As she closed the screen to her room, the world lurched. She stumbled over to her father mattress and fell onto the bed. Curled up into a ball, knowing she needed to clean and dress the wound, Marina flailed a bit, but she was so tired. Her body, mind, and spirit felt broken. She had no energy, and it felt like her ankle was on fire. Her mouth was dry. Her eyes itched, her throat burned, and god if the pounding in her head wasn’t driving her crazy.
He didn’t want her
Koen.
Even with her body and heart in so much pain, she felt ashamed at her weakness. Ashamed that Boy, someone who had experienced more than she would begin to fathom, would hear her pitiful sobs.
She turned her face into the pillow.
Chapter 23
The dragon lord who stood before him – blue eyes stabbing with shards of ice – hand twitched over the hilt of his katana. Koen didn’t blame him. Daniil let out a shuddering breath, and crossed his arms over his chest. “To stoop so low Koen … you have broken her heart.”
“She didn’t have to cut me off like that,” he snapped. “She’s acting like what we have is nothing. I did this for her.”
“You kissed another woman for Marina?” Daniil’s expression twisted. “That is your explanation? You took another woman into your arms and kissed her knowing that Marina has been deprived of your touch, the man she is risking her life to fight for. You say you did it for her?”
Koen was frustrated everyone thought he’d done Marina over. They weren’t willing to listen. Not to a word, he had to say. It was rough. “I don’t have to explain myself to you.”
“Oh, you really do.” Daniil shook his head in disgust. “But you’re not, because your arrogance will stop you. Fix this, Koen. I will not continue to train her if you you’re just going to throw it all away for nothing.”
“What did you do?”
The cold voice sent a chill through Koen, and he turned to see Boy, standing in his court finery with the knife Marina had given him. The blade gleamed in the moonlight, but it was the devilish fire in Boy’s eyes that gave him pause. The child was dangerous, mature in mind, but undeveloped in body and spirit.
Koen’s first reaction was to see how good he was with that knife … yet … he must have seen Marina. “Is she alright?” Koen asked hoarsely.
Boy rocked back, uncertainty marring his features. “She cries like she is dying. I thought that you did something to her….”
“He did,” Daniil said in a hard voice. “I was about to persuade him to fix it.”
Resolved, Boy lowered himself, face twisting. “There will be nothing left of him to persuade. He will be dead, and in pieces.”
“That would not help Marina,” Daniil pointed out. “The poor woman loves him.”
“He doesn’t love her.”
Rage flooded Koen, and he let his careful control snap just enough for his body to tense, and his hand to brush the hilt of his katana. He would never harm Boy, Marina already cherished him like he was her own.
That made him Koen’s own.
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said in a tight voice. “I love your mother more than you can begin to understand. I was prepared to give up happiness to see her safe from all this. I have to watch her from afar, and shun her touch so that we have a chance of being together. Yet I know any moment during Aver be her last, and I ache to hold her.” Koen glared at him. “Don’t speak of things you know nothing of.”
Boy studied him, deciding if he truly did love his lady and savior. “Then why hurt her?”
“Believe me, I haven’t laid a hand on her.”
At this, he straightened fully and the knife disappeared. Koen blinked, but could not see where he had hidden it. “You think I don’t know this? I came to punish you for the pain you caused her heart. If you had bruised her flesh we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
Koen was serene enough to be intrigued by the unwavering confidence behind his words. “Oh?”
“You’d already be dead,” a voice said from behind them. The scent and presence of someone familiar joined the gathering. The wily old dragon had planted himself in their midst without them knowing it. “Dead and burned,” council mon Mikhail finished gruffly.
Daniil bowed, showing his deference, but Koen held his head high. He answered to no man, to no dragon, and he never would.
Mikhail Zar leaned on the fortress wall, his stance seemingly relaxed. Any warrior worth his salt knew that under his refined poise lurked a ferocious predator just waiting for an excuse to release a torrent of pain with claw and fang. Koen studied Mikhail’s rarely revealed human form. He was broad shouldered and burly. His crest of hair was brilliant white, and his distinguished features combined winningly to create a face Koen knew Chosen from an age ago had found alluring. It was a face that had captivated Almeria, his own treasure’s mother.
