The Water Dragon's Bride

I have spent seventeen years preparing for the day the dragons choose their brides, mostly by finding ways to avoid being chosen. It is not that I hate dragons, I simply prefer my life without scales, fire, royal politics, or the possibility of being accidentally eaten before breakfast, and unfortunately my opinion has never been considered particularly important, especially today.

"Stand straight."

I straighten.

"Chin up."

I lift my chin.

"Stop looking terrified."

I stop looking terrified, at least with my face, though my stomach is currently attempting to escape through my shoes.

"Am I allowed to faint?"

My mother gives me a look.

"No."

"What if I faint quietly?"

"You will fall on your face."

I sigh, there goes my plan.

My dress is white, of course it is white. Apparently when the gods invented marriage ceremonies they decided the bride should look like someone wrapped a curtain around a frightened ghost. My mother has spent the whole morning fussing over me, and my hair has been brushed so many times my scalp has developed a personal grudge against her.

"Remember what I told you," she whispers. "Smile, not too much. Don't stare. Don't speak unless spoken to. Don't insult anyone."

I frown. "The last one seems unfair."

"Why?"

"Because I haven't even met them yet."

She pinches my arm, and I smile, see, I am excellent at taking advice.

The courtyard swallows us whole. Hundreds of girls press shoulder to shoulder in white, and the heat off that many bodies turns the air thick and sweet with rosewater and nerves. Somewhere a baby fusses and gets shushed. My mother's hand finds the small of my back and stays there, and I can feel her heartbeat through her palm, or maybe that's mine.

A trumpet sounds, and every girl around me straightens as I nearly jump out of my skin.

The palace doors open on hinges the size of tree trunks, and the ground hums before I see anything at all, a low note under my feet that I feel in my teeth before my ears catch up. Then the dragons walk in wearing human skin, and the whole courtyard forgets how to breathe. Even the baby stops crying.

My first thought is, oh. My second thought is, we're all going to die. Not immediately, obviously, but eventually, probably.

One of the princes smiles, and half the girls nearly collapse.

I look at my mother, expecting an eye roll to match mine, and she looks delighted instead. Ew. Traitor.

"That's Prince Kael," she says, practically squealing.

"I don't care."

"You should."

"Why?"

She sighs like a teenage girl in a very dramatic film. "He's beautiful."

"So is a sunset."

"I don't want you marrying a sunset either."

"Exactly."

The Emperor appears above us on the golden balcony, old in the specific way that makes you wonder if dragons simply keep ageing because nobody's worked out how to kill one. His robes pool around his feet like something poured rather than worn.

"Today," he announces, "our seven Wyrmlords will choose the women who will stand beside them as their brides."

Beside them, that sounds lovely, if by beside them he means somewhere within a five mile radius where I cannot be burned alive.

Kael steps forward first. He doesn't scan the crowd so much as let it come to him, chin tilted like he already knows the answer and is only confirming it out loud. A girl near the front squeals before he even opens his mouth, and he points at her, and that's it, done, she's crying and her family's crying and the crowd swallows the sound whole.

The second prince is broader, quieter, and he actually walks the length of the front row before he chooses, close enough that I catch the heat coming off him like standing near an oven door. He stops in front of a girl three rows up, says nothing, just holds out a hand, and she takes it like she's been waiting her whole life for someone to ask.

The third prince laughs before he chooses, an easy sound that makes the whole courtyard exhale, and when he picks a girl near the fountain the crowd actually cheers.

The fourth prince doesn't smile at all. He walks slowly, his gaze dragging over face after face, and the silence stretches long enough that I hear my own pulse in my ears before he finally stops and simply nods at a girl who bursts into tears on the spot.

I make myself smaller with each choosing, which is harder than it sounds, trust me. I lower my head and hope that if I become boring enough they'll skip straight past.

The fifth prince's eyes sweep the crowd and land somewhere to my left. Not on me, blessedly. I exhale.

"Thank the gods," someone whispers beside me.

I silently agree.

One more, then this nightmare is over. The sixth Wyrmlord is taller than his brothers, darker too, something sharp in his face that makes him look permanently annoyed. His gaze stops three girls to my left, and my heart stops with it before I realise he isn't looking at me at all. Thank you, gods. I almost cry.

Seven princes, six chosen, which means the last one is Rhyan, the one nobody talks about.

Well, that's not true. People talk about him constantly, just never kindly, and I hear the whispers before I see him.

"Where is he?"

"Probably hiding."

"Wouldn't you?"

He appears, and I understand immediately why nobody wants him, and immediately why they're all wrong to feel that way. Tall, broad, dark-haired, his black coat fitted perfectly with silver embroidery curling down the sleeves like waves. If he'd walked in first, they'd all be fighting over him.

Then he opens his mouth. "Sorry."

The courtyard goes silent.

He looks at the Emperor. "I was told the ceremony started at noon."

"It did."

He glances at the sun. "It's nearly afternoon."

Someone laughs, then someone else. He looks around, genuinely confused. "What?"

I bite the inside of my cheek. Don't laugh. This is a prince, a royal dragon prince, my future husband, perhaps. Actually, no, definitely not.

He walks toward what's left of us, and I watch the crowd do something strange, a tiny step back here, a shoulder turned there, nobody wanting to stand too close. He notices. His jaw tightens, and underneath the irritation I catch something else.

Hurt.

I look away.

"Rhyan," the Emperor says.

"Yes, father?"

"Choose."

His eyes move down the row, and my pulse speeds up. No, no, no, please choose someone else.

Then his gaze reaches me, and stops.