Dragon's Dusk (To Kill a King Book 2)

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Dragon's Dusk
TO KILL A KING
BOOK TWO
SAM BURNS
W.M. FAWKES
 Copyright © 2023 by FlickerFox Books.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including
photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case
of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Content Warning: this book is intended for adult audiences only, and contains graphic violence, blood, murder, domestic abuse (not
between MCs), death, gore, torture, a poor former-dragon who cannot speak, and a Prince Charming who’s got a touch of the old ennui.

Cover art © 2022 by Natasha Snow Designs; www.natashasnowdesigns.com

Editing by Clause & Effect
 Contents

Dramatis Personae

1. Kostya
2. Kirian
3. Kostya
4. Kirian
5. Kostya
6. Kirian
7. Kostya
8. Kirian
9. Kostya
10. Kirian
11. Kostya
12. Kirian
13. Kostya
14. Kirian
15. Kostya
16. Kirian
17. Kostya
18. Kirian
19. Kostya
20. Kirian
21. Kostya
22. Kirian
23. Kostya
24. Kirian
25. Kostya
26. Kirian
27. Kostya
28. Kirian
29. Kostya
30. Kirian
31. Kostya
32. Kirian
33. Kostya
34. Kirian
35. Kostya
36. Kirian
37. Kostya
38. Kirian
39. Kostya
40. Kirian
41. Kostya
42. Kirian
43. Kostya
44. Kirian
45. Kostya
46. Kirian
47. Kostya
48. Kirian
49. Kostya
50. Kirian
51. Kostya
52. Kirian
53. Kostya

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 Dramatis Personae

Konstantin Petrovich Vasiliev, Kostya – Prince of Voronezh, Rider of Green Dragon Kirian
Kirian – Green Dragon of Prince Konstantin
HOUSE VASILIEV

Dmitri Alexeyevich Vasiliev, Dima – King of Voronezh, Rider of Black Dragon Danik
Darya Alexeyevna Vasiliev, Dasha – Princess of Voronezh, Rider of Gold Dragon Adorjan
Prince Mikhail Petrovich Vasiliev, Misha – Rider of Red Dragon Maraht
Prince Evgeny Ivanovich Vasiliev, Genya – Bonded to Mink Grusha
Zoya Petrovna Vasiliev – Princess of Voronezh, Blood Witch
Alexei Viktorovich Vasiliev – d. Late King of Voronezh, Rider of Black Dragon Afansi
Georgiy Viktorovich Vasiliev – Prince of Voronezh, Rider of Green Dragon Gerasim
Pyotr Viktorovich Vasiliev – d. Late Prince of Voronezh, Rider of Red Dragon Prokhor
CITIZENS OF VORONEZH

Lady Ulyana Belyaev – Evgeny’s mother, Bonded to Snow Leopard Yuli

Lord Ivan Belyaev – Evgeny’s father, Bonded to Horse
Lord Feofan Belyaev – Lord Ivan’s oldest son, Bonded to Hawk
Lady Sonya Balakin – Bonded to Serpent Scriabin
Arkadii Alexeyev – Personal Guard of King Dmitri, Bonded to Griffin Alina
Nikolai Propokov – Personal Guard of Princess Darya, Bonded to Wolf Nazar
Annika – Castellan of Late Prince Pyotr’s Country Estate
Pavel – Vasiliev Guard
Gavriil – Jailor, Bastard of King Alexei Vasiliev
Zakhar Laskin – anti-blood bonding radical, admirer of Prince Konstantin, bonded to dog name
unspecified
Chapter 1
 Kostya

F lowers didn’t bloom in Voronezh anymore.

Not for lack of trying, of course. They were still planted every year, and those plants that
didn’t die over the winter remained and continued to grow. They simply remained bloomless.
None of it stopped Dasha, sweet Dasha, from trying.
She had a dozen pots placed strategically throughout her private solarium, trying to capture as
much sun as possible for as many hours as she could.
Blood lilies, all of them.
The blood lily was the royal flower. The flower that had once grown in front of every house in the
realm, in all the public garden beds, and in whole fields in the mountains outside the palace. Deep
crimson and soft as velvet, they reminded everyone of the golden era of Voronezh.
Except that these twelve pots grew steadily, lush and green, but without so much as an attempt to
bud. The only thing blood lilies reminded anyone of anymore was the miserable, broken state of the
land. Of their king.
Upon his ascension, Dima had gone through the same ritual as his ancestors, making him one with
Voronezh. And Voronezh was dying, slowly but surely, one flower at a time.
Only his beautiful twin still had this much faith, believing that things would get better.
As I watched, she pricked her finger, letting a few drops of her blood fall on the stem of the plant.
“An interesting technique,” Zoya said from where she was lounging on a black chaise, also turned
to face the sun. My sister was like one of those very hothouse flowers, with dark hair and bright red
lips, and eyes that seemed to hold more mysteries than all the libraries in the world.
She was dark where Dasha was light, like the rest of the royal family. The lot of us with our white
hair and bright eyes, only Zoya full of shadows and mystery.
The biggest difference between Dasha and the rest of us was that Dasha’s eyes were as pale as the
rest of her. They’d been blue like mine once. Like Misha and Dima and our fathers.
Then, I’d lost control, and she’d been hurt.
Dasha lifted her head and turned in Zoya’s direction, offering a smile. “They are blood lilies,
after all. I thought perhaps the blood of a royal dragon rider might help.”
Zoya shrugged and reached for a dried cherry, even darker than her stained lips. After chewing
and swallowing, she pushed out of her seat and came to join me where I stood with Dasha, to look at
the plant.
Dasha’s nimble fingers ran lightly over the leaves, testing, and her face gave no sign of
disappointment when they found no bud.
“I suppose it couldn’t hurt,” Zoya finally said, though her expression was more sad than hopeful.
 None of us thought the plants would bloom.
But who could kill Dasha’s hope? Only a monster would want to hurt our sweet cousin. Even
Dima, hard and angry as he was now, wouldn’t hurt his twin sister.
Not deliberately, at least.
“Perhaps this year,” I said, my voice too soft, even for the quiet room. It was hard, with Dasha, to
be anything but that. To take up space in her life. I had no right.
Not after I was the one responsible—
All I could see was the point of the dagger.
The king’s dagger, held in front of my eye. “I should take your eyes in recompense,” he hissed,
teeth bared.
I tried my best not to blink. Not to move. Not to let a single expression cross my face. Behind
me, my father was ranting about accidents happening, and children being innocent. Mother was
sobbing, pleading with the king. I could have told them both that did nothing. There was only hate
in my uncle’s gaze. He didn’t give a damn about accidents or apologies. He hated me for what I’d
done. For what I’d allowed to happen.
So did I.
Some sick part of me wanted him to do it. Wanted him to put out my eyes, so that I would share
Dasha’s suffering. The only reason I didn’t say so was because of Kirian. I couldn’t do that to him.
He’d always been a small dragon. Smaller than any other his age, and even some who were
younger. Many of the other dragons treated him like some animals did runts: they rejected him,
abused him. It had gotten so bad that the handlers had given him his own private room in the
stable. So he was nervous. Easily frightened.
When Dasha’s dragon, Adorjan, had tried to leap upon him unexpectedly in play, he’d reacted
swiftly and violently, spraying a gout of flame in her face. Burning her badly, almost killing her.
Blinding her. Blinding Dasha forever through their bond.
“No, you’re right,” the king hissed at my father. “I should just kill him if he’s too weak to
control his dragon. Voronezh has no place for weaklings.”
That moment, I suspected, was the one my father decided to kill his brother.
Also my fault.
There was a scuffle at the side door, and everyone turned. Everyone but the king and me. I
could see from the corner of my eye, Dima and Dasha, his arm around her waist, holding her up
and back at the same time. Protecting her from their father’s anger, which he would easily turn on
her, despite the fact that it was currently aimed at me because I had hurt her.
She wasn’t to be stopped, though. “No,” she insisted, leaning forward, toward us, as though
she would break away and run between us, even blinded as she was. “If you hurt Kostya, Father, I
will never forgive you. Never.”
The king hissed in anger and spun to glare at her, so I looked at them as well. Dima was
holding her so tight I thought she might bowl him over, and when he glanced up at me, I wasn’t
sure if he pitied me or hated me. Both, maybe.
The king didn’t take my eyes, but it changed little. I had cost my cousin her sight, and the only
person who would ever forgive me for it was Dasha herself.
Blood and land knew that I had not.
“—to see how Kirian is,” Zoya was saying when my mind came back to the moment.
She looked at me as though expecting an answer, so I nodded. “Of course. Kirian has not been
feeling well, so I’ve been checking in even when I can’t go flying.”
 Motion made me glance to Dasha, whose arms were pulled up in front of herself, clasped together
as though she was terribly pleased. There were actual tears in her eyes. What had I missed?
“Good,” Zoya said. “I think Kirian will enjoy seeing Dasha again.”
The breath in my lungs turned to shards of ice. Dasha? Seeing Kirian? They hadn’t been in the
same room in years. More than a decade, not since . . . not since then.
I’d never imagined she wanted to be in his presence again, after what I’d allowed to happen.
And yet the sheer joy on her face was—
“I’m afraid that is not allowed,” said a soft, hesitant voice from the door. Nikolai, Dasha’s
personal guard. Also, I suspected, the love of my cousin’s life, given the way he’d refused every
personal promotion offered to him in order to stay with her. His jaw was clenched, and he was
clearly unhappy about what he was saying. He wouldn’t even look me in the eye. “The king does not
wish Lady Dasha to be in the presence of . . . of Kirian.”
My cousin had said something considerably less pleasant than my dragon’s name, no doubt.
Called him a monster or a demon, the way some others did, either because of Dasha’s injury, or
because there had been a green dragon spotted mauling cattle in recent months. There were only two
members of the royal family with green dragons, and no one suspected that Uncle Georgiy’s tame old
Gerasim was the one doing it. Everyone assumed it was Kirian and not a wild dragon, because he
was the only dragon in the royal stable with a history of hurting anyone.
No one ever put the blame where it belonged: on his rider.
Because that was a simple fact. The former king, while an unmitigated ass in many ways, had
been right. I had not controlled my dragon, and my cousin would spend the rest of her life paying for
my failure. And so would Kirian.
The smell of salt filled the air, and Dasha turned away. “I . . . I shall have to speak to Dima on
that. It’s not right.”
Nikolai winced at the notion of even Dasha trying to approach the king. We all did. She was
perhaps the only person left in the land that he cared for, but that did not mean he would listen to her.
Dima listened to no one.
“You cannot blame Dima for his concern,” I told her. “I wouldn’t wish Kirian to hurt you—”
“He would never,” she insisted, spinning back toward me, her hand darting out to wrap around
my upper arm, squeezing hard. “He was a scared baby who made a mistake. We cannot spend the rest
of his life punishing him for it.”
I had to close my eyes and breathe deeply for a moment. How many times had I thought the same?
But Dasha and I were perhaps the only people in all Voronezh who believed it.
And yet, when I looked to my sister, the hard anger in her eyes told me that she, too, agreed with
our cousin. And even Nikolai, who adored Dasha above all others, ducked his head at me when I
glanced in his direction.
“Adorjan misses him,” she added as she let go. “But I suppose upon Dima’s orders, that is not a
matter for today. You should go see him, even if I cannot visit. Give him an extra kiss for me?”
I tried not to flush at the implication that I would be kissing my dragon on my own behalf, but
cleared my throat and agreed. “Of course, Dasha. I’m certain he’ll be happy to have it.”
Zoya said her goodbyes and wrapped an arm around my waist, leading me out, as Dasha went
back to bleeding for her lilies. I sent a thought into the land, hoping that if there was any higher power
listening, it would give her what she so wanted. A single flower wasn’t so much to ask for, was it?
THE DRAGON STABLES were on the opposite side of the palace from the one for horses. Not because
dragons were inclined to hurt horses, but because the horses did not know that, and enormous lizards
who breathed fire made them nervous.
I had always hated the dragon stables. We kept our dragons in a huge stone building with no
windows. No way for Kirian to see sunlight. And since he’d blinded Adorjan and Dasha, no way for
him to see anything but four walls and a door, since he wasn’t allowed around other dragons.
My attention was on the ground as I let Zoya lead me to the stable, but when I felt her hesitate and
slow, my head snapped up.
It was nothing but Uncle Georgiy.
He smiled at us, waving as he pulled off his riding gloves, shiny russet things that caught the
sunlight with pebbled texture. Dragon skin. Disgusting. Uncle Georgiy was far from the only noble at
court who would wear such a thing, but the very thought made me ill. Dragons were clever and
independent and our friends. Wearing their hides was just like wearing human skin, in my opinion.
Still, he was my uncle. The only living one, and he’d never done me a wrong in my life. I forced a
smile for him as we passed. “Uncle Georgiy.”
He grinned at both of us, inclining his head. He met Zoya’s eye for a long moment, something
passing between them that I couldn’t parse. Perhaps understanding, as the only two living members of
the royal family who were ever on the outside of things. Misha and I had always been marked as
advisor and war leader for the king, but Zoya and Uncle Georgiy had somehow been . . . passed by,
since Dima had taken the throne. Both had always claimed to be happy for it, and I couldn’t blame
them, but it was an unusual position for a royal to take, when so many coveted the throne.
I wished for such a quiet life, free of responsibility and expectation.
“Off to see Kirian?” he asked, and while he put no particular emphasis on it, the very words set
my teeth on edge. It was never good when anyone spoke of Kirian. No one understood him. No one
loved him. No one wanted him.
Only me. Kirian was my very soul, and all Voronezh despised him.
“Yes,” Zoya agreed, short and to the point as ever, and dragged me past him into the dark of the
stable.
Chapter 2
 Kirian

I t was dark here.

