House of Dragons

by Jessica Cluess

  This time, no snide comments followed Vespir’s tale.

  “How can we be sure it’s not a lie?” Lord Pentri grunted.

  “My lord, you may ask Lord Tiber. I’m sure he’ll have something to say.” Vespir clasped her hands before her breast. “I never wanted to be called to the Emperor’s Trial, and I don’t want the throne. All I’ve ever wanted since Karina’s egg hatched was to be your servant.” A lie, but close enough to the truth. “Please. Help me. If—if you do and I somehow manage to take the throne, I’ll—” She swallowed, trying to unstick her words. “I’ll give up the throne to Ant—to Lady Antonia. I swear it.” She bowed her head to the carpet. “I’ve served you for many years, haven’t I? I could still serve you now.”

  Her heart trammeled wildly as Lord Pentri walked to her. She saw the toes of his shoes.

  “What is your family name, girl?” he asked.

  “Um. Lutum, sir.” Vespir Lutum. Lutum was the Latium, the imperial tongue, for dirt, assigned randomly to her family long ago when the empire came to the grasslands. Vespir had always envied the Caelums next door—the Skys.

  “Vespir Dirt.” Lord Pentri nudged her forehead with the toe of his shoe. Vespir’s eyes watered. “A family of the dragon does not make deals with dirt,” he spat.

  Vespir flinched, waiting for the kick that did not come. His words hurt worse.

  “You took an egg from our rookery. You were gifted a place in the sky for all eternity, a nothing such as yourself, and in return you stole from us.”

  “Not on purpose!” she cried.

  “You stole our daughter. Filth like you placed your grubby hands on her. Peasant trash.” He placed his foot on the back of her head and pressed. Vespir made a frightened noise.

  “Father, stop it!” Antonia cried. He pressed harder.

  “You took her place in the Trial. Death is too good for such thieving scum.” He removed his foot and bent low to her ear. “I only regret wasting a dragon upon a maggot like you. You, make deals with me? Be given my family crest? Never.” He spat in her hair. Bile flooded the back of Vespir’s throat.

  “Get away from her!” Antonia was crying now. Tears flooded Vespir’s eyes as well. She thought of Tavi’s weeping face as the door closed between them forever.

  “What about what you took from me?” she snarled. Lord Pentri gripped her hair and lifted her head. Vespir caught a flash of the lord’s black eyes and furrowed brows before he slapped her across the face.

  “Stop it!” Antonia pulled her father away, and Lord Pentri rounded on her while Vespir’s vision shook.

  “You could have had any noblewoman in our territory, and you chose filth like this? You’re an embarrassment,” he hissed.

  Vespir struggled to her feet, ready to fight him for those awful words. Instead, Antonia shoved her father. Lady Pentri gasped in outrage.

  “You’re the embarrassment, not me!” Antonia howled. Vespir was numb with shock as the Pentri girl ushered her parents from the room. The family’s heated argument grew muffled, and the door shut. Vespir wiped the spit from her hair and centered herself as Antonia came back to her in tears, on a cloud of perfume. And then…and then…

  “I’m so sorry.” Antonia looked up at her, a tear tracking down her cheek. The candlelight turned the tear into a gleaming ribbon.

  “So am I,” Vespir croaked. She did not look down. She did not wait for Antonia to make the first move.

  This moment, them alone together, was the only thing in this world that Vespir wanted any longer.

  She stepped close and cupped the girl’s face. She wiped Antonia’s tears away with her thumb. Then they were kissing, Antonia’s lips soft as silk.

  She clutched at Vespir’s shoulders, gasped when Vespir’s tongue stroked against hers. Vespir was all fire now, all light with this girl in her arms. She trailed kisses along Antonia’s neck. Antonia gave soft, breathy utterances as Vespir pressed kisses to her pulse and then returned to her luscious mouth. Their kiss deepened, the world falling away around them.

  Contentment settled in Vespir’s chest. This was her one wish. Let the Pentri see how much their daughter loved being kissed like this.

