“Right.” I rolled my eyes at her. “The Great Hall. Yay. Bring on the Great Hall.”
She giggled lightly. “Master Timbago said that you might say something like that. So he told me to tell you that the cook is making eggs in honor of your big day.”
“Because that’s supposed to make everything better.” I rolled out of bed and started tugging off my nightgown.
“Yes, Your Majesty,” she said and then smiled at me.
“Come on, let’s get me ready to go administer some justice. Deal with some land disputes and maybe argue about a pig or two.”
“I heard about your decision on the pig,” Brigitte said. “It was particularly inspired. Telling them that they had to split the pig exactly in half or they both had to forfeit their land in repayment? That was brilliant.”
“Yeah, who said the Bible didn’t occasionally come up with a good idea or two?” I shrugged.
“The what?” she asked.
I picked up my dress from the bed and slid it on before turning so that she could do up the laces. “Never mind.”
Chapter Two
“Okay, so let me get this straight. Because I’m not really sure I know why you’re both here.” I looked first at the farmer standing in front of my throne wringing his hands. Then I turned to the tall, red-haired man standing beside him.
The first guy was big, but the other one had broad shoulders and arms the size of tree branches, and moved like a mountain settling as he shifted from foot to foot. He’d have been creepy except for the scrawny, freckle-faced boy cowering behind him, his own curls standing out against the dark brown of his father’s shirt.
The red-haired man huffed and a short plume of smoke curled out of his nose. Dragons. They were notoriously impatient, and the red dragon clan was the worst from what I’d seen.
“You”—I pointed at the farmer—“have a farm outside Sorcastia, and since it’s the beginning of summer your fields are full of…”
“Wheat.” The farmer glowered at the other man before turning his wrath on the boy. “Wheat that is turned into fine bread for your gracious Majesty’s table. Not that these barbarians would know anything about fine bread or the hard work it takes to grow the crops we eat.”
“Barbarians?” The redhead’s muscles rippled over his chest. “Who are you calling a barbarian, you dirt lover? I am Lavian, son of the great dragon warrior Cathane. I’m the delegate to the Council of Dragos and war chieftain of the red dragon clan. How dare you—”
“Hey.” I turned to him. “Nobody’s daring anybody to do anything. Now, like I was saying, he had a crop of wheat. You took your son out to fly, and you ended up in Sorcastia near his field. What happened next?”
“My son may have let out a few plumes of smoke as he was flying overhead. But accidents happen.”
“Accidents!” the farmer raged. “You call what that boy did an accident?”
“He is learning to manage his transformation. He’s come of age and it’s time he embrace his fire.” Lavian stomped one of his large, booted feet. “It is time he takes his rightful place in our clan. He is a dragon, not a weak child of men. You wouldn’t understand.”
“Careful. That’s the Golden Rose you’re insulting,” Winston said, his voice a low growl.
I turned to see my crown prince, the new head of the Dragon Nations, war chieftain of the black dragon clan, head of the blah blah blah, otherwise known as my boyfriend-slash-official-consort and possibly ceremonial husband. Did he have to be so protective all the time?
Lavian stepped forward and Winston rose swiftly from his seat beside me. His form started to waver between his usual shape—a sixteen-year-old boy with close-cropped black curls and coffee-colored skin—and his other form: a very big, extremely intimidating, black dragon. He didn’t shift completely into dragon form but his point was clear. If Lavian wasn’t careful, he just might end up a piece of charcoal.
“I would—” Lavian started.
Winston’s form wavered again, his blue-black scales visible this time. “Apologize,” he said, his voice cold. “Now. Or your son may not be the only member of your clan cowering in fear before this throne.”
“My apologies,” Lavian said through clenched teeth.
“Right. Sure. It’s fine.” I turned to Winston, trying to project just the right mixture of appreciation for stepping in and back off already, numbskull. Somehow I had to manage the rest of my Hall without two dragons getting into a fistfight. “Isn’t it?”
“As long as he remembers you’re his queen, and that means he either speaks to you with respect or not at all.”
Lavian hissed under his breath and took a step forward. Winston started toward him and I grabbed his jacket, pulling him back.
“It’s fine. Stop showing off your scales and breathing smoke at each other so we can get this figured out,” I snapped.
“My Queen.” Winston shifted fully back to his human form and glared at Lavian, his upper lip curling like the dragon version of a German shepherd. Winston took his role of protector seriously, and while it shouldn’t have made me go all wibbly, I wasn’t embarrassed to admit that it did. Almost as weak-kneed as the few stolen kisses we’d managed since our defeat of the Fate Maker three months ago when I’d reclaimed my throne.
I shook my head and tried to focus on the two men. Now was really not the time to be thinking about kissing, not even really good kissing. Which made me wonder, how the heck did I end up stuck here listening to other people’s problems instead of kissing the boy by my side under the school bleachers?
Oh wait, that’s right, I fell through a book that was actually a magical portal between worlds, watched my friends get turned into magical creatures of myth and legend, was crowned Golden Rose, started a war, and destroyed our only doorway between here and home. That obviously meant I had to spend one day a month dispensing justice in the kingdom as my punishment. Yeah, now I remembered. I resisted the sigh that wanted to escape. Stupid me, I had thought biology class was the worst thing that could happen in my day when I was back in the real world. If only I had known there were things that were way, way worse.
“Okay, so you…” I nodded to the farmer. “You grow wheat. And you…” I swung my finger over to Lavian. “You have a son who needed to learn how to manage his transformation between human and dragon form. None of that tells me why the two of you are here.”
“The barbarian and his son—”
“The dirt lover insulted my honor and—”
“Enough!” I yelled, and then stood, glaring at both of them with my hands on my hips.
“You.” I motioned to the small red-haired boy, and he cowered farther behind his father’s large form. “Come out and tell me what happened. If we let the grown-ups do it we’re all going to die of old age before they ever tell me what’s wrong.”
“He set fire to my crops!”
“What?” I froze, and then whipped my head around to look at the farmer standing in front of my throne. Suddenly this seemed a lot more serious than a couple of guys yelling at each other for the heck of it. “He set fire to your fields? Why?”
“They were barely singed,” Lavian huffed.
“He burned the entire crop. There are scorch marks on the dirt itself. I won’t be able to plant again in that field for at least another season. A year’s planting gone. Another year’s crops lost as well, and he claims they’re barely singed.”
“Do you have any explanation for this?” I asked Lavian sternly.
“It wasn’t intentional,” Lavian said, his shoulders tensed around his ears. “My—”