The Twiceborn Queen (The Proving Book 2) (28 page)

Fortunately Elizabeth wasn’t interested in justice, only in seeing me dead. Even if she’d ordered Carl killed herself—which was entirely possible—she was happy to accept Kasumi’s version of events.

She studied Kasumi’s borrowed face. “That seems fitting. Dear Carl would be proud of your loyalty, I’m sure. Perhaps you would like to gather all his former staff, so that they may see justice done. We could wait.”

“Begging your pardon, my queen, but the Right of Retribution allows me to claim immediate justice.” Kasumi glared at me. “And I do.”

Fingers of fear crept up my spine again. Either she was a brilliant actress, or I’d been well and truly played. What was my Option B? But a glance around the room showed that even Option A would be a struggle. Too many people. Two dragons. Kasumi herself. I shifted uncomfortably, feeling the weight of my chains. But their silver had no power over me any more. I still had that element of surprise.

And Kasumi knew that. Surely if she planned to betray me she wouldn’t be going through with this charade. She would have done it as soon as we walked in.
Relax. You said you trusted her. So trust her.

“Very well. Give the axe to Mr Watson, please, Gideon.”

Kasumi left me with the two guards and strode forward to receive the axe. Thorne relinquished it with bad grace. He must have really been looking forward to lopping my head off. Well, he’d just have to cry into his Dom Perignon later, if he lived so long. My heart began to thud in anticipation.

The two men bowed very formally to each other as Thorne handed the weapon across. So polite. Elizabeth nodded approvingly.

Then Kasumi leapt onto the dais, whirling the axe above her head. She moved so fast the blade was a gleaming blur. Elizabeth’s mouth had barely begun to form an “O” of surprise before the axe bit into her neck and her head went bouncing across the floor.

Thorne was right. That sucker
was
sharp.

Time seemed to stand still as the headless body folded gently forward and toppled from its seat. As if in slow motion the guards at my side, and the two behind the throne, also collapsed, like puppets whose strings had been cut—thralls, shocked senseless by the sudden severing of their bond with their mistress.

Thorne leapt forward with a roar of fury, exploding into dragon form. Black, and monstrous, he was the biggest dragon I’d ever seen. If he’d caught Kasumi in those massive jaws she would have been crushed like matchsticks, but she was already gone, dancing among the screaming onlookers with her bloody axe.

I answered his roar with one of my own,
pulling
myself into trueshape and bursting free of my chains. My claws bit deep into the floor as I launched myself across the room, putting my golden body between Kasumi and the black dragon’s fury.

“Stop!” I bellowed, pouring every drop of compulsion I possessed into the command.

Every creature in the crowd froze, some even caught mid-change. The leshy I’d noticed earlier now wore a bear’s head on top of his business suit. Foul blue goblin blood spattered the suit, and the goblin who’d been standing next to him lay at his feet, his head some distance away. Kasumi looked enquiringly over her shoulder, axe trembling at the high point of its swing. Even the black dragon paused, his yellow eyes drawn unwillingly to mine.

“The queen is dead.” The rumble of my voice filled the room as I paced forward, claws clicking loudly in the silence. I stepped over Elizabeth’s feeble human form and up onto the dais. No one moved as I set my right foot on the tiny chair that stood there. “The throne is mine by right of conquest and inheritance. Swear fealty to me now and I’ll spare your lives.”

The black dragon’s tail lashed angrily as he circled. “The proving is not over! You are not queen till all other claimants are dead.” His eyes narrowed, filled with hate. “And not even then, if I have anything to do with it.”

“You’d rather one of the overseas queens took the throne? They circle the proving like vultures. You want us to lose Oceania like Elizabeth lost England?”

Smoke rose from his nostrils. I watched carefully for the first hint of attack. Blue sky beckoned beyond the open doors to the terrace. If I had to fight I’d rather do it out there where I had room to manoeuvre—but it would be better not to fight at all. He had a huge size advantage on me. Kasumi circled round behind him, but he took no notice. In this form she mattered less than a buzzing insect to him. All his attention was fixed on me.

“I would rather a dragon sat the throne,” he hissed. “Not an abomination like you.”

I gave a dragon version of a shrug, half opening my wings. “Well, you know what they say—if it walks like a dragon and breathes fire like a dragon … it’s probably a dragon. I think you’re getting caught up on technicalities here.”

