Page 44 of Dragon Fight (The Dragon Queen #2)

44

A ny thoughts of romance or sex went out the window as the three of us walked down the hallway to go to the mews where all the cadets’ young dragons were kept when the boys weren’t caring for them.

“Ged!” A familiar man walked towards us, a broad grin on his face. “You’re back from your break. And with the wing commander’s wife in tow.” Hallin’s eyes slid over me for just long enough for Glimmer to growl. “I have to admit, if she’d chosen me, I wouldn’t be letting my wing mates within five feet of my girl.”

Which made me wonder about how he felt about Maggie, the maid he had dallied with in the bathrooms.

“Brom trusts me,” Ged shot back.

“More fool him.” Hallin smirked at that, but it quickly faded. “So you’ve heard about the other cadets?” The look Hallin gave me now wasn’t lecherous, but filled with concern. “The wing commander might have to pull rank and keep his pretty little cadet by his side if they’re going missing in the middle of the night for no reason anyone can see.”

“So that’s what happened?” Ged asked. “We’ve been asked by the general to look into it—”

“The general…” Hallin spat out the man’s title. “Another bloody Harlstonian. You know what they’re like.”

I glanced at Ged then, wondering how he’d respond to this. I didn’t even know which duchy Hallin was from, the man seeming to have internalised the corps principle of seeing past rank and birthplace to the man.

“Not all of them are bad,” Ged replied with a weak smile.

“I chose to marry one,” I added.

“Did you, lass?” There was pity in Hallin’s eyes, something I’d never expected to see. “Word amongst the men was that you didn’t get too much choice about that. Highborn girl like you, you’d be used to the idea of being married off without so much as a by your leave—”

“I’d choose Brom, no matter which family I was born into,” I replied, the other rider pausing at the steel in my voice. “If people are willing to spend their time gossiping about my marriage, then you can tell them this. I’m honoured to be his wife. I would be, whether he was a rider or not, and I can tell you categorically that nothing concerns him more than the disappearance of those cadets. We came back from our honeymoon early when we got word. And we’ll leave no stone unturned, trying to find them. Now, as you’re obviously a font of knowledge about what’s being said amongst the rider corps, do you have any facts to share that might help our investigation?”

Hallin fell silent then, studying me as if for the first time, but finally he frowned slightly and straightened up.

“The lads went missing the night of Zafira’s mating. When she rose everyone else was… distracted, as they might be. By the time the dust had settled the next morning and the other sergeants had done roll call, we realised they were missing. Those poor little dragonlings…”

My focus shifted then, to the open doorway where the sounds of other small dragons could be faintly heard.

“They’re starving themselves to death and for what? It has to be a Harlstonian plot. Toss aside a perfectly good queen.” A fierce nod for me. “Declare Glimmer unfit when you just have to look at her…”

I suddenly liked Hallin a whole lot more when he looked down at my dragon. Glimmer preened under the attention and that resulted in him dropping down into a squat before her, his hand reaching out for her permission.

“How can they say she’s not fit to be Zafira’s heir?” Hallin seemed almost transfixed by my dragon, running his fingers along the soft scales under her chin, her eyes falling closed as she let out a pleased little chirrup.

This one is very perceptive , she told me with a mental sigh. Perhaps you should consider him as one of your mates?

Glimmer! I shot back, then sent a mental image of Hallin and Maggie together in the bathroom, though I admit, I censored the memory somewhat.

Apparently not , she replied. I guess you can’t take every man that will bow before us as a lover, because there will be many.

And then I saw that vision again, of the two of us climbing a tall flight of steps, a golden throne beckoning from the top and beyond that? People cheered wildly, egging us on, screaming for us to ascend—

What was that? I asked sharply, feeling like I reached out from my mind into hers, as if the psychic link between us was a physical thing. What did you just see? Did we—?

You can’t grab at visions , she snapped. They aren’t party favours to be snatched up before the other children get to them.

That metaphor gave me pause me, making me wonder where she’d pulled that from. A fledgling memory of my childhood, of a party held for my birthday with other very young children of the district, my mother walking out with a tray of treats… I blinked and then came abruptly back to the hallway of the keep.

“Glimmer is very pleased by your praise,” I told Hallin belatedly.

“I can feel that.” He hadn’t noticed my brief pause, caught as he was by my dragon’s gaze. “She’s very strong, your Glimmer. I get little indications of some dragons’ moods sometimes. It’s why they put me in with the cadets when their dragons are big enough to fly.” His voice sounded soft, drowsy almost. “But from her…”

What are you doing to him, Glimmer? I asked my dragon.

