Engaging the Dragon E-Book

Kenna McKinnon

• Herausgeber: Next Chapter
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Princess Almere felt the dragon's hard and smooth bulk sizzle between her thighs. Oh, how she missed her husband Stannock, who was fighting a war far in the northwest.

With the princess's husband away, her affections are challenged by Tevron, her husband's half-brother. The reigning king is old and unpredictable, and as the power struggle in the palace intensifies, an heiress is needed to bring peace to the realm.

An old prophecy tells of Dracaena - half dragon, half human - who will rise to power and unite the realm in the Great Hall of the Four Races. As sinister plots unfold and the balance of power shifts, Almere and her companions must place their trust and friendship wisely - or perish.

Leseprobe

EngagingTheDragon

Kenna McKinnon

Copyright (C) 2017 Kenna McKinnon

Layout design and Copyright (C) 2019 Next Chapter

Published 2019 by Next Chapter

Cover Design by CoverMint

Edited by Elizabeth N. Love

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author's permission.

Chapter One

Almere felt the dragon's bulk sizzle between her thighs, hard and smooth like riding a man. How she missed her husband, Stannock, far away at the wars in the northwest!

She and her dragon dropped through shouting halls of air, wheeled dead-stop before the cliff that led to her father-in-law's castle, then Fire-Smasher banked and rose, blazing, to the top of the wall.

“Hello, the guard below! Almere demands the right to enter.” She pulled on the rein of fire that controlled her pet, her blue eyes sparkling in a tan face. Her yellow wide-brimmed hat flapped in the breeze created by the descending dragon.

“Open the landing roofs and make way for the princess,” the guards called.

Armor clinked below. Soldiers leaned on the great chains that supported the roof gates which slowly ground apart.

Once in the King's castle, her dragon pranced high above on wings of translucent emerald, scarlet, and periwinkle blue. Almere forced a cooler breath to calm the flutter in her chest.

“You weren't gone long this time.” Stannock's half-brother leaned against a pillar. The portico yawned in the open air, inviting rest. “The dragon is fed?”

“Suitable shrubs and rodents from the valley.” Almere slumped into an expanse of pillows within the queen's chair. The Queen mother rode a beast of her own under the burning triple suns of the planet Draxxt and seldom came home before nightfall.

The Queen's dragons were not like Fire-Smasher. All of the other dragons were faster and stronger – fierce and waiting for a battle. Fire-Smasher, whom Almere rode astride, fast and desperate before her husband left for the wars – “Kiss me, Stannock, kiss me hard,” she begged and her wet mouth clung to his, two of their four full moons ago. Now there was his brother, sturdy and insolent, who stared at her with moist dark eyes half hidden under drooping lids.

“Almere.”

“Where is the Queen?” she asked.

“She plays the part of a young girl, as usual, up and away in the clouds until the last sun's set.” Tevron moved only his lips, then the tips of his fingers wriggled in his tight pockets. The pillar supported his weight. His body shifted to stand more firmly on his feet. Almere feared he would lunge in her direction, and what would she do then? A face like her husband's but darker and older on his bold smiling half-brother, his bodyguard and rival, the brother who stayed behind as king's advisor while Stannock fought on the fronts of the wars. All these months, her husband was gone, her bed empty.

Almere twisted a piece of her wavy black hair in her fingers, blue eyes flashing.

“I must bathe, Tevron,” she said. She was able to mask her fear from him; with a dismissive gesture, she got to her feet.

Tevron nodded but he was not ready for her to leave. “Mariette will run your bath. The servants have heated the water already.”

“It's good of the queen's maids to wait on me so.”

“Only fitting for the queen's daughter-in-law. What do you know from the day's trip?”

She stretched and her muscles welcomed the release of tension. She could feel his hard stare on her half naked body, her bodice pulled apart from the fierce ride. “It's been a hard ride, and the spies in the northwest have come back with no news. I saw the fires at the edge of Gracklen. I'm afraid for Stannock.”

