Page 20 of The Artist and the Dragon

“There … there was a pretty ring. Sparkly and big as my thumb!” His eyes positively glittered, the memory seeming to wipe away his fears. “Real strange. Like …” He made the shape of a heart with his hands.

“Anything else? Did she give you a name?”

Another vigorous head shake.

Malik reined in a sigh. Great, a dark-haired young woman. That could be a good portion of the kingdom, though if she wore such lavish jewelry, that did limit their selection.

The door to the storage room where they’d been holding the discussion cracked open, and Jackoby slipped in, looking grim even for someone as stoic as himself.

“Excuse me, Your Highness. You’re needed at once.” He shifted his attention to Kent. “You as well.”

Goddess help him, couldn’t he catch a break? Malik shoved to his feet. It seemed like they’d gotten everything they could from the boy, anyway.

“Do let us know if your son remembers anything else,” Malik said to the maid.

After being given abundant promises to do just that, Malik went with Kent and Jackoby into the main kitchen, where the head chef waited. The maid and her son fell under the chef’s supervision, so it was only right she be involved; however, Malik still preferred to keep the details of the suspect as quiet as possible.

“See that the boy and his mother are taken care of,” Malik said to the older woman.

The chef’s eyes widened. “Your Highn—”

“Not like that!” Malik snapped.

The fear fled the older woman in a rush.

Malik sighed and rubbed his forehead. All these months, and people still immediately thought the worst of him. “I meant, see that they are comforted. Make sure they have what they need. Food. Money. Whatever. I don’t want them tempted by so little. We ought to be able to meet the needs of our own and then some.” Clearly, he and the king needed to review the staff wages and make some improvements.

“I— Yes, Your Highness. Right away.”

One situation resolved—for the moment—Malik turned to Jackoby. He swore the man had paled since last he saw him. Hopefully, he was not ill. “Where are we needed?”

Jackoby swallowed. “Just come with me.” He turned on his heel, not waiting for Malik to agree.

Malik’s brows furrowed as he followed the butler, Kent a step behind. “No hint?”

“Just … just come.”

Malik looked over one shoulder, sharing a look with Kent, who shrugged. The further they ventured into the heart of the castle, the deeper the pit of Malik’s stomach grew. When they turned down the corridor to the royal quarters, the hair on the back of his neck stood on end.

The halls were vacant, not a guard in sight as there usually were at all hours.

Not knowing was agony, yet he couldn’t find the voice to ask amid the deathly quiet surrounding them. He was ready to burst from his skin when Jackoby finally stopped in front of a door and knocked lightly.

Rather than go in, however, he turned and addressed them both. “What you learn does not leave this room, by order of His Majesty Tristram Ithael.” He did not wait for their reply before turning, cracking the door open, and ushering them in.

Malik saw Drystan first among the small crowd gathered and breathed a sigh of relief. But the relief was short lived. Halfway into the room, he stopped in his tracks. Every fear became a glaring, cold reality as he took in the form lying motionless on the bed.

Ceridwen lay tucked in like she might be asleep, but the somber silence and quiet sniffles told a different story. Jaina, the housekeeper who’d become a surrogate mother to the Kinsley children, cried as she sat next to the queen and brushed her fingers over her cheek. Immediately, Malik sought Bronwyn, panic spiking anew at her absence, but another step into the room and he spied her where she knelt beside the bed, staring at her sister.

“What happened?” His voice hardly sounded like his own.

All eyes turned to him. The crowd consisted of Ceridwen’s family, mostly. Her brother Adair, with his arm around their father’s shoulders, trying to console the older man. Jaina and her husband Gerard, who’d tended them for years and were family by love if not blood. Of the castle staff—besides Jackoby and Kent—there was Drystan’s head housekeeper, Gwen, who presently sobbed into a handkerchief. The only two whose names he didn’t know were the guards sitting dejected and alone in a corner.

Drystan bared his teeth, a deep growl rumbling through the room before he spoke. “My wife was attacked.” The hard edge in his voice and the sight of his white-knuckled fists had Malik’s heart kicking in a new way. His cousin was close to losing control. Holding on by a thread.

“Attacked?” he echoed, dumbstruck. “Here in the castle?”

Gerard rose from his chair, shaking his graying head. “It was something hidden in the wedding presents.”

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