I come up from the water sputtering with fright and outrage.
“Let go,” I cry, and though the hand in my hair immediately releases me, I lift my own hand in a backhanded motion and begin flinging the bath water in whip-like tendrils at my attacker.
“Ow!”
“Get out,” I scream, continuing the barrage with one hand while swiping my eyes with the other. “Get out!”
My attacker shields his face with an arm and stumbles back. I can’t hear what he—for the voice is decidedly male—is saying over the water’s lashing, or see his face between my blows, but I’ll make sure whoever it is regrets ambushing a water drawer in a tub.
“Princ—,” the man splutters, “stop—I didn’t mean—argh!”
I gasp as a spout of crimson flame arcs out and my water whips dissipate in a hiss of steam.
Leaving a panting and very wet king staring back at me. Our eyes widen on one another.
“Your Majesty,” I say, deference overtaking me in the instant before I remember he’s invading my privacy. “What are you doing here?” I demand.
He scrubs at his face like an angry cat.
“You were in here so long,” he says, flinging water onto the floor, “and I called, and I knocked. When you didn’t answer, I assumed you were in danger.”
In danger of what? Drowning in a tub? “I simply did not hear you. My head was under the water.”
“As I saw.” He scowls at me. “What were you doing?”
“I was attempting to relax, Your Majesty.”
“Relax? How can that possibly be relaxing?”
“Well, I simply hold my breath, and—”
“Hold your breath?” He eyes me with suspicion. “I knocked for some time. How long can you hold your breath like that?”
I toss a hand up in aggravation. “A couple of minutes? I don’t know. I haven’t counted in some time.”
“A couple of minutes?” He gapes at me. “Why would anyone want to spend a couple of minutes underwater?”
“It’s soothing.” I look him up and down. “That is when one is not being yanked about by their hair.”
His irritation fizzles out like a doused fire. He glances aside, fixing his gaze on the nearest wall. “I apologize, Princess. I would not have touched you in so coarse a manner had I known where else to take hold.”
Fresh alarm sends heat racing up my face as the full implication of his words strikes me.
He stood over me, and so he saw me completely and utterly naked.
“As it was,” the king continues, “the light is dim, and the water obscured your figure.” His jaw works a moment. “I thought it unwise to reach for you…unguided, even considering my concerns.”
A thread of relief trickles through me. Perhaps he didn’t see. He clears his throat.
“Did I hurt you?”
I glance up at these quieter words from him. “No,” I say. Or rather no more than Hiln did wrenching my hair into this arrangement. It’s been tugging at my scalp all day. “Did…did I hurt you?”
“No.” Still averting his eyes, he cuts a quick bow. “I apologize again, Princess. I’ll leave you now.”
He turns on his heel and stalks out the door, or rather, the opening in the wall.
The door has been ripped away, as if by the jaws of a great beast.
I finish washing, one eye on the mangled doorway all the while.
***
I emerge sometime later clutching my bundled dress in front of me and trying in vain to avoid the king’s notice.
I fail, of course.
He waits in a dark, hulking chair and, to my surprise, he appears to be reading a book. As I creep toward the pillow pallet, his eyes rise over the pages, and when they fall on me, he freezes in place.
“I apologize,” I murmur as he takes in my attire. “I didn’t bring anything else.”
In all my fretting over sharing his chambers, I forgot to ask for a change of clothing. Remembering that he didn’t take anything with him into the bathing chamber, I opened every cabinet and found a pile of outfits similar to his, and discovering the pants to be far too large, that left me the option of swathing myself in towels or wearing a lone shirt. So here I stand in one of the king’s shirts and nothing else.
“We seem to be doing a lot of apologizing this evening,” the king says, his eyes locked onto mine.
“Indeed.”
“You, however, owe me none, Princess. Whatever is mine is yours.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty.”
Ducking my head, I bolt my way to the pillow pallet. The faster I can hide myself the better. To my dismay, the pallet appears to have no blankets, only pillows. I bite my lip. I suppose I could take a blanket from the bed, though a lifetime of living with sisters has taught me that people can be particular about their bedding. Mirelle might start a war over someone touching her linens.
“Do you need something?”
I wince at the question. Why can’t he focus on his book? Still clinging to my dress, I turn to face him.
“Might there be another blanket about?” I ask in as dignified a manner as possible.
The king lowers the book to his lap. “Are there not enough on the bed? I can call for more.”
“Oh, no, that won’t be necessary.” The idea of anyone else seeing me like this is too much for an evening already fraught with embarrassment. No, I’ll simply bury myself in pillows and pray sleep comes quickly. I ease down on the largest one I can find—a behemoth of crimson silk—and begin piling smaller ones around me.
“What are you doing?”
I glance up at his tone. He sounds mystified when the answer is obvious. “I’m arranging my bed, Your Majesty.”
