Page 130 of The Dragon Queen Complete Series Collection

Chapter 129

“If you’re here to give me some kind of stirring talk about being a queen, save it,” I snapped.

Marcus’ eyebrows shot up.

“I would never,” he told me. “Don’t like queens much myself. Never had much time for any sort of royalty. Seems like a singularly stupid way of running a country, if you ask me.”

“I didn’t,” I bit off, then was forced to wipe at my nose with the back of my hand as more blood dripped free.

“Here.” He handed me a clean, if well darned, handkerchief. “Don’t like to see a lass bleeding either. Honestly, I think this country would benefit from one hundred percent less queens,” he said, as I wiped my nose.

“More seditious talk from men who seem intent on holding clandestine meetings with me,” I said, pacing back and forth as I tried to stop my nose bleeding. “What a surprise. So let me guess, you have a cunning plan to take down the government, stop war and, somehow, I’m a key part of it.”

He grinned at that, my blunt sarcasm seeming to put the two of us on even footing. I’d also just revealed some of what was going on in the keep. Damn.

“Is that what these stuffed shirts have in the works? Interesting. No, I’ve come here with news.”

“Of Lance and the others?” My hand fell away from my nose, but he just shrugged.

“The lads are fine. Jenkins is awake and taking food. They tried to cave the lad’s head in by the looks of it.” I choked on my breath then. “That’s the trouble with assigning complex tasks to minions. The sort of thick-headed lunk that would hurt a kid on the queen’s orders is also the kind that would happily… elaborate on those orders and beat the poor little bastard within an inch of his life.”

“So return him to us,” I said, everything else that had been worrying me pushed to one side. “Our healers can help him and we can protect him from the queen.”

“Like you did so well before?” The smile was gone, that green eye gone hard as an emerald as he stared at me. “No, those lads will stop with me until I can be sure they’ll stay safe. Because you lot don’t even know them, outside of whatever cadet bullshit bonding you’ve done. But me? I saw those boys grow up from squalling babies.”

He stepped closer then, but it wasn’t because he was drawn to me or because he wanted to strike out. His gaze hardened and drilled into mine, demanding my attention.

“Like something from a fairy-tale, wasn’t it? When those lads bonded with their dragons. They tell stories of that kind of thing enough down by the docklands for young lads like Lance, Jenkins, even Harley and Billy Boy…”

He smirked at that.

“You didn’t know the others’ names, did you? Those lads you feel belong here. Them that runs this place don’t either, I’ll wager. All commonborn lads they are, pulled in to serve His Majesty, to ride bloody beautiful creatures at his behest. Use them to enforce the law in the land and… his will. The will of anyone who climbs to the top of that rat heap they’ve got running in the palace.”

He stepped in close enough that I had to tilt my head back, forcing my hand to press the kerchief more to my nose.

“Lance’s dad is a fine swordsman. I’ve used him quite a few times, paid him pretty coin to keep a shipment safe or a street corner clear. Then, when his skill built, to infiltrate the homes of the fine lords that paid him for his blade. Before Lance bonded with his dragon, his dad thought his son would be one after him, take over the family business, so to speak. Billy Boy’s mother runs the soup kitchen for one of the poorhouses because his father did his back in, working too hard and long on the docks, hauling freight. His boss kicked him to one side like last night’s trash when Billy’s dad couldn’t work, not even a severance payment to tide him over. Jenkins?—”

“They all have lives, left them behind to become riders. I understand,” I said. “And? We all left something behind to come here.”

“But it doesn’t stay in the past, does it?”

The tilt of Marcus’ head, the hypnotic nature of his gaze, and the way he inched forward, combined to have me drawing back, feeling cornered and ready to run again.

“The queen didn’t dare squirrel a grown man away. Not the Duke of bloody Skane’s son, when she has far more reason to want to torment him than any. Skane and Harlston have been caught in a deadlock for primacy for years. No, the queen sought victims, not hostages, ones she could do as she liked with and none would say nay to her. Except for me.”

