Shana Abe - [Drakon 03] - Queen of Dragons

260 Pages·2016·0.78 MB·English

by  Abe Shana

Queen of Dragons
Drakon Book 3
Shana Abe

CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE
DEDICATION
JANUARY 12, 1774
PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

EPILOGUE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ALSO BY SHANA ABÉ
COPYRIGHT
For Shauna Summers, with heartfelt gratitude for her grace and
guidance.
A zillion thanks as well to Annelise Robey and Andrea Cirillo,
who always believed, and to Nita Taublib, who pushed me so
wisely.
And to the family: I love you.
January 12, 1774

Mother, Father,
I pen this missive knowing it will arrive a most unpleasant
surprise to you. No doubt you thought me still at the Wallence
School for Young Ladies in Edinburgh. It is just past Christmas,
though, so perhaps you’ve realized by now that I’m not where I
promised I would be. My heart breaks to think of the worry I
might have caused you. I apologize. Never would I have done
this thing had the circumstances not been so very dire. The
stone you sought has been made safe.
I understand what I’ve done. I’ve broken tribal laws to a
degree I’ve never even heard before whispered. Please know I
did not do any of this lightly. I am no longer a child but a
woman full grown, and one of our kind in every way. Allow me
to repeat: In every way. When I return to Darkfrith, I shall
accept my punishment. I bow to your will and that of the
council.
I have been staying in a castle in the Carpathian Alps as a
guest of a most unusual princess, who has kindly agreed to
forward this letter to you. She, too, is fully one of our kind.
Certainly you will be as shocked by this news as I was. There
are more of us, quite a few more, than we ever imagined. They
live like gypsies here, entrenched beneath the stars, in secluded
villages or in this fortress. The nights descend so bright and
hushed you can hear every diamond, every pebble and trickle of
gold in the streams. You can fly into forever.
I am wed now. My husband is Zane. I’m sorry.
All my love,

Lia
PROLOGUE

T
here exists a world beyond your own. There exists a world
of frozen savagery, of ice and snow, and needle-tipped
mountains draped smoky emerald in summer, and dusky blue
every autumn. In this world, your safe and pleasant life is
vanished, a mere illusion revealed. Comets are born here. Stars
are stirred. Glaciers steam; diamonds sparkle; silent music
saturates the very air—and mighty dragons tear furrows through
it all, breathing light and fire in crystalline exhalations.
All other creatures cower here. You are not welcome, so do
not come. Should we see you, we might cast our pity downward
to your earth, to grant you time to turn and hide.
We might not.
The sky is our realm. The mountains are our sanctuary.
We are the drákon.
You fear us. It is why you’ve stalked us for centuries, why
you pursue us still in this age of reason and enlightenment. You
used arrows before, crossbows, and we soared higher. You hold
muskets and pistols now; you dream of stabbing our hearts
clean with elegant French swords. Despite your frail bodies,
over the years, you have diminished us.
So we have learned to deceive you.
All of nature celebrates our beauty, but now we look much as
you do. We speak your words and wear your clothing and drink
your wine. Like you, we breathe and feel and fall in love; we
wed and raise our children. We bleed. We wage war.
We will not show you our true selves unless you are so
unwise as to leave us no choice. That will, of course, be your
final mistake, because unlike you, we have many more Gifts at
our disposal: We hear the music of metal and stones. We hunt
with talons, we Turn to smoke. Some of us even have the Gift
of suggestion, to push you into our will.
Although there are far fewer of us, we are faster than you,
stronger, more sly. All we require is that whisper of air beneath
your bedroom door—through a keyhole, down a chimney—and
any haven you held against us is breached.
You must understand that war against humans is distasteful
to us. Our honor demands we crush you swiftly; it is shameful
to toy with the lesser beings. These skirmishes usually end
quickly in silence and death.
But war against other dragons…that is a thing of wonder.
The stars themselves shudder and weep.

We began all in the same place, we drákon. Aeons ago we
scorched into life, smashing through cosmic whirlwinds and
stars, red-hot lava sizzling on our scales, living kin to fire and
smoke and sooty diamonds. We were born here, at the fanged
edge of sky and earth called Carpathians, long before you
Others arrived.
We ruled and ruled well. The stones beckoned us and we
heeded them. The metals sang and we unearthed them, worked
them into braids for our hair, and necklaces, and chalices. We
built a castle of quartzite and gems. We practiced spells without
words, and listened to the sweet singing magic of the jasper and
rubies and diamonds. Some stones were benign; some were not.
But as a family, we mastered them.
Then you came, O Man. Crawling from the mud, casting your
eyes upward; everything you saw you coveted. We wore gold
and copper; you wore skins. We infused our glory into the
mountains and woods; you ripped it away. You felled the trees,
and dammed the streams, and crept in a plague up our slopes,
never ceasing. We had no choice but to fight you.
Like fleas, you multiplied and spread. It is the only reason
you won.
And that was when we split apart. That was the end of the
dread union of the drákon; you managed that much, at least.
Nearly all fled the castle; only two remained. From that two
came seven, then fifteen, then forty-two.
We discovered we could seduce you. We could play upon
your fears. In our human disguise we evolved into warriors and
lords and princes. We laid our shadows across your land, and
you learned to tremble and to worship us.
In time, we forgot about our original family. We forgot that
once there were more of us, just as those who had left had
forgotten us too.
There were better years and worse ones. There were good
stones and one of very ill fortune—I’ll tell you more of that
later. We survived all these things for centuries, waxing and
waning, until one winter’s day there came a new dragon, an
Englishwoman, to our castle on the mountain. She brought with
her revelations: tales of a cloudy rich shire, with heavy woods
and silver mines and no Others for miles about. A land
populated purely by our kind, a secret sanctuary surrounded by
green English hills and meadows.
She brought with her also one of you. An Other. A thief.
Together they wrought havoc on our realm.
Perhaps such a thing was inevitable. We are dragons, after
all. We do not dwell in static quiet; we crave flight and glory
and can spin Change from the smallest of molecules.
It seems very strange, does it not, that there would be a tribe
of us living in silence like little mice?