realm.”
“If and when I marry, I want it to be for love,” Mikahl said naively. “Anything less just doesn’t seem to be, what’s the word? Honorable?”
“Being a good king isn’t a very honorable business sometimes,” said King Jarrek. “Every single time we do something good for somebody, someone else is upset about it. That is why honorable men don’t usually want to be king.”
“Aye,” Mikahl agreed with a huff of frustration. “I should’ve gone a few more rounds out in the yards,” he mumbled to himself as King Jarrek was pulled away by a question from one of his men.
Queen Willa was having a welcome feast for Princess Rosa later in the day. It hadn’t even started yet, but already Mikahl was getting aggravated by the mess. The bath was hot and relaxing and went far toward easing his tension. It was peaceful in these particular bathhouses, which were for the use of those training in the Royal Weapons Yard. If Mikahl tried to bathe anywhere else he’d be swamped with bowing servants, over eager attendants, and all the other amenities of his position that made his blood boil. What he’d give to be able to eat anonymously with the squires and pages this night. The only formalities he’d find there were belching contests, dice, and the laces on a willing servant girl’s girdle.
A sharp repetitive thumping sound caught his attention and he turned in the wooden tub to see what it was. A wide wingspan of dark brown feathers swirled the steam and the tiny, yet widening yellow ring of a hawkling’s focusing eye found him. The bird gave a weak apologetic caw then proceeded to flap its way out of the room, dragging Mikahl’s robe with it.
“Talon, no!” Mikahl screamed as he looked around and saw that there was nothing at all to cover himself with. “Blasted Hyden!” he swore. As angry as he was becoming, he couldn’t hold back the smile that stretched across his face. He and Hyden took great pride in the pranks they pulled on each other, and this was a good one. Princess Rosa was here at the castle, and by the time the feast gathered this evening, the gossipers and rumor mongers would have a lot to talk about. Mikahl wasn’t about to be meek about it. He would strut across the practice yard naked if he had to. His fierce pride wouldn’t allow any less.
“You just wait Hyden. I’ll get-” Mikahl was yelling as he burst out of the door that opened into the corner of the training yard. His voice died quickly away. His heart leapt into his throat when he saw the girl who was waiting there with Hyden. She was suddenly wide-eyed and having to stifle her giggles. Talon leapt from Hyden’s wrist and flew to perch on a piece of training equipment a fair distance away and began preening himself innocently.
The well-bloomed young girl with Hyden was beautiful beyond reason, with sparkling blue eyes, full pouty lips, and long wavy brown hair that flowed down over her shoulders. Her day dress was colored the very same shade of green as the Westland banner, and it hugged her curvaceous figure well. Her skin was golden, but mottled roses had suddenly appeared on her cheeks.
“Oh, sorry, Mik,” Hyden shrugged with an ear-to-ear grin on his face. His long black hair was pulled into a tight ponytail, and gave his face a hawkish look that eerily resembled Talon’s. “They told me you were taking a hot bath, not a cold one.”
Princess Rosa’s mouth had formed a perfect ’O ‘. She whirled and whacked Hyden across the chest. Hyden could barely contain himself. He was about to explode with laughter.
“Yew seed that he was feeding some earphaned beer cubs!” she shrieked in a heavily accented voice as she stalked off. A pair of equally flustered and giggling attendants, and a slightly older woman who was still openly eyeing Mikahl’s naked body, appeared from the background to receive the girl and usher her off.
Hyden lost all control of his mirth and was laughing so hard that he actually fell to a knee and held his stomach. As the training yard door slammed shut behind the Princess of Seaward and her entourage, applause erupted from some of the braver men; there were whistles and jeers as well.
Chapter Three
Hyden Skyler spent the winter up in Dahg Mahn’s tower learning to read and write. It was Hyden’s tower now, even though everyone still referred to it as Dahg Mahn’s. The great wizard had disappeared ages ago, but had left a trial, a series of tests that one must pass to win entry into his sacred Xwardian abode. Hundreds of magi had tried to enter, but only Hyden Hawk Skyler had done so.
