Page 5 of Lady Dragon
SAMANSA
Samansa managed to avoid the dragon girl for the rest of that first day, but was forced to undergo a more thorough tour of the castle grounds and the surrounding city with her on the morning of the second, before the tourney.
The blue marble and white stone walls gave way to cobbled streets meandering through tall houses, many of them painted blue to mimic the queen’s keep, at least in the wealthier neighborhoods housing the lords and ladies of the upper classes and even some members of the wealthier merchant class.
The dragon girl stared out of the armored carriage with cold, steely eyes, taking in the greenery of the hills beyond the city—which was perched upon the highest of them—arranged in natural formations resembling haystacks.
Verdant haystacks, fuzzy with so many trees they looked covered in moss from this distance, with mist drifting between them like a stream around rocks.
“Everything is so soft, so green,” Kirek muttered, which Samansa took as yet another insult, but one not directed at her—if at her queendom—so she didn’t deign to respond.
Otherwise, the two girls—well, one of whom was a dragon—hardly spoke, only when Kirek asked Samansa to clarify an occasional point as they sat awkwardly alongside each other on the carriage bench across from Jamsens and a scholar from the university her mother had assigned to the task.
The princess wished there had been room for Dara, because then there would have been at least polite conversation or even laughter between them.
Kirek held herself as rigidly as a board, and Samansa tried not to look at her.
Despite the stream of information flowing from their much more qualified guide, Samansa and the dragon girl mostly seemed to be measuring each other, based on the weight of the tension between them.
One of the only other times Kirek spoke, it was to Jamsens rather than Samansa.
“Shouldn’t you be training for this tourney ?
” She said the word the same as she had luncheon , as if referring to an unfamiliar and perhaps absurd custom.
“Prince Branon should be, unless you’re both overly confident of your skills? ”
Samansa swallowed a grimace. The dragon girl wouldn’t know she was poking near a sore subject.
“Protecting the princess is my foremost duty,” Jamsens said.
“Even if it keeps me from flaunting my skills in battle.” He might as well have been speaking to Branon—he sounded as tightly angry as if he were.
It was an argument they’d had more than a few times.
The prince had never approved of Jamsens’s devotion to the princess over military ambition.
“But you do intend to compete?” Kirek continued to prod. “If you need to be relieved of your duty while you do, I can watch the princess’s back, since she’s not competing.”
Samansa felt heat creeping up her neck. “I don’t need watching , but in any case, of course Jamsens should compete.”
“I still need to earn your favor, do I?” Jamsens asked, his tone softening with his smile as he turned to Samansa .
Her flush only spread. “No, of course not. You have it already.”
Jamsens’s smile faded somewhat. “Nonetheless, I intend to compete.”
Kirek was watching them with those sharp eyes of hers, but Samansa remained committed in her refusal to look at her.
She hoped the dragon girl wasn’t as perceptive as she seemed.
It was either that, or that Kirek was as indelicate as a wild horse loosed in a glasshouse—or both—since she’d managed to bring up two sore subjects in the span of a brief conversation.
While Samansa appreciated the dedication her captain of the guard possessed, his devotion might be a little too much even for her. And her favor, as it currently stood, not enough for him.
Not that she was certain of Jamsens’s feelings. And the dragon girl didn’t understand the first thing about the situation, either, no matter how knowing her shining eyes seemed to be for the rest of the ride.
The tourney was held in a small arena within the castle grounds and not open to the public, for which Samansa was grateful, even if it wasn’t done out of consideration for her shyness.
It was Kirek’s first appearance before anyone but the royal family and their attendants, and so it was kept small for her sake—more of a private pageant than an actual competition, in truth.
Which the dragon girl was, of course, quick to remark upon.
“The weapons aren’t even sharp?” Kirek asked, her silver eyes squinting as two nobles’ sons were the first to square off in the arena below, raising their blades before each other after bowing to the queen and princess .
“Of course not,” Samansa said, her pique turning to confusion. “But how could you tell?”