Kasumi had discarded the axe and now crouched by one of his massive back feet. He could crush her without even knowing she was there. What the hell was she doing?

He growled, a sound like a jackhammer starting up, and I tensed, ready to leap for the relative safety of the open sky. Kasumi would have to take her chances with the handful of shifters who remained functional. Pretty good odds for her. I had faith.

Thorne’s tail lashed back and forth. I watched his eyes, waiting for his spring, and so I saw the moment when he lost focus. The growling stopped, and he sat back on his haunches with the look of someone who’d accidentally swallowed a bug.

Kasumi! For one horrible moment I thought she’d been crushed by a giant dragon butt. But there was no sign of her at all, just a faint wisp of yellow mist that swirled around the dragon’s foot and disappeared.

“Twiceborn, I’ve got him.”

The words came from Thorne’s mouth, but certainly not from Thorne’s consciousness.

“Kasumi?” I could hardly believe it. Was there no end to the miracles this kitsune could perform? “Is that you?”

“Yes.” Thorne panted, and his great head jerked from side to side. “He’s strong … wait … let me try—”

The black dragon dissolved into a naked man sitting on the tiles, his scrawny legs splayed wide. Thorne was no oil painting at the best of times, but without his clothes he was enough to turn even a dragon off sex for life. With his beer gut sitting in his lap he looked nine months pregnant, and the dazed look on his face made him seem a few sandwiches short of a picnic. I stepped forward and nuzzled at him. He made no move to resist me. He certainly smelled like Thorne.

“But where is—where’s Bill?” No sign of Kasumi’s previous form remained, nor of her own petite Japanese self.

Thorne staggered to his feet, reeling like a drunkard. “He’s too … strong. I’m losing him!” He clutched at his head, then fell against my leg, hands scrabbling at my scales. “Get my hoshi no tama! I can’t hold him. Suggest you … knock me out … now!”

Expressions chased themselves across his face: pleading, rage, cunning, back to pleading. Curiouser and curiouser. Still, this was no time to start ignoring Kasumi’s always-excellent advice.

I raised a foot and knocked Thorne halfway across the room. He skidded across the tiles and his head met the wall with an audible thump. Following orders had never been so satisfying.

The leshy had subsided back into human form, though the vibrant green of his skin showed he was still unsettled. He huddled with two goblins and a selkie against the far wall, watching me as if expecting every minute to be his last.

If I was any other dragon it probably would have been.

Dragons weren’t big on clemency. Where was the sense in leaving the supporters of your rivals alive to plot against you? Better to kill and move on than leave your back exposed. Thralls were different, of course—you could turn them to your own use, if the death of their previous master or mistress hadn’t sent them insane or killed them. But shifters …

“I don’t remember you,” I said to the leshy. He quailed visibly at being singled out, and the selkie took a very unsubtle step away, as if the green man’s bad luck might rub off on her. “What’s your name?”

“Robert Macadam, ma’am.” He swallowed convulsively. “But most—most people call me Bear.”

“Bear.” I moved closer, looming over the little group. Goblins were a dime a dozen, but it was a shame to waste a leshy. I’d seen what they were capable of in the battle at Alicia’s bush property, where a handful of leshies had held off Valeria’s troops, at least until Valeria herself had joined the fight. They couldn’t stand against dragonfire, though they were brave and versatile in form. Unlike most shifters, who only had one trueshape, they could shift at will between many options, which made them hard to fight. No prize for guessing why this one was known as “Bear”. It was one of their favourite forms. “How long have you worked for my mother, Bear?”

“All my life.” He stared at a point somewhere on my shoulder, avoiding my gaze. As if that would make any difference. I might not be able to enthral a fellow shifter permanently, but I could certainly bend one to my will long enough for most purposes, whether or not they looked into my eyes.

His human form looked to be in his late fifties, with a shock of grey hair receding up his green forehead. Odd that I didn’t recognise him, then, if he’d worked for Elizabeth all his life. Maybe he was one of Gideon’s spies.

“I thought all the local leshies supported Alicia.”

“Not all. Some of us remained loyal to the queen.”

“Your queen is dead. What will you do now?”

