Chapter 9
Fern
It was only a few days ago that I’d awoken, assuming I’d walk into my father’s formal dining room on the arm of one of my suitors. Instead, I descended the stairs that led into the keep on that of a very handsome dragon rider.
One I had to work hard not to sneak looks at.
Probably because when I did, he was already staring at me.
I wasn’t sure why. Was this the kind of deference dragon riders paid to those that bonded with queens?
My mind came up with a couple of different possible reasons and discarded them, before I decided to just ask.
Freed of my parent’s estates and that damn corset and all their rules, surely I could just blurt out—
“Why—?”
“Cadet intake day—”
We both laughed as Lance had started speaking the exact moment I had. Falling silent, I gestured for him to proceed.
“If I’d known it was cadet intake day, I’d have brought you here tomorrow.” His voice was so deep, his smile kind. If he had presented himself to my father’s house, I would’ve run towards him, not away. “It was always bloody chaos when I was a cadet, and that was when just boys joined the corp.”
“Of course,” I said. “Women have only just recently been admitted to the corp. Well, the former queen was a cadet five years ago…” I peered up at him. “Did she serve with you?”
“Pippin?” His lips thinned and a small frown formed, but he dismissed it with a smile. Sucking in a breath, he was about to reply when a masculine voice silenced both of us.
“Lance!” We turned to see a smartly dressed man in a rider uniform striding over.
Several other riders followed along behind him.
“Bloody hell, it is you!” The man’s hand went to Lance’s other arm, and he gave it a slap.
“What are you doing here? Tell me you’ve decided to rejoin the corp.
It’s been frightfully dull since you and the lads left.
Remember that prank you played on Soren? ”
The rider looked over his shoulders at his comrades, all of them grinning wildly.
“Treacle in the gloves?” one said. “The look on his face.”
“Not here to become a cadet again, Jonathon.” There was a growing coolness to Lance’s tone. “Just escorting a lady to the intake hall.”
“One of the women enrolling?” Jonathon spared me a quick look, then refocussed on Lance. “Always was one for the ladies. You and Pippin… We always thought you and her would get together, but the drill sergeant got there first.”
“And Flynn,” one of Jonathon’s friends said. “And Ged, and—”
“Yes, well, we need to get down to the hall.” Lance interrupted them smoothly. When he took a step forward, I followed. “Good to see you, Jonathon, Kent, Harold.”
My feet were forced to move fast to match Lance’s longer stride. My skirts threatened to tangle around my ankles, so I pulled my hand free lest I tumble down the steps and smash my brains out on the stone.
“If you wanted to stay and catch up with old friends,” I said, “I won’t be offended.”
With a glance downstairs, I could see where everyone was converging. In the massive foyer below, a line of women went one way, the men, the other.
“And why would I want to do that?” He approached me then, placing my hand back on his arm, but moving now at a much more sedate pace.
My hand clung to it, needing it to steady me.
“Talking to idiots who just want to relive the past when the future…?” Had any man ever smiled at me like that?
A secret, sweet thing, it felt like, but surely I was just imagining things. “It’s looking brighter by the second.”
You’re not imagining things. Auren’s voice was a shock to hear inside my head. It was as if she was standing right next to me. This male likes you. He likes you holding onto his arm very much. He’s hoping you’re noticing how big and strong he is.
My lips twitched, a grin ready to come unbidden, but I suppressed it.
“So you were a cadet at the keep, Rider Lance?” I asked, needing to fill the silence somehow.
“Five years ago,” he said as we reached the next landing.
“Got out before the war with Harlston, thank the gods. Viridian and me have been living in Dragon Rest since. But yes…” He stared over the railing at all the people pouring in through the doors of the keep.
“I remember intake day like it was yesterday. Quite different back then, though. You were marched in and placed before the dragon eggs, and if one rocked for you, then you were in. No egg movement, out the door you went.”
“When dragons were…” I nearly said enslaved because that was the rhetoric used by the more progressive news sheets. Father deplored it but read it to keep abreast of their arguments, giving him something to complain about when other lords came for dinner. “Impressed from birth.”
“Just so,” he said, “though I must say the newer process seems far fairer. How did you come to bond with Auren?”
Again, I went to reply, only for someone to cut me off.
“Lance!”
It seemed the rider was well known within the keep.
A beautiful woman with waist-length blonde hair bound back in a tight braid appeared.
Most of the men we’d seen wore the black leather uniform of a rider, but on her, the effect was quite shocking.
More and more women chose to wear pants.
The shift to universal suffrage where every man and now every woman got to vote for who ran the country, had meant some women affected men’s dress, but Father would not countenance it.
Perhaps it was because her curves were outlined clearly by her uniform.
She gazed up at the rider with blue eyes full of desperation.
“You’re here to fill the role of sword master? Please say yes.”
The strange woman clasped her hands under her chin, frankly pleading with him.
“Your—”
He went to bow deeply, but she waved that away.
“Don’t bother with that silliness here.” Her grin was impish. “No rank in the corp except that which is earned.” She tapped the silver insignias on her arm. “Now, sword master? There hasn’t been a single person who can push me the way you did when you were last here.”
“Cora.” Lance gestured to me. “Can I introduce you to Lady—?”
“Just Fern,” I corrected. If we were dispensing with rank here, I’d do the same. Offering her my hand, Cora took it with a smile, shaking it firmly. “A pleasure to meet you, Cora.”
“Fern has bonded with a queen dragon as well,” Lance explained.
“With Ember?” Cora’s eyebrows shot up. “I was sure she would bond with Lily.”
“With Auren,” I replied, my cheeks burning hot for some reason.
