The Iskaryyvans crashed over the defenders of Watt like endless waves, their fliers and their ships creating breakpoints in the Wattish front lines that they then poured all their might into widening.

The medical compound would have to be moved, but the order to retreat had not been given yet. Unfortunately, there were many dragons and, slowly, more humans who were injured enough that they could not be safely moved and no one wanted to abandon them to whatever fate the Iskaryyvan forces had in mind. It was a death sentence either way, but it was obvious to Mani that the longer Worthan could put off the decision, he would.

Mani knew that Ro was engaged with the fighting by that point, feeling the rage and fear and frustration as his mate defended his homelands. To their credit, the Wattish navy was causing massive damage to many of the Iskaryyvan ships, even at great cost to themselves. Likewise, the dragon flights somehow kept pushing back the influx of dragons, but the fighting was tooth to claw and dirty as hell.

Worthan grabbed a sheet of paper and scribbled numbers on it before thrusting it at Mani. “I don’t know if Admiral Leonteinparre the Elder is on the ground, but if she’s planning to call a retreat, these are the numbers of wounded we will have leave behind. Tell her people, make sure she knows.”

Mani slipped the paper into a pocket, whipped off his bloody apron, and ran out of the tent. War was raging merely a few miles off the coast, clear as day, as he pelted up the paths to where the Admiralty had set up an ad hoc headquarters. Word was that Prince Tonae had been forcefully made to retreat inland by his own guards, which was a blow to morale but made sense. That left Ro’s sister in charge as the field marshal, so Mani suspected she had not taken flight but was leading her troops in her human form.

He got to the entrance when he doubled over, pain lancing through his side. It wasn’t his pain, though. He spun around and headed for the closest lookout point, but it was easy to find what he was seeking.

Ro was flying hard from what was clearly an attack, five dragons on his tail. He was far out over the water but Mani would recognize his dark green and red scales anywhere, and he did not have to reach through their bond to know. Ro had been injured and was fighting for his life.

Mani saw why, too. The fighting was close but there was a particularly large Iskaryyvan dragon who was targeting smaller Wattish dragons, and Mani watched it grab one by its neck, killing it instantly. It fell into the water with a large splash that Mani was too far away to hear. Ro and several of his flight — Mani thought one was Wildt — were targeting the Iskaryyvan dragon, but each had their own guards. It was a small but bloody, ruthless engagement with at most five dragons on each side. With fighting all around them out into the sea, this fight should not have mattered, but it did. Somehow, it did.

Mani studied the other dragon. It was bright red with yellow, almost gold markings. Something about it pinged his memory.

“It’s an imperial!” a guard shouted next to him, and everything slotted into place. The markings were those shared by the imperial royal family of Iskaryyva, of whom a fair number were, of course, in the military.

It felt like the whole camp had gone quiet as everyone turned to watch the fight. Mani felt someone familiar next to him and he glanced over at Ro’s sister, who was watching with real fear in her eyes.

“I’ve ordered backup for him, but everyone’s got their own fight,” she said, not looking at Mani.

“Admiral, you cannot go up there!” one of her aides said, obviously continuing an argument started earlier.

“He’s injured, but clear headed,” Mani offered.

She let out a relieved sigh, but then gasped when Ro and the imperial struck at each other, claws out. Blood sprayed through the air as Wildt fought two others to get to Ro. Another strike, and Ro was impaled, held fast in the talons of the larger imperial dragon, shrieking in agony and writhing as the other dragon bit him, over and over. Blood was pouring out of Ro’s wounds, falling like rain to scatter in the wind. Wildt peeled off from the close quarters fight he and another had been waging with three opponents, making a desperate run to help his leader. Other dragons tried, some more successful than others, but it was clear that the dragon who had Ro in his grip had purposefully moved away from the pack, rose up above them. He was steadily ripping Ro apart. Ro was screaming…   

Rodgardae Leonteinparre was dying.

Ro’s sister was yelling something at Mani’s side, but he was screaming along with Ro, on his knees, pain radiating through him. He could barely look up at where his mate was being murdered before his eyes for the agony of it, physically and mentally. He saw Ro twitch at another bite and suddenly their connection cut off.

“No! Rodgardae! No!” Mani jumped to his feet, stumbling forward. Someone held him back or he would have walked right off the edge of the platform. Ro was still alive but he had shut down their connection, a drastic measure that proved without a doubt that Ro believed he was facing death.

Mani kept yelling at him but his cries were overpowered by a primal scream of fury, a noise filled with so much pure sound that it knocked all of them backwards, tumbling to the ground. Mani once again dragged himself to his feet, eyes out over the water. A huge dragon was barreling toward the fight, screaming a challenge that no one could mistake even if they did not believe what they saw with their eyes: a queen had joined fray.

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The camp below and around them was pure chaos as people yelled and pointed and ran, for where Mani could not guess. The dragon was large, nowhere near as big as Foösh but still a queen in size and appearance, her multifaceted black scales reflecting the colors of the rainbow as she shot through the air. The backwash from her breakneck speed sent ships under her bobbing and at least one smaller ship capsized completely. Mani thought he felt the ground under his feet vibrating up his legs.

