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The king who’s passed out drunk on his marital bed. The king who doesn’t even wear his own signet ring. The king whose new wife was making plans with Ensyvir in his royal bedchamber on their wedding night.
Oh, hells. The back of my throat burns, and for a moment I think I really am going to be sick, right here in the middle of the hallway. Because it can’t be, it goes against everything I’ve ever been taught, everything I’ve ever accepted as true.
But it’s obvious. Ensyvir is running this . King Donovan is nothing more than an instrument, a fool in the hands of someone more powerful.
And what does that make me? The woman who serves the fool?
My mouth fills with acid, and I spin away. I reach the window just in time to empty the meager contents of my stomach into the rain-splashed courtyard below. By the time I turn back around, Ensyvir is gone.
Chapter2
Doshir
Everything. Hurts.
I stare down at my body with a numb sort of tingling, floating feeling. I’ve shifted from my dragon into my human form. Easier to feed. Easier to hide. But my human form doesn’t seem to be functioning properly. My hands tremble, and the open wound in my shoulder is still leaking blood down my chest. Some distant part of my mind notes that I should probably do something about that injury, that leaking blood is a bad thing no matter what form I’m wearing.
But it’s not important right now. Because I’m not the one who’s in trouble. I take a few steps closer to the thick birch grove alongside the river where I’ve hidden my mother. The sun set some time ago, and my eyes don’t seem to be working like they should. Still, she should be—
Oh, Mothers. My breath catches in the back of my throat. There’s a small, still shape on the moss, just where I left her, but the strange husk of a human form doesn’t seem to be moving. It doesn’t seem to be breathing. But shining stars above, we can’t have come this far just to lose her now.
“Mom!” I cry, pushing through the branches.
Her eyes flutter open. I drop the things I’ve collected, collapse at her side, and fumble with the water skin slung over my non-bleeding shoulder, pulling the cork out with clumsy, bloody fingers.
“I brought water,” I say.
My voice sounds like rocks sliding down a mountain. She doesn’t respond, so I hold the water skin to her lips. Slowly, as if she’s trying to remember how to make her body obey her mind, my mother opens her mouth. I let a trickle of liquid slide over her cracked lips; most of it spills down her cheek. I try again. And again. Her throat finally ripples as she swallows water, in tiny droplets. Her dark eyes regain some of their focus. The knot of panic that’s pulled tight in my gut loosens somewhat.
“There’s also food,” I offer, once the water skin is empty and her eyes have more or less settled on my face.
I raise the loaf of bread and the half-circle of cheese I’d brought back with me. My mother’s eyes narrow and her forehead creases into an unmistakable look of reproach that’s somehow identical to the one she wears as a dragon.
“I heard… screaming,” she says.
There’s a thick rasp deep in her chest when she breathes, like something trapped in there is scratching to get out. I don’t like it. Then again, I don’t like a lot of things about our current situation.
“Food?” she presses, still staring at me with eyes that could start a fire. “From where?”
“Mom, don’t—”
“Doshir,” she snaps, and suddenly I’m a hatchling again, throwing rocks off the cliffs of the Iron Mountains and accidentally smashing someone’s window. “From where?”
I huff out a sigh. It hurts.
“From a band of shepherds,” I answer. “Vasque shepherds.”
Her face darkens. “You stole this?”
“No, I did not,” I snap. “They were just… leaving.”
Leaving, because a dragon was attacking their sheep. Because I was attacking their sheep. My face burns, and I turn away. By all the Mothers above, I’d forgotten how hungry I get as a dragon. That form requires so much energy.
And the sheep were delicious, all hot blood and bones snapping in my maw. Some dragons insist fear gives a meal an unmistakable flavor, that shrieks and bleats of terror add to their dining experience. It’s an opinion that’s generally frowned upon, but stars, those dragons might be on to something.
“Doshir, no,” Mother groans. “The treaties—”
Her voice trails off. Guilt burns hot in my gut, shifting around the remnants of the sheep I’d just devoured. Attacks on livestock are strictly prohibited by the Council of the Iron Mountains; stealing anything is a grave offense. And I am painfully aware of those treaties.
