Blood of Dragons

by Jack Campbell

  “I’ll get him!” Sometimes her mother could be really cool.

  * * *

  With sunset approaching, Kira raced Jason up the shrouds and the ratlines to the small platform high up on the foremast. They sat close, arms about each other. “I’m sorry Mother is using you as bait,” Kira said.

  “I thought it was your mother and your father and Queen Sien,” Jason said.

  “It is, but Mother had to buy off on it, or it wouldn’t happen. And I think she’s right. Enough people have seen us together that the Imperials must already be planning to deal with you somehow, and forcing their hand when we’re most prepared is the safest thing for you.”

  “I never expected an Empire to be gunning for me,” Jason remarked. “But as long as you’re happy. You are happy, right?”

  Kira sighed, looking toward the sun sinking through a rosy sky. “I guess. I’d be happier if the Empire just disappeared from the face of the world. And every time I say my name I start out ‘Kira of Pacta—’ and then remember and say ‘Dematr,’ so everybody is going to think I come from somewhere called Pacta Dematr. It feels so weird.”

  “What exactly is your status?” Jason asked.

  “The same as Mother’s. I’m a citizen of everywhere. I don’t want to belong everywhere. I liked belonging in Pacta Servanda. I liked knowing I was a citizen of Tiae. I liked knowing that Sien was my queen, because she is awesome. Now I don’t have that.”

  “If you’re a citizen everywhere, aren’t you still a citizen of Tiae?”

  “Not like that. It’s like ‘citizen’ in quotes. Sien cannot command me. I don’t owe her allegiance. I swore that, did you know? When I joined the Queen’s Own Lancers as an honorary officer I swore allegiance to Queen Sien. But Mother showed me a decree that Sien signed a long time ago releasing me from that oath. So it didn’t really mean anything. It never did.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It was part of being somebody other than my mother,” Kira said, resting her head on his shoulder. “It’s hard to let it go. I talked to my commander…my former commander…before we left. I told him that I’d turn in my uniform and armor as soon as I could.” She sighed again, remembering the conversation. “He told me to keep them, that as far as he and the rest of the Lancers were concerned I’d always be one of them.”

  “That was pretty cool of him,” Jason said.

  “Yes. He’s a good commander. Only the very best get command of the Queen’s Own. Even though he died before the unit was formed, Major Danel is considered the first commander, and everyone works very hard to live up to his example.” Her arm tightened about Jason’s waist. “I was so proud to be a Lancer. But I don’t know if I can stand being an…imaginary honorary member of the unit. And knowing that if they went off to war I could never be part of them. It’s not that I ever wanted to go to war, but I knew if we did I would be a Lancer and I would be side-by-side with them and we would fight together and never let each other down.” She blinked away tears. “I’m sorry to be dumping all of this on you.”

  “I’m glad that I’m someone you can talk to,” Jason said. “I wish your parents had told you a long time ago.”

  “I did, too. And then I realized that if they had, I never would have been a Lancer. And I’m glad that I was a Lancer, and proud of it.” She wiped her eyes with her free hand, smiling. “Do you remember how impressed you were by that the first time you met me? That I was a cavalry Lancer?”

  “I’m still impressed,” Jason said. “I think your commander is right. You’ll always be a Lancer.”

  “Thank you.” She sighed once more. “Jason, there’s something you’re not saying that you want to say.”

  She felt Jason’s body jerk in guilty reaction. “How do you do that?”

  “It’s kind of like a lie, Jason, because you’re trying to hide something. And you know I can tell when someone is lying.”

  “Your dad’s Mage teachings, yeah. All right,” Jason said. “I’m scared.”

  Kira squeezed him again with the arm about his waist. “Don’t be. I mean, use your head and be careful, but don’t be scared. No assassin is going to get within a hundred lances of you.”

  “That’s not what I’m worried about. It’s the…the powers thing.”

  Kira closed her eyes, upset. “How many times do I have to say I’m fine?”

  “But, Kira, when I talked to you about the Invictus drive right after you…did that thing, it wasn’t just that you didn’t understand.” Jason moved his hands as if groping for the right words. “It was like…I was looking in your eyes and seeing someone else.”

