An Accident of Dragons

Book 0: Tales of Summer

by Cheri Radke

Genres: Coming of Age

Synopsis

An unlikely lord finally meets a problem he can’t flirt his way out of in this adventurous and light-hearted queer cozy fantasy featuring pirates, dragons, kidnapping, tea, and other high-fantasy delights for readers of Rebecca Thorne, TJ Klune, Sarah Beth Durst, and Travis Baldree.

In theory, the dragoness of Summer can make any resident on her island the ruler, if the previous Lord Summer is so careless as to die without an heir. In practice, absolutely no one expected her to choose Teddy, the last lord’s middle-aged fancy man. With his quick wit, heaps of charisma, and excellent dress sense, Teddy brings plenty of virtues to his new role, but statecraft, pedigree, and decorum are not among them. That’s all right: he’s done his duty to the island, and his five-year-old daughter, Zinnia, will make a brilliant Lady Summer when her time comes.

Except when a ship of desperate mainlander thieves arrives, Zinnia’s caught in the fracas and taken hostage. Teddy jumps into the rescue mission without delay, even though his days of adventures on the mainland are long buried with his lover. But his sailors have never seen their destination, and worse, the hard-liner admiral who leads them thinks Teddy’s a worthless dandy. Against a conniving robber baron, a sorceress who’s tamed her own dragon, and ordinary people with everything to lose, the crew faces terrible odds. But with all he loves in danger, Teddy must prove there’s more to him than he’d ever intended to show.

Release date: April 28, 2026

Publisher: Erewhon Books

Print pages: 320

Sample

THE FIRST SIGN OF SOMETHING AFOOT WAS IN THE fit of my favorite evening jacket. It was not too tight across the belly, mercifully, but rather too tight across the shoulders and even in the arms. Many men would perhaps take a sanguine view of this development, but I confess I found it disconcerting. When a man is on the wrong side of forty, I suppose he has simply gotten used to the shape of his own body, allowing of course for seasonal fluctuations and changes of habit. Of late I had done nothing more strenuous than twirling ladies about the dance floor, so I harbored no delusions that this sudden muscular growth was of my own doing.

My dragon was having her own way with me, it was clear. I had known such things might occur when I entered my contract, but seven years had passed with no obvious changes to my person. I had rather thought I was too old to be affected so, that such gifts were the province of men and women who were born dragon-touched. Where would it end? Could my clothes be let out, or would I require an entirely new wardrobe to be made for me? On second thought, that did not sound so bad.

Still, I could not help but wonder about the why of the thing. Did the dragoness Summer feel I would need strength in the days to come? I did not hold with the idea that dragons are prescient in any way, but there was no question that Summer often knew a good deal more about the world and its happenings than I could ever fully account for. If she wanted me girded for a fight, well, I didn’t much savor the thought. I’ve never been a fighter. I attempted to reach out to the dragon and ascertain what she meant by all this, but she was napping and utterly disinclined to acknowledge me. So that was that.

By the time I accepted that the jacket would fit as well as it would fit for the present, I still had some leisure time ahead of my dinner engagement, so I thought I might check in on my wife. A ball to celebrate the equinox was coming up, and as we would be expected to appear prominently, I had several logistical considerations to discuss with her. Her apartment was one level above my own in the palace, so I trotted up the stone stairwell and let myself in. Though the apartment was mostly underground on three sides, the severity of the white stone walls was cheered by colorful hangings, and the furnishings reflected a practical good taste. From the western-facing wall of windows, warm golden light spilled over the scene before me.

My stepson Brook was there, a lad of sixteen—no, seventeen! I’m sure he was seventeen—studying some text or other in a focused manner. I could swear he got bigger every time I looked at him, and he now struck me as comically oversized for the delicate settee he lounged across. My own darling little Zinnia, only five years old, played on the rug with a gray tabby cat. The particular animal was not familiar to me, but I was unsurprised by its presence. Cats were always following me and Zinny around. It all looked quite homey.

