Page 102 of The Dragon Queen Complete Series Collection
Chapter 101
"I’ve met him, Tanis,” a young woman said, gazing up at the golden dragon with a look that was well familiar to me. Her dress, her style of wearing her hair might have been centuries of years old, but that utterly besotted look? I knew it as well as I knew?—
The humans are coming in greater numbers, my queen , a dark red dragon said, dropping low in a form of courtly bow. We are concerned about ? —
The world seemed to open up before us, a great expanse of clouds and sky as far as the eye could see, the land and all its inhabitants tiny below. This was celebrated with a great whoop, the girl on my back throwing her arms in the air, completely trusting?—
Descending at a great height, the wind itself tearing at our scales as if it could take the flesh from our bones, but we did not pull up. We stooped like a raptor, letting gravity wrench us closer to the earth as our claws were held outstretched. We had our prey in sight and?—
“I am Melody,” the bedraggled woman said in a voice filled with awe as she stood on the beach, her arm outstretched to touch the flat expanse of the dragon’s head.
“Hold still, Mel,” a gruff voice said. “Draw your weapons, lads!”
“No, don’t!”
When Melody turned around, she saw with two sets of eyes: her own as she gazed at her brothers, her friends, her lovers, and then there was her view of things.
I am Tanis , the golden queen dragon said straight into the woman’s mind, the way she did to those of her own kind. Everything Tanis had been told when she was still in the egg had led her to expect that humans were unable to communicate in this way, yet… The queen felt something… strange, heady at the contact of the woman’s mind, even as she tried to follow the frantic race of the woman’s thoughts as adrenalin pumped through her. I am Tanis and you are ? —
Glimmer . The little voice was sharp and sure in all this swirling morass of memories. I am Glimmer.
I am Tanis and you are…?
Glimmer , came the reply again. Glimmer and… Glimmer and… The sounds kept swirling around and around in my head, making less and less sense with every minute I heard them, yet with each echo came a greater sense of urgency, the expectation clawing at me but to do what?
I am Tanis and you are…?
Glimmer. Glimmer and… Glimmer and ? —!
It was the command in her voice that had my mouth moving, whispering the words as I spoke them inside my mind.
Glimmer and… Pippin. The sound of my name was torn from me, wrenched away and into the swirling vortex I had been somehow thrust into. We are Glimmer and Pippin!
Suddenly the world went utterly quiet and I blinked, coming back to my own self, to the room. But what I returned to was in quite a different state than when I’d started. The room was the same, though it was cleaner, fresher, airier, scented with lavender from the dried bunches that had been scattered across the floor. She shifted in her great nest of dragonstones, her elegant forepaws crossed in front of her. She regarded the two of us with a gentle air, nodding as she watched us come back to ourselves.
To restore the balance, the queen must rise , she said, almost by way of greeting and Glimmer repeated the phrase back to her before the two of them looked at me.
Greetings and be welcome, Glimmer and Pippin , she said to the two of us. I’ve been waiting for you for some time. The task ahead will be difficult but necessary.
And you can tell us what we must do? Glimmer asked. I have seen… I have dreamed…
Peace, young dragon, all will be revealed in time, Tanis replied. Though perhaps not as swiftly nor as easily as you might wish. I could not risk leaving all of the information here for you to find, just in case Dragon Home was overrun . I saw so many versions of the future…
Not now , Glimmer replied. At least not yet, though perhaps soon.
Tanis nodded solemnly. The War of Two Queens was never properly resolved, ending in a lie rather than any real resolution. The truth will come out, all of it and like many revelations, it will hurt. How much so will come down to you two. Now, listen closely.
There is a reason why queens do not share the same territory. Tanis’ voice was rich and melodious as it felt like we flew over Nevermere, watching fields and forests, cities and small settlements pass by. Queens draw males closer without a thought, then bear the next generation of dragons. They are the future and that must be protected. But each queen contains a possible future within her, one that may change the world in small ways or major ones.
