Chapter 2: The Proposal and the Punch
The stone of the palace wall was cold and rough against her knuckles. Kaelia hauled herself over the sill of her chamber window, landing silently on the thick rug, her breath coming in sharp clouds in the frigid night air. She shrugged off the cloak, now smelling even more strongly of smoke and spilled ale, and let it fall in a heap.
Her right hand throbbed.
She looked at it in the moonlight filtering through the leaded glass. The skin across her knuckles was split, already purpling. A stark, satisfying reminder. She flexed her fingers, wincing at the bright spark of pain. It was worth it. The look on his face—that impossibly composed, terrifyingly handsome face—in the split second before her fist connected. The shock. The sheer, utter surprise.
Then he’d smiled. Blood trickling from the corner of his mouth, golden eyes glowing like banked coals. He’d smiled.
“A real challenge,” he’d said in the tavern. Well, there it was.
She paced her chambers, the adrenaline from the fight and the escape still crackling under her skin. A treaty. He’d stepped in front of the back door, a wall of quiet power, and proposed a treaty between Ashterra and her father’s kingdom, Valerea. As if discussing trade agreements. As if he hadn’t just watched her dismantle three men for sport. As if his very presence didn’t make the air taste like a thunderstorm.
“Come with me,” he’d said, his voice that low rumble that felt like it vibrated in her bones. “Your kingdom is a rusting hinge. Mine is a forge. Together, we could be a sword.”
It was the earnestness in his eyes that had done it. That was the insult. He wasn’t threatening, wasn’t condescending. He was offering. To her. The despair of the court. The princess who preferred knife-throwing to needlepoint. He saw that as an asset. It was more unsettling than any overt demand.
So she’d hit him.
Now, in the sterile quiet of her room, surrounded by useless silks and forbidding portraits of serene ancestors, the reality settled like ash. He knew who she was. He knew where she lived. And she had punched a king—a dragon king—in the face.
A giddy, reckless laugh bubbled up in her throat. She stifled it with the back of her injured hand, the pain a sharp anchor.
Sleep was impossible. She spent the remaining hours of the night cleaning and oiling her blades, the ritual motions calming her racing thoughts. The faint, shimmering scale-patterns on his skin swam behind her eyes. The heat that had charred the stool leg. He hadn’t even moved.
When a timid maid arrived at dawn with a breakfast tray, Kaelia was already dressed, not in a gown, but in riding leathers. She ignored the maid’s wide-eyed stare at her bruised hand.
“The Queen requests your presence in the solar, Your Highness,” the girl squeaked, curtsying so low she almost tipped the tray.
“Of course she does,” Kaelia muttered, spearing a piece of fruit with more force than necessary. The news of a foreign sovereign’s arrival—especially this one—would have spread through the castle faster than plague.
Her mother, Queen Lyrissa, was the picture of contained panic. She stood by a window, her back rod-straight, her hands clasped so tightly the knuckles were white. The solar, usually a room of soft light and tapestries, felt like a cage.
“There is a delegation,” Lyrissa said without turning. “From the Ash Terra. They are at the gate. Their… king seeks an audience with your father.”
“I heard the rumors,” Kaelia said, leaning against the doorframe, affecting a boredom she didn’t feel.
“Rumors?” Her mother finally turned. Her eyes, the same green as Kaelia’s but faded with worry, went immediately to her daughter’s hand. Her breath caught. “Kaelia. What have you done?”
“I went for a walk. Slipped on the stairs.”
“Do not lie to me. Not now.” Lyrissa’s voice was a tense wire. “Their herald did not just announce a king. He announced King Drakon Vaelith. The Dragon of Ashterra. The conqueror of the Obsidian Cities. He does not make social calls. And then my daughter appears at dawn looking like she brawled with a masonry wall.” She stepped closer, lowering her voice to a fierce whisper. “Did you encounter him? In the city? Is this your doing?”
Kaelia held her mother’s gaze. The truth was a wild animal in her chest. “He found me at the Rusty Tankard. He interfered in a disagreement. We… spoke.”
“‘Spoke.’” The Queen’s gaze was flinty. “And what did you ‘speak’ about?”
“He suggested I go with him. To forge a treaty.” Saying it aloud made it sound even more insane.
For a long moment, Lyrissa was silent. A complex storm of fear, anger, and a terrible, reluctant understanding passed over her features. “He sees a tool,” she said finally, her voice hollow. “A rebellious princess to be wielded against her own house. Or a trophy. We are a small, peaceful kingdom, Kaelia. We cannot withstand the attention of a being like that. You must be absent. You must be meek. You must be invisible.”
The words were a cold douse of water. They were the same words she’d heard her whole life. Be less. Be quiet. Disappear. The rebellion that had been a thrill last night curdled into something heavy and responsible. Her fist had been a statement. Now, it was a diplomatic incident.
“I can’t un-punch him, Mother.”
Before Lyrissa could reply, a trumpet blast echoed from the main courtyard below—a foreign, brash sound, less a melody and more a roar given form. They both rushed to the window.
The Ashterran delegation was not large. Perhaps two dozen figures, all clad in black and deep crimson leathers scaled like armour. They moved with a unison that was militaristic and alien. At their center, astride a horse that looked more like a creature of volcanic rock than flesh, was Drakon.
He wore a dark, elegant coat that spoke of authority, not opulence. Even from this distance, Kaelia could see the proud, stark line of a fresh cut on his lower lip. Her doing.
He didn’t look up at the windows. He gazed straight ahead at the palace doors, utterly composed, as if being admitted was a foregone conclusion. The morning sun caught the patterns on his hands where he held the reins, making them shimmer like polished onyx.
“Gods protect us,” Lyrissa breathed.
Kaelia’s heart hammered against her ribs. Meek. Invisible. The words were ash in her mouth. She watched him, this ancient force in a mortal shape, who had smiled through his own blood because of her. A strange, defiant clarity cut through her fear.
He hadn’t come with an army. He’d come through the front gate. He was following protocol, however arrogantly. He was, for the moment, playing the game.
And she had already changed the rules.
She pushed away from the window. “Where is Father?”
“The throne room, preparing to receive them. Kaelia, no. You are not to—”
But Kaelia was already moving, striding down the corridor not toward the safety of the inner chambers, but toward the heart of the palace. The throbbing in her hand was now a steady, familiar pulse. A reminder.
She wouldn’t hide. He hadn’t found a tool or a trophy in that tavern.
He’d found a challenge.