Mikhail’s gaze held Koen to random, amused, a challenge sparked in its inky depths. As a dragon, Mikhail was known for his dark stare, his piercing and unblinking gaze.
As a man, his feline eyes looked like Marina’s.
It was unsettling.
“Well look at us,” Daniil murmured. “Do you think she has any idea how much we care?”
Mikhail snorted. “The girl is as stubborn. She is single-minded in her mission to fix the kingdom she closes, and so besotted by her dragon she cannot think straight. Like her mother, she wants to rule fairly, and follow the laws of honor, but loves her dragon to distraction.”
“I thought Almeria left because she did not want to rule?” asked Koen.
Ancient sadness deepened the lines on Mikhail’s face. “My mate was unhappy. It was not that she couldn’t shoulder the responsibility of an Empire, just that she didn’t want to. She hated our lack of freedom, and in the end, she needed that freedom more than she needed me.”
“So you just let her leave?” Koen was flabbergasted at the idea of simply letting his treasure walk away … but wasn’t that what he had just done with Marina?
Mikhail gave him a knowing look. “From what I have seen you let your woman do no different.”
“How do you know she wouldn’t have accepted her place in time?” Koen argued. “That she would be happy in the end. Your dominance may have bought you the time to make her see that she could find freedom within the confines of her role.”
Mikhail’s gaze sharpened and his lips pinched. Phoenixes were generally not used to be questioned, but Mikhail humored him. “When your mate tries to take her life, and no longer protects yours like she is destined to, find me again and ask that question.”
Koen felt a stab of shame and horror. Marina’s mother had tried to kill herself to escape her honor instead of appeasing it? How could the man have let such a woman go off with his daughter? “You let her take Marina.”
“If I’d known Almeria carried my child, I would have strapped her to the bed to keep her safe until the child was born.” His shoulders sagged. “I never knew. If I had known I had a child I would have torn Earth apart until I found her and kept her close to me.”
“One would never know you called her misshapen and disfigured but a week ago,” Daniil said curtly.
Mikhail speared him with a look. “She is small and the girl cuts her hair to look like a boy. What was I supposed to think?”
“Her hair is strange,” Boy agreed.
“It will be beautiful long, Daniil said wistfully.
“She is perfection,” Koen said without thinking. Silence descended between them. Feeling unusually hot in his armor, he cleared his throat, and added. “I like her hair.”
Boy’s eye twitched. “Why? She mutilates herself and shames her House.”
Startled at the derogatory statement, Koen stared down at him. The words had bite, but there was faint disbelief behind them. He was repeating something he had heard. “Do you really believe that?”
Boy’s thin shoulders relaxed. He slanted a look at Koen, and shook his head once. “I th
ink she is an angel, but I have heard people saying that. I don’t want people to talk about her like that.”
Koen shared in his upset. “People are fools,” he snarled. “Next time, find me, and I will kill them.”
A vicious gleam came into Boy’s eye as they shared a blissful moment of flawless understanding. “No need, I’ll do it myself.”
Daniil shot Mikhail a look, as if he expected the older man to commiserate with his passive view, but Marina’s father looked intrigued by the idea. Ever the politician, Daniil frowned. “If mauled courtiers start showing up the Regent would be furious, and Marina upset when she learned why.”
“If you turned dragon and burnt them as human there would be no bodies,” Mikhail grumbled thoughtfully.
“No killing,” Daniil snapped. “We need to return to the hall, people will begin to talk. News of Katya’s disqualification as First Chosen will start circulating soon.”
It was then Koen frowned. “What were you doing out here with Marina, Daniil?” The other man stilled, and said nothing. “Daniil…?” Koen asked in a voice of quiet warning.
“Do you really want to know?”
