Page 108 of Connor and the Dragons

“It’s intense, feeling him like this,” I said. “I was worried if he was stuck in dragon form, I wouldn’t be able to know what he was thinking.”

“Kessrin said there was no change,” Delsynarea said, tilting her head.

“Oh, that’s just a load of crap,” Oallian said. “Kessrin sometimes responds to us when neither of us have spoken aloud. Just because he’s in denial doesn’t make it not the deepest bond he’s ever felt.”

Kessrin huffed and narrowed his eyes at Oallian.

I blinked. “So that means…”

“We are bound now, until the last drop of magic is gone from us and we die, yep. Anyway, focus on the important thing. We’re having a baby! In a ballroom! Seating charts be damned.” He seemed to suddenly realize he was in a room with the reigning monarch. “Er, I mean, sorry, Your Majesty. But this is a medical emergency, is it not?”

She ignored him and swept across the room, walked up to my dragon and put her arms around his enormous stupid head.

“I am going to be an aunt,” she said. “And I’m loath to admit this but Oallian is correct. Seating charts be damned. Ball be damned. This is Kessrin’s chosen nesting space, and it shall be locked off and made as comfortable as possible for his confinement and for as long as the egg is kept there. Honestly, it’s the only room in the palace big enough to contain a dragon, so I should have thought of it sooner.”

Kessrin rumbled, low and long.

“Hush, dear. I am going to be its aunt, and I am going to spoil it thoroughly, and nobody in this kingdom is going to stop me. Not you. Not the treasury.” She had her cheek against his jaw. “I have waited four hundred years for you to want something, Kessrin Frostvael Shimmerlight, and you have gone and wanted the largest possible thing, and I could not be more pleased with you.”

His eye had gone wet. There was a lot of surface area on a dragon’s face and all of it had given up at once, and she hugged him harder and told him to stop that immediately, which did not work.

I kissed under his eye, twice, and laughed at him while I did it, because a man who had spent his whole life being the only one who never asks for anything was lying in a ballroom being fussed over by a queen and could not get away from it.

Then Delsy straightened up and blinked her eyes dry, and the practical half of her got hold of the room.

“The apartments are not finished.”

“Delsy—” Oallian said.

“They are not finished. The east room has no floor.” She was already walking. “And the courtyard outside it must be enclosed. A baby dragon will require a yard, and I will not have it climbing anything. The solstice ball moves to the long gallery.”

A footman stepped forward. “Your Majesty, the gallery seats—”

“Then it will be intimate. It will not be canceled. Pip has made me a gown, and it will be worn.” She took the list out of the steward’s hands and gave it back to him upside down. “Send to Lord Frost’s apartments and bring everything soft he owns that might be a comfort to him. Every blanket, every cushion, the contents of his wardrobes, all of it, and be quick. I will not have him lie on a stone floor for an entire week while we await the egg. He must be comfortable and warm. And find the seamstress.”

Four footmen bolted out of that room at a speed I did not know footmen had.

I turned to her, and her smile was wobbling at the corners, and I hugged her, the way you probably weren’t supposed to hug a queen. Oallian joined, piling on and surrounding both of us in his warmth. “Thank you,” I said.

“He is my family, which means you are my family. There is no need to thank me.”

“Still, thank you. And we’ll find Emberrick. Once the baby comes,” I said, stepping back from the hug.

“I’ve already been looking,” Oallian volunteered.

Kessrin growled and I glared at Oallian. “That was supposed to be a surprise for her.”

“When?” Delsynarea asked.

“It was when you and Connor got very focused on how state secrets could be passed without detection. I believe you were duplicating Kessrin’s puzzle box to build a relay system for messages that no one could open. Kess came with me to make sure I did not get lost.”

Delsynarea smiled, her eyes looking a little glassy. “I do so much appreciate that you looked. More than you can know.” Then she squared her shoulders and narrowed her eyes at Oallian. “Now that there’s an egg, there will be no flying. Understood? My nephew is the very top priority.”

He gave her a jaunty salute. “Yes, Your Majesty! Oh, and I do agree with your assessment. He is alive. My sense of him became stronger to the south, but Connor did not think we should risk venturing more than an hour’s flight with Kessrin in heat.”

She nodded, swallowing hard. “Thank you. That is more information than I had.”

“We’ll find him. I know we will,” I said.