Page 21 of Lady Dragon
You did well, the Queen Mother said.
At the same time as her pride swelled at the praise, Kirek felt her eyes narrowing almost against her will. “Do you have a plan for her yet?” she couldn’t help asking.
Several possible plans. But do I hearconcernin these awkward sounds of yours, or does my understanding of human language deceive me?
She knew her mother understood perfectly well. Never mind that most dragons could comprehend human speech, the dragon queen had once worn the Heartstone, so the nuances were certainly not beyond her. Her words were meant to shame Kirek for having to speak like this and to expose her like teeth set against her neck. Answering either way would offend and demand the queen’s judgment, which would unerringly come.
Still, Kirek countered as best she could without striking backortaking a mortal wound. “It is only the fault of this flesh that I must wear out of duty, Mother, and not your understanding. As you might remember, it is fickle and confusing. I am not myself.”
I hope that’s all it is.There was another heavy pause.If you ever hope to best me one day… asIhope you do… then you must be as strong as I know you can be. I won’t fall gently upon you.
“I would never expect otherwise, Mother.”
Good. Ready yourself for whatever is to come.
“Yes, Mother,” Kirek repeated firmly.
The dragon queen’s silent voice no longer came from the Songstone, leaving it dead.
Later that evening, as the torches began to burn low, Kirek found herself wandering down from her tower. She wasn’taimless, exactly; she simply didn’t want to examine too closely where she was going on these tiny human-shaped feet.
Instinct, she thought.That’s it. And Mother told me to trust my instinct.
The wry thought twisted her lips.
As her leather boots padded silently along the marble floor of the castle, she knew where she was going: to check in on the princess, but why? What did it matter to Kirek how Samansa was faring after the assassination attempt? Kirek didn’t care about her well-being, she told herself—rather, she wanted to continue gaining the princess’s trust, as instructed, and assure herself that Samansa was standing strong, deserving of her place as heir, so that Kirek would never have to challenge it.
Never mind that Kirek would one day have to challenge her mother for the role of dragon queen. It was the ultimate proof of strength. That was simply how things were done in her world, and she wouldn’t shy away from it. But it was not the way of things in Andrath. Here, the daughter heirs were protected, ensured they would live to reach the throne when their mother passed peacefully, both by their own kind and bydragonkind.
At least, thus far, dragonkind had helped ensure their succession.
Perhaps Kirek was only keeping up appearances by looking in on her. Or so she told herself. It was a strange itch she felt the need to scratch, like everything else strange about this body of hers.
Notmybody, she reminded herself sternly.
When she rounded the corner and saw the four guardsmen, Jamsens among them, barring the way to the princess’s quarters,she didn’t lose her nerve so much as reconsider causing a stir. It would be odd, yes, for her to want to see the princess this late? Humans had so many absurd rules.
And yet, she was a dragon and wasn’t bound by their rules. Smiling to herself, Kirek dodged around the corner before the guardsmen saw her and ran down another corridor on whisper-light feet, heading for the window she knew was at the end of it.
The window was locked from the inside, but feebly enough to unlatch in a quick motion, and she understood why when she opened it and looked down. There wouldn’t have been much risk of someone breaking in from outside. The drop was nothing like from the wide doors of her tower, but it was considerable.
Not a problem for her.
If anything, she could prove how poor the guards’ protection was against her. How easily she herself could get to the princess if she wanted to cause her harm.
The thought was both reassuring and disturbing. Reassuring in that if it came to the worst and she had to hurt Samansa, she could do her duty. And disturbing because…?
No, she would stop trying to understand. She didn’t need to or particularly want to. Perhaps she would never understand how she felt about the princess, trapped as she was by this incomprehensible flesh, and that was an acceptable concession, in the moment.
Kirek slipped over the sill as silently as a shadow and reached for the inevitable chinks in the blue marble outside, the perfect handholds. Human fingers might have a hard time gripping such tiny clefts, but not hers, human though they looked. Wind whipped her hair as she pulled herself out of the windowand onto the vertical surface of the castle. She clung like a spider and skittered her way along—albeit more slowly than a spider—until she was under what she calculated was a window into the princess’s quarters.
Pulling herself up on powerful arms, she found it was ajar. And she could smell blood.
Someone else had gotten to the princess first. Kirek’s instinct—more real than imagined—might not have come fast enough.
She vaulted through the window, uncaring of what might be in her path or without even readying the knives at her belt. She landed on her feet in the candlelit darkness and saw the shape of a body, sprawled in stillness on the ground, long, loose hair fanning above her feminine shape, a pool of blood spread around her. A dark, shrouded figure stood above the body.
Away.The thought was not for herself. Kirek had to get this intruder away from the princess. That was her only thought as she seized the figure—hearing a deep, masculine grunt—and she pivoted, dragging his bulk with her as if he were an empty sack and not a man twice her size. In his obvious surprise at her intrusion—the shameful hypocrite—he barely had time to struggle before she hauled him to the window and threw him bodily over the sill. He flailed, trying to catch Kirek’s arm, but she gave him a solid shove out into the darkness, and the night took him.
