The Dragon Mistress

by R. A. Steffan

  Nyx’s dark brows drew together. “How much money do you have, anyway?”

  I shrugged. “Just what you saw braided into my hair, plus this.” All at once, I realized that I’d dragged Nyx away from his home with only the clothes on his back and a single battered lantern. “Gods. I’m sorry, Nyx—I didn’t even think. You left the palace with nothing.”

  A shadowed look flitted over his face. “It’s not as though it’s the first time.” The words were barely audible.

  Somehow, that only made me feel worse. “I have enough money for both of us,” I reassured him. “I’ll look after you.”

  His face fascinated me, and I realized that it was because his expression was so mercurial. It shifted back to wry amusement in an instant, though his lips didn’t so much as twitch. “Worry about yourself,” he told me, not unkindly. “You’re the one who just insulted a prince, and I’ve been taking care of myself for… quite some time.”

  I wrinkled my nose at him. “The prince insulted me first,” I shot back. “Kidnapping me like that—not to mention assuming I was a twenty-two-year-old virgin! I mean, who does that?”

  Nyx only blinked at me, and I sighed.

  “Right, then. I think I’ve got everything. Let’s get out of here.” I shot him a sideways glance as I headed for the door. “I don’t suppose you know where the Purple Cloak is?”

  “Not a clue,” he replied.

  “Brilliant,” I said, and headed into the hallway with a final look over my shoulder.

  The candle lit our way back down the cramped stairwell. I blew it out and deposited it on the table with the others. I tossed an extra coin on the worn counter for good measure, hearing the sounds of the proprietor and his staff stirring in the kitchen. No one was in sight, though, and I gestured for Nyx to follow me out into the street. The eastern sky was lightening from navy to cerulean, but the flickering street lamps still lit the roads and plazas around us.

  “The early merchants will be out and about by now,” Nyx muttered. “I can ask around and get directions from one of them. You should stay back—you’re too distinctive, even with that scarf.”

  I nodded agreement, aware that he was right. The fewer people who noticed me, the safer we’d be. As it was, the guards from earlier might remember me, and the boarding house owner certainly would. It would be best if I didn’t leave Oblisii any more of a trail than that.

  The market square wasn’t far. I hung back in the shadows, watching as Nyx approached first an old woman, and then a middle-aged man, speaking quietly with them. The woman had waved him off, but the man spoke with him for a few moments before turning back to his preparations for the day’s business. Nyx hurried back to me.

  “It’s not far,” he said. “Let’s move, before it gets too light.”

  “Sounds good to me,” I told him, and followed him toward the opposite end of the square.

  There was no telling when my escape from the palace would be discovered. Lesimba and her ilk didn’t strike me as the types likely to be early risers, but all it would take was one servant stumbling across my tower of furnishings to raise the alarm.

  Nyx led me down a series of turnings, and I was struck once again by the dizzying way in which this city was laid out. I could have wandered all day long and never come across the sprawling two-story building with the purple sign hanging over the door. We paused by mutual accord a short distance away from the inn’s entrance. The sun was just beginning to peek through gaps in the building, illuminating our surroundings with gold and pink.

  “How should we do this?” Nyx asked. “We don’t want anyone to notice you, but I’m covered in mud and smell like the sewers.”

  I thought for a minute. Really, there were only a limited number of options available to us, so I shrugged. “Ignore the mud stains. Act like you own the place. Just stroll in and ask for Aristede.”

  Nyx gave me the sort of look one gives a person with an obvious mental deficit. I held his gaze, and after a moment he blew out an unhappy breath. “Right,” he muttered. “Act like I own the place. Ask for Aristede. Easy.”

  We crossed the remaining distance to the Purple Cloak and let ourselves inside. I imagined that the bearing of the soldiers sent to slay Utrea’s dragons must have been similar to Nyx’s bearing as he crossed the threshold of the inn. I stayed a step behind his shoulder, trying to be inconspicuous as we entered the main room. Tables and chairs broke up the large space, with a long counter in front of the far wall, another dark room visible beyond.

