The Dragonprince's Heir

by Aaron Pogue

  Nothing grew for miles. The very dirt was scorched, and where our horses walked the charcoal cracked and popped in protest. The line of it stretched left and right as far as I could see, but I could see the slow curve as well. It was a huge circle of devastation centered on some place still up ahead.

  The only thing untainted in that place was the living river. Deep and slow and ever-changing, it rolled at our right hand, curling in and out amid the ruin. Far ahead, I could imagine the wide lake wrapped almost lovingly around a little spit of land. I knew it from the maps. Gath-upon-Brennes.

  But first we had to cross the char, and for all the haste my uncle had shown before, now he went slowly, carefully...almost reverently. I followed right behind him, eyes and ears alert, but there was no other sound than the rolling river and the eerie crunch of the horses' hooves.

  After some distance, the blistered land around us became uneven, thrown up here or there into a hummock, or carved away into a deep, squared pit. I'd passed a hundred of these shapes, obscured by the stretching shadows, before I finally understood. Then I looked ahead and saw the path the wizard followed.

  It was straight and even, perhaps eight paces wide, but left and right there were the ruins. Almost none reached higher than a pace or two above the ground, but now that I knew to look, I saw the squared-off walls. I saw the steps down into cellars. It was the ruins of a town.

  I swallowed hard. Not a town, but a city. I looked behind me, then aside at miles of the devastation. Larger than my father's fortress. Larger than Tirah, perhaps. That little bit of land had been the heart, perhaps, but this had been a sprawling city spanning the mighty river. How many men had died here? I shuddered at the thought.

  This was not Tirah, where only the outlying farms had been burned down. It was not Eriden, where Captain Tanner's neighbors died in ones and twos, dragged out of their burrows. It was not even Cara, where whole blocks had gone up in flames. This was a thriving city scored to ash. It was ten thousand lives—perhaps a hundred thousand lives—turned into coal.

  At every step the horses' hooves went crunch, and something deep inside me screamed in horror. I understood the wizard's reverence, then, but all I wanted was to break and run. I wanted to be through this place and out, away. I trembled in the saddle, but he only plodded on.

  He had promised to take me safely home. I fixed my mind on that, focused on my calming breaths, and followed him to the heart of desolation.

  First I saw the wall. It rose above the ruins clean and unbroken. It was not the sorcerous construct my father had wrought to protect the Tower, but rough-worked stone. Still, somehow it seemed to shine like silver against all the shadow. It rose taller than a man and might have made a perfect circle, but its eastern end connected to a tall stone bridge that arched out over the lake.

  This was the place, then, the center of it all. This wall still stood, and from beyond it came the little sounds of life: leaves rustled in the breeze, birds cried out, and crickets sang. After all the eerie silence, those tiny sounds seemed like a ringing choir.

  A gate of polished steel stood at the end of this old boulevard, strong enough to stop an army, but now it stood open. It was not until my uncle dropped out of his saddle and swept a deep bow that I saw the lady standing in the gate's arch. She was lovely.

  She was everything this place was not. She was beautiful and made of brilliant colors. Her hair was gold, her skin was brown, her eyes were green, and her dress was rosy-red and river-blue. She stood taller than Caleb, thinner than Mother, and yet she did not look fragile. She looked alien instead. Strange and powerful. Graceful and kind. She turned those eyes on me, and I felt a chill chase down through my chest and settle in my spine. I flung myself from my saddle to kneel beside my uncle.

  Already rising, he spoke in an unnatural voice, eyes fixed on a spot halfway between us. "Laelia, this is my nephew. Daven's son. Taryn, this is Laelia. An elf."

  My gracious answer tangled on my tongue at his final word. An elf? I'd dreamed of seeing wizards. I'd defied my mother for a chance to stand before a king. But never in my life had I hoped to meet an elven maid.

  When I didn't rise, she came and knelt on both knees before me, pressing the perfect fabric of her skirt into the char-stained road. A finger long and slender and cold as ice pressed beneath my chin, raising it up until I met her eyes.

