Rejected by Him, Claimed by His Dragon

The ink on Sylvara's last letter still smelled like crushed winterberries.

Aeliana had read it so many times that the folds had gone soft. She read it again anyway, sitting in the fork of her favorite willow and tracing each line with her finger.

*The Imperial Lair is beautiful, little fox. The mountains reach above the clouds, and whole palaces are cut into the cliffs. The Emperor is a hard man to read, but the wedding went well. I have not forgotten my promise. When I am settled, I will beg Mother to let you come live with me. You will finally leave that cold corner of the palace. Hold on a little longer.*

The courier had arrived at dawn with mud on his boots. The letter was dated the morning after the wedding. Aeliana had carried it up the willow before the sun was high, because a tree was the only place in the kingdom where nobody could order her to leave.

She pressed the letter to her chest and smiled. In a court where blood was everything and rank was counted in tails, Sylvara had never cared that Aeliana had none. She was the only sister who had ever treated her like a person.

"Gods, I miss you," she whispered.

A scream cut through the quiet.

Aeliana's head jerked up. Below her, the ferns shook. A fox pup, about six years old, burst out of the bushes. Her coat was bright orange and she was sobbing as she ran. Behind her came a tiger as big as a cart horse, its face scarred, its yellow eyes locked on the child. It must have slipped out of the royal hunting grounds past the east wall. Nobody had ever seen one this close to the palace.

The pup tripped on a root. She turned back into a human girl as she fell and hit the dirt hard.

"Mama!" she wailed. "Mama, help! P-please!"

The tiger crouched to jump.

Aeliana dropped out of the tree.

She landed between the beast and the child. The stink of blood filled her nose. Any other fox in the kingdom would have shifted right then and met claws with claws. Aeliana had no spirit to call. She had no beast inside her, no second shape, and no tail. All she had was seven years of mornings in a training yard, a body she had built with her own hands, and the memory of the sister who had stood beside her in the cold and taught her how to fight.

"Come on then, you ugly bastard," she muttered.

The tiger lunged for her face.

She stepped left and drove her elbow into its ribs. Bone cracked. Before it could roar, she grabbed its top jaw in one fist and its bottom jaw in the other.

She pulled.

It felt like tearing a door off its hinges. She felt it all the way up her arms. When it was over, she let the heavy body drop into the dirt. Blood spattered her face and her plain gray tunic. She was barely out of breath.

She knelt beside the shaking girl and wiped the mud off her cheek. "Easy, little one. Are you hurt? Where are your parents?"

"Mei!" a voice shrieked from the trees.

A fox couple ran into the clearing. They looked at the dead tiger, then at Aeliana, and the fear on their faces was not for the tiger. The mother grabbed the girl and held her tight, as if Aeliana were the one who had been chasing her.

"Thank you... my princess," the father said. His eyes stayed on the ground. "For saving our... our daughter."

"She is safe now," Aeliana said softly. "That is all that matters."

They hurried away, but the wind carried their voices straight to her sharp ears.

"Why did she touch our child?" the mother hissed. "A princess with no spirit, strutting around like a hero. She is a curse on our bloodline."

"Quiet! She might hear you."

"Let her. How does someone with no spirit have that kind of strength? Did you see what she did to that animal? Oh gods, my poor Mei."

"Just keep walking."

Aeliana stayed where she was while the blood dried on her skin. The words did not hurt anymore. She had heard them every day since she was born. The talentless fourth princess. The unwanted one. The fox with nothing inside.

Boots pounded through the trees. A royal guard ran into the clearing, pale and sweating. He dropped to his knees and gasped for air.

"P-Princess Aeliana! You are needed... in the courtyard. Now!"

"Why? What happened?"

He could not look at her. "It is Princess Sylvara. The carriage from the Dragon Empire came back. Her... her body is inside."

"She's returned?"

"She's dead, my princess."

Aeliana stopped breathing.

Then she laughed. It was short and wrong. "That is not funny."

"Princess..."

"I got her letter this morning. This morning!" She pulled it out and held it up with a shaking hand. "She wrote to me. So how is she dead? Tell me how, you fucking liar!"

He bowed his head and said nothing.

She ran.

All the way there, her thoughts went round and round. It made no sense. Sylvara had been married for a week. Her letter had only reached her this morning, passed from courier to courier over the mountains. Nobody could write that, and then be dead and carried home so soon.

She kept running anyway. Some part of her still hoped.

