Page 75 of Dynasty of the Wicked

“I cannot keep calling you dragon-child.” She tapped her chin thoughtfully. It would be rather presumptuous for her to assume he had no name, and thus name him herself, but maybe she could give him a nickname? What other choice did she have if he wouldn’t supply his name? “What about Drakkon?”

The child stared at her. Blinked. And continued staring.

Her cheeks reddened in response. “It’s a perfectly decent nickname. I know, I know, it simply meansDragonin the Kadian and Sanguis tongue … But it sounds good, doesn’t it?”

He tilted his head.

“The Kadians are our enemies,” she replied after a moment, “so maybe it’s not best to use their language … But you don’t look like you’re from our empire.”

It was true. The people of Huo generally had dark hair—which the child possessed—but their features were different from his. Their faces weren’t as sharp, their noses weren’t as pointed, and their ears … well, she was certain nobody in the world had sharpened ears like he did. So maybe he didn’t fit Kadian standards either.

“All right, it seems you don’t approve.” She frowned. Names that meant dragon. She glanced at the snow, at the soldiers passing them by and giving curious looks, and then at the white sky. “What about Hanlong? It means cold, and dragon?”

He growled, low and throaty.

“You don’t like that?” She tapped her chin. “Shenlong? It means spirit dragon. Bailong? White dragon. Tianlong? That sounds rather celestial, don’t you think? It means heavenly dragon. It’s a mighty name.”

The dragon shifted his red eyes to someone in the distance, his mouth curling back to reveal his sharp teeth once more. He flexed his claws, scraping them against the icy ground.

Snow crunched behind her and she quickly glanced over her shoulder to find Lanying walking over to them, her hand pressed on the hilt of her sword. She stopped a few feet away from Zhi Ruo.

“Making friends with the dragon, I see,” she said with a grin.

Zhi Ruo rose to her feet, dusting off the snow from her shoulders. “I was trying to talk to him. Does he have a name?”

She snorted. “A name? He doesn’t need one. He’s a dragon.”

“But … he seems to understand me.” She motioned to the child, who peered up at them with abhorrent blood-red eyes. The slits down the center seemed thinner than they had last night, likely because it was bright outside.

“Dragons are intelligent, but he is still a beast.” Lanying lifted her shoulders. “It’s best you don’t interact with him too much. He’s chomped off fingers from curious soldiers before. Some took pity on him and, well, they paid for it.”

Zhi Ruo inadvertently touched her injured arm, but quickly dropped her hand. “Don’t you think it’s cruel to have him wear nothing but threadbare clothes in the dead of winter? He must be freezing.”

“He is a dragon.” Lanying gave her a strange look. “He is always warm.”

“But …” She turned back to the dragon, whose toes were red with cold. No matter how much power he must have had, she was certain the wintry chill was getting to him.

“Even if he was cold, who would be able to get close enough to put a cloak on him? Or blankets?” Lanying raked a hand through her silk-liket hair. She flicked off pieces of ice clinging to the damp ends. “We take decent enough care of him, considering he’s an animal.”

An uneasiness pulled at her chest. “But … he is achild.”

“He may look like that.” Lanying thrust a hand in his direction. “But that is not his true form. Chanming accidentally cursed him to be like that.”

Zhi Ruo paused, the gears in her brain coming to a grinding halt. “What?”

“It’s a long story, but do you really think it’s easy to capture a dragon? Chanming needed one, and while trying to capture it, he accidentally killed the mother, and then …” She waved another hand at the child. “Took the child, since he couldn’t leave empty handed. He had to restrain the beast, and whilst using his magic, accidentally restricted him a bittoomuch. And now the dragon won’t go back to his normal form.”

She said it so flippantly, like retelling a casual story from a week ago, and not a traumatic experience the dragon must have felt. Of course he hated humans, she could imagine, since they were the ones who’d killed his mother, forced him into a humanoid form, and continued to imprison him. A shudder ran down her spine and she blinked back the unexpected burning in the back of her eyes.

“Anyhow.” Lanying tucked her bone-straight hair behind her reddened ears, and breathed warm air against her wind-chapped fingers. “Chanming wants to talk to you.”

A coldness swept over her and she swallowed down the panic clawing up her throat. She hoped Lanying didn’t notice, and she shifted on her feet, the snow and ice cracking beneath her boots. “What does he want with me?”

“No clue, but I’m sure?—”

Someone bumped into Lanying, who crashed against Zhi Ruo, and they both stumbled to the ground. Zhi Ruo yelped, her elbows gnashing against the frozen ground, and the back of her head smacking into a pile of hardened snow. It all happened so fast. One second they were standing there, and the next she wasstaring up at the vault of grayish white skies. A scream ripped through the air, a snarl sounding above her. A splatter of warmth against her cheek shocked her into sitting upright.

The dragon-child had his mouth on Lanying’s arm, blood gushing from the wound as he bit down, hard, his other hand slicing against her armor, denting it. Lanying struggled with the hilt of her sword, but she was on the ground at an awkward angle, and the creature clawed at her face, her arms, and chest, howling and snarling.

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