Page 17 of Dragon Fight

I heard a humming inside my head as Darkspire moved with careful precision, lowering just one curved claw down to my hand and pricking the pad of my finger. There was a bright burst of pain and then the humming grew louder. It felt like the ground shook as I took one step then another, closer to the centre stone of the circle of cobblestones, people calling out things, something, as I let my hand fall. A drop of blood formed on the fingertip and dripped down to splatter against the stone.

Just as before, the stone separated somehow and, just as before, a small stand emerged. On it, a shining egg of moonstone.

Claim it.Glimmer’s command was clear in my head, and with it came another female voice, one I recognised as Tanis. They both told me what to do, over and over, until my hand wrapped around the stone.

She stood before a wing of dragons, but I got the feeling that none of these beasts were under her control. The woman was clad only in a wispy shift dress. And on her head? She wore a crown of bones, each one wired together with frightening precision. She held a ceremonial knife in one hand and with the other hand she extended just one finger. The knife point was pressed to her fingertip, just as Darkspire’s claw had done to mine, and blood welled forth. The dragons all hummed together in chorus as she pressed it to the stone. As the stand emerged, their song grew louder, filling the air, vibrating through the woman, urging her forward when the egg was revealed. She placed her bloody fingers upon it, just as I had, and we heard Tanis speak.

For the balance to be restored, the queen must rise. I whispered the words along with her, hearing my dragon repeat them inside my mind. Tanis’ voice joined ours, speaking the sentence over and over.

“What the hell is going on?”

The harsh question broke through the vision. I blinked, losing the images in my mind, coming back to the here and now to find Draven standing over me. Frowning, he stared into my eyes, then at the egg, then back and forth again before reaching out to—

“No!”

I knocked his hand away. And his look of surprise at my action was quickly replaced by one of rage. His eyes flashed brilliant blue, his lips pulled back in a snarl as he stepped towards me…

Only to be met by the wall of Brom’s body.

“What the hell have the four of you been playing at?” Draven demanded of his wing commander. “What is…?”

But as he asked the question, the egg receded back into the alcove, as the rest of our dragons landed around us. And to make matters worse, Darkspire came to stand behind my back, looming over me and looking down at his rider in a move that was like a blow to Draven. He took a step back, then another, staring at each of us with an expression of horror mixed with fear, like it was the first time he’d ever seen any of us and he didn’t like what he saw. He shook his head and seemed to come back to himself.

“What was that?” Draven demanded, jabbing a finger at the centre of the cobblestones.

“Draven—” Brom started to say.

“As your prince, tell me what that was.”

The rest of the wing damned themselves further in coming to my side, not his, and in not answering his question. But the lack of response wasn’t due to insubordination. None of us knew how to answer him.

“Your Highness,” Brom said in a very controlled voice. “What you saw is a very recent phenomenon, and right now you know as much as we do. Pippin’s blood… activates something in the old ruins. It’s only happened here, today, and before that in one other place, but not one of us knows why.”

“And you didn’t think to tell me?”

That seemed to be what was at the centre of Draven’s outrage, the idea that he had been kept in the dark.

“And what would you have done with that information?” Flynn snapped. “Gone running to your blasted mother, only for Raina to drag Pippin from her bed and… what? Make good on killing her and Glimmer?”

A squawk let me know my dragon had heard this. Her sound of indignation was the only warning I got as she launched herself off Obsidian to land heavily on my shoulder, my knees locking to absorb the blow. Glimmer bristled from her position closer to the prince, staring him down in a battle of wills.

“And what willyoudo?” Draven asked Flynn, though his eyes remained on my dragon. “Use this display of chicanery to validate your ‘alternate’ candidate for the throne? If your father trotted her out to the local ruins, then got her to put on a display, you’d have the common folk behind her, making Pippin the perfect Skanian puppet.”

He finally shifted his attention fully onto Flynn.

“And you’d plunge the country into civil war.”

“That’s what you lot have never fucking understood.” Flynn stepped closer until he was almost nose to nose with the prince. “You were born in the cesspit of Nithian intrigues and you’ve learned to play that game, but some of us stepped away from that shit the moment we could, never wanting to play again.” He looked over his shoulder at me. “Pippin, do you want to become queen of Nevermere?”

Yes, Glimmer replied.

But I said, “Gods, no.” And both of us were honest about our intentions. I shook my head, thinking of the king and queen the last time I’d seen them, in the ballroom on the celebrations for King Magnus’ birthday, and how Queen Raina had been working so hard to hold onto power with her machinations. “I’ve never wanted that, not even when I could do so legitimately by marrying you.”

Draven visibly flinched, taking my words as an insult, and his scowl deepened.

“Well, then, it appears the two of us were very lucky to avoid a fate worse than death,” he replied, acidly. “But, make no mistake, the moment the other dukes catch word of this, you’ll have no choice. The ridiculous imbalance of power that my mother and uncle have created means that the dukes are hungrier than ever for what scraps of power they can acquire. And you are their best bet. You’ll have your choice of husband—” Draven’s eyes flicked across to the other men before returning to me, and he sniffed in derision, “or perhaps husbands—but you’ll be locked down, caged, like the goose that lays the golden eggs.”

The prince shook his head, looking around at the ruins with an air of regret in his eyes as if he was contemplating what my future would be. Then, as was usual for the mercurial prince, his mood changed and he looked back at us all, his gaze hardening.

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