Page 72 of Enchanted Heir
Krew grabbed my hand in his and brought it to his lips for a kiss.
“We bore these women with foreign affairs,” the king said after a long drink of his wine.
“I don’t mind, Your Grace,” Gwen smiled nicely.
“Nor I,” I managed to add smoothly while still looking at Krew.
“I am just happy to be out of my room for a bit,” Nara admitted as she adjusted her hair, sweeping the blonde locks over to one side.
The king smiled at her and used his napkin to wipe at the corners of his lips. “Now, I don’t suppose either of my sons wish to tell me why one of you has a faint bruise and the other had a bloodied lip?”
Krew went tense beside me, while Keir just looked at Krew and smiled.
“It was me, Your Grace,” I offered with a smile and the nicest tone I could muster up.
“Shocking,” the king said sarcastically.
I shook my head. “Not in the way you presume, Your Grace.”
He cocked his head and squinted, wishing for me to go on.
I purposefully looked to Gwen and Nara before switching back to the king. “Do you wish for me to explain now, Your Grace? In front of everyone?” I did not really care if I said it in front of Nara and Gwen, as I counted them both as friends, but I wanted it to seem as secretive as possible.
The king, of course, took the bait. He stood and gestured with an arm. “Fine. Come along then, you two. Goodnight, Keir. Gwen. Nara.”
“Goodnight, Father,” Keir mumbled. As soon as the king turned his back, he mouthed, “Good luck,” to Krew and me.
The three of us walked down a long hallway and into another room, a sitting room of sorts.
“Well. What is it that’s so important it couldn’t have been said around the Rallis girls?” the king barked as he sat down in a chair. “I was actually enjoying that dinner.”
Krew reached into his tailcoat and handed the king a bloom. The white bloom from the forest.
“What is this?” He sounded severely unimpressed.
Krew’s eyes never left his father’s as he said, “Jorah tried to put her blood into the lake to see if it could heal the lake. It didn’t do a thing to the lake, but it did this to the ground next to it.”
The king’s eyebrows pulled toward one another as he took another look at the bloom. “She healed it?”
Krew nodded. “She is far more valuable than I even knew when she came to my Assemblage.”
“Her blood?” he asked again, now looking to me.
Krew nodded. “And yet it did nothing to the lake. But we did a second trial, just to make sure it really was her blood and not coincidence.” He paused. “Twice now she has caused something to grow in that forest.”
“You will take me to see this straight away in the morning?”
Krew gave him a nod.
The king was quiet a long time, looking me over. “Iron Will.”
Krew nodded. “Yes, not only can she make magic vanish with her touch, but there is also some sort of healing element within her blood. She could be the key to fixing the forest.”
“No one knows?” the king asked.
Krew’s eyes finally went to me. “No one except Keir. He was there when she tried to fix the lake the first time. We disagreed on what to do with this information.”
“I’d like to help fix the forest, Your Grace,” I offered. “But I would prefer to keep my head upon my neck to do it.”
