by May Sage
Vincent twirled Xandrie around the dance floor; how easy she looked in his arms. Rhey choked back the jealousy, determined not to embarrass himself in front of the entire assembly; the woman was his, he knew it, Vincent knew it, the whole damn palace knew it after he’d made her scream his name. He turned his attentions to his partner, a lovely woman who had been struck dumb the minute he’d taken her hand. When the tune ended, he returned her to her seat, then took the hand of his next, designated partner. He grinned when he saw who it was.
“I would dance with my king.”
Elza.
The old friends took their places, Rhey signaled the orchestra, and the two of them thrilled the room with a dance they’d invented when they were children.
Though he couldn’t see Xandrie, he could smell her light and lively scent. As he turned Demelza through a simple box step, he caught a glimpse of that column of lustrous red silk, this time in Nathos’ grip. He had to laugh. The man was about as elegant as a workhorse, but at least he’d been a good sport. He normally stayed in his seat.
“You don’t mind, do you?”
He nodded at Xandrie and Nathos, just as the man trod on the hem of his partner’s gown.
“Go, rescue her,” Elza rolled her eyes.
Rhey practically ran, incapable of staying away another second. He tapped Nathos on the shoulder. “May I?”
The Elder looked as if he’d just won some windfall at the card table. He couldn’t have been more grateful.
“Red becomes you,” Rhey said. He bent close and whispered in her ear, “But you should wear gold.”
She smiled, knowing how much he liked his gold, after spending so many nights in his den now.
But that was it; he just liked it. The only thing he was obsessed with these days was her.
He felt her falter. Surely he hadn’t done a Nathos and trodden on her hem? She sagged in his arms. He relaxed his hold on her, confused by her limp body. Her eyes rolled back in her head until only the whites showed. Her knees gave way and she was slumped in his arms, entirely unable to support herself.
“Andera!” he bellowed.
The orchestra ground to a halt and the dance floor was clear of guests in seconds.
“Get me the head mage, now. Tell her we will need a compound of willow bark and oak-burned brandy.”
Vincent was at his side. “You suspect poisoning?”
Rhey bent close and inhaled her breath. “I don’t suspect it, I know it. That smell of rotting fruit?” He lifted Xandrie into his arms and stormed towards the doors. “You’ll find who did this, Vincent. Find them before I do.”
Because if he got his hands on them, they’d wish they’d never been born.
Andera, their best mage, rushed to Rhey’s private chambers to administer the antidote to a recumbent Xandrie. Rhey had to hold her head back, while the solution was trickled into her slack mouth.
“If you’d been but a moment longer, Sire, the lady would not merely be blue in the lips. She’d be laid out on a slab, colder than ice.” Andera pressed a vial into Rhey’s hand. “Three drops, every hour on the hour and no visitors. She needs rest.”
The mage left Rhey’s chambers. Never in a thousand suns or a million moons had he imagined Xandrie would be on his bed, gold piled high about them, but on the brink of death, rather than ecstasy. He gathered her in his arms and held her close. He could not bear to think of her being cold. The shoulder strap of her dress slipped. He took it gently and returned it to that magical dip where her clavicle met her neck. He wanted, more than he’d ever wanted anything, to press his lips to the sweet hollow, but instead he rocked her and wished her back to health.
“Red becomes you, but you will wear gold. Every day from this day forth. I don’t give a damn about this tournament—I’d renounce the throne if that’s what it takes. I just want you.”
He spent a fitful night, administering the antidote Andera had left him and checking Xandrie’s pulse. Little by little, the color returned to her cheeks, her breathing deepened, and she shifted from her drugged state to plain sleep.
There was a light tap at the door and Vincent let himself in.
“Have you found him?” Rhey growled.
Vincent approached the king’s four-poster bed. “I have my suspicions, but this is a capital offense. We don’t want the wrong person to lose their head. I tread with caution, but I will bring the perpetrator to justice.”
