Vespera climbed until the World Tree Castle lay below her wings.
The canopy spread around it in a field of pale light, branches carrying the glow outward into the night. Up here, the wind took the heat from her face and gave her enough room to turn toward Ace without a table, a servant, or a princess between them.
Ace stopped opposite her.
Pink electricity moved along her horns and the edges of her wings. Her black-and-pink battle maid dress snapped in the wind as she folded her arms, apparently prepared to wait until Vespera decided how to begin.
That composure irritated Vespera more than a challenge would have.
Black flame escaped between her teeth. She forced it away from the castle and held her position, conscious of both the collar at her throat and the contract limiting how far she could let herself go.
“Tell me Hina was lying.”
Ace looked toward the canopy, then back at her.
“About which part?”
“The dragon’s milk.”
“She was not lying.”
Vespera stared at her sister.
Ace’s wings shifted to hold her steady against a gust. The movement stirred a memory Vespera did not welcome: pink electricity cutting across black flame, her floating rings breaking under the force of an earlier clash.
Her repaired third ring turned slowly beside her.
She had no intention of losing it again because Ace found questions inconvenient.
“You gave it to a non-dragon,” Vespera said. “And involved Queen.”
“We helped raise Hina.”
“That is an explanation for feeding her. It is not an explanation for feeding her that.”
“You would not understand the situation we were in.”
“Then explain it instead of deciding I cannot.”
Ace’s jaw tightened.
Vespera moved closer, leaving enough distance that neither could mistake the movement for an attack.
“Queen Penny and Kimpy nearly made your exile permanent because of the trouble you caused in the Valley. I was sent to bring you back, and I find you helping Seraphine make her daughter more dangerous.”
“I helped make someone in my care stronger.”
“Did you see what she tried to do in the mess hall?”
“I stopped it.”
“You helped create the problem.”
Ace looked away.
The electricity along her wings brightened, then settled into thin lines.
“So everything I do begins with the assumption that I intended harm.”
“I am asking whether you considered what could happen.”
“I was trying to help my queen. To protect her daughter. You can dislike the choice without pretending there was nothing behind it.”
Vespera’s hands changed, claws extending before she caught the movement.
“And our younger sister? Did she get a choice before you involved her?”
“Queen was there. She is not incapable of deciding things because you still think of her as the youngest.”
Vespera opened her mouth, then stopped.
Below them, a slow ripple of light crossed the canopy. The castle remained far enough away that its activity had become movement without sound.
“I was sent to retrieve you,” she said. “Do you understand that? I came here trying to find a way to take you home. Then I see something like this, and I do not know whether bringing you back will start everything over again.”
Ace’s arms loosened.
“You think I have not tried?”
Vespera looked at her.
The pink current began to fade.
“I tried to come back,” Ace said. “I did not wait all this time for someone to decide they missed me.”
“When?”
“When I thought coming home might mean I was allowed to be there.”
Her voice had changed enough that Vespera’s next accusation failed to form.
Ace stared past her toward the dark beyond the canopy.
“No one would speak to me. The older ones looked through me. The younger dragons whispered and laughed because they had heard enough stories to know I was someone they could dismiss.”
“They should not have—”
“I know what they should not have done.”
Ace looked back at her.
“I could have argued with someone willing to say it to my face. Instead, I walked through a place I remembered and discovered that everyone had learned how to make room for my absence.”
Vespera’s flames died.
She had imagined retrieving a defiant sister who refused to admit she missed home. She had not imagined Ace returning alone and finding no one willing to welcome her.
“Why did you not tell me?”
“What would I have said? That I could survive a fight but could not stand another day of people pretending I had not entered the room?”
Her wings trembled once before she steadied them.
“I do not care what the Dragon Council thinks of me,” she said. “I care about you. Queen. Our sisters. That was what I wanted to return to.”
Vespera let the silence hold while she found an answer that did not excuse people she had not been there to see.
