My muscles involuntarily freeze.

  The Queen looks as tired as I feel. A faint ring of darkness is visible beneath her eyes, though difficult to see against her gray skin. A loose and shoddy braid contains her haphazard silver hair. Her ears are stuck in a permanent droop, though they twitch when our eyes meet.

  She steps back, and with that, I’m able to move again. “Ashura?” She draws out my name with a certain softness in each consonant, a way I’ve never heard anyone say it before. “Can we talk?” She’s speaking Draconic.

  For a moment, I can’t say anything. My mind starts its terrible dance, spinning around how awful I must look, how I haven’t even bathed, how my clothes are filthy. Before yesterday's words can start echoing in my head, I straighten my back, holding the image of the garden in my mind. “Yes.”

  She nods briefly. “I’d like to speak in my room if that’s okay. It’s more private.”

  Her room? I try not to let those words mean anything to me. “Of course.”

  The Queen turns around, leading me away without another word. Her tail trails behind her, shifting uneasily. I think back to what Alcina said. She’s worried about me. About me? Shouldn’t she be worried about her status? Our marriage? The kingdom? We don’t know each other that well. Why would she be worried about me?

  Maybe she meant worried about my capabilities. Worried about my attitude and how it will affect her. But no. She said worried about my happiness. What does that matter in the long run, anyways? In a political marriage like ours?

  Before long, we arrive in front of a grand set of doors. They are more than large enough for a dragon, and the front sports a carved pattern resembling waves of water. A few guards line the walls and keep watch here.

  The Queen pushes the door open with some difficulty. It clearly wasn’t designed to be opened in her human-like form. I wonder how much she transformed before she started searching for a suitor. Have I been keeping her in a form she’s unhappy with?

  The room is wide and round. In front of two sets of curling staircases, a half circle of bookshelves marks the center of the floor, but they are almost empty. Their contents—books, scrolls, papers—have been spilled across the stone tiles and scattered tables like the throne room on my first day.

  I have to look up to see the extent of it all. The steps are stone and appear to be suspended on nothing, and they lead to large metal platforms attached to the walls. At the very top, I can barely make out a silver bowl-like structure hanging with chains, its contents obscured. My eyes trace the thick and spiraling branches making up the bulk of the ceiling, sunlight filtered in through sections of leaves.

  Despite there being no sand in sight, the faint smell of the beach and salt water permeates the air.

  “Let’s move up a little. The ground floor is a bit…” The Queen doesn’t finish her thought. Instead, she leads me to the leftmost stairway. When she steps on it, the stones begin to glow, highlighted with runes. I tentatively step on them after her. They’re so sturdy, I can hardly believe they’re floating at all.

  I try not to look down as we ascend to one of the platforms. It’s a wide sitting area with massive, dragon-sized pillows. The Queen, gasping for breath, collapses on one of them. “I usually fly up here. Those stairs—they’re something else, aren’t they?”

  “I suppose they are.” I tentatively take a seat near her, trying my best to sit up straight while I sink into the massive pillow. What should I say? What does she want me to say? I don’t even know why I’m here. Is this her way of sitting me down to hear something awful?

  My mind spins a thousand terrible possibilities before she even says a word. I’m too standoffish. I’m not attractive enough. The other dragons in the castle don’t like me. She decided she wants a different human. What happened yesterday was too much for us to recover from.

  And then there’s the worst-case scenario, the one I don’t even want to think about. Somehow, she found out about her.

  It isn’t even unlikely. I knew she’d find out eventually. I hoped it would take a few months, and by then, we would have invested so much time in our relationship that it wouldn’t even matter.

  The Queen sits up. “Ashura.” When she says my name, I pay attention. “Firstly, I want to apologize for what I said yesterday. Alcina told me you overheard, and that you speak Draconic.” Her ears shift downward. She brings her tail close to her and starts picking at the tufts of fur with her claws. “I was overwhelmed, and I wasn’t thinking straight. What I said doesn’t fully reflect my feelings. I’m sorry you had to hear that, and I’m sorry I was speaking about you in such a way at all.”

  I don’t say anything. She’s not asking about my panic? Did she put two and two together and really not think it was relevant? Out of everything, an apology is the last thing I expected. I think that says more about me than her, though. “It’s fine,” I try. “We all say stuff we don’t mean sometimes.”

  She glances at me. “That doesn’t change the fact that it was wrong. You have my deepest apologies, Prince Ashura. Truly.”

  What’s the right thing to say? I’m not used to this. “Um...apology accepted.”

  That seems to calm her a little. She stops picking at the fur of her tail, at least. The Queen rubs her face. “There’s something a lot more pressing I need to address.”

  Here it is. I take a deep breath and imagine the leaves in the garden, matching my breathing to their rhythm. “Whatever it is, you can tell me,” I manage to say.

  The Queen looks down. Then, she reaches into a pocket on her garment. “I’m not sure if you noticed, but I had a servant take your dirty clothes and wash them for you.” Each word is slow and deliberate.

  “I did notice.” Where is this going?

