Page 1 of The Fire Dragon's Mate
One
DESTINED TO FAIL
While the crew dropped anchor and prepared a boat to go ashore, I stared up at the Dekestrian Mountains looming over us like the dragon they were said to house.
It was so much colder here, the wind whipping at me like a crisp smack to the skin and the sun barely breaking through the clouds. The foliage was stunted and yellowed as it peeked from around black boulders, rocky paths, and dark earth. Small copses of trees with bristled branches and thick trunks dotted the upwardly sloping landscape like sentinels guarding the base of the mountain range.
The island was bleak and pitiless, while the highest peak sent a steady stream of smoke into the gray sky. Was that the result of volcanic activity or evidence of the dragon within? We would be the ones to find out.
After two months at sea, I was desperate to be on land again, but that meant the real trial would begin. I was expected to climb that mountain, find a way inside it, and slay the dragon that had kept the people of the nine kingdoms fearing for our lives for far too long.
And this was personal, too, because my brother Phineas hadbeen the last prince to attempt this quest. With my actions, I would save my people and avenge my elder brother.
Or join him in death.
Legend had it that the dragon was unkillable. No sword or arrow could penetrate his hide, and one swipe of his claws or his tail could kill a man. That had led us to bring handheld explosives with us. Like a cannonball, they were metal and heavy, but hollow with a wick that could be lit to cause the black powder within them to explode. It would be my job to place them strategically and cave in the mountain on top of the dragon. I would seal him in his tomb for all time.
As long as I didn’t blow myself up or get eaten.
Growling at myself, I turned away from the rail and went below to gather my gear. I couldn’t seem to shake the cracks in my confidence that had me considering my own demise. I wanted to be the last prince ever sent on a quest to kill a dragon. But what if I failed? What if the explosions only made the creature angrier?
What if my failure sparked the beast’s revenge?
“Prince Declan?” someone called from above.
“One moment,” I hollered back and grabbed my sword. A dagger in my boot, flint at my waist, chainmail covering me from throat to knee, and I was ready. I gulped down a spurt of nervousness and went back up on deck.
No one else was ready. Ten men were meant to go with me to shore, the explosives split between us all, to see this quest completed.
“Why are none of you prepared?” I queried angrily.
The captain of the ship stepped forward and gestured to the rail. “The launch is ready. That’s all you’ll be getting from any of us.” He waved his hand dismissively and turned away. “Go and die, little prince.”
Outrage at his disrespect and dismissal surged inside me andhad me lunging toward him. His steps never faltered as men stepped between us and overwhelmed me. Unprepared and outnumbered, I was instantly restrained and my sword taken by one of my own guards.
“How dare you!” I struggled against them even though it was a futile effort. “You swore your lives to me!”
“We swore ourswordsto you,” Marcus barked in my face as though I was the one betraying him. He was my personal protector, my guardsman from the time of my youth. I had never known a moment when he was not behind me.
“And now is when Ineedyour swords.” I made myself relax, hoping they would release me and listen. “We have the chance to end the sacrifices and deaths that every Besian fears. But we must acttogether.”
Marcus shook his head, salted dark curls bobbing as he took my sword from someone else and dropped it over the side of the ship. I opened my mouth to protest only to hear the blade hit wood. He’d dropped it into the waiting launch that I was, apparently, meant to use to row myself to shore. Alone.
“Girls are born every day,” Marcus said in a deadened tone, “and unmanly princes are useless to everyone.”
He might as well have used my sword to stab me in the gut. I’d never known he could hate so easily, to simply dismiss the deaths of countless women like that. But that he also despised me for my nature was entirely shocking. I had thought I’d been so careful to never let on that I preferred men. But he knew.
Looking around at the rest of their faces, I realized they all knew.
“Two months at sea,” one of the crew spat at me, “and you never once offered to service a single one of us.”
“Oh, but he’s a little princeling, isn’t he?” another man said. “He’ll get on his knees, but not for the likes of us common folk.”
Every man holding me shoved me away as one, and I stumbled back until I hit the rail. Shame burned my face and I couldn’t look at any of them. None had ever asked me for a moment of my time. Not one had ever offered a kindness or a smile or anything that might’ve let me know I was accepted or encouraged. If they had… Well, never mind now.
It occurred to me then that they’d brought me here knowing they wouldn’t go with me to kill the dragon. Did they think I wouldn’t sail home with them either?
Without a word, I picked up one of the six bags of explosives and swung it over my shoulder. I wouldn’t be able to carry more, so this was the extent of my weaponry, a sixth of what I’d planned to use. It wouldn’t be enough.
