I could go anywhere and do anything.
4
TAMSYN
EVERY NIGHT WE ASSEMBLED FOR DINNER AT A MASSIVEV-shaped table that seated the entire pride. It was all very civilized. Bejeweled candelabras ran down the center of the table that was set with dishes and cutlery of gleaming gold. The menu boasted ample food. Succulent roasted meats and vegetables swimming in savory herbs. Cheeses and berries. Crusty baked bread soft at the center, served with freshly churned butter. Sweet puddings and pastry. It would do the royal table at Penterra proud.
Dragons took mealtime very,veryseriously. Their—our—appetites were immense. Since I had manifested into my dragon, Iate, consuming food as I never had, as though every morsel was as necessary to me as air to a body.
We all had our designated seats, determined long ago, before I arrived. There was an established hierarchy. A complex society existed in this place with its perpetual mist that hugged every jagged peak and cliff, filled very hollow, chasing through deep and ancient tunnels, reaching us in our caves, encircling us … smoky tendrils twisting around our ankles and calves where we sat even now.
Vetr took his position at the head of the V-shaped table, a strategic location that allowed him to see every member of his pride. Even me, located much farther down the table where I had been consigned.
Room had been made for me when I arrived, but by no means did I occupy a position of esteem. Clearly, it was a held belief that I belonged on the lowest rungs of the hierarchy.
If Fell had not gone off on that first night and gotten killed, would he have been seated near his brother at the helm of the group?
I could envision it so clearly. They would have embraced Fell and taken him into the inner circle, perhaps even made him a skeppar. Room would have been made forhim. He was Vetr’s kin. Blood. The missing piece. The long-lost brother finally home. Perhaps I wouldn’t be relegated to this seat if Fell was here. Perhaps I would be up there near Fell and Vetr.
Perhaps. Perhaps. Perhaps.All pointless wonderings.
Even this, my place somewherenearthe bottom, felt like a courtesy to Fell’s memory and nothing to do with me personally.
At least I was not seated at the very ends of the table. I tried to wrap myself in this consolation. Those last few seats were reserved for the very youngest of the pride. At least I was positioned above the children.
If I wanted to move up the ladder, I would have to earn my place—which I was beginning to suspect would never happen. After my conversation with Vetr, I knew what it would take.
We need breeders.
I reached for my glass of verdaberry wine and took a hearty swig. Thirteen-year-old Bodin, an onyx dragon who, despite his youth, was a pile of brawn and muscle and oozing vigor, sat beside me. He ignored me as he talked to his friend, Mats, another onyx on the other side of me.
The two adolescents talked over me,throughme, perpetually, chronically. At every meal. As though I did not exist. Though their indifference was not the worst thing I had to endure—it beat the occasional sneering question directed at me, which always felt like a trick, a trap staged for the amusement of others. A question ready to snap its jaws shut and pin me down … because no reply would ever be right. And I knew that.
The others often looked at each other with laughter in their eyes when I didn’t know something they considered fundamental.Anything I said opened me up to embarrassment and ridicule, but I still asked my questions. How else was I to learn?
What are verdaberries?
What is a clarion dragon? An onyx? A visiocrypter? A hypnos?
How many minns are there?
I didn’t know anything, and they wanted me to feel that. To make me stew in my ignorance and feel my lack like an aching bruise.
I was grateful for Kerstin. As much as she filled my ears with inane chatter, she was a distraction … and, admittedly, a welcome fount of information. Much better than surly Bodin, who behaved as though something contaminated had been dropped down beside him.
I never had to speak much around Kerstin. I could simply listen, eat, drink, and stare ahead, watching everyone else, tracking, clocking everyone’s activities and movements and words. This was what came of finding myself alone in a world where the monsters were real—what came of finding myself one of the monsters.
“Ugh. Look at the way theyfawnover him,” Kerstin groaned, as though physically in pain.
I picked at the food on my plate, placing it in my mouth and chewing without my usual appetite. They all ate with gusto, heaping their plates high, but after my conversation with Vetr, my stomach sloshed with bile.
I didn’t need to look up or ask Kerstin to explain her remark. It was familiar mealtime commentary. Estrid and Gudru vied for Vetr’s attention like they did every day. They weren’t subtle as they dug their elbows into each other’s sides and hissed at each other like a pair of snakes.
It was a strange thing. They had their pick of partners—the numbers were obviously in their favor—but it was only Vetr they fixated upon, as though he were the only one worth snaring in their nets. Vetr’s second-in-command, Anders, sat to his right with his mate, Harald, beside him, leaving Estrid and Gudru strainingthemselves to talk around Harald. They pelted Vetr with questions, competing with each other to lure him into conversation.
I watched on, Vetr’s words ringing in my ears. Estrid and Gudru were two of the five unbonded females he’d mentioned. There was Kerstin, but at sixteen she was still young. And then there was Erling, who was already attached to Arvid. Those two would undoubtedly formalize their commitment to each other in an official bonding ceremony soon.
“Pathetic, aren’t they?” Kerstin said. “I think they would kill each other for a chance to share his furs. So much for female solidarity, huh?” Her shoulder bumped mine as she lowered her voice to say, “Nayden told me he spotted Gudru going into Vetr’s den late last night, and she marched back out less than two minutes later with her cheeks flaming red.” She nodded with a chuckle that was almost too gleeful. “He doesn’t want anything she has to offer.”