There were things on the wall—sticks with bulbous ends that the tamers lit aflame when they
came each morning, leading an animal on a rope.
The servants called the sticks “torches,” because they were a special kind of stick. But one by
one, the sticks would hiss and burn out, and the dark returned.
They were lit again when it was time to eat in the evenings.
And they were lit each time that my Kostya came to see me. After all, my Kostya was a prince,
and the servants that tended and fed us would not have a prince of the land and the blood walking in
darkness.
Too bad, that a prince had bonded such a pathetic runt.
When I had grown and the old king died, it’d become, “too bad, that a prince bonded such an
unstable beast.” Prince Konstantin had promise, they said, but a king could not claim the throne
without a dependable dragon. The lands would suffer and wilt, and it was me, not my Kostya, who
was not suited to rule.
He was perfect. Suited to all things.
For him, they lit the fires and opened the door to let in fresh air.
I often wondered if it was for him that they cleaned the floors at all, or why they cleaned my
scales with their rough brushes and river water. A prince ought not see filth.
I supposed I was grateful for it. Once, when I had seen fifteen winters, my Kostya had fallen ill
with fever. He’d not been able to leave his bed, and the servants had forgotten me.
Those long days were torture, knowing he was suffering and that I could not be with him. In time,
Prince Misha had come, and when he’d seen me in the dark and grime, there’d been much shouting
and the sharp scent of blood had filled the air.
He’d come to me after all that ruckus with bloodied knuckles, but his voice had been gentle when
he’d touched my snout and told me that Kostya was recovering and that he missed me very much.
That day, he took me out with Maraht to see the blood lilies.
It was a good day.
My stable never stayed messy for long after that.
Other than Maraht, I did not much like dragons. I had wished many times to be more like him. He
was known among dragons to be formidable, even terrifying. No one dared to even growl at him.
With me, he had always been so strong and proud. A dragon like that could carry a king, and my
Kostya deserved such a dragon.
Instead, he had me. A runt who’d grown too slow, who was too fast to act in fear or desperation,
who’d been held apart for my whole life.
All said, it was not so bad to have a space entirely to myself, even if that space was dark. The
other dragons shared larger spaces and freedoms that I had lost, but I had attacked Adorjan. I was
simply too dangerous.
Sometimes, it was a wonder to me that other dragons did not harm each other simply to get a room
to themselves. Maybe they didn’t mind each other’s company.
Maybe it was just that they had never felt vulnerable around other dragons. Maraht had hatched a
few winters after me, and his sire had watched over him in the stables. My own had shown no
interest.
I couldn’t imagine being so at ease. Even when I was a hatchling, it was a relief to sleep alone.
Before they’d found me a place of my own, I’d spent the nights afraid that one of the other dragons
would snap me in half to cull the weakling. Afansi, who carried the king, would snarl at me like he
wanted to.
I had not mourned when he died.
What I hated most in the world wasn’t the dark or the mess, though. It was that Kostya could not
be with me always. He had duties and “court,” and sometimes I got the sense that that was a place and
sometimes it sounded like a people and mostly it sounded like bullshit, because a wave of exhaustion
fell on my Kostya every time it came up.
We should have been flying, not going to court, or overseeing the court, or courting. What in the
king’s frigid, icy blood was courting?
Misha teased my Kostya about it, and I hated that. Kostya hated it too, I thought. He did not have
time for people. He barely had enough time for me. He said that while running his warm hand over my
scales, and it felt every bit as good as basking in the sunlight.
Then, when Misha had left, Kostya called him ridiculous and we went flying.
Another good day.
Truth told, almost all good days involved my Kostya, so when the servants came to light the
torches between breakfast and supper, I pushed my belly off the ground to stand and stepped eagerly
toward the one large door to the room, my claws scraping the stone floor beneath my feet.
Some of the servants flinched at the sound, but I barely noticed, because my Kostya swept in a
moment later.
Arm in arm with his sister.
My breath caught. Zoya frightened me. She was a witch of the blood, and she performed the
bindings that tied people together. She hadn’t been alive to perform my binding with Kostya, but I
remembered the witch who had, her wrinkled face and frigid hands and the knives. Her magic made
my skin crawl.
Zoya blinked at me slowly, but Kostya was already releasing her arm, stepping toward me with
both hands out. I bent down and pressed my face into his hands. His pleased hum sent a tingle rippling
down my spine. My tail flicked.
“Can we bring you anything for your ride, Your Highness?” one of the servants asked, his eyes
averted.
Kostya seemed not to have heard him, occupied as he was in tickling just the right place under my
jaw to send me purring.
“Has the king taken Danik out recently?” Zoya asked, her hands clasped behind her back. She
swung around to look at the servant, the wool of her dress sweeping out with the movement.
“We’ve not seen His Majesty in a fortnight.”
 “And Mikhail?” Kostya asked.
Not so inattentive after all. Still, he hadn’t stopped stroking his clever hand across my scales, and
so long as he kept that up, all was right in the world.
“He took Maraht for a ride last night with Prince Evgeny.”
Zoya let out a small huff. “It rained last night.”
“Yes, Your Highness. They, um, they returned quite . . . muddy.”
“For fuck’s sake,” Zoya muttered under her breath.
“That is all, Egor,” Kostya said, and our servant seemed all too happy to scamper away. Now, if
only Zoya would.
With a dissatisfied sigh, the witch crossed her arms and leaned against the wall. It was rounded,
the whole place making up a large oval. Before me, it’d been split into parts, a place for mothers and
hatchlings to nest away from other dragons. I was too big for that now.
“I suppose it’s good Misha’s happy,” Zoya said. “He seems much less likely to burn the palace
down of late.”
“Indeed,” Kostya said. He sounded perfectly pleasant, but across our bond, I felt a wave of
sadness that I didn’t understand.
It took me a second to untangle the complicated knot of his very human feelings. He was pleased
that Misha was happy. He had always wanted that.
But for so long, since the death of Prince Pyotr, it had been Kostya and Misha against everything.
They’d stood together, and Kostya had shielded his younger brother from the worst of King Dmitri’s
wrath.
Now, he feared Misha did not need him. Worse, he feared he was left to stand alone.
A sound rumbled in my throat without my bidding. He had to know that I would never, never let
him face this world on his own. I pushed into his hands, past them to nudge against his stomach. My
forked tongue flicked over his kaftan. The fibers were a little salty, slightly damp from the humidity
outside. I licked him again, and he chuckled, bending over my snout to press his forehead against
mine.
“What’s the matter, beloved?” he asked so softly.
How could anything be the matter with him there?
Zoya cleared her throat. She was . . . still staring. Through my nose, I huffed. She could go now.
She saw too much—more, even, than Kostya could see, and we were bonded. Of course, I didn’t
know that, but she frightened me with her depthless eyes.
Just when I was beginning to worry Kostya truly meant to bring her with us, she used her arm to
push off the wall.
“I should leave you to it. Go ride while the sun’s still out. We’ve gotten little enough of it lately,
and Kirian gets even less.”
I couldn’t tell if the bleak feeling that hit me at those words was Kostya’s, or my own.
Chapter 3
 Kostya

T hey kept Kirian in the dark, and no number of threats or bribes changed that. Whenever I asked
for anything at all, the dragon keepers would look away, mumble something about the king’s
orders, and leave as quickly as possible.
It wasn’t their fault, exactly, but would it have been so hard to sneak him an extra torch, or a spare
haunch of fresh meat, or just . . . anything that would have made his largely solitary existence
brighter?
I brought those things when I could, certainly. I always fed him treats when I took him out, and
gave him everything at my disposal. But unless I left the palace permanently, I couldn’t make a major
change.
And naturally, when I asked for permission to retire to the family’s country estate, Dima denied
me.
He knew why I wanted to go. He’d once sneered as much at me, and told me I was free to leave,
but that the monster I called my soul would remain in the palace dragon stables.
I could never, would never, leave Kirian behind. So at the palace I remained, always, where they
gave Kirian just enough to keep us both on our feet.
Over the years, I’d become used to saddling him myself, because the dragon keepers did not want
to approach him. They refused to accept that an accident two decades earlier did not define his entire
personality. Misha saddled Maraht himself as well, but I thought that was simply my brother’s sheer
stubbornness: if I had to do it, then he would do the same.
My brother had never wanted to be my better, only my equal.
The saddle was worn with regular use—the only one in the stables that fit Kirian, since he’d gone
from the runt of the palace to one of the largest dragons in all Voronezh over the intervening years. I
thought his sire was as large as he was, but Kirian was more heavily muscled, likely from all the
hours we spent flying together.
If there were twice as many hours in the day, I could still never spend enough of them with Kirian.
All dragon riders were bonded to their mounts—without the bond, dragons were simply too wild,
too unpredictable to ride. But it didn’t seem to me that even other dragon riders felt the same kinship
with their dragons that I did.
Kirian was everything. My best friend, my confidante, the only one who never let me down and
was always there for me, no matter what I’d done or how low I felt. Always ready to press his snout
into my belly and give his adorable little inquisitive chirrup, or purr and make my whole body shake
with the feeling of it.
Some days I wished we could simply fly away and never return. Leave Voronezh completely,
perhaps.
Kirian nearly vibrated out of his pebbled green skin as I saddled him, so excited to be free of the
confines of his cell that I half expected him to try to take flight right there in the room. He managed to
contain himself long enough for me to lead him down to the huge circular stone slab that was the
accepted flight zone. There, no one would be startled by dragons landing or taking off.
He was practically hopping by the time we got there, and it was all I could manage to leap into
the saddle and strap myself in before he was airborne, his elegant jade wings stretched wide to catch
the updraft.
His wingspan was so much wider than most of his brethren. I liked to imagine we cut a
compelling figure, and tried not to think about how most people found him terrifying.
Kirian would never willingly hurt anything or anyone. They simply did not know him.
For an hour or more, I gave him his own lead and let him fly where he would. It was never too far
from the palace, though he did like to lose sight of the towering marble walls we’d spent our whole
life living behind. Perhaps it was his own attempt to eke out a bit of freedom.
Perhaps it was the closest thing to freedom he understood.
He was clever, even for a dragon, and I’d always believed dragons every bit as clever as humans,
but he couldn’t know what no one had ever taught him.
He found a grassy slope on a nearby mountain and landed softly in a bright sunny patch, turning to
look at me with question in his eyes.
I reached up and ran both hands along his neck and smiled at him. “Of course, my love. I’d never
deny you a nice nap in a patch of sun when we can get it.”
I unbuckled my harness and let myself drop to the grass, and he rolled onto his back, showing his
green belly to the sun. He gave a deep contented smile, and his head lolled to one side as he looked
over at me. Then he stretched one enormous paw out, wing sliding along the still-dewy grass as he
made room at his side for me.
As he always did.
I couldn’t have hesitated if I’d wanted to, not that I wanted to. I went to his side, curling against
him and leaning back against his heavy arm.
Perhaps I should have held it in, but . . .
“I broke things. Between—between Misha and me. It’s because I lied to him for so long. Or
maybe because I told him the truth at all.” I couldn’t even look Kirian in the eye as I said the words.
He wouldn’t judge me. He would never judge me.
But I judged myself.
“I never wanted to tell him that Father killed Uncle Alexei. That he—that he asked me to be
involved in a plot against the king.” Turning, I buried my face against his rough, scaly skin, so that I
could pretend any wetness there was simply dew from the grass. “I should have stopped Father then.
Not that I—how would I have stopped him? But I should have done something. Uncle Alexei was a
terrible man, and a worse king, but at least Dima was better then. At least Voronezh wasn’t slowly
dying because of Dima’s grief over what I allowed to happen.”
A clawed paw brushed my hair out of my face. It was bigger than my head, but Kirian had learned
to be so careful, so precise, that not a single claw came near my skin. His enormous green eyes stared
down at me with worry, and all I could feel in our bond was love.
Complete, unquestioning love.
“Misha and Maraht might not visit you anymore,” I told him. “And it’s because of me. Because of
how I lied to him, let him think Dima was wrong for years. Let him think our father was innocent.”
 Nothing in him, nothing in our bond changed. He leaned down and rubbed the tip of his snout
against my face, his tongue sliding out to wipe away any stray tear. Then he ran his paw down me like
I was his pet cat and he was trying to get me to settle.
So I tried to settle. And he continued to pet me until I managed to drift off into perhaps the first
restful moment of sleep I’d had since I’d told my brother the truth.
We had to get back to the palace before nightfall, or it would be more difficult to find it in the
dark, and we both might miss dinner. At the stab of worry, calm took me again, and I was washed
away in the feeling of my very soul comforting me.
Dinner was of no relevance. One missed meal did not starve a dragon. Only missing each other.
Chapter 4
 Kirian

