Page 45 of The Last Slayer
Those ears looked welded to his head. I hoped he wasn’t going to have a heart attack on the spot.
“So…so where do I find…General Tso’s…” He paused then blinked several times. Then he plunged to the floor and started pounding the carpet with his miniscule fists. “Milady, forgive your ignorant and incompetent servant! I don’t know anything of importance.”
I’d never considered General Tso’s chicken to be a thing of “importance.” I bit my other cheek. Laughing was not going to be good here. “Uh, To—”
“What would my father say? How I shame the family tradition!” He cried harder, his tears making small wet spots in the carpet.
I pursed my lips. I had no idea what kind of “banquet” food dragonlords ate, but hopefully it wasn’t something disgusting, like tequila worms. Ugh. “Forget it. I’ll leave the menu up to you. You can serve whatever you want.”
“Milady, you do not have to give up your General Tso’s chicken. If it is what you desire, it is my duty to procure one for your pleasure.”
Procure. Such a formal word from one so small. It would’ve been hysterical if it weren’t for Toshi’s propensity to convulse into a quivering mass of fear at the mere thought of failure. I guess he had a lot of expectations to live up to. Ramiel came across as a super perfectionist, but Toshi was doing a fine job as far as I could tell. Besade was spotless, its food excellent. The mortal rich would pay dearly to have housekeeping one-tenth as good.
“I’m not giving anything up. I trust your judgment on this matter, that’s all.” I gave him a reassuring smile. “So go cook something delicious for me.”
He sat up on his hind legs and tail, tiny forelegs clasped together. “Yes, milady! You shan’t regret your generosity.” He waved his claws, and another tiny dragon who looked just like Toshi zipped over. “My assistant will show you to your chamber.”
With that Toshi left, and his assistant escorted me. He was even smaller than Toshi. Dragons live for centuries, and he was undoubtedly older than I, but for some reason he seemed younger. As we made our way through the castle, he told me that he and Toshi were both descended from Besade’s ancestral castellan family, that Toshi was currently the oldest of their line at the age of two hundred and four, and that their genus was known as fairy dragons.
“Sorry for all the questions
. It’s just that I never encountered your type of dragon in my studies.”
“Oh, that’s easily explained, milady. We don’t show ourselves to mortals or dirty our claws with fighting like some common wyrm. Though it is true that a few of us engage in reconnaissance during wartime, purely for the benefit of the lords we serve, of course.”
“So you guys don’t fight at all?” I said.
He sniffed. “Those of us who care about our dignity don’t.
“This is your room, milady. I hope you enjoy your stay at Besade.” The dragon bowed. His movement had the sort of overprecise clumsiness that children have when they’re trying to do something formal for the first time.
“Thank you.” I walked inside, and the door closed behind me automatically with a loud click. I jumped a bit, even though I should have been used to it by then. Automatic doors seemed to be a standard feature of the dragonhold.
The “room” was ornate, sumptuously decorated and larger than my now obliterated condo by a significant margin. Even the four-poster bed was twice the size of my old bed, which had been a California king. Translucent rose-colored drapes trimmed in white lace hung from the bedposts, with seed pearls and roses the size of ladybugs lining their edges. Surprising, since Ramiel didn’t strike me as a lace-and-pastel kind of man. Maybe he entertained a lot of lace-and-pastel kind of women. The thought didn’t cheer me up, and the fact that the thought didn’t cheer me up annoyed me.
What was I expecting? He probably had a harem tucked away somewhere in the dragonhold. Lots of mortals couldn’t remain faithful to a single spouse, and our life expectancy was generally measured in decades. Dragonlords might be demigods, but they weren’t saints. So what if Ramiel liked girly girls? Fine. Let him. I hated girly girls, the ones who giggled around guys like they didn’t have enough brains to come up with something interesting to say. Besides, I wouldn’t know how to be girly if my life depended on it. And the fact that I was anything but girly had no bearing on anything. Ramiel was merely keeping the promise he’d claimed to have made. Doing things to earn my trust. So my sleeping in a frilly bed where, like, centuries of other girls had probably slept was irrelevant.
Stop obsessing, I told myself. Keep your eye on the ball or you’ll end up dead. Gorgeous men never approached me without an ulterior motive, and Ramiel probably wasn’t any different. The vow was an excuse. Besides I didn’t even know exactly what his famous “vow” really entailed. Other dragonlords wanted to kill me. Why wasn’t he joining them? They might belong to a different triumvirate, but he must’ve allied with them at some point or he would never have fought in the war against the slayers and killed Kyran. Defeating the slayer overlord had undoubtedly helped elevate his status among the dragonlords, so if I really was some legendary “Prophesied One” or something, killing me would be a similar coup. Which in turn would make him even more of a chick magnet, kinda like a quarterback on a winning football team.
“Argh!” Now my head hurt from overthinking it. For the moment I had no choice but to go along, making sure Ramiel didn’t do anything to hurt Valerie. I turned my attention back to the more pressing matters. Like my bath.
Fresh-cut flowers of indeterminate varieties occupied scores of pale jade vases along the window sills. They perfumed the air with a lovely blend of lilac and lavender. I’d never seen some of the flowers before, a kind of rose and lily hybrid. Dark crimson freckled their vivid golden petals.
Those same petals floated like soft scarabs on steaming water in the bathtub. I silently thanked Toshi, since he had to be the one who’d thought of drawing it. I doubted it was Ramiel, who hadn’t cleaned me up when he could have and should have. Furthermore, Toshi had seen to it that I had a long red silk dress and a pair of matching stilettos laid out on a plush leather sofa by the windows. I made a mental note to discuss my fashion preferences with him. I’m not an evening gown kind of girl, and was going to look ridiculous in that getup. Valerie could pull that sort of stuff off, not me. But anything would be better than the tattered, saliva-riddled suit I was wearing.
I kicked off my shoes, undressed as quickly as I could and sank into the tub. God, it was heavenly. The heat warmed my joints and loosened the stiff muscles around my neck. All I needed was a glass of wine to complete the indulgence.
Was this how dragonlords lived? If so, I could see why they never wanted to visit the mundane mortal world.
I scrubbed myself thoroughly with a sponge. Then I washed my hair, which was a disgusting mass of blood, saliva, sweat and tangles, and took forever to unbraid. The water turned murky, then cleared almost immediately. Now that was some amazing stuff, self-purifying bath water. I could make a killing if I knew the spell for it.
Finally squeaky clean, I stepped out of the tub with a thick white towel around me. The crest of Besade was embroidered on each corner of the towel. The dragons inside the emblems curled around and sighed with contentment. They were kinda cute. I shook my head. What was I thinking? Dragons were not cute. They could never be cute.
Mellowed somewhat by the bath, I rubbed my thumb against my silver M ring. Maybe this whole heartstone business wouldn’t be all bad. If I could somehow manage to control one, it would magnify my magic and make tracking down the incubus responsible for Miguel’s death easier.
If.
I heard a knock and looked at the solid wooden door, which wasn’t opening automatically. Odd. Maybe it wasn’t working because I temporarily owned the room.
