Page 7 of Lady Dragon
“What is more important than one’s own estimation of themselves?” Branon asked lightly, but his glance at his sister was cutting.
Kirek couldn’t help a nod in grudging agreement.
“My dear sister has always seemed to lack in that particular arena,” the prince continued, “but—”
“Let me guess,” Kirek interrupted. “You do not.”
“No, indeed,” Samansa muttered under her breath.
Prince Branon didn’t look the princess’s way, only cocked his head at Kirek. “Dragons seem to me more alike in temperament to men, by the sounds of it. If so, why did dragons grant women the throne, then, all those years ago?”
“Branon,” the queen said, her tone even lower than it had been for Samansa. “This is not a fit discussion.”
The princess leaned away from her brother, looking decidedly uncomfortable. Because she feared the burn zone of her mother’s wrath turned upon him like dragon fire?
Or because she fearedhim?
The former would be understandable. The latter, inexcusable.
Even studying the princess as Kirek was, it didn’t escape her notice that Jamsens’s hand tightened on the hilt of his sword behind Samansa, his eyes on the prince. The air was suddenly so thick that Kirek could have cut and chewed on it like her meat.
While it would have been interesting to watch this conflict play out, she wasn’t here to make an alliance with the prince, in particular.
She wasn’t even here to maintain her alliance with theprincess, if this was all the girl had to offer of strength. And yet, for some reason, Kirek preferred even her company to his.
“I doubt very much that we are alike,” the dragon girl said to him, holding his gaze levelly.
“But you can’t say you are like our women, either, can you?”he persisted. “So what was your reasoning for your decision those three hundred years ago?”
The queen had told him not to discuss this. Kirek found his lack of respect distasteful.
She shrugged as casually as she could manage. “I wasn’t there. But as far as I understand it, we wanted peace, and men weren’t willing to give it to us. After our honored queen, Nakor, killed your last king and died, herself, in the process, the remaining human queen was willing to negotiate. And sowewere willing to support her claim to the throne—and to help keep women upon it.” She let her lips twitch in the barest hint of disdain for Branon. “Surely you know that much.”
Did she imagine it, or did Samansa’s lips twitch in response?
“But not all men are driven toward conflict.” The prince raised his hands in a show of being unarmed, even though he wasn’t. “Many would be willing to maintain the peace with dragons.”
“What areyousuggesting was the reason, then, since you seem to know it better than anyone?” Kirek asked.
Both the queen and the princess were frozen, not even appearing to breathe.
The prince laughed, breaking the tension. “I don’t know! Which is why I’m asking you. We have many theories, but no one has been able to question a dragon in a long time. Your Queen Mother was the last one to visit, and that was not only before I was born, but before my own queen mother was.”
“Were humans not so curious then?”
He shrugged. “Perhaps only frightened. I hear your mother has a fearsome disposition.”
Kirek nodded, accepting the compliment on her mother’s behalf. “And you do not find me frightening?”
He was a fool, if he didn’t.
“I don’t scare easily. And I should hope there should be no cause foranyof us to fear you. We all want the same thing!” He held up his hands again. “Peace.”
Hewanted peace with the dragons. As a man, not just through the treaty between dragons and human queens. Kirek didn’t have to be well-versed in human communication to understand it.
Saliva flooded her mouth. She pressed her lips together to keep them from quivering. She wanted to sink her teeth into him, like she would into one of her own kin if they grew bold enough to challenge her.
The queen should have culled him in the womb.
