by Loki Renard
Chak stood by Valkimer’s side, his thoughts largely focused on what would become of Brianna if such a sentence were carried out. She seemed to be a favorite of the court. Perhaps she had already caught the eye of some noble who wished to have her for his own. He wished he had thought of that possibility earlier, forbidden her from going out into the castle without their permission.
He doubted she would accept being given to anyone else, but as much as Casimer seemed to have a soft spot for her, that did not in any way mean that her desires would guide his actions. He was still an angered king, and she was still a very beautiful bargaining chip.
His appearance awesome in the original sense of the term, King Casimer wasted no further time in making his pronouncement.
“Valkimer, Chaksley. You broke my law and intended to profit from the results of it. You opened portals to the human world. You brought an innocent human through. You freed Lazarus. And in doing so, you have brought something to our attention which may have led to the destruction of our realm if we were caught unawares. My judgment is tempered by this fact.” Casimer drew breath and looked at the pair of them with a gaze that registered stern disappointment, tempered with a respect that was shown in his next words. “It is clear to me that you two are incapable of taking your pensions and finding truly peaceful lives in the rural lands. Two hundred years in the Royal Guard is usually enough to rid a soldier of his ambition toward anything but a country house and a family of his own, but not in your case, gentlemen. You are wasted on retirement, and so I revoke it. You are to come back into service as portal guardians. You will be responsible for ensuring that no human or dragon crosses between the worlds without my knowledge ever again. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sire,” Valkimer and Chak said in near perfect unison, engaging in deep bows. Chak could barely believe their luck. Not only were they being saved from a life in the dungeons or in exile, they were being brought back into the royal military fold.
“One final condition. You will return Lazarus to the human realm. You will ensure that he never returns. And before he is sent back, you will question him as to everything he knows about these humans and their plots to invade our realm. Understand, gentlemen. I will be holding the two of you personally responsible for the protection of our realm’s border with the human world. Now go. You have much work to do. Do not return to me until you have returned Lazarus to his prison.”
Valkimer and Casimer gave profuse bowing thanks and left Casimer’s chamber. Chak felt as though he barely dared breathe until they were several hundred feet away. Only then did he allow the broad smile that had been threatening to creep across his features from the moment he understood Casimer’s ruling to actually express itself.
“Did he just punish us with promotion?” Chak said to Valkimer as they strode through the halls. Valkimer did not return his smile. If anything, he was more dour than ever.
“He punished us with a task which can never be completed,” Valkimer said. “We will work from this day until we draw our last breath. How can we possibly cover the entire realm and know every time a portal is opened? These smaller ones, like the one I created, they are easily hidden. He has given us a task that we will surely fail. And when we do, I am sure his fury will be meted out in full force.”
They opened the door of their chambers and were met by their pet, twisting her hands and looking at them with a pale, worried face.
“What’s happening?”
“We have been given royal commissions,” Chak explained. “We are not to be sent to any dungeons and you will remain ours.”
“Really?” A bright, sunny smile spread across her face. “So, everything worked out? Everything’s going to be okay?”
“Mhm.”
He wrapped her in a warm hug and felt her squeeze against him for all she was worth. Chak’s heart swelled with love for this human, who had been through so much and who had surely helped soften the king’s sentence. She had saved them in so many ways, and he doubted she knew it.
Before he could begin to tell her, they were interrupted by the reappearance of the king.
“One last condition,” Casimer said, striding through the doorway. “Until Lazarus is returned, Brianna will remain in the castle with Mika and me.”
“But… I want to go with Chak and Valkimer…” Brianna objected immediately.
“They will need to focus on their task,” Casimer said, his tone kindly. “They are going to be very busy, and frankly, it could be rather dangerous. I think it would be better if Lazarus did not have another opportunity to take a human hostage.”
“No,” Brianna said. “I’m going with them. I don’t care if it’s dangerous.”
Chak glanced across at Valkimer and saw murder in his gaze.
“She is ours,” Valkimer growled.
“Nothing is yours,” Casimer replied, his gravelly authority grating on Chak’s nerves. “But I am not taking her for my own. I am taking her for her own safety. She will be returned to you when your task is done.”
“As insurance that we do as you say,” Chak replied with uncharacteristic resistance. “Is this how it is to be? You will take her whenever you wish to ensure our obedience?”
“You can spend a night or two in the dungeons before you go, if that will refresh your memories as to how this realm is run,” Casimer threatened smoothly.
“She would be safer here,” Valkimer conceded. “Lazarus is not above using her against us. And we will be distracted if we must hunt him and look after her as well.”
“No!” Brianna said, shaking her head and clinging to Chak’s hand. “You’re not my king and I’m not staying here. I’m going with them.”
“Brianna,” Valkimer growled. “You will not speak with such disrespect. The king is correct. We are going to do dangerous, bloody work, and you do not belong anywhere near it. We will go and do what needs to be done and return as soon as possible. In the meantime, stay here and be good.”