“Afraid for my brother and his soldiers?” The thick figure in the shade of the portico moved into the light of a double moon. Night came suddenly in Gracklen. “They fight for the land of the Trolls at Many Waters. It's all about land. There is another solution than war, but my brother is thick-headed and won't listen. Though he's brave, I'll give him that.”

Her loins ached.

“Damn him,” she cursed.

“You miss him?” Tevron stalked like a dark animal to her side.

Out of annoyance, Almere flicked the dragon whip still in her hand. “That is not a question.”

“I know you, Almere. I've seen the desire in your eyes, felt your heart smolder like hot coals.”

She drew back and thought of her husband, so different from his dark brother, and she felt afraid again. She could see Tevron's thin white smile in the gloaming.

“He's sent no word of the war. The dragons here are restless to join their cousins and flock,” Tevron said. “My own beast has long since been lost in the wars, flown to accompany Stannock with his servant and baggage, my mount torn from me because I chose to stay at the palace and attend the King. That's all right. Dragons are scarce. I have my eye on a young one, eager to grow and learn from its master.” He smirked at the thought of a new pet.

“You will never mount my Fire-Smasher,” Almere denied, aware of his designs. “You wait here, Tevron, and torment me while you let your brother go to war on your behalf.”

“My mother, the Queen, wishes for grandchildren, while you remain barren due to my absent brother. Didn't I take the better path? If you would allow it, I would step in for my brother. Stannock is useless here, but active on the front where he fights instead of loves.”

The Queen wished for grandchildren, and Almere was alone here without a husband to spawn them. If only she could produce heirs. Queen Ericaania reminded her often of her barrenness. Almere had no other husband. Not like Ericaania, who took two husbands and then was left with only the old King, Hakor, who had murdered the Queen's first love and left her with their strange dark child, Tevron. Almere knew that her mother-in-law never forgave King Hakor, but from that day on, she feared the king's displeasure because of the bargain she had struck to keep her and the dead Malcoom's child alive and under King Hakor's protection.

Tevron slipped his hand under the silky fabric of Almere's bodice. “I have no wish to be murdered at a meal or in bed,” he assured her. “I can wait.”

She flicked her whip onto the back of his hand and screwed her mouth downwards. Her stomach heaved. “I have no wish to sleep with you.”

A dragon looped through the evening sky, talons outstretched to alight on a high tower.

“I AM DESTRUCTION,” the dragon gloated. “I AM FATE.” It smiled and settled on the tower, guided by reins of fire held in the hand of a tanned, older but supple woman.

“Ericaania has returned.”

“My cue to depart,” Tevron said and left. His voice so much like her husband's, away at a war they may not win, a war Almere longed to rejoin with her dragon and his friends, Queen Ericaania in the lead with sure hands on the flaming reins of her plunging mount.

Fire-Smasher, Almere's immature red dragon, leaped in a stream of fire to be with the larger dragon. The King's guards grasped the sparkling reins that hung from above and led both dragons to their stables for the night where they were free to eat small live mammals and count their gold. The Queen's dragon, a translucent crimson flame in the dark, slipped from the top of the tower to the landing platform near the Great Hall, then his great low voice hummed from within the castle stronghold. Almere heard Fire-Smasher reply with a low hiss. He attempted to prophecy the battle tomorrow. Almere felt her loins weaken and she moistened.

“Is the King not glad to see me?” Ericaania's words came from deep within a cave of fire, her dragon flickering in the night from the stables below.

The King's reply rumbled from the Great Hall. Guards came out to secure the inner gates. Two moons rose high in a night black and as sticky as Almere's own sweat.

“I was delayed by a happy feast in our neighbor's garden,” Almere could hear her mother-in-law say. “I thought of my lord the entire time, and we got away as soon as we could, my dragon Lockjaw and I.”

The King's voice rumbled in reply.

“Did you have a good time today, Mother?” Almere stood inside the barred doors and faced the woman she might have loved, given other circumstances. “Did our neighbors treat you well at the feast? As they always must, for you're always late at this time of year, coming from their hospitality. When the early cold comes on us during the evening, and it's only at home that we're comfortable. We miss you, Mother, the King especially.”

