Rise of the Dragon Queen

by Sherri Beth Mitchell

  “Why did you come to Darkania?”

  He leaned heavily on his left elbow, almost lying down, so they would not be talking as loud; Prince Dalton had struck up a conversation with an older woman walking by and so was politely ignoring them. “My small city is lending help in the war. I stayed behind, coming this way to see if the King would aid the Lordalens.”

  “And will he? I know he said he would try, but it seems as though he doesn’t want to get involved in it.”

  Grant nodded his head. “You get that impression too, do you? I believe you are correct, young one, and I don’t think he will ever make any large contributions to this war, for good or bad. He seems hesitant when it comes to the subject, and if you will notice, he gives very little that is actual opinion or advice. Instead he listens to others and what they have to say, and then makes comments on their say, making it look as if he is participating in the discussions.”

  Silvia lowered her voice to a whisper. “Do you believe him to be a coward?”

  Grant chuckled again. “Is it that obvious?”

  She smiled. “So how far does Gregorich Hapshamin reign?”

  He glanced at her with surprise, but answered her without questions. “He reigns almost all the way to the King of Wexford’s lands to the Northwest, and—“

  “How many days travel would that be?”

  “About three weeks, easy riding. In most other directions I believe he has a span of only a week and a half, although there are several small towns here and there inside his boundaries. They are of no significance and some are heavily taxed for being so far away from the city and its leader. The taxmen (and the King) believe that if those people are taxed heavily, they will eventually move closer to Darkania, giving Gregorich tighter rule. If you ask me, I believe they’re just trying to rob the poor. It’s rather pitiful.”

  “Is Lordale and its King past Wexford’s domain?” she asked, pleased that she now had an excellent source of information.

  “Yes, but not all that far. Both of their realms are smaller than Gregorich’s or Rohedon’s.”

  She was beginning to hate this ‘Lord Rohedon’. “Does Rohedon have any children?”

  He grimaced. “Yes, unfortunately. He has six fertile wives, and the last count showed he had thirty-two children. But his wives are young, and he has powerful magic that takes away the pains of childbirth for them. They do not mind bearing so many children and will continue to do so, nor do they mind a different wife in his bed almost every day of the week.”

  “Who is his heir?” Silvia asked, astonished about how many wives the man had, although she had read about that sort of thing in distant lands. She personally did not think she could ever share a man’s bed with another woman, or women. She was too proud for that! She blushed profusely at the thought and concentrated on what she was asking Sir Grant. “Surely he has an heir, what with so many children.”

  “His three oldest children are his primary heirs,” Grant replied, “two brothers and a sister that went sailing over the sea beyond Rohedon’s realm, and never returned. Several of his children have gone missing in the past two decades…up to no good everyone assumes.”

  “Why did the three eldest go over the sea?”

  “No one knows, although some say they were going to try and find the Parent Gods, Saphrite and Aklamon, who were trapped somewhere in the Great Sea by Aklamon’s brother Hasofite. It was thought they were going to try and redeem themselves and their mothers and father by rescuing the gods and asking forgiveness for all sins. However, that is just speculation and hearsay. No one really knows why, and their siblings, as well as Rohedon and his wives, went on a terrible rampage looking for them, for the children had left during the night without telling anyone. The next morning, one of Rohedon’s ships was found to be missing. Many gave them up for dead, for no one can survive for too long on the sea without taking land somewhere. Maybe there was a storm and they shipwrecked, or maybe they found land we have not discovered yet.”

  “I thought there was no land beyond the Great Sea?” Silvia said. “No one’s ever seen any.”

  “No one who has ever returned has seen any, milady. That does not mean there is not any land out there.” His eyes became distant. “One day I wish to travel the high seas, if only for a little while.”

  Silvia let him daydream for a moment before she interrupted. “You said the children had left during the night. How old were they when they left their parents?”

  Sir Grant shrugged. “I think the girl was around twenty, her brothers about eighteen.”

  “How long ago did they leave?”

  “Several years ago. All of their brothers and sisters went on travels to see if the ship had landed somewhere else along the coast. A lot of people died that year along the coast, for the siblings were not kind and were very angry.”

  “How creepy.” Of course, had she had a father as evil as Rohedon was made out to be, then she could not blame them. She wondered if they would ever return and what would happen when and if they did. Would their parents be wrathful?

  She watched as a stage was set up before them; actors were rushing about in their costumes, getting ready to perform a play for the guests. “So what were the ‘Battles of the Flunders’? The prince mentioned it at the meeting we had the other night.”

  “Oh, there were a bunch of skirmishes all over the south several years ago. They went on for about six months and were completely pointless. It was all silly little blood feuds over land and cattle, but some of the battles were pretty bloody.”

  “Oh,” she said, almost sorry that she had asked. “Well, are you staying here very long Sir Grant?”

  “About another week or two, to try and turn the King’s mind to helping in the war, and then I will be gone. I have my own aid to lend, if they will have it.”

