Hidden Dragon (The Treasure of Paragon Book 7) by Genevieve Jack (best book club books .txt) 📕

the kingdoms fall. Only Chancellor Ciro’s bloody ego keeps him from kneeling before me. He will break soon enough.”

“Of course,” Aborella said dryly. “What was I thinking?”

“I need to know who these people are. Are they my children in disguise? And if so, why are they in Everfield? What have you seen, Aborella? Don’t disappoint me, or I will further reduce your meals.”

Goddess forbid Eleanor should withhold the barely edible slop she dished out to her each night. Aborella worked to keep her eyes from rolling. But what to tell her? The lie must be close enough to the truth to be believable but far enough a lie as to mislead and misdirect. She must bend the arrow a few millimeters; not enough for the archer to notice but enough that the shot was guaranteed to miss its target.

She forced herself to mimic a vision once again. “I do see something. Yes, I see the arrival of the four you spoke of.”

“Well, tell me. I don’t have all day.”

“First something to eat. I am too hungry and weak to describe what I have seen.”

“First the vision!” Eleanor seethed through her teeth.

Aborella leaned back against the stone wall, wondering how she could ever have thought Eleanor was her friend for so many years. She’d helped train her, protected her, even sacrificed her own body for her. What a fool she’d been.

Aborella kept her expression completely impassive as she said, “The four are not your children, but they are members of the rebellion. They arrived in Everfield to meet with sympathizers who survived the fire. Their task is to recover documents from a home that was burned in the Empyrean Wood, one belonging to the leader of the rebellion.”

“What is in these documents?” Eleanor asked.

“I couldn’t see the contents in my vision, only a metal box. It is buried somewhere, underneath the ash.” Aborella blinked slowly and waited. Would she take the bait?

Eleanor paced the length of her cell, arms crossed over the bodice of her black top. “I’ll send a team to find this box and intercept the four. If you are right, you will be rewarded.” She turned for the door.

“Eleanor, I require food and drink, or my visions will stop.”

The empress turned her head in Aborella’s direction but didn’t meet her eyes. “Will the visions stop, or will you stop sharing them?”

Aborella allowed her silence to permeate the room. “We were friends once. I helped you develop your magic. I could help you again if you freed me. We’ve been together so long. You wouldn’t have given me your tooth if you didn’t trust me. Let me go, and let’s work together to unite the kingdoms.”

For one fleeting moment, Aborella saw softness creep into the edges of Eleanor’s expression. The empress took a single step toward her, then stopped. She blinked once, twice. And something happened. Whatever merciful thoughts Aborella had seen twinkle in her eyes dimmed like a snuffed candle. Cruelty sullied her face once more, and darkness bled into her already cold stare.

“If we were friends once, that’s over now,” she said. “An empress can have no real friends. A goddess does not consort with mortals.”

Aborella snorted derisively. “Are you calling yourself a goddess now? Empress is no longer enough?”

“It is the title I’ve been promised once I banish the goddess of the mountain.”

“Banish the goddess? You cannot banish the Mountain herself.” Aborella was both confused and distressed by this new motivation. Eleanor must truly have crossed into insanity to think she could murder a goddess.

“I will end the existence of the goddess of the mountain, and when I do, someone will have to take her place as ultimate ruler of the five kingdoms. It will be me, Aborella. And if you help me… become… you will be rewarded.”

“I can help you more if—”

“No!” Eleanor snapped. “I will not risk losing you again. You are too important to my cause.”

Not too important to her, just her cause. Thoughts of Dianthe danced through Aborella’s head: the warm smell of cookies that seemed to follow her everywhere, the bright fire she kept burning in the hearth, the kind touch she always had when she was helping her eat or bathe. Dianthe’s kindness had been its own curse, making Eleanor’s cruelty all the more intense.

“Be careful, Eleanor. A goddess is only as strong as the ones who worship her. If you can’t keep a friend, how do you expect to keep the public’s adoration?” She’d gone too far. She’d be lucky if Eleanor didn’t punish her for that quip.

“I’m not after their adoration or yours,” Eleanor said darkly on her way to the door. “They don’t need to love me. Neither do you. But they should fear me.”

The heavy door slammed shut with enough force to rattle Aborella’s bones, and she knew at that moment she would never leave that room.

Chapter Eleven

“Ready?” Raven squeezed the hands of her two sisters as they huddled around the scroll laid on the table between them. This had to work. It should work. After all, the knowledge hidden in the scroll was meant for them, a message from their common ancestor.

“Try to be gentle,” Leena said facetiously from her perch beside them. She poised her quill over the scroll on her lap prepared to document everything that happened. Raven tried not to let the scribe’s duties break her concentration.

“I’m ready,” Avery said. “I think.”

Clarissa nodded. “Let’s do this.”

The scroll’s hidden symbols taunted them from deep within the parchment, under the readable message about the five orbs. Raven released their hands. “Now.”

Avery touched the scroll, and the original message faded. The hidden symbols beneath it rose slowly to the surface and darkened. At once Clarissa sang a spell to bolster Avery’s magic and hold the enchantment open like a wedge. Which left Raven free to do her part. She drew a symbol in the air above the scroll with her finger. The same translation spell she’d used on the historical texts