Rhey wanted to blast Vincent from one side of his lair to the other, but he was merely the messenger and, in any case, he was right. It wouldn’t do to part someone from their head then find they deserved to have kept it. He grumbled and shifted his weight, so that Xandrie was balanced on his chest, rather than his shoulder.
Xandrie stirred.
Rhey loosened his hold on her, propping her on the bank of pillows he’d arranged behind them.
Xandrie licked her lips. “My mouth tastes like some spiky rodent has crawled inside it and died.”
That made him crack a smile; if she could jest, she wasn’t quite on her deathbed anymore. She slept most of a day, and no army could have chased him from her side.
Ally
Vincent had ordered her out to the weapons range, hours before sunup, to practice her chain-mace skills, which he had flagged as the weakest of her skill sets. She preferred her sword, but until the task was announced, there was no knowing what they’d have them do for the quarter final. Unlike her sword lessons, in which he urged her to keep her wrists still, swinging the mace away from her body required her arms to “undulate like snakes” and “flow with the wind.” He got poetic when he was in the groove.
There was no poetry about him as he prepped her for her next fight. It turned out he’d been right to train her in anything and everything.
“The rules are simple, for this task,” the clerk told them, smiling as he added, “there are none. It’s a race, and the two first contenders to make it will be our finalists.”
They were to fight their way to a pitch ten times the size of the regular ring. The terrain was hazardous, the battles brutal, and the outcome uncertain. Bottom line: anything could happen.
Janive strode into the enclosure, where Vincent strapped Xandrie’s weapons to her back, and headed right to her, saying, “I have a proposal.”
“Shoot.” Xandrie shifted her weight from foot to foot, making sure the arsenal she carried was secure.
“Saskia is going to hunt you down and slay you, the first chance she gets. She’s not just out to fight and win on merit, she means to kill you.”
Vincent stopped what he was doing and circled around to face Janive. “You know this how?”
Janive shrugged. “Anyone with eyes to see knows she was humiliated by Xandrie in the quarter finals. She’s never conceded defeat before. Saskia isn’t the kind to stand idly by and allow that to be. She’ll want revenge and she’ll want it served hot and bloody.”
Xandrie shook her head. “She fought well. There was no shame in her defeat.”
Janive shrugged. “Your funeral.” She turned to leave.
Vincent stepped forward, asking her, “What did you have in mind?”
“Your trainer’s a wise man.” Janive smiled. “I’m thinking Xandrie and I should form an alliance. That way, I’ll have her back when Saskia makes a play.”
“What about the other finalist, Althara?” said Xandrie.
Janive dropped her voice to a whisper. “The woman doesn’t stand a chance against Saskia. If you and I head to the bluffs and draw Saskia to us, Althara will follow. She loves the hunt, more than the fight. Saskia prefers flatter terrain, so she’ll hang back, but with no one to fight and everyone watching, she’ll track us all the way to the cliff-head. If she’s behind Althara, she’ll have the advantage. That takes care of one opponent, leaving you and me to take Saskia out.”
“That’s a ton of strategy—are you sure you’ve read them right?”
“Lady,” Janive said haughtily, making Xandrie like her l
ess and less, “I’ve been fighting these clowns my entire life. I can tell you what weapons they favor, what strategies they employ, who will lead, and who will follow. Trust me.”
Trust her. She forced herself not to laugh. She didn’t—not one bit. But she had a strategy of her own. Pretending to buy Janive’s bullshit meant she could keep a closer eye on her.
Janive held up her gauntlet in the traditional fashion. Xandrie crashed her own wrist against her new friend’s, sealing their alliance.
* * *
The second the marshal dropped the ceremonial flag, Xandrie and Janive high-tailed it out of the compound. Xandrie was fitter than she’d ever been, thanks in no small part to Vincent’s training. But, beneath the muscle, she sensed another current, which spurred her on. She felt her magic. It had grown stronger since using it in so much abundance at Norda.
When they reached the headland, Janive suggested they split up, so they’d be able to survey more land. She hung a left, while Xandrie jogged right. They could still see one another, but they’d be able to apprehend either Saskia or Althara if they came by the jagged path or through the brush.
