The Kingdoms of Sky and Shadow Box Set: A Fantasy Romance Read online

  At that time, I never paid any attention to the guards or servants around the castle, at least not in the way Rin meant. I tried very hard to ignore men. I knew I could never marry anyone or even take a lover. But knowing this young man would now be responsible for protecting me?

  Suddenly, I noticed.

  Oszin was tall and finely built, with dark curls that I immediately started dreaming of touching. His eyes were pale brown with a sheen of gold and seemed flecked with lighter specks up close, like some precious stone. I am ashamed to say how much I lingered on those eyes, those curls, his tanned hands with long fingers. His knuckles were probably too knobby, but I found that charming too. I soon began to find every bit of him charming, even the flawed bits.

  He was careful, however. He knew his place. He was a Kamiri, after all, and his ancestors might have been thrown in jail or worse just for calling the princess “Moth”. Even my father would have had to punish him severely, if he ever laid a hand on me.

  We had never been separated for so long before as we were when Gaermoni castle fell. Something in him had changed. He still kept an appropriate distance and deference to me, but I felt like we were…together. Together, without ever touching or kissing. Together, in the sense that when we saw each other again, it was like coming home, and we needed to know everything that had happened in one another’s absence.

  When the carriage stopped so we could eat, he helped me down from the carriage, his hands around my waist. I felt his grip through all my furs.

  “Isn’t it too cold?” Seron called from across the makeshift camp.

  “I’m fine, Lord Seron. I need some fresh air,” I said, imperiously. I was always imperious to Seron. He was the dragon king’s champion, his representative here, watching over me. I wanted him in his place. I wanted him to remember I was royalty in my own right, and his king needed me too.

  Oszin gave me a private smile. He understood.

  “Over here,” he said. “I’ve already started a fire.”

  “You started a fire? That was quick. Didn’t we just stop?”

  “All right, then, I asked one of the lava dragons to start a fire. If you must know.”

  “I think I’d rather have no fire at all than a dragon fire…”

  “The dragons aren’t all bad,” he said. “Actually, they’re mostly pretty decent.” He brushed a dusting of snow off of a log. It was somewhat low for me to sit on. I leaned on my cane, brushing off his help.

  “How is your foot?” He frowned.

  “I told you, I don’t think it’ll get any better than this. I don’t want to talk about that.” One of the emperor’s lackeys had crushed my foot; just like the toes I broke in childhood, , it healed wrong and now I had a limp. At least my two broken toes hardly mattered now. My entire foot was now fixed in a strange shape. Even after the dragon king healed my bones, I doubted I would ever walk well again.

  “Will you ever…tell me what happened when the emperor took you?”

  “There isn’t much to say. I told you, he never had a chance to get his hands on me—“ But that wasn’t true. I still scrubbed my breasts hard whenever I bathed, trying to wipe off the memory of his mouth on them. “I’m fine. He held me prisoner for a while and…he fed me well, and gave me things to do…”

  “I wish I’d been the one to kill him,” Oszin said.

  I chewed my lip, pulling off some dry skin. They were already chapping in the winter air. I had known Oszin so many years and he had helped me enough times when I felt sick and looked like a wreck, I didn’t care if my lips were chapped or my eyes were red. I didn’t need or want to hide anything from him. “Me too, I…”

  He cracked some eggs in a pan over the fire for us. “I’ll stay with you there,” he said. “In the underground. I took this post for life. It’s not much consolation, but you won’t be alone.”

  “Thank you…”

  I watched him as he watched the eggs. They cooked up fast. He slid two of them onto a plate for me with some rather hard bread, then he sat on the log beside me, crossing his legs. Long legs, sturdy boots, a little patch on one knee of his trousers. I poked his knee. “You can’t afford new pants?”

  “Nah, I just have thrifty habits,” he said. “Doubt I’ll ever grow out of that.”

  “Are you saving up for something?”

  “I don’t need anything. I just want to sit on a pile of money.”

  “For your heirs.”