  “Nobody was trying to pry into your life. But…I was alerted that something fell out of your pocket as the clothes were being washed.”

  The air grows cold around me. I know what she has before she pulls it out. Think about leaves falling. Think about the garden. I fix my eyes ahead, not daring to look at her.

  She reaches over and shows me her hand. Among the fur on her palm, she’s holding an extravagant diamond ring. “Is this yours, Ashura?”

  I don’t say anything. I can’t say anything. My throat has gone dry.

  “I had a dragon research human customs.” She retracts her hand. “This is an engagement ring, isn’t it?”

  Leaves falling. Leaves falling.

  “Ashura, please tell me. When you volunteered to be married to me, were you already engaged to another woman?”

  I open my mouth but can barely croak out a response. “It’s complicated.”

  “It’s a yes or no question. Were you or were you not engaged?”

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  I squeeze my eyes shut. Awful memories come rushing in, sleet and ice slicing through the garden in my mind, burying the plants and flowers in layers of suffocating snow. A yes or no question. The answer should be easy. But why is it so hard to say?

  “No.”

  The Queen pauses. “No, you were not engaged?”

  Another breath. Deep breaths. “I was not engaged.”

  “Then where did this ring come from?”

  When I open my eyes, the room is blurry. Am I tearing up? Over one simple question? My next words are as deliberate and emotionless as I can make them. “Someone gave it to me. I was supposed to propose. I didn’t want to. So, I left.”

  Silence. I can feel The Queen's eyes on me, a fire burning past the ice, engulfing it all in flames. “Who gave you the ring?”

  “Listen,” the words come out before I can stop them. “I’m sorry I kept this from you, and if it’s a dealbreaker, I understand. But please, please don’t send me back home. Lock me up, banish me, make me disappear, I don’t care. Don’t send me back to her. I can’t go back, I can’t—I can’t marry her, I just can’t—”

  “Whoa, take it easy.” Out of the corner of my eye, she reaches forward, but doesn’t touch me. “Ashura, I don’t want to send you home.”

  I hang my head. My vision is getting blurrier, harder to see. “I don’t know. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, please, don’t be mad at me.”

  “I’m not mad at you.” Why is she so calm? How can she be, in a situation like this? After I lied? After everything? “I just want to understand. Who gave you the ring?”

  No, why this? Why now? I rub my eyes on my sleeve, only managing to get dirt on my face. “I’m sorry. You—you won’t like the answer.”

  “Ashura, please.” Her voice wavers.

  A sob bubbles in my throat. I’m pathetic. I shouldn’t answer, I know it will only bring terrible things. If she knew, if she only knew the extent. I can barely even spit out the name, as if it’s some kind of vile acid tainting the air around us. “Rosalind.”

  The Queen pauses. I keep my eyes on the floor, trying to steady my breaths. Then, she says, “Princess Rosalind?”

  I nod.

  “Crown Princess Rosalind?”

  She’s upset. She must be. Anyone would be. The man who volunteered to marry her was almost betrothed to not just a princess, but the crown princess of Suthin? Perhaps ripping me in half would be merciful.

  I can’t read her tone of voice. “Ashura, if I may ask, why didn’t you want to marry her?”

  I shake my head.

  “She would have given you everything,” she almost whispers. “You would have been king of the humans in Suthin, your own land. So why? Why come here?”

  I could lie. I could say I’m madly in love with The Queen, and that I have been for years. But I don’t think she would believe that. “I couldn’t—” my voice catches in my throat. “I can’t marry her. I just can’t. But if I broke things off…” My entire body shudders. I don’t want to think about what she would do to me.

  The Queen leans in ever so slightly, enough for me to notice. “So, you did volunteer before breaking it off with her?”

  Ice crawls through my veins. “I’m sorry. When she found out, she was—” I rub my shoulder. “I didn’t know what else to do. I’m sorry.”

  With that, The Queen takes a sudden breath. I can hear her tail drawing slowly over the pillow, fur against fabric. “You didn’t—” with each syllable, her voice shakes more. “That bruise. You didn’t fall, did you?”

  I shrink away from her. Dragging my eyes up from the floor, I force myself to look at her face. The Queen’s eyes are closed, but her expression is contorted with fury. My eyes dart to her claws, taking in how sharp they are, how they’re clenching. How her powerful tail lashes. How her entire body, much larger than mine, shakes. How easy it would be for her to hurt me, to overpower me.

  She’s angry. More angry than I’ve ever seen her in our short time together. I don’t know why, only that she is. Should I run? Can I run? How far will I get?

  Back home, at least I could escape to the bathroom. She wasn’t stronger than me, wasn’t faster than me. That’s not the case here.

  “I’m going to say something you won’t want to hear,” The Queen says, each syllable sharp. I flinch. “If that witch ever lays a hand on you again, I will tear out every bone in her body and mount them on my mantle.”

  I don’t quite process her words. Hot tears start streaming down my face. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have let this happen.”

