Seas of Crimson Silk (Burning Empire Book 1)

by Emma Hamm

  He stepped forward, hoping that if he could get her to look at him that he might help her to remember.

  The movement must have startled her. She scrabbled, her wings dragged against the ground, her mouth open in a near constant hiss as she backed away from him and pressed her wings against the ground. She reared on her legs and heaved back, slapping the air and pushing him back with a gust of wind.

  “I’m trying to help you,” he soothed.

  She wanted none of his help. Nadir didn’t notice her tail until it was too late. She swiped it across the floor and caught him about the middle. She flung him across the chamber like a rag doll. Nadir landed hard on top of a brazier. His back cracked ominously, and he rolled onto the floor panting. Pain lanced through his legs but he pushed through the pain and stood.

  Fire and rage spurred him on. He spun on his heels and lifted his arms.

  “Fine. If it’s a fight you want, then it’s a fight you’ll get.”

  And for the first time in nearly fifteen years, Nadir did exactly what he’d promised his brother he would never do again.

  He let go.

  Sigrid

  Where was she?

  She couldn’t clear her head, couldn’t remember where she was, how she came to be here, who she was. What had happened? She knew she was a person. There were important memories in her head, but she couldn’t get to them.

  Flames lifted in her face, startling her. It smelled like oil and burning flesh. Why? Had she hurt someone? She never wanted to hurt anyone, but she didn’t know how to stop sometimes and…

  Metal rattled against stone. She spun, her tail clumsy behind her and arms reaching up to the sky. No, they were wings. She didn’t remember that being part of her body. But she didn’t remember these glimmering scales either.

  A man shouted behind her. A man?

  She knew he was a man, and that was more than what she had known only a few minutes before. She twisted her head, turning to stare at him with one eye. He lifted his arms wide, and she recognized him.

  Captor. Husband. Sultan.

  Her name was Sigrid of Wildewyn. She was a drakon and Beastkin woman who had been traded to a Bymerian king in a bid for peace.

  She knew who she was.

  Tossing her head back in victory, she let out a chuffing call of elation. She was a person with memories and thoughts. She wasn’t just a dragon. She was far more than that.

  Another creature cried out. The man? Her husband. Had she hurt him? She hadn’t wanted to do that, but the poison running through her veins was so painful, so strong, she lost control.

  Her breath caught in her lungs. She lowered her wings to the ground and tried to make herself look small. It wasn’t an easy feat; dragons weren’t easy to hide which was why she hadn’t changed in such a long time but it felt so good to be in her true form once again.

  Both woman and dragon were now linked. It felt as though she had aged, died, and been born anew in a skin she didn’t recognize but that felt like home.

  The call cried out again, and she looked for the man in the corner where she’d flung him. She tried to convey an apology in her gaze but couldn’t find him. Instead, her eyes struck a burgundy wall of scales that pillared high into the air.

  Flat plates of scales covered his chest, marching up his long neck like his own personal army. They stopped underneath his chin, hitting the blunt jaw marred by long teeth that poked out of his mouth even when it was closed. Twin horns spiraled back from his head. Yellow eyes stared back at her, familiar and yet different at the same time.

  He was larger than her, not by much but enough that she felt a twinge of fear. Leathery wings fluttered as he reared back and let out a roar that shook the ceiling. Stalactites fell in great swaths, cracking against the ground and shaking the floor.

  She ducked down, pressing her head low and moving it slowly from side to side. She recognized the wild look in his gaze. He didn’t know who he was yet, stuck in the single moment of euphoria. He wasn't just a man. He was a drakon.

  But how was it possible?

  She’d thought the sparrow boy was an anomaly, or perhaps a woman masquerading as a man. But this was proof that Beastkin existed here. That they weren’t only female. That everything she’d been taught was a lie.

  His front wings struck the ground, black talons close to her head. She let out a hiss of warning, but he didn’t attack her. Instead, Nadir lowered his scaled head and ran the length of his chin along the top of her skull.

  Her mind spun with questions which she couldn’t ask them in this form. Letting go of all the pain and fear, she allowed the dragon to drift back into the depths of her mind. A single transformation would no longer suffice now that she knew what a blessing it was to be in her true form. But she would explore this new part of herself later.

  Scales melted away into fabric until she knelt on the floor in front of him, panting. Her pale, blue gown suddenly felt like a lie. How could she dress like this when she knew what lingered underneath her skin?

  The beast in front of her let out a series of gulping coughs that rocked through her body. She looked up at him and saw confusion in his eyes. He shook his head back and forth, rocking as if he didn’t know how to join her in his human skin.

  Panic set in, his slit pupils dilated. His chest rose and fell as he fought for air, and he stepped away from her.

  She held her hands up in the air and followed him. “Easy,” she lulled. “It will be all right. Husband, come here.”

  He shook his head again.

  “Nadir,” she tried. He froze at the sound of his own name, his head tilting to stare at her with one golden eye. “Let me touch you.”

  If those were the magic words with him, then she would use them more often. He stilled, hunched on the floor like a great beast of old. She suddenly understood why so many people were afraid of dragons. Why the old tales considered them monsters that pillaged and burned.

