Page 32 of Kingdom of Feathers

Lowering his arms, Basil saw that another dragon had appeared behind Dannsair, bobbing in the water like an oversized—and excessively scaly—duck. This dragon was of a similar size to Dannsair, but he had only a hint of purple edging his bright yellow scales.

“Greetings, Rekavidur,” said Basil, bowing once again.

“Greetings, King Basil,” said the dragon, regarding him fixedly.

“Reka!” Zinnia smiled at the newcomer. “Where did you come from?”

The dragon blinked in surprise. “Did you not see? I came from under the water.”

Zinnia looked like she was trying not to laugh, but to Basil’s relief, she didn’t comment on the dragon trait of taking everything literally.

“Can you breathe under there?” she asked instead, her head tilted curiously.

“Of course not,” said Rekavidur, sounding amused.

“Find anything?” Dannsair asked her fellow dragon, disregarding the two humans.

Rekavidur shook his head. “Not so much as a hint.”

“What were you looking for?” Zinnia asked.

“That is my own affair,” said Rekavidur unencouragingly. “You never know what, or whom, you might find if you look.” He cast his orb-like eyes over the king and princess. “What brings you here?”

“It is our own kingdom,” Zinnia pointed out, sounding slightly offended. “Basil’s even the king now.”

“I am aware of that,” said Rekavidur calmly. His gaze rested consideringly on Basil. “Are you here in your official capacity?”

“No,” said Basil quickly. “I’m here as an unwilling brother.”

“Traitor!” gasped Zinnia. She turned to Rekavidur. “Reka, you’re not from Solstice. Iknowyou don’t always follow the rules of the dragon colony here. Will you go with Basil to Mistra, to make sure they don’t kill him off? All you’d have to do would be to show your face. They wouldn’t dare pick a fight with him if he had a dragon on his side.”

“But I’m not on his side,” Rekavidur pointed out reasonably.

Dannsair nodded sagely. “We are fond of you, Zinnia. But we owe no allegiance to Entolia.” She inclined her head to Basil. “Much as we already think better of your reign than we did of your father’s.”

“Aha!” Zinnia cried, cutting off Basil’s opportunity to respond to the unexpected compliment. “It seems youdotake some interest in human politics. Otherwise what would you know of Basil’s reign?”

“Not involving ourselves is not the same as not knowing what’s happening,” said Dannsair, in an aloof tone that didn’t altogether erase the impression that she had indeed been caught out.

“Either way,” said Basil firmly. “I don’t have any expectation—or, if I’m honest, desire—to have either one of you accompany me to Mistra.”

“Honesty in humans is so refreshing,” commented Rekavidur, spreading his wings so as to shake water from them. “It almost makes me want to accompany you.”

“Why don’t you wish it?” Dannsair asked curiously.

Basil shrugged. “My aim is to reach a peaceful solution. If I wanted to overwhelm with force, I would mount a military attack. I want to negotiate, and I suspect that in order to do that, I’ll need to earn enough of a measure of trust to find out what’s really behind this conflict. Somehow I suspect that showing up with dragons in tow would destroy any chance of that.”

“We do tend to intimidate,” Dannsair agreed placidly. She reached up one of her front feet, using one long talon to pick a fishbone from between her razor-sharp teeth.

To Basil’s dismay, Zinnia snorted. “If you say so.” Her gaze passed between the two dragons, her shoulders slumped. “So there’s nothing you can do to look out for Basil?”

“Zinnia,” said Basil, as patiently as he could. “There’s no reason whatsoever they should be looking out for me.”

“Isn’t the Mistran princess the one who doesn’t speak?” Rekavidur asked Dannsair, disregarding both humans entirely. “Because of a curse?”

“According to our intelligence,” Basil cut in, “her silence isn’t related to the curse that killed her brothers. It just started at the same time.”

The yellow dragon regarded him thoughtfully. “Humans are very bad at recognizing magic, however.” His gaze passed to Dannsair. “I believe the Listernian curse involved stopping people’s tongues, did it not?”

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