Page 64 of Golden Queen (Idrigard #1)

Twenty-Three

We flew all day across uninterrupted godsgrass, keeping the northern road in sight so that we didn't miss the city of Cosdam. We took short breaks to relieve ourselves and eat the meager rations from Io’s pack—mostly hard cheese and bread.

We didn't linger anywhere long. There seemed to be some unspoken directive between us that we limit the time we spent together on the ground.

Not that anything might’ve happened with Aben and Britaxia always on the periphery. But even when they stayed in the air while we stopped, there was nothing in me that tasted of desire. There were only ashes where there had once been fire.

I wanted to want him. The knowledge of that burned me as much as the rest. I remembered what that pleasure had been like—how his lips had tasted—what his touch alone had been able to do to me.

I leaned into his warmth as we flew, the pleasure of being close to him still somehow undiminished by the misery of my thoughts.

As the sun began to set, Veles banked, angling down to the ground. I could see the Godsway below us, but something else had caught Io's attention. He pointed. "Dragon riders."

I followed his gaze to see beasts of every size and color lazing in the godsgrass. They surrounded a single large canvas tent.

Someone had cleared out circles in the grass to prevent them from catching fire, and soldiers clad in dark leather and scale armor were gathered around three small fires.

Io hopped down from Veles and turned to lend me a hand to descend. Aben and Britaxia were still angling to the ground, their dragons making slow circles to come in for the landing. My dragon was nowhere in sight.

I followed Io as he strode across the distance to the central circle. The riders all stood at attention and bowed as he passed.

As we reached the tent, a beautiful, brown skinned woman ducked past the flap, her black hair braided back from her temples in intricate warrior's braids.

Her face split into a wide grin at the sight of Io. She rushed forward to wrap her arms around him and press her lips to his cheek.

Anger and hurt surged in me—even as I told myself I had no right to the emotions. Justified or not, though, blood rushed into my head, stinging my cheeks with heat. My fingers curled with the unreasonable urge to punch her stupid, beautiful face.

The woman pulled back from Io. It had only been a quick kiss—one that could easily have been shared between family or friends, but the smile was an intimate one…and the way her arms lingered around his neck was much too familiar.

"Well met, my Lord," she said, letting her arms slide from around his neck. One hand trailed across his chest, lingering there for another heartbeat before she turned to study me.

"You must be Aelia of Windemere!" she said, her voice just as friendly as it had been with Io. I should have liked her immediately. I could already tell she was the kind of person who was impossible to dislike.

But I did not. I wanted her to catch fire and fall to ashes at my feet—preferably before she pointed those long, dark lashes and that perfect fae face back in his direction again.

"Indeed, she is," Io said, looking back at me. If he noticed my discomfort, he made no indication of it. "Queen Aelia of Windemere, this is General Radella Galakhin, Commander of the Helios Battalion of Darkwatch."

"I'm honored to meet you General Galakhin," I told her, holding out my hand and forcing a smile.

She took my hand in hers, and I felt the unnatural heat of her skin. Just as with Io, she was warmer than she should have been, nearly feverish.

"Likewise, Your Majesty. But please call me Radella." Her warm, brown eyes flashed with pleasure.

"Well, then you must call me Aelia," I replied as she released my hand.

"Very well, Aelia," she added, clapping her hands together and raising her perfectly sculpted brows. "Please tell me you are both as starved as I am for good food, good whiskey, and better company! We have only just set up camp."

Radella's tent was equipped with several chairs grouped around a low table spread with maps. There was a cot in the corner covered with thick furs and a pile of assorted blades and weaponry that looked polished and honed to an obsessive degree.

The three of us sat at the table after the maps had been cleared away. When I asked Io why Aben and Britaxia hadn’t joined us, he rolled his eyes. "Radella and Britaxia have a long, bloody history."

That piqued my interest. Britaxia and I hadn’t necessarily always seen eye-to-eye, and I was keen to know if she was just generally a bitch to everyone—or if it was just me. There was no time to ask more, though, before the general was back in the tent.

Io filled her in on the new plan to stage at the Twilight Gap and the details of the exodus from Albiyn. Radella had received word of the landing of the Penjani armada at Gold Harbor, and she believed the Nightfall forces would have begun their march south by then.