Connecting.

She sounded just as dreamy as he did, something that had Ged frowning slightly. He tried as best as he could to understand what was going on, shooting me a sidelong look right up until Hallin shook his head, the man’s face breaking into a smile, seeming a whole lot lighter as he stood up again, then faced us down.

“She’s powerful. More powerful than Zafira—”

“For fuck’s sake, don’t go around saying shit like that,” Ged hissed, looking up and down the hallway.

“Glimmer is a queen.” But once Hallin made his pronouncement we damned ourselves without a word. We weren’t surprised nor did we brush off what he said. The two of us just stared the rider down, watching the realisation come. “But you already know that.” Hallin nodded then, looking somehow satisfied despite the two of us not saying a thing. “You’ll find those lads.”

“We’ll try—” I began to say.

“You will. Find them and ensure they’re safe.” Hallin glanced down at Glimmer. “And see what you can do for those poor wee beasties in there.” He jerked his head to the mews door. “If you can make me feel like that, you might be able to help those dragonlings.”

And with that, my focus sharpened, no longer concerned with Hallin or what he or the other riders might be saying.

Can you? I asked Glimmer.

Let’s see , she replied, nodding to the other rider and then marching past him, leaving me and Ged to trail behind.

“Ahh…” a plump man in a leather apron said as we walked in the door. “Rider Ged. And you must be—”

“Pippin and Glimmer.”

But my introduction was an anaemic one with little emotion in it as we walked in. There were young dragons of various sizes everywhere, but I was able to brush past all of them, both my dragon and I focussed on the four dragonlings clustered together in one corner.

Because they were paler than the others, the usually bright tones of their scales somehow dulled and dusty looking, their eyelids only half opened, their eyes filmy. The four of them seemed to snuggle down tighter together as we approached. But with every step I heard that humming song Glimmer often sang at important moments.

Glimmer, what do you sense? I asked.

You don’t want to know.

Damn you, I do , I insisted, fear making my heart leap in my chest.

What the general had described was inadequate to what I felt the closer I got to the dragons. They didn’t seem like the others in the mews, eating, chirruping, chittering, creeling when the man in the apron brought food over. They didn’t seem like Glimmer, self-contained and perfect. Instead they were… locked up in something, a darkness, and not just the literal darkness their potential riders were being subjected to. These dragons clawed their way away from us, spines curving, heads low, fangs flashed defensively as wave after wave of fear and pain poured off them.

Glimmer stopped and faced me, as if willing me to understand, but she needn’t have. As soon as the psychic connection between her, me and the other young dragons was established then I was yanked in. To a dark place, a dank one that stank of mould, blood and fear. My muscles tensed, my teeth locked together as I heard the furtive whispers of my friends, too scared to give full throat to their terror in the darkness. They’d already learned what happened when they did that. My hand delved into my pocket, the heavy weight of the crystal egg that Cynane had given us warming in my palm as I did so.

“Where are you?” I asked in a low voice, having no idea what Ged heard or the man tending to the dragons in the mews.

“Pippin?” Lance’s voice was a mixture of terror and responsibility. “Gods above, tell me you’re not in here too. She wants you. Tell me she didn’t get her hands on you!”

“Not there,” I said, blinking, seeing the room and the darkness overlaid over top of each other. “But where are you? How did this happen?”

“Queen’s men came when Zafira rose,” Lance muttered desperately. “Went looking for you and took us when you couldn’t be found.”

“Fuck…” I tried not to curse too often, but now was the right time for it. “I should’ve—”

“Done exactly as you did. You got out, right? You’re safe, right?”

Lance seemed to need to know that so very desperately, his voice breaking on the words, tears clogging his throat. I could feel his pain as if it was my own down the connection we shared. There were parts of him that ached deeply, like old wounds that had never healed and others that were sharp and fresh, much harder to ignore.

“I’m safe,” I replied, “and I need you to be. Where did the queen take you?”

“To an interrogation chamber at first. Gave her men carte blanche to do what they wanted to us. I tried to fight them.” He ground those words out, then spat something onto the ground. “I tried so fucking hard.”

“You were outnumbered, outmanned,” I said, trying to reassure him.