  Her head whips around toward me. “What do you mean!?” Her anger falters, revealing stark devastation. “Ashura, this isn’t your fault! Don’t ever say that again.”

  Not my fault? I got myself into this mess. I never stood up to her. I didn’t break things off before accepting the marriage. It’s my fault she got mad. If I didn’t make her mad, she wouldn’t have hit me. That’s just how it is. It’s how it’s always been.

  The Queen gets up and starts pacing in front of me. Her tail strikes the ground. “I need time to think.” She looks at me. “But I’m not mad at you, do you understand?”

  I blink and sniffle. “What?”

  “Tell me you understand.” She steps toward me. “Tell me that you know I’m not angry with you.”

  Not angry with me. Not angry with me? But that doesn’t make any sense. “Why aren’t you mad at me?”

  She breathes deeply and closes her eyes. “Ashura, please. I need you to know that no matter what, I’m not going to hurt you. No matter what you do, I will keep you safe. And even if one day, far in the future, you do something that is worthy of my anger, that will never change the truth. So please.” Her eyes open, desperate. “Tell me you understand.”

  I turn her words over in my mind. Before I can process them, I manage to say what she wants to hear. “Okay. I—I understand.”

  “That’s good.” She nods shortly. “Stay here. I won’t be long.” She turns around and leaps off the platform. Instantly, I see her fly back up in her dragon form, circle the room once, then dive down and burst out her doors.

  What…what just happened? Once she’s gone, I can’t stop myself. I’m bawling.

  I fall back onto the pillow, crumpling with the fabric. I want to burrow into them and hide forever. I want to run away, to find somewhere safe where I can wait everything out. But I can’t leave, not now. Instead, I heave into the pillow.

  When will the world make sense again?

  She’s been gone for a while now. I’m out of breath, unable to even muster the strength to keep crying. I stare blankly ahead at the ceiling.

  Where did she go? Do I want her here? Do I want to be alone?

  Her words circle my mind. I’m not going to hurt you. I’ll keep you safe. No matter what you do…I’ve never heard a confession quite like it before. But maybe, for just a second, I feel myself trying to believe it. Wanting to believe it.

  I notice now there’s huge strands of silver fur stuck in the fabric. They make the pillow smell like her. At least, I think they do. I haven’t been close enough to actually know what she smells like. But the distinct scent on these pillows paints a picture.

  It’s a little earthy. I close my eyes and take a deeper breath. The scent is steady, but not sweet. Nothing like Rosalind’s loud and sharp perfume. As I take in another breath, it reminds me of a more defined version of what I smelled when I walked into the room—the ocean and sand. But it’s hard to separate from the scent of the fabric.

  I hear the door open, and I shoot up on the pillow. She’s back.

  Lantana flies up and lands gently on the platform in front of me. Despite how much larger she is, I don’t feel quite as intimidated by her in this form. It’s only when she transforms that my baseline anxiety returns.

  “I’m sorry I left so abruptly,” she says. She walks closer and sits on the pillow again. “I didn’t want to frighten you. I only took a short flight so we could both think clearly. How are you feeling?”

  Pretty awful. But among my wrecked and empty emotions, my stomach growls. “I’m really hungry.”

  “I can tell.” Ever so slightly, maybe by a centimeter, she scoots toward me. “But how are you feeling?”

  As I think about how to answer, I find myself tilting my head towards her, trying to pin down if that smell on the pillow was from her fur. “I’m tired.” I breathe in. It is the same. Only now, right next to me, it’s more pronounced, less diluted with the smell of fabric. My mind flashes to sun filled days, ocean swims, and grains of sand clinging to clothes. With that, I’ve lost my train of thought. “Um…” my face grows warm. Why did I do that?

  “I understand if not everything makes sense right now,” she says. When she speaks quietly, her voice is almost soothing. “We can talk about it more when you’re feeling up to it. But until then, I promise, I won’t send you back to that place. Not if it will put you in danger.”

  Relief flushes over me. My chest loosens, and I can breathe a little easier. But now, the only thing I smell is her next to me. “Thank you.”

  Neither of us say anything for a moment. I finally look at her, and we lock eyes. They’re such a complex blue now that I see them clearly. There’s depth to the color, specks of aquamarine sprinkled into the deep ocean hue. My eyes are steadily drawn up to her horns, the rich cobalt striking against her silver hair. I can’t help but trace each section with my gaze, pausing at the pointed ends. Thick and jagged, they’re completely unlike the antlers every other dragon has.

  Fascinating. Why are they different?

  Lantana stands quickly, and I tear my eyes away from her. I almost asked about her appearance, but I hold back now. It really, really isn’t the time. Maybe my mind is trying to find something, anything to distract me.

  “Um, we should get something to eat,” she says. She reaches up and touches her horns briefly. Did she notice me staring? “Would you prefer to eat here, or in the small hall?”

  I stand up with her and look away. It’s not my place to gawk. “The small hall is fine,” I say.

  “Very well.” After an awkward moment, she bows, then starts off toward the steps.

  I watch her. Then, after blinking rapidly to refocus, I follow.