As soon as we step into Dragonsbane’s cabin, I wish I’d asked Art to come with me. It’s a selfish wish—she was clearly anxious to get out of her mother’s presence—but I wish it all the same. The two men waiting there are thoroughly devoted to Dragonsbane, and it feels like I’ve walked into a trap. It isn’t the way I felt around the Kaiser and the Theyn—like a lamb in the lion’s den, as the Kaiserin said—but it isn’t so far off. I will have no allies in this room.
I am the queen, I remind myself, squaring my shoulders. I am my own ally, and that will be enough.
The men clamber to their feet when they see me, though the show of deference might, in fact, be for Dragonsbane.
Frederick, a little older than Dragonsbane, with a full russet beard and no hair at all on top of his head, leads Dra
