Page 199 of Nine-Tenths

"Donotpresume to know what I shall and shall not do," the queen interrupts, bristling. Leicester puts a calming hand on her shoulder, but otherwise doesn’t intervene or presume totake attention or power away from her. All the same, the queen heaves a sigh and gentles. "My mind is not made up."

"But someone has been trying very hard to make it upforyou," I point out. "The Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada has a big part in keeping your empire running, and an even bigger investment in clawing in as much power as he can hold. His territory is massive. And from everything I've learned, it'smuchbigger than he can reasonably be expected to manage. He knows what he stands to lose—whateveryEmpire-building dragon stands to lose—if we can get you on side. But I promise you, there arebenefits."

"That's enough," Dav says, reaching out to take my arm, but I shake him off, take a step forward. Leicester matches it, getting ready to restrain me in case I like, I dunno, decide to be completely suicidal and lunge.

"Lost territories and insolent humans? No," Elizabeth Regina sneers down at me from the height of her dais and her position.

"Well then, what about taxes?" I counter. "Do you know howmuchyou could save on public single-payer health carealoneif you let dragons set up a monthly barbecue?"

"My advisers assure me that it's not feasible to—"

"Oh, youradvisers." I cut a look at Leicester, who scowls. If the queen’s going to bite my head off for being insolent, then there's no point in holding back. I'm headless either way, right? "Lots of old white conservative money-hungry pricks who've never made the welfare of the people they boss around a priority. It's easier for them to let usdieof preventable diseases, to conjure wars, to think up an economic structure so ludicrous that the people who are supposed to be their responsibility are starvingand oppressed,by design! Yeah, that sounds like they're fantastic advisors. No, totally, keep listening to them."

"You brazen—!" the queen starts, but I don't care. Leicester is already halfway down the dais to me, hand on the pommel of, yeah, yup, he’s totally wearing an actual honest-to-god sword.

Whatever. Fuck it, fuck him, and fuckher.

"Literally theone jobthat dragons have is to look after humans! Isn't that it? That's what everyone keeps telling me, that's its evolutionary biology, it's in your DNA, it's your stupid draconic instincts! Andmyjob is to give my whole entire fucking self to the dragon who owns me! In return for my freedom—"

"Mine Own, it's notslavery—"

"—it's his job to take care of everyone else! But you won'tlethim!" I throw my hands up in the air, and the duke and duchess both flinch back. "You won't letanyof them! So what thefuckis the point of this arrangement, then? What's the actual worth of any goddamned Favorite, huh?" This I direct at Leicester, who has frozen, wide-eyed, where he stands. "Nothing, that’s what! Whatgoodare you stupid lizards if you refuse to do the one thing you arebiologically designed to do."

Chapter Fifty-One

"Enough!"The queen's wings snap out with a bullwhip-crack. The candles flicker. The windows rattle in their casings.

Leicester retreats to her side, hands free, at the ready.

Silence, thick and seething, descends on the hall.

I fold my hands in front of me, lower my eyes, bare the nape of my neck.

Theatrically submissive.

Because draconic instincts.

"I know you're scared," I say softly to the stone stairs. "And I know you were hurt by a human who took advantage of your trust and your youth," I add.

"You dared to tell him—!" the duke says, rounding on Dav in horror.

"He has a right to knowwhy," Dav says. He lays a hand on the small of my back, supportive, claiming. But not quieting. Not anymore.

"But you can't take that out on every other human under your care, ma'am," I press on, daring to put one foot on the base of the dais. I tilt my head up, pleading. "Please. You keep saying that your advisers tell you things, but what isyourheart telling you?"

"That I am a great queen, ruler of a great empire," she husks, eyes locked on mine.

"An empire thathurtspeople cannot be great. We're meant to be treasure, the most important jewel in your hoard, but empires don't value the individual life of each human. Only the number of them they've collected. Quantity, over quality. And everybody loses that way." I gesture to myself, placing my hands over my heart. "Humans suffer because there are too many of us in one territory, the distribution of wealth is uneven, the economy is lopsided and unfair. Indigenous dragons suffer because they're cut off from resources and cultural histories, suffer the trauma of their land and hoards stolen. And the settler dragons suffer," here I gesture to Dav. "Because they're forced to repress natural instincts to nurture and protect, taught—wrongly—that hoarding is better thanhelping."

The queen wavers. I can see it in the way her wings twitch, her eyes lower.

"My father…" My breath hitches, lungs tight, but I swallow around the grief knotting at the root of my tongue. "He died in the pandemic. Tens of millions of humans died. And they didn't have to. Ma'am, they didn'thaveto."

"If you think dragons can stem the tide of plague—" the duke starts.

"You could have donesomethingmore thannothing,though," I shoot back. "I never got to hug him again, I never got to… totouchhim. We weren't even allowed in the same room. He… hewasaloneand I never—do you even know what it’s like? For the ‘Lasts’ to come, likethat?"

"The Lasts?" the duchess echoes. I choke back a sob, trying to keep my composure. It would not be cool to freak out now.

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