You can read it in full here, or if you want to binge the whole thing you can buy a copy! If you enjoyed this story, consider signing up to read more of my fiction at KimBoo's Bibliotheca!

Enter the Bibliotheca

Previously: Our triad finally made it back to the safety of the shore...

Agadart woke up slowly, her mind fuzzy and confused. The last she remembered was crashing into the water, her body too big and unwieldly for her to swim properly.

That thought was like being doused with a bucket of cold water — the emperor, Rodgardae, manifesting as a dragon, war, Mani…memories collided over each other, crashing around in her brain. Panicking, she sat up quickly, but that was its own mistake as she suddenly went dizzy.

“Agadart! Shhhh, shhhh.” Warm, strong arms wrapped around her and a soothing presence flooded her mind. Rodgardae.

“Ro?” she whispered, closing her eyes and resting against his chest. She could tell they were both naked under the blankets, the skin-to-skin contact grounding her wildly beating heart.

“Mmm.” he hummed, pressing his head against hers.

She shifted a little and realized that there was someone else next to her. “Mani!” Her eyes flew open and she looked down at her other side.

Mani was lying there, frowning as he blinked awake. He opened his mouth to say something and started coughing. Rodgardae and Agadart helped him to sit up and rubbed his back while he hacked and gasped for air.

“Your Majesty?” There was a short knock on the door.

Agadart frowned. That sounded like—

“Come in, Lady Bertrag,” Rodgardae said loudly.

The door flew open to Agadart’s cousin walking in, and Agadart could only stare at her. She was not dressed in the uniform of the Dragon Maids Corps, and was instead wearing a smart suit with a long, flowing skirt and a fitted jacket, much like the ladies of the Isle of Watt were known to prefer. Behind her a sailor carried a tray and set it down on a table next to the bed.

“Your Majesty; Your Highness; Your Highness.” She gave each of them a short bow in turn. “Doctors Worthan and Thorrein have medicine they wish all of you to take upon waking.” She gave Rodgardae a stern glare. “Including His Majesty the king.”

“I’m doing well, I— ”

“Including His Majesty the king,” she repeated, picking up one of the mugs and passing it over Mani and Agadart to hand it to him.

“The king?” Agadart asked, frowning, as she tried to remember what happened. “When did you become king?” She pulled the blanked up further to cover herself. Mani just shook his head and gratefully took the medicine and the glass of water Bertrag handed him.

Rodgardae stared at her.

“When you became queen, cousin,” Bertrag said, shoving a mug at her.

“Hey,” Agadart protested, although not with much heat. She felt like hell. “Wait. When I became queen?” She lowered the mug she had been handed, looking out the bank of windows the built-in bed platform was nestled up against, but unseeing, lost in thought. “I became queen.”

“Yes, you did,” Bertrag said. “Now drink your medicine.”

Agadart obediently drank down the contents of the mug, gagging a little at the foul smell. Remorselessly, Bertrag took it from her and put it back on the tray, along with Rodgardae’s and Mani’s.

She glanced between Mani, who looked like he was still recovering from the coughing fit, and Rodgardae, who at least was looking mildly abashed.

“The emperor was right?” She felt her panic welling up again.

Rodgardae folded her back into his arms. “What did he tell you?”

“That…that I was the queen of Watt. That my ancestor was Princess Beatra.” She shook her head. “He was a madman.”

Bertrag folded her hands in front of her. She was wearing her salt-and-pepper hair in a long braid over her shoulder, and it was weird to see it down in such a fashion as would never be seen in Kaaltendt. “He is, but that has little to do with what he told you, which is true.” Her voice softened. “It is an old legend in our family, handed down by word of mouth. It is my understanding that your father did not believe it, and refused to let anyone share it with you.”

Agadart looked back at Rodgardae, who nodded. He launched into a long, rambling story about her long-lost uncle who brought a Khzern giant with him to rescue her but how she manifested while on the deck of the emperor’s flagship, becoming queen of Watt and leading them to a victorious battle that cost them dearly but sent the Iskaryyvan forces fleeing along with the body of their emperor, who might be dead but no one had confirmed that as yet.

When he finished she stared at him for a moment and then turned to Bertrag. “Is he insane? Are we safe?”

Rodgardae frowned. “The emperor? Clearly. But yes, we’re safe; the Iskaryyvan forces have been in full retreat for days now.”

“I meant you,” she said, glancing him out of the side of her eyes.

Bertrag rolled her eyes. “He’s quite sane. The whole story is true.” She took a deep breath and then bowed. “I have abandoned Kaaltendt and Queen Theaedra, and my place among the Dragon Maids Corps. I swear fealty to Queen Agaedae of the Isle of Watt, along with her King Rodae and their guardian, Manae.”

Agadart felt her mouth open and close several times. Mani shrugged, sipping at his glass of water again.

“Oh, we’re all here? Grand!” A tall man with shocking white hair collected up on his head in a riot of braids walked in without knocking. 

Agadart did not know him, but recognized him immediately as he looked like a taller, older version of her father. “Uncle Hrecht?”

He smiled at her, the fondness of it offset by the wild swirl of fire in the irises of his eyes. “Hello, Niece Aggie. It is such a pleasure to meet you at last.”

“Can you not leave us alone?” Rodgardae grumbled. Agadart grabbed his hand instinctively and squeezed it.

“I admit I’m not used to having company while I’m undressed,” Mani said with a croak.

“That’s of no importance, we’re all dragons here. Or, well, dragonkin.” He nodded regally at Bertrag and Mani. “I came in to see for myself that you are recovering well. I will be passing over Kaaltendt soon and will stop in to talk to your father to let him know of your circumstances. Although I expect he will be finding out soon, regardless.”

“My father!” Agadart sat up further. “What will you tell him?” She turned to Rodgardae. “Can I send for him? Is he allowed to come visit me?”

“My dear niece,” Uncle Hrecht broke in. “You are the dragon queen of Watt. Their first queen in eight hundred years. I suspect anything you ask for, you will receive.” He spoke kindly but firmly, and somehow, for the first time, the implication of his words sank in.

“I’m the dragon queen of Watt.” She put her hands over her mouth. “Bertrag! What do I do? What do I do?”

Bertrag stepped up and started tucking the blankets more securely around the three of them. “You do your best, cousin. You remain a child of the ver Kleelan line. You will excel.”

Uncle Hrecht nodded agreeably. “I agree. However, such as it is, I am also here to give you my well wishes. My liege calls to me, and I must return to her side.”

“Your liege?”

“And she is?” Rodgardae asked at the same time as Agadart voiced her question.

“Oh, I thought you would have figured that out by now.” He took a deep breath, swelling up in obvious pride. “My liege is the esteemed Princess Beatra, lost to the crown of Watt, rogue dragon and defender of the Westlands.” He bowed, turned on his heel, and walked out.

“I hate him,” Rodgardae muttered while Mani laughed so hard he started choking again.

Agadart looked up at Bertrag, who just shrugged, picked up the tray of empty mugs, and walked out. Instead of getting any more answers, she was left to sit with the reality of everything that had happened over the past…week? Month? Year? Or did it really start that night five years prior when she was going over the household books and found some well-hidden discrepancies? How long had her life been in free fall?

“Agadart?”

She looked up to see both Mani and Rodgardae looking at her with worried expressions. It was Rodgardae who had spoken, so she focused on him for the moment. “I’m…I’m not sure how I feel about any of this. I barely remember manifesting…just flashes of seeing you, seeing you…fight…” She felt the tears welling up and scrubbed a hand over her eyes. Mani scooted closer, humming a little and slinging an arm over her shoulders. “Seeing you fight the emperor was so upsetting and I got so mad.”

“Dragons have manifested for less than that,” Rodgardae said softly, taking her hand in his.

“But I had no idea I was a dragon! I spent the whole of my captivity thinking I would be killed when they found out I wasn’t! But then I was!” She stopped yelling and took a deep breath. “Now I’m a queen dragon? And of a foreign land, at that.”

“Hmmm.” Mani leaned his head against hers. “Is it so foreign, though? Stop and close your eyes. Focus on our connection. Think about it as the strongest center of a wide web. Feel out its edges.”

She closed her eyes and did as he asked, and immediately the entire landscape and population of the Isle of Watt appeared for her, a living, breathing connection to the land and the people in it. It was like being at the center of a web, but also like being the beating heart of a massive, majestic creature. The land had been empty of a queen’s magic for so long that it was parched and desperate, so she poured all her love into it. It felt like taking a deep breath of air after coming up from the bottom of a lake.

“Oh, my beloved, yes. My queen,” Rodgardae whispered, resting his forehead on her shoulder.

She felt the fire of her strength and power running through her nerves like electricity. Her king fed into that with his own magic, pulling and pushing at her as they braided their combined strength into something unassailable. Next to them, within them, Mani grounded them and pulled on their metaphorical wings, keeping them centered in their draconic humanity, the epitome of a guardian.

Agadart breathed in, smiling, as the connection was reinforced by the entwined energy of the three of them, together creating a perfect aerie.

Around the ship that she now knew was heading back to Watt, she heard hundreds of dragons calling out in joy and surprise — her people, her reign — celebrating the news:

Queen Agadart of the Isle of Watt was coming home.

Authoria: AND IT’S DONE! Thank you so much for reading along! I do plan down the road to write a coda for their “happily ever after” but that will be exclusive to my followers on Ream. I will also be packaging the story up in book form to put up for sale, so look for that in July, 2024!

Thank you for reading! 🎊 I’d love your comments and feedback! ☕

KimBoo's Bibliotheca 🐉 House of York

KimBoo's Bibliotheca is the room in the House of York filled with fantasy, science fiction, adventure, and *checks notes* romance!

By ☕ KimBoo York

You can read it in full here, or if you want to binge the whole thing you can buy a copy! If you enjoyed this story, consider signing up to read more of my fiction at KimBoo's Bibliotheca!

Enter the Bibliotheca

Previously: Agadart made a desperate grab...

He saw the emperor being caught and carried away by his own dragons, his limp body held in their talons as they wobbled for a nearby ship. But his instinct to go after him and finish him off was wiped out by the overwhelming fear he felt for Mani, who was drowning, who was dying…

He came down and landed on the hull of the ship, trying to figure out what do when Agadart simply slammed into the water like a diving bird. He screamed at her but nothing he sent through their connection could puncture her blind panic. She was in the water with Mani and Rodgardae was clawing at the ship’s side while hundreds of Wattish dragons flew around the site where their queen had disappeared below the water.

It was too churned up to see beneath the dark waves; some sailors managed to climb up the side of ship to safety despite the way it was still rocking violently, but kept their distance from where Rodgardae was peering into the water, calling out to his mates.

Agadart’s connection to him blinked out and he went headfirst into the ocean without thinking, desperate to get to his queen and their guardian despite his instincts to stay out of the dangerous waves. He could barely see in the water, but as he pushed debris aside he saw her body, floating down. But it wasn’t her flying form; it was Agadart, naked and clutching at Mani as she sluggishly kicked to the surface.

Rodgardae could barely guess why she had switched back to her walking form at such a terrible time, but he could not think it through while he was being clobbered by the ship as he tried to pull away, the wild swings of inverted masts and sails and broken pieces all assaulting him as he pushed his way to them. He figured out quickly that getting knocked out cold might have been what happened to Agadart, so he made a dash to grab them both, one in each hand, then held them close as he dived down to escape the hulking mass of the ship as it bounced around, breaking apart. Flapping his wings in the water was like moving in slow motion, and incredibly awkward, and he realized that he could not hold his breath much longer.

With a momentous push, he shot toward the surface, breaching it like a whale and with far less grace. He still had both of his mates in his claws as he bobbed, trying to get wing clearance to take off. This was why, he thought grimly as his flapping got him a lot of water in his face, that dragons did not swim.

Suddenly he was airborne.

He squirmed in panic when he realized that massive claws were wrapped around him, and craned his neck to look up.

With the placidity of the unbothered, Foösh was sailing up and away from the ocean with Rodgardae in his grasp.

Uncertain of what to do, Rodgardae just held on to his mates, hoping his own body heat was warming them up, as Foösh curved up and over the whole battleground with a few snaps of his massive wings. In the next minute, Rodgardae was dumped like so much garbage onto the main deck of his sister’s flagship.

He looked up at her call, where she was flying over them. He felt like hell but it was not the time to have a protective older sibling fussing over him. He gave an “all clear” call back as he settled his legs under him and spread out his wings, shaking water off.

Several sailors had run up with blankets, but the best person Rodgardae saw walking toward them was Milles.

“I know better than to ask if you are hurt!” he shouted up at Rodgardae. “Put them down, they’ve been in the water and we need to clear their lungs!” He motioned to where a couple of sailors spread out a blanket, then turned to one of his assistants. “Get the queen some clothes!” The assistant ran off like his heels were on fire.

He kept shouting at people as Rodgardae gently laid his precious cargo down on the blanket. Both were alive, he could feel their heartbeats through their bond, but in shock and, in Mani’s case, not breathing. He tapped Mani’s chest with a claw.

“Yes yes, I know. Back up! Move!” Milles pushed at Rodgardae’s forearm to settle next to Agadart. “Doctor Thorrein! We have a drowned human!” he yelled at one of the people standing off to the side while pointing at Mani. She rushed forward, dropping to her knees and immediately starting resuscitation while yelling out instructions to her own assistants.

Rodgardae backed up as far as he could, but he knew his time in his flying form was at an end. The battle would go on without him. He bumped a young sailor who was trying to pass by with his knuckle.

“Your Grace? I mean, Admiral…wait, Your Highness!” The sailor dropped to one knee in a panic, and Rodgardae rolled his eyes. He tapped a pattern out with one claw against the wood. “Yes, Your Highness! Clothes! Right away!” The sailor dashed off. When he got back with a set of plain transformation pants and tunic, Rodgardae shifted quickly and dressed himself.

Milles and his staff were swarming around his patients, so there was not technically room for Rodgardae to get close. He didn’t care. He shouldered his way in.

“Oh good. Pick up Her Radiant Majesty,” Milles said, flapping a hand at the radiant majesty in question while standing up. “I want to move both of them inside. The admiral’s quarters, Pele! Get the door open!” He pushed at one of his assistants.

 Rodgardae only had eyes for his mates. Mani was still unconscious but was breathing again. Agadart, who had at least been draped in a cloak, startled awake when he bent down to pick her up, gasping for air and looking around wildly.

“I’m here, beloved. I’m here. Mani is here and they are working on him.” He held her in his arms and waited for the others to lift Mani on a litter to follow. “We’re going someplace warm.”

She just nodded and closed her eyes, resting her head against his chest. Rodgardae carried her into his sister’s quarters, leading the way for those bringing in Mani. He settled her on the bed then crawled over her to the far side, pulling blankets away as they placed Mani in the bed as well. Doctor Thorrein kept checking on Mani and ordering for specific medicines as Milles stood by.

“They mostly need connection and warmth. Let them sleep,” Milles said sternly at him.

“I know, Milles. I know.” Rodgardae curved around Agadart, who had passed out again, probably from the exhaustion and shock of shifting in the water. He reached over and put a hand gently on Mani’s chest, just to feeling him breathing. Their minds were muddled and thick with worry and fear, so he spent his energy radiating calming, loving thoughts.

Someone pulled heavy blankets over the three of them, and Rodgardae himself tumbled into slumber to the soft noises of the doctors talking shop.

Authoria: Next to last chapter!!!! I can’t believe this has been posting here for over a year! I hope you have enjoyed this story, and I thank you for reading along!

Thank you for reading! 🎊 I’d love your comments and feedback! ☕

KimBoo's Bibliotheca 🐉 House of York

KimBoo's Bibliotheca is the room in the House of York filled with fantasy, science fiction, adventure, and *checks notes* romance!

By ☕ KimBoo York

You can read it in full here, or if you want to binge the whole thing you can buy a copy! If you enjoyed this story, consider signing up to read more of my fiction at KimBoo's Bibliotheca!

Enter the Bibliotheca

Previously: The battle came to Mani...

She felt the battle raging around her—or, rather, the many dozens of battles. It made her blood boil to hear, to feel, the injuries of her fighters, and to sense when their presence disappeared entirely from her consciousness. She did not sense each of them as individuals but as a collective of people, humans and dragons, all tied to her through their connections with the magic that fueled her.

The only specific people she was tied to closely enough to identify, though, were her mates.

As she harassed her enemy, she saw one of her mates on the uppermost deck of the ship, alive but still in danger. She had to get her enemy off the ship at all costs, so she quickly spun around and headed for him, knowing that he would not back down from a direct challenge, even as injured as he still was.

His attack was sloppy and she kicked him easily to her king, who had become powerful enough to take on the dragon who had hurt him so badly before. Now, Rodgardae was bolstered by her power, healed with her own magic. There were few he could not beat, and together they were quickly destroying their enemy. Sharks circled in the waters, waiting for their catch, drawn by the blood spilling out of all the injured dragons and humans thrown into the sea.

Her enemy was trying to claw at her face when she felt a spike of panic so sharp it made her stumble. Her mate felt it as well, and they both threw their enemy as far from themselves as possible as they spun towards their guardian. The ship he was on had capsized and Mani was in the water, under the ship as it bobbed on the waves…she felt his desperation, his fear of drowning in the dark, freezing cold waters.

Without a thought she slammed into the water, roaring with all her might to scare off the sharks, and pushing aside all the ship’s detritus with her claws. Water was not air, though, and hard to move through and impossible to breathe. She heard the muted call of her king screaming at her, desperate and terrified. She knew from their bond that he had lost sight of her and they both knew that Mani was drowning.

I have him! She sent the sensation of grabbing Mani’s body with her hand, pulling him to her and spinning as fast as she could in the thick, churning, debris-filled water to get out from under the ship and back to the surface.

Then everything went black.

Authoria: I know, short chapter! Don’t worry, this is the last cliffhanger!!!