“Yes,” the Queen replied. She put her arms around Almere, who pulled away uncomfortably. “Now a hug and off to your bath you go. First you, then me, for I'm chilled to the liver with the long ride today.”

“Long ride? What about the feast with the neighbors?” Almere reminded her, eyes misted, sorry for the King. “Mother, I'm sick about your lies. Father doesn't deserve this, and neither do I.”

“Lies? You sorry skinny bag of fluff.” The Queen laughed. “You're just like I used to be at your age, Almere. A papa's girl. If your own father had lived, and your mother hadn't been banished at such a young age, you might have grown to be a proper wife.”

“But I had my father's dowry,” Almere reminded her. “And he loved the King, your husband. Enough to betroth me to the King's only son at a young age, before we were of age to consent.”

“Should have been someone else,” Ericaania complained. “You are barren, child.”

“Not enough time to decide that yet,” defended the younger woman. “And how do you know it is me?” she asked boldly, not considering the wrath of the Queen at such an impertinent suggestion.

“Our son will provide us with an heir yet,” the Queen declared confidently. “Either with you or he'll take another wife.”

Almere's heart trembled and her gut twisted. It was possible Stannock would take another wife, she knew that. They had tried for an heir for ten cycles of the moons already, and she was still as slim and barren as when she had come as a virgin bride to his bed.

The King rumbled a few more words from within his room next to the Great Hall. Almere stood in the foyer with Ericaania and listened to the sick man cough.

“Coming, dear.” Ericaania's voice echoed through the tapestry-lined rooms. “I'll wheel you out to say goodnight to Almere.”

“If I could move, I'd wheel myself out there and shoot you through the eyes.” The King raised his voice to cover the sound of weeping. Who was weeping? Not her mother-in-law — it was the King, and Almere bowed her head in sympathy. The Great Hall was not so great that sound couldn't travel through the tiled and tapestried hallways to the foyer where she stood. The King cried out, and the wheels of his chair scraped against the doorway as his massive torso lunged past the smoking torches on the walls to greet his beloved daughter-in-law, whom he cherished as his own flesh. The Queen stood in the background, forgotten. Her jaw was set.

Fire-Smasher and Lockjaw, their meals finished, circled overhead, now crimson transparent in the light of the double moons. The other two moons were rising. Almere could clearly see the outline of her husband's older brother leaning against the balustrades outside, half hidden by dark shrubs, his face sullen and his eyes smoldering as he glared into the porticos of the Great Hall. She could feel the man's lust and hatred burning into her heart even with the distance between them. Almere shuddered, put her cool arms around the warm body of King Hakor, and joined the Queen in the depths of the palace. There was a sound in the night, close by, a rattle and thud, and then all lay silent beneath the moonlight streaming through the window slits of the inner chambers, surrounded by green silk, embroidered tapestries, great bronze shields, and blood-encrusted pikes.

Almere stopped to pick up the large red stone thrown through the portico above. “It's a sign,” Ericaania said. “The rabble are out there, waiting to get us.”

“We're not safe,” Almere agreed, smoothing her thumb along the pebbled, ruddy surface. “This is enough to have crushed my head if it had found its mark.” She knew, though, that the stone had not been thrown by a peasant nor an unhappy servant. Someone lurked in the shadows outside, who hated her and the Palace and the Court. Someone very close to home – and dangerous.

She shuddered. Come home, Stannock. I need no protector but you, and my dragon speaks of deception. Come home and share my bed. I need you, my husband. Let your Captain take care of the battle in your absence. Captain Devvid and the old general are well able to do so.

There was never any answer to the prayers she sent to the skies. Her marriage bed remained cold and bleak. Cold like the beating heart of her husband's brother and his lustful eyes which taunted her with their crippled resemblance to Stannock's, or a mockery of the twin jewels of Fire-Smasher's orbs, burning with a patient desire. She thought of the old prophecy of a Dracaena or half human, half dragon female who would save the land of Draxxt. If the bloodline were to come through the Royal lineage, as the legend intimated, she didn't know how or from where it would spring. Perhaps the Palace was haunted and perhaps she was cursed.

