The Dragon Emperor's Claim: His Fox Bride

The ink on Sylvara's final letter still smelled of crushed winterberries.

Aeliana had read it so many times that the folds had gone soft as cloth. She read it again anyway, from the top of her favorite willow, tracing each line with one careful finger.

*The Imperial Lair is breathtaking, little fox. Volcanic peaks pierce the clouds, and whole palaces are carved into the cliffs. The Emperor is a complicated man, but the marriage went well. I have not forgotten my promise. Once I am settled, I will beg Mother to let you come and stay with me, and you will finally leave that cold corner of the palace. Hold on a little longer.*

The letter had come by courier that very morning, dated the day after the wedding. Aeliana had climbed the willow with it before the sun was fully up, because a tree was the only place in the kingdom where nobody could tell her to leave.

She pressed the parchment to her chest, and a small, rare smile touched her mouth. Sylvara was the only sister who had ever looked at her kindly. In a court where blood was everything and rank was counted in tails, Sylvara had never once cared that Aeliana had none to count.

Gods, she missed her so much it ached.

A bloodcurdling screech ripped through the quiet.

Aeliana's head snapped up. Below, the undergrowth erupted. A tiny fox pup, no older than six, with a flawless orange coat, tore through the ferns in blind, breathless terror. Behind her, crashing through the brush with terrible speed, came a massive, scarred tiger. Its jaws dripped. Its yellow eyes were locked on the shaking little creature in front of it.

The pup tripped on a root and shifted back into a sobbing human girl mid-fall. The tiger lunged.

Aeliana was already in the air.

She landed between the beast and the child. Any other fox in the kingdom would have shifted on the spot to meet claws with claws. Aeliana had no spirit to call. She had only what she had built with her own hands, every dawn for seven years, in a training yard where a sister who was not there anymore had taught her how to be strong.

The tiger sprang for her face. She stepped aside, drove her elbow into its ribs, and a sickening crack rolled across the clearing. Before it could even roar, she caught its upper jaw in one hand and its lower jaw in the other.

She pulled.

The sound was terrible. When it was over, she dropped the heavy carcass in the dirt. Blood spattered her face and her plain tunic, but her breathing did not so much as hitch.

She turned to the trembling girl, knelt, and brushed a smudge of dirt from her cheek. "Are you hurt? Where are your parents?"

"M-Mei!" A frantic voice screamed from the tree line.

A fox couple burst into the clearing. Their eyes went from the dead tiger to Aeliana, and the horror in them was not for the tiger. The mother snatched the girl up and held her tight, as if Aeliana were the danger.

"Thank you, Princess," the father stammered, bowing out of duty. "Thank you for saving our daughter."

They hurried away. Their whispers carried back on the wind, perfectly clear to Aeliana's sharp ears.

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

"Quietly, please. She may hear you."

"Let her. The whole kingdom knows what she is. How can something with no spirit have that kind of strength? Did you see what she did to that creature?"

"Just be quiet."

Aeliana stood still as the blood cooled on her skin. The words did not sting anymore. She had heard them every day since she was born. The talentless fourth princess. The unwanted one.

Heavy boots pounded through the trees. A royal guard crashed into the clearing, armor rattling, his face pale and slick with sweat. When he saw her, he dropped to his knees.

"Princess Aeliana." His voice cracked. "You are needed in the courtyard. At once."

Dread sank into her stomach. She held Sylvara's letter tighter.

"What has happened?"

"It is Princess Sylvara." His voice shook. "The carriage from the Dragon Empire has returned. And her body is inside it."

Something twisted in Aeliana's chest, sharp and terrible.

She ran.

The whole way to the palace, the guard's words looped in her head. Sylvara could not be dead. She had married Emperor Asterion only three days ago. Her letter was still warm from the courier's satchel. Death could not have moved that fast.

She clung to the thought with every stride.

She reached the courtyard just as the heavens split open.

Cold rain hammered the crowded stones. Thousands of nobles and commoners stood in stunned, grieving silence, and the entire realm seemed to have come to mourn its beloved second princess. The dragon envoys had already given their explanation, a Werevern attack on the road. The crowd did not seem to believe it.

Poisonous murmurs slid through the storm.

A nobleman bent toward his wife. "They say the Dragon Emperor crushed her throat in a rage."

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

"The Ashfyre line has always bred monsters," an old woman muttered and spat into the mud. "Poor Princess Sylvara."

Aeliana shoved through the crowd, her eyes fixed on the silver casket in the center. The Fox Queen stood beside it, still and cold as a statue.

