Page 15 of Lady Dragon

“—while the princess has seemingly locked herself inside her quarters to grieve.” The queen finished, and then shot Samansa a brief, sympathetic look, here and then gone. She tipped her head toward the fearsome woman. “In truth, she will be inside in the princess’s stead. Waiting.”

Samansa couldn’t contain her skeptical tone. “Um, Mother, if appearances are meant to fool anybody, we don’t look much alike.”

Where Samansa was pale, redheaded, and somewhat plump around the edges, the woman had dark brown skin, a powerful build, and grizzled, braided black hair.

Not to mention she looked at least ten years older than even Samansa’s brother, perhaps in her midforties, and as hardened as him, if not more so with the long scar that cut down one cheek.

The woman laughed, flashing a silver tooth on the same side of her mouth as the scar.

Perhaps whatever blow she’d received had taken her tooth, too.

“No, indeed, I’m not much of a princess, I’m afraid, nor a lady’s maid to dote on one.

The name is Cenara, and I’ll be hidden inside for somewhat else. ”

She paused when Samansa’s face fell at the mention of lady’s maid .

Dara , the princess thought with a sharp pang. Dara should be going with her on this venture.

“I’m sorry, girl, about your friend,” Cenara said more softly.

“I’ll be far more prepared to meet your attackers than she was—and I’ll give them her regards, if I have the chance.

” She grinned in a way that wasn’t entirely unlike the way Kirek did.

In fact, she caught Kirek’s watchful gaze and touched her scar.

“You should see the other guy, Lady Dragon.”

“If you’re no lady, then I’m certainly not,” Kirek said, then asked baldly, “How did you earn such a wound?”

“Saving her life.” Cenara nodded at the queen.

“You were her guard?” Samansa couldn’t help asking.

“But I’ve never seen you before.” She’d only known Merard to be her mother’s near-constant and nigh-silent shadow.

Even among the soldiers that Tordall and Branon had led into battles against raiders and bandits and the like, she’d never spotted anyone like Cenara.

Not, of course, that the princess knew all of those troops on sight. But they were mostly men.

Cenara smiled faintly. “I was her personal guard, for a time, before you were born. But then my services were no longer required.”

Her mother’s face shuttered as forbiddingly as a dropped portcullis. Samansa was certain there was something she was missing, but this wasn’t the time or place to dig deeper into it.

Cenara, oddly, smirked at the queen. Merard and Tordall remained impassive, but Jamsens was looking at them strangely—and then at Samansa. The princess looked quickly away from him, and found Kirek staring at her with that piercing gaze.

Well, this is awkward all around , Samansa thought, with the sudden urge to giggle. She choked it down with effort.

Cenara rescued them all by speaking. “I’m not well-known here these days, so I can easily get the princess out of the city and rendezvous with Kirek and the guards that will accompany the princess’s carriage. I’ll have a horse waiting for me and double back to return to the princess’s quarters.”

Kirek’s tone was shrewd. “You might manage to go unnoticed, but how will the princess leave without anyone recognizing her?”

The queen only said, “We have our ways.” Meaning, ways we are not willing to share with you just yet, if ever . Samansa knew her mother well enough to translate.

Kirek merely nodded. “Seems like a reasonable plan.”

Samansa blinked. “It does?” She thought the dragon girl would refuse to go altogether.

The queen had no authority over her, after all.

But maybe Kirek felt it was worth humoring all of this to keep the peace…

and—Samansa could barely let herself think it—to keep the daughter heir safe by removing her from the field of danger.

Cenara clapped Jamsens on the back, hard enough to make him lurch. “Let’s trap some assassins. And then gut them. You got my back?”

He nodded tightly, though he didn’t look pleased by the situation.

“Good,” she told him with another silver-toothed grin. “No dying while I’m gone, now, and hopefully no killing until I return. Even then, we need to keep any assassins alive longer than Kirek has managed.”

The dragon girl actually looked chagrined.

None of this reassured Samansa, but she couldn’t tamp down the rising excitement at the thought of being on the road, out in the world, free , despite the grim circumstances around their departure and their eventual destination.

A destroyed village wasn’t cause for celebration, after all.

Nor, of course, were the assassination attempts that had killed her friend.

