Consorting with Dragons Read online

  Consorting With Dragons

  Sera Trevor

  CONSORTING WITH DRAGONS

  by Sera Trevor

  Copyright 2018 Sera Trevor

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Reproduction in whole or part of this publication without express written consent is strictly prohibited.

  * * *

  Special thanks to Chris for the inspiration, and to Kevin for his amazing proofreading skills

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  More Books from Sera Trevor

  Chapter 1

  Jasen sensed the dragons before he saw them.

  He couldn’t have explained it if someone had asked him. One moment, he was dozing in the carriage, not quite able to fall asleep due to his father’s monstrous snoring, and then a feeling of warmth blossomed in his chest. It radiated outward with each beat of his heart, until his whole body was filled with it. The feeling pulled him to the window. When he looked out, there they were—dragons. Or not there, exactly—they were off in the distance, flying over the city of Draethenper, their silhouettes dark and enormous. There were two of them, swirling together in an unearthly dance with a grace that should be impossible for creatures of their size. The sun was low in the sky, melting into oranges and reds as warm as the feeling in his chest.

  Jasen was moved in a way he had never been before. For some unfathomable reason, he decided to try to share the moment with his father. “Dad,” he said, nudging him. “Wake up!”

  The man continued to snore. After poking him a few more times, Jasen finally resorted to giving him a hard slap on his enormous stomach. He let out a snort as his eyes shot open. “Wha-what?” he slurred. “What is it?”

  Jasen gestured out the window. “Come look.”

  Slowly, his father complied. It took a few moments, but a grin tugged at his lips at last. Jasen smiled, too, pleased to share a nice moment with his father for once, but then his father said, “A-ha! We’re nearly at Draethenper, then! Excellent timing—we’re almost out of wine!”

  Jasen sighed. He should have known better than to try. “I meant the dragons. And we’ve only been on the road for two hours! How can you be out of wine already?”

  “Well, a lot of it has spilled, hasn’t it?” he said, a touch defensively. “It’s damn difficult to pour wine with all this jostling and bumping.”

  “You’re drinking it directly out of the bottle.”

  “Of course I am now. I’ve learned my lesson, haven’t I? Now, where did that damn thing run off to?” He patted around until he found the bottle he’d been working on before he’d nodded off. “Ah, here it is!” After taking a swig, he offered it to Jasen.

  Jasen looked at the last swallow in the bottle, no doubt made up of his father’s spittle as much as wine. “No, thank you.”

  His father shrugged and finished it off. He smacked his lips. “How much longer before we’re there, do you think?”

  “I don’t know. An hour or so. If it’s any longer, I’m sure you could lick the floor—that ought to sate your thirst, at least for a little while.”

  His father put a hand over his heart and rolled his eyes to the heavens. “Ah! You wound me, son! Can you blame me for being nervous, sending my only child out into the world, all on his own?”

  Jasen scowled. “This was your idea.”

  “You didn’t exactly collapse in despair when I suggested it.” He clapped Jasen on the arm. “Cheer up, son! This will be good for you.”

  “Oh yes, my best issues are at the front of your mind, I’m sure. The fact that you’ll make a fortune auctioning me off is just a pleasant afterthought, right? It has nothing to do with the fact that you’ve gambled away our wealth.”

  “I’m going to win it back,” his father sniffed. “It’s true, my luck has slumped in recent days—”

  “More like years,” Jasen mumbled.

  “These things come in cycles, my boy! The wheel will turn.”

  There was little sense in arguing about it with him, so Jasen said nothing. He rubbed his face, trying to banish his weariness. They were on the last part of a journey that had taken two weeks; their home in a back province of the kingdom of Grumhul was as rural a place as one could imagine. They had left their horses and more rustic cart at the last inn, since his father had insisted on renting a fancy carriage for their grand entrance into the city. Not that anyone was going to see them—his father had gotten so distracted by a game of cards that they left two hours later than they were supposed to.

  They were journeying to Draethenper, the city at the heart of the Draelands, which was the largest kingdom of the Allied Realms. Each year, dozens of eligible young men and women of either noble birth or sufficient means arrived to find a noble husband or wife. Over a grueling two months, they would be poked, prodded, and polished to make them as attractive as possible to potential suitors, who would arrive in the third month to begin their search for a lord- or lady-consort to wed. It would all end in a grand ball, where all engagements were announced and marriage prices were negotiated.

  And now, Jasen would be among them. It wasn’t a thought he relished. Consorts weren’t ordinary brides and grooms. As the spouse of a title-holding noble, their responsibilities were as much political as they were matrimonial. If a title-holder passed away without heirs, or with heirs who were still in their minority, their spouse was given the title. That was what had happened when Jasen’s mother had died.

