Page 101 of I Dream of Dragons

“Oh. That girl.” As dismissive as one can be. “One of my men wanted her. I gave her to him.”

I gape. “Gave her? Like she’s… a thing?”

“She’s a human. What do I care about humanfolk?”

“I was human. Didn’t you say you loved me?”

“Did I?”

This is it. I was wrong. This isn’t Mars. Nobody can change so completely.

I want to weep tears of frustration and embarrassment for my mistake, but I won’t let him see me cry. Besides, there is relief in finding certainty, at last.

I draw a long breath. “Why did you call me back? What do you want with me now?”

“I want you to kneel,” he says, his voice cold, “and beg for my forgiveness.”

“What for?”

“Disobeying me. You slept with Athdara when I expressly commanded you to refuse him. Kneel!”

For disobeying. Not for sleeping with another man. “I won’t. I didn’t set out to disobey you but I won’t regret it.”

“You aremybetrothed. I said, kneel!” He doesn’t even bother to use the mark and make me do it. The silver mist wraps around me, forcing me down to my knees. “You do as I say. Remember that.”

“I never asked for your damn mark! For a betrothal, we’d have to mark one another and drink each other’s blood, swear oaths and intimacy! Share memories. There is nothing between us.”

“You’re wrong.” The mist pushes me lower until my forehead touches the carpet. “There is a link between us and you know it.”

“I loved a boy,” I whisper, a sob catching in my throat, “with golden hair, gray eyes, and a smile that lit up the world. And it wasn’t you. It could never be you. You’re a monster.”

“Everyone changes.” I see his boots passing in front of me. “You may be a savage from the deep, but even you must know that you obey your king.”

“You’re not my king.”

“One day I will be king of every race, in every world, and I will stomp on your impotent kind until it vanishes from the universe.”

I swallow a gasp, refusing to make any sound.

“I should have had you flogged the first time I sensed you. I should have bound your hands and feet and thrown you into the sea. The affront. The insult.”

I stare at him, uncomprehending.

“You are Godsdamned finnfolk! Inside my palace. Mingling with my people. Pretending to be something else, thanks to that spell you have on you. Pretending to deceive me.”

“Did you know that the great dragons and seafolk have a lot in common?”

He said that the night in the garden, before the second trial. The night he put his mark on me.

“And then I knew you,” he says. “Knew who you really are. Your real name.”

I lift my chin. “How did you know? Like you said, we all change.”

“You more than most, didn’t you?” How can he be smiling when he has me kneeling on the floor, at his feet, like a disobedient pet? When he’s making me do it?

While I’d knelt willingly at Jai’s feet. Even Phaethon’s. That had been a pleasure. My pleasure. My choice.

This, not so. Not at all.