by Terry Spear
The flickering flames soon lighted the hall in a warm glow, but the voices had silenced as all eyes watched Eloria. She raised her eyebrows and smiled.
Viator turned to his mother, who studied Eloria. “What have you to say about her, my lady mother?”
The queen took a deep breath. “She will make a fine queen someday.”
“Not ours, surely.”
His mother buttered her roll. “And why would you think she would stay here? Your father is returning her with Lord Balen—”
Viator shook his head. His mother could not keep the secret from him any longer. “I’ve learned of the prophecy.”
“Ahh, wagging tongues abound in court. She is unusual, I must say. I’ve heard she is but a commoner, and yet, she carries herself like royalty.” The queen smiled. “I see she’s wearing the gown Sendal told me you despise and still, you cannot keep your eyes off the girl.”
“I’ve never seen red hair like hers. She climbs trees, falls off cliffs without injury, and—”
“Most unusual,” the queen said. “I understand you are to go to the seacoast tomorrow.”
“I should be taking care of the business with the water first.” Viator frowned as Eloria laughed with Barons Crawford and Tal. He should have been the one to sup with her, not them.
“Lord Balen will take care of that business. Your father knows best.”
Viator poked his spoon into his boar soup. “It’s not our way to default on our quests.”’
The queen shook her head. “You are good of heart, my son. You will do what is right.” She studied the gem at Eloria’s throat. “I wonder what power she possesses.”
“What? Humans cannot even fly. I would not have thought they could have any powers.”
“But this one…she already has quite a power over you.”
“Nonsense.” His body warmed in embarrassment. Now he knew his feelings must have been totally transparent just like his father’s had been earlier.
“I sense there is something else. Something that…” His mother shook her head, then lifted her buttered bread to her lips.
“What?”
“She will be a challenge for all concerned…I predict.”
Eloria couldn’t keep from looking at the head table to study Viator from time to time as she ate the elven food. Her whole body heated as she found him studying her in return. She smiled as he winked at her. Langolars, who were not committed to each other, did no such thing with each other. They were just paired, and that was the end of it. Had the shadow elf treated Persephonice in such a way?
The man who sat next to her pointed to her soup. “Boar, my lady. The prince hunted it for our meal. Do you like it?”
“I haven’t tasted anything like it. It’s delightful.”
He nodded. “I’m Baron Crawford.”
“And I’m Baron Tal,” the man on the other side of her said.
She was surprised to be seated between two men of the king’s court. Women who were unmarried were usually seated together in the castles she’d managed to visit on other worlds, and she could see quite a few sitting in such a manner at one of the long tables on the farthest side in the elven great hall. Was the king afraid of her? Were these men guards in reality?
“So what position do you maintain on the king’s staff?” she asked Baron Crawford.
“Chief of Security.”
“Ahh.” She had assumed right. They were there to protect the courtiers from her. The notion amused her. She turned to the other man and said, “And you?”
“Chief of Information.”
“I see.” He was a spy to keep an eye on her, she figured. He gazed at her crystal with such intensity, she sighed. “Would you like for me to remove it so that you can see it better?” The crystal was protected so that he couldn’t destroy it.
Baron Tal looked over at the king, and Eloria followed his gaze. Had he wanted the king’s approval first? “Ask your king if it’s all right with him. I have no problem with letting you examine the crystal. I harbor no ill will toward your people.”
The baron waved for a page, then spoke to him. The boy’s eyes grew round, and the baron motioned for him to get on with the task. Eloria noticed all of the courtiers watched the page’s actions. In fact, she realized everything that had to do with her was being monitored by the whole court. She hadn’t realized what a distraction she could be. Then again, if they had an elf at one of their meals on the ship, the same thing would happen there.
The page spoke to the king as he leaned over to listen to him. Then he sat back in his chair. The page was undoubtedly waiting for the king’s response, and so was everyone else as the conversation and eating of the meal had stopped completely.
Viator watched her, his face showing concern. What was he worried about?
Finally, the king nodded, then motioned for the page to carry out his word. The page strode back to Baron Tal as quickly as he could without running.
When he reached the baron, he bowed. “My lord, His Majesty bade you to examine the human’s crystal.”
Eloria lifted the necklace, but when she attempted to remove it, her curls caught in the rose-gold chain. For several minutes, she struggled to separate her hair from the chain, then took a deep breath of exasperation. She looked over at the head table to see everyone waiting in great expectation.
“Sorry, Baron Tal.” Whenever she left the ship, she never removed it. Not until she was in uniform. Though on occasion, she had worn it under her uniform, if she knew she wasn’t going to perform any magic. If it had glowed when she was wearing it on the ship and anyone had seen it, she would have been in big trouble.
He nodded, his forehead peppered with sweat, and she realized he was nervous about touching it. “It is only a necklace.” She reached up again and tried to untangle her curls from the fine chain. Then finally separating her hair from the necklace, she pulled the chain over her head.