“I do not know why they chose this moment to send me,” she admitted. “I thought perhaps we could go together. That it would be different if you did not have to arrive alone.”
Ace studied her.
“That might have helped.”
“Then it can still help.”
“Perhaps.” Her attention dipped toward the castle. “But I want to take Derpy there first.”
Vespera followed her gaze.
“The Valley is not going to find him easier to understand than this empire has.”
“No. But he carries dragon authority through the calamity bond now. We cannot pretend that means nothing because he does not fit what they expect.”
“You cannot simply take him.”
“I know. It has to be his choice.”
The answer left Vespera looking at her sister for a moment longer.
Ace noticed.
“What?”
“I tried to force him once.”
“That went well, I assume.”
“The authority rejected me. It burned.” Vespera glanced at the repaired ring. “I have already learned that lesson more thoroughly than I wanted.”
“And yet you are still following him.”
“I have a contract with him.”
Ace’s expression shifted.
Vespera regretted the admission before she added the rest.
“It was sealed with a kiss.”
Ace stared, then snorted.
“No wonder you lost.”
“That is not why I lost.”
“I did not specify which argument.”
Heat returned to Vespera’s face, this time without flame. She tried to maintain her glare and failed when Ace’s mouth twitched.
A short laugh escaped her.
Ace laughed too, quietly enough that the wind almost took it.
The disagreement about Hina had not disappeared. Neither had what happened in the Valley. But Vespera could look at her sister again without seeing only the next reckless decision she would have to prevent.
“You still owe me a proper explanation about the milk,” she said.
Ace unfolded her arms.
“Over food?”
“Without Hina on the table.”
“I will do my best.”
They turned toward the castle together.
The mess hall had found a replacement table by the time they returned.
Vespera noticed the broken one being carried away and decided not to ask whether Vambasta had offered an apology. Ace collected two meals while her sister chose a place away from the busiest passage.
For a while, they ate without discussing councils, contracts, or which queen currently had the greater claim on their time.
Ace pushed a dish toward Vespera before taking the last of it.
Vespera accepted it without comment.
The small familiarity hurt more than she expected. Centuries of distance had not removed the memory of sharing a table. It had only made her forget how little effort it could take when neither of them arrived prepared to fight.
When Ace began explaining again, Vespera let her finish the first sentence.
In the throne room, Seraphine set her cup down untouched.
“Let us speak plainly. We both know why I am here.”
Vaeloria rested a hand on Derpy’s shoulder.
“I would prefer to hear your account of it.”
Derpy sat in the chair she had forced him to occupy. Riven lay supported against his chest, her small torn body carefully clear of the grimoire at his side. The collar remained warm enough that he could feel it with every swallow.
He had stopped testing how far he could move.
Seraphine looked at him before answering the queen.
“My hospitality does not include permitting your empire to abduct a calamity bearer.”
“Then you should be pleased to learn I refused an attempt to take him into military containment.”
“After your people had already taken him.”
“The capture was ordered by the War Council.”
Seraphine’s fan closed.
“How convenient that the people responsible are no longer available to discuss it.”
Amy shifted behind the dais. Lyn remained beside her, watching their mother’s hand on Derpy’s shoulder.
Vaeloria did not look back.
“The Council wanted his power for military purposes. That was not my order.”
“Yet here he sits in your husband’s place, wearing your collar.”
“I have kept him alive.”
Derpy looked toward her.
“I am not—”
The collar pulsed.
His throat closed around the unfinished words.
He could breathe, but the movement needed to speak would not obey him. He tried once, carefully, and felt the restraint tighten enough to make the attempt unmistakable.
Vaeloria’s hand remained on his shoulder.
Across the room, Vemi caught Vambasta’s attention before the wolf could step forward. Neither looked reassured by what they had just seen.
Seraphine watched Derpy’s face.
“You are making your protection very easy to understand,” she said.
“This audience is between us.”
