Ro was completely unconscious, which was a good thing. His wounds were deep, and the one on his neck required three nurses and two doctors to hold it together with pliers in order to be properly stitched up. Mani had a strong stomach but he had not been able to watch, instead sitting in a low camp chair up by Ro’s head, petting him, talking to him, while keeping his back to the surgery. He just hoped that Ro could hear him, even though he was still, thankfully, unconscious. He tried not to focus on what the doctor and his assistants were saying to each other, but in the close quarters it was impossible to ignore.

“Doctor Worthan, are you seeing this?”

“I am, damn it. Change out the thread, no, not that one, this one. Get us another spool of this heavier silk thread!”

Mani glanced over his shoulder, trying to keep all the blood out of focus. “Is there a problem?”

“No. The opposite, in fact. He’s healing too fast.”

Mani paused. “How is that possibly a problem?”

“If the wound heals before we stitch it up, it means massive scarring. Scars in this form will make shifting back into his walking form damn near impossible!” Worthan let out some curse words after that. “If I have to recut these wounds just to seal them properly I’m going to be right fucking annoyed!” He sounded far more than annoyed.

“Her Royal Nectar,” Mani said. Everyone working on Ro paused, if the silence in the tent was anything to go by.

“That’s a legend.”

“Not according to my great-aunt. You might have heard of her? The Queen of Akanata?” Mani tried not to roll his eyes.

“Blasted hell,” Worthan grumbled, then came around to stand in front of Mani. His leather apron was awash with blood. Ro’s blood. Mani swallowed and forced himself to look up at Worthan’s face. Worthan glared at him. “So her saliva really does have healing properties?”

Mani nodded. “If she’s the queen of Watt and he was injured in her territory, and he’s her mate or a consort, then yes.”

“Blasted hell!” Worthan repeated, stomping back off to surgery.

“I would have thought the idea would make you a bit happier,” Mani said, rubbing the ridge of Ro’s eyebrows.

“I’m ecstatic,” Worthan snapped, deadpan. There was a long pause as the team did other things that Mani did not want to know about, but Worthan finally continued. “I am very glad that he’s healing fast from these very serious wounds, but as I said, it’s now a race against time to get him stitched up properly to avoid scarring. A deep wound healing wrong can be as bad as it never healing. So far, everything looks to be in the right place. However, blood can’t magically regenerate, that’s a scientific fact, and he’s lost a lot. I’m worried about the toll the accelerated healing is having on him.” Worth came up and looked over Ro’s head. “Are you picking up anything from the bond?”

He was, indeed — feelings of anger, shame, frustration, and, distantly, awe bordering on worship. Nothing seemed to be anything that might help Worthan. “Only that his mind is not absorbed by pain.”

“After all the anesthetics we gave him, I should hope to hell not,” Worthan said before ducking back to direct one of the other doctors about something.

Admiral Leonteinparre the Elder stepped into the tent, looking her brother over with a professional eye, but she did not ask Worthan for an update. She crouched by Ro’s head and slid her hand over his jaw, her worry for him subtle but obvious in her gentle touch.

“How’s the war?” Mani asked.

She frowned, keeping her gaze on her brother. “The queen’s call took hundreds of fighters with her after the emperor. I assume it was the emperor, anyway. By all reports, it was him.” She sighed and stood up. “Meanwhile all of us have felt the pull of the land, our connection to it strengthened by her presence. We can all feel her, to some degree, or at least feel that she exists.” She shook her head. “Two of my one-talon admirals shifted without permission and jumped to battle, and I have no idea how many other fighters have done the same. We’re one step away from chaos.”

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“She is the queen of Watt, then?” Mani asked, even though he knew the answer.

The admiral nodded, seeming struck by the words. “Unbelievably, yes. She is. Never in my life did I believe…or expect…” She stopped rubbing her eyes, glancing down at Ro again. “Take care of my brother, Matrica Roki.”

