Reconciliation Of Hate (The Exceptional S. Beaufont Book 11)

by Sarah Noffke

  “I don’t think I have a price,” Wilder stated as the waitress brought a bowl of bright greens sprinkled with other colors to the table.

  “Do you want any blessings or are you trying to shape your world today?” Lily Pad asked.

  Wilder shook his head. “I think I’m good.”

  Ramy crammed a bunch more goat cheese in his mouth. “So, your price. What will it take to eat a steak?”

  “I simply won’t.” Wilder dug into his salad.

  “You two seem close.” Ramy indicated Sophia and Wilder. “What if she was going to die if you didn’t eat an entire ribeye? Would you do it?”

  Wilder took another bite. “I mean, that seems sort of extreme. I guess, but I’m not sure what sort of circumstances would call for such things. What sort of ridiculous circumstances anyway.”

  “That’s beside the point,” Ramy stated, cheese bits spurting from his mouth onto the table in front of him, landing dangerously close to Wilder’s food.

  “So the shop,” Sophia said, redirecting the conversation. “Everything okay there? King Rudolf okay?”

  “He tells me how ugly I am daily,” Ramy answered.

  Sophia nodded. “Join the club. You haven’t noticed any dangers? Nothing strange?”

  Ramy thought for a moment. Then his face constricted oddly. He gripped his throat.

  Sophia leaned forward suddenly, looking him over, noticing how in a matter of seconds, he was sweating profusely. His face flushed red. “Ramy, are you okay? What’s happening?”

  He began shaking violently. His eyes bulged. Around the restaurant some looked over, most not concerned. There were a few who remarked that he was having an “out of body experience” and that it happened to them when they had the beet soup.

  Ramy’s hand moved to his stomach as he began to convulse. Wilder shoved his food away.

  “What can I do?” Sophia asked in a rush. “Are you okay?”

  Erratically, Ramy shook his head. “N-N-No, I remember about the cheese now and why I hadn’t had it in so long…”

  Sophia sank back. “Because it’s poison.”

  He nodded and fell face-first on the table, dying straight away from the ten-thousand-year-old goat cheese.

  Sophia shook her head. “Damn that guy! That death totally could have been avoided.”

  “What do we do with him?” Wilder asked, pushing his food away, obviously losing his appetite after watching a guy die at the dinner table.

  Sophia stood, taking the box of Heals Pills. “We leave him here. He’ll wake up in a few. He can pay the tab since he ruined your meal.”

  Wilder nodded. “Sounds good to me.”

  The waitress sauntered over. “Is your friend all right? Did he overdose on peyote too? There’s a place at the back where we keep those who do. Do you want me to have someone put him back there?”

  “Sure,” Sophia answered. “That will make his journey back that much more interesting.”

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  Two dragons soared through the air at each other, racing with their claws extended, trepidation the most dominant expression on their faces.

  Sophia held her breath, waiting for the collision. She bit her lip, hoping neither dragon got injured. Before impact, the smaller of the two dragons swerved, diving quickly for the grounds of the Expanse, the larger dragon zooming overhead.

  Evan shook his head. “That was a good example of how not to win a fight!”

  Mahkah stood in the distance, surrounded by the newbie riders and their dragons. He nodded over his shoulder at that before turning back. Sophia figured he was telling the new riders and their dragons something sage, like when he first taught Sophia how to fly and Lunis how to fight in the air. It was probably something like, “There’s a time to avoid a fight, and there’s a time to collide.” The key was in how you did it because you couldn’t always avoid battles.

  Evan sighed at Sophia’s side. “Man, these new guys are the worst. When I tell them to do stuff, they do it. When I tell them they suck, they simply nod.”

  “And that’s a problem because…” Wilder asked, amusement written on his face. The sharp winds on the Gullington knocked his hair around, making it into various arrangements.

  “Because it’s boring,” Evan huffed.

  Sophia had to agree with Evan on this one. “Yeah, they pose no real challenges. I can see where they’re each individually talented, but they don’t have any zest.”

