Everlast (The Chronicles of Nerissette) (Entangled Teen) Read online

  Timbago walked slowly up the aisle, a large box floating behind him, and stepped onto the dais beside me. “Your Majesty.”

  “Timbago.”

  He didn’t say anything, simply waved his hands over the box, and the lid opened slowly. “The crown jewels of Nerissette. The first of many gifts from the people of your realms.”

  “I don’t have anything for them,” I said quietly.

  “You are queen, and that is gift enough for your subjects.”

  “That seems like a really crappy gift.”

  “I think you may be surprised. Now, are you ready?” Timbago asked.

  “I doubt it.”

  “Well”—he leaned closer so that his pointy nose was almost pressed against my ear—“prepare to be amazed.”

  Timbago turned back to the crowd and clapped his hands together, the doors at the far end of the room flying open. “The delegation from the Leavenwald!”

  A group of men came through the door, each of them carrying a bow. Jugglers threw balls and pins in the air, and acrobats flipped about in front of them as the musicians in the back played a fast, jangly song. The acrobats began to dance as a group of warriors came forward to kneel in front of my throne. The one in the center placed an ornate wooden bow in front of me.

  “May your hunts always be bountiful,” the young woodsman said.

  “And yours,” I said.

  He stepped back, and the men dispersed to the side.

  “The warriors of the Veldt!” Timbago said.

  Another group came through the doors and bowed low before me, Lady Arianne leading the way. She made a motion with her hands, and three men lugged a chest forward and set it next to the bow, throwing the lid open to show that it was loaded down with gold coins and expensive-looking jewels.

  Timbago waved a hand at them, and Lady Arianne narrowed her eyes at him before she motioned her delegation to the other side of the hall, away from of the men of the Leavenwald. The hunters sneered at her, and I couldn’t help glancing between the two groups, curious why they disliked each other so much.

  “The mayor of Neris,” Timbago announced.

  A skinny man in blue brought me a golden key and a large wooden trunk filled with more gold.

  “The Free Peoples of the Sorcastian Plain,” the goblin cried out.

  This time a group of big men in tattered work clothes came forward, women in long cotton dresses tucked in between them, each of them carrying a bag full of flowers or big baskets of vegetables that they sat in front of me.

  “The Dragos Council,” Timbago said.

  My heart began to pound even harder as Winston came up the center aisle, at the very center of a group of men who all knelt and lowered their heads again. Then he stepped forward and knelt on the stair in front of me, holding up a large, clear crystal shaped like a dragon’s claw.

  “For you,” he said, his voice quiet, as I stood and let him slip it over my neck. “May your rule always be just, and may you hold everyone you protect close to your heart, no matter how unworthy they may be.”

  “Thank you,” I whispered.

  My breath caught as he ran his hands along my arm. The rest of the room could have disappeared for all I cared.

  “Your Majesty.”

  I moved away from Winston, my cheeks flaming, as the wizard raised an eyebrow at me.

  “My queen.” Winston bowed toward me again and backed down the stairs to the rest of his delegation. They made their way over to stand next to John of Leavenwald, and Timbago grinned at me.

  “You’re going to enjoy this,” he said quietly before returning to using his surprisingly powerful voice. “The Wizard Council!”

  The sky above us went dark as thunder began to roll, and fireballs lit up the room. Between the booms of thunder, there was a piercing wail as a brilliant green dragon flew through the air. Purple smoke billowed from its mouth, and it came straight toward me, eyes blazing, before it disappeared.

  “What was that?”

  There was another fireball, and then the floor around us turned to a green carpet of grass that began to move and I, along with everyone else in the room, was taken on a flyby tour of the lands of Nerissette as it spread out among us.

  People exclaimed as they saw the villages full of imaginary dragons and the encampments of people who lived in the desert. The scene changed to a long green plain, and creatures that looked like deer stampeded through the ballroom to disappear just as they looked about to charge me.

