All very proper and innocent, or so it seemed. However, no matter how much friendliness he projected, he was a mage and therefore, not to be trusted. I said as if lathering soft butter on warm bread, “If you give me a hint of the subjects, I can come to our meeting prepared.”
His eyes swept the hallway in both directions making sure nobody else was within hearing. Then he moved closer, and his voice grew softer as he leaned to whisper in my ear. “What do you know about dragons, Damon?”
The book he held in his hand tilted forward as he bent at his waist, perhaps an accident, but I didn’t think so. There was an illustration on the page. It was a sketch of a dragon. “They do not exist. At least, not anymore.”
“Wyverns?”
I said, demonstrating my new knowledge of the subject, “Those are not true dragons. If you wish to know about them, you might ask Princess Anna, who is from Mercia and has first-hand knowledge. What little I know pales in comparison.”
“How would one go about contacting this princess?”
“Oh, she is visiting here in the palace, staying in the east wing, I believe. She will be here for a few more days, but I’m not certain about that, and you might wish to hurry to speak to her before she departs.”
Twin placed his right hand on my shoulder and gave me a little squeeze as if I was a puppy who had peed outside the house for the first time and he was rewarding it with his gesture. He said, “We will meet soon and discuss things again.”
“Soon,” I lied. He would never corner me again in such a dangerous manner. My shoulder quivered where he’d touched me, and with my small magic, I understood it was more than a simple touch. The surge of magic I felt from his hand almost made me faint in reaction. Since it was not intended for me to feel, I couldn’t and didn’t react, or he would wonder, but that made it no less real.
Twin had transferred intense feelings to me with that gentle touch. After it, a person was supposed to like him, to trust him. The problem was that the mage might not even know or understand what he’d attempted. Or, he might. He may have learned as a child that people responded positively when he touched them in such a certain way while allowing his thoughts to run free.
Which brought up another idea. If he didn’t like a person, would his touch increase that dislike? For the ten-thousandth time, I cursed the restricted ownership of books about magic that might reveal such information. The mages and sorceresses kept a firm hand on them, and nearly all were guarded with spells to prevent others from reading them. My small magic might enable me to read them without issue, but I didn’t know for sure and being caught would tell them I was more than I wished for them to know.
My feet fled down the hallways, ignoring people who turned my way. My eyes centered on the floor, and my legs churned. They slowed when reaching more familiar grounds nearer my home because arousing speculation by my haste would be criticized. Elizabeth would have to hear everything—and she would have questions, comments, additions, and conclusions to be drawn. The evening would be hard for me and was sure to end with a head-pounding headache.
Hardly had I begun to explain when Elizabeth railed, “Twin? You allowed him to speak to you alone?”
“It wasn’t my fault. Besides, listen to what he said. He asked me to meet with him and discuss what is known of dragons.”
Her lip curled in distaste.
“My suggestion for him was that dragons do not exist, and he might wish to speak with Princess Anna about wyverns if he is interested. The book in his hand was open to a page with a dragon illustration.” I took a well-deserved breath and waited.
Kendra’s normal sweet smile had vanished and been replaced by a tight-lipped snarl. She perched on the corner of a table near Elizabeth, ready to leap to her service, and she clearly didn’t like what I had to say, either. Her dark eyes smoldered, and her olive skin flushed. Our similarities continued to astonish me.
Both of us had the same dark brown hair and eyes, our skin was darker than most, and our features were long and thin, in a way that we believed were noble in appearance. The little I remember of our parents was the same, both were dark and handsome.
Elizabeth had taken us in when we were about ten, as close as we can determine. We were living on the streets, stealing what we needed and fighting for scraps. Yet, we could both read, and our math included mastery of basic algebra and some geometry. What we didn’t have were parents or many memories of them.
Both of us had vague images in mind of our pasts and our parents but believed they had been absent from our lives for a couple of years when we found Princess Elizabeth—or she found us. The remembrances had been quickly fading with the demands of survival of everyday life without a family. Neither of us had specific information about what had happened, other than the impression of violence.
Believing us extraordinary from the beginning, Elizabeth had gone to her father when she was thirteen and asked for a reward to be posted for information about my sister and myself. She convinced him that we may be the children of wealthy traders or even royals of another kingdom, and they would be indebted for our return. After several interviews he had with us, he also was convinced there was more to us than could be explained.
He quietly posted rewards in foreign lands for information about a pair of missing children. He hired discrete investigators and had one of his best manservants control the flow of information. Wythe was appointed to follow up on any leads without alerting anyone in the palace. If word of us spread locally, some might take the opportunity to use that knowledge to lie and increase their own means. The man who gathered the information, Wythe, was an elderly man of considerable learning and a respected scholar. Until he died a year later, he prowled the seaports near Mercia seeking information from common seamen and captains alike, as he too was convinced we were from afar and that is the only port in the kingdom of Dire. His documents and conjectures disappeared with his death, although there was no reason to believe them missing and his death had any connection. Nor, did it directly involve us at our young ages.
Of course, anyone aware of the reward who offered information, real or false, in hopes of collecting a portion of the gold was gone, as was the documentation. The killers probably believed that Wythe had the reward money in his possession. Those rewards turned his search into such a well of poisoned water and false claims.
The king eliminated the reward. Instead, he relied upon simple conversations as his best means of investigation, and he sent several people in search if our beginnings, all without success.
After Wythe’s death, the subject seldom came up. We just accepted our fate. What was there to complain about? My sister and I lived in a beautiful palace, ate the best foods, and if we didn’t live exactly like royalty, we were only one step away. However, now and then one or the other of us would blurt out something we shouldn’t possibly know. Those instances were becoming rare, but we sometimes discussed them when alone.
Elizabeth snapped her fingers to draw my attention back to her and the present. She obviously had asked me something during my musings—and I’d missed it. She snapped, “Anything else?”
“Three things of interest.” I hurriedly answered. “Lady Tam intercepted me at the fountain.”
“Is this going to be painful to my ears?” She asked with a sharp smile because she knew about Tam’s feelings for me and of our prior meeting under the stars. Honesty is the foundation of our friendship, so I’d told her all.