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The forest at the base of the mountain was unusually still, only the night birds calling once in a while and the silent swoop of bats overhead, as if the land itself was holding its breath in anticipation. Even the langur monkeys in the trees above didn't bark in alarm as the party walked slowly down the dark-shadowed path, lanterns raised to spill a meager lane of light before them.
Of their small party, Zahir alone was mounted, riding the plump docile ass he'd privately named Zahira (after himself, of course). He felt a kinship with her: just as he was being sent into the jaws of the dragons, so too was she. The donkey's eyes were blinkered and her nose covered in a bag of fragrant hay so she would not smell the beasts and try to flee as they approached the dragons' lair in the mountain. She, lucky creature, remained in blissful ignorance of the fate that awaited her there.
"Don't worry. At least for you, it will be over soon," he told her comfortingly, and patted her warm neck.
His brother Sujay, leading the donkey, turned and frowned at him. "Hush," he hissed. "We're close now. They'll hear you."
"I have heard him," came a low, amused voice out of the trees beside the path.
Zahir jumped. Sujay, a better-trained warrior than Zahir had ever been, and much more accustomed to the presence of dragons, didn't. He just lifted a hand for the other guards to halt. "King Jayendra," he greeted the empty darkness, and placed his fist over his heart. "Peace and health, king of the mountain."
"Peace and health to you, Prince Sujay, and to your family." The king of the dragons stepped out of the darkness into the circle of light cast by one of their lanterns then, and Zahir got his first look at the human form of the shape-changer who, after tomorrow, would be his husband.
In his man-form, Jayendra was tall. Taller than Sujay, probably even taller than their father, which meant he would tower over Zahir once his feet were on the ground. His skin was so dark he looked like a shadow among shadows, his hair short and sleek and black as night. He looked nearly human, except for the strange yellow of his eyes gleaming in the dark and the unnatural agelessness of his face.
He was naked to the waist, with only a short red-patterned sarong tied around his hips. Unlike any human king Zahir had ever seen, he wore no ornaments, no necklaces or earrings or bangles at his wrists. His chest was broad and strong, his shoulders thick with muscle. Old scars caught the light of the lantern for a moment, the distinct slashes of claws showing paler against his dark skin.
His face, as he inspected Zahir in return, was stern, his jaw firmly set. He didn't look displeased with his to-be-bridegroom's appearance, but then, he didn't exactly look happy, either. It was hard to tell just what he was thinking with his dark face made even darker with shadows.
He put out his hand after a moment; after a glance at his brother, Zahir took it and allowed the dragon to help him slide off of the donkey's back. Once on the ground, he had to tilt his head to look up at Jayendra, who stared back at him.
"Your brother is as beautiful as you promised, my friend," the dragon said over Zahir's head to Sujay. "But he's very short. Did you forget to feed him when he was a hatchling?"
Startlingly, Sujay chuckled. Zahir's mouth dropped open. "Zahir was a very plump baby, actually. Even now, you would be surprised how much he can eat."
"Excuse me," Zahir objected, incensed enough at his brother's betrayal and those obvious lies to forget to be in awe of the shape-changer king for a moment. "I'm right here. And I'm a perfectly average height. You're just very tall."
Jayendra's mouth quirked. "I am, indeed. Many apologies. Well met, Prince Zahir." He tilted his head down, leaning in close, and Zahir's breath caught—did Jayendra mean to kiss him? Now, before the wedding, before they'd even seen each other in the daylight?
His heart pounded crazily. His cheeks swiftly flushed. He wasn't sure whether to be appalled or thrilled.
But the dragon merely brushed his smooth cheeks against Zahir's in a strange sort of greeting, one and then the other, and lifted his head again. "You're welcome in my lands, king's son. Come," he said to Sujay and the rest of the party. "A meal is prepared, and there are guesthouses for your people to rest after your journey." He turned to look down at Zahir again with those inhuman yellow eyes. "And tomorrow, my bridegroom and I will be wed."
