The Glass Queen (The Forest of Good and Evil #2) - Gena Showalter Page 0,81

passage to reach Milo’s chamber. He’d chosen to live in the catacombs of the palace, just as his father had done in Fleur.

Why was Leonora meeting with the warlock? As awful as she was, some part of her did care about Saxon. Well, care wasn’t the right word. You didn’t murder someone you cared about a first time, much less a second. She obsessed over him, her possessiveness boundless. What if she’d bought a spell from Milo, thinking to get rid of me?

Oh...weeds. On the fourth night, I’d refused to sleep. Same with the fifth night. I would refuse to sleep tonight, too, even though fatigue had turned my eyelids into cinder blocks. I wouldn’t risk another meeting between Leonora and Milo.

“I’m the one in charge of the body right now,” I reminded the phantom. A squatter. “Tell me how to care for the dragons. How did they respond to my scream?”

—Fool. After a baby dragon matures in her egg, she remains in stasis until she hears the scream of a mother. Any mother. Most dragons don’t care for their young. They bury their eggs for the continuation of the species, then forget about them, never returning.—

What a relief. I hadn’t taken the babies from the arms of a loving dragon mother.

—Your scream should have been mine.—Leonora prowled through my mind, clawing at my thoughts. It hurt, but I didn’t care. I thrilled at her every upset.

As much as Saxon wanted to punish her, I wanted to punish her more. For my mother’s killer, I wouldn’t settle for cleaning messy tents and retrieving soft, beautiful feathers.

Thoughts of Saxon’s chores led to thoughts of Saxon. The next major tournament battle was set to begin later today, and I wanted to attend to scope out his competition. Where would the dragons be safest?

I refused to ask Leonora. I didn’t trust her to tell the truth.

I could ask Noel and Ophelia to watch over the dragons, I supposed. Noel was the one who’d told me to scream at the eggs, after all, so she must have foreseen the result. Even better, she’d kept the secret from Saxon. Right? She must have. If she’d told him, he would stormed the palace, determined to kill the dragons straightaway.

My hands curled into tight fists. Saxon might be my prince, but I would not allow him to hurt my babies. If he tried, he would find himself entwined in our third world war.

What if he didn’t try to hurt them, though? In battle, he was beyond ruthless; with me, the girl he had every reason to hate, he was sometimes almost...tender. I—me—ordinary Ashleigh—had power over him in ways the phantom did not, and oh, what a heady thought. I’d never had any kind of power over another person before. But then, according to my uninvited guest, I was more than Cinder to his prince. I was the original Leonora and Saxon’s true fated, a notion as miraculous as it was astonishing.

Me. An actual fated one. It was somehow more baffling than being the star of a fairy tale.

Pagan whimpered. Pyre—the bigger dragon—must have gotten a bit too rough again.

“Com’ere, baby.” I reached out and waved my fingers at her.

Little Pagan darted to me, perching on my shoulder to lean over and nuzzle her cheek against mine. She must weigh around fifteen pounds, yet I didn’t struggle to hold her up.

Pyre flounced over and curled at my feet, huffing a tendril of smoke in apology.

“I love you both so much, and I’ll always do my best to protect you. You know that, right?” I could already guess where they fit in the fairy-tale prophecy. The fire that purified and burned, burned, burned.

Love for them burned in my heart—dragon fire, one could say. That love, those flames, made me stronger, inside and out.

The back of my neck prickled right before a female voice rang out. “Did someone order dragon-sitters, extra cheese?”

I lurched to my feet. Noel and Ophelia leaned on either side of a ruined bedpost, their ankles crossed. As if charged by the appearance of magical beings, the barrier reformed in my mind, blocking me from the phantom. Oh, thank goodness.

Pagan dropped to Pyre’s side. The two flared their wings, and squawked at the oracle.

I patted the top of their heads. This was the first time I’d seen Noel since the night of the party. Ophelia had dropped by once before to sell me the spell. “Where are my other two dragon eggs, oracle?”

“They weren’t ready to hatch,