  The scene changed to a deep-green wood, water dripping in the background as birds sang. Then there was a loud clap as men filled the scene, all of them wearing army camo and battling with one another. A red-faced man beheaded another, and the blood seeped onto the floor in front of my throne. I fought my instinct to lift my feet, and I let the phantom blood puddle around my delicate gold slippers.

  Another clap, louder than the last, and the scene disappeared. The smoke cleared, and I looked out at a ballroom crowded with cowering nobles. I scowled down at the Fate Maker, standing at the front of a delegation of wizards with a defiant gleam in his eyes.

  Instead of bowing or kneeling in front of me like the delegations, he simply nodded once, then he and the rest of the wizards marched out of the ballroom, their heads held high.

  We all watched as the wizards stalked out of the room, and then everyone turned their eyes to me, waiting for me to do something. Except, the problem was, I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do about a group of wizards who obviously felt like they didn’t have to bow their heads to me as their queen.

  When the Fate Maker came back in a few moments later, alone this time, he didn’t even bother to hide his self-satisfied smirk.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Dragon’s blood, my queen?” Lady Arianne asked two hours later.

  I sat on my sort-of throne and watched as the nobles in front of me danced and flirted among themselves, all of them occasionally glancing at me watching them.

  “No, thanks.” I waved her away as I watched Winston talking to a blonde girl in bright-pink silk who seemed extremely interested in getting as close to him as possible. She kept motioning to the dryad band in the corner, playing a sweet melody on wooden instruments, and then back at the dance floor, obviously trying to persuade him to dance.

  Not that I cared. Really. There was no reason for me to want to go over there and rip the girl’s hair out of her head. There really wasn’t. Even if he had been snuggling me more than was normal for people who were strictly friends since we’d arrived in Nerissette.

  I curled my fingers around the glass and bit my lower lip.

  “Are you quite sure, Your Majesty?” Lady Arianne tried again. “It’s from my own vineyards. Our own private species of ember fruit.”

  “I’m not thirsty, thanks.” I tried to ignore her prattling, scanning the crowd for the rest of my friends.

  Heidi was near one of the banquet tables, taking away dirty goblets that had been abandoned, a sullen look on her face, as Jesse picked through the various cakes and sweets on display, blatantly ignoring her as he got us both something to munch on. Not that I was particularly hungry.

  “Well, I was hoping we could discuss some issues with my current territory in the Veldt,” Arianne said.

  “Uh-huh,” I hummed noncommittally. There was Mercedes, arguing with Rhys in a corner as he tried to drag her onto the dance floor with him.

  “Your Majesty?” the lady asked.

  “Yes? The Veldt. What about it?” I raised my eyebrows at her and she used that as an excuse to kneel beside my seat so that we were almost eye-to-eye.

  “You may not know this, Your Majesty,” Arianne said, “but the Veldt is by far the largest area of your kingdom. Much larger than the Borderlands to the north.”

  “So?”

  “So, I have a son of my own, a native child of Nerissette, close in age to yourself. A wise boy. Clever as well. A native of this land, as I said.”

  “And?” I asked impa
tiently. She wasn’t going to push for him to take over the army again, was she?

  “Yet he is only a soldier.” Yep. She was. “A commander of a small legion of catapult artillery, while that Rhys Sullivan is lord general. A man who fell through a book from another world, who controls only a small portion of land, outranks a child of our own blood.”

  “Yeah? I came through the book, too. What’s your point?” I narrowed my eyes at her.

  “That’s different. You were always meant to take this role.”

  “Enough,” the Fate Maker said loudly. He was glaring at the steward of the Veldt from his spot beside my throne. “Your son is a shallow fool who seeks only his own glory, and Fate has decreed that Rhys Sullivan is meant to lead our armies.”

  “My son—”

  “Is a fool,” the Fate Maker finished for her. “A fool who let ten men die as he attempted to hunt a kidnapped Hound for sport.”

  “That was the playing of boys,” Arianne protested.

  “Play that left ten dead—none of them your son or the Hound.”

  “I don’t understand. They were hunting a dog? Why?” I asked.