Zahir shivered and leaned on the placid donkey's side for support as they started again toward the mountain, with the dragon king walking by his side.
"Stop fidgeting," Sujay commanded as he tried to evade Zahir's squirming and paint his eyes dark with kajal. "Or do you want to be as soot-faced as a langur on your wedding day and disappoint your bridegroom?"
It was barely dawn, and he was already, through Sujay's cajoling and prodding, dressed in his wedding costume: fine red trousers so close-cut he wasn't sure he'd be able to walk in them, a shirt and vest colorfully embroidered, his arms and neck weighed down with so many bangles and chains he jingled whenever he moved.
"If I show up kajal-smeared and ugly, will that make him not want to marry me?" Zahir asked half-hopefully, and grabbed at the kajal pot. He almost succeeded in upsetting it over his fine costume before Sujay yanked it out of his reach.
"I don't think anything could make Jayendra change his mind once he's made it up. Besides, he already likes you. I can tell," Sujay added at Zahir's skeptical look. "He was teasing you last night, and he doesn't make jokes with people he doesn't like. He's honorable, and kind in his way, and don't tell me you didn't notice how handsome he is. And he's clever, just like you; you'll get along if you give him a chance, baby brother."
"Oh, well, since you're so in love with the dragon king, why don't you marry him then?" Zahir mocked as cuttingly as he knew how.
Maddeningly, his brother chuckled. "All right. I'll marry him in your place. Then you can be the one to tell my wife that you married me off to a king, and my children that you left their father on the mountain with the dragons." He grinned at the face Zahir made, and went on coaxingly, "Come on, my sweet peacock brother. Of all the kings Father could have sent you to marry, surely Jayendra's not the worst—"
"But surely he's the worst for me," Zahir interrupted him. His voice, embarrassingly, cracked. "Sujay, I knew Father would sell me to some king. I've always known that. And I know he's your friend, and… all right, he doesn't seem completely terrible. And," he flushed, "he is handsome. But to live in the wilderness surrounded by beasts, so far from any other humans, and absolutely no libraries or schools or bazaars. No art, no culture, no one to talk to…"
Sujay shook his head. "Don't think like that, Zahir. They're not beasts, and they do have culture, even if it isn't what you're used to. And I know this is hard on you, but we all have to do our duty."
He pushed himself to his feet and started to pace the length of the guesthouse with his hands clasped behind his back, like he was addressing his soldiers before battle. "Think of the importance of this treaty. Think of all the soldiers who died fighting Rukmini before we allied with Jayendra, and the hundreds more who will die if he pulls his dragons out of the pact. Our father needs him, and he needs you. Your marriage will keep our people safe."
Zahir knew all that already, but hearing it again made his objections feel very small and selfish. The alliance with King Jayendra turned all the dragons of his territory into a living wall between the human kingdoms and Queen Rukmini's fearful tigers to the east. It had already nearly halted her raids past their borders, and with Jayendra's people fighting beside their soldiers, the tigers had been beaten back from attempts on their borders for two seasons now.
All the dragon king had demanded in return was a royal mate to solidify the alliance and bear shape-changer heirs for him. And princes and princesses were a resource King Mahavir had and spent in abundance: that was something of a joke among his people, which even Zahir had heard whispered every time another royal betrothal was announced.
Why did King Mahavir sire fifteen children? Because he knew fourteen kings who needed consorts.
It wasn't quite true. Sujay's wife Maduri was a fellow soldier he'd been allowed to marry for love as a reward for his many battles won, and their contrary older sister Arushi had refused to marry at all, and, rumor had it, was still happily harrying bandits at the western border with half a dozen lovers and as many bastard children. But with sibling after sibling sent off to other kingdoms to seal treaties and alliances, it was close enough to true that Zahir had grown up expecting that his father would one day trade him for peace or favor as well.
