Episode 1
Dragons make dangerous dinner guests
Kit
Today, I’m glad to be a slave.
An invisible, irrelevant slave.
Lord Agam’s estate is abuzz with preparations. Everyone is awaiting the arrival of the four dragon princes from Massa’eve, coming to collect on their fifteen year old bargain. One Lady Cordelia, now twenty, washed, dressed, and prepped for their highnesses’ pleasure. Massa’eve is in Lunos, the immortal realms, and no one we know has ever been there.
The cooks have been fretting over a feast for three days now, the footmen polishing every brass knob, the stable hands going over every horse and piece of tack in the stable. Everyone is acting like they know what the dragon princes from Massa’eve will be impressed by, but the truth is that no one has any bloody idea whether they’ll see our spotless stable as a mark of wealth and power—or consider it a well stocked food pantry.
And that last part doesn’t just go for the horses. Rumors say dragons eat humans, too—in which case, slaves like me will be the first on the menu. But they’ll have to catch us first; and after over fifteen years of living under Lady Cordelia’s cruel whims, I’ve gotten good at making myself scarce.
Hence, Petra and I are more than happy to be on hearth duty today, sweeping and cleaning and hauling firewood. Even in our best clothes, we look like soot-covered sacks. The streaks of dirt might get us a beating from the servants’ mistress, but we figure they also make us that much less appetizing to the princes—which seems a decent cost-benefit calculation.
“Do you feel bad for her?” I ask Petra as we start sweeping out the large fireplace at the back-entrance foyer. As with most everywhere in the estate, the foyer walls are made of thick stone, with a vaulted ceiling supported by sturdy wooden beams. It’s a nice space, but its greatest asset at the moment is that it’s as far away from where everything is happening as it’s possible to get. “Think about it. You are five years old and some vizier from a place no one’s ever come back from shows up and says you might fit a prophecy. And from then on, poof, you spend the next fifteen years of your life being prepared to be handed over to a bunch of dragons.”
Petra wipes the sweat from her face and stares at me incredulously. “Kit, you seriously want me to feel pity for a spoilt brat whose primary joy in life comes from making others miserable?”
Petra isn’t wrong. Cordelia’s primary definition of entertainment is choosing random slaves to have whipped or forcing a pair of them to mate on a pedestal, like animals. I’d been on the receiving end of a beating once, but Petra got caught in the other. She’d been a virgin.
Petra shoves a piece of firewood into place with more force than necessary. “Frankly, I hope there is a second part to that prophecy of theirs. Something about the blond woman with air magic getting ripped up limb from limb so her blood can water the dragon lands.”
I wince at the grotesque image, but don’t say anything. A great deal of people at the Agam Estate probably feel like Petra. I doubt that even ones who haven’t been caught in Cordelia’s temper tantrums much care what happens to her after she is handed over. So long as the money is paid, no one will spare a second thought as to whether she’ll be sacrificed or worshiped.
Cordelia isn’t even Lord Agam’s real daughter—she’s some distant cousin thrice removed who suddenly became a ward after the Massa’eve vizier took notice of her. A ward and a terror of the estate.
“What happens if they don’t want her?” I whisper. “I mean, it was some vizier that selected her at five. What if these princes show up, look at their newly assigned bride, and say ‘oh hell no?’”
Petra’s eyes widen. “Shut up. You want to catch a beating?”
She’s right. If Lord Agam heard me say that kind of thing, he’d have me strung up to a post at best and tossed into the dungeons at worst. He’s already spent against the small hoard of treasure he is supposed to get for Cordelia, so anything that casts doubt on those debts is considered blasphemy. But just because I can’t talk about it, doesn’t mean I don’t think about it. If Agam doesn’t get his money, he’ll have to sell things off. And I’m one of those things that would go on the auction block. The slave brand on my inner forearm says as much.
At least at Agam’s estate I have a bed and food and a job that’s tolerable. For a slave, I know how good I have it here. I know how much worse it can be. Once Cordelia is shipped out, I’ll have little left to complain about.
“What do you think they look like?” I ask Petra. “The dragon shifters?”
No one had ever laid eyes on a dragon shifter before, but the Massa’eve vizier who’d evaluated Cordelia fifteen years ago had left a list of instructions for exactly how she was to be prepared for their arrival. A demonstration of her air magic was at the top of the list of course, but there were other expectations, too. Everything from blond hair that touched the waist, to sword skills, to things practiced behind closed bedroom doors. Dragons liked their women just so.
“Hopefully as ugly as Cordelia’s soul,” says Petra.
“Now who needs to shut up?” I say.
“Both of you.” The wooden double doors behind us open with a bang, sending a gust of cold air into the chamber. I jump at the sound, tripping over the firelogs and ending up on my backside inside the hearth I’d been sweeping. Thank the stars I hadn’t lit it yet.
Standing in the open door are four of the largest, most gorgeous, and most vicious men I’ve ever laid eyes. No, not men. They have elongated ears and lines of shiny scales running from temple to neck. These are fae males. Dragon shifters. Coming in the back door while the whole palace is waiting for them in the front.
“That was our bride you just spoke of.” The male in front, whose amethyst scales match his eyes, glares at Petra.
Petra opens her mouth to reply, but no words come. I know her heart has to be hammering as loudly as mine. Her face drains of blood.
Kill her, Quinton. I hear a voice order in my head.
“No, don’t!” Scrambling up out of the hearth, I throw myself in front of her. “She didn’t mean it. Please don’t hurt her.”
The purple-scaled dragon prince pivots his attention to me. He is the largest of the four and has an aura of authority clinging to him. A male who is used to giving orders and having the world obey. The instant our eyes meet, an energy passes through me as if his magic is gripping my very blood. I want to disappear and yet can’t look away. The male doesn’t either.
“Kit?” Petra calls, breaking the strange connection between me and the prince.
I turn to her. Confusion lines her soot-streaked face. She is still wearing that bewildered expression when another of the males, this one silver-scaled, pulls a sword from his scabbard and slices Petra’s head clean off her shoulders.
I scream, my legs giving out.
Before I can hit the floor, the amethyst prince grabs the scruff of my shirt. He holds me upright with my toes barely touching the floor, like a ragdoll. “Escort us to the Great Hall,” he orders.
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