  “Oh, I get it.” Wilder laughed. “They need to tell Hiker how he’s not doing his job right after five hundred years of doing it and waltz into the Castle and shake things up, do they?”

  “That would be nice.” Evan picked up one of the boxes filled with Heals Pills and secured it on Coral’s back. Since Sophia didn’t need him on call if Liv needed the genie’s lamp recovered, he had volunteered to run the supplies to the village in Africa.

  “That would be what Sophia did,” Wilder added.

  Evan gave him a sideways look. “Yeah, but something tells me the newbies won’t be as bold as Pink Princess. Even when we get other new riders.”

  “Why is that?” Sophia planted her hands on her hips.

  “Because Dragon Elite aren’t like you,” Wilder answered plainly, picking up another box of Heals Pills and handing it to Evan.

  She pursed her lips. “That’s inherently false since I’m a Dragon Elite.”

  Wilder gave her a sympathetic look, as if she misunderstood a great truth. “You’re a Dragon Elite, but from what I know of our history, they aren’t usually like you. Think about it.” He indicated himself, Evan, and Mahkah in the distance. “The three of us hung around the Gullington for decades doing whatever Hiker told us to do, never really questioning his orders for us to train and stay inside the Barrier.”

  “Well, I questioned it a time or two,” Evan argued.

  “Then you passed out from drinking too much whiskey,” Wilder remarked. “Adam questioned it, but he was different from the others too. As you’ve heard before, Soph, Adam was more like you, which was why Hiker made you his number two. He’s smart enough to know he needs someone who doesn’t think like him by his side. As great as we are.” He nodded at Evan and himself.

  “And I’m pretty damn great,” Evan cut in with a smug grin.

  “He’s okay,” Wilder teased. “Anyway, for as great as we are, we don’t question things like you and Adam. The Dragon Elite before us didn’t either if I know my history well enough.”

  Sophia nodded, having picked up on this theme when reading the Complete History of Dragonriders. The Dragon Elite tended to have strong followers who did as told, carrying out missions that helped the Earth. A leader rose through the ranks every few centuries, but even they were more like Hiker, playing it carefully and following Mama Jamba's direction.

  “Well, why do you think that Adam and I are so different from the rest?” Sophia asked.

  “Because you’re an awful human being,” Evan stated matter-of-factly, picking up the last crate and loading it on his dragon. “I mean, not Adam. He was totally cool, and I have mad respect for the dude. May he rest in peace. But you, Little Bit, are winning the award for being the absolute worst.”

  Sophia nodded, unaffected by the jab. “Thanks.”

  Wilder shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe it’s because you were the first female dragonrider and meant to spawn the second batch of eggs. Adam, well, if it wasn’t for him, then there might not have been a stop to the Rogue Riders. He was the only one who would stand up to them, really stand up to them. I think there’s a reason that a rebellious Dragon Elite comes along every few centuries, but to be honest, I don’t know what that reason could be.”

  A shiver of fear ran down Sophia’s back, but she worked to hide her sudden nervousness. What if she was what caused the Rogue Riders and Dragon Elite to war again because she didn’t handle things right? Hiker counted on her and had said as much. She was in charge of finding Trudy DeVries and controlling the Rogue Riders. Mama Jamb
a had hinted at taking out the leadership, but what if it didn’t stop there? What if later history told that all dragonriders were gone and they’d wiped each other out and it was all Sophia’s fault?

  Wilder placed a hand on Sophia’s shoulder, looking down at her with a comforting expression. “Being different from us is a good thing. You’re a change agent. If it weren’t for you, then we’d still be stuck in the Gullington, waiting for the right time to resurface. You forced Hiker to see that it was our time to reign again.”

  She gulped. Nodded. Tried to pull in a relieved breath. “Yeah, maybe you’re right.”

