Page 55 of Fated Flames: Volume Two
Lord Tallin shifts on his knees. “Tirenth has received more rain these past months than our territory. Even Nialan’s streams run dry. What water is left is strictly rationed.”
Nialan—the term is yet another I’m unfamiliar with. I’d be irritated if we weren’t in the middle of such a strange meeting.
Lord Tallin’s eyes lift briefly to find mine. “And Tirenth now has a water drawer. The first to have been heard of in decades.”
I begin to respond, but then I notice the spines rippling down Soren’s bare back, the curves lengthening his gleaming horns.
Oh no.
“And you thought to win her,” Soren says, darkness deepening his voice till it thrums against my eardrums. “Didn’t you, Tallin?”
The wyvern must not answer fast enough, for in a blink, Soren is before him, fisting the wyvern’s hair in his hand.
“You want me to pity your kind,” Soren says, and he wrenches Tallin’s head back till the latter winces. “Well, I did. I spared their leader when you insulted her before. Now you come here, at night, after sending thatwyrmto challenge me for her? For my crown jewel?”
Crown jewel? Does he mean…me?
“Tell me why I should let you walk out of here alive,” the king says, jerking Tallin’s head back till I flinch myself.
Tallin’s face twists with pain. “I was told your most gracious queen offered to draw water for us.”
For whatever reason, this seems to enrage Soren even further. Scales race down the sharp lines of his shoulder blades and plummet down the middle of his back. “So you insult her, you try to take her, and now you think to infringe upon her generosity?”
An offer made is hardly infringing, I think to say, but the oddness of this whole encounter seems to have locked my voice up tight. Is Soren too angry to see what I do, or does he simply not care?
The Tallin I met when I arrived at the palace looked me over like a prize pig. He offered me a king’s ransom as if he could buy my favors. He insulted me. He was arrogant and crude, yet I see none of that now. I see only fear.
Is he truly that skilled a performer?
“Why have you come without your wingmates?”
The question leaves my lips so quietly that I fear no one heard. I almost repeat myself until Soren gives Tallin’s head a shake.
“Answer her,” the king hisses.
The wyvern blinks up at the tent ceiling as if to clear his vision. He wets his lips.
“Because coming here could get them killed.”
My puzzled glance meets Soren’s menacing one. His eyes dart toward Tallin and back to me.
Ask him, the look says. I nod.
“By whom, Lord Tallin?”
His chest shudders with the breath he draws to brace himself.
“By the true wyvern leader,” he says.
22
Soren
The true leader? What insanity is Tallin spouting off?
My princess’s eyes seek mine, and I’m tempted to drag the fool out and finish him now. Moments before the wyvern skulked in here, Serah said I could marry herearly, that I could have her fully as my own weeks before I expected. Now Tallin shows up with his wyvern stench and his foolishness to interrupt that? To beg and writhe like a wyrm on the floor of her tent?
I give his head a vicious yank.
