Page 42 of The Artist and the Dragon

The key elements needed to work Goddess-given magic.

Malik was calm and steady as a trained physician as he spoke to the man, distracting him while he worked.

The man groaned. Whimpered.

“Hold him still!” Malik ordered the others, who rushed to comply.

Seconds passed. People drew near. A few guards returned their way.

Malik’s bloody fingers stilled and then withdrew. “Not as bad as we thought,” he said. “See? The gash needs time to heal, but it looks like the bone is solid.”

One of the men who’d been helping gaped. “But it…” His mouth opened and closed.

Malik stood and clapped the man on the shoulder. “Get him to a physician. The wound needs cleaning and bandaging.”

“Of course, Your Highness.”

Bronwyn side-stepped the bloody ground as they carried the man away. She pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and handed it to Malik. “Thank you.”

He took her offering with another curt nod, his face solemn, but as he wiped away the blood, the hint of a mischievous grin caught the corner of his lips. “Did you just thank me? That might be a first.”

She huffed but couldn’t deny the slight urge to smile—a rare thing these days. “I…” She looked around quickly. “I wasn’t sure you’d do it.”

The wicked glint in his eyes softened into something far more uncomfortable than his playful barb. “How could I deny my savior?”

Thankfully, the return of two of the royal guards saved her from needing to respond.

“Anything?” Malik asked before they’d even come to a halt.

The look the guards shared told her everything. All humor vanished in an instant.

The dragons had escaped. Again.

Chapter 18

Malik

Onceagain,he’dcomeso close only to fail. A dragon had been among them at the races—quite possibly more than one. There had to be a better way to identify them, to stop them for good.

When he’d found Lady Siân again at the carriages with her brother, she had nearly sobbed in a display far too theatrical for her. Apparently, she’d refused to leave until she knew Malik was well, which he assured her she was. Her gaze had darkened slightly when she’d noticed Bronwyn at his side. It was subtle, something most might miss, but he didn’t. Jealousy.

But he couldn’t forget that she and her brother had been present for most of the recent disasters. And where had Mr. Yarwood been when the fire started? The man had said something that unsettled Bronwyn, and Lady Siân, in her torrent of worry, had divulged that she’d found her brother only after she’d fled the stands.

Could he have done it?

Malik turned the possibility over and over in his head as he and Bronwyn returned to the castle with some of the royal guards, those who didn’t stay behind to finish investigating the racecourse or assisting the venue owners. In his hands, he clutched the banner that the dragon in the stands had dropped. It was small, no bigger than a pillow, and bore a simple painting of a dragon. Though he couldn’t feel any trace of magic on it, that wasn’t definitive. It would require further examination.

Bronwyn kept staring at it like it might come alive and attack her. Not that he’d let it even if it did.

They didn’t discuss what he’d done, the risk he’d taken. It had been the right thing to do, but would he have done it had she not asked? He hoped he would, but he wasn’t sure. How many others had been injured and carted away without magical aid?

Most had been nobles, though. They could seek aid from one of the other members of the nobility who practiced healing arts, a highly sought and lucrative occupation.

The beam had been meant for him but had struck another instead. And when Bronwyn asked him to heal the man… Well, he could deny her nothing, especially when it painted him a hero in her eyes. He was so rarely that—to her, to anyone.

But … Malik had shown his magic. His father would be in a rage in whatever hell he resided in, if there were one, though the more Malik thought about that, the prouder he became. Perhaps he’d share all the secrets of magic one day, if only to spite Rhion. Times were changing. The whole populace knew what their king could become now, unless they lived in denial; it was time people knew about the Goddess’s gifts through more than the legends most thought were fairy tales.

Too long had Castamar been a kingdom of secrets and isolation. They could be more, so much more. They would have to be to avoid the sins of the past.

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