  "This is Taryn," she asked, "born of noble flesh and dragon's blood?"

  I nodded, mute.

  She weighed me in her gaze, then gave a smile that thawed my heart. "And yet you have no raging fires of your own. This is well."

  I licked dry lips and found my voice. "I have but one desire—"

  "It's a hero's goal," she interrupted, sadness shading every syllable. "And I love you for it, child. But it is not your destiny to free your mother's soul."

  I straightened up, surprised. "How can you know that?"

  "It is given me to know, more now than ever before. The dragonswarm has weakened human will, and that leaves more to destiny and chance. Your people's eyes are darkened by the Chaos; mine see patterns in the freely changing tides."

  "You can see what is to be?"

  She bowed her head in affirmation. "I can see the shifting shapes of destiny. I can see what would be best, and what would bring disaster."

  "And you see nothing I can do for my mother?"

  Laelia hesitated for a moment. Then she rose and turned away. After one gliding step she stretched a finger back to beckon me. "Come walk with me a while, child. We've waited far too long to have this conversation. Themmichus is safe enough right here. He'll wait for us."

  My uncle met my eyes as I went past, though he seemed far away. He said nothing, didn't even seem to see me, and he never stirred. His reaction was strange enough to slow me, but why had he brought me all the way here if not to speak with this lady? She called to me before I could imagine an answer, so I followed her through the arched gate and past the high stone wall.

  On the other side there was a garden. It seemed entirely untouched by the darkness that had razed the city without. Trees of every size and shape grew here, spaced wide enough to leave footpaths beneath their boughs, but offset in rows to make a careful screen, another wall to separate this outer corridor from the inner park.

  Here, a path curved gracefully along just inside the wall, planted on either side with blooms in every color. The air was fragrant with their sweet perfume and glowed in golden twilight. The lady took my hand, her fingers soft as silk and cold as stone, and pulled me off the gravel road that would have taken me into the inner bower.

  She led me instead around the wide periphery. We went some distance without speaking a word, and yet the twilight never faded. I felt no fatigue, either. I felt refreshed. My spirit felt as soft and cool as the lady's gentle touch.

  Then she spoke, her voice as much a part of the place as the wind in the trees, the blossoms on the vines. "You should know this first: you have never been alone."

  I scowled. "I have always been alone."

  Her tresses whispered when she shook her head. "Your father's pride is strong in you. Your mother's love is warm. Your protector's courage fortifies you. And your people's nobility drives you on to honor."

  I shrugged one shoulder. "That would make a lovely epitaph, but I have sorely missed my mother's smile."

  The lady stopped beside me on the path and turned me to face her. For a moment, the weight of my last statement lay too heavy on my chest, but she only waited. At last I raised my eyes to hers, and the green in them was grayer now, shading on to blue.

  She held my gaze and smiled down at me and twined her fingers with mine. It was more than a smile, more than a look. A sense of happiness and home wrapped around me like a huge, soft blanket. For a heartbeat, she was all my mother's love. It felt like sunshine on cool skin and easy laughter and the taste of honey.

  This was what I wanted. This was what Father and Caleb and the king and all the constant demands of the Tower's residen
ts had robbed me of. The elven maid was gone, driven utterly from my memory, and where she had been my mother now stood, carefree and focused wholly on me. For one pure, sweet instant my heart felt perfect peace.

  But then the moment cracked along the edges, the magic melted like thin wax and sloughed away, and it was not my mother standing there. It wasn't happiness. It was just a lovely girl.

  Quite lovely. And quite close. I cleared my throat and stepped hurriedly away. "I thank you for the gift, but...."

  I couldn't find the words, and they would not have been gentle words at all. Behind that taste of joy came bitterness and loss. Tears stung in my eyes, but I refused to look away. "I don't need an illusion, Lady Laelia. I don't need help remembering my mother's smile. She does."