Thank you for reading! 🎊 I’d love your comments and feedback! ☕

KimBoo's Bibliotheca 🐉 House of York

KimBoo's Bibliotheca is the room in the House of York filled with fantasy, science fiction, adventure, and *checks notes* romance!

By ☕ KimBoo York

You can read it in full here, or if you want to binge the whole thing you can buy a copy! If you enjoyed this story, consider signing up to read more of my fiction at KimBoo's Bibliotheca!

Enter the Bibliotheca

Previously: Agadart took her place...

Mani had no idea what the emperor thought he was going to do with him, other than possibly negotiate a ransom to call off Agadart’s attack against his forces. It was clear that the emperor’s navy and all of his flights had become aware that they were up against a queen and her entire reign, and the few that had not actually turned tail and run were focusing on coalescing a protective ring around the emperor’s ship rather than trying to continue an invasion that was now obviously doomed to failure.

Sopping wet and freezing cold and completely exposed on the captain’s deck, Mani could only watch as the battle raged around him. There was nothing he could do to escape other than just jump overboard, but that was certain death.

The emperor, sprawled on the main deck below him, too injured to directly lead his troops, was obviously communicating with a man that Mani had to assume was the emperor’s brother, the elder Duke Paruask. There was reported no one the emperor trusted more. Mani was actually surprised that the emperor was still trying to fight. He thought that it highlighted the emperor’s instability, only worsened by his injuries and blood loss and frustration.

Nobody had ever seen a queen fully engaged in battle in centuries, but the legends were legends for reason, and that reason was because it was said that a queen at the head of her reign, fighting for her territory, could bring the powers of nature to her bidding and destroy her enemies with a single cry.

Mani wasn’t sure he believed the legends that much, but even from a distance he felt the electric buzzing of the air around them in preparation for the now-inevitable battle. He could tell that the emperor still was in command of his navy and his flights, but it was also clear that there was a hesitancy to those forces, an unwillingness to risk everything against a queen, even a new queen, even a queen that no one had ever heard of before. She had manifested in the fires of rage and as the Wattish forces came closer and closer across the massive swells of the sea, cannons firing and flights starting to attack each other viciously, Mani knew, even if the emperor did not, that the battle was lost.

He had thought he would be going down with the platform, but despite the reprieve the emperor had given him by grabbing him, Mani still felt very certain that he was going to meet a watery grave if Agadart and Ro did not get to him soon. He braced himself against the mizzenmast, clutching at whatever ropes he could grab, as the ship was sailing fast if beleaguered by the natural waves of the all-powerful ocean and the launching of cannons and the wing-to-claw combat of the dragons, some of whom created momentous waves of their own as they crashed to their deaths. His perception of the battle, which was actually a collection of many smaller battles taking place all around him, was that the Iskaryyvan navy was headed eastbound, indicating they were in a retreat, however disorganized. They were traveling so fast that the water was spraying high enough to splash over the railing, the spray salty and stinging like shards of glass against his exposed skin. If he could bring himself to take a moment, he thought he could concentrate on his connection to Ro and to Agadart to let them know where he was – for all they knew he had been on the platform when it sank. But his own panic and fear kept him from being able to send any kind of emotional signal to them other than the repeated refrain that he kept shouting out loud in the hopes that they would pick up on the meaning, even if they could not hear the words. “I am alive! I am alive!”

The emperor screeched even more loudly than he had when he first landed on the ship with Mani in his claws. It seemed to be a signal, and Mani noticed everyone looking in a specific direction, not quite stopping whatever they were doing as they reloaded cannons or worked the sails, and he followed their gaze.

Headed towards them like the sharp tip of an arrowhead was a small flight of less than twenty dragons, cutting through the battle straight toward the ship he was on. Above them was a single dragon, the largest Mani had ever seen, it’s wingspan almost reaching tip to tip from one side of the flight formation to the other. The head of the arrow, though, was obviously a queen. His queen, he knew instinctively. She was slightly larger than the dragons around her but radiating monstrous power, her eyes glowing so brightly that even from a distance Mani could see the burning orange embers like two small suns breaking through the smoke of war. And behind Agadart, just off to her side and slightly ahead of the others in the formation, was the familiar, beloved shape and colors of Ro.

They had come for him.

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Mani decided to stay as low as possible while the ship bobbed in the water, but then he heard some of the sailors screaming in horror. He looked out instinctively over the railing and saw a dragon crawling out of the water up the side of a nearby ship. As the ship tipped dangerously to one side due to the extra weight, the dragon grabbed the mainmast, even as several sailors tried attacking it with swords. Instead of letting go, it lurched out of the water to put all its weight into yanking the mainmast all the way over. With hardly any resistance at all, the whole ship flipped upside down. The dragon disappeared into the waters and the screaming of the men on board was cut short as they were swallowed by the dark ocean waves.

There was a momentous pause in the battle as those who had observed the attack stared on in utter shock and horror. Dragons didn’t swim, and it made no sense for a dragon to simply appear out of the water and attack a ship. But then the cries of horror changed and Mani looked up into the sky to see that the queen’s flight had taken advantage of the distraction to fly hard, low, and fast. The ships nearest to the emperor’s immediately tried tacking to close in on her. The problem was that they could not fire at her or her flight without risking hitting their own ships across the way. She was too close.

The emperor reared up on his hind legs, tail thrashing across the deck, sending one of his own sailors over the side into the water, and screamed. It was a gut-wrenching sound, powerful yet desperate. Mani looked back over to the flight and saw Agadart and Ro peel away from the others. Slicing through the air with their wings tucked close, they came in for the ship that Mani was on. He started yelling at them, waving his hands about as far as he could, hoping that they would notice him on the deck.

And then suddenly, something shifted in Mani’s mind, akin to watching the clouds break after a violent storm and letting the rays of sunlight fall through: brilliant, blinding, and full of hope. He staggered, trying to get to his feet as the emotions of Agadart and Ro flooded into him, swamping all of his senses and rendering him speechless. Ro had reopened the connection between them as fully as possible, and Mani could sense between them that he was teaching Agadart how to reach out to Mani. When dragons communicated in such a primal way, their language consisted of color and sensation, but it was no less powerful or meaningful than spoken words. Mani felt wrapped up in the adoration he was feeling from them, the relief and the hope and the love that they shared altogether, and he started crying. He knew no one could tell, in the middle of the battle with water spraying over the edge into his face and making his skin feel numb, but as Agadart and Ro came up to the ship all he knew was that they had come for him, that they loved him.

The emperor screeched again, bringing Mani’s attention quickly back down to the reality of his situation, which was that he was stuck on a ship that was seconds away from being directly attacked by a queen, her king, and every flight under her command.

At the last moment Agadart pulled up and spread her wings wide, tipping so that her back was to the ship, one wing dipping low and skimming sharply through the water to spray it directly into the emperor’s face. Guns were going off, and in the distance so were other cannons. He heard the creaking and cracking of ships that were being torn apart by the queen’s many flights, and as he looked out over the waters he saw that the main Wattish forces had arrived on the heels of their queen, masses of dragons and ships charging through the air and over the waters directly toward them.

Out ahead of the ship he was on, Mani saw the bulk of the Iskaryyvan navy in full retreat.

The emperor was screaming again, his gaze following Agadart as she circled around the ship. Her intent was clear to anyone watching: she was angling directly at the emperor. Faced with a direct attack, he leapt off of the blood-soaked deck to meet her claw for claw and tooth for tooth. In the middle of his desperate gamble though, he had lost sight of Ro, who had swerved up and dive-bombed just as the emperor snapped at Agadart’s jaw. She swatted him away, straight into Ro’s clutches, who tore mercilessly at the emperor’s wings.

Other dragons in her flight started harassing the ship’s sailors, while the rest of the emperor’s navy and his flights circled around, leaderless, picking fights with anyone they could get close to. It was utter chaos with ships firing at each other and dragons fighting indiscriminately. Ro and Agadart were tag-teaming the emperor, whose guards were joining the fray in an effort to extract him before he was killed.

A desperate scream caused Mani to look away from his mates to see a knot of four, possibly five, fighting dragons, covered in blood and tearing at each other, as they slammed into the fore of the ship. It shuddered under the onslaught as the dragons spilled across the forecastle, breaking everything as they went and spilling over the side, taking half the deck with them.

The ship tipped dangerously on its side, pausing for an eternal moment, suspended between where it had been and what was coming. Mani braced himself as the ship shuddered again, cracking under the strain, the breaking wood groaning loudly. The sailors screamed and the dragons fell into the water as the ship finally fell over completely, dragging Mani down with it.

Thank you for reading! 🎊 I’d love your comments and feedback! ☕

KimBoo's Bibliotheca 🐉 House of York

KimBoo's Bibliotheca is the room in the House of York filled with fantasy, science fiction, adventure, and *checks notes* romance!

By ☕ KimBoo York

You can read it in full here, or if you want to binge the whole thing you can buy a copy! If you enjoyed this story, consider signing up to read more of my fiction at KimBoo's Bibliotheca!

Enter the Bibliotheca

Previously: Mani fought for his life...

Agadart was completely helpless as she watched her vile enemy grab her mate. The enemy could barely fly, unbalancing with each flap of his wings, her mate clutched in one of his hands. Mani’s fear was an overwhelming emotion crowding every other thought in Agadart’s mind, blinding her to the immediate danger around her as she lunged futilely in his direction, caged in by dozens of dragons trying to peck and claw at her.

Her enemy did not go too far, landing with an ungainly wobble on a massive ship that had been curving in close to the fake island. With her enemy on board, the ship turned away as the fake island broke apart and started sinking, sending large waves out from its demise.

She did not see what else happened to her mate at that point, too busy lashing out at her attackers. Her own dragons were down to three and they fought viciously around her, pulling other dragons away by wings and tails. She was the center of the battle, though, and every enemy she faced at that moment knew that defeating her was their only priority.

There was a lance of bright, clear light through her fury and anguish.

Come to me; regroup and lead us to battle!

It was her other mate, the flier, the one with the golden eyes. Her king. She yelled at her own dragons and shot straight up into the air, going for a high arc to send her in the direction of her king. He was almost to them, she just needed to outpace her pursuers by seconds to get to him and the massive numbers of dragons behind him. She swooped down at full speed and when she broke through the cloud layer again she finally saw her own people spread out in a massive array on the water and in the air.

Her pursuers tumbled after her, trying to slow down or simply spin around to go back, but it was too late. A least five flights, numbering possibly two hundred or more dragons, dashed up to meet them in bloody battle. Agadart left them to it, instead slamming into her king and tumbling with him, legs and tails intertwined as their wings worked in unison to send them back up into the high atmosphere. She nuzzled him, tasting old blood and pain and medicine, but his energy flowed strongly through her.

Part of her wanted to steal him away, but they both felt the tug of their missing piece, of Mani still held captive by their enemy, driving her to fury and madness. Her king growled and pushed away to roar in anger as she shared her memories with him, his red-gray of fury bleeding through their connection.

She was no warrior, she knew that, but her king was. She asked, and he showed her in glorious detail his plan, unfurling it wordlessly in her mind almost like a picture book.

Together they swung around back to the head of the massive attack column, where a grizzled older dragon cawed at them. Family, her king sent to her. Sister; leader; warrior.

She took her place out in front, her king and his sister by her side, and with every breath in her lungs, with all the magical power of her realm and her people to aid her, pushed herself to fly faster to rescue their beloved.

Thank you for reading! 🎊 I’d love your comments and feedback! ☕

KimBoo's Bibliotheca 🐉 House of York

KimBoo's Bibliotheca is the room in the House of York filled with fantasy, science fiction, adventure, and *checks notes* romance!

By ☕ KimBoo York

You can read it in full here, or if you want to binge the whole thing you can buy a copy! If you enjoyed this story, consider signing up to read more of my fiction at KimBoo's Bibliotheca!

Enter the Bibliotheca

Previously: Rodgardae finally took to the skies...

Agadart raised her head, taking the warmth of her body with her. The cold ocean winds snapped over Mani and shook him out of his reverie. Something had caught her attention, but he did not see anything different from when he first stepped out of the cabin, except perhaps for the fact that Consort ver Kleelan was not there anymore. The Iskaryyvan forces were still circling the urshvalkin, and…then he saw what she was staring at. The circle was tightening, getting closer.

The ten Wattish dragons who made up the whole of the Queen’s Flight were still flying above them, but were dropping their altitude. Mani looked over at where the emperor had been curled up and saw him staring back, his dragon eyes glowing white with rage and pain. He managed to pull himself up on his front legs, flapping his wings a little. They were still covered with old blood but Mani realized that it had, indeed, been over a day since the emperor had fought with Ro and then Agadart; his injures were obviously too severe to have healed, but a dragon as powerful as the emperor would still heal faster than most.

Agadart turned her back to Mani, blocking his view of the emperor, and screeched at her enemy with a queen’s roar. It vibrated through Mani’s bones and he starting moving backwards, away from them. If they decided to dual on the deck of the urshvalkin Mani could easily get swept right over the edge.

Both dragons were bristling at each other, and despite Agadart’s slight size advantage, the emperor was furious and desperate enough to be a serious challenge. Her flight would know to stay out of it and work to keep Iskaryyvan dragons out of it too, but Mani realized that the number of ships and dragons had grown significantly while he had been wrapped up in his connection with Agadart.

All the forces that had been directed at Watt were now facing the lone urshvalkin that he was on with his queen. Ro and all his flights might be on the way, but were not there yet.

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Everything felt frozen for a long moment, no one moving except the dragons in the air. Then a single cannon shot rang out, and within a hair’s breadth of time the roar of dozens more followed. Some cannons hit the urshvalkin, causing it to list to one side due to the force of the impacts. It then swung back up like a pendulum, and Mani nearly lost his footing.

There was another round of cannons, a few more hitting the deck and other parts of the urshvalkin. As Mani worked to try to figure out where the hell he could go that might be safe, he saw Agadart looking around wildly, uncertain whether to attack the emperor or the ships firing at them.

The cannons went off again, and someone had modified their aim because a cannonball slammed into one of Agadart’s flight, causing the dragon to scream in pain and spiral down into the water. Spurred into action, Agadart launched herself off the deck, the force of it sending it tilting even more violently. The emperor’s claws scrambled for purchase as Mani fell flat on his back. He lost track of where Agadart was as he tried to get to his hands and knees while the deck pitched and rolled from the continued assault. Out of the periphery of his eyes he saw dragons lunging in and out, enough that he could tell that the fear of the emperor’s survival at the hands of an enraged queen dragon was keeping most Iskaryyvan dragons from being too risky.

He assumed that the cannon fire was aimed either purposefully low at the waterline, or high up to hit enemy dragons. It was still a hell of a risk for ship’s captain to take, he thought as another round of explosions ripped through the air. He knew a few, at least, hit their mark as the urshvalkin shuddered and started swaying dangerously under Mani’s feet. He scrambled for the only stable thing on the whole deck, which was the small little cabin where he had first woken up. It was not much better than simply sliding down over the edge into the dark, dangerous waters.

The urshvalkin tilted even more steeply in the other direction, and waves crashed up high enough to send water streaming down the wooden planks. He slipped and fell to his knees again with a painful thud that he felt up to his teeth but could not hear due to the sounds of the battle raging around him. Once the first flash of blinding pain had passed through him, he shook his head and wiped the saltwater that was being splashed into his eyes and started crawling to the only protection he might be able to grab, if he could just get to it: the lone, empty cabin.

He was still a couple of meters away from the door, which was being slammed open and shut from the onslaught of waves, dragons, and cannon fire around the urshvalkin. He thought that with a burst of energy he might be able to make it there and at least have something to grab onto, but just as he pushed off with his feet, the entire urshvalkin tilted dangerously up to one side, and it was unfortunately the wrong way as the bottom dropped out from under Mani and he collapsed against the wood, watching the little cabin rise up into the air above him. He rolled to one side as he started sliding down the deck, heading straight for the ocean, trying desperately to avoid the furniture that was spilling out the door. Chairs tumbled past him while he desperately fought to find purchase even as he kept sliding down the steep grade of the listing urshvalkin.   

He started screaming instinctively just as his feet were hitting the water and he saw a clawed hand reaching up out of the sea to grab the high edge of the urshvalkin and yank it down. Mani barely had time to register what he had seen with his own eyes before the urshvalkin violently tipped back the other way and Mani found himself slip-sliding straight into the small cabin, banging his shoulder on the doorway as he tumbled in. Knowing that the urshvalkin was going to tip back the other way, he angled his body to slam up against the opposite wall instead of back out the door and braced himself for impact. As he collided against the wall, he cried out in pain.

His mind burst with the violent colors of both Agadart and Ro, and while he knew he could not actually hear them over all the noise and the rushing waters and the battle guns, he felt their calls of fury and frustration deep in his bones. But they could not get to him — Agadart was besieged with enemy dragons attacking her, and Ro was simply too far away.

Even as he tumbled about the small cabin and tried to avoid getting sent back out the door, he marveled at the feeling of them, a connection that was even richer and more complex than the one he had previously shared with Ro. Their thoughts were a chaotic jumble of what they were feeling and doing, and despite being thrown about like a child’s toy in a washbasin, he knew they were coming for him. He knew they would be able to save him if he could just hold on long enough without getting his head bashed in or falling into the drink.

Eventually the urshvalkin’s pendulum-like sway that had been tipping the deck back and forth so dangerously started to slow down. Mani had lost track of time in his effort to keep from being too banged up. He was catching his breath as the sway became a little faster but less deep, sitting on his ass with his back to the wall near the door, when he felt it.

He didn’t even hear it at first, because his ears were ringing from the barrage of sounds from the battle and the splashing of the waves and the screams of dragons, but he knew immediately what was happening: the urshvalkin was starting to break apart.

