasad’s use of dragon magic, and his plans to invade first Balenol, and then Kyona.”
She’d never met the younger dragon, and she didn’t know if Eamon was right that telling Elddreki would achieve anything more than telling Qadir had. But it was worth a try. Jocelyn seemed to have a deep fondness for the creature.
“And,” she added hastily, chasing that thought, “please tell him that Jocelyn and Kincaid are in trouble. Rasad has used dragon magic on them in order to cause them mischief, and he intends to kill Jocelyn before this is over. They’re in the Thoranian capital now, and I don’t know whether or not they’re safe.”
Qadir gave her a long look. “It is not the custom of dragons to be messengers for humans,” he said at last, and Lucy held her breath. “But,” the dragon added, “I did say that I was grateful for your service. I will do as you have requested.”
Lucy let out a long and grateful breath. “Thank you.”
The dragon inclined his head one last time. “Do not forget what you have agreed to do,” he said, the warning directed at both of them.
Forgetting for a moment that the dragon wasn’t actually present, Lucy was expecting him to take flight. But instead, he simply disappeared, leaving her blinking in the drizzling rain. She turned to Eamon, to find him watching her with an inscrutable expression.
“So I take it that wasn’t your first meeting with the dragon-ruler?” he said dryly.
Lucy shook out her shoulders, feeling like she was emerging from deep water. “What gave you that impression?” She sighed. “He visited me in a dream the night we were on the road, on our way from Nohl to Thirl.”
“What was the service you rendered him?” Eamon asked.
“Killing my uncle,” said Lucy shortly.
Again, Eamon’s expression was hard to read, but he didn’t pursue the point. “Well, it seems we’d better get moving,” he said instead. “We can figure out how we’re going to separate Rasad from the rest of the army as we go.”
“I’m so sorry, Eamon,” said Lucy, anguished, and he looked at her in surprise.
“Sorry? What for?”
“For making it worse!” Lucy exclaimed. “Qadir said he’d keep an eye on me. I knew he wasn’t watching closely—I mean, he would already know about the dead dragon in Rasad’s dungeon if he had been—but I thought there was a chance he’d hear if I called him. I had this foolish idea that the dragons might help hold off the army. I thought that in addition to saving a lot of lives, it would convince the Balenans once and for all that Kyona is a formidable enemy and a desirable ally. But now we just have another impossible task, with the lives of two armies’ worth of men in the balance.”
“Hey,” said Eamon, stepping forward and putting a hand on her cheek. She closed her eyes briefly, indulging for a moment in the comfort of his touch. “You didn’t make it worse. The dragons might not be interested in intervening, but if they show up, I have a feeling it will stop the fighting, whether they intend that or not.”
“That’s small comfort,” said Lucy bitterly, “if the way they stop the fighting is by killing everyone present. Which is what will happen if we can’t draw Rasad out.”
“We’ll draw him out,” said Eamon, his voice grim. “I just make no promises about leaving him for the dragons to deal with.” His face lifted as he met her eyes again. “Plus, Qadir is going to tell Elddreki. He might still help us.”
“Maybe,” said Lucy heavily. She glanced up at the city wall, just visible through the trees and the drizzling rain. “I don’t think there’s much point going after the others. We won’t catch up without mounts, and I for one don’t need further evidence in order to be convinced that Rasad’s army is already marching for Nohl.”
“I guess we head into the city then,” agreed Eamon, following her gaze. “I suppose we could follow the wall all the way to the gate, like the king and Lord Yosef are doing. I don’t think the guards would bar our entry.”
In spite of her anxiety, Lucy couldn’t help but smile at the wistful note in Eamon’s voice. “You’re dying to try this tunnel as much as I am, aren’t you?” she accused, and Eamon grinned.
“It’s a secret rebel tunnel into the city, that not even the king knew about!” He gave her a provocative look. “It would be a shame for Matheus to be the only one who got to actually go through it.”