  No one stood behind the counter at this early hour, and I wondered if we’d have to yell to get someone’s attention. Nyx stiffened in front of me. I followed his gaze to see movement in a shadowed part of the room.

  A man sat at one of the tables, his chair positioned in the corner, giving him a good view of the rest of the room and the building’s entrance. Right now, though, I suspected the only view he was getting was one directed down the cleavage of the serving girl lounging across from him, leaning down on her elbows to flirt—her position giving Nyx and me a first-rate view of her curvy backside.

  I started to nudge Nyx to go talk to her, only to grab his shoulder, holding him in place as I registered the white streak running through the man’s straight brown hair. A noise somewhere between a groan and a laugh escaped me, followed an instant later by an unexpected flash of irritation at the girl. I quashed it as being both stupid and unworthy. What woman wouldn’t flirt with Aristede, given the opportunity to do so?

  Nyx gave me a flustered look as I threw our hastily conceived plan to the four winds, dragging him behind me as I strode through the warren of furniture and plopped a hip down on the edge of Aristede’s table, drawing an outraged squawk from the serving girl. Nyx hung back a few steps, looking like he wanted to sink through the floor.

  “Hi,” I said, as laughing eyes the color of finely drawn steel landed on me. “Can we come up to your room? I… might have gotten caught up in a teensy little problem.”

  Chapter 9: Haven

  ARISTEDE LIFTED AN EYEBROW, his gray gaze flickering over first me, and then Nyx. He was wearing his long hair tied back in a tight plait at the nape of his neck, the white streak sweeping back from the left side of his forehead. It was a good look on him.

  “A problem, my young barbarian friend? Goodness… you do shock me.” His voice was the smooth drawl I remembered, tinged with teasing and a hint of irony. Honey for the ears.

  I resisted the urge to stick my tongue out at him, since that would be undignified. Hey, I was the adopted daughter of a tribal chieftain and a high priest—I was all about dignity.

  “Then you can be shocked in your room,” I told him. “Can we go now, please?”

  Aristede gave an easy shrug and aimed a devastating smile at the annoyed serving girl. I realized that she’d probably expected to be the one invited to Aristede’s room, and my unworthy little flash of irritation returned.

  I quashed it again.

  “Forgive me, my dear,” he told her, “but it appears I have other business this morning. Perhaps another time. Would you be so good as to send up some bread and cheese for us when the cook gets here?”

  I risked a glance at the girl’s face. Her mouth was twisted in annoyance, and she made a little hmph-ing noise before giving Aristede a tight nod, and me a brief death stare. When she was gone, I turned back to the man in the chair.

  “So sorry to interrupt,” I said sweetly.

  The teasing amusement hadn’t left Aristede’s face. Neither had the irony. “Think nothing of it. I have the distinct feeling that my morning has just become considerably more interesting.

  “Yeah…” I rubbed a hand over the back of my neck. “You don’t know the half of it. But that’s a conversation for your room—not here. Aristede, this is my new friend Nyx. Nyx, Aristede.”

  “Hello,” Nyx said in that too-soft voice.

  Aristede rose and let his gaze play over Nyx more slowly. “A pleasure to meet you, Nyx,” he said in a lig
ht tone, extending a hand.

  Nyx had stepped up to stand at my shoulder after the girl left, but at Aristede’s gesture, he… cringed back. There was no other word for it. I frowned, looking up at him and trying to catch his eye, but he wouldn’t look at me.

  Aristede blinked, and smoothly transformed the gesture of greeting into a sweeping indication toward the staircase along the far wall. “Come with me, both of you,” he said pleasantly, his voice giving no indication that Nyx’s reaction had bothered him. “The rooms are on the second floor. Breakfast may not be served yet, but I can at least offer you a drink.”

  I forced a smile and followed him, cataloguing the odd exchange for some future time when things weren’t quite so unsettled. Still, I couldn’t help noticing the way Nyx followed behind me, using my presence as a buffer between himself and Aristede.

  Aristede led us about halfway along the hall to a door on the right and ushered us inside. The room was pleasant; far better appointed than the cheap one I’d rented at the boarding house. He swept in after us, immediately pulling cups from a shelf in the corner and pouring something from a flagon sitting on a small table beside the room’s only window.

