by G. A. Aiken
“Bring that up one more time, Briec, and I’m—”
“Flouncing back to your cave?” Fearghus asked.
“Oh, shut up!”
“You know what we haven’t told her?” Talaith suddenly asked, a big grin on her face as she jumped to her feet. “The children’s names.” Talaith stroked her hand down Fearghus’s girl’s black hair. “This is Talwyn.” Then she tickled the boy’s cheek. “This is Talan.” She held up her hands and, as if she were offering something for sale, she announced, “And this…this is Rhianwen.”
Keita’s eyes narrowed, and she stepped away from her safe window, barely noticing Fearghus’s twins were crawling away from her until they again hid behind their father’s shoulders. “Rhianwen?” Keita all but roared. “You named her Rhianwen?”
Briec raised a silver brow. “Is there a problem with that, sister?”
“Why not just curse her with the name Despair? Or Bringer of Misery?”
“I happen to like the name Rhianwen. And before you say it, Rhianwen is not that similar to Mother’s name.”
“You’re pathetic!” Keita accused her brother. “Always sucking up to that she-cow! At least Fearghus had some backbone with his naming!”
Briec turned on her. “Well, when you breed some hatchlings of your own, Mistress Whine, you can name them what you’d like! But as far as I’m concerned, any perfect offspring that are sprung from my loins deserves a majestic name—and that majestic name is Rhianwen!”
Disgusted beyond all reckoning, Keita stormed out of the room and down the hallway to the stairs. She was cutting through the Great Hall when Ren caught up to her.
“You look ready to roast an entire town. What’s wrong?”
“Rhianwen!” she exclaimed. “That suck-up named his daughter Rhianwen!”
“Rhianwen?” Ren exclaimed back. “Why not just call her Misery or She Who Despairs?”
Keita stopped, turned, and threw her arms around Ren, hugging him tight. “This is why I’ll always love you, my friend.”
Laughing, he patted her back. “I know, old friend. I know.”
Talaith shook her head. “That went well.”
“She started it,” Briec stated before holding his “perfect” daughter out to Talaith and announcing, “She looks to need nourishment. Unleash your breasts for her.”
“Would you stop saying that!” she yelped over Fearghus’s laugh. “I hate when you say that!”
“Do you? I hadn’t noticed.”
Talaith snatched her child from her mate. “You do realize that when I’m finally forced to kill you, no one will blame me for it?”
“I know I won’t,” Fearghus tossed in, busy holding his children upside down by one leg each, grinning when they laughed and squealed. Although neither of his children spoke. They never spoke. Except to each other and only in whispers…and in a language no one understood. The family had finally admitted it to each other when the twins were about one and the truth could no longer be avoided. But again, there were worse things that could happen with them, but it was still strange. The twins were strange.
Talaith walked across the room and sat in a rocking chair Briec had made for her right before Rhianwen had been born.
“Whatever you two do, please don’t scare off your sister before Izzy arrives in a few days. You know she’ll want to see Keita.” And, Talaith hoped, Keita might be the one being who could defuse Izzy’s rage when she found out the truth about Rhianwen.
Talaith hadn’t been lying to Keita when she’d told her no moment seemed to be right to tell Izzy about her sister. There was so much going on in the west, and the last thing Talaith wanted was for Izzy’s mind not being on her task. She didn’t want to send a letter with all the information, only to find out her daughter was ambushed a day later by barbarians because she wasn’t paying attention. Because she was worrying about her mum. That was how it felt in the beginning; then after the baby was born, it just seemed wrong to tell her in a letter. But Talaith had thought Izzy would have been home by now. That she would have told her by now.
But when Izzy got home in the next few days, it would be the first thing Talaith did. She’d make sure of that.
“We’re not going to scare her off,” Briec informed Talaith. “We’re simply making it clear that what she did was unacceptable and will not be tolerated again.”
“And how well that has worked for you in the past, eh?”
“Don’t try to tell me how to raise my baby sister.”
“Raise her? She’s nearly two hundred years old.”
“Not yet she’s not.”
“Och!” Keita barked, stepping out of the Great Hall and into the late-day suns. “I simply can’t believe Briec named his poor hatchling after that slithering pond scum!”
