The most spoilery bits are after the cut. Also, it's not professionally edited yet. Consider it a rough work in progress.
Chapter One
The man standing beneath the Dragon Queen’s wing was not supposed to be there. Granddad Sanderson was the rock on my
father’s side of the family. He’d always projected this aura of the unshakable
truth, an unstoppable force looking for an immovable object. Practicality. But
there’d been a division between Dad and Granddad that ran deeper than just Dad
marrying Mom. There’d been something else. Something that Dad was supposed to
do that he didn’t.
Silly me, I thought, crouching in my battered dragon body. And here’d I’d
thought Granddad wanted Dad to be a doctor.
He stood in the middle of Queen Shoran’s camp. I think humans were
supposed to start looking small to me by now, but he towered over the entire
universe. His hair had grayed out ages ago; it had just enough black left to be
regal. He was weathered and sun-lined. He wore black fighting leathers like
they’d been poured on. Old, but don’t you dare mistake that for weak; he was
whipcord and rawhide and lightning. His
eyes were very cold. They studied me, and a lot of things suddenly fell into
place.
Tommy’s legend about Dragon Queen Shoran’s loyal and valued sand-son, the
man who had betrayed Salthessa’s Abomination to the world. Who had fathered a
family of sand-sons, who had eventually gone to a secret place for safe
keeping. Sand-sons. Sandersons. And
what Salthessa had said all those ages ago rippled through my brain once more: “Joanna Sanderson. What does it mean, I
wonder?”
“It’s just a name.”
My gut went cold, dragon-fire put out for the moment. I’d been singled
out. I’d been chosen from the moment Salthessa heard my name. No. Before that.
When Pentressa, disguised as Mrs. Petersen, my science teacher, called role for
the very first time. The delay between then and our abduction was probably just
verification. She’d want to be sure she
had the right family. Because that’s what we were, weren’t we? We were Shoran’s
blessed Family.
“You’re probably surprised,” Granddad said. He wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“Not really,” I said, dropping my own. I was still breathing hard from
the flight. My wings ached. My back hurt. My feet throbbed from the landing.
But it felt a little like my heart was breaking, and that was the worst of all.
Granddad had always been there for me. For the first time in my life, he
had withdrawn. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t known about the family secret;
sometimes you just can’t forgive betrayal.
Billy and Sam looked from me to Granddad, and back to me. You could almost
see “Tilt” written across Bill’s pupils. He didn’t get it at all. But Sam put her hand on my flank,
where feathers turned to scales. Where I could feel it, warm and weirdly
comforting. “Hello, Mr. Sanderson,” she whispered, and Bill gasped.
“I don’t know you kids,” he said, dully. He was still looking at me.
“I’m Samantha Foster. This is William Bird. We met during school open
house a couple years back.”
His eyes flickered. “Quarterback, right?” Bill nodded. So did Granddad.
He had both kids safely pigeonholed now. “Well, I’m sure you two have been
through a lot. One more meeting, and we can start talking about getting you home.”
And then he looked at me, helplessly. “Come on,” he gestured, and then ducked
into the blue pavilion. The sides moved and breathed like heavy silk. A pattern
of gold dragons curved up and down its sides. Billy followed, and then Sam, and
then it was my turn.
Into the realm of another dragon Queen. Into the claws of Shoran. But she
was the good guy in Talarion’s story, right? She’d be nice.
Right?
It was cool inside. Basins of ice hung in midair, bleeding coolness. Each
chunk was carved, like in Salthessa’s world. Flowers, deer, trees. The
difference was, the real thing was here too. Sort of. Cut flowers. Bonsaied
trees and the real deal in pots human me could have slept in. A gathering of
human women sat in a corner. Not maids or dressers. Not when they were
sprouting that level of armament. They nodded to me, warrior to warrior. Respect,
maybe? I wasn’t sure. Still, it was easier to hold my head up. I met the
dragon-queen’s eyes.
It’s better to be eaten by a tiger,
I thought, and drowning in the gaze of Shoran, Queen of Talendia, I knew
this to be true.
She was like her sister, in that she was snow white, and she wore a crown
and sat with the regal presence of one born to rule. But her eyes were kind. This
haunted me. It still haunts me. Cold as
she looked upon me, but kind. Steel, and frost, and the implacable sense of
avalanche…but kind. As if she knew
everything about me, inside and out. Every bad grade. Every scrap. Every tear.
It was the kind of sympathy that makes you ashamed for needing it. She was also
bigger than her sister. Healthier, but also deeper scarred. Lines ran along her
neck, one after another after another, a ring of scars like a necklace. She
didn’t hide them or wear them with pride. They were part of her. She did not
wear jewelry on her wings but rather an arm-guard that was strapped through the
membrane. It was polished and gleamed wickedly, with points along the edge. Battle
armor.
Once more I thought, her eyes are kind.
“Stand, child.” She said. I did. Panting heavily and inches away from
dropping from exhaustion, but I could do that after this interview. She
considered me for a long moment, then said, “Are you of my sister’s get?”
I dropped my head. “I guess I am.”
Whispers through the tent. Whispers silenced by a quick gesture of
forelimb and wing. “And do you follow her ways?”
“No.” I said. It came out as a growl.