  That was scary. Kira felt herself tensing up as she remembered those moments, soon after facing the dragon and knowing that the ship from Urth was probably closing in on them. Trying to do something she didn't even know she could do, but knowing that the fates of two worlds rested on her. She made an effort to relax. “I can see how that would bother you. You didn’t say that at the time.”

  “There was a lot going on at the time.”

  “I know. Are you sure that’s what you saw? Or is it maybe what your worries have convinced you that you thought you saw?”

  Jason shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe it was the way you were looking at me and I couldn't figure out what it meant. You didn’t feel different?”

  Kira hesitated. “I’m not going to lie to you. I don’t remember.”

  “The memories are too confusing?”

  “No. I don’t remember anything. I know I did the spell because you told me. But I don’t remember anything about actually doing it. Just vaguely something about looking at a rock. Jason, stars above, relax! It feels like I have my arm around that steel cannon on deck!”

  “Okay.” He looked down, obviously more worried than ever.

  “Remember when I wouldn’t let you say okay?” Kira said, trying to lighten the mood. “Jason, I promise, if I experience anything that worries me, I will tell you.”

  He gave her a sidelong glance. “How about anything weird, even if it doesn’t worry you?”

  “All right. I promise. I will tell you and I will tell my parents. Let’s try to talk for a while about things that won’t upset either one of us. We have to eat dinner with the captain tonight and I’d prefer not to be an emotional wreck when we do.” Kira paused, looking toward the east. “Smoke. There’s a steamship there. No, two. Are there more columns of smoke?”

  “Yeah. I think I see four,” Jason said, standing up and holding onto the rigging to get a better look. “Maybe five, I can’t be sure. When the sun finishes going down we’ll lose sight of them.”

  Kira was about to yell down to the deck when she paused and looked back at the mainmast. The lookout there, a bit higher than Kira and Jason on the topsail platform, was gazing steadily ahead instead of looking around. She cupped her hands around her mouth. “Hey! Lookout!”

  The sailor jerked to awareness, looking toward Kira. She pointed to the east and held up her hand with all five fingers spread.

  The lookout stared at her, stared to the east, then shouted down to the deck. “Five steam ships to port, a point forward of amidships! On the horizon!”

  As an officer ran up the rigging with a far-seer, the lookout gave Kira a wave of thanks and a smile. “You made a new friend,” Jason said.

  “I just did what I would want someone to do for me,” Kira replied. “Uh-oh. Mother sees us. Let’s get down on deck before it gets full dark.” She went down the rigging, Jason following, finding Mari waiting as she reached the deck. “I’m sure it’s the Imperial Squadron,” Kira reported. “They’re putting out a lot of black smoke. It looked to me like they aren’t providing enough air to the boilers.”

  “That’s my girl,” Mari said. “Lukas told us the boilers on those ships were a good design, so the Imperial crews must not have the skills to operate them at best efficiency. That’s useful to know.”

  The captain of the Destiny walked up, saluting Mari. “We’re losing sight
of them with night coming on, but they had a slow bearing drift forward. Unless they slow down, they’ll reach Tiaesun several hours before we do.”

  “That’s fine,” Mari said. “I want those ships tied up and out of the way when we enter harbor.”

  * * *

  The next morning, as the Destiny pulled into the harbor of Tiaesun, she flew from the highest mast a very large version of the daughter’s banner, a gold sun on a blue background.

  Kira, standing at the rail as the Destiny sailed past the pier where the Imperial ships were tied up, saw members of each ship's crew pausing to stare at the banner. “Prince Maxim is on that one,” she told Jason, pointing to one of the Imperial ships. “That’s his banner.”

  “Your mother’s banner is bigger,” Jason said looking up to compare.

  “Yeah. She knew that would annoy Maxim.” Kira felt a fierce smile on her face. “Mother’s banner in particular. Prince Maxim’s father was the Prince Maxim who commanded the attack on Dorcastle.”

  “Your mother beat his father?” Jason said.

