Page 158 of The Dragon Queen Complete Series Collection

Chapter 157

So, this was how we were going to retrieve the stolen dragon eggs.

Miller’s field was a piece of land far from the city, surrounded only by rolling hills and a few trees. Now dragons flew in, the currents created by their passage ruffling my short hair as Glimmer and I walked closer. We were forced to stop abruptly as a dragon landed just in front of us. “Apologies, Highness,” the rider said with a sheepish grin and a nod, but he didn’t wait for a reply. There was an air of excitement about him, about all the riders, and I knew why.

Draven had done his job, inspiring each one of them as he blew up the old ship. Each rider had to have seen themselves in his place, flying across the crowd and dropping the explosive on the hulk. Perhaps it was the crowd’s cheers they heard in their ears now. Not for long, it appeared, as General Rex spoke to the crowd.

“Men, every training exercise we complete is of the utmost importance. Whether it’s ensuring our dragons can hit their targets with fire, electricity, or ice or flying in formation.” He regarded the riders, appearing to meet each one of their eyes. “We do so to better protect Nevermere.”

There was a low rumble of approval, but people fell quiet again quickly.

“Up until now, the threats have always come from outside of our borders. Greedy fools from the continent who think they can sail across the channel and claim what’s ours.” The mutters now were ones of discontent. “Today, we face an internal one.” Rex strode back and forth, his hands behind his back. “The Duke of Harlston’s avarice far outstrips those of the continent. He used the upheaval of the queen’s death to steal the next clutch of dragons.” He paused then. “Our future. Those dragons should’ve been raised in the hatching sands of Wyrmpeak, kept safe until the time came for their bonding.”

My eyes found Glimmer’s. My dragon was already staring at me, not at all interested in the general’s speech. It might stir the men, the thought of fighting to ensure the next generation of boys could bond with dragons, but… I felt like a traitor in their midst, because I knew I’d fight just as hard to keep that from happening.

“Today we take the first step towards retrieving them. You’ve seen what our dragons are capable of when armed with these new weapons.”

The sounds from the crowd became more animated. Who wouldn’t be, wielding such terrible power? The trouble was, I didn’t see flotsam washing up on the shore as it did yesterday, but other, more grisly things.

“Your wing commanders have been briefed on the manoeuvres we must learn. You’ll break from here and into wings. The theory of what we are doing will be explained to you, and then you’ll have an opportunity to put what you’ve learned into practise.”

“With dragonfire?” one rider blurted out, then looked instantly abashed.

Rex fixed him with a steely gaze before smiling.

“Not yet.” The mumbling grew louder. “I think we can all agree that allowing untrained riders access to potent explosives while still learning how to use them would be a mistake.” Rex looked around him with a theatrical air. “There wouldn’t be much left of Miller’s field by the end of it.” A few chuckles at that. “But also, it could end in the injury or death of some of you.”

That had everyone falling silent, because that was the reality that they were facing. My eyes searched the crowd, finding each one of my men amongst them. Brom stood to one side with the other officers, his hair turning reddish at the tips from the direct sunlight. Flynn nudged Ged in the ribs and the two of them shared a smile, but there was an edge to it. We’d seen too much death, and now we were about to face more. Soren was grim faced, none of the tender lover evidenced now.

Then there was Draven.

He stood beside Rex, every inch the king. I didn’t know Prince Felix, had no idea what kind of leader he would make, but somehow I doubted he would do this better than Draven. My king was a man of action, born to serve in the dragon corp, and so he was in his element.

“No death is acceptable to me,” he said. “I do not want to see a single one of you fall in this fight, even though I know that is a real possibility. If you do, if you are injured trying to right this wrong, then I want you going into that fight as best prepared as you can be. You will no doubt be disappointed to know that today you will be asking your dragons to carry pots of dyed soil and be asked to hit those targets.”

Everyone turned to stare at the neatly marked concentric circles on the grass.

“Nowhere near as exciting as blowing up ships, I understand.” Draven’s smile was wry. “But, to make things interesting, each wing’s pots contain soil dyed to represent their team. The wing that gets the most pots on target will have a night at the tavern of their choosing, their drinks and entertainment paid for entirely by the crown.”

Instantly, the mood changed. Men looked at each other, grinning like lads, not soldiers. Elbows were shoved into ribs and excitement grew, something Draven acknowledged with a nod.

“So, to earn bragging rights and a sore head tomorrow, report to your wing commanders for further details.”

Which had us moving. Glimmer and I were forced to weave our way through the crowd, bringing us into the path of riders.

