Page 95 of Golden Queen (Idrigard #1)

Some of the bare stone had been carved into flourishes and details, but most of it looked natural—as if the palace had once been a cave, and I was looking at the original walls.

Where the fortress had been opulent stone and grandeur fit for any king, Io's mountain palace looked like…him.

Dark woods and fabrics, celestial symbolism, and art that looked exactly like something he would be drawn to graced every corner.

A statue of the goddess Hassah stood near the entryway, her wings folded against her back and her head bowed as though in prayer.

In the main room, a painting of the Darkwatch Sky, done in great swirling strokes of color sat above an enormous dark stone mantle with a roaring fire already in place.

Thick rugs lay scattered beneath well-worn leather furniture and sleek tables. It looked like the kind of place where a large group of friends might meet and spend time together.

Jhol watched my face carefully as I surveyed the room. I began to have a suspicion about whose eye had chosen all the darkly enchanting decor. "You did this?" I asked.

He nodded, and I had the sudden thought that he was nervous I wouldn't like it. The idea that he cared enough to want to please me—after knowing me for the span of an hour—was humbling. So I told him the truth. "It is absolutely perfect!"

His shoulders relaxed slightly as he perched on the edge of a sofa arm.

"You have somehow managed to capture the spirit of a man in a room," I told him. That was precisely what the palace did. It was Io—dark, deep, and rich, with warmth and light that you didn't see until you started to look into the details.

Jhol showed me the rest.

Beyond walls of windows, wide, sweeping balconies jutted off from the sides of many of the rooms. They let the light of the auroras into the heart of the mountain.

Deeper in, we began passing through a series of rooms that stepped down beyond each one until I realized we were descending inside the mountain.

The balconies perched on the cliffs beyond those chambers were a dizzying height above a smaller, icy valley cut between two mountain peaks.

Jhol and I talked as we walked through each room.

He pointed out interesting details as he told me about arriving in Darkwatch to find the young and inexperienced Amon Aldur newly seated in his position as lord.

"I was drawn to the place, it’s true," he said.

"But I was drawn far more to the lord who refused to punish a man who’d been dragged into the Reach, accused of stealing from one of the shops in the city.

The man professed his innocence, of course.

And Amon demanded the proof. When the shopkeeper could only claim that another patron had seen him stealing, he had to admit that the man had not even been caught with whatever trinket he was supposed to have taken.

Amon told them that there was far too little evidence to convict someone of a crime.

He dismissed them all from the court, chastising the shopkeeper for wasting his time. "

I smiled, imagining the sight of Io on that high seat, being expected to pass judgment.

"I have been in many kingdoms in my long life, so I can assure you that justice in even so small a matter as shoplifting, is a rare thing.

I took myself directly to the young lord and told him about the high courts of Balthia.

He listened, and when I was done, he asked me to stay and help him set up a judicial arm in Darkwatch.

One modeled after Balthia, where a group of citizens would be convened to hear the arguments of complaint against any accused criminal. "

"That is an intriguing concept, My Lord," I told him.

He tsked and waggled his finger.

"Jhol," I corrected, catching his meaning. "I would love to know more about this judicial arm of Darkwatch."

He smiled happily. "I think you and I, Sera, are going to be the very best of friends."

I agreed intensely. And the fact that he had not once brought up my betrothal—that great looming threat of King Behr—endeared him to me all the more.

The end of the series of chambers we passed through was a huge training room—complete with sawdust-filled dummies, racks of weapons, showers, and changing rooms.

"This is where Amon and his Vanguard train—his innermost circle," he added as he saw my confused expression. I had never heard him refer to his riders as anything other than his people.

I walked around the room, my hand itching to hold Sangui so that I could sink her into the side of one of the sawdust filled dummies set on wheels along the wall.

The sword was likely still in her box lashed to the back of Veles, though. I made a mental note to come back to the training room as soon as I could.

"You don't fight?" I asked, noting that Jhol had not included himself in the Vanguard. "Or ride dragons?" I added with a look over my shoulder.

