Original | Heart of a Dragon - Prologue
The sun's rays sliced through the sharp brambles and slender evergreen needles that formed a fragile shell around her hiding place. Barely out of childhood, the girl bit her knuckles to prevent herself crying out from the scratches and scraped skin, rough from sun and field work, now torn and bloody from her headlong rush through the forest. Tears of fear more than pain sliced down her muddied cheeks and into her bramble-tangled hair and every time her eyes closed his eyes burned into the darkness.
It wasn't that she didn't want to serve. To be a mate of one of the Lords, particularly one of the Elemental Lords, was an honour only a few were offered and all of the other girls of Firbridge had dressed in their Feastday finery. Lorrean had even slipped some of her ma's face-paint out to their crowd and with a deft touch that hinted at illicit practise, had made herself and a select few an imagined match for any courtly lady. She'd thought they'd looked rather silly at the time, but she wished, with all the fervour of hindsight, that she'd made a bit of extra effort, tried to blend in more with the rows of girls attempting to impress the Lord of Water, rather than stand out like a duck among swans and have those piecing cool blue eyes settle on her.
No, she'd have been willing to serve, she would have, she told herself firmly, but something about Lord Arrishian do Water made her own ma's words bubble up from her infanthood. "Behave, Roselan Carter, behave or a Dragon'll get ye." Ma hadn't liked the Lords, and she had hazy memories of men passing through their cottage in the dark of the moon and whispered conversations that were silenced as they passed. No one had ever thought to explain to the five year old Roselan why her ma had left her with Birchan's family one night and never come back.
She recalled noise from outside, waking her from an unsettled sleep, a bustle of activity in the direction of the tiny village square, and then silence. Birchan's da had left the house with a sideways glance towards her sleeping pallet where she pretended to be asleep and returned swiftly to shake his head and whisper quietly with his wife. She'd known something was wrong and not resisted when Birchan's ma had picked her up and hugged her tightly, explaining with gentle words and hugs that she'd have to live with them now and Birchan would be her brother now for real.
She'd cried for days, ignoring the gentle prods to put her at the back of the crowd whenever Lord Arrishian's troops marched by Firbridge on the way to some disturbance in the country and the pitying looks of the villagers as they went on with their daily lives, showing as outward respect for their Lord even as they muttered about the state of the fields and the markets over the last fifty years since the War. And the conversation, whenever they noticed her watching, would drift away from the discontent and the rumours of rebellions, to how peaceful the country was under Lord Arrishian. It hadn't taken long for her growing brain to realise that her ma had been part of that rebellion and those men as well.
Birchan's ma had insisted she was at the square, saying it would be odd and out of place if she wasn't, and what if the Lord or one of his Guards overheard someone mention her and she wasn't there, but, to her credit, she'd had tried to ensure Birchan, now a tall almost-man of fifteen cycles who'd been showing an odd interest in her now she'd reached fourteen herself, was nearby to present some form of reassurance.
Then he'd arrived. Causing murmurs of shock to ripple through the crowd as he rode into the square on a golden, and perfectly mundane, mount, murmurs, she rather thought, that were better than the screams and chaos there'd have been if the Lord of Water had arrived in his true form. His Guards stayed back, there for show only in truth, except for the one who came forth to hold the horse's halter. If Lord Arrishian had wished it, she knew, Firbridge would have been flooded in moments.
He'd scanned the suddenly shy and nervous line of girls with those cool blue eyes that echoed in her mind, and they'd watched him fearfully, hopefully, out the corner of their own eyes. She shivered involuntarily in her tight ball, praying that she didn't rustle the dried leaves, knowing that they'd only seen a man, a tall man, with tanned skin like their own, who's shoulder length brown hair could have come from any one of their family or friends. A man who wore exotically cut blue silks of every shade, that flowed around him like waves lapping at his skin. A man who's eyes were inhuman. Slit-pupilled, they had made her recoil even as they brushed over her, as other girls, even those too young to think about partnering, and those with several years of happiness with their husbands, leant forward to give him a better view of themselves. She could have lost herself in those eyes, flickering among the colours of the sea from the aqua she'd only ever heard about in tales, to the dull blue of the Bay, to the dark black of the depths. His lips had quirked at her reaction, even as he'd continued looking over the rest of the line, as if, she recalled he was at the market looking for the choicest ingredients.
Then he'd looked thoughtful for a moment, those eyes hooded, and his lips pursed, before looking straight at her and she found herself drowning, unable to break from the serpent's gaze as he gestured towards her.
"You, girl, come." The Lord's voice was like windswept waves in a storm on the Bay's cliffs, and before she'd moved more than a few steps, fear welled up in her as the meaning of those words became clear, mingling with all the memories and tales her ma had whispered to her in the night. She remembered turning, wrenching herself away from the startled congratulations and then the shocked shouts as it became clear the honour was not one that she wished at all. She'd run deep into the forest behind Firbridge that, along with the ancient bridge, gave the town its name, blindly swerving away from the familiar paths, grateful that she'd dressed in plain wools and leathers, until she could run no more and hidden in a knot of brambles and trees.