They didn’t have to wait long. Althara was stealth itself, but Xandrie—in a way that brought her an abiding pleasure—felt her presence long before she was downwind of them. Xandrie flashed a hand sign at Janive, letting her know the plan was unfolding just as she’d anticipated, she lunged at Althara, her falcata in hand, but felt the sting of another weapon about her calves.
Saskia had joined the fray. The three of them fought their way out of Xandrie’s hideout and into a clearing. Xandrie barely had time to think, but when Saskia took a swipe at Althara, she spun about to find her ally.
Janive stood on the bluff, looking down at them. The crooked smile on her face told Xandrie that this had been her plan all along. Well, she couldn’t say she hadn’t expected a betrayal.
Didn’t matter, though.
Xandrie bent down and grabbed a handful of dirt. She blasted Althara in the face with the entire handful and left her cursing her name, as Saskia tried to lunge for her. She didn’t care about either of them, though.
Xandrie sniffed the air, determined to find Janive, who’d run ahead with a head start. She’d be at the finish line, soon.
The others had stopped trying to attack and started to run, too, each of them just as strong and powerful; Xandrie might have dragon magic pushing her steps, but so did they.
There was something she had that they didn’t though. She needed to win this. There was no other way.
Oh, she knew Rhey would marry her regardless, but then what? A kingdom with its king and queen unbonded, divided, butting heads? He’d chosen her. Now was the time for her to claim him back. So she pushed. She pushed. She pushed with all she had, all she was.
Suddenly a deep roar come out of her chest—a inhuman sound she’d never heard—and her steps became longer, faster. She’d never felt this—but she recognized the source of it all.
They had dragon strength. She didn’t. But she did have a bond with a tiger; never had she thought she’d be able to tap into it. Right now, her steps proved it. She was Claws.
She cleared the distance, effortlessly making it to the finish line in moments.
One certain traitor didn’t like that one bit.
“Oh, for the sake of everything holy on this land! Won’t you just fucking give up yet? You should never have been allowed to partake in The Claiming,” Janive yelled.
“You poisoned me.”
She didn’t know how she’d deduced it; deep down, she just felt it.
“You would have done us all a favor if you’d just died from it, you filthy human skank.”
Well, that was quite enough of that.
She turned toward the royal tribune and asked, loud and clear, “Can I kill this piece of shit?”
Everyone gave her a thumb up.
Janive probably expected her to start a sword fight she hoped to win. But Xandrie had no intention to honor her that way—not when the woman had attempted to murder her with poison, the most cowardly way she could have picked. She didn’t deserve it.
Xandrie smiled as she felt the bond with her closest friend still firmly in place; in the blink of an eye, Claws was on Janive, teeth bared, mouth wide, jumping right for her throat, and ripping it from her body. Janive’s body lay, crooked and bloody, in the sawdust.
Xandrie raised her gaze to the stands and let the Elders see the tiger in her eyes. Best they know she’d been controlling Claws, so none of them got any ideas.
She turned just in time to see Saskia pass the line before Althara.
“Err- if that’s what you do with your contenders, you won,” the dragoness joked, pointing to the other woman.
Xandrie smiled back awkwardly.
“I need to apologize. I thought you’d poisoned me.”
Saskia looked like the very idea offended her.
“No way. If I wanted you dead, I would just challenge you in combat. Or, you know, fry you up. Only if you really pissed me off, though.”
That seemed fair enough.
More or less.
“By the way,” Saskia cried loudly, also turning to the Elders and the king, “I renounce my claim.”
Althara echoed the same pledge, which didn’t make sense to Xandrie, until everyone in the stands fell silent, and then dropped to their knees.
Shit.
Epilogue
Saskia believed in strength; she knew, in the first round of The Claiming, that Xandrie had only won against her thanks to a fair bit of luck. She’d gone easy on her. She hadn’t respected her because she hadn’t done anything to deserve it.