  “Not a dog, Your Majesty,” the Fate Maker said sharply. “The half human children of the dragon clans. They’re trained as scouts. They’ve a strong nose on them and are said to be able to hunt better than any animal, even their parents. Those children are known as the Hounds.”

  “So, your son kidnapped a person, and then hunted him? Why?”

  “They were making sport, Your Majesty,” Arianne tried to explain.

  “Where I come from that’s not a sport. That’s murder.”

  “Then maybe we should discuss something else,” Arianne said.

  “What, like the time he decided to bomb your palace?” the Fate Maker asked.

  “We could talk about how the woodsmen keep us from our traditional hunting grounds in the Leavenwald. If we had those lands back my son wouldn’t need to kidnap his prey from outside our borders. He’d have more than enough game to satisfy him.”

  “Maybe we shouldn’t.” I knew moms like her. Nothing was their perfect children’s fault. Their kids could be the worst bullies in town, and those mothers would find some way to make it your fault that their kid was kicking the crap out of you.

  “Your Majesty, please. My Gunter is a good boy.”

  “Come dance with me?” a dark, smooth voice rumbled, and I turned away from the Lady Arianne to smile at Winston.

  “I’d love to.” I took his hand and didn’t bother to look back at the Fate Maker or the scheming noblewoman on my other side.

  “You looked like you were about to lose your temper like you did last year in American History when Tommy Blankenship kept insisting that California was one of the original thirteen colonies.”

  “Only an idiot would think that.” A surge of irrational anger flooded through me at the mention of the whole Tommy Blankenship scenario.

  “So what did that idiot do?” He pulled me into the middle of the dance floor, and all the other couples moved away from us so that we had a circle of empty space to dance. I wrapped my arms around his neck, and we started to sway back and forth to the sweet-sounding dryad music.

  “She wants me to fire Rhys and make her son the head of the army.”

  “Are you going to?”

  “He kidnapped a dragon halfling and hunted it—for fun.” I saw Winston grimace. “Obviously I’m not putting someone like that in charge of anything.”

  “At least she didn’t ask you to make him ambassador to the Dragos Council.”

  “The Dragos Council? Is that who’s in charge of the dragons?”

  “Yep.” He pulled me closer, and I tried to ignore the way my heart was starting to pound. “As it stands, I’ve been named their assistant ambassador to you under the tutorship of Ardere—unless you want to put the other guy in my place, that is.”

  My eyes followed Winston’s as I looked over my shoulder at Lady Arianne, talking angrily with a chubby, messy-haired boy with blond hair and a sullen expression.

  “Who are we looking at?” Rhys asked as he danced Mercedes over next to us.

  “The boy standing next to Lady Arianne,” I said.

  “You don’t want him as an ambassador to anyone. Not only will he get himself killed, but he’ll have an army at your door before his first week as ambassador is out.”

  “Wow, is he really that bad?” I asked.

  Rhys smiled. “He once threw a boulder at his own castle. What do you think?”

  “Ouch.” Mercedes giggled.

  “He wants to be head of the army,” I said.

  “We’ll lose the country in two days if you give it to him. Not to mention he’ll probably destroy your palace,” Rhys said. “I’d tell him no and then blame Fate for it.”

  “For all our sakes, it sounds like,” Mercedes said.

  “You’ve got that right.” Rhys turned to me. “But we didn’t come over here to talk about Gunter’s inability to aim a catapult. I was hoping you would like to dance, Your Majesty.”

  “I am dancing.”

  “With me.” Rhys raised an eyebrow. “I would consider it a great honor.”

  Winston let go of me, and Mercedes and I switched places. “Besides,” Rhys continued, “it would be a mercy for my toes. The dryad has two left feet.”

  “I do not!” Mercedes yelped as Winston pulled her a little farther away, making sure that her swinging arms couldn’t reach the grinning general.

  “She’s not that bad of a dancer, is she?” I asked as we both turned to Mercedes, swaying back and forth, bickering with Winston.

  “Nah, but I think getting her mad might be my new favorite way to spend my free time. I never knew that a blushing dryad could be that pretty.”

