He sighs and turns so that I can finally see what it is he holds. To my utmost shock, it’s a likeness of my mother. I scarcely recognize her—it’s been sixteen years since I saw her face, and the image Alderin holds in a little gilt frame is of a much younger woman, about my age in fact. But it’s her. I would know those fierce gray eyes of hers anywhere.
“I loved her,” Alderin says, and shakes his head. “Not as a man loves a woman, perhaps, but…but something deeper, dearer. She was a rare and beautiful soul.” He turns the picture around, gazing down at that image. The expression on his face is at once soft and sorrowful. But even as I watch, it hardens. When he speaks again, his voice is like iron.
“The kings and queens of Belanor concocted a plan to retrieve one of Mhoryga’s eggs. I, a young prince at the time, was selected to lead the mission into Khylmira. I took twenty of the best knights from across each of the six kingdoms. The mission was perilous, and many were lost on the way. But Durona endured, battling on when others fell. There was a period of five yearswhen we were parted. I feared for her life during that time, and she feared for mine. But in the end, she found me, rescued me from the darkest hold of evil, and…”
His voice trails away into silence. The crackle of the hearth fire and the smell of smoke seem to mingle with an atmosphere of memory clinging to his soul. I wait with my heart in my throat for him to continue, half fearing what his next words will be.
“We did it,” he says at last in a deeper tone than before. “We carried the precious egg back across the sea, just the two of us. All the rest either died or forsook the mission, but Durona and I…we did what we had to do. Both of us.”
He breathes out a long sigh and sets the portrait face down on the desk. Taking up his wine, he downs a great gulp before turning to me once more. “After we returned, we faced a great conundrum. The egg was useless to us if we could not hatch it, but dragon eggs cannot hatch without dragon fire. Time was of the essence, for if the egg was not fired soon, it would turn to solid rock, and no dragon would emerge.” He smiles then, firelight gleaming on his strong white teeth. “But I had a plan. Seer Tamnaeth had already foreseen the imminent immolation of Lorayarus, the mighty phoenix, due to take place within the year. Surely, I reasoned, if any fire could be hot enough to hatch a dragon’s egg, it should be phoenix flame! We had but to deposit the egg into Lorayarus’s pyre, and the combination of heat and magic generated in that great act of death and rebirth should be enough to hatch it.
“So Durona and I set out once more. We faced the perils of Inamaer Forest together, journeying until we reached Bald Mountain and the pyre nest built upon its peak. We arrived only just in time to place the egg and take shelter deep in the caverns of the mountain before Lorayarus’s flame erupted. The conflagrationburned for three whole days, and it was another seven days before the mountain stone cooled enough for us to venture out again.
“But you were there. We found you in the center of the burning. A tiny infant, covered in ashes. Your skin was soft as silk, untouched by the flame, and you slept in the cracked remains of your shell, sweet and perfect as an angel. I took you in my arms, and you opened your eyes and looked up at me. That was the first time I saw them—those gold eyes of yours. Dragon gold. Exactly as they are now.”
Alderin approaches me, one step after the other. I cannot move. Though my heart races and my blood leaps with the impulse to flee, I remain locked in place as he draws near. He takes my face between his hands, staring intently into my eyes. There’s an intimacy to that gaze, so ardent I cannot begin to explain it.
“I would know those eyes anywhere,” he says. “Which is why I know you are the one I sacrificed everything to find, to birth, to protect. I gave up my freedom, my honor, my very purity of being, for the sake of bringing you into this world.”
I don’t understand what he’s saying. He’s trying to tell me something, to communicate some truth which he cannot articulate with words. His eyes hold mine fast, and in their depths, I see shadows of a dark history, which part of me suspects, and another, greater part of me does not want to contemplate. It’s as though my mind is shut down to accepting the truth…whatever that truth may be.
At last, he lets go of me and backs away. His hands drop to his sides, but his shoulders remain straight and firm. “Of course, I gave you to Durona. She was the only person in all the world I trusted to care for you, to protect you. We feared what might happen if any of the royal houses of Belanor took you in; you were far too valuable, and the risk was too high. So Durona and Iconcocted a plan that would allow her to raise you in obscurity, far from any intrigues and treacheries of court life.
