“You’re right, I do know you,” Raoul said glumly. “No, no, you wouldn’t jest at a time like this. I’m afraid you’re stuck, though. No one has been allowed back inside that thing in all history. No one would ever want to go back. You’ll just have to settle for what you got in there the first time.” He held her questioning eyes with his own anxious ones.
Kel wished that she could explain, but she couldn’t. Knights were forbidden to tell what had taken place during their Ordeal. “I didn’t mean to worry you, sir,” she told him at last.
Raoul scowled at her. “Don’t frighten me like that again. I’ve put far too much work into you to see you go mad now.” He looked around. “What were we doing last?”
“Wagon requisitions, sir,” she replied as she held up her slate.
He took it and reviewed her numbers. “Let’s finish this now. I won’t be able to work on them this afternoon—the council will be meeting.”
Kel fetched the papers he needed. “There was a Stormwing in the courtyard this morning,” she remarked as she laid them out. “I think he already knows how bad things will be this summer.”
Raoul grunted. “I wouldn’t be surprised. They probably smell it. Now what’s this scrawl? I can’t read Aiden’s writing.” They spent the rest of the morning at work, sorting through the endless details that had to be settled before the men of the King’s Own rode north to war.