The Dragon Kings' Forbidden Witch

Kaelen’s pale eyes showed something like satisfaction.

”Let them speculate,” he said.

His hand moved to the wine glass, and he took a drink, his pale eyes becoming distant.

”The noble daughters can do nothing without the Selection to justify their presence in the palace. Without a competition to win, they have no claim on our time or attention. They are simply guests in a palace where they are no longer welcome.”

Draeven’s golden eyes moved toward the door through which Morgana had departed.

There was something in that gaze...not softness, but something approaching care, that suggested he was thinking of her, considering what these decisions meant for her, understanding that by ending the Selection, by calling Cedric to the palace, by dealing with House Greythorne, they were reshaping the entire environment in which she would have to navigate.

”We have removed a significant threat from her path,” he said quietly. ”The noble daughters can no longer attempt to use her as a tool in their competition. The Selection is over, which means the desperation that drove them to such crude manipulation is no longer relevant.”

Thorne nodded his agreement.

”She will be safer, not without danger, because there will always be those who see opportunity in her proximity to us, but safer than she would have been if the Selection had continued.”

***

Morgana returned to her chamber from dinner still feeling the lightness of the evening.

The favor had been granted. Rowan would be coming soon. Everything felt possible in a way it had not felt before.

She moved around the chamber, touching things without purpose, her mind spinning with the reality of what she had asked for and what had been given. She had dared to ask for something from one of the kings, and he had said yes without hesitation.

The candlelight cast long shadows across the fine furniture, the expensive paintings, the careful beauty of her chambers in the royal wing. She stood at the window for a moment, looking out at the palace grounds below, understanding that something had changed today. The tea had been a test, and she had passed it. The favor was a reward, but it was more than that. It was proof that she had some small measure of power in this place.

And that power had brought Rowan back to her.

She moved away from the window and settled into the chair by the fire, waiting. The evening was progressing toward night, the candles being lit by servants throughout the palace. Morgana understood that Rowan would be coming soon, that the summoning had already happened, that her best friend was on her way to the royal wing for the first time not as a secret visitor but as her assigned maid.

***

She heard the knock before she expected it.

Morgana stood immediately and crossed to the door.

When she opened it, Rowan stood in the corridor, her eyes wide, her expression caught between confusion and shock. She was still in her kitchen servant’s clothes, her apron still tied around her waist, her hair still bound in the practical braid of someone who had been working.

”Morgana,” Rowan said, her voice breathless. ”Mistress Calla summoned me and told me to report to the ward’s chambers and I thought maybe you needed something from the kitchen but then she said I was to become your maid and I didn’t understand and the guard brought me here and I...”

Morgana pulled her inside, closing the door behind her.

”I asked for you,” Morgana said simply.

Rowan’s words stopped.

Her mouth opened as if she was about to speak, then closed. Her eyes moved from Morgana’s face to the chamber around her, as if trying to understand how this had happened.

”You asked for me?” Rowan asked finally. ”How? What did you do?”

Morgana took her friend’s hands and guided her to sit on the window seat where they had sat so many times before.

”At dinner, Kaelen offered me a favor if I would take one more bite of food,” Morgana began, and as she spoke, she told Rowan everything. The tea meeting with the noble daughters. The offers they had made. The manipulation they had attempted. And then the bargain with Kaelen.....one more spoonful of food in exchange for any request she might make.

Rowan listened, her expression shifting from confusion to shock to something that looked like pride.

”You refused them,” Rowan said when Morgana finished. ”You refused the noble daughters and their gifts.”

”I did,” Morgana confirmed.

”And then you asked for me,” Rowan continued, her voice carrying wonder.

”I did.”

Rowan stood and moved around the chamber, looking at it with new understanding.

She had been here before, had snuck through servant passages to visit Morgana in secret, had sat on this very window seat and talked with her friend. But she had always been a visitor, someone passing through, someone who had to be careful about being discovered.

Now she would be here officially. She would sleep here. She would move through these chambers as though she belonged.

”Morgana,” Rowan said slowly, ”how much influence do you have with them?”

Morgana considered the question carefully.

”I don’t know,” she admitted. ”But Kaelen said he would grant me anything I wanted. And I wanted you.”

Rowan turned to face her friend, and her eyes were bright with tears.

”You could have asked for anything,” Rowan said. ”Land. Money. Security. And you asked for me.”

”Of course I asked for you,” Morgana replied. ”You’re my best friend.”

***

They sat again on the window seat as the evening deepened toward night.

Rowan looked toward the door that led to the servants’ quarters adjoining Morgana’s chamber.

”I should sleep in the servants’ wing,” Rowan said, but her voice suggested she did not want to.

”Agnes will have my head cut off if I don’t follow proper protocol.”

Morgana reached over and took her friend’s hand.

”Stay with me tonight,” she said. ”Just tonight. Until Agnes tells you what your duties are tomorrow. Until we understand how this will work.”

Rowan hesitated for only a moment before nodding.

”Just tonight,” she agreed.