Etta entered the throne room. She'd been summoned by her mother, Empress Ziedda, first of her name, sixth empress of the Greine dynasty, for a public audience. Empress Ziedda lounged on her golden dais, a picture of grace with her sea green scales tipped in gold, shining against a backdrop of an intricate mural. Each scale glowed like an ember. Steam rose from her nostrils with every breath. The air around her shimmered with magic that rolled off her like heat waves. She was the embodiment of power.

  Empress Ziedda's bondmate, a small and unassuming dragon with coal black scales tipped in dull iron sat on a lower dais. Unlike Empress Ziedda, Soulbi didn't gleam with power, preferring to keep it hidden in her core, but Etta knew Soulbi was a deadly woman. Only a handful were aware that she was the spymaster of the Empire.

  Next to her was the dragon who'd won the right to sire Empress Ziedda's next clutch, the right to lead the conquest of the next planet she discovered, and a mandate to rule over it with his future sons in Empress Ziedda's name. Consort Oudhan was a proud and fierce dragon, muscles rippling under deep red scales that smoldered with the promise of fire and death. Any male who made it through a Lekking without being maimed was a force to reckon with, but to win it required both brutality and intelligence. Oudhan didn't disappoint in either department.

  Oudhan stared at Etta with unblinking eyes. They didn't get along, but they also didn't 'not' get along. Etta never knew what he was thinking, but she did know that if the clutch he sired had a queen egg, he would forever plot Etta's demise. It wouldn't be personal, it was just the way it was. The same way her own father had plotted to end her sister queen who'd been sired by a different consort in an earlier clutch. He'd succeeded, leaving Etta, despite her issues, as the only game in town for now. He'd bought her some time with that, but Etta could tell from the tone of the room, her time was up.

  The Empire existed because wyrmhole travel existed. Only the imperial line of dragons had the ability. Unlike most draconic magic, wyrmhole magic passed only from mother to daughter. Most clutches had one queen, or brood queen. They were the only dragons capable of producing eggs. The remaining dragons in a clutch were split between males and non-queen females, known as 'sister-dragons.' Both were smaller than queen dragons, but physically stronger and more agile. Sister dragons in the wyrmhole line could make wyrmholes, but they could only travel short distances, and male dragons were built for battle. A queen's clutchmates would raise her hatchlings. Etta barely knew her mother. Her mother's clutchmates - her aunts and uncles - along with her own clutchmates, were her family.

  Etta approached the throne. In a tiny act of defiance, she waited a moment before she bent her front legs and pressed her forehead to the ground. She exhaled until her ribcage sank, then held it. This was 'the expiration' -- a customary gesture of peaceful obeisance to your betters among people possessing a myriad of deadly breath weapons. The steward took his time before announcing her, a subtle punishment as it meant it would be longer before she was granted permission for 'the inspiration.'

  "Her Imperial Highness, Princess Etta Greine, Unbound," The steward intoned. Etta's lack of accomplishments rang out in the long silence that followed as she continued to hold her exhale.

  There was a tittering around the room at the word 'unbound,' as if they didn't all already know. As if it wasn't the most talked about thing in the Empire. As if every single one of these foot-licking, nervous, scalebiters didn't titter endlessly that Etta, current holder of the title of first daughter of the matrilineal wyrmhole dragon lineage, had not found a bondmate.

  Many of Etta's aunts and uncles and clutch siblings stood around the room, some in dragon form, and some in their humanoid 'empyrean' form. They all looked sad. She had been their focus all her life and she'd let them down. Wyrmhole magic required one thing that no other magic did -- a bondmate. Until two halves of a soul were matched, two ends of a wyrmhole could not be formed, and because Etta's soul pattern was too complex, no bondmate could be found. She was defective. She would be sterilized today so her defect could not propagate and ruin the Empire.

  Having a defective offspring was an embarrassment. Her mother had thrown every resource imaginable into fixing it. She'd hosted flights and gatherings on multiple planets, parading not just Etta's unique soul pattern, but Etta herself, scales polished and claws painted and gleaming. At first it had just been with young dragons of elite standing, all eager for the position of bondmate, but none could make sense of her soul pattern.

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  Next it was the children of courtiers, and when that didn't work, her mother had opted to make mass printings of Etta's bonding pattern to distribute among all dragons. When even that didn't work, her soul pattern had been distributed among the servant races, making her defect the talk of every inferior in the galaxy.

