Dragons of the Valley - Donita K. Paul [5]
The kimen cocked her head, a mixture of concern and impatience on her face. “Are you all right?”
Tipper’s teeth chattered. “I’m cold but otherwise fine. Please don’t go so far ahead of me, Taeda Bel.”
The kimen’s sudden bright smile dazzled Tipper. “I understand. I forget you don’t carry your own light.”
The tiny being bent at the waist in a bow that would have done a footman in Tipper’s grandfather’s castle proud.
Tipper giggled, partly from nerves but also because the very feminine kimen looked way too girlish for the formal masculine gesture. Her gleaming though ragged gown of delicate pink shimmered as the miniature guide moved.
Taeda Bel straightened with grace. The arm that had been swept before her bow extended high over her head in an elegant pose. She twirled and took off down the dank tunnel as if she danced across a ballet stage.
Taeda Bel flitted forward and then returned closer to Tipper. Tipper smiled at the kimen’s consideration. Their passage through the underground corridor made Tipper’s skin crawl. By her estimation, their mission was unnecessary. But she had promised to take the statue out of the castle.
What had her father meant about invasion? Of course, they’d been invaded, but Paladin and Wizard Fenworth had taken care of that. The villains had been vanquished. Paladin had disbanded the conscripted army. Under his watchful eye, the young men were sent back to their own lands.
“Paladin,” she muttered under her breath. “What is he? Oh, right! He’s tall and charming. His smile makes my knees wobbly. His voice plucks my heart like a lute. He sets me to singing, inside and out. What an embarrassment.”
She stomped in the next few puddles. “It’s probably best I’m off on this errand for Papa. Even Mother noticed I couldn’t look straight into those blue eyes. Nobody should have eyes the color of cobalt skies.”
She hummed a few lines of a song she’d made up about one man’s eyes twinkling and a girl bubbling with joy. She caught herself and slammed her foot down in a puddle. The water drenched her leg, and she stumbled.
Taeda Bel appeared by her side. “Are you all right?”
“Yes.” She shook her foot. “It was deeper than I thought.”
“Be careful.” Taeda Bel hopped in the air and floated down. “If you got hurt, it would be more than an inconvenience.”
“Right. I’ll remember.”
The kimen took up her lead position, and Tipper dutifully followed.
Her mind still chewed on the enigma of the mysterious young man who had assumed a status of leader. Prince Jayrus, he had called himself, though he claimed no real kingdom. Her father and his friends called him Paladin, the leader of some foreign religion. Perhaps it would be good to be away from everyone so she could order things in her mind. Everyone respected Paladin, and she did too.
“More reason for me to be out of his way. If he is who he says he is, he doesn’t need me around.”
“What was that?” asked Taeda Bel without slowing her pace.
“Never mind.”
Tipper clamped her mouth shut. This Prince Jayrus–Paladin person could stay behind and befuddle her grandfather’s court. She was free and clear. She didn’t have to puzzle out the mystery he presented.
He was a mixture of wisdom and social ineptitude. But she didn’t have to think about it.
He knew which fork to pick up at a fancy dinner, but his conversation revealed he’d spent more time with books than with people. Who used verisimilitude in everyday speech? Who compared a sunset to a resplendent pennon? Who knew what a pennon was?
Paladin was back at her grandparents’ castle, the Amber Palace. A good place for him to be, because she wasn’t.
Tipper’s untimely departure had separated her from the company of Paladin. Maybe she did want to know Paladin better, but that meant she’d have to listen to him explain the contents of Wulder’s Tomes. That’s what it would take to keep