When the last prayers ended, the weight of it hit her all at once.

"No," she breathed. "No, no, no."

Rain plastered her white hair to her face as she stumbled forward.

"Sylvie." Her voice broke. "It cannot be true."

The guards stepped in to lift the casket, and something inside her snapped.

"Do not take her!" Her voice cracked in half. "Please, leave her here. I am begging you, do not take her away!"

A raw, animal cry tore out of her throat. Tears ran down her face and mixed with the rain. She lunged for the casket, past every guard and every barrier that stood between her and her sister.

"I have to see her. I have to know it is truly her. It cannot be. It must not be!"

A guard stepped in front of her, pity in his eyes. "Princess Aeliana, I am sorry. There is no doubt. It is the second princess."

"You are lying." She pushed past him. "All of you are lying to me."

A hard hand seized the back of her head. Zarelle dragged her face toward the casket and spoke in a low, cruel whisper.

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

Aeliana looked.

Sylvara lay pale and still, and utterly silent. A high collar of white lace hid her throat. There was no scratch on her face, no blood, no mark of any kind. She looked as though she were only sleeping.

A single tear fell from Aeliana's eye and landed on her sister's cheek. It slid down with the rain, tracing a cold path down the lifeless skin.

"Sylvara." The name came out as a whisper, then a sob, then a scream. "Who took you from me? Who took her? Who?"

She fought the guards, blind with grief, and the entire court watched the foxless princess come apart.

The Fox Queen's cold gaze turned toward the disturbance. The composed mask on her face shifted into open contempt.

"Remove her from my sight."

Aeliana went still. She lifted her tear-streaked face toward the woman who had given her life and never once given her love.

"Mother, please." It was barely a whisper. "Let me mourn her. Let me stay a little longer. I am asking you."

The Queen's lip curled. Her eyes, hard as winter stone, swept over her youngest daughter with plain loathing.

"You are a stain on this family," she said. "Even at a funeral, you make everything about your own shame. I wish the Wereverns had taken you instead. Then I would not have to see your worthless face every day."

Another tear slid down Aeliana's cheek.

She could not tell which hurt more, the cruelty of the words or the fact that the entire kingdom had heard them said.

Humiliation burned through her. The fight drained out of her limbs as the guards led her away, and her boots left faint, useless trails in the mud.

They marched her through shadowed corridors and threw her into the abandoned eastern wing. The heavy oak door slammed. The key turned with a final, merciless click.

Darkness closed around her.

Aeliana slid down the cold stone wall, drew her knees to her chest, and buried her face in her arms. In the quiet, lonely dark, she broke apart completely.

She wept for Sylvara, the only kindness she had ever known. She wept for the love she had been denied her whole life. She wept until her throat ached and her body shook.

But underneath the grief, something began to stir.

It had lain buried for years, under every insult and every cold glance. It woke slowly, and it was hot.

Revenge.

It spread through her veins like fire. She swore that whoever had done this, the crown of the Dragon Empire or anyone who had helped it, would answer for it with everything they had. She would find the truth if it took her last breath.

A soft knock broke the silence.

Aeliana raised her tear-streaked face. The lock clicked, the door opened, and a maid stepped in and bowed low.

"Her Majesty summons you, Your Highness."

Aeliana wiped her eyes on the back of her hand. Her voice came out rough and tired. "What does she want now?"

The maid kept her gaze lowered and swallowed. "The delegation from the Dragon Empire has not left. They remain within the palace."

Aeliana rose slowly, every muscle coiling tight.

"They are still here?"

"Yes, Princess. And from what they say, they will not leave empty-handed." The maid drew a breath. "They demand another bride."

Aeliana let the maid lead her through the dim corridors while her mind wandered somewhere else entirely, back seven years, to the first day Sylvara had met her.

She'd been nine. Zarelle had smashed one of their mother's prized vases and pinned the blame on her without a second of hesitation, and their mother had believed it instantly, because believing the worst about Aeliana never required proof. The punishment that followed had not been a kind one.

Sylvara found her afterward and offered to help her. Aeliana hadn't trusted it, not at first. Kindness in that court always came with strings attached, and she'd spent her whole life learning not to let her guard down. But Sylvara kept coming back, and eventually she'd offered something Aeliana couldn't refuse: she'd teach her to fight.

Sylvara herself hadn't grown up alongside them at all. She'd been sent away to train in the frozen peaks of Dor before Aeliana was even old enough to remember her f