“Apologies, Highness!” one said, gesturing for us to precede him, but moving forward had us colliding with another rider.

“After you, Highness.”

This rider went to bow, but Draven appeared beside me.

“Try to focus on the job at hand, not my queen.”

He was trying to make a joke of it, but the way the rider’s eyes widened made clear that he heard the tightness in his king’s tone.

“Of course, Your Majesty.”

The two men bowed again and then scurried off.

“Here to ensure I make it to the wing in one piece?” I asked.

“Here to ensure you don’t take part in this exercise.” I stopped still and stared at him. “I know you feel like you are part of the wing.”

“More than I do a queen.”

That was blurted out more abruptly than I intended. My cheeks burned as he blinked and then continued.

“Yes, well, the corp doesn’t need a first year cadet tagging along for a training exercise, but a queen?” He nodded to the field where we both watched men clambering onto dragon back. Guards rushed forward, dropping ceramic pots onto the ground for the dragons to pick up, each one trussed up in a net of ropes to make it easy for a dragon to lift it at speed. “Men need something, someone to fight for.”

Him, I wanted to say. Draven was one of them, a fully fledged dragon rider, yet he also possessed the unconscious confidence of a king.

“Look at Glimmer.”

My dragon had deserted me and was now curled up on Darkspire’s shoulder, the two of them lazing under the shade of a tree.

Traitor , I said.

Males protect , she observed sleepily. Queens let them.

“She knows that she need do nothing more than watch the proceedings and then congratulate the dragons that win the day,” he told me.

“Fine.”

His low chuckle had me walking stiff-legged over to where General Rex and the higher ranked officers were clustered. A tent had been erected, sporting the Nithian dragon on a field of deep purple, and within it, a table had been set up. Men took their seats, wine was poured by aides, yet all of them stood as we approached.

“Be seated, gentleman,” Draven said, then pulled out a chair for me. “I think we’re in for a long day.”

“Oh!”

Hours later, I leaned forward as yet another dragon missed the net. His claws raked the air, and he caught the ropes momentarily, but his momentum had them pulling free. Riders laughed as the dragon faltered, his wings wavering as he tried to obey his rider’s orders and haul the pot upwards.

“Gods, I can only hope your uncle is having as many difficulties organising his own army,” Rex said with a sigh. A sip of wine seemed to help. “If this is the way our men implement orders.”

“Early days, Rex,” Draven replied. “It took me months to learn how to stay in the saddle during a barrel roll.”

“We don’t have months.” The general’s fingers tightened around the wine glass stem.

“Sir, our men are well disciplined,” one of the officers said. “Look at Brom on Obsidian.”

Yes, look at him, I wanted to say. It felt like I was travelling with him as Obsidian drifted forward. The black dragon seemed to know exactly when to shoot his claws out and collect the pot. Wings beating, they gained altitude quickly, then without pausing, the pot was dropped, a plume of purple powder marking the spot where it landed.

“Bullseye!”

I could barely stop myself from clapping as I sat ramrod straight, then spun around, expecting to see that everyone else was similarly delighted. Instead, they were distracted by the appearance of a newcomer. Stefan ambled into the tent, casting his eye over the proceedings.

“He might’ve dropped the pot on the target now,” he said, “but if it was primed with dragonfire and blasting powder, he’d be dead before he got even ten feet. Same with that one.” Stefan gestured to another rider. “And that one.”

“What?”

The wineglass was abandoned as the general sat up straighter. An aide rushed over to take it, but Rex waved the man away.

“Pots are swinging back and forth too much,” Stefan informed them, taking the wine bottle from the aide and then pouring himself a drink. He swallowed that down and then refilled it.

“No more than the king’s did,” Rex huffed.

“Draven’s had a drop of dragonfire in it,” Stefan informed him, “and it was frozen solid. We had one of those pretty blue dragons freeze it inside an insulated cold box and, even still, it had to go back and refreeze it a few times in the night. Unless you’ve got a lot more ice dragons?—”

“Water dragons,” Draven corrected mildly.

“Water dragons then, and…” Stefan did a mental tally as he looked at all the dragons on the field. “Nope, not many at all.”

“They are rare.” Rex seemed particularly aggrieved by this admission. “Kings rarely choose them as bondmates because freezing an enemy or blasting them with water is not an especially useful skill compared to acid or fire.”

“Well, they’re bloody useful right now.” Stefan slouched in his chair, looking like a man at a summer picnic, not a military exercise. “There’s a reason why kings haven’t used dragonfire often. Potent, but unstable, just as likely to blow your head off as your enemies.”

