Page 32 of Forked Tongues Are Fun
Tavis crossed one leg over the other with a nod. “You say the word, and we’ll imbue him with our trove magic. It won’t hurt him. He’ll be free to live his life as he usually would. We won’t let anything happen to him. Period.”
The largest, tightest knot of worry lodged in my chest eased some. All that mattered was that Asa was safe. Everything else was peanuts compared to that.
I smoothed my hand across the top of his head and pressed my lips to his hairline, breathing in his natural crisp fall smell. “I feel like I need to explain all this to him first so he knows what’s happening, but yes.” My voice cracked some. I looked at the three of them in turn as I attempted to swallow the lump in my throat. Their offer meant everything to me, but I no longer trusted my voice to carry to them just how much. I hoped they could guess, though, hoped I could lift a massive weight off of them someday in return.
“Unfortunately...” Vance weaved his fingers together, his elbows propped on his knees. “We can’t offer that same kind of protection to you.”
“That’s not to say that we won’t protect you,” Calhoun said in a rush. “We’ll do everything we possibly can to keep you safe, too, but because Léas chose you as queen, our magic won’t work the same way on you.”
“If we’d had time before you were chosen, we would’ve, but...” Vance sighed.
Tavis squeezed my knee. “I’m sorry, Yara.”
I waved my hand. “You have no reason to apol—”
A vision out the rain-dotted window made me suck in a breath, loud enough to stir Asa awake. It had to be a vision because places like that didn’t really exist. Standing on top of a high cliff, a white castle climbed up through the clouds and stars, its tall arches and turrets straight out of a fairytale. As the limo turned on a curve higher up the cliff, the castle sprawled out farther than I’d imagined. The thing was huge, especially when compared to what Asa and I were used to living in.
“Are you kidding me right now?” I whispered.
Asa blinked out the window, and his eyes widened. “What’s that?”
Tavis grinned at the scene beyond the window. “Your new home, big guy.”
Asa rolled off my lap like he was made out of liquid and plastered his hands and face to the window. Then he turned toward us, his mouth a perfect O. “Dude.”
“My reaction exactly,” Tavis said with a laugh.
Asa erupted with ten thousand questions at lightning speed, and I was still processing...well, everything. I’d never been handed anything quite like this. A castle, a home. I’d tried my best to make our ramshackle apartment into a cozy oasis, but it was still a shitty place to live. This though... How would someone like me fit into something so majestic as that?
When the limo pulled to a stop in front of it, Asa couldn’t contain his excitement any longer, and he darted out, immediately went to his knees, and brought up fistfuls of rocks. “Look at the rocks. Therocks, Yara. We can paint all of them!”
The shifters laughed as they clambered out, and I followed, my feet sliding over the pebbles, slick with rain. Waves crashed against the cliffside about a hundred feet away, and birds sang to the light blue ribbon in the night sky, their wings fluttering the leaves in nearby trees. The air smelled fresh and clean, like a new beginning. It was peaceful here, serene even. I didn’t trust it, probably because I knew the feeling wouldn’t last.
We entered the castle through two humongous wooden double doors, each one engraved with panels depicting dragons. I was pretty sure that if I stared at them long enough, the panels would tell a story, but there was too much to look at. Like the golden doorknobs that were as high as my chin. I wondered how much I could sell them for because let’s face it—once a thief, always a thief. I roamed my fingers over them as I followed my three shifters and Asa inside.
The sight in front of me took my breath away. We stood in an enormous entryway with black and white checked marble floors drenched in sunlight from the high windows, even though the sun hadn’t yet risen. Two huge dragon statues spurted red fiery liquid from their mouths into stone fountains on either side of the room, and straight ahead, a wide, glamourous staircaseled to the second floor.
What sat in front of the stairs was what caught Asa’s eye. A long table piled high with food, still hot enough to curl steam. He ran toward it, making a sound like a sobbing laugh.
My eyes filled with tears—again, damn it—as I watched him. Like me, he knew the meaning of true hunger, beyond the kind that ate a hole through your empty stomach and seeped into your bones.
Everything you need, the goddess had said. It appeared she was right.
On my right, Tavis made googly eyes at the food table, too, and rubbed the blue pineapple over his stomach. “Léas must’ve sent some cooks to get here before we arrived.”
Calhoun, standing on my left, surveyed the space with narrowed eyes. “I’ll scope the entire castle out.”
Behind me, Vance pressed his knuckles gently into my spine, his breath soft on my back. “You okay?”
“It’s, uh... It’s a lot to take in,” I whispered.
“We’ll get you acclimated quickly,” he said. “Léas said the coronation is in one week, so we have time.”
Calhoun scoured the entryway from my side, worry drawn across his forehead. “The Queen’s Cross, the relic linking the goddess and you so you can communicate, should be right here.”
“You’re right...” Tavis said. “Hey, did you two get your power yet from the full-moon ritual?”
Vance and Calhoun shook their heads, and the three of them shared an anxious look.
