Page 32 of Enchanted Crown
I had barely let myself consider why my Enchantment was beginning to flare around Esta. Yes, I cared for her deeply, so of course my magic would pick up on that. When I had returned from Wylan back to Dra Skor, I’d spent a while being absolutely full of rage. Now I was considering that it might not have been fully mine.
But Esta and I were from two different countries, two different blood lines. Becoming soul bound? It seemed too outrageous. We should be thankful we could even bond at all. To have the audacity to wish for the stars on top of that seemed too much.
Yet I knew every time she had a nightmare. Every time she was angry. Not only because I knew her well enough to read her, but because Icouldfeelit.
So what did it mean?
Krew and I stood ready,our jackets and vests on, crowns upon our heads. Esta wanted Krew to make an appearance in the war room before we left. It was the ambassador thing to do.
And if Krew’s appearance made any more of the advisors uncomfortable enough to slip up, that was perfectly fine with me.
We neared the doors, our shoes clacking on the marbled flooring, when Krew slowed to ask, “Do you trust me?”
“Impeccably.”
“Good.”
Without delay, Krew blew open the doors with his power, despite the fact that the guards would have opened them for us.
“Would you like any help?” I asked him, not even knowing what this little display was.
“I’ve got it,” he said with a smirk.
The war room stood at attention, and I wasn’t sure if that was Esta’s urging or the shock of Krew blowing the doors wide open.
“King of Wylan,” Esta smiled.
“Queen of Dra Skor,” Krew greeted back.
With a wave of her hand, Esta’s advisors sat.
“We would like to thank you for your efforts yesterday. Seven shifters are healing at the castle this morning.Seven,” Esta reiterated.
Jagen added with a smile, “Rumors of what the two of you are capable of together, how your magic can combine, are traveling across Dra Skor in record speed.”
Zaccai pounded his paw into the ground twice. While Krew might have thought it odd, I understood it was a sign of respect in Dra Skor.
Krew made no move to the chair Esta gestured him to, the chair I had recently been using. He stayed standing instead, so I stayed standing beside him.
“I cannot promise that I will be returning any time soon,” Krew began. “There is an entire country of missing people, and others which also need healing. There is much to be done. But I selfishly wanted to come here. To be with my brother.”
Zaire was oddly quiet, eyes bouncing from Krew to me.
“Keir is welcome to stay as long as he’d like,” Reyald Mallick stated.
Hadn’t he wanted to marry me off to Amory a month ago just to keep me from Esta? I guess he had always wanted me to stay, if I truly thought about it. Just not with his daughter who was needed to pop out dragon babies as fast as humanly possible.
“I see a great peace settling between our two countries,” Krew offered. “I have no desire to rule the entire realm like my father did. Wylan has plenty to keep me busy.”
Reyald let out a chuckle, as if he understood.
“But on the off-chance Keir should not ever be welcome here,not besafehere...” In Krew’s pause I noted his magic leaving his hands to crawl along the walls, up the table legs itself, and around the entirety of the room. He waited until every object in the room started vibrating and shaking under his power. Their own teacups rattled before the advisors, one such finally falling to the floor and breaking.
“Krew,” I snapped. I sent my own power out to swiftly pickup and move the glass before anyone got cut.
He let it all fall, the room deathly still except for the tension now crawling along every advisor’s skin.
“There is nothing I would not do for my brother,” he continued, wholly unbothered. “Do I make myself clear? The treaty states there will be peace between our countries until one of us provokes and attacks the other. Should anything happen to my brother, even a hair on his head out of place, consider me provoked.”
