Page 41 of The Dragon Queen Complete Series Collection
Chapter 41
“What the hell is this place?” I asked as we circled down.
Flynn had to have anticipated I’d say yes, because he’d put a training saddle on Glacier, so my legs were thankfully tucked into the stirrups and strapped in for our flight. But I was too busy gawking at the view to think about how his assumption had been accurate. We’d flown over the city, then the broad fields of the farms that provided us with our food and I half thought we’d descend there, settling in some poor farmer’s field of wheat. But we kept on going until the neat fields gave way to forested hills, then even they thinned away, as we climbed higher in the air, moving with the terrain.
Now we hovered over the top of a mountain range, circling to get closer to the plateau there. But that wasn’t all that was below us. The circular cavity I spied as we got closer was too regular in shape to be naturally occurring, especially when all around us were the craggy spines of the mountains.
Flynn didn’t answer until Glacier had landed in the centre of what appeared to be a kind of amphitheatre and it was then I saw just how huge this place was. The massive dragon was well and truly dwarfed by its scale, the place clearly able to fit many other beasts and that started to give me a clue.
“It’s one of the old sites where dragons used to live, before we came and forced them all into Wyrmpeak,” Flynn told me, pulling off his helmet and goggles, then coming to help me with mine. Once he was done, he retrieved a basket that had been strapped to Glacier’s side, Glimmer starting to warble as soon as she caught sight of it.
“Yes, there’s food in there for you too, greedy thing,” he said, tapping her muzzle as he led me over to a curving wall. “Glacier and I found it one day when we were flying back from an errand for one of the dukes. It’s where we come when we want to escape, so it seemed to be the perfect place for today.”
Away from the keep and the expectations there; away from Draven and his tyrannical rule. Even my awareness of the queen’s rejection of Glimmer and, by association, me, seemed far away. I scrambled after him, grabbing his arm when he held it out to me as he brought me under the lip of the great circle.
“What…?”
The awe in my voice seemed to please Flynn, and he looked at me almost shyly as my eyes skimmed across the walls. And no wonder, as there was an expansive bas-relief mural carved into the very rock itself. Flynn set the basket down as I slowly stepped closer, unable to believe what I was seeing.
Dragons took on nearly mythical status in Deepacre. We saw them rarely, most of the local infractions sorted out by my father rather than needing a magistrate from the capital. We knew they were big, fearsome, protected our country from invaders and were somehow sentient, but this…? I moved closer, hand outstretched reverently as if to touch the carvings, then snatched it back.
Flynn laughed, moving to stand behind me as he took my hand and then held it up again, pressing it against the stone carving of a baby dragon much like Glimmer. She chittered and then ran forward, using our arms as a means to inspect the carvings more closely.
“You can’t hurt it,” he told me, his mouth perilously close to my ear. “This mural has stood the test of time. It’ll be here long after we are gone.”
“But how did it come to be here in the first place?” I asked, looking back at him over my shoulder.
“They carved it.” He rubbed my hand before pulling his away. “The dragons did. Dragons like Glimmer and Glacier.”
I stared at the details of the scene before me. It appeared to show that six stylised dragons were welcoming the birth of their newest progeny. I could see the cracks in the broken shell perfectly, only the grey tone of the stone alerting me to the fact it was actually rock. And the baby dragon? Glimmer looked back at me and let out a questioning little chirrup before I took a hold of her and stepped in closer. The two of us walked along the frieze, where the process by which the baby dragons had been formed, the mating flight, was depicted in stages. Flynn snorted when I looked back at a now drowsing Glacier, the massive beast’s body curled up in the sun.
“Hard to imagine him making something like this? I’ve asked Glacier about it and he didn’t have much to say. He knew it was made by dragons and that, in theory, he might be able do the same with those fearsome claws of his. But we don’t require that of him, so he showed little interest.”
“Would Glimmer…?”
I didn’t finish the sentence as I looked down at my dragon and she met my gaze with equanimity, her golden scales shining in the sunlight. Just as before, I felt a wash of pleasure from her, but something else. Like a sneeze tickling your nose, but not yet exploding out of you, or a nagging feeling that you might have forgotten something, but you can’t remember what. I stared and stared, hearing her hum rise as I did so.
And with that came a mental image, of the two of us standing by the walls of this complex, her grown huge, bigger even than Glacier, her claws outstretched. She gave a little cheep and in my mind I saw her claws begin to move, carving something out of nothing in the cliff face.
“She seems to think she could, if that’s what you wanted,” Flynn supplied for me, then tapped his head. “Glacier picks up a great many things, but he seems especially focussed on the little queen. I get many glimpses into her mind.”
