A Dragon's Baby

by Lucy Fear

  **********************

  Disorienting, Rowan later decided, would not even begin to describe it. She was falling through light and shadow, exploding into color, and dissolving into nothing all at once. Everything she was and ever would be was pulled out in a line that stretched to infinity, and then she collapsed back onto herself just as she landed hard on gleaming white stone. It took an effort not to hurl up her breakfast. She forced herself to breathe, slow and deep.

  In through the nose, out through the mouth, she heard her father’s voice say in her head, a memory from a time they’d taken a boat across the Channel and she’d been woefully seasick. Minutes passed, and finally, she felt like she could stand without the world spinning around her.

  But before she did, a hand clapped her on the back, almost knocking her on her face. “You’ve got a strong constitution for a little mortal girl,” Prince Niall said with undisguised glee. “I think you’re going to fit right in here.”

  Not quite trusting herself to speak, Rowan pushed herself up to sitting and gasped as she viewed her surroundings. In a book, once, she had read a description of a painting of paradise on the ceiling of a cathedral in Italy. At the time, she had been entranced by it, but the scenery around her made that memory feel dull in comparison.

  It was a castle in the clouds, a castle of clouds, walls, towers and fantastical spires twisting into the sky, looking as if they might be blown away in a stiff breeze. The white walls were so bright against the cerulean sky that when the sunlight struck them, her eyes were dazzled almost to blindness.

  Prince Niall looked at her expectantly. “What do you think of my home?”

  “It's amazing,” she said, too overwhelmed to bother with eloquence. “You created all this with your magic?”

  He shrugged. “Most of it is maintained with my power, but a lot of the trickier spell work is done by my retainers. All my idea, though,” he added, grinning. “That's why they call me the Prince of the Clouds.”

  Rowan was enthralled. She wanted to examine everything, to touch it and see if it was truly made of cloud or if it was some sort of clever illusion. But Niall gripped her elbow, tugging her down the marble walkway. “Let me show you to your rooms. I had them created especially for you.”

  When they arrived at the lavishly decorated suite, it occurred to Rowan that he had not been exaggerating. These elegant rooms, decorated in a feminine, if slightly old-fashioned, style, had likely not existed before her arrival.

  They had been fashioned from the fabric of reality the same way a child might play with blocks. With enough magic, she supposed one could create anything. It was a notion that made her uncomfortable; it felt like cheating.

  She was eager to visit the library that Niall had promised her, but from the moment she arrived in his domain, she found herself in the centre of a whirlwind of activity. The prince led her on a tour of his lands; it was not only the castle in the clouds, though that was the most important part. There were forests of ice crystal, fields of translucent rainbow flowers, even some sort of giant arena that Niall didn’t think she’d be particularly interested in. By the time they sat down for their evening meal, Rowan was exhausted.

  Luckily, for the first few courses, she was not required to make conversation because Prince Niall was busy receiving reports from various members of his court. There was no one else seated at the high table, but Rowan was surprised to notice that even the people at the lower table were a bit more subdued than those at Lord Kennet’s court.

  It was a little odd, considering the exuberance of their lord, but perhaps it was her presence. Was it possible that the fae were more frightened of her than she was of them? She wished Fenella was with her so she could inquire about it.

  “Lady Rowan.” Niall’s voice jolted her back to the present. “I was wondering if you would like to accompany me on a hunt tomorrow.”

  “A hunt sounds interesting,” she replied cautiously. “What are you hunting? I haven’t seen any animals here, but I suppose you must have them.” She had once seen the Royal hunt pass by, as a girl. There was something thrilling about the sound of the horn and the baying of the running hounds as they rushed by, but she had never liked the thought of what happened at the end.

  Still, she knew, even with her limited experience, that the way to truly get to know a man was to observe him around other men. Likely, even a man of the fae would be the same.

  The Prince smiled in an easy, self-assured way. “Actually, it’s really more like pest-control than an actual hunt, but I don’t mind eking a bit of enjoyment out of an onerous duty.”

