Chương 372: 9.4

Jewel had struggled not to stare at the other wyrm. It was the first she had met in her life, and was supposed to have been a moment of shared empathy! Something akin to her first meeting with Bethica! But instead it had left her deeply disturbed. Was this what it would be like with all of her kind? Would she have felt that sudden deafness to the world around her 'sibling' living among rats? Was it the same with feral and 'tyrant' alike?

The Wolf Prince's presence had grated upon senses Jewel never realized could even feel discomfort! The place that the younger dragon occupied was an itching emptiness bereft of anything Jewel could not see, smell or hear. It was only her memories of being Gem and so equally blind to the world that had let her maintain composure. Of course she had rallied! It was surprising and irritating, yes, but this was not a sucking void on the world of the vampire descendants from Jaksa's folly.

She turned and spoke with all the calm and poise she had practiced for the Magarskan Court's tongue. Jewel was here to assure peace between their realms! Yet she'd had to force herself to approach as close as she had, straining decorum and civility with the distance she could not overcome. And even that had brought a pressure to Jewel's senses that strained her. When the wolf prince had stepped forward to answer her and then bow Jewel had to brace in a manner she never had felt before.

That simply having her prospective ward approach a single step put a strain upon her!? This did not bode well for her attempt to tutor Magarska's wyrm. Was it even possible for the two of them to enter a room smaller than this hall?! Was it only something affecting Jewel or was the wyrm child also struggling? If the younger dragon was then why had she taken the step? Jewel was thankful when the Wolf Prince took a step back from the greeting.

But even with that pressure eased the silencing space around her potential pupil continued to worry. It was disorienting in the extreme! When this unexpected ordeal was over, Jewel was thankful to finally retreat. Seeking the section of the palace grounds that had been set aside for her party. A feast would start tomorrow afternoon, any other time it would seem almost insulting in its delay. Now she welcomed it for the respite, thankful she was a guest among Magarskans.

She would relish that this was their way of things to not share a welcoming feast the night of arrival. And honestly the chance to take counsel with her people was welcome! The palace grounds of Magarska's capital were sizable, but not as extensive as those in Cantor Reborn. However Jewel's entourage had been given significantly more rooms to occupy then in Burning Depth's Ford.

Muriel had already directed the combined men of Jewel's party in securing the rooms for the household and the noble guests under her protection. It made the journey to her assigned chambers straightforward. Even without the palace servants, or her nose the whispers of the world could have guided her. The cleanly cut stones of the palace were mostly still fresh and young by the reckoning of such things. Barely forty years since they were quarried at the oldest even in the heart of the throne room.

Twenty years at the youngest here in the guest wing left them still wakeful from their changed circumstances. Practically still reeling from being fitted by calloused hands into the solid foundations of older Cantor stone working. For all that the two realms had been at war for generations, Magarska had held Terminapolis as its capital for hardly a few decades! It was a strange thing to consider.

The present capital of Magarska was young in its role despite the age of the feud, Not even a century since attaining its place as the heart of the Kingdom. Supposedly the city had been claimed by the High King himself during an internal conflict with his princes? Some reshuffle since last that Viznove had to rally in war. Murad the first had earned a title for his conquering and rebuilding of the city so whatever it was the event was a violent one. Jewel was not sure.

Everyone in Magarska assumed the situation was obvious and hardly mentioned it. Jewel entered the extensive space that had been made ready as her bedroom. What was almost certainly a feasting hall originally now layered in pillows and draped with fine fabrics of incredible lightness. If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. Sheer enough to let in the afternoon sun.

The Countess of Viznove wasted no time in hurling herself into the cushioning with only just enough application of flame to keep from obliterating the fine pillows with her weight.

"Are you alright my wife? no ill humors?" Paul showed his concern with restraint. The unsaid question of if they were secure and unwatched an easy and known one. Conveyed in a question that would normally have no sensible answer. Her sense of the world, her hearing, her sight and the scent of the room betrayed no hidden listeners or sorcery. She gave the practiced and easy reply to confirm so for him.

"I am fine, my husband. My humors are fair as always." His posture relaxed, with Jewel's sign they were secure. Then he stepped delicately around the disheveled bedding that had been set astray by her collapse.

"I've never seen you so tense in any meeting before my wife, not even with my mother." Jewel offered a warm smile and lifted her head to match his height with a gentle bump of her brow to his.

"The wolf prince was not what I expected, more so than that it has left me troubled. I fear for the peace." He laughed and shook his head.

"I admit I was a bit surprised at seeing a snake with fur and feathered wings with the head of a hound! Is the prince even really a wyrm?" Jewel sighed heavily, her breath making his clothing and hair ruffle as she pulled back.

"Of that I'm all but certain, nothing in this world or the heavens has ever felt like that to me before. And that is part of the problem. I don't even know precisely how to explain it Paul-" He took a careful fall to join her sprawled into the cushions. The Magarskan's had provided lavish accommodations and Paul used a practiced roll closer to that of a tumbling performer or a combat drill to enjoy them without any sign of fatigue.

The way he elegantly rolled upright just a bit too slowly, then settling with his back in the cushions and his legs thrown over her side in a single practiced motion, patting lightly at her ribs with a toe as he crossed one shin over another? Her husband was not as tired as she.

"So it's wyrmish strangeness that is bothering you? Hum, that is more difficult, speaking of, how are the eggs?" Jewel briefly considered the slumbering selves in their shells in the bags at her sides. It was so strange, those two eggs definitely did feel far more ready to hatch then Gem's ever had. But there was none of the straining confinement and a rush to be free that had forced the hatching as before.

Her new selves seemed perfectly content to sleep, to wait and soak up her flame and think almost nothing at all but vague formless dreams.

"Same as they have been for most of the journey. If I couldn't feel their heart beats and know their dreams I'd think they were stillborne." Her husband nodded from the pillows and proceeded to carefully kick his boots off and over Jewel's coils to settle in a corner. Shimmying in the cushions til he found a more comfortable posture.

"Well, if there is no change there, then back to the more immediate matter, The Wolf Prince, he said he wanted for peace did he not?" Jewel sighed and nodded, her husband's patient voice continued as he stretched out his legs over her spine and scratched his back against the pillows under him. It was nice to see him give up all signs of decorum.

"And you said as much yourself? That was the truth of it right?" She heaved another deep breath, holding back with every single mote of her flame to avoid shedding a spell into the air.

"For my part of it? Yes absolutely." Paul raised a brow up at her from his place on the pillow covered floor.

"For your part of it?" Jewel nodded and gently settled her head 'on' Paul's stomach. Not putting the full weight, just giving him easy reach to run his fingers through her hair and over her ears. Rumbling in her throat and chest so it hummed under his knees.

"I can't tell what the Wolf Prince intends! I thought it was my ears, my nose, my eyes that could catch a lie! But all of them failed me in that meeting. More so it was not just the Wolf Prince, but the High King and everyone near Evren that were unknowable! It was like I was blind and deaf with mud up my nostrils!" That made the hand running over her mane pause in its gentle strokes down from the top of her head to just before where her horns would be in the way of her husband's arm.

"Everyone near him? But you could still read those further from the Wyrm Prince just as well?" Jewel huffed then nodded.

"Yes, but how is that going to help? It's like flying blind! Worse than flying blind!" Paul laughed and patted her nose.

"Well that's simple. You just make sure you bring Aedelyne with you to your next meeting." Jewel stared up at her husband with bafflement.

"How will that help?!" Her husband had the audacity to laugh down at his wife where she rested her head 'on' his lap.

"The good guild mistress can already read one wyrm like an open book. She should be able to help with another."