Page 42 of Lady Dragon
Kirek stayed low, perhaps using the trees as cover, perhaps not wanting to get too high off the ground with Samansa so insecurely held. The princess was breathless, clinging on for dear life. Still, they were outdistancing the horses, even the archers, and Samansa thought they might make it—
Until a whirling slash came spinning through the air and caught Kirek’s wing.A bola, the princess recognized with a gasp, not much used since the War of Fire. The cord, stretched tight between two weights, pinioned the wing’s thin membrane, and the dragon suddenly spiraled out of control, narrowly missing a tree and tossing Samansa violently within the cage of her claws. Holding on as tightly as she could, Samansa tried to see where they were going, and, with a sickening lurch, realized they were falling.
The last thing Samansa saw was the ground spinning quickly up to meet them.
When Samansa awoke, she was tied to a folding canvas chair in a hastily erected field tent. Her hair, crusted in blood, hung in a rusty curtain over her face. She straightened her neck slowly,painfully, until she could gently toss it out of her eyes. The room swam around her. There were no torches or other furniture in the tent, only sunlight streaming through the cracks. But it was enough, despite her watering, blurry vision and pounding headache, to make out a man standing in the tent with her—no,loomingover her.
Branon. He looked taller than she remembered. And far more intimidating, with his armor and weapons bristling. It was easy to forget, in the palace, behind guards and especially Jamsens, how much of a threat he could be. Especially now that there was nothing and no one else standing between the two of them. She didn’t even have her cloak anymore, only her torn and stained yellow gown.
Her first impulse was to recoil, but she hissed at the pain in her head and neck. She’d obviously hit the ground hard. Hard enough to knock her completely unconscious.
Not that she could have moved much, otherwise. The ropes on her wrists and ankles were tight, binding her in place. Fear climbed up her throat.
“Kirek?” she croaked.
Branon raised a dark red brow. “And why on earth would you care about her? This whole… situation… has me rather confounded. She seems to care about you as well.” He scoffed in disbelief. “Lords and ladies, what a fighter, your dragon, even with both wings pinned. We were only able to get a bola around the second wing because she was shielding you with it. We’re only stillalive, frankly, because she was too wary of trampling or torching her precious cargo. We had to use dragonsbane to finally subdue her.”
Dragonsbane.Another weapon, so to speak, that hadn’t beenmuch utilized since the War of Fire. It was an herb that, when distilled into a potent oil and then burned, could disorient a dragon, even paralyze it, with its smoke. Helpful, especially if your enemy was fond of setting everything in its path alight.
Samansa tried to wet her mouth. “Where is she?”
Kirek couldn’t be—no, Samansa wouldn’t let herself think it. She had to be alive.
“Outside, chained to iron stakes pounded the length of a man into the ground.” Branon tossed his head at the tent wall. “Her jaws are strapped, too, so she can’t bite and so the only fire she can breathe is at herself. Oddly, she doesn’t seem to be able to change shape. It must be the dragonsbane?”
So he mustn’t have known that the Heartstone had broken, or that a piece of it was now lodged in Samansa’s breast, where it was still throbbing deeply. It only looked like a messy wound with the blood still caked around it, one he probably assumed she’d taken in her fall. In the shadowed light of the tent, Branon would have to get much closer to her than he had in years to see the gleam of the red jewel within. That was probably for the better.
Both relief and panic were strong enough to make Samansa dizzy, but she forced both of them down with a swallow, and she tried to keep her voice from shaking when she said, “You come with bolas, dragonsbane, and chains fit to hold a dragon? You must have plumbed the ancient depths of the armory. Did you forget the Treaty?”
“Perhaps it should be forgotten.” Hesmirkedat her, like he had often done as an older teenager to her as a child, and Samansa had the sudden urge to slap him. “Noteveryone has forgotten how to use such weapons, and no one objected tobringing them, since the princess had seemingly been abducted by a dragon. Although,” he said, considering, “I had hoped they wouldn’t be necessary.”
Samansa flexed her wrists in her bonds. “Because you thought the dragons would stand aside forthis, or worse, be party to it?”
Branon smiled, and Samansa shuddered under her skin at the cold look in his eyes. He waved about, as if this were a sick game they were playing. “Whatisthis, do you think?”
She tugged harder at her bindings. They didn’t give in the slightest. “I can guess. You didn’t expect to find me alive. What I don’t understand is why you haven’t already finished the job yourself.”
Branon shrugged broad shoulders. “My men got to you first, and confirmed that you lived despite your wounds. There wasn’t much else for me to do but erect a shelter for you until such point as you were sufficiently recovered to move.”
So some of his forces, at least, still wanted the daughter heir alive, just as she’d hoped. “And your men are all fine with the fact that you’ve tied me up in the meantime?”
“I left strict orders you’re not to be disturbed while you rest.”
So they didn’t know what he was doing. “And if I shout for help?” she asked.
Branon put a hand to his chest in mock affront. “To think you would need to be rescued from your own brother! Why then, you must be hysterical from your ordeal, and I’ll have to ensure you go back to sleep.”
Samansa spoke through gritted teeth. “How would you explain it if I don’t wake up?”
He stared down at her for a long moment. “I hope it doesn’t come to that. Please, be reasonable, sister.”
“Don’t call me that,” she snarled, jerking in her chair, her hands fisting. “You arenotmy brother. Not anymore. Family doesn’t conspire to murder their own.”
He gestured as if brushing such a thought away. “But there’s no need for any of that now, because you’re going to forfeit your claim to the throne.”
His words dropped like a sword between them.
“Am I?” Samansa breathed. Part of her was amazed he was making his objective so plain, for once. And part of her was furious.
