The stranger does not answer for a long moment. Then, without a word, he begins very calmly to unfasten his shirt. It’s so…incongruous. Such an odd thing to do in light of the king’s question. The guards exchange glances, and several of them take aggressive steps forward. The stranger pauses, flicking a look at them from under his stern brow. They freeze, the tips of their lances quavering faintly, but make no further move. So, the stranger goes back to undoing his laces, pulling open the tunic and undershirt, and baring his breast to thescintillight.
I gasp. I can’t help it. For as he draws back the fabric, revealing the hard definition of his torso, he reveals also a terrible scar. A burn scar, very like mine, only so much worse. For this scar boasts the rough, undefined, but recognizable shape of a rampant dragon. Ragged wings spread across his pectoral muscles, a horned head arches over his heart. The sinuous spine trails down his breastbone, and the twisted tail encircles his navel. It’s so raw and red against his pale skin.
This was no accident, no wound received in the heat of battle. It was done to him on purpose. A very specific purpose.
For a moment, no one moves. We all stare at that symbol, which every last one of us recognizes. A symbol of destruction and devastation from which none of us has escaped unscathed. My mouth goes dry, and my heart sinks to my gut. The truth burns in my head like searing irons.
He’s not a prince. He’s…
“Dracori!” Taigan bellows, leaping back several paces. Then he lunges at the nearest guard, wresting the lance from his grasp, and makes as though to run the stranger through on the spot.
“Halt!” Alderin’s voice cracks like a whip. Taigan freezes in place, the tip of the lance mere inches from the man’s heart. The man does not move, does not flinch. He stands there, holdingback the folds of his shirt, and looks into the eyes of the vengeful prince without blinking.
Blood thuds in my temples. That hideous mark has haunted my dreams these last sixteen years. At sight of it, green flame explodes on the edges of my vision, threatening to consume me. But when I lift my eyes from that savage scar to the face of the man who bears it…no. I cannot reconcile it. That severe brow and harsh jaw are cruel enough, but his mouth—that slight uptilt in the corner, the faintest impression of a dimple in his cheek—surely a mouth like that does not belong on the face of a monster.
In a sudden rustle of long robes, Alderin moves. Stepping down from the dais, he motions to the guards, ordering them back. Though they cast him uneasy glances, they dare not gainsay his command. When he stands beside Taigan, the king swipes the lance from his grasp and tosses it lightly aside. “A wise man takes no hasty action,” he declares, his voice not loud but carrying in that echoing space. “You would do well to remember it, nephew.”
Taigan curses, his hands fisting with fury. Alderin ignores him, however, and proceeds to draw nearer to the stranger, near enough that it would take no more than a single swift dart with a hidden blade to put an end to the king’s life. A hidden blade which I know the stranger carries on his person. I’ve seen it. I open my mouth, half thinking to call out a warning.
But then the king speaks: “You must know that to reveal that evil sign here within the walls of my court means your death.” His voice is edged with threat. “And yet you stand there, baring the truth before these witnesses. Why?”
The stranger inclines his head slightly in deference. “It is proof of my story, Your Majesty. My brother and I were both branded with this mark on the day we watched our father burn.It is the symbol of my shame. Shame that I did not die with my father that day. That I did not throw myself upon the pyre and either drag him from those flames or perish in the attempt.”
He releases his shirt then and drops his hands to his sides. The folds of dark fabric hang over his breast. “It is also proof of my conviction to join this trial. You think your people have suffered under dracori oppression? Here on your continent, an entire sea between you and the might of Mhoryga, you know nothing of suffering. My people serve the Dragon Queen or they burn. Our sons and daughters are taken, infused with dragon blood, and, if they survive the process, born again as the dracori you so fear—their wills stricken, their spirits broken, their souls lost to damnation. The very air of our once beautiful land stinks of sulfur and charred flesh.”
His words fill the hall like a spell, overwhelming the mind and the senses. Listening to him, I seem to smell the stink of hellfire smoke—a stink I have encountered only once before, but which has haunted my every nightmare since that evil day. In the back of my head, I hear once more the cries of the dying, hear my own childish voice screaming as green fire licks up my arm and shoulder.
I drag a shuddering breath into my lungs, pushing the memories back. Instead, I focus on the stranger’s face, on those features, hard as stone. On those black eyes of his, so dark, they scarcely seem to reflect thescintilsoverhead. What must it have been like to live constantly under the shadow of Mhoryga? What must it have done to him, breathing those fumes day after day without relief?
“I am well aware,” he continues, in the same level tone, his gaze never wavering as he meets the king’s eyes, “that if my story is not believed, to display this mark must mean an immediatedeath sentence. But I intend to prove my veracity and my worth. So I will not hide what was done to me.”