Lucy shook her head, still smiling. “You don’t have to convince me, Eamon. I’m not at all sure the guards would let us through without argument anyway.”
That was enough for the prince, and in moments the two of them were crawling into the fissure. Lucy let Eamon go first, doing her best to cover the opening again behind her, in case of unfriendly eyes. The tunnel was small, and crisscrossed with spiderwebs, despite Cody’s recent passage. They had to crawl on their hands and knees, and for perhaps the hundredth time, Lucy was grateful she was wearing her training gear, not an impractical gown. She followed Eamon closely enough to keep his mud-encrusted boots in sight, but it wasn’t long before even the dim light from the opening behind them faded away, leaving them in blackness.
The steady scuffling sound from in front of her told her that Eamon was still moving, but otherwise there was nothing to tell either eyes or ears what was coming. At first the ground sloped down fairly steeply, the air feeling close and even more moist in the enclosed tunnel, but then it leveled out. After what felt like an eternity of blindness, Eamon’s shuffling stopped.
“What is it?” she asked, annoyed by how breathless her voice came out.
Eamon’s words were muffled. “The tunnel just stops. There’s wall on all sides.”
Some part of Lucy’s mind wanted to panic at the thought of being stuck in the confined space, but she mastered the instinctive response quickly. “Try upward.”
Eamon shifted around, then she heard him grunt. A moment later, there was a grating sound, and a thin shaft of sunlight penetrated the blackness around them. She shuffled forward, squeezing up next to Eamon to help him push the stone slab to one side. It was heavy, and she was impressed Cody had managed to move it alone. After much pushing and the dull scrape of rock sliding across dirt, an opening was revealed. Lucy lowered her gaze from the hole above her to the prince beside her.
“I guess we made it into the city.”
Eamon didn’t answer, and Lucy’s grin faded into something else. Her breath was suddenly more constricted, and it wasn’t because of the confined air of the tunnel. In order to help with the slab, it had been necessary to press herself right up against Eamon in the small space. She hadn’t thought about it while moving the covering, but suddenly his proximity was all she could think about.
“Lucy.” Eamon’s voice was unusually husky.
“Yes?” She was embarrassingly breathless again.
“We should probably climb out.”
“Yes,” Lucy repeated quickly, giving her head a little shake before scrambling up through the hole. Eamon followed swiftly, looking as dazed as she felt. But he was right that it was no time for such distractions.
Looking around, Lucy saw that they had emerged into a dilapidated old building. It was clearly unoccupied, and had been for some time, judging by the thick layer of dust and the broken items of furniture strewn around. Her eyes were drawn to the clear trail through the dust left by the last person to use this passage.
“Do you think Cody is gone from the city by now?” Eamon asked, followin
g her gaze.
“Probably,” said Lucy. “He won’t have wasted any time.”
“So what do we do now?”
Lucy sighed, looking up at Eamon. “It’s too late to stop Rasad from marching with the army. We’ll have to try to separate Rasad from the rest of the force once they get close to Nohl. Until then, what else can we do but wait?” Her voice turned grim. “And hope Qadir doesn’t reach them before they’re within our reach.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The hours felt interminable, but Lucy did her best not to show her restlessness. At first she wanted to try to sneak into the castle, to find Aunt Mariska and see what, if anything, had been done to prepare the city for attack.
But it didn’t take much discussion to realize that after their bold declaration of a plot against King Giles the day before, followed by their disappearance and the king’s tragic accident, their arrival might be greeted with suspicion. And the combination of Lucy’s scandalous attire and Eamon’s Kyonan features made it unlikely they could pass through the city unnoticed.
So they waited.
They talked in circles, speculating about how long it would take Qadir to pass on the message to Elddreki, and what the younger dragon would do in response. They debated endlessly about how they might draw Rasad out, knowing they couldn’t make plans until they saw what they were facing, hoping they wouldn’t be too late to prevent the slaughter of all the Thoranian troops.