Canna—that’s my lady—sat at her desk going through our official correspondence, but she set it aside at my entry and turned her attention to my thoughts on the ball. She was as capable as ever in absorbing the necessary details, despite my own rather chaotic style of imparting information. She even reminded me that we’d already gone over most of this, perhaps with an air of puzzlement over why exactly I had bothered to come. I think she suspected that I sometimes showed up out of boredom and loneliness rather than because I had true business to discuss, though that was not fair at all. Canna placed less importance on these shows of pageantry than I did, but I felt it was incumbent upon me to put on a good show for the people of Summer. It was truly the least I could do.

Canna’s only concern about the festivities involved the gown I had chosen for her. “I know I told you to pick whatever you like,” she said to me. “But I went for my fitting yesterday, and well, don’t you think it’s a bit much?”

“I’ve no idea what you mean,” I said, all honesty.

“It’s very close fitting and low-cut, isn’t it? Won’t I look a bit ridiculous, dressing like a young thing?”

“Nonsense!” I told her. “You’ve a figure as fine as anyone. I don’t see why you shouldn’t show it off. And it’s in fashion.”

“If you really don’t think it will look odd …”

“If you won’t be comfortable in it, of course we can choose something else,” I told her. “But ask yourself—why should I wish to make my wife look ridiculous? I assure you, it’s perfect, and you will look a marvel dancing in it.”

I took her hand and spun her about the sitting room, and she laughed in almost girlish delight. I always loved to make Canna laugh, for a rare pleasure is all the more to be savored.

“Besides, no one will be looking at you anyway. I’ll be right beside you, and I promise my outfit will be twice as outrageous, and I’ll be twice as pretty.” I winked at her.

Canna laughed even more. “Teddy!” she mock-chastised me.

I always liked it when she called me by name, and I was feeling rather good about the whole thing—until I caught a glimpse of Brook frowning at me. Well, let him. Why should I feel guilty about flirting with my own wife? In fact, I had a sudden inclination to spend more time with her.

“You know, I feel it’s been an age since I left the palace,” I said to her. “I thought I might go out sailing tomorrow.”

“That sounds nice,” she replied without much interest.

“Perhaps you’d like to join me?” I persevered.

“Oh.” She looked a bit quizzical. “Wouldn’t you rather take a … friend out with you?”

I knew what she meant—she was thinking of me having a lover to entertain—but I rather resented that she’d reference the idea in front of her son. The boy hated me enough as it was, and he surely knew what she was getting at as well as I did. It was all a little unfair anyway. For all my reputation as a libertine, I hadn’t been with a man in months.

“I don’t have any friends,” I ended up saying. And that was perfectly true on both the literal level and what I’d meant to convey, though it came out quite a bit more pathetic than I had intended. Still, I am nothing if not swift to recover from social missteps. “But it’s no matter. I’ll take Zinnia. You’d like to go sailing with me tomorrow, wouldn’t you, Zinny?”

Zinny looked up at me from the floor and nodded slowly, like a queen passing solemn judgment. You never knew what you were going to get with Zinny—impish terror or tranquil sage. It varied by the moment. I’d been told this was the way of things with dragon-touched children. Her little upturned face was in some ways like a perfect miniature of mine, but also entirely her own. She never ceased to amaze me.

“Good, then. Perhaps I could come back after dinner to collect her?” I asked Canna. “She can stay at mine tonight so that we can head out in the morning. And I’ll make sure to wash her hair before I bring her back.”

“Noooo,” Zinny objected. She meant about the hair, of course. My daughter would as soon let her hair turn to brambles and invite birds to nest in it, but I saw to it that the wild crown at least got washed and detangled, even if she wouldn’t let me do anything else to it. No one in Summer knew how to handle a tight curl such as ours, so I trusted no one but myself to manage her hair for her. I ignored her objection.

Canna agreed to my plan with no trouble, so with a quick kiss for Zinny and an even briefer peck for Canna, I was off.

