All seems to be in order. Pollex is slumbering peacefully at the center of the flare. Nilak is industriously grooming a Beta dragon who recently bonded with a rider. Yersia, whose eggs recently hatched, is emerging from the nesting caves, no doubt in search of sustenance.
I’m tired, but I can sleep later. Now I’m back in my right mind, I can focus on my dragons. I bathe and dress in fresh clothes that aren’t soiled with sweat and seed, though the sadness of a lonely rut is still clinging to me.
As soon as I emerge into the corridor, a guard informs me I was summoned by Queen Magritte on the first day of my rut. She’s been waiting for me for days. At least it’s the queen I’ve kept waiting and not the bad-tempered king, and I make my way to her sitting room.
It’s a bright, beautiful day, but all the tapestries are drawn over the windows in the queen’s room, and the candles are not lit. Queen Magritte sits in darkness, her small, pretty figure surrounded by plush cushions. Perhaps she’s going into heat and can’t bear the light, though she’s not perfuming.
I bow my head respectfully. “Greetings, my queen. I apologize for making you wait. I was in my rut.”
“Dragonmaster, I should have sent word that you needn’t come after all.” Queen Magritte keeps her face turned away from me and speaks to the wall. Her one blue-gray eye that I can see is filled with pain.
Suspicion prickles the nape of my neck. “My queen? Are you well?”
She doesn’t answer.
“Please look at me.”
Slowly, she turns to face me.
Fury races through my body. I have to grit my teeth to prevent myself from lunging for the door with a growl and charging through the castle to find the bastard who did this. The left side of Queen Magritte’s face is discolored with a purple and red bruise, and her left eye is blackened and swollen shut.
“Was it him?” I ask tightly. I will not give that man the honor of calling himkingwhen he behaves like a brute.
Queen Magritte doesn’t say anything. Of course it was King Aylard who hit her. My stomach twists in revulsion and anger. To have been granted a gentle and beautiful mate, an Omega, and then treat her as the king treats the queen is abominable.
The queen continues in a soft voice, “My sons have not seen me like this, and I don’t want them to. I will remain in this room until I have recovered, but since you are here now, I wish to speak with you about Mirelle.”
I have been feeling sorry for myself for four straight days, but the queen’s suffering has been far worse. Gods know what the king does to her during her heats and his ruts. He can’t be gentle, or kind, or think of her needs in any way.
“Dragonmaster, I have noticed something in Mirelle’s scent this past month, and it’s growing stronger. I think perhaps she might be emerging as an Omega, but I wanted a second opinion from an Alpha.”
A shadow of apprehension passes over me. There are many others of whom she could ask an opinion. Her husband and her sons, for instance, or theHratha’lenwomen at the Flame Temple who counsel people about their designations. So why is she asking me?
I choose my words carefully. “My queen, the only Omegas that I have opinions about have scales and breathe fire. Have you consulted with the Temple Crone?”
“I’m asking if you have noticed anything special about her scent.”
I can guess what she’s hoping for, but I’m going to have to disappoint the queen, something I loathe to do when she’s suffering so much already. “I have not.”
“You may take a few days and consider the matter, dragonmaster,” she tells me. “You can imagine that as her mother, when she’s of age, I want Mirelle to mate a man who will protect her and cherish her. A good Alpha. I have known you since before you were Mirelle’s age, and sometimes I have felt that you are the fourth child I never had. Did you…” She hesitates, and then says in a choked voice, “Did you know that before I had Zabriel, I lost a son?”
I shake my head.
“You would have been a baby yourself at the time. The child was stillborn. I have always loved him. As I watched you grow by Destrin’s side, I have often wished that you were that son.”
My throat aches hearing her words. There were many times when I was a boy that I longed to throw my arms around Queen Magritte and bury my face in her skirts, as I saw Zabriel do many times. I was envious of the crown prince for all the love that was heaped upon his head. The queen is a sweet-natured and kind woman. There have been dragons in my life and in my heart since I was a youth, but I have missed my mother.
In a voice roughened with emotion, I say, “Your words honor me more than I can say.”
But perhaps it’s for the best that I am nobody, for if I were her eldest son, the crown prince, and the future King of Maledin, I would have murdered King Aylard by now and plunged the country into civil war.
“You honor yourself, Stesha,” says Queen Magritte. “I could not name a better, stronger, or more trustworthy man in all Maledin. You should be mated, and what a lucky woman she will be. So I must ask you again about Mirelle.”
The queen hopes that her daughter might be my elusive Omega. I have spent time with the princess, and what I have noticed is Onderz’s inability to focus on anyone and anything but her, and how protective he is whenever she’s threatened or upset. The budding young Alpha already seems to have lost his heart to the princess, and if Mirelle is emerging as an Omega, then it’s possible they’re fated and are already bonding.
“On the matter of the princess’s mate, you may wish to speak with Onderz.”
Queen Magritte’s face falls. “I suppose Onderz is a fine young man, but I’m disappointed. For her sake, and for yours. What are the gods playing at, denying a good man like you happiness, when there are Alphas in this world who are—” She breaks off as her voice cracks, and she covers her mouth with a shaking hand.
