Queen of Dragons - Shana Abe

Even if her worst fears proved real, she'd thought the Zaharen would prevail. They had the castle and at least a hundred good strong men who could Turn, and so would prevail.

But she had been wrong.

Darkfrith, a haven, was far larger than she'd imagined. There had to be close to a thousand here who could Turn.

A thousand.

It would be a massacre.

She would leave, then. She would fly home. She belonged to the Zaharen, by birth and by marriage, and this time she would not abandon them. Let the earl and his English kin come; her people would still fight. Let them see what might there was left in the Carpathians.

She shoved from the rowan in a surge of determination. Another butterfly shivered up and away, but Mari barely heeded it. She took two steps into the dark humid forest, her power cresting—a mere second from the Turn—

But then she heard music. Stone music—not the notes from the spa—she had no idea why the squire would invent such nonsense; it was surely just another part of their plot—but this was something broken and queer and hauntingly familiar. Mari knew this song. She knew that melody.

Through the sultry heat a chill crept over her skin. She paused, rubbing her arms, glancing around at tree trunks and wildflowers bent double to rest their heads upon the ground. A breeze stirred the rowan and quieted the song; she waited until the air settled again, listening. And then she began to walk.

It was such a slight, unsettling thing, so faint beneath the other sounds of rocks and metals and running water that she lost it three more times. And there were twigs and bugs and she should not be walking, but she knew if she Turned now, she'd have the immediate attention of all those not-clouds dangling above her. Mari had faith enough she could escape them when the time came. But first she just wanted to see.

She walked a good while. The sleeves of Kimber's shirt caught against the brushwood, and once she splashed into a flat little stream throttled with muddy debris. After a half hour her feet were filthy and perspiration had the linen clinging like translucent skin to her torso and arms, but the notes were getting clearer.

The forest opened up into a meadow. It was sprinkled with scarlet campion and bluebells, a good many of them flattened to the earth. Dirt had been kicked up. The smell of man and steel sopped the air. And blood.

Sanf inimicus.

She moved cautiously into the grasses. She glanced up and around and stepped sideways like a crab, unwilling to keep her back fixed to any one spot, even though the scent of the sanf was hours old.

There was the blood, a few drops, nearly the same color as the campions they decorated.

And there was the song. It was an emerald, buried beneath a clod of sticky brown dirt. She crouched down and dug until she found it, two halves of uneven green, a gold wire hoop that had been mashed into a lump.

Rhys's emerald. Rhys's earring. She touched a finger to the petal of a campion and felt the small, electric thrill of dragon blood, freshly dried.

Mari stood. She rubbed the pieces of ruined emerald between her palms, gauging grit and music and sharp edges, and blew the air between her teeth. The canopy of trees above her head made a skein of branches and leaves without a single nest of any kind, not from birds or squirrels.

This was not her concern. None of it was. Not any longer.

But the broken flowers ruffled with the breeze. A cricket nearby began a tentative creak, and then one more. Within three chirps it was joined by a fellow; together they made a low, urgent sawing.

Mari plucked the blooded campion. She wiped the moisture from her face with the cuff of her sleeve and began the trek back to Chasen.

She came upon the gardener first. She walked straight to him—he had moved from the bed of mulch to the violets she had trampled, resettling the stems—and watched as his gaze lifted from her feet to her bare scratched shins, to the oversized breeches and soiled, transparent shirt. When he reached her eyes she held out her fist to him.

"Here," she said. She dropped the earring and wilting campion into his hastily lifted hands. "Take these to your lord. Tell him I found them in the woods, about five miles distant. And that now I am done."

Night fell. It was moonless, no clouds, only stars to pierce the inky black—stars and torches and lanterns. Voices that did not call out, but whispered like a river running constant through the trees and darkened lanes. Voices that purled, They're here, where do we hide, whom do we trust?

The drakon searched for their missing in silence. They sent out parties in groups; no one traveled alone. Not any longer. Men went to smoke to curl stealthily through the forests; women blocked all openings to their homes, their children confined to parlors, bright eyes fixed on doors, carving knives and loaded pistols kept like embroidery on their laps.

Their domain had been breached. A young prince had been taken. Mari knew he wasn't a prince, not really, but to these people, Rhys Langford was as near as they would come.

She remembered the flaxen-haired Englishman found dead in the mountains, the particular gray tinge of his skin. She remembered the man in the mines, the rigid curl of his fingers, the gape of his mouth. She thought of Rhys and his pirate's grin and wished that of all the people she had met in this place, it had not been him.

From her seat against the polished glass dome topping the manor she watched the many dots of light that illuminated Darkfrith, stars tilting above, bobbing flames below. She sat with her arms wrapped around her knees, still dressed in Kimber's clothing, because she would not risk going down to the Dead Room, no matter the wealth and memories she had stored in the cell down there.

She did not think any of them could sneak up on her. But she was unwilling to be proven wrong.