I ’d never seen Kostya like this. It wasn’t that he’d never sunk into sadness, but this was something
worse. It was like when Afansi had loosed his last rage-filled roar and the world had broken
when his rider, King Alexei, had died.
All that followed was fear. For days, Kostya had been locked away in the castle.
Even in my separate stable, I had heard Maraht rage. It was as if he’d set the whole building
aflame, it was so sweltering hot inside, even when the servants came in dripping wet and shivering,
snowflakes in their hair.
In the end, I thought it was Maraht that’d brought our riders back. Either the Vasilievs lost two
more dragons so soon after losing both Afansi and Prince Pyotr’s dragon, Prokhor, they left Maraht to
tear the stables apart in an effort to find his Misha, or they allowed Misha to return.
And with him, Kostya.
Things had been different then. He’d been more subdued, more careful. He had cast furtive
glances at Prince Misha while his furious brother raged and cursed the new king.
King Dmitri.
Dmitri had long hated me, but most of what I remembered about him and his sister was their bright
white hair and quick smiles. They’d seemed so at odds with their serious father. I’d always hid in the
shadows each time King Alexei stormed into the stables with his thick fur cloak billowing around
him.
I’d seen Prince Dima tuck a blood lily into Dasha’s hair once, and I’d thought it would be nice to
have a sister. When Misha was born and Maraht bonded him, he became the closest I had to a real
sibling.
He was very loud sometimes.
This sadness, this devastation, felt very much like when the last king died. Only this time, the
whole world wasn’t ending. It was just Kostya’s world, and all that I could do was let him rest and
hope that it helped. When he was back at the palace, I couldn’t even be there for him.
It was late when we returned to the stable, and the servants were weary eyed and put out to have
to offer any assistance at all. That, I didn’t mind so much, but when my Kostya pressed his hand to the
side of my face and promised to come back, that drowning feeling of sadness welled up again,
flooding my whole room and lingering long after he’d gone.
It was night outside, and the drowning sadness only got worse until I couldn’t stand it for another
second. With a roar, I put my paws on the wall above the door and scratched at the stones. I threw my
weight against the walls. The bricks were enormous, but I would crash through them if it killed me.
Beyond the door, there was shouting, the clinks of chains. I knew what was coming. They would
try to chain me, keep me still, keep me from Kostya. This time, I was prepared.
Only, when the door cranked open, the servants hung back, their torches held aloft. Between them,
with no torch of her own, stood a dark slip of a woman—Princess Zoya.
My crouch deepened as I took a step back. A growl rumbled through my chest, and fire climbed
up my throat.
Fearlessly, Zoya stepped into the room and lifted her arms at her sides.
“Would you, Kirian?” Her dark gaze bore into me.
I pulled my lips back from my teeth in a snarl. I very much wanted to let my rage and sadness fly,
but I knew how Kostya loved his sister, even when she baffled him.
No, I couldn’t hurt her. I had to step back.
The twitch of her red lips was satisfied.
“Leave us,” she said to the servants, who rushed to put their torches on the walls before they
slipped back into the large corridor outside.
The metal clink echoed off the stone walls. They were closing the door, and I would not have a
better chance to escape.
I jerked forward, and Zoya stepped aside.
Perhaps I could have made it, but her words brought me up short.
“You might escape, but it will hurt Kostya.”
I froze where I was, watching as the door shut firmly. I was still glaring at it when she walked in
front of me in a wide arc.
“Perhaps you’d make it out of the stables,” she said, her voice soft and calm but making red tinge
my vision nonetheless. “You might even tear your way through the palace and find him, but what then?
You’d take him from his land, his family—”
I am his family.
“—and it would break his heart one day. Without Kostya at court, Misha will get himself in
trouble, and our big brother will rush back to save him. If you ever returned, the king would see you
both locked up, apart, for the rest of your lives. It is not an option.”
She was right; at least now, they allowed Kostya to take me out to fly.
I growled, but she simply lifted a brow at me.
“I didn’t say there were no options, little snake. I do have an idea I’d like to try.”
I wasn’t sure if I liked the sound of that, but I had to do something for my Kostya, even if it meant
working with this witch.
She’d kept up her slow pacing, forcing me to shift and turn to keep her in my sights. Finally, she
stopped and looked at me straight on. “I could give you what you want—what Kostya needs.”
Yes.
It wasn’t even a question. If Zoya’s magic made my skin crawl, that didn’t matter. There was one
thing I was sure we agreed on: Kostya must be protected. What could she possibly ask of me that
would hurt him?
My lips softened, closing over my sword-length teeth, and I tipped my neck to drag my chin
across the stones and straw beneath me.
Yes, whatever it takes, yes. For Kostya.
Zoya did not look pleased. Her lips pinched, and she narrowed her eyes at me.
“I should warn you, I’ve never tried this before. I may fail. You would be my first experiment.”
That cold, prickly feeling that came with blood magic tickled through my veins, but I did not care.
Not if it was for my Kostya.
 To make the point, I rumbled and bent all four legs until my belly was flat on the floor, my throat
stretched across the length of it.
Anything. I blinked at her slowly. Anything for my Kostya.
“If you’re certain.”
Zoya produced a dagger from beneath her cloak. She sliced her own palm, and I had to work not
to flinch back. I’d been freshly hatched the last time blood magic had been cast on me.
It hadn’t been a pleasant experience.
As if it were nothing, she raised her hand and smeared her palm down the bridge of my snout. The
sticky, metallic blood was too close to my nostrils, and I huffed. When she dragged her slick ruby
fingertips across my lips, though, my tongue lashed out to taste.
It wasn’t so bad. Not so different than the spurt of blood that came with eating a live pig.
I didn’t know why I’d thought it would be different.
With the quiet click of a swallow, she watched me for a moment. I don’t know what she saw,
because I felt nothing.
Had she failed?
“Good night, Kirian,” she said.
And that was it. She turned to go. The servants opened the door just wide enough to let her
through.
The torches they’d lit for her had flickered out by the time I fell asleep.

WHEN I WOKE, I was freezing. The stones were so cold. Even in a blizzard, they’d never been so
cold.
Groggily, I pushed myself up, calling for the fire to spark in my chest. The floor would hold heat if
I breathed fire across it for a few minutes, but there was a sharp, acidic feeling in my throat instead of
the warm rumble I was used to.
Under my paws, the floor felt—blood and land, it was hard to explain, but it felt large and rough.
The grain of stone dug into my hip as well.
I could feel the stone’s texture through my scales.
Startled, I scrambled onto my feet, but everything was in the wrong arrangement. My back legs
were too long. My front ones, too short. And my tail? Gone. I listed without the counterbalance and
fell with a bruising thump and a yelp that sounded . . . wrong.
It was wrong. Everything was wrong.
What had that witch done to me?
I was closer to the ground now, even when I stood just on my back legs. The light sneaking under
the metal door to the corridor seemed brighter and closer than ever, my eyes more sensitive to the soft
glow, if not able to see things more clearly.
Everything was more sensitive to—to everything.
Balanced precariously on my back legs, I threw out my front arms to either side and made my way
toward that strip of light. Every step was awkward. My knees were twisted the whole way around.
I don’t know how long it took me to make it to the wall. It felt like forever, and my heart beat so
fast that maybe it was only seconds.
When I felt the icy chill of the metal door against my palms, I hissed and jerked back, falling to
my knees.
There in the faint light under the door, I saw the shape of my paws.
They were hands—square and pink, with long, clever digits just like Kostya’s. I moved them,
watching as my stomach flipped over.
What had happened?
I used a hand on the wall to help me up, feeling around the edge of the door on the right side.
Somewhere, there was a device the servants used to open the door from inside. It was too small and
delicate for a dragon’s paw, but my little human hand slipped so easily inside the recessed square.
Inside it, there was a bar.
What did they do with this fucking bar?
Huffing, I pushed on it.
Nothing happened, but when I shoved it in my frustration, it listed to the side. It turned.
So I tried that.
The door inched open, and light from the torches outside flooded in.
I stepped into it and looked down.
My body was straight. Now, my shoulders were broader than my hips. How did humans jump,
with such little strength in their hind legs?
Brown hair dusted my chest and down to a strange thatch between my legs. And there, between
my legs, my cock hung, fully exposed to the elements.
No wonder Kostya wore his extra skins and cloaks. It was so cold.
I closed my hand over it, and the warmth of my palm was . . . it was nice. Better, at the very least.
Past it, my legs were also straight, cutting a strong line from my hips all the way down to my feet,
flat against the floor from my toes all the way back to my heel.
Hissing, I curled my toes. There was brown hair there, and all up my legs, but none of it was
enough to stave off the freezing air.
It helped to move, lifting one foot and then the other.
Maybe straight limbs weren’t bad for standing on your back legs. My legs had bent one way and
then the other as a dragon, but as I shifted my weight, balancing became easier.
I crept forward, turning to look one way down the hall.
Long brown hair shifted against my back and slipped over my shoulder when I turned to see what
was causing the sensation on my back. It tickled, but when I reached up my free hand to touch it, I
found the back of my neck beneath it was very warm.
If I stayed here, they would find me. Perhaps being locked in the dark as a dragon was not
pleasant, but I could not stay here as a man. I’d freeze to death.
So I crept through the door and down the empty corridor.
No one caught me. As I rushed, fast as I could, through the empty halls, trying to make sense of
them now that I was shorter than my forearm had been, it seemed no one was even awake.
A dragon slipping out of the stables would’ve been noticed, since we were enormous.
But tiny human me, I walked right out the gate across the lawn from the palace, and squinted into
the pink light of sunrise.
Chapter 5
 Kostya

