Page 23 of Lady Dragon
But then Samansa saw the banner, lashing behind a galloping charger.
It didn’t bear the queen’s insignia, a silver dragon coiled around a golden crown on a field of blue.
This was red, bearing a brown shield wreathed in orange fire—her brother’s insignia, which subtly recalled King Wyleth’s flag of old, much to her mother’s distaste.
This wasn’t just a search party. It was also a hunting party.
A shout came close enough to pick out the words: “It’s her! Secure the princess!”
That’s something at least , Samansa thought hysterically. Of course, the average soldier wouldn’t know about her brother’s plot to murder her. She was still the daughter heir, and if she could only get back to the safety of the castle walls, speak to her mother, then she could explain—
Explain what ? Not even Samansa understood what had happened.
At least she could tell her mother what Kirek had told her: that Branon had tried to kill her.
He was probably behind all the assassination attempts—those made by human hands, at least—and he was trying to turn the dragons against the queendom so he could take the throne.
It didn’t help matters that he might have already succeeded, if the dragon queen had commanded Kirek to kill her.
But maybe whatever had just happened with Kirek was good —perhaps this bond between them would make the dragons reconsider neutrality or, skies forbid, any overt support for Branon.
As the dragon had said: It is the one thing that forces us to protect the vulnerable among us. The one thing that lets us trust in each other above all else.
Perhaps it was a desperate, far-fetched hope, but at least there was hope for peace yet. Samansa couldn’t worry about turning into a dragon for the time being. She just had to get home. She just had to escape Branon.
Because she had no doubt that her brother wouldn’t be bringing her home. He would likely see to it personally that she never made it, if only so no one else would know what he had done.
Which meant if Kirek were now aiding her instead of eating her, he might not want the dragon to leave here alive, either. It would certainly be easier to attack Kirek for supposedly abducting the daughter heir than it would be to attack Samansa herself .
All of this, she considered in a brief flash.
“Kirek, you should go,” Samansa choked out. “You can still escape.”
He wants you dead , Kirek snarled silently, hissing aloud and baring teeth as long as daggers. I’m not leaving you.
The princess stumbled closer to the dragon. “And I won’t be able to hold on to you if you try to fly with me, now that I know what I subjected you to with my flight.” She choked on a panicked laugh. “I’m not strong like you, and we don’t have a carriage for you to carry me in this time.”
Then remain still , the dragon commanded.
Samansa froze as Kirek raised one of her forelegs to gently enclose the princess in her claws like a cage—a terrifyingly pointy one.
Even more gently, the dragon tipped her off her feet to loosely clutch her above the ground as if testing her hold.
Samansa grasped one of the scaled toes with both arms, her breath coming faster.
The lengths of the claws were pressing into her backside uncomfortably—although thankfully not the sharp tips—lacking width enough to support her weight well.
And yet, any tighter, and the dragon would risk crushing her.
“Kirek, if I fall—” Samansa couldn’t help the note of panic in her voice.
Don’t fall.
The dragon started flapping her powerful wings, blowing up waves of pine needles with great gusts that stirred the trees around them.
Samansa’s stomach rolled, and her hands gripped even tighter to whatever they could.
Shouts, ever closer, followed them as they began to rise, the ground passing dizzily faster and farther beneath them.
“The dragon is taking her! ”
“Don’t let her fly—archers!”
“No—!” Samansa tried to cry, but then an arrow went whizzing by Kirek’s wing, followed by another, making her shriek, instead, and nearly lose her balance within the cradle of the dragon’s claws.
“Don’t hit the princess!” came another shout.
Her brother would only be too pleased to have such an unfortunate accident. But at least he still wasn’t giving the orders to shoot directly at her, consequences be damned.
Kirek stayed low, perhaps using the trees as cover, perhaps not wanting to get too high off the ground with Samansa so insecurely held. The princess was breathless, clinging on for dear life. Still, they were outdistancing the horses, even the archers, and Samansa thought they might make it—
Until a whirling slash came spinning through the air and caught Kirek’s wing.
A bola , the princess recognized with a gasp, not much used since the War of Fire.