He figured at least one of the broad, flat-bottomed boats under the deck that made up the body of the urshvalkin had taken several lethal hits below the waterline from a cannonball…or perhaps been attacked by the weird underwater kraken whose claw he had seen pulling on the deck. As the sound of the urshvalkin violently ripping apart reached his ears, he realized that the little cabin which had been his sole source of safety in the midst of the chaos was going to become his coffin.

He screamed again as the roof was ripped away and a red and gold, bloodied claw reached in to grab him.

Thank you for reading! 🎊 I’d love your comments and feedback! ☕

KimBoo's Bibliotheca 🐉 House of York

KimBoo's Bibliotheca is the room in the House of York filled with fantasy, science fiction, adventure, and *checks notes* romance!

By ☕ KimBoo York

You can read it in full here, or if you want to binge the whole thing you can buy a copy! If you enjoyed this story, consider signing up to read more of my fiction at KimBoo's Bibliotheca!

Enter the Bibliotheca

Previously: Agadart started to come back to her senses...

Rodgardae needed to shift back into his flying form, the pull of it primal and grating. The only thing keeping him from going feral and taking to the skies in desperation was that his connections to Mani and Agadart were, for the most part, calm. Agadart was confused and furious, but not hurt or irrational (at least, not by dragon standards). Mani was unhurt, if annoyed. Together their feelings twined through Rodgardae’s soul, colorful threads of a deep love connecting them.

It meant that, for the moment at least, they were not in immediate danger. Rodgardae had time to marshal the resources needed to rescue them from the Iskaryyvan navy, which would not hold off from attacking the urshvalkin in order to retrieve their emperor for too much longer.

His sister needed his help to organize the assault against the Iskaryyvan forces, most of which were still preying out off the coast, even if they were not actively trying to engage. Their brother, Prince Tonae, had arrived, lacking the pomp and ceremony that usually accompanied the prince of Watt wherever he showed up. His brother at least looked sympathetic to the fact that Rodgardae’s consort had been kidnapped.

What they all did not talk about directly, because it was still far too overwhelming, was the sensation of the queen in the back of their minds. She was incessantly, if gently, calling them to fight with her against their enemies who had dared tried to breach the borders of her realm.

A queen of Watt lived, in his own generation… it was almost too much to bear.

They were all on a deadline, because whether they admitted it or not the pull of the call was too strong to withstand for very long. They were slowly losing numbers of fliers who could not resist and shifted to take to the skies to answer their queen, and more were showing up at the coast every minute that passed, military and civilians alike.

Rodgardae was not entirely sure that they weren’t flying to their deaths, since it was already known that the platform Agadart was holding the emperor prisoner on was surrounded by almost the entirety of the emperor’s massive ships of the line. Agadart was a queen now, but even a queen could fall, as every citizen of Watt knew too well. The dragons of Watt had to get out there and get to the fight en masse as a unified assault because there was no way any single one of them could do it alone, not even Rodgardae.

His sister and his brother the prince demanded that Rodgardae plan with them and organize his own troops so that they would all know what role they were to play in the upcoming battle. He was technically the king of Watt, outranking his brother, the prince, but they still worked together to fashion the flights under their command into an attack force. They had started the morning with eleven hundred seventy-four military wings numbering over ten thousand dragons, but with the surging numbers of dragons arriving, they had created an additional three hundred wings by early afternoon. The plan was to launch at dusk, a bad time for naval engagements but a good one for dragons who all had both enough night vision to fight by and inner eyelids to protect them from the flash of cannons.

They would not be able to hold them back long, but they were betting against the clock with the hope that it would be long enough to get everything in place.

In an ominous turn of events that morning, most of the Iskaryyvan navy had turned away from Watt. Some admirals cheered at the news. Rodgardae and his sister did not, knowing that while it meant there was no immanent invasion, it suggested that the forces were headed to help reclaim their emperor.

Agadart and Mani were out at sea, alone except for the few Wattish dragons who managed to follow her and perhaps the half-feral rogue, Consort ver Kleelan, with only Agadart’s hold on Emperor Rhezv keeping the mighty forces of Iskaryyva at bay.

Finally, as the sun settled on the western horizon, Admirals Leonteinparre the Elder and the Younger stood in their flying forms next to their brother — two princes and a princess of Watt at the head of two hundred and fourteen fighting ships and thousands upon thousands of fliers. The very land under their claws vibrated with the power of a manifested queen, as if even the flora and fauna of their country was reaching out for her.

Rodgardae took to the skies, all the forces under his command either at his back or riding the waves. At last — at last — he was flying to his queen and his consort; flying to Agadart and Mani, the beloved of his heart.

Thank you for reading! 🎊 I’d love your comments and feedback! ☕

KimBoo's Bibliotheca 🐉 House of York

KimBoo's Bibliotheca is the room in the House of York filled with fantasy, science fiction, adventure, and *checks notes* romance!

By ☕ KimBoo York

You can read it in full here, or if you want to binge the whole thing you can buy a copy! If you enjoyed this story, consider signing up to read more of my fiction at KimBoo's Bibliotheca!

Enter the Bibliotheca

Previously: An unexpected ally showed herself...

She gently wrapped her claws around the human – Mani, her brain told her. Mani was his name insomuch that she remembered that people had names. Her mind was filled with a heavy fog edged with a bright light. It suffused her mind, as if somewhere the sun was starting to burn it off but it was too far away to give her clarity. In the meantime she was caught up in the roiling mists of confusion and anger and fear…

 But this person in her clutches was safe. He was known. He broke through the fog with his soothing words and his familiar gestures as he hung on, his hands clutching her claws for stability. Their minds touched gently, the wordless landscapes of her emotions tamed and sorted by his clever, butterfly-like thoughts. She closed her eyes and sank into the soothing waters of his mind, letting him soothe her heart.

She felt him adjusting his hold, the nerve endings in her claws blunted by layers of the horn-like material between them, but still sensitive enough to pick up on even the slightest motion he made.

She picked him up gently and brought him to her face so that she could sniff him carefully, wary about damaging such a fragile thing. His skin was like fine, delicate tissue paper that his blood thrummed directly under, so delicate and yet so strong. She knew he was beautiful and inspected his face before licking up the side of his neck to his ear. He laughed and pushed her nose away with one hand, which unbalanced him in her hold just enough to make them both scrabble a little bit to settle him again.

She tenderly put him back down, slowly releasing him from her claws so that he could find his feet and stand up once more without her help. He was in fine health and that settled her mind. Among the storm that was everything she was feeling at the moment, his mind was a lighthouse of sanity and love. He sat down tailor-style on the deck and patted his lap, saying something with words that she could not remember how to understand. But the gesture was a clue, because she had seen similar types of behavior before, even if it wasn’t directed at her. She lay down, her belly flat on the platform, and put the tip of her snout in his lap.

Her whole head was as big as his torso, but he took the weight of her jaw and simply adjusted his legs a little bit before starting to gently pet and stroke her face. It was the calmest she could remember feeling in a long time, and it parted the mists of her exhaustion completely. She had been utterly overwhelmed by everything that was happening to her, but those feelings dissipated with the red mists of her anger, leaving a clear and serene landscape of emotions in its wake. She let her eyes drift closed and allowed the sweet, safe darkness of slumber to embrace her as her mate soothed her worries with his gentle and loving hands.

Thank you for reading! 🎊 I’d love your comments and feedback! ☕

KimBoo's Bibliotheca 🐉 House of York

KimBoo's Bibliotheca is the room in the House of York filled with fantasy, science fiction, adventure, and *checks notes* romance!

By ☕ KimBoo York

You can read it in full here, or if you want to binge the whole thing you can buy a copy! If you enjoyed this story, consider signing up to read more of my fiction at KimBoo's Bibliotheca!

Enter the Bibliotheca

Previously: Mani had a heart-to-heart with his kidnapper...

At the end of his wild tale, Rodgardae looked up to see the majority of Watt’s admirals looking at him as if he were insane. Which was fair, he thought.

“The descendant of Princess Beatra?” Worthan asked skeptically, the first to recover himself.

“So Consort ver Kleelan claims.” He nodded.

“That’s an old family legend. Even I did not believe it, and Agadart is my cousin,” a voice from behind the wall of admirals said. Mistress Seraphinite tilted her chin up in defiance. The guards had known not to stop the headmistress of the Kaaltendt dragon maids, but she herself had not stepped any further into the space. Her eyes were narrowed as she glared at Rodgardae malevolently.

But Rodgardae was looking past her at Captain Wildt, whom he had assumed had flown off after Agadart himself. He was holding Maid Pyrite by her upper arm in a clutch so tight it would eventually bruise her, if it hadn’t already. Even more perplexing, Maid Pyrite was gagged.

“What is the meaning of this?” Rodgardae’s sister stepped forward. “Mistress Seraphinite? Explain yourself.”

The clutch of officers parted to let Mistress Seraphinite through. Wildt followed behind her, dragging a very unwilling Maid Pyrite with them.

“This person,” Mistress Seraphinite said, dripping disdain as she motioned at Maid Pyrite, “is a spy for Emperor Rhezv.”

There was some murmuring from the observers, but Rodgardae’s sister cut a hand through the air. “That’s her death warrant, certainly, but I do not understand what it has to do with why you brought her here, or your connection to the missing Maid Aegirine.”

“Lady Agadart ver Kleelan,” Mistress Seraphinite corrected fiercely.

“As you say,” Rodgardae’s sister said with a roll of her eyes. “Explain yourself. I shall not ask again.”

“Maid Aegirine is my cousin. I was of course informed of her identity by Queen Theaedra when she was assigned to the Dragon Maids Corps. What I did not know was that Maid Pyrite, whom I trusted, was reading my personal correspondence and so found that out herself. She is the one who related to Emperor Rhezv’s spies that Lady Agadart was being sent to Endestern.” She turned to face Rodgardae. “You’ve heard the story of the legends. Clearly, so had Emperor Rhezv, and that was why he targeted her, knowing that she could be the next queen of Watt.”

That had his sister stepping forward. “Mistress Seraphinite, I have always given you the respect of your station, despite the differences between our countries. Please understand that I do not mean this disrespectfully, but your claim is that of a lunatic.”

There was some shifting among the observers, but no one spoke up.

Seraphinite did not rise to the bait, merely shrugging her shoulders. “I am merely human, but I do know what it feels like to have a queen. I know what it feels like when the dragons around me are confident that their queen is hale and healthy. I admit I do not know what it is to belong to a land that does not have a queen, but I myself saw her fly in to fight the emperor, same as all of you. I knew who she was immediately, because I have seen the ancient paintings of the ver Kleelan dragons of Battenruck.” She stepped forward into the tent proper at last, the officers nearest to her stepping backwards to clear a path for her. “I have spent my life believing those old stories about as much as you do now, which is to say, not at all. But I cannot deny the facts when faced with them in the form of my cousin flying through the sky.”

Worthan scoffed at her. “Are you really suggesting Maid Aegirine is a queen of Kaaltendt?”

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“We have to admit that it is at least a possibility,” Seraphinite said. “You have a queen, and I have a cousin who is reputed to be the heir of Princess Beatra.” She looked over at Rodgardae speculatively. “Unless Admiral Leonteinparre the Younger disavows her?”

Rodgardae bristled at the implication and found himself standing right in front of Mistress Seraphinite, looking down at her, his shoulders pulled back. He could feel the vein of fire that was his dragon essence creeping up his spine and out into his blood, probably making his eyes glow, but to her credit she did not back down. “I know for a fact that she is my queen. I say that as her king, as her consort, as her mate.”

There were several gasps around the room, and only then did it hit Rodgardae that the majority of the people present, including his own sister, had no idea of his relationship with Agadart, if it could be called that. Whatever it had been, or whatever she had decided it couldn’t be, the fact was that he loved her and was bonded to her in the same way that he loved and was bonded to his own consort, Mani.

His sister looked at him with shock on her face, as if she had never seen him before. “Are you saying that there was a preexisting relationship before she manifested?”

He turned his focus to her, ignoring everyone around them. “Yes. Although she decided not to pursue it with us once we made it to the shores of Allemann.”

“It was my understanding that dragon maids would be harshly penalized if they became romantically involved with any dragons in their care,” his sister said, tilting her head as if she was trying to figure him out. “I personally did not see the reason for such a rule but I have heard that the Kaaltendt people take it very seriously.”

Rodgardae carefully transferred his gaze from his sister back over to Mistress Seraphinite and stared at her.

She pursed her lips. “We do. But as in all things, sometimes passions cannot be corralled the way we think they should,” Mistress Seraphinite said, staring back at Rodgardae with bright eyes.

The timing wasn’t ideal but he supposed the truth would be coming out anyway. He looked over at Wildt. “Captain Wildt, please answer me: How did the two of you discover Maid Pyrite’s treachery?”

Wildt closed his eyes briefly. “I was spending the night with Mistress Seraphinite and woke up to hear someone rifling through paperwork several rooms over.”

Some of the dragons present snickered, knowing that he was indirectly mentioning the heightened senses dragons experienced after sex.

Rodgardae’s sister just raised her eyebrows. “Looks like the Dragon Maids Corps is doing a smashing job of upholding those principles.”

“Marra,” Rodgardae sighed.

His sister shook her head. “Fine. Let us return to the topic at hand.” She faced off with Mistress Seraphinite again.

“If the legends pointed at Maid, ah, Lady Agadart being a possible heir of Princess Beatra, I’m surprised your queen would have spared her the execution block with her husband.”

“Have you all forgotten that Queen Esthae was a close cousin to our Queen Viridis?”

Apparently many had, if the expressions on most of the people present were any indication. Even Worthan was frowning.

“As such, this made it a family matter, and Queen Theaedra spared her thanks to the plea of Lord ver Kleelan on behalf of his daughter. However, the queen of Kaaltendt wanted to keep Agadart’s identity a secret within the dragon maids, not simply because of the scandal involving her traitorous former husband, but also because there were those in the nobility who were fully aware of the family legends. Their goal was to keep her as far away from court as possible, in the off chance that she might be forced to manifest in reaction to her situation, or a perceived threat...especially if she felt genuinely threatened by Queen Theaedra. No one needed a fight for ascendancy, or suffer the aftermath of a queen’s death in battle.”

“That does at least explain why she spared her life,” Rodgardae said thoughtfully. The violent killing of a queen, even one that was not manifested, could destabilize an entire country with the uncontrolled magic that would be released upon her death. Wildt nodded along with him, having clearly come to the same conclusion.

She straightened up again. “I did not come here to explain old legends. We came here to turn in Maid Pyrite as a traitor to Kaaltendt, and by association, an enemy of the Isle of Watt,” Mistress Seraphinite said with her eyes locked on Rodgardae. “Given that, I am here now to seek asylum in Watt.” She stepped forward and reached into her pocket. She pulled out a rock and held it out to Rodgardae. He looked at it in confusion. It seemed like a regular rock to him, if pretty, the dark emerald color of it shot through with streaks of reflective, feathery, bright green. He looked up at her face again.

“We take our names from the rock we choose when we enter service. It is considered a connection to the elemental powers of dragons. This is a chunk of seraphinite, and it has been in my pocket for over twenty-five years. I am now returning it to the Master of Endestern, as notice of my resignation as headmistress.” She was staring at him with a stoic expression, but her eyes glittered with tears that she refused to let fall. “I am throwing myself at the mercy of the king of Watt,” she added.

Everyone looked on at the scene in dead silence.

Wildt, who had passed off Maid Pyrite to one of the more attentive guards, stepped forward as well to stand next to her. “I beg leave to be granted asylum in order to remain with my bonded mate, my consort, my beloved and cherished guardian.” He reached out and grabbed Mistress Seraphinite’s other hand, and they clutched at each other, eyes on the ground.

Rodgardae held out his hand and she dropped the rock into his waiting palm. He closed his fingers around the rock. “You have the asylum, and the thanks, of the clan Leonteinparre and the whole of Watt for your service.”

His sister sighed loudly. “Meaning now that your cousin is the queen of Watt she can leverage her political position to keep you from suffering the consequences of your actions.”

Mistress Seraphinite looked at her placidly, and simply nodded. “It was never my plan, but given the circumstances I would be a fool to let the opportunity pass me by.”

Rodgardae raised his eyebrows at her sister. They had to respect Mistress Seraphinite’s brutal honesty, if nothing else.

She returned to facing Rodgardae directly and then, holding her skirts back, got down on one knee and bowed her head. Wildt followed her lead immediately. The message was clear.

“Your allegiance is accepted…by me at least. I cannot speak for our queen.” He put the piece of seraphinite in his pocket. “Don’t think this gets you out of service though, because while we may be going into battle against the Iskaryyvan Navy, our true goal is likely to be a group of nearly feral dragons protecting both of my mates, one of whom might herself be on the verge of tipping over into madness. You have your work cut out for you, Mistress…” He stalled, wondering what to call her.

“Bertrag ver Kleelan.”

His sister snapped her fingers, picking up the slack quickly. “You’re still mistress of the dragon maids for Kaaltendt, at least for now. Your experience will be helpful as at least three of the Endestern flight are in immediate service to the queen at this very moment.” She gave Wildt a long, critical once-over. “You are reassigned to assisting Lady ver Kleelan in her work, Captain. As my brother said, we’re going to need all the help we can get in this unprecedented situation.”

Everyone looked very grim at the statement. Even as Admiral Leonteinparre the Elder spoke, though, Rodgardae’s blood sang with the connection to his queen and the presence of Mani at the back of his mind. He needed to get to them, and quickly.

Thank you for reading! 🎊 I’d love your comments and feedback! ☕

KimBoo's Bibliotheca 🐉 House of York

KimBoo's Bibliotheca is the room in the House of York filled with fantasy, science fiction, adventure, and *checks notes* romance!

By ☕ KimBoo York

You can read it in full here, or if you want to binge the whole thing you can buy a copy! If you enjoyed this story, consider signing up to read more of my fiction at KimBoo's Bibliotheca!

