Page 4 of Lady Dragon

Only Jamsens stood behind Samansa, and the queen’s own silver-haired guard behind her, with servants waiting at the ready with pitchers of wine and covered platters behind them.

Kirek had plenty of space, but the room still felt too small.

Perhaps that was her own shape and size, pressing in on her with its cramped, if pliant, boundaries.

Even the meal she felt compelled to eat seemed like a constraint, despite consisting of the type of food she preferred: a slab of raw, bloody meat.

It seemed to stick in her narrow throat no matter how she cut it or chewed with her dull teeth .

Perhaps another reason for the lack of guests was the uncertainty around Kirek’s choice of food.

Everyone tried to hide their aversion, but Kirek saw it in the servant’s face as they set her plate before her, and in the queen’s as she began to eat.

She’d even noted it in the princess’s expression back in the reception hall at the mere mention of the dragon’s preferences.

Now Samansa looked ashen as Kirek sliced into her meat inexpertly but effectively with her knife and speared pieces of the raw flesh into her mouth.

She chewed as hard and fast as the meat required and her dull teeth allowed.

She stared at Samansa as she did so. The girl flushed pink and refocused on her own plate that held some kind of bland-looking vegetables drizzled in a garish yellow sauce.

A meal didn’t need sauce when it had blood. Humans seemed to cook all moisture and flavor out of their food before adding it back as an adulterated dressing. An echo of their clothing, their architecture. Excessive, watered-down imitations.

A percussive laugh more like a bark drew Kirek’s attention to Prince Branon. “You eat like a starving soldier in a barracks,” he said.

Kirek couldn’t tell if he was mocking or appreciative. She was about to demand an explanation when Samansa turned on him and snapped, “Don’t be rude.”

The dragon girl blinked at her. The princess, defending her ? It was laughable to think Kirek needed her protection, even here in this human stronghold. And yet, despite Samansa’s smaller stature and age, her voice was commanding. Kirek eyed her with new respect.

Prince Branon sat back, seemingly put in his place.

But there was faint color high on his pale cheeks that hinted at shame.

Maybe even anger, though Kirek didn’t understand these human signals quite yet.

Oddly, his voice came out jovial, his lips smiling even if his eyes weren’t, as he nodded at Kirek.

“That is to say, you eat more as I’m accustomed to, unlike those held behind the safety of these walls. Luxury affords decorum. Excuse me, it was a compliment to your martial efficiency.”

That , Kirek could appreciate. “You’re excused,” she said.

Samansa’s jaw tightened again. Interestingly, this time the queen’s did, too. Because the prince was somehow still insulting Kirek, or was he actually complimenting her in a way the women didn’t like?

Kirek wouldn’t pretend to love these walls, even if it meant agreeing with a man. And maybe in doing so, she would find the cracks in the stone.

“Are only the men here so efficiently martial ?” she asked, setting down her knife. “I see you carry a sword and desire neither the protection of a guard behind you nor high walls. Indeed, we dragons prefer to fight our own battles in the open. Especially our queens and their chosen heirs.”

“It’s merely a precaution,” the princess began. “I assure you—”

“That you can fight?” Kirek asked flatly, raising her brow at Samansa to convey maximum doubt.

“It seems as though you take for deep truth what you ascertain at a shallow glance,” the princess said, coldly enough to make Kirek’s pulse quicken.

Would she see more of the princess’s teeth so soon?

“Samansa,” the queen said, low. Warningly.

“Perhaps the daughter heir will show us her fighting skills during the tourney to be held tomorrow in the dragon’s honor,” Branon said, raising his cup to Samansa as he emphasized her other title—the more critical one.

“Prove to the dragon that her strength is a match for a man’s.

Or even a match for mine?” His smirk said that he doubted such a possibility even more than the dragon girl had.

Inexplicably, Kirek felt the spikes that she didn’t currently have around her neck trying to rise.

The princess blanched and sat back in her seat, suddenly fumbling with her napkin. “I couldn’t… I’m not—I don’t think that would be entirely appropriate,” she stammered, disarmed of any steel she once had in the face of her brother.

Kirek tasted disappointment on the back of her tongue. The princess needed to continue to put the prince in his place, or else she was in a precarious position indeed, without even taking the dragons into consideration.

“No, it wouldn’t be appropriate, since while the tourney tomorrow will be held in honor of Kirek’s arrival, the reward for the winner will be my daughter’s favor,” the queen said smoothly, though the dragon girl knew it was to cover the princess’s faltering.

“She can’t exactly compete for her own favor, now, can she?

” The queen leaned over and said in a conspiratorially loud whisper to Samansa, “And maybe she’ll favor one of the contenders enough to consider courting. ”

“ Mother ,” the princess hissed in obvious embarrassment, while the prince ignored the queen’s aside entirely.

“What is more important than one’s own estimation of themselves?” Branon asked lightly, but his glance at his sister was cutting.