  Now that Jasen was older, he could challenge his father for the title, but he didn’t particularly want to be the earl of Hogas—who would? It was a dull, backward place where nothing ever happened. Besides, he didn’t relish the responsibility. Nobles who preferred the company of their own sex could name a niece or nephew as their heir, but Jasen was an only child. Accepting the title meant that he would have to put aside his own natural inclinations toward men and marry a woman, which was not something he wanted to do—not that they could afford a bride, anyway. And so it seemed Jasen would die a bachelor, and their lands would be passed to someone else. It was just as well. Neither he nor his father were cut out to be in charge of anything.

  Since he didn’t plan on marriage, Jasen found nothing wrong with seeking his pleasure with as many people as he pleased. This might not have been too scandalous, except that his choice of partners tended to come from “common” stock. After a few unsatisfying affairs with fellow nobles, who were all snobs, he found himself preferring the company of those without titles. Out of deference to his mother’s memory, Jasen tried to keep his affairs quiet, but that all ended one day when his father caught him on his knees in front of Hans, a stable hand.

  To his surprise, his father was delighted at the discovery. Such a scandal must definitely be concealed, and what better way than to send Jasen off to the marriage market at Court, just as his father had suggested on many occasions? After all, it would have broken his poor mother’s heart to see her son’s name dragged through the mud, wouldn’t it? In other words, it was blackmail.
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br />   Well, that wasn’t completely fair. His father was right that Jasen hadn’t put up much of a fight. He had grown uneasy in Grumhul—when he was a boy, he had run freely with the children of the common folk, but as he grew older, it was assumed that he must separate himself and become a proper noble. Even his lovers acted this way. He had tried to make Hans into something more than a bed partner, but Hans had laughed him off. After all, what kind of future could they possibly have? Hans was determined to marry a nice girl and make a family. Their dalliance was only a bit of fun.

  But if Jasen didn’t belong with the commoners, he also didn’t belong with the upper class. After his mother had died when he was twelve, his education had ended, leaving him unqualified for pursuing any of the professions deemed suitable for men from noble families. Neither did he possess any magical abilities—almost no one in Grumhul did. His one advantage was his striking good looks: he had long, red hair of an unusually vivid hue, brilliant amber eyes, lithe limbs, and fine facial features with lips whose natural resting state was an alluring pout. He wanted out of Grumhul, and with beauty as his only advantageous trait, Court was his best bet. He doubted he belonged there, either, but it was worth a try.

  They rode in silence for a little while longer. Jasen kept his eyes trained on the dragons, who remained soaring above the city until the light faded. They flew off once the sun had set. Jasen wondered where they had gone. Dragons were their own creatures, not under the control of men. They could go anywhere—anywhere at all. Jasen wondered what that was like. He shut his eyes briefly and imagined where he would go if he could fly like a dragon. Some place where he belonged, although he couldn’t imagine where that would be.

  “The sun’s almost set,” Jasen observed. “We’ll be lucky to get into the city at all at this rate.”

  His father waved his hand. “It will be fine, I’m sure. Are you eager to get there?”

  “I’m eager to get out of this carriage.”

  “Oh, come now! Surely you’re at least a tad excited?”

  “Not really.”

  “Ah, you’re nervous. You shouldn’t be. You’d be a fine catch for any suitor—I suspect you’ll have your pick of them!” He stroked his beard. “I think you should try for an older man. Much older, in fact—someone who is up to his ears in gold and dying for someone to spend it on. And just think—if you find one old enough, you probably won’t even have to bed him that often!”

  Jasen groaned and put his hands over his face. “I don’t want to talk about this with you.”

  “What? I’m just being practical.” He stroked his beard some more. “Even if you find someone too old for frequent sexual congress, you might still want to emphasize your—ah, experience in bedroom matters. I imagine that would be exciting to a man looking for some fun in his twilight years. You could describe your exploits to him—send him to his grave a happy man!”

  “Please stop talking,” Jasen mumbled from behind his hands.

  His father, apparently, did not hear him, for he continued on. “I know that traditionally, the Court promotes purity, but believe me when I say that there are plenty of nobles who have little interest in such things. Why, the very first day I met your mother, we—”

  “Dad!” Jasen shouted, removing his hands from his face. “I have no desire to hear about whatever you and my mother got up to, and I also have no desire to talk about any of the rest of it, either!”

  His father held up his hands. “Sorry, sorry,” he said.

  Jasen got to enjoy five whole minutes of silence until his father started up again. “If an old man doesn’t appeal to you, you could always set your sights a little higher.” He waggled his eyebrows.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “The king, my boy—the king!”

  Jasen stared at him. “The king? You’re mad!”

  “Am I? He’s still a virile young man—thirty years old at the most. And it’s been two years since the queen consort’s death. He must find a spouse.”