“Shouldn’t you just call her Mum when we’re on her territory?”
“Only when she’s directly in earshot.”
Keita watched as Ragnar returned with Gwenvael and some servant. “There you are! You can’t just go wandering off, warlord. Unless, of course, you were hoping for a haircut so you can match your brother.”
“Is it my imagination or is that concern in your voice?” the warlord asked.
“Hardly. More like annoyance.” She continued down the steps and grabbed Ragnar’s forearm. “Come. We need to talk.”
“Where are you going?”
“Don’t question me, Gwenvael.”
“But Keita—”
“Later. I need to talk to Ragnar.” Keita stopped by the servant. “Please ensure our Northland guests have all they need. I believe they were taken to the third floor. Make sure they have food. My sister has a tendency to forget that sort of thing.” She glanced at what stood behind the servant, a large bone held in its mouth. She’d seen a lot of those around the territory. More than she’d seen before. Must be an overpopulation issue. Something she could help with. “Dog might do. Roasted. Not heavy on the salt.” She sighed longingly. “Roasted dog. Yum.” She pressed her hand to her stomach and realized how hungry she was. “Send some up to my room as well. We’ll be back in a bit.”
Keita hopped off the last step and looked back at Ragnar. Shocked at the warlord, she could only ask over his laughter, “What’s so funny?”
“Keita—” her brother said.
“What?”
Gwenvael put his arm around the servant, and Keita sighed softly in exasperation. Why her brother felt the need to protect every female, especially now when he had some barbarian warlord mate of his own, was beyond Keita’s reckoning. It wasn’t as if she’d battered the female into submission or something. She’d given her simple orders to follow. That was her job, wasn’t it?
“I’d like you to meet Dagmar Reinholdt,” Gwenvael said.
Really? Now there had to be proper introductions to servants? But Keita didn’t want to argue any more with her siblings. Even Gwenvael. “Nice to meet you, Dagmar. You can call me Lady Keita.”
That seemed to make Ragnar laugh harder, when the dragon rarely laughed at all. He especially didn’t laugh like this.
“What is so funny?” she demanded.
“Dagmar Reinholdt,” her brother said again, as if she hadn’t understood him the first damn time. “Thirteenth Offspring of The Reinholdt, Only Daughter of The Reinholdt, Chief Battle Lord of Dark Plains, Adviser to Queen Annwyl, Human Liaison to the Southland Dragon Elders, and my mate.”
Oh.
Shit.
Oh, shit!
Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!
Pulling from nearly two centuries of royal training, Keita broke out her most dazzling smile. “Of course she is!” she said with a laugh. “I was merely teasing.”
She went back up several steps until she was close enough to the Northland warlord’s daughter. Keita grasped one of the human’s tiny hands between her own. “I am so glad to meet you, my Lady Dagmar! It’s taken far too long for us to meet.”
“It has,” the human said. For the first time, Keita noticed
that the female wore little round pieces of glass held between two wires that she had perched on her nose. Whatever for? Was she blind? “I’ve heard so much about you and have longed to meet you. You are truly as beautiful as all the many men throughout the land have said.”
Another laugh escaped the barbarian dragon, and Keita briefly thought about flipping him over the stair banister. “And you are,” Keita said in return, “well…you. And I’m sure you’re the best you that you can be.”
At this point, Ren now headed back into the castle and Gwenvael forced the two females’ hands apart.
“All right then!” her brother said with an obscene amount of forced cheer. “That’s enough greeting, don’t you think?”
He turned his mate toward the doors and shoved Keita back down the stairs. Keita barely kept her snarl in—and on her feet—but before she could stomp away, the human maneuvered around Gwenvael and said, “Oh, my Lady Keita, one other thing.”
Keita stopped and faced her, keeping that cheery smile on her face. “Aye?”
“Dogs…off limits.”
“Are they now?”
“If you hadn’t heard, it’s a rule of the land. And I’d hate to see you get into trouble over it with your mother.”