Chapter Two

Tevron glared at the profile of his sister-in-law outlined by the flickering flames in the foyer of the Great Hall. Tevron's half- brother, Stannock, was second in command of the army that fought in northwestern Gracklen, their country, a war with the invading Trolls and colorful Picts far beyond the borders of the King's castle and the crippled King himself.

“My brother is a brave man and foolish, as brave men are, more heart than brains,” Tevron muttered to his servant. He continued to cast glances at the slim young woman beyond the courtyard as a plan took shape in his hot brain. He wore tight black trousers and a silver coat, open at the chest, where dark hairs curled luxuriously about a metallic swastika icon on a sturdy chain. The servant Paige stood next to him, a willowy wraith by an oak tree, the servant's adolescent body still unformed and gangly, hair blond and curly, grey eyes fixed on his master.

Almere was not aware when Tevron stopped his scrutiny and turned his back on the palace. His own living quarters were humbler and this irked his molten soul – he, the son allowed to live, of a former king murdered by his rival, the still young King Hakor. He was only half-brother to Stannock, who was the favored son and sole male legitimate heir.

Tevron bent and picked up a sizable red stone, muttered an incantation over it, and pitched it at a flickering window slit of the palace. His mother had begged King Hakor for Tevron's life and he had granted it in exchange for silence about Malcoom's death. That silence had cost her dearly through the years, for she had loved Malcoom more than Hakor, and her knowledge might have been a means of controlling her second husband if it were not for her dark son and the need to protect him. For Ericaania was ambitious and thwarted in that ambition, and thus the long wild rides during the day, and the lovers, he thought.

“May it bring you a curse,” Tevron muttered as the stone took flight, and Paige beside him grinned. They heard the distant thud as the stone ricocheted off the portico and into the inner hall.

“I'm sure it will, sir. It will at least make her consider the source, for a moment, and perhaps fear.” The young man slapped his hand on his thigh. “Tis cold,” he complained. “I'll draw you a hot bath and warm your sheets with hot bricks.”

“Damn you.” Tevron drew a flask from a pouch at the waistband of his tight black pants and drank deeply. He wiped his mouth with the back of a dirty fist and replaced the flask in the pouch.

“Sir?” Paige stood a head shorter than Tevron; he looked up to inquire of his master.

“Yes, a hot bath. And damn them all to Hades.”

“Sir?”

“The women control the old king, my father Malcoom's rival. Why did Hakor let me live? A wolf would have destroyed his enemy's children. He's a weakling, and he'll live to regret it.”

“The walls have ears,” Paige whispered in earnest.

“Yes, and it's high treason I speak of, my words flow foolishly with anger and ale. We'll see my brother dead and the old king put out of his misery before the winter's on us, my brother's young widow in my bed, and my mother banished. With her coterie of dragon shit.”

Paige led the way to the sumptuous rooms at the end of the portico. “They say the dragons are enchanted. They can talk, and they know the future.”

Tevron scratched his crotch. “They love fresh meat, gold, and their riders, but I'll lure them away. I'll have an army of my own, with my faithful followers and the Palace guards that even now hide in the shadows.” He threw aside the heavy curtains just inside his doorway.

Almere threw her cloak over her shoulder and strode into the women's quarters where the maid Mariette had filled a large soaking tub with hot water, lavender, and soap. Thick white towels and rose-scented lotions lined a rack near the lip of the tub. Almere slipped off her riding trousers and rough crimson blouse, dropped her undergarments on the floor, and sank to her neck in the steaming liquid.

“Ahhhhh. Dragon's breath, this is heaven.”

Her toes projected from the bubbles and she wiggled them, then began to cleanse herself with a hunk of creamy soap half again as large as her hand. She splashed scented water on her face and scrubbed off the oil and dirt from the long ride home on Fire-Smasher. Over mountains blue with snow and valleys hot with dust they had soared, scouring the land for signs of Trolls or painted Picts or perhaps for returning Gracklen warriors, defeated at last in battle. She saw no sign of her princely husband or his troop of men and women.