Samansa’s chest still felt carved out by the space that Dara had left, and yet…

Maybe the fact that Samansa would be with Kirek the entire time had something to do with her lifted mood.

The queen caught her gaze—which had strayed in the dragon girl’s direction—and gave her daughter a questioning look.

I’m happy purely for the chance to further diplomatic relations , the princess told herself, if not her mother, firmly.

Samansa desperately wished to see Kirek fly off in dragon form, as she had yet to witness it, but she was too busy being smuggled by Jamsens out of a secret passageway from within the castle while the dragon girl was departing ahead of them.

The entrance to said passage was in Dara’s—rather, the lady’s maid’s —currently uninhabited room, which joined with her own chambers, hidden behind a hinged and swinging bookshelf.

Samansa was only finding out about it now herself, so it was no wonder her mother wanted it kept secret from Kirek.

It exited on the back side of the castle, away from the city and any traffic, into a ravine with only a narrow path leading up to a mostly unused back road, where a carriage was waiting for her and Cenara, who was already there.

The princess realized the route was probably meant to whisk her to safety in the event of an overwhelming attack that had breached the castle walls—or perhaps come from within.

She shivered at the thought.

As if aware of the danger this secret passageway might have otherwise implied for the princess, Jamsens murmured to her, “I wish I could accompany you, for your protection.”

Samansa, on the other hand, was thrilled at the thought of time on the road alone with Kirek—alone except for the guards who would be riding along with them outside of the carriage, of course, but they might as well not be there.

Still, she said to Jamsens, “I’m sorry for what I said to you after…

after Dara.” She swallowed. Thinking about her friend was still difficult, her absence like a missed step that she kept tripping over.

“You’re the best protector one could hope for.

” The princess meant it, even if she didn’t want him coming along.

She added tactfully, “I hope I won’t be sorely missing your service on this venture, for then I’ll be in trouble. ”

He nodded, cleared his throat, and seemed to want to say something else, but then Cenara was greeting them at the exit into the ravine. Pulling up her hooded cloak, Samansa couldn’t help but be relieved she didn’t have to carry on the conversation.

As she was well aware, her mother saw Jamsens as a suitable consort for her daughter, and it was becoming clearer and clearer that he thought of himself in that way, too.

Samansa didn’t particularly want to consider taking a consort at all , let alone Jamsens, whom she viewed more like an older brother, if one that she held in warmer regard than her actual brother.

But then how will I produce the heir my mother so desperately wants?

Yet another problem she could try to forget on this venture. At least for now.

Once bundled in the unmarked carriage with Cenara, their unknown driver spiriting them away from the city, the hill it crowned in blue and white and gold sinking back behind the greener hills around it, Samansa couldn’t help thinking this would be the perfect time to kidnap or kill her, if Cenara was in on such a plot.

But her mother obviously trusted the fierce woman implicitly, enough to recall her from wherever she had been these last years—a trust the queen hadn’t extended to her son, at least on this occasion.

So, instead of worrying, the princess relished the excitement of leaving the castle behind and leaned forward to try to take a peek at the skies out the window, if only for a glimpse of a wing —

Cenara barred her way with a strong, scar-laced arm after Samansa had barely twitched in her seat.

“Best keep out of sight, Princess, until we’re well on our way. You’ll have plenty of time with the dragon girl soon. I understand, though—she’s a fine-looking one, she is.”

“How did you know I was—” And then the awkwardness of fine-looking hit Samansa like a cup of cold water thrown in her face. She sputtered. “I assure you, I’m not… I don’t find—”

Cenara threw her head back and laughed. “You royals, always thinking you’re hiding your feelings when they’re as plain as day.” She sobered, leaning back in her seat. “All except your mother, perhaps. She’s made of stone, that one.”

Samansa couldn’t think of anything to say. She somewhat agreed about her mother, but she didn’t think it would be fitting to voice such a thing.

“Wanting a dragon is probably a little like wanting a queen,” Cenara mused.

“Dangerous, forbidden. The one soul you shouldn’t want, and yet you do anyway.

So I sympathize, girl. At the same time, as I always say: Want what you want.

Breaking the rules is fun.” She smiled and shrugged against the swaying carriage.

“Or disastrous, so maybe don’t take my advice. ”