“My mother?” Keita asked, unable to keep the surprise out of her voice. “My mother agreed to a law banning the eating of dogs?” The same dragoness who wouldn’t even agree to a written ban on the eating of humans? Instead she felt it was something her dragon subjects should simply know not to do “unless they can get away with it.”
“In fact, she agreed happily.”
Knowing when she was beat, at least in one area, Keita said, “Of course. The gods know I wouldn’t want to go against my mother.”
“Then I’m sure we won’t have any problems.”
Normally Keita would argue the point, but she was starting to feel terrible about the whole thing and decided it was best to simply walk away.
Reaching up, she caught hold of Ragnar’s hand and pulled him off toward the gate’s east-side exit. And it wasn’t until they’d gone about twenty feet or so that Keita heard the warlord’s daughter snap, “Canute!”
She and Ragnar stopped walking and looked behind them. The dog that had been with Lady Dagmar now stood behind them. He dropped his bone and pushed it toward Keita with his snout. Lifting his massive head, his tongue hanging out, he grinned at her.
“Ohhh,” Keita exclaimed. “Aren’t you sweet?” But before she could pat the dog’s head, Ragnar yanked her away, sniffing in disgust.
“Well, don’t get mad at me,” she argued. “Is it my fault males always want to give me things?”
Chapter Nineteen
Ragnar got as far as a copse of trees outside the fortress walls before he decided to stop and face the princess. She gazed up at him with those brown eyes and asked, “That went badly, didn’t it?”
And that’s when the laughter started all over again. So bad, he couldn’t stop. He just sat down in the grass and let the laughter roll right through him.
“It’s not funny!” Keita yelled, stamping her bare foot. “You could have bloody warned me!”
“You didn’t give me or anyone else a chance! I don’t know which was better. The look on your face or the look on hers!”
Keita paced away from him, her hands twisting against each other. “How was I supposed to know that was Dagmar Reinholdt? A warlord’s daughter? I thought she’d be huge! A snarling, snapping hound beast!” Ragnar pushed himself up on his elbows and studied her. She gave a small shrug. “My brother has…interesting tastes.”
She continued to pace. “I feel horrible!”
That surprised him. “You do?”
“Of course I do. I never wanted to hurt her feelings. But with that headscarf, those pieces of glass on her face, and all that grey…how was I to know?”
“Those pieces of glass on her face are spectacles.”
Keita, appearing horrified, briefly covered her mouth before asking in a desperate whisper, “She’s blind, isn’t she? I mocked a blind woman!”
Laughing again, Ragnar fell back on the ground.
“It’s not funny!” She stood over him, scowling. “Don’t you see? She’s probably crumpled at my brother’s feet right now—sobbing hysterically!”
Stretched out on their bed inside their fortress sleeping quarters, Gwenvael asked, “Does this mean I can call you my sassy servant girl now?”
“No, it does not.” Dagmar sat on the edge of the bed and pointed a finger at her dog. “And don’t you come over here. I’m still not speaking to you.”
Whining, the dog lay down on the floor, tucking his muzzle between his paws.
“How about blind slave girl?”
“No.”
Gwenvael moved over until his head rested in her lap. “How about saucy serving wench?”
Dagmar plucked lint off the sleeve of her gown. “All right, but only when we’re alone and you’re naked.”
“Shouldn’t you be naked as well?”
She sighed, in desperate exasperation. “If I’m already naked, then you can’t very well rip off my clothes and demand I service you with my mouth or you’ll bring in your many brutal guards to force me to comply—now can you?”
Gwenvael shivered, his hand reaching up and sliding into Dagmar’s hair before pulling her down to him. “How in all the hells did I forget the best part?”
“I’ve devastated that poor, wee thing and destroyed her will to live.”
“You really have not been in touch with your kin at all these last two years, have you?”
“I was busy!” She paced away from him, returned. “I’ll go straightaway and apologize. It’s the least I can do.”
She hadn’t even moved yet, but Ragnar caught her arm. “I wouldn’t do that.”
“Why ever not?”
“Because you’ll only show Dagmar weakness, and she will prey on that weakness the way one of your relatives is preying on that carcass over there.”
Keita looked off into the east field and raised her free arm. “Hello, Uncle Amhar,” she called out loudly so he could hear her from the distance between them.
