The Dragon of Trelian

by Michelle Knudsen

  “Calen.”

  “Anyway, the cards look good. I mean, for the near future, anyway.” They both knew that Sen Eva would be back eventually, of course. But right now even a short time without immediate danger would be a welcome change.

  They turned the corner, and the banquet hall opened before them, a landscape of black and white and red linens and flowers and fabrics. Calen noted all of that only in passing, however; he was too busy staring at the enormous banquet table piled with just about every kind of food he had ever seen or heard of or imagined. He leaned toward Meg and whispered, “This is the part of a wedding that people really get excited about, isn’t it?”

  Meg laughed at him gently, releasing his arm. “Go forth and fill yourself a plate,” she said. “I’ll meet you at our table. You and Serek are both sitting with us on the dais.”

  Calen nodded absently, already planning his plate-loading strategy. It was only after he’d piled as much as he could on two plates and turned toward where Meg had pointed that he realized the dais was like a big stage on a raised platform where the entire rest of the hall could see them. Well, at least it was easy to find. He climbed the steps, found the empty seat beside Meg, and sat down.

  Meg was looking toward the end of the table, where Maerlie and Ryant were sitting, their heads bent close together in conversation. Calen watched her watching them, happy to see Meg so happy. They all knew, of course, that nothing here was really finished and that there was trouble waiting not so far ahead. But tonight, he suspected, every one of them was choosing not to think about any of that. Meg certainly seemed determined to spend one evening just being safe and happy, and he couldn’t think of anyone who deserved it more. He thought back to the day they’d met, trying to remember how it had felt to have so little he truly cared about. It was hard, now that he had so much.

  He turned away and found Serek watching him across the platters of bread and cheeses. Serek quiet and aloof and seemingly unaffected by recent events, other than having finally and grudgingly admitted last night that, yes, perhaps some magical weapon training was in order. He had sent a lengthy missive to the Magistratum, detailing the crimes Sen Eva had committed and recommending that the order take steps to locate her and strip her of her magical abilities. He also reported everything he’d been able to discover so far about the slaarh, which apparently hadn’t been very much other than the fact that they were definitely not natural to this world. He still hadn’t been able to cure the effects of the poison that ran in the blood of the wounded guardsmen, but he had managed to keep any of them from dying so far, which was something, at least. Not enough for Serek, of course, but then he wouldn’t be Serek if he were ever satisfied with anything.

  The mage was still looking at Calen with that unreadable expression. Calen waited, unable to look away or eat or think of anything to say. Surely Serek could let one evening, at least this evening, go by without a reprimand or rebuke or reminder of something left unfinished or not done well enough, but a long look like this one was rarely followed by anything good. Maybe if Calen ever developed the stone-hard exterior that Serek carried everywhere, he’d finally be able to shrug off his master’s criticism without feeling it the way he prepared himself to feel it now. It shouldn’t surprise him that even after everything that had happened, Serek would find something to complain about. But just once, he’d love to hear a simple positive statement with no modifiers. Something like, You did well, Calen; or maybe I am unable, no matter how I try, to find any fault with your recent performance; or maybe even possibly, someday, I’m proud of you, Apprentice.

  “Try the olives,” Serek said finally. “They’re quite good.”

  He took in Calen’s fishlike stare for a moment, twitched his lips very slightly, then pushed back his chair and rose from the table.

  And then he shocked everyone by asking Meg’s mother if she’d care to dance.

  MEG LAY ON HER BACK ON the lawn, staring up at the sky. Nan Vera would be furious about the grass stains she was creating on her dress, but Meg couldn’t bring herself to care. Beside her, Jakl snorted in his sleep and clenched and unclenched one long-taloned claw. Meg smiled. He was here, with her, in the garden, in plain sight, and it was wonderful. No more secrets. She felt so free and unburdened, she thought she could fly right up into the clouds.

  Jakl twitched again when she thought of flying. Meg reached out and patted his scaly hide. Not now, silly, she thought at him. She was still pretty certain he couldn’t actually hear her exact thoughts, but the meaning always seemed clear enough to him. She thought that in time their ability to communicate through the link would grow stronger along with their bond. Calen was looking into that. She smiled again. He was done with secrets, too. No more sneaking into the library; Mage Serek had grudgingly agreed to let him use whatever books he wanted. It helped that Meg had made it a royal command.

  The only thing marring her pleasant mood — well, there were two things. She hated that Sen Eva had gotten away, flying off who knew where to plot some horrible revenge. Meg had always assumed that there were only two possible outcomes to their recent altercation. Either Sen Eva won — killed some or all of them and got her war and whatever reward her portal mage was really prepared to give her — or they won and Sen Eva rotted in a cell or was executed in some hideously painful way. But as usual, everything was turning out to be so much more complicated. They’d won, at least Meg thought they had, but Sen Eva was still out there somewhere, now with even more reason to want to kill her and Calen and her family and maybe everyone in Trelian and Kragnir combined. And while Sen Eva was alive and free, it would never be over. Not for any of them.

