I flinched as it pulled at my skin. “Fine. No aches or pains. Healing is so much quicker now that I have access to my dragon.”
He nodded and replaced the bandage. “Did you look after this already?”
“Leala did.”
He nodded again, stepping back. “It’ll be fine. Take it easy today and mind yourself tomorrow. You know what you can handle, but the prince does not. Keep him in mind as you recover. I have some time before I meet with the next applicant for the advisory circle, so I’ll help the others…make myself useful.”
“Your calming presence is always useful, Hannon, if you’d like to sit.” Arleth motioned to the chair in the corner.
Hannon studied her for a moment. “If you’d like.”
SEVENTEEN
Hannon
I knew exactly what the queen wanted—for me to monitor Finley until Nyfain showed up to claim her. The queen’s worry curled through the air, sinking deep, where my animal gathered it up. The queen thought Finley was wild, rash. She just didn’t know my sister.
Finley took great risks, it was true, but that was always for a cause bigger than herself. She would battle a wild boar because her family was starving and needed the meat. She’d trade herself to the demon king because it was the only way to save the people she loved. And she would take the opportunity to crush Dolion on the battlefield because it would end his threat to her people.
And yet Finley had an ironclad will to survive and the instincts to see her through danger. She also knew when to lean on the people she trusted. Before Nyfain, I’d always been there to patch her up and share the duties of caregiver to our family. Now, she had me and a big, strong alpha dragon who would set the world on fire to ensure she stayed safe.
I turned my back on my sister as they fit her elegant dress back in place and then took my seat in the corner. It was a place I was trying to grow accustomed to, just as Finley was trying to grow accustomed to her new role. We weren’t facing the same dangers as before, or the same demands. With Dad healthy enough to reassume his role as father and caretaker, living in the castle and protected, he didn’t need us to take on those roles for him anymore.
My sister and I had both lost the life we’d been forced to adopt, and in so doing, lost our purpose.
She’d found a new one, though. I hadn’t. Not completely. I was trying to put my time and effort into this new advisory circle, but I wasn’t taking to it as much as Nyfain had hoped. My animal wasn’t embracing the challenge the way he’d savored the task of looking after my family and old village.
I sat down again and picked up my notebook. The time had almost come to make my final selections for the advisory circle. I wasn’t sure what happened after that. Hopefully something that took more of my time.
“What is this?” my sister asked again, pointing at a batch of everlass leaves.
“That is an addition to your experiment,” Arleth replied, heading back to her herbs. “I’ve been reading some of the books you brought in, and found a few more in the library that might be of use. I was thinking…” She paused for a moment, unreadable to me. She was as good at hiding her emotions as the prince. Clearly it was a learned skill. “The everlass has always seemed to have a mind of its own. Have you noticed that?”
Finley’s “thinking expression” covered her face. Her eyebrows pinched, her eyes got faraway, and her lips pulled to the side a tiny bit. It was essentially a warning expression. Don’t bother her when she wore it, or something awful would happen to you. Her temper wasn’t much better than the prince’s.
“If you give it a task, it sets out to do that task to the best of its ability,” Arleth went on. “When it comes to dragons, that goes double. Everlass elixirs and draughts seem to work best on us. Our elixirs need to be tweaked for other creatures—faeries do best with formulas that are basic. Shifters need them to be a little more acidic. Demons…” She shrugged. “What do demons need? I’ve never heard. Dragons haven’t been in the habit of making things for demons.”
“I didn’t know that about the other creatures. Is that why your painkilling draught was so rancid tasting?”
Arleth slowed in her ministrations, her brow lowering.
No, then. Finley wasn’t great at breaking things to people gently. Hopefully the queen could teach her how.
Finley didn’t seem to notice. “So if we find out what sort of draught would work best for a demon, we could possibly use the opposite to counteract the effects of their magic?” She squinted. “Or maybe not the opposite. I’ll have to try both.” She looked up at me suddenly. “I didn’t even ask about the demons and faeries after the battle. Are they okay? Are all the demons still with us?”