Esofi laughed again, and this time, it came out right, except the tears were still there so she simply laughed and cried at the same time, utterly drained and completely overwhelmed. But Adale looked distinctly relieved.
“Crown Princess,” said Captain Henris, “I understand that this is a difficult time for you, but perhaps you can get out of the way so we can free Princess Esofi?”
Adale reluctantly released Esofi, and she rested her head on the grass.
“I’m sorry I struck you,” Esofi informed Henris. “I was…upset.”
Henris gave an incredulous laugh. “I’d forgotten about that. It seems a lifetime ago. Think nothing of it.”
“No,” said Esofi. “I shouldn’t have done it. It was wrong. Please accept my apology.”
“Princess,” said Henris, “I sincerely—after everything—you cannot believe I am angry because you had a moment of…” He seemed unable to find the word he sought. “Besides, if you hadn’t done it, you might not have been able to defeat the emperor before he overran the city.”
“Please,” Esofi pleaded more softly, and something in Henris’s face seemed to change.
“Very well,” he said. “I accept your apology. All is forgiven. Now let’s get the rest of these…pieces…off you.”
“Yes, please,” said Esofi. “Something is pressing into my ribs terribly.”
The last of the “pieces,” as Henris put it, were removed from her body quickly, but the odd pain remained. There were a few quiet gasps, and Esofi looked down, expecting to see something terrible, like her own entrails. But instead, nestled against her chest, wrapped in her arms, was something very warm and very large, with a curved shell that gleamed faintly in the twilight.
“What is that?” asked Adale.
“It’s an egg,” said Esofi, with the sudden suspicion that she might be dreaming. “It’s a dragon egg.”
Others were beginning to gather around, murmuring soft words of amazement.
“Where did it come from?” asked one of the Rhodian battlemages.
“Was it inside the dragon?” asked another. “Was it a…female?”
“No,” said Esofi. “No. It was…a gift. From Talcia.” Understanding blossomed in her. “Adale, we need to get married before it hatches, or it will be a bastard. I won’t have that.”
Adale looked alarmed. “I—what?”
Oh. She had forgotten. Esofi hugged the egg to her chest. “Never mind, I—never mind. Where are the twins?”
“Are you—no! No! No! No!” Adale looked around desperately. “No. No. No, no, no. I need to explain, it’s not what it looked like. Your own ladies can vouch for me. They’re the ones who broke me out!”
“Broke you out?” repeated Esofi. The healers set to work, but Esofi ignored them, even when they did something to her leg that set her entire body aflame with pain.
“The twins locked me in Albion’s room so I would miss the betrothal,” said Adale.
“Don’t be ridiculous—” began Esofi.
“I know you won’t believe me, so I’m not going to try to convince you,” Adale interrupted. “Ask Lisette or Mireille. They’re the ones who managed to find me. They got me out just in time, as the sirens went off.”
“But the twins—” Esofi protested weakly.
“They’re awful!” cried Adale. “They always have been! Ask anyone! You’ve seen how they treat people! That’s why I didn’t suggest them to you the night before Theodoar tried to duel you! I didn’t want you trapped in a marriage with one of them!”
Esofi looked up at Adale, torn between wanting and not wanting to believe her. From nearby came the sound of someone clearing her throat, and Esofi turned to look. Lisette was standing just beside Captain Lehmann, dressed in a tattered ball gown with a distinctly unhappy expression on her face.
“Lisette,” said Esofi weakly. “She’s lying, isn’t she? Isn’t she?”
Lisette merely pressed her lips together. “Do focus on recovering, Princess. I need you to get well enough for me to be able to slap you.”
THE FIRST DAY of summer was bright and beautiful, and so they spread a blanket on the lawn and took their lunch there. Adale’s friends were particularly rowdy, shouting and singing and drinking (and encouraging Mireille to join in) while Lexandrie sat at a table a few meters away and turned her nose up at them. She had been in a terrible mood ever since the twins had been politely but firmly escorted back to Valenleht, which surprised Esofi to no end.
Usually, Lisette would watch such events from some shadowy alcove or rooftop, but she seemed to have decided the time for subtlety was past. She sat at the table next to Lexandrie, quietly cleaning a hand crossbow.
At the center of it all was Esofi and Adale, the former heavily bruised and bandaged, and both extremely happy. Settled just between them was a lump of fabric the size of a housecat. It was left undisturbed, for now.
As the last song drew to a close, a long shadow fell over the blanket. “I see I’ve missed all the fun,” said a quiet voice, prompting everyone to look up.
“Theodoar!” cried Adale in delight, springing to her feet. She wrapped her arms around him in a hug and lifted him a few inches off the ground.
“Hello,” said Esofi mildly.
Theodoar blanched. “Princess. You look…ah…”
“She looks beautiful,” insisted Adale.
“The healers say all this nonsense can come off in another week,” said Esofi, gesturing to her leg. “And the bruises will fade soon enough. Honestly, I feel fine. I know I look terrible—no, don’t object, I own a mirror—but really, I’ll be perfect in time for the wedding.”
“Yes, and we’ll all shave our eyebrows in solidarity,” said Lady Brigit from somewhere in the back. Esofi picked up a half-eaten pastry and hurled it at Brigit’s face. The shrieks of laughter told her that she’d struck her target, and Theodoar gradually began to smile.
“Come sit down,” said Adale. “You haven’t met Carinth!”
“Carinth?” repeated Theodoar, but at that very moment, Adale untangled the lump of blankets, revealing a very, very small dragon with blue-gray scales and enormous golden eyes.
Theodoar gave a yelp and leapt back in shock.
“He hatched two weeks ago,” said Esofi. “I was hoping he would wait until after the wedding, but I’m not as upset as I thought I would be. Look how big he is already. It’s incredible. When he first hatched, I could hold him in one hand.”
Theodoar continued to stare, his lips moving but no sound emerging.
“Give him a gold coin and he’ll be your friend,” suggested Adale.
Esofi smacked her shoulder. “Stop telling people that! We’re trying not to encourage hoarding behavior!”
Theodoar sat down beside them, offering one hand to the baby dragon. Carinth sniffed it curiously, his little tail waving back and forth.
“What are you going to do with it? Him?” he asked.
“Well, I don’t think anyone is going to accept him as our heir,” mused Adale. “So hopefully he’ll be an ambassador. Of course, with me as a mother, he might turn out to be a wandering minstrel instead. But here’s hoping.”
“You as a mother?” repeated Theodoar with a laugh. He reached out to stroke Carinth’s back, and the baby dragon arched his spine into the touch, like a cat might.
“Don’t laugh! Who was the one who knew we had to put the egg on the fire? That was me!” Adale looked extremely proud of herself. “I read it in a book. And I also knew that we had to grind his food up into chunks, and that he’s not going to start flying until he’s about a year old, and plenty of other things that I’ve forgotten now, but I can look them up again because I know how libraries work.”
“You’re so smart,” said Esofi affectionately, pressing a kiss to Adale’s cheek. Adale wrapped her arms around Esofi and kissed her on the lips for so long that her friends began to whistle. Eventually Carinth broke them apart by climbing onto Esofi’s neck and sticking his long tongue into her ear, making her shriek.
“Rude!” Esofi scolded Carinth as they broke apart. She picked him up and held him out so that she could examine him fully. “We don’t lick people’s ears. That’s disgusting.”