Page 7 of In the Embrace of Dragons

“Darling!” I hear her father say. “Inpants?!”

Nissia huffs. “It’s most comfortable for riding, you know that.”

I can’t help watching even as the human king grabs the reins of the princess’s horse and pulls her aside.

“This is your newhusband,” he hisses. “Wear a dress.”

“It is more practical,” I say, interrupting them. The king jolts up straight, realizing I’ve overheard. “Wearing pants on a long journey, on horseback, is much more comfortable for both her and the horse. I think King Vizarios would prefer his new wife to be comfortable.”

I glance over my shoulder at Vizarios, who is now glaring at me.

The king splutters. “Well, it’s unbecoming,” he says, but his fight has lost all its fangs in the wake of my pronouncement.

“We should be going,” I say to Princess Nissia as I pass her. “The carriages are waiting.”

The expression on her face lingers somewhere between curiosity and suspicion as she regards me.

“All right.” She directs her horse away from her father. “Goodbye, Dad.”

He falters for a moment, and I think, perhaps, he’s finally realizing that his daughter is leaving.

“Come visit at the new year,” he tells her as her horse walks away. Though we won’t be doing any such thing in the depths of winter, I don’t correct him.

Then we pass into the courtyard, where a crowd of humans has gathered. All the courtiers wave and say goodbye as we walk by. The princess searches the onlookers for someone but does not appear to see them. With a shake of her head, she turns forward and marches on, her jaw set.

Vizarios’s horse settles in beside me as we head for the gates leading out of the castle.

“You seem to have taken an interest in the princess,” he says with a smirk.

I’m not certain what he’s insinuating.

“She is my future queen.” I lock eyes with him. “I would like that future to be as positive as possible for all parties involved.”

The smugness falls from his face, and his nostrils flare.

“There is no positive outcome,” he says in a low, hard voice. With that, he guides his horse toward the middle of the party, so I’m guarding his back. My eyes fall to the princess asshe rides on ahead, leading us out of her home city and into the unknown in a foreign land.

VIZARIOS

Ragnakor is turning into a meddler. I can already tell that he’s trying to engineer something with his little comments here and there.

He’s not very good at meddling.

It rankles me he would try to push the princess and me together. It’s blatant disregard, really. I will never love her, not as I have loved. Not as I still do.

Nissia, that’s her name. She looked different today, much different with her hair up, her chest bound, wearing pants more suited to a human male. She looked moredragon, at least, though she will still always be foreign and out of place in my world.

I can’t wait to be home, though it’s much too soon to be thinking that already. We’ve barely walked for half the day, and the afternoon sun is high in the sky. We made this journey in the late summer so that we wouldn’t have to contend with snow or poor traveling weather, which means that down here in the plains, it’s much too hot for me.

The princess rides at the front with the small group of soldiers her father sent along, while Ragnakor rides alongside me toward the back. He doesn’t attempt conversation, and neither do I. There’s nothing left to talk about between us, now that we’re here, now that everything is about to change.

When afternoon finally drips into evening, we decide to make camp for the night. My tent is rolled out and erected, as is the princess’s. They are placed next to each other, to my chagrin, but at least we don’t have to share one.

“How was your ride?”

Her high voice startles me. It reminds me of an animal as it screams for death.

“Long.” I open the flap to my tent. “And I would like to forget it.”