Page 6 of Lady Dragon
“Blue is the queen’s color, along with gold, and this veined marble is particularly rare and… valuable.” Most of the fire in Samansa’s voice guttered out by the end.
“So your queen’s worth is shown through… decoration?” Kirek’s own hesitation was as deliberate as a timed strike. “Decoration that proudly bares its flaws for all to see?”
Out of the corner of her eye, Kirek watched the princess’s jaw clench under her rosy cheeks with no little pleasure. She wasn’t sure why she liked goading the girl so much. For her purposes it was as unnecessary as being nice, and yet it felt satisfying where uncovering her human weaknesses had not. Like scratching an itch.
Hopefully the princess never had to face her actual claws. Skies help her then.
Despite the high ceiling, the tall windows, and the stretching table that was nowhere near to full because the queen hadn’t wanted to overwhelm Kirek—or so she’d claimed—the dining hall still felt suffocating between walls of gold-threaded blue marble.
The queen sat at one end of the table, her heir next to her. Kirek had the supposed honor of sitting at the queen’s other side, across from Samansa. One seat farther down the table from the princess sat a man in his prime, introduced as the prince and second-in-command of the queen’s forces. Branon, who had Samansa’s red hair and none of her softness. He looked a good deal older than her, more than ten years her senior, though it was sometimes hard to tell with humans. The queen had evidently struggled in giving birth to a daughter for some years. Which was likely why Samansa felt the pressure to start trying for an heir sooner rather than later, despite her youth.
Only Jamsens stood behind Samansa, and the queen’s own silver-haired guard behind her, with servants waiting at the ready with pitchers of wine and covered platters behind them. Kirek had plenty of space, but the room still felt too small. Perhaps that was her own shape and size, pressing in on her with its cramped, if pliant, boundaries. Even the meal she felt compelled to eat seemed like a constraint, despite consisting of the type of food she preferred: a slab of raw, bloody meat. It seemed to stick in her narrow throat no matter how she cut it or chewed with her dull teeth.
Perhaps another reason for the lack of guests was the uncertainty around Kirek’s choice of food. Everyone tried to hide their aversion, but Kirek saw it in the servant’s face as they set her plate before her, and in the queen’s as she began to eat. She’d even noted it in the princess’s expression back in the reception hall at the mere mention of the dragon’s preferences.
Now Samansa looked ashen as Kirek sliced into her meat inexpertly but effectively with her knife and speared pieces of the raw flesh into her mouth. She chewed as hard and fast as the meat required and her dull teeth allowed. She stared at Samansa as she did so. The girl flushed pink and refocused on her own plate that held some kind of bland-looking vegetables drizzled in a garish yellow sauce.
A meal didn’t need sauce when it had blood. Humans seemed to cook all moisture and flavor out of their food before adding it back as an adulterated dressing. An echo of their clothing, their architecture. Excessive, watered-down imitations.
A percussive laugh more like a bark drew Kirek’s attention to Prince Branon. “You eat like a starving soldier in a barracks,” he said.
Kirek couldn’t tell if he was mocking or appreciative. She was about to demand an explanation when Samansa turned on him and snapped, “Don’t be rude.”
The dragon girl blinked at her. The princess, defendingher? It was laughable to think Kirek needed her protection, even here in this human stronghold. And yet, despite Samansa’s smaller stature and age, her voice was commanding. Kirek eyed her with new respect.
Prince Branon sat back, seemingly put in his place. But there was faint color high on his pale cheeks that hinted at shame.Maybe even anger, though Kirek didn’t understand these human signals quite yet. Oddly, his voice came out jovial, his lips smiling even if his eyes weren’t, as he nodded at Kirek.
“That is to say, you eat more as I’m accustomed to, unlike those held behind the safety of these walls. Luxury affords decorum. Excuse me, it was a compliment to your martial efficiency.”
That, Kirek could appreciate. “You’re excused,” she said.
Samansa’s jaw tightened again. Interestingly, this time the queen’s did, too. Because the prince was somehow still insulting Kirek, or was he actually complimenting her in a way the women didn’t like?
Kirek wouldn’t pretend to love these walls, even if it meant agreeing with a man. And maybe in doing so, she would find the cracks in the stone.
“Are only the men here soefficiently martial?” she asked, setting down her knife. “I see you carry a sword and desire neither the protection of a guard behind you nor high walls. Indeed, we dragons prefer to fight our own battles in the open. Especially our queens and their chosen heirs.”
“It’s merely a precaution,” the princess began. “I assure you—”
“That youcanfight?” Kirek asked flatly, raising her brow at Samansa to convey maximum doubt.
“It seems as though you take for deep truth what you ascertain at a shallow glance,” the princess said, coldly enough to make Kirek’s pulse quicken.
Would she see more of the princess’s teeth so soon?
“Samansa,” the queen said, low. Warningly.
“Perhaps thedaughter heirwill show us her fighting skills during the tourney to be held tomorrow in the dragon’s honor,”Branon said, raising his cup to Samansa as he emphasized her other title—the more critical one. “Prove to the dragon that her strength is a match for a man’s. Or even a match for mine?” His smirk said that he doubted such a possibility even more than the dragon girl had.
Inexplicably, Kirek felt the spikes that she didn’t currently have around her neck trying to rise.
The princess blanched and sat back in her seat, suddenly fumbling with her napkin. “I couldn’t… I’m not—I don’t think that would be entirely appropriate,” she stammered, disarmed of any steel she once had in the face of her brother.
Kirek tasted disappointment on the back of her tongue. The princess needed to continue to put the prince in his place, or else she was in a precarious position indeed, without even taking the dragons into consideration.
“No, it wouldn’t be appropriate, since while the tourney tomorrow will be held in honor of Kirek’s arrival, the reward for the winner will be my daughter’s favor,” the queen said smoothly, though the dragon girl knew it was to cover the princess’s faltering. “She can’t exactly compete for her own favor, now, can she?” The queen leaned over and said in a conspiratorially loud whisper to Samansa, “And maybe she’ll favor one of the contenders enough to consider courting.”
“Mother,” the princess hissed in obvious embarrassment, while the prince ignored the queen’s aside entirely.