That's a good omen. He must be all right; no imperial dragon was seen carrying my husband's body home today or in the last four moon cycles.

She moved the soapy lather down her body to her firm young breasts and circled the pink rosebuds at the tips. Steam rose from her body and the tub enveloped her completely as she sank further into its watery womb, up to her chin. The soap slipped from her fingertips and she touched that private part which only three others had so far breached – the earnest young student in middle school, fumbling with her buttons in the classroom left empty and echoing of all but their hot young bodies, exploring, eager…his lips on her neck. She remembered their outraged teacher who discovered them when coming back for a forgotten book, their outraged parents when told, her father's nod and knowing smile, the smack of her mother's hand on her cheek – then the riding lessons and the handsome young instructor for a short, hot summer – then Stannock and consummation of a favored royal marriage for which she had saved her final virginity. As her fingers slipped into that secret place, probing, rubbing, a ragged breath tore through her body, the pubic hair curling beneath her hand. The tub steamed, the air hung grey with mist and desire, lavender and rose petals competed with the smell of musk. She glanced up and saw Mariette watching her from the doorway.

“It's Tevron,” Mariette explained her interruption. “He has a message from the King for Prince Stannock's commanding officer.”

How long has she been standing there?

Almere caught her breath and rose, dripping, from the tub. Mariette moved swiftly and pulled a thick white towel over the girl's nakedness.

“You'll catch your death of cold, honey.” Mariette's voice sounded dry. “You want to be presentable enough to meet the Queen tonight. She called for you earlier.” Practiced hands moved the towel over Almere's bare body. She was tempted to direct the maid's hands to that secret place, but thought better of it, shrugged on a fuzzy robe, and looked around for her maids who would escort her to the Queen's chambers.

Tevron appeared instead, as though he had been standing outside the door. His dark hair was wet and plastered back from his recently scrubbed face. Paige hovered in the background. Almere pulled back her square shoulders and suggested it was best not to disturb the Queen further that night. Her bath had taken longer than usual, and the Queen's windows were dark.

“The King has given me a message for Stannock's general, to be delivered tomorrow – at first dawn, we must follow the men's march to the northwest and deliver it into the general's hands and no other. Even I don't know what's in the message,” Tevron lied. Paige shuffled his feet and looked at the floor tiles.

“Paige will leave at sunrise with the message, and he'll need a dragon.”

He would take Fire-Smasher, the immature red dragon, because they couldn't spare another.

Almere's legs trembled. The letter was sealed with the King's gold wax, stamped with his royal ring, and no one in the kingdom except the general would dare to open it now.

Not even me.

As soon as Tevron strode away, with the message tucked into a pouch at his waist, she lowered herself onto the couch in the sitting room next to the women's quarters. Pray God, is it good news? Is the King recalling my dear husband back to my loving arms?

“I'll help you pack, Paige,” Tevron offered to his servant. “Be careful with the dragon. He's untried with a male rider and a strong arm, other than that girl my brother married.”

“I'm an excellent rider, sir,” the servant replied. “The message will get through or I'll die trying.”

Tevron pulled on his lip. “Just so.” He poured a glass of his best dark ale, holding it to his nostrils for a moment to savor the hoppy smell, then slapped his servant on the back. “I do hope no one has to…”

Paige folded a small riding blanket into his rucksack. “What's that, sir?”

“…die trying,” Tevron finished. He smiled, showing many square white teeth, sharp in his tanned face, like a fighting dog.

Chapter Three

Fire-Smasher, the smallest dragon, hatched only ten months ago, born from the union of Lockjaw and Faerydust. As dragons will, he grew with astonishing speed and was trained to the fiery rein about the same time Stannock left the high mountain castle for the wars. Lockjaw was very vocal and trained the little dragon well in nuances of epic poetry, prophecy, and battle phrases. Because of his unique coloring, the trainers called him Fire-Smasher, but his scales would glow purple, blue, and green when the sweet creature sailed in front of a sun or grew alarmed or excited. Because of his youth, he was a poor choice for anyone to ride to the battles in the northwest, but unfortunately, the war had taken most of the good mounts from the King's castle to use in action. The Picts and Trolls howled and fought against their monarch in the furthest reaches of the King's lands. Paige was but a boy, and light, so the most likely rider for the smallest dragon.

