Page 57 of Enchanted Heir
Apollo shook his head. “I think we should give it a few more weeks to settle down. Since Jorah switched Assemblages, and the confusion surrounding that move, Nerede has become restless.” He switched his attention to me. “Your mother has said you are happy and wished to switch and keeps reminding anyone that asks that she is not worried, and neither should they be, so that is helping. We have just seen an increase in recruitment of disloyal since the Assemblages began. Nerede has not liked this process from the beginning.”
“Do you blame them?” I snapped at him. “Sending their daughters into the gods know what with very little knowledge of how this all works?” I reached a hand each toward Krew and Keir. “No offense to either of you.”
Apollo put up a hand. “I do not blame them at all. I am just stating the facts that you might not be privy to.”
Krew asked, “Would it help if Jorah and I were out in public in Nerede on our next trip to see her mother? So they can see with their own eyes she is alive and well?”
Hatcher offered, “It couldn’t hurt anything.”
“We should go to the Harvest Festival.”
I turned toward Krew and nodded, thinking the exact same thing. “Everyone will see that I am okay. You can do some sort of secret handshake thing with a few locals you know, and if I know anything about Nerede, it’s how tremendously fast the rumors spread.”
Emric sat back in his chair. “This is actually a decent idea.”
“We will have to take some extra guards,” Owen demanded.
“But not too many that it makes them uncomfortable,” Easton offered wisely.
I shot him a grateful smile. “Yes. Let’s not ruin their fun.” I looked at Krew. “How will you get that sort of outing approved by your father?”
He shrugged. “I’ll tell him about the increase in disobedience lately and say that I am going with you and going to try to get to the bottom of it and sniff out some disloyal while I’m there. He will probably send me with a kiss on my way and offer me any of his guards to take along with. One or two of which we will presumably have to actually bring with, otherwise he could get suspicious.”
I smirked. He was really way too good at this.
“Try to find Beau Jones while you’re there,” Hatcher continued. “He seems to be one of the more useful disloyal masterminds in Nerede. He’s been organizing the stockpile of food that goes unreported, the one that has been helping Nerede stay fed. He’s been very clever in how to bury it in the paperwork and avoid taxation.”
Owen’s eyes flew to mine. “Jones. Where have I heard that name?”
I choked on my breath and had to cough to keep from spitting on myself. “I think you heard the name Theodore Jones the other day in my mother’s bakery. Theodore is Beau’s second oldest son.”
Owen slapped the table. “Ahh, yes. One of your top suitors waiting for your return. Thenice-looking one.”
I groaned. “Really, Owen? You just had to divulge all the details?”
Keir shook his head. “What are they doing? Lining up outside the bakery?”
I didn’t say anything. Neither did Owen or Krew.
“That’s what they’re doing?!” Keir asked.
I shrugged. “Mother says that since I have been to the castle now, chosen for the Assemblage... Assemblages... it’s as if I no longer have Nerede status. So even when I do return, I will be treated as if I belong in Rallis. I’ll be some sort of Nerede nobility.”
“Makes sense,” Hatcher nodded. “In a world where your level in the kingdom means everything, you have shifted the paradigm.” He paused. “You, my dear, might be a key in this. To getting things to calm down in Nerede. Krew was right to bring you in on this.”
I gave him a smile, happy with myself. Plus, I had possibly just gotten a way to attend the Harvest Festival. So there was that to look forward to now too.
“But she’s a key to much more than that, isn’t she?” Anderson asked, his voice harsh.
Did he not like me? What the hell was his problem anyway? Now that I thought about it, he had been rather quiet this entire meeting.
“Excuse me?” Krew snapped.
“There is growth in the forest. New growth after a decade of its dying. And she,” his eyes went to me, “barges into a meeting needing to show you something and then goes to Hallows’ Eve as a tree. It’s not very hard to pick up on that message.”
“Shit,” Owen hissed.
“I thought she didn’t have magic,” Emric stated.
