Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 109099 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 545(@200wpm)___ 436(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109099 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 545(@200wpm)___ 436(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
“The Jewel of Lolth!” Sel breathed as I pulled it free of her neck. “Is that why you came here, Princess?”
“Yes—I remembered you two saying it would help me control the Thirst,” I said, nodding.
“Put it on at once and never let it leave your neck again,” Krynn said quickly. “It’s excellent that you have it—it will help you control and focus your power as well.”
Sel helped me put it on, lifting my hair out of the way as I clasped it behind my neck. I sighed in relief and contentment as I felt the familiar weight of the pendant settle into the hollow of my throat. It made me realize that I’d never really felt happy or contented when I wasn’t wearing it. When Christopher had insisted on locking it up in his safe, I hadn’t liked it. The pendant felt like it was part of me—a necessary and important part which had been missing for a while but was now back where it belonged.
“There—now all is as it should be.” Krynn nodded in apparent satisfaction. “Now let us go, my Lady. We need to return to the Palace.”
“All right.” I fished the keys out of my pocket and twirled them around one finger. “I’ll drive.”
“Sorry, Princess but I don’t think Krynn and I can fit in your little human vehicle,” Sel said dryly as we walked out the door and down the front steps together.
“Oh? Then how are we supposed to get back to the Palace?” I asked, deliberately keeping my head turned so I didn’t have to see the “grease spot on the ground” that was all that remained of my ex-husband. Something told me I was probably going to have more guilt about that later, but I couldn’t deal with it right at that moment, so I did my best to push it out of my mind.
“You can come back with us,” Krynn told me. “We brought a big enough ride for all three of us.”
“A big enough ride?” I asked, frowning suspiciously. “What exactly are we riding? Some kind of magic flying carpet or something?”
“Of course not,” Sel said, leading us around the side of the house. “It’s a—”
But before he could finish, a perfectly enormous head came down on a long, snaky neck from among the tall oak trees where it had apparently been hiding and hovered right in front of us.
33
Seldarin
“Oh my God!” Princess Lilliana gasped and jumped backwards. She stumbled and would have fallen if I hadn’t caught her.
“Brulish, halt!” I called, giving the Drake a stern command. “I told you not to just appear like that,” I scolded him as he snuffed at the ground with his wide, flaring nostrils. “Now look—you scared the Princess nearly to death!”
“What…what is that?” she breathed, finally regaining her breath and looked at Brulish with wide eyes.
“A Drake,” Krynn answered for me as Brulish bobbed his huge, scaly head in a friendly way.
“Don’t worry—he’s tame,” I told her. “I raised him from an egg. He won’t hurt you, will you, Brulish?”
Brulish swung his heavy head in negation. I couldn’t help noting that his head was about the same size as Princess Lilliana’s dusty, beat-up vehicle that she called a “mili-van.” The difference being that the three of us would not have fit comfortably into her vehicle, whereas there was plenty of room on Brulish’s broad back.
“So you flew here on a dragon?” she asked, still wide-eyed as Brulish unfurled his huge wings from his scaly back. It was a good thing the human house was in a secluded area on a large piece of land, I thought. Otherwise Brulish would never have fit.
“How do you think we got here so quickly?” Krynn said. “Drake-back is always the fasted form of travel.”
“Come, Princess,” I told her. “Let me help you up.”
Brulish lay down on his belly obediently and rested his enormous chin on the ground. He closed his wide, golden, dinner-plate-sized eyes as I took the Princess by her waist and lifted her up onto his scaly snout.
“Oh my God—what am I supposed to do now?” she gasped, holding on carefully to one of Brulish’s eye ridges.
“Just run along his spine to the base of his neck,” I told her. “There’s a natural hollow between the dorsal spines where we can all sit.”
She did as I said, walking quickly and carefully down the length of Brulish’s neck, using his dorsal spines as hand-holds as she did. Krynn leaped lightly up behind her and I stayed for a minute to give Brulish instructions.
“Back to the Palace,” I told him, when he opened his huge golden eye to look at me. “And be sure you fly smoothly. That’s the rightful Queen of the Midnight Court you’ve got on your back.”
Brulish snorted a puff of hot steam around my knees to show he understood. Drakes can’t talk, but they’re very intelligent. I could tell he knew what an honor it was to carry the Princess.