by Kendal Davis
Olivia was scanning the crowd, casting about in her mind for a reason that I might stop the ceremony. Her older friend, David, was strangely silent. He watched us, perhaps aware of everything we were saying. But he did not intervene. He had the patience of an elder. I would grant him that, despite the fact that I was vastly older than him.
I knew from experience, from all the times I’d watched my father, as Count before me, that the tally would take a long time. I nodded impassively at the Guardsmen who produced chairs for all of those on the platform. Olivia took her seat next to me, while the others were slightly to one side. The chairs were sturdy and comfortable. I relaxed back into mine, prepared to wait for the townspeople to be counted.
Olivia spoke up again. She was still furious, but she did not allow that to stop her in her quest for answers. I felt certain that she never did. Her voice was tight with worry. “I heard you, when we were up in the castle. You said that the ceremony had to happen on time, or you were no better than another House. Have there been exceptions before?”
I sighed. “You should not have heard that. Yes, I said that we must not stoop to the level of House Rubellus. They are our neighbors to the south. They are a militaristic, barbaric group.”
“Rubellus? Their color is red?”
“Just so.”
Olivia’s eyes darted around at the street below us, where Guardsmen walked with purpose, organizing men, women, and children into orderly lines. “I see some red cloaks here, among your Guardsmen. I meant to ask you that. Why do some of them have different colored uniforms, when your house color is blue?” She looked at my own cerulean attire, perhaps pausing to linger on the pleasing nature of my form as well. No doubt my biceps were in fine form today. Even if I was bothered by today’s task, that did not mean I had lost my taste for the physical pleasure I could have with this woman.
I winked at her.
She made a face. How was it possible that she was not falling at my feet when I gave her my best smiles? I could tell that she was used to the attention of men, but I was a dragon! There was no way that any of her lovers at home could compare with me. She must have many, with her beauty and her magnetic ways, but they would still be mere humans.
“Stop leering at me,” she said absently. “I’m thinking. Just answer the question.”
I raised my eyebrows at her persistence. “Your idea is correct. My Guard is made up of the most trustworthy men of my own House, as well as some...less trustworthy dragons...of the other Houses.”
She finished the thought for me. “You mean that your Guard is comprised of the dragons you trust most and least? What an odd plan.” She bit her lower lip, thinking it over.
“It is something of a hostage system,” I admitted.
“So you exchange them voluntarily? But wouldn’t that encourage espionage? Don’t they report back to their own House?”
I huffed, drawing myself up to scowl at her. “We are not humans who squabble over power and try to cheat each other.”
“Yes, yes, you are dragons,” she murmured. She was placating me so she could follow her own line of thought. I’d never been so lightly dismissed by any woman. The effect was downright tantalizing. I needed to turn her head, to make her appreciate what it meant to be seated next to a dragon. I wanted her to see me.
I touched her arm to draw her attention. “Perhaps you are right. You asked what House Rubellus had done. They are obsessed with their ambition. It is the Gift of their House. They have been guilty of altering their schedule of the counting ceremony. That was why I felt that I had no choice but to follow the law on this. I cannot afford to stoop to their level.”
“But what’s so bad about changing the time? Perhaps one day might be better than another.”
I frowned at her. “This is more than tradition; it is law. House Rubellus angered every dragon on Elter hundreds of years ago when they increased the frequency of their Count. Not one of the other Houses has viewed them as allies since then.”
Olivia squeaked out her answer. “Increased? You mean they sacrifice more humans than they are supposed to?” She collected herself, gathering a shred of hope around her like a garment. “But maybe I’m not understanding this right. Maybe it doesn’t mean what I think it means.”
“It does,” I retorted sharply.
“Well, if they are ruthless as you say, then maybe they are the ones that sabotaged your portal. Maybe House Rubellus would like to throw a wrench into your plans. Were my friends and I brought here to change something? Perhaps to influence your Countship?”
“Bringing humans here has no meaningful effect on me.” I did not meet her eyes. I had some pride.
A moment of hurt crossed her face, then it was gone. “No, I can see that. Very well, I’ll leave that idea alone then.” She watched me silently for a moment, taking in my swinging leg and fidgeting hands. “What in the world are you so restless about? If this is supposed to be such a formal occasion, why are you so antsy? Up at the castle, you were as confident as a king, but now you look like a child in church.”
I tried unsuccessfully to hide my chagrin at being called out for my unease. There was no hope for it, if my discomfort was so painfully obvious.
I had to admit it. “It’s my first time.”
A glimmer of humor lit her eyes. “Ah?”
“This is my first counting ceremony since I became Count. Since my father decided that he had held the position long enough, and he went into retirement as a silver dragon.”
She exhaled in surprise. “You have only just taken the job? I mean, succeeded to it, or whatever? Well, of course that’s why somebody is trying to overthrow you. It’s Political Science 101.”
“I do not know what that statement means. However, I cannot believe that any dragon could be so perfidious as to do this with the intention of destroying my rule as Count.”
Olivia was losing patience with me. “Your logic needs some work.” She turned to face me, her fingers touching her thumb as she enumerated her ideas. “Either your portal malfunctioned on its own, or we broke into it, or one of these townspeople down there is your magical troublemaker.”
