Page 69 of Lady Dragon
The princess shook her head, even though the dragon couldn’t see her while Samansa was on her back. “No, Kirek, you’re not. Or at least you shouldn’t be.”
HowshouldI be?Kirek’s silent voice grew sharper.Do you wish me to wallow in pain? In weakness? To lose more honor than I already have?
“No!” Samansa said hurriedly. “I want you to be able to mourn your mother. To know that you can mourn her with me.” She sighed into the hot wind. “I’m sorry, maybe it’s not my place. And maybe you don’t even want to, if you don’t have any fond memories? Maybe you didn’t feel her passing as painful? And that’s fine, too! Trust me, I know queens are exacting. And your mother… Well, she killed your sisters before they hatched, and you were supposed to be the one to killher, after all, so maybe I’ve got this all wrong, as usual.”
And Kirek proved it.They weren’t my sisters yet, and theirabsence meant I got all of her. She’d never even pair-bonded—she didn’t need to, by then, as Queen Mother. Everyone owed her their loyalty and protection while she was brooding. And in return, she gavemeeverything.Kirek’s head twisted to eye her coldly, and there was the smallest hiss through her teeth.You don’t think I have powerful memories?Fondmay not be the way to describe them, but she taught me how to hunt. How to fly. I remember the sound of her heartbeat as I curled against her for warmth as a hatchling, how it spoke to mine without words. You don’t know what a gift, an honor it is, when someone gives you their life in every way. Even to the extent that they trust you toendtheir life, and to do it well.
Samansa had gotten it very, very wrong, indeed—and she’d managed to insult Kirek’s dead mother, on top of everything. She felt tears stinging her dry eyes.Stop wasting water, you fool, she chided herself.
My mother was strong, Kirek continued,fierce, and yes, perhaps too proud. She was certainly too proud ofme, since I failed her—since I wasn’t the one to kill her, in the end.Thatis the only thing I mourn.
Samansa was a fool-headed girl, trying to have a heart-to-heart conversation with a dragon. Their hearts didn’t exactly align—not in any sense, apparently.
But suddenly she could no longer worry about that, because Kirek’swingswere no longer aligned with the horizon as something collided with them in midair. The world—and Samansa—went spinning around the axis of the dragon’s body. The princess clung to the saddle as she felt herself slipping off. Not enough straps held her in place anymore, and those that were left were strained to breaking.
“Kirek, I’m going to fall!” she screamed.
Kirek abruptly righted herself, landingatopanother dragon, even though they were still plummeting.
They didn’t fall for long. Kirek plowed the other dragon into the ground, sand bursting up around them. The loose earth cushioned their landing, but they still hit hard enough for Samansa’s chin to crack on Kirek’s scales, making her bite her tongue and see stars. Blinking and spitting blood, Samansa tried to clear her eyes. When she did, she found the decrepit, old dragon splayed out on the ground beneath Kirek.
Rage overtook the princess until she could only see red. “Nowwill you kill her?”
But Kirek was frozen. Afraid, somehow? Samansa vaguely recalled that this was the exact position the Queen Mother had been in, just before Pavak gutted her.
And then Kirek steppedbackfrom the old dragon, leaving her battered and shuddering, trying to right herself. Giving her space to stand and attack them once more.
“Fine,” Samansa snarled. “If you won’t kill her,Iwill.”
And then the redness of her vision consumed the rest of her.
18
KIREK
Kirek suddenly fell face down in the sand, the saddle landing on top of her and knocking the breath from her lungs. Because she was human again. And the red dragon stood above her—all four of her legs planted around Kirek like blood-scaled tree trunks. Kirek should have scrambled out from underneath, but she was too shocked and winded to move as Samansa bent over the old dragon.
The red dragon didn’t go for the throat, in her fury. Her jaws clamped down over the other dragon’sentire skull. The poor creature was trying to rise as it happened, and Samansa cranked her own head upward as if trying to help, in a sick way—or to snap a neck.
Instead, she blew fire. The gout came in a torrent of heat that even to Kirek felt like death ignited, as it lit the already bright sky. She scrabbled away then, after a moment of instinct forced her to cover her face against the blast with an out-thrown elbow. She dragged the saddle from her back and used it as a shield as she hauled herself farther from the flame.
Good thing, because one burst of fire wasn’t enough for the red dragon. She slammed the old dragon’s head into the ground, still clutched in her teeth, and torched it against the sand withno reprieve. Dragon scales were, of course, resistant to fire, as were their throats and mouths, but eyes were another thing. And brains, or even flesh and bone with such direct, unmitigated assault. Waves of flame billowed out, washing over the saddle that Kirek crouched behind. She could smell her hair starting to singe even under cover… but then the fire was gone.
When Kirek looked up, coughing, throat burning, the red dragon had pulled away. Leaving a blackened, sizzling lump where the other dragon’s head had been, with a ring of melted glass around it. For a moment, Kirek couldn’t speak. The sight of the old dragon’s limp, stitched wings tugged at Kirek as if the ragged strips of leather threaded through her own heart.
Just like a sand head, the red dragon said.Care to try it?
Kirek shoved herself upright from the saddle, the surface hot against her fingertips, her disgust rising with her. “Cannibalism is as abominable to dragons as it is to humans.”
I know, the red dragon said, turning to look down at her.But you’re both dragonandhuman, just as I am, and dragons eat humans, so why not humans, dragons? Youdolike meat.
“I amnothuman in any part.” Although Kirek was feeling less and less convinced on that point. “You’re trying to insult me. Gravely,” she spat through gritted teeth. The smell was horrible. “Stop it, Samansa.”
The dragon blinked huge golden eyes.Samansa?
“YouareSamansa,” Kirek snapped.
And you are weak, the red dragon snarled, her tail lashing behind her, her wings flaring.You almost got us killed by not putting her out of her misery in the first place—out ofempathy. What does that tell you, especially since you failed to end her a second time, when you had the chance? I—a supposed human—had to doit for you. To be the dragon, while you were frozen in fear. Who’s the human now?