  “Beat him like a dirty rug,” Kira said. “The legions broke before Mother’s banner as it flew next to her on the last wall. Right where that statue is, remember? You can bet Prince Maxim is thinking about that right now. The Imperials are hoping that the visit of the Gray Squadron will overawe the people of this city, but Mother is doing her best to overawe the Gray Squadron instead.”

  “Um…so we're supposed to make Maxim so mad that he tries to kill me?”

  “Yeah. Basically.”

  “Should we do that public affection thing while we’re going past his ship?”

  “Yeah,” Kira said. “Why not?” Nervous, she turned, pulled his face to hers, and kissed Jason, holding it despite her growing embarrassment as she thought about not only Maxim but the other Imperials and everyone else on this ship and elsewhere in the harbor watching them.

  “You’re allowed to come up for air occasionally,” her mother said from close by.

  Kira broke the kiss and glared at Mari. “Please stop sneaking up on me while I’m kissing Jason.”

  “Maybe you ought to keep your eyes open while you're kissing.”

  “Mother, don’t be disgusting!” Kira paused as a thought hit her. “Did you do that?”

  “During the days when it seemed there was someone around every corner trying to kill us? You bet I did. Your father didn’t mind. He actually thought it was kind of exciting.”

  “I really don’t want to hear that,” Kira told her mother. “Please don’t make this harder than it has to be.”

  “Sorry,” her mother apologized. She looked toward the ships. “Maxim either saw that or will hear about it. You two had better get ready to leave the ship. As soon as we tie up we’re going to Queen Sien’s palace.”

  “We’re going to stay in a palace?” Jason asked.

  “Yes. What’s the matter, Kira?”

  Kira looked out across the city, seeing frequent patches of trees and other greenery rising amid the white walls and red tiled roofs. “Nothing. Except the fact that I spent seventeen years thinking she was my queen, and she wasn’t.”

  “You will be properly respectful, won’t you?” Mari asked.

  “Yes, Mother. I was raised right. I seem to recall you having something to do with that.”

  Her mother’s grasp on Kira’s shoulder was firm, comforting. “And I recall how many times I was barely holding it together, and your father got us through it. And the times your father and I had to go away on…special missions. I know it was hard on you. You turned out so very well, though.”

  Kira put her arm about her mother and they stood there at the rail, watching the Destiny approach the pier. Jason stood nearby, part of the group, yet still separate.

  * * *

  Mari stood at a window looking out and down toward the harbor, remembering when it had been choked with silt and wrecks of ships. “I’m sorry Kira was so formal with you, Sien.”

  Queen Sien came to stand beside her. “She was hurt. I wish there had been a better way. And she is probably very worried about Jason, though like her mother she rarely speaks openly about her deepest worries.”

  “Are we doing the right thing?”

  “Any attempt against Jason will be stopped. And exposing it will make Maxim look incompetent at best, and a fool at the worst. Undermining his position is our best chance to prevent a major war.”

  Mari shook her head, watching the people in the streets below, uncertainty gnawing at her. “What if we’re wrong? What if Maxim decides to go after Kira?”

  “Kira is being protected,” Sien reminded her. “But would Maxim be such a fool? We would easily tie him to the act, and an attack on your daughter could precipitate a war the Empire is not ready to fight. You saw the latest reports from my embassy in Palandur. The Empire has not mobilized. They are not prepared for war.”

  “Maxim can’t be an idiot,” Mari said. “He wouldn’t have gained his position as crown prince if he wasn’t smart as well as ruthless. But smart people can mess up as badly as dumb people, especially if they come to think they’re smarter than anyone else.”

  “If you or Kira are attacked, those Imperial ships will not leave this harbor,” Sien promised.

  “Any new word on what Syndar is doing?”

  “Keeping their heads down. They’ve yet to recover from the losses of twenty years ago, and show no enthusiasm for risking a similar outcome. I never thought to see Syndar showing more wisdom than the Empire. I came up here to tell you that Jason and Kira are going out into the city. There is an army of agents and guards, including Mages, keeping watch on them.”