Koen’s dragon started to object forebodingly, and a subterranean grumble of a warning started low in his throat. Daniil hissed, the glacial power hidden in the core of him reacting to the territorial threat just as strongly.
“Now, now boys,” Mikhail said nonchalantly. “My daughter is already upset because of what has happened here. There’s no need to add to her misery is there?”
At the thought of Marina in more pain, both dragons quieted down.
“She said she would return for the meal,” said Boy.
Mikhail walked over to him and studied him thoughtfully. “We should go back then. You will sit by me.” The old dragon and young man walked off, side by side.
Koen followed, grudgingly, unable to look at Daniil without wanting to punch his face. The man had come to see to Marina’s welfare when he could not, he knew that, but Koen suspected what had been a friend lending support had turned into something more passionate, a significant increase of the same closeness he had seen growing between them for days now.
The idea of Marina turning from him, and having to pass her as somebody he used to know caused Koen’s dragon to cower in fear.
Since he had left her, Marina had been leaning on Daniil, and like his brother had said, she was exquisite. One could not spend time in her company and not be taken in by the soft femininity she exuded. Her fresh outlook and her ingenuous smile were infectious. Everything about Marina was candid. She wore her heart on her sleeve, and her emotions were complicated in depth, but straightforward in design. She gave everything she had when she committed herself, and held nothing back.
She was magnificent, and he was screwing her up.
And by the goddess he was trying not to.
***
As Daniil had shrewdly foreseen, the gentry were abuzz with the news of Katya’s scandalous disqualification. Everyone was seated for dinner, and the last unoccupied seat in the room, the seat opposite Koen, was empty.
It had taken a considerable amount of coin to bribe the toastmaster to arrange the seats so Marina was opposite him, to give him an opportunity to explain everything, why he had kissed Katya, and to remind her why he was being reserved towards to her.
Marina had not come back.
Koen lifted his head to send a questioning look at Daniil who stared at the seat empty as if doing so would make Marina appear in a magickal puff of smoke. After the first course was served, Koen could wait no longer, and signaled to him.
Daniil excused himself from his table.
“Where is she?” Koen asked tightly when he approached.
“Boy said she planned on coming back,” Daniil said anxiously. “Nikolai is already here. He didn’t realize she had gone back to her room. I don’t wish to incite worry preemptively, but after what happened with Boy … how easily he got into the fortress….”
They shared a look of horror.
The doors to the hall groaned open, and Mikhail, Boy, Daniil and Koen all turned hoping to see Marina.
Pasha rushed into the room with an overwrought expression on her face. Her eyes roamed, the repressed panic clear to see in her demeanor. The relief when her search yielded results was palpable.
She half walked, half skipped over to Daniil.
She executed a quick curtsey to Koen then did a lesser bow to Daniil, but with no less respect.
“My lord dragon,” she said quietly. “Please come with me. Marina is not well.”
Daniil’s face smoothed out. A poorly Marina was preferable to a dead Marina as Koen was sure he had been envisioning. “Is she still complaining about her bruises?” He turned to Koen when his brow lowered. “Today we practiced with the Bō.”
Koen nodded in understanding, but considered the idea Marina didn’t wish to come back because she knew she’d have to be near him.
Pasha was shaking her head, eyes wide, and face pale. “No. I thought so too at first. Marina has a way of making the smallest cut or bruise seem like a fatal wound. She isn’t speaking, just moaning and muttering strange things. I touched her skin and it was icy, but her clothes and linens are soaked in sweat. She’s caught a fever, but I’ve never seen one take hold of someone so strongly so fast. I looked for another wound, and I found a cut on her ankle that is bright red.”
Koen bolted up, but before he got halfway, Daniil slammed a hand on his shoulder to force him down. “Sit. You cannot go.”
“She’s hurting.”
Daniil’s gaze slid over the assembled court whose attentions were turning their way with curiosity. “You cannot show preference,” he reminded in an even tone, face impassive so no one looking in on their group could guess there was a problem. “I will go to her.”