  He could kill her so easily. But then again, she had tried to kill him while in her own dragon skin.

  Sigrid strode toward him, placing one foot in front of the other. She made sure she stayed in sight, not wanting to make any movements that would frighten him. Only when she was a few feet away did she reach out and gently place her hand against his leathery wing.

  The shaking membrane was soft and warm. She slid her hand along what she could touch and marveled at how it felt so much like the animal skin tents they had slept in. She skated her fingers over the large ridges of scales, each the size of a dinner plate and far more utilitarian than her own had appeared.

  “Easy, husband. Relax and let the change wash over you. It’s harder to turn back into a human, I know. But this is the form in which we can speak and reason. The dragon is good for war and for pleasure, but never for politics.”

  He huffed out a breath, then another. Under her calming hands he stilled and then she felt him relax.

  Scales disappeared under her hands until all that remained was a man kneeling at her feet.

  She didn’t understand the magic that made them. Their clothes did not rip or disappear in their transformation, but remained whole when they wished to return to their human state. Beastkin had tried to explain the strangeness of their magic for centuries. Eventually, they all agreed that they could not explain it.

  There were some things in life worth leaving a mystery, if only to know unexplainable things remained in this world.

  She waited for him to look at her. Silence filled the air until he took a deep, steadying breath. Nadir pressed his fists onto the floor until his knuckles turned white, then finally, he looked up at her with yellow eyes.

  Now she understood. Those eyes had always seemed impossible, and now she knew they truly were. They were not some defect of birth but that of a Beastkin who had long ago accepted his beast as part of himself.

  “It’s not possible,” she whispered.

  Yet, an impossible man knelt before her.

  “And now you know,” he s
aid, slowly rising to his feet.

  She let out an aching sound that hovered between a sob and a sigh. Reaching forward, she smacked him so hard that his head rocked to the side. His eyes widened and then narrowed when she slid her hand smoothly over the opposite side, turned him back to her, and pressed her lips to his.

  Sigrid had thought perhaps he would feel rough, like the sand of his home. Or that his lips would burn with the heat of the sun that had plagued their journey. But he didn’t.

  Cool lips touched hers, soothing a ragged wound in her soul she hadn't known existed before she came to this place. He remained still for a moment, perhaps shocked at her change of heart, but then he swept her up in his arms and pressed her close to his chest.

  His heart thundered against hers. She wrapped her arms around his neck, anchoring him close even though he already pressed her against every inch of him.

  They explored each other for a moment in time. She tasted salt and sand on his tongue, but even more. The bitterness of a man who had been alone for a very long time.

  When she pulled back to take a deep breath, she gasped, “Where have you been?”

  He shook his head, speechless.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked, leaning back far enough to trace her fingertips over his face. “I thought I was alone. I thought I was the last.”

  “I thought the same.”

  “Did you know? When you came for me in Wildewyn, did you know? Why did you wait so long to tell me?”

  He smiled, and she felt as though the sun had peeked through a crack in the walls she’d built around her heart. “I didn’t know. I thought your king was lying, or he knew some secret about me. It was impossible.”

  “I didn’t know there were any others. We have always been told that the only Beastkin are female.”

  “The only Beastkin here are male, although there used to be females. They’ve all been hunted.”

  “Are the royals here Beastkin?” She felt pride swell in her chest. “How many know?”

  “None. None other than my brother knew, and now…you.”

  She smoothed her hands over his shoulders, feeling as though she couldn’t stop touching him. He was a miracle, everything she’d always prayed for and more. She wasn’t alone.

  She wasn’t the only dragon.

  Sigrid gasped. “We can create more like us. We don’t have to be the only dragons. We can bring our people back. Do you know what this means, Nadir? We don’t have to be the only ones anymore.”

  A shadow passed over his face, and he released his hold on her. He stepped back, shaking his head. “No. No, we can’t do that.”

  “Why not? It’s our right. You are Sultan of all Bymere. We can make this place a home for our people.”

  “They aren’t my people, Sigrid. They’re yours.”

  She felt as though he’d stabbed a lance through her chest. “What?”

  Nadir pressed his hands to his eyes and shook his head firmly. “I should never have done this. I promised my brother I wouldn’t do it again, and he’s likely rolling in his grave.”

  “No.” She stepped forward. “This is who we are. This is what we are. You don’t get to deny that.”

  “I’ve denied this—” he swept a hand between them— “my entire life.”

  “Why? For what reason? You are a dragon, a Beastkin man. I’ve seen nothing like you before. Why hide that?”

  “Beastkin are hunted in Bymere.” He stepped away from her, pressing a hand against his chest. “I cannot be anything other than a human man. A sultan is not Beastkin.”

  “Who told you that? Who said a Beastkin cannot rule?”

  “Both our kingdoms,” he barked.

  Silence again filled the space between them. And she knew he was right.

  Even Wildewyn would never have let one of her kind take the throne. That would make even the most hardened of politicians laugh. A Beastkin ruling humans? Why would an animal be allowed to make decisions for man?