Chapter Eighteen
Brianna had no intention of being good. She managed to maintain composure as Chak and Valkimer said their goodbyes, pressing kisses to her lips and cheeks and whispering both their love and warnings for her good behavior in her ears. She even managed to restrain herself from running to them as they took their flight forms, wrapping herself around one of their great scaled legs and being carried skyward. As they took flight, Brianna became entirely inconsolable. She stood tearfully on the landing, watching the men she loved become mere specks in the sky and once they were out of sight she became so hysterical she had to be restrained by a royal guard and carried to a room where there were no windows from which she might try to make an escape.
She stayed there for hours, cursing, throwing whatever came to hand, which was very little for all of it shattered within minutes. Her anger was incredible, misery and fear combining to create a storm of emotion that only abated when she was too exhausted and too hoarse to continue.
Finally, Brianna slumped to the floor, cursing and crying softly to herself.
At some point in what felt like the longest night in her life, Princess Mika made an appearance. She looked around and made a soft sound under her breath, then crouched down and wrapped her arms around Brianna, trying to comfort her, but Brianna was inconsolable. How dare the king take the only two people she cared about away? And to fight some psychotic who had been exiled?
“That was a real scene,” Mika said, not without sympathy.
Brianna’s eyes still streamed with tears. She felt as though she had been betrayed, abandoned, used as a pawn. So many things and none of them good.
“Where is he?”
“Valkimer and Chaksley are…”
“No, where is your husband?”
“I believe he’s attending to a matter of state with…”
“Where?”
“Brianna, it won’t end well if you challenge him,” Mika warned her. “Just try to calm down, okay? You have the run of the palace. If you act out, you’
ll end up confined and sore and even sadder than you are now.”
“I’m going to escape,” Brianna said. “I’m going to go after them.”
“You can’t,” Mika replied. “They are already miles off on spread wings. You can’t fly. So how can you possibly go after them?”
“I can go on foot,” Brianna said. “It might take a little longer, but—”
“You’ll get lost and you will be without protection.” Mika remained the voice of reason. “Just try to remember that they will be back soon and then there will…”
“And then… and then your king sends them off on some other errand and I stay here…” Brianna scowled. “No. This isn’t going to happen. Where is Casimer?”
“He is reading in the library, but…”
Brianna knew where the library was and now that the door had been opened for Princess Mika, she stormed out of it, Mika trailing weakly in her wake with soft pleas to the better judgment Brianna no longer had.
It was never hard to follow Casimer. Royal guards were always scattered in his wake, becoming denser and more plentiful the closer one got to him. They ignored the crying young human, evidently failing to consider her any kind of real threat. Brianna got all the way to the king, sitting in a private nook of the royal library, frowning over some text. Mika slid in quietly behind her, looping around to stand behind Casimer and shake her head furiously in a way that was clearly supposed to dissuade Brianna.
“You,” she said, pointing at Casimer. “I thought you were a decent man, but you’re… you’re…” She searched her angry brain. “You’re the worst!”
Casimer glanced up. His lips quirked. He put down the sheet of parchment he had been reading. “Excuse me?”
“You’re using me as a bargaining tool, holding me hostage so Valkimer and Chak go and do your dirty work.”
“Go and do their dirty work,” Casimer corrected. “Brianna, I know you are upset and that you miss them. But you must know this. There are standards of behavior in this place. I will whip you if you do not behave yourself.”
“I don’t care if you’re the king of the universe. If you touch me, I’m going to bite you.”
There was a sudden silence in which Brianna could feel her heart pounding. Casimer frowned at her with all the force of a king’s ire and she wondered if maybe her threat had gone too far.
“I cannot say I’m impressed with Chak and Valkimer’s training if this is how you speak to a king.”
“We hadn’t gotten to speaking to kings yet,” Brianna said.
Her little joke did not seem to amuse him. “Neither of your masters would be pleased to see you acting this way. Your emotions were understandable, but this outright rebellion is not. You represent them.”
“Represent this.”
She looked into the face of the king and stuck one finger in the air, a middle finger. Behind Casimer, Mika clapped her hands over her mouth and shook her head quite furiously.
“I don’t know what that gesture is supposed to impart,” Casimer said. “But I know that disobedient little human girls have bottoms that redden very quickly under dragon leather.”
“She’s just upset, Casimer. She misses her lovers,” Mika tried to intervene.
“She can miss them standing in the corner with a red ass just as easily as she can miss them sitting down,” Casimer said. “Take her back to your chambers, Mika. And try to keep her out of trouble. I know that is a rather large task at this point in time.”
“Come on,” Mika gave Brianna a hard tug, practically yanking her out of the room. Brianna went with her, only because there was nothing to be gained by standing there and yelling at a dragon king.
“Oh my…” Mika whispered in the hall outside as she rushed Brianna away from Casimer. “You flipped Casimer off. I can’t believe you did that. Oh. My. God.” Her face was red with mirth.
“Well, telling me I represent this or that,” Brianna snorted. “As if that’s going to make a difference.”