  She couldn’t help but wonder what kind of pests bothered those who could make whatever they wanted on a moment’s notice. Curiosity, in this case, was much more powerful than squeamishness. “I’d be delighted to accompany you.”

  *

  The next morning dawned bright and early, much too early, in Rowan’s opinion, despite the fact that she was not normally a late sleeper. A parade of silent servants brought her breakfast and clothes to change into. Their reticence made her miss cheerful Fenella even more, but the one bright point in the day was that fae riding clothes were much more reasonable than their evening gowns.

  There were fitted breeches made of buttery soft leather, high laced boots, a silk tunic dyed, somehow, the exact shade of gray as her eyes, and a tooled leather jerkin to go on top.

  Very sensible, if a bit more mannish than it would have been prudent to dress in London society. Despite not being accustomed to wearing breeches, Rowan found the ensemble comfortable, and it helped ease some of her worries about the coming hunt.

  However, as she was led to the stables, another concern came to mind. She could ride; her father had made sure of that. But she had only ridden horses, gentle mares around a paddock. Who knew what kind of strange creatures the Aos Si might employ for mounts?

  Anxiety consumed her as she imagined herself riding on a small dragon or gryphon, but it wasn’t as if she could turn and run. Instead, she fretted all the way up to the door of the stables, and then her fears dissolved as she gasped in wonder.

  Pure white horses with a single slender horn gracing their foreheads stood in a calm line, already fitted with dainty saddles and bridles. “Unicorns,” Rowan breathed, her feet moving her forward without her conscious will.

  “Not true unicorns,” Prince Niall’s voice rang out from the other side of the room. “Just horses, modified with magic. The real things are far too wilful for riding, and besides all that, out of everyone here, I think they’d only take to you, Lady Rowan.”

  It took a moment for his comment to make sense, but she felt her cheeks heating as soon as she understood the implication. “That’s hardly a proper topic for casual conversation, my Lord.”

  “My apologies,” he said, but the spark of humour in his eyes told her he wasn’t particularly sincere. “I forget that the mortals of your time are bizarrely reticent about certain subjects.” He moved toward her and pointed to one of the smaller horses. “This is yours. Do you need assistance mounting?”

  “No, thank you,” she replied archly, before putting her foot in the stirrup and pulling herself astride the horse. “I have ridden before. Do you know her name?” she asked, petting the creature’s neck.

  The mare was so well-behaved that Rowan could have imagined her to be a statue except that she could feel a strong heartbeat under her fingers. Perhaps that was part of the magic, but it felt strange, like the spirit of the horse had been sucked out.

  “Ah, no,” Niall said, somewhat awkwardly. “In truth, I’m not sure that any of the horses have them. I see that you’re a bit sentimental, so you may give her a name, if you wish.”

  Names have always been quite serious things to magicians, and so Rowan felt unprepared for this sudden duty, but she also couldn’t bear to leave the beautiful creature without any sort of moniker.

  She pursed her lips, and at that moment, someone opened the stable door and a ray of sunlight struck
the mare’s silver mane. It sparkled like starlight falling to earth, and perhaps feeling her own yearning for guidance of some sort, Rowan spoke the first word that came to mind. “Polaris. That shall be her name.”

  “How lovely,” Prince Niall said, but she thought his smile seemed somewhat brittle. “It looks like they’re ready for us. As long as you stick close by the other riders, you should be fine.” She nodded, gripping the reins perhaps a bit more tightly than was necessary in her nervousness as the prince moved to mount his horse at the head of the column.

  When he was ready, he raised a hand, and someone blew a short blast on a horn. All of the riders moved forward as one, moving from a walk to a trot as they exited the stable.

  Rowan blinked while her eyes adjusted to the stark whiteness before her, and then looked around. She was a bit annoyed to find herself in the middle of the group of riders, far out of convenient conversation distance with the prince, but she supposed that was for safety reasons rather than avoidance. Though Niall had called their quarry ‘pests,’ that didn’t mean they weren’t dangerous, and furthermore, there might be other, larger creatures prowling.

