Chapter 7
It was just as the dawn mist began to lift.
Bertrand was running hard across the drill ground, breath coming fast. Of late, his mind had been so tangled with worries that it felt as though they might burst from him at any moment.
Better to empty his head through training than sit idle in a corner, brooding.
“Ha…”
Autumn had passed, and winter had drawn close. His breath turned white in the chill air, rising and scattering.
In the middle of the parade ground, after several laps back and forth, Bertrand stopped, chest heaving.
For all that he was Knight Commander, there seemed nothing more he could do for the Empress than run himself ragged like this. The thought weighed heavily on him.
“You humans truly do not sleep much, do you.”
Following the voice, he found Zakhar standing there with a coat thrown loosely over his shoulders.
Perhaps the dragon had never been one for long mornings, or perhaps something had woken him early.
“Bertrand Godric, sir,” Bertrand said with a formal bow.
“I know,” Zakhar replied.
He knew Bertrand’s name all too well, thanks to that tiny woman who followed Henriette everywhere.
Squaring his shoulders, Zakhar looked down at him. Bertrand was by no means small in stature, yet beside Zakhar he seemed shorter by nearly a head. No wonder Bertrand’s clothes did not fit him properly.
Zakhar’s languid gaze followed him for a moment before the dragon sank heavily onto a bench at the edge of the drill ground.
“How is life in the Imperial Palace?” Bertrand asked.
“It is suffocating.”
“You seemed to be enjoying yourself in your own way,” Bertrand remarked.
“Hah. Was that a jest?” Zakhar’s tone was curt.
For all his sharpness, Zakhar held Bertrand in no small regard. Amid the foul breed of courtiers who tormented one another under the excuse of self-preservation, Bertrand was something rare.
He knew loyalty to his liege, and he knew the difference between right and wrong. That alone set him apart.
And, by human standards, he was presentable enough that finding a bride should have been no trouble at all.
Which was perhaps why Zakhar asked, quite out of the blue.
“Have you no one in your heart?”
Bertrand nearly choked on the water he had just drunk. He coughed hard, eyes wide with surprise.
“What did you say?”
“Why are you so startled? I asked if you mean to marry. From the look of you, you are of an age for it.”
“…That is my own concern.”
“What a waste. Truly.”
Zakhar clicked his tongue.
Outwardly he wore the guise of a human youth not far from Bertrand’s own age, but inside he was a dragon who had witnessed the cycles of human life and death many times over.
Beside such an old creature sat an unmarried man in his prime, and Zakhar was more than ready to dispense a lecture.
“When humans reach your age, do they not usually take a mate and start a household? Some keep several spouses, though that seems to be a royal peculiarity. One would think a woman well suited to you would have appeared long ago. It is a shame to see a man who by all rights should have married still alone. From a dragon’s view, it must be one of two things: either you have some physical defect you do not wish to show, or there is no one you love with all your heart. And you do not look physically flawed to me.”
Zakhar spoke without hesitation, saying outright what even parents might broach only with care.
“I would prefer you not speak of it further,” Bertrand said firmly, cutting him off before his feelings could show.
“Tch. Humans these days…”
Zakhar muttered, leaning back.
Bertrand, relieved to have stopped him, ran a hand through his sweat-damp hair with a long sigh.
Zakhar looked as though he would complain further, but kept his peace.
The conversation wandered without direction.
By now the cold stillness of dawn was giving way to sunlight spilling over the palace roofs. Zakhar lifted his head, catching a stray beam.
Then he felt it, a violent thud in his chest, a heartbeat that seemed to reverberate through his whole being.
The world tilted and spun. Before he could steady himself, Zakhar’s knees buckled and he sank to the ground.
“Sir Hail? Are you well?”
Bertrand was on his feet at once, moving toward him.
Zakhar clutched at his head, trying to make sense of the strange sensation.
“What is… this feeling…”
His voice was rough.
Then darkness washed over his sight, and his consciousness dropped away into some far-off void.