Enter the Bibliotheca

Previously: Rodgardae had to 'fess up...

Mani woke up slowly, but kept his eyes closed to ward off the pain in his face. He tried to remember going to bed, but he couldn’t, and wondered if somehow Ro had carried him to bed as he had done plenty of times in the past.

Yet something seemed wrong and was nagging at his sleepy consciousness, and not just how much his face hurt. He gently touched his cheek with the tips of his fingers and hissed at the pain radiating out. He forced himself to open his eyes, because there was something definitely not right about his face feeling like it’d been hit with a brick. He looked up at a cheaply made wooden ceiling with bare rafters and plain wooden planks. As he slowly reached full consciousness, he realized that there was a slight swaying motion under him. Slowly, he shifted his feet over the cot he was on and sat up. Looking around, it was a very nondescript little cabin, with a table and a couple of unadorned chairs. It was dark except for where there were wide but narrow windows high up along the wall, just under the rafters, which were obviously less for light than for letting air flow through.

He had no idea where he was, and no idea how he got there.

He sat there blinking through the pain and the confusion for a while. He had no idea how much time actually passed before his brain finally clicked over like a watch starting up after being frozen for several minutes, and he remembered Consort ver Kleelan walking into the tent where Mani had been watching over Ro. He remembered his confusion and then, with startling clarity, he remembered Consort ver Kleelan punching him in the face. He didn’t remember anything after that.

It was hard to believe that he had been kidnapped by the nearly feral dragon, but it did seem to be what had happened. His memory was a little foggy in places, but he did remember clearly the blanket that Consort ver Kleelan had laid out on the ground and realized as he looked down at the bed that it was the same blanket he had been wrapped up in on the cot.

He stood up very slowly, gingerly testing out his feet and legs and leaning over to grab the back of one of the chairs for stability. The floor was definitely shifting a little, but Mani had been on enough ships to know that the motion wasn’t quite right. It felt more like a floating dock then a ship on the move. Given that there were no windows except for the high narrow ledges, he had no way to tell exactly what the situation was. As he stood there he thought about maybe trying to stand on one of the chairs and look out through the windows that were barely more than slits, but he thought, given the circumstances, it might not be a good idea to risk life and limb that much just yet. He could wait.

He walked around the room a few times just to get his blood flowing and then finally tried the door that was the only way in or out, but was unsurprised to find it locked. With a sigh he went back to one of the chairs and sat down. He tried to think about what he might be able to do, although his options were distressingly limited.

Fortunately, as if notified that he was up and around – which for all he knew could be the case; if they had guards outside the little cabin he was in, then they would’ve heard him moving around – the door rattled as it was being unlocked and a board being slid away. Mani stood up just as it opened to reveal, unsurprisingly, Consort ver Kleelan.

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The dragon walked into the room looking mostly the same as he had when he kidnapped Mani, although Mani thought that he looked a bit more stressed than he had ever seen him before. Consort ver Kleelan usually looked calm and unconcerned about most things, but now the skin around his eyes was tight and he held himself with a certain fragility that Mani took as a warning sign of the situation that they were in. Whatever was going on, Consort ver Kleelan did not feel like he was in control of it, and if that was the case, Mani would be on his best behavior.

“I’m glad to see that you are awake,” Consort ver Kleelan said, inspecting his face but standing by the door and not moving into the room very far, which was probably wise of him. Mani did have half a mind to just attack him, even if it would be a losing battle. It was the principle of the thing. Kidnapping was not a very gentlemanly thing to do to anyone.

“Yes I’m awake, and I’m sitting here, very confused about what is happening. Where the hell am I?”

Consort ver Kleelan tipped his head curiously. “You don’t remember our conversation?”

Mani stopped himself from shaking his head and paused to think back over what he did remember. Then he looked up at Consort ver Kleelan in surprise. “You literally kidnapped me and brought me out to the urshvalkin? Are you telling me that outside that door is Lady Agadart and the emperor?” It seemed too absurd to humor the idea.

Consort ver Kleelan smiled. “Actually, yes they are. Both of them. The emperor is wounded and in no position to fight off Agadart or make a dive for the water, at least not yet. Not that he would live long if he did, because flying through water is much different than flying through the air, and anyway his blood would attract every shark within a hundred kilometers. So he’s remaining motionless as possible, which is the first smart thing he’s done in this whole damn war.”

Mani just looked up at him, his mouth ajar.

ver Kleelan walked over and smoothly sat down in one of the chairs. He waved at Mani to take the other seat across from him. Mani carefully walked back to the table, never taking his eyes off of ver Kleelan as he did so, and then slowly sat down. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on or am I supposed to guess?”

“I think you already know most of it. Agadart fought the emperor and when she finally got the upper hand against him, the closest landing site for her was this urshvalkin. I took it upon myself to deliver one of her mates to her, as I saw that she is bordering on going feral, as I explained to you back at the medical camp.” He shrugged, crossed one knee over the other and clasped his hands around that knee, sitting there like a schoolmarm lecturing a class of children. “You were the more convenient one to carry.”

“Yes, I got that much. But you have not explained how you could possibly know if she was verging on going feral, since last time I checked, she has never met you before…at least not since she was a very young child.” Mani folded his arms over his chest and glowered at Consort ver Kleelan. “You have never struck me as a man who cared about the politics.”

ver Kleelan laughed. “Admittedly I don’t care a lot. But the queen of Watt murdering the emperor of Iskaryyva would incur major repercussions far beyond the borders of the two countries themselves. Furthermore, I don’t think a new queen, and certainly not the first queen that Watt has had in eight hundred years, needs to be dealing with the political nightmare that would result of her actions if she did that. She is my niece, and as I have said, she is my primary concern. I admit I planned to grab her out from under the emperor’s hold, but obviously those plans went to waste — she was too closely guarded for too long, and then she manifested. If I can get her back to Watt without any further international incidences, such as killing the emperor in cold blood, then that’s what I’m going to do.”

“How considerate of you.” Mani leaned back in the chair a little bit, still studying the strange man across from him. “I do see the holes in everything that you are telling me, all the things that you are leaving out, but the most important one is why you think that I can be of any assistance with helping her when she’s feral. The only people that can ground a dragon who is going feral is their mate, their guardian. I can ground Ro, although I’ve never needed to. He could ground Agadart, if he were here. But he’s not here so I’m not sure what you think I can do.”

Consort ver Kleelan stared at him for a few moments. “Tell you what, instead of me trying to convince you of anything that you don’t plan on believing anyway, let’s go out and talk to Agadart directly.”

Mani shook his head. “If she’s that close to feral it would be too dangerous for me to go out there.”

“Then I suppose you’re just going to have to trust me,” Consort ver Kleelan said, standing up, grabbing Mani’s jacket, and hauling him out of the chair and across the room to the door before Mani could even try to fight him off. Not that he would get far fighting such an old and experienced dragon as Consort ver Kleelan. He dug in his heels as a token resistance but there wasn’t much more he could do as Consort ver Kleelan threw open the door and physically tossed Mani out onto the deck. He tripped and fell down, catching himself on his hands and knees. He started to get up but stopped.

Above him, looking down at him with emerald green eyes shot through with gold, was the most beautiful dragon he’d ever seen.

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KimBoo's Bibliotheca 🐉 House of York

KimBoo's Bibliotheca is the room in the House of York filled with fantasy, science fiction, adventure, and *checks notes* romance!

By ☕ KimBoo York

You can read it in full here, or if you want to binge the whole thing you can buy a copy! If you enjoyed this story, consider signing up to read more of my fiction at KimBoo's Bibliotheca!

Enter the Bibliotheca

Previously: Agadart’s reality shifted...

Rodgardae shook himself and stepped up to grab his sister’s upper arm, dragging her to her feet. “Marra, don’t do this to me.” He tried really hard not to whine.

She shook her head, although she had a slight grin on her face. “I should have known that the baby of the family was going to be the one who ended up our king. You were already spoiled, so it makes sense.”

He looked at her in shock for a moment before punching her in the shoulder. A few of the officers, all of whom were still on their knees, flinched again, but no one moved, not even Worthan. She reached up and grasped his arm. “Don’t leave yet. Let us back you up. You have hundreds of wings at your command, and each and every one of them is ready to follow you to our queen.”

The plea competed with the pull of his mates, but it was sincere and, more importantly, smart. His rational mind fought with his instincts but she was right. He put his hand on her shoulder in response. “I will not fly off to get myself killed, as I hear some others are doing.”

She grimaced. “Holding dragons back has been difficult. Our brother the prince is currently flying off the coast, acting more like a prison guard than His Royal Majesty, chasing back anyone else who tries to fly out.”

“I will be one of those dragons soon, Marra,” Rodgardae admitted softly, releasing her. She closed her eyes but nodded.

“I know. I cannot imagine how you must feel right now.”

He knew her words were sincere, since her own mate was back at their home deep in the heart of Watt, keeping watch over their children. No one on Watt was entirely safe at the moment, but that was as protected as a family could get.

“We need to plan. Start from the beginning. Worthan told me that dick ver Kleelan kidnapped Mani?”

His sister’s expression darkened. “Yes. Consort ver Kleelan came out of the ocean like a kraken and followed your scent to this tent. Before we could get guards here to meet him or realize what a danger he posed to your consort, he had shifted into his walking form, knocked Matrica Roki out, and carried him away. He moved quickly, and that damn Khzern giant of his grabbed Mani and took off. We suspect that ver Kleelan shifted back into his flying form and slipped under the waves again.” She shook her head. “He switches back and forth without a care in the world, as if it has no adverse effect on him whatsoever.”

Rodgardae had read enough of their legends, and heard enough from Mani about the habits of his great-aunt’s consorts, to know what his sister was implying. “You think he’s bonded to another queen?”

“It’s the only thing that makes sense.” She shrugged. “After all, we know that there are a few queens in the wide countries of Iskaryyva who have their own courts and swear loyalty to the emperor but stand apart from him with their own kings and their own agendas. And who is to say what lives beyond the Barrens on the far border of the Westlands?”

Rodgardae thought it all sounded outlandish, but he was not prepared to go down that warren hole. “Be that as it may, my priority is to get to Mani and our queen.”

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Worthan nodded, and stood up to join the conversation. It was a gross breach of etiquette, if Rodgardae had really cared about being the king of Watt, but it felt very normal so he wasn’t going to say anything about it. He wasn’t sure he was ready to be king anyway. “What worries me is why hasn’t she come back home? If we are assuming that she is a queen of Watt then she would naturally, instinctively, return to her homeland.” He waved a hand at Rodgardae. “Where her territory and her king are.”

Rodgardae’s sister shook her head. “She might be the queen of Watt for whatever mysterious reason, but she is from Kaaltendt, and being so far from its shores was disorienting for her. In the middle of fighting the emperor, I think it likely she did not consider which direction she was going.”

Only in that moment did Rodgardae realize that nobody present had heard the story that Consort ver Kleelan had told him when they first met in Mani’s office. Rodgardae had sworn Mani to secrecy, and he himself had told no one. He had somewhat assumed that, should the unlikely event come to pass wherein Agadart was revealed to actually be the queen of the Isle of Watt, ver Kleelan would be there to explain it…and more importantly, Agadart herself would be present on the land of the country she was supposed to rule. Dashing out to sea to chase after the emperor of Iskaryyva had not been remotely on Rodgardae’s list of possibilities.

He raised his hand up to indicate that he had something to say, and the murmuring that had started up among the officers at his previous comment died down quickly. His sister continued to stare at him in shock. Rodgardae rubbed his forehead for a moment then told everyone to get to their feet. They all rose and crowded in a little closer, but no further than where Rodgardae’s sister stood firmly with her arms folded over her chest staring at Rodgardae.

“There may be some information here that I had failed to share with you earlier. To be fair, when I was first told this, I assumed it was a fantastical lie that ver Kleelan was weaving in order to convince me to help him. But given the circumstances, I’m inclined to believe that there is more truth to the story than I was willing to admit.” He looked around at the confused faces of his sister, Worthan, and the officers and then took a deep breath before he launched into the most unbelievable story he thought he could ever tell anyone in his life.

Thank you for reading! 🎊 I’d love your comments and feedback! ☕

KimBoo's Bibliotheca 🐉 House of York

KimBoo's Bibliotheca is the room in the House of York filled with fantasy, science fiction, adventure, and *checks notes* romance!

By ☕ KimBoo York

You can read it in full here, or if you want to binge the whole thing you can buy a copy! If you enjoyed this story, consider signing up to read more of my fiction at KimBoo's Bibliotheca!

Enter the Bibliotheca

Previously: Rodgardae was brought up to date whether he liked it or not...

Agadart shuffled on the platform, her claws scraping against the wood. The sound was weird and unsettling, so she picked up her hand and looked at her fingers but didn’t recognize them. They were darkened and leathery, her fingers long and bent at strange angles, and her palm did not look like it was supposed to.

Like the way she remembered it.

She sniffed the air, the salty brine of the sea rife with the rich scent of the life that swam within it, living and dying and mating and giving birth in the deep, unfathomable, waters. It felt strange to be sitting on the water in such a way, and her senses were tuned to everything that was happening around her – including the people who were out on the ships, circling the fake, floating strip of land that she was on.

There was blood in the air too, but that she knew the source of. It was the person/dragon/creature curled up in a ball, like a baby animal trying to protect itself from a storm. But it was the thing who had attacked her chosen mate, so she had no sympathy for it.

The drive to kill the enemy who had hurt her mate was strong, but deep inside, somewhere in the dark recesses of her rational mind, she remembered that doing so would be wrong. That killing in a straightforward way like that, as much sense as it made to her, was also something that at other times in her life she would call murder. Whatever crimes he had committed he should stand trial for them, no differently than what she had been through facing her queen…No, not her queen. The dragon she was thinking of was just a dragon to her. A peer, not a ruler, not someone who was in any way divine or special.

And what did that mean? She wondered as she toddled over to her injured enemy and sniffed over him with her sensitive nose. Walking was weird as well, because with every step she warred between her instinct to stand on her hind legs versus the sensation of being off-balance and wanting to walk on all fours with her strange hands-claws. Part of her stood outside of herself looking at herself, and knew that she had become a dragon – the most impossible thing that she could have ever imagined had happened to her without warning, and without explanation.

She heard a strange cry in the skies up above and looked up and saw a distant spot becoming larger quickly as it shot down from the heights that it had been flying toward the fake land – the platform – that she was standing on. She grumbled, but knew that this dragon was not a danger to her. In fact she knew that few single dragons would be… she did not stop to question why she believed that to be true.

The massive beast dropped down lightly onto the far side of the platform, opposite from where her enemy lay bleeding and whimpering. It had one front leg held out daintily, then gently set something down on the platform. It smelled familiar to her and she went closer to inspect it.

The large dragon, who owed her no fealty, dipped its head and then took off again, straight up into the sky, avoiding the enemy dragons that were circling with the ships at a distance. She looked back towards what had been dropped on her platform and gently, if awkwardly, used one claw to pull the fabric away. She knew who it was before she even saw him, as his scent rolled out from the material as it fell open: Mani.

Matrica Mani. Her…mate? Another? Also?

She scooted backwards a little, scared to touch him in her current form and afraid of her own power. She heard a splash off to the side and looked over to see another dragon, one with a hide similar to hers, such a dark blue indigo it could be black and scattering light like diamonds across it as water shed down off its wings and tail. She did know this dragon, even if he was unfamiliar to her. She knew him. He was family.

She did not know how she knew that, but she did in the same way she knew that Mani was one of her chosen; that he was, in the most basic sense, hers.

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KimBoo's Bibliotheca 🐉 House of York

KimBoo's Bibliotheca is the room in the House of York filled with fantasy, science fiction, adventure, and *checks notes* romance!

By ☕ KimBoo York

You can read it in full here, or if you want to binge the whole thing you can buy a copy! If you enjoyed this story, consider signing up to read more of my fiction at KimBoo's Bibliotheca!

Enter the Bibliotheca

Previously: A new queen, a strange feral, and unknown motivations...

Rodgardae woke up alone. Not technically, since there were two nurses and Worthan there, but Mani was not present, so he felt alone in a primal way. He reached out through their bond, as delicately as he could, and felt his connection to Mani’s quick, brilliant mind, but it was faded. He suspected Mani was holding him at a distance after Rodgardae had severed their bond.

He did not regret doing it, as he remembered the feeling of being killed. He had believed he was going to die, and he was not going to drag Mani down into that eternal darkness with him, no matter—

“I know you’re awake,” Worthan said, slapping lightly at the tender skin of his nose.

Rodgardae grumbled and raised his head, shoving Worthan backwards in the process. He looked around the tent. It reeked of blood and medicine, panic and exhaustion. He looked down at Worthan curiously.

“Get up, get up, you lazy kit. Get up.” Worthan flapped his hands at him as the nurses quickly tied back the sides of the tent, opening it up to the field beyond, which did not smell any better than the tent had. He slowly rolled off his side to sit up on his haunches. He picked up his front legs and put them down, stretching out his claws, then carefully and with great trepidation, unfolded his wings.

Nothing hurt.

He looked over at Worthan, confused. He distinctly remembered being literally torn apart by the imperial dragon. Rodgardae was a proud man, but he knew he had lost that brutal fight.

“I know, I was as confused as you are. But it’s true, you’re healed up. In fact, if you actually want to talk to me, maybe shift?” Worthan and the nurses politely turned their backs to him.

Shifting felt easier than it usually did, the magic that created their different forms swirling around and through him as if it was delighted to help him change forms, rather than fighting him as it usually did. It was bizarre to shift as easily as shrugging on a coat.

Speaking of…he looked around and grabbed the clothes laid out for him, a proper uniform, and dressed quickly. “Where is Mani?”

“Straight to it, hm?” Worthan said, but he sounded exhausted.

“Milles?” Worry clawed at his stomach, telling him that something was wrong.

