Throne of Dragons

“It’s about as far north and east as you can go in the Northern Kingdom without hitting the volcanic lands,” Greave said. “To get there riding would be difficult, even dangerous, if it were just the two of us.”

“And this isn’t?” Aurelle asked, with a gesture toward the sea around them.

There was no sign of land from here; the ships had to travel wide to avoid the risk of dangerous currents near the coast. It was unnerving, when Greave had spent most of his life in the confines of libraries, but at the same time he could feel something in him expanding at the sight of all this. This was what the writers he admired had seen, the world in all its glory.

“Greave,” Aurelle said, pointing. “Look, a whale.”

Greave looked and saw a broad gray shape rising from the water, but the maw at the front was too long and too full of spiked teeth for any whale. Its body was as large as any whale’s, but it ran with fronds of flesh that might be mistaken at a distance for seaweed. Greave found his memory flickering back to Lolland’s Creatures of the Deep, and fear rose inside him.

“That’s no whale,” he said. “Hold onto something, Aurelle.” Louder, he called out so that the crew could hear. “Darkmaw!”

The crew looked round at that, and it took them a second longer to respond than they should have simply because it was him bellowing it rather than one of their own. Greave knew what they must be thinking in that moment: that this was a soft, cosseted prince who wouldn’t know a darkmaw from a shoal of herring. Even so, a second later, they saw it for themselves, and they ran for the ship’s stock of harpoons.

By that point, the creature was already diving.

Greave watched its shadow through the water, his eyes picking it out as he clung to one of the ropes of the ship. Around him, sailors watched warily, several still scrambling for weapons.

Then the creature struck.

It slammed against the side of the boat, but the boson was already turning the ship away from it, so that it didn’t bear the full brunt of the attack. Even so, it was enough to make the ship rock violently, listing to the side strongly enough that only Greave’s grip on the rope kept him upright.

Aurelle wasn’t so lucky. She cried out as she fell, sliding down toward the edge of the ship. The darkmaw was already rising up, its great mouth open to take its prey while those great fronds clung to the ship, holding it at its tilted angle.

Greave leapt forward on instinct, grabbing for Aurelle, even though it meant letting go of his own safe hold. He felt his fingers fasten onto her wrist, but even as he did so, he could feel his own footing giving way.

Ahead of him, Greave could see harpoons starting to sprout from the creature’s flesh, but they didn’t seem to make any difference to it. He was sliding closer now, and he could see great, unblinking eyes on him, looking at him with a malevolence that was terrifying.

“Your highness!” one of the sailors yelled, and Greave looked over his way just in time to see the man throw a harpoon to him. The weapon hung in the air for a second before slamming into Greave’s palm as he caught it.

“Greave!” Aurelle cried out. She was almost to the edge of the boat now, slowed by Greave’s grip on her wrist, but only just. Greave held the harpoon, regretting that he hadn’t spent more time training with weapons, knowing that he would have to be close to that great eye before…

He threw the harpoon, and it flew truer than Greave could have hoped. It slammed into the open orb of the darkmaw’s eye, plunging deep so that the creature let out a scream that seemed to shake the world. Its bulk reared away from the ship as the vessel started to right itself, the splash as it reentered the water sending a wave over the ship that threatened to swamp it.

Greave clung to Aurelle throughout, determined not to let her go. He pulled her up, holding her to him so that there would be no danger of her falling into the water, but also because he wanted to prove to himself that she was still real, still there, still safe.

“I thought I was going to lose you,” he said.

“You saved me,” she replied. “I… I don’t know what to say…”

“I do,” Greave said. He kissed her then, gently. “I love you.”

“I… I love you too.”

***

Aurelle said the words automatically, because in the House of Sighs, they had taught her well that such things were a tool to be used, just one more way to control the feelings of those who heard them. For those whose only role was to give themselves to others, they were words that could take away an edge of harshness or win more coin. For those like her, they could be a weapon as sharp as any knife.

She could have stabbed Prince Greave in that moment. He was close enough, and maybe in the aftermath of the chaos, the sailors there would assume that the beast had done him some harm.

Maybe they wouldn’t, though. Maybe they would see what she had done, and kill her for it. Maybe they would assume that the wound was from the creature, but that would still leave her as a woman alone on a boat full of sailors, with no way home beyond their grace.

No, a boat was not the best place to kill the prince, even if her patron would probably tell her to do it now, whatever the risk. Aurelle found herself thinking of Duke Viris and the things he had her do. There was no reason to think that he had any concern for her. His time with her in the House of Sighs had proved that.

