Chirganon, Crown Prince of Drakeheim, quietly slipped away from the raucous feast hall. It was his eighteenth hatch day, and a banquet was being held in his honor. It was not often that the dragon king’s only son became of age and available for courting. Chir always found the formal events at the citadel to be a bit stuffy. Still, at least the cups were never empty, and the tables were overladen with the finest delicacies the land had to offer.
So he smiled a toothy grin and danced with the ladies, lordlings, and worse, their sponsors. Each was more insistent than the last that they or their child or cousin was the right match to sustain the future of Drakeheim and provide him with a suitable primary mate. Chir shuddered at the thought of the old, portly Lord Grusson. The man had boldly offered his own hand rather than that of a relative. He might have gotten somewhere had he deigned to bring his young grandson, Elison, to the feast.