“One of Hadrian’s daughters?” That seemed to impress Cora more than this dragon, Ember. Hadrian, king of the dragons, I remembered what the official had said up on the roof. Gods, he must’ve been the tyrannical father Auren spoke of.
King of the dragons… Auren sniffed. We dragons will never countenance a king, especially not him.
“Well, welcome to the royal keep.” Cora swept an arm outwards. “It’s not normally completely insane, but intake day…”
“Lance!”
“Gods, if I could just go for one moment without hearing my name,” my escort muttered as several men wearing a lot more silver insignias marched over.
“Got word you were in the keep, old man.” The stranger offered his hand to Lance who shook it firmly.
“Tell me you’re here to take the sword master position?
I was just about to send a letter to Dragon Rest frankly begging for you to join us, but the gods are kind and have brought you here. This must be fate at work.”
“Talk to George,” Cora urged Lance. “I’ll take Fern down to the women’s intake hall.” She shot him a tired smile. “I was just on my way down there myself.”
They were all focussed entirely on Lance, but he turned to face me. Both of his hands took mine, feeling too warm, too immediate. No man other than one related to me had ever touched me in such a way.
“I’ll take you to the door of the intake hall, but they don’t allow men in there for obvious reasons,” he explained.
“It’s fine.” I was already taking a step away from him.
This was always going to happen. While riding into a major city on the back of a dragon, escorted by a handsome rider was right out of the pages of one of my books, this was not my adventure.
Becoming a cadet, a queen rider, was. “I thank you for all your help. Viridian too,” I added quickly.
His lips twitched, a dimple popping in his cheek as his eyes held mine for what felt like an age.
“Call upon me any time you require help.” I was about to protest but he kept going. “For anything. Consider me and my dragon your loyal servants.”
Told you, Auren said, her acerbic tone almost dragging a bark of laughter out of me. His dragon is quite personable. These stones he has gifted me are very fine. He says he’s been collecting them for years in anticipation of meeting me.
“Of course,” I replied, sketching a quick curtsey. “Thank you, Rider… Lance.”
“Come and have a look at the facilities,” the male rider said, steering Lance away. “The prime minister has approved a budget to improve them. You could redesign them any way you see fit…”
But Lance wasn’t listening. He allowed himself to be dragged away, even as he looked back over his shoulder at me.
“Well…” Cora’s focus shifted from Lance to me. “I wasn’t here when Lance and Pippin were cadets, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen him look at another woman like he’s looking at you.”
“Oh, no, that can’t be.” I turned abruptly, conscious of the many eyes upon us. “I’m sure he was just being polite.”
That had her laughing, but just as quickly, she started running down the stairs.
“Well, we don’t have time to debate the nature of men’s hearts right now. Every intake day the general promises it will go more smoothly, but it never does. We need…”
Her mouth moved as fast as her feet and I was forced to grab my skirts and run after her in a way that would scandalise my mother. That knowledge just had me moving faster, right up until Cora came to an abrupt stop.
“What in all the hells…?”
Her concern, her curiosity, was a collective one.
I glanced down the stairs and saw people rushing towards the windows that pocked the stairwell, treating us to a view of the courtyard below.
A brown dragon the size I could not have conceived of before now landed but that wasn’t what got people twittering.
It was the beasts he kept company with.
Silver as newly minted coins, one, two, three dragons landed in the courtyard. They were of the same size as the brown, no, bigger, though considerably less docile. Tails flicked back and forth like that of angry cats, their necks craning low, right as three men dropped down from their backs.
“Silver dragons…?” Cora said, her hand going to the wall beside the window.
“Is there such a thing?” I asked, which was frankly stupid. The evidence was there for all of us to see. “I’ve never heard of silver dragons before.”
“Me either…” she said.
Silver mates with gold? Auren sounded completely outraged, but when she rose to her full height, she was still outmatched by the massive beasts. Not this gold dragon.
Auren? My mind felt like it quested out, seeking connection with hers. Auren, are you alright?
She didn’t answer, not via mind link. Her rattling throat, her roar, making clear what she thought. The large brown dragon shouldered forward, a conflict sure to break out, but the three riders just strode towards the keep.
“Who the hell are they?” Cora sounded concerned now, which had my own anxiety spiking. It felt like the keep turned as one. Every person stared as three men marched inside, their leather armour quite different in design to the official uniform of the Royal Dragon Riders of Nevermere.
When they paused in the foyer, I froze, watching them scan the crowd and feeling an irrational need to shrink back. Why? My logical mind asked, unable to come up with a single reason why I would need to. They weren’t here for me.
They couldn’t be.
So why did they scale the steps two at a time, the crowds parting to let them pass with ease? Why did they climb and climb, only coming to a stop when they reached the step below the landing we were standing on? Cora, my mind supplied lamely. They were here for Cora.
Because what other reason could there be?
They looked like wild creatures, too brutal, too savage to be contained by the orderly walls of the keep.
One was incredibly tall, his shoulders broad enough to block out the sun, heavy with muscle.
White hair fell over his face, barely concealing dark eyes that bore into mine.
The other had a lean, mobile face, his eyes dancing with amusement, scanning the crowd before they settled on me.
Then there was him.
I had seen hawks and falcons before. Some of Father’s friends like to use them for hunting, and this man had the proud air of one of them as his eyes met mine. Dark, dark blue to be almost black, his hair fell over his shoulders in a messy tumble.
Then he lunged forward.
My vision doubled, seeing the three silver dragons move ponderously towards Auren, just as these men did the same to me.
When the dragons’ heads reared back, declaring their intent, the black-haired man’s hands shot out.
The impact of them landing on my arms had me going stiff with shock, right before I gasped at the rude imposition.
“There you are.” The man’s voice was rough, full of self-satisfaction. “Woman, you belong to us.”