Page 108 of Dragon Fight

Blood for blood is always the way of queens,Glimmer said. A small shred of a memory pricked at my mind as I reached out.

His fingers held the stone just like the pedestal had in the ruin that day, my dragon’s song, all of the dragon’s song in my ears when I extended my hand out. I could see the me at the ruin, the me now doing the same thing and Glimmer’s urging echoed the same thing she’d said then.

Claim the egg, Pippin.

That was the last thing I heard as my mind filled with a white light, banishing everything and everyone in the room.

Greetings Pippin, Glimmer, Tanis’ voice said inside my head.

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“Where are we?” I asked, the world seeming now to be a cocoon of light and nothing more. There was a gentle radiance, Glimmer, me andher.

Tanis, first among dragons.

For the balance to be restored,the queen must rise, she said, echoing the same words I’d heard back at the ruin near Rutherfeld.

Tanis’ manner was as gentle as a mother’s, her golden eyes staring straight ahead, though not necessarily at us. They seemed fixed at a certain point. Compared to Glimmer and I, she was immense, and whatever we were seeing, whether it was a memory or manifestation, we were seeing her represented in the greatest of detail, down to the tiniest scale, the dull polish of her claws. As she looked past us, something in her eyes hardened, sending an involuntary shiver down her spine.

No queen tolerates another queen in her territory.

There was almost a growl to her voice, as if the animal in her surged forward at that. I found my muscles tensing, my heart beat picking up. This was all known, what she said and I assumed that she was merely reiterating what was said before to remind me of this.

But I had learned these lessons.

The world was out of balance, humankind hemming in and subjugating dragonkind, but it was more than that. We were out of kilter, not just in our own dealings with each other, but with dragonkind as well. I very much doubted Raina would sit on her hands and be a just and benevolent queen whether or not she had bonded with Zafira. There was something inside some people that seemed to see every event as an opportunity to gain power, influence and wealth, despite the cost.

As if in response to my thoughts, the world began to transform. The golden glowing space we were standing within blurred and changed to become dark polished wooden panels that I recognised as the familiar corridor of the house I’d grown up in. I was standing there on my own.

For the future to be ensured, the past must be resolved, Tanis said.

That was new. Not welcome, but I hadn’t heard that line before. Before I could make sense of it though, I realised what I was seeing.

My first thought was how strange I looked with my long blonde hair pulled back in a pretty ribbon. Nadia had spent the morning curling my hair into ringlets, then arranging them just so. I was in my best dress, freshly laundered and pressed, my hands smoothing it down my sides.

“Pip?”

Gods, I felt a sob form in my chest at the sound of his voice. Father. A voice so rich and deep, containing all the love and authority in the world, it had felt at the time, I realised that I’d forgotten just how it sounded.

“Pip, love? Come and meet your new family.”

No. I went rigid, as if by clenching my muscles, I could force that Pippin, past Pippin to stay right where she was and refuse to go down. I wanted to turn her around and march back into her bedroom, barricading the door before shimmying down the drain pipe and out into the fields.

Anywhere but downstairs.

“Pippin?” I heard his exasperated sigh along with a murmur that I now knew was my stepmother making a sound of disapproval. Not too critical, not in front of Father, merely a mild reproof to make clear that there was a lack in me. I watched myself giggle, sure I hadn’t made that sound since because something inside me died that day.

Glimmer?I reached out with my mind and found… nothing.Glimmer! Glimmer, where the hell…?

But before I could search for my dragon, I was dragged forward with the events of that day. Younger Pippin flew down the stairs, ready to greet what she thought was a bright new future. She would have a sister, a mother. The need for that, for family, for loving female presences in her life had been an ache in her chest that she’d learned to live with, but now there was a joy in her that she wouldn’t have to do so anymore. She came downstairs in a great rush, not very ladylike at all, but she was excited, breathless with it. I raced after her, feeling an anger flare bright in my chest at the sight of my past self.

I had been an idiot.

I had blundered into the drawing room, feet flying, hair swirling in a mass around my shoulders, my desire, my need for love writ clear on my face. But present-day me stared at Cecily’s face, assessing every aspect of her: greying hair pulled back in a perfect chignon, her dress, her make up and jewellery impeccable. The bitch had lifted her chin slightly, staring down her nose at my younger self, as her lips curved into a cat-like smile.

Gods, that was when she knew, I realised, with the benefit of hindsight and experience. By rushing down to meet them all bright eyed and bushy-tailed, she’d seen me not as a girl desperate for affection, but a mark. Someone vulnerable, needy, things she could exploit at her leisure. She had looked away from me to Arabella, my stepsister, and the two of them had traded a conspiratorial smile.

“Pip, this is your stepmother, Cecily,” Father had said, stepping forward and I tried to force the past version of me to turn her eyes towards him, to drink in the sight of him, store it away for safekeeping, because we wouldn’t have him for much longer. He would die and leave us all alone… “and this is Arabella—”

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