He'd even planned for such a marriage, studying the languages of the nations that surrounded their kingdom, poring over every map and travel account he could find, learning as much as he could about history, diplomacy, trade, law. If he was destined to be a king's consort, he'd thought in his optimistic younger days of as recently as a moon-cycle ago, at least he could find ways to be useful that played to his strengths. Better to have a hand in the ruling of whatever kingdom he found himself in, rather than to have no purpose but to carry and raise his husband's heirs.
But here on the mountain, it seemed, that was to be his only purpose after all.
The old shape-changer priest Vasu, who'd come to Mahavir's court to inspect Zahir and negotiate the terms of the marriage contract on Jayendra's behalf, had made it very plain what his master required in a bridegroom: a fertile, virginal young prince with enough health and strength to bear many clutches of the king's eggs in hopes that one or more would hatch. Dragons were much less fertile than humans, and even with a human mate to increase their fertility, there was never a guarantee that any of the eggs would quicken and result in a live hatchling; so Zahir had read. All the stories of humans who wed dragons to bear their heirs were clear on the need to lay as many clutches as possible to increase the chances of living young.
Eggs. Clutches. Many. He pressed a hand hard to his belly, which twisted with nerves at that thought.
But what could he do? The ink was dry on the contract. There was no way out.
Zahir dropped his eyes and nodded, giving up the fight. "I know," he agreed, and sighed. "Come on, then. Finish the kajal. I wouldn't want to disappoint my bridegroom. Or Father. Or the entire kingdom. Or you."
Sujay came to kneel before him again and kissed his forehead in silent thanks. "You'll be all right," he promised. "Jayendra is a good man; he'll treat you well. And you'll have time to get to know each other after the wedding."
Later, Zahir barely remembered anything from his own wedding, during which he was too occupied with staring up into his new husband's unblinking yellow eyes and trying not to shake to notice very much. He was very aware of all those inhuman eyes staring at him: Jayendra's people surrounded them, some in their human-forms, more as sinuous black-scaled dragons, the smallest of them horse-sized, the largest and eldest (for dragons never stopped growing, he knew from the few books in the palace library about them) the size of elephants. All of them still and silent as they watched him, as though they were getting ready to pounce.
None of them looked particularly friendly, particularly the ones in dragon-form with their long scaled faces and sharp teeth glinting in their maws, and none of them had spoken a word to him. Sujay was there and wouldn't let any harm come to him, but Sujay would leave today, and after that, he would only have Jayendra to protect him from his people.
His mouth was dry as they knelt together before the altar of ancient stone, carved with suns and stars wrapped in intricate winding coils of scales. The old priest Vasu, human-formed, smeared thick orange paste over both their foreheads, sprinkled them with water and herbs, chanted words Zahir didn't hear in a low hissing voice.
Jayendra placed the white chameli-flower garland around his neck, and bent his head low for Zahir to return the gesture. His skin, when Zahir's fingertips brushed his bare shoulder, was warm and smooth.
His silence must have been all the assent that was required of him, because then he was rising to his feet with the king's hand firm in his, and all around him the dragons who were his people, now, were lifting their serpentine and human heads and roaring to the sun at its zenith.
So that was done. There was no going back now.
"I'm not going to ravish you, Prince Zahir," the dragon king said into his ear during the feast.
He was sitting beside Jayendra, letting his new husband feed him morsels of savory meat (he was trying not to think of the poor plump donkey) and sweet fruits with his fingers and not tasting a bit of it. He jerked in surprise, his cheeks flooding with heat, and turned to look up at him. "What?"
Jayendra was watching him with an amused tilt to his mouth. "You do look delectable, my bridegroom. But have no fear that I'll pounce on you before you're ready. I'm a patient dragon. I can wait until you invite me to share your bed."
Zahir swallowed, hardly relieved. He did know what he was there for. Eggs. Clutches. "And if I never do?"
The dragon king smiled at him. "Then I'll long for my husband from afar for the rest of my days."
He opened his mouth to say something about the terms of the treaty, still blushing hotly, but Jayendra popped a bit of sugared dough between his lips, and he was so surprised that he subsided and ate.