Targon, the old High Wizard of Xwarda, had died with the elf Vaegon in a mighty battle against a Choska demon on the outer wall, as Pael’s undead hordes swarmed into the city. Queen Willa had named two of his underlings to take his place. The new High Wizards assigned apprentices to help Hyden in his endeavors. Hyden’s desire to overcome his ignorance drove him, and now he was reading well, if a little haltingly at times. His writing skills were still lacking, however. He could scratch and scribble enough to get by, but nothing more. His favorite apprentice, a skinny blond-headed orphan boy of fourteen summers named Phenilous, had given him the most help. He and Phen had become fast friends. Hyden was nearing twenty summers himself, but was still a boy at heart. He had a natural gift for magic and he could communicate with animals through his familial link with his hawkling, Talon. Phen’s grammatical skills were superb, but his magical skills were lacking in the sense that they were stiff and studied, and came not from the heart, but from repetition and memory. Hyden Hawk’s magic was pure-not learned, but felt. Over the winter, the two of them garnered a great deal from each other and had serious fun in the process.
Hyden was planning a grand quest. Since it was Phen who had done the bulk of research into the great blue dragon, Cobalt, and the treasure he had stolen from the pirate Barnacle Bones, Phen was trying to get Hyden, and the two High Wizards to let him go on the adventure. Hyden didn’t mind at all. In fact he liked the idea of Phen going, but there would be danger, and the boy was only an apprentice. Hyden wouldn’t dare disrespect Queen Willa’s wizards by assuming anything. Only if they agreed, would he add Phen to his growing roster of campaigners.
“What did they say?” Hyden asked the boy as he was getting dressed for the evening’s feast. Phen was a lowly apprentice and hadn’t been invited to the event, but it didn’t bother him. He didn’t really want to have to use manners and act serious all evening long.
Phen smirked in approval as he entered the room. Hyden had sensed him there before he had seen him. It was a simple awareness spell they had been working on, and Hyden had used it perfectly.
“Master Amill seems to think I could learn a lot on such an excursion,” Phen said. “Master Sholt, on the other hand, thinks that it will be too dangerous, and that I’ll just be underfoot.”
“When I was your age, my father had me harvesting hawkling eggs on cliffs higher than this tower,” Hyden said, a little miffed at the reasoning. “I’ll try and talk some sense into them this evening, Phen. Master Sholt is coming to the feast, is he not?”
“I believe so.” Phen seemed pleased that Hyden was going to speak for him. He had been worried that Hyden had only been pacifying him with his talk of taking him along on the quest for Barnacle Bones’s stolen booty. “We don’t need treasure, though, Hyden. Queen Willa’s got all the gold in Highwander already.”
Hyden laughed. “You can do better than that, Phen.”
“Why won’t you tell me what it is that we’re really after?” the boy asked with an ear to ear grin.
“I’ll tell you only this…” Hyden turned from the reflecting glass and looked seriously at the boy. Phen stifled a laugh. Hyden’s robe was bunched all wrong on one side.
“What is it?” Hyden turned back to the reflecting glass.
“Here,” Phen came over and straightened the fancy silver trimmed white robe. “Now what were you going to tell me?”
Hyden loved drawing stuff out with the boy. Phen’s impatience was entertaining, but he was in a hurry, so he told him what he wanted to know-at least part of it. “When the dragon, Claret, and I finished sealing the demon back into the Nethers, she told me…”
“I know, I know this part,” said Phen as if the balance of the world’s fate hung in what came next. “She told you about Cobalt the blue drake, and the pirate ship, but what is it we are really after? What’s in that booty that you want so badly, Hyden?”
Hyden laughed aloud at that. Phen was as sharp as a whip’s crack. It was one of the reasons he liked the boy so much. “Claret told me that among the treasures the dragon stole was a silver skull with eyes of jade, but if you
