Page 12 of Curse of the Midnight Dragon (The Moonlight Dragon #2)

Celestina

I needed to sit down. I understood that Gray and Raya had taken up defensive positions near the exits, and that Soren wanted to keep me within arm’s reach and on my feet in case we needed to run. But after hearing how my parents had risked their lives to selflessly save me—even though I wasn’t their natural child—my legs wobbled. I hurried over to the seats my father had been trying to usher us toward ever since we’d entered the room and plopped down on a plump peach-colored brocade chair with a high back.

Soren followed. “Celestina?” he asked, looking concerned.

“I feel…” Dammit, tears filled my eyes. I blinked madly trying to get them to go away. “I don’t know how I feel,” I admitted. “It’s all too raw. Too…” I shook my head.

Captain Proctor returned with Prince Cullen. Behind them, a bevy of servants carrying trays holding more of that dark red drink that I hoped wasn’t blood entered the room.

“Sorry I’m late,” Cullen said as he punched his brother’s arm. “I was delayed when picking up a case of Tiburnian plum wine. After one sip, though, you’re going to agree with me that it was worth the wait. This drink is considered quite a rare treat.”

With the influx of so many new players, Gray and Raya moved to flank Soren and me.

“Oh! It is indeed rare to get your hands on our country’s plum wine. Let’s freshen those drinks,” Proctor said jovially. It felt odd that he was playing host. This wasn’t his house. So why was he making these kinds of decisions? But I supposed I couldn’t be entirely certain of what freedoms my parents had given up in exchange for such an opulent home.

No one seemed to question Captain Proctor’s ordering around my father’s servants as they swept up the trays that were already on the table and replaced them with the trays they were carrying.

“It looks as if you can use one of these, princess.” Prince Cullen picked up one of the goblets and handed it to me. “One sip should cure whatever is causing you to scowl so.”

I stared at the dark liquid swirling around in the goblet.

“Plum wine?” I sniffed the drink.

“Yeah. What did you think it was?” Cullen asked.

“Nothing. It just looked so… Nothing.” I took a sip. It was sweet. But I didn’t mind the taste. I took another sip, hoping the subtle alcohol would help settle my jumpy nerves.

“Here.” He handed a goblet to his brother. “Let’s celebrate. We’re finally all in Tiburnia. I hope you’re getting the information you need.” He lifted his eyebrows in question.

Soren took the goblet but just stared at his brother. “You’re acting strange.”

“Am I?” Cullen shrugged. “Perhaps. It’s been a strange day. Raya? Gray? Join us, why don’t you?” Neither of my friends moved a muscle.

Soren set down the goblet and turned to his brother. “What’s going on?”

Cullen held up his hands and stepped closer to Soren. When he spoke, he’d lowered his voice to whisper. “Sharing a drink is an important part of Tiburnian culture. I’ve gone through a heap of trouble to bring this wine to impress Captain Proctor, who has the patience of a man being eaten by a swarm of flesh beetles. Don’t forget that we’re in enemy territory, under his protection. He will be gravely offended if you refuse to have a drink with him, especially considering that we’re drinking his country’s best wine.”

“I won’t drink alcohol, not in a situation where I need all my wits. Nor will my seconds,” Soren whispered back.

“Just smile and make a show of drinking it,” Cullen said with a false smile. “And get Gray and Raya to do the same or else Captain Proctor might decide to improve his position in Tiburnian society by handing over the fabled Beast of Fein instead of helping us.”

“I’d like to see him try to do that,” Soren growled. But he picked up the goblet and took a small sip. He looked over at his friends. “This is the best plum wine I’ve ever tasted. Raya, Gray, you should try it.”

Raya gave a sharp nod and reached for a goblet as a smiling Captain Proctor launched into an explanation of how farmers pick the plums at their height of ripeness, and how the wine is then left sitting in barrels crafted from fragrant cedar trees for more than fifty years.

Raya took a small sip of the wine, her eyes widened with pleasure. She elbowed Gray in the side. “Drink the damn wine, nimrod,” she whispered.

Gray, scowling, did as he was told. But like the others, only took a tiny sip.

My father rubbed his hands together with delight as he and my mother took a seat on the sofa that was adjacent to the chair I’d selected. “It is indeed a treat. This plum wine is as rare as a flower blooming in winter. I’m impressed you were able to get your hands on a case of it.” He picked up a goblet and took a long, deep drink. He smacked his lips and smiled. “So good.”

My mother sipped daintily. But, I noticed, her glass quickly emptied. She set down her goblet and swiped at a lizard that had crawled on the sofa. “Ugh. I thought we’d seen the last of these when we left Queen Beatrice’s court. Disgusting, slimy things.”

I fought an urge to apologize for the lizards that must have somehow followed us to my parents’ house. It wasn’t my fault that they crawled into every pack they could find.

So instead of taking responsibility for them, I yawned into my hand. Gracious, I shouldn’t have let Soren keep me up most of the night last night. “Father,” I said while fighting off another yawn. “Do you know how Queen Beatrice’s magic works?”