“Why not?” She said.
“Because she kidnapped me. And
my friends and…and my brother…and…and she did this to me.” I pointed at my own chest. My claw made a scraping
sound on the scales; it echoed through the tent.
“You are dragon. A fine and lovely creature, to my eyes. A daughter that
any of us would be proud to name our own…were you not Abomination.”
There. That word. That damning word. It wanted to weigh me down with a
thousand tons, squish me so I would not exist. I picked my head up. This wasn’t
my fault. “I didn’t choose this.” I said.
“And can you prove it, child?” Her blue eyes, without her sister’s flecks
of gold, glared at me until I dropped my head. “I thought not. The punishment
for human bonded is life at Pentalminion, life in the mines of Kenthal, or
death. And as returning you to my sister’s care would merely give her back what
she seeks, it narrows your future quite a bit.”
Whispers threaded through the tent. A lot of humans and no few dragons
had followed us in. Many of them looked at me with deep pity in their eyes. I
hated that look almost as much as I hated Salthessa. Goddamn it, I wanted to scream. You
are the ones who did this to me. All of you are. I don’t even understand why
this is such a big deal.
Shoran shifted, looking from her audience to me, and back. Then her eyes
softened, her voice turned silken. “But perhaps you have one to speak for you
after all. Malangar, my love. You have returned to me.” Her beauty turned
heart-wrenching.
He bowed, and when he came up his eyes were filled with unaccountable
pain. “Faithless and a traitor, I’ve returned. Remade by Salthessa’s arts. And
the fruit of my betrayal stands before you. She is Salthessa’s. And mine.”
The whisper ran through the tent, and I couldn’t stand it. “She drugged
him.” I said.
“Even in rut, one knows loyalty.” Malangar said.
“You wouldn’t have done it if she hadn’t drugged you. Listen, you can’t
blame--” I said. The faces in the room seemed to alternate between disgust and
that hateful, dehumanizing pity. “You can’t—”
“Peace, child.” Her voice was cutting. Angry and hurt…and yet not at us.
Not at either of us. Silence ruled, and it went on. And on. And on. “I knew, my
love.” She said at last. “It was her delight to torment me. To let me know that
you were her belonging. Just as it was her delight that her daughter lived…with
this very soul inside her. She orchestrated my betrayal at every turn, and she
has succeeded masterfully.” She paused. “Tell me of her, my love.” And she
gestured at me.
“The mortal girl was blameless.” Malangar said. “If the word of a traitor
may be believed, hear me well. She had no knowledge of the bonding. She and the
other three thought they would become…partners of dragons. What they called
riders. Apparently this…partnership is a great dream of theirs. And she
resisted.” He shook his head. “She resisted the call of a Kal egg so desperate for life that it nearly drove her insensible.
Salthessa had to bring her to the egg and drop her upon it to force the bonding
to take. And when she and the others fled the castle, she saved the son of
Talarion and brought it to you. She has earned mercy, at the very least.”
“And your name, child?” Shoran asked. As if everyone in the room didn’t
already know.
“Joanna Sanderson,” I answered.
“Your dragon name,” She purred.
“Joanna. Sanderson,” I
insisted. “I’m not a dragon.”
Silence in the tent. The noise of battle outside ebbed and flowed like a
tide. The Dragon Queen nodded. “Innocence in evil-doing does not mitigate evil
done. It only twists the knife in further. Remember this, Joanna, daughter of
the Sandersons.” She paused. There was compassion in her gaze. Enough to make
me hope this could end well. Then she sighed. “It would not be just to kill
you, or condemn you to the mines. But I cannot simply let you go.”
There were nods of agreement around the tent from the dragons and humans
alike. Billy shouted, Sam made a distressed sound, but it got no further than
that. A human in an elaborate coat, probably Shoran’s seneschal, motioned for
our silence.
“The Queen of Pentalminion holds hostage the daughter of our Temple.”
Shoran continued. “Our god must be appeased. And the Priest and Priestess of
Leviathan long for their daughter. The lives of innocent human children lie in
her talons. Joanna Sanderson, your fate will be decided by theirs. If you work
for their rescue, all your heart’s strength in it, and they are returned home
alive, then you will be returned to your home as well.”
That last part brought my head up. The flame in me rose tightly too, as
if I might set the whole world on fire. That’s how hope feels when it goes from
a dull, half-drowned ember to a full born explosive rush.
“But I can’t go,” I said, almost sobbing. “You can’t send me home.” The
fact that I was a dragon seemed pretty obvious. What could I do, other than
recreate Godzilla in every city I visited?
“Then you cannot rescue your friends.” Shoran looked at me. “If you can,
however…if the rescue of your friends did
rest within your power, the chance to return you home would also rest
within mine.”
I dropped my head. My pulse was insane. I didn’t know what home might
mean…but now I understood I was desperate to go. That, however, did not solve
the immediate problem. “And what will happen to us for now?” I asked.
“Malangar will be kept in honor. Your two young human friends will be
kept with him. You, Ison and his sister will be kept as comfortably as
prisoners may. And now, Joanna, I think it best we all retreat for thought.”
She gestured, and we were lead away, we slaves of Pentalminion. We
prisoners. Malangar, Billy and Samantha stayed behind.
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