Page 137 of The Dragon Queen

Rex’s words reverberated around in my head in ways he wouldn’t have anticipated. People didn’t care what living arrangements the common folk had, because land, titles, and wealth weren’t tied to their marriages. There were all sorts of households back at Deepacre…

“Choose me.” I was told brides often cried on their wedding days, but I bet none of the ladies would have thought of this. “Choose us, Draven. Don’t accept the crown and?—”

“Choose to walk away from all this bullshit.” Brom moved closer. “You’ve never wanted any of it. Remember what we used to dream of as lads.”

“Of flying away on our dragons?” Draven’s voice broke on that, but he quickly mastered himself. “That was just a pipe dream.”

“Is it?” Flynn moved towards me, and when he took my hand, I clasped it tightly. I needed the strength I felt there. “What’s the fucking point of it all if we can’t be happy? My father and my family were murdered in their beds for the position they held. Why the hell would anyone willingly take up such a role? It puts a target on our backs, and who knows that better than you?” He shook his head. “Pippin’s right. I’m done living like this.” He yanked the collar of his dress uniform open. “I won’t, not for another day, because…”

I could imagine what he would look like, dressed so finely as he stood down the end of our local chapel. I could marry him there in front of my whole estate. I could walk out into the sun to the sound of people’s cheers and just be… his wife, his love. We could run the estate together, all of us, and then?—

“I’m done. They say they’re going to pass a new law to allow riders to live out in the country.” He wrenched the insignias off his collar. “Consider this my resignation. A gentleman farmer? Yes, that would suit me and Glacier just fine.”

“And the rest of you?”

I saw the betrayal there in Draven’s face and knew what he wasfeeling. So alone, because that’s what I’d felt seconds before. He didn’t have to be, that’s what he needed to see. He was raised during his mother’s reign of terror, but he could step free of it finally. She was dead, so was his uncle, but killing the duke hadn’t freed him in the way he needed. This would.

“Gods, I’d spend my days on the right end of a scythe, making sure your crops were harvested on time,” Ged told me. “Because that’d be a damn sight better than being forced to pretend I’m something I’m not.”

“And you, Soren?”

Draven almost quivered with the tension within.

“Lad—”

“Majesty,” Draven corrected sharply and Soren nodded in response.

“My king.” His arms crossed his chest. “I’ve been in the corp for a long time, and I know how all this works. Change is slow, and that’s a good thing, because there’s no such thing as a bloodless revolution, but…” He let out a long sigh. “The thing I’ve always liked about you as a leader is that you’re never one to sugarcoat things. If you think a fight is going to go to shit, you make that clear and then find a way through it.”

Draven sucked in a breath to reply, but Soren forged on.

“I don’t think there is a way through this one. That weight you’re feeling? Have been feeling since the moment Prince Felix died? It’s the crown. A monolithic thing, caught up in history and pageantry, and I know I’ve got no place in that and I think you knew that.” Soren shifted closer to me. “I’m with Pippin. I have been since the moment we met, and I felt like some old lecher, unable to keep my eyes off her.”

“Well, you are positively ancient…” Ged muttered, only to earn himself an elbow to the ribs.

“You knew.” There was a dangerous note to Brom’s growl. “You’ve always known. Always one step ahead of everyone else but never confident that you can convince people to do it your way, so it’s better to beg for forgiveness than seek permission.”

He shook his head and then turned to me, reaching up and plucking the wig off. It was tossed aside and I felt instantly lighter.

“I will always choose you, Pippin, always. I stood beside you in that chapel, hoping like hell you could come to love me.”

Tears filled my eyes as I nodded fiercely.

“I did. I really, really did.”

“As much as I knew I was falling for you, I should never have signed that paper.”

“No, you shouldn’t have.”

He reached around and untied something, loosening some of the pressure. My greedy gasp of breath had the others moving. The train was removed, the corset untied until I was just standing there in my, admittedly still quite grand, underdress.

“I feel so much lighter,” I said, raising my arms.

Not just because of the dress. Glimmer was at the window, pushing it open and I looked past her to see our dragons landing in the courtyard below. People were cheering at their arrival, and it hurt to be the one to disappoint them, even as I knew I had to.

“Your mother said I would never be queen.” I turned towards Draven then, even as I stepped away. “Turns out she was right.”

“No, Pippin.” I hated the pain in his voice. It felt like he was tearing my heart from my chest, but it was better that than to suffocate it. “Don’t do this! We can find a way, I know it.”

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