“Nothing personal,” the woman explained indifferently with a shrug. “Everyone says I’m a bitch. They aren’t wrong.”
She also didn’t mind being seen that way; bitches got things done.
After hearing that she’d fought for them, and risked her life to get their shield back up? Things had changed. But she knew how tales could be spun, and she hadn’t seen it for herself.
“I see you now. You’re strong enough for this—for us. You’ll be a fair queen. I might have the strength, but I lack…”
“Tolerance?” Nathos offered.
“Patience?” Rhey tried.
“Diplomacy?” Xandrie guessed.
“The inclination,” Saskia said with a sigh. “I mean, no offense, but it sounds like a fucking boring job. If someone else can do it better, so be it.”
Althara’s answer had been simpler.
“I don’t want her tiger to eat my face.”
Regardless of the reason, she’d won The Claiming by default.
“You know, being queen of a kingdom I’ve been part of for about five minutes might not be all that easy. Rhey said I could have advisors—Demelza will be one of mine, but I could use you, too.”
Saskia was so frank, she was exactly her kind of person. For example, her reply was, “Dragon’s scales, I said I didn’t want a boring job! No. I won’t do it. No way. I’ll be like Nathos in fifty years, tops.”
But she caved because, right now, everything in her life was perfect. Xandrie could scarcely believe her luck.
Tomorrow, she was to be wed to a man she loved—a man she already belonged to—and on the same day, she’d be queen of a people who—mostly—loved her.
Not bad for a magicless runt.
Through the throng of well-wishers, Xandrie watched Demelza race back to the castle, a medic at her side. Demelza knew what this moment meant to her, how deeply she’d fallen for Rhey, so she’d have been right at her side, squeezing her and smothering her with kisses, if everything had been right with the world. That she’d left without a backward glance meant she was needed immediately. Xandrie felt the triumph drain out of her, only to be replaced by a leaden knot. When the medics came for Demelza, it usually meant yet another expectant mother in the birthing room was in trouble.
Nathos was nattering in her ear, trying to cram a l
ifetime of protocol into a single hour. Xandrie was to be crowned that very afternoon and needed to know which hand held the scepter and which the orb, what to say when she was under the canopy, how the oil on her forehead signified a covenant with the spirit of all dragons and bound her to her queenly duties for life.
She held up her hand. “Sorry, Nathos, I don’t mean to interrupt, but I’ve somewhere I need to be.”
By the time Xandrie reached the birthing room, Demelza was already spattered in blood. Xandrie recognized the mother on the table. Galdia had waited on her on the first day of The Claiming, coiling her hair into an impossibly elegant chignon, which she secured with a clasp of golden grasshoppers, in the Grecian style. She had chattered away about the dragonling in her belly, telling Xandrie all about the names she and her man had picked out for their dragonling. The women of this kingdom were nothing short of heroic. Not once had she seen a pregnant woman give herself over to her fears, though they must have all been terrified. “As it will be, so shall it be,” wasn’t just an ancient dragon saying, it was their mantra.
Xandrie tugged at the ties that held her breastplate in place. She needed to shed her armor and get in there and help Demelza. She had no Vincent to help her and she had no time for untying fancy knots, so she grabbed a scalpel and cut her way out of her gear.
Demelza looked up from between the stirrups. Galdia’s screams were enough to curdle the blood, yet a thick, red river of the damned stuff continued to pour out of her.
Xandrie felt the same buzz she’d felt when her power had alerted her to the Feral dragon who attacked Rhey, and when she’d connected herself to Claws and called on his power to dispatch Janive.
She could reach the dragonling, if only she allowed her magic to create a circuit that flowed in and out of the thrashing mother. She laid her hands on Galdia’s belly, willing her pulse to drop and her magics to rise. She needed to be present, but not get in the way of the magics that flowed from whence all magics came: The Source. The fire rose in her, calm and soothing, a column of sheer peace. It emptied itself out of her left hand, where her rune glowed bright, into Galdia and then on to meet her thrashing dragonling.