And still his eyes burned her.
Her heart had just begun to slow from her rush when another beat faded into hearing, echoing it, loud in the quiet dusk. She started, fear freezing her as she recognised the sound of slow and heavy wings far above the trees. She held her breath, waiting for them to fade away, praying that he'd go back, choose another mate, leave her be. Then they stopped abruptly.
Before she could be relieved, or decide to run, her mind split between the two, she heard a light footstep crunching over the drying needles towards her. Almost against her will, she looked up to see him smiling and holding out a hand. "Come, little one, my Toreya, I must get home or my Court will worry."
His split-pupilled eyes, those eyes as blue as sun-lit water in summer, caught her before fear wrapped its protective shell around her mind and even as his hands pulled her out of her hiding place, she fell into them, drowning in the serpent's gaze.
"But I'm Roselan…" She was never sure if he'd heard her.
---
Toreya awoke abruptly as the dream ended. It had been almost thirty cycles since she'd been called that name, and she wasn't even sure she'd answer to Roselan Carter any longer. She smiled, reaching out to touch Rishi's warm bulk beside her as she rearranged the furs more to her liking. How could she have been so scared of her Lord? The fear in the dream receded as she curled up again, resting her head on the soft silver scales of Rishi's shoulder where it formed an ideal pillow for her. His tail curled round slowly from where it had been disrupted by her abrupt start and she breathed a sigh of relief that he hadn't been disturbed by her silly dreams.
Her amused smile faded a touch as she tried to get her swollen stomach comfortable. Even though this was her third child, she'd never really managed to perfect the art of sleeping in the final stages. The smile faded completely when she reckoned up the remaining length of time she had to carry the child. Six sevendays. Fourty two days until she knew if the child would live. She'd been lucky, her first two had been girl-children.
Cerya, the first born of their mating, had been given to the first son of Rishi's that had come of age after the child herself was of age. Lord Erithanos was a kind master to her and treated her like the prize she was – and as his half-sister she had more respect among his people from the beginning instead of having to earn it like her mother. Erithanos was also perfectly content with his lot as Guardian of some of Rishi's lands, so Cerya was kept in peaceful luxury and spared the political game that many of the dragons played.
Ferreya, the second born, had been used as a bargaining chip in that game. Toreya had argued with Rishi for weeks, knowing full well that many of his fellow Lords would have ordered her killed for such insubordination, hating the fact that her daughter would be essentially sold for political gain. She'd had no choice though, and Ferreya had been sent to Lord Yillaram, then the Lord of Lightning, as a ‘gift' in the hope that he'd step aside to let one of Rishi's Court, the then Lord of Rain, win the Challenge for his rank. It had been unsubtle, and yet perfectly within the unwritten, if not the formal, rules and the Spirit Lord, essentially the draconic ruler as far as she could understand, had let the bribe pass.
She'd been proud that her daughter, their daughter, had been the reason he'd been able to gain some influence, even in a cross-rank, in the Lord of Fire's Court, but the bribe had left a nasty taste in her mouth that no seeing Ferreya happy and contented with her Lord could wash away. But then, Ferreya seemed to have a grasp of the politics that her mother had never understood, so perhaps she really did understand her father's reasoning.
The baby kicked again, harder than either of her two others had ever kicked, and a swell of fear that had nothing to do with her dream or her daughters whelmed up in her gut once more. If the child was male, Rishi would kill it.
Draconic law stated that any female offspring of a dragon and human could be kept, although only among dragon-kind, the blood was too precious – and, Toreya thought privately, too powerful – to waste. If Cerya and Erithanos had children their daughters would be doubly valuable as three quarters dragon-blooded, and correspondingly harder to conceive, and maybe, eventually, in several generations her blood would flow in a dragon itself if the draconic blood flowed strong enough to show. Although that dragon would have to present him or herself to the Spirit Lord to be confirmed as a true dragon before they were allowed male offspring that lived or a place in the Elemental Courts.
Male children were purely the premise of the female dragons. Law, tradition and legend meant that any males with human blood were born only to die minutes later by the hands, or claws, of their fathers and mothers. Rishi had been at both of her daughter's births, ready to calmly kill their son if it had been needed. He'd tried to tell her that he'd been therefore her, his mate, as well, but they both knew that no male of their pairing was allowed to live – or their lives, as well as the child's, would be forfeit.
He'd lent her a book of legends while she was learning the finer details of symbolic draconic language for something to do during her first pregnancy and pointed out the passage that explained the law. Legend had formed tradition and tradition became law. No male dragon-hearted human would now ever rise to challenge and destroy the Elemental Courts.
She sighed, pulling the furs around her and trying to move into a comfortable spot without awakening the sleeping dragon. She knew she'd failed when she looked up to see those deep blue eyes resting on her, pupils wide with sleepiness and concern. Then he, did something, and she found herself falling into those eyes as she had so long ago and sleep surrounded her even as the child moved.
"Sleep, my Toreya," she heard her Lord rumble into the darkness as he settled back, shifting until they were both comfortable. "You are safe, it was just a dream."
If only she knew the child would be safe.
© Clare Selley 2009
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