  The riders fanned out as they entered the forest of crystalline trees. It was eerie how silent it was. No birds chirping, no leaves rustling. The sound of a voice next to her startled her so much she almost fell off her horse. “So, you’re the human girl everyone has been talking about.”

  The speaker was a female Aos Si who might have stepped straight from a fanciful storybook. Her hair was as silver as the horses’ manes, except at the ends, which shone with every hue of the rainbow. She appeared at once as delicate and fragile as a spider web and as strong and dangerous as a spear made of diamond, but the expression on her face was one of benevolent curiosity. “Ah, yes. I’m her. I mean, my name is Rowan Ravencroft. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  “Likewise,” the fae said, bobbing her head. “I am called Gwenael. My mate is the Master of the hunt for the Prince.”

  Perhaps it wasn’t such a bad thing to have ended up so far from the front. “Do you know Prince Niall well?”

  Gwenael raised her eyebrows. “As well as a subject can know their lord, I suppose. You’re wondering how much his public persona reflects who he really is?”

  Rowan nodded. “I don’t feel I have the luxury of time to truly get to know the princes, but if I have to…fulfil my contract with one of them, I’d like to make an informed choice.”

  “I don’t blame you,” the fae replied, deftly guiding her horse around a fallen tree. “My impression of Niall is that he is honest. He is not the most charming or intelligent among us, but he does not hide who he is. It’s an unusual quality for any of our people to be so straightforward, and among the nobility, even more so.

  Whether or not that’s a good thing is something you’d have to decide for yourself.”

  A frank and surprisingly neutral opinion, Rowan thought. It tallied well with her own experience of Niall, and was, therefore, somewhat reassuring, but at the same time, she felt there was something that Gwenael wasn’t saying. “Then, what is your opinion of Prince Aidan, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  Rowan’s companion pursed her lips, as if deciding what to say. “I’ve never met him in person. He hardly ever comes here. There have always been dark rumors about him.”

  “What do you mean?” Fenella had mentioned that his mother was from the Court of Bones; maybe that’s all that it was.

  “All sorts of terrible things. Child sacrifice, blood drinking, week-long orgies. The sort of things you mortals use to terrify your children, but…”

  Rowan never got to hear the rest of the sentence, because in the distance, a horn rang out, shaking the crystal leaves in the trees. The host charged forward, and the hounds bayed, making an unearthly sound that chilled her down to her bones.

  She leaned low over Polaris’s neck as they thundered through the glittering trees, weaving to avoid the leaves that crashed to the ground as they passed.

  Through the fear, Rowan felt a wild rush of excitement, her heart pounding in time to the horse’s hoof beats, the wind whistling through her hair. Then, she heard a heart-rending scream that made her pull up sharply on the reins. The scream rang out again from the forefront of the hunt, and she knew that they had caught their quarry.

  She didn’t want to know, but she was drawn forward as if enchanted. The other riders moved aside to let her pass, like they thought she had a right to see. An icy knot of dread sat in her stomach, but she couldn’t turn back.

  So, she guided Polaris up to the clearing where she could see Prince Niall standing with his spear raised as if he was about to make a killing blow. And then she heard something that made her heart go cold.

  “Please! Don’t kill me. I have…a family!” a high, reedy voice panted in between pained sobs. Before she could stop herself, she slid from the horse and ran forward. The scene was like something out of her worst nightmares. Some kind of Otherworld creature, humanoid, but with large, black eyes and iridescent wings like a dragonfly, was pressed flat against one of the tress of ice. Pinned there, she realized with a horrified gasp, by an arrow piercing its shoulder.

  “That only makes it worse. I have enough freeloaders on my lands as it is, and now you’re starting to breed?” Prince Niall growled, his voice so deep and frigid it was almost unrecognizable.