The room was still quiet. Not a soul stirred in the massive great hall. She gazed at the crystal, dark as usual, shimmering in the reflection of the candle lights flickering gently in the summer breeze. Turning to face the baron, she was surprised his face had turned colorless.
She held the necklace out to him, but he didn’t grab for it as she expected. She glanced over at the king who furrowed his brow at his lord. “Please, take it, my lord, and examine it all you want,” she said to the baron. “I promise it won't harm you.”
He stretched his hand out and grasped the chain as whispered words filled the room all at once. Just as suddenly, the blue sky turned green as storm clouds rolled in with frightening speed. Sparks of light tore through the darkening gloom and thunder boomed overhead as the wind whipped into the hall, extinguishing the lights all at once. Feminine gasps and male chatter circulated as everyone sat still in the dark.
Then the crystal began to glow and the baron nearly dropped it. The light from the crystal highlighted Eloria and him as they both stared at it, but a new noise caught their attention. Turning to view the southernmost window at their backs, they saw a monster of a dragon appear, his green-silver scales glowing in a supernatural mist.
“The dragon of Benzol,” Baron Tal and several others said at once.
Its catlike, emerald eyes narrowed as it peered through the expansive window, while its wings flapped, sending ripples of wind into the hall.
“The Benzolian dragon that won’t be tamed,” Baron Tal whispered.
7
The dragon raised his head upward and shot a stream of blue flames toward the heavens. As soon as he displayed his threat, several of the elven men quickly herded the women and children out of the hall toward the living quarters for safety. Only Eloria and some of the other men of the court remained with their king and Viator.
Lowering his head, the dragon focused on Baron Tal and then Eloria. In the next instance, the necklace the baron held in his clenched fingers vanished, only to reappear around Eloria’s neck.
Then the scaled beast twiste
d its long body around and flew off, one of his mighty wings knocking about baskets of flowers hanging above the large open-air windows. Eloria took a breath finally, then gasped when Viator grabbed her hand and pulled her from her seat.
“Eloria, are you all right?”
She’d been concentrating on the dragon and hadn’t seen Viator rush to join her. She still couldn’t believe she’d seen another dragon.
Everyone who was left in the great hall still sat stunned at the sight. Her necklace glowed, but softer now and some of the remaining men hastened to relight the candles.
The king stared at her as if she’d turned into a dragon, and she faced Viator. “What happened?”
He led her from the hall and returned her to her chamber before anyone could stop him. “Eloria, what do you know about the necklace?” He closed the door to the bedchamber behind him.
She sat on a blue velvet-cushioned bench, and he joined her. Would her words scare him away? Despite fearing they would, she wanted to tell him.
“I had a dream where a white-bearded man came to me in a dream. A dream within a dream, you see. You know how they can be…totally confusing. I was the one chosen above all else to be given the gift, so he told me.”
“What gift?”
She shrugged. “He didn’t say and in a dream it’s hard to ask about these things.”
“Go on.”
“He told me I’d find a crystal…a special green gem that would help me to fulfill my dreams and many others' too. I had the most important quest to complete. But you know, Viator, it was only a dream. Why once I dreamed a mermaid tried to drown me.”
“And?”
She chuckled. “I’d dreamed it once. Just a dream.” She couldn’t explain about the one landing in their transporter, which was the reason she had nightmares about it.
He shook his head. “So the next day, you went to the cave to retrieve the crystal?”
“Not exactly.”
“But you said—”
“I didn’t go the next day. I mean, I didn’t really remember having gone at all. Just like the dream within a dream. It was like I had gone there in a dream. My father said the necklace was from my mother, but still, the dream was clear that I had found the crystal myself and not that my mother had passed it to my father to give to me. My mother died when I was four. I don’t remember much about her.”
“I’m so sorry to hear this. But it sounds to me like you were…shadow walking.”
“What?”
“When someone visits a place but is not fully conscious at the time as if they’re accomplishing a mission of high importance but where no one must see them carry out the task. We call it shadow walking.”
“Oh.”
He held her hand. “Talom is a rogue dragon. No one has ever been able to tame him, though many have died trying. They say he is untamable.”
“Why, then, does anyone try to do so?” She believed he should be free to roam their world without having to owe allegiance to anyone.
“They say whosoever does will harness the greatest power in the world.” He reached over and touched her necklace, turned dark, and it flickered with light. “You have powers that confound us, Eloria. My father will wish you never to return to our lands of Darkland Forest.”
She shook her head. “I am only a commoner, Viator. A wingless human girl.” She had to let on that she had no powers, no real magic, that she couldn’t harm them. “I know many things… how to heal with herbs, I can recognize storms before anyone else seems to—”
“And tonight?”
“It was different. But everything here for me is different.”
“How so?”
Eloria stood, then walked over to the window. No more clouds filled the sky, no more streaks of lightning zigzagging to the earth, only a smattering of twinkling stars hanging against a black velvet night. “I felt a surge of power shimmering through my body. It wasn’t like anything I’ve ever felt before. Like I was soaring high above the ground, my heart lighter than air.” It was different. She’d never felt this overwhelming sense of power.