  Worst of all, Sen Eva still had her army — or maybe it was the portal mage’s army — that great horde of creatures and men they’d seen from Jakl’s back as they flew above. Meg tried not to think too much about that. At least now both Trelian and Kragnir knew they were out there. And surely Sen Eva would take some time to regroup before she attacked, and maybe by then Mage Serek would have worked out a medicine for the creatures’ poison. And Jakl would be strong enough to burn them all to a crisp from a safe distance.

  The other thing was Wilem. She wanted to hate him. She did hate him. There was no excusing what he’d done, what he’d been about to do, no matter what reasons he’d thought he had. And yet — her hate had lost its fire and was left a painful, infected thing, aching and festering inside her. She understood him far better than she’d like.

  Her parents had left it to her to decide his fate. It was funny, really. There had been a time when she would have given anything to be seen as mature and responsible enough to make important decisions like this, but now she wished she didn’t have to. How could she possibly know what the right choice was? He deserved to be punished, and yet . . . and yet . . .

  Calen appeared — literally — out of the air a few feet away.

  “You’re really very good at that, you know,” she told him. “I didn’t even hear you coming.”

  He shrugged, but she could tell he was pleased. “Maybe,” he said. “Or maybe you just had other things on your mind.” He sat beside her on the grass. “Still deciding?” he asked.

  “Yes, if you can call it that.”

  Calen gave her a sympathetic look, then plucked a blade of grass and wound it around his finger. “Maybe you should go talk to him.”

  “No,” she said. She heard how harsh her voice was and tried to soften it. “It won’t help anything.”

  “Maybe not,” he said quietly. “But it probably can’t hurt anything, either.”

  Meg hadn’t been down to the dungeons in a long time. When she’d been much younger, around Maurel’s age, she supposed, she used to sneak down to peek at the prisoners, to try to see what a criminal looked like. Mostly they looked like other men. Or occasionally a woman, though that was rare. Mostly they’d just looked sad or angry and alone, and eventually she’d stopped going. Villains in stories were evil and exciting and dangerous, until they wer
e caught and vanquished by the forces of good. But in real life — she supposed it had been one of her first realizations about the differences between fact and fiction — more than anything else, she’d felt sorry for them, the way she felt for creatures chained in a menagerie. And if she knew the crimes for which they’d been imprisoned, she’d had trouble connecting the beaten, broken men in the dank cells with the monsters who’d stolen and beaten and sometimes killed to earn themselves a spot in the dark under the castle. She didn’t like that it wasn’t easier to tell they were bad just by looking at them.

  She should have learned that lesson better, she thought bitterly as she walked down the stone corridor between the empty cells. A guard trailed at a respectful distance. She’d wanted to come alone, but the most she could convince the watchman to do was to stay in sight but out of earshot.

  She walked to the end and then stopped, bracing herself, before she turned to face him. He sat in the center of the cell, on the floor, his arms draped over his bent knees. They looked at each other in silence for what seemed a long time. This was stupid. She didn’t know what she hoped to accomplish here.

  “You should have left,” she said finally. “You’ve only made things harder.”

  “I know,” he said softly.

  “I mean for me,” she said.

  “I know.”

  They looked at each other again. Even tired and dirty and marked with sadness and shock — and shame? — as he was, he was still beautiful. It made her angry. He didn’t deserve to look that way. Maybe that should be his punishment. To be scarred and maimed and made to look as ugly on the outside as she knew he was within.

  “Did they tell you they’ve left it to me to decide what happens to you?” she asked.

  He blinked. “No. I didn’t know that.” He was quiet for a moment, then nodded to himself. “It makes sense, I suppose.”

  Meg felt rage boil inexplicably within her. She clutched at it. She had earned that rage. She would not let him take that from her, too. “Why are you so calm?” she demanded. “I could have you whipped and beaten and tortured a thousand different ways! I could have you killed, slowly and painfully, right this very instant if I wanted to. Why don’t you beg for mercy? For forgiveness?”

  “Because,” he said quietly, “I don’t deserve them. I know that. I want to pay for what I’ve done. For what I almost —” He shook his head, not looking at her. “I’m so sorry.”

  “No,” she said. “Oh, no. You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to do the right thing now. It’s too late. You lied to me. You used me! You were going to —” She couldn’t speak. She was so angry she was choking on it.

  “I know.”

  “No!” she screamed. The guard started forward in alarm, but she waved him back impatiently. On some level she knew she was angrier than she should be — he was caught, he’d been stopped, she could make him pay, and she didn’t have to be angry anymore — but she was still burning with fury. She hated him; she wanted to hurt him, make him bleed, burn him —

  She took a shaky breath, trying to calm herself. Jakl was amplifying her emotions, of course, but that didn’t make them any less real. It wasn’t fair. She’d won, they’d won, they should get the righteous pleasure of giving him what he deserved, but it didn’t work if he wanted to be punished. He was robbing her of even this last satisfaction. But he would not. She would not let him.