“But the queens of old used it.” I hadn’t meant to say that, and now I had every eye on me. How did I know this? That went unsaid. “They sent dragon corp out to loose explosives on some of the dragon-run towns.” My eyes narrowed, as if I could summon that vision, but instead of apparatus or battle tactics, all I could see was white bones lined up across the fresh soil we’d dug up. “It’s been done before. Is there anything in the dragon corp archive that discusses how?”

“Dragon-run towns…?” Stefan asked.

“Smith,” Rex snapped, snapping his fingers at the aide closest to him. “Return to the keep and ask the librarians to comb through the records. Any records of use of dragonfire…” He glanced at me. “During the reign of queens, or more recently.” His focus shifted then to Stefan. “And you, Lord Nithe, are there no records of how to safely move and use dragonfire?”

“You don’t.” Another glass of wine disappeared down Stefan’s throat, right before he shot the general a smile. “That’s all I’ve been told. Not one of the kings has asked us for a thing, not in my time, nor my father’s, nor my grandfather’s, and perhaps for generations before that. Obviously that knowledge was very useful at some point, but Nevermere has enjoyed an unprecedented period of peace during the reign of kings. It simply hasn’t been needed.”

“Brom’s wing won the bout,” a rider said, all of them converging on the tent. The competition had ended and people were slapping Brom and the rest of the wing on the back. The wing commander’s shy smile, the way his cheeks coloured just a little, caught my eye.

And my heart.

Humans complicate everything. Glimmer sounded grumpy inside my head. Males protect and fight to mate with you. The queen chooses. Anything else goes against nature.

Natural or not, in a time of upheaval, leaders must provide consistency, certainty, I replied. In this case, that means preserving the illusion that I am Draven’s queen.

Obsidian’s rider doesn’t care a jot for the adulation of others , she told me. Just you… and Darkspire’s rider.

My eyes found Brom’s, and just for one stolen moment, I stared at him. A small smile, I rationalised, one a queen might give a loyal rider.

Gods, who did I think I was fooling?

It wasn’t me who stepped forward and into my husband’s arms, but Draven. The king offered his hand to Brom, because that was the only way they were allowed to touch out here.

“Your aim was always excellent.”

Did people hear the tenderness in that statement? I think Brom feared that they might’ve, because he tried to pull away after a firm shake. Draven didn’t allow that. He pulled my husband closer, clapping him on the back in that rough kind of hug men seemed to think was acceptable, and I swear I knew what each one of them were feeling. That they couldn’t, wouldn’t, let go, but they did anyway. My king blinked and then moved down the line.

“Well done,” Draven told Flynn, then Soren. “Ged, that recovery was particularly good.”

His dragon had dropped a pot, but grabbed it mid fall and then carried it to the target.

“Cloudy will need to learn not to be such a fumble fingers,” he said ruefully.

“Truly.” The general got to his feet and the riders all fell silent automatically. “I know yesterday’s display was all very theatrical, but we’ve run into some technical difficulties. Dragonfire is terribly unstable. One sharp knock and it will be you and your dragon that bears the brunt of the blast, not the enemy.” The silence was perfect, not even broken by bird song. “We’re going to need to try another round, this time instructing your dragons to grab the ropes closer to the pot itself.”

“Without actually scraping those big claws across it,” Stefan drawled. “Otherwise that will have you going boom as well.”

“Quite.” Rex was trying to put a brave front on, but I tracked the ticking of the muscle at his temple. “Don’t think you can retire to the keep yet. We’ll need to practise until we can get this right. Pick the pots up without letting them swing, carry them to the targets and then improve that aim. Everyone should be hitting the targets every time, not just Brom’s wing.”

“But how the hell?—?”

“Stop a pot swinging midair? May as well sprout wings myself and fly it over there.”

“What—?

Discipline was fracturing as every rider started to chatter at once. Rex’s frown grew at the same rate the questions did. I thought hard, thinking about what I’d seen in the vision. It was like there was some kind of device that kept the pot suspended. I hadn’t seen it swing… I heard a faint humming in the back of my mind as I shoved my hand into my pocket and pulled out the fractured crystal egg.

Rex had sent an aide to the library, but I had a means to tap into the past right here and now.

I didn’t want to. The muscles in my arm quivered with the need to shove the egg back into my pocket. I didn’t want to go back there, to watch humans and dragons alike scream as they all died. In some ways this felt worse than excavating their bones. That was to work out what the hell had happened.

So we could do the exact same thing.

My thumb rubbed across the egg, the thin scab on the ball of it catching on one of the ragged edges. I sucked in a breath as the world disappeared, even as my mouth fell open.