  She’d begun this embrace hot with fury, kissing Antonia as much out of spite as desire. But the more they kissed, the more that pain evaporated. The more they kissed, the more Vespir felt as she had at twelve when hiding in the aerie rafters, still weepy after being forced from home. She’d spied on Antonia playing with her dragon hatchling, giggling when the little creature butted its head against her velvet-clad knee. Vespir had forgotten home in that moment; she’d watched a beam of sunlight halo Antonia’s dark hair. Bracelets of amethyst and white jade circled the girl’s slender wrists, clacking merrily as she waved her hands. Vespir’s body felt full just looking at her.

  Tasting her own pulse, Vespir experienced a revelation. The Pentri heir was not a goddess, but a girl.

  And a few brief days ago, when they’d been exercising their dragons down by the river, Antonia had lain beside Vespir on the clay banks with the tall reeds sheltering them, and kissed her. If such a divine girl could love a nothing like her, Vespir thought, then maybe she was worthwhile.

  “Vespir. Vespir.” Antonia peppered kisses on her lips, but then pulled away. She put a hand to Vespir’s cheek. Tears welled in her eyes once more. “I’m…I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault.” Vespir stroked Antonia’s hair, fingered the amethyst pendants dangling from her ears. “We don’t need to worry anymore. They can’t do anything to us now.” She froze with a sudden thought. “Unless they’ve been hurting you?”

  Antonia smiled, wiped her eyes, and shook her head.

  “No. If anything, I’ve been terrorizing them. My parents tried to discipline me, but they just can’t manage it. They never could. I’m their only baby, after all.” Yes, Lady Pentri had delivered five stillborn children after Antonia. Every year, Antonia’s birthday was the cause of massive celebration throughout the Ikrayina.

  Well, Vespir thought that much celebration was only fair. It was Antonia, after all.

  “So you’ve been yelling at them?” Vespir grinned in return.

  “If they so much as mutter your name, I start a lecture. Father eventually had to go flying to get away from me. I trailed him all the way to the aerie.”

  “I wouldn’t want you as my enemy.” Vespir stroked Antonia’s hair.

  “No. I make a much better friend, it’s true.”

  “Oh? Just a friend?” Vespir mock-pouted, then leaned in for another kiss. When it was only the two of them, Antonia and her, Vespir forgot to be afraid. Every tiny thing became a secret shared, another link in the golden chain that bound them together.

  But Antonia turned her face from the kiss, so that Vespir’s lips only brushed her cheek. The girl stepped away.

  “I’ll keep praying for you. I’ll never give up hope.” Antonia settled her shoulders. She sounded earnest, but…distant.

  What?

  “Well, that’s nice of you,” Vespir muttered, slow with surprise. When she advanced, Antonia retreated. A tremor passed through her body. Antonia was…pulling away. Antonia, the sole bright, unwavering spot Vespir had been moving toward since the calling, flickered. The nearer that light came to going out, the more Vespir craved it. “Come here.” Vespir held out her arms. Antonia did not come.

  “I can’t,” she whispered. “Every second I’m with you they’ll get madder. They could try turning more Houses against you.”

  What a joke. Every other House looked down upon Vespir because of her birth. They were as turned away as it was possible to get. Vespir swallowed, thought back to Antonia’s words in the Pentri aerie on the day of the calling. They’d filled Vespir with such fire. Vespir held up her head, repeated those words now.

  “If I know you’re waiting for me, I’ll take
the throne.” She said it with determination. “I’m coming back for you.”

  “Oh. Of course.” Antonia tried smiling.

  All of Vespir’s courage collapsed.

  “You…you believe I will, don’t you?”

  “Yes. Yes, I do.” She was trying so, so hard to lie well.

  She was failing.

  Stunned, Vespir understood. This had to look hopeless, didn’t it? She’d lost the first challenge and was undoubtedly going to lose this one as well. Maybe she had a chance at the Race, but her dragon was the smallest. Size mattered. The fourth challenge, the Truth? What in the depths was that supposed to be? Vespir had no family connections, no book learning, no battle strategy. She had love—love for her dragon, for Antonia…

  Love had nothing to do with victory.