My dinner engagement was in the Abalone Room, another three levels up, and my legs started to ache by the second stair. That was no doubt another sign of a change, for I was well accustomed to all this trotting up and down the levels of the palace, the vast underground warren built into the cliff face. Twelve levels stood between my rooms and my dragon’s sea caves, and I managed that jaunt almost daily. I wondered if I were simply dreading the dinner so much that my body rebelled.

Each quarter, the various high-ranking officers of the Sea Guard and the Home Guard gathered to discuss their state of affairs, and they all absolutely loathed having me there, quite as much as I loathed being there. I couldn’t say if the officers had always resented including Lord Summer in their discussions, or if it was just me (or perhaps a healthy dose of both). But what could they do? Claim that the monumentally massive dragon snoozing under the palace was somehow not a relevant factor in the protection and defense of the island?

As for that, well, I had my own doubts whether the dragoness Summer was as reliable a guardian of the land of Summer as most of its denizens liked to imagine. She obviously could defend the island from almost any threat, don’t mistake me. I’d no doubt she could tear a fleet of ships to pieces as casually as I might swat aside a flock of angry coots. But would she bother? Well, probably. Yes, most likely. It was not much worth worrying about, was it? And certainly not worth talking about, not by me of all people. My role was to make people feel like the dragon was friendly and under control.

The Abalone Room had once been dazzlingly grand to my eyes. A mosaic fashioned of thousands of polished abalone shells formed one continuous image of my dragoness, glittering in iridescent splendor as her sinuous form wound across the walls, the ceiling, and even over the surface of the long stone table. How important I had felt the first time I attended a council in such a room! But that sense of awe had long since given way to the banality of business.

I was the last to arrive and cursed myself for forgetting that these military types are all frightfully punctual. I wasn’t truly late, not by any civilized standard, but I imagined that they did not take such a charitable view of the matter.

Admiral Rostrum scrutinized me with particular scorn, I thought. A square-jawed, gray-haired, solidly built man, the admiral no doubt had little tolerance for my sort and scarcely made a secret of it. Very little provocation was required to prompt him to expound upon the vital importance of traditional family values to ensure the continued stability and prosperity of Summer, as if all that weren’t due to the dragon anyway. If the admiral weren’t so damned competent and well-liked, I might have been tempted to throw my weight around for once and force his early retirement. But the admiral knew his business, and truly it was none of mine, so I tolerated him on the occasions we had cause to interact.

As I took my seat at the head of the table, I made my apologies for keeping everyone waiting.

“No doubt you had other important matters to attend to, Lord Summer,” Admiral Rostrum observed as he let his gaze wander over my clothes and my perfectly coiled curls. I pretended not to catch his implication and smiled as charmingly as I could manage. Imagine being accused of being too fussy about sartorial matters while actually wearing an ill-fitted jacket.

A great deal of their business remained a mystery to me, so I knew the greater part of wisdom would be to stay silent as much as possible and absorb what I could. It was not always easy for me to abstain from conversation, but it was made simpler that day by my seemingly insatiable appetite. I could scarcely talk with my mouth full, so I ate and listened and ate and listened.

Our military was a bit of a pathetic showing, if I’m to be honest. Half a dozen ships rounded out a fleet whose main function was to chase away pirates and small-time raiders. A sparse land-based militia served even less obvious purpose, but was nevertheless well supplied with all the shiny weapons and smart-looking uniforms they could desire. Considering how unlikely it was that any nation would ever launch a full-scale assault against us and risk engagement with the dragon, this little show of military theater was deemed more than sufficient by most in Summer. But needless to say, these officers took it all very seriously.

On this occasion, they had some vague concerns about cults rising and gaining power in the otherlands, but I’d heard all that before. I’d spent some time in the otherlands myself before becoming Lord Summer, and I well knew the way those types of manias came and went like changing seasons there. The otherlands weren’t like Summer—which was steady and predictable and always comfortable—but the general malaise of such places was nothing new and nothing to fuss about.

