The council should have yelled at her, but no one moved. Doravan laid his hand on her shoulder, and she raised her eyebrow at him.

  “Amalla–Your Majesty,” he corrected. “You’ve watched the Hoarder fight. You know the best we can do is defend ourselves, barricade ourselves where he can’t find us.”

  She pushed his hand away. “Thank you, Treasurer, but you forget the greatest hole in your argument: we were in the basement of a red granite castle with the oldest, greatest dragon on our continent.” Amalla looked back at the council. “If we barricade ourselves here, we guarantee our destruction. He destroyed the castle of Shyyda in a few minutes, down to its foundation.” Amalla patted her dragon’s neck. “We have dragons. We do not have many, but we have enough. The new Keeper of the Treasury also has a dragon, who may have blinded the Hoarder in our escape.”

  Murmurs flew up from the council.

  “We will need to monitor the Hoarder’s movements,” she said. “Find your bravest scouts, and offer them as great a reward as they need to scout the Hoarder’s whereabouts. Have them find out if he is truly blind. He was struck by blue dragon fire, and he may never see again. We must strike while he is weak.”

  “Why didn’t you say he was impaired before?” The Dragon Minister chuckled nervously. “Let us assemble the army of Mengor, and find all dragon mages still living.”

  “Perhaps there is hope for our kingdom yet,” the War Minister mused.

  Amalla nodded. “Keeper of the Law, write down what I have said. Tell everyone in Mengor that we will be confronting the Hoarder, and have everyone prepare underground bunkers immediately. If we do not defeat the Hoarder, we will need underground shelters to survive until he is bored of our lands and leaves.” She turned and strode abruptly out of the room.

  Doravan bowed awkwardly to the council and followed her. “You did well,” he said.

  Amalla let a smile creep onto her face, but she quickly turned it down. “I need to fill in the empty council positions. I was going to put you in as my advisor, but I suppose that won’t work now that you oversee the coffers.”

  Doravan stopped in place while Amalla kept walking. “You were?”

  “I don’t have any other friends,” she said. He caught up to her, and she smirked at him. “You would have sufficed.”

  She broke out into the open air and began breathing heavily. Doravan put his hand on her back, steadying her. She smiled again. “This is why I wanted you to advise me. No one else cares about the burden of royalty; they think only of its riches.” She looked up into the sunset. “I didn’t want to be the queen, Doravan. I hope they choose another ruler when I am gone.”

  Doravan nearly had to kick himself; he thought about suggesting that she turn the kingdom over to him. But it wasn’t the time to put thoughts in her head about Doravan being the next king. Right now it was time to get rid of the Hoarder so that there would be a kingdom to debate about at all.

  He leaned over to catch her eye. “You’re doing well, Your Majesty. I think you have an excellent plan to fight the Hoarder.”

  She swatted his shoulder. “Flattery isn’t going to get you anywhere.”

  “I’m serious!” he protested. “I’ve never been able to lie to you. Just because you’re the queen doesn’t mean I suddenly can.”

  Amalla laughed, and Doravan peered at her.

  “I suppose I forgot. I can summon lightning, but my dragon knew I would be surrounded by treachery all my life as Eremis’s heir. She also gave me the ability to read the truth. I can’t be lied to by anyone, so don’t think you’re special.”

  Doravan’s jaw dropped. “That was magic?”

  Amalla crossed her arms. “So you have lied to me before. What exactly happened with my brother, anyway?”

  Doravan leaned on the courtyard railing. “Does it matter? It’s over now. The plan was to keep the Hoarder away from Mengor, and I thought distributing the gold to our people would help them and prevent an attack.”

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  “But Eremis gave you permission.”

  Doravan hung his head. He should have felt more guilt, but mostly he was just relieved. “He gave me the gold. He intended to have me give it back whenever he wanted it so that he wouldn’t have to give tribute at the Conqueror’s Feast. Going to Shyyda meant that we had to give less, and then he didn’t have to worry about Uncle Vimos finding us out.”

  Amalla sighed. “What a bout of trouble you got yourself into.”