“I love him with everything I am,” Mika giggled. “But that was funny.”
Brianna allowed herself a little smile. “So he really doesn’t know what that means?”
“I don’t know. He often knows more than he seems to know. He might just have been letting you off the hook,” Mika said. “He won’t do it forever though. You’re working yourself up to real trouble.”
“There’s nothing he could do to me that Chak and Valkimer wouldn’t. And there’s so much they can do that he can’t, so,” Brianna shrugged. “I don’t care.”
“There’s a saying back on Earth. Don’t know if they have it where you’re from,” Mika said. “But don’t care was made to care. Be careful.”
* * *
Suffice to say, Brianna was not any more careful than she was good. With Chak and Valkimer gone, she found herself reverting in temperament to how she had been before arriving in the dragon realm. The palace was a den of opportunity in so many respects, rich people coming and going, servants working and wanting what their betters had. Brianna found herself being treated closer to a noble lady than a servant, but that didn’t make her comfortable. She was used to associating with the lowest common denominator and so it was to the servants’ quarters and the kitchens she went, making friends with those who scrubbed and washed and prepared food.
Eventually those who oversaw their activities grew so tired of it that they took her before the king and after bowing low, did their best to get her in trouble.
“Brianna is proving a distraction to the staff…”
“Just like Mika before her,” Casimer sighed. “Brianna, you have others to associate with. There are many young noble women who would make your acquaintance if you would but…”
“I’m not interested in noble women,” Brianna said. “I’m not noble. I’m a freak.”
“A freak,” Casimer rumbled with raised brow.
“Yeah, I have freak genes. Lizard parts. They made me in a cauldron with a dragon’s toe.”
“Very fanciful,” he said. “But it does not change the fact that you must not interrupt the servants. Mika is happy to entertain you.”
“Mika might be your wind-up doll, but she’s not mine,” Brianna said. “She’s not always around, and why should she be?”
“If you would refrain from referring to the crown princess as my wind-up doll, that would be appreciated,” Casimer said with growing annoyance. “Find something that does not irritate all those around you, or else something will have to be found to occupy you, something you will very much not enjoy. Go to your rooms, Brianna, and think on what I have said.”
Brianna went back to her rooms and for several days she thought. About many things. About missing Valkimer and Chak. About how she had come so far from Ironsands, Illinois to a palace where a dragon ruled over an entire realm. It was like a fairytale, but one that kind of sucked and left her lonely and desperately missing the men who had taken her. Valkimer and Chak were not strictly good men. They were hungry, avaricious dragons who had fallen for her and in doing so they had become good. When they were all together, the three of them, their love transformed them all into something more than what they were.
Alone, Brianna was not a pet. And she was definitely not a lady. She was a freakish interloper, more out of place than ever. She only knew one way of surviving on her own: getting stuff from those who had it to those who wanted it.
* * *
King Casimer was holding court when the fruits of Brianna’s decision ripened. He had been sitting on his throne for an hour or so and it had been a fairly quiet affair, formal and refined as these matters tended to be. The nobles from the city and outlying lands had come to ask for favors, pay taxes, or simply stand in the presence of the ruler.
The decorum of the affair was disturbed by shouting that seemed to be coming from the halls outside the great court. The rabble became louder and louder until the king’s guard came in, two burly guardsmen holding Brianna’s squirming form between them. Her green ey
es were spitting catlike fury as all around her, nobles and merchants and other palace guests shouted accusations.
“She’s been stealing our things!”
“She stole my timepiece!”
“And my bracelet!”
“A set of rings with my family crest, all gone, taken by this human wretch!”
“Silence!” Casimer boomed. The court immediately fell completely silent.
“Brianna, you are accused of theft,” he said. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
“This is bullshit,” she scowled. “They hate me because I’m not like them. That’s all. I haven’t done anything wrong.”
She tried to wriggle free of the guard’s grasp, but it was to no avail. With a furious attempt to pull her arm free, she kicked out at the guard to her left. She did not break free, but there was a sudden clanking sound. Something fell from her skirt and rolled along the floor, between rows of dragon nobles who stood with stunned and haughty faces.
“That’s my ring!” A fine lady dashed forward and picked it up.
“Explain, Brianna,” Casimer growled.
Brianna tried for a charming smile but only managed an uncomfortable grimace. “We have this guy back where I’m from. His name’s Robin Hood. He steals from the rich and he gives to the poor. So I guess, yeah, technically I’ve been stealing, but I’d call it more like, wealth redistribution.”
“You have tested my patience for the last time,” Casimer rumbled. “Bring her here!”
Brianna gasped and struggled between the king’s guards as they dragged her up to the raised throne that allowed all in the great hall to see the king no matter where they stood. All could see Casimer, and now all could see her too.
Casimer reached out and grasped her wrist, ordering the guards to release her. They did and Brianna let out a squeal as the king swept her over his lap. A hundred eyes looked on with interest and satisfaction as the king’s palm met her bottom with a hard swat that echoed around the room, followed swiftly by her own female cry.