Sujay took him aside to say farewell a little later; he and his soldiers were leaving to make the journey to the north. The errand of delivering Zahir to the dragons had only been the first part of their travels.
Zahir embraced his brother for a long moment, pressing his face into his shirt to hide his tears. Sujay's arms around him were some kind of comfort, but that only made him cling harder to him. "Write to me," he demanded. "As often as you can. Don't forget about me."
"Of course." Sujay rocked him back and forth, as if Zahir were one of his children. "How could I ever forget about my cleverest and most annoying little brother?" He pulled back and made Zahir look up at him so he could brush away his tears and the kajal that had started to smear. "You'll be fine," Sujay told him with such certainty that he could almost believe it. "Give Jayendra a chance. I think you're going to be happy here."
As the sun set, Jayendra walked with Zahir into the heart of the dragons' mountain. Zahir only half-listened to his husband's directions; he was mostly occupied in staring up at the cavernous halls, carved smoothly from the stone of the mountain. The scale of it was beyond any human dwelling. Large enough for dragons in their true forms, of course, but not uncomfortable for their human forms, either.
He would have expected it to be dim, rough, and dirty inside, but the floors were even and swept as fastidiously clean as any human habitation, and the walls were veined with some strange material that glowed, pearly-white. Magic. Of course he'd known dragons had their own form of magic; it wasn't only on the strength of their size and wings and the sharpness of their claws that they were such fearsome warriors. But he had never expected their magic to be like this: useful, subtle, beautiful.
Zahir traced a hand along the wall, following a vein of that shining white peeking through the stone. It was cool to the touch, but the temperature of the hall was warm enough, heat emanating up from the floor in a way that fascinated him. He would ask about how they heated the place, once he found someone who would speak to him—
"I have a bridal gift to give you, Prince Zahir," Jayendra said, interrupting his thoughts.
"Oh," Zahir answered, stopping when his new husband did. "Really? You don't have to. I… don't have anything for you."
Jayendra waved that off with the flick of a hand. "Nevertheless." He opened a tall wooden door, smiling down at him in a way that made him feel warm all over. Zahir swallowed down his flush and glanced into the room.
"Oh," he said again, and tipped his head back to stare.
It was like nothing he'd seen before: a great round chamber like several normal rooms stacked one atop the other, stretching up as tall as the towers of his father's palace. Astonishingly, the whole room was lit from above in the blazing colors of the setting sun, which cast rays of gold and orange all the way down to the richly-patterned rugs and pillows that covered the floor. Zahir stared, open-mouthed, until Sujay nudged him forward, and he stepped inside.
"A library?" he said wonderingly. And it was: the walls were made of shelves, carven into the stone itself, spiraling up and up to the very top of the tower. A paradise of books and scrolls, more than he could read in a lifetime. He half-tripped in his haste to inspect the shelves he could reach, to run his fingers amazed over the spines of books in many languages.
"This was my mother's favorite room," Jayendra said, low, into his ear, startling him. "She loved books. She had them brought here from every corner of the world, and had the glass roof enchanted by a sorcerer from the West so that she could bask in the sun. She would read in here for hours, I'm told. She was very human sometimes, my mother. A very unusual dragon." He sounded wistful, a little sad.
Abruptly, Zahir recalled his history: that Jayendra's mother, Queen Firoz, had sickened and died when he was young; that he had become king long before he should have. He turned away from the shelf and touched his husband's arm. "I would have liked to know her," he said, not knowing quite what else to say.
"I think she would have liked you." Jayendra closed his fingers over Zahir's in a brief caress that made him feel unexpectedly warm all through his insides. "How do you like the library?"
"It's beautiful," he said, hushed by the splendor of this room and by his own shock that it existed here, among the dragons, whom he'd always read were warlike almost-beasts with no culture, no learning, no desire for books.