“Who the fuck is that?” Admiral Leonteinparre the Elder shouted. “Rhezv has a queen?” The last word was screeched out in horror.

Mani shook his head but words failed him as the queen dragon finally caught up to the imperial’s slow drag upwards with Ro limp in his claws. Ro wasn’t dead, that much Mani knew, but there was no way to know how close he was, with their bond sealed. He knew without a doubt who she was, he knew it in his bones, as if she had called for him by name: Agadart had manifested, and she was a queen after all, just as Consort ver Kleelan had claimed.

Above them, the queen dragon let out loud, cawing shouts of fury as she aimed for Ro and the imperial. Mani knew what she was doing without looking. Ro was a prince in every sense of the word, so of course he was the one Agadart would choose for her own. Perhaps, as Consort ver Kleelan said, she already had, long before. Mani assumed that she saw her potential consort being torn apart and manifested on the spot, wherever the emperor had held her. It was not without precedent, but the stories Mani remembered seemed more like a romantic fancy than history.

The other Wattish dragons responded as every dragon must to the appearance of a queen: they battled back, fighting harder and meaner than before, all along the coast. Whatever ground the Wattish forces lost was regained by the time the queen slammed into her opponent. Mani watched with everyone else, knowing how tricky this would be with Ro still trapped in the enemy’s talons.

“Wait, is she…is she fighting the imperial?” Admiral Leonteinparre the Elder gasped.

Mani looked over at her in surprise, but then realized that everyone watching had assumed that the dragon was Iskaryyvan, and likely the emperor’s own queen.

“Open your bond, you damn fool!” Mani yelled at her. She looked at him in shock. “Open it, feel your magic!”

She paused, blinking, then gasped in shock as she realized the truth: it was a queen of Watt flying over her own lands.

People who heard him started screaming, some with joy, others with the screech of a dragon shifting forms on the spot as the sensation flooded their senses. The call went up around him that their queen had returned, and was taken up all along the coast within seconds.

He turned his face back up to see what he could of the fight. The imperial was impeded by his hold on Ro, fighting with wings and teeth. But Agadart was as big as he was and she was strong, ripping at one of his wings and overpowering him. With a flick of her tail she flipped over, grabbed her opponent’s neck in her jaws then continued to fly straight up for the dome of the sky.

“What the hell is she doing?” one of the nearby soldiers yelled to no one in particular. Mani shook his head, because he did not know either. The clutch of the dragons became a single distant spot far up in the air. Then it became two, and then it became three.

“She killed him to force him to let go of Rodgardae. Now she speeds down to catch her prince,” Mani said dispassionately, saving his fear for later.

“To catch her king,” someone corrected, their voice filled with awe.

“Not dead, but limping,” Admiral Leonteinparre the Elder said, pointing at the imperial who was flying slowly back toward the Iskaryyvan navy. Mani barely glanced that way, eyes on the falling bodies of Ro and Agadart. An impromptu flight of dragons was racing her way, but she managed to reach Ro before they got to her.

It seemed like, even as the battles in the distance raged on, that the entire camp around them was silent, watching the mysterious new queen of Watt save her king. Or try to, Mani thought, hoping that Agadart was not too late. There was a collective gasp as she grabbed him and tilted off, tacking like a ship on the water to slow their descent without tearing their wings. She made their flight into a wide, looping spiral to the ground, clearly aiming for the medical field.

Mani slapped the admiral’s shoulder and turned to sprint back the way he had come, leaping the last few steps off the platform. He ran all out, nearly tripping several times as he tried to keep Agadart and Ro in his sight line. She was landing as he got to the medical encampment, and by the time he made it to the field she was gently setting him down where Doctor Worthan and a whole team of support staff were already waiting.

She took a few awkward steps back after licking Ro’s neck once, then licking over his wounds while Worthan shouted at her to back away. Mani slowed to a jog, trying to tamp down on his reaction to her obvious claim on Ro, and also not wanting to get in the way of the doctor and his assistants as they literally swarmed over Ro’s stationary form.

Agadart looked Mani straight in the eye, then looked away, oddly shy. She then stomped her feet and stood up completely, her tail swishing back and forth. She looked like she was listening for something no one else could hear. She took in a deep breath and Mani knew instinctively what was coming next.

“Cover your ears!” he shouted. A few people managed to do so before Agadart let out another bone-rattling war cry. It was instantly answered by thousands of Wattish dragons from every direction, including the wounded in the medical tents. Mani felt someone grab his arm.

“Our queen calls to us!” Admiral Leonteinparre the Elder had lost all sense of decorum, weeping openly. She shook him in excitement then turned to face her staff, who had run behind her the whole way to the medical field. “Spread the word! Watt has a queen!”

Mani thought that the word did not need to be spread, as it was obvious. It was as if the land itself was calling out through Agadart to her dragons. No one could miss it.

Then he heard Ro groan, and stopped caring about anything else, stepping forward to take his mate’s draconic face in his hands. Ro’s eyes were clouded with pain. “Hold on, beloved. Please hold on.” Ro closed his eyes but pressed their foreheads together in the same gesture they had shared before he had left to go fight.

Ro was alive, and for the moment, that was all that mattered to Mani.

Behind him, the queen of Watt roared out another battle cry and took to the skies to chase after the one who had injured her king.