Page 1 of Wings of Frost and Fury (Merciless Dragons #4)

SEVENTEEN YEARS

BEFORE THE FALL OF ELEKSTAN

“Bitch, I need a drink.” I throw myself backward into the silk pillows of Katlee’s bed. I stormed into her room a few seconds ago, seeking refuge from the neverending onslaught of people hunting for my attention.

They don’t really want me, of course. They want my magic.

My father, the Supreme Sorcerer of Elekstan, is a very busy and powerful man.

He’s occupied with researching and performing spellwork for the Queen herself and occasionally for the highest tier of the nobility or favored emissaries from other nations.

No one expects him to be accessible and amenable. Of course not .

But his eighteen-year-old daughter—of course she must not have anything important to do. She must be willing to adjust her plans and spend her vital energy to serve the needs of a thousand hungry souls. If she doesn’t, then she must be careless and callous.

Katlee half turns from her dressing table and gives me a rebuking look. “You shouldn’t be so fond of wine at eighteen.”

“People shouldn’t be a lot of things,” I retort. “The world should be a less selfish place, with fewer selfish people in it. Yet here we are.”

Katlee turns back to the mirror. “Are they really selfish, though? Or are they simply hoping that someone with a vast and wonderful resource will share it with them? After all, it’s not like they asked to be born powerless, when someone like you possesses—”

“Someone like me?” I push myself up on my elbows. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Her tone changes. Hardens. “Someone who frankly doesn’t seem to care about anyone but herself.”

The words are a shock of icy water straight to my heart.

I’ve been coming to this house for years.

It’s a few blocks from the luxurious townhouse where I live with my father.

Both my home and Katlee’s are within easy walking distance from the palace, and I’m used to seeing her mother stroll past our front gate every morning, heading to work.

My father, on the other hand, chooses to ride to the palace in a carriage each day.

He says it’s for his own safety, although I’m sure he would be just as safe with a few guards.

His mode of transport is less about security and more about status.

I first met Katlee when I was seven. She was walking with her mother, and I was standing in our tiny front garden, crafting a makeshift doll from twigs, vines, and flowers, while several very fine porcelain dolls lay on the grass behind me .

Katlee stopped, even though her mother tugged at her arm, trying to move her along.

“Mother, I want to play with that girl,” Katlee said.

“That’s not a playmate. That’s the Supreme Sorcerer’s daughter,” her mother said urgently. “Come on.”

People have looked at me with suspicion, caution, and wonder ever since the first signs of my abilities appeared.

But Katlee accepted me instantly, with a child’s openness of heart.

Throughout our eleven years of friendship, she has never condemned me for the way I choose to use or withhold my magic. Until now.

Her words sting far worse than my father’s, because she’s more careful with them. Unless she truly meant it, she wouldn’t call me someone who doesn’t seem to care about anyone but herself .

“That’s what you think?” I say quietly. “Katlee, you know me.”

“I do. And that’s the problem. I hear the truth in what they say about you, Thelise. Of course you can’t be expected to fix everyone’s problems, but you don’t do magic for anyone .”

“I turned that loaf of bread into cake at Rexling’s party.”

“You don’t do useful magic for anyone.”

“And I’ve told you why.” I sit upright, my nails curling deep into Katlee’s blankets.

She looks at me in the mirror. “I don’t think your reasons are sufficient.”

“You don’t have to. They’re my reasons. It’s my magic.”

“So if I asked you to fix me, you’d say no.”

“Fix you? Fuck, Katlee—we’ve been over this. There’s nothing wrong with you.”

“That’s what I say to everyone, isn’t it?” Her voice is fragile now, trembling. “But sometimes it’s exhausting being different, Thelise. Sometimes I just want to be able to hug someone with both arms. ”

She finally turns toward me and lifts her arms a little.

They’re much smaller and closer to her body than those of most people.

At age eighteen, she has arms not much larger than those of a tiny child.

She has only three fingers on her right hand and two on her left, all of which are partially formed.

Katlee has learned to function beautifully despite the challenges she was born with, and I’ve always admired her creative solutions for performing daily activities.

I’ve comforted her when the cruelty of the world made her cry.

But mostly we laugh, she and I. We laugh at expectations and demands.

