Page 111 of The Dragon Queen Complete Series Collection

Chapter 110

The Gathering was over now, just the first step in the familiarisation process between the potential candidates and the embryonic dragons. There would be many more low-key events going forward where the candidates would come to sit beside the growing dragons and try and impress upon them before the beasts even cracked their shells.

“You’ll sit with us,” the duke said, gesturing to a long table in the mess that had been dressed up with a fancy tablecloth and even fancier serving ware.

“The corps doesn’t recognise birthplace or station,” Flynn replied smoothly, putting a ‘friendly’ hand on my shoulder and going to steer me away. “We riders sit together as a wing.”

“Of course.” The duke sketched a simple bow to me, which was odd as he far outranked me. “We’ll catch up tomorrow night for dinner as a family. Perhaps you could bring the lovely Pippin and Glimmer?”

“With my husband?” I asked, my question feeling like it hung in the air. “I, of course, would hate to reject your kind offer, but going to have dinner with a bunch of strange men without Brom wouldn’t be appropriate.”

“And here was I thinking you were a woman of the world, unconstrained by social mores,” the duke answered with a smile.

“No woman is unconstrained by social mores,” I replied before doing my best to curtsey in my cadet’s uniform. “Least of all me. Now if you’ll excuse me?”

Do humans ever just say what they think? Glimmer asked me as we walked away. This must be what comes from not being able to link minds and share your thoughts. You all pretend you feel one thing when in truth it’s the opposite.

So dragons don’t lie? I asked.

Not to themselves, no. Now, do they have properly prepared meat at this gathering? I am quite hungry and haven’t had a bite to eat for hours.

“Well done.” Flynn smirked when he rushed over to walk by my side, evidently having escaped his father’s clutches. “It’s hard to dissuade my father of anything when he’s got the bit between his teeth, but…”

“But?”

Glimmer and I glanced up at Flynn as we wove between the tables, too many riders looking up with smiles for me and my dragon as we passed. Some even called out something but Flynn waved them all off.

“But you might like to attend anyway. My father has a plan.”

“I don’t doubt he does. One that involves civil war?”

“Only on every day that ends with a y,” Flynn replied. “It’s something I’ve done my best to distance myself from, but now…”

“Now the whole country might fall to ruin if we don’t sound him out.” I glanced at him very briefly, not daring to do more in front of an audience. “Can we get him to extend the invitation to the other dukes and include Brom?”

“A Harlstonian? The horror!”

“Flynn—”

He smirked at me, nodding to the others as we pulled up beside the table where the rest of our wing sat. While each man gazed up at me, welcomes on their lips, I schooled my face to smoothness and sat down beside Brom, trying to look every inch of a dutiful wife.

“And what have you been up to, my love?” Brom asked me, his voice buzzing in my ear as his lips brushed the shell of it. I shivered and then looked up at him, momentarily stilled by those last two words.

“Love?”

He smiled slightly at that, then reached over and traced his fingers down the side of my face, able to put on just the kind of display in front of everyone that Flynn had referenced.

But which none of the others could.

When I looked back at the rest of the table, I saw the hungry way each of my men watched this small caress, and I flushed.

“The Duke of Skane wants to have me join him for dinner. I made clear you’d need to come with me.”

“All of us should attend,” Flynn corrected. “You’d come as my guests and it’d give Father the kind of cover he wants. He doesn’t want to declare his hand yet, I’m sure.”

“What hand?” Soren growled.

“The usual. One where a Skanian queen sits on the throne but…” Flynn stared at the two of us for a long moment. “I’m not sure if he cares much who she’s married to. Perhaps he could come at the idea of four consorts like queens of yore.”

“Five.”

As soon as I said the word, I winced, but Brom reached down and squeezed my hand.

“Five,” Flynn said with a nod of his head. “Or whatever bloody seditious scenario he’s bandying around. We should attend to find out.”

“Politics,” Ged groaned, then grabbed a tall bottle of beer and poured himself a glass. “I hope they’ll have something good to drink on the table at this hoity toity dinner.”

“It won’t matter,” Brom said. “We’ll need to keep our heads about us. I’ll need to convince the dukes I’m one of the few of my countrymen who’s not intent on maintaining a stranglehold on the throne, but…”

“We have to know what’s planned,” Flynn said with a serious look. “If only to formulate a response to it.”

“Agreed. The general doesn’t want another Harlstonian girl bonding with the queen egg,” Brom told the others, because I’d overheard that discussion. “He understands how precarious the balance of power is currently.”

“Which makes you wonder why the queen would push this.” Soren turned around, ostensibly gazing out onto the mess, his eyes skimming across each table until he came to the one up on a dais, the king, queen and Draven all seated there, along with the Duke of Harlston. “Harlston and the queen aren’t idiots. They have to know that another Harlston girl claiming a queen egg can’t be put down as coincidence.”

His focus shifted to Beatrice, who smiled prettily as she shared a private conversation with Draven.

“No one duchy could be that lucky.”

“The queen has plans, certainly,” Brom said, ostensibly cutting into the meat on his plate, but that didn’t hold his focus. “And we need to ascertain what they are. Her attempts on Pippin’s life aren’t likely to lessen now we’re back and then there’s the lads.”

“They aren’t in the castle anymore,” I said.

Glimmer clambered up my leg and onto the table, shooting me a baleful look when she saw all the meat was cooked, but helping herself to a platter of sliced meat, nonetheless. Under the guise of peering at her, all my men leaned in so I could explain.

“The bitch moved them as soon as Draven returned,” Ged growled, eyeing the tables next to us, as if they were spies seeking to overhear what was said. “She’s one step ahead of us.”

“But moving the lads is also dangerous. They can’t be anywhere in the castle, otherwise Draven would discover them,” Soren said and we all fell silent, each of us wanting to believe his words, even if we weren’t sure we could. “And moving them somewhere else means potential witnesses.” He scanned the whole table then. “Witnesses we need to find.”

“So attend a dinner with three of the four most powerful men in the fucking country to find out what seditious shit they think they’re going to pull, but before that, find whoever the hell saw four young lads get transported from the dungeons to gods knows where in this cesspit of a city?” Ged looked up at me as he stabbed his fork into some potatoes, transporting them to his plate. “Can we go back to Dragon Home? It was a lot nicer and had less people proposing bloody revolution.”

“We can’t be lolling around in luxury while cadets suffer in some hell hole,” Soren grumbled, a real note of command rising in his voice. “We find those boys, then secure the realm, make sure there’s something for them to live for.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Ged said, holding out a tankard.