  Laelia cocked her head, lips parted, and stared at me in surprise. I felt a blush hot on my face, but still I held her gaze. "I mean no disrespect, but if this is why he brought me here...it's not enough."

  She only stared at me, her gorgeous eyes their natural shade again and wide above her open mouth. I squeezed her fingertips then let them fall. She said nothing.

  "I...I should get back to Uncle Themm."

  Still she didn't answer me. Instead she closed her eyes, her face a mask of concentration, lips like rose petals pressed into a line. I waited for some other reaction, but none came. I licked my lips again and mumbled, "Thank you. For a gentle moment. For something beautiful."

  Then I turned and headed back the way we'd come. I went four paces before her voice stopped me in my tracks.

  "Stay a while more." It came as a command, ringing sharp and clear, and there was iron in her voice that had not been there before.

  I looked back to meet her eyes, and she seemed even taller now. The lines of her face were sharper, vulpine, and the pearly teeth had tips that might tear flesh. Her eyes were narrowed, her hands flexing until the delicate nails seemed like deadly claws.

  Fear burned a trail down my spine, but she made no move toward me. She breathed in little labored gasps, as though she'd been toiling hard. "What are you, son of dragon's blood?"

  I shook my head. "I am just a child who must find his way home."

  Her lips peeled back in something like a snarl. "No. No, you are something more."

  My shoulders fell as I met her eyes. "I cannot guess what your eyes see, but I see nothing worth keeping me here."

  "It doesn't matter what your eyes see. You are not free to choose when you will leave this place."

  "Everyone would make a prisoner of me, it seems. No one has succeeded yet."

  She showed her teeth. "And how would you leave?"

  "My uncle has promised to take me home as soon as I have seen this place. I've seen enough."

  "Poor child. Don't you see? Your uncle brought you here because I asked him to. He will not take you from this place until I'm satisfied."

  I shuddered at the memory of his strange complacence by the garden's gate. I did not understand it, but I believed her. I turned and faced her square. "What would you know of me?"

  "What power do you carry in your bones?" Her eyes strained wide when she asked it, her delicate nostrils flared hungrily, and though I had some suspicion to the secret she sought, I didn't dare share it.

  "You wrote my epitaph," I said instead. "But for all the heroes who've looked over me, I am...nothing."

  She raised her chin and considered me down the length of her narrow nose. "No, child. You shine in your own ways. Your father walked through mountainsides, but even he could not go where you go now."

  "I only want to go home. I only want to help my mother find some sort of freedom. She is a captive of the king for no fault of her own."

  "She is a sacrifice to Order," Laelia said. "One she willingly has made. The world has never hung so evenly divided on the destinies of father, mother, child."

  "My father is lost to this world, Laelia." I refused to let it be a question, but still she dipped her head conceding me the point.

  "And yet the lord of north and east and west lies trembling in his bed for fear of the Dragonprince's return."

  My hands clenched into fists. "My father never meant to steal his throne."

  She dipped her head again, teeth flashing. "Daven swore it in an oath more binding than that king could ever know. And yet...the Dragonprince walked all the land with such a power as man was never meant to bear."

  "I begin to see." I said. "Is that what you wish to know of me? How dangerous I am to...what? The world? To human order?"

  "There is an Order greater than mankind's. But yes. The dragonswarm was thrown off course before it could prepare a new beginning—"

  "A new beginning?" I interrupted, forgetting her terrible presence in the absurdity of the claim. I jabbed a finger toward the high stone wall. "Have you seen the devastation they wrought here?"

  She dipped her head in a single nod, showing no emotion. "Lives were lost. But lives are temporary things."

  "A city turned to cinder!"

  "Even cities die in time. The dragonswarm is tragic in its way, but it is...necessary."

  "No! The world should not be bathed in fire."

  For some reason, she smiled at that. "It's no surprise, but still it's sweet to hear you say those words."