“Call me Mani,” he said, sounding weary even to his own ears. “Are we not in-laws?”

She smiled back, looking more like Ro in that moment than Mani had ever seen. “Then please call me Marralda.” She turned and left before he could respond.

The medical team was done much sooner than Mani expected, but then he assumed that was due to Ro’s fast healing. Mani could feel how exhausted Ro was through their bond, even though the dragon was completely knocked out. Mani asked one of the medical aides if they could provide him a cot, as he figured he would not be leaving Ro’s side. It was, by that point, only mid-afternoon but he knew to plan ahead. He was left alone, given that Ro’s condition was stable (and improving by the minute), while medical staff was desperately needed elsewhere.

He was sitting there, thinking about how to get dinner, when the front tent flap opened and a strange dragon stuck its head in.

“Who the fuck are you?” Mani shouted, standing up.

The dragon looked at him and something about the wild colors around the iris tipped Mani off. “Consort ver Kleelan?”

The dragon blinked and nodded.

“Is that…is that…seaweed?” Mani asked, peering up at him.

Consort ver Kleelan shook his head to dislodge the offending matter, which was definitely seaweed, then turned to look at where Ro was still asleep, a silent question.

“He’s healing quickly, but the blood loss was severe.” Mani went and sat down again. “Her Royal Nectar, I assume, is the reason he’s healing so quickly?”

Consort ver Kleelan nodded again, then ducked out of the tent. Mani shook his head. The man might not be a feral, he thought, but he wasn’t completely sane either.

Less than thirty minutes later, Consort ver Kleelan walked back in on two legs, human again, and dressed in his slightly antiquated clothes, his hair done up properly in Wattish braids. He looked back and forth between Mani and Ro.

“Out with it,” Mani said.

“Agadart is on the verge of going feral,” Consort ver Kleelan said. He unfurled what looked like a blanket and shook it out.

“I’m not surprised,” Mani said, watching him curiously.

“Neither am I. The shock of shifting, the fight with the emperor, then leading a whole flight into battle with the imperial guards…she went from one traumatic event to another. None of which was helped by her mate nearly dying.”

“You believe he’s her king, then.”

Consort ver Kleelan kept inspecting the blanket, but smirked at Mani over it. “Who doesn’t?”

Mani nodded. There was no telling how this was all going to settle, in the end, but Ro was absolutely the mate of the queen of Watt.

“Admiral the Elder is keeping a tight hand on all the flights still in the air, but just barely. Half the wing’s-worth of dragons that followed Agadart out to battle have limped home, injured and unable to shift back to update anyone on what is going on. The assumption is that Agadart is fighting the emperor himself.”

“The assumption?” There was something odd about the way Consort ver Kleelan explained it, but Mani could not figure out what it was.

“The whole reason the emperor was trying to steal a queen for himself is that he’s not powerful enough to fight one. He lost pretty quickly.”

“How do you—”

“She’s taken him to the urshvalkin she was held captive on, and is using the Wattish dragons who accompanied her as her personal guard. As long as she has the emperor captive, none of the imperial fleet dare come near, much less attack.”

Mani frowned. “Shouldn’t you be telling this to Admiral Leonteinparre the Elder?”

He stepped up and looked at Ro, shaking his head. “What could she possibly do? Agadart’s half mad at this point, and she needs her mate to help center her, to ground her, or she’ll go all the way over the cliff and become feral with no way back.”

Mani stood up, concerned for the first time, his sense of danger banging against the inside of his skull and his heart rate spiking. He stepped in between Ro’s unconscious body and ver Kleelan. “Ro can’t do that, he’s not fit to even be awake yet, much less fly!”

Consort ver Kleelan sighed, laying out the blanket on the ground between them. “Oh, Consort Roki, I was not talking about Leonteinparre.”

Mani only had time to register ver Kleelan’s fist as it came at his face, but then everything went dark.