Page 57 of Dragon Fight

Tanis nodded solemnly.The War of Two Queens was never properly resolved, ending in a lie rather than any real resolution. The truth will come out, all of it and like many revelations, it will hurt. How much so will come down to you two. Now, listen closely.

There is a reason why queens do not share the same territory.Tanis’ voice was rich and melodious as it felt like we flew over Nevermere, watching fields and forests, cities and small settlements pass by.Queens draw males closer without a thought, then bear the next generation of dragons. They are the future and that must be protected. But each queen contains apossiblefuture within her, one that may change the world in small ways or major ones.

By keeping queens on their own territory, all of those possibilities are allowed to develop in isolation and it is only fate that will determine which reality leaves a mark on the world, not another queen’s claws.

Our view shifted then, to a dragon’s den, a great queen hunched over her eggs like a broody chicken. But it was no meat bird that stomped into her den. The intruder queen approached, jaws outstretched, fangs bared. The nesting queen hissed and thrust her wings out as far as they could go, but she was hampered by the enclosed space. This was not where she would fight her battles. No foreign queen was supposed to get this far, this close. She was supposed to be kept away by the nesting dragon’s males, but… The intruder seemed to know what sin she was committing, yet it did not stop her. She rushed forward, evading the nesting dragon’s snaps and snarls, because she was at an advantage. She cared nothing for the eggs that lay warm and cosy under their mother, soaking up the memories of their ancestors from the dragonstones.

No, worse.

When the nesting dragon’s foot slipped and crushed one of the eggs under her foot, the attacker stopped and crowed, because this was the intruder’s intent all along. Beat back the nesting dragon’s males and send them scattering or let them bleed out on the rocks, then crush all evidence of the nesting queen’s presence, both now and in the future. The nesting dragon’s foot slipped in the bloody amniotic fluid of her dead offspring and–

Do not make the mistake of assuming your human queens are any more civilised, Tanis told us and that’s when we saw her. Raina strolled into the dungeon like she was out for a walk on a sunny day. Thin fingers were gripping the bars of their cells, faces were pressed against them, then abruptly withdrawn when they caught sight of the queen, because in her hand she held a thin-bladed knife.A queen isn’t afraid of a bit of blood when she takes new territory.

But it was one face in particular that had my attention, or rather a few of them. Lance looked thin and drawn, shadows where there should never have been any in his face. And bloody Jenkins, the cheeky glint in his eyes completely gone and replaced with an expression of sheer horror. My screams started somewhere in a body I couldn’t feel, so they had nowhere to go.

We need to go. We need to save them!I shouted.

One does not attack a queen head on, not without some certainty,Tanis said, dragging us back to the warring queens inside the nest. Small bodies littered the ground now, crushed by the ambitions of the two queens, and I bit back a sob at the sight of one in particular. A little golden scrap of a thing, once destined to be queen, now no more than a meal for scavengers.Lest you become her next casualty.

Tanis probably had much more to show us, but I wrenched my consciousness free. As the world swam back into focus, I felt my guts lurch, and I was only able to stumble over to the corner of the room before all of my breakfast came flying out. Strong hands held me, stroked over my shoulders as I hacked for all I was worth. But while my men murmured comforting words, I didn’t hear them, for her voice echoed in my ears.

Everything you need to win The War of Two Queens has been stored in these eggs, Tanis had said, showing me a very familiar piece of carved dragonstone, because I’d awakened two of the stone eggs already.Blood for blood is always the way of queens, she had said.Find the stone eggs and give yours to unlock all of my secrets.

“Eggs…” I gasped out.

“Don’t worry about that,” Soren said. “We’ll find a way to clean the mess up.”

“No… stone eggs…”

“Like you showed us at the ruins?” Brom asked.

“The same as the one she touched at the ruin I took her to,” Flynn said. “Someone’s hidden them all over Nevermere I’m willing to bet and, if they’re important, we’ll need to find them before Raina does.”

But not yet.Cynane’s tone made clear she would not tolerate arguments.Glimmer is the dragon seer we have been waiting for.She needs training, practice in exploring her powers. She is the future of dragonkind, so she cannot be dragged willy-nilly across the country in search of clues.

“You won’t have a future to worry about if she doesn’t,” I groaned and Glimmer nodded her head as she stared at me. We had seen something that Cynane hadn’t, couldn’t. “We need those eggs to find out how to stop the war that’s coming.” I glanced up and met the queen dragon’s steely gaze. “Otherwise there won’t be a Dragon Home left to protect.”

38

“We need to leave today,” Flynn insisted. “I’ve always taken an interest in the old ruins and I know of one not that far from here. It’d be most of a day’s ride but—”

“Before we go off anywhere half-cocked, I assume we need more information about these eggs, the ruins themselves,” Brom said, nodding to Cynane. “We don’t know a lot about them, in fact we’re discouraged from exploring them typically. Can you tell us anything about them?”

“Seems to me there’s no need to hurry at all,” Soren said, crossing his arms. “We’re talking about stone eggs that have lain hidden for how many hundreds, if not thousands, of years? I reckon they’ll be safe for some time to come, especially if Pippin and Glimmer are to take some time training. The queen still has that damn dragonstone. What’s to stop her from waltzing into the keep and using it to brainwash all of us into taking a long walk off a short cliff?”

“Everyone’s saying a lot, but you’re not saying the right thing.” The other men looked at Ged in irritation, but my rider’s focus was entirely on the two of us. “What do you want to do, Pippin?” His eyes slid down. “Glimmer?”

He was always the best of your mates, Glimmer told me in a terse voice.They all want to protect us. All of them.She glanced at the restive male dragons who were flexing their muscles and fluttering their wings, as if she was being bombarded by overprotective male input as well.But it is only his response that befits a queen. My dragon nodded slightly to Ged.Though that was mostly due to Cloud Raker’s input. He is my most favoured at the moment.

I shook my head as if to flick all of the differing opinions out of it. What everyone said was true and was logical, but… it was Jenkins and Lance I saw, not sense, and it was them that made me speak up.

“Lance, Jenkins, and some of the other cadets. Draven told us that his mother had them locked up but…”

“You saw them?” Soren moved closer, reaching for my hands, searching my face, hearing my concern. “What is she doing to the lads, Pip? What has she done?”

I heard the urgency in his voice, knew that he would somehow want to take responsibility and I felt the need to prevent that, even as I knew I wouldn’t be able to.

“She has them in the cells in the castle and I saw her walking towards them with a knife.” Ged let out a low hiss of breath at that. “They look… They look…” I didn’t need to say it, because they all knew. A woman who was willing to commit the cardinal sin of killing a baby dragon would have no problems torturing young cadets with no one to speak up for them. Perhaps it was something she did on a regular basis. “She’s hurting them,” I said finally. “She has been the whole time.”

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