His feet were heavy in her lap, black nails with jagged and sharp edged. She struggled not to shove it off or retch in disgust. Mare shivered, not from the cold but from the eyes poring into her skin. The king’s whore among noble blood. What an honor.She dared to look up in the direction of one of the stares.The princess was in the company of her friends. She was beautifully dressed in her blue silk with her blonde hair braided down her back. Her neck was adorned with a heavy silver necklace encrusted with diamonds. Despite her young beauty, her face held a scowl. Her friends were staring and they whispered something to her to which she responded tight-lipped.Mare blinked and looked away. Let them talk. The pain of their gossip was nothing compared to the pain of her people’s rejection. Or the throbbing that would come later tonight if the king ordered her ass into his bed.Her gaze fell on Perci. She paused.He was staring but unlike Serywithe his gaze was unreadable. Those icy b

Veren could not understand his master. For months since his coming to Dymas castle, he couldn’t understand the way things were done. He had servants but none of them served him, none of them was allowed into his chambers. Unlike the other noblemen, he did not have soldiers at his command to guard his home. His servants whispered and avoided their lord at all costs.Veren spent the nights in his room in the servant's quarters wondering what his duties were. Why did the mighty warrior of Arlankis choose him? The other servants would not speak to him, they barely even spoke to one another unless they whispered and he found it odd. Weren’t servants supposed to be the worst of gossip? Yet, here he was in a castle of silence.The cold night air drifted in through the bare window. The servants were not provided curtains. In fact, the entire walls of Dymas’s castle lacked curtains and tapestries. If people didn’t know better they would say that Dymas lacked loyalty to the king for his lack of

Mare wrung her fingers in her lap. Outside the locked doors of the king’s chambers, the sound of galloping horses, marching soldiers, and the scurry of servants filled her ears. The servants who had been charged with serving the surviving members of the Hermot Phynally’s family had finished cleaning the rooms and were now moving in droves with armed soldiers to be led to Phynally’s castle to retrieve the family’s belongings.From what little she could grasp from the floating conversation, the castle had been invaded in the dead of the night, and when the lord was slaughtered in his bed the Kronos invaders had set fire to the castle.Mare knew what that meant. They were sending a message to Vallezarii, a message of war.So why had the king ordered that she be put in his chambers?She looked at the soldiers, three of them stationed inside the chamber to guard her. They said nothing to her and neither acknowledged her presence with even a stare.She had to leave. She needed to know more.

Perci watched her eyes widen and fought a smile. She thought she knew everything. She thought being a dragon was the end of everything. But he knew it was just the beginning, that was what his mother, the late queen, grained into him all his life. Commanding a second dragon and bringing it under control was the beginning of everything.He looked down at the map which held her attention.And everything started with Dragon Island.His blood continued to run on the center pages, bringing to life the islands, lands, forests, fields, and castles that once culminated to make the Dragon Island, once the strongest nation in the world. The world's capital. Five kingdoms surrounded the Dragon Seat which was protected by the dragon wall. All five kingdoms were conquered by dragon lords, descendants of kings from the Dragon Seat.Mare opened her mouth unable to believe the sight before her eyes.“This is impossible…”“Anymore impossible than commanding a dragon with merely the sound of your voic

She stayed awake most of the night unable to do anything but think but her thoughts would not be arranged to form coherency, so Mare found herself tossing most of the night thinking about everything.Perci had to be telling the truth. At least about the origin of his birth. She believed that now.Dragons, born of fire, did not burn. And the prince’s hand had been just fine when he reached into the fire to save a mere book.And his finger? There was no hurt done to his finger yet he wrapped it.So many questions…the secret passage? The marks on his back.And then…She pressed the sides of her face noting the increase in her cheeks’ warmth.It was nothing more than a mere act to keep her silent and she should be appalled by it. She was appalled but not by the kiss itself. She was appalled by her lack of disgust at the feel of his lips on her mouth. Surely, she was stupid if she considered the heir of her enemy as her friend. For all she knew, this was a trick to make her reveal herself.