by E. D. Baker
THE DRAGON Princess
Book Six in the Tales of the Frog Princess
E. D. BAKER
Contents
Prologue
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Books by E. D. Baker
This book is dedicated to Ellie, who likes my crazy ideas
and knows when to say no. Don’t worry, there aren’t
any pie fights in this story either. To Kim, who helps
me with my Web site and has great ideas of her own.
To Pudgy Grumpkins—because. To my fans,
for their encouragement and kind words.
To Victoria Wells Arms, for believing in me.
PROLOGUE
Though she was just a few minutes old, everyone agreed that the baby was beautiful. She had eyes like those of her mother, Princess Emma, and a shock of blond hair much like that of her grandmother, Queen Chartreuse. Emma swore that her daughter had Eadric’s smile, but her mother, her aunt, and her grandmother all claimed that the baby was too young and wouldn’t really smile for some time yet.
When she was only three months pregnant, Emma had dreamed that the baby was going to be a girl. After that, she and her husband, Prince Eadric, had never worried about a boy’s name. The baby would be named Millie, after the second Green Witch, Emma’s long-ago ancestor.
Although Emma wanted to show Millie to Eadric right away, the midwife and all the other women in the room insisted that they wash the baby first. Unfortunately, an over-eager lady-in-waiting hadn’t bothered to warm the water before bringing it to the midwife. The midwife, rattled in the presence of so much royalty, most of whom were witches, splashed the cold water on the baby. With a startled cry, the baby turned red as a strawberry, and her thin wail broke the calm of her parents’ bedchamber. Emma sat up to see what was wrong. At that instant, the air seemed to sizzle and the baby turned from a beautiful human newborn with honey-blond hair into a baby dragon with scales of the palest green. Queen Chartreuse screamed. Two ladies-in-waiting fled the room. The midwife fainted.
Emma sighed and reached for her baby. “I was afraid of this,” she murmured, gazing down at the squalling infant. Turning to her aunt Grassina, she added, “This is what comes of spending half my life as a dragon.”
One
Not quite fifteen years later
Princess Emma, the Green Witch of Greater Greensward, was sitting at her worktable copying spells onto fresh parchment when a slender green dragon darted through her window and landed on the floor behind her.
“Millie’s home!” squawked the green-and-yellow parrot perched on the edge of a precariously balanced stack of books. The bird flapped its wings, making the whole stack sway. Emma gestured at the books as they started to fall, and they shivered back into place.
“I know, You-too,” said Emma. “You don’t need to tell me when she’s standing right here. And as for you, Millie,” she said, turning to the dragon, “what upset you this time?”
The dragon sat down and wrapped her long, spiked tail around her. “The scullery maid dropped a pail of muddy water at the top of the stairs just as I was coming up. I’d already put on my new gown for Prince Atworth’s visit and the water ruined it. I changed into a dragon before I could help it. Yes, I know you can fix the gown, but I didn’t think of that until later. Anyway, the girl started screaming, so I flew out the window. She was terrified—as if she thought I was about to bite off her head. I don’t understand. After all these years, why are some people still so afraid of me? I’ve never hurt anyone while I was a dragon, at least, not since I was a little girl and didn’t know any better. You’d think everyone here at the castle would remember that.”
“I’m sorry, darling. It’s human nature to be afraid of dragons. I’m sure you handled it very well.”
Light shimmered around the dragon and a lovely young girl appeared. Her honey-gold hair framed her face in soft curls and cascaded down her back. Except for her dainty nose, her face was much like her mother’s and her eyes were the same shade of deep green.
“What a mess!” screeched the parrot.
Millie glanced down at her gown and sighed. The pale green skirt was splattered with mud and the real blossoms sewn onto the bodice were broken and wilted. She touched one of the stems, wishing she could fix it herself. Although Millie had a magic of her own, she was unable to perform the simplest kind of spells that most witches found easy. “Would you mind fixing it for me, Mother?”
“Not at all. I’ll just—”
“Zoë’s here!” shrieked You-too, and both mother and daughter turned to the window where a little bat had landed on the ledge. “I don’t know why we have a door if everyone comes through the window,” the parrot grumbled.
“I don’t mean to intrude,” said the bat. “I was on my way over when I saw Millie come through the window, so I thought I’d look for her here.”
“We were just talking,” said Emma. “Come right in.”
Zoë fluttered into the room and settled on the floor beside Millie. A shadow passed over the bat and a puff of cool, dank air made Millie sneeze. When she looked at her friend again, Zoë was no longer a bat, but a slender girl whose head came up just past Millie’s shoulder. Her hair was such a pale blond that it looked almost white; her eyes were blue-gray and shining.
The parrot flapped its wings and squawked, “Watch your necks! Vampire in the room!”
“You have to be the rudest bird I’ve ever met,” said Millie. “I don’t know why you keep him, Mother.”
