Dragon Found (The Dragon Queen, #1)

by Sam Hall

“He didn’t seem pleased to see me or Glimmer.” “Oh milady… Surely, he was just tired from the journey. He must⁠—” “Be an arrogant fool like Arabella and Cecily were?” I finished for her with a grim smile. “Be focussed on the look of things, not what actually is? All surface, no substance, that’s what Father used to say.”

I took her hand in mine and gave it a squeeze, dimly aware of my mother’s direction as I did so. Treat the people that serve you well and they’ll do so for the love of you, not the obligation.

I also know…” His hand moved slowly, hanging in the air before running up the back of my neck and rubbing across my scalp. “That your stepmother never got what she wanted. She needed to bring you down, shove you in the stinking mud, right where she was. But wash you off?” His head tilted to one side and then he came closer. “You were just what you always were. A queen.”

“If I was Draven, I’d have claimed you the first night I met you, bringing you back to the king and queen and declaring you my wife before the gods, and damn them if they said no to it, but…” He was so close now that our bodies touched and somehow I found myself leaning into him. “I can’t bring myself to regret the prince’s stupidity. I’ll make you a queen, Pip. The queen of my heart.”

“I don’t know if I’m the man for you, lass, but gods damn me if I won’t try. I feel like I’ve been dreaming of you my whole fucking life. Just know if you want me, I’ll come running, for whatever you need.”

Draven had been going to say something, make an example of me and if I was a good little girl, I would’ve taken my lumps just like anyone else. But the problem was in trying to shove me right back to where I was as a pig herder, he awakened something else inside me. The part of Pippin who didn’t come out to play often. I stalked past him, past the general and all of the tables like I was the damn queen herself, not giving the prince a bloody inch.

Well, no one can make you feel bad about yourself without your permission, and, going forward, I wasn’t giving Draven anything.

“I need to get back.” Brom stated this almost apologetically. “I need to find out… many things really.”

I felt like I was seeing Maggie properly for the first time. And while in a lot of ways I had less power than her right now, something strong in me started to rise. Because if I did gain any power, I’d use it to try and make some changes. I realised that one didn’t need to be queen-in-waiting to help change the world.

“I’m not sure any of us know what the hell you are.” The light coming in through the den opening seemed to bleach his eyes to sky blue. “But damn me if I don’t want to find out.”

“What in the name of all of the gods is that?” Flynn said, staring at the swirling egg-shaped stone, its gleaming surface quickly marred by my bloody fingers touching it. But not for long. Light exploded through the room, blinding each of us for a second, taking with it all sense of who we were and replacing it with something more.

When the first Nithian king ascended to the throne, the ballad was created. To ensure we never forgot the chaos of before. To make clear Queen Gloriana’s failures were made clear. Of the first people who landed on the shores of Nevermere, it was a woman who was the first to bond with a dragon. A stolen golden egg, perhaps taken for its glimmering shell more than anything, had shocked those people when they found it cracking to reveal a baby dragon. And they were even more stunned when the woman bonded psychically with the wee beast.

Before the Nithian dynasty came into existence there was the time of queens. The Idonians, a line of women that came from the very first queen dragon’s bondmate. The queens had ruled over a peaceful Nevermere for many years until a bloody civil war threatened to destroy our country.

Is this what all conquering heroes did? Turned the achievements of the previous regime into performances a bawd would perform? Cocks were freed and pressed at the ‘Queen Gloriana’ on the stage, the men’s bays growing deeper and more guttural as her small hands clasped each one of them, working one, then the other.

I was committing social suicide right now. I could see it in the duke’s increasingly purple complexion, but damn them. Damn him. I shot Flynn a dark look, because damn him most of all. “A good man. One who cares for me and not the assets I bring to a marriage. An honest one.”

“Perhaps I need to take four husbands,” I said with a rueful snort. “One from each duchy, to appease and neutralise all of their ambitions.” “You do that and civil war is sure to ensue,” Brom warned. So why did his arms tighten around me, holding me even closer?

The riders here are connected to their dragons and can use them to communicate with other dragons and riders, but not her. Her mind, her will, she uses it like a hammer to break everyone’s mind and if she doesn’t… I gathered my dragon up, holding her like she was a baby, even though she so obviously wasn’t.

“I had a father. He loved me and was good to me, though his taste in women left something to be desired. But the problem with father figures is they seek to do for their daughters; they assume their daughters don’t know their own minds yet. I don’t need to replace my father with the Duke of Skane, much as he might like the idea.” Soren muttered a curse at that. “Nor do I wish to replace my father with you, Soren. Trust me to know what I want, what I need, then decide whether or not to give it to me.”

“So you’re done?” Draven gave a short, sharp nod, then turned to face the rest of the room. “Looks like it’s back to running for all of you. Put your⁠—” He’d told me I needed to land a hit upon him, but he hadn’t specified where or when. Men had rules about attacking another’s unprotected back, but I was no man. Lance let out a sound of alarm as I surged forward and stabbed the point of my sword into Draven’s spine.

He will be a good mate too, Glimmer told me, coming closer to bunt her head against mine. You’ll see.

“Why do I feel like I’m walking into a battlefield?” I asked. “Because you are. The battles that are fought with swords and shields? They’re the easier ones in some ways because at least you see your enemies coming.”

The Nithian dynasty is waning and there will be a Harlston king on the throne before I’m on my deathbed. Perhaps even earlier.” Which, of course, led to the question of Draven. Would he be the king his father raised him to be or a puppet of his mother and his powerful uncle, the Duke of Harlston?

Glimmer looked up at me then, staring into my eyes and I knew then what I had to do. When she was grown she would protect me, but up until then, I had to protect her.