  “No heirs.” He arched an eyebrow at me that said, Come on. “Mostly I’m just saving it for my parents. Dad’s knees are bothering him, so it’d be good if he didn’t have to work anymore. Maybe someday I’ll start a charity for Kamiri orphans.”

  I scoffed. He was teasing me again, knowing I hated any mention of poor orphans. As the pathetic but beautiful, sickly princess of Gaermon I was practically required to do charitable works. Not that I actually did anything. I gave the crown’s money in my name, and and told children to be brave and strong. Father insisted I do this, with some frustration at my cynical nature.

  I hate lying to children, Father!

  They’re just children. It’s okay to encourage them.

  “Well, maybe you won’t have to be charitable anymore,” Oszin said. “The dragons seem tough. That may not be their style.”

  “Mm…well, the Gaermoni are tough too.”

  “Yeah, but I still have to admit the dragons have us beaten.”

  Every man in Gaermon had a blade and knew how to use it, except the very poorest. But in the dragon realms, the women fought too. It was strange to see an army of men and women mingled together. At night I heard grunts of lovemaking in the distance. How could the women fight if they were also lovers? What if they got pregnant?

  I felt warm and almost had an appetite, being with Oszin. The other soldiers gathered around larger fires. Gaermoni and dragons mingled easily; the dragons were friendly, it was true. Maybe too friendly, in some cases. The ice dragons seemed to have a natural reserve, but otherwise the dragons seemed talkative and enthusiastic about the new world in which they found themselves. They danced and sang around the fires at night, and although the dragons didn’t speak our language, the female soldiers flirted with my Gaermoni guard, who seemed very flustered and complained that the dragon women were mannish and not proper women. Outwardly, I told myself it was strange and wrong for girls to be warriors instead of remaining sweet and gentle like I had been told to be, but deep down, I was intrigued.

  “The dragons are going to hate me,” I said.

  “Hate you?”

  “Don’t you think? I’m…not like them.” I draped my chin in hand as I mopped the egg yolk with my hard bread. These meals were hardly fit for royalty. “I’m not strong like them. Not that I’ve ever been good at princess stuff. I wish I could go live in a cave.”

  “Hey, you’re getting your wish.”

  “I mean, a cave alone. Not a dragon cave. With a dragon king in it…”

  He looked at me with piercing empathy. No one but Oszin ever looked at me the same way. With understanding, and warmth, and desire.

  “Oszin, I want to confess something. Emperor Leonidas took my first kiss.”

  “Himika…” He swallowed, shifting his hand like he wanted to touch me. “You don’t have to ‘confess’ to something you didn’t want.”

  “I actually didn’t hate the Emperor at first. I really didn’t. He was kind enough to me that I managed to tell myself, even if his men killed my father, it was a part of war. I was really, really dumb. He brought me to the garden. He had the cook make me dumplings all the time. He got lychees imported. He took me to the theater. And…I stopped fighting.” I wiped my nose. “Damn cold air.”

  “You were his captive,” Oszin said. “None of that is your fault.”

  “The moment he laid a hand on me…as soon as he crossed that line…I started to hate him. Despise him. I just know I’ll hate the dragon king too. He might be the only one who can cure me. But if it wasn’t for my brother
needing this alliance, I wouldn’t do this.”

  “I know,” Oszin said. “And if I could…I wouldn’t let you.”

  I smiled. This was the closest we had ever come to voicing our feelings for each other. And it came naturally now. Like we’d both grown up in the past year. My father had died. My kingdom had fallen. I had been snatched away by the Emperor and almost forced into a marriage, but now my brother was the emperor of a unified kingdom. Oszin had fought and been forced to flee with the other soldiers who escaped the Emperor’s seizure of Gaermon. He’d killed two men, he told me. I knew it was a big deal to him, every time he killed someone. He told me once that after he killed the bandit, that impressed my brother so much, he had nightmares for a year.

  I still had nightmares too. Sometimes, when I woke up in a panic, I liked to think he was doing the same.

