“Sounds good,” she said slowly. “What is it?”
“I am suggesting, my Queen… that you and I marry.”
Chapter 16 - Seth
It took Seth longer than he was happy with to readjust to the rhythms of pack life. There was no shortage of work to do, and that should have been enough to keep his mind occupied. It always had been in the past. But no matter what he did, his mind just kept straying back to Lana. Every time he looked into the sky, he searched for dragonwings, hopeful that he might catch even a distant glimpse of her. Every time he patrolled the forest, he remembered the night they’d met, the way he’d led his patrol straight off the path and to her rescue.
Not that they were patrolling those paths any longer. After a tense few days, during which he’d taken on the lion’s share of the perimeter patrols, the pack had voted to put a temporary halt to patrols on the trails that encircled the valley, marking the delineation between the forest and the Fog. It had been a somber occasion, the vote, and nobody had seemed especially happy with the result. Seth understood. Neither option here was a particularly positive one. Put an end to an ancient and hallowed tradition, or continue to risk the lives of the pack?
But he felt a little better at least, knowing that when he sent out patrols each day he wasn’t sending them into danger. And as the weeks crept by, the plan seemed to be having its intended effect. No more disappearances were reported, each patrol returning at the end of their shift with cautious smiles of relief. But the anxiety in the pack hadn’t been banished, only put at bay for the time being. Seth knew that he wasn’t the only one just waiting with bated breath for the next disappearance.
He kept thinking about the dragons, too—and not just because he was missing Lana so sorely (a detail he didn’t share with his advisors.) The fact that they too had experienced the mysterious disappearances was weighing on his mind, and as the weeks passed and the sting of the insult receded, he began to wonder if it had been a mistake to storm out of the Palace so abruptly. It had been a slight and no mistake—his pack agreed with him there—but had he let his personal feelings interfere with his judgment? It hadn’t been shifter relations that had made him want to rip Conrad’s throat out that day, after all… it was the feeling that he’d been betrayed by Lana. By his lover.
If anyone noticed that their Alpha was more withdrawn and preoccupied recently, they didn’t mention it. Easy enough to ascribe his moods to his worry for his pack, the ongoing mystery of the disappearances. A few times, he discussed the prospect of sending a letter to the dragons, a formal inquiry about their own disappearances… any information, at this point, would have been valuable. But his advisors were all reticent about making contact. After all, the last time wolves had approached the Plateau, they’d been all but taken prisoner. As Alpha, Seth couldn’t risk being taken by the dragons again, hostage or guest … and he wasn’t willing to put any of his wolves in danger by sending them in his place.
So it was a shock when one day, a few months after their ordeal at the mountain, the unmistakable shadow of dragonwings fell across the village. Seth had just emerged from his own quarters to stretch his legs after a morning of meetings. He’d had a long, troubling dream the night before about dragonwings, and for a disorienting moment he was sure he was seeing things. But no—the other wolves around him were looking up, murmuring their concern, more than a few of them shifting instinctively into their wolven forms.
But the dragon didn’t stay long. It winged its cautious way down towards the settlement, scanning the ground for something. For a worried moment, Seth wondered if the dragon was doing reconnaissance, committing the layout of the village to memory in preparation for an attack. Could Lana have been that offended by their abrupt departure? But then he realized it was simpler than that. The dragon couldn’t find a place to land. Understandable, too—wolves had always built their cottages with a minimum of disturbance to the natural landscape, and the paths between their homes were still crowded with thick, tall trees.
Seth’s pack gathered behind him, watching the dragon’s difficulty with a mixture of amusement and wariness. Finally, seeming to grow frustrated, the creature flared its wings and dug its talons into a tall, thick tree that stood in the middle of the village. Seth winced at the shower of bark the dragon’s claws sent flying, the wood of the tree creaking ominously… but it stayed up, and the dragon scrambled carefully down the tree until it was within a few feet of the ground.
Seth approached cautiously, wondering if the creature needed to be helped down from the tree. There were no diplomatic practices to fall back on here. At no point in history had a dragon been known to visit the wolf settlement directly. He’d scanned his pack’s entire ancestral memory and found nothing but a series of stiff meetings on the Plateau. If it wasn’t for the fact that the dragon was alone—or for the awkward care it had taken to land—he’d have assumed this was a hostile move.
“Greetings,” he called up to it, unsure of how exactly to proceed. He couldn’t exactly welcome the dragon… the truth was, it wasn’t welcome here at all. But the dragon didn’t seem inclined to listen to pleasantries. Clinging to the tree with one talon, it extended the other towards him, and Seth saw a fabric bundle tethered to the creature’s foreleg by thick canvas rope. The dragon shook its talon, a little impatiently, and he reached out to grasp the bundle in both hands. With a quick twist of its forearm, the dragon angled its talons to slice through the rope that was binding the bundle, and Seth caught it as it dropped into his arms. Satisfied that its delivery was complete, the dragon scrambled straight up the tree and hurled itself into the sky, the breeze from its great wings sending leaves and torn fragments of bark flying.
