Page 44 of Dragon Heir

“It must be so strange for you. I mean, to me she is simply mother—my dear mother whose love I enjoyed since I was a hatchling. To you she’s a stranger. You don’t even know her. You don’t know anything of the court.”

She’s clearly implying that she knows everything about being queen, while I know nothing. She’s not wrong. I glance from one of my guards to the next, then my ladies. But they’re all stone-faced and offer no help.

“I hear that was to protect me,” I say at last. My chest has been heating with annoyance, but as soon as I say these words, the anger dies, replaced by shame. I shouldn’t sink to this girl’s level. As much as I could deny the undercurrent to my words, when I say that the queen protected me, I am pointing out that she did not protect her. The Sun King found Shynia and kept her hostage. Who knows the terror of living through that. If Shynia is insulted though, she hides it well with her dimples and cold eyes.

“I’m actually here to call on mama.” With a haughty tilt of her chin, she settles her skirts and grins. “She likes to keep me close as I’m next in line for the throne. You know. In case anything were to happen to you—say you fell down a well or were trampled by a carriage while out there amongst humans being protected. So I’m already well versed in the ways of the queen. Just in case.”

I know a veiled threat when I hear one, and as overwhelmed as I might be, I’m not going to run away or let her intimidate me. Before I can say anything back, though, Pax’s hand presses reassuringly against my lower back as he steps closer to me. “I’m Vynessa’s lifelong guard,” he says. “When the queen’s powers began to wane, I trained to join her royal guard here at court. I would die to protect her.”

Fuck.

I want to step in front of Pax to shield him from my sister’s gaze. As perfectly polite as Shynia is being, she has some serious “die, bitch,” vibes going, and I don’t want her or her guards’ attention anywhere near Pax.

“How adorable you are,” Shynia says with a disdainful look at my friend and protector. “But I suggest you continue your training for another hundred years or so before you attempt to protect a queen. I have six full-time, pureblood, combat-trained adult guards in my employ. I doubt very much a newly trained, teenage halfling provided any protection at all to the heir. She was merely invisible—and very lucky.”

Pain and anger crosses Pax’s expression, and one of my ladies hisses in a breath at the insult as well. For my part, I want to claw the bitch. Fury burns through my veins. Pax might be low born in their eyes, but we love each other, and when it comes to protecting someone, that has to count for at least as much as being born with a type of blood in your veins that you had no control over.

I can’t imagine Shynia’s highly trained guards are loyal to her out of love. Actually, I can’t imagine anyone loving this literal ice princess.

“Pax is my guardian,” I say. “For life. I’m not going to replace him now that I’m at the palace. If anything, I’ll keep him even closer. I’m not sure what authority I have over you, sister, but you’re not going to insult Pax in front of me again.”

She gives a smirk and lets her eyes fall to where his hand is still resting protectively on my back. “Whatever you say, Vynessa. Keep your lowborn consort with you if it makes you happy. The queen has had many over the centuries. They pass the time. Just make sure he doesn’t get too excited and spike you—if he does, you’ll end up with one less lover and a wasted egg.”

I have no idea what she’s talking about, but I notice that she doesn’t use my title but addresses me as an equal… Or less. I also notice the warmth in my cheeks at her words, which irritates me beyond measure. Pax must notice too because he quickly drops his hand and steps back into place, his face frozen in an expressionless mask.

“Who I do and don’t spike with is none of your business.” I have no idea what I’m saying, but it sounds badass, so I grin a little maniacally at her.

“I’m going to assume that you’re joking because who spikes you is everyone’s business.” I know that her façade of politeness is fraying when she openly rolls her eyes. A blonde strand of hair comes loose from her updo, and she pushes it back with an almost violent force. “You take this very lightly, which is surprising after you spent your entire life in hiding from the Sun King,” she snaps. “He crushed many of our siblings. You were lucky. The queen’s errand boy snuck out a few of her eggs during the attack on the palace centuries ago. If he hadn’t, neither of us would be here.”

“Then I guess we were both lucky,” I say. “And I wasn’t hiding. I was hidden. I didn’t even know I came from an egg.”

She scoffs. “Good thing that errand boy guarded your egg for five hundred years until you were ready to hatch, moving it all around the world—or so the story goes.”

“And as soon as I ‘hatched,’ I was hidden with humans who raised me, fully believing that I was their own daughter,” I say, my throat aching a little at the thought of my parents. They feel a world away now.

Shynia’s eyes move to my side, fixing on True. Her sudden annoyance is replaced by a flash of recognition. “It was you, wasn’t it, Captain True?” she asks, her tone accusatory. “I’ve seen you with the queen many times over the years, whispering secrets, and now you’re by the heir’s side. You were the one who hid her egg.”

True’s head dips almost imperceptivity, but I can’t tell if it’s a nod or a bow. His ghostly blue eyes never waver, staying that pale, frost color that’s as impenetrable as arctic ice.

I turn to him. “You? You hid me for five hundred years?”

He straightens. “Yes, your majesty.”

I was hatched from an egg. I still can’t believe it. Until a couple days ago, I’ve always been human, and the fact that I’m not keeps smacking me upside the head with a new wave of disbelief. I shake it away and try to stay grounded in this moment, in what’s happening with the porcelain bitch.

“Why didn’t you become queen?” I ask her. “Why me and not you?”

“Master Sinetar,” Shynia grits out, her jaw clenching as she looks down at her nails, encrusted with jewels and sharp as blades. “How can she not know this?”

“You’re the strongest heir,” Master Sinetar says to me. “You have the purest dragon blood of all the surviving children. Therefore, fate chose you to be the next queen, not Shynia. And so it is.”

I still don’t get it. The dragon world had a perfectly capable queen for years, just sitting here at court, waiting to become queen, and they saved the position for some dumb egg. Then I hatch and eighteen years later, poof, I’m queen. It makes me wonder how long Shynia actually spent in the Sun Court. I assumed that she’s eighteen or so, like me, but shifters don’t age for centuries.

“There are many theories to why one princess hatchling supersedes another,” Shynia says with a sniff, sounding almost bored. “Perhaps you have the purest dragon blood of all the surviving children, like your tutor says, or perhaps your magic developed the strongest and most royal because of whichever prince happened to fertilize your egg during that mating cycle for the queen.”

“So, after True saved our eggs, we were separated in case he was caught,” I surmise. “He kept watch over mine. Where was yours? Did you grow up in the ice kingdom with your father?”

She scoffs. “My father? How pedestrian.”