Princess Popilia Phoca stood as still as she could while her two handmaidens dressed her. While she was used to the routine, the added complexity of these ceremonial clothes left her itching to tear free from their grasp. The extra time was a deviation that tugged at her brain, made her intimately aware of each passing second. The cowbells in the distance seemed to tick each one away, when she could hear them over the howl of wind past the open window.
A chill gust of air passed over her neck and she shivered.
‘Oh, will someone please shut that thing?’ she asked. Summer hadn’t truly begun yet. It was cool enough inside without extra help.
Her tutor gave her a withering stare from across the room. ‘The fresh air is good for you, your grace.’
Popilia knew it would be pointless to argue, but she curled her toes impatiently. A bass rumble reverberated through the painted stone around her from one of the dragons on watch in their towers. She craned her neck to try catching a glimpse through the window – might as well make use of it if it had to be open – and was rewarded with a shove back into a manageable position.
‘Remember, your grace,’ her tutor said as the handmaiden tied the final points, ‘you are representing your parents and the entire empire here today. You must be on your best behaviour.’
‘I’m always on my best behaviour in public,’ said Popilia. ‘But I would hardly call this "public". Who’s watching? Just you and some soldiers and Critobulus.’
‘That’s High Sorcerer Critobulus to you, child.’ Her tutor sighed, gathered her skirts and took a cushioned seat by the window. ‘And the soldiers are your public as much as any citizen. Just because they have sworn oaths to the crown does not preclude them from forming opinions. A body of soldiers with the wrong opinion of you is not something you want to exist.’
Popilia smiled thanks at her handmaidens and toyed with the glittering new ring on her left hand. ‘Does it matter that much? I won’t be around any of our soldiers for long.’
‘It will matter more then, your grace. Because then you will be around soldiers who have sworn no oaths to you, and the only thing protecting you from their opinion will be the oath of your husband. We start as we mean to go on, child.’ She swept off the seat and took Popilia by the shoulders, positioning her in front of one of the handmaidens holding a small silver mirror. ‘Make your behaviour a matter of habit now and it will not fail you in future.’
With nothing to say to that, Popilia remained silent. She turned this way and that to get a good view of herself in the mirror, finding some hint of the grandeur of her parents – her mother’s wide brown eyes, lined with kohl; her father’s bronze skin; enough jewels and silk that she felt four times her weight. What small pride she felt fluttered in her chest. She wished they hadn’t been too busy to be here with her, to watch her ceremony. Neither of her two sisters had been bonded to a dragon, and both were older! Only her parents and three older brothers had dragons, and only the eldest had one old enough to fly.
Before she could get lost in daydreams of flight, her tutor fussed her out of their sleeping room. They had all shared it that night, tapestries and hangings keeping Popilia’s bed separate in the large space. Kurentim’s keep only had two small floors for its infrequent guests – a far cry from the many rooms of the imperial palace in Chorus.
They filed down the curved staircase together and emerged in the hall on the ground floor. Critobulus – High Sorcerer Critobulus – already stood there waiting. Several of his underlings flocked around him with scrolls and materials, all of them dwarfed by their master’s freakishly tall frame. The cloak hanging from his broad shoulders only added to the effect, making him seem twice that size again and cutting his edges as sharp as those on his black beard.
‘Princess Popilia,’ he said, bowing with a polite smile and the semblance of a tree folding in half. ‘I trust you slept well?’
‘Yes, thank you.’ Once they had shuttered the window and hung tapestries over the shutters, the wind had been quite muted.
‘That is good.’ The polite smile disappeared, as did his apparent willingness for small talk. ‘Your dragon is almost ready to hatch. With a short ritual, we will be able to accelerate that. My assistants have prepared the courtyard. Do you have any questions before we proceed?’
‘Well...’ Popilia couldn’t wait to get outside. She hadn’t been allowed to see her egg yet. But she forced herself to calm down and think. ‘What exactly is it you want me to do?’
‘One of my assistants will talk you through the steps once it begins.’