“Arranging your…?” He stares at me, aghast. I start as the book slams shut with a thump. “You’re not sleeping there,” he says, pronouncing the last word as if he’s speaking of a dung heap.
I blink at him. “Pardon?”
He shoots to his feet, all indignation. “My future queen sleep on the floor?” He looks appalled. “Never.”
“But, this is your room…” In my room was different. Here, I assumed he would sleep in his own bed.
He storms over, seizes the pillow in my hands, and tosses it over his shoulder. “Did you not hear me? What’s mine is yours.”
With how outraged he looks, I’m surprised to find myself near laughing. “Would that not also apply to the pillows then?”
His brows knit together. “No, not tonight. You can reclaim them again tomorrow.” He holds a hand out to me.
Stifling a smile, I take it and let him draw me to my feet. All humor fades as his eyes meet mine and I once again become aware of how little I’m wearing. My cheeks and chest and all the rest of me feel flushed, like I’m suffering from some euphoric fever. When I pull away, the king releases me without lingering, and again I feel that absurd regret as I scramble into the bed and under the covers.
I listen as the king moves about the room, snuffing the sconces first and opening one of the many chests stacked in that shadowed corner next. I wonder what he keeps in them. Surely any gold, or jewels, or the like would be kept in a royal vault, wouldn’t they?
Finally, I hear him settle amongst the pillows beside the bed. A long, distinctly uncomfortable silence, the kind that only brews in the darkness when something might be said but nothing is, ensues. The king draws in a long breath.
“So you can wield water like a weapon,” he says.
“So you can do so with fire,” I reply.
The words seem fit for the dark. I don’t think either of us wanted to admit how surprised we were in that moment. Stories said dragons breathed fire, but none mentioned the same for their human forms. I doubt the king was any better prepared to be flogged by water.
Somehow, the silence feels less oppressive afterwards. I reach out for my cat friend, but he seems to have moved on from earlier. I even feel around with my feet to see if he’s at the bottom of the bed. I wish he were here to hold. I wrap my arms around a pillow and pull it close.
Sleep doesn’t come. What does are Cora’s words from earlier.
There’ll be some who are unkind because, well, they’re not used to humans, and they had their own ideas about who the king should marry…
The speech was meant kindly, of that I’m sure. Still, as the minutes drag by, I can’t help fixating on “their own ideas about who the king should marry.” Like who?
I’m not a fool; the Dragon King may not be human, but that doesn’t mean every ruler on the continent wasn’t fighting to send their daughters to him. An alliance with Tirenth is a powerful one indeed. No one would dare harass the country allied with the dragon kingdom.
Well, that allied country will soon be Vasna, so what does it matter what people think? It doesn’t. I roll to my other side.
“Why aren’t you asleep?” the king asks after I shift positions yet again.
“I apologize.”
He sighs. “You don’t need to apologize.” He pauses as if considering something. “You’re accustomed to sleeping alone, as am I. We will grow used to one another.”
I’m quiet at this. Mother said all kings keep mistresses and to prepare myself for that. Does his comment mean he doesn’t have them? Perhaps he only sends them away after the deed is done. The thought makes me grimace, and though the king can be, well, boorish at times, I can’t quite imagine him doing something so distasteful. Maybe I’m being idealistic, fancying him someone he isn’t to suit myself. Or maybe…
Maybe this king is different.
“Until yesterday, I’d never slept in a room with a man,” I say in response.
“It may comfort you to remember that I’m not one.”
I clap my hand over a spurt of laughter.
“Was that humorous?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“I’m glad.”
I smile in the dark, and with a final adjustment of blankets, drift off to sleep.
***
When my eyes open to morning light, I’m less surprised to sense someone beside me.
Yesterday, I’d been too shocked by the king’s presence in my bed to notice how cold desert mornings can be. Now that I do notice, the frigid air against my face makes the blankets’ warmth that much more delicious, and I burrow down deeper with a contented sigh.
That sigh turns into a sharp breath as the king lets out a groan and rolls over, his foot coming to rest against my own.
With my back to him, I can’t tell if he’s facing me or not, though what difference it makes, I don’t know. What I do know is that the feel of his skin on mine feels unreasonably nice. It’s a foot for stars’ sake.
I should move. That’s what a respectable woman would do, and that’s what I am.
I remind myself of this a full five times before making an actual attempt. Easing the blankets back, I try extricating my legs as quietly as I can.
Just as I’m about to rise, a hand clamps onto my wrist. I whip around to find a sleepy eye glaring up at me from a nest of blankets.
“Where are you going?” the king slurs.
“I thought to get up?”
He rolls his head back and forth. “Perhaps you’ve forgotten,” he says, “but a dragon never does.”
“Forgotten?” I glance about me in confusion. “Forgotten what?”
The king narrows his already squinting eyes at me. “You owe me a debt, Princess.”