Page 40 of The Dragon Queen #3

“Look after my dragon,” Brom said to me. “Please.” His hand went to my cheek. “I’d want you close if it was me that had a projectile sticking through my shoulder.”

“You know I would be,” I said with a nod, then pulled away as he and Draven moved. Under Obsidian’s neck I went.

It seemed ridiculous, to give such a huge animal a hug, and yet that’s what I did. It was the only thing I could think of to offer him some kind of comfort. I remembered my mother holding me as my father was forced to cut out a bee sting I’d earned being silly in the flower garden. She’d stroked my hair and murmured words of comfort as I felt the sharp cut and then the steady throb as the stinger was forced out. A low rattle in Obsidian’s throat told me how he was coping with this.

Not long, I told him. It won’t take long. Draven knows how to do this. Brom will lend him his strength. They’ll get this damn thing out of you and ? —

My stream of thoughts were cut off abruptly by the sound of Obsidian’s scream. It deafened me, echoing out through the forest as every bird within took flight. It was the sound of agony, of horror, of disbelief, and that had me holding on tighter as I felt agony explode in my shoulder .

Pippin!

Glimmer scrambled across Obsidian’s back, stopping when she came to the wound. A mess of bloodied flesh and black scales, it was a terrifying sight to see. I didn’t get long to dwell. The men tossed the now broken javelin haft aside, but when Draven went to jerk off his tunic and hold it against the wound, I was already there.

We will save him .

Glimmer had been gentle with me, I now realised. It was her will cracking like a whip across mine, forcing me to move. Jacket off, balled up and shoved against the wound, I pressed down hard, gritting my teeth as I felt how this just hurt him worse. Staunch the blood , I thought frantically. Stop it bleeding out. I threw that thought at Obsidian, trying to make him see. The dragon thrashed now, pain tearing at his control, something animal in him rising. One ready to tear what hurt him asunder.

“No, lad…!”

Brom spun around and threw himself forward, his hand landing on my arm, right as my spare hand slapped down on Obsidian’s neck.

I learned something . Glimmer’s voice was one of quiet confidence as the whole world seemed to stop still. When I healed you, I used too much of my own energy. It doesn’t have to be just mine . All pain, all confusion was driven out of me because it had to make way for the most perfect of golden light.

She filled us with light.

Glimmer…?

Our light , she informed me and that’s when I felt it.

I was joined to Obsidian, Darkspire, and Glimmer too, and Brom and Draven were connected to us. Each one of us fed energy into the injured dragon and as I watched wide eyed, my jacket fell away in time to see the flesh slowly knit together. Glimmer, Darkspire, they kept on singing, but Obsidian raised his head as well, his notes shaky and filled with a strange kind of sadness, right as my own lungs sucked in to join them.

I don’t know what I was doing, what we were, but Brom’s and Draven’s voices joined ours, and that’s when the magic happened. Not just healing Obsidian. The pain that Brom refused to recognise was also washed away, bruising and lacerations fading. It was a diffusing, broad, all-encompassing thing, this feeling. There was no room for pain, for discord within it. It went beyond us, skimming over the leaf litter, winding between the trees, brushing the minds of the tree cutters some miles away, their heads jerking up from their work in wonder. Beyond the forest, beyond the trees to them.

“Pippin…?”

I saw Ged look up, my eyes sucking in the familiar planes of his face, his wide-eyed look of wonder.

“Pippin?” Soren asked, striding over. “Where, lad? Where is our queen?”

Right here, I told him and his mouth fell open as he saw it all, everything he’d done, right as the final note of the song was sung. That’s when I fell back, forced to blink several times to see what was happening now.

Obsidian’s wings flapped open like a ship’s sail and his head jerked up as he roared out his response. He was better, more than better, filled with his queen’s power, right before he turned to Brom. My husband staggered closer, arms outstretched, and Obsidian nudged him, forcing him to wrap his arms around the big beast’s head lest he be shoved over.

“Lad… Lad…”

I knew why Brom stroked the planes of his dragon’s head. It was to persuade himself that his bondmate was whole, well again, though a chirrup from Glimmer soon put paid to that.

We must fight to retrieve the hatchlings, she chittered as she marched down his neck. We cannot do that if you allow yourself to be shot down by the traitor humans.

Obsidian’s head hung down as he received a lecture. Darkspire chuffed, the closest thing to a chuckle. That had my queen turning on him, squawking something at him, but I didn’t get a chance to find out what. The connection broke, right as another was reformed.

“You’ll never do that again.” Draven had his hands around the lapels of Brom’s jacket as he shoved him into Obsidian’s side. “ Never, you hear me? I can’t… see you like that again, pale and unconscious on the ground. I… can’t.”

Both of them were sucking in breaths, faster and faster, but Brom broke the tension with a smile.

“Like the time you fell off the walls of the ruins around my family estate. You left me sobbing at your side for ten minutes before you came around, and you had a bump the size of an egg on your head for days. Then there was the time you raced your horse too fast through a forest and you were swept from the saddle by a low bough.”

“Gods, you remember every damn thing,” Draven said, shaking his head, ready to pull away, but Brom stopped him.

“I do.” There was some of the same tentativeness in his hand as he reached up. My breath felt like it stilled in my chest when Brom finally touched Draven. “I do, my prince, my king.”

“My love.”

That admission felt like it was torn from Draven’s chest. His eyes were wary as they stared into Brom’s. He expected to be slapped, pushed away. Instead, Brom nodded slowly, his head twisting sideways to bring his mouth right over the king’s.

“My love,” he replied, right before he kissed him.

Did it look like that when I kissed either one of them? My heart ached as I considered it, knowing the answer. No, there was no softness in either of them, and so there was none in their kiss. Hard and hungry, it was almost a fight rather than a confirmation of their love. I went to step back, sure they’d need some time, when two hands shot out and latched around my wrists.

“And where the hell do you think you’re going?”

Some of the old prince was there in Draven’s feline purr and Brom snorted in response.

“Always greedy.” Then he turned and faced me. “Though this time I see why.” They separated, putting me in between them and then going right back to what they were doing. One claimed my mouth, then tilted my head back for the other to do the same, after which I was treated to a very close up view of them kissing. “This is where a queen belongs,” Brom informed me before nodding to the dragons. Obsidian and Darkspire were curled up side by side like cats and in the dip between their bodies, Glimmer was nestled. “Even the dragons know.”

“So that’s where you got to.”

Ged slid out of the saddle as soon as Cloudy’s claws hit the ground. His dragon wandered over to the other three, his nostrils working as he sniffed them all over, trying to gather clues about what had happened.

“Commander!” Soren rushed over, taking the lot of us in. “Obsidian was hit? Reports?—”

“Of my demise are greatly exaggerated,” Brom replied with a smile, pulling away, but keeping his arm around my shoulder. “Now, tell me, what happened to Castle Fast?”

“Not much to tell,” Ged drawled, plucking an apple from his tunic and biting deep into it. “There’s a crater where the town existed.”

That was the moment when the remnants of the golden light faded, leaving me cold and empty as I remembered what Draven had done.

“Tell me,” I demanded. “Tell me what you saw, Ged.”