Sugar & Dragon Act I: Temptation (Sugar & Dragon #1)

I Dago

Upon receiving an invitation from a queen to share a cup of tea, the average citizen would probably be intimidated—slightly or greatly, depending on their character—but would consider it an honor. Dago was not intimidated, nor did he consider it an honor.

He suspected a trick.

After all, he wasn’t an ordinary citizen. In a perfect world, he would be the one sitting on the throne now. That the lands of Ilion were bound to House Ceres by an unbreakable magical bond was just a stupid coincidence.

Kora Ceres knew that. That was why she invited him to tea every month. She wanted to make sure that the ethics classes her mother’s edict forced him to take were effective, and that his ventures had nothing to do with the words “cut,” “unbreakable,” and “bond,” as was the case with the forge financed by his parents, where a model of a sword that could cut any material was developed.

Dago usually accepted letters from the palace with lenience, for the queen’s attention showed that she saw him as someone to be reckoned with. This time, however, the sight of runes drawn with cold precision by her secretary Haron aroused a strange feeling in him. This was the second invitation he’d gotten this month.

One too many.

Suspicious.

In a perfect world, Dago would have crumpled up the letter and taken a long bath. In this world, he crumpled up the letter, wrote an impersonal reply confirming his presence, bribed Dorian—the imp who oversaw his castle—with cookies to deliver it to the palace and only then did he bathe.

In the black tiled bathroom, Dago removed his elegant clothes, took the form of a silvery-white dragon, and dived to the bottom of the cavernous pool. In moments like this, he could understand why his parents had brewed a coup.

He didn’t like having a boss either.

***

“You must be wondering why I called you,” the queen said after two minutes of silent eye contact.

Thanks to years of practice, Dago’s eyelids didn’t even twitch. This wasn’t the first time that Kora emphasized her higher position—she regularly tried to provoke him, using the word “call” instead of “invite”. She probably hoped that he would reveal his rebellious nature and she would be able to legally confiscate his fortune.

“Indeed,” he replied.

He greatly disliked being treated with condescension, but the thought of being treated with condescension and having no money was something he disliked even more, so he’d learned to tolerate the queen—and her taxes—as a necessary evil.

Kora smiled. She looked harmless in a sleeveless emerald dress exposing the ebony skin of her arms and with a thin gold circlet topping her short hair, but though her eyes reminded him of a grassy meadow, there was something at the bottom of her gaze that made him wary. Sometimes he felt like they had something in common.

Not in a romantic sense. In a dark sense.

But that was impossible. Kora’s ancestor was a good dream, not a nightmare like Nyx Nemesis.

It was probably the vines squirming around her chair—against the lush foliage of the greenhouse, it looked like the mythical throne of the Queen of Spring—that irritated his survival instinct.

That was probably her intention.

“Master Homer and I had a conversation,” the monarch said. “He mentioned his wish to retire soon.”

This time Dago struggled to keep his expression neutral. He blinked away the spark of interest in his eyes, stilled the muscles in his face trying to smile, and discreetly took a deep breath to discourage his pulse from racing.

“Is that so?” he asked, as if he’d heard low-class gossip rather than the news he’d dreamed of receiving over breakfast, lunch, and dinner. “I was under the impression that Master enjoys his work so much that he would continue to serve as Archmagus even after his body’s death.”

The queen raised her teacup to her mouth and took a long, slow sip. Dago did the same. Part of him wanted to hiss at the woman to hurry up, but that would be inelegant.

Kora set the cup down with a soft clang. “Master is hesitating. As you noticed, he enjoys his work, but he also admits that his body struggles to keep pace with his spirit. He believes it is time to find his successor.”

Though Dago hadn’t added sugar to his tea, he felt as if he’d taken a bite of a cake. “I see,” he said. After a tactful pause, he added, “Did Master suggest a candidate?”

“Yes. Two, in fact.”

The pause that followed these words this time had nothing in common with tact.

“Two?” Dago repeated, unable to hide his surprise. It wasn’t until he saw the amused glint in Kora’s eyes that he remembered he was supposed to pretend to be inaccessible. “That’s interesting,” he added in a tone stripped of curiosity.

Kora smiled again. “I knew you would be interested.”

Dago smiled back. He did not answer.

“I admit,” the woman said, “I had some doubt regarding one candidacy, but I gave in to the master’s reasoning and looked at the matter from a broader perspective. As the queen of a progressive country, I cannot allow stereotypes and prejudices to cloud my judgment. I have to show the way.”

Should I clap? Dago wondered.

“As you probably guessed,” she continued, “I called you for a reason.”

Bored with the slow pace of the conversation, Dago decided to speed it up. “I suppose I am one of the candidates the Archmagus mentioned. Best from a reasonable perspective but not from a political viewpoint, because of my family’s reputation. You invited me here to test my goodwill. Am I wrong, Your Highness?”

The queen took a long, slow sip.

“You are not wrong,” she admitted eventually, “but you are not entirely right either. As I said, Ilion is a progressive country. Many magi have a dope of nightmarish blood in their veins. It doesn’t bother anyone, as long as the magus doesn’t get too carried away by his nightmarish instincts. It is not about your family’s reputation. It is about your reputation.”

“And what’s wrong with my reputation?”

Kora raised her eyebrow.

Dago crossed his arms.

Kora shook her head in disbelief, then laughed, genuinely amused. “You really do not see the problem?”

“No,” Dago said, struggling to contain his irritation. “Will you enlighten me, Your Serenity?”

“Have you ever heard the word ‘philanderer?’”

For a moment, Dago was only able to stare. Then he spoke slowly, as if he was dealing with a slow-witted child. “Are you suggesting, Your Majesty, that the obstacle standing in the way of my professional advancement is my sexual preferences?”

Kora leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table, and peered at him over her intertwined fingers. “I said we live in a progressive country, not an enlightened one.”

Dago took a long, slow sip.

“What advice do you have for me then, Your Highness?” he asked.

“How about being more discreet?”

“As discreet as you, Your Glory?”

Kora diplomatically didn’t answer.

Dago leaned on the table in a similar way to her. “Let’s assume that I stop seducing na?ve girls, whose mothers are usually most outraged by the lack of proposal from my end, and I start leaving parties unostentatiously with emotionally stable women. Will this be enough to improve my reputation?”

“Yes,” Kora said.

“No,” Haron said.

Kora and Dago glanced at the pale man with jet-black curly hair sitting at the portable table, who until now had seemed completely absorbed in writing something on a long papyrus scroll.

“If someone who has no control over his desires assumes the office of Archmagus,” the secretary said, crossing his dark gaze with Dago’s, “it will elicit more concern than respect. If you think about long -term power, you need to either become an ascetic or get married. Considering the additional benefits, I would advise the second solution.”

“Haron!” Kora spoke the man’s name as if she couldn’t decide if she was amused or outraged.

“What additional benefits?” Dago asked. “Apart from those carnally obvious.”

Haron didn’t seem bothered by Kora’s reaction, because he continued baldly, “If you marry a woman whose reputation, both her family’s and her own, exceeds yours, your value in people’s eyes will significantly increase.”

Dago and Kora reached for their cups at the same time. They drank until they emptied them and could contemplate their bottoms.

“Who is the second candidate?” Dago asked suddenly, looking up at Kora.

The woman was about to reply but stopped, as if she wasn’t sure if sharing this information was a good idea.

Haron didn’t share her doubts.

“Hera Galenos,” he said. The queen glared at him, but he didn’t even blink. “She has a perfect reputation.”