“It’s been thirty-six hours since the end of your fight with the emperor—”

“The emperor?” Rodgardae did not shriek like a kit on their first flight. “I was fighting Emperor Rhezv? Why? How? What on earth would bring him out from behind his forces? That’s madness!” he all but shouted.

Worthan sighed as the nurses scuttled away, leaving them alone. “As I said, it’s been thirty-six hours since you fought him. More accurately, since he nearly killed you. Aren’t you curious about how you’re even alive right now?”

He was, of course he was, but his worry was slowly building into panic. “Milles, where is Mani?”

“He’s not here.”

“I can see that.”

“No, you insufferable lordling. I mean he’s not here, as in, he’s not on Watt at all.”

Rodgardae tried to process that, and failed. “Where?”

“Your sister asked me to bring you to her the moment you were up and about. Let’s go there to—”

“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what the hell happened.” He folded his arms over his chest.

Worthan looked around as if hoping for backup, then walked over to him. “Stop panicking and focus on who is actually connected to you,” he said, almost pitying.

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“What?” Rodgardae asked instinctively, but then did as he was told. He closed his eyes and thought carefully about Mani, imagining him as if his mate were standing next to him. Normally, even in his human form, doing so would immediately bring up the bond between them as a strong emotional connection. Even if they could not talk mentally to each other that way, it was often a good form of communication, and one they used to easily check on each other’s psychological state. He did not expect to feel Mani’s presence vividly, both because of the way he had severed the connection when he was injured, and the knowledge that Mani was not anywhere close by.

What really shocked him was the wave of worry that he felt and the secondary consciousness that was both foreign and familiar – familiar because he recognized immediately that it was a mate bond connection to Agadart, but foreign in that she was very clearly not thinking human thoughts. Which meant, of course, that she was not human. He probed the connection between the three of them and realized that as familiar and comforting as Mani was, even at such a distance and through a fog of confusion, there was a powerful rightness to his connection with Agadart. He opened his eyes and looked over at Worthan, knowing that the surprise and shock he was feeling was written large on his face.

“So you feel her presence, don’t you?” Worthan asked with a solemn expression. “The queen?”

“Yes. It’s unmistakable.” He had half believed that ver Kleelan was insane, but it was clear that he wasn’t. He looked out at the open field that was still very busy with the wounded being tended to. Then he looked back at the doctor. “Where is Mani, Worthan?” It was a demand that Worthan could not ignore.

“We are not entirely sure, but given what happened we’re convinced that Consort ver Kleelan grabbed Mani to deliver him to the queen, who is on one of the emperor’s urshvalkins.” He shrugged. “We don’t know why.”

Rodgardae blinked a few times trying to process that whole sentence. “Consort ver Kleelan kidnapped him? To take him to…to the queen? Who is on one of the emperor’s urshvalkins?” He felt like he could not stop posing everything as a question because it was all too absurd.

Nonetheless, absurd or not, Worthan nodded. “Again, it is speculation, but from everything our scouts can tell, that is what has happened and where we stand. Speculation is that he might be working with the emperor after all, and using your mate as some kind of ransom against our queen.”

Rodgardae nodded, then shook his head. “What? No! If that even made sense, which it doesn’t, my main question right now is: where is the emperor?”

“Oh I left that part out, didn’t I?” Worthan said with a chuckle that sounded far more grim than amused. “Our queen is apparently holding the emperor hostage on the platform. The emperor’s own forces cannot get close to her. She also has a few of our own dragons acting as her personal guard.”

Rodgardae felt the incredulity on his face. “She is holding the emperor hostage,” he said, just to hear himself say it, in the hopes that maybe it would make more sense to him. It did not.

“Probably. By the way, it looks like that at least four of her personal guard are from your own flight, including one from Endestern.”

“Captain Wildt?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

As he thought about what he had just been told, it all kept getting more and more bizarre. Rodgardae felt the heat in his chest rising. His mate, his flight, and his queen were all faraway and outside of his protection or his ability to help them in any way. The very thought disturbed his usual calm equilibrium. He wasn’t a wild beast, but he suddenly understood why a dragon would go feral if the situation called for it. Everything was out of control. Mani was his guardian, the person whose job was help calm him down and keep him from going feral, but Mani was with their queen, who would herself normally be able to give him guidance and purpose.

Both were too far away, even if he could sense them through their bonds.

“You need to calm down,” Worthan told him, frowning as he looked him over with a critical doctor’s eye. “Flying off into the distance right now is not going to help anyone or anything.”

“It’s a damned sight better than standing around here, waiting for updates!” He looked around. His uniform’s overcoat was folded over a chair. He went to grab it. “There’s absolutely no reason for me to be here if my mate and my queen are surrounded by enemies out in the middle of the ocean!”

The sense that Agadart and Mani were still connected to him was all that kept him from shifting and flying away immediately, but he had no intention of letting anyone stop him from doing just that once he rounded up the remains of his flight to join him. He went to storm out of the tent but stopped dead when he heard the sounds of a group of people approaching.

He stood still as his sister marched toward them along with a fair number of military officers and guards. He suspected it was all of them who had not shifted at the queen’s call. As she strode past him to stand under the awning of the tent, the guards smoothly moved out around the entrance and stood at attention. His sister looked him over critically. The only thing revealing her worry were the slight creases in her crow's-feet around her eyes.

“You’re not leaving yet,” she said simply.

“You can’t stop me,” he snapped In return, the fierceness of his words making at least one officer flinch in reaction to the defiance.

“No, I can’t stop you, and I’m not trying to. I’m trying to make you delay a little bit so that we can work together to figure out what needs to be done.” She crossed her arms over her chest, her eyes flaring with the power of the dragon she was. There was a reason she had risen so high in the Admiralty, and it only nominally had to do with her family name.

Yet Rodgardae had grown up with her, and as intimidating as she could be, she was not a force strong enough to challenge his instinctive call to go to his mate and his queen as soon as possible. He stepped back into the tent to stand next to her. “Then say what you will, and quickly, for I will be going in a moment.” It almost felt like his blood was boiling with the need to get out of there and go to where he was needed.

She nodded once and sank to the ground on one knee, bowing her head.

Rodgardae was too taken aback to react, and in that moment everyone else except the guards standing on duty outside of the tent followed her in showing their fealty. It was an old custom, and it had not been in practice since the death of Queen Esthae. No one got on their knees to honor any of the princes or princesses who had ruled over Watt since her death.

Rodgardae was too stunned to say anything.

His sister looked up at him. “We have come to honor the king of Watt, and to request his orders for us, so that we might help him retrieve our queen,” she said very formally and properly, still down on one knee.

It was as official as it could be given the circumstances, short of his brother the prince crowning him in the Hall of Ashes. Rodgardae was the new king of Watt…the first king in over eight hundred years.

His anger and desperation fell away. He felt a little faint, and it was not from his previous blood loss.

Thank you for reading! 🎊 I’d love your comments and feedback! ☕

KimBoo's Bibliotheca 🐉 House of York

KimBoo's Bibliotheca is the room in the House of York filled with fantasy, science fiction, adventure, and *checks notes* romance!

By ☕ KimBoo York

You can read it in full here, or if you want to binge the whole thing you can buy a copy! If you enjoyed this story, consider signing up to read more of my fiction at KimBoo's Bibliotheca!

Enter the Bibliotheca

Previously: A queen appeared…

Ro was completely unconscious, which was a good thing. His wounds were deep, and the one on his neck required three nurses and two doctors to hold it together with pliers in order to be properly stitched up. Mani had a strong stomach but he had not been able to watch, instead sitting in a low camp chair up by Ro’s head, petting him, talking to him, while keeping his back to the surgery. He just hoped that Ro could hear him, even though he was still, thankfully, unconscious. He tried not to focus on what the doctor and his assistants were saying to each other, but in the close quarters it was impossible to ignore.

“Doctor Worthan, are you seeing this?”

“I am, damn it. Change out the thread, no, not that one, this one. Get us another spool of this heavier silk thread!”

Mani glanced over his shoulder, trying to keep all the blood out of focus. “Is there a problem?”

“No. The opposite, in fact. He’s healing too fast.”

Mani paused. “How is that possibly a problem?”

“If the wound heals before we stitch it up, it means massive scarring. Scars in this form will make shifting back into his walking form damn near impossible!” Worthan let out some curse words after that. “If I have to recut these wounds just to seal them properly I’m going to be right fucking annoyed!” He sounded far more than annoyed.

“Her Royal Nectar,” Mani said. Everyone working on Ro paused, if the silence in the tent was anything to go by.

“That’s a legend.”

“Not according to my great-aunt. You might have heard of her? The Queen of Akanata?” Mani tried not to roll his eyes.

“Blasted hell,” Worthan grumbled, then came around to stand in front of Mani. His leather apron was awash with blood. Ro’s blood. Mani swallowed and forced himself to look up at Worthan’s face. Worthan glared at him. “So her saliva really does have healing properties?”

Mani nodded. “If she’s the queen of Watt and he was injured in her territory, and he’s her mate or a consort, then yes.”

“Blasted hell!” Worthan repeated, stomping back off to surgery.

“I would have thought the idea would make you a bit happier,” Mani said, rubbing the ridge of Ro’s eyebrows.

“I’m ecstatic,” Worthan snapped, deadpan. There was a long pause as the team did other things that Mani did not want to know about, but Worthan finally continued. “I am very glad that he’s healing fast from these very serious wounds, but as I said, it’s now a race against time to get him stitched up properly to avoid scarring. A deep wound healing wrong can be as bad as it never healing. So far, everything looks to be in the right place. However, blood can’t magically regenerate, that’s a scientific fact, and he’s lost a lot. I’m worried about the toll the accelerated healing is having on him.” Worth came up and looked over Ro’s head. “Are you picking up anything from the bond?”

He was, indeed — feelings of anger, shame, frustration, and, distantly, awe bordering on worship. Nothing seemed to be anything that might help Worthan. “Only that his mind is not absorbed by pain.”

“After all the anesthetics we gave him, I should hope to hell not,” Worthan said before ducking back to direct one of the other doctors about something.

Admiral Leonteinparre the Elder stepped into the tent, looking her brother over with a professional eye, but she did not ask Worthan for an update. She crouched by Ro’s head and slid her hand over his jaw, her worry for him subtle but obvious in her gentle touch.

“How’s the war?” Mani asked.

She frowned, keeping her gaze on her brother. “The queen’s call took hundreds of fighters with her after the emperor. I assume it was the emperor, anyway. By all reports, it was him.” She sighed and stood up. “Meanwhile all of us have felt the pull of the land, our connection to it strengthened by her presence. We can all feel her, to some degree, or at least feel that she exists.” She shook her head. “Two of my one-talon admirals shifted without permission and jumped to battle, and I have no idea how many other fighters have done the same. We’re one step away from chaos.”

“She is the queen of Watt, then?” Mani asked, even though he knew the answer.

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The admiral nodded, seeming struck by the words. “Unbelievably, yes. She is. Never in my life did I believe…or expect…” She stopped rubbing her eyes, glancing down at Ro again. “Take care of my brother, Matrica Roki.”

“Call me Mani,” he said, sounding weary even to his own ears. “Are we not in-laws?”

She smiled back, looking more like Ro in that moment than Mani had ever seen. “Then please call me Marralda.” She turned and left before he could respond.

The medical team was done much sooner than Mani expected, but then he assumed that was due to Ro’s fast healing. Mani could feel how exhausted Ro was through their bond, even though the dragon was completely knocked out. Mani asked one of the medical aides if they could provide him a cot, as he figured he would not be leaving Ro’s side. It was, by that point, only mid-afternoon but he knew to plan ahead. He was left alone, given that Ro’s condition was stable (and improving by the minute), while medical staff was desperately needed elsewhere.

He was sitting there, thinking about how to get dinner, when the front tent flap opened and a strange dragon stuck its head in.

“Who the fuck are you?” Mani shouted, standing up.

The dragon looked at him and something about the wild colors around the iris tipped Mani off. “Consort ver Kleelan?”

The dragon blinked and nodded.

“Is that…is that…seaweed?” Mani asked, peering up at him.

Consort ver Kleelan shook his head to dislodge the offending matter, which was definitely seaweed, then turned to look at where Ro was still asleep, a silent question.

“He’s healing quickly, but the blood loss was severe.” Mani went and sat down again. “Her Royal Nectar, I assume, is the reason he’s healing so quickly?”

Consort ver Kleelan nodded again, then ducked out of the tent. Mani shook his head. The man might not be a feral, he thought, but he wasn’t completely sane either.

Less than thirty minutes later, Consort ver Kleelan walked back in on two legs, human again, and dressed in his slightly antiquated clothes, his hair done up properly in Wattish braids. He looked back and forth between Mani and Ro.

“Out with it,” Mani said.

“Agadart is on the verge of going feral,” Consort ver Kleelan said. He unfurled what looked like a blanket and shook it out.

“I’m not surprised,” Mani said, watching him curiously.

“Neither am I. The shock of shifting, the fight with the emperor, then leading a whole flight into battle with the imperial guards…she went from one traumatic event to another. None of which was helped by her mate nearly dying.”

“You believe he’s her king, then.”

Consort ver Kleelan kept inspecting the blanket, but smirked at Mani over it. “Who doesn’t?”

Mani nodded. There was no telling how this was all going to settle, in the end, but Ro was absolutely the mate of the queen of Watt.

“Admiral the Elder is keeping a tight hand on all the flights still in the air, but just barely. Half the wing’s-worth of dragons that followed Agadart out to battle have limped home, injured and unable to shift back to update anyone on what is going on. The assumption is that Agadart is fighting the emperor himself.”

“The assumption?” There was something odd about the way Consort ver Kleelan explained it, but Mani could not figure out what it was.

“The whole reason the emperor was trying to steal a queen for himself is that he’s not powerful enough to fight one. He lost pretty quickly.”

“How do you—”

“She’s taken him to the urshvalkin she was held captive on, and is using the Wattish dragons who accompanied her as her personal guard. As long as she has the emperor captive, none of the imperial fleet dare come near, much less attack.”

Mani frowned. “Shouldn’t you be telling this to Admiral Leonteinparre the Elder?”

He stepped up and looked at Ro, shaking his head. “What could she possibly do? Agadart’s half mad at this point, and she needs her mate to help center her, to ground her, or she’ll go all the way over the cliff and become feral with no way back.”

Mani stood up, concerned for the first time, his sense of danger banging against the inside of his skull and his heart rate spiking. He stepped in between Ro’s unconscious body and ver Kleelan. “Ro can’t do that, he’s not fit to even be awake yet, much less fly!”

Consort ver Kleelan sighed, laying out the blanket on the ground between them. “Oh, Consort Roki, I was not talking about Leonteinparre.”

Mani only had time to register ver Kleelan’s fist as it came at his face, but then everything went dark.

Thank you for reading! 🎊 I’d love your comments and feedback! ☕

KimBoo's Bibliotheca 🐉 House of York

KimBoo's Bibliotheca is the room in the House of York filled with fantasy, science fiction, adventure, and *checks notes* romance!

By ☕ KimBoo York

You can read it in full here, or if you want to binge the whole thing you can buy a copy! If you enjoyed this story, consider signing up to read more of my fiction at KimBoo's Bibliotheca!

Enter the Bibliotheca

Previously: Agadart had never felt more helpless in her life...

The Iskaryyvans crashed over the defenders of Watt like endless waves, their fliers and their ships creating breakpoints in the Wattish front lines that they then poured all their might into widening.

The medical compound would have to be moved, but the order to retreat had not been given yet. Unfortunately, there were many dragons and, slowly, more humans who were injured enough that they could not be safely moved and no one wanted to abandon them to whatever fate the Iskaryyvan forces had in mind. It was a death sentence either way, but it was obvious to Mani that the longer Worthan could put off the decision, he would.

Mani knew that Ro was engaged with the fighting by that point, feeling the rage and fear and frustration as his mate defended his homelands. To their credit, the Wattish navy was causing massive damage to many of the Iskaryyvan ships, even at great cost to themselves. Likewise, the dragon flights somehow kept pushing back the influx of dragons, but the fighting was tooth to claw and dirty as hell.

Worthan grabbed a sheet of paper and scribbled numbers on it before thrusting it at Mani. “I don’t know if Admiral Leonteinparre the Elder is on the ground, but if she’s planning to call a retreat, these are the numbers of wounded we will have leave behind. Tell her people, make sure she knows.”

Mani slipped the paper into a pocket, whipped off his bloody apron, and ran out of the tent. War was raging merely a few miles off the coast, clear as day, as he pelted up the paths to where the Admiralty had set up an ad hoc headquarters. Word was that Prince Tonae had been forcefully made to retreat inland by his own guards, which was a blow to morale but made sense. That left Ro’s sister in charge as the field marshal, so Mani suspected she had not taken flight but was leading her troops in her human form.

He got to the entrance when he doubled over, pain lancing through his side. It wasn’t his pain, though. He spun around and headed for the closest lookout point, but it was easy to find what he was seeking.

Ro was flying hard from what was clearly an attack, five dragons on his tail. He was far out over the water but Mani would recognize his dark green and red scales anywhere, and he did not have to reach through their bond to know. Ro had been injured and was fighting for his life.

Mani saw why, too. The fighting was close but there was a particularly large Iskaryyvan dragon who was targeting smaller Wattish dragons, and Mani watched it grab one by its neck, killing it instantly. It fell into the water with a large splash that Mani was too far away to hear. Ro and several of his flight — Mani thought one was Wildt — were targeting the Iskaryyvan dragon, but each had their own guards. It was a small but bloody, ruthless engagement with at most five dragons on each side. With fighting all around them out into the sea, this fight should not have mattered, but it did. Somehow, it did.

Mani studied the other dragon. It was bright red with yellow, almost gold markings. Something about it pinged his memory.

“It’s an imperial!” a guard shouted next to him, and everything slotted into place. The markings were those shared by the imperial royal family of Iskaryyva, of whom a fair number were, of course, in the military.