  “I’m right,” he said with a crooked smile. “I do believe that the Dragon Elite need to be complacent and model soldiers for the most part, like the new riders we have. We can think for ourselves, and we’re devilishly smart—”

  “And handsome,” Evan interrupted.

  Wilder agreed with a nod. “But at the end of the day, we need someone like you telling us what to do.”

  Sophia didn’t know what to say. It had been weird for her from the beginning to be selected as Hiker’s second in command. She was the youngest dragonrider at that point and so new, but she had to admit that she was like how they described Adam and did give it to Hiker straight instead of simply accepting everything he said as gospel.

  “But still, it wouldn’t kill the new guys to have a little personality,” Evan stated, swinging his leg around and mounting Coral. “I mean, I do what I’m told, but with a little pizzazz.”

  “What you’re trying to say is, pain in the ass,” Wilder corrected. “You do what you’re told but as a pain in the ass.”

  “Not all of us can be as insufferable as you, but I aspire to try.” Evan winked.

  “I’ll teach you one day,” Wilder remarked, backing up simultaneously with Sophia and giving Coral room to take off.

  Evan gripped the reins, setting his sights on the Expanse and the Barrier in the distance. “Okay, well, I’m off to save the day and probably the world while you dorks sit around looking at each other.”

  “Thank the angels that you’re here, or we’d all be doomed,” Wilder joked.

  “We’d all have fewer headaches,” Sophia remarked.

  “Whatever.” Evan shook his head. “Speaking of headaches. I’m out of here before Quiet, the second-worst person at the Gullington, gives me one.”

  He nodded at the Castle where the groundskeeper stood, looking rather ominous, his gaze directed at them—or rather Sophia. In his hands and held up in the air was a small object. It glinted in the sunlight, giving away its metallic appearance.

  It was a key…

  Chapter Seventy

  Sophia left Wilder with the new riders, dragons, and Mahkah, and strode in Quiet’s direction. There was something about the gnome’s expression that put her on guard. Maybe it was because, like a statue, he simply held a skeleton key straight up in the air with an intense look on his face.

  She didn’t know if the key was for her or if Quiet wanted Sophia to stride over instead of Wilder or both of them. But for some reason, she got a distinct impression that she was the one Quiet wished to have the object.

  Tentatively, Sophia approached the groundskeeper, her head to the side as she studied the strange key. Its silver finish glinted in the sunlight cascading down on the Gullington.

  “Hey, Quiet,” Sophia said cautiously. “What do you have there?”

  He mouthed two words: “For you.”

  When she was close enough, Sophia took the key, and the gnome finally lowered his short arm. She looked at it and wondered what it would open. “What’s this for?” she asked and knew at once that the question would go unanswered.

  As she suspected, Quiet spun and marched in the opposite direction, out toward the Cave, Nest, and Pad.

  Sophia shot an irritated look at the gnome’s back, half-tempted to make an Evan-type comment, but didn’t want to incur the groundskeeper’s wrath. He could make her life hell, as he often did to the other dragonrider.

  Returning her focus to the strange key, Sophia wondered what it could open. No doubt it was something important, and most likely in the Castle. She started for the entrance, knowing that she was on yet another exciting and confusing scavenger hunt.

  Chapter Seventy-One

  The Castle’s second floor felt colder than it had earlier, Sophia thought, pulling her cloak tighter. The winter winds whistled through the cracks of the windows, sending cold air drafting through the corridors.

  Sophia held the silver object tightly in her hands, wanting to laugh that she had a key that she didn’t know what it went to. That was ironic since Quiet had sent her on an earlier mission to recover parts of a key from the Castle to unlock Lunis’ Pad.

  “What does this open?” Sophia asked aloud, knowing that the Castle could hear her. She didn’t expect it to show her, but she did believe it would lead her if she were looking for clues. Sophia thought that Castle behaved similarly to the library in the House of Fourteen. One couldn’t simply look for a book in that place. No, the searcher had to think about the book they wanted, really focusing on the subject and not getting the least bit distracted.