The pack watched it fly back towards the distant peak of its mountain home, and Seth knew he wasn’t alone in feeling completely mystified by the encounter. Once the dragon was out of sight, Seth’s attention turned to the bundle of fabric in his arms… though a few wolves were circling the tree instead, making sounds of dismay as they took stock of the deep gouges the dragon’s talons had left in its trunk.
“It’s a letter,” he said, eyes rising to meet his mother’s—she’d been one of the first wolves at his side when the dragon had appeared, high above the village. He could still feel the tension in her, knew that she’d been readying herself for a fight. He shivered a little, aware that it was his mother who’d passed down to him the memories of their ancestors who’d actually gone toe to toe with dragons in battle. Those weren’t scenes he enjoyed revisiting… but like the rest of his pack’s history, he knew it was his duty to keep every memory alive, good and bad.
“Why write to us?” That was his father, returning to them after circling the tree a few times to assess the damage. “Why not simply speak their message—or flag down a Plateau patrol? There’s a reason we send them.” Once a day, a patrol passed close enough to the Plateau to check whether a dragon was waiting there with a message. Seth had taken more than a few shifts on that particular patrol himself, hoping against hope that there might be some message from Lana waiting… but every day, the Plateau had remained stubbornly empty.
“Intimidation.” His mother folded her arms across her chest. Age may have silvered her hair and taken some of the raw strength from her body, but Seth could still see the warrior spirit burning in her, stronger than ever. “They’re proving they know how to find us.”
Seth frowned, pulling the ornately decorated envelope from the bag that had clearly been there for the sole purpose of protecting the envelope from being buffeted or torn by the journey. Typical draconic pageantry—what an impractical method of communication. He tore the wax seal on the back of the envelope, recognizing the seal as having something to do with the Palace. His mother and father were standing close, and he could feel the watchful eyes of the rest of his pack on him, too, so he fought hard to keep his expression neutral, to hide the way his heart was pounding in his chest. Could this be what he’d been dreaming about for months? Had Lana finally reached out to him?
Inside the envelope was a thick bundle of pages, each covered in dense lines of thick, looping handwriting. Seth narrowed his eyes as he worked to decipher the text. Wolves didn’t have much use for reading and writing. They learned the skill as children, of course, but it was generally considered a lesser method of preserving information. Anything truly important was stored away in the pack’s ancestral memory, safe from interference or misinterpretation. Writing was useful for casual communication and frivolous storytelling. Seth mostly used it to leave messages in way stations for future patrols.
Dragons were different, though. Dragons had to store their collective wisdom this way—they lacked the wolves’ natural abilities, something Seth had always pitied them for. But as he worked his way through the overly verbose letter, pity was the furthest thing from his mind.
“Well?” his father prompted him, his impatience finally getting the better of him after Seth had stood in silence for a moment or two.
“It’s a formal apology,” he explained, his voice sounding like it belonged to someone else entirely. “For not inviting us to the coronation. They hope we’ll accept this invitation as a gesture of goodwill… as well as access to some of their records, to make amends for our last visit.”
“This invitation?” his father asked. Seth cleared his throat and pulled a stiffer piece of parchment from the envelope, even more intricately decorated than the envelope.
“To the Royal Wedding,” he said. “It seems the Queen is marrying the Prince.”
And as he spoke the words aloud, he felt his heart crack right down the middle.
Chapter 17 - Lana
The whole cavern was abuzz. She’d missed a lot of the excitement associated with the planning of the coronation, largely due to having no idea what was going on… but as both Queen and royal bride, Lana was well and truly a part of the wedding planning. The whole thing felt profoundly unreal… which actually helped, in the end. She could immerse herself happily in planning sessions and meetings, safe and sound in the curious sensation that none of it actually had anything to do with her. This was some game they were playing, some elaborate play-acting exercise. She wasn’t actually gettingmarried.
She and Conrad had stayed up all night discussing it. They’d had to, after her initial reaction to his proposal had involved spraying her sip of wine all over the table. The stains still hadn’t quite come out—she noticed them every time she visited his office. The wedding, he’d made it clear, was a political alliance, not necessarily a romantic one. There were hundreds of unions just like it in the history of the dragons of the Peak—and not just among royalty. Warring factions were often brought together by a strategic alliance like this one, political disagreements often put aside by a well-chosen match. Whether or not the dragons involved were actually soulmates wasn’t relevant.
“Though there are some happy coincidences in that regard,” he’d added there, almost too casually, and Lana hadn’t missed the way he carefully avoided her eyes.
He’d offered her as much time as she needed to think about it. It had been close to dawn at that point, and she’d thanked him for not pressuring her… but what good would more time to think do? He’d laid it out with incredible care. It all made perfect sense. Conrad had been running things here for decades. Every dragon in the cavern trusted his judgment, valued his prudence and his caution. They had great respect for the prophecy, of course, and respected Lana’s right to her throne—but they were worried about her, worried that she was new to the role, that she was impetuous and eccentric, that she didn’t know them well enough to lead them effectively. Together, she and Conrad were the perfect royal pair. Her vision, his execution. Her passion, his order. Like two wings, Conrad said, spreading his hands to demonstrate—each working as one to carry the dragon aloft.