by Der Nogard
Xenia looked at Ghazan and he gazed expectantly at her. But rather than run to him, she ran to Dost who lie motionlessly by a column. “Dost,” she said, slapping his face. “Dost, wake up. Dost!” But the warlord would not move.
Emine, who was bulkier than Touman, seemed to tire of the younger dragon and she shoved him roughly away from her. But this only angered Touman, and when Emine turned to meet some soldiers of Dir-en-Shad’s that had been hurling spears at her, Touman took the opportunity to unleash his own dragon-breath upon her. Emine was burned and fell to the marble floor of the palace with a loud crash. Touman hovered near the creature that had begun to curl up into a ball.
Xenia, hunched over Dost, began to weep. Her tears were not soothed when she saw Dir-en-Shad suddenly materialize in the throne room. He had upon his face a wicked smile, and he blocked the path between Xenia and Ghazan. By this time, Touman was surveying the damage that he had done.
“Your time is done, elder,” he said, but his voice was filled with sorrow as much as anger.
Touman bent his whiskered face over Emine, whom he took for dead. He bent even nearer when he felt the breath from Emine’s nostrils upon his face. She opened her mouth and unleashed her fire. Touman’s entire body became swept up in flame, a sight so terrible that Ghazan would never forget it, even on his deathbed after he had reigned as sultan for sixty years.
Touman, body cast up in flame, flew up high into the air, grabbing onto the twisted from of Dir-en-Shad. With the dark lord in his grasp, Touman soared even higher into the sky and then finally fell into the sea in a blazing ball of flame, never to be seen or heard of again. Even his name would eventually be forgotten.
“Come,” said the dragon Emine, whose voice was little more than a pathetic whisper.
Ghazan, the erstwhile sultan of this land, approached the dragon, but the creature said: “No, not you. Her.”
With a flip of her tail, Emine indicated Xenia. Xenia approached the dragon and placed a hand on the creature’s old, lined face. “Know, girl, that you have a people,” said the dragon. “You were born in the sea though that is not your home; the dolphins, the wyms, and the fish, they are not your kin. I placed your egg there long ago, waiting for the time to come when the world would be ready for you. You see, your mother’s name was Emine and she stands before you now breathing her last.”
Xenia, a foreigner in a foreign land, suddenly felt a great sadness, as if the world was ending.
“The time of dragons is coming to an end,” said Emine, “but we will never be dead as our line will continue in you. Though I can no longer protect you, I pray that you will find a husband who will be your supporter on this cruel road of Man.”
Xenia removed her veil and looked at Ghazan. She knew that Dost had died and that the only support that she would have in the world would be him. She said: “Princess Rusudan predicted a terrible fate for us both if you should see the dragon Aisin, but she was wrong. I will be your wife and reign by your side as sultana, but only on one condition.”
“What is that, milady?” the prince asked.
“That one day when we have a daughter of our own we will call her by my mother’s name,” said Xenia. “All of the other children we have shall be yours, to do with as you wish, but this girl alone shall be mine. Do you promise this?”
“I do.”
And so Ghazan and Xenia, after they gave Dost the lying in state that he deserved as a great warlord, were wed in the courtyard of the sultan’s palace. They wed before a little tent like the yurts of the Yinisar, the people that Ghazan had so enjoyed hunting among and whom he had come to see as kin. When they spoke their vows to one another, Ghazan raised the veil, taking a long look at the singular creature, dragon-born, whom he now had as wife. He did not know how it could be, that dragons could give birth to human beings, but he did not care for he had gained a pearl of great price.
But when Xenia’s veil was raised and she too looked at Ghazan, her husband, her thoughts took a different path. She wondered if the gods would give her back the maidenhead that she had lost to two men called Dir-en-Shad and Alamgul. She wondered if the prince, now sultan, would ever learn the truth.
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