We’d come to Tiburnia in search of two main pieces of information: Where I came from, and how to remove Queen Beatrice’s collar.

We may have struck out on the first one, since my parents didn’t know how Queen Frieda had managed to get her hands on a baby dragon in human form. But that didn’t mean that they couldn’t be helpful in ridding me of Queen Beatrice’s awful collar.

“We need to know more about her magic so we can get the collar off her,” Soren explained.

“Really?” Captain Proctor tilted his head to one side. “I would have thought, you’d want to keep it, use it.”

“She’s not a slave,” came Soren’s automatic reply. “She doesn’t deserve to be treated like one.”

“What a heartwarming sentiment,” my mother said over a yawn. “If I’d never heard of you or your exploits, General Kitmun—the Beast of Fein—I’d almost believe that was what you sincerely wished.”

Soren merely shrugged. “There is magic upon magic wrapped around my Celestina. I wish to untangle all of it.”

“Some of it is old,” Cullen added. “Presumably cast by Queen Frieda. Our mages are guessing that those spells are meant to bind Celestina to her human form?”

My father shook his head. “If that’s true, Queen Frieda didn’t tell us about it.”

“And Queen Beatrice’s magic? Is there a way to unlock this slave collar?” I pressed.

My father glanced at Soren before answering. “Queen Beatrice is as impulsive as she is powerful. She rarely thinks things through to the end before she acts. And now she’s surrounded herself with lackeys who will go along with whatever ill-conceived whim she conjures. I daresay she created that collar in a fit of anger, casting a spell that has no reversal. That’s how her magic usually works.” He looked at me. “Remember her best friend, Lady Shirely? Remember how angry Queen Beatrice got when Lady Shirely won a card game they were playing?”

Thinking about that spectacle made my stomach churn. I took another sip of the sweet wine. “Queen Beatrice hates to lose,” I said.

“And when Lady Shirely placed the winning card on the table,” my father continued, enjoying his role as storyteller, “Queen Beatrice exploded in a burst of magical anger and turned her dearest friend into a pile of flesh. Flesh that was still living, still suffering.” My father shuddered.

“Gods,” Gray breathed.

“Yes,” my father agreed, leaning forward. He lowered his voice for dramatic effect. “Queen Beatrice kept the quivering bloody flesh bedside her bed for days, cursing her friend, kicking it. And then one morning she woke up and, as was often the case with the queen, discovered she was no longer angry with Lady Shirely. In fact, she missed her best friend. She missed giggling with her, going riding with her. Queen Beatrice, you must understand, grew up having few friends who were truly hers. Most of the lords and ladies in the court pretended to be Queen Beatrice’s friend because they enjoyed the power and prestige being close to royalty could bring them. Only Lady Shirely, a friend from birth, had truly loved Queen Beatrice. They’d shared secrets, men, clothing.”

“And now that friend was a pile of flesh,” Soren said.

My father nodded. “Bloody, living flesh. It was a gruesome sight. One the queen truly regretted. And this is a queen who regrets very little. Queen Beatrice tried for weeks to reverse the spell she’d cast in anger. But unless she puts a great deal of thought into her magic-work, her spells can only go one way. There’s no undoing what has been done, even if she wishes to undo it with all her heart.”

This wasn’t the news I wanted to hear. I clutched the metal around my neck. Would this collar control my life forever?

“What happened to the lump of flesh?” Captain Procter asked.

“Oh, after the queen realized she’d never succeed in bringing her friend back, she couldn’t stand to look at the physical evidence of her failure. She screamed and raged and killed four of her servants before tossing what was left of Lady Shirely into her bedroom’s fire grate. She then gave the order to keep the fire burning until nothing remained but ashes. Some believe the ashes never died but continue to suffer to this day.”

“There must be another way,” Soren muttered, more to himself than to anyone else in the room. He then looked at me. “Magic moves like the wind. But it also ebbs and flows like the ocean’s tide. And like the tide, the moon tugs at it, making the magic seem stronger at certain times of the year. If we picked one of the moon’s cycles when the magic is at its peak to direct the magic at the collar, we might break its spell.”

“Possible,” Cullen said. “But the amount of magic needed would be risky. It could just as easily kill Celestina, the mage wielding the spell, or both.”

While Cullen explained the mechanics of such an unbinding spell, I yawned. That was when something disturbing dawned on me. Everyone in the room had sipped from a goblet of plum wine. Except for Prince Cullen and Captain Proctor.

I yawned again.

My thoughts felt muzzy.

I shook my head, trying to chase away my growing drowsiness. Why had Captain Proctor and Prince Cullen skipped drinking the wine? Especially Cullen. He’d demanded his brother and Gray and Raya drink it. He’d insisted drinking the wine was a display of diplomacy. But he hadn’t even picked up a goblet. He hadn’t even pretended to drink. If diplomacy were that important, shouldn’t he have had the wine too?

Something was wrong about this, very wrong.