  “What are you doing?” she exclaimed, rushing to interpose herself between the prince and his victim. Niall blinked, obviously startled to see her there, but he didn’t lower his spear.

  “I told you before, didn’t I? Just a little pest control,” he said over the sound of the injured fae’s weeping.

  “Pest? That is clearly a person! A thinking, speaking creature with…hopes and dreams, not some sort of insect!”

  The prince scowled, and when he spoke again, his voice was laden with disgust. “Just because it can speak doesn’t make it a person. These things breed like rats, and they have no magic to speak of, so they go around stealing from others.”

  “But you have more than enough magic to share, don’t you?”

  “You don’t know anything about the real world, Lady Rowan,” he said, and he shoved her roughly aside. She staggered, barely keeping herself upright, as Niall turned back to the unfortunate fae. “Maybe if you tell me where the rest of them are, I’ll give you a head start.” The terrified creature clapped its mouth shut, shaking its head. Rowan turned her face away, but she couldn’t avoid hearing the sound the spear being driven home. She started running.

  ******************

  It was, she reflected, wiping her tear-streaked face with the back of her hand, perhaps not the wisest decision she’d ever made. She hadn’t paid any attention to which way she was headed, and she’d run until her legs couldn’t go any farther.

  Rowan was not particularly athletic, but even so, when she’d finally come to a stop and recovered her wits enough to look around, she couldn’t see anything that she recognized. If she’d been thinking properly, she would have at least taken Polaris.

  Now, her stomach was twisting with hunger, and her legs felt leaden; all she could do was walk in a random direction and hope for rescue. Rescue from someone other than Niall would be preferable, but it also seemed unlikely. Unless she could find her way back to Lord Kennet’s court somehow. An idea came to her, and she reached into her pocket, relieved to find that her stick of chalk was still inside. However, there weren’t many good places to draw in the forest of clouds and ice.

  She scraped her toe against the ground, and to her surprise, the white gave way to plain gray stone. With a thrill of triumph, she scraped the cloud-stuff off a small area and drew a home-finding circle on the ground.

  However, when she powered the spell with her palm, it lit up as expected, but she only received a sense of whirling confusion. She tried several more times before sighing in defeat. “Perhaps location spells won’t work between domains. For all I know, they aren’t even on the same plane
of reality,” she muttered to herself.

  That made rescue seem even more improbable. Now what was she supposed to do? Go back to Niall with her tail between her legs like a whipped cur?

  As Rowan contemplated sitting on the ground and feeling sorry for herself, at least temporarily, she heard a quiet growl. Instinct seized her. She froze, not even breathing as she listened again for the sound. There was nothing. Slowly, she retreated until her back was pressed against the unyielding surface of one of the trees.

  Cold seeped through her clothes almost immediately, making her shiver. Just as her heartbeat began to slow, she heard the growl again, and finally she saw it, or them, pacing stealthily through the trees. Like a cross between tigers and wolves, she thought at once, but stark white with faint blue stripes. They obviously believed she would make a fine meal.

  She was not a battlemage; there was little she could do that was offensive in nature, and most of that required careful preparation. Her only chance, she decided, was a trap spell. Crude and risky, but it was all she had. Into the ground nearby, she scratched a shape with her toe.

  Then, squinting her eyes shut, she bit her finger as hard as she could, tasting salt and iron. She squeezed a drop of blood onto the symbol, and it flashed briefly with a color like a glowing ember. Then, she ran.

  Rowan heard the creatures snarl as they realized the stalking game had become a chase. All she could do was flee and pray. And then, with a whoosh, the forest behind her exploded. The trap had been sprung. A blast of heat washed over her back, and she felt like someone had opened a spigot inside her, draining all the energy from her body.

  That was the danger of using her blood; the spell was fed by her life energy, but it had grown much bigger than she intended. She fell to her knees. Flames crackled nearby. This is how I die, she thought. Devoured by my own spell.

  “I’m sorry, Father,” she mumbled, and then the world tilted forward. She expected the ground, but instead, she felt herself swept upward.