Realm of Dragons

***

Nerra was… broken. Everything in her felt fragmented and splinter sharp right then. She stared at her sleeve. She couldn’t even remember how it had come undone. She thought someone had snagged it in the dancing, but that didn’t even matter. All that mattered was that people had seen her, seen all that was wrong with her.

“I shouldn’t have been there,” she said.

Beside her, Rodry reached out to hug her, hesitated, and that was all that was needed to make Nerra cry. He did hug her then, but it was too late.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“It’s not you who needs to be sorry, it’s me,” Lenore said. “I shouldn’t have insisted that you come to the feasting. If you hadn’t been there, they couldn’t have done this.”

“I wanted to,” Nerra managed. “But this… I don’t know what to do.”

“We’ll get Father to change his mind,” Lenore said. “I’ll…”

“There’s nothing you can do,” Nerra insisted.

“There has to be.” Lenore held her out at arm’s length. “We’ll find a way. I’m going to have you there at my wedding, you understand?”

Nerra managed a smile at that. “Anything to get me there.”

“Anything,” Lenore said. “But also anything to make sure I don’t lose my sister.”

“We’ll find a way to help you,” Rodry agreed. “Whatever it takes.”

***

Godwin sat in his chambers, waiting for his children to come to him. To his surprise, Greave was the first of them, rushing in with more anger and energy than he had ever seen in the boy.

“You’re going to send Nerra away?” Greave demanded, bringing his hands down on the desk behind which Godwin sat. The king looked up at him, seeing far too much of his mother in him, the pain of that making it impossible to simply talk to his son.

“Do not presume to lecture me,” Godwin said. “Not on this.”

“If not on this, then on what?” Greave demanded. “The law books hold all kinds of loopholes. I could find one—”

“And then what?” Godwin demanded. “What do you think it will look like if we do that?”

“You’re concerned about how things look?” Greave demanded. “Do you even care about your family at all?”

Godwin stood, towering over his son. “I care more than you could ever understand, locked away in your library, learning nothing about the world!”

“You think I’ve learned nothing? Well, shall I quote Liviricus? ‘A man who loses the love of his family loses everything.’”

“Not as much as a man who actually loses his family,” Godwin snapped back.

“‘The king’s authority is absolute in matters relating to the immediate security of the kingdom,’” Greave shot back. “That’s from a charter more than three hundred years old.”

“It doesn’t matter what the law says, or what your books say,” Godwin replied. His voice was raised now. There was always something about Greave that riled him where Nerra had soothed him. It only made it worse that he was here while Nerra was on the verge of being sent away. “It matters what the nobles will do. Do you not understand what was happening in there? Someone was trying to ferment rebellion. These are men with half the soldiers in the kingdom between them, men who could bring our entire family down if I do not do as they demand.”

“So you’re just going to throw Nerra out into the wilds?” Greave demanded.

“Do you really believe that?” Godwin shot back. “We have family elsewhere. Your mother had brothers. I will send Nerra to one of them, away from the sight of others. She will be safe there.”

“She’ll be a prisoner in all but name,” Greave insisted.

“It’s better than being dead,” Godwin said. He felt so old in that moment, so tired. “If you want things to turn out so differently, maybe you should look in those books of yours for a cure to the scale sickness.”

Greave stood there for a moment or two longer.

“Maybe I will,” he said. “Maybe I will.”

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

Lenore was still trying to think of ways to help her sister the next morning, while her maids were helping her to prepare. They’d brought her traveling clothes, and Lenore frowned at them.

“What are these for?” she asked.

“Your father has declared that the wedding harvest will begin early,” one of her maids said.

“Early?” Lenore said. She knew why. He had called an end to the feasting in the wake of her sister’s banishment. Just the word was enough to make Lenore want to find Nerra again, want to tell her that they would go to their father now that he had calmed down and force him to reconsider.

“Where is my sister now?” Lenore asked.

“She is… already gone, your highness,” the maid said.

“No,” Lenore said. She couldn’t be. Nerra wouldn’t just leave. She had until the end of the month. Without waiting for her maids, she grabbed her traveling clothes and set off through the castle, determined to find Nerra, sure that this was some kind of mistake. Lenore made for her rooms, so tucked away and so private. Now that Lenore knew about her condition, it made sense: she’d been kept there out of the way.

Which meant that her father had known.

Lenore stopped short at that thought, because it brought with it a host of questions: who else had known, and why had they stayed silent. How could their father banish her sister like that for something he had been complicit in? Anger rose in her at the thought of what he’d done. He would have his reasons, of course, but it was playing politics when Nerra was at risk. She would find him and…

“My love, is everything well with you?”

Lenore turned and found herself staring at Finnal, who looked as impossibly handsome as always. Instantly, she was aware that she was only half dressed in front of the man she was due to marry, and her fingers fumbled to make sure that all the stays of her traveling clothes were in place.

“I’m trying to find Nerra,” she said. “What Father did, banishing her for having the scale sickness…”

“It’s a hard thing,” Finnal said, with a note of sympathy. “But I would guess that your sister is gone by now.”

“No,” Lenore said, shaking her head. “I will not allow this. I will find her and bring her back. I will—”

“Aren’t you to go on the wedding harvest?” Finnal said. He sounded surprised that she was even thinking of being anywhere else.

“How can I do that and still find Nerra?” Lenore demanded.

Finnal caught her up in his arms. “Lenore, you aren’t thinking,” he said, holding her close. “And I understand it; losing a sister must be the hardest thing in the world. If you don’t go now though, people will think that you’re being disloyal, trying to disobey your father and siding with your sister. If you truly wish to help Nerra, the best thing that you can do is to go.”

“You really think that?” Lenore asked. It made a kind of sense. Her strength was that her father believed that she was perfect and obedient. Going against him in this would only shatter that belief, wouldn’t it?