Page 89 of Dragon Fight

“Well…” Skane said with a small smile. “That is welcome news. Come, sit, and let me pour you a drink. Politics and good food are not a palatable mix, but we’ll do our best tonight, because the future of our country is at stake. And I think you four are well placed to play a pivotal role.” He glanced at each one of us. “Things have been changing since Raina took the throne, but it's past time we started to influence that change, shaping it to provide an outcome we approve of.”

I hoped none of them expected me to eat tonight. Apart from the fear of spilling something on my beautiful dress, my stomach swirled dangerously at his words, making clear just how terrifying their implications were.

53

“When you were declared as queen-in-waiting, we were prepared to lay to rest any thoughts of war,” Skane told me, once we were all seated.

I clung to my glass of wine like it was a life preserver. I’d already had to wrestled Glimmer when she tried to clamber up onto the top of the table and access the food set out upon it. I some dainty snacks on a table setting in front of her, as she sat up to the table like she was just another girl. Although she looked at the size of the serves with a baleful eye, she plucked each one off the plate with her claws and ate them neatly.

“It didn’t have to be a Skanian girl,” he continued, although the other dukes scoffed at that, “as long as it wasn’t another bloody Harlstonian.”

Do we tell them?I asked my dragon, her eyes meeting mine as she licked her jaws clean.

Of what was done to me?There was a perilous edge to her voice.You can cry it from the rooftops and that won’t be loud enough to satisfy me.Her eyes slid to the men around the table.If these humans think they can help, then do so.

“The queen did her best to ensure Glimmer bonded with Beatrice,” I told them, then plucked one of the daggers from its sheath on my thigh. Soren hissed when he saw me giving away that I was armed. “These stones—”

“Dragonstone?” Skane said, leaning forward. “What of it?”

“We believe it's a psychic amplifier. Those who bond with dragons must have the touch, be able to communicate mind to mind with their dragon.”

“Must be why you were never considered a candidate, Boris,” the duke of Cantlyn said with a smirk. He rapped his hand on the other man’s skull. “Thick as two posts.” Cantlyn shoved his hand off, but his smile was genuine.

“But these stones enhance what is already innate,” I continued. “We discovered that in our travels.”Don’t mention Dragon Home, I thought furiously. “And I believe the queen did as well. Perhaps from the dowager queen before her.”

“Another Harlston queen,” Skane said with a slow nod of his head. “Of course. The bonding of the queen dragon was always a lottery of sorts, until they discovered a way to skew their chances.”

“To ensure they always are the chosen ones,” I agreed, “and…” What I was about to say was the truly seditious part and if any one of the people at this table decided to turn around and inform the queen of what I had said, I was dead ten times over. “I believe she uses her stones to control the king. Not all of the time, and not overtly. He can’t be a puppet for her to speak through; I don’t think she has that level of control. But she can influence, coerce, manipulate.”

My fingers slid up the stem of my glass as I prepared myself to go on, and Brom took my other hand and squeezed it, something each one of my men wished to do, I was sure.

“I think Prince Felix was aware of that and that was why he had started talking to the three of you.”

That part was a hunch, but it was quickly confirmed by the expressions on each duke’s face. Boris seemed flushed, Clarence a little sheepish, but Flynn’s father? He just smiled slowly.

“He believed his mother was controlling his father as much as she dared and was ready to do the same to him, ensuring that Zafira birthed another queen egg when she was confident that she had him under control and then ensuring he married Beatrice. Draven was the spare and left to play at being dragon rider, not needed until…” I surveyed the entire table. “Until she discovered that you had been talking. Which makes me wonder what she will do to us when we return to the keep.”

“If we are speaking plainly, nothing overt. Raina may be a conniving bitch but she’s not an idiot. If the two of you,” Skane nodded to Glimmer and I, “go missing, suddenly, she knows the country will be thrown into civil war. We keep an eye on the border, deploy spies to look for signs of troop mobilisation, but we haven’t seen sign of it.” He nodded to his son. “Something to look for when on dragonback, my boy.”

Flynn rubbed his hands over his face, eyes wide. None of this was news to him and yet… Having had our fears acknowledged, suddenly everything felt a whole lot more real.

“We have reason to believe she has already tried to kill me twice, while we were at Rutherfeld,” I told the table. “Both times were through means which could not have been traced back to her, if they had been successful. The stableboy disappeared, but a local noblewoman is locked up in the basement of Brom’s family estate.”

“Will your father relinquish her to us?” Skane asked Brom. “This woman, she isn’t safe at Rutherfeld. The queen will have put two and two together—”

“Will Ada be safer with any of you?” Brom shot back. “She is a kinswoman of sorts and it will be hard to convince Father that she would be any safer were she to be handed over to another duchy.”

“Try,” Skane said, then leaned forward. “We will guarantee her safety because it's in our best interests to do so. A highborn woman as witness to the queen’s treachery? You’d be lucky to find many more invested in her continuing to live.”

His sharp gaze took in the rest of the table.

“If we can collect enough evidence to prove the queen’s treachery, we can have her deposed; we can force the king to set her aside. The Duke of Harlston won’t like it, but with all three of us supporting the claim…”

“He’d be mad to take the lot of us on at war. It’d tear the country apart,” Boris huffed.

But the Duke and the queen had to already know that. The queen was arrogant, but she wasn’t stupid. She had to know a civil war was brewing and yet she continued. It made me think somehow that was all a part of her plan.

“So tell us how the queen intends to ensure the next queen dragon will bond with Beatrice where Glimmer refused,” Skane said, staring at my dragon. “How did Glimmer have the presence of mind to resist? I assume that’s how she came to bond with you?”

---