The strategic meeting took place after all, just in case. Despite evidence pointing to the contrary, King Esthar feared that Kossi might still be subdued, so he wanted to be ready for a possible fight. Besides, the previous plan having been disclosed to Saegorg by his brother, some details had to be changed.

I didn’t attend this meeting, officially because of my health. I suspected other issues, such as my uncertain loyalty, played a part in it as well, but I didn’t care. As far as I was concerned, the fight was over.

Soldiers escorted me to the hospital, not in a royal carriage, but in a cart that bounced uncomfortably over the cobblestones. I clenched my teeth and endured it, as I felt too weak to go anywhere on foot. A quick look at me was enough to rush me to an examination room. A shared one, with white curtains separating me from other women I heard moaning or coughing. But I’d get care and it was all I wanted.

The doctor was female, and apparently not a magic user. She frowned at my face.

“There’s nothing we can do about these cuts and bruises. Do you have them elsewhere?”

“All over my body, basically. Probably a broken rib. And this, of course.”

I lifted my burnt arm, and immediately let it fall on my lap. Using this arm’s muscles hurt too much to do it without a good reason. The doctor gave me a severe look.

“You shouldn’t be so careless, you know. None of this might be life-threatening, but it’s still serious.”

Yes, I know. I guess I have a better understanding of my own health than you imagine.

After a painful examination, she confirmed I had a broken rib and explained I should rest and let it heal. She crushed dry plants into a beverage she made me drink, to ease the pain. It tasted bitter. I grimaced.

“Is it made of tree bark?”

“Mostly. Now give me that arm.”

She applied an ointment and bandaged the burn. Then she shrugged.

“I’ll give you more of these plants for the royal kitchen. They know what to do with them. Drink one glass three times a day until the pain recedes. Remove the bandage as soon as you can. You’ll keep a scar on your arm anyway. Scars on your face too, I’m afraid. The cuts are shallow, but they look like they’ll leave a mark.”

I couldn’t help wincing. Scars on my face even after I healed?

I didn’t have much time to ponder on it, as the soldiers who’d escorted me knocked on the door of the examination room, saying King Esthar wanted to see me.

I found myself in his gorgeous office again, the one with the maps everywhere and the smell of balsam in the air. This time, the king didn’t invite me to sit down. He sat at his desk, with a scribe next to him, and I stood in the middle of the room like a cheating student brought before the headmaster.

“I do not know whether I should be furious at your insubordination, or grateful for exposing Sir Pernel as a traitor and making him break the last seal,” said the king.

Probably a bit of both. But mostly grateful. I did prevent a bloody battle.

He sighed. “His wound is being cared for as we speak. He will be tried later, by a judge. I had time to think while he was escaping, using you as a human shield, and I cannot make the decision by myself. I used to trust Sir Pernel with my life. Were I to decide his fate, my anger would distort my judgement.”

This sounds wise. Much wiser than I expected from him, actually.

“But what about you?” asked the king.

“What about me?”

“What part did you play in this? What is your allegiance, Al? A word from you was enough to make Vilo Jozin take part in the chase. Are you on his side?”

I looked around me before choosing my answer.

“I’m on my own side, mostly. I didn’t ask to be summoned as your Great Hero, and to be honest, I still don’t understand why I’m here. My journey across Brealia convinced me that Demon Lord Faur isn’t much of a threat to your kingdom.”

“Your journey. Tell me about it.”

I suppose I won’t get much from him until I tell him what I really did on my journey.

So I talked. And he asked questions, and the scribe wrote everything down. It really felt like an interrogation.

I told him how I went to Merumo, omitting his daughter’s implication in getting me out of Carastra. I explained how we fought Turoch Garnet’s wood guardian in his house by the lake. I talked about our narrow escape from Mistress Jemos’s squad in Merumo, I cried recounting the dire bear and the proclive disaster, then the long and painful walk to the witch’s cottage. The strange foreign lord in Sanajec, whom I pretended not to know. He was probably one of Demon Lord Faur’s lieutenants, I admitted, but back then, I hadn’t guessed it. I was just glad he got us closer to Malo, on time for me to use my natural power on Kossi’s spell and break the first seal.

King Esthar looked alarmed.

“What did you tell that man? He reported everything to Faur, as you must be aware.”

I nodded.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

“I said I was on an important mission and I needed to go to Malo. Surprisingly, he didn’t ask for details, so whatever he told his master, it couldn’t be much. He just said he disliked Saegorg and he’d be glad if we did something, anything, against him.”

“This sounds extremely suspicious.”

“I know, Your Majesty, but we were running out of time and soldiers were after us, so I was in no position to refuse the offer. I apologize for letting an enemy help me.”

“It is not what bothers me the most. A foreign noble who might work for the Demon Lord traveled through Brealia unnoticed, and it should never have happened. I will need to send more spies to the north. Please continue. What happened once you arrived in Malo?”

I explained the end of my journey, miraculous fall included. I left my quick return to Carastra unexplained, but King Esthar didn’t seem to notice the journey back had been extremely short. The scribe wrote page after page.

“What about Vilo Jozin?” asked the king. “Why did you choose to go to him for help?”

I shook my head.

“If I’d come to the palace, wearing rags and covered in dried blood, would you have believed me? Or even accepted to see me? I was left for dead while my friends were detained in a cell without food. I couldn’t do all this for nothing. I had to finish what I started.”

“But why Vilo of all people? How did you even know where to find him? Carastra is a big city.”

“He came to me, soon after my summoning. Introduced himself. Explained his motivations. I didn’t fully believe him, but I think he has a point.”

King Esthar furrowed his brow. “What kind of point?”