“Completely fucking outmanned. She had us thrown in one of the castle dungeons to rot and until yesterday that’s where we stayed. They came for us last night, beat us back and then pulled hoods over our heads. I thought we were on our way to the scaffold. Jenkins begged and then they beat him…” I could almost feel the lump in his throat, stopping him from saying much more. Probably because I felt my own do the same. “But we were moved somewhere. Somewhere dark, dank.”

While I’d been swanning around the countryside, enjoying my honeymoon. Hot bile rose in my throat, feeling like it was choking me.

“We’ll get you out. Half the keep is in an uproar, thinking the queen has something to do with this,” I promised him. “We’ll stage a bloody insurrection if we have to, bring every dragon we can to the palace and burn it to the ground to get you out.”

“Please, Pippin…”

That was the part that broke me. When I met Lance, he was a tall lad, strong and capable, showing me how to wield a sword and hold a shield with considerable patience, the man he would become clear in the boy. That Lance would never kneel, never beg, but right now, that’s what he did.

“You will not say a fucking word about this to anyone,” Ged growled to the mews tender, his brows pulled down into a severe frown. I blinked, the connection with Lance fading slowly and for a moment it felt like the two figures were overlaid over each other. But as the world came back, the mews worker cringed back in response to Ged’s ire.

“Of course not, Rider Ged. I would—”

“You a Harlston man?”

The man in the apron shook his head violently.

“I’m from Hartsborough,” he stammered out. “In Tharfield.”

“Then you know how badly this will go if any of this conversation gets out.” Ged stabbed his finger into the man’s chest and he stumbled back, the smaller dragons around him fluttering in response, but those before us? Glimmer approached with a low crooning song, the lads’ dragons seeming to relax in increments at the sound of it.

Get meat , Glimmer said inside my head. Get meat now!

I stumbled over to the man and plucked the bucket of meat scraps from his hands, lurching back over to the dragons. Glimmer’s orders forced my limbs to move before my brain could respond. I dropped down onto my knees, the violence of the gesture making the dragons shrink back, but not for long. When we’d broken the connection to Lance and the others, something else had roared back. The dragons’ natural, animal need to survive had them scrambling over, clambering up onto my lap and snatching up scraps of meat, scoffing them down.

“Gods above…” the man gasped. “I haven’t been able to get them to eat a scrap for days.”

“Pippin has the touch,” Ged said, settling down beside me. “Slowly now.”

He plucked a dragon off my lap, striking it between the shoulder blades as it choked on a hastily swallowed morsel. The meat was spat out on the floor, but the dragon fought free, scrambling to get at the other scraps until Glimmer stepped between them. Her humming song grew louder, more intense, feeling like it filled the whole room right then, which made me wonder what it was.

What are you doing, Glimmer?

What queens have always done , she replied.

Right then I caught quick visions of mother dragons crooning to their eggs, great clusters of dragons singing together in chorus while standing in one of those open air amphitheatres we’d seen on our travels. Then smaller groups of dragons singing as an old and frail dragon took its last breath, a golden queen leading the song. Peace, that’s what each one of them got from the song, but while Glimmer sought to soothe these other young dragons, others took up the song further out in the keep.

The mews worker’s head jerked up as he heard the muffled sound coming from the dragon tunnels, Ged’s doing the same, the two of us rising to our feet. Lance and the other boys’ dragons ate much more sedately now, their eyes shining bright as they raised their heads as if to listen better to the song.

“Shit, the Gathering…” Ged said, and then grabbed my hand.

I went to protest as he jerked me out of the mews and down the hall, but the song just got louder as Glimmer scuttled after us, keeping pace with surprising ease. Ged led us down deeper, darker, warmer tunnels, these carved out of the raw stone of Wyrmpeak, not built like the staircases above. We wound our way through a rabbit warren until finally we stumbled out.

Why would I forget how big dragons were? I was living within a whole city full of them earlier in the day and yet, as we stumbled out on the sands, my eyes went wide as I saw Zafira clustered in close to her eggs. The song Glimmer had been singing filled the air, as male dragons all looked out onto the nesting sands below from their burrows. I took one step, then another, my feet registering the heat of the sands even through the soles of my boots.

Mother… Glimmer said, her voice little more than a whisper.

“C’mon…” Ged urged, trying to drag me over to where people clustered around the edges of the sands, chatting and gesturing at the dragon and her eggs beyond, Zafira paying them no mind.

No, she was the picture of maternal complacency, right up until Glimmer stepped out onto the sands.