At some point I became aware that a veritable mountain of empty oyster shells and various crustacean husks had grown in front of me, and it was attracting some curious stares from around the table. Somehow I had consumed enough for five or six men, and the worst of it was that I was still hungry. I normally have a light appetite, so I had never known this particular mortification before. Fortunately, I was intimately acquainted with so many other forms of embarrassment that I could rise to the occasion with equanimity. I offered only a chagrined shrug to the glances until the evidence could be mercifully cleared away.

The business of the evening wound down, and the officers turned to more casual conversation. Still, it was mainly centered on ships and companies and things that I had little involvement with, so my attention wandered as I sipped my brandy.

“I heard that your son is going to be joining the roster of the Godwit before long. You must be quite proud.” Captain Grace was speaking to me, without doubt, and yet I had a hell of a time making sense of it. First I had to divine that she must mean Brook, since there was no one else who might reasonably be called my son. Then there was the idea that he was joining the Sea Guard, which was very much news to me.

To cover my obvious surprise, I niggled over a detail. “The Godwit? Not the Avocet?”

“As far as I am aware, he never approached my mate regarding serving on the Avocet,” Captain Grace replied cordially—and of course she would know, as it was her ship.

“Ah, well, I must have simply assumed then, seeing as it was his late father’s ship and all,” I replied. “But then I believe in letting young people manage their own affairs as much as possible.”

“I quite agree.” Captain Grace smiled at me.

“He’ll do well on the Godwit.” Admiral Rostrum joined the conversation in a genial tone. The Godwit was his ship, the flagship of the little fleet. “A fine strapping lad like that ought to flourish once he can live among men and get out from under the skirts of coddling women and … others.”

That could scarcely be allowed to stand, but must be handled with tact. It would be best to swallow him whole and spit out the bones at leisure. No, no, that wouldn’t do at all! But I was already talking. “Oh, yes, I’ve no doubt that the best way to get a boy to ‘man up’ is to surround him with sweaty, half-naked men all day and all the night too.”

Silence did not so much settle over the gathering as strangle it in its tracks. Captain Grace covered her mouth with her napkin, which might have been covering a chortle. The rest of the table was less ambiguous in their disapprobation. I could recognize when it was time to clear the stage, so I made my excuses and pushed off. I did give the admiral a wink on my way out, just to see his flabbergasted face.

After that minor rout, I needed something to ease my heart before I faced my daughter. It was late for a visit to the tailor, but I thought old Reed might still be at work in his little shop, and it was on the same level of the palace. Besides, it was important to make sure my outfit for the equinox ball would still fit properly in light of recent changes to my person. The shop was closed up, but Tailor Reed opened at my rap and let me in with a cheerful air.

First things first: I explained Lady Canna’s hesitations about her dress, and we discussed if it were possible to make it a bit more conservative without spoiling the overall effect. Reed was brilliant about such things and offered several quite sensible suggestions. I told him to do whatever Lady Canna liked best.

I could not keep him from the scent of the true difficulty for long though; Reed perceived at a glance the trouble with my jacket. He took my new measurements with a mournful air. So distraught was he that I began to suspect all his apparent affection for me had more to do with the way my slender frame held clothing than any other virtue of mine. “For once, I had a Summer who was easy to fit,” he moaned. “Still, I suppose this isn’t so bad yet. You’re not going to keep going with it, are you?”

“I’ve no idea,” I told him. “I don’t control it.”

“Surely you must have some influence with her?” he pleaded.

Now that was touchy territory for a tailor. The whole mystique of being Lord Summer required some, shall we say, finesse on the topic of just how much influence I held over the dragoness.

“Well, you know, it’s complicated. Perhaps in my heart I wanted to change. I will endeavor to make clear that this is quite enough though.”

“Yes, yes, quite enough. You don’t know the struggles I went through with Leo all those years, or with Jack after him.”

I wished he hadn’t mentioned Jack.

At once I knew that I would find no further comfort in this familiar ritual, and I was eager to be gone. Reed must have sensed my change in mood, for he hurried the remainder of the measurements along and spoke but little more. I thanked Reed for his efforts, apologized more heartily than I ought to have for the inconvenience of changing shape, and headed home. That is, I headed for my wife’s home, of course, to collect Zinnia.