✮⋆˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩⋆𐙚₊˚⊹♡
At that same hour, Henriette was glaring at the receipt in her hand.
If a human gaze could set an object alight, the paper would have gone up in flames.
Neatly written on the clean sheet was the bill for Zakhar’s new ceremonial attire.
It was not the sum itself that stoked her anger, but the line beneath it: every expense related to Zakhar was being charged directly to the Empress.
Clearly Wilhelm had no intention of footing the cost himself, preferring instead to make petty reprisals for her taking a consort.
Henriette wondered idly whether even the lavish gifts for Madame Augustine, his current favourite, had been paid from her private purse.
With her usual elegant script, she signed off on the payment, forced her composure back into place, and reached for the next document.
That was when hurried footsteps sounded at the door, followed by an urgent knock.
“Enter.”
Charlotte burst in so quickly the door nearly flew from its hinges. One look at her pale, shaken face, and Henriette felt foreboding settle over her.
“Your Majesty, it is awful, Sir Hail seems… not himself!”
Zakhar? And so suddenly? Henriette asked nothing more, only snatched up her shawl and followed Charlotte at a brisk pace from the study.
Charlotte led her toward the drill ground, her expression bloodless.
Henriette arrived to find Zakhar on the ground. Yet he did not simply lie there.
He was trembling violently, a low snarl rumbling from his throat, his blue eyes burning. Patches of black scales had broken through his skin.
Bertrand was holding him down with effort, looking as though any second the dragon might break free.
Henriette stripped off her shawl and bound Zakhar’s arms without hesitation.
Reading her intent, Bertrand helped, tightening the knots until they were secure.
Zakhar’s struggle was fierce, but there was a sense of restraint in it too, as though some part of him still fought to keep control.
Henriette could not understand what was happening, but she judged that he had not entirely lost his reason.
“Bertrand, is there anywhere we can hide him? In this state, we will have to confine him.”
“There is an unused storeroom. We can keep him there until he calms.”
“I will help too!” Charlotte cried, and between the two of them they half-dragged, half-carried Zakhar toward the far corner of the grounds.
Henriette followed, keeping watch for prying eyes.
Inside the storeroom, there were leather restraints meant for securing beasts.
Henriette disliked the thought of using them on someone in human form, but there was no choice.
Bound tightly enough that he could neither escape nor thrash, Zakhar growled low in his throat, fighting the bonds.
It seemed all he could manage was to keep his human guise from unraveling entirely.
“Charlotte, see that no one enters my chambers. Tell anyone who asks that I am unwell and resting in bed.”
“Yes, Your Majesty!”
Charlotte hurried off. At least it was still early, the palace not yet fully awake.
“Bertrand, what happened?”
“I beg your pardon, but I have no idea. We were speaking of ordinary things when he suddenly collapsed.”
No warning, no sign and now this frenzy. Henriette could not make sense of it.
The only clear fact was that they had to bring Zakhar back to himself.
But how?
As she searched for a way, a memory surfaced: Emilia waking from a nightmare.
Her daughter would cling to her, sobbing that a monster was coming to devour her.
Henriette would hold her close and hum a lullaby in the dragon tongue, one her own mother had sung long ago.
Emilia never understood the words, but the soft melody always soothed her into sleep.
Henriette approached Zakhar carefully. Bertrand reached out to hold her back, but she shook her head.
She knelt before him, cupped his face in both hands. His pupils were slitted sharp and narrow, his gaze as dangerous as if he might shift into his true form at any moment.
In a calm voice, she began to sing.
[ “Do not weep, little one. A good dragon will watch over you. His whisper is softer than the spring breeze, his scales harder than stone. The shining sun and the bright full moon smile for you. Rest now in your gentle nest. When silver snow falls and red flowers bloom, my child, your deep sleep will end and we will meet again.” ]
The tender song filled the small storeroom.
Bertrand stared, and even Zakhar seemed momentarily stilled, his gaze fixed on her.
Then, without warning, he bared his teeth in rage and lunged for her.
