At last, Leana emerges into my cavern, flames wreathing her skin and casting her in an absolute, mouth-watering glow.

  I’m suddenly struck with the thought that the biggest crime against me isn’t keeping me from my kingdom, my wealth, or the sky. It’s keeping me in this form so I can’t properly show my mate what it would mean to please her. Because right now, I desperately ache to please her.

  “You’ve returned,” I say simply, knowing there are ears listening just outside of my sight.

  She smirks at me, a smile I haven’t seen before. Conspiratorial, I would call it, and it makes the fire in my belly burn a little brighter. Because she and I are a team, us against them.

  “I’ve returned with your demands, your majesty,” she says. “Give me a moment to bring them to you.”

  “Surely they sent you assistants to carry it all?”

  “Your nephew wanted to make sure you had what you wanted,” she says. “Four soldiers accompanied me to carry it all here. But they don’t wish to come in.”

  I don’t particularly wish to see them either, but I can’t resist. I raise my volume. “You are all such cowards that you’d send a mere girl to face me when you cannot?”

  No one moves, and I want to laugh. Of course my treasure would show more bravery than every soldier in this kingdom.

  I sniff deeply. At least one of them is a dragon. Even so, he’s unwilling to face me, when here I am, chained to the earth, a century out of practice.

  My treasure faced me with bravery, even before she knew I would never dream of hurting her.

  Leana smiles again, a private one, just for me, because we’re in on this joke together, and my heart swells. “It’ll be just a moment, your majesty,” she says, loud enough for the soldiers to hear, and she takes the opportunity to bow to me—cheeky girl—before going to bring in pack after pack.

  She starts producing items, books and wine and plentiful food—mostly meat, I realize, so unlike what I’ve been given for the last century. “Is it what you wanted?” She asks me quietly, and I can hear that she’s asking for our audience, but also as a genuine question for me.

  Is it what I wanted? I couldn’t care less about what I have for me, and unfortunately all this serves me more than it serves her. I want comforts for my mate.

  Maybe my nephew would understand such a thought, dragon to dragon, but I can hardly tell him. I can’t give him that leverage over me.

  I don’t know him. Would he hurt Leana to get the mirror from me? His father was certainly willing to do worse.

  I hear feet shuffling right outside my cavern and tilt my head. “Is there more?”

  “No, that’s the last of it. I believe Prince Noctere told them to wait for your answer.”

  “My answer?”

  “The mirror, your majesty.” She stands there watching me, head tilted slightly, waiting to see what I do.

  Right, the damned mirror. I want to ask her what lies she told my nephew about my cooperation, but now is hardly the time. First, I need to get rid of our audience.

  I pull myself up to my full height. Those soldiers can’t see it, but it hardly matters. Being a king is about voice, and projecting just right. “I didn’t make this deal to immediately give up my leverage. Once your supposed prince proves to me that the supplies will keep coming, then perhaps we can talk.”

  The soldiers in the hallway keep shuffling around. I huff. There was once a time when such a proclamation would have sent people scrambling, but apparently no more.

  Oh well. There are other ways to get my point across. I blow a stream of fire over my treasure’s head, and wait for them to get my point.

  They do, and I listen as their feet scramble over the rocks, beginning the arduous climb out of my prison.

  Leana and I can’t speak freely while they still linger in here, so I take the opportunity to watch her, taking in the sight of her, ensuring no harm came to her while she was out of my sight.

  She looks well, if tired. My first instinct is to encourage her to sit down, to relax after her long day, but I suppose I can’t say anything before the soldiers leave.

  She takes the time to organize the supplies she brought in, setting food to one side and books to another. A smear of grease ends up on her tunic and she frowns. “Should have asked for a cake of soap,” she says quietly. “I’ll have to wash this eventually.”

  I should have had her ask for the finest clothes that could be found on short notice, clothes fit for a queen. And I would say so, but my mind is stuck on her washing the only outfit she has. Or bathing. She’ll want to bathe eventually, too. And as far as I know, the only water down here is the slowly bubbling spring in this cavern that I drink from.

