“Perhaps,” mother says finally. Blinking, she tsks. “Where is this king of yours?”
A sudden tug at my hand draws a smile from me. I knew Selena couldn’t stay away long.
“Why is it so hot?” my little sister hisses.
“It is the desert,” I say, fighting to contain my amusement at her indignation. At eleven, she is already the fieriest of the family.
“Well, it’s too hot.”
I can’t argue. The verdant jungles of our homeland are cool and shaded within. This is like standing inside an oven.
Selena leans over the ship’s edge as the crew bustles about behind us. “I don’t see any dragons.”
On my other side, mother sighs. “Selena, we have spoken of this. Dragons look like us now.”
Selena’s lip pokes out. “I thought I might at least see some wings. Or horns.”
Mother peers over the edge herself. “No. They don’t tromp about like beasts anymore, or so I hear.”
“Mother,” I whisper. I’ve never heard her so openly impolitic.
She only shrugs a shoulder, which silences even Selena. A lady never shrugs, she says, and yet she looks wholly unrepentant for the gesture.
This will not be an easy day for her.
I set my own shoulders back as a man reeking of spirits wobbles up beside us.
“Welcome to Tirenth, Princess Serah,” he bellows. My mother takes a deep, steadying breath. Selena scowls at him.
“Thank you, Minister Abely,” I say in a neutral tone. Supposedly, this man is a dragon, though I can’t see how. As one of Tirenth’s ministers of foreign relations, he arrived in our country weeks ago and was meant to instruct me in the ways of his kind. Instead, he spent the majority of his time carousing in the local tavern, leaving me not at all impressed with the king’s discernment.
As well as woefully unprepared to meet him.
Incompetent ministers aside, the day of my departure came, and I’m here now to begin the customary period ofcourtship. This much I do know, so I hold my head high as the gangplank is lowered and my mother, sister, and I approach it together.
“Shouldn’t he be here by now?” my mother asks, squinting into the gathering crowd.
Abely, who’s shaking his pocket watch, says, “Who?”
She arches an eyebrow at him. “The king?”
His hand stops. “The king…” He looks about him as if suddenly realizing where we are. Paling, he tucks the watch away. “Yes. Yes, of course, Your Majesty.”
Mother and I exchange a glance as he cuts a deep bow.
Rising, Abely clears his throat and looks across the port. “Ahh, there,” he says with a tilt of his head before turning away to begin mopping his face with a handkerchief.
“Where?” Mother asks.
“Just there, Your Majesty.” Abely’s eyes skitter over to the place he gestured to and away again. “The one with the horns.”
My lungs falter.
The one with the…what?
Heart in my throat, I turn that direction.
And lock eyes with my betrothed, the Dragon King.