K irian spent a restless night in the dragon stables, and that in turn kept me awake. Not that I
didn’t have reasons of my own to struggle sleeping, but when all wasn’t well with Kirian,
nothing could be well for me.
It had been our visit the day before, I was sure. He’d practically tried to follow me out when I’d
left, pressing his face into me and making a high sound almost like a whimper. I should have just
stayed in the stables with him.
I did it sometimes, even though the dragon keepers didn’t like me to.
It wasn’t that I wanted to put anyone out or give them extra work, but Kirian needed me. More
than anyone else in all Voronezh, Kirian had no one but me. Particularly with Misha married—to say
nothing of him still being angry with me—and Zoya . . . well, she was Zoya. More independent than
any of us.
That was why I found myself headed out toward the stables just after dawn that morning. Kirian
needed me. And if I were being honest with myself, I needed him right back.
I was happy for my brother that his marriage had worked out so well, if bizarrely, but it meant that
I was more alone than I’d ever been before. I’d only thought the time after our father’s execution had
been awful. Now Misha was off fucking his husband, Zoya was plotting or reading or whatever it was
she did with her days, and my cousins . . . well, between blinding Dasha and not saving their father’s
life, I’d caused them enough pain. I needed to leave them alone.
I was halfway between the palace and the stables when movement caught my attention, and I
looked up to find . . . a naked man, stumbling over the grassy hill in front of the stables.
He was tall and tan, with long brown hair, and he moved with a clumsy sort of grace—almost like
a newborn colt just learning to use his legs. One hand was covering his cock, so at least he had the
presence of mind to protect that from the elements, whatever else was happening in his head.
He was biting his lip, taking each stumbling step with care and using his free arm for balance, but
when he glanced up and saw me, he . . . he shone.
His whole face broke out in a grin to rival the sun, and he rushed forward, almost tumbling right
down the side of the hill, till his eyes went wide and he stopped cold, balancing with both arms and
giving the ground a suspicious glance, as though it might fly up at him without warning at any moment.
I rushed up to meet him, unbuttoning my outer coat as I went. The tunic and pants I wore beneath
weren’t the warmest, but they would do for long enough to get him inside and find him clothes. It was
spring, after all, and my cock wasn’t the one in danger of freezing off.
Pulling the coat off, I wrapped it around him, trying to tuck his arms into it as he accidentally
struggled against me, more interested in patting my face than in getting warm. After a second, though,
he paused in his movement and stared down at the coat, then hunched his shoulders and snuggled into
it.
Somehow, his grin got even wider, and he started helping me instead of hindering.
“Are you well?” I asked. I had no idea how a naked man would have found his way into the open
air at dawn. A drinking binge gone wrong, perhaps, or maybe he’d been robbed. He seemed far too
happy for a man who didn’t reek of alcohol, though, let alone one who’d been robbed and left
wandering the countryside naked.
Stranger still, he didn’t answer me. He just patted my face with his hands, then seemed to get
distracted by that, looking at first my face, then his own palms, in wonder, as though they were
something other than what he’d been expecting.
When he looked up to find me watching him with bemused curiosity, he ducked his head, almost
bashful, and then bumped his face into my shoulder, burying it there.
I had . . . no idea what to do with that. He was beautiful, perhaps the most beautiful man I’d ever
seen, with clear green eyes the color of a perfect apple, and a smile that lit his whole face. And he
was treating me like a friend. Trusted.
It had been so long since any human had trusted me so completely, just the thought made me
swallow hard and breathe deep.
Well then. Whoever this man was, whatever his circumstances, I wasn’t going to let him down.
Perhaps he’d gotten a head injury while being robbed, and didn’t remember how to act, let alone what
his name was or what had happened to him.
So I wrapped an arm around his waist and turned so we were facing the palace. I glanced back
over my shoulder toward the stables, and the man gave an odd inquisitive noise, following my gaze
and looking back at me, curious and confused.
Strangely enough, my sense of Kirian had gone from fear and loneliness to interest, perhaps
curiosity. Maybe even the same happiness in him that I felt when he saw me come into his pen. Was
there a new dragon keeper, who didn’t know they were supposed to fear and disdain him?
Either way, Kirian’s lack of pain made it acceptable, at least for the moment, to focus on this
situation. This beautiful man who looked at me like I was something special. Something good.
I would visit Kirian later and find out if there was a new keeper. If there was finally one willing
to be friendly to him, I would give them anything their heart desired to keep that kindness. Kirian
deserved more friends than just me, even if a tiny part of me died inside at the thought of the only
being left who needed me, needing me less.
It was not about me. It was about Kirian and his happiness, and I would never be selfish enough to
take any tiny bit of that away from him.
As I led the man into the palace, he leaned against me with all his weight, letting me guide him
and keep him from falling on his clumsy legs.
Misha had once told me that I was too easily charmed by a pretty face and batted eyelashes, and
perhaps he was right. I’d told him that he was the one interested in pretty faces, but his point hadn’t
been about my taste in bed partners, but my tendency to . . . to believe people. To believe in them, in
their ability and intention to do good instead of evil.
Zoya called it naive.
But really, who would turn away a man who seemed so sweet and helpless? He couldn’t possibly
be armed, unless he was keeping a weapon somewhere I didn’t want to consider.
We managed to stumble into the palace, through the gates and halls to our family’s quarters, into
the parlor I shared with my siblings. The servants were setting out food as we arrived, and seemed
surprised to see me.
“I’m terribly sorry, Prince Konstantin,” one of them said, bowing deeply. “We did not realize you
were awake already. Did you wish us to start bringing the morning meal earlier?”
“Not at all,” I dismissed. “I was up earlier than usual and had not intended to eat this morning.”
I helped my new friend into one of the chairs around the breakfast table, but when I tried to step
away, to speak to the servants, he bunched a hand in my shirt, almost tugging it loose, and didn’t seem
inclined to let go. He looked up at me with wide, pleading green eyes, and I couldn’t possibly deny
him anything, so I stayed where I was.
Instead of moving off, I turned back to the servants. “I do apologize for the extra company, but my
friend will need food as well, and”—I glanced down at him in my black coat and nothing else—“can
you send a tailor? He’s going to need some clothes that fit him.”
The coat was fetching on him, but a man couldn’t live his whole life in a stranger’s coat.
The head servant bowed again. “Of course, my prince. I will see to it immediately. Will there be
anything else?”
“No, thank you,” I inclined my head to her as she and the others bowed out, before turning back to
my guest. I curled a foot around a nearby chair leg and tugged it toward me, so that I could sit down
next to him without tugging my shirt free. It was perhaps silly, but it wasn’t terribly important, at least
to me.
My mother had always told me that the key to relationships with people was that when something
was important to them and not you, you should always give in. It would make them both more inclined
to think you reasonable, and more inclined to give in to your wishes when you did find the matter
important.
Between my parents, Mother had certainly been the diplomat. Father had been the rash ass who’d
involved himself in a plot to kill his brother and gotten both of them killed.
Not that Dima had killed Mother when she hadn’t had a hand in the killing of the king, but not a
person in Voronezh questioned that my father’s death had caused my mother’s.
Nearly unique to royal marriages, my parents had loved each other, and she had died of a broken
heart.
It was perhaps the only tragedy in my life I did not blame myself for. No, that blame lay entirely
upon my father. He had been the one who acted against the king, not thinking of his loved ones or what
would become of us if he failed or died. Perhaps I should have done a better job convincing him to
change his mind, but he had been the one to do the deed. The one to leave Mother alone in her grief.
A finger tapped against my cheek, and I found the green-eyed stranger watching me with concern,
his brows drawn together and bottom lip pulled between his teeth.
I smiled at him and shook my head. “I’m fine. Just musing on things best left in the past.” Time to
look forward, not back. I turned toward the table and the spread of bread and jam and meat that the
servants had left. Next to me, the man’s stomach grumbled. “Yes indeed. It’s time for breakfast.”
He made no move to take food, so I grabbed a roll and sliced it in half, then picked up the butter,
slathering a thick layer atop it. He watched with fascination, still not choosing anything for himself.
It reminded me of—but that was silly.
I was simply worried about Kirian and seeing him everywhere. Still, I topped the butter with jam,
then held it out to him. Instead of reaching for it, he leaned forward and took a bite straight from my
hand. Before I could think too much on that, his eyes went wide and I had to worry that he found
something objectionable about cherry jam. But he didn’t spit it out or exclaim. Instead, he chewed and
swallowed with a look of near ecstasy, as though it were the most delicious thing he’d ever set his
teeth to.
Even more strangely, after he was finished, he didn’t just chomp down on another bite. No, he
motioned with his hand toward me. It took me a moment to understand that he wanted me to eat some.
So I took a bite, chewing and smiling through it at him, then offering him more, which he happily took,
once again taking a bite straight from my hand. It was strange and intimate and, given his enthusiasm,
fun. Some of the most fun I’d had in years. So we spread butter and a different kind of jam on another
roll, and another, and tried every kind, going through half the rolls on the table and taking turns
feeding each other.
I didn’t know what the hell I was doing, but I did know that it was . . . it was wonderful.
Chapter 6
 Kirian

