Page 42 of The Dragon Queen #3
“My king…” Lord Fast was covered in dirt and blood and he looked like the chair he was sitting in was the only thing keeping him upright. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t rise.”
“The intricacies of court protocol don’t really interest me, Fast,” Draven snapped, moving over to a table that had been set up, bottles of wine and glasses produced from gods knew where. The sight of them felt like a slap to the face after what I’d just seen. Draven poured himself a glass and then offered one to the lord, but he shook his head. I stared down at his hands and saw that they were swollen and bloodied, no doubt unable to hold something like a wine glass stem. “Your attack on my dragons does.”
“Didn’t do much, did it?” The man coughed, and I noted the blood there. I was up and out of my seat, but Fast waved me away. Painfully slowly, a kerchief was produced from his jerkin and he mopped at his mouth, the dirt and blood ruining the white square. “I told him that.”
“My uncle?”
Draven’s glass hovered in the air. He turned and then forced himself to sit down, then glanced at me, making clear I needed to do the same. This seemed like some awful foreshadowing of what was to come. While I had been hauled in front of Raina and King Magnus to be inspected, others would be forced to do the same. Fast nodded to me, the best approximation of a bow he could muster right now.
“My queen.” Then he turned back to Draven. “Yes, your uncle. Ugly thing, a war between families. Told him as much when he came, flying in with a phalanx of his pet riders and their dragons.” He shook his head slowly, and I felt like I could see a shadow of the man who dared to contradict his duke. “I had no interest in getting involved in a fight between dragons. We’d shift our alliance, change the border so we became part of Tharfield or Cantlyn. Of course, that’s when his men swarmed in, took my wife, my daughters away.”
“He…” That had escaped me before I had time to think. My brows creased as I tried to piece together what the lord was saying. “He took your loved ones as hostages?”
“A trade, that’s what he told me it was.” Lord Fast grinned and I could see the red blood staining his teeth. “He’d give me some war machines shipped up the river and to my door. Some soldiers and some dragons to protect my castle.” The smile faded. “My people. I could either launch an attack on you the moment dragons were sighted or…” His eyes glittered as they met mine. “Or he’d give my womenfolk to his men as playthings. Let them do as they willed with each of the girls and my wife, then toss what remained in a ravine.”
His hand clawed at his jerkin, yanking it down to reveal a wound on his shoulder that was too neat to have come from the bomb blast.
“Put his sword to my throat when I went to protest. Those riders of his used their dragons to ensure everyone was compliant. The one he left was a dull-eyed thing, obviously no good in any fight. I…”
His throat worked, and I was up and grabbing a glass of wine, putting it to his lips to help him continue. Fast took several greedy swallows and then stared up at me, nodding in thanks.
“I didn’t want my girls hurt.” He grabbed at my hand, clutching at it despite his injuries. “My daughters are still young. They don’t know what men are capable of. I made damn sure of that, protecting them, protecting all women in my castle. Any woman that reported a man’s unwelcome attention would have my soldiers visit the lad, making clear his mistake. I wouldn’t stand for it, you understand.”
“That’s why the duke took your family members hostage.” My head felt hollow and full of pain all at the same time. “To ensure your compliance. He knew he had no other means to guarantee it. Where did the duke say he was taking them?”
“To his ducal seat.” The man started coughing, the fit wracking his whole body and more bright red blood stained his kerchief. “Said they’d be treated like honoured guests, but I know that bastard.” His eyes flicked up to meet Draven’s. “No offence, Majesty, but your mother’s family are vipers.”
“No offence taken,” Draven replied. “My mother was the worst of them all, but now she’s dead, my uncle has claimed that title. Fast, we will get your girls back, but right now you need medical attention.”
“Bit late for that.”
The lord’s reveal came slowly, his hands not obeying him well. The tunic was hiked up, and we saw then what we had missed. My breath was sucked in sharply as I saw white bone piercing his skin over and over.
Glimmer, can we heal him?
Not so soon after healing Obsidian.
I could hear the exhaustion in her tone.
