by Linda McNabb
Something wet on Toby’s leg made him move a step to the side. He stretched up to peer over the crowd and moved again as the wetness returned. He looked down and saw Oska looking up at him.
‘My dog seems to like you,’ a voice said from next to him.
Toby froze. His father was standing barely two paces away. What should he do now? Should he admit to knowing that Lark was his father and risk being rejected by him? Did he even want to admit it? His mind whirled in confusion, and he decided that he would keep quiet for now.
‘He’s a cute dog,’ Toby replied, and let his eyes travel up to meet those of his father.
Lark looked at Toby for a split second before he turned back to the front of the room. ‘Blaise really is going too far with his dislike of dragons,’ he said in a conversational tone.
‘Really?’ Toby didn’t know what to say. He had seen Lark try to poison the well not more than an hour before.
‘Dragons don’t mean us any harm. We should all just live together peacefully,’ Lark continued in a quiet voice.
‘So why are you helping him?’ Toby demanded, meeting his father’s gaze as Lark turned to look at him.
‘I’m just trying to keep him from carrying out his plans to take over Dragon Valley,’ Lark said a little defensively and shrugged. ‘Someone has to try to stop him.’
‘You’re not trying very hard,’ Toby replied.
‘I have to keep his trust,’ Lark explained. ‘I’ll make sure he never takes over the dragons… I promise.’
Toby wasn’t sure what to believe anymore. Lark sounded so genuine about his plan to stop Blaise.
‘After all, I am from Dragon Valley as well. Why would I want Blaise to rule there?’
Toby did not reply. He was remembering how Aggie had said his mother was terrified of Lark. What was it that had frightened her so much?
‘I’m sure you feel the same. You’ll want to protect your own people,’ Lark added.
‘What makes you think they are my people?’ Toby asked a little hesitantly. Had Lark worked out who Toby was?
‘I’m assuming by the colour of your eyes that you are from Dragon Valley,’ Lark replied with a raised eyebrow, as if it was obvious why he had thought it.
‘My eyes are purple again?’ Toby blurted out in surprise.
‘Again?’ Lark queried slowly. ‘What colour were they before?’
Toby instantly regretted saying anything, as he wasn’t sure how much he should be telling Lark. After all, Lark was the one trying to harm the dragons — wasn’t he?
‘They took my magic from me and banished me from the valley,’ Toby muttered a little angrily. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt the valley.’
‘What did you do?’ Lark had leaned in close and looked very interested. He laid a hand on Toby’s shoulder and looked at him with a tender, supportive expression that melted Toby’s last doubts.
‘Nothing. Just being me is enough for them to hate me,’ Toby replied. ‘I only have to be near their valley and it starts to fall apart. Gates open all on their own, and now the gates are crumbling, allowing magic to be sucked from the valley.’
‘Really?’ Lark said after a long pause. ‘How are they going to fix it?’
‘I don’t know,’ Toby drew the tin box from his pocket. ‘They were going to use this, but it’s broken.’
Toby opened the tin and showed Lark the dragon stone. Lark sucked in a deep breath and bit his top lip as if to stop himself saying something. Toby closed the box and put it back in his pocket.
‘Don’t worry, son. Things will work out just fine,’ Lark said, patting Toby on the shoulder.
Toby gulped. Lark knew who he was — and he had called him ‘son’. He had a father!
Before he could even decide how to reply, he became aware that something was happening in the room. He had almost forgotten where they were, and his mind took a few seconds to register his surroundings.
Blaise was yelling and so was someone else. Toby recognised the other voice as he turned to see Morgain and Aggie standing in the doorway. Aggie had dried her tears, but she looked pale and tired.
‘You do nothing but cause trouble!’ Morgain was yelling at her son. ‘Why can’t you just leave everyone to live in peace?’
‘So there is no dragon sickness?’ King Herat asked Morgain, standing up to see her over the crowd.
‘Of course not,’ Morgain replied heatedly. ‘He’s just trying to stir up trouble as usual.’
