Page 87 of The Dragon Queen

Wraith.

Anyone else who looked over their shoulder and found a massivepurple dragon there would no doubt have screamed, but I didn’t. Those golden eyes stared into mine, right before his claw reached out.

I will do it.

His mind touched mine right as he grabbed that brick and another, tossing it over his shoulder. I heard the men starting to mumble as a result, but it wasn’t them I was focussed on. Glimmer gave up digging, leaping onto Wraith’s shoulders and peering down his neck, peppering him with feedback until we found them.

A soldier, if his armour was anything to go by, but more than that. A man, a woman I assumed was his wife or relative as he held her close. Two children, they were all clustered around, trying to hide them from our sight and why not? We were the ones who had caused this devastation. I saw bruises and spots of blood and a whole lot of dirt, but that’s not what had me moving forward. The way the women and children cringed back, the way the soldier reached for his weapon and found his scabbard empty, broke my heart each time in turn.

“Take my hand.” I leaned forward and held it out, but they just stared. “I’m Pippin. We’re here to help get you out of there.”

There was a moment of indecision, but their position was hardened by the sight of Wraith. People didn’t cower before dragons in Nevermere, but these did right now. Wraith sniffed at the air, considered the situation and then said again,I will do it. His claws reached in and he plucked each person out, despite their thoughts about it, then placed them on the ground before us until the hole was empty. The soldier took us all in with a series of quick glances, then turned and sprinted off. The general barked an order, jerking a finger at some of his men, right as the woman and her family tried to do the same. A yelp of pain was what stopped her, stopped them.

“Mumma!” one of the children cried, a war being fought inside her.

She wanted to get the hell away from the creatures that had destroyed her home, but she would never do that, not without her mother. A terrible expression came over her face and she stepped forward. Her father shook his head, as if dispelling a daze, thenpushed her behind him. A small belt knife was produced and he held it with a shaking hand, which produced a roar of laughter from the riders.

Well, some of them.

Ged and Soren came rushing over, hands going to the hilts of their swords, but that stopped when they took in the situation. They held them up, palm out now, as if to ward the man off.

“We’re here to help,” Ged told him, and I wanted to whirl around and snap at him, why would they believe that? We were the ones who destroyed their home in the first place. Miraculously, the man dropped his knife down, his hand hanging limply as the other one was tucked tightly around his wife’s waist. That’s what she was to him. I could see that now, that fear, that love, it was the only thing it could be. “Your wife is hurt?”

The woman let out the tiniest of cries, her eyes going to the children, her concern for them plain.

“We need to help them.” I ordered Ged and Soren, not asked. “A field hospital, we need to set one up.” My eyes were everywhere at once. “There must be more survivors. We need to dig them out, get them medical attention immediately!”

“What are you doing?” Rex had strolled forward, taking in everything with a jaundiced eye. “What are those dragons…?” He sighed as he saw several come to land on the wasteland and start pawing through the rubble. “My queen, if I could have a word?”

“Queen?”

The woman stared at me, her expression shifting from fear to horror and why not? After all of this was done, I was supposed to sit my arse down on a golden throne and rule Nevermere at Draven’s side, for the good of all.

“Anything you need to say can be said here, Rex,” I replied.

The general’s eyes narrowed at the fact I had neglected to use his title.

“We need to be moving on. We hadn’t thought the traitorous Duke of Harlston had managed to move troops this far yet, let alone war engines like ballista. The win at Castle Fast was decisive and?—”

“Was it?” I wanted to blame him, to put all this destruction onhis shoulders, but the burden was mine. My eyes flicked sideways to see a very still, very pale Soren and Ged. Ours. We did this, and the one thing I remembered from childhood was that I needed to take responsibility for any mess I made. “Was this what we intended?” I saw more people pulled from the rubble, but by the limp fall of some of the bodies, not all of them were survivors. “We needed to break the ballista, stop the soldiers from using it against our dragons. We needed to neutralise the threat.”

The general nodded like he was a teacher and I was a particularly slow student, only just understanding the point of the lesson.

“But were these people part of that threat?” That seemed hard to believe when the family shrank in around each other. The woman was fighting to stay upright, her leg obviously paining her, and yet still she strove to put herself between us and her children. “Were they?”

My voice rang out across the ruins and that drew them forward. Brom cut off the person he was talking to in an instant, moving towards us, Draven nodding to his companion and pulling away as well.

“Were they?”

I was demanding an answer now, and yet I knew I wouldn’t like the answer. That weary sigh, that slight roll of his eyes told me everything I needed to know. Just like a tutor, Rex would pat me on the head and tell me I didn’t, couldn’t, understand, because this was why women were not brought into battle. Men were raised to be hardened against this kind of collateral damage.

And I had to wonder if that was a good thing.

I’d never felt like a queen. It was a title people kept thrusting upon me and yet now what was a burden integrated somehow, becoming a part of me. I didn’t have to ask the general of our army for permission or approval or anything.

“A field hospital,” I announced to all that could hear me. “We need to set one up and treat the injured.”

“And waste the medical supplies we have on traitors?” Rex scoffed.

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