Page 119 of Golden Queen
Io clasped my hand onto his sword. The warmth of his big fingers pressed mine onto the smooth, rounded idylstone inlaid into the pommel.
When he spoke, it was with a reverence that I did not expect. His deep voice said the words, and they washed through my soul like fire, like a burning chain entwining us together, binding him to me just as surely as though my soul was reaved to his.
"Nothing like this will ever happen to you again, I swear it. I offer my body and strength to ensure it, my kingdom to uphold it. I pledge my sword and my life to you, Aelia of Windemere. With this vow, I become your servant—of blood and of bone and of fire. I will give my life to defend you and lay my honor and duty at your feet. I shall never move against you lest this blade be quenched in the blood of my own beating heart."
Silence fell. The only sound was the thundering of my heart in my ears as a warm breeze ruffled Io's hair, sending the dark strands dancing across his forehead.
"You have to accept," Aben said, from behind him.
I looked down at the big, beautiful, powerful man kneeling at my feet, and I felt tears spill from my eyes.
The honor was too great. The oath of fealty, said in the old words—words that had survived the cataclysm that burned the world—words from an ancient civilization when almost everything else had been lost to the forces of time and nature—words that carried more than just their weight in service. They were an unbreakable oath of loyalty—binding him to me by blood and by bone and by fire.
"I accept," I said. He laid his forehead against our clasped hands for just a moment as the harsh, guttural cry of a dragon echoed through the smoky air.
Twenty-One
Ilooked out across my city as Veles' sharp claws clattered across the roof tiles. My heart broke for what I saw.
So many people—far too many, were still left in the city. Those who refused to leave, whether because of stubbornness or fear, I could never have said, but they were dying beneath the blades of these brutal soldiers.
Smoke rose from the shops on Merchant's Square, and screams echoed across the city. I looked at Io, helpless and angry. "What can we do?"
"There is nothing we can do, Sera. We cannot go against so many thousands of soldiers. And I will not leave you unprotected while I try."
I knew his words were true. The dark mark of the approaching Penjani horde lay across the godsgrass—a stain on the plains that stretched from the city wall all the way to the western horizon.
Aben stepped beside me, glancing back at Io, who hovered close to my side. His hand was raised slightly, as though I might tumble from the edge of the roof, and he needed to be ready to catch me.
"We need to go before the wyverns get here. If there are enough of them, even dragon fire will not do us any good," the big Dragon Mage said.
I nodded and turned to head toward Veles. As I took a step toward him, I remembered the elderwood seed, still lying in the drawer of my bedside table, now in the Queen's Tower. "I have to get something," I said, feeling ridiculous as I said it, but unwilling to take the time to try to explain. "I'll be quick."
Before anyone could argue, I turned and raced off down the line of the roof in the direction of where the tall, round Queen's Tower rose like a sentinel above the castle.
The tower balcony was on nearly the same level as my old chambers. It was simply a matter of hopping up a few levels of roof, across a short gap, and then shimmying along the balustrade until I could climb onto the balcony outside my room.
As I made the first hop up, I heard Io behind me. Of course he would come.
I turned to give him a grateful smile—glad that he had not asked me what I was doing.
When I reached the short gap between roofs, I felt his hands at my waist. He was unwilling to allow the almost nonexistent level of danger hopping across a two-foot gap entailed. "You are ridiculous," I said with a wry smile.
"Yes, because coming all this way to see you splattered on the cobbles is not ridiculous at all."
It felt almost normal between us. I appreciated that more than anything that had happened since they’d taken me from the hallway outside the chancellor's office.
We entered my chambers quietly, stepping gingerly across carpets littered with glass and debris. I was horrified to find the entire room had been ransacked.
Forgetting caution and my bare feet, I ran to the bedchamber. The little horse figurine Set carved for me out of a piece of driftwood Arkadian brought him from Lithaway, had been smashed as though someone had done it on purpose, out of spite.
My dresses were gone. My jewelry box was dumped upside down, now empty. The bed covers and the mattress had all been slashed with a knife.
My sword was gone. The beautiful Obeskan steel blade that Arkadian had given me what felt like several lifetimes ago, was missing from where it always hung from the edge of the mirror in the corner.
The drawers of the bedside table were pulled out, their contents dumped on the floor.
I wanted to cry, but I would not allow myself to. I had something important to find—something I now knew was as much an honor as the oath of fealty Io had just sworn to me.
