Page 98 of Dragon Fight

The general was always full of blustery confidence, but that demeanour had left him and that was unnerving. He grew palpably paler as he considered the idea.

“Your mother… Your uncle…”

“We need to expand our patrols to the borders of the four duchies,” Draven said. “And when you do I think you’ll find that there will be reports of mobilised Harlston troops. When the hatching takes place, civil war will be declared. As far as I can tell, my mother and my uncle seek to replace the Nithian dynasty with a Harlstonian one.”

57

It felt like I’d spent the entire day talking to people about impending doom, and after we rehashed everything for the general’s sake, my eyelids started to droop. I forced myself upright, curling Glimmer tighter in against my body until hands took my burden from me.

“Is your dragon alright?” It was Draven, not Brom, who asked that when they escorted me into the hall, my husband holding my dragon like a baby in his arms. “‘Spire said she is, that’s she’s just exhausted but by what? This mental power you described?”

“I guess we’re not as well trained in it as your mother is,” I sighed. “Glimmer demanded that I put the stones in front of her and in she went, searching the town for the boys. They’re safe and with Marcus Lighthands. He has healers working on them. I could connect with Lance’s dragon, see what hints I could pick up of where they are.”

“We won’t see them until Marcus is ready for us to do so,” Draven ground out.

“You sound like you speak from experience,” Brom observed.

Draven stared at him eye to eye, and my gaze went from one to the other, idly admiring how the two of them were almost of the same height.

“Who do you think told me of Felix’s death? Who helped me get Glimmer’s egg to you and out of the keep? Who got word to me that Mother was going to crush it? Marcus has his fingers in every pie, but especially ours.” The prince pinched the bridge of his nose then, shutting his eyes for a second. “I meant what I said. Come to my room tonight. Please.”

I could count on one hand the times that the prince had said that word in my hearing, and it was even less for the number of times he’d said it to me. That caught my attention, shoving my exhaustion to one side.

“It doesn’t even have to… We can just lie in bed together, in our clothes, if that will make you feel more comfortable, but…” He looked at me, at Brom, with pleading eyes, the mask so thoroughly dropped it was as if it never existed. “I rarely get the opportunity to sleep in the keep anymore and when I come down here, I have to pretend. To be entranced by Beatrice’s bitchy little observations, to laugh at her vicious commentary, to lean in and pretend like she’s the most enchanting woman in the world to fool her and my mother. I have to also dance around the other daughters of noble houses, enough to placate their powerful fathers, but not enough to make my poisonous maternal kin jealous. I have to lie and lie and lie until it feels like my tongue will fall out, black and rotten and I… Just for tonight, I don’t want to.”

“Just for tonight.”

I was proud of myself for keeping my voice fairly even, but if I heard the note of accusation there, so did he.

“You know I don’t want—”

“Let's take this to your room, Highness,” Brom said in a much more proper tone, his eyes flicking up and down the hall as if in search for eavesdroppers. “If anything that needs to be said, we can do it there.”

“But Glimmer—” I started to say.

“Glimmer needs rest,” Draven assured me. “We all do. Let’s… rest.”

But it wasn’t rest I was thinking of as we walked into the prince’s room at the top of the keep. I jumped when I heard the lock flick into place. No one could hide behind their masks within these four walls and that was simply terrifying. Brom set Glimmer down on a plush armchair, and my dragon roused enough to nestle down into the cushions. A few heartbeats later she let out a long sigh. I reached over and traced my hands down her spine, watching her unconsciously lean into that caress. For several long moments I just watched her, listened to her breathe, the regular pace of it dissipating my tension. But when I turned back to the room, I found the two of them watching me closely.

“I am not often jealous of you, Brom,” Draven said, staring at me. “But tonight? I find myself positively green with it.”

“And why would that be, Draven?”

He dared a look at my husband, but his focus slid back to me again.

“You have her more completely than any of us. She walked into that seditious little meeting on your arm, looking like this, and you were able to declare to the whole world that Pippin is yours. They saw her face, that dress, the ring on her finger…” Draven’s voice trailed away when he saw my wedding band. “You gave her that one?”

“It seemed the most fitting,” Brom replied, undoing the fastenings of his jacket and pulling his shirt free of his pants. He walked across the room, taking my hand in his and looking intently into my eyes. “Traditionally, a wedding band is a symbol of the possession a man takes of a woman, marked by a pretty stone, but Pippin…” He rubbed his thumb across the setting, each stone seeming to sparkle brighter for it. “She required something more. You don’t belong to me,” he said, looking up from the ring into my eyes again.

“I do—” I started to say but he shook his head.

“Not in the way that base men take for granted every day and I’m glad of it. You need and deserve more. That’s what this ring symbolised to me when I saw it in the vault. Of course, Draven’s counsel also influenced that decision.”

“So…what?” I held up my ringed hand and displayed it to the room. “This is a promise for the four of you?”

“Five of us,” Draven corrected. He moved closer, eyes trained on that ring, but not touching, not yet. “A promise that we will create a world where we can be together.” His tone shifted, growing more and more intense, not speaking only as a man now, but as a prince. “Or die trying.”

I wanted to believe him so very violently that the intensity of it took my breath away. But there was an unacknowledged complication in this vision of the future, and I couldn’t just sink into their arms and forget it.

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