The cord, stretched tight between two weights, pinioned the wing’s thin membrane, and the dragon suddenly spiraled out of control, narrowly missing a tree and tossing Samansa violently within the cage of her claws.
Holding on as tightly as she could, Samansa tried to see where they were going, and, with a sickening lurch, realized they were falling.
The last thing Samansa saw was the ground spinning quickly up to meet them.
When Samansa awoke, she was tied to a folding canvas chair in a hastily erected field tent.
Her hair, crusted in blood, hung in a rusty curtain over her face.
She straightened her neck slowly, painfully, until she could gently toss it out of her eyes.
The room swam around her. There were no torches or other furniture in the tent, only sunlight streaming through the cracks.
But it was enough, despite her watering, blurry vision and pounding headache, to make out a man standing in the tent with her—no, looming over her.
Branon. He looked taller than she remembered.
And far more intimidating, with his armor and weapons bristling.
It was easy to forget, in the palace, behind guards and especially Jamsens, how much of a threat he could be.
Especially now that there was nothing and no one else standing between the two of them.
She didn’t even have her cloak anymore, only her torn and stained yellow gown.
Her first impulse was to recoil, but she hissed at the pain in her head and neck. She’d obviously hit the ground hard. Hard enough to knock her completely unconscious.
Not that she could have moved much, otherwise. The ropes on her wrists and ankles were tight, binding her in place. Fear climbed up her throat.
“Kirek?” she croaked.
Branon raised a dark red brow. “And why on earth would you care about her? This whole… situation… has me rather confounded. She seems to care about you as well.” He scoffed in disbelief.
“Lords and ladies, what a fighter, your dragon, even with both wings pinned. We were only able to get a bola around the second wing because she was shielding you with it. We’re only still alive , frankly, because she was too wary of trampling or torching her precious cargo.
We had to use dragonsbane to finally subdue her. ”
Dragonsbane. Another weapon, so to speak, that hadn’t been much utilized since the War of Fire.
It was an herb that, when distilled into a potent oil and then burned, could disorient a dragon, even paralyze it, with its smoke.
Helpful, especially if your enemy was fond of setting everything in its path alight.
Samansa tried to wet her mouth. “Where is she?”
Kirek couldn’t be—no, Samansa wouldn’t let herself think it. She had to be alive.
“Outside, chained to iron stakes pounded the length of a man into the ground.” Branon tossed his head at the tent wall. “Her jaws are strapped, too, so she can’t bite and so the only fire she can breathe is at herself. Oddly, she doesn’t seem to be able to change shape. It must be the dragonsbane?”
So he mustn’t have known that the Heartstone had broken, or that a piece of it was now lodged in Samansa’s breast, where it was still throbbing deeply.
It only looked like a messy wound with the blood still caked around it, one he probably assumed she’d taken in her fall.
In the shadowed light of the tent, Branon would have to get much closer to her than he had in years to see the gleam of the red jewel within. That was probably for the better.
Both relief and panic were strong enough to make Samansa dizzy, but she forced both of them down with a swallow, and she tried to keep her voice from shaking when she said, “You come with bolas, dragonsbane, and chains fit to hold a dragon? You must have plumbed the ancient depths of the armory. Did you forget the Treaty?”
“Perhaps it should be forgotten.” He smirked at her, like he had often done as an older teenager to her as a child, and Samansa had the sudden urge to slap him.
“ Not everyone has forgotten how to use such weapons, and no one objected to bringing them, since the princess had seemingly been abducted by a dragon. Although,” he said, considering, “I had hoped they wouldn’t be necessary. ”
Samansa flexed her wrists in her bonds. “Because you thought the dragons would stand aside for this , or worse, be party to it?”
Branon smiled, and Samansa shuddered under her skin at the cold look in his eyes. He waved about, as if this were a sick game they were playing. “What is this, do you think?”
She tugged harder at her bindings. They didn’t give in the slightest. “I can guess. You didn’t expect to find me alive. What I don’t understand is why you haven’t already finished the job yourself.”
Branon shrugged broad shoulders. “My men got to you first, and confirmed that you lived despite your wounds. There wasn’t much else for me to do but erect a shelter for you until such point as you were sufficiently recovered to move.”