  “Sooo…” I drew the syllable out. “You think Mercedes is pretty?”

  “Extremely,” Rhys said as the tops of his ears began to flame.

  “Hmmm.”

  “Hmmm nothing.”

  “As a future queen, should I be worried about the fact that the head of my army is trying to date my best friend? Do I need to warn you about what happens if you hurt her? ’Cause trust me, I’ll make sure whatever I decide to do to you—it will be painful. Bloody and painful.”

  “No worries, then. Just keep your big, royal nose out of it, and we’ll all be fine.” He brought a finger up to tap my nose and then froze. “Crap.”

  “What?”

  “Prince consort, three o’clock. I think he’s going to want to dance. Want me to kidnap you instead?”

  “No, I can manage him.” I smiled and tried to hide my dread at spending more time explaining to Jesse that no matter what he thought was going to happen, he really wasn’t going to get to become king. Meanwhile, I could see the blonde from before working her way toward Winston, and my grip on Rhys’s shoulders tightened.

  “Ow.” Rhys turned to the girl I was staring at. “Oh.”

  “I don’t like her.”

  “May I cut in?” Jesse asked. “Rhys? Mind letting me dance with my girlfriend?”

  “Your girlfriend?” Rhys asked. “I didn’t know you’d gotten that serious yet.”

  “Neither did I,” I said.

  Jesse held his hand out to me. “I am the prince consort.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything,” I said.

  “It’s okay, Your Majesty.” Rhys bowed low. “I should go save Winston’s toes.”

  “Okay.” I nodded and moved over to Jesse, who slotted me into his arms. I watched Rhys head over to intercept Winston and the girl who was about to cut in on Winston and Mercedes.

  “I’m so glad we finally get a minute alone,” Jesse said as we started to sway. “The past few days it’s been like you’re avoiding me, always hanging out in the library like we’re back in school.”

  “Well, I’m trying to learn about the country I’m supposed to rule. Being a queen is kind of an important job.”

  “Then tonight you’ve been so busy
talking to people we haven’t gotten any time together. I came back from getting us food, and you were gone.”

  “It’s my job to get out there and meet people. I’m their queen. Or I’m going to be soon. I need to be out, mingling, with the people, hearing how I can make their lives better.”

  I watched as Rhys cut in to dance with both Winston and Mercedes for a few seconds. Soon the blonde was pulled into their circle, and the next thing I knew, through a flurry of limbs, Winston and Rhys had ended up dancing together while Mercedes led the stunned blonde away.

  I giggled, and Jesse turned his head to take in the two bulky, muscle-bound boys in formal wear pretending to prance together through a fancy sort of waltz, both of them on tiptoe, their noses high in the air.

  “So juvenile,” Jesse said coldly. “They shouldn’t be trying to embarrass you.”

  “Winston could never embarrass me,” I said softly as Rhys lowered Winston into an elaborate dip.

  “One of them is supposed to be in charge of the army, and the other is meant to be a dragon warrior. If they’re acting like this, how are you going to trust them to run a war when the time comes?”

  “I’d trust them with my life,” I said with a smile.

  “Thankfully, with the Fate Maker’s help, it won’t come to that,” Jesse said.

  “Who said it’s not the Fate Maker I’m worried about?” I glanced over at the wizard, who was still sitting on the dais, glaring at me.

  “Why would you worry about the Fate Maker?” Jesse asked, his eyes glazed. “He’s only here to help you.”

  “You keep telling yourself that,” I said and tried to ignore the man sitting on the throne, staring daggers into my back.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I was poking at the slices of a pink fruit on my plate the next morning. It sort of looked like an orange but tasted more like a kiwi, I considered, trying to decide if it was really a breakfast food. Then again, it was a fruit, and Gran Mosely always nagged that I needed more of those.

  Jesse sprinted into the dining room and slid to a stop. He straightened up and smoothed his jacket before sauntering toward the rest of us like it was no big deal. “Hey, Allie.”