  I could not guess what she might mean by that. I frowned into her smile. "Then how can you complain that Father saved the world—"

  She shook her head sharply, cutting me off. "By Haven's hope, I wish he had. He saved ten thousand lives, I'll give you that. But Order, bent too long into the shapes of man's authority, grows brittle. Grows corrupt. There is a pale kind of peace that does more to harm a life than a cleansing fire ever could. It goes on killing a man for days and months and years."

  I retreated half a pace, astonished by the quiet certainty behind her words. "And dragons are the cure?"

  She shook her head. "Change, however painful, is the cure. Man only wakes the dragonswarm when he's too cowardly to pay the price himself."

  "You are speaking of the king."

  Again, she shook her head. "He is just one knot in the wide and tangled net that drags at all mankind."

  "But he's the center. He's the worst by far. Father should have killed him long ago."

  She held my gaze, her expression unforgiving. "You think your mother suffered for the heroic things your father did. You cannot see the shape of would-have-been, but Daven Dragonprince could not have gained a throne with one man's blood."

  "Who would have dared defy him?"

  "Whom would he have had to kill? And how could he have fought the dragons while he warred with other men?"

  I scoffed at that. This story, at least, I had been told. "The king brought all his armies, all his wizards, to the Tower. And he could not get in until my mother let him in."

  "Just so," she said. "Daven Dragonprince could have hidden in his tower while men killed men in ways darker even than dragons' dreams. He could have killed a king and left the little lords to fight it out. But he could not have reigned, not if he meant to fight the dragons, too."

  "Caleb could have reigned."

  She laughed, a fox's kik kik bark. "He would not have wanted to. And still it changes nothing. Caleb would have won his place by the blood of men, whether it was his hand that spilled it or your father's. Something had to burn."

  "So we sacrificed some cities," I said, waving once again toward the wall. "And we sacrificed some lives. And...." I trailed off.

  "And in the end," she said, "Daven Dragonprince sacrificed himself to buy some time. He didn't want mankind to pay the price. He thought perhaps he held enough of power, both kinds of power, that he could bring some kind of balance."

  "But it was not enough."

  She nodded, and there was pity in her eyes. "Too much remained of what had been. The great Academy still stands, twisting Order like a hempen rope. The king sits on his golden throne—"

  "His lapdog holds Tirah."

  "And Dorion and Cara whisper echoes of th
e world that was."

  My chest felt empty. My heart ached with something like loneliness and something like regret. Father had stopped the dragonswarm. He'd sent the monsters to their graves or sent them back to rest. He'd saved ten thousand lives...but still the world was brittle?

  My mouth was dry, but I found words. "What can we do?"

  "You can tear it down. Even with the dragons gone, you could set the world on fire with just a spark."

  Fear cut through me, sharp and cold as ice, until even my teeth chattered. Her eyes burned down at me, waiting for an answer. I shook my head sharply. "I do not want the world to burn."

  Once more she showed some strange relief at that, as though she'd feared I was a dragon in my heart. But there was no new softness in her voice. "Then you may gain a few more years of peace. You may even gain a lifetime. That is the choice your father made, again and again and again. He made it for you and for Isabelle—"

  "And for all the nameless farmers in their fields."

  "For mothers' sons and fathers' daughters. And your mother made that choice as well, when she surrendered to the king to stop a war."

  "But there will be a war regardless. You said—"

  "Perhaps a war. Perhaps a fire. Perhaps another dragonswarm. Every breath you steal by human will from destiny and chance comes at a price. But clever men can press the price on fools, and righteous men can carry it unspending and unspent."

  "You're talking about cataclysm."

  "I'm talking about change. The world that was will never be the world that is to come. From age to age, from one breath to the next, the world must be destroyed and made again ten thousand times."

  I set my shoulders and met her gaze. "I will have no part in this."

  She laughed, long and low. "Honest child on fire for family, you are the bonfire's heart."

  "No! This is not a riddle. This is more than words. I will not serve the dragonswarm."

  "Are you so sure of that?" she asked.