I had never been so full in my life—and not from a hunt. Not from venison or a whole steer or
meat at all. Kostya had given me bread smeared with creamy sweetness, and it filled my stomach
like nothing ever had.
Perhaps I’d eaten too much, my new human stomach not up to the task when I wanted to try
anything and everything Kostya smiled at. The rolls had been unexpectedly delicious, and his laugh
sounded sweeter than ever to my human ears.
I heard better as a dragon, but there was something so wonderful about having Kostya beside me,
his soft, kind voice right there in my ear. Perhaps I couldn’t hear rodents scampering beneath the
floors, but that left more focus for my Kostya.
Everything about my new body seemed arranged to take best advantage of having him near. His
voice filled my ears as he told me about the cherries they’d made this delicious jam from. He asked
me if I’d ever seen the royal orchards, and he’d seemed pleased when I nodded.
My fingers were so sensitive. Even gripping his shirt, I could feel the warmth radiating from his
body. I wanted to bury into it.
The brush of his fingertips against my lips was a salty contrast to the sweetness of the different
jams and the creaminess of the fresh butter.
Our lungs were the same size now—we could even breathe in sync, and I tried, watching the
subtle rise and fall of his chest. I’d thought I’d known the shape of him, but there was so much left to
discover that I’d never seen before.
Even his smile, I’d never seen so close with both eyes at once, and it made my chest squeeze
every time it sneaked onto his face.
Kostya was lifting a delicate cup to his lips, his fingers curved so gracefully, when there was a
knock on the door.
“Your Highness, the tailor’s arrived.”
Kostya’s head popped up. “Send them to my chambers. We’ll be there momentarily.”
He smiled at his servant, but the look he shared with me was softer. At least, I told myself as
much, because I was his and he was mine. That was my smile. My Kostya and my smile.
“Are you finished eating?” He glanced down at my plate. It was smeared with streaks of red jam,
but there was no food left on it.
I nodded, but before I could get up, he reached for a piece of cloth and wiped the sticky mess
from my fingers and his own.
“Come along, then.”
He stood and offered me his hand. I took it with both of mine. Could I hold his hand forever? He
might need it back, but I’d offer him my own to make up for the compromise.
I shuffled my feet through the sitting room. Against the far wall, there was a large, ornate door.
I recognized this one—Kostya’s room.
On the balls of my feet, I bounced up and made a sound. Brow furrowed, Kostya turned toward
me. “Everything all right?”
I stared between him and the door to his room. It was his. I’d been inside before, but it’d been so
long. Now, on my two hind legs, I could stay with him again. I fit in this place—his place.
Confusedly, Kostya blinked at me, so I pulled him along.
We entered his bedroom, and draperies were pulled back from the wide balcony off the side of
the palace. It looked out toward the dragon stables.
Sunlight reflected off the cloud cover and bounced into the room. A tailor was there, laying out
swaths of fabric, but I didn’t spare him more than a glance.
This was Kostya’s room.
Nothing was like I remembered it. Once, it’d been full of toys—balls to roll and little carriages
and dolls. Now, everything was arranged for a man fully grown. There were tables with carefully
stacked missives and books, a set of armor well polished, that I’d never seen Kostya wear.
They had replaced the drapes that Maraht had burned when we were little—the heavy pieces that
hung beside windows and made such excellent hiding places.
I’d forgotten about them, though now the memory of heavy velvet sliding over my scaled back was
so clear. I wandered over to touch the new ones, and they were even softer than I’d imagined.
With a delighted gasp, I turned to Kostya. He was still frowning.
“The tailor’s brought his own cloth to work with.” His voice lifted at the end, but I didn’t
understand what he meant.
I turned to look at the rest of the room.
Kostya’s nest was bigger than I remembered. When last I’d been here, it’d been a small thing with
bars to keep us safe inside. They were less effective when I’d been on four legs with claws
sharpened and curled for climbing.
Now, Kostya had gotten rid of the bars—gotten rid of the little nest entirely. Instead, the center of
the room was taken up by a large palette, cloth hanging all around it in an open frame, rich and
covered in blue velvet.
Even with the way to the balcony open, this place smelled just like my Kostya, like he’d spent
much of his time here, but unlike my room in the stables, it seemed a place worth staying. There were
recesses in the walls where he’d collected a hoard of books and comfortable chairs and everything
was soft to the touch.
I wanted to roll around in his things. Just the thought made my blood rush and my skin tingle.
I made a sound, returning to his side to tug on his hand, and Kostya chuckled. “Come on. Let’s see
what he can do for you, hm?”
He pulled me toward the tailor, and I followed him. I’d have followed him anywhere.
“Thank you for coming so quickly, Vladimir.”
“Of course, Your Highness. I—” The tailor, a short man with dark eyes and gray hair, scowled at
me. “Is this who you’d see outfitted today?” He wandered closer to me and plucked at the sleeve of
Kostya’s coat. “Is this yours, Your Highness?”
With a huff, I pulled my arm back. The coat was Kostya’s and mine, and I didn’t want a stranger
touching it.
Kostya blinked. “It is. Our friend here was outside this morning, rather, um—” His bright blue
eyes drifted my way, and there was a depth in his gaze that I didn’t entirely understand. “He was in
need of a coat, and a good deal more.”
Vladimir clicked his tongue. “Then let us see what we’re working with.”
He reached for the edges of Kostya’s coat, and I clutched it tighter around myself and squirmed
away from him. After a few seconds of grappling, Kostya caught me with a hand on my shoulder.
“It’s all right,” he promised in a soft voice, his free hand extended, palm curved gently toward
me. “Do you think you could behave for me, chenok? Vladimir is here to help.”
Chenok? That wasn’t my name.
I was Kirian. Did he not—did he not know me?
Frantically, I searched his face, and I found nothing there but gentle affection.
I’d thought he—he understood. He had to know me. We were bonded by the blood.
My shock left Vladimir time to slip Kostya’s coat off my shoulders. I shivered. The air from
outside was cold, but it was more than just that. My heart had dropped into my stomach. The whine in
my throat was nothing more than a plea—Kostya had to see me.
“You must have had some night,” Vladimir mused. With my eyes on Kostya, I caught sight of him
setting the coat aside on Kostya’s nest from the corners of my vision. “What happened to your
clothes?”
I bit my lips, trapping them between my teeth.
“He doesn’t talk,” Kostya answered for me, turning toward the man. “At least he hasn’t so far.”
The tailor’s serious scowl when he stepped toward me made my stomach twist. Did Kostya want
me to talk? I wasn’t sure what to say, much less how to stay it.
I wanted to tell him that it was me. His Kirian.
Anguish throbbed in my chest as I stared at him, and Vladimir busied himself all the while,
measuring my shoulders, my arms. He draped coarse cloth across my shoulder and I hissed, jerking
back.
“He doesn’t like that one,” Kostya said. In a moment, he had another bit of fabric and was lifting
it toward me. “What about this?”
I didn’t pull away, so he brushed the fabric against my cheek. With a little huff, I ducked my head.
That one was better, smooth and nice and not so scratchy.
“Make his shirt with silk,” Kostya said, passing the cloth off to the tailor.
“For a stranger?”
The air in the room changed in an instant, Kostya’s turn was slow, his eyebrow dangerously
arched. “Are our accounts with you not square, Vladimir?”
“O–of course they are, Your Highness. I’d be happy to make you whatever you wish.” Vladimir’s
voice had risen, and he spoke faster. “I only meant, uh, well that I’ve not met your esteemed friend. I
am just surprised that there is any lord of Voronezh that I’ve not worked with before.”
Kostya hummed, but he made no answer, and Vladimir was quick to return to work.
He moved my arms where he wanted them, but soon enough, I was covered in clothes like Kostya
wore—a loose shirt, trousers with a belt that Vladimir tied around my hips. Kostya even had a
servant find me a pair of boots for my feet, though they were hard on the bottom and I couldn’t feel the
soft carpet once I’d put them on.
Everything fit well enough, but Vladimir told my Kostya that it would take time to finish anything
meant specifically for me. He seemed pleased to be dismissed, and I was glad when he was gone. I
wanted Kostya to myself.
The clothes Vladimir had left were strange. The cloth they’d been made from was fine enough, but
it still felt wrong against my soft pink skin.
My new coat was heavy, and because it wasn’t warm with Kostya’s body heat and didn’t smell
like him, it wasn’t so worth wrapping myself up tightly in it. I shrugged my shoulders, trying to adjust
for the weight.
“Is there something wrong?” Kostya asked. He wandered closer and adjusted the fabric on my
shoulders.
I was human, and humans wore clothes because they didn’t have thick scales to protect them. I
might not like it, but I was with my Kostya, and that was worth anything.
What could I do but shake my head and smile at him?
Chapter 7
 Kostya

M y guest shook his head strangely, his neck as limp as an overcooked noodle, and even he
seemed surprised by the motion, stopping and staring down at his body like it was confusing.
Perhaps he’d eaten some moldy bread. There had been a strange outbreak of illness a few
years before that had been traced to moldy rye, and it had involved people acting like drunkards, and
some even seeing things that weren’t there.
Still, he seemed entirely harmless, and he’d been nothing but sweet, so Vladimir’s snobbery had
been simply that. I didn’t know why the status granted by birth was so important to anyone, given
what a complete disaster every member of the royal family had made of their own lives in my father’s
generation. Even Uncle Georgiy was alone and seemed largely dissatisfied with his lot. Our father
had been a selfish ass who had almost destroyed Voronezh entirely, and Uncle Alexei had been one of
the cruelest, most callous men I’d ever had the misfortune to meet. Accidents of birth didn’t mean we
were better than anyone.
Traditionally, it was about the blood bonds. People thought that the families of lords were special
because of their ability to bond well.
Sometimes children didn’t survive bonds to powerful creatures like dragons. Sometimes, they
didn’t even survive bonds to smaller, tamer creatures like horses, or even cats.
Vasilievs, with rare exceptions like Zoya, could bond dragons. We could bond the entire land, as
the Vasiliev king had been doing for generations.
The blood witches said the ability to bond was about strength, and we’d never had any reason to
disbelieve them, but I’d bonded a dragon, and most days, I didn’t feel all that strong. Rather, I felt like
a strong enough wind might topple my entire precarious life to shatter against the frozen
mountainsides of Voronezh.
The first Vasiliev king’s bond to the land was what had made Voronezh temperate enough to settle
properly, to grow food and build homes, instead of our people remaining nomadic. Bonded to a king,
Voronezh was wild and majestic; filled with beauty, but able to sustain life. Before the first land-
bonding, it had only been wild. Beautiful, but too dangerous. Too cold for humans to survive most
winters, and our people had gone south to avoid the worst of it every year. There had been no
temples, no fields, no palace, and no artisans. We had been barely capable of supporting ourselves,
let alone producing beauty or joy.
So the people of Voronezh took bonding seriously, and we respected those who could bond
themselves to strong allies. Foreigners called it barbaric, risking our children’s lives with blood
bonding rituals, but they didn’t understand that in Voronezh, our ancestors had died if they’d shown
weakness. It wasn’t about hurting children; it was about giving them a chance to live at all.
 I was drawn out of my thoughts by a finger pressed to the tip of my nose, soft and tentative, like a
child trying to get my attention. When I glanced up, the stranger was looking at me, eyes as soft as his
touch, asking without words what was wrong.
Even if I’d wanted to, I couldn’t have answered. The facts aligned me too close to my father; too
close to treason.
I loved my family, and I loved Voronezh, but both were a constant source of frustration. I loved
Dima in a way I’d never loved his father—I doubted it had even been possible to love his father.
Prince Dima had been soft and sweet and loving, things his father hadn’t ever considered real. King
Dima? Well, I shouldn’t even think too long on that, lest I give in to my unkind thoughts and end up
like my father.
Even if Misha were angry with me, he wouldn’t deal well with Dima killing me for treason.
So I reached up and took the stranger’s hand, squeezing it and turning back to the room at large.
“We’ll have to find you somewhere to sleep, of course. Vladimir will bring the clothes here when
they’re ready, so you’ll need to stay close.”
His brows drew together in the center, like something I’d said bothered him, but he still couldn’t
seem to find his words. Perhaps it was a permanent disability, his lack of a voice. Our southern
neighbors had a specialized language for those who couldn’t hear or speak, so perhaps we could take
a cue from them. I was unaware of any people who had been born thus in Voronezh, but perhaps I was
simply uneducated on the matter. I would have to look into it.
So I tried to offer him my most reassuring smile and wrapped an arm around his shoulders to lead
him back into the parlor.
He turned a longing look back to my bedroom as we left, so I paused. “Do you want to sleep? You
could use my bed if you like.” As much as he didn’t smell of alcohol, he didn’t smell much of
anything. Fresh grass and something deep and earthy, but nothing unpleasant, as I might’ve expected
from a man down on his luck.
He shook his head again, eyes locked once more on me, and offered another tentative smile.
Was it selfish, how much I wanted all that attention? It was intoxicating, having someone hang on
my every word and motion. Someone who cared about . . . about me.
A sound in the parlor grabbed my attention, and I turned to find that Zoya was there, sitting at the
breakfast table looking shattered. She had dark circles under her eyes, and she was slumped nearly
sideways in her seat, staring at a cup of tea instead of drinking it. She glanced up at us, more a motion
of her eyes than her body, and smiled at me.
It was a strange smile for my sharp-edged sister, soft and loving, like I was a puppy performing a
trick.
“Should I call the healer, Zoya?” I went to her side and lay a hand on her shoulder. I couldn’t feel
heat emanating from her, so there was no fever I could detect, but—
“It’s nothing,” she dismissed, giving a yawn without covering her mouth. “I slept poorly. How is
your friend?”
“Ah, this is . . . well, I don’t know. I found him wandering outside, and he needed help, so I
brought him in.”
For a moment, she stared at me, blinking rapidly. “Outside?”
I nodded and motioned to the window. “Between here and the dragon stable. He was”—I glanced
at him and then back, biting my lip—“naked. And seemed confused.”
She continued blinking at me, but before I could get too worried, a wild knocking started on the
door to the parlor. “Prince Konstantin?” shouted a familiar voice, followed by a thorough shushing.
 We all turned to look at the door, and a moment later, Pavel, the head of our guard opened up,
glaring at a familiar figure, his expression threatening violence. The man—one of the heads of the
dragon stable—started to open his mouth, but Pavel let out an audible growl and he went quiet.
“My prince, this man is asking to speak to you. Most. Insistently.”
“It is important,” the man hissed back, before turning to me again. His expression was hard, like
he was girding himself. His back was straight, his shoulders tense. Whatever he’d come for, I wasn’t
going to like it. “The monste—your dragon has escaped the stables. It’s . . . it’s gone.”
In an instant, I was alone on the mountainside in the coldest winter. Every breath was as brittle
and sharp as a chip of ice. My heart shuddered and felt like it stopped—the whole world had
stopped.
Kirian was . . . gone? It wasn’t possible. Even after a rough night, he’d seemed so happy, and I’d
gotten no hint of even mild discomfort from him over the course of the morning. He’d seemed sated
and pleased and—
Things he’d never been while in the stables.
Kirian was gone.
He had run away, because I hadn’t taken care of him. Because I had let people hurt my best friend.
The stranger had been next to the stables early, though. I spun to face him, likely looking like a
madman, and demanded. “Did you see anything? You were—you were at the stables at dawn. Did you
see Kirian?”
Chapter 8
 Kirian