Tevron folded the sealed royal letter into his servant's saddlebag the night before, cautioning him to say nothing of his precious cargo other than what Almere knew, and to deliver it directly to Stannock's commanding officer in camp without stopping to chat with Stannock.

Odd, Paige thought. Major Stannock is his brother and the King's son. Why would I not acknowledge the heir to the throne, and tell him of a message from his father to his general, which will no doubt affect the wars and himself in the northwest either good or bad, unless the old king is really addled as some say he is.

“I'll do as I'm told,” he muttered to the dragon, “though it's mighty odd.”

They sailed up from the mountain at second dawn, spiraled up through the ragged cloud to the brilliant first sun, the most important star and the one with a name – Daemon – and then out over the valley, gyred north and up, until they were lost to sight. Almere and Tevron watched them leave. Her smooth left bicep touched Tevron's shoulder.

She shivered and he put out an arm. “Scared?” he asked.

“Not I,” she denied. “Never.”

She lied.

Though she burned to discover the contents of the sealed letter, Almere promised to say nothing of the mission to Queen Ericaania or the King. King Hakor, she knew, was unpredictable, and she'd been warned not to excite him with Court issues she knew nothing of, which may only cause a heart disturbance in the fragile man or, worse, a fatal stroke of his compromised brain.

“You're privy to more of the King's secrets than I,” Almere said. “Though I'm his favored son's wife, he treats me like a piece of that precious porcelain Ericaania collects from across the Agave Sea. I've never been able to convince him that I'm the equal of any man.”

“You're disappointed you aren't a son and heir?”

“I am his heir's wife, a future queen” she insisted. “But in the matter of trust, he puts his faith in you and Stannock as Court advisors. I'm not even part of the King's Council.”

“Nor am I,” Tevron reminded. “And Stannock, as Major General of the King's men, is often at war and unavailable.”

“That leaves no one to properly advise the course of Gracklen's future.”

Her brother-in-law cracked his knuckles. “Unfortunately again, the King grows weaker every season. Soon he must relinquish the Crown.”

“Not to you,” Almere insisted. “Stannock is heir apparent, and he will have the controlling vote.”

“King Hakor has no other children or heirs,” Tevron said. “Sad that is.”

“Sad? I'm fully confident of my husband's powers.” She marveled at the easy way of their conversation. Had Tevron had a change of heart? His eyes burned into hers.

“And strength?”

She pushed herself up to her full sixty-five units and planted her feet squarely in front of Tevron's boots. “Stannock is a soldier who loves war. At home, with Fire-Smasher, I am strong, but my Red is not the strongest dragon, and my mother-in-law will not relinquish her dragon Lockjaw to any other's control. So, I don't feel capable of going to the battlefields to help my husband. He says I would be in the way, and pleads with me to stay home. His mother takes his side yet often goes to the killing fields herself.”

“True. The Queen, like her son, is wild and headstrong and was more so as a girl, I'm told.”

Almere cracked her knuckles. “Yet she married the King and is meek with the old man's angry fits.”

“She had no choice, girl,” Tevron insisted with a gruff tone. “After Malcoom died, she had no protector. Her fate was sealed.”

“I sometimes wish I were the King's daughter,” she admitted.

“No. The stars didn't align with your birth for that, Almere, you are only the King's daughter-in-law. He was a hard man in his youth but he spared me and he gives you privileges only a man should have.”

“I love my father-in-law, the King.”

“He dotes on you. He loved Queen Ericaania once, too.”

Almere frowned. “He must have, to have pursued her as he did.”