The older dragon lifted his head, blood covering his snout and dripping down his fangs. “Hello, my lovely niece! All well?”
“Aye! Enjoy your meal!” She returned her attention to the Lightning at her feet and tilted her head to the side. “You were laughing,” she observed.
“Yes.”
“I didn’t know you were capable.” Keita sat down beside him, spreading her gown out around her. “So apologizing is out.”
“Definitely. I taught Dagmar well, and she’ll only see your apology as something she can use against you later.”
“Taught her?”
“I’ve known Dagmar many years. I met her when I was traveling through her father’s lands as a monk.”
“How old was she?”
“Ten, maybe.”
“And what, exactly, were you teaching her?”
Ragnar pulled his legs up and rested his arms on his raised knees. “Please don’t make me destroy…everything.”
“Sorry, sorry. I’ve just known a few dragons who’ve done that sort of thing. They don’t touch their humans until they’re of age, but the grooming starts much sooner.”
“It was never like that.”
“Good. When I’ve discovered that sort of thing in the past, it was very upsetting.”
“I can well imagine. What did you do?”
“Told my father.” She picked a flower that had managed to bloom before the winter set in. “And he killed them.”
Ragnar’s head fell forward, and he let out a breath. “Is that the answer your kin have to everything?”
“Yes.”
He studied her for a long moment. “Is that why you’re an assassin?”
Insulted, “I am not an assassin. I am a Protector of the Throne. And have been since I was thirteen winters.”
“You coul
dn’t even fly when you were thirteen winters.”
“All right, fine. If you’re going to be literal. I knew I was going to be a Protector of the Throne. I didn’t actually pledge myself until years later. There. Happy?” Ragnar began to answer, but she cut him off because she felt the need to make something clear. “But I am not an assassin.” She brought the flower to her nose, sniffed it. “That would be Talaith.”
“And who’s Talaith?”
“My brother Briec’s mate. She’s from Alsandair.”
Ragnar visibly winced. “Alsandair? Does she have a daughter? Tall girl?”
“Aye. You’ve met them?”
“I think so.” He scratched his jaw, and Keita noticed for the first time the scar he had on it. It was long but so low on his jaw, it wasn’t immediately obvious. “They killed my father.”
“Huh…dinner tonight might be awkward.”
“Not really. As you well know, he deserved it. But best not to mention it to my kin.”
“I’m glad you told me. Izzy will be here in a few days, and I’ll need to get to her before she says something completely inappropriate to Vigholf and Meinhard. She won’t mean to, of course. But it won’t matter.”
“So I’ll still be here in a few days?”
“I’m guessing.”
He leaned forward a bit, resting his cheek on his knees. “Tell me what you really think about all this with your mother.”
“I think I truly appreciate your not mentioning that necklace we found.”
“Right now your mother is unsure of Esyld’s loyalty. I sensed you were right, though, and her opinion would have changed quickly if I had told her about it.” He reached over and took one of her hands in his. “Tell me about your people and the Irons.”
She took in a breath. “During my ancestors’ time, the Iron dragons were just Southland dragons. They had wings and talons and fangs and breathed fire just like the rest of us. But they always wanted more. They began to segregate themselves from the others, and there were rumors of inbreeding in order to keep their blood lines ‘clean,’ was the word I heard used. Unlike the rest of the Southland dragons, their scales were all one color. The color of iron. Even you Northlanders, you’re all varying shades of purple, but the Irons were just one shade. And any that deviated, I’d heard, were destroyed at birth. They change their horns too. Use some contraption when their offspring hatch to curl their horns around their heads. They were finally forced out by my great grandmother, who had no tolerance for that sort of bizarre behavior, and they moved into the west. When my mother was young, the Irons attacked only once. My grandfather and his troops met them before they even cleared the Aricia Mountains. We won the day, of course, but my grandfather was captured and taken back to the Quintilian Provinces—the capital of the Sovereigns now, but then it was still just a lone province. He was tortured for days, they said. Until his execution.” Keita turned her hand over in his, pressed her thumb against the back of his hand. “Although we tell others he was killed in battle. Only the family knows the truth about his death.”