“Honestly, I haven’t had much time to look into the political situation of this kingdom, but there’s always room for improvement. I don’t want to put Vilo on your throne. I just think his views are worth considering, instead of rejecting them all on principle.”

The king slowly rose from his chair and looked me down from behind his desk.

“Al, I must thank you for your heroism. You saved lives today. However, please remember your place.”

I looked at my feet. Here we go again. He thinks of me as an instrument of his power and as a commoner. I’m not supposed to criticize his policies.

“I wish I knew my own place, Your Majesty. I wish I knew why you really summoned me.”

“To defeat Demon Lord Faur and bring prosperity to the Brealian kingdom, in accordance with the prophecy. This hearing is over.”

The scribe gathered his writing material and left the office. A soldier gave us an interrogative look from the threshold, but the king shook his head and ordered him to close the door.

It was only the two of us now. King Esthar still stood in front of me, with the desk between us. He joined his hands just below his well-trimmed beard.

“Al, do you remember the first thing you noticed upon your summoning?”

My nakedness. The Senior Magi in their purple robes. The carpet under my feet. The voices in the other half of the chapel.

I shook my head. “I don’t know, Your Majesty. I apologize.”

“You noticed the empty chair.”

King Esthar walked to the far wall and pushed a hanging aside, unveiling a portrait of a blonde woman who looked a lot like an older Nigella. She was wearing a beige dress with colorful embroidered flowers, an elaborate necklace, and her amber eyes matched her serene smile.

“Epona’s and Sorosiel’s sudden deaths weakened us considerably. Sorosiel was about to get engaged and Nigella was engaged to an heir apparent, so we had to arrange not only a double royal funeral and the terrible sorrow that went with it, but also the political consequences of the accident. My advisors rethought our alliances while I established Nigella as the new crown princess. Kossi’s absence did not go unnoticed, either.”

He kept looking at the painting, as if he was talking to himself.

“And then, All One gained power. I felt that I needed to strengthen my throne, so I ordered the summoning of the Great Hero Al. It took a full season to invite all guests and complete the ritual, only to have people killed in my moat and the banquet canceled. Little did I know it was only the beginning.”

He turned back to me, sorrow all over his face.

“You saved us today, Al. But why did your summoning fail to restore my power?”

Because Sir Pernel deliberately chose to make it fail. And also because acting for the good of Brealia doesn’t mean reinforcing an absolute monarch’s power.

But I couldn’t say all this aloud. I tried to be more diplomatic.

“Saegorg and Uturi decided to make Kossi attack on the day of my summoning, precisely to undermine your power. It had nothing to do with you or me, Your Majesty. But we still have time to bring about better times. I choose to believe it.”

King Esthar had a bitter smile.

“I would like to believe it, too, but you and I seem to have different ideas of what better times might look like.”

“Hopefully we can find a common ground.”

He nodded.

“Hopefully.”

When the king finally dismissed me, I went straight down to the small dining room. The afternoon was quite advanced and I’d barely had a snack since Uturi had teleported me across Carastra. I was exhausted, hungry, and I craved pastries and coffee. I knew I couldn’t find coffee in Brealia, but at least, Sirit and her team could feed me.

All conversations in the room cut short as soon as I got through the door. Lesser nobles sitting with drinks, kitchen personnel cleaning or waiting, everyone gave me a respectful nod. The weight of their gazes was a little too heavy for me. I had a plate prepared for me with leftovers from lunch, and ate alone in a corner, pretending I was Aragorn at the Prancing Pony. I had left friends and a dragon behind, and I had no way to contact them, so I couldn’t help but imagine the worst happening to them. Torture, death.

I was deep in thought when I noticed someone looking at me with more insistence than the others. I looked up from my near-empty plate.

“Princess.”

“Al.”

Nigella didn’t wait for an invitation. She directly took a chair in front of me.

Her face was paler than I remembered, and her hands fiddled with a ribbon. An ornate velvet headband held her light blond hair away from her eyes, and small aquamarines shone at her ears. She’s just a teenager. How could Uturi ever imagine… I shook the thought away.

“I did it after all,” I said.

“I will never thank you enough. But what about you?”

Her father asked me the exact same question, but I don’t think she means what he meant.

I narrowed my eyes. “What about me?”

She gestured at my face. “You got injured. You went to the hospital this morning, so I guess you got appropriate care, but do you want to keep these scars?”

“I suppose I have no choice. The doctor said some of them would be permanent.”

“But if you had a choice, what would you do?”

I sighed. “I don’t need to make a statement. I did this morning, when I confronted Uturi and the council could see I’d really been through a lot, but now, I wish I could leave it all behind. Rest, let the wounds heal, and be able to see myself in the mirror without being reminded of that fall for the rest of my life.”

Isn’t it selfish? Or vain? I have old scars and I don’t really notice them anymore, so I’ll get used to the new ones.

Nigella nodded thoughtfully.

“I see. Get all the rest you need.”

“Doctor’s instructions. I have a broken rib and I should avoid running around and stabbing people until it heals.”

She giggled. “You should, indeed! But if you must be our Great Hero in the future, I suggest you take fencing lessons as soon as you recover. It will help with the stabbing.”

“Excellent suggestion, Princess.”

I had a sip of water. I wanted to relax, but I couldn’t, not as long as my friends were missing and possibly dead. Dread was like a little beast resting in my stomach, not moving much, but poisoning me from inside. And perhaps it was its influence, but a murmur seemed to go through the dining room.

“Princess? Am I delusional, or…”

The banging of the door interrupted me. A soldier ran into the room, noticed us, and went straight to us, bowing before the table.

“Princess, Great Hero, watchers have spotted a dragon flying to Carastra from the north!”

“Gold Dragon Kossi?” asked Nigella.

“Probably. King Esthar wants you both by his side immediatly.”