I stared at him, feeling a stab of jealousy so vicious it took my breath away. He watched my arms move around my dragon, as if I could shelter her from this intrusion. He just chuckled.
“From you too. It’s gotten worse since the general announced you’re to choose a husband.” His eyes were full of good humour, but as he said that last sentence, something else joined that expression, something that had me remembering the way he sat me in his dragon’s saddle, the way his body felt as he pressed it against mine. “Yes,” he said, “that. It’s what Glacier woke me up with, a dream of what it might be like…”
I frowned as I heard the tone of his voice shift.
“He conjured a confection of a dream, one of warmth and pleasure and the sweet scent of a woman in my nose, her dragon nestled against her breast. A lazy day, a lovely one.”
But right as he seduced me closer with his pretty words, he grinned.
“Plenty of time to explore, I promise you, but let’s give the beast what he wants.” We both turned to see the apparently sleeping Glacier had opened his eyes to watch us. “He’ll pester me until we do.”
“Gods, did you bring half of the kitchen with you?” I asked as Flynn started to set out all of the dishes contained in the basket.
“Well, while my dear dragon was insistent we take you somewhere nice and show you a good time, what he didn’t have is a very good memory for the kinds of foods you like,” he said. “So I brought a bit of everything so you can choose.”
“Why do I think this is a metaphor for my life?” I muttered, peering at the contents of each container.
“I guess in some ways it is.” He undid a fabric wrapped parcel, revealing several slices of a bright yellow cake. “You can try things to see if you like them.” He grabbed one piece and held it out to me, the acid scent of lemon twining with the sweetness of sugar. “Or you can stick with what you know you already like. Or choose nothing at all.”
I shot him a dark look but he just grinned.
“Nancy’s lemon bars are really rather lovely, though.” The cake was waved around in front of me. “Well worth a try.”
Glimmer had her own thoughts. She crawled down my arm and took a sniff, jerking her head back and snorting in response. Glacier made a rumbling sound at that, then shoved his rider with his muzzle.
“Don’t worry, I have something for you too, my queen.” Glimmer leapt off my shoulder, landing neatly on the stone and settling down before the meat he put before her. “And something for you too, you greedy prick.”
Several roast chickens were brought from a bag and tossed towards the big dragon, his massive jaws opening and crunching each one with little effort before swallowing and settling back down against the stone, his eyes becoming heavily lidded with contentment. I plucked one of the lemon bars from the cloth they were sitting on, taking a bite to the sound of Flynn’s amusement, then letting out a little murmur of surprise when I tasted it. Lemon, sugar, tart and sweet, they each seemed to amplify each other until my eyes watered, yet I went back for another bite and then another until I found I’d eaten the whole thing.
I pondered the connection between dragon and rider. I knew how I felt. Glimmer’s pleasure and my own thrummed through us, blowing away the clouds of the past few days just like the ones in the sky that went scudding past. But Flynn? He paused, chewing thoughtfully as he watched the two of us, something shining in his eyes.
“You can feel it?” I asked. “What we feel?”
“I find I feel quite a lot when you’re around, Pippin.”
I flushed then, remembering the way I’d fallen to pieces in front of my parents’ graves.
“I’m—”
“Don’t.” His reply was soft, yet no less definite for it. “I get bombarded by information all day. About how Glacier is bored and wants to me to skive off from my duties and just go. About who the other riders are fucking. That’s often quite useful and helps prevent petty jealousies from developing.”
So why did I feel a flush of my own, imagining Flynn in Hallin’s place in my memory of the showers. His smile seemed to twist just a little in response.
“I know when new cattle are brought into the keep and when is feeding day. Which joint of meat got burned by an inattentive kitchen hand…” He smiled as his words trailed away. “I never knew how perfectly… insulated I was until I bonded with Glacier.”
The dragon’s head shifted closer, almost as big as Flynn’s torso was long, and his rider stroked his head.
“Before I became a rider I probably would’ve been more embarrassed than you were at the cemetery, because I would have had no idea how to help a hurting woman.”
“And now?” I asked, watching his reaction closely, because I didn’t have a dragon old enough to convey that kind of information to me. Glimmer’s head jerked out of her food bowl and she looked at the two of us, letting out a little trill.
“It took a while to get used to. I thought it would drive me mad, all of the information hitting me at once, until we both learned to filter it. But… I don’t filter out Glacier’s observations of you,” he told me. “And neither does he.”
I was left to process that information and as I did, I felt… something. Wistful, that’s what I got from Glimmer, from… Flynn wiped his hands on a cloth, grabbing a plate to put his meal on, but I stared at my dragon. Hunger, satisfaction, pride, anticipation and…
“Eat your lunch, Pippin,” he told me. “Because when we’re done, I’ll show you something special.”