Kirek couldn’t help a nod in grudging agreement .

“My dear sister has always seemed to lack in that particular arena,” the prince continued, “but—”

“Let me guess,” Kirek interrupted. “You do not.”

“No, indeed,” Samansa muttered under her breath.

Prince Branon didn’t look the princess’s way, only cocked his head at Kirek. “Dragons seem to me more alike in temperament to men, by the sounds of it. If so, why did dragons grant women the throne, then, all those years ago?”

“Branon,” the queen said, her tone even lower than it had been for Samansa. “This is not a fit discussion.”

The princess leaned away from her brother, looking decidedly uncomfortable. Because she feared the burn zone of her mother’s wrath turned upon him like dragon fire?

Or because she feared him ?

The former would be understandable. The latter, inexcusable.

Even studying the princess as Kirek was, it didn’t escape her notice that Jamsens’s hand tightened on the hilt of his sword behind Samansa, his eyes on the prince. The air was suddenly so thick that Kirek could have cut and chewed on it like her meat.

While it would have been interesting to watch this conflict play out, she wasn’t here to make an alliance with the prince, in particular.

She wasn’t even here to maintain her alliance with the princess , if this was all the girl had to offer of strength. And yet, for some reason, Kirek preferred even her company to his.

“I doubt very much that we are alike,” the dragon girl said to him, holding his gaze levelly.

“But you can’t say you are like our women, either, can you?” he persisted. “So what was your reasoning for your decision those three hundred years ago?”

The queen had told him not to discuss this. Kirek found his lack of respect distasteful.

She shrugged as casually as she could manage.

“I wasn’t there. But as far as I understand it, we wanted peace, and men weren’t willing to give it to us.

After our honored queen, Nakor, killed your last king and died, herself, in the process, the remaining human queen was willing to negotiate.

And so we were willing to support her claim to the throne—and to help keep women upon it.

” She let her lips twitch in the barest hint of disdain for Branon. “Surely you know that much.”

Did she imagine it, or did Samansa’s lips twitch in response?

“But not all men are driven toward conflict.” The prince raised his hands in a show of being unarmed, even though he wasn’t. “Many would be willing to maintain the peace with dragons.”

“What are you suggesting was the reason, then, since you seem to know it better than anyone?” Kirek asked.

Both the queen and the princess were frozen, not even appearing to breathe.

The prince laughed, breaking the tension. “I don’t know! Which is why I’m asking you. We have many theories, but no one has been able to question a dragon in a long time. Your Queen Mother was the last one to visit, and that was not only before I was born, but before my own queen mother was.”

“Were humans not so curious then?”

He shrugged. “Perhaps only frightened. I hear your mother has a fearsome disposition.”

Kirek nodded, accepting the compliment on her mother’s behalf. “And you do not find me frightening? ”

He was a fool, if he didn’t.

“I don’t scare easily. And I should hope there should be no cause for any of us to fear you. We all want the same thing!” He held up his hands again. “Peace.”

He wanted peace with the dragons. As a man, not just through the treaty between dragons and human queens. Kirek didn’t have to be well-versed in human communication to understand it.

Saliva flooded her mouth. She pressed her lips together to keep them from quivering. She wanted to sink her teeth into him, like she would into one of her own kin if they grew bold enough to challenge her.

The queen should have culled him in the womb.

But why should Kirek care, especially if the princess was so soft she couldn’t defend herself against the obvious threat her brother posed?

Despite risking the treaty between women and dragons, his schemes shouldn’t have mattered to Kirek unless they were a weakness to exploit. Or a strength to be wary of.

If he tried to take the throne from his sister or even his mother, would that be an advantage or a disadvantage for the dragons?

It was something worth pondering, not killing a man over. Not yet, anyway.

But she didn’t want to give the prince any ideas by appearing favorable to the proposition of peace with him before she knew either the risk or benefit it posed.

Besides, Samansa had come to her defense earlier, however feebly.

Perhaps Kirek owed her in return. That would explain the dragon girl’s strong reaction to his threats—born of honor, not of any misguided sense of protectiveness for the princess .

Kirek said coldly, “And that is why I, the future queen of my realm, am here—to find common ground with the future queen of this realm.” Or at least that was what she wanted them all to think.

She nodded brusquely at Samansa and caught the relief that flooded the girl’s face.

Kirek thought it fortunate for her that her brother wasn’t seated across from her to see it.

To be so relieved meant you were worried in the first place.

Worry showed your lack of confidence. Your weakness.

Confidence, this prince had in abundance. He only smiled and raised his glass to Kirek, glancing at his mother and sister. “A toast to your success, then.”

Kirek had refused wine earlier, so her cup was empty. As a servant hurried to fill it, Kirek waved her off without breaking eye contact with the prince. She speared a slice of bloody meat on her knife, raised it to him in return, and bit into it.

No one looked terribly comfortable after that. Which was exactly how Kirek preferred it.