Page 19 of Lady Dragon

SAMANSA

Samansa told her mother everything and then some, after the queen’s questioning seemed to pry even more information out of her than she realized she held.

This occurred in the same private office in which they’d hatched the plan to embark on the ill-fated venture, with the same group of people, minus only Kirek.

There, Samansa found out that Cenara had caught an assassin while they’d been absent—who’d then chewed on some sort of capsule filled with poison wedged in a tooth and died.

Beyond there being one less killer in the world, and the princess feeling the burden of her duty to the queendom more than ever before, no part of the plan had been overly successful.

Samansa might have thought her mother would have wanted the dragon girl present for the debriefing, but then, once it was over, she abruptly dismissed everyone save Samansa.

“We need to discuss the lady dragon,” the queen said without further ado, as soon as everyone was gone and the door closed behind them.

“She despises that title.” Samansa shifted nervously in her chair. “Mother, you can’t suspect—”

“Of course not. I know she had nothing to do with the attack. She’s proved herself time and again.” The queen’s heavy gaze sank onto her like a weighty mantle from across her desk. “That’s not what I want to discuss with regard to her.”

Her mother definitely suspected something , or else she wouldn’t have adopted this tone.

The princess felt herself begin to sweat. “Then what? We’re getting along quite well.”

“Yes, I see that, and that is part of my concern: Your level of… interest… in the lady drag—the dragon princess.”

Samansa wasn’t sure how well Kirek would like that address, either, but she knew the queen also wasn’t here to discuss that. “Of course I’m interested in her. She’s a dragon , and it’s my duty to my queendom to get to know her.”

Samansa knew, of course, what her mother was getting at, but she refused to bandy subtle words. She wanted her mother to say it , if she was going to make them have this heinously awkward conversation in the first place.

“Samansa, I’ve heard how your regard for Kirek might have shifted, of late.

Even glimpsed it myself, in how you look at her.

” The queen cleared her throat, straightening some papers on her desk.

The princess had never known her to be this hesitant before.

“It might be better for you to spend more of your time focusing on choosing a suitor now,” she said eventually.

“You’re the one who sent me off alone with her!” Samansa burst out. “You’re the one who wanted us to be friends! Don’t tell me you haven’t been worried we weren’t getting along.”

“I did send you with her and I do want you to be… friendly… but more as distant allies than the closest of friends . My worry has adjusted accordingly.”

Samansa stared at her for a moment, holding her gaze, where she might have buckled under its weight before. “Did Cenara speak with you?”

“No.” The queen pursed her lips. “Perhaps.”

The princess felt like turning the tables on this line of questioning—to see how her mother liked it. “Why did you never tell me about her ?”

Her mother’s gaze slipped away, stirring up the lessons she herself had given Samansa on diplomatic negotiations. Shifting eyes are a sign of avoidance, perhaps deception. “It was a long time ago.”

“So does this worry of yours stem from… personal experience?” the princess asked, her tone sweetly casual.

“Guard your tongue, Samansa,” the queen snapped, slapping her palm on her desk and making pens rattle and Samansa jump in her seat.

“I simply don’t want you getting hurt over something that cannot be.

” A shadow of pain passed quickly over her mother’s face, leaving only steely resolve behind.

“You must fulfill your duty to your queendom and to the dragons by providing a daughter heir. That doesn’t mean—that doesn’t mean you can’t have…

friends… on the side, but you must be discreet . ”

“Like Cenara must not have been? Did she want more from you than you were willing to give?” Samansa was already pressing her luck, so she didn’t say the rest out loud. And so you got rid of her?

“ We are not discussing my past ,” the queen hissed with nearly the ferocity of a dragon.

“As queen, many things are within your reach. And some are not.” She paused heavily.

“With a dragon—it’s entirely out of the question.

Intimate feelings between species are strictly against their rules.

Utterly forbidden, not to mention that acting upon such would be impossible without the singular Heartstone.

You cannot botch this diplomatic arrangement so thoroughly as to commit quite possibly the gravest offense against dragonkind that there is. I won’t allow it.”