  Nyx was standing stiffly at my shoulder, but Aristede ignored him, handing both cups to me. “There you go. Now, make yourselves comfortable and tell me what trouble you’ve found.”

  I handed one of the cups to Nyx and went to sit on one of the two chairs next to the table. I hadn’t really appreciated how hungry and thirsty I was until that moment, and I swallowed from the cup appreciatively. It was delicious.

  “Mead?” I asked, taking another drink. “Mmm… that’s good.”

  “Nothing but the best at the Purple Cloak,” he said, making himself at home on the edge of the large, two-person bed.

  Nyx stayed frozen just inside the door, though he did at least drink his mead in slow sips. I resolved to let him be for the time being. After all, he’d just come from a place where his master sometimes beat the stable boys in a drunken rage. Feeling like you were stuck in a situation like that would be enough to make anyone twitchy.

  “Is Eldris around?” I asked, not able to tell by looking whether a second person was staying here. Or… a third, for that matter. “And what about Rayth?”

  “Neither of them are here at the moment, although Eldris should return later today,” Aristede said. “Rayth went ahead to take care of some private business away from the city. I fear we’ll be without his particular brand of wit and bonhomie for now.”

  “Tragic,” I said, utterly deadpan.

  His mouth twitched at the corner, but his voice remained solemn. “He’s not the easiest man to get to know, but you should give him a chance if the opportunity arises.”

  “I’ll take it under consideration,” I replied in a dry tone. “But for now, I need your help. I might have to get out of the city, and I don’t know who to talk to in order to make that happen. Particularly if I want to avoid a repeat of my last traveling experience.”

  Aristede huffed a breath of amusement. “Goodness. That certainly didn’t take long. Go on… put me out of my misery. Who did you manage to piss off? And how?”

  I sighed. “All right. So, I managed to get an audience with the king. He seemed… nice, I guess. If a bit doddering.”

  Nyx made a faint, choked noise. Possibly he wasn’t used to hearing people call the king ‘nice.’ Or… maybe it was the doddering part? I wasn’t sure.

  “Go on,” Aristede prompted.

  “Prince Oblisii was there, too,” I continued. “He seemed… less nice. I mean—I’m not completely averse to having someone undress me with his eyes. But there’s a creepy way to do it and a not-creepy way to do it, am I right?”

  Aristede’s steel-gray gaze caressed my curves, making me tingle. Then his eyes met mine again, and he said, “I’d like to think so.”

  Interestingly, Nyx flushed scarlet. He shifted, his eyes sliding away from mine when I tried to catch them, just as they had after Aristede offered his hand in greeting.

  “Anyway,” I continued, still watching Nyx from the corner of my eye, “if he’d kept things limited to inappropriate eye-fucking, we could have gone our separate ways afterward and I’d have thought nothing else about it. But, instead, he invited me to stay in the palace. I assumed he meant overnight, since I was supposed to speak further with him about the attack on the road. So I agreed. Because apparently, I’m an idiot.”

  “You’re not an idiot,” Aristede said kindly.

  “Really? Because I felt like one when he had me locked inside the women’s quarters and I discovered from one of the servant girls that I’d just been kidnapped into Prince Creepy-Eye’s harem.”

  Aristede winced.

  I barged ahead. “Then, I found out he would be coming back to judge my worthiness based on how much I bled when he screwed me. At which point I decided that escape was… probably a thing I should be doing. So, I climbed out a window and used the roof to get to a different window leading into the kitchens. From there, I found the stables, and that’s where I met Nyx. He helped me escape the palace compound through a drainage tunnel. We picked up my belongings from the boarding house I’d been staying at and came straight here.”

  Our host had listened quietly to my recounting, not offering observations beyond his brief reassurance regarding my mental capacity. Now, though, he rubbed his stubbled chin thoughtfully.

  “The old king is hardly a ruler of legend,” he mused aloud. “But his son may yet grow into a tyrant.”