K ostya’s panic crashed over me and dragged me down. I heard my name, and I recognized the
dragon keeper, and all the joy of finding Kostya right away, of knowing I was safe, shriveled
and dried on the vine.
I’d never liked the keeper. He forgot me in the dark far too often and had been one of the men who
only edged around whatever room I was in, a spear in his grip to thrust out at me if I got too close.
He’d worked for the Vasilievs for years, which could only mean that King Dmitri liked him and
he was no friend of mine.
He’d never given Kostya any trouble, though, always bowing to him and scraping the floor. I did
not mind letting my Kostya stand between us then, shrinking down behind him so that the tamer did not
notice me and drag me back to the stables. The moment he recognized me, I was finished. They’d
never allowed me this much freedom.
But when the tamer’s gaze slid across my face, there was no recognition there. He didn’t know it
was me.
Just like Kostya, who had spun and looked my way with wild blue eyes.
When I stared at him, my mouth opening, moving around words that I couldn’t utter and barely
understood, he grabbed my arms and demanded, “Have you seen my dragon?”
Frantic, I shook my head. I hadn’t seen him, because I hadn’t rightly seen myself, had I? And I was
his dragon, but I also wasn’t—not with two spindly legs that could hardly jump, without wings,
without a chest full of flames.
Now, I was something else, but I was still his. I would never abandon him, and there was no way
I could allow Kostya to think I had seen his dragon leap into the sky and leave him behind.
I lifted my hand, and Kostya came back to himself enough to let me go. Newly freed, I touched his
cheek and willed him to understand, to look into my eyes and see me and know that there was nothing
to fear.
Only fear was all I could feel. It raced through my chest. The whole world was wrong. It was an
avalanche of nightmares and broken hearts and nothing would ever be all right again, because
Kostya’s soul had left him.
That was the panic that dragged me under, and it spiked until I could hardly breathe.
Firmly, I gripped Kostya’s hand, pulling him away from the horrid man with his spears and whips
and toward one of the shiny, reflective glasses on the walls. They bounced light into the room from
the windows on the far side of the parlor, and when we stood before it, they bounced back our
reflections too.
There—I saw his beloved face in that glass, and that must be me beside him. His hair was stark
white and beautiful, striking in a way that made him gleam like the stars in a pitch-black sky.
Beside him, mine was brown like earth. I did not know if I was beautiful like this. As a dragon,
Kostya often called me beautiful while he ran his hand across my green scales, but I had been special
then—a dragon. Now, I was not sure at all.
Perhaps he would not like me so well with pink skin and plain brown hair, but that did not matter.
All that mattered, right at that moment, was that I let Kostya see me so that he knew. He would know
that I was safe and that the world wasn’t ending.
I held him before the mirror, standing behind him and looking into it while I pressed my hands
against his cheeks. I pushed his skin up, trying to curve his lips into one of his heart-stopping smiles.
See me, I begged. Here I am. You have seen me too.
But Kostya only scowled at me in the mirror. His panic was still hammering through my chest, as
it had to be hammering through his own.
He gripped my wrists tightly and pulled my hands off his soft skin. Spinning, he glared at me.
I didn’t feel heat behind it, not anger, but he was displeased nonetheless, and faintly annoyed. I’d
done wrong. Been a burden. He had bigger things to concern himself with—like his missing dragon.
I’m here.
“Are you mad?” He dropped my hands, pushing my arms back with more force than he needed to.
I staggered back a step. In the face of his dissatisfaction, I shrank into my shoulders and squeezed
my eyes shut tight.
Kostya sighed. “I’m sorry. I just—I must find Kirian. I need—” I never learned what he needed.
Already, he was turning away from me, back toward that blasted dragon keeper. He demanded to
see my stable; he wanted to know what had gone wrong and how they had allowed me to escape.
Kostya had looked at me, but he had not seen. His fear still choked me.
Terrified, I gaped at Zoya. She could explain everything to Kostya. Then he’d understand. He’d—
He’d look at me with delight, and that fear in his chest would disappear.
But before I could plead with her—with eyes or by whining—Zoya listed to the side, her eyelids
drooped, and she fell out of her chair into a heap on the floor.
Chapter 9
Another random document with
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before, as she pronounced them, and the birds’ chorus rang out
harmoniously.
‘Will papa be there?’ I asked, nervously.
‘Papa! of course! What would home be without your father?’
I had found it much pleasanter without him than with him hitherto,
but some instinct made me hold my tongue.
‘Don’t you love papa, dear?’ the lady went on softly. ‘Don’t you
think that he loves you?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said, picking my fingers.
‘Poor child! Perhaps you have thought not, but that will all be
altered now. But you have not yet told me if you will like to have me
for a mother!’
‘I think I shall like you very much!’
‘That’s right, so we will go home together and try to make each
other happy. You want a mother to look after you, dear child, and I
want a little boy to love me. We will not part again, Charlie, now I
have found you, not for the present, at all events. You have been too
long away from home as it is. That is why I came to-day. I could not
wait till to-morrow, even: I was so impatient to see you and to take
you home.’
How she dwelt and lingered on the word and repeated it, as
though it gave her as much happiness to listen to as it did me.
‘Will you be there?’ I asked, presently.
‘Of course, I shall—always! What would be the use of a mother,
Charlie, if she didn’t live in the house close to you, always ready to
heal your troubles and supply your wants to the utmost of her
power?’
‘Oh! let us go at once!’ I exclaimed, slipping my hand into hers. All
dread of my father seemed to have deserted me. The new mother
was a guardian angel, under whose protection I felt no fear. She was
delighted with my readiness.
 ‘So we will, Charlie! We need not even wait for your box to be
packed. Mrs Murray can send on everything to-morrow. And papa
will be anxious until he sees us home again!’
My father anxious about me! That was a new thing to be wondered
at. I was too much of a baby still to perceive that his anxiety would
be for her—not for me! I had not yet been able to grasp the idea that
she was his wife. I only regarded her as my new mother.
As we passed out of the house, I asked leave to say good-bye to
my friend Jemmy.
‘His mother is dead, like mine,’ I said, in explanation. ‘He will be so
pleased to hear that I have got a new one.’
‘Poor boy!’ she sighed; ‘we will ask him to spend the summer
holidays with you Charlie. A great happiness like ours should make
us anxious to make others happier.’
And when Jemmy came forward on his crutches, and smiled his
congratulations on the wonderful piece of news I had to give him,
she stooped down and kissed his forehead. Then we passed out of
the playground together, I clinging to her hand, and proud already to
hear the flattering comments passed upon her appearance by the
other boys, and to remember that from that time forward she was to
be called my mother.

Lilyfields, as my father’s house was designated, was not more

than ten or twelve miles from the school; but we had to make a little
railway journey to reach it, and I thought I had never travelled so
pleasantly before. My new mother laughed so often and chatted so
continuously to me, that I caught the infection of her mirthful
loquacity, and, long before we got home, had revealed so much of
my past life and feelings, that more than once I brought a shadow
over her sunny face, and closed her smiling lips with a sigh. But as
we left the train and commenced to walk towards Lilyfields, my old
fears showed symptoms of returning, and my sudden silence, with
the tightening clasp of my hand, did not pass unobserved by my
companion.
‘What is the matter, Charlie? Of what are you afraid?’
‘Won’t papa be angry with me for coming back before the holidays
begin?’ I whispered.
Her clear laugh rang over the peaceful meadows we were
traversing.
‘If he is angry with any one, he must be so with me, as I fetched
you home Charlie.’
‘And you are not afraid of him?’
‘Afraid!’ The sweet serious eyes she turned upon me as she
ejaculated the word were just about to deprecate so monstrous an
idea, when they caught sight of an approaching figure, and danced
with a thousand little joys instead.
‘There he is!’ she exclaimed excitedly. She ran up to him, dragging
me with her.
He took her in his arms (there was not another living soul within
sight of us) and embraced her fervently, whilst I stood by, open-
mouthed with astonishment.
‘My angel,’ he murmured, as she lay there, with her face pressed
close to his; ‘life has been insupportable without you.’
‘Ah, Harold! it does me good to hear you say so; and I am so glad
to get back to you again. See! here is Charlie waiting for his father to
welcome him home.’
She lifted me up in her arms—big boy as I was—and held me
towards him for a kiss. How strange it was to feel my father kiss me;
but he did so, though I think his eyes never left her face the while.
Then he took her hand, and held it close against his heart, and they
walked through the silent, balmy-breathed fields together. As I
entered the house I could hardly help exclaiming aloud at the
marvellous changes that had taken place there. Not an article of
furniture had been changed, not a picture moved from its place, yet
everything looked bright as the glorious spring. The rooms had been
thoroughly cleaned, and lace curtains, snowy table-cloths, and vases
of flowers, with here and there a bright bit of colour in the shape of a
rug, or a piece of china, had transformed the house—not into a
paradise—but into a home. Even my father was changed like his
surroundings. He looked ten years younger, as with nicely kept hair,
and a becoming velveteen lounging coat, he sunk down into an
easy-chair, and deprecated, whilst he viewed with delight, the
alacrity with which my new mother insisted upon removing his boots
and fetching his slippers. It was such a novelty to both of us to be
attended to in any way, that I was as much surprised as he to find
that the next thing she did was to take me upstairs, and tidy me for
tea herself, showering kisses and love words upon me all the while.
Oh! the happy meal that followed. How unlike any we had taken in
that house before! I, sitting up at table, with my plate well provided;
my father in his arm-chair, looking up with loving eyes at each fresh
proof of her solicitude for him, and my new mother seated at the tea-
tray, full of smiles and innocent jests, watching us both with the
utmost affection; but apparently too excited to eat much herself.
Once my father noticed her want of appetite and reproached her with
it.
‘I am too happy to eat, Harold!’ was her reply.
‘Too happy,’ he repeated in a low voice, ‘really too happy! No
regrets, my Mary, no fears! Your future does not terrify you. You
would not undo the past if it were in your power!’
‘Not one moment of it, Harold! If I ever think of it, with even a
semblance of regret, it is that it did not begin ten years sooner.’
‘God bless you!’ was all he answered.
If I had not been such a child I should have echoed the words; for
before many days were over my head, the whole of my joyous young
life was an unuttered blessing upon her. The darkness of fear and
despondency—the most unnatural feelings a young child can
entertain—had all passed away. I no longer dreaded my father’s
presence; on the contrary, it was my greatest treat to bear him
company as he worked in the garden, or whistled over his
carpentering, or accompanied my mother in strolls about the country.
He never shut himself up in his room now, unless she was shut in
too; and although his new-born love was for her, and not for me, the
glory of it was reflected in his treatment of me.
So I was very happy, and so was he, and so most people would
have thought my mother to be. But though she never appeared
before my father without a bright face, she was not always so careful
in my presence, thinking me, perhaps, too young to observe the
changes in her countenance; and sometimes when she and I were
alone together, I marked the same look steal over her which I had
observed on the occasion of our first meeting—an undercurrent of
thoughtful sadness—the look of one who had suffered, who still
suffered, from a pain which she kept to herself.
Once I surprised her in tears—a violent storm of tears, which she
was powerless for some time to control; and I eagerly inquired the
reason of them.
‘Mamma, mamma, what is it, mamma? Have you hurt your foot?
Did Prince bite you? Have you got a pain anywhere?’
My childish mind could not comprehend that her tears should flow
for any other than a physical reason. Did not papa and I love her
dearly? and she was afraid of no one, and she never went to school.
What possible cause could she have for tears?
My mother composed herself as soon as she was able, and laid
her burning face against my cheek.
‘Will my little boy love me always?’ she asked—‘always—always—
whatever happens?’
‘Always, dear mamma. Papa and I would die if we hadn’t you. Oh,
you don’t know what it was like before you came here!’
‘Then mamma will never again be so silly as to cry,’ said my
mother, as she busied herself over some occupation to divert her
thoughts.
 But although this was the only time she betrayed herself so openly
before me, I often detected the trace of weeping on her face, which
she would try to disguise by excessive mirth.
So the years went on, until one bright summer’s day a little sister
was born in our house. I hailed the advent of this infant with the
greatest possible delight. It was such a new wonderful experience to
have a playmate so dependent on me, and yet so entirely my own. I
positively worshipped my little sister, although her birth was the
signal for my being sent back to school, but this time only as a
weekly boarder.
Hitherto my mother had taught me herself, and very sorry I was to
give up those delightful lessons, which were rendered so easy by the
trouble she took to explain them to me; but her time was too much
taken up with her baby to allow her to devote sufficient to me.
Besides, I was now eleven years old, growing a great lad, and able
to take every advantage of the education afforded me at Mr Murray’s
school.
My old friend, lame Jemmy, who had spent many a pleasant week
at Lilyfields meanwhile, was still there to welcome me back and
make me feel less of a stranger; and my father took away the last
sting of the new arrangement by buying me a sturdy pony on which
to ride backwards and forwards every week to see my mother and
him.
But the greatest pang which I experienced was parting, even for a
few days, with baby Violet. I cried over her so much, indeed, that I
made my mother cry too, as she asked God to bless the boy who
had been a true son to her. I was very glad to think she loved me so
much, for I loved her dearly in return; but as I galloped back to
Lilyfields every Saturday afternoon, my thoughts were all for the
dimpled baby sister whom I would carry about in my arms, or roll
with amongst the newly-mown grass, rather than with those who had
proved themselves to be real parents to me,—she from the
commencement of her knowledge of me, and he from the date of his
knowing her. It was my mother alone I had to bless for it all. But I had
grown accustomed to happiness by this time, and took it as my due.
 My parents were very proud of their little daughter, who grew into a
lovely child, but she did not seem to afford them as much pleasure
as pride. Sometimes I detected my mother looking at her as we
romped together, with more pain in the expression of her face than
anything else. Once she caught her suddenly to her bosom, and
kissed her golden curls with passion, exclaiming,—
‘Oh, my heart, if I were to go, what would become of you?—what
would become of you?’
I was still too young to grasp the full meaning of her words, but I
knew my mother meant that if she died, no one would take such
good care of Violet as she had done. So I marched up to her
confidently, with the assurance that I would take that responsibility
upon my own shoulders.
‘Don’t be afraid, mamma! As soon as I am a man, I mean to get a
house all to myself, and the best rooms in it shall be for Violet.’
She looked at me with her sweet, earnest, searching gaze for a
moment, and then folded me in one embrace with her own child.
‘Father’s boy!’ she murmured, caressingly over me—‘father’s
brave, loving boy! No, Charlie, I will not be afraid! If it be God’s will
that I should go, I will trust Violet to father and to you.’

