Queen Of The Great Underworld

45

“Did you become a Drakon Warrior?” Aaru spoke carefully, quietly, like waiting for someone to catch him. One did not speak aloud to their superiors on Idris—not without invitation—and he, like most of us, considered Gerel an expert here.

“No.” A frown tugged on her mouth. “The Galadriel Treaty went into effect when I was three years old, but I always believed the part outlawing the practice of dragon riding would be repealed.”

“Right. Forgot that part. Sorry.”

Gerel shook her head. “I don’t know how you could forget the worst part of it. I hate the Galadriel Treaty.”

“Barely affects me.” Aaru said it like a shrug.

“What do you think of it?” Gerel looked at me. “After all, you have the unfortunate distinction of sharing a name with it. I bet you have an opinion.”

I was of the opinion that the Galadriel Treaty did more good than harm. It helped the dragons. It freed Harta. It united the islands. Sure, dragons were illegal to own now, and if anyone understood the desire for dragons, I did. But we did what was necessary to care for the children of the gods.

I weighed the idea of asking Gerel whether she knew the Drakon Warriors had not truly disbanded. Yarrow had all but admitted his involvement, but he didn’t say when he’d joined them. Gerel might know, but there was equal chance she didn’t, and it wasn’t my place to tell her when I didn’t have more information.

“Well?” Annoyance edged Gerel’s tone. “You probably got teased in school. You must have thought about it.”

I pulled myself back into the present. Gerel had been nice to me for the last few days, and I wanted to keep her that way.

“I have.” I just hadn’t thought of a way to talk about it while hiding that I was the Galadriel. And since Gerel hated the treaty, it seemed best not to give her another reason to despise me. “It seems to me that the Galadriel Treaty—”

“I tried to kill Galadriel once,” Hurrok said from down the hall.

Gerel stopped in the middle of stretching her arm across her chest. Her eyes cut to me.

Then his words registered.

“What did you say?” Gerel’s voice was deep. Angry. She’d always seemed powerful to me, but when she gripped the bar of her door and peered out the side—not that she could see much—she was terrifying. Her knuckles stood sharp. Her eyes narrowed. In the dim, shadowy light, every muscle went taut with readiness. She looked fierce.

Hurrok spoke slowly, like he was attempting to communicate with someone very stupid. “I said I tried to kill Galadriel Minkoba once. That’s how I ended up here.”

“Why?” The question fell out of my mouth, but maybe I didn’t want to know.

“She ruined my life!”

I couldn’t see him from my position, but still I pressed my face to the bars of my cell and peered down the hall. “How?” Five heartbeats raced in my ears, loud. Painful.

“You don’t have to humor this waste of breath.” Gerel looked as though she might crush the cell bars with her bare hands.

::Gerel is right,:: Aaru added. ::He doesn’t mean you. He means the Hopebearer.::

“I wanted her dead!”

A faint cry of hysteria escaped, and I shuddered, but Gerel didn’t notice. She was too busy attempting to break down the door, though I couldn’t imagine why. She didn’t like the Galadriel Treaty me or the me she thought she knew.

“I hate her,” said the screaming man. He sucked in a noisy breath. “I tried to sneak into her house a year ago. It’s up there in Crescent Prominence, where the Luminary Council lives. She lives there, too, like she’s someone important. She was getting ready for a party. I could see her through her window. Through the open door of her dressing room, where that woman was helping her.”

As he described it, I could envision myself sitting at the dressing table with Krasimir brushing cosmetics across my face. The screaming man was right. He could have seen me through the window if the dressing room door was open.

Another shudder rippled through me.

“I had an arrow dipped in poison. I was ready to do it.”

My heart hammered against my chest. A hundred times. A thousand times. It ached. I didn’t want to hear how he’d almost killed me, but I couldn’t lift my voice to tell him to be quiet. I couldn’t gather enough breath.

“Just as I’d nocked the arrow, her Sparrowguard dog came into the bedroom. He slammed the dressing room door shut and he came at me. I tried to shoot him instead, but he threw something at me and knocked me off the window ledge. Next thing I knew, I was on trial and sent here.”

I remembered that day. I’d been preparing for a charity ball at Councilor Elbena’s mansion. The money was going to benefit research into the ancient ruins across the islands. My dress had been long, layered, golden, and trimmed in topaz. Krasimir had done my hair in a series of loops and braids, adding strings of crystal so that I sparkled. I’d never felt more beautiful.

Then the door had shut with a bang. Krasimir had been so surprised she smeared the line across my eye. She’d muttered about having to start over. But thirteen minutes later, the door opened again and Father stood there, impeccably dressed and brooding. The ball was off. Crescent Prominence was on lockdown for the rest of the night. Half the regular guards had been fired from their positions.

My questions about why had been ignored, and though I’d mourned the loss of that charity ball, others had followed and I had mostly forgotten about it.

Until now.