Evanescent Read Online Free Page A

day you’ll understand. Until then, just know that sometimes even the right decisions can make you feel bad.”
    “John?”
    “Yes, Your Majesty?”
    “Thanks. For everything, I mean. Watching my back and getting me out of there for a few minutes and…”
    “You’re welcome. Now, are you ready to watch the new ambassador of Bathune grovel at your feet?”
    “Grovel?”
    “The last ambassador from Bathune—Sarai—fled during the Battle of the Hall of the Pleiades,” John explained. My stomach clenched at even the mention of the day I’d been crowned queen and promptly tumbled my kingdom into civil war.
    “And he ran away because your aunt, the empress of Bathune, was in league with the Fate Maker,” Timbago added. “Even though she’d like you to believe otherwise. There are even those who say they saw your aunt’s ambassador fighting beside the Fate Maker.”
    “But my aunt keeps sending me notes that say she had nothing to do with the war and is simply waiting for us to hammer out a peace agreement before she sends Sarai back here to Nerissette,” I said.
    Not that I necessarily believed any of what she wrote. Her former ambassador, Sarai, was a wizard and that group as a whole wasn’t particularly fond of me. Plus, he was my aunt’s ambassador, and from everything I’d heard and read about her since I’d arrived in Nerissette, I wasn’t sure I could trust her. Especially after she’d left me to fight a war on my own and didn’t even bother to ask if I needed any help.
    “We have been at peace for a while now,” Timbago pointed out. “Your aunt has sent trade groups across the White Mountains. Why hasn’t Sarai returned with them? Why is she sending a new ambassador in his place? Unless she knows that we don’t trust him?”
    “Exactly,” John agreed. “We know it and so does she. She can’t send Sarai back here when we know he’s a spy for the Fate Maker that his allegiance is to the wizards and not to us.”
    “Are we sure that he was fighting with the Fate Maker’s army?” I asked. “We’re certain that he fled, but do we know without a doubt that he was fighting for our enemy?”
    “Gunter of the Veldt insists that Sarai was hiding in the forests with the wizards, and when the forest caught fire, he ran,” John said.
    The fire. I bit my lower lip as my heart thumped painfully in my chest and I tried my hardest not to think about how I’d ordered Winston and the rest of the dragons to set fire to the forest outside my palace during my last battle with the Fate Maker. We’d been trying to flush out the wizards who had been attacking us from the cover of the trees, but instead, two of the other teens who’d fallen through the book with me—Heidi and Jesse—had been trapped there with the wizards. They were caught in a fire that I had started. I was the reason they were dead.
    “But if he was with the Fate Maker’s army, he may still be with them,” John added.
    Timbago looked wary. “The Empress Bavasama says that he returned to Bathune though.”
    “Since when do we believe anything that Bavasama says?” John snapped.
    “We don’t.” Timbago glared at the other man. “But unless we have proof, which we don’t, we can’t just accuse the empress of Bathune of waging war against the Golden Rose. Against her own family. Her only remaining family. ”
    “Even though we all know that she did it,” I said quietly. “My aunt wants my throne, and she’ll do whatever it takes to get it.”
    “Yes.” John nodded.
    I turned to look at the goblin standing across from me, focusing on his bulging, red-veined eyes. “Timbago?”
    “Yes, she has sided with your enemies,” he said softly, “and she will kill you if she gets the chance. But right now we aren’t in a strong enough position to start a war that will stop her. Right now we must bow our heads and make peace with your aunt. Until we’re sure we can win a war against her.”
    “I agree,” John said. “I