"General Ozhun was already in the capital when I left Darkwatch. We had a bird from your sister detailing their plans." The general's name was unfamiliar to me, of course, but I surmised he was someone leading the forces south.

"Eyildr begging to fly with you, I imagine," Io said with a wry smile.

"You know your sister. She was probably already halfway to Darkwatch by the time I left—her violent little heart full of hope."

"Well, you can blame me for the refusal. She knows I would never allow her to fly with Darkwatch. My mother would kill me if I let her command a battalion in an actual battle."

At my look, he added, “Eyildr is fierce and highly skilled, but she is much too young and inexperienced for the command she seeks. And much too eager to go to war for my liking.”

"You should watch that one," Radella said with a grin. "She might just cut your throat one day and slide happily into place as Lady of Darkwatch."

Io laughed. "I would indeed guard my throat if I were anyone else and stood between Eyildr Aldur and Darkwatch. But she loves me most of all." He smiled affectionately.

I was more curious than ever about his sisters. What little I knew about them made me think they were exceptionally close. I had to admit to a little anxiety at the notion that I would face them and be found lacking as consort to their older brother.

The dinner dishes were taken away by a young man with wide-set dark brown eyes and pointed ears set in a face that was textured like the scales of a snake. I was reminded that the fair folk came in many different forms, most of which I had never seen. The fae did not usually travel into Windemere.

The boy smiled shyly as he took my dishes. I wanted to speak to him, but something in the way Io and Radella regarded him carefully—as though he might be spooked away by a too-quick movement, stopped me.

When he was gone, Radella poured a dark whiskey into three delicate looking crystal glasses. They looked completely out of place in the middle of an army camp.

I swallowed the liquor in one long drink, welcoming the burn as it slid down into my chest. It immediately began to fill the hole inside me with a calming warmth that I hadn't felt since all the world had gone to shit.

And when the alcohol began to go to my head, blurring the edges of my consciousness, I began to think everything might just be okay after all.

"So, Aelia," Radella said after she had poured my third little glass of whiskey. "Do you want to know all of Behr's secrets? I assure you, I have them all." She pointed to her head meaningfully. "You should hardly go into a marriage without some incriminating evidence," she added, giving Io a wink.

"Perhaps we should let Aelia get to know him herself before you malign...."

"Tsk, tsk, Amon. Do not ruin my fun," Radella said, cutting him off. She had drunk considerably more liquor than either of us, and I thought she might just be drunk.

"Behr used to have quite a reputation for breaking hearts," she said. She put her hand up to shield her mouth and whispered loudly, "and maidenheads."

I raised a brow. With the liquor, it wasn’t even necessary to push aside thoughts of my own maidenhead fiasco. I simply lived in a cocoon of I don't give a damn at that moment.

"So, when he was in school in the Tyrion, Behr met a girl named Britellsia. She wore a veil head to toe, and it was rumored that she was the daughter of some very important Brutan from Ko-oh."

I looked at Io in question, not recognizing any of her words.

"Ko-oh is an island nation north of Nightfall. Brutan is what they call their leader," he said with a pained expression that told me he was very familiar with this story.

Radella nodded, continuing her tale. I listened raptly, trying to imagine some version of a boy who looked a bit like Io in the school where most noble fae children were educated.

"So, Behr decided he had to have Britellsia.

He spent nearly a year trying to woo her.

She refused, even though he was the heir.

By the end of it, the poor boy was madly in love with her without ever seeing a single inch of her.

Even her eyes were hidden behind a dark veil.

Behr was undaunted, though. He wouldn’t even leave school for breaks because his sweet Britellsia was so far away from her own family—in what we imagined was Ko-oh—but she would never say.

Behr’s parents chastised him for being so serious with anyone, but little did they know, the little princeling had already proposed marriage to his Britellsia."

Io put his hand to his forehead and groaned, but a laugh shook his shoulders as Radella paused dramatically.

"So finally, finally, Britellsia relented. She agreed to allow Behr to see her face for a single minute. She claimed that she, too, had fallen in love with him. She would accept his proposal if he still wanted to marry her after he saw her face."