Hepool was a mess.

The King had carved a path of destruction through the city and most of the senators were dead, not to mention a significant number of diplomats. I looked out the castle window at the repairs that were being done. The entire senate building was partitioned off as the workers toiled away to remove the memory of what had happened a few days ago.

“Feeling okay?” Alessa was standing in the doorway of my room.

That itself felt weird. My old room had been destroyed when the old castle collapsed. I wasn’t sure who this new room had belonged to, but it was where my cousin had designated that I could always stay and keep my things.

“Just thinking about things.” I turned from the window. “How’re you feeling?”

“Different.” She flexed her hand and a little spark arced off her fingers. “Something got added when you brought me back. Starna says I have magical aptitude now. That’s something I’ll have to look into once everything calms down.”

She wasn’t the only one who had something left behind by her father. There was an extra energy in me that I couldn’t place. If I had to gamble, I’d guess it was also magic. Probably something that the king had picked up while he had been sucking the life out of Elves. With all the chaos that had been going on, I hadn’t bothered anyone to check it out.

“How’s she doing?” I sat down on the only chair in the room.

The room didn’t have much furnishings in it, just a desk, chair, and bed. That was more than the hammock I had on the ship, so that was fine with me. I motioned towards the bed for my cousin to sit down.

“Starna is recovering well.” The Queen walked over and sat on my bed. She smirked. “She’s asked about you.”

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“I’ll go see her soon.” It felt awkward every time I thought about seeing her. There was a part of me that wanted to go heal her, while another part was telling me that I needed to finish healing before I took any more wounds.

“Hopefully sooner.” The smile vanished as my cousin became more serious. “I need you to do something.”

“Me?” I looked around. “Why can’t you send dad?”

“Commander Garm is busy helping Captain Galaden restructure the Golden Guard.” She shook her head. “And I have my hands full with vetting the new candidates for the senate.” My blonde cousin leaned forward. “It has to be you.”

“What do you need me to do?” It wasn’t that I didn’t think I was capable of whatever task she had. It was that I had a feeling she was going to want me to use my title as Prince to do it. The title still sounded strange to me and the magnitude of what it carried was more responsibility than I’d ever had in my entire life combined.

“The Dwarves at Gabundin have been sending requests to investigate an artifact that they found on one of their digs.” Alessa was in full diplomatic mode. “They wanted a Sineater to examine it, but since I was the only official Sineater, Arkun kept ignoring their requests.”

“How is the search going?” I remembered the Sineater who had let himself be captured to save the Fae girl. “Have you found any of the Sineaters?”

“I have inspector Talia looking into that.” She shook her head. “So far, she hasn’t found anything.”

That was sad. I’d hoped that there would be an easy way to track them all down. “When do you want me to leave?”

Alessa had a mischievous grin. “Vin said that Starna was good to travel, so you can leave as soon as you get the drakes ready. If you’re okay with them going with you.”

The two of them would be good to take. Starna would be a great help inspecting anything magical and Vin could break it if we needed to..

“Is this my position?” I smirked. “The fixer?”

“It’s the best fit for your skills.” Alessa got up and headed for the door. “Garm agreed that you were ready.” There was a nervous shake in her voice.

“Hey, Sa-sa?”

She stopped at the doorway and turned to look at me.

I gave her a thumbs up. “You’re going to be a great Queen.”