  “Do say goodbye to me before you leave. You have been so nice.”

  He patted her shoulder and assured her that he would.

  When the play was over, Silvia escaped Jonathan’s call to ‘Lady Serena’ and hurried into the palace. She went through several passages and ended up in the courtyard in the middle of the palace with Keelan trotting along beside her. She bent down beside the dancing stone statues and pondered why Gregorich had kept them. Were they not a reminder of what he did to get the throne? She looked at the engraving of her birth for the second time. She wondered why the engraver carved a dragon instead of a baby coming out of Queen Madeline. What did it mean? Was Madeline mocking the rumors that had ended up killing her son, or did it have some other meaning? Silvia rotated another stone jar very carefully and discovered four more carvings. In one carving, the dragon was landing on a large, flat rock. Silvia took it to mean that she was safe (though obviously not a beast of any sort), for the dragon was somehow depicted with a hint of vulnerability. The second was of the dragon sitting on a massive throne, with people bowing to it. The third was of the dragon wrapping its wings around a city, and the fourth showed the dragon in flight, breathing a stream of fire at a wicked-looking mountain. Silvia sat in silent thought for nearly half an hour on a nearby bench trying to figure it out. What could all of it possibly mean? The last one truly puzzled her to no end. Keelan did not speak or offer his thoughts; he knew that she did not wish to speak.

  Before long someone came quietly through the garden and interrupted her direction of thought. “A gorgeous sky above a beautiful lady…such a peaceful sight. Every time I see you, Lady Serena, you seem to make my life more bearable.” King Gregorich Hapshamin took her hands as he sat next to her.

  “And what could possibly make your life as a king unbearable, my Lord?” she asked. She had to fight to keep bitterness out of her voice; the thought of him holding her hands was almost too much for her to bear. The man had driven her parents off of their throne, and now he was unknowingly courting their only surviving child. How disgusting, she thought.

  “This war,” Gregorich said, “it is not mine and I do not wish to fight in it, yet ev
eryone from all sides wants my help. It tears me in the middle so that I have no choice in the matter but to get involved.”

  “Is that all that you are bothered by, my King?” Silvia noticed that he had said ‘everyone from all sides’ wanted his help. Would he name his parents, or what side they were on? “Speak what is on your mind.”

  “The damn homeless shelter annoys me,” he said simply.

  She was surprised he admitted it and did not bother to hide it. “How so?”

  “Every time one gets built it is burnt to the ground.” He laughed softly to himself. A private joke, perhaps?

  Anger surged through her. “So tell them to build a shelter of stone.”

  “They could not afford stone. The point is that I wish there were no homeless vagrants in this city at all. They’re worthless, filthy, poor, and yet they’re arrogant. Besides which they do not pay me taxes.”

  “Some of them cannot help it,” she said, aggravated at his cold feelings. How could he be so heartless? She thought of Derik, and how helping him had been so easy. “Have you thought of helping them find work so that one day they will be able to afford clothes and a roof over their heads and become contributing members of society?”

  He looked at her strangely. “Ah, yes, I forgot you have an affinity for those that need help, milady. I heard all about what happened between you and Madam Brooke outside the Home Away From Home yesterday evening. And you helped Motilda as well when I was going to hang her for murdering my best Guardsman.” His face soured for a moment. “You certainly seem to care for people you do not know, Lady Serena. “’Tis a charming, albeit unusual asset about you.”

  Silvia tried to ignore the way he looked at her. “If they get under your skin so badly, Your Highness, perhaps you could build them a decent shelter to get them off the streets of the city with your horde of money. Give them a home.”

  “Horde of money? That money is gifts and taxes, used to pay my Royal Guard and feed them and house them. That among many other things which need to be taken care of on a daily basis. So much needs to be done constantly…” Gregorich’s eyes seemed to stare far off. For what seemed like an eternity he sat there, though it was only minutes, and Silvia itched to snatch her hands out of his. “That’s it!” he said finally, standing up and dropping her hands. “I’ll give them something to do…a ‘home away from home’.”

  Silvia stood as well trying to sidestep past him without trodding on Keelan in the process. She didn’t know and didn’t care about what his idea was. But the King’s voice stopped her cold before she walked three strides. “That stone jar you were gazing at…it has dragons on it.”

  Her heart began to beat faster: had he really seen her staring at it? It seemed that everything she did aroused his unwanted attentions. “Yes, so it does,” she said in a surprisingly steady voice. “I find them fascinating, and I did not expect to see them in a King’s courtyard like this. But what of it?” She wished he would hush and let her go to her chambers.

  “They…they give me nightmares,” he said, his voice bobbing up and down as if he were emotional. “They frighten me terribly. I cannot stand them, even though I have never seen a live one. In my dreams they swarm the air of the city, looking for me. Then, someone locks me outside of the palace…The beasts flog me with their wings, battering me, snapping at me with their hideous jaws. I hate them Lady Serena, I really do.”