He chuckled. "I have done enough fighting in my life to last the rest of it quite nicely. And no, I do not ride dragons. Even the unbound ones must be convinced to tolerate me. They do not like the smell of me."

"I think you smell quite nice," I told him. He did. He smelled warm and clean, with a barely perceptible softness that was still decidedly masculine.

Jhol laughed again. "Many people think so, but the dragons...they know another predator when they smell one. We are on only the most tolerable terms with each other."

"Well it's unfortunate they can't see what I see.”

“And what do you see, My Queen?” he asked, fighting a smile.

“That you are not a predator at all, but a desperately romantic hero."

He gave me an appreciative look and looped an arm around my back. "The very best of friends, indeed."

***

The last thing Jhol showed me was the wide expanse of mountain beyond the training yard where a door led to the snowy, windswept plateau beyond.

The flat area they called the ridge, was bounded by the steep cliff face of another mountain peak on one side and harrowing drops to the valley below on the others.

It doubled as a training yard and a landing site for the dragons and looked inaccessible on foot by any route other than the door from the palace or a steep climb to the mountain above.

"Amon would normally fly straight up to the palace here," Jhol told me as we headed back through the chambers. "But he would have wanted to let everyone know the Lord of Darkwatch was in residence with his new Lady."

"He is very cavalier about it, considering our situation," I told him, hinting at the topic I had been so keen to avoid.

"Yes, well, Amon is the furthest thing from cavalier in any situation. I trust that he sees wisdom in his actions."

I wished I had half as much confidence in Io as Jhol seemed to have.

Not that I truly lacked faith in him. I just worried he might be letting his heart lead him into muddied waters in much the same way my heart had led me to be standing in the middle of the Iyridian mountains arm-in-arm with a blood vampire—on the verge of breaking my word on a betrothal contract by. ..marrying the Lord of Darkwatch.

Not that he had actually asked me to marry him, I realized with chagrin.

He had just...assumed that I would based upon my nearly immediate acquiescence to all his plans.

The thought annoyed me. I realized I was biting my own cheeks hard enough to taste blood in my mouth when Jhol looked at me concerned.

"You can trust him, you know. You need not fear. That is something I've learned in these almost forty years here. Above all, Amon will protect the people of Darkwatch from any threat."

I stopped and turned to him. "And if you saw that he was making a decision that threatened those people's safety—one that would bring war to these lands—war with his own brother—war that would ultimately lead to a fractured kingdom—one less able to stand against the real threat from the Shadowlands?

Would you, then, act against him to help me make it right?

Would you help me leave him before that happened? "

It was a risk to say such things to Io’s closest friend, but I was desperate and suddenly very scared being at the top of this mountain with no easy way down.

Jhol met my gaze as he considered my question. His eyes had sharpened to a clear green, almost startling in its vividness. He looked stronger somehow. The delicate lines of his face hardened to a more rugged aspect as he narrowed his eyes in consideration.

I heard his teeth click together behind his closed lips while he drummed the long, graceful fingers of one hand against his other palm.

And then he shook his head, lips disappearing into a tight line. "I would not," he said definitively. "I would know he had a good reason for making whatever decision, for whatever outcome. I would never help you leave him."

His eyes were full of regret. "Especially not after I saw him look at you as he gave me your name.

I heard his heartbeat quicken in his chest at just the sight of you.

I have never heard that in all these years.

Even in the excitement of battle and blood lust, that stoic heart beats steady and true.

Even when we found ourselves, entirely accidentally I might add, in the middle of a coven of hungry Alumbrian witches.

But a simple glance at you, smiling in the middle of his fortress, had that big heart thundering in his chest. Have you not noticed? "

I couldn't answer. I had no words.

He took my arm, and we began walking again. "Oh, and there are his eyes. I have never seen even a hint of color in them. But there he was, staring at you, and I could nearly see the Alduran blue in them."

I was shocked and honored, humbled and…ashamed that I had even been considering something so vile and hateful as leaving him behind me.