  The grate creaks closed above us, the faint click my ears have become so accustomed to. “They’re gone.” Leana’s shoulders relax. “Eat,” I urge her. “You must be hungry.”

  She climbed this cavern five times in just the last few days, and I doubt they thought to feed her at the castle.

  “Do you even drink wine?” She asks me, and I’m pleased to hear that she’s dropped the titles now that our audience is gone.

  “Never in this form. But there might be a first time for everything.” Dragons aren’t particularly known for our fine control in this form, or even our sense of taste. A fine wine seems wasted on a creature that would as soon eat a cow raw. “What did you learn at the castle, Leana?”

  She doesn’t answer for a long moment, busying herself with the books, but I wait. “I think your brother is dying,” she says eventually.

  Well, that’s somewhat unexpected. I had wondered why she talks so much about this nephew of mine and not my brother, but that might explain it. “How do you know?”

  She shrugs. “Prince Noctere seems…restless. Driven in a way that I can’t explain. He’s overwhelmed with this all. And I already knew no one has seen the king in months.”

  I want to protest her calling that piece of shit a king, but I refrain, focused instead on the information. His mate. It’s the only explanation. Braxil is far too young to naturally be succumbing to death.

  Dragons mate for life, and we do not say that lightly. Once a commitment is made, the bond is eternal. Without a mate, a dragon might live a thousand years or more. With a mate, if both are properly cared for? The upper limit is significantly higher. Maybe it doesn’t exist.

  But only dragons mate for life. We can never leave our mates, but humans can leave us and reject our bond. It can be devastating for both sides, and always cuts their life force short.

  I’m sure my brother was a fool about it. I’m sure he shamed or even hurt her in some way, and I wouldn’t blame her for leaving him.

  She must be suffering now, though. If my brother is really dying, then she must be too.

  I don’t explain this to Leana. I am not so far gone, so desperate, that I would tell my mate that my lifespan is significantly shorter than expected if she doesn’t accept me. That I will die the day she does unless she lets me give her eternal life, at the price of an eternal commitment.

  That would be coercion of the worst order, because I know my treasure, and she might be foolish and give in against her own wishes to take care of me. And if the worst comes to pass, if I fail her as a mate and she gets sent off to war, then I won’t have her worrying about me when she’ll need to worry about herself first.

  So I keep my thoughts to myself. “So we have an inexperienced leader going to a war he’s not ready for, seeking a magical artifact he can’t hope to understand to help him,” I surmise. “You said my nephew was a child when you were?”

  She nods. Still so young, then. Especially for a dragon.

  “The prince and I…we were friends,” she says. “Or as friendly as a royal can be with a servant. My mother served his mother, and came all the way from her home kingdom with her. So I was a good way to keep him entertained when our mothers were busy.”

  There is something dark lurking there. “What happened?” I ask as gently as I can.

  “He almost killed my mother,” she says slowly, making me jolt. “And then his mother left.”

  11. Leana

  I’ve never had to tell anyone this story. After all, the prince’s weaker moments growing up weren’t meant to be publicly declared, so I’d long ago learned to keep everything from that time to myself.

  But King Osir isn’t just someone I’ve met. I’m not spreading gossip. I’m speaking to a king, and he needs to know.

  I tell myself that, at least. Maybe it’s just the way his soft words and his focused eyes always make me want to tell him everything.

  “We were young,” I say, thinking back to that day. I’d been missing my two front teeth still, I think. We were young enough that catching frogs had sounded like a suitable afternoon pursuit. “My mother gave him a command on behalf of his mother. He was supposed to go inside and get clean. Someone he was meant to impress was coming by and he needed to be a prince, not a little boy. And he didn’t want to go.”

  “So he tried to kill your mother?” He demands, nostrils flaring as he speaks.