“He was a wedding gift from Olefat Wizard to your father and me. I’ve heard that Me-too, You-too’s father, still lives with Olefat and gets more obnoxious every year. Sometimes I wonder if that wizard didn’t give us the bird for revenge. The old wizard hasn’t gotten his hands on any new spells since the day I helped your great-aunt Grassina make him stop stealing witches’ memories.”
“If You-too gets too obnoxious, just let me know,” said Zoë. “I’ve never bitten a parrot before. What do you suppose their blood tastes like?”
You-too opened his beak to say something but apparently thought better of it and closed it with a snap. When Millie and Zoë began to laugh, he turned around so his back was to them and hunched his head down into his feathers.
“Would you really want to bite a parrot?” Emma asked.
The girl laughed again, her smile lighting up her pale face. “Don’t worry, Your Highness. I’ve never bitten a bird or any creature larger than a grasshopper, much to my father’s dismay. He’s disappointed that I’m not embracing his family’s lifestyle.”
Emma frowned. “How can you do that? Don’t vampires have to drink blood?”
“Full vampires do, but I’m lucky enough to have a choice. I just turn into an ordinary bat whenever the urge to drink blood comes over me, and then I eat insects. It’s the same for the boys and little Suzette.”
“How are your mother and the new baby?” asked Emma. “I haven’t seen Li’l since right after the baby was born.”
“They’re doing well, thank you,” said Zoë. “Mother sends her love.” Turning to Millie, she glanced at her friend and frowned. “What happened to your gown?”
“A minor disaster,” said Millie. “I was just asking my mother to fix it. Prince Atworth is on his way here. I saw him when I was flying over the forest. He has a small party with him—only a squire and a page. They should arrive fairly soon. I wanted to talk
to you about that, too, Mother. Don’t you have something else you can try that might help me? Not a potion, but a spell, perhaps? It would be a catastrophe if I turned into a dragon while he’s here. He’s the fifth prince to come courting, and I can’t afford to frighten away another!”
“I can’t believe you want me to try magic on you again,” said Emma. “You know my magic never works the way it should on you. I think your dragon side changes it somehow. You remember that potion I gave you the last time a prince came to visit …”
“Those green swellings were horrible!” said Zoë. “They were the size of my fist and they jiggled when you moved.”
Millie grimaced. “I never told you, but they glowed in the dark, too. Even after I drank the second potion to reverse the effects of the first, the swellings didn’t go away for days.”
“I still don’t understand how Prince Leopold made you angry. He seemed nice enough to me,” said Zoë.
“I thought so, too, at first, but then he started telling me all the things he would do to ‘improve’ our castle if we got married, which meant tearing down half of it. He would have made it squat and ugly. And he criticized everything, from the moat to the shape of the castle keep, and acted like he knew more about castles than anyone else. I tried to tell him that I loved the castle just the way it was, but he told me I didn’t know what I was talking about. I kept expecting to feel the change come on, so I was thrilled when it didn’t. Then those boils or whatever they were started to pop out all over me, and I knew he was going to leave as soon as I saw the look on his face. I don’t want another potion, Mother, but maybe a spell …”
“I really don’t think it’s a good idea, sweetheart. Who knows what the side effects might be. And to do it right before a prince is coming to visit—”
“But that’s the whole reason I need your help. I’m never going to find the man I’m supposed to spend the rest of my life with if I keep scaring them away!”
“You still have plenty of time, Millie,” said Emma. “You’re not that old.”
“I’m turning fifteen the day after tomorrow!” Millie wailed. “By the time you were fifteen you had already fallen in love with Father. And just last night Grandmother read a letter to me that she’d received from her old friend Queen Isabelle. Her son is marrying a girl that he just met. She was locked in a tower for most of her life and he was the first prince she’d ever seen. The girl is a year younger than me! Grandmother says that there aren’t very many good princes around and if I don’t hurry, they’ll all be taken.”
“Chartreuse always was helpful that way,” Emma muttered. “I wouldn’t worry about it,” she said in a louder voice. “When I was young, she told me that no prince would marry me, and tried to make me marry the first one who asked. And then I met your father, who was exactly right for me. I’m sure you’ll meet the right man, too, someday.”
“But what if Atworth is the right one and I scare him off by turning into a dragon the first time we argue?”
You-too fluttered into the air and landed on Emma’s worktable, his long green tail dragging behind him. “Then you’ll be an old maid!” he squawked, nearly knocking over a pot of ink.
Emma frowned and snatched the pot out from under the parrot’s wing. “Watch yourself, You-too, or I’ll send you to the chicken coop.”
“What would a parrot do in a chicken coop?” he asked.
“Who says you’d still be a parrot?” Emma replied.
“Thppt!” the parrot said, sticking out his tongue in a rude sort of way.
“Shoo!” said Emma, waving her hand at him. “I can’t work while you’re sitting on my table.”
The parrot snapped at her fingers before darting to the window ledge. As he flew above the table, his tail knocked over the pot of ink, dousing Emma’s parchment. Scowling, she gestured at the ink while muttering under her breath. The ink reversed its flow and ran back into the pot, which righted itself with a thunk, leaving the parchment as clean as before.