  Silvia was elated that she knew something that he was scared of, although how she was going to get real dragons was beyond her ability to comprehend. But it was better than nothing! At least she could mark down one weakness for him. “Then stop thinking of them,” she replied stiffly.

  He acted as though he didn’t hear her and went on. “Sometimes they make me bleed in my dreams and I wake up sick…I hate the sight of blood. Hearing about it is fine and interesting, but when I can see it right before my eyes it makes my stomach churn.”

  “Then stop thinking about it,” she repeated sourly. Her mind was racing in circles, remembering his face when she had been stabbed in court and how he had looked sick all of a sudden. No wonder he had backed away from her after he slapped her the night she adopted Motilda as her servant—she had been bleeding. So, he really couldn’t stand the sight of blood…

  Hapshamin began speaking again. “But you asked what bothers me…I don’t have anyone to share my life with, no one to talk to of my fears and dreams that won’t laugh at me.”

  “And if you brood on the worst parts of your life all the time you never will share it with anyone, unless they are deaf.” She bit her lip to keep from laughing aloud.

  “You are only too right, and I respect you for telling me that to my face.” He grasped her hands and kissed them both.

  Silvia nodded and did a half-curtsy. “I am going to retire now. Have a pleasant night, Your Grace.”

  She left him there in the garden, where he watched her walk away until she was out of sight. Once she was out into the main part of the palace, she bade Keelan to run to her room and fetch the key to the locked room on the third floor. He ran ahead and was back just as she reached the steps going to the third floor. He went with her to the room, carrying the heavy key in his mouth. She had been a little shocked to see the engraving of a woman crying on the door and wondered if it was supposed to represent her mother. Silvia retrieved the key and unlocked the door, placing the key in a hidden pocket of her dress. They went inside and shut the door behind them quietly. The room was full of her parents’ things and she spent the next two hours going through them, but finding nothing helpful. She adored the portraits of her family and thought them most tasteful and beautiful. She vowed that when and if she regained the Royal Throne she would have these portraits carried out of the dusty old room and into the halls of the palace where they could be admired. However, she wasn’t on the throne yet, and it was getting late. She decided to go back to her bedroom and take a bath to ease her aching mind.

  Quentin followed him quietly, entering the King’s bedchambers in a hurry so he wouldn’t be shut out. He hated being so close to the person who imprisoned him within the cloak. His fingers caressed the fabric of the cloak absently, having a mind of their own unconnected to his.

  Strange how the once monstrous cloak was now helping to save the kingdom he had once helped to terrorize.

  The King had gone straight to his great mahogany desk and began to work, or at least that is what Quentin thought at first. Upon closer inspection he was dipping the quill in ink and then drawing on a piece of parchment, not writing out finances and orders. It took only a glance to see that he was drawing a dragon, and he was not a bad artist. The head and body were sketched first, then came the legs and then the massive wings. The tail was the last to appear, and added an overall eerie effect on the work. A couple of long hours passed this way, Gregorich drawing dragon after dragon (each one different) and Quentin twiddling his thumbs. It was near midnight that Hapshamin put down his quill and placed his parchments in a drawer that was nearly full of them already. (Funny, but Quentin did not recall this fascination with the creatures; however, he had not been the sort to pay attention to that sort of thing when he had been Hapshamin’s little pet.)

  Gregorich took a cigar out of a little case in his breast pocket and lit it up. Then, sighing heavily, the King opened the giant windows of his room and went out onto the balcony. Quentin followed and started watching the sky, as Gregorich was doing, for the messenger raven. The stars were all out in abundance, lighting up the dark night with their brilliance, and soon enough they glittered about a pitch-black shape racing through the air from the north. It seemed to take forever for the gigantic bird to land, but when it did, Quentin almost gasped in astonishment at its size: it was quite literally three feet tall.

  “Your father wishes me to report good news when I return,” the raven croaked in a terrible voice, moving around on the balcony on which it had landed. Quentin wasn’t sure, but he thought the voice sounded feminine, albeit remotely.
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  Gregorich, who had so calmly watched the raven approach, widened his eyes. “Zela? He sent me one of his other wives?” He looked mildly confused. “Why not send my mother? She would’ve made a better choice.”

  “Yes, and let her lie to make her son look good? I think not. Better to send someone who will report the truth, if you ask me,” the raven spat. “Now, tell me your news.”

  Quentin was flabbergasted. He had never before heard Gregorich mention his mother or father, and it appeared he had several stepmothers. What magic did they possess to shape-change as he and Keelan did? He could almost feel the negative energy rolling off of the bird’s feathers. He knew it couldn’t be good magic, and was certain bad times were ahead for everyone.

  The King, meanwhile, gulped. “Well, I will be sending him some men, women, and children.”

  Zela’s black eyes squinted at him. “We have no need for children, besides feeding the Battle Eaters. Who are they? And you had better be honest, boy.”