Aurelle told herself that she was only being practical, yet there was more to it than that. Greave was a gentle, kind, thoughtful man, who was nothing like most of those Aurelle had met. He had leapt to save her without a moment’s thought, throwing himself into danger when he could have just clung to his line and waited for the sailors to drive off the darkmaw. She couldn’t imagine Duke Viris doing that.

His mission for her remained: Aurelle was meant to prevent Greave from finding any way to help his sister. She was to distract him, control him, and, if necessary, kill him. Now, Aurelle found herself dreading that necessity, because she didn’t know what she would do. She couldn’t imagine herself killing Greave, couldn’t imagine herself hurting him.

It occurred to her then that not being able to help his sister would hurt him almost as much. Could she really do that? Should she do that? Common sense said that she must; that Duke Viris was not just her employer, but the one whose side was likely to be ascendant after all of this. Aurelle had felt what it meant to be at the mercy of powerful men; she had no wish to have one of the most powerful of all angry with her.

And yet… she still clung to Greave, still held this strange, beautiful man who would travel the length of a kingdom to help his sister, who valued books more than violence.

“I love you,” she repeated, and reflected that sometimes a dagger could have two edges, and it was as easy to cut oneself with it as an enemy.

They would make land soon enough, and after that… after that she would have to choose.

CHAPTER SIX

Prince Vars rode at the head of his men, trying to stay upright in the saddle and look every inch the royalty he was. He’d always been good at that. He wasn’t quite as muscled as Rodry, didn’t have the almost feminine beauty of Greave, but he was still young, still handsome, still noble looking in his armor and finery as he rode.

He knew that the guards with him were watching, waiting for his orders. He considered the inn where they’d stayed the night, wrung dry of ale, and meat, and women. Vars had paid for his share of all three, and now the temptation was to just dive back in there.

“Your highness,” the men’s sergeant said. “Shouldn’t we be making time if we’re to catch up with the princess on her wedding harvest?”

“I give the commands, Sergeant,” Vars reminded him, but the irritating thing was that the man had a point. Slacking off for a night had done no harm, and would serve to remind everyone that he was the important one. Even so, he knew how angry his father would be if he found out that Vars wasn’t there, and Vars had no wish to truly risk his father’s wrath.

“Very well,” he said. “We march!”

They set off, the sun just getting higher, the warmth pleasant rather than oppressive. They spent the morning making their way back to the crossroads where Vars had chosen for them to go the other way. They rode through open farmland, where fields of wheat and whatever other crops peasants were meant to grow stood on either side. The roads out here were dirt things, with dry stone walls to either side and occasional trees: apple and cedar, oak and pear. A few sheep flocked in one of the fields nearby, stupid as people often seemed to be.

His men, at least, were sensible: when they reached the spot where the fallen crossroads sign lay, they didn’t say a word about having been there before. Vars led the way down the other fork; it shouldn’t be more than about an hour’s ride from there to reach the inn where Lenore was supposed to be spending the night.

After that time alone, just afraid enough of the dangers of the road, she would greet Vars the way she always greeted their hero brother, Rodry. Of course, Vars would still need to spend another few days with her on this journey, trudging around the backwaters of the kingdom to collect tribute, but maybe that didn’t have to be so bad now. Maybe some of that tribute could find its way into his coffers along the way…

That pleasant thought kept Vars going while his troops marched in step, heading along the road to the inn. He could see it there in the distance, the buildings visible now through the trees. Vars heeled his horse forward. They would arrive as a single, shining cohort, with Vars at their head…

Something was wrong. There should have been smoke from cooking fires there, should have been a dozen other signs of life. Instead, it was quiet. A part of Vars screamed at him to turn back, to stay away. He knew, though, that doing so would make him look weak, would get back to his father…

So instead he hung back just enough to let the others arrive in the inn before him. From behind the wall of his men, Vars saw the spot where Lenore’s carriage had been left, and that made hope rise in him. Then he saw the bodies, and hope fell away again, replaced by a crushing fear.

They lay where they had fallen, or been dragged. Vars recognized the uniforms of the few guards Lenore had taken with her, covered in blood. There were maidservants, too, killed with at least as much savagery, although perhaps not so much speed. Vars’s practiced eye knew marks made with careful violence all too well.

Fear filled him then. Some of it was fear for his half-sister, because in spite of what some people thought, Vars was not a monster. Admittedly, more of it was fear for himself, and how their father would react if he found out that Vars had lost Lenore, but that wasn’t the point.

The point… the point was that this had happened and Vars hadn’t been here.

His first thought was relief, because being here would have meant senseless danger, maybe even death, looking at the ease with which it seemed that they’d slaughtered the few guards that had gone with Lenore.

His next thought was that he was meant to be there, and that everyone would know it. They would look at him like he was nothing, less than nothing, even though he was a prince of the realm.