Page 150 of The Dragon Queen Complete Series Collection

Chapter 149

If the funeral was ghastly, the wake was worse.

“Should we be doing this now?” I asked Draven as we stood together on one side of the courtyard. People milled around, making small talk over drinks and canapés, which always felt like an odd thing to do after a funeral. He watched each one of them closely, like a dragon selecting its prey. “Draven…”

I stepped between him and the crowd.

“I want to take off this damn wig, pull off this breastplate.” I wiggled my shoulders. “Apparently I am no warrior, because the straps are cutting in terribly.”

I had his attention, those blue eyes fixing on mine, a sly smile spreading across his face.

“Just a little longer.” He was moving forward, hooking his arm around my waist and tugging me closer. “Do that for me and I promise to remove every single scrap you’re wearing…”

He frowned slightly, staring down at my lips as if wondering what had come over him. I had the same thought. We were playing the role of king and queen, and that meant forgoing any display of real affection.

“But before I sleep tonight, I need to see the bastards that murdered all those people brought to justice.”

And they walked among us right now, of that we were sure.

Commoners or particularly ambitious house guards might’ve been tempted by the duke, but it stood to reason that the people with the most to gain by a drastic shift in the line of succession to each ducal seat were those in the old dukes’ families. I pulled away, feeling suddenly cold at the thought of it. My step-family had sought to steal all that was mine by birthright, but even they hadn’t stooped to murdering me.

“So, how is this going to unfold?” I asked him, grabbing a glass from a nearby server and drinking the sparkling wine down in one mouthful. Perhaps it was the wine, perhaps it was the clouds hanging low overhead, but the atmosphere in the courtyard felt terribly close.

“Give them the one thing that they want.” There was something sharp and brittle about him, as if he was a blade made of glass, ready to chip. “Tonight I will announce the new dukes of Tharfield, Cantlyn, and Skane.”

My eyes followed his across the crowded courtyard to where Flynn was standing, chatting to his extended family.

“Draven, you?—”

He didn’t wait to hear my protest, striding forward and into the throng. The crowds parted to allow him to pass, because he was a king, but when I stepped forward, they moved back into their social circles, closing off the way. He was a king, and I was just a girl pretending to be a queen.

I had been taught something in my time as a dragon rider, and it wasn’t to fight my enemies on dragon back. Women must be quiet, compliant, and graceful, but the keep had shown me another way, that we were just as capable of affecting change as men, sometimes even more so. That thought had me skirting the crowd, all while throwing a thought Glimmer’s way.

Stay with Darkspire tonight , I told her, catching the way she was curled up on his shoulder, dozing.

I will not leave my mates’ side. Not for anything.

I didn’t have a chance to question what she meant by that. My skirts kept tangling in my legs, almost forcing me to stumble until I wrenched them free. People turned to watch me collect them up in handfuls, eyebrows rising as I revealed my boots and bare legs, but I didn’t care. I made my way around the crowd until I found the Skanian contingent.

“Flynn…!” I hissed, but not quietly enough.

He turned and so did everyone he stood with. For a second it was disorientating, seeing so many sets of blue eyes, so many waves of blond hair in all shades from ash to platinum. It was as if someone had made many, many prototypes of my lover before settling on him.

“Your Highness.” His correct address, the way he bowed very precisely, reminded me of who and what I was tonight. I nodded in recognition. “How may I be of assistance?”

His family wanted to know the answer to that too, if their keen looks were anything to go by, but they held their tongues, right as I wished I could do the same.

“Could I have a word?” Why? That question went unspoken as everyone stared. “My dragon, she…” I could feel Glimmer in my mind, a quiet, amused presence. “She has been off her food of late.”

“A disconcerted queen?” Flynn’s smile was well practised. “That’s something I have some experience in dealing with.” He turned to his family. “If you’ll excuse me.” They made all the necessary sounds, waving him away, but I didn’t stop to see if he followed me. The wake was being held in a courtyard, but the space felt too small somehow, the sky too close. “Pippin!” He ran over to my side, following me as I approached Darkspire, the two dragons acting as our alibis as I spoke to the next Duke of Skane.