  Antonia would likely never see her again after tonight. She was…

  She was trying to lessen the pain.

  “All right.” Vespir fought to remain still. The world tilted around her as she said, “You should go. My lady.”

  Antonia’s chin trembled at Vespir’s cool tone, and she buried her face in her hands. No, Vespir couldn’t watch her cry. She’d do any wild thing if Antonia would only smile. When Vespir took her wrists, Antonia raised her tear-swollen face one last time. They looked in each other’s eyes, the same way they had when they were thirteen and Antonia had decided that they should. Just in private, of course, she’d said. So we can be friends. To Vespir, it’d been like receiving a priceless gift.

  “I love you,” Antonia whispered. She raced out the door, leaving Vespir alone.

  Alone again.

  Vespir had been forced to trade her family for a dragon. Now she’d be forced to trade love and her dragon both for…nothing.

  She was the empress of losers.

  Vespir fell to her knees and sobbed.

  No one came to check on her.

  Lucian felt the music in his fingertips as he stood against the ballroom’s far wall, ignoring the flurry of dancers in favor of the musicians. As a boy, when swordplay was finished, he would be instructed by his music tutor in the finer points of lute-playing and the dove-pipe. Lucian had spent joyful autumn evenings beside the desert garden noodling with his own compositions.

  The memory was all that could make him homesick now.

  “What are you thinking?” Emilia appeared beside him. She had a habit of popping up and vanishing. She’d fetched two flutes of sparkling wine from a server and handed one to him. Lucian stared disapprovingly into the glass. The Sacred Brothers didn’t ban alcohol, but it was frowned upon.

  “I’m thinking…” He sighed as he gazed down at her pale, upturned face. You’re impossible to keep up with, he wanted to say. First, she emphatically told him they couldn’t be friendly and ran away, and now she showed up to have a drink and a chat.

  Ah well. No need to chase her off.

  “I’m thinking…that Ajax seems to be having a bad night.”

  The Tiber boy stormed along the edges of the ballroom, a dab of crimson amid the silver sea. His scowl was evident from fifty feet away. Wherever he went, looks traveled in his wake, along with smirks. Lucian imagined that Ajax had been shut out of the Houses thus far.

  Undoubtedly, they’d dismissed him for his birth, his height, his age.

  They love to run our lives based upon the things we can’t control.

  “Poor boy.” Emilia frowned. “Even I’ve overlooked him. I made no notes.”

  “Notes?”

  “Er. Cheers.” She clinked glasses.

  “I’m not sure I should drink this,” he said. Not to be rude, but…

  “Please. To being…friends.” She smiled up at him, her shoulders hunching with shyness.

  Lucian raised an eyebrow. “Friends? You had a pretty different attitude last night.”

  “It’s been a difficult few days. I’m not always cognizant of my true feelings.” How could he argue with that? Emilia gave a small smile. “I’m merely glad we don’t hate each other.”

  All the warmth of their years together washed back over him.

  “I could never hate you, Emilia,” Lucian said, and drank. The wine was crisp, a trace of apples and elderflowers amid the spark of alcohol. It warmed his gut instantly. Emilia watched him over the rim of her own drink as Lucian looked back to the ballroom floor. Some of these people he recalled from his family’s trade dealings. There were Lord Marcellus and his lady, who owned many of the vineyards along the southern Ardennes coast; Beckert, the northern merchant making a name for himself in timber, was dancing with his husband; even the Honorable Favonia, an eccentric old woman with marble quarries to spare, was seated by the edge of the ballroom and deep into a cup of wine, fluttering a fan resplendent with massive ostrich feathers and chortling at a joke nobody had made.

  The sight of them enjoying themselves, not a thought given to what was outside these golden walls, made Lucian sick.

  “It’s crowded in here,” he muttered. “Want to step outside?”

  “All right,” Emilia said after a moment’s hesitation. Draining their glasses, they shuffled through the crowd of dancers and made for a pair of latticed windows by the side of the room. They emerged onto a balcony open to the night air, sweet with jasmine. The sky was a tapestry of stars. Lucian exhaled in relief and tugged at his collar. He hadn’t realized how damn warm it had gotten in there. Side by side, Emilia and he stared onto the moon-silvered lawn.

