“Yeah! Take it off her! Return it to Torvald hands!” said Lord Garth, the younger of the three.
Back off! I felt my lip twitch in a wolf-like growl. Or maybe a dragon-like one.
“You can’t take it,” I said hotly, earning a grunt of disapproval from Captain Haval, stepping forward.
“Do I have permission to take the crown, my king?” Haval spoke to his ruler, but he kept his eyes set on me. There was a nod from the ruler, and I saw Haval square his shoulders and stalk towards me—
“No, you don’t understand. You can’t take it from me. The Stone Crown won’t—” I was saying, but the captain gave a snort of disbelief and seized the Stone Crown at my temples anyway.
“No!” I heard Tamin beside me say as he reached up to try to seize Haval’s arms – but the other Palace Guards were too quick. They jumped forward to grab my god-Uncle as I flinched back from Haval. But the guards easily wrestled my much smaller and thinner uncle away from me, and I heard a scuffle and a gasp as Abioye or Montfre were similarly restrained.
“Wait!” I pleaded, as the guard captain wrenched at the Crown on my brow, and my head pounded with pain. Haval grunted with the effort, seizing my head with both hands as if I were some unruly beast; the buzzing sound exploded through my mind, feeling hot and torturous.
Get off me! How dare you! I shuffled and tried to punch at the man’s chest, but it was like punching stone.
“Leave her alone!” I heard Abioye grunt in frustration—
If I had a knife— My thoughts were sick and angry, remembering that awful moment as I had struggled just like this with someone else. Inyene’s Chief Overseer in Dagan Mar, who had been trying to strangle me as I had slipped, inadvertently plunging the Lady Artifex’s dagger that I had held into his chest—
No! I didn’t want to even dream of that moment again – but a buzzing, angered part of me did anyway, under the influence of the Stone Crown. It wanted me to get angry. It wanted me to lose control and give myself over to it once again…
I could summon every dragon in that crater, right now! the confused, poisonous thoughts demanded of me. I could order them to tear this whole palace down, brick by brick!
“Sister—” I heard a small, distant growl of Ymmen’s voice, and it was filled with worry and frustration. Unthinking, I threw my mind at his voice, clutching to it like I was drowning in the Shifting Sands.
Help me, my heart, I cried, and in response I felt Ymmen’s presence in my mind growing hotter and larger. The enhanced perceptions of the Stone Crown allowed me to sense that there were other dragons around Ymmen. He was in some sort of cavern, watched and questioned by the last remaining dragons of Torvald. And they were concerned, worried, and angered by what they felt so near.
“No,” I said again, drawing on Ymmen’s strength to push the terrible thoughts of the Stone Crown aside. No sooner had I done so, then I suddenly tripped forward, gasping, as Haval released me and stepped back. The older palace captain was panting heavily, his little chest heaving with the effort and sweat glistening on his brow.
But still the Stone Crown was stuck, unmoving, to my brow.
“I don’t believe it,” Haval said, in a kind of shocked awe. “She speaks the truth. The Crown won’t budge…”
“Now will you leave my friend be!” I could dimly hear Abioye bristling through my pain.
“Restrain that man!” snapped the commander, and there were more sounds of scuffled boots and sharp, frustrated little noises.
“There are stories of this!” Montfre’s thinner and higher voice was rising behind me, and even through my headache and ringing ears I could tell that he was sounding scared and desperate too. “Your Majesty – look to your own records, please! There are many legends of powerful magical artifacts that almost had minds of their own!”
Destinies of their own, I remembered someone telling me. Who had it been? My thoughts were confused as I tried to remember if it was Tamin or Ymmen who had shared that with me.
Either way, it was a matter for the only royal person in the room to make a final decision over. I heard his comfortable chair scrape as he stood up, and was stepping towards me.
“Sire – stand back!” Haval said urgently. “That thing is cursed!”
But the king ignored his captain, standing over me and offering a hand. I hadn’t realized that I had stumbled to my knees, but I had. I reached up, thinking that he didn’t look as strong or as tall as Abioye as the king took my hand—
“Ach!” A jolt of something like lightning shot between my temples from the Stone Crown instantly at the touch of the king, and when I looked up into the monarch’s eyes, I saw a worried expression as he rubbed his own temples in sympathy. He felt it too! I realized, and saw a slow look of wide-eyed recognition cross his features.
“This lady is not faking her distress,” the king announced severely. “At least around how the Stone Crown is affecting her. Given what I have seen here today, I think she is telling the truth about the Crown, and I am inclined to believe the rest of her story as well,” the young monarch said. “I… When I touched her hand, it felt as if my head were filled with ice. Cold, furious ice – and I believe that it came from the Stone Crown itself!”
Relief flowed through me like a blessing—he believed me!— and there was an answering sensation of encouragement from Ymmen, now the only other dragon in my mind.
“But the attacks!” The adviser Lord Maesteg was still adamant that at least someone had to become accountable for this. Apart from the fact that he thought that person should be me, I found that I kind of agreed.
“Take them to the Dragon Academy,” the king commanded. “Whoever is really behind these attacks, at least we can find a way to restore the Stone Crown to its rightful place, here, in Torvald.”
I’m not sure even that is a good idea, I thought, but for once in my life I chose to hold my tongue. At least the king was willing to work with us, somehow.
And I knew, with a certainty that radiated from the marrow of my bones, that it wouldn’t be long before he saw just who really was behind the attacks. And if I was here in the palace, I couldn’t very well be out there in the Middle Kingdom, orchestrating attacks, could I? Inyene was a determined woman, after all, and would surely not give up her campaign for the Stone Crown.
Chapter 14
The Academy of Dragons
We were not allowed to fly to the Academy – a fact that annoyed me and the Ymmen in my mind, but a decision that at least allowed me to recover a little from the Stone Crown’s attacks.
“They’re happening randomly,” I confided in Abioye and Montfre as we were walked up out of the palace grounds by a contingent of guards led by Captain Haval. King Torvald himself had stayed behind, giving himself to the task of reading the reports of survivors of his fire-ravaged towns and villages. Thankfully, none of his three advisers had also chosen or been ordered to come with us, either.
“The headaches?” Abioye murmured, sounding worried as we trudged. Our path led out from the thick, buttressed walls and up past semi-cultivated mountain meadows with short, stubby trees dotted all around. The way was wide and well-trod, clearly, but the land around us grew colder and wilder, with the grasses giving way to rocks and heathers.