“The shame,” a voice said from deep inside that hooded robe. “The shame of seein’ me own kin getting bounced around like toys by this bit of a lizard.”
Brigida the Foul, a more than nine-hundred-year-old Cadwaladr Elder, glared up the stairs at Ailean. Her hood finally fell back, revealing a human face that had been through much over the years and long, white hair. Not the white hair of age—Brigida had been blessed by the gods with that mane of hair since hatching. She was one of the rare White Dragonwitches and feared—for good reason—throughout the Southlands and beyond.
Everyone, even the Cadwaladrs, kept waiting for her to die . . . but she simply wouldn’t. She wouldn’t!
“Hello, Great-Aunt Brigida,” Shalin cheerfully greeted. “What a surprise to see you here. It’s been much too long.”
“Always so cheery, now that you’ve got the idiot here plowing ya on the regular.”
Addolgar’s mother smiled in the face of that appalling insult and said, “Would you like me to show you an available room? I think your favorite is—”
“Quiet, girl! With all that chattering! It annoys me.” Brigida glanced at the still-struggling Braith. “Who is this?”
Ailean opened his mouth, but Brigida cut him off with a curt, “I’m talking to the boy.”
Addolgar realized she was talking to him. “Uh . . .” Addolgar cleared his throat. “This is Braith of the Darkness.”
“Who is her kin, boy? I care not for her name.”
“She’s a Daughter of the House of Penarddun.”
His great-great-aunt made a sound that some generous soul might call a laugh. “Well then . . . that explains so much.”
“She’s here under my protection, Great-Aunt.”
“Is she?” Brigida sneered. “Well, you’re doing a bang-up job since she just beat up your kin and almost walked out of here to wherever she was headed.”
“It’s all a misunderstanding. I just need time to speak to her. So could you please . . . unhinge?”
“You’ll need some chains,” she replied.
“Chains?”
Brigida lifted her fist, and Braith’s body rose from the ground at the same time. Then Brigida dropped her fist hard and Braith slammed into the ground, knocked out completely from the impact.
Poor thing. If she wasn’t being thrown into trees or attacked by his kin, she was being mystically flung to the ground by his old, terrifying great-great-aunt.
It was really going to be impossible to talk to Braith in a rational, calm manner after all this.
Addolgar looked at his father. “Uncle Arranz leave those chains of his around?”
“Check our room, dear,” Shalin suggested. A suggestion that had Addolgar and Brigida staring at her while his father grinned and gazed off across the courtyard. Shalin’s pale, freckled face flushed a deep, extremely bright, red.
His poor mother lifted her skirt so it didn’t drag on the ground and quickly said to Brigida, “Why don’t I get your room ready, Great-Aunt?” She spun and practically ran off.
Brigida shook her head at Ailean, her white hair whipping around her brutally scarred face. “Another poor female you’ve turned into a whore, Ailean the Slag.”
Ailean didn’t have the decency to be a little humble. Instead, his grin stretched into an outright leer and the old witch sucked her tongue against her teeth before slowly walking up the stairs, refusing Addolgar’s offer of assistance.
“Get your bit of lizard, Addolgar the Cheerful. Let’s get her secured before she wakes up and tears the walls of this ridiculous place down around us.”
And based on what Addolgar had already seen . . . Braith was the one dragon who could do just that with very little effort.
Oh, and as for his battling kin? They were already starting to wake up, which meant the complaining would come soon enough because none of them liked to lose. Especially when they lost to a bloody royal.
Chapter 6
Braith opened her eyes and screamed at what hovered above her, “Gods! Death comes for me!”
The horrifying face of death curled its lip at her and growled, “Well, that’s charmin’.” Death sat back in its chair, hands resting on its knees. “This face is not me fault, ya know?” Death looked off, thought a moment. Its finger traced one of the deep gouges across its jaw. “This one actually is kind of me fault.” She pointed at the other side of her face, where part of her chin was missing. “And this one. A bit of barney at the pub.”
Braith studied the beast sitting next to her bed. There were so many scars on that face and neck. Gouges. One eye was crystal blue, but the other was a milky white and grey. But that was the eye she felt saw beyond scale and flesh to soul . . . so that it could steal it right from the body.
“What are you?”
That milky white and grey eye quickly locked on Braith, the blue one slowly coming along for the ride, sizing her up. “Don’t you mean who am I?”
“No.”
Those disturbing eyes narrowed and that damaged top lip curled. But before further words were spoken, the bedroom door pushed open and Addolgar—that idiot!—rushed in.
“What’s going on?”
“She asked me what am I.”
Addolgar’s brown eyes widened in what appeared to be panic.
“I’m sure she didn’t mean that,” he said quickly. “It was . . . it was the hit on her head,” he offered, nodding desperately at Braith. “She’s mad from that. You should ignore her.”
Death growled a bit, then stood. “I’ll be downstairs with your father,” it told him as it slowly made its way across the room. “Sort this out, boy. The Cadwaladrs don’t need anyone’s problems but their own. Understand?”
“I do.”
“Good.”
Death walked out of the room, slamming the door behind it and Addolgar let out a breath, shoulders slumping, arms hanging down.
“What the hells was that thing?” Braith demanded. “Why are you sending death to my room?”
Addolgar glanced back at the door, his hands lifting, indicating for her to keep her voice down. “That was not death,” he whispered. “That was our Great-Aunt Brigida.”
“Brigida? Brigida the Foul?” He nodded. “I thought she was dead.”
Addolgar shook his head and whispered, “She just won’t die.”
“I heard that, boy!” Brigida’s voice rang down the hall, and Addolgar’s pale human face turned paler. Braith did find it disturbing someone that old could hear a whispered comment behind a thick wooden door, but honestly, at the moment, Braith had other issues to deal with.
“Addolgar?”
He looked up at her, tried to smile. “Aye?”
She lifted her hands. “What are these?”
“Chains.”
“Why am I wearing them?”
“To protect you from yourself.” He seemed to calm down, his uncomfortable smile turning bright and cheerful. “See? I’m here to take care of you!”
Braith sighed. “Addolgar the Cheerful . . . you are such an idiot.”
Addolgar walked across the room and sat on his bed. The bed that Braith of the Darkness was currently on. She looked surprisingly cute on his bed, wearing his shirt and his uncle’s chains, and sporting that big lump on her forehead.
“I know you’re angry,” he told her.
“You threw me into a tree.”
“I had to.”
“You had to? And why did you have to do that?”
“Because if I’d stopped to discuss the situation with you instead, Braith, we’d still be there . . . talking. I didn’t have time for that. I didn’t know if your brothers would be coming back to look for you or if I’d be strong enough to fight them.”