He tapped his fingers on the bench. “You wear a magical amulet with who knows what kind of powers and the ability to summon Talom.”
“What?”
“You summoned him, Eloria. That’s what my father’s advisors will say. You summoned the dragon who cannot be tamed.”
“Nonsense. He came here…well, for whatever reason. He flies where he chooses, but I had nothing to do with it.”
Viator joined her at the window and ran his hand over her fingers. “He displayed his prowess to show us how powerful he was. With one such effort, he could have killed everyone in the great hall. It was a warning. Baron Tal had your necklace and the next thing we knew, the storm was unleashed and Talom appeared. Why? He has never visited our castle before.”
Eloria shook her head. “You give me way too much credit. I never even knew dragons existed before I came here.”
He rubbed his chin as he seemed deep in thought. “What did the man look like?”
“What man?”
“The one from your dream.”
“He was white-haired, with a beard that curled down to his toes. His eyes were as blue as the cloudless sky, and he had a prominent nose. Clothed in shimmering blue-green robes reaching to his turned-up slippers, he reminded me of a wizard, or at least the ones I’ve seen from the wizards’ realm of Caladan. Oh, and he carried a staff with a glowing—”
“Green crystal at its tip.”
“You know of him?”
“Sarazan.”
“Who?”
He patted her hand and took a ragged breath. “Sarazan. He sounds like the wizard who heads the wizard guild of Caladan. I can’t be certain, but all wizards have a distinctive staff. He is about the most powerful of all sorcerers. I can’t understand why he would choose a human girl for the task. And as far as I know, he’s dead.”
“That someone from your, uhm, part of the world couldn’t possibly call on me to do anything. I’m not from here.” She was exasperated. No way could a wizard from here give her a crystal in a faraway world. “What task?”
“That, I do not know. You must remember something else about the dream. What did he say about the gift he was to bestow on you?”
“If he said anything about it, I can’t remember. Not a thing.”
“Has he come to you more than once?”
She didn’t want to say anything more about the wizard’s visitations. Viator would shun her like the rest of his people did, and she didn’t want that. Not from him.
“Eloria?”
She turned to look out the window again. The ebony sky sparkled with life.
“How many times, Eloria?”
“Too many to remember.”
His hand touched her shoulder as if to coax the words from her. She knew he was dying to know, but she was afraid to say anymore. She tried to relax, but her back was as stiff as when Talom first appeared.
“What happened during these other visitations?”
The door was thrown open and Sendal, her maid, and Baron Crawford walked into the room. “You’re not to be in the women’s chambers any longer, Prince Viator,” Sendal snarled.
“My liege,” Baron Crawford said, using much more caution in addressing the crown prince, “his majesty wishes a word with you.”
“At once,” Sendal snapped. “Furthermore, you’re not to return here again.”
Unless he wished to be with Sendal, then Eloria figured the irate woman wouldn’t have minded. But of course, Sendal couldn’t suggest this. Eloria was surprised she would speak so haughtily to the crown prince in such a way. She must have assumed her position was guaranteed.
Viator hesitated, then kissed Eloria’s lips lightly. She smiled as Sendal gasped. “Good night, Viator,” Eloria said, then kissed him back. He smiled at her when she returned his kiss. “Pleasant dreams, my prince.”
“And you, my love.”
He called h
er his love? She wanted to laugh out loud. As much as Sendal tried to aggravate her, Viator appeared to want to irritate the elf. Eloria hoped she wouldn’t get payback for it. Then again, surely Sendal would worry about Eloria’s powerful magic and the ability to call a mighty dragon.
But the kiss? That little touch had made her want so much more.
“My liege,” Baron Crawford said.
“I will speak with you further, my lady, rest assured.” He kissed Eloria's hand with tenderness, then bowed low in total reverence while she quickly curtsied to him in return.
When he hastened out of the room with Baron Crawford shadowing him, Sendal paced across the floor. “You will see no more of my betrothed, human.”
“Are you going to stop him?” Eloria sat down on the bench. She imagined only the king had such authority and Sendal was just full of hot air.
“His father has already decreed such a ruling. My prince is to have nothing further to do with you. However, my brother is to return you to the cliffs at first light, though our father tried to talk the king into sending someone else to do the job.”
The notion disturbed Eloria. She could see Viator’s father locking him in some tower to ensure he had nothing further to do with her.
She wished to scare the woman a little—to ask her if she didn’t fear the wrath of Talom, or some such thing for being so mean to her. But she couldn’t do it. She realized Sendal was scared enough already. She was afraid of losing her betrothed and with that, the future rule of the kingdom of Darkland Forest at her husband’s side.
“You have nothing to fear from me, Sendal. Viator would never marry me, you do realize, despite the fact we love each other deeply.” She couldn’t believe the words slipped off her tongue without her permission. The woman grated on her. Whatever happened to her ability to be an inspirational motivator? Then again, she guessed she’d inspired the prince to show how he felt about Sendal.