Page 39 of Dragon Unleashed
No matter how badly my dragon does.
I wait while she settles in and don’t bother to point out that she’s left the light on. We both fall silent, and I listen for signs of her breathing more evenly as sleep takes her over. After several minutes, though, she shifts, rolling toward me in the soft light.
Her eyes are large and trusting as she looks up at where I’ve propped myself against her headboard.
“Will you tell me about your world?” she asks, startling me with the question.
“Why?” I ask.
“Honestly? I could use the distraction right now. But also because I’ve never been anywhere. For someone who lives her life buried in fiction, I want to know something real about somewhere other than here. Please?”
“You aren’t allowed to leave?” I ask. She’d told me that when her world was destroyed, she was forced to remain behind. But I never thought that would mean she wasn’t allowed to leave the confines of the library. It sounds like imprisonment.
“I’ve been a few places,” she defends and then, more softly, adds, “But only to empty worlds.”
“Empty?”
“No people around,” she explains. “I’ve seen some gorgeous scenery. Breathtaking waterfalls, majestic mountains, sandy beaches. But... nothing inhabited.”
“Why not?”
“Hoc says it’s dangerous.”
I wait, but she doesn’t say more, so I decide to keep my opinions of this Hoc to myself—for now. Though, the imagery of him keeping her locked away here, high in this proverbial tower, ring far too close to fairy tales my mother used to read to me as bedtime stories.
Which begs the question. Is he truly her hero? Or a villain?
“What’s it like where you’re from?” she asks. “Do they have libraries?”
Her question makes me smile.
“Astronia is a vast and wild place,” I say, letting my mind drift to the memory of my home—a comforting thought as I’m stuck in this tiny room unable to shift and feel the open skies beneath my wings.
“Wild as in barbarians roam and pillage?” she asks, eyes wide.
“Some,” I say gravely. “The biggest threat to my people is the horde who seek to overthrow us and rule the land with cruelty and brutality.”
“What is the hoard?”
“An army of orcs whose land borders our own far to the north. They live beyond the mountains in mostly ice, and they want our land for their own. Unfortunately, they want to wipe out our people in order to have it.”
“They sound lovely,” she deadpans, and I smirk at the obvious sarcasm.
“Aside from the war overshadowing the lands, Astronia is lovely,” I tell her. “So much green. Mountains taller than anything you’ve ever seen. And at the heart of it, my home, Nemos Castle.”
She lifts her head off the pillow, eyes wide. “You live in a castle?”
“Well, technically, it belongs to my mother until I take the throne but—”
“Throne?” she squeaks, sitting up fully now. Her tangled, damp hair hangs in her face, but she shoves it back, staring at me in wary disbelief. “You never said anything about a throne.”
Now, it’s my turn to shrug. “You never asked.”
“Sarcasm, hilarious,” she drawls, and I grin, but she only narrows her eyes further. “What sort of throne are we talking?” she asks, and I wonder if her talents don’t lie in interrogation rather than guarding these books. Because when she looks at me like that, I’ll happily tell her any secret she wishes to know.
Cut me open and spill my heart out, for this woman can have it.
“A king’s throne,” I say. “The one I will inherit when my time comes.”