“So what?—?”

“I sent your lover boy running all along the docklands today,” Marcus told me, stopping a mere hand’s breadth away. “I had lads feeding this titbit and that, just enough to keep him scurrying.”

“But why?—?”

“Because those lads will stay with me, right up until the point I can be assured of their safety with you lot. I’d steal their dragons away and put them with the boys if I dared.” My eyes widened. “But they are bloody difficult things to hide.” His lips quirked at the corner. “Not like people.”

“So what will it take for you to return the boys?” I asked, pushing aside all of my concerns, feeling like I was this close to bringing them back to us.

“The queen, dead. I don’t need another in her place; but her ten feet under the ground?” He nodded slowly. “I need that.”

“So kill her,” I said, feeling a sudden rush at that idea. “Gods, you have the methods and the means. You can?—”

When he reached up and touched my mouth, it wasn’t like when my mates did the same. There was no heat, no desire in that eye of his. Well, at least not for me. A murderous impulse was what put a sparkle in his eye, and I mirrored that, because who amongst us didn’t wish for the queen’s bloody death? It would solve so many problems…

“Not me, lass. Regicide? I fair dream of it every night, then fall on those sweet things that keep to my bed when I wake, the pleasure of the dream making me harder than stone. But even Marcus Lighthands would have difficulties getting away with that crime.”

“You speak of yourself in the third person?” I said, raising an eyebrow.

He ignored that as he fished out a small pendant with a chip of polished dragonstone on it. “I worked out that these things are what keeps the fine men of the Royal Riders from finding me when I don’t want to be found, so I got chips for all of my men and women. But this ain’t enough to get me inside that palace, to slip in her window and then to her bed, to set the edge of my knife to that bitch’s neck. That dragon of hers, Zafira, would read my mind, alert the whole keep castle and the keep to my intent before I even scaled the walls.”

“What about poison?” I asked, remembering Beatrice’s attempt this morning.

“Tried that. They prepare every damn dish in bowls of nephrite jade, eat with cutlery that had stones inset into the handles. Seems like a lot of people want to kill the nobs in that castle.”

“And they’re a dab hand at poison themselves, it seems,” I replied. “The Countess Marchant tried to poison me herself. It was only your ring that saved me.”

“That right?” His eye narrowed, and I could almost hear the cogs whirring inside his head. “And how did that go?”

“She waltzed down to the mess, distributing food to try and win the men over,” I replied. “It didn’t work. Mine was poisoned. My ring shone bright red in front of everyone when I called her out. She’d hoped to build her reputation, but she destroyed it.”

“And why would that be?” Fine fingers stroked his chin. “Seems a terribly complex plan to me, too easy for it to go awry. And did the countess seem surprised by this accusation, genuinely?”

I remembered Beatrice’s expression, and while there had been a lot going on, I didn’t think it had been cool and calculating. She was either a master manipulator…

“You think this is a feint,” I said.

He looked at me, consideringly. “I think you need to watch your bloody back.” Something seemed to lighten in his eye when he saw his ring on my thumb. “Good to see you heeded my advice, but there are poisons, rare poisons that won’t send the stone red in warning. Don’t go getting your food from the kitchen, or the markets. Gods, you should be pulling the carrots from the gardens yourself and washing them with your own hands, like a commoner lass, if you can bring yourself to stoop so low.”

“I used to wash and prepare all of my own food,” I snapped. A whole lot of things might’ve been taken from me, but no one would take that. “I had to kill pigs, shovel shit, grind my own wheat into flour?—”

“That you did.” Why did a look of respect flash across Marcus’ face and why did I feel a sense of pride at it? “I remember that now. Had you looked into when you looked like to be the next queen and was heartened by what I heard. A queen who knows how to get her hands dirty and not just in bringing down anyone who gets her way.” He nodded at that. “Could’ve been just the thing.”

“I am no queen,” I said, repeating the same message as before, but for a different audience.