  However, much like Hiker’s quest for her to find the mystery pouch that belonged to her ancestor, Oscar Beaufont, Sophia didn’t know what she was looking for. How could she focus on finding something when she didn’t know what it was?

  She eyed every piece of furniture she passed, looking for a keyhole. Racking her brain, Sophia tried to remember all the places in the Castle where she’d seen locks, but suddenly none came to mind.

  “What am I looking for?” she asked, remembering the pouch that she needed to recover for Hiker. Sophia hadn’t wanted to think about the task since it seemed so important and she had no idea where to look. There had been Oscar Beaufont’s office that Sophia had strangely stumbled upon recently. However, she’d searched the space and hadn’t found anything that resembled the small pouch that Hiker described.

  Feeling defeated before barely starting on the search, Sophia halted in the corridor. She closed her eyes, overwhelmed by both of her mystery tasks. Why was she supposedly able to recover the item from her ancestor? That plagued her more than what the actual object was. Things operated so strangely in the Castle—as though by a set of its own laws.

  Opening her eyes, Sophia blinked, realizing she wasn’t where she’d been when she closed them. She shouldn’t be surprised about being teleported in the Castle, yet she sucked in a breath, shocked by the sight in front of her.

  Much like the library in the House of Fourteen, the Castle had brought Sophia to the place her thoughts had focused on moments prior. That part shouldn’t have been a shock. Finding herself standing right in front of Oscar Beaufont’s old study also shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise. However, it all did because the key in her hand warmed and she knew, just knew, that it had to open something in the office. But what? And why?

  So many questions plagued her now as she stepped forward into Oscar Beaufont’s study.

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  The lanterns in the office flickered to life when Sophia stepped over the threshold into her ancestor’s study.

  She spun in a slow circle as she took in the room, searching for something that required a key. The office was the same as the first time that Sophia had been there, with a large desk, a few cabinets, a bookshelf, some artwork on the walls, and an armchair in the corner. That was it. There wasn’t a locked armoire or drawer that she could see.

  Coming around the desk, Sophia continued to search, looking for anything that required a key, like a small box or something. She’d already gone through the office pretty thoroughly the first time and hadn’t seen anything that was locked.

  Sophia slumped against the wall and sighed, wishing that things could be easy for once. That someone would give her the answers to the many riddles that so often challenged her.

  Her shoulder knocked against the painting on the wall next to her, sli
ding it to the side. She didn’t think much of it, but worried she’d displace the artwork, Sophia straightened it. That’s when she noticed there was more than a bare wall under the now-crooked painting. There was metal.

  Curious, Sophia slid the painting to the side, finding that it moved like it was on a hinge. Sophia gasped when she spied what it had concealed. Behind the oil painting was a small metal box built into a wall—a safe. In the center was a lock, the keyhole the exact size as the key she held.

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  Lifting the key to the lock, Sophia held her breath. She wouldn’t allow herself to think that this was the actual key to unlock the safe. Not yet. Not until it had worked. She didn’t want to get her hopes up in case this had all been misdirection and what the key opened wasn’t in Oscar Beaufont’s office. Maybe the key didn’t open something in the Castle. Perhaps she was completely off base.

  Letting out a heavy breath, Sophia slid the key into the lock. So far, it fit. She bit her lip and turned it. The lock’s tumblers stuck in several places, probably from disuse. With a bit of coercing, the key finally completed the rotation and clicked into place. The door to the metal safe opened slightly. It was the right key.

  Sophia pulled the door wider, unsure what she’d find, or even what she was looking for. She peered into the small black box, squinting to see its contents.

  There wasn’t much there. Only two items.

  Sitting in the middle of the space was a leather-bound journal, tied shut. On top of it was something Sophia had been looking for but hadn’t known where to find: the small red velvet pouch with orange tassels on the ties that Hiker had asked her to retrieve.

  Chapter Seventy-Four

  “You found it.” Hiker stood at once when Sophia dangled the small pouch in front of him.