just behind the left wing. The females in their caves howled in response to their mate’s shriek.
Chay began to feel better. Zehava was still every bit the prince he had always been, skills and cunning intact. The dragon was bleeding now, his movements and breathing labored. But the fire in his eyes was unquenched, and as he regained his footing he swerved around with death in his hot gaze.
Princess Tobin loved her children dearly, but did not feel compelled to spend her time looking after them. At her husband’s keep there were servants enough to make sure the twin boys were fed, taught, and kept out of serious mischief while their parents ran the vast estates. Here at Stronghold on their annual visit there were yet more servants happy to attend the young lords. So when she heard laughter from the main courtyard outside her windows, she assumed the boys were being entertained by one or another of the grooms. She glanced outside to find Jahni astride a dappled pony and Maarken riding a bay, each child brandishing a wooden sword at a young man who flourished a crimson cloak like dragon wings. But the twins’ playmate was definitely not one of the grooms.
“Rohan!” she called down to the courtyard. “Whatever are you doing?”
“Dragon, Mama!” Jahni shouted, waving his sword. “Watch me!” As the twins attempted to ride down the heir to the Desert Princedom, Tobin shook her head in fond exasperation. She dismissed her secretary and hurried to the staircase, muttering to herself. “Honestly! Wrapped around their fingers! A prince in his position, playing dragon for a couple of five-year-olds!” But there was affection in her voice and as she emerged from the foyer into the courtyard she laughed as Rohan, dealt a glancing blow on his “wing” by Maarken’s sword, fluttered the cloak and sank to the ground like a dying dragon.
Tobin regarded her loudly triumphant offspring with a sigh, then turned to her brother. “Do get up from there and stop playing the fool,” she scolded. He peeked up at her, bright-eyed, from under the cloak. “And as for you,” she said to her sons, “take those ponies back to their stalls and don’t come back until you’ve seen to their comfort. Your grandsire didn’t give them to you to have you neglect them.”
“I killed the dragon, Mama, did you see?” Maarken exulted.
“Yes, darling, I saw, and a very good warrior you are, too. Now, you’ll excuse the dragon while he talks with me for a while, won’t you?”
The dragon stood up and brushed courtyard dirt from his clothes. “I’ve heard it said that dragons have a taste for gobbling up princesses—the prettier the better.”
“Not this princess,” Tobin said firmly, then laughed as Rohan began to stalk her, cloak flapping. “You wouldn’t dare!”
The twins squealed with glee as he rushed forward and folded her in his cloak. Ignoring her cries of protest, he dumped her unceremoniously into the horse trough. Tobin spluttered, spat water, and glared at her brother.
“Hot as a hatching cave today,” he observed casually, and climbed in beside her.
She swept his feet out from under him with a well-placed kick. He collapsed in the knee-deep water, yelling his outrage. “Ever seen a drowned dragon?” she asked sweetly, and hastily backed off as he made a grab for her.
“You’ve just about drowned a prince!” he grinned, slicking back wet hair.
Tobin gathered up her sopping skirts and climbed out of the trough. “If you two don’t want to share a similar fate . . .” she warned her sons playfully.
It was invitation enough. They bounced off their ponies and jumped into the trough for a water fight. She gleefully joined in, helping the boys dunk Rohan thoroughly. At last—breathless, soaked, and victorious—the boys went off to tend their ponies. Rohan picked himself up and climbed out of the trough and grinned at Tobin.
“There! You’ve been looking entirely too regal and serious the last few days. Now you look human again.”
She batted at his wet blond head. “Imbecile! Come on, let’s go dry off in the garden where no one will see us. Mother will have us skinned if we drip all over her new Cunaxan rugs.”
Rohan slung a companionable arm around her shoulders as they walked through the courtyard to the garden gates. The flowers were in their best late-spring bloom and once again Tobin marveled at the miracle that had brought roses to the Desert. The transformation had begun when she was a child, and