I wandered into the herb garden, where two of my sisters were playing tag with another girl from the palace.
They were all close to the same age as Maddox and Gillian’s children. Halwyn was the youngest and smallest, dexterous and clever. Little Rhiannon was usually the most staid of the three of them, and I thought one day she’d be a strong leader. Hafgan had dreams of her starting a new Wind Clan, laying dozens of eggs and giving us all a huge family once again.
I thought it was going to be a hundred years or more until she stopped thinking that boys were sticky and disgusting, not least because, well... most boys were sticky and disgusting. Hard to stop believing the truth.
Apparently, I realized as I was watching, the game of tag was less about tag and more about one of them having a daisy crown, and all three of them wanting it.
I glanced around, and on quick estimate, there were more than enough daisies in the grass to make three more.
Yes, three, since the one they were trying to get from each other was certain to get ruined in the rough-and-tumble of them all trying to be the one to claim it.
I started picking flowers, and a moment later, Rhiannon broke away from the free-for-all to come join me. She picked the flowers even quicker than I did, and a few moments later, I was sitting in the grass braiding flower crowns.
“Why help?” she asked me as she sat across from me, inspecting my work. “We’re the ones causing trouble, and it’s our trouble. Why not just let us ruin it and suffer?”
I looked up at her, lifting a brow. “Is that what you want?”
She rolled her bright green eyes, dramatic in the way only a new teenager could be. “No, but it’s bound to happen. And if people don’t think things through, maybe they deserve what they get. Maybe you shouldn’t fix it for them.”
I wasn’t sure how to deal with that notion, of not fixing things that were broken. “That’s not a very nice way of looking at it.”
She cocked her head, watching me weave, considering. “It’s just flower crowns, so it doesn’t matter. But sometimes... sometimes people get what they deserve, Aderyn. Sometimes you shouldn’t help them. Sometimes they should help themselves, or deal with the consequences.”
Her words kept running through my head, even after I passed out the fresh flower crowns and they found something else to wrestle over. Even after I left them to it and wandered back into the palace.
Sometimes people should help themselves.
Was it me? Was I the one who was refusing to help himself? I had been trying to avoid arguments over Roland’s possible marriage by going to Bowen and then Tris. They were fathers, in a way. They were the ones I went to when I wanted someone to fix things for me.
When I didn’t know how.
I found myself back in the feather room, running my hands over all the perfect fluffy down feathers Roland had collected for me over the years. Part of me wanted to put them all in a pile and sleep on them. Was a bed made of down too luxurious a thing? Too self-indulgent?
Would anyone but me care?
Not likely. Most people would just look at me sadly and think to themselves about how I’d spent my childhood in a cage, then give me whatever I asked for. Alternately, the Destovians probably thought I should be put back in a cage.
I shuddered at the thought.
That answered any questions I truly had, though, didn’t it?
They were bad, and I didn’t want anything to do with them. More, I didn’t want Roland to have anything to do with them. I didn’t want Llangard’s future to rely on them in any way.
If we needed allies across the sea, there had to be someone better than a people who hated dragons.
The door rattled, and I looked up, expecting perhaps Roland—okay, yes, hoping for Roland. Instead, all I could see was gold.
Gold claws.
Gold scales.
Not like a dragon.
The scent of blood filled my nose, and dirt and offal. The ring of battle raged around me, and all I could see were the monsters who’d consumed my blood, and suffered the effects, having become less than human or dragon. Mindless beasts, throwingthemselves against the warriors of Llangard, howling in rage and pain and confusion.
I shrieked, rushing past it, through the door to... but it hadn’t come from the hallway, this monster.
This creature had come from Roland’s private quarters. I looked around, spinning in almost a whole circle. The scent of blood hadn’t gone, though. There, on the floor, there was blood. A shredded doublet.