  I decide not to ask about all the humans he supposedly killed. Instead, I shrug. “Tried puts it strongly. I think he was just young and out of control and threw a tantrum. Unfortunately, his tantrums contained fire. And my mother…” I shake my head.

  The flames had been sudden, unexpected. One minute I was waiting in the mud beside him, waiting to see if we’d go back to our games or I’d lose my companion for the rest of the day. The next I’d been lunging for my mother, instinct compelling me in a way I couldn’t understand.

  “Your mother?” He prompts.

  “I dove in front of her. I didn’t know what I could do yet. I’d been able to light a finger on fire, but no more than the head of a candle. But I didn’t think. I ran, and I got hit, and it’s like the fire just…disappeared inside of me.”

  And over a decade later, it convinced the prince I was an appropriate jailor for his uncle. Someone he wouldn’t be able to burn.

  We hadn’t spoken at all between the frog-catching day and the day I was pulled aside and sent to feed King Osir.

  Our friendship—companionship, more like, presented to each other by circumstances rather than any legitimate want on our own part—had ended that day. Gone were the days of playing tag and hunting for frogs and him confiding in me his frustrations with his father and his lessons and court protocol. I became a servant, as nameless and faceless as all the others. He didn’t need me any more.

  I’d been a reminder of both our mothers, what he lost and the mistake his fit had caused. I’m sure he wanted to forget.

  But now I’m here, with his uncle, who is blowing smoke out of his nostrils.

  “You survived. It didn’t hurt you?”

  “Not at all,” I tell him. “It tingles. I can stick my arm in a kitchen fire and be just fine. It’s little pinpricks, perhaps, but no more.”

  “Fascinating,” he breathes. “How did Braxil react?”

  “He was a little preoccupied. His wife left the next night, in the middle of the night.”

  He swallows. “Yes, that…would preoccupy him. So that’s how my nephew knew you couldn’t be hurt by me.”

  “Yes.”

  I always hate thinking about that day. Not because I’m scared of fire, because I’m not. I didn’t know it then, but I wasn’t ever in any real danger. But that day changed everything for me, and it always feels bitter and cold.

  I’d never heard from my mother again, after she left.

  It hits me then that that child, the one whose temper tantrum almost killed my mother and I, two innocent humans, will be king. And if I’m right, he’ll be king soon, with an oncoming war.

  “I really think your brother might be dying.”

  He huffs. “Probably. And that stupid princeling will take his place.”

  I raise an eyebrow. “You don’t know him.”

  “I can guess enough.”

  “Could you help him?” I hesitantly ask. It’s not my place to offer suggestions to kings, but I can’t forget the way he let me argue with him earlier.

  His tail flicks. Not a positive sign, then. “Perhaps. If he’d accept help. But I won’t do it for nothing.”

  “What would you do it for?” I ask after a moment, after realizing that he’s entertaining my suggestion. I blush, looking down. This is the second time today he’s listened to me like this.

  He tilts his head and looks at me for a long moment. “For our future,” he simply says.

  I know what he means. For his freedom.

  Oh, he probably wants other things as well. He’s a dragon; I’ve never known them to pass up riches and luxury. But at the heart of it, he means freedom.

  Should he be freed? He keeps talking about it like it’s a foregone conclusion, but now I feel like I’m encouraging it.

  Osir has been locked up for a century. And while he seems so innocent and kind when he’s speaking to me, I have to remind myself of what he did.

  He killed his brothers. He killed humans, probably hundreds of them. He was deemed dangerous and locked beneath the earth so he could never hurt anyone ever again. And as much as he’s tugged at my heart these past few years, the decision was made for a reason.

  Would any of that matter anymore, if he could end this war? If he could help the prince and stabilize the kingdom?

  And where do I fit into this? He said our future. He keeps talking about our future, what we will do, what he’ll give me when he’s free.

  “Do you want me to go get the prince?” I ask, fully knowing that I’m crossing some line. “I think I could convince him to come here.”