  Lucian glanced at the girl. She was rubbing her arms with the night’s chill, but she appeared distant.

  “Cold?” he asked.

  “Mmm.”

  He unclasped his blue velvet cape and slung it around her shoulders. Emilia started, but wrapped the thing close.

  “You’re warm. Thank you.” She huddled, an island unto herself.

  “Emilia?” He had to ask. “Did something happen to you?” She didn’t respond in any way, only kept her gaze on the rolling lawn. “I should’ve written.”

  “You couldn’t have helped,” she said softly.

  So. Something had happened.

  “What was it?”

  “I got a little sick,” she muttered, and shrugged.

  “If there’s anything you want to tell me, you can.”

  Finally, she looked at him, her white fingers playing at the edge of his cloak.

  “You’ve always been good, Lucian.” She spoke with such simplicity—as if his goodness were as indisputable a fact as gravity. Lucian wanted to correct her. You’re wrong. Goodness doesn’t exist. Only power, and guilt.

  But he didn’t want to argue. Instead, they glanced at the sky, much as they had as children. He remembered summer nights sprawled out on the Aurun castle lawn, naming constellations and speculating about which stars were the dragons of old and their heroic riders.

  That was the end and glory of a rider: to die, be eaten by your dragon, and then fly up to the firmament to live in eternal glory.

  Glory. Heroes. Lucian’s mouth quirked, and he laughed.

  “What?” Emilia sounded baffled.

  “Remember this?” Clearing his throat, he spoke in a deep voice. “Upon the waves the boat did sail, a storm’s embrace uproarious / Did soon allow Lord Lucian to demonstrate valor glorious.” Chuckling, he looked at her.

  Recognition lit her eyes. Her mouth twitched. “ ‘The Ballad of Lord Lucian and the Adventure of the Petunia.’ How could I forget?”

  When they were ten, Lucian, Dido, and Emilia had all gone boating by themselves without telling her parents, stealing a schooner called the Petunia. At sea, a sudden squall had nearly capsized the boat, and only Lucian’s clear head had allowed them to make it back to the harbor. Though they’d all been soundly punished, Emilia’s parents begrudgingly allowed her to present her epic fifteen-page poem (with illustrations) detailin
g Lucian’s heroism at dinner. Emilia had taken certain liberties—Lucian hadn’t fought a sea serpent, and the Great Dragon Himself hadn’t come down out of the sky to bless the children with His wisdom—but it had captured the spirit of the experience.

  “Oh, it’s the greatest thing I’ve ever read.” Lucian grinned. He was so happy right now; the stars above appeared to smile back upon him. “That epic poem on the sack of Troia doesn’t give nearly as much loving detail.”

  “Or bizarre rhymes.” Emilia giggled, rubbing her forehead. “Did I really try to pair unctuous with punches?”

  Lucian tilted his head back and laughed. He loved laughing! What a perfect night.

  “When I was on campaign, I’d pull out the copy you gave me and read it.” Even memories of warfare could not hurt him now. “Your writing made me feel…” He searched for the right word. “Heroic.”

  “I’m sorry.” Emilia touched his arm. He felt the touch like lightning. “Sorry that you didn’t have anything better to read.”

  “Something I didn’t realize until this Trial started.” Lucian rubbed his face; spots were whirling in his vision now. He staggered, but Emilia supported him. “I want to feel heroic again.”

  Emilia put a hand to his chest to help steady him. Lucian kept his arm hooked around her shoulders. It felt good to hug her again. Good to be friends. She was softer than he’d remembered, wonderfully so. Her hair smelled like rose petals.

  “Thanks, Emi.” He slurred her old childhood nickname. “Sorry to, ah, lean on you.”

  “No. I’m the one who’s sorry.” She sighed.

  She had nothing to be sorry for, because she was so good and sweet and kind and smart and…and…

  The bushes rustled, and Ajax popped up between them. He crawled onto the balcony, while Lucian threw himself backward with a curse.