Meanwhile my father was a very contented man. He had

undergone much the same change as myself, and forgotten, in the
sunshine that now surrounded him, all the miserable years he had
spent in that once desolate mansion.
I do not suppose a happier nor more peaceful family existed than
we were. No jars nor bickering ever disturbed the quiet of the
household; everything seemed to go as smoothly as though it had
been oiled. We were like the crew of some ship, safely moored
within a sunny harbour, never giving a thought to what tempests
might be raging outside the bar.
 Every Saturday when I rode home on my pony, I found my father
either working out of doors if it were summer, or indoors if it were
winter, but always with the same satisfied easy smile upon his
countenance, as though he had no trouble in the world, as indeed he
had not; for my mother warded off the most trifling annoyance from
him as though he were a sick child, that must not be upset; whilst
she threaded her quiet way through the kitchen and bedrooms, with
little Violet clinging to her gown, regulating the household machinery
by her own supervision, that no accident might occur to ruffle her
husband’s temper.
I believed her in those days—I believe her still to be the noblest
woman ever planned. One thing alone puzzled me—or rather, I
should say, seemed strange to me, for I did not allow it to go the
length of puzzlement—and that was why we had so few visitors at
Lilyfields. True, my father had made himself so unsociable in the old
days that strangers might well have been shy of intruding
themselves upon him now; but my mother was so sweet and gentle,
I felt it must be their loss rather than hers, that so few people knew
her. When, as a lad of fifteen, I mentioned this circumstance to her,
she put it aside as a matter of course.
‘When I made up my mind, Charlie, to try as far as in me lay, to
render the remainder of your father’s life happy, I was perfectly
aware that I should have to depend for companionship upon him
alone. We have each other, and we have you and Violet. We want no
other society but yours.’
Still, I thought the clergyman and his wife might sometimes have
come to see us, as they did the rest of their parishioners, and I
should have liked an occasional game of play with the sons of Squire
Roberts up at the Hall. But, with the exception of the doctor, who
sometimes came in for a chat with my father, no one but ourselves
ever took a meal at Lilyfields.
As I grew still older, and others remarked on the circumstance in
my hearing, I came to the conclusion that my father must have
offended his own friends by marrying my mother, whose connections
might be inferior to his own. This idea was confirmed in my mind by
observing that she occasionally received letters she was anxious to
conceal, which, knowing the frankness of her disposition, and her
great love for him, appeared very strange to me. One day, indeed,
my suspicions became almost certainties. It so happened that my
mother had appeared very fidgety and unlike herself at the
breakfast-table, and more than once had spoken to Violet and me in
a voice hardly to be recognised as her own. We felt instinctively that
something was the matter, and were silent, but my father, who was
not well, seemed irritated by the unusual annoyance. He wished to
remain quietly at home that morning, but my mother found a dozen
reasons why he should ride to the neighbouring town and take me
with him. He combatted her wish for some time, till, finding that her
arguments were revolving themselves into entreaty, his affection
conquered his irresolution, and we set off together. It was not a
genial day for a ride, and the trifling commissions my mother had
given us to execute were not of sufficient consequence to turn the
duty into a pleasure. I was rather pleased than otherwise, therefore,
when we had left Lilyfields some miles behind us, to find that my
pony had cast a shoe, and to be able, according to my father’s
direction, to turn back and walk it gently home again, whilst he went
forward to do my mother’s bidding.
When I reached Lilyfields I left the animal in the stables, and,
walking up to the house, gained the hall before anyone was sensible
of my approach. What was my surprise to hear a loud altercation
going on within the parlour. My first impulse was to open the door;
but as my mother turned and saw me standing on the threshold, she
came forward and pushed me back into the hall.
‘Go away!’ she whispered hurriedly; ‘go upstairs; hide yourself
somewhere, and do not come down until I call you!’
Her eyes were bright as though with fever, and a scarlet spot
burned on either cheek. I saw she was labouring under the influence
of some strong excitement, and I became intensely curious to learn
the reason.
‘Whom have you in there?’ I demanded, for I had caught sight of
another figure in the drawing-room.
 ‘Oh! you wish to know who I am, young man, do you?’ exclaimed a
coarse, uncertain voice from the other side the half-opened door.
‘Well, I’m not ashamed of myself, as some people ought to be, and
you’re quite welcome to a sight of me if it’ll give you any pleasure.’
The door was simultaneously pulled open, and a woman stood
before me.
How shall I describe her.
She may have been beautiful, perhaps, in the days long past, but
all trace of beauty was lost in the red, blotchy, inflamed countenance
she presented to my gaze. Her eyes were bloodshot; her hair
dishevelled; her dress tawdry and untidy, and if she had even been a
gentlewoman, which I doubted, she had parted with every sign of her
breeding. As she pushed her way up behind my mother—looking so
sad and sweet and ladylike beside her—she inspired me with
nothing but abhorrence.
‘Who is this person?’ I repeated, with an intimation of disgust that
apparently offended the stranger, for in a shrill voice she
commenced some explanation which my mother was evidently most
anxious I should not hear.
‘Oh, Charlie! do you love me?’ she whispered.
‘Mother! yes!’
‘Then go up to your room, now, at once, and wait there till I come
to you! I will speak to you afterwards—I will tell you all—only go
now!’
She spoke so earnestly that I could not refuse her request, but did
as she desired me at once, the woman I had seen, screaming some
unintelligible sentence after me as I ascended the stairs. But when I
found myself alone, the scene I had witnessed recurred rather
unpleasantly to my memory. It was an extraordinary circumstance to
see a stranger at all within our walls; still more so a woman, and one
who dared to address my mother in loud and reproachful tones. And
I was now sixteen, able and willing to defend her against insult, why,
therefore, had she not claimed my services to turn this woman from
the house, instead of sending me upstairs, as she might have done
little Violet, until she had settled the matter for herself? But then I
remembered the trouble my mother had taken to get my father and
me away from Lilyfields that morning, and could not believe but that
she had foreseen this visitation and prepared against it. It was then
as I had often supposed. She had relations of whom she was
ashamed, with whom she did not wish my father to come in contact.
Poor mother! If this was one of them, I pitied her! I believed the story
I had created myself so much, that I accepted it without further proof,
and when my mother entered the room, and laying her head against
my shoulder, sobbed as if her heart would break, I soothed her as
well as I was able, without another inquiry as to the identity of the
person with whom I had found her.
‘Don’t tell your father, Charlie!’ she said, in parting. ‘Don’t mention
a word to anyone of what you have seen to-day. Promise me,
darling! I shall not be happy till I have your word for it!’
And I gave her my word, and thought none the less of her for the
secrecy, although I regretted it need be.
Not long after this my father articled me, at my own request, to an
architect in London, and my visits to the happy home at Lilyfields
became few and far between. But I had the consolation of knowing
that all went well there, and that I was taking my place in the world
as a man should do.
I had worked steadily at my profession for two years, and was just
considering whether I had not earned the right to take a real good
long holiday at Lilyfields (where Violet, now a fine girl of seven years
old, was still my favourite plaything), when I received a letter from
the doctor of the village—desiring me to come home at once as my
father was ill, beyond hope of recovery. I knew what that meant—
that he was already gone; and when I arrived at Lilyfields I found it to
be true; he had died of an attack of the heart after a couple of hours’
illness. The shock to me was very great. I had never loved my father
as I did my mother; the old childish recollections had been too strong
for that, but the last few years he had permitted me to be very happy,
and I knew that to her his loss must be irreparable. Not that she
exhibited any violent demonstration of grief. When I first saw her, I
was surprised at her calmness. She sat beside my father’s body, day
and night, without shedding a tear; and she spoke of his departure
as quietly as though he had only gone on a journey from which she
fully expected him to return. But though her eyes were dry, they
never closed in sleep, and every morsel of colour seemed to have
been blanched out of her face and hands. So the first day passed,
and when the second dawned, I, having attained the dignity of
eighteen years, thought it behoved me to speak of my late father’s
affairs and my mother’s future.
‘Where is father’s will, mother?’
‘He never made one, dear!’
‘Never made a will! That was awfully careless.’
‘Hush, Charlie!’
She would not brook the slightest censure cast on her dead love.
‘But there must be a will, mother.’
‘Darling, there is none! It was the one thought that disturbed his
last moments. But I am content to let things be settled as they may.’
‘Lilyfields will be yours of course, and everything in it,’ I answered
decidedly. ‘No one has a better right to them than you have. And you
and Violet will live here to your lives’ end, won’t you?’
‘Don’t ask me, dear Charlie, don’t think of it—not just yet at least!
Let us wait until—until—it is all over, and then decide what is best to
be done!’
Before it was all over; matters were decided for us.
It was the day before the funeral. I had just gone through the
mournful ceremony of seeing my father’s coffin soldered down, and,
sad and dispirited, had retired to my own room for a little rest, when I
heard the sound of carriage wheels up on the gravel drive. I peered
over the window blind curiously, for I had never heard of my father’s
relations, and had been unable in consequence to communicate with
any of them. A lumbering hired fly, laden with luggage, stopped
before the door, and from it descended, to my astonishment, the
same woman with the fiery red face whom I had discovered in my
mother’s company two years before. I decided at once that,
whatever the claims of this stranger might be, she could not be
suffered to disturb the widow in the first agony of her crushing grief,
and, quick, as thought, I ran down into the hall and confronted her
before she had entered the house.
‘I beg your pardon, madam,’ I commenced, ‘but Mrs Vere is unable
to see anyone at present. There has been a great calamity in the
family, and—’
‘I know all about your calamity,’ she interrupted me rudely ‘if it
were not for that I shouldn’t be here.’
‘But you cannot see Mrs Vere!’ I repeated.
‘And pray who is Mrs Vere?’ said the woman.
‘My mother,’ I replied proudly, ‘and I will not allow her to be
annoyed or disturbed.’
‘Oh! indeed, young man. It strikes me you take a great deal of
authority upon yourself; but as I mean to be mistress in my own
house, the sooner you stop that sort of thing the better! Here! some
of you women!’ she continued, addressing the servants who had
come up from the kitchen to learn the cause of the unusual
disturbance. ‘Just help the flyman up with my boxes, will you—and
look sharp about it.’
I was thunderstruck at her audacity.
For a moment I did not know what to answer. But when this
atrocious woman walked past me into the parlour, and threw herself
into my dead father’s chair, I followed her, and felt compelled to
speak.
‘I do not understand what you mean by talking in this way,’ I said.
