Wolf Princess Sold to the Dragon King

”The biggest danger in a library is paper cuts.”

- Sterling Emberfell, approximately thirty minutes ago.

It started at the gate of the restricted section. The librarian took one look at Guinevere and decided she didn’t belong in front of Sterling. Mistake.

”The restricted section requires authorization, My Lady.”

”She has it,” Sterling clipped. ”She’s Drakencrest. Open the gate.”

The librarian’s eyes moved from Guinevere to Sterling and the recognition was instant. ”Oh, of course, High Marshal. My apologies.”

Sterling didn’t correct him. His title had been stripped twelve hours ago, but correcting a librarian wasn’t going to fix that.

The gate opened. In the time it took Sterling to close it behind them, she had scaled a rolling ladder, grabbed a leather-bound volume, and was already back on the ground.

He ran a hand down his face.

She blurred up another on a different shelf. Down. Second book secured.

”Gwen, do you need help?” he called up during her third climb, because she was fifteen feet off the ground with two new books under one arm.

She glanced down at him. ”Oh, that’s alright, Sterling. Are you sure you have time to be in here? I know you’re busy.”

Her concern was for her bodyguard’s schedule. The question was so genuine it bordered on insulting.

”One hundred percent sure,” he replied. ”You said I could help you, remember?”

”Thanks for the reminder. Could you hold these?”

Both books came down without warning. Unexpected.

She reached for the scroll behind a case that was clearly labeled DO NOT REMOVE in three languages, hanging off the side of a ladder by what appeared to be willpower and one knee.

”One more for you,” she called down cheerfully, tossing it onto the pile in her packmule’s arms.

Her attention landed on a book. Opposite shelf. Completely different ladder. A gap that no reasonable person would attempt.

Surely she wouldn’t—

She would.

She leapt, catching a different ladder with one hand and a book with the other. If she’d missed, he would have caught her. Probably.

”Found you.”

Without using any rungs, she slid to the ground, and crossed to the nearest table. Sterling set the rest of the stack down as she cracked the first book open, which was written in High Vhenarri.

Given that was a dead tongue, he assumed this was his cue. ”Do you need that translated?”

She looked up.

”No. Though testing it in a library would be bad.”

The smirk on her face and her tone were pure mischief. Like she was discussing robbing a bank and found the logistics thrilling.

”Testing what, Gwen?”

”Flame resonance cycling.”

Only a dragon with formal flame training would know that term, and she apparently picked it up between ladders.

He let the silence sit for two seconds before curiosity won. ”Can you translate that out loud?”

”Good idea,” she replied. ”You might be able to fill any gaps for me.”

She was right. He definitely would be. But he was more interested to see if she could actually read it.

”The Luminari, daughters of the Moon Goddess, were the original bearers of fire and ice,” she began. ”The gods intended the females to be vessels of flame and for males to carry the dragon shift. Only Luminari daughters carry flame’s memory, and only they may merge with it.”

Her eyes widened. ”How interesting. I didn’t know that.”

The next lines came faster. ”Let it be known that the merge is falsely named, for nothing is being joined. The flame was already part of her soul. The merge is a reckoning, where if the vessel is worthy, the gods permit the flame to wake. If she is found unworthy, her body and soul return to the fire from which they came.”

She glanced up at him. ”A bit extreme.”

”A bit,” he agreed before his expression settled into something heavier. ”Fated mates are rare in dragon culture. Merging with flame is even rarer. When I sent you, I didn’t know that outcome was possible. You’d already held Maddox’s flame in your hand and I assumed it was more of a symbolic exercise. I am sorry, Guinevere.”

Her throat bobbed once before she flashed a grin. ”It’s okay, Sterling. But if you keep being this nice I’m going to start thinking you like me.”

The playful tone vanished as she dove back in. ”Before the Third Reckoning, a sire passed his fire to every son, while his daughters’ flames were chosen by the gods before birth. The flame would manifest in adolescence, earlier in males than females, for the son’s fire is eager while the daughter’s is patient.”

The longer Sterling listened to her, the more convinced he became that this was the tip of the iceberg.

