Page 20 of The Dragon Queen Complete Series Collection
Chapter 20
“So you found someone to bond with the queen dragon?” The prince’s demeanour seemed to shift like the wind as the wing commander explained who I was, a broad smile spreading across his face as he stepped forward and embraced Brom.
As the two men clapped each other’s backs, I scuttled away, grabbing my pants and pulling them on so fast the seams groaned with the stretch. Glimmer watched in confusion from the rock I left her to perch on, but I had them buttoned up, my shirt tucked in and my boots on by the time the prince had worked his way through each one of the riders.
He seemed to share some sort of bond with the group of men, chatting and laughing with them, a camaraderie I was about to intrude upon. Glimmer chittered as we got closer, because she saw familiar faces, because she was getting hungry no doubt. I reached into my pocket and drew out some wafer-thin strips of jerky, the little dragon loving the challenge of chewing them into softness, then swallowing chunks down. That’s what she was doing when I joined the group, the men turning to me.
“My apologies, Your Highness,” I said, dropping down into another curtsey. “If we’d known of your arrival, we would have been better prepared to receive you. My estate is not far from here. Perhaps if we adjourned there, I could have the kitchen prepare you a meal and something to drink? And a pig could be found for your dragon.” I looked past him to where a massive dark green saurian loomed, his scales the colour of good quality emeralds. “You must be tired from your long journey.”
“Is there a decent tavern this far out?” the prince asked the men, but not me. I felt my body tense. That casual disregard, I’d known that all too well when I was Pig, but not now, not now I was?—
“Unfortunately not, Highness,” Ged said with a ready smile, but that was belied by his hasty sidelong glance at me. “But the Lady Pippin has a very fine wine cellar and her brewmaster’s beer is unparalleled. We’ll be able to raise a glass to the bonding of Glimmer, never you fear.”
“Glimmer? That’s what you called her?” the prince said, that slight frown back again. His eyes roamed across my now suitably dressed form to where my dragon lurked on my shoulder, her head tucked into the curve of my neck.
“Yes, Your Highness. She—” I started to say.
“She’s quite small, especially for a queen.”
And there was that frown again. My fingers twitched, feeling a need to smooth that damn little furrow between his royal brows. That and to stuff his words back into his mouth. I reached for Glimmer and she crawled down into my arms, making a string of reproachful little noises.
“She also understands what you’re saying on some level,” I said, not bothering with his honorific and walking over to Ged. “Would you be able to return us to the estate? I’ll need to talk to the household staff immediately.”
“You can’t ride on another man’s dragon if you’ve hatched a queen dragon,” the prince told me in an imperious tone that was quickly starting to set my teeth on edge. “You’ll ride on Darkspire when I’m ready to go.”
“Prince Draven, we need to get back,” Brom prompted gently. “I can take the girl back if you wish to linger here.”
Draven. So that was the name of my intended. I’d seen it written in news sheets sometimes, but I hadn’t paid too much attention to it. As landed gentry, we weren’t expected to do anything other than pay our taxes to the crown and provide soldiers if a war broke out. The goings on in the capital were of little interest to us.
“Hardly.” As he looked around, I saw the quarry as it was, rather than through the golden, hazy light that had hung over the place when we arrived.
It was a scar on the land, rocks torn from the earth and left lying scattered around, like a careless child’s toys. The stone was all resolutely grey and black, with hardy outcroppings of grass where soil had managed to collect in the depression.
“Well, if we must go. Come, girl.”
“Lady Pippin.”
This was rude, beyond rude and no way to speak to a prince, but something in me, it wouldn’t bite the words back. The riders grew restive, so did the dragons, lumbering closer, as if they sensed a fight coming. Draven’s head jerked back as if I’d slapped him, then those blue eyes turned to ice before me, staring into mine, directing, commanding me to apologise. But I wouldn’t.
I just bloody wouldn’t.
Let him have me hung from The Tower, the place where prisoners of noble birth were sent. Let him strike me down, because I’d be damned if I’d be cowed by anyone again, prince or no. The dragons started to rumble their discontent, their heads rearing back, as if in readiness. Draven took all of this in, then slapped his gloves against his open hand.
“Lady Pippin.” He performed a perfect bow then, much more courtly and elaborate than the curtsey I had offered him, staying down for way too long, affording me the respect his king and queen were due, not me. The other men moved, looked from one of us to the other, opened their mouths to speak, but didn’t, seeming to feel the need to do something, anything, when the prince finally straightened up. “Would you do me the honour of riding with me back to your no doubt lovely estate?”
I didn’t answer him, but Glimmer did, letting out a rapid fire of aggressive little barks.
I wanted to say no, that I’d ride with one of the others or just bloody walk back, even if it’d take me the entire day. But it was the weight of my dragon that had me reconsidering that idea. I couldn’t catch her food out here, nor provide for myself, making me question how blithely I’d come out here with these men.
“Of course, Your Highness,” I said, inclining my head.
“Prince Draven, surely.” He held out a leather armoured arm, and it took some unbending for me to take it. Glimmer crawled her way up to my opposite shoulder, seeming to instinctively want to put some distance between her and him. “If we’re to be married, you’ll need to use my name.”
Along with his title, I noted, my teeth locking tight as I bit back any response.
Getting astride Darkspire was nowhere near as pleasant a thing as it had been launching myself onto Obsidian. The ‘spire’ part of his name came from the long spikes that ran along his spine and the beast seemed to be the very definition of spiky. He snorted, then shifted away a step when we came close, but Draven’s tone changed completely. He murmured a stream of soft words to his dragon and the beast decided to settle then, allowing us to clamber up into his saddle.
“This will be a tight fit,” Draven said as he settled behind me. “I don’t often let others ride Spire with me and…” He let out a hiss as he wedged his body in against mine. “And you’re not exactly a slight little thing.”
My body was slim and hard from little food and a lot of physical work, but it’d just made me tall for a woman, even tall for a man it seemed, by the way my father’s clothes fitted me with my shoulders sitting perfectly within the broad expanse of his shirt.
“At least I won’t have your hair in my face when we fly, though.”
I heard something of the sneer of those would-be rapists in his voice as he said that, forcing me to flush again, but I just leaned forward, gripping Darkspire’s closest spine. Draven did the same before the beast launched itself into a run, his great wings flapping, flapping until we climbed up into the air, the dragon seeming to claw himself upward.
“Not too high!” I yelped as we kept ascending.
“Scared, lass? That won’t help you at court.”
“No, Brom said we shouldn’t take Glimmer up too high too early. She was only hatched a few days ago!”
“Old wives’ tale,” he said with a snort. “But I can see you’ll be a pest about this unless I comply.” He patted Darkspire’s side and the beast roared his response to whatever passed between them, but still angled his wings down, dropping closer to the tops of the trees as we sailed past. “You’ll need to give me directions. I’ve never been to… where are you from again?”
“Deepacre,” I replied, then flung a hand out, pointing to the town that could be easily seen in the distance. “And we’re that way.”
“As you say, queen-in-waiting.”
The idea that I could wear that title had been a strange idea to me when Glimmer hatched, but the way he said it, in such an acid tone, had me wanting to toss aside any circlets that might be placed on my head, even before anyone had offered them. I tightened my grip on Darkspire’s spine, something that had the dragon grumbling, as we flew closer and closer to home.