‘Guards, arrest him!’ King Herat shouted as turned to point at Blaise. He clearly believed Morgain over his own son. ‘Put him somewhere that he can’t cause any trouble and I’ll deal with him later.’
Blaise ducked out of the way of the first two guards who rushed up to him. Then he ran behind the throne and out the door at the back of the room. Guards ran after him and the room erupted into excited chatter.
‘I’d better get after him and keep an eye on him,’ Lark said, smiling at Toby and patting him on the shoulder. ‘We’ll catch up properly later.’
Toby nodded and watched his father head for the main double doors. Morgain turned as he came closer, and her eyes narrowed in anger. It was obvious that the two knew each other, as Lark took a step backwards and looked for another exit.
‘So you’ve been behind all the trouble,’ she snarled. ‘I should have guessed. I suppose it was you who trapped me in the pendant as well?’
‘Why would I do that?’ Lark replied, his tone all innocence.
The room had fallen quiet again as everyone turned to the confrontation by the door.
‘Perhaps I should give you some time in a pendant and see how you like it!’ Morgain said, yanking an oval stone on a leather thong from around her neck. She held it out and started yelling the words of a spell.
Toby didn’t even remember moving. He was as surprised as Morgain when he threw himself at Sanelle’s mother.
‘Leave him alone!’ he yelled as he knocked the pendant from her hand and pushed her to the marble floor. Toby’s head hit the floor with a crack that jarred his whole body. He lay there for a second, then rolled away and stood up.
Morgain was staring at him in disbelief. So was Aggie. Everyone in the room was staring at him. He turned to see if his father was okay, but Lark was nowhere to be seen.
‘Why did you let him get away?’ Morgain asked as Aggie helped her up. Aggie just stared at him without speaking. Sanelle, Kaylene and Riko had fought their way through the crowd and they stood several paces away, waiting to hear his answer.
‘He isn’t like Blaise. He’s trying to stop him,’ Toby tried to explain, but when nobody seemed to believe him he admitted the real reason he had attacked Morgain. His voice was quiet but easily heard: ‘He’s my father. I couldn’t bear to see him trapped in a pendant.’
‘Your father?’ Aggie parroted in surprise.
‘Farren is your father?’ Morgain looked just as shocked.
‘His name is Lark,’ Toby corrected her. ‘Farren is the one who stole the dragon stone.’
‘Farren is my brother,’ Morgain replied bluntly. ‘I know my own brother when I see him, even if he is grown up now.’
Toby felt his mouth go dry. Surely Lark and Farren couldn’t be the same person, could they?
‘Lark must have been a stage name,’ Aggie said gently as she came up and put a comforting arm around her adopted son. ‘He probably didn’t want people to know his real name.’
‘And now he’s loose again,’ Morgain muttered. ‘Who knows what trouble he will cause now?’
‘But he’s changed,’ Toby assured Morgain quickly. ‘He told me he’s just following Blaise to stop him harming the dragons.’
‘And what about when he put my mother in a stone pendant?’ Sanelle asked, clearly siding with her mother.
‘Your mother was so scared of him that she ran away,’ Aggie reminded Toby. ‘How can you be sure he has changed?’
Toby didn’t answer. He couldn’t be sure. He had been so delighted to h
ave found his father that he knew he would have forgiven him absolutely anything. If he was wrong, then he’d probably put Dragon Valley in even more danger.
Suddenly he felt very light-headed and the room began to spin. What had he done!
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
ONE LAST HOPE
Toby sank down to the floor and everything was a blur. He saw people going past, and he heard voices as they spoke to him, but he couldn’t work out what they were saying. Someone helped him up and through the corridors in the castle where the voices fell silent.
‘He’s in shock’ he heard, but the voice sounded a long way off. He felt a soft pillow under his head and his eyes flickered shut.
When he woke up, he was facing one of the small windows in the guest rooms that he had slept in the night before. He could see that the sun was almost at its zenith and his stomach growled in hunger.
Voices drifted over to him and he lay still, pretending to still be sleeping so he could listen.
‘He wasn’t really thinking straight,’ Kaylene was saying.