“None of those are possible in the least,” I answered.
She grinned. “Then the only answer left is that there is a dragon adversary in your midst.”
Damn.
Damn it all.
She was smarter than I, there was no denying it.
Chapter 7: Olivia
I reached up to rub my temples. Who was being childish now? Only a moment ago, I’d been thinking that the gloriously seductive man next to me, the one who was as handsome as a god, was fidgeting like a kid. Now I was trying to score points off him in some sort of contest of wits.
None of this was going to help us.
This wasn’t some Saturday-afternoon board game, where I’d get to have bragging rights afterward, for having outmaneuvered him. I was talking at top speed, trying my hardest to think even faster than that, because people’s lives were at stake.
My mentor, David, was certainly the oldest person I’d seen here. It looked like he was sure to be first in line for the barbaric sacrifice. But it was slowly dawning on me that I was no spring chicken myself, compared to the fresh, young townspeople who were now standing in neat lines in front of us. If the oldest I could see were about twenty-five, the unappealing truth was that they were all younger than I was.
How far was Indigo willing to go with this?
I felt our connection, even now that I had to confront the horror of how his beloved dragon world operated. I believed that on some level, he really did want me, as he said he did. When we kissed last night, the chemistry between us was fiery. But did he want me badly enough to overthrow his entire political system?
I wasn’t going to count on it.
Sacrifice. Townspeople were going to be sacrificed. What did that entail?
Panic was tearing at the edges of my pretense of calm. When I could hold it back no longer, I had to ask. In
a voice that came out stronger than I expected, I went ahead. “Indigo, tell me exactly what is involved in the sacrifice.”
He turned to meet my eyes, shocked. “That is not a topic for discussion! No polite person ever speaks of that.”
“You do it, but you don’t talk about it?” I asked dryly.
“It is a matter between peasants and dragons.”
“I have to know. The human is killed, is that right?” He jerked his head in a tiny nod of assent. “So that’s the main thing. What’s the point? Is it purely for the sake of ritual? Let me put that another way. Do dragons eat people?” The last question was my real one, and it was as hard to get out of my mouth as if it had been a beach ball.
Here on this hot and dry planet of yellow sand, I felt as out of place as a piece of summer swim equipment. I belonged in the water, on a boat, in my own world. I liked having blue skies above me, filled with gulls, with not a dragon in sight. Right now, I wanted to run in circles, screaming at the craziness of this place.
At the same time, I did not think I could bring myself to run away from Indigo. He was so proud, yet I was beginning to think that he might need me. No, that was foolish. It was a girl’s thought, not worthy of somebody of my age and experience.
He answered me seriously, realizing that my hunger for knowledge would not be sated until I had more information. He could do the math just as well as I could, when it came to estimating the ages of the people in the town and on this stone platform with him. I could see it in his eyes. He already knew what I had only just realized. He was aware that I, too, was one of the oldest peasants on his House’s land.
“That’s an appalling idea. Dragons eating humans? A dragon would not consume the flesh of a peasant.” He glared at me as I snorted. “You think this is funny?” Then he mastered his irritation and spoke more gently. “No, of course you do not. I understand what you’re doing. You ask so many questions, because it puts you in control.”
“Ahem,” I coughed. I looked away for a moment, chagrined. Sure, maybe I was transparent to everybody I met at home, but they didn’t usually call me out on it. All right, yes, I did like being in control. And I wasn’t the only one in this conversation who had that problem.
“The sacrifice is more than a matter of ritual subjugation.” Indigo spoke softly, as if he was sharing a closely-kept secret with me. “It is a transfer of the seeds of magical power.”
“So they do support you, just as I suggested up at the castle last night. It is a feudal relationship.”
Indigo paused, his chiseled cheekbones flushing with something that looked like embarrassment. “It is more like a vampiric relationship,” His deep voice grated, as if he was having a hard time getting the words out. “We suck out every human emotion from these peasants, killing their bodies in the process. Their foolish feelings, that range so quickly from despair to elation, from fear to wild confidence, are as an elixir to my kind. That is what we need to keep our dragon magic strong.”
“You make your magic out of the sacrificed peasants,” I said. It was appalling. Yet, who was I to judge? I had met a man unlike any other, and he was thrilling my heart and my body at the same time. Would I pick this bone with him, just because he threatened to sacrifice me to his own ends? Why yes. Yes, I would.
“We do. This will be the first time I have done it myself, as Count.”
I put a hand on his, driven by a ludicrous impulse to comfort him. “It must be difficult, to have that looming ahead of you.” I tilted my head. The corners of my lips turned up irrepressibly. “And hard on me, as well, I suppose.”
Indigo pulled his hand away from mine, flexing his fingers angrily. “Is everything a joke to you?”
I finally reached my breaking point. I could no longer sit in a magically summoned wooden armchair and bandy words with this prideful aristocrat, not while peasants all around us stood humiliatingly still, waiting to hear of their own fate. I knew I ought to be terrified, and on some level, I was.
Mostly, though, I was furious.