  Bonding with a non-dragon wasn't ideal, but there was precedent among the sister dragons.

  As Etta's soul pattern wended it's way around the galaxy, it became the dream of many of the children of the inferior races to unravel Etta's soul and become the first of their species to bond with an imperial wyrmhole dragon. Sure it meant becoming the property of the throne, but it also meant luxury and protection, and more importantly, access to dragon magic. But even that had failed.

  In a last ditch effort, Etta's father, now the leader of his own conquered world, had the shamans of his newly conquered planet conduct mass rituals to try to find bondmates for his daughter, but that hadn't worked either.

  It was time for Etta to be relegated. She would be removed from the bloodline lest she weaken it and all her lavish support would disappear. She was afraid, and she was ashamed.

  "You may inspire," the Empress said. Etta took a breath and stood, every lesson in posing with dignity utilized. The stars that had been forming at the edge of her vision cleared as she inhaled.

  Etta's mother opened her maw to breathe out the relegation spell that would remove Etta's ability to make eggs and strike her from the family tree. Just as she was about to cast the spell, a swirling ring of green and copper mist formed. A green planet with a single moon stood against a backdrop of stars. There was a collective scraping and clattering of scales and muttering of voices as every dragon in attendance chattered with excitement.

  "It would seem someone has solved the puzzle of your bonding pattern, daughter," Empress Ziedda said. It was the first time she'd acknowledged their relationship in public. "Go. Retrieve your bondmate. When you return, you will have much work to do. We have need of your magic and your eggs if we are to continue running this empire."

  Etta stepped through the wyrmhole, eager to meet the other half of her soul. By tradition, this was done alone. She had never had a conversation with anyone who wasn't connected to the palace, and she wanted to make a good first impression, so she steadied her mana and made her mind voice as loud and deep as possible.

  “The contract is signed. The bond is accepted.”

  Etta felt their emotions as the bond finalized and ... something was very wrong. They weren't awed. They were terrified.

  Play it cool, Etta thought, hoping she was masking her own mind from them better than they were from her. Act like you know what you're doing and they'll calm down. She thought back to the mantra her aunts and uncles had drilled into her. "You are without equal. Behave as if you know it, and others will bend to your will."

  What she'd first taken to be a dragon in empyrean form was, in fact, not a dragon at all. It looked empyrean and seemed to be female, but was about half as tall and so skinny she knew it had to be the weakest bondmate any dragon had ever bound. The fur covered creature at it's side was even smaller. The more she tried to reassure them that she knew what she was doing, the more panic she could feel from their minds. No one had ever reacted to her like this.

  She used a soothing spell on them and it only helped a little, so she finally decided to just knock them out and see if she could figure out where she was and go from there.

  Once they were out, she closed her eyes and got her bearings. This, she was good at. She'd been taken through wyrmholes made by her bonded aunts and sisters many times, practicing everything she'd need to know when the time came.

  Her jaw dropped and an involuntary belch of flame escaped. She was no longer in her home galaxy. This was the longest wyrmhole ever made by such orders of magnitude that she doubted anyone would believe her, assuming she could even make it back home.

  Etta panicked at the thought, but before she could make the attempt to go back to her own galaxy, another wyrmhole opened in front of her. It was copper and green and had her signature just like the last one had.

  Another bondmate? Not possible, Etta thought. She was in the process of trying to convince herself to ignore it when the decision was taken out of her hands. Her wyrmhole enlarged and a cobalt blue dragon with silver tipped scales stepped through. The dragon was clearly male, with all the requisite head ridges and muscles, but at the same time this dragon was far too large to be anything but a queen. He was almost as big as Etta herself, and she was big even for a queen. This dragon moved with lethal grace, but had none of the scars that marked a dragon that had gone through Lekkings. She couldn't imagine a dragon this size not competing. He must be young.

  As their eyes met, their bond formed, and she saw his surface thoughts – and she knew she was screwed. This dragon was part of the rebellion against her mother's rule. He was the enemy and they now shared a soul. Her mother had been foolish to spread her soul mark to anyone who wanted to try to decipher it. The rebels must have planned this. They were going to use her to create their own wyrmhole lineage. She closed her eyes and prepared herself to do the only honorable thing. Even though it would kill her and her new bondmates, she prepared to end this rebel. It was the only way. She would burn this rebel dragon to ash and end all four of them in the process. Her family would never know of her sacrifice.