“Draven intends to announce who will become duke,” I told him, looking up for just a moment, but I couldn’t allow myself the luxury of doing that for long. It would be too easy to be lost in all that endless sunny blue. “Of Skane, Tharfield, and Cantlyn as well.”

“I know.” I couldn’t maintain the illusion of composure then, surprise making my eyes go wide as I stared at him. He shot me a rueful smile before turning back to a sleepy-eyed Glimmer. “And I think it’s not the little queen that is out of sorts, but the queen of all Nevermere.”

I sucked in a breath, but it didn’t seem to fill my lungs. Instead, my chest seized on it, neither letting the air in or out.

“Draven has held off for as long as he can.” There was something so fatalistic about Flynn’s tone. “I’m surprised he has managed to for as long as he has. We’re at war, Pippin. Spies, people looking to make some more coin, they will have forwarded on reports of Draven’s little display today at the funeral. I half expected Harlston to try to make an appearance, using Raina as a pretext for his presence, but… He stayed away from his sister’s own funeral for a reason. He is preparing for war, and we must do the same.”

He turned and regarded the crowd.

“The bannermen can only be summoned by the duke. Men can only be called to war by him, and so we need someone to do that in each of the three duchies.”

“Flynn, no…”

I couldn’t complete that sentence, because what could I say? No, don’t protect our country from a man determined to seize control of it? Stay here with me. Be the lover I can never acknowledge, always hiding what we were to each other. My hand went out then, coming to rest on Darkspire’s foreleg. The great dragon opened his eye just a crack, noting who had the temerity to touch him, then snorted before closing it again. Flynn’s hand did the same, placed close enough that if he stretched his little finger out, we could touch. He didn’t.

“You rushed around here to warn me?” Ostensibly, we were looking at Glimmer, but I knew where his real focus was. “What were you thinking? That I should call Glacier down from the sky and throw you on his back, fly us far away from here.”

Yes, that, I wanted to say, but his slightly chiding tone made clear what we both knew. That was a child’s dream, and we didn’t have that luxury anymore.

“What the hell are you two doing over here?”

Soren ground that out between gritted teeth. He was in his dress uniform but had a sword at his hip, knives strapped to both thighs. Ready for anything, that was made clear.

“Talking about Glimmer’s eating habits, apparently,” Flynn replied with a wry smile.

I eat very well , she said. I killed some of the clucking things they keep behind the palace. They were delicious.

Gods, I was going to have to apologise to the head cook in the morning.

“Well, when the presumptive heir of Skane and the queen-in-waiting conduct a private audience, people start to talk,” Soren said. “Perhaps this discussion about… Glimmer, could take place at a later date?”

I sucked in a breath to answer, but the roar of a dragon cut me off. All of us turned to stare, even the guests. I frowned, unsure why dragons would be making such a sound, remembering when they did the same at the funeral. Sweat trickled down my neck, matting the strands of the wig and forcing it to stick to my skin.

“The dragons are restless,” Flynn said. “Glacier says it’s nothing.”

“So does Wraith.”

Yet neither man seemed to take any solace from it.

What was that? I asked Glimmer. Who keeps roaring?

What must be , she replied, snuggling down into Darkspire’s side, making clear that she would not be drawn further on the topic.

“Glimmer’s not giving me anything,” I added.

“Well, it looks like Draven will.” We all turned around at Flynn’s comment to see that he had taken centre stage. A large circle had formed in the centre of the courtyard with Draven standing in the middle of it. Brom, Ged, and other riders stood with the king, making clear that Draven did this with his support. General Rex stepped forward and handed Draven a familiar scroll.

“It’s bad taste to talk of matters of state at a wake.” Draven’s tone was silken, but was it the sound of fabric brushing against your skin or a rope tying around your neck? “But I fear we must abandon custom in favour of expediency.”