It felt like the whole camp had gone quiet as everyone turned to watch the fight. Mani felt someone familiar next to him and he glanced over at Ro’s sister, who was watching with real fear in her eyes.

“I’ve ordered backup for him, but everyone’s got their own fight,” she said, not looking at Mani.

“Admiral, you cannot go up there!” one of her aides said, obviously continuing an argument started earlier.

“He’s injured, but clear headed,” Mani offered.

She let out a relieved sigh, but then gasped when Ro and the imperial struck at each other, claws out. Blood sprayed through the air as Wildt fought two others to get to Ro. Another strike, and Ro was impaled, held fast in the talons of the larger imperial dragon, shrieking in agony and writhing as the other dragon bit him, over and over. Blood was pouring out of Ro’s wounds, falling like rain to scatter in the wind. Wildt peeled off from the close quarters fight he and another had been waging with three opponents, making a desperate run to help his leader. Other dragons tried, some more successful than others, but it was clear that the dragon who had Ro in his grip had purposefully moved away from the pack, rose up above them. He was steadily ripping Ro apart. Ro was screaming…   

Rodgardae Leonteinparre was dying.

Ro’s sister was yelling something at Mani’s side, but he was screaming along with Ro, on his knees, pain radiating through him. He could barely look up at where his mate was being murdered before his eyes for the agony of it, physically and mentally. He saw Ro twitch at another bite and suddenly their connection cut off.

“No! Rodgardae! No!” Mani jumped to his feet, stumbling forward. Someone held him back or he would have walked right off the edge of the platform. Ro was still alive but he had shut down their connection, a drastic measure that proved without a doubt that Ro believed he was facing death.

Mani kept yelling at him but his cries were overpowered by a primal scream of fury, a noise filled with so much pure sound that it knocked all of them backwards, tumbling to the ground. Mani once again dragged himself to his feet, eyes out over the water. A huge dragon was barreling toward the fight, screaming a challenge that no one could mistake even if they did not believe what they saw with their eyes: a queen had joined fray.

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The camp below and around them was pure chaos as people yelled and pointed and ran, for where Mani could not guess. The dragon was large, nowhere near as big as Foösh but still a queen in size and appearance, her multifaceted black scales reflecting the colors of the rainbow as she shot through the air. The backwash from her breakneck speed sent ships under her bobbing and at least one smaller ship capsized completely. Mani thought he felt the ground under his feet vibrating up his legs.

“Who the fuck is that?” Admiral Leonteinparre the Elder shouted. “Rhezv has a queen?” The last word was screeched out in horror.

Mani shook his head but words failed him as the queen dragon finally caught up to the imperial’s slow drag upwards with Ro limp in his claws. Ro wasn’t dead, that much Mani knew, but there was no way to know how close he was, with their bond sealed. He knew without a doubt who she was, he knew it in his bones, as if she had called for him by name: Agadart had manifested, and she was a queen after all, just as Consort ver Kleelan had claimed.

Above them, the queen dragon let out loud, cawing shouts of fury as she aimed for Ro and the imperial. Mani knew what she was doing without looking. Ro was a prince in every sense of the word, so of course he was the one Agadart would choose for her own. Perhaps, as Consort ver Kleelan said, she already had, long before. Mani assumed that she saw her potential consort being torn apart and manifested on the spot, wherever the emperor had held her. It was not without precedent, but the stories Mani remembered seemed more like a romantic fancy than history.

The other Wattish dragons responded as every dragon must to the appearance of a queen: they battled back, fighting harder and meaner than before, all along the coast. Whatever ground the Wattish forces lost was regained by the time the queen slammed into her opponent. Mani watched with everyone else, knowing how tricky this would be with Ro still trapped in the enemy’s talons.

“Wait, is she…is she fighting the imperial?” Admiral Leonteinparre the Elder gasped.

Mani looked over at her in surprise, but then realized that everyone watching had assumed that the dragon was Iskaryyvan, and likely the emperor’s own queen.

“Open your bond, you damn fool!” Mani yelled at her. She looked at him in shock. “Open it, feel your magic!”

She paused, blinking, then gasped in shock as she realized the truth: it was a queen of Watt flying over her own lands.

People who heard him started screaming, some with joy, others with the screech of a dragon shifting forms on the spot as the sensation flooded their senses. The call went up around him that their queen had returned, and was taken up all along the coast within seconds.

He turned his face back up to see what he could of the fight. The imperial was impeded by his hold on Ro, fighting with wings and teeth. But Agadart was as big as he was and she was strong, ripping at one of his wings and overpowering him. With a flick of her tail she flipped over, grabbed her opponent’s neck in her jaws then continued to fly straight up for the dome of the sky.

“What the hell is she doing?” one of the nearby soldiers yelled to no one in particular. Mani shook his head, because he did not know either. The clutch of the dragons became a single distant spot far up in the air. Then it became two, and then it became three.

“She killed him to force him to let go of Rodgardae. Now she speeds down to catch her prince,” Mani said dispassionately, saving his fear for later.

“To catch her king,” someone corrected, their voice filled with awe.

“Not dead, but limping,” Admiral Leonteinparre the Elder said, pointing at the imperial who was flying slowly back toward the Iskaryyvan navy. Mani barely glanced that way, eyes on the falling bodies of Ro and Agadart. An impromptu flight of dragons was racing her way, but she managed to reach Ro before they got to her.

It seemed like, even as the battles in the distance raged on, that the entire camp around them was silent, watching the mysterious new queen of Watt save her king. Or try to, Mani thought, hoping that Agadart was not too late. There was a collective gasp as she grabbed him and tilted off, tacking like a ship on the water to slow their descent without tearing their wings. She made their flight into a wide, looping spiral to the ground, clearly aiming for the medical field.

Mani slapped the admiral’s shoulder and turned to sprint back the way he had come, leaping the last few steps off the platform. He ran all out, nearly tripping several times as he tried to keep Agadart and Ro in his sight line. She was landing as he got to the medical encampment, and by the time he made it to the field she was gently setting him down where Doctor Worthan and a whole team of support staff were already waiting.

She took a few awkward steps back after licking Ro’s neck once, then licking over his wounds while Worthan shouted at her to back away. Mani slowed to a jog, trying to tamp down on his reaction to her obvious claim on Ro, and also not wanting to get in the way of the doctor and his assistants as they literally swarmed over Ro’s stationary form.

Agadart looked Mani straight in the eye, then looked away, oddly shy. She then stomped her feet and stood up completely, her tail swishing back and forth. She looked like she was listening for something no one else could hear. She took in a deep breath and Mani knew instinctively what was coming next.

“Cover your ears!” he shouted. A few people managed to do so before Agadart let out another bone-rattling war cry. It was instantly answered by thousands of Wattish dragons from every direction, including the wounded in the medical tents. Mani felt someone grab his arm.

“Our queen calls to us!” Admiral Leonteinparre the Elder had lost all sense of decorum, weeping openly. She shook him in excitement then turned to face her staff, who had run behind her the whole way to the medical field. “Spread the word! Watt has a queen!”

Mani thought that the word did not need to be spread, as it was obvious. It was as if the land itself was calling out through Agadart to her dragons. No one could miss it.

Then he heard Ro groan, and stopped caring about anything else, stepping forward to take his mate’s draconic face in his hands. Ro’s eyes were clouded with pain. “Hold on, beloved. Please hold on.” Ro closed his eyes but pressed their foreheads together in the same gesture they had shared before he had left to go fight.

Ro was alive, and for the moment, that was all that mattered to Mani.

Behind him, the queen of Watt roared out another battle cry and took to the skies to chase after the one who had injured her king.

Thank you for reading! 🎊 I’d love your comments and feedback! ☕

KimBoo's Bibliotheca 🐉 House of York

KimBoo's Bibliotheca is the room in the House of York filled with fantasy, science fiction, adventure, and *checks notes* romance!

By ☕ KimBoo York

You can read it in full here, or if you want to binge the whole thing you can buy a copy! If you enjoyed this story, consider signing up to read more of my fiction at KimBoo's Bibliotheca!

Enter the Bibliotheca

Previously: Mani watched while the dragons of war were called to fight…

As the battle engaged in the distance, the emperor had Agadart’s hands bound and secured to the railing of the deck. She could jump off but she’d likely just dislocate her shoulders and end up hanging off the side of the ship for however long the emperor wanted her to dangle there. She ground her teeth together but did not say anything.

They watched for hours as the massive, relentless forces of Iskaryyva lashed out against their opponents. The ship she was on was too far out to be in immediate danger, but close enough to watch ships engage and sink, dragons fight each other bloody and fall into the waters below to sink out of sight just like the ships around them. Watt had the advantage in speed and agility across all metrics, but the Iskaryyvan numbers were just too overwhelming.

Eventually her legs gave out and she let herself collapse to the deck. One of the guards tried to get her back on her feet, but she just pretended to be a sack of flour and flopped over.

She heard the emperor chuckle. “No mind, no mind. She will be your future empress anyway, she can sit. Bring her a chair, however. We must maintain some dignity.”

She rested her head against a railing post.

Not long after, when she had indeed been provided with a short and uncomfortable stool to sit on, someone came onto the deck and saluted the emperor with a flourish, then held out a folded piece of paper. The emperor’s aide took it and handed it off to the emperor, who read it then smiled.

“It appears they have moved Prince Tonae inland, but his younger brother is in the fight above the coast.” He tapped the paper at his mouth, thinking. “A royal kill worth taking, even if it is not the current prince.”

“Rodgardae?” she said with a gasp before she could stop herself.

He looked at her keenly. “Ah yes, you were in service to him at Endestern, weren’t you?” He stepped up to her until they were barely a hand’s width apart. “Were you close?” He smirked at her, and the implication was clear what he meant. She slammed her shoulder into his chest, causing him to stumble backwards in surprise. She stilled when she felt a blade at her throat.

The emperor studied her for a moment, but then waved the guard off. The sword moved slowly but finally was re-sheathed. She let out a long breath.

“My patience is at an end. Even watching your own land be invaded and your dragons killed, you refuse to shift.” His tone was blasé but his eyes were sharp and glittering with anger. “I will kill this prince, and when I return from my victory, you will shift and accept me as your king. It will be the only way to save the Isle of Watt.”

“You can’t make me do that,” she said, meaning it literally even if he only took it as defiance.

“There are ways. They are unsavory, but effective. I have my draconic physicians creating the draught as we speak. You will shift, and I will claim you, and that will be the end of your ridiculous, pointless resistance.”

Without another word between them, the emperor left the deck and returned to his quarters. A few minutes later, the ship was moving again, picking up speed as it aimed for the small city of Meintresse.   No one came to untie Agadart, so she settled back down on the stool to watch the battles get closer and louder.

She was not sure how much time passed, but possibly little more than an hour, when the emperor re-emerged. He was wearing a shifting tunic, thin and loose, which would easily rip apart when he changed into his flying form. He nodded at her, almost gleeful in his actions, and went down to the broad landing deck. His shift was quick and impeccable, no shuddering or stalls. His coloring was a brilliant red with gold streaks shot through his hide, clear markers of his imperial pedigree. He was not particularly large, but as with his walking form, he did not have to be. His bearing and his power were evident to anyone watching. He took to flight wi1th a brief, economical flap of his wings and was quickly soaring toward Meintresse with a flight of at least a dozen guards.

They cleared the path before him with brutal efficiency. The ship she was on followed in their wake, slower but just as relentless. Agadart pulled at the rope binding her hands, as futile as she knew it would be.

Just as she saw the emperor engage with a small group of dragons, still too far away for her to know for certain if one of them was Rodgardae, the ship she was on shuddered as if it had hit something, the fore of it tilting down and causing everyone aboard to fall forward, and a few to fall off completely. Sailors were clutching at ropes as they swung through the air on the masts, and Agadart found herself doing the same with her bindings. The ship crashed back down into the water with a loud splash, but then it was pulled over on its side before anyone could get their feet under them, including Agadart.

It once again straightened up in the water with another splash, bobbing up and down like a child’s toy. Everyone was running around either trying to secure anything that had not already been thrown overboard or looking over the edge to see what they had hit.

The boat tipped again, this time on Agadart’s side, bringing her face-to-face with the ocean…and a dragon. A dragon who was swimming under the water, clutching at the boat with its claws to pull it over. Before she could scream, it lifted one claw up and broke apart the post she was tied to, freeing her hands. It gave her just enough time to grab what remained of the railing to hold onto as the dragon let go of the ship again so it tilted sharply back the other way. She watched it curve away into the darkness of the water, disappearing, only to reappear meters away, shooting up into the air. She tried unsuccessfully to struggle to her feet as she watched it fly straight up into the sky, quickly outpacing its pursuers.

She looked around at the chaos on the ship. No one had noticed that she was no longer bound to the railing, so she crawled off to the side, still holding on for dear life as the ship continued to violently bob back and forth. She kept her eyes on the bizarre dragon who had freed her — she realized quickly that doing so had to be the whole reason the dragon attacked the ship but did not otherwise damage it. It caused a distraction so no one would notice when it freed her.

It clipped a sharp turn and then plunged back down behind the ship Agadart was on, causing two of its pursuers to collide in midair and another two to tip wide to avoid the same fate. It kept going straight down, three more dragons quick to nip at its tail, but it didn’t stop. Agadart held her breath, waiting for it to pull out but it didn’t; it went straight into the water at breakneck speed but hardly made any waves as it breached the surface. One of its pursuers did not pull up in time and belly flopped with a painful screech and a splash of water that sprayed up several meters.

What a bizarre dragon, she thought as other dragons started circling the ship, trying to spot it in the water below. What Agadart did notice, however, was that all the splashing had pushed the boat closer to the front lines, closer to where the battles were raging. The boat continued to bob sharply in the water, so Aggy hung on to the railing for dear life but cast her eyes towards the fight that was happening over the coast.

The fight where the emperor was attacking Rodgardae.

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The pushing and the shoving of the strange dragon, along with all the waves and splashing going on around the ship, had caused them to get substantially closer to the fight. Agadart could see now, very clearly, that it was Rodgardae that the emperor had attacked, just as he said he would.

She cried out in dismay watching the scene unfold. The emperor was only slightly larger than Rodgardae but obviously more powerful and just as obviously fighting as dirty as possible, with no honor or restraint. His own Imperial Guard was engaged with fighting the dragons who might have been able to help Rodgardae, so the fight was coming down to the two of them facing off, one-on-one.

It was bloody, and it was ruthless. Agadart could see the sprays of blood droplets in the air as the two dragons fought each other.

Agadart had never felt more helpless in her life. Even when she was working against her own husband and felt trapped by all the intrigue and danger around her, she had always felt like she had some control over what was happening to her and how she could respond to the situation…even if the choice was to simply allow herself to be killed.

But now she was reduced to screaming Rodgardae’s name as he was battered about by the emperor. All Agadart could think about was that he was going to die, and she would never see him again, and that Mani would leave the island, cloaked in grief. One man would die, and the other would disappear from her life, and she felt the unfairness of that deep down in her bones in a way that was beyond mere grief or regret. It was as if two things that were precious to her were being stolen straight out of her hand.

She had stopped paying attention to anything around her as she watched the fight, but the ship had slowly started evening out and sailors were busy fishing each other out of the waters that many of them had fallen into, with some dragons flying as close as possible to it in order to ward off the bizarre amphibian dragon. Bizarre amphibian dragons were not her problem, though; her problem was that her mate was being killed before her eyes.

As the tears streamed down her face, she stopped for a moment, brought up short by the very thought that she just had. It felt out of place to think about it… but when she was feeling it, when she was screaming about her loss, it felt natural.

She looked up again and saw the moment that the emperor bit the back of Rodgardae’s neck and yanked, clutching Rodgardae’s wings in his own claws. Her breath left her and she felt ghosts of pain throbbing down her own neck and back and shoulders as if she was feeling a phantom of the agony that her mate was experiencing.

“No!” Agadart yelled at the blood-drenched sky. “No!” Her words felt lost in the tumult of the ship’s crew erupting into action around her, but she could not stop. She screamed over and over until her throat was raw and the deck was shaking under her and people were screaming as they ran away. Everything tumbled in her mind, the world tipping to a wrong angle and her voice becoming a raking noise over her nerves.

Her chorus of “no!” turned into a wordless, echoing screech as she launched herself from the bonds of earth, flying like a demon into the skies.

Thank you for reading! 🎊 I’d love your comments and feedback! ☕

KimBoo's Bibliotheca 🐉 House of York

KimBoo's Bibliotheca is the room in the House of York filled with fantasy, science fiction, adventure, and *checks notes* romance!

By ☕ KimBoo York

You can read it in full here, or if you want to binge the whole thing you can buy a copy! If you enjoyed this story, consider signing up to read more of my fiction at KimBoo's Bibliotheca!

Enter the Bibliotheca

Previously: Agadart realized that bigger plans are in motion...

Mani had heard of war, and had seen a few bloody fights between dragons in his time. He had also been raised in a country that was universally acknowledged as “dragon heavy”, whose numbers of large flights filled the skies and were renown the world over.

What he had not ever witnessed was the overwhelming sight of dragons massing over the air off the Peveillin Cliffs, just to the north of where he was standing on the docks of the ancient port town of Meintresse. There were thousands of them, possibly ten thousand or more. Likely, more.

“Quite a sight,” Doctor Worthan said. He spoke softly, and sounded grim.

It had only been a little over two days since the meeting with Consort ver Kleelan at the Admiralty’s offices, but that already felt like it had happened a month prior. Once an accord had been reached, Admiral Leonteinparre the Elder had dispatched scouts to verify what they could of Consort ver Kleelan’s intelligence, led by a quiet Foösh, who could fly higher and faster than any of Watt’s own scouts. His role, accordingly, was to help them get in and get out alive. It came as no surprise to anyone when he returned actually carrying one scout slung over his back and the other clutched in his talons, both injured by gunfire, but at least alive enough to report that, indeed, the emperor’s forces were incoming and even included two urshvalkins bringing up the rear. The details Consort ver Kleelan had written out for the Admiralty had been accurate down to the numbers.

