Page 73 of Dragon Fight

“So which is it, Your Majesty?” the duke said, the amusement clear in his voice. “Queen or not a queen?”

She knows, Glimmer growled inside my head.She knows just what I am and when she is not entirely focussed on negating me,she slips. My dragon looked over her shoulder at me.What we are.

“The only other queen dragon here other than Zafira is in that egg,” Raina declared, pointing an imperious finger at the clutch of dragon eggs her dragon was hovering protectively over.

“Then Pippin best come stand with us Skanians,” the duke said, offering me his arm. I took it on automatic, my training kicking in. “Rider Ged, you’re from Cantlyn?”

“Not that I was aware of it before I became a rider,” Ged replied as we pulled away from the prince and the queen. “But yes.” He shot me a look then forced his eyes up to meet the duke’s. “You’ll keep Pippin safe then, Your Grace?”

“Like she was the queen-in-waiting herself,” the duke said with a slow incline of his head. Glimmer didn’t want to back down and it took some heavy mental imprecations to get her to move, but finally she did. Just like a queen, she turned with a swish of her tail and then kept pace with us, right up until I was escorted over to Flynn’s side. “Young Glimmer is growing very rapidly, isn’t she, son?”

“Very rapidly, Father,” Flynn replied, shooting me a cautionary look. “We think she was in the egg too long which resulted in a smaller birth weight. But she is every inch the perfect dragon now.”

Too long because of her.I went very still, feeling the waves of anger rolling off my dragon and superstitiously fearing that Zafira or Raina would feel them, but she settled when further away from her mother.He is my favourite of your mates, Glimmer opined.Glacier is quite suitable as well. He composed a sonnet about the way the sun shines on my scales the other day and then recited it to me.

He did?

I snorted with amusement as Glimmer rubbed against Flynn’s legs like she was a very oversized cat, and he, reaching down to scratch her under the chin, like she really was one.

“Perfect indeed,” the duke said, shooting a meaningful look at a small cluster of richly dressed men that were standing very close to him, nursing glasses of wine. “It’s difficult to see how anyone could find fault in her.”

But he didn’t want to, just as Raina did. This had little to do with me or Glimmer or even the young queen growing inside the egg nestled under Zafira’s wing. Powerful people sorted my dragon, all of those young dragons in their eggs, like they were calves at market, determining which was worth something and which wasn’t. I stepped closer to Glimmer then, somehow sure I needed to protect her with my body, but from what? Instead Flynn just stared at me as I got closer, a sudden heat colouring those bright blue eyes.

Something his father noted with a raised eyebrow and a smirk.

“Ah, it looks like the ceremony is finally starting,” one of the men started. “Raina’s got to make the most of her little moments.”

Not Her Majesty, not Queen Raina, I noted that, hearing the snickers and nasty asides as the king stepped out onto the sands, the queen now by his side.

“Thank you all for coming today for this Gathering,” the king said with a regal smile. I found myself staring closely at him and the queen, unable to decide who was doing the talking here, even if it was his lips moving. “Every birth of a clutch of dragon eggs is a happy occasion.”

The two of them stepped apart, their focus on Zafira and her eggs beyond, which made me look down at Glimmer, only to find her staring up at me.

“All dragons are a blessing, their birth a guarantee of the continued safety and security of our great country,” the king said. “But none more than the birth of a queen.”

Was there pain in my dragon’s eyes? The king had to have spoken the same words about her when she was just born, her potential as a pawn for the crown to wield still possible.

“She represents the future, a great and glorious one,” the king said.

“Some might say she already does,” the duke muttered as an aside, looking back at us for a moment to the sounds of his fellows’ titters.

“From this dragon, the daughter of the great Zafira, the next generation of dragons will be born,” the king said.

Is that what you wanted?I asked her.Did you hear the king say that about you?

I am far more than a broodmare for these kings to secure their throne with,she shot back.We are more than pawns.

“Her rider will become the next queen of all of Nevermere, ruling by the side of my son, Prince Draven.”

“The next queen, certainly,” the duke said. “The prince…?”

“That’s sedition!” I hissed at Flynn, sinking back into the crowd, instinctively wanting to put distance between the duke, his machinations and us.

“And this is the problem with the queen’s ambition,” Flynn muttered back. “Powerful people abide by the rules when they have a vested interest in maintaining them. By guaranteeing her duchy’s primacy, she discredits the whole bonding process. Why bother to see which girl bonds with a queen dragon? Why not just pluck a girl from the duchy who’s turn it is to provide a consort?”

“But the dragon…?” I couldn’t even finish that thought. “And the girl…?”

“The proper process could be honoured if people felt it was being actually followed,” he said, ostensibly watching the proceedings.

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