Eventually there was nothing more to be said about the looming crisis, and they subsided into silence for several long minutes. But there were too many things Lucy still needed to say, and it was too good an opportunity.
“I’m sorry about the letter, Eamon. You must have been…horrified when you read it.”
“I was,” said Eamon candidly. “But you know,” his voice turned pensive, “a tiny part of me was actually relieved.”
Lucy looked at him, startled. “You were relieved I was supposedly considering marrying Rasad?”
“No,” said Eamon quickly. “Of course not.” He shuddered. “But it made me realize…I’d been trying for months to please you, to figure out how to get you to forgive me. And when I read that letter, when I thought you were so far from where we used to be that you were genuinely considering marrying another man, a near stranger more than a decade older than you…”
He shrugged. “I realized no amount of apologizing and saying what I thought you wanted to hear was going to bring you back to me. It was strangely relieving. Don’t get me wrong,” he added hastily, “I wasn’t about to give up on winning you back. Quite apart from my own feelings, I knew you’d regret it if you married Rasad, even before knowing what he was plotting. It seemed like for some reason you couldn’t see that, and I could. I was done doubting myself, and I was determined to convince you not to do it. I rode out that morning intending to say what I really thought, no matter how angry it made you. But,” he flashed her the smile that had always made her heart flutter, “it turned out you didn’t really need convincing.”
“Of course I didn’t,” said Lucy, not displeased by the return of Eamon’s usual self-assurance. “I was dazzled by Rasad’s attention, I can’t deny it. But I still knew better than to trust him blindly. I accepted his invitation mainly to see what I could find out, at Lady Yasmin’s request.” She grimaced. “I was just too proud and too stubborn to tell you that. I’m ashamed to admit I was still punishing you, and I can’t tell you how I regret it. If I hadn’t let you think Rasad was sweeping me off my feet, it wouldn’t have been so easy for him to lure you into his trap.”
Eamon shrugged, a small smile on his face. “No harm done.”
Lucy’s eyes were drawn to the wound still visible on his shoulder, but she didn’t correct him. There was something else on her mind. “When you say you were determined to convince me,” she said slowly. “Do you mean…were you planning to use your power to persuade me not to marry Rasad?”
“What?” Eamon had gone still, his tone difficult to read.
Lucy kept her gaze on his shoulder, not quite able to meet his eyes as she continued. “Obviously it’s not news to me that you’ve been trying to win me over for months. I’ve wondered, a lot of times, why you didn’t…I mean, you could have convinced me that you were telling the truth, persuaded me to forgive you and trust you again whether or not I wanted to, couldn’t you? From what Jocelyn’s told me, all it would take would be a few well-chosen—”
“Lucy.” The sharpness of Eamon’s voice startled her as much as his sudden movement in grasping one of her hands between both his own. His larger fingers encased hers completely, the hold firm and warm. “I would never have done that, not ever. I would lose you forever before I abused your trust in such a way.”
The earnestness in his voice compelled her to look up, and his eyes searched hers seriously. “I know you’re not comfortable with my power. And I wish you didn’t dislike it so much, because I think it’s a gift. But it’s also a huge responsibility. Jocelyn’s right—with a well-placed word I can have an enormous impact. Do you think I take that lightly? Do you think I use it on a whim, whenever I feel like it? Using my power to convince King Giles I was telling the truth when I said Kyona wasn’t behind the attack on him, or trying to persuade the nobles that Thorania’s army is on the way…that I would do again in a heartbeat. But using magic to tamper with your emotions and opinions on something as deep and personal and crucial as matters of the heart? Lucy…” he squeezed her hand, his expression pained, “I would prefer never to use my power again.”
There was no doubting the genuineness of his words, and Lucy felt tears starting to her eyes.
“What is it?” Eamon asked anxiously. “I swear I’m telling the truth.”