“But we did not reckon on Mhoryga’s agents tracking you down. I had hoped she would assume the egg was lost, unable to hatch without her fire. But her reach goes farther than any of us suspected, and her informants carried back rumors of a child born in the flames of Lorayarus’s pyre.” He blinks once and bows his head. “I thought I’d lost you, child. Lost you and Durona in one fell swoop. For years, I cursed the gods themselves. How could they have let me endure what I endured only to take you from me in the end?”
His mouth tips in a mirthless smile. “But the ways of the gods are more intricate than mortal minds may know. You survived—and you fell into the hands of a woman who recognized you for what you were.”
“Iliyani,” I whisper.
“Yes,” Alderin replies. “The half elf. She sent word to me by secret means, letting me know that you were in her care. That was some three years ago now. The moment I learned of your survival, I set to work orchestrating this very championship. I arranged for it to take place here in Stromin Palace as the best, most secure location. It has taken all this time to make ready for your coming, and all the while I feared for you, feared your ultimate discovery. But Iliyani was clever, and she kept you safe.”
I close my eyes, remembering that terrible moment when my mistress demanded to see proof of the king’s command—when she held his signet ring and studied it with her strange, otherworldly gaze. So she had known all along. I wasn’t just some orphan she took in out of the goodness of her gnarled old heart. I was always part of something bigger, something grander, something more dreadful than I ever could have imagined.
And yet even now I cannot believe it. I shake my head, thoughts awhirl. Oh gods, if only I hadn’t taken those sips of wine! The last thing I want is to be sick on the High King’s carpet, but at this rate…
“Do you know the meaning of your name?”
I startle at the abruptness of the question. Looking up sharply into Alderin’s watchful eyes, I shake my head.
“Pandracor,” he says slowly, sounding out the syllables with care like he’s tasting them. “It meansend of dragons.” He smiles then. “That is what you will be, my child. The end of the terror which has gripped this world for two centuries.”
He turns from me, moving to the fireplace. A chalice sits on one end of the mantel—just a little thing, no more than five inches tall, and thin, with a lid covering the top. It looks to be made ofmeorise, dwarfish work. Alderin picks it up, turning it slowly to watch how firelight plays across the metal surface.
My stomach knots. I can’t explain it, but something about that chalice, something about that lid and whatever it keeps contained inside makes me queasy. It’s like the remnants of a nightmare, forgotten by my conscious mind, but lodged in my bones.
Alderin looks at me. The fire’s glow highlights one half of his face, while the other is cast in shadow. “You must learn to summon your fire, Roselle,” he says. “Otherwise, you will not survive the process of manifestation.”
Perspiration dots my forehead, though the room is not hot. “Please,” I whisper, though I don’t know for what I plead.
The king flips the lid open. Immediately, a greenish flame leaps from the chalice, burning straight and tall. Somehow the ordinary firelight seems to dim in its presence, until the whole room is lost in shadows, illuminated only by that sickly aura. I realize now why the chalice is made ofmeorise—it is the onlyknown ore found in our world that proves resistant to hellfire. That can deflect it or, in this instance, contain it.
“Between you and the Shrine of Drathoridan stands the might of Mhoryga’s dracori force. Each of her servants commands hellfire summoned from the very bowels of Dracora. Astride the dragon spawn, they are a near-unstoppable force. You must learn to protect yourself against their flame and to summon it in your own right.”
I stare at that small blaze, so bright and unwavering. I’ve seen it before. That fire burns without end in my memory, creeping up the walls of a little thatched cottage home…catching in my mother’s skirts…green, hungry, unquenchable.
Screams fill my head. Bloodcurdling terror, rising to fill a smoke-shrouded night. But here, in the king’s chamber, all is silent.
“Take the flame, Roselle.” Alderin’s voice is a disembodied specter, speaking from the darkness beyond that all-encompassing glow. “Take the flame, learn to wield it. With it, you will fight your way through legions of dracori. With your champion by your side, you will arrive at last to meet your destiny. But you must take the flame in your hand. Let it awaken that which dwells inside you.”
