Chapter 44

  Present Time

  The bailey was busy in preparation for the departure. Along with a company of knights and their squires and pages, there was a wagon heavily loaded with chests of clothing and the servants that would accompany the Lord and Lady to the High Court of King Macedius. Finally, as all became settled and organized, one of the grand gilded carriages was brought to wait at the foot of the staircase.

  The Lord Sevethen descended the keep’s stairs carefully on the arm of a manservant, his body weakened by his prolonged illness and his gait on his wooden leg laboured.

  Tillie watched from the back of the hall as the Lord Sylvin and Lady Yelena descended behind him.

  Sterling, Tillie thought again with anger. Sylvin’s intention behind the name had been to declare that this child was not his heir, but Greshyn had been right – Sterling Silver was made to be stronger than pure, and this half-human dragon born out of wedlock would, in time, destroy his father, she vowed.