Page 12 of Beautiful Beast

“Varí,” I whispered.

Big golden eyes blinked open and looked at me. He chirped softly.

“Other people will be here soon. You need to hide for a while.”

He stood and stretched, wings flaring out and tail whipping back and forth before he picked up his coin and hopped off me.

Helena stared at the dragon and then smiled. “Varí. Before you hide, I have an idea.” She patted the table, and he went, leaping up to the top with a flap of wings.

I didn’t know if he was a small dragon that would grow larger, or if he was fully grown at this size. But if people could observe dragons like this, I felt it in my bones that some of the prejudice would melt away.

Terror of what dragons could do drove people’s hearts and minds. And in the absence of any other information, they clung to it.

Digging in her box full of sewing and embroidery, Helena pulled out a black ribbon and a scrap of silver fabric and showed it to him. “I can make something to hold the coin on your back so you don’t have to carry it. Would you like that?”

He spun in a circle with a chirp and sat at the edge of the table, watching intently. We both laughed, and she sat to make him the little harness. “Good idea.”

I rose and did the preparations I was allowed to do myself, freshening as much as I could without disturbing the bridal paint and running a brush through my hair.

“There,” Helena finally spoke, holding out a small pouch with the ribbon. “You can put it in there.”

He stared at her for a long moment before dropping the coin inside. Then she went to work, fastening the tiny bag around his legs and wings so the pouch rested between them.

“Try it out. Make sure it doesn’t fall off.”

Varí leapt into the air, fluttering around the room, diving and spinning faster than I imagined possible before landing lightly on my shoulder and shaking his wings. The bag still rested tightly on his shoulders, and I swore his small face showed something like a grin.

“They’re coming,” Helena said.

“Hide,” I whispered. “Quickly.”

Dropping from my shoulder, he scuttled under the bed where the ladies of the court wouldn’t see him or step on him just as the door opened and soft conversation suddenly filled the room.

They dropped into curtsies when they saw me—even the ones holding the gown off the floor. “Good morning, Your Highness.”

“Good morning.”

They asked questions of me that I answered. The acceptable things to say to such questions were long burned into my brain. I could retreat into myself and pretend I was somewhere else, as I did now.

The wedding dress, pale blue and monstrous, was lifted over my head. More than once I’d thought it ironic this was the color they chose to represent the opposite of fire when it was so close to the color which lived in the hottest part of the flame.

At least for today, that was what I would pretend it to mean.

My shoulders were left bare, filmy sleeves wrapping around them instead of over them so my bridal marks were on full display. From my neck all the way down my wrists. Some brides painted their entire bodies as a surprise for their new husbands.

But I also thought those women were ones who chose their match and were excited by the possibilities.

“Prince Andaros is indeed handsome, Your Highness. Do you not think so?”

I smiled as well as I could. “Of course.”

“Anyone should be so lucky,” another woman said. “I heard the Prince of Ostea has the features of a river swan.”

Laughter followed. The frail, humped brown birds that lived on the river and fed off of reeds and bottom feeders were a far cry from true swans, their only similarity being their long necks. River swan was the nickname that seemed to continue no matter where you went.

They lifted my wide skirt so I could sit at the dressing table and let Helena twist my hair into something elaborate and paint my face.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of movement, barely there. So fast it could have been a trick. But the soft brush up against my leg told me it wasn’t. Varí was under my skirt, and I smothered a smile. He’d changed his color to nearly that of the floor to make his move.

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