I stood, unfolding my body in a quick movement that earned me the attention of several Guardsmen. Small as I was in contrast to the dragon men, they must have thought I was about to cause trouble. They started toward me, but at a lift of Indigo’s hand, they stayed back. Who could possibly have perceived me as a threat? Indigo stood as well, more gracefully and more patiently than I had.
Well, he was immortal. He’d had a lot more time than I did to think about all this.
But did I envy him that?
No, you should not. None of this is enviable.
“Get out of my head!” I actually stomped my foot at him. “I mean it. There’s no way I can see myself having anything to do with you. Not now that I know what you really are.” A wild impulse led me to add more. “There’s no time for that to happen, anyway.”
“What if I could make some time?” Indigo suddenly offered. He stood so close to me that our bodies almost touched along our entire lengths. I felt the pull of sexual attraction that emanated from him and bound me to him. How much time did he think he needed?
“Count, sir,” I mustered my last shred of chutzpah and spoke with an ironic lilt. “If you were able to spend an entire day here in the town with me, mingling with the townspeople, then I would perhaps be able to form a better opinion of you. Do you have it in you to see them as real people? As humans who have lives of their own? Not that it would matter anyway,” I amended. “If you plan to go ahead with the sacrifices, then you have no real need to try to impress me.”
He swore under his breath, muttering words I didn’t know but that I assumed were deeply obscene. “Oh, but I do,” he breathed.
With an unexpected twist of his strange, courtly manners, Indigo showed that he was more flexible in his ideals that I had thought. He was conflicted, that I knew. But I had not predicted that he might be willing to mingle with his townspeople, when he showed such disdain for them.
Wordlessly, the Count accepted my dare.
He stepped forward, to the edge of the platform. All the assembled peasants, as well as the stern Guards, lifted their faces to hear what pronouncements this great dragon Count might make. I spotted a millisecond in which he almost faltered. It must be both a blessing and a curse, to be responsible for all this.
A pang of sympathy for him pierced my heart. He was a tyrant, but his soul knew no peace about it.
“Townspeople of House Caeruleus,” he boomed out. “I call a delay to the counting ceremony! We will resume before sunset.”
The blue-cloaked Guardsmen looked nervous, some shaking their heads at him. Were they objecting to the delay because I was involved? The hatchet-faced red Guardsman, Brick, the representative of House Rubellus, the man that I thought might haunt my nightmares forever, or at least until I was sacrificed, suppressed a secret smile.
Just so.
Without pausing any further to ask or justify, my royal dragon crush held out his hand to me. He did not look to see where I was; he simply knew. I suspected that he was as aware of my location as I was of his. When I grasped his hand, an electric current ran through me. Did he feel it too?
He guided me down from the position of honor that we had occupied My feet stumbled on the narrow steps, but Indigo’s hand steadied me. As I looked over my shoulder to send a smile of reassurance at my friends on the stone platform, I tamped down my doubts. They would know that I wasn’t leaving them behind by choice. I wasn’t betraying them; I’d be back to help.
I would return just as soon as I spent the day with Indigo, a mass of contradictions all wrapped up in a package of mouth-watering gorgeousness. He was wrestling so hard with his conflicting ideas about who he was, and who his people were. It was riveting to watch as he defined and redefined himself. My interest in him was, absolutely, one hundred percent, scientific. Right?
Perhaps, if we spent the day together, I would be able to see him in a new light. He might see himself as something more than he was now.
I imagined what it would be like to be able to wrestle with him, with his body, rather than his personal demons.
Belatedly aware that he could read all my thoughts, I suppressed every one of them as best I could. It probably didn’t work. Instead of thinking any more, I followed my dragon Count through the eerily quiet streets of a town in which his people were still filing silently back to their own business. They, perhaps like I, were devoted and terrified in equal measure.
Indigo and I would have this day, if nothing else.
Chapter 8: Indigo
Something about the presence of these humans was making me reconsider everything I believed about my world. I had meant only to protect my pride when I told Olivia that her arrival through my House’s portal had no effect on me. In reality, nothing could be farther from the truth.
These four humans, so puny, without any apparent powers at all, had turned our political situation upside down. Yesterday morning, I had been vaguely uncomfortable about holding my first counting ceremony, but I had been quite certain that I would carry on the law and tradition that made our House one of the finest in Elter.
Now, I had Olivia’s thoughts in my own head constantly. I saw my actions through the filter of her perceptions.
And I did not like what I saw.
That wasn’t a good thing for me, if my goal was to follow in my father’s footsteps.
“I swear that I’m not trying to read your mind, Olivia,” I spoke in what I hoped was a friendly, calming way as we walked at a sedate pace through the sandy streets of the town. “I wish I could convince you of that. But as you are projecting all your thoughts at top volume, the only thing I could possibly do would be to pretend I didn’t know what you were thinking.”
I tucked her hand into mine, enjoying the feel of its softness.
“You’re right, actually,” she admitted. “That would be underhanded. You like to let me know what’s on your mind.” She pondered this for a moment. “Except when it came to the counting ceremony, right? I guess I just don’t know how to keep things concealed as well as a dragon can.” She narrowed her eyes at me, driving home the dig.