‘I think I’d do the same to protect my parents — no matter what they had done,’ Riko added.
‘I guess so,’ Sanelle agreed with a small sigh. ‘Although I doubt my mother will agree any time soon.’
Toby felt guilty about eavesdropping and sat up slowly. The conversation stopped promptly and they pretended to be looking out the window.
‘I have a headache,’ Toby said, putting his hand to his head and feeling a lump where he had struck the marble floor.
‘You know what all this means, don’t you?’ Sanelle replied cryptically.
‘What?’ Toby asked, having no clue what she meant.
‘If Farren is your father, then you’re my cousin,’ Sanelle said with a grin.
Toby smiled. Trust Sanelle to look for the bright side of things.
‘I guess so,’ Toby agreed. His smile faded as he wondered what Lark was up to. Was he really trying to keep Blaise from harming the dragons? ‘I need to talk to Lark.’
‘The king has sent guards to look for Blaise and your father. He’s probably long gone,’ Kaylene told him.
‘I think Morgain and Aggie are still angry with you anyway,’ Riko warned him. ‘It might be good to keep out of trouble for a while.’
‘That could be difficult. Everything I do seems to get me into trouble,’ Toby replied with a scowl.
‘They’ll be watching to make sure you don’t leave the castle,’ Sanelle said.
‘They won’t see me leave,’ Toby answered. He wasn’t going to sit here and wonder if he’d done the right thing — he was going to find his father and see if he had been telling the truth or not.
Sanelle looked confused for a second, and then she drew in a shocked gasp. ‘Your eyes are purple!’
‘How did you get your magic back?’ Kaylene asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Toby said with a shrug. ‘Maybe it’s because of all the magic flooding out of Dragon Valley. Or because I touched the dragon stone.’
‘If the dragons see you, will they take it away again?’ Riko asked.
‘Probably, so I’ll just have to make sure they don’t see,’ Toby replied. ‘As long as I stay away from Dragon Valley, I’m not a threat to them. I’m going to find Lark.’
‘Blaise and Lark won’t still be in town, though,’ Kaylene pointed out. ‘There’s only so many places to hide and the guards will have searched them all by now.’
Toby shrugged. ‘If they’re here, I’ll find them. If not, I’ll follow them.’
‘We’ll go and see if mother and Aggie are still upset,’ Sanelle suggested, ‘then we’ll come back and go down to the town with you.’
When the two girls had left the room, Toby wandered across to the window and stared out at the view. something glinting in the distance caught his eye. This room faced the back of the castle and looked out across the hill where the previous castle had been built.
The old castle sat perched on the hill, nothing more than a ruin that had been picked over for bricks to build the new castle. Only two of the main walls of the old keep were still standing, so it looked nothing like a castle.
‘Not a lot left,’ Riko said, having come over to see what Toby was looking at.
‘It was my favourite place to go when I was younger,’ Toby told Riko. ‘Nobody goes there anymore, and it’s a good place to go to think when you want to be alone.’
A noise from down at the front of the castle drew their attention to the window that overlooked the entrance to the castle. Several carriages had pulled up and the gates were being hurriedly opened.
‘That’s King Rhobet’s carriage,’ Riko said as leaned out the window.
‘I don’t think he’s in a good mood,’ Toby added as angry shouts could be heard from inside the wagon.
‘We should go down and let Kaylene know her father is here,’ Riko suggested.
Toby nodded and they hurried down the stairs in search of the princess.
They didn’t get a chance to warn Kaylene that her father was here, however. As they met up with her and Sanelle in the main corridor, her father came striding down towards her. His clothes were rumpled and his hair was dishevelled. He looked far from royal and he appeared to be in a very bad temper if the expression on his face was anything to go by.
King Herat appeared in a doorway just ahead of the visiting king and reached out a hand in welcome. King Rhobet looked as if he were going to push past Herat for a second, but he stopped and took the proffered hand.
‘Rhobet, I didn’t know you were coming. You should have sent word,’ King Herat told his visitor. ‘I would have had a banquet prepared.’
