“We came to rescue you. You’re our blood. No ice dragon should have to live under these conditions,” her aunt Aurelia said, looking around with a glower of disapproval. “You can come home with us.”
“I appreciate the invite, but I can’t. It wouldn’t be safe for me or you,” she said. “Humphrey Leominster is trying to claim me. His clan is much bigger than yours, and my father’s clan is backing him. My presence would put your clan in danger. Oh, and uh, also, I might be carrying Orion’s dragonlings,” she added hastily.
“So it’s true?” Maude looked dismayed.
She patted her flat, very not pregnant belly. “Could be,” she said brightly.
“You people will have to leave until Orion gets back,” Nikolai said to them.
“No, we won’t. We have the legal right to train her,” Aurelia retorted, pulling out a scroll and unrolling it triumphantly.
Draken nodded gravely.
“We need to help you catch up on all the training you’ve missed,” he said. “It’s the only way that you’ll be safe against your father. You don’t know what he and his clan do to females. Our mother suffered our father’s abuse for years, and only left when my brother and I were old enough to defend ourselves, but my brother had a lot of our father in him, I’m afraid. We’ve got other clans allied with us against him; you’ll be safe with us.”
“The fact that she’s carrying the dragonlings trumps your claim on her,” Nikolai said.
Aurelia glanced at her husband.
“We still have the legal right to train her,” she said. “So I guess we’ll just have to do it here. Please prepare a nice suite for us. If you’ve got one,” she added, looking down her nose at Cynthia and Nikolai.
“Nice burn,” Cadence said.
“Please.” Aurelia shot her a look. “We do not burn. I froze them out.”
And they marched up the steps past Nikolai as he spluttered.
“Here? Ice dragons on our land? Absolutely not!” Cynthia said furiously.
“Really? What is she, pray tell?” Aurelia said imperiously, glancing back at her niece. “An ice dragon.”
“That’s different. She’s carrying my son’s young. Maybe.”
“By the way, how long has my family been trying to get in here to see me?” Cadence demanded of Cynthia.
Cynthia avoided her eyes and didn’t answer. Nikolai cleared his throat nervously and hurried back inside. Alcott just stood back and glared.
“And you all knew this? All of you?” Cadence said furiously. “Even Orion?”
Cynthia shrugged.
Cadence felt rage boiling inside her. This was her only living family that acknowledged her. They had tried to reach out to her, and Orion and his family had blocked them because of a family feud that had nothing to do with her, or with Maude’s family for that matter. Draken and Aurelia hadn’t been involved in the fight that killed Orion’s father and crippled Alcott.
“I do not want to speak to any of you,” Cadence said. “And that includes Orion. Tell him that from me. I expect that you will find a place in the castle for my family to stay right now, and I will stay there with them. We’ll be in the south meadow, training.”
She led them around the side of the castle and into the south meadow. It was a ten-minute walk.
Servants brought out trays laden with food and set them out on picnic tables. Dragons were apparently known for their hospitality, too, even when they weren’t fond of their guests.
After their late afternoon meal, Draken and Aurelia and Cadence walked away from the picnic tables and got started with her dragon training.
They started by having her watch as several of her relatives shifted so she could observe the process and also see what her ice dragon would look like. She stood there and watched them with envy.
They made it look so easy. Maude and two of her cousins just kind of shook themselves and melted into enormous dragons; the transformation took about a minute, but she knew they were going slow for her sake.
When Cadence closed her eyes and visualized her dragon as they directed her to, the most that she came up with was a decent covering of scales running all over her body, and a nice sharp curving of her claws. That was it. No tail, no fangs, no ice blast.
“Don’t worry,” Aurelia said to her. “Your dragon genes aren’t fully dominant yet. I’ve seen this before. You’ll get there.” But her worried glance at Draken spoke volumes.
Cadence couldn’t go back to the human world – but how could she fit in here if she couldn’t access her dragon?
Cadence knelt on the grass and tried again.