  “And now you are the queen.” Doravan’s stomach sank as he thought back on the conversations they’d had while he was trying to hide his plans from her. “You aren’t going to chop my head off because I told you, are you?”

  Amalla gave him a wicked grin. “Well, you did just confess.”

  “Your Majesty!” Doravan protested.

  The queen laughed. “I’m glad you’re here, Doravan.” She scanned the sky. “If the Hoarder kills me, I hope you’re there to comfort me in my final moments.”

  “Don’t talk like that.”

  She smiled sadly. “I almost died. If Shen’al hadn’t come back for us, I would have bled out slowly and painfully. And you would have had to bring the baby back to safety without me. There is a real possibility that none of us will survive this fight with the Hoarder.”

  “Let’s make you a bunker immediately,” Doravan said. He straightened up and walked back into the castle; the queen trailed behind him. “We’ll make it distant from the castle itself, because this is where the Hoarder is going to attack first.”

  Shouts echoed down the hall, and Doravan rolled his eyes. “I think you should just replace your entire council, Amal–Your Majesty. They’re a little out of hand.”

  Amalla grabbed his arm as a string of curses echoed through the castle, followed by a dragon roar. “I don’t know that voice. That isn’t one of my councilors.”

  Doravan and Amalla raced down the hall, back into the main council room. Doravan threw the doors open. An old man with a massive white beard, dressed in rags, was straddling Amalla’s dragon. He had a great spear in his hands and was trying to stab the dragon’s eye with it. She bucked and reached behind her neck to grab him, but he kept wriggling out of her grasp. The councilors surrounded her, yelling for him to get down.

  “What is the meaning of this?!” Amalla thundered. Lightning crashed outside from her fury, and the councilors scattered. The old man looked up at the queen. Doravan cringed at the crazed look in his eyes.

  “Amalla!” The old man slid off of the dragon’s back. “You have an infestation in your castle. This is the second beast I’ve seen today.”

  The dragon raised her arm to swat him, or possibly choke him, but Amalla shook her head. “Easy, Vyin. Let’s find out what he wants. But he’s out of his cage, so he’d better have a good reason for being here and trying to kill my dragon.”

  “You are well aware that dragons are nothing but trouble,” the old man said.

  “You know this man?” Doravan pointed.

  Amalla crossed her arms. “Yedelith. Formerly the greatest Dragon Mage alive.”

  “Before my dragon double crossed me!” Yedelith yelled and raised his spear, but Amalla’s dragon caught it and flung him across the room. He landed on the king’s throne with a thud and groaned.

  Doravan’s eyes widened. “He’s not Ka’lyl’s mage, is he?”

  “No, although he used to be paired with a Southern dragon. Lan’sek’yed, I believe, before she disappeared over the Mountain Sea,” Amalla’s dragon said. “And now he believes all dragons will betray mankind one day, and the Hoarder hasn’t done us any favors.”

  “So we’ve had him in the dungeon for a while.” Amalla sighed. “I didn’t think he could escape.”

  Yedelith crawled off of the throne, wheezing. “You … you can’t silence the truth, little princess!”

  “You know, Yedelith, we could use your help,” Amalla said.

  The old man froze in place on the floor. “Why would I help you?”

  “Because we’re trying to take down the biggest dragon alive,” Doravan cut in. He encouraged his flattering, persuasive tone to take over. “And since you are the greatest enemy of the dragons, we thought you might be able to help us.”

  Yedelith grinned. “Of course I can. I’ll stab his eyes out myself. Where is he?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Doravan said. “Is there anything you can use to find him?”

  Yedelith sprang from the ground and limped outside. Amalla and Doravan followed him, only to find him searching the sky like they had been doing earlier. He whispered to himself, and then his whisper became a chant, and finally a roar. Wind whipped around him; his aged eyes began to glow.

  “There!” he screamed. The wind died immediately, and Yedelith pointed behind the castle. Doravan and Amalla fearfully studied the sky, but the old mage shook his head. “Not here. To the north, in the mountains by the sea. He is healing in his cave.”