  He was right. King Rilvor held two titles—not only King of the Draelands, but also the Lord of Drae, the human who was linked most closely to the dragons, and who by virtue of that fact was the supreme leader of all ten of the Allied Realms. All human magic depended on that link. While all of the royal family shared in this connection, it was the Lord (or the Lady, when there was a queen) who bore the brunt of it. It was a position of incredible power, but also incredible strain. He needed a partner to help ease his burden. If the Lord of the Drae grew too weak, humans would lose their powers. It had already started to happen—those who were dragon-blessed with magical abilities reported a weakening of their powers. Pressure was mounting for him to remarry, and in all likelihood, he would find his future spouse in this season’s Court.

  Even so, the possibility that the king might choose him was laughable. “Yes, the queen consort is dead,” Jasen said. “And she was a woman.”

  “So? There are many men who enjoy the favors of both men and women. And I’ve heard rumors.”

  “The Lord or Lady of the Drae always marries to the opposite sex. They have to produce heirs.”

  “He has four children already. And it’s not unknown for a Lord of the Drae to have a king consort instead of a queen consort, if his queen consort dies. There was King Reder.”

  “That was three hundred years ago, and it hasn’t happened since! And even if he did have an interest in men, do you honestly think the king would choose a man of the lowest level of nobility from the most backward of the back kingdoms to be his king consort?”

  “Don’t sell yourself short, son!”

  “This has nothing to do with selling myself short and everything to do with having a firm grasp on reality! The Lord of Drae hasn’t had a male consort in three hundred years, and neither fire nor fate is going to change that any time soon! Now kindly drop the subject.”

  His father shrugged. “All right, son, as you say.” And then he added, under his breath, “But stranger things have happened, is all I’m saying.”

  They lapsed into silence after that. Jasen looked out the window again, watching the sky where the dragons had been. His father’s suggestion was ridiculous—and even if it were possible, Jasen was fairly certain he wouldn’t want to be king consort, anyway. All the politics and diplomacy and being a public figure seemed overwhelming to him. On top of that, there were also four children who he would become a stepfather to. No, he was most certainly not interested in the king.

  It took even longer to get into the city than Jasen had anticipated. His father had decided not to hire a driver for their expensive carriage in order to save money, figuring that their footmen, Rodrad and Garyild, could handle it well enough. He had been wrong. Garyild was partially blind and Rodrad’s hands were arthritic, so they settled on a system in which Garyild held the reins and Rodrad shouted directions. It was amazing that they’d made it as far as they had already without an accident, but their luck eventually ran out and they ran straight into a mud-filled ditch. It took all four of them to free the carriage, and by the time they were done, they were all filthy from head to toe. They also discovered a wheel had been knocked out of place and had to be repaired. And since it was dark and none of them possessed magical ability, they had to do the whole thing by lantern light.

  Miraculously, they were able to make the repairs, by which time it was two hours after sunset. After the carriage was repaired but before they got back on the road, Jasen and his father got into a shouting argument that had begun with Jasen insisting that he should take over the driving, which his father forbade on account that it would make them look unsophisticated. From there, Jasen demanded to know why his father had chosen their two oldest servants to accompany them. After some hemming and hawing, his father confessed that he didn’t trust Jasen not to “lose control” of himself with the younger servants, which Jasen felt was ridiculous and insulting and…well, also somewhat true, because he actually had slept with quite a few of th
em—it wasn’t his fault that there was nothing else to do in their backward hellhole of a province, and besides, he thought his father was thrilled that he was such a big slut. And then his father roared at him that Grumhul was the home of the best people in the world—so what if they weren’t fancy, they had heart and he should be proud of his heritage. Jasen countered by pointing out that if his father was so proud of their heritage, why had he insisted on the fancy carriage in the first place… And so on, for another half an hour.

  All told, it was well past ten in the evening by the time they arrived at the city gates. The guards almost didn’t let them through—no one was supposed to be admitted after dark. His father blustered and threatened, throwing around his title of the earl of Hogas in the kingdom of Grumhul, as if that were somehow impressive. Incredibly, it worked, and soon their fancy carriage, now covered with mud, was on its way to Strengsend, the grand palace of Draethenper. The palace itself was only one part of Strengsend—there were dozens of different structures, gardens, and several acres of land known as a draemir, a sacred site set aside for any dragons that happened by.

  The scene from the city gates played out again at the palace gates, but they made it through there, too. Entering the palace grounds was like stepping into a dream. Even though it was night, the whole place was lit by dragon lights—glowing globes that were enchanted by the dragon-blessed to provide light. He’d always imagined them to be something like torches, but the light they provided was a much softer, unearthly glow. Strange but beautiful trees, each of a unique shape, lined the main road, along with neat rows of the loveliest flowers Jasen had ever seen. He could only imagine what it all must look like in the light of day. In the distance, he could see the magnificent palace. And he knew that beyond the palace, out of sight and up against the Ashfell Mountains, was the draemir. Jasen wondered if the dragons he saw earlier were there now.