  “If anything happens to Kira or Jason I will never forgive myself, Sien. I will hang up this job and sail to the western continent and let this world go to blazes.”

  “We’ll have to make sure that doesn’t happen,” Sien said. “I’d miss you.”

  * * *

  Kira walked with Jason, her arm through his, occasionally smiling happily at him, feeling like a fool as she put on a show for the people looking to see, crowds which grew with every lance length they walked.

  Tiaesun was called the Jewel of Tiae, sparkling with fountains and countless gardens large and small and groves of trees set amid the curves and arches common in architecture this far south. Bright white walls and red tiled roofs lined the wide streets of the city. During the decades of anarchy when Tiae was known as the Broken Kingdom the fountains had been dry and broken, the gardens overgrown masses of weeds or barren dirt, the walls cracked and stained from fires, the streets cluttered with trash and debris. In the years since Sien had reforged the Broken Kingdom with the help of Kira's mother and father, Tiaesun too had been reborn. But there were walls amid the rebuilt ones that still displayed scorch marks and the pits of neglect and battle, deliberately left as they had been as a reminder and memorial of what the city had once endured.

  Horse-drawn carts and wagons and individual riders were being diverted to other streets by the city police, but the wide boulevard down which Kira and Jason were walking seemed to grow increasingly narrow as the number of people watching them kept growing. Kira thought the windows looking down on them felt like menacing eyes, potential places for snipers to lurk, while the gardens offered possible places for other attackers to hide in wait. What would it have been like to grow up not having to worry about assassins? Against that backdrop, the smiling faces of the people watching her felt unreal, especially since Kira couldn't really understand why so many people would care about her love life.

  “This really is uncomfortable, isn’t it?” Jason mumbled to her. He tried a return smile that didn’t quite work.

  “Try not to think about all of the people watching us,” Kira said. She smiled again, this time waving to some of the spectators, who waved back excitedly. “When this walk is over and we get back to the palace I am going to go to my room and die of embarrassment,” she said around her smile.

  “I’m a bit w
orried about dying before I get back to the palace,” Jason said, nodding to some of the spectators.

  A voice called loudly from the crowd. “Are you two getting married here?”

  Kira braced herself, locked a smile on her face, and called a reply. “We're still underage!”

  Cheers and applause answered her.

  “Why are they cheering?” Jason mumbled to her.

  “I have no idea,” Kira said, remembering what her mother had “suggested” she and Jason do to cause maximum distress to Prince Maxim. “Jason, we ought to…um…uh…blast it, just kiss me!”

  “Now?”

  “Now!”

  They kissed, Kira trying not to flinch as a loud chorus of whoops sounded from many of those watching. “I'm going to die, Jason. Any minute now.”

  “Is that the jewelry stall we’re supposed to notice and decide to visit?”

  “Oh, blazes, not the jewelry stall.”

  Pretending to spot the stall and urge each other toward it, they walked that way, pausing to look over the rings, bracelets, and earrings on display. Kira realized that the watching crowd had grown silent with anticipation. Like any other girl, she had imagined the first time she went with someone to get jewelry. This wasn’t how she had always dreamed that moment would be like.

  “This would look good on you,” Kira said, touching a ring with a bright blue stone in it. She picked it up, nerving herself, and took Jason’s hand so she could slip the ring onto it.

  The cheers and applause that filled the street startled her so much that she barely noticed Jason picking up a pin with an enameled dragon on it. “A red dragon. That’s appropriate, right? For a dragon slayer?”

  He tried to pin it on her, fumbling so badly with discomfort that Kira worried about the sharp pin sticking her. “Jason, I don’t want to get blood on this nice shirt.” She helped him fasten it, losing herself for a moment in the task, for just that instant getting a romantic vibe from the experience. But that vanished as a new round of cheers erupted and Kira wished the street would open up and swallow her.

  Queen Sien had made a discreet offer to give them the money for the jewelry, but Kira was determined that her first purchase like that would be real even if the event was staged. The customary haggling over the cost didn't feel right, though, so Kira just offered the owner of the stand what she hoped was a fair price.