“Please, Mother,” said Millie. “I need you to say a spell. I don’t want to be an old maid.”
“Oh, all right,” Emma said, looking resigned. “But don’t say that I didn’t warn you.” Tapping her finger on her chin, she studied her daughter for a moment. “I think we’ll try a different approach. The potion I gave you last time was meant to prevent you from turning into a dragon if you got angry. Why don’t we see if we can curb your temper instead?”
“If you think it will work,” said Millie.
“I can’t guarantee anything, but we’ll try this.”
Quench this girl’s temper
And make her mood light.
Don’t let her get mad—
At least till tonight.
“What do you mean ‘at least till tonight’? What’s so important about tonight?” asked Millie.
“You said that those swellings didn’t disappear right away when I gave you the second potion. I didn’t want to make this spell last too long in case it has side effects you don’t like. If it works the way you want it to, I can always try to make it more permanent.”
“That sounds reasonable,” said Zoë. “I wonder what the side effects will be.”
Millie darted an indignant glance in her direction. “I hope there won’t be any.”
“I think it’s so romantic that Prince Atworth is coming for your birthday,” said Zoë.
“It would have been more romantic if I’d met him before this. I’d never even heard his name until his messenger brought his letter.”
“Someone’s coming!” screeched You-too. “Three boys on horseback. Maybe one of them is that prince.”
“Let me see,” said Millie as she and Zoë raced to the window. The dragon part of her gave Millie excellent eyesight, but she had to wait until the horses trotted from behind some trees before she could see them. “He’s very handsome. And he has dragons on his crest. If he likes dragons, maybe he’s the one for me.”
“Let’s go meet him,” said Zoë.
Millie turned away from the window. “Are you coming, Mother?” she asked, her cheeks flushed with excitement.
Emma smiled and reached for her daughter’s hand. “I wouldn’t miss this for anything, but don’t you want me to do something about your gown?”
They were on their way down the curving tower stairs when Millie glanced behind her and said to Zoë, “I can’t believe all you have to do to change is think about it. I wish it was that easy for me. I can never change when I want to. Do you know how frustrating it is to have so little control over your life?”
“I can imagine,” said Zoë. “It must be awful.”
Two
As the prince’s party approached the steps, Zoë stood on tiptoe to whisper into Millie’s ear, “You were right when you said he was handsome. He’s even better looking than Leopold.”
“Isn’t he, though?” Millie said, admiring his long dark hair and chiseled features. She also liked the flag his squire carried, with the golden dragon emblazoned on its center.
“Greetings,” said the prince as he dismounted. He handed his reins to his squire while eyeing Millie and Zoë. “Go fetch the princess, and tell her that Prince Atworth has arrived.”
Millie giggled and said, “I’m Princess Millie.”
Zoë poked her in the side and whispered, “Did you just giggle? You never giggle.”
“I know,” Millie whispered back, giving her friend a confused look. “I didn’t mean to.” She glanced at Atworth and saw that he had swept off his cap in a courtly bow and was waiting for her to notice.
“You may rise, fair prince,” Millie said as she held out her hand. Atworth took three steps and enfolded her hand in his. She giggled again when he turned it over and kissed her palm.
While the prince began to tell her how excited he was to meet her and how much he had been looking forward to his visit, Millie fought down a rising sense of panic. She thought the maids who flirted with squires looked brainless when they batted the
ir eyelashes and giggled. The last thing she wanted to do was act the same way.
Emma had stopped to send word to Eadric and her parents that the prince had arrived, but she appeared now and nudged her daughter so that Millie’s eyes lost their glazed expression. While the prince spoke to her mother, Millie fought the urge to giggle every time he looked her way. When he mentioned that he was hungry, Emma invited him to join them in a midday meal, even though it was still early.
“That sounds delightful,” said Atworth, squeezing Millie’s hand, which he still held in his.
A giggle erupted from Millie, making everyone, including the prince, look at her in surprise.
Millie wanted to tell her mother about how she couldn’t keep from giggling, but when Emma’s glance met hers, she realized that her mother already knew. It had to be a side effect of the spell and, in a way, she thought it was worse than the last one. The swellings just made her look awful. Uncontrollable giggling made her look and feel like a fool.
Millie was trying so hard not to giggle that she paid little attention to what Atworth was saying as they walked side by side to the Great Hall. Her grandparents and her father were already there when they arrived, and they greeted Atworth, gesturing for him to sit beside the old king. Limelyn had always doted on his granddaughter, so he studied the prince with great interest.
It was a simple meal of cheese, cold meat from the night before, fresh bread baked that morning, and berries from the castle’s garden. “This is delicious,” said the prince as he helped himself to another slice of roast pork.
“Cook is saving the best food for the day after tomorrow,” said Millie. “Everyone in the kitchen has been cooking all week for the party.”
“You’re having a party in my honor?” said Atworth. “I’m surprised you have enough food.”
Zoë frowned and leaned forward to see past Millie. “Actually, the party is in Millie’s honor. Her birthday is the day after tomorrow.”