  She shook her head, refusing to focus on such darkness. “You’re already sultan. No one can take that away from you.”

  “They can, and they would. My brother knew they would hunt me down. He trained me, helped me learn to control the beast no matter what, and I have hidden it from everyone for a very long time. You will not ruin this for me.”

  He was afraid, she realized. Of what his people would think, what they would do. She didn’t know how to change his mind on this. They would accept him if they loved him.

  But they didn’t. And that made things even more difficult.

  She huffed out an angry breath. “What do you want to do? Live your life in hiding, forever?”

  “That plan has served me well thus far.”

  “I won’t do it.”

  “You don’t have to. You’re already the masked Beastkin who has frightened my people and now survived the very poison that killed the man who should have been sultan.” He raked his hands through his hair, angrily pulling out the tie that bound it all at the nape of his neck. “What am I going to tell them? We all know Wildewyn is to blame for the murder of my brother, and now you survive the poison. This will look bad.”

  “Look bad?” Sigrid repeated. “Their sultana survived and stopped an assassination attempt on their sultan. They should rejoice.”

  “That’s not how it is in Bymere.”

  “Then you're all wrong.” Her shout echoed in the chamber and fell back upon them like rain.

  Nadir’s lips twisted in a half-smile that was both sad and pitying. “Things don’t always work the way we want them to, wife. They'll try to crucify you for this.”

  “Let them try.” A dragon-like rumble made her voice shake as she spoke.

  “We can never let them see the dragons.”

  “Give me one good reason why we shouldn’t let your people see them.”

  “They will revolt against us. It’s not just fear, Sigrid. It’s the same reason why your king let no one see you. They cannot know what we are capable of, or they will hunt us down like the animals we are. We may destroy an entire village, but an army against one of us will quickly end in our blood.”

  Her mind caught on a single word in this speech. She stepped away from him, once, twice, three times until she stopped and wrapped her arms around her waist. “You think we’re animals?”

  “No,” he shook his head, “I think we’re monsters.”

  “How do you live with yourself if that’s what you think of our people?” She let out an angry gasp that sounded too close to a sob for her own comfort.

  “I ask myself that question every day.”

  He turned away from her and walked toward the spiral staircase she barely remembered. When he reached the opening, he paused and glanced over his shoulder. “The bottom right stone will open the passage. I trust you to behave yourself around my people, and we'll not talk again about revealing what we are.”

  “You’re making a mistake, Sultan,” she spat. “We should be proud of what we are.”

  “I make my choices for my people.”

  “Is that why you let your advisors walk all over you? Is that why you’ve hidden in a drunken stupor while your people suffer, your city is left defenseless, and your army grows weaker by the minute?”

  It was a low blow, and she knew it. Already she felt the promise of her future slipping away. She wanted to grasp onto the moment when she realized she was not alone and hold it to her breast for all eternity. But he wouldn’t let her.

  He nodded. “It’s better for them to live a life like this, than to know a monster sits on their throne.”

  He disappeared into the shadows of the stairwell and Sigrid slumped to the floor.

  Pale, blue fabric pooled around her like the petals of a lily pulled off the stem, piece by piece. She let out a ragged sob that echoed until it sounded like a thousand women crying out in pain and sadness. And perhaps it was. Every ancestor, every drakon woman who had thought themselves the only one and found peace in the e
xistence of their single daughter, now knew that their lives were wasted.

  And that no matter what, their future always ended alone.

  ------

  Sigrid sat in her small bedroom, trying to find some semblance of privacy. Giggles drifted on the slight breeze.

  She missed her sisters more than she wanted her next breath.

  Everything reminded her of them. The sound of women moving in the night. The way they each poured tea for another before they sipped their own. She wanted desperately to be accepted by them, but also knew it wasn’t her place.

  Saafiya made that very clear. They were the first wife’s maids, and if Sigrid wished to have her own, then they would find her some. These women were devoted only to the first wife’s happiness.

  Sigrid knew better than to intervene in such relationships. And so, she remained in the section of the hall which was allotted to her.

  The room was small, but comfortable. Curtains made of blue silk hung from every corner. The bed was marked by four posts anchored to the ceiling. Gilded leaves were carved onto each metal post and tiny strands of gold chips danced between them. Every shade of blue silk humanly possible was flung from edge to edge.

  Likely it was a room fit for a sultana. She wouldn’t know. Regardless, Sigrid wished for cold marble floors and the tomb-like silence of her home.

  Someone had set a small table in the far corner at her request. They’d looked at her as though she was insane for even asking. Atop the small table, she’d set three candles, a small stone from Wildewyn, and an incense holder where she burned the small sticks each night.

  They didn’t understand her rituals. Some of the concubines and courtiers complained nonstop. The incense smelled. The candles set off shadows that frightened them. And what was the strange woman doing, anyway? Was she cursing them?

  Sigrid shook her head and leaned forward to blow out the candles. She should have left them lit—and would have at home—but one wrong move and the entire concubine hall would go up in flames.