She shook her head, smiling a little weakly. “I know you are. Believe me, I know. Because I know you. I’ve been so sour about everything, telling myself that I didn’t know who to trust anymore. As if what happened on that one awful day at Raldon could erase seventeen years of friendship. I know you as well as I know anyone, and I know I can trust you. I’m ashamed of what a fool I’ve been.”
“So you really can forgive me?” Eamon asked, a shadow of the old anguish in his eyes.
“Of course I can,” said Lucy. “I should have forgiven you the first time you asked, like everyone else did. I’m the one who should be asking for forgiveness. Scanlon used magic to manipulate your mind—you weren’t even fully in control of yourself. Rasad never used magic on me, and I still let myself be manipulated. He almost succeeded in using me as a pawn in his plan to kill you and invade three kingdoms.”
Eamon looked like he was about to argue the point of who was more to blame, but Lucy wasn’t interested in more words. She leaned toward him, and she could see from the sudden glint in his eye that he was more than ready to abandon conversation.
But before he could do more than raise his hand to her cheek, they were startled by a shuffling sound coming from the direction of the tunnel. Lucy hurried over to the hole, which they had left exposed, in time to see Cody’s familiar head emerge.
“Oh good,” he said approvingly. “You two are here. We won’t have to waste time hunting you down.”
“What did you find?” Lucy demanded, as the older Kyonan climbed out of the hole much more gracefully than she’d done. “What’s happening?”
“What’s happening,” King Giles emerged right behind Cody, his voice grim, “is that there’s an army a few bare hours’ march from my city, and not a single scout seems to have reported that fact to anyone in Nohl.”
“Well, we did tell you,” said Eamon.
Lucy shot him a quelling look, suspecting he was more annoyed by the timing of the interruption than by the king’s lack of trust in their report. She turned her attention back to the new arrivals, as Lord Yosef climbed out of the hole as well.
“Did you explore your idea, whatever it was?” Cody asked Lucy.
She exchanged a glance with Eamon. “Ye-es. But we still don’t
really know if it will help.” Or lead to even more mass slaughter. She didn’t add the last thought aloud.
“Lord Yosef,” said King Giles, his thoughts clearly not on their conversation. “Can I borrow your traveling cloak?”
“Of course, Your Majesty,” said the nobleman, surprised. He pulled off the expensive garment, and within moments King Giles was drawing the hood over his distinctive head.
“It’s time for me to resume control of my city,” the sovereign said grimly. “But I’m not sure I want everyone to know I’m alive just yet. If this Rasad has managed to prevent word of his army’s approach from spreading through any of the normal channels, he clearly has people inside.” He scowled. “I just wish I knew how deep inside.”
“I don’t think we’ll be much help to you at the castle,” said Cody. “We’ll head for the southern gate, do what we can to secure it.”
“Yes,” King Giles agreed distractedly. “That’s certainly where the army will attack. I’ll send someone to reinforce your efforts as soon as I can.” His expression was still very dark. “Someone I trust.”
“I think perhaps I should go with you, Your Majesty,” said Eamon unexpectedly. “It’s a…a virtue of my bloodline that I can sense magic, to an extent. When my guard attacked you, I felt a surge of power a moment before he acted, for example. I might be able to help identify whether any of your advisors or military commanders have been influenced by Rasad’s magic.”
King Giles regarded the prince in silence for a moment. “It seems I still have much to learn about Kyona,” he said at last. “I would be grateful for your help.”
He spoke mildly, but Lucy could see the surprise, almost discomfort, in his eyes at this discovery of Eamon’s innate ability. She smiled grimly. She could only imagine the king’s reaction if he knew the full extent of Eamon’s magic.
“Good,” said Cody curtly, his gaze passing over Lucy and Lord Yosef. “We’ll see what we can do at the gate.”
Eamon cast a regretful glance at Lucy before following King Giles out of the building. She gave him an encouraging smile. She knew he didn’t like splitting up, but they both knew this crisis was more important than either of them. And a thought was forming in her mind about how to put their separation to good use.
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