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Rayne’s hair tangles in the wind. She raises a hand, half-heartedly smoothing it down, then gasps as though she’s caught something. She turns to me with her lips open in a perfect circle.
“Kings,” she whispers. “Is it you, Doshir?”
I laugh. I try not to, but it bubbles up anyway, like the hiss of carbonation chasing after the cork as it escapes from a bottle of frost wine. Only Rayne would ever think the Council would crown me.
“No,” I say. “It’s you.”
She freezes, her hand still tangled in her red curls, emotions racing across her face like clouds scudding over the blue sky. She opens her mouth. Closes it. Opens it again.
“I don’t—” she begins, then falls silent. “That’s not—”
The wind carries away her words.
“You still have to agree, of course,” I say. “No one is going to force you.”
That deep crease appears between her eyes. She tugs her hand free of her hair and lets it drop to her lap.
“I’m not—” she begins, frowning as if she isn’t even certain how best to voice her objection.
“Any dragon is eligible,” I reply.
“But,” she stammers. “I didn’t. I mean, you said dragons have to make a speech. At the Queensmoot.”
She turns to me, and her eyes narrow.
“Kings,” she mutters. “Did you do this? Did you make a speech?”
I cough into my hand.
“No,” I reply. “My father put your name forward.”
She exhales in a great whoosh, like air rushing in after shifting from dragon to human form.
“What the fuck?” she says, almost under her breath, as though it were a prayer.
I remember how I’d frozen as soon as my father had said Rayne’s name, certain this was another one of his misguided attempts to teach me how to be a dragon. The rising sun had made his scales shimmer like liquid gold, and he’d moved with a casual sort of elegance, switching his tail over the grass as he described how the Iron Mountains would tear itself apart trying to determine which dragons had supported Rensivar from the shadows. Or how we could pick someone new. Someone brave, clever, and capable. Someone who had already demonstrated a willingness to sacrifice everything in order to serve the Iron Mountains.
And then Wendolyn had stepped forward, lowered her head to the grass, and offered to be Rayne’s Champion. And I’d started to wonder if perhaps I’d hit my head on something during that struggle with Rensivar and this was what dying felt like.
I swallow hard, then reach for the plate of cookies beside the teapot. Lemon cookies, a gift from Elyon for the new queen. Or the new Queen-Elect.
“It’s mostly a formality,” I say, offering Rayne the plate of cookies. “The position of queen, that is. The queen organizes the council and helps determine priorities. Honestly, it’s going to be a lot of paperwork and a lot of meetings.”
Rayne takes a lemon cookie. She turns it over in her hands as if she’s trying to determine what it is one does with these sorts of things.
“I don’t—” she begins again. “I mean, I can’t. How could I be a queen?”
“Well,” I say, setting the plate back down and then picking up my own lemon cookie to stare at as I turn it over in my fingers. “Whatever you decide, you won’t be alone.”
I look up, and Rayne turns toward me. And then we’re kissing again, as easy as breathing, our lips touching softly as the wind hisses and tugs on the air around us. Heat rises from Rayne’s body. I reach up when we part, brushing her cheek with my fingers. There was so much more I’d wanted to say, so many other traditions and rules and protocols she would need to know, but suddenly none of it seems important anymore. Suddenly, all that seems to matter is the two of us, sitting together in the sun, our hearts beating in unison. Everything else can wait.
There’s a rough scrape on the stone behind me, just as I lean closer to Rayne to continue the slow dance of lips and tongues we’d just begun. It’s followed by a cough and the delicate click of shivering scales. I try not to sigh as I turn back toward the entrance and find Yunuth, the white healer dragon, standing in the tunnel.
“Beg your pardon,” Yunuth says, turning to Rayne with a graceful bow. “There’s a gentleman here to see you. A human gentleman.”
Chapter38
Rayne
