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“If I’m not a prisoner that means I can leave.”
I reach out for her hand, curl my fingers around hers, and tighten them. “No, you can’t. This is where you belong.”
“The lords and ladies are all staring at me, a commoner, sitting with the king. Your people are probably finding me lacking as well, for a whole host of reasons I have no idea about. I don’t know where you get the idea that this is where I belong, but you’re the only one who thinks so.”
I lean closer to her, my eyes narrowing. “Either eat, or I’ll haul you into my lap and feed you myself.”
“In front of everyone?” she squeaks.
“In front of everyone.”
Isavelle seems to realize I’m serious and hastily picks up her spoon. When she takes a mouthful of a grain dish, I sit back and start to eat as well.
As the minutes pass and everyone finds something else to look at, Isavelle slowly relaxes. She sneaks looks at me as she eats.
“How long ago did you and your people rule Maledin?” she asks.
“Five hundred years, I’m told.” I asked the scholars to look into it after we reclaimed the capital, and my blood boiled when they showed me the proof that we’d been imprisoned for that long.
“Such a long time. How old were you when you were imprisoned?”
I rub my hand over my smooth jaw and smile at her. “How old do I look?”
She examines me with her head on one side. “It’s hard to tell when you seem inhuman with those red eyes and such dark hair. If I had to guess, I’d say you were around twenty-five.”
I don’t look human because I’m not human, and neither is she. “I was twenty-three when I was imprisoned. I still feel twenty-three because I was more asleep than awake for those five hundred years.”
Being trapped beneath the mountain was like being in an endless, despairing dream. I sensed Maledin’s empty skies and the people’s true nature draining away as the Brethren told them lies and made them believe they were human. My people became nothing but stories to them. Stories they didn’t believe in.
“It’s strange being the king of a people who don’t know they’re my people,” I murmur, studying her beautiful face. “At least, they don’t know ityet. There will be many like you in the weeks, months, and years to come. Now that the dragons are back, the people in Maledin will rediscover their designations.”
TheHratha’lenCrone, the keeper of all our knowledge and dragon magic, has explained it to me. Our designations are linked to the presence of dragons in Maledin. Dragons are our culture and history, and dragons also influence our bodies so that we can bond with them and each other. Without the dragons, life is colorless, scentless, and pointless.
Keeping my gold cloak wrapped tightly around her, Isavelle eats her dinner. Our first meal together, and I’m flooded with gratitude at the sight. I do my best to keep my pleasure to myself so I don’t overwhelm her, but this moment feels even more significant than the coronation.
“There’s something I was hoping you’d help me with,” I say when she’s nearly finished with her plate. I have my hand around my wine goblet, and I’m making quarter turns with it on the tablecloth.
“Oh? What’s that?”
“I was raised to be my father’s successor. I know my duties as king, but I don’t know Maledin anymore. The people and what you’ve suffered for the past five hundred years. How things have changed. What remains the same. What you all need.” I glance at her. “That’s where I was hoping you’d help me.”
“Me? I don’t know anything. I was raised in a tiny village in an out-of-the-way place.”
“Yes, Amriste. I recognized the place when Scourge and I landed in the village square. The happiest May Day celebrations in all of Maledin are held at Amriste, and after the maypole dancing, everyone eats—”
“Apple fritters,” Isavelle finishes, staring at me in astonishment. “You knew Amriste? No one knows Amriste.”
“My mother was from Gunster,” I tell her with a smile, naming a market town a few miles to the south. “She took us—me—there several times for the spring celebrations when I was a boy.” The warm glow from that happy memory fades as I remember Mother dead with a gaping wound in her throat. She is dust now. She is nowhere.
Isavelle looks up at me with liquid green eyes and asks softly, “Was it recently that you lost your parents? For you, I mean.”
“For me, it was just a few weeks ago. I saw my parents lying dead from their wounds just before we were all locked beneath the mountain. I don’t know what happened to their bodies.” They wouldn’t have been given a respectful funeral. No doubt their bodies lay in the open air for the vultures to pick down to the bones.
“I’m sorry,” Isavelle whispers, slipping her fingers into mine and squeezing. This is the first time she’s touched me of her own free will. I’m flooded with her scent, and as welcome as it always is, there’s no love for me in her perfume, only sympathy and pity. I draw my hand away from hers. An Omega pitying her Alpha is all wrong. Wrong and shameful.
Isavelle stares straight ahead, her expression confused.
I shouldn’t be so proud. That was one reason for my father’s downfall. It’s often an Alpha’s downfall, not listening to others and thinking they know best.
