A Feast of Dragons - By Morgan Rice Page 0,12

Argon, to ask him. But now that he had already failed to wield the sword, he could not recall a single one.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Gareth pleaded, desperation in his voice. “You could have told me I was not meant to hoist it. You could have saved me the shame.”

“And why would I do that?” Argon asked.

Gareth scowled.

“You are not a true counsel to the King,” he said. “You would have counseled my father truly. But not I.”

“Perhaps he was deserving of true counsel,” Argon replied.

Gareth’s fury deepened. He hated this man. And he blamed him.

“I don’t want you around me,” Gareth said. “I don’t know why my father hired you, but I don’t want you in King’s Court.”

Argon laughed, a hollow, scary sound.

“Your father did not hire me, foolish boy,” he said. “Nor his father before him. I was meant to be here. In fact, you might say I hired them.”

Argon suddenly took a step forward, and looked as if he were staring into Gareth’s soul.

“Can the same be said of you?” Argon asked. “Are you meant to be here?”

His words struck a nerve in Gareth, sent a chill through him. It was the very thing Gareth had been wondering himself. Gareth wondered if it was a threat.

“He who reigns by blood will rule by blood,” Argon proclaimed, and with those words, he swiftly turned his back and began to walk away.

“Wait!” Gareth screamed, no longer wanting him to go, needing answers. “What do you mean by that?”

Gareth could not help but feel that Argon was giving him a message, that he would not rule long. He needed to know if that was what he had meant.

Gareth ran after him, but as he approached, he could hardly believe what happened: right before his eyes, Argon disappeared.

Gareth turned, looked all around him, but saw nothing. He heard only a hollow laughter, somewhere in the air.

“Argon!” Gareth screamed.

He turned again, then looked up to the heavens, sinking to one knee and throwing back his head. He shrieked:

“ARGON!”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Erec marched alongside the Duke, Brandt and dozens of the Duke’s entourage, through the winding streets of Savaria, a crowd growing as they went, towards the house of the servant girl. Erec had insisted that he meet her without delay, and the Duke had wanted to lead the way personally. And when the Duke came, everyone followed. Erec looked around at the huge and growing entourage, and was embarrassed, realizing he would arrive at this girl’s abode with dozens of people in tow.

Since he had first seen her, Erec had been able to think of little else. Who was this girl, he wondered, who seemed so noble, yet worked as a servant in the Duke’s court? Why had she fled from him so hastily? Why was it that, in all his years, with all the royal women he had met, this was the only one who had captured his heart?

Being around royalty his entire life, the son of a king himself, Erec could detect other royalty in an instant—and he sensed from the moment he spotted her that she was of a much more regal position than the one she was occupying. He was burning with curiosity to know who she was, where she was from, what she was doing here. He needed another chance to set his eyes upon her, to see if he had been imagining it or if he would still feel the way he did.

“My servants tell me she lives on the city’s outskirts,” the Duke explained, talking as they walked. As they went, people on all sides of the streets opened their shutters and looked down, amazed at the presence of the Duke and his entourage in the common streets.

“Apparently, she is servant to an innkeeper. Nobody knows her origin, where she came from. All they know is that she arrived in our city one day, and became an indentured servant to this innkeeper. Her past, it seems, is a mystery.”

They all turned down another side street, the cobblestone beneath them becoming more crooked, the small dwellings closer to each other and more dilapidated, as they went. The Duke cleared his throat.

“I took her in as a servant in my court on special occasions. She is quiet, keeps to herself. No one knows much about her. Erec,” the Duke said, finally turning to Erec, laying a hand on his wrist, “are you certain about this? This woman, whoever she is, is just another commoner. You can have your