The Dragon's Rogue

Chapter 13

Hello everyone! Just a quick note for this update. In going back through it I noticed a small discrepancy with the last chapter. Morkuth is not at the meeting. This is something I will address in the second draft. Otherwise please enjoy and happy reading!

The meeting turned out to be more of a social gathering than I had hoped. The Archon of the Amber Aerie waited upon a dais, four stories up in one of the central buildings of the aerie. The chamber, instead of being filled with opulence and rich items that would point to the leader's power and control, was filled instead with...books. Piles of them, and several sets of shelves that definitely had once belonged somewhere else. It was a cavernous space, taking up the entire floor. Long high windows on both the right and left let in the afternoon sun casting golden light across the stone flooring.

I marveled at the fact as Cillumn led me along the plush runner between fat wooden pillars leading to the concentrated stack of literature surrounding the throne. Or what passed as a throne.

A group of men stood there as well, arguing.

There was no footman to introduce us, in fact, there were no servants in the chamber at all. It occurred to me that this was a very different aerie than the Onyx aerie which had been my home for so long. It maybe should have comforted me, the fact that things were not as formal, nor particular, but instead it twisted my stomach into a knot. I hated not knowing what was expected of me, and, sadly, that seemed to be the common state of my being when placed in such situations.

The cream colored blouse felt odd against my skin. The material was not a silk, and yet not one of the cheaper fabrics I had ever come in contact with. It stretched slightly, pulling against my chest and then formed around them and sucked in beneath to tighten along my ribcage as well. It looked, in the end as though it had been crafted with precision to fit my form. Worse, other than the stretchy fabric that covered my breasts and ribs the rest of the top was lace. Large sections of my naked skin were barely covered with the stuff.

Tharissa had chosen the sable skirt, not so different in shade than my own brown set of clothes, but of vastly improved quality. It gathered in fine ruching against my hips and then flowed downward to my ankles. In short, it was terrible.

My mood had not lightened when Cillumn had returned to the healing chamber with the Aerie's medic. Looking at me as if I were a five course meal and he a starving man. Tharissa and Gayriel might have been proud of the results, and his reaction, but I found it vastly uncomfortable to be the object of such intense focus. He had hovered too, with extra care while the medic checked my heart rate and a few other things he deemed necessary to ensure my health. Growling when the man lifted at my shirt to allow his stethoscope access to my back.

Instead of protesting his idiocy, the medic had raised his eyebrows slightly and returned the fabric to its place, doing his best to listen through the material.

There had been no time, between that and our hurried rush through streets and courtyards for me to address the issue of claiming. But address it I would.

For the moment, I concentrated on the idea of the meeting, and how it could help me with my goals. Of all the situations for me to be placed in, an important meeting of lords was probably the worst. But I had to agree with what Gayriel had said, something big was going on in the forest, and I could not solve it on my own. And without some sort of aid I would never save my sister. My original thought of taking a single Dragon Lord as my protector seemed foolish and poorly planned against what I knew now. I would hate to make such a mistake a second time and have the results be far more catastrophic. No, I had some ideas, and no one would stop me from going after Adda, but logic had prevailed and I was grateful now for the opportunity to gather intelligence before committing to action.