“I could—” He gulped and tried again. “I could be loyal to a new queen.”

I smiled, though I was aware the effect wasn’t terribly reassuring in dragon form. No one liked to see such big teeth on display.

The selkie beside him nodded so vigorously her brown curls bounced. “Yes, my lady! We’ll support you.”

A drop of sweat trickled from her temple down her cheek. It was a hot day, but not that hot. I leaned closer, the breath from my nostrils ruffling her hair, and she cringed away in terror.

“I know you will. The four of you will be my first and most loyal subjects.”

I caught them all in my gaze till they nodded stupidly. The compulsion wouldn’t last long, but for a few hours at least I could trust them not to stab me in the back. By the time it wore off Garth and the others would be here, and these would be safely locked away behind silver bars.

Once they were secured, I ordered Bear to bind Thorne in my discarded silver chains. Maybe that would harm Kasumi—I hoped not—but I couldn’t risk leaving him unbound when her grip on him was so weak. With that done I felt safe enough to shift back to human form. While the selkie went running for some clothes for me I moved among Elizabeth’s shattered thralls, catching them all in my web and enthralling them to me. It sickened me to have to do it, but the alternative was a slow, lingering death. Their bodies were no longer capable of functioning without the bond. Once I’d woven my strands into their minds they returned to their senses, all except one. Either he’d been enthralled too long to make the switch or he was particularly weak-minded, but I couldn’t call his mind back from where it wandered. I tried for some time, knowing the alternative, but by the time I gave up I was exhausted, and he was close to death.

I accepted a simple shift dress from the selkie and shrugged it on. The four shifters watched me closely, eager for some way to serve, while the new thralls waited impassively for orders. I hated that mindless obedience. Ten new thralls. Sickening.

Judging from their reaction when Elizabeth died, they must have been enthralled for years. Not that it made me feel any better. I slumped down on my mother’s throne and stared at her headless body, collapsed in a graceless heap at my feet, still sluggishly leaking blood. A normal person would feel bad about that. Mostly I felt relief.

Like it or lump it, I was a dragon now. This
was
normal.

Bloody hell. How could anyone live like this? I closed my eyes and let my head flop against the padded back of the seat. I should just tell Alicia she could have it all and run away to some tropical island with Lachie.

Yeah, right. And the first thing she’d do would be send assassins after me, just to be sure. Dragons didn’t like loose ends.

“All or nothing,” I reminded myself.

“Pardon, my lady?” Bear asked, coming forward eagerly. His skin had faded to a respectably human brown now, and he looked much happier.

“How many others are in the house?” Probably should have asked that earlier. God, I was tired.

He did a quick scan of the bodies in the room. “Ah … there’s usually two thralls in the comms room at all times … another one, maybe two, in the kitchen …”

“Bring them to me.”

He nodded at the two goblins and they ran off.

“Any other shifters?”

Again his eyes roamed the bodies. Kasumi had killed four before I stopped her, all shifters. Smart woman. She knew the fewer hostile shifters I had to deal with the better.

“Only the gate guard.”

I nodded. He could wait. I beckoned two thralls forward. “You know how to work the comms room?” When they said yes I sent them off to man the monitors. The last thing I needed now was any surprise visitors crashing my party.

I held out a hand to Bear. “Phone.”

Hastily he pulled out a mobile and gave it to me. I dialled Garth’s number and felt my whole body sag with relief when his gruff voice answered.

“It’s me. We did it.”

“Halle-friggin-lujah. You okay?”

“I’m fine.” He didn’t ask after Kasumi, though. “I need you guys to come in. Make sure you bring the hoshi no tama with you.”

“You sure you want to give it back to her?”

“Don’t be a jerk. She was brilliant—and now we need it again.”

“If you say so.” He didn’t bother hiding the doubt in his voice. I’d never have to worry about my ego with Garth around. He was more than capable of telling me, in great detail, whenever he disapproved of my choices.

“How’s Lachie?”

“Having a ball. Mac’s been playing some game with him. He keeps killing all her ninjas. There’s Lego shit everywhere. You want me to leave him here with her?”

I hesitated. I purposely didn’t know where they were, so that if things had gone wrong on this end I couldn’t have given away his location. Would he be safer holed up somewhere with Mac, or here where I could protect him?