We rebel against the standards to which other people want us to conform.

She has asked about my magic before, cautiously and curiously. With her, I don’t mind answering questions… which is why her frustration surprises me, because she should know better. Despite how much I would love to do what she asks of me, I can’t. It’s not possible.

“I’ve told you, my magic doesn’t work like that,” I remind her gently. “I’m not a healer. And even the best healers are limited in what they can do for systemic conditions or long-term issues.”

“You think I don’t know that? My mother has taken me to dozens of healers.

” Katlee smiles wearily. “She has spent all her earnings and much more trying to ‘fix’ me. We’re so far in debt, Thelise.

We’re losing this house. By the end of the year, I will have to move away.

I’ll have to leave the only home I’ve ever known. ”

The news startles and angers me. “Your mother.” I vent a frustrated scoff. “Your mother is a—” I cut myself off, clenching my teeth.

“She’s a bit of a cunt, yes.” Katlee shakes her head with a sigh. “She’s doesn’t accept me… never has. She just wants my differences to go away, to be erased.”

“Isn’t that what you’re asking me to do? ”

“Not really.” Her forehead creases with thought.

“How do I explain this? I understand my body the way it is. I appreciate it. I’ve lived for almost twenty years with it, and it’s been good to me.

But I want more . I want new capabilities.

I want to remove barriers for myself. I want something else, and I can see the chance for a change.

I’m desperate for it. And yet you , with everything you are and everything you have… you still won’t help me.”

Tears prickle against the edges of my eyelids. “I don’t know how , Kat. If I tried to grow and extend your arms, I could kill you.”

“Maybe I’m willing to risk it.”

“No.” I shake my head. “You don’t mean that.”

“Today, I do.”

“I can’t. I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

“Because you won’t study spellcraft like your father wants you to!

” she exclaims. “Because you don’t want to be bothered with actually helping anyone.

You just want to float along through life doing a few pretty tricks.

That might have been enough when we were children, Thelise, but we’re eighteen now.

We’re practically adults. Like it or not, your gift comes with responsibilities to those around you. ”

“It’s not that simple.” I leap off the bed and walk to the window, brushing the curtains aside with an angry sweep of my arm.

“Maybe I would start out by doing good things, helping people. My father used to do that, too, or so I’m told.

But change is inevitable, Kat. When people know you can perform wonderful deeds, they start offering you a lot of money to do terrible ones.

Eventually you get desperate enough to take the offer, just once, even if it goes against your moral code.

You get paid, and then you realize how well you could have been living, this whole time.

You become addicted to it. The power. The money. The acclaim.”

“You’re not your father. You could be better. ”

“No, I couldn’t,” I say softly. “I know myself.”

She scoffs. “We’re eighteen. We don’t know shit.”

“I thought I knew you .” I let the curtain fall and face her, tears still brimming in my eyes.

“If anyone has the right to ask this of me, it’s you.

And if anyone should know better than to ask, it’s you.

Like I said, if I attempted some sort of regenerative spell for your arms, you’d probably die. I won’t do it.”

“You could study. Search the spellbooks, both in your father’s library at home and in his study at the palace.

” Kat’s eyes are desperately bright. “Maybe the answer doesn’t lie with healing or regeneration.

Maybe it lies with transformation. Remember how you turned that venomous snake we found in the cellar into a kitten? ”

“It took me days to figure out how to do that.”

“So take a few months to figure this out. All you have to do is transform me from one version of myself into another.”

When she puts it like that, it sounds within the realm of possibility. But I’ve never heard of any sorcerer accomplishing such a thing.

“You’re just right the way you are.” It’s a reassurance and a final plea.

Katlee senses the cracks in my resistance.

“Maybe… but I crave more.When I’m married, as I hope to be, I want to hold my own children safely in my arms. I want transformation.

And if you’re truly my friend, you’ll support me in this.

You won’t hold back any knowledge or resources that could help me. Isn’t that right?”

Her words fall through the air between us, heavy with duty, with obligation.

Isn’t that right?

What does supporting her mean? What do I owe to her, and how do I reconcile that with what I owe to myself?

“I’ll think about it.” I speak the words in a strangled tone. “I have to go. ”