‘I am here to fetch my daughter,’ King Rhobet said in a tone that showed he was barely controlling his anger. He flicked his gaze down the hall towards Kaylene and she stared back at him evenly.
‘Perhaps we could take this discussion to a more private place?’ King Herat suggested, and Toby saw that many of the servants and gentry were taking a keen interest in them all. ‘There has been more than enough for their gossip today.’
King Rhobet nodded in agreement and followed King Herat down the hallway. He paused as they passed Kaylene and gave her a glare that promised trouble. ‘Will you join us, princess?’ he asked in a stilted voice.
Kaylene nodded and followed, tugging the others along with her. Toby wasn’t sure that they should be part of the private discussion, but if she wanted them to go along that was her choice.
King Herat led them into a private library and paused at the door. King Rhobet’s small group of servants remained outside in the corridor. ‘I’ll leave you to talk.’
‘I have been chasing halfway across the countryside after you!’ Kaylene’s father bellowed as soon as the door clicked shut. ‘This is exactly why you cannot rule! A ruler does not run off with the caravans whenever they feel like it.’
‘I did not run off,’ Kaylene replied boldly, standing up to her father’s accusations. ‘We were following Prince Blaise. He was causing trouble again and we wanted to know why.’
‘My brother is trying to convince everyone that the dragons are causing a sickness, Your Majesty,’ Sanelle added, earning herself a glare from the king.
‘There is a sickness. I have seen it in every town I have passed through,’ King Rhobet said with a snort. ‘I will meet with King Herat to see what can be done to make the dragons leave Arandyl.’
‘There is no sickness, Your Majesty,’ Riko refuted quickly. ‘Blaise and his colleague poisoned the wells to make it look like there was.’
‘Why would they do that?’ King Rhobet asked. He didn’t look like he believed their story at all.
‘We don’t know, Father,’ Kaylene replied. ‘That’s why we were following them.’
‘The second one that flew into Northport certainly looked sick,’ King Rhobet insisted. ‘I remember what a sick dragon looks like — and it looked sick.’
‘There is something wrong with the
ir world, Your Majesty,’ Toby said sadly. ‘We were trying to find a way to fix it.’
The king looked thoughtful for a few seconds and stroked his short-cropped, blond beard. Then his gaze fell on Toby and turned hard. ‘Wherever there is trouble I find you as well. I have no doubt that all this is your fault.’
Toby gulped as he went red. How could he deny that he was the cause of the dragons’ problems?
‘I thought as much,’ King Rhobet muttered. He turned to his daughter, sighing deeply. ‘You must promise to stop running off and start acting like a princess. I forbid you from seeing this troublemaker again. In fact, I forbid you leaving North Kingdom again. You will return home and become a good ruler one day.’
‘It’s not Toby’s fault,’ Kaylene argued. ‘How can you lay blame without knowing all the facts?’
‘I have made my decision. You will return home with me in the morning,’ her father replied in a stony voice. ‘Or you will not take the crown.’
Kaylene looked angrily at her father but held her outburst in check. She pressed her lips together and said nothing. Her father, reading her silence as agreement to his terms, began to walk off, but he turned back as he reached the door.
‘If I find you even talking to this boy again, I will consider that to mean you no longer wish to rule the kingdom,’ he warned, pointing at Toby.
When Kaylene did not reply, her father stalked off with his small entourage following in his wake. Toby left the library and walked off in the opposite direction. He knew that the king was being unfair to stop Kaylene seeing him and that his friends would defend him, but King Rhobet did have a point. Wherever he went there was trouble. He was almost at the first doorway when Sanelle called after him.
‘Where are you going?’
‘I need time to think for a while,’ Toby said without turning back to look at them.
‘But Toby—’ Sanelle shouted, but he kept on walking.
He hurried into the servant’s corridors and headed down into the underground corridors of the castle where the store rooms were. He wanted to be alone for a while.
He knew a shortcut to the old castle where he could be alone. He checked that nobody was following him and ducked into a disused store room. At the back of the room was a trapdoor, which he opened slowly. It creaked and groaned as the old rusty hinges protested at being used after so long.
