The sun had set while they had been in the great hall eating and meeting each other. Kaden had been looking forward to going back to a space of his own, hanging out with Zuma, and diving into some of the books that Tranley gave him. Unfortunately for him, he was going to be back in front of everyone. He was going to have to recant the tale again.

At least he wasn’t alone. Jaxtor, Eloise, and Iratoi were with him due to their shared involvement. He was unsure of what Loratyk’s deal with him was. He kept staring at him, and it made Kaden extremely uneasy.

They pushed open another room. This time, there were no tables, just rows of chairs and a podium. It must have been a place of learning or worship. He didn’t remember all the places Eloise had rattled off that day. It was the closest private room to the Great Hall. Kaden assumed they weren’t going to push their luck with Enderton and his men by going somewhere further away.

“What was I supposed to think when another Lord’s men summon me to the water temple speaking of rune traps on my land? What are you even doing in my lands? Why was I not alerted to your presence beforehand? You are supposed to alert me anytime you come down here on official business.”

Loratyk shook his head and said, “I was on my way down here for a damn party, Garvin. For my son, because I’m trying to find him a damn wife.”

“Oh.” Enderton waved his hand toward him and said, “Damnit Rychus, let the boy find his own damn wife. You still should have notified me you were coming.”

“Due to your outburst in a crowded hall, now the entire temple knows what’s going on. I had hoped you’d have been more discreet, but obviously that was asking too much,” Lord Loratyk spat.

Dalphina sighed and rolled her eyes again. “I have had enough of you two. Sit down.”

Both men quickly sat. They showed Dalphina more respect than Kaden had seen them give Lidvus. They were in a room full of extremely powerful and important people. Their merry band of young mages were trying to hide in the shadows in the back of the room, well out of the way of two angry magic users.

Lidvus commanded they join them. Iratoi took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, held her head up high, and led the way. Bowing to the lords, she took her place next to Lidvus. Jaxtor and Eloise followed. Looking confused, Kaden had to skip slightly in step to catch up and follow their lead.

“Who are these people?”

Lord Loratyk covered his mouth briefly, trying to keep in something rude that Kaden knew he wanted to let spill out. Taking a deep breath himself, he said, “these are the mages that found the traps.”

“Well go on,” he waved to them. “Tell me what you found.”

They recanted the story once more, but when Eloise got to the Runes, Dalphina stepped in. “They noticed the runes had flourishes in them, showing they were of some noble house.”

The four of them shared a brief glance at the change. The grandmasters and Loratyk were omitting that they believed it to be of his household. Had Eloise been wrong, or was Lord Loratyk convincing when he accused the king?

Enderton snarled and let out a frustrated huff. He stood abruptly but didn’t say a word. Shaking his head, he started pacing. Stopping, he threw his hand out as if he was about to say something, but pulled it back.

“Why?” was the only thing he could muster out.

Lord Loratyk threw his hands up and said, “We have no idea, Garvin. If we knew that, don’t you think we would have gone after them? I swear…”

The way Lord Loratyk was talking to the other Lord surprised Kaden. There had to be some different dealings between the two. Maybe they just didn’t like each other. He had no idea how the nobles interacted or the Lords, for that matter. There were only so many of them, they had to have to deal with each other often. Even trade between the regions had to happen.

Kaden felt like he was seeing something normal people wouldn’t ever have access to. The men were talking to each other with no formality. They were just arguing and bickering like hated coworkers.

“So you have no ideas on who did this, whose noble house could be connected?”

“Well,” Dalphina looked to Lord Loratyk and said, “Rychus has a theory.”

Lord Enderton motioned to the podium, “would you like to share with the rest of the class?”

Dramatically rolling his eyes, Lord Loratyk said, “I think I’m being framed.”

Enderton let out an abrupt laugh. “By who? Who else have you pissed off?”

“I would have said it had been you, but I know you’re too dense to ever think of something this clever,” he dismissed.