Samansa hadn’t known about this prohibition, but she saw no reason her mother would lie about something so serious. The queen had other ways of discouraging her daughter—such as simply forbidding her without reason.

Of course the dragons would have such a law against intimate feelings for humans. Humans were beneath them, never mind love itself. Beneath even one who was walking around and masquerading as human. Perhaps especially then, so said dragon couldn’t be further debased.

Samansa was a complete fool for thinking—what had she been thinking? She wasn’t even sure, since it had been such a tenuous, distant hope, barely given form in her thoughts.

Such a foolish hope.

Her face was burning, and not just from humiliation. Anger rose in her chest, enough to draw her to her feet. “Well, Kirek probably wouldn’t allow it in the first place, so you can rest assured my unlikely happiness will be of no threat to the queendom’s stability!”

Her mother half stood in a rush, looking slightly stricken. “Samansa, dearest, wait, I only meant to—”

But the princess had already stormed to the gilded door—and then slammed it in the queen’s face.

Samansa intended to obey her mother, she truly did. But then a servant delivered a sealed envelope to her rooms. The wax was indented with a simple slash, as if made by the press of a fingernail. The closest thing that a human had—or a human-shaped dragon—to a claw.

She tore it open so quickly she gave herself a paper cut. Sucking on her finger, she devoured the message with her eyes.

Meet me in my tower at midnight tonight. Discreetly. Lose Jamsens. Burn this.

The writing was so slashing and angular, it could only be Kirek’s. Reminiscent of her form with a sword. Samansa’s heart began to pick up pace.

She immediately recalled her mother’s words: That doesn’t mean you can’t have… friends… on the side, but you must be discreet .

Of course, the queen had been excluding the dragon girl from that, but Kirek didn’t seem to be excluding herself , and it was dragons who made the rules, after all. If that’s what this clandestine meeting was even about.

In any case, Samansa didn’t care—she was going. She trusted Kirek. And she knew exactly how to lose Jamsens.

The secret passageway, which he’d only just revealed to her.

She still had an old, plain gray cloak of Dara’s she used to disguise herself and wander the halls with her.

The thought was painfully tender as she swung the garment over her shoulders, masking her butterscotch-yellow gown.

She hadn’t imagined she’d be sneaking around today when she chose her outfit’s color.

The cloak was like a cloud trying to cover up the sun, but it would serve.

Good thing she and Dara hadn’t known about this passage back then, or else they would have used it to get up to mischief—and probably would have gotten themselves killed. Which was no doubt why they hadn’t been told about it.

Samansa swallowed a giddy laugh as she obligingly threw the letter into her fireplace, hoping that she wasn’t about to get herself killed now. But she was going to see Kirek, and Kirek was always safe.

She slipped into her antechamber, closing her door silently, and stole into Dara’s old room. Whispering hello—and an even quieter, bittersweet goodbye—to her friend, she tripped the latch she’d seen Jamsens find when they’d left the castle days earlier, even though she’d only seen it the once.

And here she was, already using the secret passage for her own ends.

She’d also noticed, when she’d trailed him, that the stairs didn’t only lead down outside the castle walls—which was definitely not where she wanted to go, at the moment.

They also came from above. She didn’t know from where, precisely, but Kirek’s high tower was up there. Which was where she wanted to go.

Heading behind the bookcase with a low-burning candle—and closing the door behind her—she began to climb.

And climb.

When she reached what looked like the back of another shelf, she knew where to trip the latch. It swung silently open onto a large, dark room.

The royal library, she soon saw in the dim candlelight.

It abutted the queen’s quarters, but fortunately didn’t adjoin them.

Or, on second thought, Samansa imagined the library likely did connect to her mother’s rooms with yet another short, secret passageway behind yet another hidden bookshelf, so the queen would have nigh-immediate access to this exit, too, in case of an emergency.

Her mother simply had one extra layer of protection, in case this escape route were ever to be used against them to get inside the castle.

Since such access from the queen’s quarters, if it existed, would be as secret as this route, that meant it was as unguarded as the opening Samansa emerged from.

Which left the library unlit and utterly silent.

Something rubbed across her ankle, making her jump back and choke on a shriek.