Velt let us stay at her house.

  Vin had to stay in the stable portion of the house since getting Camadt fur everywhere was an easy way to slightly drain her depleted magic. After a few days, it didn’t matter and he could move into the house, but he decided he liked being close to the drakes. His was the only one that made its way back to the stable and he’d gotten quite fond of the belligerent mount.

  I wasn’t sure what had become of the basilisk corpse, though I told Velt to use my cut to help pay to bring a healer for those who had only been partially petrified. Starna refused to leave me for very long, fussing over everything, though I had a feeling that her hovering had just as much to do with not wanting me to try to aid in the recovery effort as it did her concern about me.

  While Bollilundr had a larger population of Elves and Humans, it was in Dwarf territory. A representative had been sent from Iron Forge along with a crew to fix the walls and the broken buildings that could be salvaged. They never came to see us, though I had a feeling Velt had a hand in that. She might have downplayed her influence, but the Soberthinker name still had a lot of pull, especially when she’d almost lost an arm defending the city.

  I looked out over the busy city from the second story window of Velt’s house. It was one of the few buildings in the south west corner that had survived, but that meant that I had a clear view of the recovery efforts.

  “It’s weird.” Starna walked over and leaned against the other side of the window.

  “What is?”

  “A little over a month ago, I’d never been out of Hepool or seen a monster.” She looked down at her hands. “I’ve done more fighting in the last month than I ever thought I’d do in my whole life.”

  “Really?” I looked her over. “Did you really think that you’d stay Alessa’s companion for life?”

  “Once uncle Arkun married her, his plan was to stash her in a tower and only bring her out when the public needed to see that she was still alive.” Starna shivered. “I was one of the few people he trusted to look after her.”

  “And yet you betrayed him.” I tilted my head.

  “Not really.” Starna shrugged. “He thought that I would fall in line because he was family, but my loyalty was always to Lessa.” She looked embarrassed, yet angry. “That’s why I helped her run.”

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  “So why are you here with me if your loyalty is to my cousin?” I smirked as her tanned cheeks flushed.

  “I don’t know.” She fidgeted with her hair as she looked back out the window.

  “Vin and I can handle looking for Master Krav if you want to go back to the capital.”

  She glared at me with a look that dared me to keep going.

  “No one would blame a mage for not wanting to go to Kazadt.” I held up my hands.

  “Do you want me to go to the capital?” There was a hint of sadness in her accusatory tone.

  “Logically it makes sense.” I swallowed, then quickly added. “But I’d miss you.”

  She looked like she didn’t know what to say about that, so she turned to look back out the window.

  “Storbek is going to be in Crylus in a week. He’s already agreed to take us on the Wind’s Shadow to Kazadt. Talia arranged for him to do some trading over there, which will give us a few weeks to poke around, maybe more.”

  “You said us.” I grinned.

  “I can’t leave you and Vin unsupervised!” She lightly slapped my shoulder, then pointed out the window. “Look at the mess the two of you made!”

  “To be fair.” I held up a finger. “That was the Agate Senate.” I scrunched my brow. “What happened with that?”

  “The Agate Senate is claiming that Finael acted on his own and the other Elves that were with him didn’t know that he didn’t have the authority to bring us in.” Starna shook her head. “They’re claiming that they don’t know who the Elementalist was or how Finael got his hands on a basilisk.”

  “At least it’ll probably give Alessa a little breathing room.” I leaned against the window sill. “But what if they’re right?”

  “What do you mean?’

  “What if there is someone else out there that was pulling the strings, goading Finael to come after us?” The thought seemed far-fetched at best. While I might be a prince and Starna was Alessa’s best friend, neither of us were that important to mess with on the scale of national conspiracy.

  “I don’t know.” Starna shrugged. “There’s no way to know for sure if the Agate Senate is missing a basilisk or not, but how else could he get that kind of power?”

  “Who knows?” I shrugged. “But hopefully that’s the end of it.”

  “Hopefully.” Starna pushed off of the wall and started towards the door. “We should head down for dinner, then we can pack up so we can leave in the morning. Even if we don’t have to be at Crylus for a week, it would be better to wait for them there than here.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” I stretched, then followed after her. I hoped the thing with the Agate Senate was over, but there was something in the back of my mind that told me it wasn’t.

  I hoped I was wrong.

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