”In that era,” she continued, ”it was thought that a son born of mismatched flame would not inherit his father’s shift, for the dragon within will not bond to a vessel whose parents’ fire speaks in two different tongues.”

”How interesting,” she commented as she closed the book. Without pause she reached for the next scroll, one in a dead language older than High Vhenarri.

”You are fluent in Draethic?” Sterling asked, brows knit.

She met his gaze, eyes bright with excitement as if she’d underestimated him, not the other way around. ”Yes. Are you?”

”Yes,” he replied. ”But I have a feeling you’re faster than I am. Can you translate this one aloud too?”

A false statement. He was an expert. This was a test dressed as a compliment.

She didn’t question it. ”No problem.”

She unrolled the scroll gently.

”In the Third Reckoning, the Dragon King’s daughter was abducted by the Fae of Darkness, who believed a child born from a Luminari vessel would wield power that answered to neither god nor king. She was forced to breed with their sovereign and perished carrying his child. Her body was mounted bare in their stronghold, still glowing with the flame in her blood that would not go out, even in death.”

The longer Guinevere read, the more rigid she became. Sterling recognized the nervous tic. He had the same one.

”If you want,” he cut in. ”I can read it and give you notes.”

”It’s okay. Just a scroll.” A small smile tugged at her lips. ”For the record, ’vessel’ is my least favorite word.”

Sterling laughed, surprising himself. She didn’t react to it, already returning to the scroll.

”Within one generation, the Fae of Darkness had abducted one out of every two flame-bearing females, resulting in the extinction of forty dragon houses.”

Guinevere hesitated, then pushed forward. ”Due to no mother living long enough to bear the child, the Fae of Darkness began a practice known as Womb Harvesting, where offspring were cut from healthy mothers before they could decline, killing her in the process.”

Sterling’s blood ran cold. He had never heard this version before. Naturally, she bypassed ten thousand texts and found the most disturbing ones.

”Such children were then bred back into the Dark King’s bloodline,” she continued. ”After the Battle of Dying Light, the surviving Luminari returned their flame to the Gods in a ritual known as the Great Surrendering. From that point forth, flame and shift were given to sons.”

She rolled up the scroll gently and glanced at him. ”Did you know that?”

”No,” he answered. ”It’s rare for dark fae to be mentioned in our texts. When they are referenced, it’s because they knelt or they burned.”

”That’s not unique to dragons, Sterling,” she said with a nod. ”Normally, it’d make me wonder what the other side’s version looks like. In this case, I say, fuck their side.”

She reached for the DO-NOT-REMOVE scroll that she’d absolutely removed. It was plain compared to the others. When she unrolled it, Sterling caught a glimpse of the writing.

”Do you need help translating that?” he asked. It was a rhetorical question. Archaic Draken-Vorah was the first tongue of dragons, only taught to sons of high-blooded dragon houses and select mages.

”It looks like it overlaps with High Vellumic,” she replied. ”So I should be able to roughly translate.”

Sterling opened his mouth, then shut it. She’d cleared High Vhenarri. She’d cleared Draethic. If she could read Archaic Draken-Vorah, he was going to need to sit down.

”The gods watch the Luminari across every life she lives,” she read aloud. ”The flame shall not return to her unless two conditions are met: the male fated to her must be willing to die in her defense, and the gods must judge her soul worthy by her actions in this life.

Sterling sat.

She didn’t notice, continuing with her ’rough’ translation. ”There is no pain above the merge. A worthy vessel in a weakened physical state will not survive the flame’s return, even if it is the gods’ will. The only remedy for merge fever is the touch of the one who bears the matching flame.”

She glanced up, her voice dry as sand. ”Really? I thought it was wonderful.”

By the time Sterling’s brain caught up to the sarcasm, she was already translating the next passage.

”There is one exception to this. A male may channel flame into his mate before a merge if she dances with death, and the veil thins between this world and the next. This often manifests while in dreams, for the mind that sleeps and the mind that dies both descend toward the veil.”

Unbeknownst to Sterling, from Guinevere’s point of view, one second she was reading aloud. The next, she looked up and was standing in front of a staircase that she had no memory of walking towards.

Whispers were calling her name.

”Do you hear that, Sterling?”