Kaden shared another awkward look with Eloise as they still stood in front of the bickering lords. Dalphina looked annoyed and Lidvus seemed as if he was just checking out from the situation as his eyes looked glazed over. Kaden wondered if this type of interaction between the lords wasn’t new to them.

Lidvus motioned toward Loratyk with a pissed off look and pursed lips. “No, go on. Tell him.”

“The king,” he mumbled.

Enderton laughed dramatically again. “The King? You think the King is so bothered by you he’d frame you for dragon trapping? How self-involved are you?”

“He stopped inviting me to any hearing. I have had to just show up! I don’t even have say in any laws anymore. I own the largest track of land and produce the most goods and yet I can’t even be included in the laws that mostly affect my lands? Please, I know you think I’m beneath you, but your pedigree is not that strong, Garvin. Economics over bloodlines.”

Stolen story; please report.

“Clearly the King thinks otherwise because I always get a personal invitation to every hearing and a personal box with the King himself for the games,” he mocked.

Iratoi threw her hands up and said, “I’m sorry. You think the king is framing you cause he’s, what? Jealous?”

Dalphina smirked slightly, but her face quickly went back to looking more professional. Lidvus berated her for speaking out of turn.

Turning her head toward the Grandmaster, she said, “How dare you let them act this way in this temple? What kind of leader are you? How in the world did Enderton get all the way up to the great hall without being stopped beforehand? What if he had been part of the earth nation? Our temple would be gone.”

“Oh, way to be dramatic, the earth nation isn’t going to attempt anything of the sort,” Lidvus dismissed.

“When was the last time you were in the earth nation, Grandmaster? If you had been there recently, you’d know that place is a mess. They are one wrong move away from total war. You think we, their known enemies, wouldn’t be a target? Get it together,” she chided.

Eloise, Jaxtor, and Kaden stared at her, slack jawed. Kaden was under the impression that the Grandmasters were at the top of the food chain and here Iratoi was putting one of them in their place in front of the lords that ran the damn country. With her sister being a dragon rider, he wondered more about their family and if they were nobles with higher ranking.

“It’s not the King,” she said with confidence.

“You don’t know that,” mumbled Loratyk like a wounded child. Kaden was in utter disbelief that she was commanding the lords like she was.

Dalphina smiled at her, nodded, and motioned for them to go back to the edge of the room. “Lady Iratoi is correct. I do not think the King was behind this, Rychus.”

“Then who was?” he said with anger. “I know I had no say in such an act.”

“We’ve been looking into it the moment we parted ways. I reviewed young Eloise's accounts,” she said and Eloise went wide eyed at the mention of her name. “I do agree with her that it came from your household.”

Enderton tilted his head and let a smug look cover his face, no longer trying to hide his disdain. “So it was a Loratyk rune. I told you ages ago you needed fewer flourishes. It made your runes look stupid.”

“Garvin,” scolded Dalphina. “I do not believe it was Loratyk himself who ordered such an act. He has only ever been the most respectful of dragons. He already made a visit to the matriarch. It was the first thing he did when he arrived. If he was doing anything nefarious to dragons, the matriarch would have known and wouldn’t have entertained him.”

Enderton licked his teeth and let out a huff, “true, I guess.”

“Who do you suggest is behind this, then?” Lidvus asked.

She sighed and said, “That I don’t know. I don’t think we will be able to find that out today. Lord Loratyk, unfortunately, this does mean we will be sending many mages into your lands. Do you consent to an investigation?”

Looking up toward the ceiling, he let out a long sigh and said, “Of course I consent.”

Dalphina looked to Lord Enderton and said, “Lord Enderton, as the other Lord involved in this situation, it is perplexing that these rune traps that had Loratyk’s runes on them showed up deep in your own lands. This is incredibly suspicious and gives credence to the sabotage theory as well.”

“Why would I frame him? I have nothing to gain from that,” he yelled.

“Do you consent to an investigation in your lands?”