Tevron continued, “It's not illegal to have two husbands on Draxxt. Ericaania had my father Malcoom and the King as joint spouses, but Hakor grew jealous. The Picts, I've heard, have many mates. If it were me in the same circumstance as the King found himself with my father, I would share you with my brother.”

“Never!” She pushed him away. “I would never have two husbands. And I would never have you, Tevron.”

“I'm not the dainty man my brother is with the ladies,” he said. “How do you see beyond the blood on his hands, though? It puzzles me what you love in a man who kills for a living.”

“He's a major general in the King's Army. I'm proud of that, and he's an advisor to the King as well. He will be king one day. That's what you're jealous of, not me, his wife, but how to get to power by climbing the ladder; the King has put faith in him.”

“The fair Stannock will never be king. You won't allow that, little hellcat. You want to rule and Stannock will be your pimp.”

“I am not the heir. But I will rule with my husband,” she declared.

“He will be but a – a – gigolo. A sycophant. To the King, and to you.”

“Go to Hell,” she cursed.

He laughed and walked away. “As Stannock's wife,” he taunted, “you will have weak children. If any at all.”

The remaining dragons began to leave the castle, fanned out with their throbbing colored wings to darken the sky as they pulsed on air currents above the valleys beyond the King's mountain.

“Beautiful,” Almere remarked. She never tired of the sight. The Lords who rode those mounts looked for trouble in the valleys and hills of Gracklen, looked for Picts or Trolls or signs of a scattered army returning home, any news of the northern wars along the border and the seaside. Tevron possessed no dragon now, nor did he wish to ride. He felt content as a king's advisor and to plot and plan at Court, his greatest attribute.

“I'm afraid our enemies push always closer to the castle and the walls of the mountain.” Tevron frowned, his dark face furrowed in thought. “The Picts have exhausted the riches of the sea where they've lived since time began. Our land must look promising and rich to them. They've pushed their strong crafts off the islands and made desolate the coast.”

Almere agreed. “Now it's time for them to pluck the ripe fruit that is Gracklen.”

“We've always had trouble with the Picts and the Trolls.” Tevron swirled the flask of ale in his brown hands and drank.

Almere frowned. “They lived here before our people made their way from their ships into the badlands of Draxxt. They had enough in their Old Lands across the sea, but they were too lazy to work it. Instead, they chose war.”

“True,” he agreed, nodding slightly. “We should have killed them while we had the chance.”

More blood, she thought.

“They were always more powerful, but because they had no common law they were divided. Each tribe to itself.” Tevron revealed what he knew of Pict history. “That saved us an attack from a united front.”

“Like they have now?” She sidled away from him, his presence like a magnet, strong and overpowering, almost hypnotic. How she hated him!

“Yes,” he confirmed. “They're united under the great Troll, Mindbender. The Picts follow him, and so do the rebel Trolls, the giants of legend.”

“Why aren't you at the wars in the northwest, brother?” she asked, scuffing her boot along the rocks at the base of the Great Hall. “Are you a coward?”

“Yes,” he confessed simply and sat down. “I'm a thinker, Almere. I know what I want. I have a plan, and it doesn't involve war.”

“What then? We just agreed the enemy is united against us.”

“War is for bloody fools,” he spat. “I'm not a fool like my brother or his father, the King. Our mother, too, is a fool, soaring the evening skies on her beast only to rid herself of the King's company.”

“What are you then?” Although this man frightened her, she was genuinely curious. “What would you do?”

“I would offer them land,” he said. “That's what they want. The useless land along the coast and along the northern isles. They'd be satisfied with that if we moved our people out. Our people are outlanders, along the northwestern strip, we could move them back into the valleys where we could keep an eye on them, tax them, control them, and the Trolls and Picts could have the coast and the rough terrain northwest of that. The Picts like to hunt and fish, and the Trolls depend on the Picts. I know they'd be satisfied with that.”

Her forehead wrinkled. “For how long?”

“That's the point. Until we grow strong again.”

“Until King Hakor passes on? Until the sick old man dies?” Almere smacked her fist on the top of a nearby wall and dislodged pebbles, which bounced down the cliff and off the side of the mountain.