“That appears to be the only part of the arrangement he is being allowed to learn.”
A sharp giggle cut across the exchange.
Hina sprang onto the tea table.
Cups rattled. One of the maids reached for the pot before the princess’s heel could send it over the edge.
“This is boring. You are both saying the same thing with different faces.”
“Hina, stop,” Seraphine said.
Vaeloria gave the same command almost at once.
The princess looked delighted to have obtained agreement between them.
“I want to go play.”
“You will get down,” Seraphine told her.
Hina stamped one foot. The table shuddered, and a faint distortion passed through the space above it. Derpy felt the change along his skin before he saw the light shift around her horns.
Sir Reginal approached quickly.
Hina turned away from him and leaned toward the dais.
“Does he get to play, or does the collar keep him in that chair all day?”
Pink ice formed around Vaeloria’s staff.
Petals spread beneath Hina’s feet and lifted her from the table. She kicked at the air as the floating cluster carried her toward Sir Reginal, who caught her collar and pulled her clear of the ice.
“You were told to behave,” he said.
Hina laughed as he steered her toward the doors.
“Have fun arguing over your cage boy!”
The doors closed behind them.
The maid holding the teapot set it down with both hands.
No one thanked her.
Seraphine adjusted the placement of the artifact beside her cup.
Derpy’s eyes followed it before he could stop them.
The same object had belonged to Riven. He could feel her weight against him, every careful movement of his arm chosen to avoid disturbing the torn seams.
Vaeloria noticed his attention shift.
Her fingers tightened slightly on his shoulder.
“We have established that I did not order the capture,” she said. “If you intend to make an accusation against me, make one I can answer.”
Seraphine looked up.
“Where are his companions?”
“In the palace.”
“Free to leave?”
“The security of the empire is not yours to administer.”
“Then stop presenting detention as hospitality and expecting me to admire it.”
Derpy tried to swallow. The collar allowed that much.
He wanted to tell Seraphine that he had not agreed to become hers either. He wanted Vaeloria to take her hand away. Most of all, he wanted both of them to stop using his silence as room to define him.
A whisper moved through the place where his own words had been stopped.
She has what Riven needs.
His fingers stilled against the doll.
The voice carried none of Celica’s impatience. It did not have Blight’s edge or Sinister’s amusement. It felt colder than all of them, patient enough to wait while he tried to identify it.
Look at what they are holding over you.
Derpy kept his face motionless.
Seraphine’s artifact caught the light. Vaeloria’s collar held his voice. One offered the possibility of repair; the other decided whether he could ask for it.
The whisper did not need to explain the arrangement further.
It suggested there were ways to change it.
Ways to stop waiting for permission.
Derpy felt the answer rise in himself before he knew whether it was anger or temptation. He looked down at Riven, using the smallness of her body to keep his attention on something other than the two queens.
He had already made decisions while telling himself they were for her.
That thought did not silence the voice.
It made him listen more carefully.
A seam opened along his bracelet.
Derpy looked toward his wrist. The metal shifted with a quiet click, rune-light threading through the unfolding sections. Across the room, Seraphine stopped moving her fan.
Vaeloria’s hand lifted from his shoulder.
A silver dragon construct formed beside his arm, small wings opening before it found a place to perch. Its eyes carried the familiar attention of Celica’s guardian.
Violet light gathered beside it.
The second construct took shape more slowly, its outline becoming definite as the light settled into a small dragon. Derpy felt Phantasm answer through the altered grimoire at his side.
The silver guardian looked toward Vaeloria.
The violet one faced Seraphine and the artifact in her hand.
Lyn raised her staff a fraction. Amy moved far enough from the throne that she could see both constructs clearly. Vambasta stopped struggling against Vemi’s warning grip and watched the dais.
Derpy remained seated with Riven held against him.
For once, the queens had stopped speaking.
Both were waiting to see what would answer for the man they had silenced.