Chapter 3
Chapter Three
NISSIA
My father was embarrassed when King Vizarios showed himself out so early into the banquet, his bulky captain of the guard in tow. But in my opinion, his departure came as a relief. The dragon king has a difficult, closed-off energy about him that stirs dread inside me.
I have a hard time believing I will have a good life married to someone like that.
Vizarios’s advisor, a female who goes by Syzari, is much more reasonable.
Though while we sit at the table together, I can’t help but compare us.
She is tall, very tall, and slender, with barely a bump on her chest. I know dragonkind nurse their young as humans do, but clearly they don’t need knockers like mine to do it.
It is unlikely that Vizarios will find me attractive if this is how dragon women look.
I cringe thinking about what awaits me in two weeks when we arrive in Selvumrrest—and what I’ll have to do with him there. I’ve known for many years what the dragons require to seal a marriage, but now the fear and anticipation have risen to the surface.
How can I possibly perform such an act with someone who despises me?
After my father and Syzari have finished their negotiations, Roylan and I are released. I’ve only finished about half my dinner, but my stomach is tied in too many knots to eat more.
When I get back to my rooms, Ari throws down her embroidery and jumps to her feet.
“How was it?” she asks, crossing the room to my side. She takes my hand in hers, and that’s when I realize that I’m shaking.
“He was awful, Ari.” I clutch her hand tighter. “Perhaps it will be different once we’re back in his homeland, but...” I can’t even say the words aloud: that I’m doubtful there will ever be any love or affection between us. That I’m destined for a miserable marriage.
She strokes my hand. “Let’s hope it’ll be different there while accepting that it might not be. No matter what, though, you’ll have me. You’ll always have a friend.”
When I peer around the room, I find that in my absence, Ari has finished packing up my things into trunks, and my rooms are oddly empty.
“Go home,” I tell her. “I’ll be fine tonight.”
Typically, Ari sleeps in the room next to mine, but “home” for her is her father’s house in the city. It will be a long time until they see each other again.
She nods in understanding. “All right. I’ll see you early in the morning to depart.”
With a kiss on my cheek, Ari is gone.
When I climb into bed, I realize this is the last time I’ll sleep here. I wonder what my bed will be like in Selvumrrest. Will I have to sleep beside the dragon king, or will I get my own room?
There are so many unknowns that I lie awake for hours in the darkness, dreading the future.
I’m jolted awake in the early hours of the morning by the door opening. I get out of bed in my nightgown, rubbing my face sleepily, to find Ari has slipped inside.
“Oh, Niss.” Her eyes are red with tears, and her cheeks are streaked red with them, too. “Niss, I’m so sorry.”
I stare at her. “Sorry? For what?”
When she falls to her knees, my heart sinks. Something is very wrong.
“My father,” Ari says, sniffling. “My father... when I got home last night, he wouldn’t wake up. It took me hours to get him just to open his eyes.”
I know what’s coming.
“He’s sick. I don’t know what it is, but he’s... he’s...” Fresh tears run down Ari’s face. “I think he’s dying.”
I shut my eyes hard, clenching my hands into fists. I do have sympathy for her right now, but I also know what it means for me.
“I’m so sorry,” I murmur, kneeling beside her. Ari cries harder as I pull her in for a hug. “That’s horrible.”
“I can’t go with you.”
I already knew it before she spoke, but hearing it is worse.
“I’m sorry, Niss.” Ari rubs her face against my shoulder, drenching the fabric of my nightgown. “I’m so sorry. You need me.”
“Not as much as your father needs you,” I say, though I hate the words as they come out. I do need her, right now more than ever, but that’s not what’s best for Ari.
She hiccups and pulls away. “I’ll help you get ready,” she says through her tears, voice shaky. “Whatever I can.”
I nod and thank her, though my chest is hollow. I will truly be alone in the land of the dragons.
RAGNAKOR
Something has happened, or so I gather from the chatter among the servants.
You can learn much from servants when they think you aren’t listening—or if they believe you’re not important enough for it to matter if you overhear. That’s likely what they assume as I stand guard outside King Vizarios’s door and they clean the soldiers’ rooms.
The princess, Nissia, has a close handmaid who was supposed to make the journey with us. But now something has befallen her, and she won’t be coming along after all.
“Poor Nissia,” whispers one of the servants. “She’ll be stuck with the dragons. By herself.”
