Heir of Amber and Fire Rachanee Lumayno (books on motivation txt) 📖

an empty field, I winged toward it, my father still laughing heartily as he followed me.

Despite our frequent stops, we still made good time to Calia. The sun was dipping low in the sky when we saw the towers and crenellations of the kingdom’s castle. We landed several miles away from the kingdom’s gates. It was partly out of a desire to stay hidden. Dragons weren’t common in Calia, and it would have raised an alarm if we were spotted so close to the kingdom. But also, we couldn’t get any closer.

Surrounding Calia for miles around were bunches of tents and makeshift camps. Twilight was just giving way to nighttime, and the random fires that flared up illuminated our way. We kept to the shadows, but most of the campsites were too busy to pay attention to two nondescript people walking through.

We passed by one tent, an imposing emerald-green affair that could have easily housed me and my former traveling companions and had room to spare. I fleetingly wondered what became of them after Joichan had taken me away. Most likely they had returned to Orchwell. Perhaps they were already on a new seeking mission. My heart twisted, and I wished I could have had a chance to explain things, or at least say goodbye.

A tall male servant returned to the campsite holding an empty chamber pot. A stout woman sitting by the fire, roasting a rabbit on a spit, looked up as he approached.

“His Grace has kept you hopping tonight.” She turned the rabbit slightly.

“I’ll be glad when this wedding is over and we can go home to Shonn,” the man said. “Bad enough it took so long to come this far west. We can’t even get a room in the city, everything’s so full. Camping makes His Grace irritable and then he takes it out on us. And we still have the journey home, too.”

The woman clicked her tongue in warning. “Don’t say that too loud. You never know who’s listening.”

“He’s not here,” the man assured her. “He’s at the castle, for some dinner party King Hendon is throwing for all the nobles prior to the wedding. Don’t expect him back until late. If he can even stumble his way back after drinking all night.”

The woman turned the spit again, this time with enthusiasm. “Perfect. More for us.”

The man laughed and disappeared into the deep green tent, presumably to put the chamber pot away before joining his companion for dinner. Joichan and I continued on.

On the outskirts of the campgrounds, I saw two familiar figures hunched around a fire. I gave a little cry of recognition and moved toward them, even as my father tried to grab my sleeve to hold me back. Two faces turned toward me: Farrah and Rhyss.

“Allayne!” Farrah jumped up, about to embrace me, but Rhyss stood up warily.

Now that I was face to face with my former traveling companions, I wasn’t sure what to say. “Uh. Hi, Farrah. Rhyss. Um. How have you been?”

“Well enough,” Farrah said. “You?”

“Same.” There was an uncomfortably long silence. I looked around their campsite. “Where’s Beyan?”

At that moment I heard footsteps approaching the camp. Beyan stepped out of the darkness and into the firelight. He stopped short when he saw me. “Allayne.”

“Beyan. It’s good to see you again.”

He stepped closer to Farrah and Rhyss, forming a human wall that quite clearly kept me out. “I don’t know that I can say the same.”

“I know you’re angry at me for what happened at the dragon’s cave.” I looked at each of them in turn. “I’m sorry you felt like I betrayed you. I couldn’t let you kill him.”

Farrah and Rhyss shifted uneasily. I knew that they had been against Beyan killing Joichan — indeed, any dragon — as it would have corrupted the mission and Beyan’s soul. But he was also their leader and their friend, and they were duty bound to support him and his decisions.

“Why not?” Beyan’s voice was bitter. “You knew what it meant to me.”

I looked back uncertainly, to where my father was waiting in the shadows. He stepped forward, nodding slightly. Now that I had his unspoken permission to share our secret, I felt better. With more confidence, I turned back to my friends, who were staring open-mouthed at Joichan.

“That’s ... that’s the man from the cave!” Rhyss said.

“Yes. This is Joichan,” I said. I turned to Beyan, who stiffened but didn’t move. “I know you wanted to kill him because you wanted to avenge your father. I couldn’t let you do that because... Joichan is my father. That’s why I wanted to find him.”

Now all my friends’ gaping faces were fixed on me.

“My mother asked me to find him because we need his help. My mother is — ”

“Queen Melandria of Calia,” Beyan said flatly.

Now it was my turn to gape, at Beyan. “How did you know?”

“When we came here, to Calia, your name was on everyone’s lips,” Farrah said. “The upcoming wedding of Crown Princess Jennica Allayne Kenetria Denyah of Calia to Prince Anders of Rothschan. When we asked around, the description people gave of the princess matched yours. Simple, really.”

“Why did you come to Calia? I figured you would all return to Orchwell, since you had technically fulfilled your task.”

Suddenly no one in the group would meet my eyes. Was it embarrassment? Beyan said, “We wanted to find you, and thought you would eventually make your way back home.”

“We’ve been camping here for a few days, enough time to ask questions,” Farrah added. “That’s how we discovered you were the princess.”

I was amazed that my luck in hiding my identity had lasted so long. “If you knew that I was the princess, then didn’t you wonder why I was on the road headed south instead of here in Calia preparing for my wedding?”

“Once we figured it out, we did discuss it among ourselves,” Farrah admitted. “But nothing we came up with made any sense.”

I took a deep breath. “I do not