Jayendra smiled at him. "Good. It's yours. Do with it as you wish." He covered Zahir's lips with a warm finger when he opened his mouth to protest that it was too great a gift. "My people, with few exceptions, have little use for reading and writing, and I have never loved books as my mother did. I would rather see her library enjoyed than sit empty and unappreciated, and I want to see you happy."
Zahir stared up at him, too astonished to say a word, and Jayendra laughed at him warmly. "I do think I enjoy making you speechless, husband," he told him. "But not as much as I will enjoy making you shout someday, when you invite me to your bed."
He pressed a kiss to Zahir's forehead before he could think of anything to say to that, and turned away. "Come. Let me show you to your bedroom."
Zahir thought of that promise over the next weeks, more and more, as he found his bearings in the new world that was his home now. The dragons of the mountain still didn't speak much to him, although he came to understand that it was not rudeness but deference to the rare, treasured human consort of their king, but he managed to make friends of sorts with a few of the younger dragons once he convinced them he was only a person. None of them had much interest in learning or books, but the few hatchlings in the nursery made an excellent audience when he read aloud to them.
It wasn't so lonely in the cavernous stone halls, once he had friends to speak to. He came to appreciate the wonders of his new home: the hot water that was ingeniously routed beneath the floor and gushed out into the baths, the magical lights that glowed and dimmed at a touch, his wondrous library where he could lie all day if he chose and look up at the sun.
Jayendra was absent much of the day, flying patrols with his warriors, but he had assured Zahir there was nothing to fear; the tigers had been quiet for much of the season, and there were only a few minor skirmishes on the borders. He came back in the evenings, shifted to his man-form, and walked with Zahir in the forest after they ate together.
As Sujay had promised him, he came to know Jayendra. He wasn't human, but he was certainly a person, and he was kind, clever, thoughtful. He made Zahir laugh, and didn't shame him for his tears when he thought about his mother and siblings at home. In his man-form, he was handsome enough to make Zahir's insides squirm; in his dragon-form, his wings stretched wide enough to block out the sun overhead, his black scales glinting in the sun or nearly invisible under the moon, he made Zahir's breath catch.
And each night, as they returned to the mountain, Jayendra paused by Zahir's door and smiled at him, laid a kiss on his forehead, and went into his own room without saying a word.
Zahir lay in the soft, nearly-human bed that was his and thought about Jayendra's promise not to touch him until he was ready. He wanted, more than almost anything in the world, to find out what it would be like. To have Jayendra's tall, strong body against his; to touch him, and kiss him, and find out if the poets were telling the truth about the pleasure to be found in the marriage bed.
Even, maybe, to find out if the book in his library with the illustrations of a dragon in serpent-form and one in man-form twining together in an intimate embrace could possibly be real, or if it was only an overheated fantasy in the artist's mind.
He worked up his courage one night, two moon-cycles after their marriage, to put his hand on Jayendra's arm and stop him from turning away. "Husband," he said, which made Jayendra's eyebrows lift and his lips quirk into a smile. Zahir's cheeks grew warmer, but he was determined. "I have a bridal gift for you, as well."
"Do you?" Surprise and pleasure filled Jayendra's yellow eyes and warmed his smile. "What is it?"
"It's nothing as grand as a library," Zahir warned him, the warmth bubbling up in his own core under the heat of his husband's regard. "But I hope you'll like it anyway." He reached up with both hands to draw Jayendra's head down, and stretched up on his tiptoes until he could reach the dragon king's mouth with his own.
It was an awkwardly-strained position only for a moment; then his feet left the floor as Jayendra swept him up in his arms like Zahir weighed nothing at all. He made an undignified squawk of surprise, but the sound was lost into a slow, hot kiss that…
Well. As it turned out, the poets had not been exaggerating.
He was overheated, breathless, and dazed when Jayendra released his mouth, both finally and much too soon. "Grander," the dragon king said, his voice low and rough, while Zahir was trying to catch his breath. "Much grander than any library, husband."
