Page 1 of The Dragon Queen Complete Series Collection

Chapter 1

“Pig!”

My name wasn’t actually Pig.

To my father, I’d been Pip.

To my mother, I’d been Pippin.

To the town, I’d been Lady Pippa Wentworth.

And now?

“Oi, Pig!”

That was the only warning I got before the mud hit the side of my face. I blinked, freezing on the spot as the viscous, stinking clod splattered across my face, the main weight of it dropping to the ground between my feet. My eyes were still wide when I turned around, always a mistake. If I didn’t respond, didn’t acknowledge Arabella, these things often went better for me. Instead, I was treated to the sight of Mister George Kensington, my former childhood friend, handing his handkerchief over to my stepsister with a smirk, watching her clean her elegant fingers of any evidence of wrongdoing.

Not that anyone would ever call her to account for them.

Something both she and I seemed to acknowledge as we both glanced up and down the street. People either stopped and laughed, some extra malice in their smiles at the sight of me in such distress, or they scurried by, not wanting to draw the ire of the Lady Arabella down on themselves next. But no one dared say a thing as she marched over, stepping neatly around the puddles of mud left by the recent rains.

“What’re you doing walking the streets, Pig?”

This was a rhetorical question. It always was with Arabella. She’d never expressed an interest in anything I had to say since the moment she and her mother were brought to my family home, settling there when my father married her mother. Back then she’d forced herself to keep her smiles sweet and her comments suitably complimentary, but those days were long since gone. There was something of the sly look of Cook’s cat in her face right now, her vicious smile contrasting obscenely with her porcelain skin and perfectly curled, butter yellow hair. The only consolation was that she was forced to tilt her head up to meet my eyes as I towered over her.

“Well? Rolling around in the dirt, snuffling with the pigs, finally taken what little wits you possess?”

Her smile widened as her hands went to her waist. Yes, cat-like indeed. She was puffing herself up now, trying to make herself look bigger as she held her arms akimbo, but all I could do was silently wonder why. I didn’t look away, didn’t react in any way except to draw myself up to my full height, carrying myself with the erect carriage of a lady.

But what a ridiculous sight that must’ve made. I wore threadbare clothes that amounted to rags, not fine silks, and second hand men’s garb, not pretty frocks. Part of my hair was matted with mud, my fingers now itching to scratch at my scalp, at the greasy locks infested with lice, but I was used to suppressing my impulses around my stepsister.

“You’ve saved me some time, for once,” Arabella sneered, reaching into the dainty little reticule she carried, loosening the drawstrings and drawing out a neatly folded piece of paper before handing it to me.

I just stared at it for a second, unable to shake the feeling that, somehow, this was a trap. That something on that piece of paper would strip me of all I had left in the world. But that was ridiculous. The reality was that Arabella and her mother had achieved that already. When Father died, while I was mindless with grief, she and the senior Kensington, my father’s solicitor, had ridden roughshod all over Father’s will, ignoring what was there and rewriting it to suit themselves.

And to disinherit me.

So I reached out, watching her smile widen as she saw the ragged state of my nails, my fingers covered with grime. As I got closer, that smile faltered and she took a fastidious little step backwards, extending her entire arm to offer me the paper.

“I don’t know how you can bear to be downwind of the bitch,” George said, lifting his beautifully made calfskin gloves to his nose with a theatrical flair. “I don’t think any of us would’ve predicted that Pippa would’ve taken to the life of a swineherd with such… gusto.”

His unctuous tone rolled off me like water from a duck’s back. George wasn’t what was relevant here. I felt a brief thrill at the feel of paper under my fingers again, even as I blanched at the way my grimy fingertips marked the cheap newsprint. There, printed in bold block letters, was a notice that had been sent out to all of the realm.

“The dragon riders are coming?” I said, after I scanned the contents, my voice rusty with disuse.

“They’re on a queen search,” Arabella said, snatching the paper back, then looking at the state of it in distaste before letting it fall to the ground. “A queen egg has been laid and none of the ladies of the court can get it to hatch.”

We were citizens of Nevermere, an island blessed and cursed with the presence of dragons. The first humans had been required to pay them obeisance when our ancestors came here, thousands of years ago, and in that time our relationship had changed. We paid them court, fed them, cared for them and, in return, they kept the island safe from invaders.

And the queen rider? There were usually two queen dragons. One was ridden by the human queen of our country, the consort of our king, and the other was the queen-in-waiting.

“Zafira has birthed her queen egg,” Arabella said with a smug smile. “Usually that means the daughters of dukes and duchesses, of marquesses and viscounts, are presented before the egg to see if they can get it to hatch. None of them have managed to make it stir. Every single woman in the land, common-born or noble, is to present herself before the egg as the royal dragon riders make their way from one end of the isle to the other.”

Every girl of Nevermere was brought up on tales of dragon princesses. Dragons were the great equalisers because you could never tell who an egg would respond to. Spurred by some mystical force that resisted analysis, the daughters of the mighty and powerful had at times been passed over for the daughters of scullery maids and butchers. Fantasists mined this rich vein, creating the stories our mothers told us as we fought sleep, spinning tales of princesses that changed the world.

For a moment I felt a rush of hope, no matter how slender, something that burbled up despite the abuse I’d suffered. Of course, that’s what Arabella had been waiting for. I could see the golden egg in my mind, see my hand reaching out for it, the small scaled oval rocking in response to my presence. As Arabella watched my expression, her smile sharpened. Her head tilted to one side as she peered up at me, her eyes glittering.