‘And what if something goes wrong. What if it... tries to eat me?’ Was that a stupid question? How big were dragons when they hatched?
Critobulus nodded, his face grave. ‘It is natural to be worried about such an eventuality, of course. I assure you, the magic at play is quite strong. Were it to break free even for a moment, however, the guards would capture or kill it. A hatchling is a small, manageable thing, though still no laughing matter.’
‘Oh. They would only kill it if they had no other choice, wouldn’t they?’ A shadow of the embarrassment she would feel if she returned to Chorus having cost her parents a dragon wound through her.
‘Of course.’
Popilia nodded, satisfied. ‘I’m ready, then.’
‘Then follow me, your grace.’
Critobulus turned with a dramatic sweep of his cloak and made for the door, preceded by two of his assistants, with everyone else falling in behind in a short and largely unobserved procession. Together they entered the cloud-dimmed daylight of the courtyard. As when she arrived, Popilia craned her neck up to each of the towers in turn to catch a glimpse of the dragon guards. She could only see one of their tails – a rusty orange plume of feathers dangling from the lip of the observation platform it called home.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
‘Do they ever fly?’ she asked.
Critobulus peered back over his shoulder, then followed her gaze. ‘Not when there are eggs or important persons such as yourself to guard, your grace. Otherwise, they are exercised regularly.’
Popilia’s shoulders fell. So there was no chance of her seeing them properly during her visit, then. Her tutor must have noticed her disappointment, as she earned a sharp tap on the wrist from her cane. She straightened her back. A matter of habit.
Their procession ended a scant few yards from the keep in the centre of the courtyard, where Critobulus and his assistants fanned out around the perimeter of a raised stone circle. Channels had been carved into its surface, funnelling to a ditch around the edge that must run into a sluice somewhere. It reminded Popilia of the channels carved into kitchen floors. There wouldn’t be blood, would there?
A bowl-like nest of hay rested in the centre of the circle, but no egg lay upon it. She looked to Critobulus for explanation, but he just gestured to a cushion beside the hay.
‘If you could kneel there, please, your grace.’
Uncertainty gripped her. When she stepped up onto the circle, some sinister voice whispered warnings in the back of her head. Just superstitions. Just the memories of nursery tales coming back to haunt her – tales of stone circles and altars and blood sacrifice. All long in the past, if it had ever happened. Get it out of your head, Popo.
She knelt on the cushion. It didn’t take away much from the hardness of the floor, and she shuffled to find a comfortable position. Then a door clanged open somewhere to her right, and four soldiers emerged carrying a palanquin. They marched straight onto the circle and set it down on one side of the hay, then flipped open a few catches and lifted the entire top off.
Popilia’s heart sped at the sight it revealed – her dragon egg, as big as she was. It was a pinkish white with a texture like slate. Beneath the overlapping flakes of its surface, the inner surface was purple, and these glimpses taken all together seemed like veins. It shimmered a little, even beneath the clouds.
Two of the soldiers took the palanquin away while the other two moved the egg off the palanquin floor into the middle of the hay before leaving with the floor themselves. The egg rocked a little after they had set it in place. Two of Critobulus’ assistants began chanting in the canter’s tongue, their voices layering over each other from either side.
Intent on the egg before her, Popilia jumped at the approach of another assistant. The old man knelt beside her and held out two pieces of jewellery – an inscribed metal collar and a jewelled filigree choker.
‘What are these for?’ she asked.
‘Take them.’ His voice scratched like rustling parchment. When Popilia reached for the items, he explained, ‘The filigree is for you to wear around your neck. You must never take it off.’
‘Never?’ She stared up at him, at his cloudy eyes. ‘Not even bathing?’
‘Not even then.’
She examined the metal in her hand, leaving the other piece on her lap. It weighed next to nothing, but she knew small things could add up. How irritating would it be after a whole day, a week, a year? And around her neck? She had worn chokers before, but wearing one forever, she would feel like a prisoner, or a dog on a chain.