While I walked the white stone corridors, I tried once more to reach out to Summer. I knew the dragon was awake now, for I had felt her stir and shift out of her sea caves at sunset as usual. And of course she’d touched my mind at least once at dinner. But she continued to ignore me, and I could only sigh.

My lack of influence over the dragon surely could not be attributed to a general deficit of the Summer scheme, which had been bumping along smoothly for hundreds of years. It must be my own failing. When had there last been a Lord Summer who had come to it in middle years, rather than being born and bred for it? Would I ever be able to form a bond as strong as everyone in Summer seemed to imagine it ought to be? Even in previous times when the line had been broken, my understanding was that the replacement had usually been quite young, and thus perhaps more malleable of mind.

Perhaps I needed to brood more. Previous Summers had been famous brooders—the furrowed brow, the faraway stare, the hunched posture. Surely I could manage that. But no, no, it wouldn’t do at all. I looked ridiculous when I attempted it in the mirror. I could pout quite fetchingly, but I had no knack for brooding.

At least Zinnia would be able to get things back on track when her time came. Once she came of age and entered her own contract with Summer, I needn’t worry about my own failings anymore. So I had done something right there. I supposed so anyway. I was aware that some places in the world would count it a bad thing to promise your firstborn child to a dragon—most places, actually. But this was Summer.

At Canna’s apartment, I asked her about this business of Brook joining the Sea Guard. (The boy was not around.)

“You knew about it,” she told me in a decidedly exasperated tone.

“No, I did not! If it was ever mentioned to me, I’m sure it was only as some vague idea that might someday come to pass, not as a course of action already decided.”

“He’s seventeen. When did you think he would do it? And what else would he do? It was his father’s occupation.”

She had a point, of course. Summer’s obsession with nothing ever changing and everyone following in the family line made it all but inevitable that Brook would join the guard like his late father. Still. “But why the Godwit then? Why not the Avocet? Captain Grace is a very capable commander, while Admiral Rostrum is …” I scarcely knew what I wished to say of the man, except that I did not trust him with Canna’s child.

“The flagship is more prestigious, and it’s what Brook decided. What do you care anyway?”

There was another fine, solid point. Why did I care? The boy was bound to me only by my sham marriage, initiated for the sole purpose of creating an heir of Summer, which was long done. And surely a solid, normal lad like Brook had nothing to fear from someone like Admiral Rostrum. If he had chosen Rostrum’s ship, he likely admired the man, as many did. Perhaps, as the admiral himself had implied, Brook was eager for a more masculine atmosphere, denied to him since his father’s death, for I certainly had not sufficed to fill the gap.

No doubt I had simply been embarrassed by not knowing anything about the matter and vexed at being needled by the admiral. That was all.

“I suppose I don’t,” I replied to Canna. “Is Zinny ready?”

On cue, Zinnia came running out of her room, three cats hurtling after her. I picked her up and tossed her into the air. She squealed in glee, and my heart lifted. I really had done something right with her.





THE WATER WAS CHOPPIER THAN I’D HOPED THE next morning, but Zinnia was undeterred and determined to get out there. What could I do but oblige? Even if we tipped, I had little fear of drowning. Summer could be surprisingly fast to rouse herself, and she moved through water like lightning. If it came to it, a dousing wouldn’t be so bad on such a warm day. I was due to reset my curls anyway.

A large white tomcat followed us on to the boat with calm assurance of its reception, and I didn’t bother to boot it. I just hoped it knew what it was about. As we got underway, it settled in contentedly near the bow and somehow managed to be in the way at all times.

Zinny laughed as the swells rocked us and the spray hit her face. She asked a million questions about the boat, the sea life we saw, and various meteorological phenomena. I had fewer answers than she might have liked, but she nevertheless seemed to enjoy herself as thoroughly as I might wish. And I suppose I handled the boat adequately enough; Jack had always been the better sailor, but I had learned from him, and I made do.

The views of Summer were as spectacular as a. . .