“What was done to you?” Alderin echoes. “And what exactly was that? You bear the brand, yes, but do you also bear dragon blood in your veins? Are you a creature of hellfire, Mhoryga’s slave?”
The man draws himself up a little straighter. “I am not.”
“And yet the mark of our enemy would declare otherwise.” Alderin shakes his head, his voice thick with barely suppressed emotion. “Why should we believe you?”
To this, the man does not seem to have an answer. He simply bows his head slightly, a humble gesture, though there is pride in every line of his body. “I cannot force your belief. Therefore, I do but cast myself upon the mercy of the High King of Unified Belanor and humbly request a place among the champions.”
I grip the rose stem in my hand so hard, a stray thorn pierces my flesh and draws a bead of blood. I pay it no attention, my eyes darting from the stranger to the king and back. The next moment will decide the stranger’s fate. Yet he stands there so calmly, the black folds of his shirt only partially covering that awful scar. His expression, here on the brink of what might well be his doom, is impassive. As though he’s weighed the odds, accepted the risks, and now simply waits to see the results of his play.
Suddenly, the king turns and snaps his fingers. “Let the truthseer be brought to me at once!” he commands. Servants leap into action, darting from the hall on swift feet.
Taigan takes a lunging step, dropping his voice to a growl. “Uncle, what does it matter if this man speaks the truth or not? He is no prince! His kingdom was all but annihilated, and the survivors serve Mhoryga. They are traitors to humanity. You cannot allow him to join our ranks. What could he possibly have to offer the princess on her sacred journey?”
Alderin lifts an eyebrow. “My nephew’s question is valid,” he says, turning to the stranger. “What value as champion might you bring to the princess?”
At this, I half expect the man in black to finally throw a glance my way. But he doesn’t. He continues to address himself only to the king. “I possess intimate knowledge of Khylmira, Your Majesty,” he says, as though it should be obvious to all present. “I’ve spent my life traveling across the breadth of lands controlled by Mhoryga. I have even walked the path to Drathoridan and seen the Dracor Flame, which burns without ending in the heart of the shrine. Can any man here claim as much?”
The champions exchange uneasy glances. Bryon and Joro both clench their fists and grind their jaws. Lord Elis bounces on the balls of his feet as though eager to spring. Learned Majestic Rune crosses his arms over his breast, his eyes fixed with serpentine intensity on the stranger. Even Prince Warrick looks ready to break his stoic calm and throw himself into battle. But not one of them speaks up.
The stranger gazes at the king, his black eyes hooded and dangerous. “There is a fire in my belly,” he says. “Not dracori flame, but another, hotter furnace. I burn to see my people liberated, to see the end of the war which has ravaged Khylmira for the better part of a century. Of all men in this chamber, I am by far the most qualified and motivated to aid the princess on her quest.”
“Oh, don’t go putting on airs!” Lord Elis erupts, taking an aggressive step forward. “Yours is not the only land to suffer under Mhoryga’s flames. Why, even now, my own people fend off vicious dracori attacks. They plague our coasts, and hellfire blazes across the countryside.” He flings out an arm, pointing at the scar on the stranger’s chest. “Every man of Albhia worth his salt would, without a second thought, cut down any creature foundwith a mark like that within our borders. Gods-rutting dracori,” he finishes and spits on the ground, baring his teeth.
The other champions nod and murmur assent, and Prince Warrick slaps the young lord on the shoulder. “Well said, my friend!” But the stranger merely looks at Elis. A calm, quiet, thoughtful sort of look. There’s no overt threat in his gaze, no menace or venom. And yet something about that stare sends a chill straight to my heart.
Just then, servants reappear through a side door behind the dais, leading with them the king’s truthseer. I’ve seen him once before; he was present when I was first brought to King Alderin’s receiving room upon my arrival at Stromin Palace. He is no less unsettling a creature to look upon now than he was the first time—a wizened old elf, his seven-foot frame so hunched and doubled over, he looks scarcely taller than a dwarf. His beard brushes the ground and is too snarled with branches and leaves for one to discern the original color. His head is crowned in holly, red berries bright as drops of blood among the smooth, razor-edged leaves. A cloak of oak foliage woven with green pine needles hangs from his stooped shoulders. He looks altogether out of place in this underground world, so far from the trees and sun and air where the elfkind of Utherlynd dwell. At sight of him, a pang of homesickness unexpectedly twists my heart. Wrinkled and tatty though he is, he brings with him the fresh scent of Inamaer Forest. Of home.