Rain began to fall as she reached the courtyard. It was cold and heavy and it pounded the stones. Thousands of nobles and commoners stood shoulder to shoulder in silence. The whole kingdom had come to mourn its beloved second princess. The dragon envoys stood stiff in black and crimson. They had already given their explanation. Wereverns had attacked the carriage on the mountain road. The crowd did not look convinced.

The whispers carried through the rain.

"They say the Dragon Emperor crushed her throat in a rage," a nobleman muttered to his wife.

"It is worse than that," someone behind them whispered. "Some say he tore her apart on the wedding night."

"Ashfyre blood breeds monsters," an old woman growled, and spat in the mud. "Poor girl. Poor, sweet girl."

Aeliana pushed through the wet crowd with her eyes on the silver casket in the center. The Fox Queen stood beside it, tall and pale, without a hair out of place in the downpour.

The last prayer ended and reality slammed.

"Sylvie?" Aeliana's voice broke.

The guards stepped forward to lift the casket.

"Don't touch her!" She threw herself in front of it. "Leave her here. Just one more hour. I need to confirm her!"

"Princess, I am sorry," a guard said quietly. "There is no doubt. It is her."

"No, no, no. You are all lying." She grabbed his sleeve. "Look at me. Tell me you are lying."

A hand clamped onto the back of her head and twisted in her wet hair. It was Elowyn, the eldest princess. She forced Aeliana's face toward the casket.

"Look at her, you wretched thing. Sylvara is gone, and no amount of screaming will bring her back."

Aeliana looked.

Sylvara lay pale against the white silk, so still she looked carved from stone. There was no scratch on her face, no bruise, and no blood. There was only a high lace collar buttoned tight to her chin.

She gasped and covered her mouth as one tear fell from her eye and landed on her sister's cheek. It rolled down the cold skin and nothing changed.

"Sylvie, it's me. Get up. Please. You promised me. You promised you'll return but not like this. Get up, show them you're alive!"

Nothing changed.

"Aah!" She began hitting her chest.

Then it all came out of her in a scream. "Who did this? Who took you from me?!"

She fought the guards, wild and howling, while the whole court watched the foxless princess lose herself in the rain.

The Fox Queen finally turned to look at her. Her calm face twisted with disgust.

"Remove her from my sight."

Aeliana went still. She lifted her wet face to the woman who had given her life and never once given her love.

"Mother, please." She was crying so hard she could barely speak. "She was all I had. Let me stay. Just a little longer. I am asking you."

"You are a stain on this family," the Queen said, loud enough for everyone in the yard to hear. "Even at a funeral, you make it about your shame. I wish the Wereverns had taken you instead. Then I would not have to look at your worthless face every morning."

Aeliana's mouth opened, but nothing came out. Then, very small: "Please mother....."

The Queen turned away.

The guards dragged her off, and her boots left two crooked lines in the mud. They marched her down dark halls and threw her into the abandoned eastern wing. The oak door slammed. The key turned.

Silence.

Aeliana slowly slid down the wall and pulled her knees to her chest.

"You said hold on," she whispered to the dark. "I held on, Sylvie. I held on, and you did not come." She pressed her fist against her mouth. "Gods, it hurts. It hurts so much."

She cried until she had no voice left.

Then she wiped her face and sat up. Her voice was low and steady.

"Someone put you in that box. I do not know who yet. But I will find them." She swallowed. "And I am going to fucking ruin them."

Footsteps broke the silence.

The lock clicked. A maid slipped in and bowed low. "Her Majesty summons you, Your Highness."

Aeliana's face remained neutral. "What does she want now?"

The maid kept her eyes on the floor. "The Dragon delegation has not left, Princess. The envoys say the marriage treaty must be honored."

Aeliana was on her feet before she knew it. "What?"

"Y-yes." The maid's voice shook. "They will not leave empty-handed, Princess. They demand another bride."

The maid walked ahead with a lantern. Aeliana followed, but her mind was seven years away.

She had been nine. Zarelle smashed their mother's best vase and pointed at her without even blinking. Their mother did not ask a single question. Believing the worst about Aeliana never needed proof. The punishment that followed was ugly, and afterward she sat alone on the cold floor of her room, too proud to cry where anyone could hear.

That was where Sylvara found her.

"Let me see your hands," a calm voice said.

Aeliana had pulled them back. "Why? What do you want?"

"Nothing."

"Everybody wants something."

"Then I want to sit here." Sylvara sat on the floor beside her, silk gown and all. "Is that so bad?"

Aeliana did not trust it. Kindness in that court always came with a price. But Sylvara came back the next day, and the day after that. Then one evening she said, "Do you want to learn how