Chapter 7 Queen Mother
SERAPHINA
Aldric's response to Budd is uncharitable.
"Is that so?" He fixes the messenger with a look of mild contempt. "Something so pressing that she couldn't even trouble herself to tell her little errand boy the details? If she won't be clear about what she wants, I don't see why I should be in any hurry."
Budd receives this without flinching. "The Queen Mother indicated it was a matter of confidence, my king. It would not be my place to inquire further."
What a performance. Aldric's internal voice is bright with sarcasm. Fine. I'll go and see what theater she's prepared for me this time.
"Where is she?" he asks aloud.
"She rose not long ago, my king. She is in Dowager Hall."
"Lead the way."
He turns to go, then pauses at the door and glances back at me. "You. With me."
Verna catches my eye before I clear the kitchen doorway. The look she gives me needs no translation: good luck, and don't drag me into whatever follows.
I walk three paces behind Aldric, head down. I try to probe Aldric's mind for the reason behind his rift with the Queen Mother, but he isn't thinking about that. He's currently thinking about me.
This little creature is nothing like the others. The ones who fear me are useless. The ones who want something from me are worse. This one just does her work. Occasionally she goes blank on me entirely. If everyone in this castle were that oblivious, no one would have the wits left to scheme.
I nearly miss a step.
He thinks my silence and dullness are evidence of a simple mind.
Well, it is, perhaps, the best possible misunderstanding. If he believes I am harmless because I am slow-witted, then I will be the most reliably slow-witted person in this entire fortress. I can work with this.
I am still working through these when Aldric stops walking.
Unnoticed, I walk directly into his back.
The impact is not dramatic, but it is undeniable. I stagger half a step and look up to find him looking down at me, expression unreadable.
My knees begin to bend before my mind has finished forming the thought, and I am already on the floor, mouth open with an apology that comes out in a single breathless rush.
Oblivious, I hear. Utterly oblivious. Can't even walk a corridor right.
A short exhale through his nose. "Wait out here."
He steps through the entrance ahead of us, and the door closes behind him.
I remain kneeling for a moment, purely because my legs have not yet agreed to cooperate. Then I straighten, press my hands flat against my thighs, and take stock of where we are. Dowager Hall. We have arrived.
The guard stationed nearest to me shifts his weight and glances over. "You all right?"
I look at him. Young, broad-shouldered, with the faint dark scaling along his forearms that marks him as half-blood. His expression is genuinely curious.
"Calder," he offers, when I don't respond immediately. "I'm on rotation here. You're new to Dragonhold, aren't you?"
"New enough," I tell him.
He nods. "Does that happen often? The running into him part?"
"First time."
"Could've been worse," he observes. "We heard that any woman who touches the king ends up dead. Looks like today's your lucky day. He didn't punish you."
"Maybe the king just thinks I'm too stupid to be worth the effort."
There is a beat of silence. Then Calder laughs, and one of the other guards nearby turns away to hide a similar reaction.
I pay them no mind. I have more pressing things to think about.
Yesterday's courtyard.
I did not stay long enough to see what happened after Aldric lost control. Did he turn into a dragon or not?
The accounts I grew up hearing about dragon-kind described the dragon form as an extension of the self. Larger, stronger, more dangerous, but still recognizably the same mind underneath. A dragon lord who transformed was still a dragon lord. He simply had scales.
Aldric does not match that account.
What I witnessed in the courtyard was not a larger version of the cold, sardonic man who just saw me as dull. It was something else entirely. The thoughts I heard were stripped of everything except killing intent. Like a wounded, frenzied beast.
I think about the way Mira spoke about meat, the flatness in her voice when she told me to put the pork joint back. I think about the way Aldous positioned himself between Aldric and everyone else in the courtyard, ordering the guards to move.
They know exactly what triggers this, and they have built an entire infrastructure around preventing it.
Which means there are rules.
I do not know all of them yet. But I am beginning to understand the shape of it: no uninvited contact, no deliberate provocation. Those two feel certain. As for the meat, I am still not sure whether it connects to what happens when he loses control.
What I can commit to is this: Whatever it takes, I will not be the thing that wakes the Beast.
ALDRIC
Jeannie does not bother with pleasantries.
"Three handmaids dead in the span of a fortnight," she opens, before I have fully crossed her threshold. "The elders are asking questions."
"I don't slaughter without cause. The women who died made their intentions clear. I simply responded in kind." I take the chair across from her without being invited to sit. "Is this why you summoned me? To review my household decisions?"
She pivots without acknowledging the question. "Your court is full of eligible women, both human and dragon-blood, and you have touched none of them. The other noble houses are looking for instability, Aldric, and an empty succession line is the most legible kind."
Her consistency is impressive. She has been delivering variations of this speech for three years.
"Jeannie." I keep my voice level. "My father found you useful enough to keep around and give a title to. That does not make you my mother. It does not give you standing in my household decisions. And it certainly does not make your concern for my bloodline anything other than concern for your own position."
Color rises in her face. "I am concerned for the future of this entire realm."
"You are concerned for the faction that loses its foothold the moment I produce an heir who owes nothing to your network." I lean forward slightly. "Not one of those women you'd have me take to my bed was chosen without your approval."
"You have no one," she snaps. "Except a body count and a reputation that frightens off anyone who might otherwise be useful to you."
I stand. She flinches.
I lower my voice and demand, "Didn't you know why I have become like this?"
Her expression shifts from calculated pressure to something that looks, briefly, like genuine alarm.
I step closer.
"I understand now," I snarl, feeling the dragon-fire surge through my veins, my muscles thickening, the fabric of my robes pulling taut. "You want the throne? Show me what you've got!"
