Chapter 11—Dragon’s Dilemma

He turned on his heel and more or less towed me out of the throne room and along the sick-making corridors to where our security dragons awaited.

Mandrake made the change and I climbed onto his back. I was intensely aware of some deep level of trouble in him, but equally sure he wasn’t about to tell me what the frag was going on. All I could truly divine was that there was something he was deeply afraid of—and he was not handling this unaccustomed emotion at all well.

Flying seemed to release him a little and after a few wing beats he spoke in my head.

‘Is there anything you need from the cottage for tomorrow?’

‘Ideally there are several things.’

‘Will it take you long to gather together?’

‘Five minutes.’

‘Then we shall go now.’

He whistled a complex tune to our companions and turned on a wingtip. Over the cottage, he made the change and dropped into the garden with me on his back. The sound of singing where there should have been silence was briefly worrying, until a stocky half-fae who I knew lived a fairly miserable life in the village below came to the door. She bobbed a curtesy and looked at me out of huge bruised-looking eyes.

“Mistress Mothwing sent me a message to come up and take care of the cottage.”

I smiled. “That was a good idea.” I scratched about in my brain for her name and found it at the last possible second before looking a fool. “Be welcome Lily. Both you and your little one have a home here for as long as you have need.”

The rigidity went out of her body and she smiled, showing the gap where some brute of a male had knocked out two of her front teeth when she refused to mate with him. Her young looked out from among her skirts and smiled shyly before running away about some ploy of its own.

Mandrake smiled briefly at her before going to stand over by the garden wall. I ran inside and picked up the sword Death Day and the matching Dagger of Death. Lily mutely held out boots with a dagger sheath, which was polished to a conker shine, as was the sword belt. I thanked her with a smile, and she bustled into my dressing room emerging with an overdress of old-gold velvet and a bundle of underthings. She looked at me and I nodded so she folded the dress and picked it into a bag.

“Matches your eyes, lady. You will look beautiful.”

“Thank you Lily. Now. Do you need money for foodstuffs?”

She nodded, mutely, looking somehow diminished by her need. I leaned down and brushed my mouth across her forehead. This marked her as under my protection, and I spoke quite formally.

“Blessings be upon you.”

“Thank you, mistress.”

I realised I had no money on me, so I shouted for Mandrake. “Loved dragon, do you have money?”

He came to the window, rather than walk inside, and I felt a cold finger on my spine. This needed sorting, but not here and not now. Instead I showed him my dimples as I took a handful of silver coins.

“Thank you. I will be out in a minute.”

He stepped back, but not before I saw the pain in his dark gaze.

I picked up the bag Lily had packed and handed her the money.

“Live well, and I shall see you soon.”

She put a timid hand on my forearm. “Don’t let him go, my lady. Dig past your pride and don’t lose your love for such foolishness.”

“I won’t,” I promised, as much to myself as her.

Mandrake and I descended the steps to the meadow where he could resume his dragon form in silence. The flight to where the wing awaited was the most joyless experience of my life and it would have been easy to either cry or retreat behind a wall of pride.

However, I had too much at stake to do either. As soon as we landed, Mandrake resumed his human shape and made me a cool, closed bow.

“I would have private speech with you, great lady.”

My heart felt ripped open by the unfeeling formality of his words, but I let nothing show. I merely gave my bag into the care of one of the waiting dragons and followed his rigid figure across the clearing to a snowy bench. He turned to face me.

“Lady. I would break our bond.”

“No.”

Something flashed in his eyes, but he persevered. “You cannot refuse me.”

“Can and have.”

His voice broke like shattered ice. “Very well then. Let me put this another way. With or without your consent our bond is no more.”

The desire to cry and beg him to reconsider was almost irresistible, but I couldn’t put that on him, so I searched for anger instead. “It doesn’t work like that, dragon. You gave me your bond, and unless I release you, you are tied to me.”

“Why will you not let me go?” he cried.

“If you give me sufficient reason, I might.”

“I cannot give you anything. Do you not see? I need you to walk away with your head held high.”

I was almost beyond anger now. “Oh yes. I see.” Only iron-hard will kept my voice low and my eyes dry. “I see. You want to break my heart and I have to make it easy for you. Again I say no.”

The pain in him all but brought me to my knees, but I was fighting for my life, and I could afford no softness. So I firmed my chin and gave him stare for stare.

He turned to walk away, and I exerted myself to extrude a small glamour, holding him where he stood.

“Don’t turn your back on me.”

He turned around. “Why not.”

“Because I ask you not to.” The word ask brought tears to his eyes and I put up my hand to touch his cheek. “Will you not tell me?”

He shook from his head to his feet, but then he stiffened like a condemned one awaiting a firing squad.

“No,” he said harshly. “I am not your creature to be an open book for your prying eyes.”

“You are,” I said in the coldest voice I could summon, “within about an inch of having me kill you where you stand.”

He snarled. “You? Kill a hardened battle dragon?”

The words had barely left his mouth when he was on his back in the snow with my blade at his throat.

“You, my friend, should be thankful I don’t have Death Day in my hand, because she cannot be re-sheathed before she tastes blood.” I stood back and let him see the hurt in me. “Talk to me, loved dragon. Just tell me.”

For a few seconds I thought I had failed, then he put a hand to my face.

“The Queen is in egg.”

I nodded.

“She called me to her mating flight.”

I was beginning to see. “So you may have fertilised her eggs.”

“Not may have, my life, she called only me.”

I looked into his eyes to see him begging for understanding and I moved close enough to feel his body heat.

“Do you feel responsible for the clutch?”

“No. No more than I would for any dragonet of Dragonheart.”

“What is the problem then, my dear one? As I understand it, most dragons neither know nor care who provided the sperm that fertilised the eggs.”

He looked at me as if he couldn’t quite believe his ears.

“And it doesn’t matter to you?”

“No. Should it? It is the way of dragons and no worse nor better than any other way.”

He gathered me into his arms and rested his chin on my hair. After a moment he lifted his head. “I have always been taught that other races do not understand draconic matriarchy. And I was afraid. Afraid that you would be told I mated with the Queen and hate me as an ‘absent father,’ an unfaithful lover, and one who would abandon a female in egg. I think that feeling fear made me stupid.” A single tear rolled down his cheek. “I’m sorry. I just couldn’t stand the thought of your contempt.”

I punched his upper arm. “Idiot. You don’t get rid of me so easily.”

And then, just like that, we were okay again. He took my hand in his and we walked back to where a stone-faced fighter stood holding my bag. He handed it to Mandrake and dropped me a slow wink before turning away and ambling off about his business.

Mandrake looked down at me. “Did Stinkwort wink at you?”

“If that dragon is called Stinkwort, yes he did. I reckon he was saying I did good.”

“Probably.”