But you used the rest of us to help bolster your energy levels. There’s riders everywhere here. We could ? —
I cannot fix what is wrong with him. She told me this plainly, willing me to understand. There is too much. He seeks to protect his territory, his queens, like a good male does, but sometimes that means the male doesn’t survive. We honour his sacrifice.
No!
We respect what he has done. This is not our enemy and neither are the people outside . She seemed almost shamefaced now as her fury and mine had resulted in this very situation. You were right. They need to be healed, tended to with your human medicine ? —
“Find them.” Fast’s grip on my arm was surprisingly strong. “Please, find them. Don’t let that bastard…”
I covered his hand with mine, careful not to squeeze and hurt him, but I think the lord was beyond that now. His whole body started to shake, his breath coming in faster and faster.
“Don’t let that bastard hurt them, please.”
“I promise.”
My voice broke on the words because I knew. His fear, the reality that only a woman truly knew. That we were always at the mercy of men, needing to appeal to their good nature to ensure our survival.
“I’ll hold you to that…”
“Pippin—”
I heard the others begin to protest, move, but I couldn’t focus on anything other than Lord Fast. The slight grey in his hair, the wrinkles around his eyes, suddenly they were my own father’s, begging me for help.
“Majesty…” I let out a strangled sound, but it was drowned out by Fast’s voice. “Protect them…”
I’d seen dead people before, so that empty stare, the way the eyes lost all of their light, going almost opaque or cloudy, it was all too familiar. It had just never happened right before me. I’d woken up to the news my mother had died in the night, some small part of me feeling like that was somehow my fault. Father had died from an accident, his spirit gone from his limp body when I saw him. This time I was witness to the lord’s passing, seeing the way he fought to hold on, to ensure I did as I said, but he needn’t have bothered. I would’ve made sure that happened, no matter what he said.
“We need to find them.” Suddenly I was snapping out orders with ease. “We need to move out and search… The duke’s men couldn’t have taken them far, could they?”
“Not if they’re using the womenfolk as hostages to ensure compliance,” Soren growled. His dark look was everything I needed to see right now. “He’d have them stashed somewhere central between here and the other border lords’ garrisons. ”
“That way they could be produced easily to wring further concessions from their fathers, their husbands.”
Brom’s voice was dead flat, and suddenly I realised why. His mother, she was just as much a target as Lord Fast’s womenfolk were.
“This is the way you Harlstonians wage war?” Ged asked, looking askance at Draven, then Brom. “Gods above, but that’s dirty.”
“It’s not what we do—” Brom started to splutter.
“It’s what the people I share blood with do.” Draven stared at the now dead lord, a terrible sadness I’d never seen before in his eyes. “They killed my brother, my father, and countless others, for no other reason than greed. They found a way to skew the selection of the next queen to always be in their favour and that grab for power wasn’t enough. My mother supplanted Zafira’s true bondmate and then set about trying to take more power, then the throne itself. She and my uncle conspired to kill her own son when it became clear that Felix had discovered their plot and wanted nothing other than to stop them.” He shook his head. “What makes you think my uncle would care anything for some women?”
“But we do.” My voice sounded like the creaking of a rusty hinge. “We do. That’s our point of difference, otherwise…” I looked beyond the open door of the tent, the destruction we’d wrought framed perfectly there. “This is just a clash between two destructive powers and all of Nevermere will be crushed between you.”
The War Of Two Queens was taught for a reason, and it wasn’t just to explain how humans became the dominant force in our country. It outlined the fight between two powerful factions, each one with the capacity to destroy our island home. Every child was supposed to learn a lesson from that fight, but it appeared we were the only ones to be tested for our comprehension.
“My uncle is using hostages to motivate those lords he can’t persuade to fight,” Draven told the general and the other riders when we walked over. “He’s taken their womenfolk and I mean to find where. ”
“Female hostages?” Rex seemed to finally have a human reaction, the disgust plain on his face. “This is why the queen?—”
“Needs to lead the rescue effort?” He stepped forward with a grin, and I took a step closer before I thought the wiser of it. Flynn grinned and then continued. “A woman would be far better equipped to help others who’ve been mistreated by the very duke who was supposed to keep them safe.” His wink was a swift thing, looking like little more than a blink, so no one else would see it. “Sounds like a good plan to me. When do we fly out?”