“Soren?” I grabbed his wrist as I tried to rise. “We need to—”

Soren’s brother spun so quickly I barely saw the movement. Cullen slammed his fist into the side of Soren’s head. My fierce warrior stumbled. It was just enough of an opening for the men posing as servants in the room to spring to action.

Gray had his sword in his hand almost immediately, but Cullen whirled from Soren to Gray, knocking him out with a two-fisted slam to the side of his head.

I tried to cry, “Stop!” in my loudest, most magical growly voice. But a hand slapped over my face before I got out much more than a “st—”

“Cullen warned me about the power of your voice, dragon. I look forward to using it,” Captain Proctor’s oily voice dripped into my ear. “But right now, I need your silence.”

“Get your hands off her!” Soren shouted. A growing pile of injured and possibly dead men was forming around his feet. More men kept streaming into the room. There were at least five men attacking Soren. His hands were shackled behind his back, but that didn’t stop him from using his legs, his feet, or his bound arms to fight off the men who kept coming and coming.

Gray was out of commission on the floor with his wrists and ankles bound in shackles. His eyes were barely open, and he looked dazed.

Raya must have snagged Gray’s sword as he fell. She held the short sword in her right hand and a dagger in her left. And goddess, she moved with such speed, whirling in broad circles, holding back the men who were trying to subdue her. Her eyes looked clearer than either Soren’s or Gray’s, which made me wonder if she’d only pretended to drink the wine.

My parents were slumped down on the sofa, my mother’s head dropped into my father’s lap.

Soren would have been able to maintain the upper hand against all those men if his brother hadn’t sucker-punched him. And drugged him.

“Raya, go! Get help!” Soren shouted, clearly realizing that despite their advantage as highly trained warriors and vampires, the number of men and the effects of the poisoned wine had put them in a no-win situation. He took several more blows to his head and stumbled to his knees.

I tried to cry out. But the captain’s hand remained plastered across my face. I tossed my head from side to side to no avail.

Raya hesitated. Our eyes met, and she nearly lost her advantage. But she quickly recovered, slashing the sword across one of her attackers’ chests, slicing him open. She gave Soren an unhappy nod before backflipping over the men who were trying to creep up behind her. She disappeared like a wraith through the open window.

“Let her go,” Cullen called out to the men who had rushed to pursue her. “We’ll be long gone before she returns.”

“What have you done?” Soren roared at his brother as he continued to fight the three men on top of him and the bindings that held him.

“He made a bargain,” the captain answered for him.

“It had to be done, Soren,” Cullen said as whatever drug he’d put in our drinks started to pull me under. Captain Proctor lifted his hand from my mouth. Without him holding me in place, I slid out of the chair and sunk to the floor, spilling the drink I still held in my hand all down my ridiculously flimsy dress.

“I’ll kill you for this,” Soren growled, still fighting the men. But by this point, with him so bound up, it really was a losing battle.

“Take my brother and his man to the ship,” Cullen ordered. “And for goddess’s sake, don’t hurt him any more than necessary. You should have finished the goblet of wine, big brother. This would have gone much more smoothly if you’d just drunk the full goblet.”

“Don’t hurt them,” I cried from the floor at the foot of the chair as those horrid men dragged Soren and Gray out of the room. Well, those were the words I’d tried to cry. It came out more like, “Dnnnahuurrrlhum.”

Captain Proctor bent down and poked me in the cheek. “She’s so docile.” He poked my other cheek.

“Useless, really.” Cullen scoffed. “Maybe it’s because she was raised with humans instead of her own kind. She’s not a fighter like your dragon. She’ll never be a fighter. She’ll never be powerful enough to change the outcome of a battle, not like your dragon. This one is too submissive, too soft.” His words stung. Not that I ever wanted to be a warrior like Soren. I didn’t. But the words still stung because I’d thought Cullen liked me. I never would have guessed he thought I was useless. I thought we were family. How could he do this to me? How could he betray his brother? By handing me over to the enemy, Cullen was putting his brother’s life at great risk. Did this mean that Cullen wanted to take Soren’s place as crown prince? Did he lust after his father’s crown?

“Yes, I can see that now,” Proctor said. “So…why are we stealing her from your brother?”

“Because your dragon needs to be given something she’ll find valuable. She needs to be given something she’ll want to protect. Something we can take from her if she doesn’t cooperate.”

“And you think this weak dragon will be important enough to my dragon to do that?”

“I know she will be,” Cullen said coldly. He stepped in front of Captain Proctor. “Since she belongs to my brother, let me be the one to take her to the dungeon.”

“Very well,” the captain said. “I don’t have the patience to fight my dragon right now anyhow. She’s always telling me of all the ways she plans to kill me. If you can stop her from doing that, I would be grateful.”

“I’m sure this will do the trick.” Cullen lifted me into his arms.

“I am sorry about this, Celestina,” he whispered for my ears only. “But I could think of no other way to save her.”

Her? Who was he talking about? And why had he traded my life for hers?