They knew. Dragons flew overhead, spiralling in lazy circles, but that wasn’t what had the tension ratcheting up. It was the expectation that Draven would determine the fate of the country with his decisions.

“There has never been a moment in our country’s history where the succession of all four duchies was in contention.” His lips thinned, his eyes burning bright blue. “Dukes lived long lives, ruled well, and kept the peace in their duchies on behalf of the throne, as they have since the duchies were first created.”

He scanned the crowds, pausing momentarily to take in every person, and I watched people shift, muttering in response. This was the steady stare of a judge taking in the accused.

Or a dragon before its prey.

“With that in mind, I must request that these people come before me. Edwin of Skane.”

“My cousin?”

Another dragon roar as Flynn’s hand went to his sword. It was as if the beast was vocalising his shock, his horror.

Edwin didn’t seem so horrified. His family turned to him in surprise and he smiled in the face of it, looking like the cat that got the cream. Some of his fellows clapped his back as he passed by, pushing through the crowds to come and stand before the king.

Thinking he was about to receive a great honour, I realised.

Edwin was deferential, bowing to his king then standing there at attention, but that small smile? It was like Flynn’s, the shape of their mouth similar and yet utterly different. Ged criticised Flynn for being a spoiled noble, and yet he had never looked so self-satisfied as Edwin did right then. He seemed to soak in the collective attention of the crowd like it was his due.

What must it have been like, to be a man with this disposition, relegated far down the line of succession.

“Who is he, Flynn?” I asked in an urgent whisper. “Your cousin, but where in the line of succession does he fit?”

“After me and his father,” came his reply. His fingers fondled the elaborate guard of his sword, tracing the shape of the rope work inlaid into the pommel. “He’s next, the vainglorious little prick. My mother always asserted that he was unnecessarily rough with me when we were all boys. He seemed determined to establish some sort of pecking order that placed him at the top, right before my older brothers banded together and showed him the error of his ways.”

His head whipped around, our eyes meeting, and it was then his went as cold as Glacier’s breath.

“He did it?” Flynn was not Draven, the pain in his voice obvious to anyone who listened. “He?—”

“So it’s happening?” Stefan appeared by our sides, a rakish grin on his face as Draven called out more and more names. Edwin looked on in confusion as the space at the centre of the courtyard began to fill. “Never seen a trial take place in the city before.”

“This is not a trial.” In my ears it felt like I heard my voice coming from far away. Another dragon cried out, another screamed. When I spoke again, my voice contained some of that raw anger. “This is justice.”

“Pippin…!”

Not Your Highness, or queen-in-waiting, because that’s not what I was as I strode forward. The crystal egg was in my hand again, even though I had no memory of fishing it out. Not even Pippin, because that’s not what I felt. I was used to sharing a consciousness with Glimmer, her mind as familiar as mine when they touched. This was entirely different. Her brain was vast, heavy with experience, thoughts, sorrows and triumphs.

Cynane.

My feet stumbled and I came to a stop, feeling it pulse through me. A dark, heavy feeling I knew well. Sharper, more vicious and more intense than Zafira, because Cynane was no tame queen. She was wild, had lived free for her entire life. She’d seen the rise of humans and was a veteran of the war between them, still wearing that scar.

“Pippin, are you all right?” Soren asked, but I could barely hear his voice as my eyes dropped down to trace the shape of his lips.

I knew what he tasted like, that brought a whine from my throat. I knew exactly how he felt. Those dark eyes of his, the pupils expanded as some part of him sensed what was happening.

It was Cynane’s screams that rent the air, the roars of the dragons, her dragons, that responded to her call. The dragons that spiralled overhead, they weren’t just those of the dragon corp. Wild males circled overhead in anticipation.

“Cynane…” That came out as a croak, my throat seizing on the sounds. “Cynane, she’s?—”

“Rising.” Flynn swung forward, his eyes burning into mine, but his hand hadn’t strayed for a second from his sword hilt. “Cynane is rising to mate.” That fixed gaze swung around and then zeroed in on the small crowd forming at the centre of the courtyard. “And these bastards will be brought to justice.”