“Would never trust anyone who wanted to be,” he countered, with a nod of his head. “Well, whatever you decide to be, lass, I suspect it will have a big impact on our country. And right now, you’re the best horse to back out of a bad lot, by my way of thinking. Rest assured, I’ll keep those lads safe. And you? You keep yourself the same.”

He tapped his brow and then turned, disappearing down the hall as if he was never there, only the handkerchief in my hand evidence he was.

“Pippin!” Flynn shouted my name as I ambled back towards the keep kitchens, having had to ask the way a few times on my travels. “What did…? Are you…?”

“I didn’t get breakfast,” I said, my voice tight, my eyes aching. “What with Beatrice’s antics, and I’ve just found out that I can’t eat anything the kitchen provides either.”

Pippin!

Glimmer came stalking around the corner, my mates behind her, even Ged. She marched right up to me and clawed at my pants until I took her in my arms. The heavy weight of her was comforting rather than a burden, providing me with an anchor.

“Apparently there are poisons that even jade can’t detect and Marcus thinks there will be another attack.”

“Marcus—?” Ged asked, but I held a hand up.

“I saw him just now. The boys are fine, he tells me, but he’s not going to give them back, not while Raina rules.” They went to mumble something in response to that, but I shook my head. “I think that’s best. The egg…” Soren held the dragonstone out and I barely stopped myself from shrinking back from it. “It was hardly helpful. I was forced to relive some very unpleasant experiences from my past. And for what? To remind me of all my shortcomings?”

I rubbed at my temple, a familiar ache throbbing there.

“I’m hungry and no good decisions are made on an empty stomach.”

I’m hungry too . My morning meal was cruelly curtailed , Glimmer told me.

“I’ll get you some meat,” I told her, “but I have to prove I haven’t put on so many airs and graces that I can’t pull carrots and potatoes out of the ground and boil them up myself for a slap up meal.”

“What the hell did Marcus say?” Brom asked as we walked through the kitchen, the staff all going quiet as we passed, walking out to the gardens beyond.

“Do you mind if we take some vegetables?” I asked an older man resting his elbow on a rake, a cigarette burning at the corner of his mouth.

“Take whatever you need, milady,” he said, then ambled off to do his work.

How can you eat these things? Glimmer asked, nudging a carrot with her claw. Worms eat these.

Not these ones . I brushed the dirt off the taproot and presented it to her. They’re quite nice with salt and butter.

Well, you have your plant things. Now can you ask for some more meat? I am very hungry and this morning was tiring.

Of course, I will.

My men were silent witnesses, standing around near me, trying to keep out of the way and not daring to discuss what had happened. I no doubt annoyed the keep cook terribly, claiming a small space on the prep bench and then chopping up my washed vegetables to dump into a pot while Glimmer shoved her nose into the bowl of meat I’d asked for her.

It only took a couple of bites before I heard a sound that chilled me to the bone.

The noise Lassie had made when she was dispatched had been such a small sound. Really, I should’ve known that if Glimmer was going to be attacked, she would similarly make a helpless little noise of distress. Just a gagging sound the like of which my dragon often made when eating too much, too fast. I looked down with a smile, ready to scoop her up and strike her shoulder blades to dislodge the meat, when I saw it. Blood red foam covered her muzzle.

“Glimmer—!”

I wasn’t sure who it was that shouted out my dragon’s name, just that my body moved without thinking.

Pip—In…

Her mental voice was like a shriek into a hailstorm, lost quickly amidst turbulence. My hands roamed up and down her body, as I checked her scales, her muzzle, her body, to try and convince myself she was alright.

But she wasn’t.

I’d assumed that the queen would try to poison me because I was the least important part of the puzzle. I’d thought that the traditional prohibition against harming dragons, especially queen dragons, would keep Glimmer safe.

But I knew that Beatrice’s unwitting trick this morning had been just a feint. One to put me on my guard, to make me cautious, checking all around me, not against the true threat. Because she had poisoned my dragon, not me.