Crown Princess Josse was having a bad day. Or rather, the former Crown Princess, according to popular consensus, and in the end, wasn't that all that mattered? She could claim to be the rightful heir all she liked, but if no-one believed her or acted as if she was, what difference did the truth make?

No doubt someone somewhere would be filling out the paperwork to make it official. Of course, Josse couldn't check, on account of the way she was thoroughly tied to a stake. Very thoroughly tied, apparently, given that the previous ten minutes of desperate struggling had failed to loosen her bonds even slightly.

The soldier who had tied them was still visible, standing off to the side of the plateau atop the hill of the Pact. Josse could see him from where she was bound. He glared back with a mix of disgust and anger. She had no idea who he was, and he obviously didn't know her personally, either. He'd never have believed the lies, if he did. That was the problem with positions of high authority; there was no way you could personally know or deal with all your subjects. If whoever the soldier reported to told him she'd committed high treason, then that's what he'd believe, whatever she tried to claim. From his point of view, anything she said would merely be the rantings of a condemned murderer.

Not that she had the opportunity to rant about anything with the rags stuffed into her mouth, bound there by more rope. Damn her brother.

Josse spotted a speck in the distance, high in the air, and for the first time of the day, was actually glad of the gag. Her twisted brother wasn't nearby, but she had no doubt he would be getting a full report later. She had no desire to give him the satisfaction of knowing that she spent her last moments screaming.

As the speck grew larger, resolving into their kingdom's official protector, her desire to not let her brother know that she died screaming morphed into a more urgent desire not to piss herself.

She gave one last desperate struggle as the dragon swooped in for a landing, the few guards permitted to set foot on the hill of the Pact averting their eyes, as the Pact required. Then came the boom as the creature landed, the ground shuddering under his impressive bulk.

Josse stared into a row of teeth, each as tall as she was, and felt quite proud that she did indeed manage not to wet herself.

The anger helped. By the terms of the Pact, this dragon should be protecting her. And yet here she was, offered up as a sacrifice. As mere food.

The dragon's lips peeled back, revealing even more teeth as the monster grinned. "Well now, this is unexpected," came a voice loud enough to vibrate every bone in Josse's body. "Not just a princess, but a virgin princess. Rare meat indeed, these days."

"Mmpf," complained Josse, blushing despite herself.

"And what does your king demand for this offering?" continued the dragon, running a claw up Josse's torso and catching her under the chin, lifting up her face as he stared into her eyes.

"Nothing, my lord," replied the unnamed guard, still staring intently at his own feet. "She is but a common criminal, offered up according to the Pact."

"Is that so?" answered the dragon, his grin widening yet further. "Then you may tell your king that I am pleased he sticks to our terms with such fervour."

"Our king is dead, my lord. She murdered him. But our first prince will succeed the throne and will continue to honour the Pact."

"Mmpf!" exclaimed Josse, shaking her head in denial. Even in her situation, she had no intention of letting the slander pass uncontested.

"Did she now?" laughed the dragon, each guffaw threatening to burst the eardrums of the present humans. "Well, who am I to complain about the way you conduct your politics if it results in me being granted food of such quality."

The dragon spoke no more, and the only sound was that of snapping wood, the princess's incomprehensible grunts abruptly cut off. Then came a great wing-beat, the wind causing the trio of guards to stagger backwards. Once they finally looked up, the dragon was a retreating outline in the sky and the princess was gone, the post she was tied to bitten off at the base.

"Good riddance," spat one of the guards.

---

Prince Doran watched the retreating shape from the window of the king's office. The room had been deliberately positioned on an upper floor, on the side of the palace such that the hill of the Pact was clearly visible, albeit at a considerable distance. The distance didn't matter much; it meant Josse had been little more than a speck, but dragons were obvious from quite a long way away, and it didn't take a telescope to see what that particular one was doing. The whole setup was probably symbolic of something, but the architect was long dead and apparently hadn't felt it important enough to record what.

"And so ends your dear sister," commented an older, greying man, watching the scene play out next to him. He had a long, wiry moustache, curling upwards at both ends without the aid of any products. As if his position on the morality alignment chart wasn't made obvious enough by his mere comfortable presence in the room, it was reinforced by the way he was twiddling it.

"Good," snapped the prince. "Whatever was she thinking, usurping my rightful position like that?"

"May I remind you that in Cruithia, the position of heir is traditionally bestowed based on merit, not age or gender. And yet you insist on describing it as your 'rightful' position."

"Of course. Doesn't the fact that she let herself fall for such a trap mean that she wouldn't be a safe monarch? What if it had been one of our neighbours, rather than me?"

"A valid point indeed, although I dare say that a foreign nation would have found it harder to gather so many high ranking, unimpeachable witnesses. But, now that the spectacle is over, shouldn't you get back to work?"

Doran glanced at the stacks of paper that covered most of the large desk in the room. "Don't we have people for that?" he asked.

"Of course. The amount of paperwork that the palace deals with each day would never fit on a single desk. That's merely the important stuff that must be dealt with personally by the monarch. Suitably advised, of course; you really don't have much more to do than sign."

Doran sighed and sat down, picking up the first document.

"A royal writ declaring all cotton farms to be exempt from any and all taxes?"

"Indeed. Cotton is rapidly becoming one of the kingdom's most vital industries, and any route to encouraging its further growth should be considered."

