The Dragon Kings' Forbidden Witch

He stopped.

”That is the third thing,” said Astraea. ”And it is the one I came to say.”

She stepped nearer the fire.

”The ritual your elder spoke of cannot be forced. Not by command. Not by trickery. Not by need, however sweet the need may feel.” She looked from face to face. ”If the Mother of Dragons does not enter freely, with her whole self and her whole will, the binding will not hold. It will break. And whoever tried to bind her will be broken with it.”

The fire cracked loudly.

Draeven had gone very still.

”All three of us,” Thorne said.

”All three of you. And perhaps more than you know.” She turned to him. ”Two of three is not three. Bonded is not bound. The first is a thing of the body. The second is a thing of the soul, and the soul cannot be taken. It can only be offered.”

The words went into Draeven like cold iron.

Bonded is not bound.

He had spent the afternoon turning it over, the thing he had said to his brothers as though it were law. INFERNUS must know her. Must claim her and be claimed, before the ritual could stand. He had called it necessity, and he had said it so steadily that for a moment he had believed it was only that.

And on the ridge her hand had lain over his, and the dragon had woken, and he had thought: there. It is done.

It was not done.

It was a beginning. A door unlatched, no more. What lay beyond it was a thing no dragon had ever been able to take, however he hungered, however old his fire. She would have to walk through it herself.

She would have to want it, INFERNUS said slowly, as though tasting the idea.

”Yes.” Draeven replied.

”Not for the curse.” INFERNUS pointed out again.

”No.” Draeven replied.

The dragon was silent. When it spoke again there was something in its voice that Draeven had not heard in two hundred years, and it took him a moment to name it. It was humility.

”Then we must be worth choosing.”

He looked down at his hands. They were steady. He did not know how.

”You sound very sure,” Kaelen said.

”I am older than your doubts.”

”Then why have you not told Cedric? The council?” He asked.

”Because the council is not a safe place to say it.” Astraea responded.

She said it flatly, and the room cooled.

”That is the fourth,” Astraea said. ”There is a hand in your council that is not yours. Not Carrick’s either, not directly. Something between. It listens, and it carries. Your elder Cedric knows it. He has laid a trap for it. He has not yet caught it.” She paused. ”If you hold the ritual before you know whose voice it is, the ritual will be heard before it is held.”

”A mole,” Thorne said softly.

”If you wish to call it that.”

”Do you know who?” he asked.

”No.” She met his gaze. ”If I did, I would say.”

He believed her. He did not know why. But the shadows at his feet had stilled in a way they only did when he was certain.

It did not ease him.

A hand in the council. He turned it over the way he turned over a map, looking for the place where the ground gave way. Cedric had come to the throne room that morning already knowing that windows had frosted and objects had risen in Thorne’s chambers. By dawn. The magic had burst out in the dead of night behind a closed door, with no one in the room but a king, a sick girl, and the few who had been called in after.

Silas. The physician. Rowan, at first light.

The list was short. He disliked that it was short.

He did not believe any of them false. But rumor traveled by smaller roads than loyalty, and a tale told once in a kitchen did not stay there. Someone had carried it to Cedric’s ear. Someone else might have carried it further.

He filed it, as he filed everything, in the cold quiet part of himself where the shadows lived, and he did not say it aloud.

”There is more,” Draeven said.

It was not a question.

He had watched her carefully, and he had caught it in the last of her sentences, the faint reluctance, the way her hand drifted toward her side as though to touch something that was not there. Astraea looked at him for a long moment.

”Yes,” she said.

”The one who hid her.”

She did not pretend to misunderstand.

”You have guessed it already. I saw it in your brother’s face when he asked her.” Her eyes moved to Kaelen. ”You asked if she knew a dragon outside the palace.”

His jaw tightened. ”I did.”

”And her heart betrayed her.” Asraea said.

”You listened after all.” Draeven said and nodded his head.

”I did not need to. It is what any of you would hear, if you were closer.” She said it without cruelty. ”Yes. It was a dragon. An old one. As old as any of those who sleep below your palace, and older than some. Not one of them. He has never set foot in your halls.”

”Who?” Kaelen asked.

”I will not say.” Astraea replied.

”Why?”

”Because it is not my name to give.” Her voice had gentled, but it did not bend. ”It belongs to the girl. She has carried it for years, as she has carried everything else. She will give it to you when she can bear to. If I took that from her, I would be no better than the ones who hunt her.”

”He hid her from us,” Kaelen said. His hands had knotted on his knees. ”For eighteen years. We searched the whole of the realm. We....”

”He hid her for you.”

The words fell into the room like a struck bell.

”If he had not,” said Astraea, ”she would have been found long before. By something that was not you. She would not be sitting in this palace tonight, in a soft gown, with three kings’ dragons purring after her. She would be in a very different kind of room.” Her pale eyes were steady. ”Do not hate him. Not yet. Not until you know what he gave up to do it.”