Which meant Agadart was currently on her way back to the Isle of Watt, but held prisoner by Emperor Rhezv himself.

Ro had sworn Mani to secrecy about ver Kleelan’s wild claims, but had hardly needed to. Mani figured out a long time ago how seriously the citizens of Watt took their legends, and how dearly they hoped for the return of a queen. To be told that their queens had been unmanifested and living idly in Kaaltendt for centuries would come across as mockery to them.

Personally, Mani thought it made sense. If the revered Princess Beatra had escaped at all, the only two places she might have been welcomed were Kaaltendt or Akanata, and he sincerely doubted she would have gone to his homeland simply because of the troubled relationship Watt and Akanata had shared back then. They had never gone to war, but there were a few times over the past few thousand years when they had come close to it. Given that the Kaaltendt queen dragon at the time, Queen Viridis, was even a cousin by marriage, it made sense she would be the one Princess Beatra would turn to.

With all of Consort ver Kleelan’s military intelligence confirmed, it seemed the entirety of the Isle of Watt had burst forth to ready for battle. Ro had finally convinced his sister and the rest of the Admiralty that waiting onshore to be overwhelmed was a bad plan, and that their best defense would be a hasty yet solid offense. If they could sink a number of the emperor’s ships, at least that would lessen the numbers when the battle eventually, inevitably, came to ground. No one was under the delusion that the mighty armada of Iskaryyva could be stopped, not with the sheer number of dragons and ships on the way, but the hope was to lessen the impact of invasion and reduce their numbers to something they could possibly fight. At least for a little while.

Mani cursed his great-aunt for choosing to keep Akanata out of the fight. It would come to her eventually, but she was an old queen who preferred Akanata’s storied tradition of isolationism and failed to comprehend how power hungry Emperor Rhezv actually was. The numbers and speed of her military flights would have been helpful.

He looked up and saw Ro, their bond dialed down for his sake. If Ro got injured, Mani would still feel it, but not as acutely as if their bond was completely open.

Fly safe, beloved, he sent up as a prayer.

Stay safe yourself, Ro sent back aggressively, and Mani just laughed at him. There would be no safety for either of them any time soon.

Ro, at least, was stationed over the coastline. He had been given command of three additional wings, two of which were mostly made up of civilians of fighting age. They were not professional military fliers but they were protecting their homeland, which would count for a lot once the battle got to them.

The navy ships of Watt that were not already several miles out as a primary attack force were coming around and heading northwest. Watt’s ships were smaller than the Imperial Navy they were facing off against, but that made them faster and more maneuverable. If dragons were not factored into the fight, Mani thought the two navies would be evenly matched despite Watt’s lesser numbers.

“Are you certain you want to assist the medical unit?” Doctor Worthan asked, breaking him out of his reverie.

Mani nodded. “I’m not going to be much use anywhere else, and I at least can help with basic draconic medical care.” His role as Matrica was not a wartime one, was never meant to be. He had given an Akanatan prayer of victory to Ro’s primary flight before takeoff, which at least was well received, but it was the most he could do. He had managed not to tear up while giving it, which he thought was a personal triumph.

“Sadly, there will be enough work to go around.” Worthan turned from their spot on top of an observation tower to work his way down the stairs. A series of medical tents had been set up on the fields just past the crest of the shore, and within sight of the famous emerald green cliffs in the distance. There were few tents set up for human patients, since most of the human fighters for the first wave were on the ships heading to battle. If they got injured, they would be lucky to even make it back to shore. There were a few smaller dragons standing around, draped with vests carrying the green, five pointed star marking them as a medical flight. Compared to the number of fighters in the air, there seemed very few of them.

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The first twelve hours of battle were distant, marked by muffled explosions and a few plumes of smoke. A few dragons limped in with bullet wounds, and one had a wing severely injured by a cannon ball, half-carried by two members of the medical flight. Mani mostly helped prepare for what they all knew was coming by moving supplies around and cutting large bolts of linen and cotton into bandages.

“Wow,” said a young nurse next to him, looking up. Mani followed her gaze and saw Foösh gliding by like a flying mountain, three regular sized Wattish dragons in formation around him, looking tiny in comparison. He dipped low and with a single, long sweep of his gigantic wings turned upwards and shot into the sky. Even as far away as he was, the backwash of wind sent tent doors flapping all over the field. The Wattish dragons trailing him visibly stumbled as they tried to follow.

No one knew where Consort ver Kleelan was, though. He had slid out of the Admiralty’s offices the same day his reports about Emperor Rhezv’s forces were confirmed without a backward glance, which once again infuriated Ro, but there was little they could do about it. Part of the agreement was that Foösh would help with scouting, and ver Kleelan would help with absolutely nothing whatsoever because he was going to focus on finding and rescuing his niece. Mani hoped the man had a chance in hell of saving Agadart.

Everyone slept in short sprints, too anxious to really sleep at all. The battle continued as evening crept up and slipped into night. The lights of the battle moved in from the edge of the horizon to become a field of gunfire and cannon blasts and ships on fire. The number of wounded dragons, some with fierce burns along their bellies and tails, grew from a trickle to a steady stream.

Late into the night, he felt Ro’s consciousness brush up against his. He followed the tug out to a landing field that was mostly empty. Ro landed with a soft thud that belied his impressive size.

Your worrying is distracting me, he scolded.

“Liar, you just wanted to come see me,” Mani replied, rubbing the soft tip of his nose.

Ah, that too, Ro sent with a bob of his head.

“How goes it?”

He received feelings of dread and hopelessness, followed by apology.

“No no, I’d rather you be honest with me.”

Their numbers are too great. I don’t think we are making a dint. They just keep coming. Ro sat down, tucking his wings close. I don’t think I will get another chance to get away. He looked up, stretching his neck to look into the distance. Promise you will retreat when the time comes. I will follow, but don’t stay for me.

“I promise,” Mani said, meaning no such thing. He would stay wherever Ro was, and they both knew it.

Ro huffed. I have not seen nor heard from the feral.

Ro refused to use ver Kleelan’s name when he was in dragon form, and it was delightfully petty of him. Mani snickered. “You know he’s not actually feral?”

Ro sniffed in disdain, making his opinion clear. He looked up again, his emotions colored by regret. I must go.

“I love you. Please come back to me.” He hugged Ro’s face, touching their foreheads together. He stepped backwards until he was clear, and with one last look at Mani, Ro jumped into the skies.

Only minutes later, the entire field was overrun with wounded being brought back from the ever-encroaching front lines.

Thank you for reading! 🎊 I’d love your comments and feedback! ☕

KimBoo's Bibliotheca 🐉 House of York

KimBoo's Bibliotheca is the room in the House of York filled with fantasy, science fiction, adventure, and *checks notes* romance!

By ☕ KimBoo York

You can read it in full here, or if you want to binge the whole thing you can buy a copy! If you enjoyed this story, consider signing up to read more of my fiction at KimBoo's Bibliotheca!

Enter the Bibliotheca

Previously: More truths spilled out, and a truly rare dragon sat around blocking traffic....

“If you persist in refusing to shift to your flying form, I do have ways to force you,” he said pleasantly, pouring himself some tea and not offering any to her.

She twisted her hands together behind her back and pulled on the same fear-born strength that had carried her through spying on her husband for three treacherous years. Her life was on the line again, in a different way, but she would not meet it cowering.

“I personally do not need you to shift, you understand. I will make you my queen and Empress of Iskaryyva, either way. Unfortunately, the people of Watt will not believe your claim to their land unless you do. The magical connection needs to be formed, and for that, you need to shift. You need to fly.”

She took a deep breath. “Are you not worried I will just fly away?”

His smile grew even colder. “That’s what harpoons are for,” he said calmly.

She managed not to flinch.

He sat back with his tea held in both hands and studied her intently for a long moment. “Once I have mated with the queen of Watt, you will be queen of Iskaryyva as well.” He waved a hand around, indicating the opulence of the room and it’s priceless treasures. “Perhaps even Kaaltendt as well, eventually.” He sipped his tea. “Have you no ambition?”

She shook her head once and kept her mouth shut.

He sighed, setting down the tea and calling out for one of the guards. Agadart was not surprised when she was hauled out of the emperor’s quarters and thrown into a small room below decks. It was small and incredibly dark, and she could tell by the sounds of the ship around her that she was below the waterline. It was disconcerting and felt unnatural. Every trip she had ever taken by water had been on a vessel where she could stay well above the waterline.

The ship lurched into movement, sails obviously catching a strong wind. She lost her footing and found a small chair by dint of falling over it and smashing her face into the wall in the darkness. Snarling in frustration, she aggressively righted the chair and sat down in it, not that anybody cared.

She took a deep breath. It was not the time to panic or wallow in feelings of despair.

Why was the emperor himself there to lead the armada she had glimpsed sailing around them?

There was only one logical reason, and it was that the emperor was in the midst of making his long-awaited, entirely expected frontal assault on the Isle of Watt.

She held back a keening wail as the full force of what was going to happen hit her. Everyone she knew would likely die, and the Isle of Watt would fall, and she would never see her father again. She would never see Mani again, or Rodgardae. If she lived long enough to gaze on the shores of Kaaltendt once more, it would be to watch her country be overrun.

Biting down on her hand to quiet herself, she took several deep breaths and considered her options. None were good, and none allowed for her survival. She closed her eyes.

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The duke had not resorted to torturing her to try and force her to shift, but there was no guarantee that the emperor would be so generous. There were simply not a lot of ways to force a dragon to shift to either form, though. A dragon might shift involuntarily if their mate or children were in danger, and there were a couple of drugs rumored to instigate a shift, but they were outlawed everywhere for a reason.

Of course, if one was an emperor, such matters were not a big concern.

She waited for her fate to come to her.

Yet for the next few days, nothing happened. She was fed and given a chamber pot, at least, but otherwise simply kept in the dark like a piece of luggage. No one talked to her or even looked at her. From what she could tell she knew the ship was moving fast through the waters at an unbroken pace, and suspected that some dragons had been put in harnesses to pull it along, as she had read that was a common thing that the Iskaryyvan navy did simply because they had the numbers to spare. She tried to do some simple calisthenics just to keep from atrophying, but there wasn’t much she could do when she did not have enough room to spread both arms out at the same time. Sleep was difficult as the floor was slightly damp and the one blanket she had been provided with did not do much, but eventually exhaustion won out and she slept fitfully, sitting up in the chair until she fell out of it.

Worse, though, was the day the explosions started. She had no idea what time it was, just that it was some point during the day due to the cacophony of noise from the upper decks. The explosions were far in the distance from the ship she was on, which made sense given the presence of the emperor on board, but unmistakable. There were multiple shots of what she assumed were cannons being fired, and then occasionally singular explosions that she assumed were bombs dropped by high fliers.

Still, no one came to let her out. She got food later which she presumed was dinner, another plate overflowing with too much for one non-dragon human to eat, accompanied by the glares of the sailors who delivered it and the marines who protected them. Agadart figured that they were all angry at her for not shifting into a full dragon form to please their emperor.

She kept reminding herself that it was not her problem.

Tip me on ko-fi!

The ship sailed nonstop, with the explosions getting sometimes closer, sometimes further away. She had finally been reduced to sleeping on the damp floor, and the blanket was not enough to keep her warm, so by the third, or possibly fourth day, she was chilled to her bones and felt like a fever was creeping up on her. She was glad she wasn’t a dragon because the temptation to shift, if only to keep warm, would have been too great for her to deny.

Instead she was shivering on the floor, sniveling with snot all over her face, when one of the emperor’s guards opened the door, gave a look of pure disgust, then grabbed her arm to yank her to her feet. Slightly dizzy and numb, she stumbled face-first into him. He shoved her off, grabbed her arm again, and started walking down the narrow hallway. He did not let go of her as they went up very steep stairwells that were more like ladders. If it was the same route she took days before down into the bowels of the ship, she did not recognize it.

She could barely feel her feet, though, so if the guard had not kept a tight hold of her, she was sure she would have tripped a dozen times already. Instead, she was hauled out into the open and had to close her eyes for a moment due to the brightness. She blinked them open to clear blue skies, but no sails. The heavy canvas was all rolled up tight except for a few smaller sails toward the aft. She kept blinking as the guard shoved her to stand in place, and as she blinked again, the emperor came into focus. He was standing in the middle of what was, she realized, the captain’s deck, the highest deck on the ship. Once again he was wearing a sumptuous double-breasted long coat with golden dragons and roses embroidered all over it, although the coat itself was bright blue instead of red.

“Here we are,” he said, motioning out to the water beyond.

Squinting, Agadart stepped closer to the railing. One of the guards kept a heavy hand on her shoulder, probably assuming she might jump overboard. Instead, she was staring out at the stunning view in front of her.

Hundreds of ships, possibly thousands, most flying the emperor’s colors, stretched as far as she could see, and flying above them were twice as many dragons. It was a full invasion force, all of the emperor’s reserves coming out to play. It was breathtaking in the worst, most ominous way, but what grabbed her attention was what laid beyond.

Just past the armada by a few miles were the glittery, glistening, deep green crystals of the Peveillin Cliffs of Watt.

Thank you for reading! 🎊 I’d love your comments and feedback! ☕

KimBoo's Bibliotheca 🐉 House of York

KimBoo's Bibliotheca is the room in the House of York filled with fantasy, science fiction, adventure, and *checks notes* romance!

By ☕ KimBoo York

You can read it in full here, or if you want to binge the whole thing you can buy a copy! If you enjoyed this story, consider signing up to read more of my fiction at KimBoo's Bibliotheca!

Enter the Bibliotheca

Previously: Agadart was finally introduced to Emperor Rhezv the Beholder...

Rodgardae had thought that the hard part would be convincing his siblings that Lord ver Kleelan wasn’t simply insane. None of their scouts had seen an actual urshvalkin (at least not and lived to tell about it) and that was unfortunately the most believable part of his story. He also thought the hard part would be to change the minds of all the admirals and Admiralty of Watt, who agreed with his sister that their best offense was a good defense.

He had thought all those things, and he had been wrong.

His sister swayed by his side, her gray curls popping out from her hat brim. “Do you see what I see?” she asked in a hushed voice.

“Yes,” Rodgardae said, and meant to say more, but what was there to say?

“That is a damn big dragon,” Doctor Worthan said, following with a long low whistle of admiration.

Rodgardae figured that was definitely something that could be said about the dragon in front of them.

They had all agreed to meet at the Admiralty’s office the morning following their meeting at the Hoolarée, and ver Kleelan said he would send word for a “friend” to meet them there. Since Rodgardae’s sister was ensconced there with the rest of the upper level officers, it was the best place for Rodgardae to make his proposal since she would feel more relaxed in her own territory. How she had never manifested as a queen herself, he would never know.

When they got there, a very pale young man with a riot of bright yellow curls falling down over his shoulders was loitering by the door and causing the guards outside the main entrance to eye him distrustfully. Rodgardae had not blamed them, for as young as the man was, probably no more than twenty years old, he was almost seven feet tall and built like a bear. He probably weighed more than he and Mani put together.

“I’ve seen him around,” Mistress Seraphinite had said, looking at the youth who was talking in low tones with ver Kleelan.

Then the boy had gone to stand in the middle of the street, dropped his heavy cloak to reveal that he was stark naked only long enough to twist into his dragon form.

His giant dragon form.

Rodgardae’s sister had come running out a few moments later, obviously alerted by the guards, and they all stood on the broad stoop of the building, staring at the strange dragon who was easily four times as tall and long as Rodgardae’s own dragon form, yet definitely not any kind of queen.

Lord ver Kleelan strolled over. “The giants of Khzern are truly amazing to behold. He’s not even full-grown.” He looked like he was showing off his prized puppy.

“Who in the blasted hell are you?” Rodgardae’s sister snapped, looking Lord ver Kleelan up and down. “Are those consort braids?” She turned her incredulous expression on Rodgardae. “What did you do now?”

“This isn’t my fault!” Rodgardae said impulsively, only to hear Mani laugh from behind him. Drawing the tattered remains of his dignity together, he glared at his sister. “Admiral Leonteinparre the Elder, this is Lord ver Kleelan, of Kaaltendt, and I have no fucking clue as to why he’s wearing his hair like that.”

“Did you bring that damn big boy here?” his sister asked point-blank.

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Lord ver Kleelan lit up with a wide smile. “I did! He’s how I know that Emperor Rhezv has at least one urshvalkin.”

Everyone looked away from the giant to ver Kleelan, but Rodgardae’s sister turned back to him. “Admiral Leonteinparre the Younger, you better have a good explanation for this.”

Rodgardae gave in to the impulse to pinch the bridge of his nose. “I don’t, not really, but as you can see, we have someone in contact with Khzern, along with important military intelligence regarding the emperor’s fleet.”

“Dare I ask how?” She squinted at him, which made her look so much like their father it was almost funny.

Mani shifted to stand beside Rodgardae, who sent him a silent thank you. “I think the better question, Admiral, is why,” Mani said with flourish that ended with pointing at Lord ver Kleelan.

His sister finally turned back to him. “You stink like a feral.”

“I’ve lived around ferals for years, I do apologize.” He did not sound apologetic at all.

“Where are you from?” She bared her teeth, but he looked up as if thinking deeply on the question.

“Do you know, that if you go far enough to the west, you end up in the east?”

She frowned at him, and Rodgardae discreetly shuffled back a little, pushing into Mani to keep them out of it for the moment.

“Of course I know that the world is a sphere. Every dragon knows that!” She finally snapped at him.

“We know that, but we don’t do it often. When I left my ancestral home, I headed west.” He waved a hand at the Khzern giant, who was at that moment sitting placidly taking up most of the street and looking very much like a draconic pigeon.