“Then what’s the point?” Kirek demanded, ignoring the question and gesturing to where the two of them sat next to each other in the stands upon cushioned wooden chairs under a silk awning to shield them from the sun, the posts twined with vines and flowers.
Fortunately, the queen was seated well behind them, out of ear—and accidental weapon—shot, while Samansa and Kirek presided over the event, their chairs positioned like a pair of thrones—making the two of them like a pair of queens , which was a strange thought—at the forefront of the stands without even Dara or anyone else at their sides and only the railing before them.
The competition was in honor of the dragon girl, even if the prize was Samansa’s favor, so their prominence was intentional—not to mention their proximity.
They were supposed to be strengthening diplomatic ties, after all.
Kirek no doubt thought the decorations and positioning were as pointless as the rest of it—especially the princess’s favor—though Samansa thought their awning’s blossoms were lovely, especially the soft petals scattered over the platform all around them.
So much for trying to impress the dragon. Samansa was already doing a dismal job of it, and it seemed humanity was, in general.
“The point is to put their fighting skills on display for us without mortally wounding valuable members of the nobility,” the princess said, feeling her jaw tighten in exasperation.
“In my realm, when one puts their fighting skills on display, it usually results in the death of another,” Kirek said with unmistakable smugness, “which means the loser wasn’t a terribly valuable member of our society to begin with.
It’s a mercy, really. To have to survive defeat with one’s pride so wounded would be worse than death. ”
Of course that would be how tourneys would go in the draconic realm—if they even had tourneys and not simply death matches—with their succession working the brutal way it did.
The dragon girl tossed her head dismissively at the proceedings. “Anyway, if this tourney is supposedly in my honor, shouldn’t the prize be my favor?”
“Perhaps the fear was that you, in your vastly superior judgment, would withhold your esteemed favor entirely.” Samansa winced as soon as she spoke, silently cursing her apparent inability to be diplomatic whatsoever, but Kirek only shrugged, oblivious to the princess’s sarcasm.
“Perhaps I would withhold it.”
The first bout ended without a drop of blood spilled or even a bruise, making Kirek scoff as the victorious noble’s son gave Samansa a lingering look with his bow.
The princess ignored it, feeling an itch along her skin that had nothing to do with the weight of her dress under the sun-bright air.
Two matches later, Samansa could almost have kissed Tordall, the grizzled commander of her mother’s forces and Jamsens’s father, for winning two bouts in a row and knocking any hope for the princess’s favor out of the young noble’s son, after forcing him to yield both their second rounds.
While Tordall was now in the lead, he was old enough to be her grandfather, and the princess had no worry that he secretly desired her hand.
His son, however …
It was much harder to ignore the regard in Jamsens’s eyes as he stepped up next to compete.
He held her gaze as he pressed the hilt of his sword to his heart and bowed.
Samansa felt a dreaded flush rise in her cheeks before he turned to his opponent.
The man he faced—another noble’s son—raised his sword in return.
Samansa barely had time to signal the start of the bout before Jamsens was upon him.
Her captain of the guard fought with an intensity of focus that took the princess’s breath away, his flurry of blows shattering the air with metallic clangs and flashes.
The noble’s son didn’t stand a chance and was almost immediately forced to yield, down on his knees with Jamsens’s sword at his throat.
“Someone is eager to prove that his lack of practice didn’t soften him,” Kirek said with a smirk, “even if his blade is dull.” She glanced at the princess. “Is your favor so valuable?”
Since Samansa was supposed to be earning the dragon girl’s favor, dissembling as she usually would have wouldn’t serve her. So she forced herself to say, “Some might find it so.”
Kirek gave a dubious grunt and sat back in her seat, lounging with her legs spread, her narrow chin resting on her fist as she waited until the next match. She looked thoroughly bored before she realized it was Branon’s turn to compete. Then she sat up straighter.
Samansa didn’t like the bright interest in the dragon girl’s eyes as they traced Branon’s path into the center of the arena, even if she didn’t quite know why. Perhaps it was because Kirek expected more from the prince who’d just taken the field than she did the princess sitting next to her?
Samansa couldn’t imagine the dragon girl ever looking at her like that, after all.