By keeping queens on their own territory, all of those possibilities are allowed to develop in isolation and it is only fate that will determine which reality leaves a mark on the world, not another queen’s claws.
Our view shifted then, to a dragon’s den, a great queen hunched over her eggs like a broody chicken. But it was no meat bird that stomped into her den. The intruder queen approached, jaws outstretched, fangs bared. The nesting queen hissed and thrust her wings out as far as they could go, but she was hampered by the enclosed space. This was not where she would fight her battles. No foreign queen was supposed to get this far, this close. She was supposed to be kept away by the nesting dragon’s males, but… The intruder seemed to know what sin she was committing, yet it did not stop her. She rushed forward, evading the nesting dragon’s snaps and snarls, because she was at an advantage. She cared nothing for the eggs that lay warm and cosy under their mother, soaking up the memories of their ancestors from the dragonstones.
No, worse.
When the nesting dragon’s foot slipped and crushed one of the eggs under her foot, the attacker stopped and crowed, because this was the intruder’s intent all along. Beat back the nesting dragon’s males and send them scattering or let them bleed out on the rocks, then crush all evidence of the nesting queen’s presence, both now and in the future. The nesting dragon’s foot slipped in the bloody amniotic fluid of her dead offspring and–
Do not make the mistake of assuming your human queens are any more civilised , Tanis told us and that’s when we saw her. Raina strolled into the dungeon like she was out for a walk on a sunny day. Thin fingers were gripping the bars of their cells, faces were pressed against them, then abruptly withdrawn when they caught sight of the queen, because in her hand she held a thin-bladed knife. A queen isn’t afraid of a bit of blood when she takes new territory.
But it was one face in particular that had my attention, or rather a few of them. Lance looked thin and drawn, shadows where there should never have been any in his face. And bloody Jenkins, the cheeky glint in his eyes completely gone and replaced with an expression of sheer horror. My screams started somewhere in a body I couldn’t feel, so they had nowhere to go.
We need to go. We need to save them! I shouted.
One does not attack a queen head on, not without some certainty, Tanis said, dragging us back to the warring queens inside the nest. Small bodies littered the ground now, crushed by the ambitions of the two queens, and I bit back a sob at the sight of one in particular. A little golden scrap of a thing, once destined to be queen, now no more than a meal for scavengers. Lest you become her next casualty.
Tanis probably had much more to show us, but I wrenched my consciousness free. As the world swam back into focus, I felt my guts lurch, and I was only able to stumble over to the corner of the room before all of my breakfast came flying out. Strong hands held me, stroked over my shoulders as I hacked for all I was worth. But while my men murmured comforting words, I didn’t hear them, for her voice echoed in my ears.
Everything you need to win The War of Two Queens has been stored in these eggs , Tanis had said, showing me a very familiar piece of carved dragonstone, because I’d awakened two of the stone eggs already. Blood for blood is always the way of queens , she had said. Find the stone eggs and give yours to unlock all of my secrets.
“Eggs…” I gasped out.
“Don’t worry about that,” Soren said. “We’ll find a way to clean the mess up.”
“No… stone eggs…”
“Like you showed us at the ruins?” Brom asked.
“The same as the one she touched at the ruin I took her to,” Flynn said. “Someone’s hidden them all over Nevermere I’m willing to bet and, if they’re important, we’ll need to find them before Raina does.”
But not yet. Cynane’s tone made clear she would not tolerate arguments. Glimmer is the dragon seer we have been waiting for. She needs training, practice in exploring her powers. She is the future of dragonkind, so she cannot be dragged willy-nilly across the country in search of clues.
“You won’t have a future to worry about if she doesn’t,” I groaned and Glimmer nodded her head as she stared at me. We had seen something that Cynane hadn’t, couldn’t. “We need those eggs to find out how to stop the war that’s coming.” I glanced up and met the queen dragon’s steely gaze. “Otherwise there won’t be a Dragon Home left to protect.”