  Chapter Two

  Oszin

  The first time I laid eyes on Himika, I was struck by her beauty. How could I help it? She was the very epitome of a Gaermoni maiden. Her hair fell, silken black, past her waist. She had rather large eyes that always looked sad, and a very kissable mouth, and perfect skin. She was small, barely five feet tall, and delicate.

  Everyone warned me that she was spoiled and prickly, but I saw through that right away. Prickly?

  I mean, the poor girl couldn’t do anything. She couldn’t even have a little rendezvous while her brother was going through several adolescent dalliances. I’d be prickly too.

  She had no idea of her destiny, and I had no idea of mine…but I fell in love with her in my first month of serving her. Maybe it was the prickly part of her that won me over. I saw her roll her eyes at needlework and try to sneak out of a music lesson.

  I also watched her watch the other girls flirting and taking walks with their paramours. Her tall and dashing brother’s reputation for amusing scandals grew as he favored handsome young men, while his twin sister was forced to remain a chaste little girl. Sometimes I stood outside her door and heard her soft little sobs, muffled into a pillow, usually after a dance.

  My poor princess. She was just a girl like any other girl. I tried my best to make her laugh.

  Now everything would change. If this prophecy and curse were true, she would be cured. Some other man would have her. This dragon king.

  I wondered how I would handle watching this, day after day, for the rest of my life. The woman I loved, cured and kept by another man.

  I realized how selfish I was, because her sickness made me feel like she was mine. For years, I was safe knowing no one could ever touch her. I couldn’t either—her father, surely the kindest king in Gaermon’s history, would still have no choice but to exile any Kamiri guard who dared lay a hand on his daughter—but I could live with that, because I had her heart, and I knew it, even if neither of us could say so.

  I hated the dragon king already, for taking what was mine.

  All princesses must be selfish, right? All of Himika’s life, everything revolved around her. How was her health today? Was she in much pain? Was she tired? Did she need medicine? Food? A new book to read? Someone to amuse her?

  When Gaermon fell and the Emperor got his hands on her, I was in a panic. Torn from her protectors, who would serve her needs? She wasn’t fit for dungeons. She wasn’t strong.

  She came back with a shattered foot, and an expression that was sometimes vacant with pain. And he had stolen her first kiss.

  I should have taken her first kiss.

  I’d had chances, and I balked. I had a family to worry over, and so much to lose, but if I ever had a chance again, I vowed to feel her lips against mine, even if it was only once.

  Every time I saw her, I couldn’t help but imagine more. What would it be like to see her naked skin, to trace every delicate line of her body with my fingers and tongue, to nibble on her breasts and part the petals of her most sacred spot and stroke her to a pleasure she had never known? It had not escaped my awareness over the years that even her delicate body could probably handle that. I would wipe away her memories of the emperor and show her what pleasure felt like when it came from someone you loved and trusted.

  But the dragon king would have her instead. Unless I did something.

  As the days of our journey went on, those words haunted me. The dragon king will have her. The dragon king will touch my princess. The dragon king can do whatever he wants to my little Moth.

  For several centuries, the gates to the underground dragon kingdom had been sealed off, and dragons faded into rumor and legend. Few people in Gaermon knew of the dragon’s tear and the prophecy that said one day the dragons would return and that the princess of Gaermon would restore peace with a marriage. So her father had given me the tear without knowing if the dragon king would ever appear. He had that much faith in some ancient prophecy. No wonder he never told anyone.

  The dragons lived in vast caves that sparkled with crystals. The dragons said they had castles within huge chambers, lakes and rivers that glowed with crystalline light.

  But they had no sun or moon. And I certainly noticed that the dragons had keen night vision but were sensitive to bright sun. The world where I was going must be very dark, and I would live there forever, guarding Himika. I couldn’t leave her alone in such a place. But was I happy about it? It sounded like hell, and the dragons were tougher than me. Some guard I would be, and I couldn’t be much of a companion either, if the dragon king kept his wife close.