Zahir nodded dazedly, clinging to him with arm and legs like a langur. "Huh," was all he could say. "Yes. But the library… is also very nice."
Jayendra chuckled and touched his forehead to Zahir's gently. "Thank you. Should I say goodnight and go to my own room now?"
The only response Zahir could make to that was to cling tighter and kiss him again, and again, until his husband got the message and carried him to bed.
Between a new outbreak of banditry in the west, and the birth of another child to his wife, and all manner of intensely wearying political concerns, it was a full year before Sujay was able to return to the mountain of the dragons. He'd had letters from Zahir, enough to assure him that his brother had settled in well and was finding the happiness he'd wished for him, but the last had been many moon-cycles ago. He wasn't sure what he would find. Despite it all, he'd still worried.
"Prince Sujay!" Jayendra greeted him in the entrance hall, landing in his familiar dragon-form with a thump. "Peace and good health, brother, be welcome in my lands." He stretched out his long, sinuous dark-scaled neck and brushed his cheek against Sujay's in a hasty dragonish greeting. "Just this week Zahir read me your letter about your latest hatchling. I don't know how you find the time to sire so many, but my congratulations, my friend. Is the child well? How is your lovely wife? Tell me all about it on the way, but do hurry. You're just in time."
"In time for what?" Sujay wondered aloud. But Jayendra had already turned, and there was nothing to do but hurry after his long strides into the heart of the mountain.
He'd never been in a dragon nursery before; he supposed there were few humans who could say they had. It was warm and humid, as warm as a mineral bath inside. The few eggs within were cushioned in their nests with elaborate care, hovered over by dragons who looked up and bowed their heads as he hurried by after their king.
Zahir looked oddly out of place among eggs and dragons, lying on his side next to one of those nests with a book propped up in front of him. He broke off reading aloud at their approach and looked up; his eyes widened, and he scrambled to his feet with a wordless, glad cry, and tears that Sujay thought were ones of joy starting in his eyes.
He was in Sujay's arms in an instant, moving so fast he didn't have time to say a thing, but it was impossible to miss the roundness of his belly beneath the simple tunic he wore, or the single egg in the nest before them, black-shelled and gleaming, the size of his fist, and rocking insistently. Clearly about to hatch.
"You…" Sujay looked over his shoulder at Jayendra, who looked as smugly satisfied as a serpentine face could look as he coiled his tail around the egg in the nest. "You have a—but you never told me!"
Zahir laughed damply into his shoulder and pulled away, shaking his head. "It's unlucky to talk about eggs before they hatch. I'm sorry, I couldn't tell you, but look at it! Isn't it perfect?" They both turned to watch the egg's shaking. "There were four that never quickened in this first clutch," he continued, pulling a face at the memory, but even that and the tears still in his eyes couldn't dislodge his smile, and he rested a hand on his rounded stomach. "At least this one is only three. I never want to do five again, I was huge by the time I had to lay. It was terrible."
"You were beautiful, my love, and graceful as any dragon," Jayendra corrected, twining his neck around to brush his cheek against Zahir's. "You are beautiful, more than ever."
Zahir stroked the dragon's neck with obvious tenderness. "You have to say that, because you're the one that made me that way." He looked up at Sujay again. "I'm so glad you're here," he told him with utter sincerity. "I want to hear all about Maduri and the children and your new little one and what's happening in the human kingdoms and I want to show you my library and the school I've started for the hatchlings and even some of the older dragons and—"
He was interrupted by a loud crack, and they both looked over to see the first split appear in the egg. Zahir gasped, drawing closer to Jayendra, who wrapped his foreleg around him as they both watched their egg avidly.
Sujay smiled at the two of them, proud, fond, and very quietly victorious for his part in the whole thing. He put his arm around Zahir, too, and kissed his forehead. "Congratulations, little brother," he told him, and added in a whisper, "and I told you so."
Zahir beamed at him, nudging into his side. "I guess you did," he agreed, and together they turned back to watch his first egg hatch.