“And that’s where you’ve been for however long, wing-slapping with ferals?”

“What? No! The Khzern aren’t ferals.”

His sister looked out at the giant, who seemed to be going to sleep, and back at ver Kleelan. “I believe you, but you need to quickly get to the part where you brought a Khzern giant — who’s barely more than a boy, don’t think I didn’t notice — and plopped him on our doorstep.”

Rodgardae knew it was time for him to intervene. “It was my suggestion. He has his own agenda, but I convinced him that ours might match it well. Perhaps we can take this inside?”

Lord ver Kleelan looked out toward the Khzern giant and said something in a clicking, melodious language. The dragon nodded, then tucked his head under a wing to very obviously take a nap. Everyone still on the street were all looking at each other, but it was clear that the giant was not going to move and also could not be moved. Carriages started to back up and turn around, and the regular noises of the city slowly returned. Rodgardae was certain, though, that news of a Khzern giant basically roosting in front of the Admiralty’s offices was already spreading across the whole of the city. It would be front-page news by nightfall.

With a sigh, he followed his sister inside, Mani next to him and ver Kleelan behind him. Worthan, Wildt and Mistress Seraphinite took up the rear of their little parade. When they got to a conference room, his sister sat pointedly at the head of the table and motioned for the rest to take a seat. A couple of aides came in promptly with trays of coffee carafes and cups that were far too delicate to be standard issue. His sister poured herself a cup with no finesse and took a large swig of it like a sailor. Rodgardae frowned at her but she rolled her eyes at him.

Mani poured cups for both himself and Rodgardae, while ver Kleelan ignored the coffee entirely.

Worthan held his cup in both hands but leaned forward eagerly. “How old is he, exactly?”

“Foösh? He’s thirty-eight years old,” ver Kleelan said as if it was obvious.

Everyone stared at him.

“He’s no more than twenty,” Rodgardae’s sister countered.

“Oh no, he’s definitely thirty-eight. It’s just that giants live unusually long lives, even for dragons, and so mature later. He won’t be considered fully adult until he’s fifty, at least. Right now he’s in what Khzerns call ‘the in-between.’ More than a teenager, less than an adult. He’s here under my supervision to help rescue my niece.”

Rodgardae’s sister frowned again and put down her coffee. “Your niece?”

ver Kleelan waved a hand at Rodgardae, who glowered at him for a moment, but then explained the story of Agadart ver Kleelan’s kidnapping. He left off the whole blasphemy that Lord ver Kleelan claimed about her being the heir of Princess Beatra, though, because he knew that would set his sister’s temper off like a firecracker.

“I read about that trial for Baron Stewardt,” she said. “I wondered what happened to his wife after she turned on him. Lucky to get out of that with her life and her head.”

“My family is good at surviving against long odds. It’s how we managed to get through Maganrad’s Culling mostly unscathed, despite our draconic lineage. We lost a lot of land and prestige but the family line continued.” Mistress Seraphinite spoke primly and looked straight ahead, avoiding everyone’s gaze.

Rodgardae’s sister nodded respectfully at the mention of the great horror of Kaaltendt’s history. She focused on ver Kleelan again. “I understand that. However, it does not explain how you knew that she had been sent into the Dragon Maids Corps, much less how you found out she was kidnapped since that did not happen until after we arrived in Suychet.”

Lord ver Kleelan looked solemn and serious for the first time since Rodgardae had the displeasure of meeting him. He leaned forward and put his elbows on the table, clasping his hands. “Despite decades of separation, I have always maintained an irregular correspondence with my brother, Lord Stigar ver Kleelan. It had to be kept secret as it would reflect poorly on the family if it was known, especially after Queen Theaedra scratched through my name. However, as soon as the scandal of Baron Stewardt’s treason broke, he sent word for me to return.”

Mani hummed. “To steal Lady Agadart away from the queen, if necessary, I take it?”

ver Kleelan nodded. “Hence my request to bring Foösh with me. He’s very loyal and his family owes a life debt to my liege. If we had to grab my niece and run, well, he’s much faster with that wingspan than I could ever hope to be.”

“Your liege…and who would that be?” Worthan, surprisingly, was the one who asked. Rodgardae’s sister just looked like she had eaten a sour fruit.

“She is not someone who wants her identity bandied about, but I am her consort, and she is my liege, and you will get no further information out of me than that.”

No one liked that answer, but it was clear that it was all he was going to say on the matter.

“Your unwillingness to name your true loyalties makes you suspect, surely you understand that?” Rodgardae’s sister said with a false veneer of pleasantry.

“I do. But as I explained to the younger admiral here, your opinion of me is immaterial. I am here to save my niece. Even if my brother had not charged me with doing so, it would be my only goal here, for many reasons. I do not care much about your wars.”

“Our war will become everyone’s war if the Isle of Watt falls, Lord ver Kleelan. Emperor Rhezv has made no secret of that.”

“Your liege is Wattish, isn’t she?” Mani spoke up. “She’s Wattish and she’s your mate.”

Rodgardae looked at him in surprise, then over at ver Kleelan, whose hair was up in an ancient style that very literally announced that he was a consort to a Wattish dragon of noble descent. ver Kleelan looked at Mani as if he had spoken gibberish, but then his expression cleared and he nodded. “She is old and flew into the Barrens a long time ago.”

“That doesn’t narrow it down.” Rodgardae’s sister sighed. “We’ve had our share of draconic adventurers over the past hundred and fifty years. The price of being a hunk of rock in the middle of a massive ocean.”

“Did you know in Khzern the lifespan for dragons is five hundred years, not two hundred?” ver Kleelan said with a smirk.

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“How?” Doctor Worthan asked, entranced.

“I’d rather get back to why we’re even having this meeting, if Consort ver Kleelan here is damned and determined to go haring off after his niece anyway.” Rodgardae’s sister spoke authoritatively, drawing everyone’s attention back to her.

“Admiral the Younger here had a proposal that I found interesting.”

“Admiral Leonteinparre the Younger,” Rodgardae snarled at ver Kleelan until Mani put his hand on his shoulder.

“I’m open to hearing it, obviously, since we’re all sitting here anyway,” Rodgardae’s sister said calmly, although Rodgardae (and probably every other dragon in the room) could tell that her patience was fraying.

Rodgardae took his cue and spoke up. “To cut to the chase, I think we should use Consort ver Kleelan’s intelligence about the Iskaryyvan forces to launch our own offensive attack.”

“Oh, not this again.” His sister rubbed her eyes. “RoRo—”

“I would appreciate it if everyone would stop saying ‘consort’ with such disdain. I am a consort, and I’m proud of it, same as Consort Roki sitting next to his mate over there,” ver Kleelan snapped.

Rodgardae’s sister looked at ver Kleelan with some small amount of respect for the first time. “Our apologies, Consort ver Kleelan.”

 He sniffed haughtily, but then pointed at Rodgardae. “I am not opposed to his suggestion, if only because I know that getting to Agadart is going to be damn difficult as it is. It’s already been over a week since she was taken, and the longer this goes on, the more at risk she is. If you all launch a massive attack, it might be distracting enough for Foösh and I to get to her.”

“Do you even know where she is being held?” Rodgardae’s sister leaned forward.

“She was on an urshvalkin for a while, but I suspect she’s transferred to a different ship now, headed towards us.” ver Kleelan looked out the window as if he could see an armada in the distance.

“How would you know that?” Rodgardae asked pointedly.

“Which ship, then? If you know so much.” His sister talked over him.

“Oh, that’s easy. She’ll be put on the emperor’s flagship.”

Everyone was stunned into silence again by that, but ver Kleelan shrugged, looking specifically at Rodgardae, as if daring him to reveal the madness that Rodgardae knew lurked under the feral’s hide.

Because, of course, if Agadart was the heir of Princess Beatra, if she was the queen of Watt merely waiting to manifest, then of course Emperor Rhezv would have her on a short leash.

Consort ver Kleelan grinned at him, all pointed teeth.

“I’ll need proof of the validity of the intelligence you provide, but if it is true that the emperor’s flagship is in motion and headed our way…well.” His sister sighed and caught Rodgardae’s gaze. “Then our time has run out.”

Thank you for reading! 🎊 I’d love your comments and feedback! ☕

KimBoo's Bibliotheca 🐉 House of York

KimBoo's Bibliotheca is the room in the House of York filled with fantasy, science fiction, adventure, and *checks notes* romance!

By ☕ KimBoo York

You can read it in full here, or if you want to binge the whole thing you can buy a copy! If you enjoyed this story, consider signing up to read more of my fiction at KimBoo's Bibliotheca!

Enter the Bibliotheca

Previously: Lord ver Kleelan explained a few (very few) things...

Lieutenant Jenna, the guard who seemed to be posted at Agadart’s “duty station” the most, shook her head. “Are you sure you are not Iskaryyvan? You’re stubborn enough.” She waved for the servant to collect the half-eaten plates of food.

Agadart resolutely kept her mouth shut. Being quiet was something she learned quickly was the best way to avoid problems. No one aside from Duke Paruask had threatened her, but it would not take much for any one of the military guards around her to decide that maybe she needed more physical convincing to shift into her dragon form. Given that she had no dragon form to shift into, provoking them was a risk she could not take.

“You are just delaying the inevitable. When Emperor Rhezv gets here, he will force you,” Lieutenant Jenna said pityingly.

That was the standing threat, actually: that she would be sorry for being stubborn once the emperor arrived. No one told her where the emperor was, but it had been ten days since she had been kidnapped out of the train station, so she figured he had more pressing business to attend to. Either way, she understood the implications. She just shook her head.

“It’s your funeral.” Lieutenant Jenna shrugged and turned to go back out to stand by the door to the shed.

It was definitely going to be Agadart’s funeral since she could not give them what they wanted from her and she could not escape. She was stuck, literally, in a very cold and sparsely furnished prison cell in the middle of the ocean.

At least she was being fed well.

She had also finally been provided with reading material, but most of it was historical treatises on the history of the royal family of Iskaryyva. She had also been given a few volumes of natural history journals which were mostly very boring and technical. She was simply bored senseless.

All the adventure novels of her youth had given her a fanciful notion of what being a prisoner was like, and there were some things they got right such as the dreary surroundings, but what none of them had mentioned was the unrelenting boredom. She was not given anything to write with, and she was not allowed anything that might be repurposed as a weapon such as lead pencils or knitting needles (although she was terrible at knitting, so that was not much of a loss). The wide but narrow vents were high enough not to make for easy viewing, even when standing on a chair. Pacing in a circle to keep warm was not enough activity to engage her mind.

Her only excitement was when, at random points throughout the day, she was hauled out of the cabin to walk around the deck, the guards close by in case she tried to make a running jump off the side, she supposed. Dragons landed and took off, mostly for no purpose that she could tell. She suspected it was part of the absolutely pointless attempt to force her to shift.

Mostly, she sat around reading the materials provided to her, eating small portions of the feasts brought to her twice a day, and lying on her cot, staring at the ceiling while trying not to get depressed. It was becoming a losing battle.

She did manage to scrape marks on one of the boards of the wall, which she had to do each time she ate because that was the only time she had something sharp enough at hand to do it. They counted the utensils when they left, but at least they did not stop her from marking the passing days.

After Lieutenant Jenna and the servant left, Agadart thudded back into her chair with a heavy sigh. She looked at the book sitting on the table, but she was not motivated to return to the dry historical overview filled with dates and names that she was determined would stay meaningless to her. The low-level dread she felt about her hopeless situation simmered in her bones, but there was no outlet for it aside from screaming, and that would simply cause trouble for her. Instead she simply zoned out, listening to the bustle of ships and dragons outside of her prison. Not long after she had been locked up the first day, the entire fleet and the platform were put in motion, so the sounds of the sea and calls of sailors drifting over for the ships surrounding the massive floating platform were familiar. It struck her as she sat there that the noise was more chaotic than usual, but she decided to just to focus on the sounds more intently and let her brain wander.

She had no idea how long she had been sitting there, staring off at nothing, when the door was slammed opened without anyone even knocking first. Agadart blinked at Duke Paruask as he came in. She wasn’t sure, but she thought he looked troubled as he stopped and stared at her for a long moment.

“As much as I personally admire your determination, we are all frustrated by your obstinance, Lady ver Kleelan, and I’m afraid our time has run short.”

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Agadart wondered if this was it, the moment when the duke would give up on her and have her body thrown off the platform. They continued staring at each other, and he was obviously waiting for her to say something, but finally just huffed in annoyance and waved in a couple of guards, including Lieutenant Jenna. They tied her hands behind her back and looped a rope around her neck, carefully wrapping around her shoulders like a harness so it would not strangle her. The duke picked up the end of the rope like a leash and simply walked out, Agadart stumbling behind him.

She had seen the platform when it was busy by peeking out the door when it was opened, but nothing compared to what she saw as she was led across the massive platform. There were thousands of dragons of every size and color in the skies, some in cohesive flights of hundreds, others singular fliers darting around and between the flights. Some landed on the platform even as she and her “honor guard” were crossing it, the vibrations of their landings and takeoffs carrying up through the thick heels of her ill-fitting boots.

There were three large ships with chains towing the platform, pulling it across the ocean like a sled, but she did not get a good look at any of them before she was led into a large basket. It looked just like one of the deep woven baskets she saw gardeners use, only large enough for four people. The guard who got in last closed the gate and secured it, and before Agadart could ask what was happening, two smaller dragons took off, the chains connecting their broad leather harnesses snapping tight just before the basket was lifted into the sky. She screamed and sat down, back pressed against the wall, while the duke and the two guards looked at her like she was crazy. They were all holding on to the tall sides of the basket as if they traveled that way every day.

Fortunately it was a short flight, and soon the basket was thudding down in a bumpy landing. The basket’s gate was once again opened and Agadart was yanked to her feet and out onto the deck of a ship. The basket was pulled away by the small dragons flying off.

It was majestic, a tall ship of the line, and fit for an admiral of the fleet. As she was marched across the lowest deck — one of four levels of outer decks, she noted — she realized with a heavy sense of relief that if they were putting her on a ship, they were not going to kill her any time soon. It was a reprieve for her, no matter what else was going on.

On the deck, the military soldiers were switched out, although the duke kept hold of her “leash.” The new guards were far more ostentatious and ornamental in appearance, their uniforms bright, sparkling green and their epaulettes were wide, sweeping metal wings. A chill ran down her spine as she recognized it from drawings in one of the history books: the Royal Guard of Iskaryyva.

Duke Paruask walked her up a couple of decks, and there, just under the top deck, was the door to a set of rooms. The door, deeply carved and decorated with the symbols of Iskaryyva royalty, could only lead to one person, one man: the Emperor of Iskaryyva himself, Rhezv the Beholder. She stopped, planting her feet on the deck. The leash snapped tight as the duke kept walking, and when he felt it he turned.

“Cold talons?”

“I’m not going in there.”

“You have very little choice in the matter.”

She glared at him. “Allow me to explain: I will not go in there of my own willpower.”

“I can just have you thrown in,” the duke said, amused, gesturing at the formidable guards around them. “It will not be dignified or honorable. You will be treated like a sack of potatoes.”

She shrugged. “How is that any different than I’ve been treated so far?”

He frowned and she yelped loudly as someone picked her up from behind. She was, indeed, treated like a sack of potatoes as the guard entered the cabin and tossed her to the floor. She managed to twist a little so as to not get too banged up or broken when she landed, but not by much. With a groan, she twisted over onto her knees. With her arms still tied behind her back, her balance was thrown off and it took her three tries to get to her feet.

Someone chuckled, and she froze in place.

“Don’t mind me,” said a voice. It was a bit nasally, Agadart thought, as she slowly turned towards where it was coming from.

The emperor himself was a rather plain middle-aged man, with blunt features and small eyes, and straight brown hair that fell to his shoulders. He was of average height yet he commanded the room with his presence and his attire, wearing a long double-breasted red coat beautifully embroidered with gold dragons and roses. Everything about him spoke of fabulous wealth and impeccable craftsmanship.

Agadart straightened up, the lessons in courtly comportment her mother drilled into her coming back in a rush. She bowed, since after all he was emperor of half the known world, but then stood up as tall as she could. “Emperor Rhezv the Beholder, I presume?”

He nodded graciously, and at the flick of a wrist, one of the guards untied Agadart’s wrists and released her from the rope yoke and leash. She took a moment to straighten her gown. It was one of the heavyweight cotton dresses that were too wide and too short, but she did what she could.

“You are Lady Agadart ver Kleelan,” he said. It was a statement, and not a question, but Agadart made sure to keep her mouth shut in any case. “My brother tells me that you have been stubbornly refusing to shift into your dragon form.”

Again, not a question, so she just kept staring at him in the rudest manner possible.

He shrugged, then looked past her to Duke Paruask. “Your own ship awaits.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” the duke said as he bowed low. He gave her a final, pitying look before he spun and walked out quickly.

Emperor Rhezv focused on her again, and a chill went down her spine. She ground her teeth together to keep from speaking.

He shook his head and slowly made his way around the large desk he had been standing in front of and sat down. He clasped his hands in front of himself, resting them on the desk and tilting his head a little. She could see the dragon in him then, and it was unsettling, nothing like the warm fire of power she always felt around Rodgardae. Nothing like him at all.

“I’m sorry to hear you’ve been so disagreeable, Lady ver Kleelan. I understand why you might be hesitant to shift into your dragon form at this point, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist.” His smile was soft and cruel, and sent Agadart’s instincts to screaming in fear.

She knew without a doubt that there was no way she was getting off that ship alive.

Thank you for reading! 🎊 I’d love your comments and feedback! ☕

KimBoo's Bibliotheca 🐉 House of York

KimBoo's Bibliotheca is the room in the House of York filled with fantasy, science fiction, adventure, and *checks notes* romance!

By ☕ KimBoo York