The Dragon Kings' Forbidden Witch

”Can’t they?” Isolde’s gaze fixed on her. ”We are in the palace at the kings’ sufferance. We are here as part of the Selection, a process that the kings clearly have no interest in continuing. Do you really want to give them an excuse to remove us?”

This struck home. The thought of being dismissed from the Selection, sent home in disgrace, was precisely what none of them wanted.

”More than that,” Isolde continued, ”spreading rumors about the kings’ weakness, their loss of control, their instability, that’s not just gossip. That’s sedition. That’s questioning the fitness of the realm’s rulers.”

She paused, letting this sink in.

”And sedition is punished by more than dismissal from the palace.”

Eleanor paled slightly. The other daughters exchanged nervous glances.

Isolde’s voice became softer, but no less commanding. ”We speak nothing more of this. To anyone. Not to servants, not to guards, not to each other. Not even in the privacy of our chambers, because you never know who might be listening. The incident in the training grounds did not happen. We know nothing about it. We saw nothing. We heard nothing except the lies that the palace has chosen to spread.”

She looked at each of them in turn, and her gaze seemed to penetrate deep, assessing, judging.

”Is this understood?” she asked.

There was a long moment of silence.

Then, slowly, the daughters began to nod. Some reluctantly, some more enthusiastically. But all of them understood the message: to continue discussing the incident was dangerous.

”Good,” Isolde said, and she resumed her seat by the fireplace.

The room settled back into silence.

But it was a different silence now. Not the comfortable quiet of an afternoon tea, but the tense quiet of fear and suppressed questions and forced compliance.

***

Over the next hour, the daughters attempted to resume their normal activities.

Seraphine returned to her embroidery, though her stitches remained as careless and uneven as before. Vivienne opened her book again, and this time, she seemed to attempt to actually focus on the words, though her eyes frequently drifted toward the window, toward distant thoughts.

Celeste returned to the card game with Eleanor and Margaret, but the game moved slowly, haltingly, as if no one’s mind was really present for it.

Other daughters occupied themselves with various tasks...reading, writing letters, practicing needlework, or simply sitting quietly and staring at nothing.

The atmosphere, though superficially returned to something resembling normalcy, was fundamentally changed.

The anxiety remained. The fear remained. The weight of forbidden knowledge....or at least, forbidden speculation, hung over the room like a storm cloud that refused to disperse.

Isolde sat by the fireplace, ostensibly reading but not turning pages, her pale blue eyes distant and thoughtful. Her posture remained perfect, her appearance impeccable, but anyone looking closely would have noticed the tension in her shoulders, the way her hands occasionally clenched into fists before she consciously relaxed them.

She was thinking. Planning. Her mind was clearly occupied with something far more complicated than the surface chatter of the room.

As the afternoon wore on and the light began to shift, suggesting that evening was approaching, the daughters began to drift away in ones and twos. Some retired to their chambers. Some went to prepare for the evening meal. Some lingered, reluctant to leave the familiar space, but eventually compelled by hunger or habit or the simple passage of time.

By the time full evening had settled over the palace, the grand sitting room had emptied almost entirely.

Only Isolde remained, sitting by the dying fire, her thoughts clearly turned inward, her expression unreadable.

She would need to think carefully about what had happened. About what the training ground incident meant. About how it affected her plans and her understanding of the situation.

But that thinking would have to wait.

For now, there were other matters requiring her attention. Other arrangements to make. Other conversations to conduct in the shadows where no one could hear.

***

Hours later, after darkness had fallen completely over the palace, Isolde stood in her private chamber.

The room was richly appointed...a canopy bed draped in fine silk, furniture crafted by master artisans, tapestries hung on the walls, windows looking out over the palace grounds. It was a room befitting a daughter of a great house, full of luxury and comfort.

But Isolde moved through it with restless agitation.

She had changed into her nightgown...a fine garment of pale silk, embroidered with silver thread. But she had not retired to bed. Instead, she moved about the room, her movements sharp and abrupt, her expression troubled.

The servant girl. Morgana.

Everything kept coming back to her.

The kings’ obvious interest. The whispers among the palace staff. The strange incident in the training grounds...and yes, Isolde had managed to glean more details from servants than she had shared with the other daughters. One of the kings had lost control. One of the kings had transformed involuntarily. One of the kings had become wild and dangerous.

And somehow, Isolde was certain, it was connected to the servant girl.

The girl had to be removed.

This was no longer merely about jealousy or about eliminating competition within the Selection. This was about something far more serious. Something that involved powers and forces that Isolde was only beginning to understand.

She needed guidance.

She needed to speak with her father.

Isolde moved to the door of her chamber and opened it quietly, looking out into the corridor. The palace was quiet at this hour, most people were settled in their chambers for the night. The servants who attended to evening tasks were focused on their work and unlikely to notice a noblewoman moving through the halls.

She softly called: ”Marta?”

Her personal maid appeared almost immediately, as if she had been waiting just outside the door...which, in fact, she had been. Marta was a woman in her thirties, loyal to Isolde’s family for over a decade, and absolutely trustworthy.

”Prepare my cloak,” Isolde said quietly. ”The black one. We’re going out.”

Marta’s expression didn’t change, but she nodded without question or hesitation.

”Of course, my lady,” she said, and moved to Isolde’s wardrobe to retrieve the dark cloak that Isolde had brought from her father’s estate.

Isolde’s decision was made.

She needed answers.

And she knew exactly where to find them.