  I watched his face intently. “So, kidnapping women and forcing them to become concubines isn’t standard practice in Utrea, then? I’d wondered how he thought he could get away with taking someone he knew had powerful family connections.”

  “It’s not standard practice. As Gladya said, arranged marriages are the norm, at least among the higher classes. Out of curiosity, did you make mention of the fact that you were traveling alone, far from home?”

  I thought back, and had to stifle a groan. “The king asked me where my retinue was. I told him I didn’t have one, and was only here as a traveler, not an official envoy. Damn it. I basically told Creepy Eyes that I was on my own and there was no one around who would miss me.”

  Aristede nodded. “Don’t beat yourself up. Being a lone traveler visiting the king’s court should in no way carry with it the expectation of being abducted into sexual servitude.” He sighed. “I’m just glad you were able to get out.”

  “I’ve got Nyx to thank for that.” I glanced at him, noting that he still looked to be on the verge of flight. “If he hadn’t found me and shown me the drainage tunnel, I’d probably still be wandering around, looking for a way out.”

  “What they did to you wasn’t right,” he said, his low voice barely more than a whisper.

  “Quite so,” Aristede agreed. “Unfortunately, I think you’re right to worry about what will happen when they discover you’ve gone missing.” He glanced out the window, where the morning sun now illuminated the buildings around us with a fiery glow. “And that will be any time now, I expect.”

  I nodded. “A couple of guards saw us return to my boarding house this morning. But as far as I know, no one got a good look at us when we came here.”

  Aristede gave another of those soft, amused huffs. “At least one person did—and I’m afraid you’ve rather annoyed her.”

  I frowned, and then realized he was referring to the serving girl whose seduction attempt I’d interrupted downstairs. “Oh. Her. Well, at least my head was covered.” I reached up and pulled off the headscarf so I could shake out my hair, my scalp already feeling hot and sweaty beneath it.

  Aristede’s eyes followed the movement with open appreciation. “Your hair was covered, yes, but those summer-sky eyes of yours are almost as distinctive. Still, I can almost guarantee the guards will waste hours searching inside the palace walls, on the assumption that you couldn’t possibly have escaped without being seen. It will take quite a while befor
e they’re reduced to sending patrols to search the inns and boarding houses.”

  I relaxed a fraction, exhaustion sweeping over me without warning. Of course—I’d been up for more than a day straight by this point, and parts of that day had been spent scaling rooftops and slogging through muddy sewage tunnels. I supposed that would exhaust anyone. Maybe I wavered a bit in my chair, because Aristede tilted his head at me.

  “Long night,” he observed, his gaze moving to briefly encompass Nyx as well. “For both of you, I’ll wager. Why don’t you get a few hours of sleep?”

  A knock on the door interrupted our quiet conversation, making Nyx jump. He sidled away as Aristede opened it and accepted the tray of food from a boy no older than ten. He rummaged at his belt for a moment and came up with a copper coin, which he flipped into the child’s waiting hand. The small face lit up.

  “Thank you, sir!” he squeaked.

  “You’re welcome,” Aristede told him solemnly. “Come up and tell me if anyone starts asking around about a woman with golden hair, and there will be another one waiting for you.”

  “Yes, sir!” the child piped. “I’ll come and tell you right away!”

  I smiled, one the boy was gone and the door locked behind him. “Have you been hiding a devious streak, Aristede?” I teased.

  He handed me a chunk of warm bread and some cheese, raising his eyebrow at me as he did. “Who said I’m hiding it?”

  I laughed. Nyx cautiously accepted a portion of the food as well, and Aristede settled into the chair across from me to eat his own breakfast.

  “As I was saying,” he continued, “if you two would like to rest for a few hours, I’ll head out and see what gossip is making the rounds. It will give us a better feel for how much effort the prince is likely to expend on trying to find you.”

  “Hopefully he’ll cut his losses once he finds out I’ve left the palace grounds,” I muttered around a mouthful of bread.

  Nyx had apparently inhaled his food already, because he brushed crumbs from his hands, still not meeting my eyes as he spoke. “You pricked his pride. Powerful men don’t take kindly to that.”