I stiffen. The princess will be entirely without a companion. This bodes very poorly for her. I saw how Vizarios reacted to the princess and it was not positive. It means the coming months won’t be pleasant for any of us. Perhaps years, or a lifetime.
I shudder as the servants continue babbling, and I wait for Vizarios to finally arise. At last, the door opens and he peers out into the hallway, squinting.
“Is it time to go yet?” he asks in a surly voice.
“It has been for a while.”
He rolls his eyes, then ducks back inside. Minutes later, I open it to find him shoving things into his trunk, his footman hot on my heels to help carry it. Then, at last, we’re ready.
Outside in the stable is not where I expected to find the princess. When we arrive, she’s saddling up her own horse, dressed in a shirt and pants with her curly hair pulled up out of her face and arranged under a beautiful silk scarf. I freeze when we walk in, immediately recognizing her now.
The young man from the practice arena. It was her, the princess herself. I’d thought she looked strangely familiar last night, but I couldn’t place it. Now I’m certain.
Her deep brown skin is soft and unblemished.
She has a broad mouth and strong brows that remind me of a man, but strangely, make her more beautiful as a woman.
And her body shape, though reined in by her clothing, is distinct.
Now I can tell how, when released, her breasts would fill out a dress but can be contained by whatever it is she’s wearing under her tunic.
A peculiar fluttering sensation in my belly draws my attention back to where we are and what we’re doing. Vizarios is watching me expectantly as his footman emerges with our horses.
“Getting on, Rag?” he asks, gesturing to my large gelding, which comes from workhorse stock and is big enough to carry my frame. The princess watches us for only a few moments before she mounts her horse and rides out ahead.
“Darling!” I hear her father say. “In pants?!”
Nissia huffs. “It’s most comfortable for riding, you know that.”
I can’t help watching even as the human king grabs the reins of the princess’s horse and pulls her aside.
“This is your new husband,” he hisses. “Wear a dress.”
“It is more practical,” I say, interrupting them. The king jolts up straight, realizing I’ve overheard. “Wearing pants on a long journey, on horseback, is much more comfortable for both her and the horse. I think King Vizarios would prefer his new wife to be comfortable.”
I glance over my shoulder at Vizarios, who is now glaring at me.
The king splutters. “Well, it’s unbecoming,” he says, but his fight has lost all its fangs in the wake of my pronouncement.
“We should be going,” I say to Princess Nissia as I pass her. “The carriages are waiting.”
The expression on her face lingers somewhere between curiosity and suspicion as she regards me.
“All right.” She directs her horse away from her father. “Goodbye, Dad.”
He falters for a moment, and I think, perhaps, he’s finally realizing that his daughter is leaving.
“Come visit at the new year,” he tells her as her horse walks away. Though we won’t be doing any such thing in the depths of winter, I don’t correct him.
Then we pass into the courtyard, where a crowd of humans has gathered. All the courtiers wave and say goodbye as we walk by. The princess searches the onlookers for someone but does not appear to see them. With a shake of her head, she turns forward and marches on, her jaw set.
Vizarios’s horse settles in beside me as we head for the gates leading out of the castle.
“You seem to have taken an interest in the princess,” he says with a smirk.
I’m not certain what he’s insinuating.
“She is my future queen.” I lock eyes with him. “I would like that future to be as positive as possible for all parties involved.”
The smugness falls from his face, and his nostrils flare.
“There is no positive outcome,” he says in a low, hard voice. With that, he guides his horse toward the middle of the party, so I’m guarding his back. My eyes fall to the princess as she rides on ahead, leading us out of her home city and into the unknown in a foreign land.
VIZARIOS
Ragnakor is turning into a meddler. I can already tell that he’s trying to engineer something with his little comments here and there.
He’s not very good at meddling.
It rankles me he would try to push the princess and me together. It’s blatant disregard, really. I will never love her, not as I have loved. Not as I still do.
Nissia, that’s her name. She looked different today, much different with her hair up, her chest bound, wearing pants more suited to a human male. She looked more dragon, at least, though she will still always be foreign and out of place in my world.
I can’t wait to be home, though it’s much too soon to be thinking that already.
We’ve barely walked for half the day, and the afternoon sun is high in the sky.
We made this journey in the late summer so that we wouldn’t have to contend with snow or poor traveling weather, which means that down here in the plains, it’s much too hot for me.