  She let Jakl’s hatred merge with her own and felt the rage burning with red hot flames inside her. This was her chance to make Wilem pay for everything, to make him suffer in the way that he deserved — she was angry enough to kill him right now with her bare hands, and she believed her dragon could give her the strength to do it. She felt on fire with fury. And when he looked up at her again, and paled, she felt a cold smile touch her lips. He could see it; she could tell. For the first time he looked truly afraid, and she reveled in it. He should be afraid. He deserved to be afraid and he was right to be, because she had all the power here, and he had none. But even as she watched, she saw his fear replaced with resolve. She admired him for it — she couldn’t help it — and that made her hate him all the more. He lied to me, she thought at herself furiously. He helped his mother try to kill her and Calen, and he would have killed Maerlie, and he lied, he lied, he lied, and he hurt her and now there was nothing to stop her from hurting him, nothing except . . .

  Except . . .

  With effort, she fought back against the strength Jakl had lent her, the heat he had poured into her heart and soul and mind to feed her fire. This was not a decision she would allow her anger to make for her. She took another breath and forced herself to look at Wilem objectively. Not with the eyes of a victim, or a sister, or even a young woman — certainly not of a dragon. As a princess, charged with delivering justice tempered with mercy. Punishment but also reprieve. He was a boy still. Older than she was, true, but still quite young. He had done some terrible things, but only because of what he’d been led to believe. His own mother had lied to him, fed him the tales to turn him into a killer at her side. And once he’d discovered the truth of things, he turned away from the only family he had left to do what was right. And now he was alone, alone in a way she could only imagine, without parents or siblings or even friends. Alone with his conscience, which now told him he deserved to be punished. It occurred to Meg that perhaps — perhaps — sometimes justice and mercy could be one and the same. Forgiveness might be the kindest and the cruelest thing she could do to him.

  Without a word she turned and strode back up the corridor. The guard waited for her to pass, then followed along silently behind her. There were practical matters still to consider, of course. If they weren’t going to execute him, then some provision would have to be made for keeping him alive. And if they weren’t going to leave him to rot in his cell, then . . . She would talk to Maerlie and Calen and then present her parents and the king and queen of Kragnir with some viable options. Meg smiled and felt some last piece of doubt and darkness fall away from where it had clung around her heart. She could do this. She could think without ceasing to feel, feel without ceasing to think, choose without losing herself among the choices. Jakl sensed her sudden lightness of spirit and rejoiced in response. She doubted he had any concept of the details of the situation; he’d just known she was angry and in pain, and now no one was hurting her anymore. Because I won’t let them, she thought fiercely. I can stop them, and my choices are all my own. Despite everything, I am still myself. And I can do this. If I choose.

  The guard stepped forward to push open the heavy door to the outer exit. Meg was still smiling as she walked past him, her delicate and proper princess steps lengthening stride by stride until she was bounding, laughing, up the stairs and emerging into the light.

  THIS BOOK IS THE RESULT OF MANY YEARS OF DREAMING and doubting and working and writing, and would not have come to be without the help of several important people. Initial thanks must go to my parents: my mom, Flo Knudsen, for telling me about the stories and characters of the fantasy novels she was reading when I was little and sparking my own love of fantasy literature; and my dad, Paul Knudsen, for leaving his copies of Analog lying around and helping to inspire both my interest in speculative fiction and my early attempts at writing short stories. Thanks also to Mrs. Blumenrich of I.S. 75 for making me start to love English class in eighth grade, and to Mr. and Mrs. Rivlin who kept that love of English class going strong in high school.

  Special thanks to my very nice friends who read drafts and gave me excellent and useful comments and suggestions: Kristin Cartee, Bridey Flynn, Michael McGandy, Michael Mellin, Rebecca Stead, Jenny Weiss, and Matthew Winberg. Also to Jennifer Rosenkrantz and Stephanie Santoriello for their enthusiasm and belief and for countless years of friendship. And to everyone (all of the above and more) who contributed thoughts and opinions in response to my frantic late-night e-mails about name pronunciation and flap copy and other random but important things.

  Extra special thanks
to my agent, Jodi Reamer, who read the incomplete draft and said I had to finish, and to my editor, Sarah Ketchersid, for caring about Meg and Calen as much as I do and for helping me to make the story as strong as I could. I feel incredibly lucky to have both of you in my corner, and appreciate your encouragement and occasional tough love and seemingly infinite patience more than I have probably ever expressed to you.

  And above all, I owe a debt of gratitude to Matt Winberg, who read the first chapter and told me to keep going. Your support and encouragement, then and now, mean so much to me.

  Thank you.

  MICHELLE KNUDSEN is the author of many books for children, including the award-winning, New York Times best-selling picture book Library Lion, illustrated by Kevin Hawkes. The Dragon of Trelian is her first novel. She says, “Once I discovered fantasy novels as a young reader, I never looked back. While writing this book, I wanted to include all the things I’ve always loved most in fantasy stories — castles, magic, secrets, adventure, true friends, and of course, dragons.” Michelle Knudsen lives in Brooklyn, New York.

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen