Chapter 4
Chapter Four
NISSIA
This guy really is a royal asshole.
Once King Vizarios is gone, the chatter around the fire picks up again, and my rabbit slow-cooks over the flames. I sit and eat it near the soldiers my father sent along with us, thinking about what the king said to me.
I’ve always lived under my father’s thumb. He demands a certain kind of prim daughter, a princess in all ways. Thus, I dress up in disguise when I want to practice swordplay. It was the only way I would ever be able to learn.
I didn’t think dragons abided by the same rules, though I must admit that I know very, very little about their culture. Am I just as imprisoned by propriety now? Would I truly have to give up everything when we reach Selvumrrest?
“Try not to let him get under your skin.”
A deep baritone voice surprises me, causing me to drop some of my food.
“Damn it,” I hiss as it rolls away, but I pull more meat off the carcass instead.
The voice belongs to the guard captain, who rode at King Vizarios’s side all day. He’s now sitting beside me, the same dragon who told off my father this morning.
“It’s you! I meant to say thank you.” I wipe off my mouth with the clean side of my rag. “For saying what you said to my dad. It’s nice to have someone on my side.”
The big dragon has a very different build from the king.
He’s a behemoth, with a flatter, broader head and heavy horns that curve out and to the sides in a way that reminds me of a ram.
His snout is round and stout, with tusks curving up from his mouth.
The scales and horns on his face are all hard and severe—a jarring contrast to the gentleness in his voice.
“Of course.” The guard captain dips his head, his tail rising in synchronicity. Partway down, it changes color, as if it was cut off and then grew back. Can dragons do that? “You will be my queen soon. It’s my duty to be on your side.”
I falter at this word, duty. This guy is only speaking kindly to me because it’s his job.
“I was sorry to hear about your handmaiden,” he continues. My head jerks up. “You were supposed to have a companion, weren’t you?”
“Oh.” My breath whooshes out of me. “Yes. But her father fell suddenly ill, and she couldn’t come.” I finally finish my meal and set it aside. “So, I guess it’ll be just me.”
Only me, all alone in a strange country, surrounded by others who don’t look like I do. I’ve known it was coming, I’ve prepared for it, but I never thought I’d be truly alone. I always thought I’d have Ari.
“My apologies,” the big captain of the guard says. “That must be difficult for you. I’m sure King Vizarios will arrange a new handmaiden for you when we arrive in Selvumrrest.”
I force a smile. “That would be lovely.” Not that I’ll ever be friends with her the way I am with Ari. “I didn’t get your name yet, Captain.”
“I am Ragnakor.” The massive dragon bows his head. “I’m honored to serve you.”
Things like this always make me feel awkward, so I just nod back. “Oh. Thank you.”
Ragnakor studies me for a moment, like he’s trying to work something out in his head.
“Were you there yesterday?” he finally asks. “At the training arena, when I was sparring?”
I gulp. He recognized me?
“Yes, that was me.”
“Very clever.” He nods appreciatively. “Do you know swordplay?”
“Some. Not much, but some. It’s a pastime my father would never approve of, though.”
He chuckles. “I imagine not. But in your new homeland, there is no harm in the queen knowing how to defend herself. Or hunting rabbits if she prefers. Though the cooks there will be more than happy to procure any food you like.”
Ah, I had a feeling King Vizarios was lying to me.
“Thank you for telling me the truth.” I set my plate aside and return the dagger I was eating with to its sheath. “I don’t know that I’d say I can defend myself, though.”
I hate to admit it, but everything I know is self-taught, and that doesn’t add up to much.
Ragnakor tilts his head. “Well, if you want to learn more, I could... train you.”
My heart speeds up. I could train out in the open? Learn from someone skilled? It’s not even a question in my mind how to answer.
“Oh, yes,” I say, sitting up straight. “I’d love that.”
When Ragnakor nods in understanding, I’m buoyed. Maybe there will be some positives in this transition after all. The captain of the guard seems friendly enough, unlike Vizarios. Perhaps we can become friends.
That would be nice, I think.
Ragnakor and I sit in companionable silence for some time after that, until finally, the day’s long ride catches up to me.
“Well, goodnight,” I tell him, rising to my feet. “I look forward to arriving in Selvumrrest so I can learn from you.”
His mouth curves up, though it’s not quite a smile. “I look forward to it, as well.”
I bid the other soldiers goodnight and return to my tent alone.
RAGNAKOR
As each of my guards has gone off to bed, I’ve sat in front of the fire, drinking firewine from a skin.
That flighty, buttery feeling in my belly returned this evening.
Very curious, this human woman, who hunts herself rabbits.
Under different circumstances, I think her personality and King Vizarios’s might mesh together rather well.
She understands her limitations and admitted them to me with a commitment to improving.
She is clearly independent. Surely she will challenge him, for better or for worse.
Probably for the worse, given how he’s decided to enter this marriage.
I consider as I continue drinking just how many things, in hindsight, I should have never said nor done. I made mistake after mistake, and it was selfish of me to make them. With the princess in front of me now, I must do everything possible to make her future easier.
Finally, I drain the wineskin and leave it sitting on a log. I’m too big for merely one to make much of a difference to my state of mind, but it’s enough to make my dick a little hard, thinking of some of the mistakes I’ve made.
Would I really change it? The dutiful guard in me wants to believe I would, that if I knew how this would turn out, I’d do what’s right by my new queen. But the animal part of me, the part that longs and hungers, will never regret it.
The following day, after we stop midday to eat, I make my way past Syzari to the front of our entourage, where the princess is riding. She gives me a funny look when I urge my horse into position beside her.
“Ragnakor?” she says, testing out my name. “Am I saying that right?”
“You are.”
She looks pleased. “Good. Hello. What brings you to my neck of the woods?”
“I thought I would try to get to know you better,” I say. “As I’ll be guarding you as well as King Vizarios in the future.”
She cocks her head. “You won’t assign me my own guard?”
“Why would I need to?”
“Well... I mean...” The princess, for the first time, looks flustered. “I don’t have to, you know”—she leans in closer—“sleep in the same room as him, right?”
I understand now. It is a very practical, if not tragic, question for her to ask.
“No, no one will demand you sleep in the same place.”
She lets out a sigh of relief, and it is the personification of my worst fears. Nissia already knows well how the king feels about her, and it’s reciprocated.
“You can’t be in two places at once,” she says pointedly.
“I will post a different guard outside your door,” I allow. “But I will be at your side at all times when you are with the king.”
An almost imperceptible flash of regret crosses her face, and then it’s gone like a shadow.
“I see.” She turns her head forward, any traces of amusement vanished. “Well, ask me any question you like. But only if you don’t mind answering the same question in kind.”
That’s a fair request, so I nod in agreement.
“Where did you learn to hunt?” I ask.
She hums and taps her chin. “Dad used to do these fox hunts. Very boring, just stupid lords trying to look fancy.”
“They hunt foxes?” I ask, aghast. “Foxes are not prey animals.”
The princess rolls her eyes. “Right? It’s barbaric. Anyway, I went on a few of them and learned from the hunters. Someday, I want to have a hunting dog of my own.” She sighs. “I should have gotten a puppy before I left.”
“We can still get you a hunting dog. It is not as if we don’t have dogs up north.”
Her face brightens again. “Really? I don’t know anything about Selvumrrest. Or dragonkind, really—just what’s in our history books.”
“I can help with that.” Now that we’ve agreed to get her a pet, our conversation continues easily.
I tell her about my own training, how I worked my way up from a lowly soldier.
I’ve not done much hunting in the past, but I have some experience with shooting a bow and throwing a spear.
Once we’ve gone as far as we can on that topic, we talk about her future homeland.
I try as best I can to prepare her for what’s coming.
The rest of the day passes much more quickly, and I pledge to do this again tomorrow.
VIZARIOS
It infuriates me beyond reason to see Ragnakor at the head of the caravan, talking so easily with the princess all afternoon.
By the time evening rolls around and we’ve located a spot to camp for the night, they seem almost like old friends the way Nissia is smiling and laughing.
Her bright-colored scarf flashes in the sun, her white teeth shining whenever she opens her mouth.
She is not as unappealing as I like to tell myself. But I dislike immensely that those smiles are for Ragnakor, and he is nodding and gesturing in return.
I bristle all over, my very scales feeling like they’re too tight for my body. Ragnakor. He was all I had when Mother died. He was the raft I clung to in the storm when I had nothing and no one. And now he’s leaving me alone at the back of the caravan to flirt with a human? My supposed wife?
I already lost the one closest to me. I’m not going to lose him, too.
I am nearly breathing smoke from my nostrils as the soldiers set up camp and my footman builds my tent. When I spot Ragnakor handing over his horse to someone else, I stalk over to him.
“You,” I growl under my breath. “What are you doing?”
The captain’s heavy brows crease. “Pardon me, Your Majesty?”
“You talk to her as if you know her!” I grit my teeth. “You are not to be all chummy with the princess. Do you understand me?”
A severe look has come over him.
“That I cannot do,” he says solemnly.
“What? Of course you can. It’s easy—”
“I will not obey this order.” Ragnakor stands up straight, crossing his arms over his chest like a bulwark. “I will not let my new queen go unprotected.”
“She is not your queen yet!” My voice rises, and now we’re attracting attention. “When she is, I’ll... I’ll assign her her own guard. Her own guard captain, even. She’ll have a whole battalion who are not you.”
Ragnakor says nothing to this. No, he simply studies me with his deep-set eyes, his arms crossed over his broad chest.
“What are you afraid of?” he finally asks, his voice soft. I don’t like how he seems to almost be... pitying me.
“What? I am afraid of nothing! But she is not your charge. I am. We will find someone else to follow her around.”
Instead of answering, though, my captain shakes his head sadly.
“I merely want the princess to feel welcomed. If she is alone, truly alone, this will go very poorly. For both of you.”
“It is already going poorly! You have your orders.”
Without waiting for an answer from my insubordinate guard captain, I stomp away. In the midst of the harsh winds of change, I will hold on to this thin tether I still have left for as long as I can.