Izzy nodded. “See? That is quite logical.”

“You have eyes like bastard dragon,” Elina noted about Branwen. “And you were with him earlier at jail. Do you share mother? Or do all your dragon people who are not royal look alike?”

“We share mother.”

“Now you’re starting to talk like her?” Izzy asked.

“I can’t help it! The way she talks is oddly entrancing.” She took a breath. “He’s my brother.”

“I pity your soul. He is bastard. And deserves painful death. You, however, seem very nice. I am glad to know you.” She nodded at Izzy. “And you, too, dark-skinned female with big shoulders. You remind me of bear I once hunted during snowstorm. I use his pelt now on my hut floor.”

Since the females did nothing but stare at her, Elina turned and went in search of food.

Celyn caught up with his parents in the Great Hall. “Mind telling me what that was about?”

“You have a job here, Celyn,” his mother said in her most “I’m a general and you’re not” tone.

“I’d believe that, Mum, if Brannie wasn’t busy telling me in my head that you two wouldn’t let me go because you consider me weak. Do you consider me weak?”

“Of course not!” Ghleanna tapped her mate’s arm. “Tell him, Bram. Tell him we don’t consider him weak.”

“Ow, Ghleanna,” Bram whined, rubbing his poor arm.

“Tell him.”

“Because gods forbid a Cadwaladr be considered weak.”

“Yes,” mother and son said together.

“No one considers you weak, Celyn,” Bram said. “You have to know that.”

“Then what’s going on?” He stepped closer. “Brannie called me Fal. Am I Fal in this?”

Fal was Celyn’s older brother and one of the most useless dragons in the Cadwaladr Clan. He’d been sent to the Desert Land borders to guard the salt mines. Only the most worthless or corrupt troops were sent to the salt mines. And it was too horrifying a thought that Celyn might be considered a Fal.

He was not a Fal!

“First off,” Ghleanna snapped, “don’t talk about your brother that way. Fal has many . . . talents.”

“Do you pause like that when you talk of me?”

“Of course not!”

“Son,” Bram said, his hand resting on Celyn’s shoulder. “We have complete and utter faith in you.”

“Then why don’t you want me to escort that girl? It’s one of the things Cadwaladrs are called on to do all the time.”

“And we’re sure you’ll do it very well.”

Celyn reared back, horrified.

“What?” Bram asked, panicked. “What did I say?”

“That’s what you said to Fal before Uncle Bercelak had him shipped off to the salt mines.”

“Oh.” Bram glanced at Ghleanna. “Did I?”

Disgusted, Celyn turned and stalked off. He now, officially, had the worst headache of all time!

Dagmar, her dog Adda by her side, searched the library until she tracked down her nephew Frederik. She wanted to fill him in on all the latest. Not because she needed him to do anything, but because he was always a good source of rational thought in this insane household filled with a mad queen, her dragon consort, and the dragon consort’s entire bloody family.

Frederik had been left on Queen Annwyl’s doorstep by Dagmar’s older—and idiotic—brothers some ten years ago. It was something done by many a Northman when faced with a boy he didn’t know what to do with.

And, at first, Dagmar had found the boy’s presence the highest inconvenience. As Battle Lord to Queen Annwyl and Steward of Garbhán Isle, Dagmar had little time for boys who seemed tragically . . . stupid.

Yet she’d been as wrong about Frederik as her own people had been wrong about her simply because she was a woman. Frederik had not been stupid. Cursed with as poor eyesight as herself? Yes. Stupid? Oh, very far from it. In fact, he’d been much smarter than she’d been because he’d successfully hidden his keen mind from his kinsmen, forcing them to send him away rather than deal with his supposed uselessness.

But Frederik had become quite useful to Dagmar once he’d gotten some spectacles to help with his close-in sight and was given the freedom to be who he was. He was a thinker, that one. He had a talent that was nothing but a curse in the harsh Northlands, but worthy of praise in the gentler south. A smart, quick-thinking plotter. But he was never cruel. Never heartless. Simply bright and cunning.

Just like his aunt.

Unlike Dagmar, however, Frederik did manage to find the hidden warrior within. It hadn’t been easy for him. Not like it was for her other nephews, who many believed had been shot from the womb with small warhammers at the ready. Frederik had had to work much harder to get as far as he had, but—as always—he’d been very smart. He didn’t ask any of Gwenvael’s brothers for battle training. Instead, he’d approached Bercelak the Great. A bold and risky move that had impressed everyone.

Because of his bravery, many dragons and humans came to Frederik about sensitive issues that they hoped he’d bring directly to her. It should have bothered Dagmar, but it didn’t. There was something about knowing that dragons feared her the way many humans did that had a rather heady effect.

Especially considering where her life had started. As a “girl child” of the great Reinholdt. True, girls were revered in the Northlands because they were so rare, but they were also protected to the point of smothering. It wasn’t until Dagmar came to the Southlands that she’d found her home, where she could happily be her true manipulative, plotting, conniving self. And she’d found a dragon who was the perfect match for her.