Shana Abe - Queen of Dragons

She might walk in her sleep, she might rage. But she would not be able to Turn.

Mari began to laugh. It was small and painful, a bubble in her chest that somehow turned into a smothered sob. She held it in by pressing her hands over her face.

In time, with her arms stretched out before her, she fumbled her way to the bed. It was not as soft as it first appeared; the sheets were cotton instead of satin, and the pillows gave off an aroma of long-deceased fowl.

None of it mattered. She closed her eyes and let the blessed darkness sink into her skin.

She slept without moving. He could feel her stillness, the solemn night wrapped around her, her absolute quiescence. The Dead Room was three floors below his own and half a wing over, sequestered from any other useful part of Chasen. It had been constructed near the heart of the house but sunk into the earth; the closest public space was the wine cellar. The hallway that led to it also led to the back gate of the manor, to a certain path that wound through the woods. Following that path for nigh an hour would lead to a field of bones at the end of it, bones charred and buried, the final remnants of the drakon outcasts strewn far from the tribe.

The princess took her rest in a cell brimming with ghosts, gone to her dreams with a peace that eluded him. He imagined her there on the bed he'd helped set up, between the sheets he'd smoothed flat with his own hands.

Rhys shifted beneath his covers, too hot, too aware. The down mattress felt suffocating. Her endless silence drove him mad.

He stared up at the ceiling of his room and wished for the same oblivion that had taken Maricara, or the outcasts.

His body would stop burning either way.

We do not have any legends of brothers at war. Perhaps in our history there have never been any.

Perhaps if there were, the results were too dreadful to give voice. Our magic is in words and song and flight. Our savagery could rend the very fabric of the sky, sending the sun and all the bright galaxies spilling away like pirate's treasure poured into a white-frothed sea.

We were not meant to fight each other. We were not meant to use our Gifts in such a way.

But what better way for the Others to use us, to force us to work against ourselves? Without the drakon, all the precious stones and thick veins of gold, all the glories of the land and the blue promise of heaven would become theirs.

Such small, bitter beings. I don't know why we call them delicious.

The first child went missing that night.

Save the farms, most of the homes of the tribe were clustered in or at least near the village, which was the core of their commerce and community. It was large enough now almost to be called a town, but it had been known as the village since the beginning of their time, and no doubt would continue to be so, even if it ever rivaled London in size.

The girl's name was Honor Carlisle. Her father managed the silver mines that brought so much of the wealth to the shire. His name was Gervase; Kim had known him all his life. The Carlisles lived in a large, Elizabethan brick structure that used to be the gamekeeper's quarters, farther from the village than most. Honor was their only child.

According to everyone he spoke with, the girl was quiet, she was studious, she was obedient. She had few friends, but those she had swore they had not seen her. They also swore she had no special beaux, drakon or otherwise.

There had been a time when the notion of a maid of the shire linked in any romantic sense to a human male would have been almost unthinkable. But the way their traditions had been crumbling lately... he had to be certain.

Darkfrith had had no rain, but the dawn had come clouded, and the ground was dewed. The girl's footprints revealed she had left by the front door of her home, had crossed alone the long slope of the yard that ended at the road. The grass had grown brittle at its tips, slightly too long. It was easy to follow her trail that far.

The road led in one direction back to the village, and Chasen Manor beyond. The other direction led to the banks of the great River Fier, wide and flat and feeding fish and silt and swirling leaves all the way to the North Sea, miles distant.

Her scent said she walked to the river. And from there, she was gone.

She wasn't a child, really. She was almost fifteen, at the brink of the Turn, should the fates so choose to grace her. By the time Kimber had tracked her as far as he could, had convened and reconvened with the council and the elders and her panic-stricken parents, the sound of Maricara's relentless pounding against the door to the Dead Room hammered like a cold, hard knell throughout the mansion.

No one else had a key. There was but one, and Kim had put it on a ring, on a chain at his waist.

As he passed through the doors of his home, the longcase clock in the vestibule began its noontime chimes; it remained four seconds fast, no matter how it was wound. It was followed at once by all the other clocks in all the other chambers, forty at least, one after another. He'd wanted for years to put away at least some of them, but his sisters had protested. The servants were used to them; Chasen was the seat of a proud and noble family; all the best people had clocks. Better to keep up appearances, especially with the marquess and marchioness gone.

Their combined, jolly melodies going off every three hours made a mess of sound, rebounding off the marble floors and walls.

Maricara's fists striking her door nearly managed to drown them all out.

The majordomo hurried over to him across the black and white tiles, inclining his head.

"My lord, we attempted to contact you—"

"No doubt. I've been outside the shire."

"So we were told. I beg your pardon, Lord Chasen, no one was certain what to do about her. You did convey orders to leave her strictly alone, and without the means to open the door—"

"Yes, it's fine. Thank you."

Kimber did not rush to her. There were more servants watching, pale and observant, and he was Alpha, and so Kim did not rush. But he did make his way straight there, smoothing a hand over his hair as he walked, brushing an errant leaf from his coat.

He'd been dragged from his bed at daybreak. He'd thrown on clothes in the dark without waking his valet, and had been searching for the girl ever since. He was half-surprised to see he even wore boots of a matching color.

Closer to the Dead Room the noise evolved into something more like a muffled boom. There were no bulges in the door from her fists. It was four feet of iron, and even the strongest of drakon would have a hard time punching his way through that. But he could only imagine what the other side looked like.

Or, he didn't have to imagine. Kim hoisted the bar free, found the key on his chain, inserted it into its socket—the last boom echoed away—and pulled open the door.

She stood with her hair disheveled, two spots of pink high on her cheeks. Her eyes were glittering, her feet were braced apart—she wore a nightgown of sheer muslin; he could clearly see her figure beneath it, the colors of her dusky nipples, the dark triangle between her thighs, tantalizing curves—and in her hand was what had once been the smartly shaped cabriole leg of the chair, snapped clean at its base.

Maricara drew straight, her arm still cocked.

"Good morning," Kimber said. "Won't you join me for breakfast?"

She took a deep breath and spat something in that language he didn't understand, clipped and fluid, her chin rising.

"Kippers, I believe," he said. "And eggs, if you like. I'm sure there's some poached salmon as well." "Bastard!" That was in English. "I trusted you!" "It does seem to be a few minutes past morning—" "A few! I've been trying to get out of here for hours!"

He lifted his hands to her, palms out. "I apologize. Deeply. If you wish to Turn into a dragon and bite me, I won't stop you. I only request that you don't maim me first with the chair leg. It's been—a difficult morning."

He stepped back from the doorway. He made certain she could see she wasn't trapped, that the corridor was empty behind him, the faint tinge of daylight from the main hallway beyond lighting the minute cuts and grooves of the stone.

A shade of the hostility faded from her posture. Slowly her arm lowered, until the curved wood of the leg brushed the side of her calf.

The daylight didn't reach far into the Dead Room. Everything behind her was charcoal dark, the bed, the tapestries, the floor. In her gown of floating white, her tumbled hair, her porcelain skin, she gathered the light, became nearly incandescent.

"Or," he went on, because she wasn't speaking and wasn't moving, and he had to do something to distract himself from going over to her, from pulling her into his arms, "if you really must hit me with that thing, I suppose I can take it. Please not the face."

Her lips twitched. She actually seemed to be considering it. He chanced a quick glance at the back of the door; there was definitely a series of fresh dimples across the surface.

But after a moment she only said, calmer than before, "I didn't see the point of ruining my hands."

"I'm glad. They're lovely hands."

"Where have you been?"

Kim shook his head, looking down at his boots. Blades of grass still smeared across the leather. "Will you come eat with me? I could use your counsel. King to king."

At least a half minute passed. When he angled his gaze back up to her Maricara met it, shrugged, then dropped the wooden leg with a clatter. "All right." She turned around to walk back into the chamber, going to where her open valise had been placed against the wall, yanking free a frock in a sudden flash of vermilion.

"No fish," she said, from over her shoulder. "Agreed. I'm a beef and gravy man, myself." "Remain in the hallway. Do not close the door."

He complied. He leaned his back against the wall and then his head, closing his eyes, listening to the quiet, quick sounds of the princess dressing, seeing in his mind's eye the ravaged faces of the parents of Honor Carlisle, begging him for her safe return.

How Gervase's hands shook when he spoke her name. How his wife stared straight at Kim with intensely blue eyes, fierce with unshed tears.

He'd tried his best. He'd made promises he shouldn't have, of course she's fine, don't worry, we'll have her soon, he'd rallied his people; he'd searched and searched. He would search again.

He wasn't Christoff, legendary Christoff, or even bold Rue. He was just their son, doing his damnedest to hold back the swift, black edge of the oblivion that had risen to rush toward his tribe.

Bastard, hissed the dragon inside him. Do not fail them.

She had asked where he'd been, but she already knew. Everything about him whispered to her of the outdoors, the silken curls that escaped from the ribbon that tied his hair, the fresh air that lingered on his cheeks and clothing like a lover's last glance. The boots, clearly. The loosened cravat. He looked as roguish as a story-book corsair, and just as reputable.

But something was wrong. There were lines around his mouth that had not been there yesterday. There were shadows in his eyes.

It had hooked her heart in some silent, poignant way, and like a trout on the line she didn't know how to thrash free. She'd seen him kind, and she'd seen him arrogant. She had yet to see him truly troubled.

Maricara felt an odd, instant empathy. She knew troubled, all too well.