‘Can I not just wear it on my wrist?’ she asked. Surely they could adjust it smaller.
‘A wrist can be severed. A neck...’ He trailed off, searching for words.
Popilia rolled her eyes. She had seen her first beheading when she was six. She got the picture.
‘And this one?’ She pointed to the thicker piece.
‘That is for the hatchling. Once it hatches, you must go to it and place it around its neck.’
‘And when do I put mine on? Now?’
‘Not yet. Wait until the central stone begins to glow.’
Popilia nodded and held the choker and collar across her lap, staring at the large fire opal in the centre of the choker. At least it didn’t look bad. Maybe they would work some magic on it to make it feel like it wasn’t there at all.
As she watched, Critobulus added his booming voice to the mix and the stone began to flicker. At first she thought it might be the light catching on it, but when she held her hand beside it, a gradual light sept over her skin. Within a few more beats of the chant, its glow became as bright as a candle flame. She unclasped in and put it on as instructed, fumbling with the clasp behind her neck until it clicked into place. Heat washed through it and dug into her skin. Thinking of her tutor, she refrained from itching, but her fingers twitched with the urge. Critobulus’ voice lapsed back into silence.
A sharp crack drew her attention back to the egg. The whole thing twitched, and the white flakes crusting its surface shivered.
Popilia unclasped the collar, fingers trembling with excitement. She leaned forwards as if it would give her a better view, as if it would make her dragon hatch faster. She hardly dared breathe, and her lungs burned.
Another crack rang out across the circle and a flake of outer shell fell to the pile of hay. The inner shell bulged in the gap where it had been, a snout or a tail or some other limb pushing at it from the inside.
Should she get closer? She hated it when people weren’t specific with their instructions.
Two more cracks came in quick succession and a shower of flakes flew out from the egg. Hairline cracks webbed the visible parts of the purple inner shell. Popilia resisted the urge to go and help. Someone would have told her if she had to do that. Wouldn’t they?
The limb poked at the inner shell again – definitely a snout. She could make out the curve of its mouth and the little horns on the tip of its nose. Then with a sound like tearing silk, it broke through. Glistening white and covered in slime, the hatchling extended its neck through the hole, reaching for its freedom so hard that the egg threatened to topple over. Before it could, a bulky section of tail tore through the other side and the rest of the tail came whipping out. The rest of the egg collapsed a moment later, and the hatchling stood there shaking shell fragments from its back and naked wings.
Popilia began to stand, but Critobulus’ voice shocked her back into sitting. He had joined the chant again.
The dragon took a few confused steps around its shattered egg, its head wavering like a drunkard walking down a street. One of the assistants moved up with a wet towel and mopped the slime from it, but the dragon’s eyes couldn’t even focus on them. Instead, when the assistant retreated, its gaze slid over to Popilia. The deep purple of its eyes transfixed her. Like its egg, its downy skin was white mottled with traces of pink and purple. It was an ungainly thing with no feathers on its wings – Popilia had imagined it coming out fully formed, but she had seen new falcons hatched before. She should have known better.
Distant cowbells caught the dragon’s attention, but only for a moment before its head went back to its drunken motion and it stumbled towards Popilia.
The collar had grown warm in her hands. She raised it in front of her like an invitation, and the hatchling walked right up to her outstretched hands. It sniffed at them, rocking slowly from side to side. Popilia shuffled forwards so her knees touched the bare stone and clasped the collar around the hatchling’s neck before it could react. At the same moment, Critobulus’ voice grew louder and he raised his golden staff.
In a flash, the world changed. It doubled itself, and Popilia saw herself through the dragon’s eyes at the same time as she saw the dragon itself. Foggy confusion washed over her, and a thin current of panic and fear tugged at her heart. Dizziness set the world spinning, the horizon always shifting from one viewpoint to another.
She shook her head, and the chanting stopped, and the dizziness passed. Her dragon lay down before her, head lowered, purple eyes fixed on the ground.
The collar around its neck glinted beneath the dismal clouds.