  Presently, the dragon king was represented by his champion. Seron was seven feet tall in his human form, or maybe I should say inhuman. He had pale, faintly bluish-hued skin and striking purple eyes that always looked exasperated, and black hair caught loosely back with a tie. His hands still had their dragon aspect, with crystalline scales and claws, and he had crystal horns sprouting from his head. All the other dragons stuck to an entirely human form most of the time.

  Seron kept a protective eye on Himika, but he didn’t get too close. He seemed like a good leader of men, but he was hard to read, and although he had been picking up our language rapidly, he didn’t speak it as well.

  I tried to learn what I could about Himika’s future husband, but the dragons all unanimously told me he was a good, strong king who also liked a bit of fun. They emphasized his strength as if in protest. In fact, I suspected he was a weak king, and that worried me, because one branch of dragons was in opposition to him. If they overthrew King Aurekdel, what would become of Himika?

  “They say he’s been blind since he was a little boy.” Himika poked at the evening fire, a week into our journey. “Rin seemed to think we would get along just because I’ve been crippled since I was a little girl. Because that’s all you do when you’re crippled, find other people who suffer similarly and complain with them!” She sighed. “I don’t even want to talk about how useless I am. But then, if this works, I’ll be cured, and then what do I say?”

  “That is awkward.”

  “Very awkward.”

  “You’ll still have your ugly foot to complain about. Your words, not mine.”

  She lifted her foot menacingly and waved it at me. “How would you like my ugly foot in your face?”

  “Bring it on.” I made a beckoning gesture at her like I wanted to fight.

  She laughed but then it collapsed into a frown. “When I see blind children at the orphanage, they…they are very awkward sometimes. I’m afraid he’ll be clumsy and groping. Those children were always…a little frightening to me, coming up to me all…” She mimicking groping at my shirt.

  I didn’t like this image myself. “You said he lost his sight as a child?”

  “Yes.”

  “So it wasn’t in a battle?”

  She nodded. “Rin said there was a coup on the castle when he was a baby, and his nursemaid hid him to protect him. He caught a fever and there were no healers to tend him. He was quite small…I can’t remember. Two or three years old?”

  “Maybe he’ll be comfortable with his condition. I’m qui
te sure he’ll have a better upbringing than an urchin at an orphanage. I’ve known men to lose their sight in battle. Remember Haruk?”

  “How’s Haruk doing now?”

  “I feel sorry for him, but it could happen to anyone.”

  “Yes, exactly.” She crossed her arms. “You feel sorry for him. What’s he doing now?”

  “I guess he’s home with his wife and his wounded soldiers’ pension.”

  “Name one thing he does.”

  “I don’t know! He doesn’t exactly write, now that he’s blind, but I heard about a blind soldier thatching a roof before.”

  “In other words, he’s useless! I’ve been useless all my life. I don’t want to be around any more useless people. And sometimes they let royal children get away with anything. I should know. Maybe he’ll have terrible table manners. What if his eyes look strange? I’ll have to look at him sometimes.”

  Normally, I would have said something more compassionate about a man who had suffered an injury. I knew Himika normally wouldn’t say these things either. But we needed some reason to dislike him before we’d even met him. The idea of a weak, blind king made things worse. “You don’t have to look at him.”

  “To lose one’s sight seems like a very different kind of infirmity than just to be tired all the time. I—I don’t know what I’ll do if he’s awful and I have to touch him. And if he’s…clumsy and…groping.” She swallowed, crossing her hands over her breasts. “If he touches me, even after I’m well, I’m sure he’ll be much bigger and stronger than me, and no one will defend me. No one can defend the wife of a king. It’s his duty to make me have his babies.”

  I grabbed her shoulder, my fingers digging into her skin tight. She was right. I couldn’t save her from him without putting my own life at risk. I felt positively sick. “If he hurts you, tell me.”

  “What could you possibly do, Oszin? Maybe he won’t want much to do with me… Maybe he’ll have a mistress already.”