At least the night was cooler than the day. The glass kept a pleasant heat against her back, not much, only enough to keep her comfortable. She leaned her head against it, watching the man drawing near across the slate tiles with half-lidded eyes. The roof of Chasen Manor was unlit and so was he; as he walked toward her the curve of the dome sliced across his body, blurring, a figure of shadow and sheen.

The entry to the roof was on the other side of the dome. She'd chosen this spot in particular so that she could see him approach. So that he would not have to Turn, and come to her as any other being but the earl.

"You're still here," Kimber said. "As you see."

He stopped at her feet, balanced on the slope with one boot above the other.

"Twenty men," she commented, without moving. "Would their time not be better spent searching for your brother, rather than wasting the night hovering around me?"

She couldn't make out his smile but she imagined it, thin and sardonic, with no humor behind it. "Will you give me your word you won't attempt to leave Chasen?"

"Absolutely. As many words as you wish."

"Why, thank you, that's most reassuring. Isn't it delightful to discover we understand each other so well. I've four times as many men searching for Rhys. And I do not consider it a waste in any sense to ensure your security." The earl paused. "Do you feel him anywhere?"

"No," she answered, with real regret.

Someone Turned to dragon overhead, silent, falling and rising. Mari lifted her head, squinting until she found the shape of the beast against the sky, a black winged rope beneath a blacker heaven.

"Do you think I can't elude them?"

"I think that if you could, you would have already done so, Princess." "Perhaps I was only waiting for you."

Kimber climbed closer, then eased down beside her, crossing his legs. "How fortuitous. Here I am."

"I've been thinking," she began, angling her gaze now at the glow of a lantern that marked a slow, wavering trail through the forest. "About what your squire said."

She felt his attention, although he watched the lantern too.

"I cannot.actually recall leaving the pump room."

"Oh?"

"I remember leaving the table. I remember the husband stopping me in the hallway afterward. But in between.. .there's nothing."

He turned to look at her.

"I wanted you to know that before I left. I wasn't lying before; I'm not like you. But I realized—later on—that I did not remember." She shrugged. "Perhaps there was a woman. Perhaps it was your missing girl. I don't know. It's a mystery for you to unravel after I'm gone."

"Maricara."

"And I wanted something else. Something to take with me."

He shook his head. He was at the ragged edge of his restraint; she felt it. She heard it in the tempered tightness of voice. "What?"

"This."

She lifted a hand to his face. She found his cheek, unshaven, and the heavy warmth of his hair, unbound at his shoulders. With her other hand she held him steady and brushed her lips to his.

He allowed it. She'd feared he wouldn't, that in his state of hunt and disquiet and eagerness to shackle her to the ground, he would be in no mind for kisses, not even this one, soft and in the dark, and with her eyes closed, so that she could not see even a hint of his features.

He covered her shoulder with his palm. He held very still, and when she pulled away, he said only, "Was that supposed to be a good-bye?"

She felt herself color a little.

"You're very young," he said flatly. "And for all your worldly ways, I fear more than a little naive.

From the moment we discovered your existence, Maricara, there became no question of our people joining into one. You've seen the life we live here. Our foundations in this society, our careful disguise. Without the Zaharen, our survival was sustainable. But with you, with the very fact of you, everything must change. You will change, and I will change. For the good of us all, we're going to unite. We will have rules and opinions and I don't expect we'll agree on a great many things. But this is how it will be. As my wife, you're the perfect liaison for all the drakon living in Transylvania."

"I don't want to be a wife," she said, her hand still cupped to his face.

"I'm sorry to hear it. Because it's going to happen one way or another."

"My people will fight you. We are ferocious fighters."

"I'm sure you see that that would be a great waste of lives. Even counting your kin, there are so few drakon left. I'd hate to lose more of us in fruitless battle, especially with the delis inimicus panting at our heels."

She dropped her hand. She sat back again, propped her head against the dome and looked up at the stars.

"Is this truly how you want our futures to unfold?" she asked quietly. "War and bloodshed. You're determined?"

"Let me you ask you something, Princess. Why did you come here?" "You know why."

"A letter would have sufficed as warning for the sanf. The rings were ample proof. There was no need for you to show up in person, unless you had another motive."

She was surprised into a laugh. "You think I came here to marry you?"

"I think," he said, "that somewhere in your heart, you knew where your fate would lie. That there was no drakon of the Zaharen who would match you as I would. You were wed to an Alpha because that's what that black dragon simmering in your blood demands of you. You will wed an Alpha once more. Pendant que nous vivons, ainsi nous devons etre." The warmth of his touch modified, became lighter, a bare stroke down her arm. "I regret you heard what you did with the council. I regret there isn't more time to convince you that I'm right. I'm not your enemy, Maricara. Like it or not, for better or worse—I'm your husband, and your mate. King to king. Soon you'll be a queen as well. Neither of us can change it. It is why you came to me. Why fight what's over and done?"