Page 90 of Dragon Fight

Tell me what to say, I said to my dragon.

You know.

Yes, but it’s your story, not mine. Give me the words and I’ll say them.

She let out a sigh, the whole table transfixed by her and then, she began.

At first all I could sense was heat and her, my mother. I heard the slow beat of her heart, felt the shift of her body, listened to the sounds of my brothers growing strong beside me.I was warm, cocooned up tight and safe. But thenshecame.

My fingers tightened around my glass as I repeated Glimmer’s words for the table to hear, the cool surface at odds with the heat of the memory shared. I could hear the slow lub lub of Zafira’s heartbeat, feel the sands.

I am a dragon. If I had been born as I was supposed to be, my egg and the eggs of my brothers would have been laid on a nest of dragon stone. The memories, the culture, the ways of my kind would have been transmitted to me while still in the shell, so that when I emerged, it would be as a citizen of the dragon nation, sentient. Instead you create this Gathering process.

My voice took on an acid edge as I told her story.

Rather than the wisdom of my kind, the intrusive thoughts of humans are pushed into young dragon minds. That’s what happens during the familiarisation process. You concoct rituals like the Gathering to legitimise it, but it is a form of brainwashing. Your thoughts push against our still forming minds, putting up boundaries, creating barriers to our true nature before we are even born. You create biddable, obedient dragons. But I…

Her voice cracked inside my mind and my throat made the same sound. I didn’t feel like I was separate from her, Pippin, right now. I was her voice, her throat moving to say the words.

I resisted. I don’t know why or how.

We didn’t then; we did now. But I would be damned before I’d share that with these men.

But when they pushed at me, I pushed back. Girls cried, their noses ran red and their heads ached when they surrounded my egg, alerting the false queen to what I was doing. So she stepped in. Away from the Gathering, from anyone else, she came with that blasted stone.

Glimmer stared at my dagger, as if the dragon stone on its pommel personally offended her.

The same power she uses to impress her will upon those humans around her was deployed against me. She made clear who I was to bond with, her will crushing mine, attempting to coerce me to bond with this Beatrice human. She showed me just what would happen if I didn’t. My egg crushed, my body torn apart and tossed to the winds, my blood seeping into the sand. She did this as my mother watched and waited, too docile, too domesticated to do anything but watch. I was a means to an end. And if I refused my fate, I would not live.

How did you come to me?I asked, realising I’d never bothered to pursue that.How did you come to Deepacre?

Draven, she replied.He dressed it up in tradition but he was the one who took my egg and handed it to his wing. He asked them to take my egg out into the world to find my bondmate, to find you.

A heavy silence fell over the table and I realised then I hadn’t relayed the last part. I summarised it quickly and then charged on.

When Pippin held my egg, I knew. I felt a soul as raw and ragged as my own, one who would survive anything the world threw at her and knew she would do the same for me. I needed a protector at first, and she was. Then I needed…Her eyes shone so brightly, my own aching with unshed tears as she spoke.A partner. Know this, cunning men with your secret cabals, I am a queen and so is my rider. We will not be a puppet in any of your schemes.

I didn’t want to say that last part but Glimmer insisted, so out the words came, slow and forced from between clenched teeth. But when I looked around the table, I didn’t see the outrage or fury I expected. That catlike smile of the Duke of Skane’s had only widened.

“A queen?” he said. “I couldn’t agree more, Lady Pippin, Glimmer, both. You were born to become the next queens of Nevermere, regardless of how that role was stripped from you needlessly by one woman’s ridiculous ambitions. Draven will see the sense of it, just as his brother did. The Nithians need the duchies support to rule and we will give it…”

Skane had the same blue eyes as his son, but there was none of Flynn’s impetuous heat, nor the warmth. There was something very cold about his gaze, like a knife blade made from ice.

“…as long as Draven is willing to put an end to his mother’s insane schemes and remind his uncle of his place.” The duke’s focus shifted to Brom. “You’ve always been close to the prince. Perhaps you can be the one to deliver our message?”

I’d walkedinto the duke’s residence at the start of the evening feeling both elated and nervous: uncomfortable in my own skin wearing this dress, but excited to try on this new aspect of myself. As we walked to our carriage, some hours later, all of Eloise’s hard work meant nothing to me. The tension of the evening had been debilitating.

“Well, we got out of that in one piece.” Flynn tried for a joke but even he didn’t manage to summon a laugh.

“But for how long?” Soren asked. Reaching the carriage first, he opened the door and pulled down the step. Then he helped me and my skirts up before assisting Glimmer. “The dukes have made it clear we are to play a role in this… treason. It is treason, any way you look at it. And what if you can’t get Draven onside? What then?”

“I’ll deal with Draven,” Brom said, then flushed as he looked up at me. “Wewill.”

“The most important thing I took from it was their advice about Pippin,” Ged said. “All the politics and war bullshit doesn’t mean anything compared to that. They said you need to learn how to use those stones, to develop the same powers as the queen. You have that stone egg and we know where more are. If they are the key—”

“They’re just weapons. Only as good as the skills of the one handling them,” I said. “Give me a master swordsman’s blade and I’ll still manage to stab myself with it, rather than the enemy.”

“So we work out how to train you.” As Soren warmed to the idea, Ged let out a groan. “We need to work out how to use those stones properly, but once we do… The queen stumbled upon their use, somehow, but you…”

---