Page 85 of The Forbidden Dragon King
When Maximinus prowls toward me, magic hanging in a heavy, threatening miasma around him, I stumble back into the shelves. Scrolls fall around me like paper rain.
“But I grew up.” I clench my jaw. “I rule now. Neither Caligo nor you ruleme.”
“More mess…?” Maximinus ignores me, picking up a scroll, leaning too close to me as if it’s an accident. It isn’t. I stiffen. My pulse is roaring in my ears. “Stop lying to both me and yourself.”
“And stop attempting to leash a dragon, unless you want to end up as ash.”
I have never threatened my uncle directly before.
Maximinus freezes. Then he slips the scroll onto the shelf and looks up at me.
We’re standing closer than I’m comfortable with.
Maximinus’ eyes are hard with fury.
“You are unstable,” he says, low and vicious. I wince, as he lists out my flaws, as once, I’d be summoned to this study to stand in front of him each week to hear him recite my failures at the academy before he beat me. “The second prince who should never have ascended the throne. The King who no one in court respects as more than a useful weapon in war. Born evil, destined to become the greatest evil.You’re not your brother.”
My throat is tight with tears. “I know. But Tarq is dead; I’m all this kingdom has got left.”
Maximinus scrutinizes me. “Aw, are you going to cry, boy? Adorable, like the child who I’d sit on my lap after I’d disciplined the little Golden Dragon. Do you remember? I’d?—”
Suddenly, I feel trapped.
Overwhelmed.
The past and the present are melding. Maximinus being so close to me…his touch…makes my skin crawl.
I need to escape.
I lose control, shoving Maximinus powerfully in the chest.
He staggers back, falling over his desk. Talismans and fragile pottery artifacts roll off the desk and smash on the floor.
My eyes widen.
Maximinus was deliberately baiting me to prove his point.
He straightens with a grimace. Have I broken his ribs?
Yet he stares at me in triumph. “So, you don’t have your emotions fully under control. The last Golden Dragon also shamelessly lied that his volatility wasn’t a danger, until the day that he turned and became nothing but shadows, bones, and death.”
I’m shaking.
Caught somewhere between the past and present, I struggle to focus on Maximinus.
Inside, I’m terrified because I know that he’s only putting words to my own doubts and fears.
What if I’m no different to Hadrian?
“I’m not the same as the Emperor,” I mutter, talking to myself as much as Maximinus.
“Are you sure?” Maximinus smooths out his tunic, holding his hand over his ribs. “Enough to bet everyone’s lives in the entire Shadow Realms on it?”
I turn away from him.
I need to get out of here away from my uncle.
Away from those cruel eyes. Hard gaze. Soft hands.