“There is no preference in this,” Koen ground out. “A woman has been attacked and I must see to her care.”
“You know it will not be seen that way. When have you ever done such a thing before? Do your duty to her, and I will do mine. Stay. Boy will need to be kept away from her, she wouldn’t want him to worry.”
With a quick bow to the Regent’s seat, and another to the phoenixes in attendance, Daniil stepped down off the high table and strode briskly away.
Marina was hurt.
Koen’s dragon thought it unacceptable.
Ignoring Daniil’s words, Koen left the room and ignored the hushed whispers that dogged his steps. He felt the gaze of the Regent burning a hole in the back of his head, but did not look his way, and offered no explanation when the toastmaster stepped forward as if to take a message.
Koen dismissed the man with a flick of the head.
As he drew close to Marina’s room, a terrified scream ripped the air. Koen panicked, and dashed ahead of Daniil and Pasha to fling Marina’s screen open.
She writhed on the bed, fighting some unseen foe. Twisted in her sheets, her clothes were soaked through, her hair plastered to her head in a cold sweat. Her body was flushed, yet her teeth chattered as if she was freezing.
Koen moved forward to hold her, and Daniil shoved him out of the way.
“You mustn’t touch her!” He gathered her into his arms, and pulled her onto his lap. “Pasha, where is the wound?”
Marina started to convulse.
“Hold her down,” Pasha said urgently. The woman pulled up Marina’s skit to show her ankle where there was a faint gash.
Evil purple streaks crawled from it up her skin, toxins moving towards her heart.
“Let me hold her,” Koen begged.
“Get out Koen.” Daniil turned to Pasha. “It’s poison. And I have no idea what kind. The best we can do is cleanse her blood and purge her body. Call for boiling hot water and cotton strips, maybe we can draw out the poison from the wound. We also need an ice bath to cool her skin. I need Yarrow, Black Cohosh root … Dandelion root, and Milk Thistle. Fresh, if possible, but I can make do with dried. Ah, and h
ot clay. Quickly woman.”
The old woman scurried from the room calling for aid.
“Why didn’t she call for help,” he rasped. He wanted to hold her so badly, to do what Daniil was doing.
“I do not think she knew she was poisoned. She might have felt unwell, but you know she does not like to make a fuss or be seen to be getting special treatment. And we had just all had an argument, she probably wanted nothing to do with us.”
“I never should have agreed to let her stay.”
Daniil jerked his head up. “If that is how you feel why did you bother coming here?” He narrowed his eyes. “Shouldn’t you be at the banquet? There are already salacious whispers about Marina’s honor when it comes to you, she does not need any more venom to be spewed in her ears. It is best you leave.”
Koen pulled it together. “I want to stay.”
“What you want and what is good for her are not the same. Go.” Daniil looked down at Marina’s glowing face and his own softened. “I will take care of her.”
Chastened, humiliated in his lack of composure, Koen turned on his heel and walked to the door. His hand fisted on the screen. He belonged there. He spun around and found Daniil watched him with judgmental eyes.
He didn’t care.
Koen sat down on the stool in the corner. “I’m staying. I won’t touch her, but I need to be here. I won’t move from here”
Daniil said nothing, just rocked Marina back and forth as she whimpered in his arms.
It took the entire night and constant attention to draw the poison from Marina’s wound and break the fever. Each time a cloth smeared with hot clay was placed on her ankle her shrieks of agony tore at Koen. When they stripped her down to her undergarments and set her in the ice bath, the screaming, and pleas for help were almost too much to bear.
Koen held true to his word, he did not move from the stool.
Mikhail had dragged a distressed Boy from the room hours ago. Wherever he had taken him, Koen was grateful.
The boy had looked like his entire world was crashing down when he had seen the state Marina was in. Convinced she was going to die, he had taken out his knife and tried to cut his own throat. Mikhail had knocked the blade away and slammed a hand to the back of his head to stun him before removing him completely, not before ordering Daniil to save his daughter on pain of death.