He also grumbled and nodded an agreement. Slamming her hand on the podium to cause an echo across the room, she nodded to them both and said, “then that’s that. We will have to investigate this further. Our mages will be in your lands and they will be monitoring what is happening. We cannot and will not have such a horrific thing happen here in this nation. By the authority that has been granted to us in such a situation, we will investigate you both.”

Both of the Lords grumbled and stormed off, nearly pushing each other out the door. Once the door closed, Dalphina looked at the four of them.

“Iratoi,” she said with a firm tone. “While your words rang true, you spoke out of turn in an official meeting with lords. We cannot encourage that behavior. You are stripped of your command for the time being.”

She gave a deep bow, accepted the judgment, and gave an apology. The rest of them were instructed to not speak of the details of the meeting but that soon the whole temple would know about the investigation. If anyone needed details of the trapping when it did come out, that they were expected to provide them answers to assist.

The door shut behind them and outside was another crowd of curious mages. Iratoi sighed and pulled them along with her. They headed up to the stables. She had said that nowhere was safe before, but the stables must be if that’s where they were headed to talk.

He wasn’t going to get used to the steps as he huffed his way up them. Of course, they had to put him at the very top of an extremely tall building. If anything, he was going to get some muscles merely from trying to go to bed.

Zuma did what they normally did and slid across the ground to greet them. Iratoi waved them a greeting and Eloise guided her to the stable that was his. Zuma pranced happily behind them, excited to see the four of them again. He wasn’t sure if they liked the other dragons or not if they were that excited that they came back. Maybe the southern dragons had an annoying dragon accent or something.

His companions were already climbing up toward his loft as he scratched Zuma in a few spots he knew they liked. Patting them once again, he skipped over to the ladder, following them up. Jaxtor threw himself onto the bed, letting an exhausted huff escape. Iratoi and Eloise pulled out chairs from his table. He stood there confused, staring at the mages. Iratoi motioned for him to sit.

“This is a mess,” she said. “I was sure it was Anders, but the way those two fools bickered, it would be incredibly easy to frame either of them. Hell, it would be incredibly easy to pit them against each other.”

“Honestly,” Eloise said with a sigh, “they’re lucky it played out how it had. If the trapping was discovered and reported in another way, it could have been more dramatic.”

“More dramatic than that?” laughed Jaxtor.

She threw her hands up as her head fell to the table. She let it hit it with a small thud before saying, “Enderton could have found it, told the King directly, and sent an army into Loratyk’s lands. At least this way, we get to investigate and find out who really is behind it.”

“He’s lucky we came across him when we did then,” said Jaxtor. “Otherwise, there could have been some bloodshed. That is the last thing the nation needs right now. Just another powder keg is all.”

Iratoi turned her attention to Kaden. “Did you meet my sister?”

“Yes,” he said with a stammer at being addressed directly. “She seemed… nice…”

“She’s a bitch. You don’t have to sugarcoat it.”

Jaxtor laughed, “hey, you were the one who said it. We didn’t say it. If she hears about it, we’re telling them exactly that.”

Rolling her eyes, she said, “I imagine you won’t be seeing them too much, or if at all now. They’ll be dispatched to the other temples and to the king to inform of this incident. I was hoping they’d teach you while you still had time here.”

“While I still had time,” he raised an eyebrow. “I thought I had to learn about the water nation first.”

“Yeah, so about that,” she shook her head. “Apparently they were only waiting on the water nation to produce a dragon rider, so…”

He looked to Eloise for an explanation. She just shook her head, annoyed at what Iratoi was saying. Jaxtor just threw his hands up in the air, letting them slowly fall back down as he gave another huff.

“So this means you will be leaving soon,” she said. “On your pilgrimage.”

He gave them an incredulous look. “You have to be kidding me! I don’t know anything about anything!”

“That’s not a lie,” commented Jaxtor from the bed.

She sighed and said, “We’ve got three weeks to teach you something.”