  Dragons don’t show physical discomfort the same way humans do, in my experience. For Noctere to have such significant bags beneath his eyes, I have to believe the pressure has been immense. I wonder if he even sleeps at all anymore. If I could bring him a solution, even if it isn’t the one he originally wanted, surely he’d need to listen.

  Osir’s tail flicks again. “Not yet,” he says. “He’ll likely just ask for that stupid mirror.”

  I bite my lip, but ultimately decide to just say it. He hadn’t forbidden me from getting more information, or told me the topic was off-limits, after all. “He told me the mirror shows you at your most powerful.”

  “Not quite. The mirror is an oracle, like the name suggests,” he explains, and his tone takes on an almost scholarly approach. He doesn’t react at all to me having acquired more information, just slips into explaining. I remember Noctere told me that he used to hunt down artifacts and myths, and wonder about the human form of Osir. Would he look like one of the professors in the castle libraries? One of Noctere’s tutors from our childhood?

  “And as an oracle, if you jump through the right hoops, the mirror will show you how you can become powerful. But like most oracles, the answer isn’t incredibly straightforward.” His tail flicks again.

  “What did you see?” I ask. It’s an incredibly bold question, one I don’t think I would have dared to ask yesterday.

  But if he’s surprised I asked, he doesn’t show it. “Fire,” he says slowly. “So much fire.”

  The air feels thick and soupy between us, like I’m swimming through the tension. “Is that why you…” I hesitate, trailing off, not sure how I could possibly ask what I want to know.

  He understands my question anyways. “No,” he says shortly. “That was…no. Not the same fire.”

  I don’t dare ask anymore. I don’t know what I fear more: that he’ll answer, or that he won’t.

  12. Osir

  Someday, and probably soon, I’m going to have to tell my mate the entire horrific story of how I ended up in this cell. Of the terrible things I did, the mistakes I made.

  But it won’t be right now.

  I briefly entertain what I’ll do if she asks. Would I deny her, my mate, my greatest treasure? Would I dare?

  She doesn’t ask, and I don’t have to answer that question. Not yet, at least.

  Instead, she turns back to organizing our supplies, picking up fresh torches to set them around our space. With a quick snap of her fingers, she lights them, and I watch her fire.

  It burns bright. Dragon fire almost always burns red, and I’ve always thought Leana’s does too. But the edges are almost white, I realize, completely captivated by watching her.

  I want to feel her fire. I want it to lick at my skin, to find the softest part of my scales and leave a permanent reminder of her presence in my life.

  I’m halfway to asking her to do it before I remember that asking that would be foolish. It would push her far further than she’s comfortable with.

  Leana is my mate, my greatest treasure, but right now she barely trusts me, and I need to remember that.

  “Eat with me?” I ask her. Sharing a meal is always a good place to start, I suppose.

  She brings over a chicken, ripping off a drumstick for herself and holding out the rest for me. I take it, careful not to let my claws touch her. I don’t want to scare her.

  A dragon with a human mate should get to court them in human form. Should get to choose when to show them the dragon form, when they know the human will believe that the form is their protector and not a monster meant to hurt them. They shouldn’t be forced to show the human only the scariest parts of themselves.

  What stories has she heard about these claws? I don’t have another way to approach her, but I desperately wish I did.

  She doesn’t flinch, though. I take that as a victory.

  “Drink some of the wine,” I tell her. “I’m certainly not going to.”

  “Why did you ask for it, then?” She asks. She’s not complaining, precisely, but she is definitely close. And as much as I wish that I never would cause my treasure to complain, I hope to hear it more.

  She’s getting more comfortable with me. She hasn’t tried to use a title except when we had an audience. She debated with me. She’s asking me things and even complaining.

  She trusts me.

  “They’d expect a king to ask for wine,” I say. “Kings and dragons are both creatures prone to fits of luxury. And when one is both…it can get positively outlandish.” I look down at the bottles, peering at the labels. I don’t recognize the names of any of the vineyards marked on them, but perhaps that’s not surprising after a century.

 

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