Doran narrowed his eyes. "Minister Wilkin... I can't help but observe that your lands are the largest producer of cotton in the kingdom, by a considerable margin."

"As coincidence would have it, that is indeed true."

"I also must observe that a better way of 'encouraging growth' would be if your competitors stopped disappearing in mysterious circumstances."

"That would indeed be nice," agreed Wilkin, giving his moustache another twiddle. "Alas, the guards still have no leads on the perpetrator, or even if there is a perpetrator. It may just be unfortunate coincidence."

"I have no objection to some minor corruption, but please try to be a little less overt," sighed the prince, taking the writ in both hands and preparing to tear.

"It's done," came Doran's voice again, except this time, it didn't come from the prince. "The dagger has been concealed in her room. You need only enter the office and raise the alarm."

Doran froze, the blood fleeing his face as speedily as if a dragon was chasing it.

"Oh, excuse me," apologised Wilkin. "I appear to have inadvertently mixed up the recording crystals in my pocket. That wasn't the one I was looking for at all. It incriminates me as much as you, after all. No, that one I've arranged to have released only upon my untimely death or disappearance. Ah, here we go."

"I have no objection to some minor corruption," declared Wilkin's pocket.

"You... You recorded... everything?" stuttered Doran.

"Of course. In this business, one must never operate without insurance."

Doran carefully put the writ down upon the desk and signed it, before starting on the rest of the pile. The irony of his earlier comment about the flaws of his sister didn't even occur to him.

---

The dragon carefully flexed a claw in flight, splitting apart the rope that held Josse's gag in place. "You look like you have something to say," he rumbled. "Best you let it out while you have the chance."

Unsure why she was flying through the air in the grip of the dragon's paw, rather than in the suffocating embrace of his stomach, she nevertheless wasted no time in spitting out the ball of rags that restricted her speech. "I'm innocent!" was the first thing she yelled. "By the terms of the Pact, you..."

"I know," interrupted the dragon. "The stench of blood is as lacking on you as the stench of man. Never have you taken a life."

"You... know? Then..." started Josse as the flame of hope ignited within her.

"Then nothing," interrupted the dragon for a second time, extinguishing the flame once more. "I know, but that doesn't mean I care."

"What? But..."

"But nothing. Did you not hear me? Why should I care what political games you fools play, as long as I benefit?"

"But... the Pact!"

"What about it? Your 'king' has made you a sacrifice, as per its terms. Why should I care for his motivation?"

"But... But..." spluttered Josse, before shaking her head. As the previous twenty-four hours had made more than apparent, common decency wasn't something she should expect from humans, let alone a dragon that considered humans nothing more than food. "I was naïve..." she muttered.

"Good. I enjoy the taste of purity. It has been centuries since I've tasted a proper virgin princess. The surrounding kingdoms all deliberately despoil their princesses these days, to discourage my raids. Add in your naivety, and you may well be the finest meat I've ever got my claws on."

"Damn you. Then answer me this: why am I still alive? If I taste so good, why haven't you eaten me already?"

"Oh? Would you pick up any old morsel you find on the floor and pop it in your mouth?" answered the dragon. "I have no idea where you've been. Speaking of, I suggest you hold your breath."

"What? Why would I..." started Josse, before the dragon rudely interrupted her for a third time, this time by letting go. Thankfully, there were no longer any guards nearby to hear the resulting scream, now unimpeded by the dirty cloth.

The scream was truncated by a loud splash as the princess impacted a beautifully clear mountain lake. Having more important things on her mind than the view, she hadn't even noticed that they'd reached the peak on which the dragon made his lair. The Dragon's Fang, the locals called it, on account of its shape and its owner. A place left to nature, since humans were not permitted to ascend its slopes.

Josse gasped as she broke back through the surface, struggling desperately to hold her face above the water. With the stake broken, she finally had some movement back, but her legs were still lashed together and her hands were tied behind her back. Treading water was barely possible and required such effort that she could never keep it up for more than a few minutes. Swimming to the shore was out of the question.

And on that lake shore, the dragon grinned again. "Every time," he commented. "Why do you all do it?"

Josse didn't answer, on account of desperately trying not to drown.

"Why do you cling so hard to life, to live only a few moments more?"

He reached out a claw, hooking Josse out of the lake and taking back to the air without giving her a chance to recover.

"Not that I resent you for it, of course. Meat needs to be fresh, so it would be troublesome if you drowned. And now that you're a little cleaner on the outside, we just need to wait for your body to clear out its disgusting waste from the inside."

He deposited the still-gasping princess on a small outcrop of a cliff; a couple of square metres of land with nothing but vertical walls on every edge. A waterfall cascaded past it, but it was otherwise featureless, leaving its occupant completely stranded.

Josse shivered as she watched the dragon leave. The climate of the area was warm, but so high up the air was still chilly, and the fact she'd just been thrown into a lake didn't help either.

"I need to dry out before the sun goes down," she muttered as she tried to drag herself back into a seated position. "I don't suppose there's a handy vine anywhere to climb?" she continued, but of course, there wasn't. The dragon would never leave her unsupervised if there was any possibility of escape. "I refuse to just sit here and starve for however long that thing wants me to, just to improve my taste. If it comes to that..."

Josse wriggled forward and glanced over the edge of her ledge, feeling a burst of vertigo at the height.

"I don't suppose there's a way of spiting that damn dragon that doesn't involve going splat?" she wondered, as she once again started work on freeing herself from her bonds.