‘Mrs Vere is the only mistress in this house, and—’
‘Well, young man, and suppose I am Mrs Vere!’
‘I can suppose no such thing. You cannot know what you are
talking about. My mother—’
 ‘Your mother! And pray, what may your name be and your age?’
‘Charles Vere; and I was eighteen last birthday,’ I said, feeling
compelled, I knew not by what secret agency, to reply.
‘Just so! I thought as much! Well, I am Mrs Vere, and I am your
mother!’
‘My mother! You must be mad, or drunk! How dare you insult the
dead man in his coffin upstairs. My mother! Why, she died years ago,
before I can remember.’
‘Did she? That’s the fine tale, Madam, who’s been taking my place
here all this time, has told you, I suppose. But I’ll be even with her
yet. I’m your father’s widow, and all he’s left behind him belongs to
me, and she’ll be out of this house before another hour’s over her
head, or my name’s not Jane Vere!’
‘You lie!’ I exclaimed passionately. This tipsy, dissipated, coarse-
looking creature, the woman who bore me, and whom I had believed
to be lying in her grave for sixteen years and more. Was it wonderful
that at the first blush my mind utterly refused to credit it? The angry
accusation I have recorded had barely left my lips, when I looked up
and saw my mother—the woman who had come as an angel of light
into my father’s darkened home, and watched over me with the
tenderest affection since—standing on the threshold, pale and
peaceful in her mourning garb, as the Spirit of Death itself.
‘Mother! say it is not true,’ I cried as I turned towards her.
‘Oh, Charlie, my darling boy! my brave, good son! Be quiet! bear it
like a man; but it is true!’
‘This—this woman was my father’s wife!’
‘She was!’
‘And you, mother!’ I exclaimed in agony.
‘I was only the woman that he loved, Charlie,’ she answered, with
downcast eyes. ‘You must think no higher of me than that!’
‘I think the very highest of you that I can. You were my father’s
loving companion and friend for years: you saved his life and his
reason! You were his true, true wife, and my mother. I shall never
think of you in any lower light.’
My emotion had found vent in tears by that time. It was all so new
and so horrible to believe, and my mother’s hand rested fondly on
my bowed head.
Then that other woman, whose existence I can never recall
without a shudder, seized her hateful opportunity, and levelled the
most virulent abuse at my poor martyr mother’s head. Words, such
as I had never heard from a female before, rained thickly from her
lips, until I lost sight of my own grief in my indignation at the shower
of inuendoes which were being hurled at the person dearest to me of
all the world.
‘Be silent,’ I said in a loud authoritative voice. ‘Were you twenty
times my mother I would not permit you to speak as you are
speaking now. If it is true that you were my father’s wife, why were
you not in your proper place, instead of leaving your lawful duties to
another?’
‘Oh! madam here can answer that question better than myself.
She knows well enough there was no room left for me where she
was.’
‘Untrue!’ murmured my mother, but without any anger. ‘I would
have shielded your character from your boy’s censure, as I have
done for so long, but justice to the dead compels me to speak. You
left this home desolate for many miserable years before I entered it.
You deserted your child in his infancy, but your husband had so good
and forgiving a heart that, when you cried to him for pardon, he took
you back again and condoned your great offence, and therefore,
when you left him a second time, the law contained no remedy for
his wrong. He was compelled to live on—alone—dishonoured and
comfortless, whilst you—you can best tell your son what your life has
been since.’
‘Anyway I am Mrs Vere,’ retorted the other, ‘and my husband has
died intestate, and his property belongs to me, so I’ll thank you to
take your brat, and clear out of my house before the sun goes down.’
 ‘Oh! mother, this is infamous! It can never be!’
‘It must be, Charlie! It is the law. I knew all this when I consented
to come here as your father’s wife. He never deceived me for a
single moment; and if I have any regret that he put off providing
against this contingency until it was too late, it is only for fear lest he
should be regretting it also. But, my dear, dear love!’ she added in a
lower tone, ‘I acquit you of this as of all things. I know your great love
for me never failed, and I am content!’
‘I will not believe it without further proof!’ I exclaimed. ‘I will send
Ellen at once for the solicitor. I cannot leave you alone with this
horrid woman!’
‘Hush, Charlie! she is your mother.’
‘I will not acknowledge it. You are the only mother I have ever had
—the only mother I ever will have to my life’s end.’
Mr Chorberry, the solicitor, came without delay, but he could give
me no comfort. My poor father, by that strange indifference which
has been the curse of so many, had put off making his will until it was
too late, by reason of which he had left the one to whom he owed
most in the world, the woman who had sacrificed friends and
reputation to spend her life in a dull country home, administering to
his pleasures, entirely dependent on her own resources for support
—whilst the faithless, drunken creature he had the misfortune to be
still chained to, walked in as the lawful wife, and claimed her share of
the property. There was only one drop of balm in his decision. I, as
my father’s son, shared what he had left behind him, but my angel
mother and dear baby-sister were cast upon the world to shift for
themselves.
And this was the law.
Oh, father! did your spirit look down from whichever sphere it had
been translated to, and witness this?
‘But, surely,’ I said to Chorberry, ‘there can be no necessity for my
mother leaving Lilyfields before the funeral?’
 ‘Of course there is no necessity; but do you think it advisable,
under the circumstances, that she should remain? Mrs Vere has the
legal power to enforce her departure, and I am afraid will not be slow
to use it.’
My mother evidently was of one mind with him, for in an incredibly
short space of time she had packed her belongings. Mrs Vere,
standing over her meanwhile to see she did not purloin anything
from the house, and was waiting in the hall with little Violet, ready to
go to the house of the clergyman’s wife, who, to her honour, having
heard how matters stood at Lilyfields, had promptly sent my mother
an invitation to the vicarage for the night.
‘Are you ready, dear mother?’ I said sadly, as I joined her in the
hall, and drew her arm within my own.
‘Well, Mr Charles, I suppose I shall see you back again here
before long?’ screamed the shrill voice of Mrs Vere down the
staircase.
I started.
See me back! Was it possible that this woman believed I intended
to make friends with her?
‘We’ve been parted long enough, it strikes me,’ she continued;
‘and now your father’s gone, and left no one behind him but yourself,
I suppose you’ll be looking out for my share of the property at my
death, so we may as well let bye-gones be bye-gones—eh?’
‘I wish for none of your property, madam,’ I answered haughtily,
‘since the law gives it to you you are welcome to keep it.’
‘Charlie, dear, think what you may be resigning,’ urged my mother
in my ear.
‘I think of nothing but you, mother!’
‘Hoity, toity! here’s manners,’ cried the other woman. ‘You seem to
forget, Master Charlie, that I’m your mother!’
Still holding my mother’s hand, I turned and confronted her.
 ‘I forget nothing, madam! I wish I could; but I remember that here
stands the woman who laboured where you refused to work; who
loved, where you had insulted and betrayed; who was faithful where
you were faithless and undeserving; and, I say, that here stands my
dead father’s true wife; and here stands, in God’s sight, my mother!
The blessing of man may not have sanctified her union, but the
blessing of heaven shall be upon it and upon her—upon the
creatures she rescued from a living death and upon the gracious
hand with which she did it, until time itself shall be no more.’
So saying, I passed with my mother beyond the gates of Lilyfields,
to make a new life for her in some quiet spot where she might outlive
her grief, and to repay, if possible, by the protection and support of
my manhood, the love she had given me as a little child.
THE END.
 IN THE HEART OF THE ARDENNES.
Fever is raging in Brussels, and we are advised to quit the town as
soon as possible. The question is, where to go. I suggest Rochefort
in the Ardennes, having ascertained previously that the place is
healthy; but my friends laugh at me. ‘Rochefort in February! We shall
all be frozen to death.’ ‘At least,’ I argue, ‘there is pure air to
breathe.’ ‘But you can have no idea of the dulness,’ is all the reply I
receive; ‘Rochefort, with its one street and its one resident is bad
enough in the summer, but at this season it will be unendurable.’ Yet
I am not to be turned from my purpose. I consider it is better to be
frozen outwardly than burned inwardly; and that when one is flying
from a pestilence, there is no time to regret the numerous pleasures
left behind, or the few that loom in the future. And so we settle finally
that, notwithstanding its promised disadvantages, we will thankfully
accept the refuge Rochefort can afford us; and having made up our
minds to go, we start twenty-four hours afterwards.
Being pent-up in a railway carriage with half-a-dozen manikins and
womanikins, who suck oranges half the time, and obtrude their little
persons between your view and the window the other half, is not
perhaps the most favourable situation from which to contemplate the
beauties of nature; for which reason, perhaps, it is as well that for the
first part of our journey nature presents no beauties for our
contemplation, and thereby our naturally mild tempers are prevented
from boiling over. But when we have accomplished about fifty miles
(Rochefort being distant from Brussels seventy miles) the country
begins to assume a different and far more engaging aspect. The flat
table-land, much of it marshy and undrained, which has scarcely
been varied hitherto, gives place to swelling hills, half rock, half
heather, and charming copses of fir, some of which are very
extensive. The scenery becomes altogether more wooded and
naturally fertile-looking; and houses and farmsteads lose all trace of
British contiguity, and become proportionately interesting to curious
English eyes. The train is an express, and as it dashes past the
fragile, roughly-built little stations with which the road is bordered, it
is amusing, or rather I should say it would be amusing, did it not
suggest the idea of accidents, to see the signal-flags displayed by
peasant-women in every variety of attitude and costume.
Here stands a stolid, solid Belgian girl, of eighteen years of age
probably, and stout enough for forty, with a waist like a tar-barrel, and
legs to match, who nurses her flag as if it were a baby, and gazes at
the flying train with a countenance which could not be more
impassive were it carved in wood. We have hardly finished laughing
at her, when the train rushes past another station, at which appears
a withered old crone, her head tied up in a coloured handkerchief,
and her petticoats, cut up to her knees, looking cruelly short for such
a wintry day, and displaying a pair of attenuated legs and feet for
which the huge wooden sabots look miles too large. She waves
about the signal-flag in a nervous, agitated manner, which suggests
the idea that she is not quite sure whether she has caught up the
right one or not; but before we have time to be made uncomfortable
by the fact, we are passing another of these Belgic ‘shanties,’ at the
door of which appears for a moment a middle-aged woman, who
waves the signal at us in a menacing manner, and rushes back
immediately to her children or her cooking.
Remembering our own signalmen, and the importance attached to
their capabilities and education for the important office assigned
them, it ceases to be a matter of amusement to see the lives of
hundreds daily intrusted to the direction of such ignorant creatures
as these. I suppose that ‘Monsieur,’ smoking at his ease by the
fireside in the little wooden station-house, directs the actions of his
mother, wife, or daughter; but what are the authorities about not to
insist on his performing his duty himself?