The Dragon Kings' Forbidden Witch

For a moment, Draeven simply looked at his brother.

”Tell that to the Elders,” Draeven said, and there was a note of bitter amusement in his voice, ”and see if they will agree with you.”

He returned to his desk and sat down heavily, as if the weight of what he was about to say required the physical support of his chair.

”You know how they think, Thorne,” he continued. ”They’re convinced...absolutely, utterly convinced, that our mate exists. That she’s out there somewhere, waiting to be found. And they’ve constructed an entire fantasy about who she’ll be. Wrapped in silk and velvet, they say. Of high birth. Of suitable status. A woman who can match our power, who can give us heirs, who can break the curse with the sheer force of her aristocratic breeding and refined upbringing.”

He shook his head slowly.

”The Elders are delusional,” Draeven said flatly. ”And that delusion is what keeps the selection process alive, no matter how little we actually believe in it.”

Thorne leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his dark eyes intense.

”Then what do we do about them?” he asked. ”About the daughters? Because I am becoming increasingly annoyed by their presence in this palace. They linger in the halls. They create drama. They cause disruption. And now, apparently, they’re plotting something.”

Draeven smiled...a slow, dangerous smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

”Has anyone found you in the library?” he asked.

Thorne’s expression shifted to one of exasperation.

”More times than I can count,” he said bitterly. ”They use the library as an excuse to spend time near me. They come supposedly looking for books to read, but what they’re really doing is positioning themselves to keep me company. I’ve had to leave the library on several occasions just to escape them. Or send them away, which requires far more effort than it should.”

He ran a hand through his dark hair in frustration.

”The library is supposed to be my refuge,” he said. ”It’s the one place where I can be alone with the texts and the knowledge and the peace of scholarship. But instead, it’s become another battleground for their attention-seeking behavior.”

Draeven’s smile widened slightly.

”Has he been around?” Draeven asked, his tone shifting to something almost conspiratorial.

”Kaelen?” Thorne’s expression darkened. ”No. He’s been... otherwise occupied.”

The unspoken reality hung between them.

Their youngest brother had been managing his post-transformation stress in a very particular way. He had disappeared from most palace functions, had stopped attending council meetings regularly, had withdrawn from his official duties as much as possible. Instead, he had been spending his time with women. Different women. Constantly rotating through a series of courtiers and servants and visiting ladies who were more than willing to occupy his time and his attention.

It was not a healthy coping mechanism. But it was, perhaps, a safer one than the alternative.

”That brother of yours,” Thorne said dryly, ”would rather govern women’s legs than govern his own kingdom.”

Draeven actually laughed at that...a short, sharp sound that contained genuine amusement despite the underlying darkness of the situation.

”At least he’s finding some outlets for his frustration,” Draeven said. ”Better that than another incident like what happened on the training grounds.”

He stood again and moved to look out the window, his golden eyes distant now, focused on something far away.

”Kaelen has been more withdrawn since the transformation,” he said quietly. ”He’s retreated into the only way he knows how to control his emotions. And that way is...” he paused, searching for the right words, ”...through physical outlets.”

Thorne understood what his brother was saying without needing it to be spelled out. The forced transformation had shaken something fundamental in Kaelen. It had shown him that his control was not absolute, that the curse’s power over him was stronger than he had believed. The realization had sent him into a spiral of sorts....not madness, but a kind of controlled chaos where he tried to regain mastery through any means available to him.

”And if that is the only way he knows how to deal with the curse,” Draeven continued, his voice taking on a harder edge, ”then we will provide him with more women. Because that is better....infinitely better, than allowing what happened on that training ground to happen again.”

Thorne stood and joined his brother at the window, looking out over the same vista.

”He’s becoming a problem,” Thorne said quietly. ”The soldiers talk. The servants whisper. There are rumors about his behavior, about the women, about whether his control is slipping.”

”Let them whisper,” Draeven said, but his jaw tightened. ”The alternative is worse.”

He was right, and they both knew it. When Kaelen had undergone the forced transformation during training, when his body had shifted involuntarily into his dragon form and he had lost control of his power, nearly killing Captain Rhen in the process. it had revealed a terrifying truth: the curse was stronger than any of them had realized. Their control was more fragile than they had believed.

Kaelen’s withdrawal was, in a sense, a coping mechanism. A way of dealing with the loss of control by establishing control in other areas. It was not healthy, but it was manageable. It kept him stable enough to function, even if that functioning looked like he was spiraling.

”The Elders don’t know how close we came,” Thorne said. ”To a real catastrophe. If he’d lost control with the King’s Guard around him instead of just training grounds staff...”

”They don’t need to know,” Draeven interrupted. ”And they won’t. We manage this internally. We keep Kaelen stable. We provide him with what he needs to maintain his sanity. And we keep this information contained.”

It was the burden of kingship. Making the hard choices. Accepting that perfection was impossible and that you did the best you could with impossible situations.

”So we allow him to continue?” Thorne asked, though it wasn’t really a question. He already knew the answer.