“Every single woman but you, Pig.”

She made bold to touch me then, shoving a single finger into my breast bone, forcing me to stumble backwards in the mud, despite the fact I was taller and stronger than her. Arabella pressed her advantage, stalking forward, no longer caring that her skirts dragged in the muck.

“You won’t ruin this for me,” she said, “lurking in the halls, thinking some soft-eyed rider will take pity on poor Lady Pippa.” Her face screwed up then, becoming a truly ugly reflection of the person beneath that usually sweet facade. “If anyone from Deepacre is to become a queen rider, it will be me .”

She clicked her fingers, and the reason for George’s accompanying presence became clear. He strolled over to thrust a heavy hessian sack at me, snorting when it took me some time to respond. Did it contain a venomous serpent, a rabid fox or some other means to torment me? I didn’t know and I just eyed the bag until he shook it meaningfully.

“Take the supplies, you stupid bint,” George said. “Your mind can’t be completely gone.” He moved closer, close enough to shove the sack into my limp fingers and I grabbed it belatedly. “There’s enough in there to keep you for some weeks. You’ll have no need to visit the town in that time if you’re careful.” His eyes narrowed. “Be careful, Pig, or we’ll be forced to ‘be careful’ in your stead.”

The threat was opaque yet readily understood. The two of them had already shown they were prepared to do just about anything to make my life miserable thus far. I didn’t need further threats to ensure my compliance. So I nodded, stepping away from the two of them and hugging the bag to my chest.

“When will the riders arrive?” I asked.

“Tomorrow,” Arabella replied, her smile faltering slightly as her eyes widened, gleaming with avarice and ambition. “You’ll bring two of the largest hogs to the stock yard at the back of the estate at daybreak. That will give the butcher time to slaughter them…” Her grin returned when I flinched at the words. “And give Cook time to roast them in honour of the dragon riders’ arrival. The riders are due to arrive at noon, so you’ll be long gone by then. Don’t think to tarry, to try to sneak around and then put yourself in their way.”

I hadn’t thought anything of the sort. I might look like a slattern, but I was still my father’s daughter. The thought of pushing myself into a place where I wasn’t wanted was anathema to me, but as I watched Arabella talk, I realised she wasn’t predicting what I would do, but what she would have planned to do, if she was in my shoes. What had she and her blasted mother done but insinuated themselves into my father’s good books, building trust and affection, with him unaware of the serpents he nursed at his bosom? My hand moved then, grabbing at my hair in frustration, raking through the mud-caked strands before I snatched it away.

“Don’t come back to the village for two weeks, Pig,” she growled, all pretence of being a young lady gone. Now Arabella was a she-wolf, protecting her den. “If you’re seen…” She drew back then, somehow seeming to grow taller with all of the self-satisfaction that pulsed within her. “Well, let’s just say that any restraint Mother has urged us to use up till now will be exhausted. She’s given the men carte blanche to shoot you on sight.”

Would I want that? A quick end to what promised to be a long and painful life. If I was a heroine in a penny dreadful, I would’ve rather died than experience the indignities I’d been forced to endure thus far. Unfortunately, I was no heroine. Instead, a need burned inside my breast, one that was difficult to articulate. To live, to keep on breathing, to survive, because nothing irked Arabella and my stepmother more than my continued survival. While I breathed, I was a witness, however disreputable, to all of the many crimes my stepmother and the Kensingtons had committed against my father.

“Get two large hogs to the house at daybreak,” I replied. “Don’t come within ten feet of the estate for two weeks or risk being shot. Got it.”

“Well, well, looks like her mind isn’t completely rotted away,” George sneered. “All right, off you go then.”

I sketched a quick bow to each of them, not that they deserved it, but right now I couldn’t afford another petty conflict over whether or not they felt their dubious authority over me was being observed. There were much bigger fish to fry. I swung the sack over my shoulder and then walked through the tiny town of Deepacre and up the path on the side of the hill, the one that led to the cabin in the woods.

The din of humanity dropped away, the sounds of nature replacing it the further I went. When I reached the clearing where the hut stood, my charges all looked up from the huge pens that had been built around the house, their greedy eyes taking in with keen interest the sack I was carrying. I opened the hut door, laying the sack down on the battered wooden table inside before looking at its contents. I let out a small sound of disbelief at what I saw inside.

A loaf of white bread, as soft as a pillow, as well as a bag of finely ground flour for my own baking. A wheel of cheese, which had been the weight banging on my thigh as I walked back from the town, along with bags of lentils and some fresh picked root vegetables. But it was the little crock of butter, as yellow as the sun, that drew a tear from my eye.

Despite wanting to enjoy my haul, I still had a job to do. The pigs were growing more and more restive outside the hut, their squeals of protest grating on my ear. I grabbed the big blackthorn walking stick which the former pigherd, Old Bay, had shown me how to use. The pigs would’ve very much liked to demolish everything that was in that sack in one minute. But the walking stick got just as eager a response from them as soon as I walked out of the hut. They knew I would use it to knock the trunks of the oak trees, sending showers of acorns down onto the ground for them to feast upon.

“C’mon then,” I said to my charges, walking over to the gate and opening it up to the squealing chorus of the herd of swine.