There can be no question about it: She’s better off without me.
With these thoughts, these doubts, these worries and convictions plaguing my mind, I hasten along the ridge above the rushing river. I know my way well enough through this part of Stromin Palace and do not worry for lack of light. In the distance, I hear the echo of bargemen’s voices as they prepare their crafts for the subterranean voyage. I follow those sounds, confident in my course.
But before I come within sight of the barges, something strikes my senses with unexpected force. A shiver, a scent. An evil taste on the back of my tongue.
Hellfire.
“So, Champion Valtar. You show your true colors after all.”
Alderin’s voice emerges from the darkness on my right, sharp as a lance blade. I whirl to face him, even as he emerges from the dark, a strange chalice in his hands. From that chalice leaps a single green flame which dances and writhes, illuminating his features in a hellish glow.
Knives appear in each of my hands, extensions of my arms. I assume a defensive position, but subtly, taking care not to reveal my own unease. After all, we are not officially enemies. “And what true colors are those, Your Majesty?” I ask, keeping my tone level.
He smiles. Green light dances off his strong, even teeth. “Why, that you have fallen in love with Princess Roselle.”
Winter floods my veins, a rush of sudden frost. For a moment, I cannot speak, cannot even think to answer.
Alderin sighs, shaking his head. “Now, now, Valtar,” he says, patient and magnanimous. “I certainly don’t blame you. After all, the girl is intrinsically lovable, isn’t she? I wasn’t expecting that little complication myself. It certainly makes things more…difficult. I had hoped, when she first arrived, that she would demonstrate more overtly her mother’s nature, enough to help me and all the champions maintain a clear view of what must ultimately happen.” His brow puckers, his expression momentarily regretful. “I should never have given her to Durona. Trust that woman to go instilling honor and nobility in the heart of her little dragon charge! If anyone could do it, she was the woman.”
He’s not talking to me—I haven’t the faintest idea who this Durona is. I won’t let him lull me into complacency, however. I shift subtly on my feet, bettering my angle. “The princess is indeed noble and brave,” I say. “But I do not love her.”
Alderin laughs. He throws back his head, uttering a deep-bellied burst that echoes up and down the passage behind him. “Don’t mistake me for a fool, boy! Call it what you like, but I know love when I see it. I understand better than most, after all. I understand what it means to love a dragon.” He shakes his head then, his smile lopsided and rueful. “And she doesn’t seem very dragon-like, does she? So fresh and lovely, so whimsical anddelightful.” His eyes harden, two flints in his skull. “But we cannot forget the truth. We cannot forget either what she is or what she was brought into this world to do.”
“I’ve not forgotten.”
“So you claim.” He takes a step toward me, that hellflame of his wafting strangely, illuminating his pale eyes in a green glow. He has brought no guards with him. Though I search for them in the passage behind his back, I sense nothing but hollow emptiness. “She is a dragon, Prince Valtar. A dragon. A demon incarnate, death to all who fall under her spell. Just like her mother before her.”
I meet his gaze. “You don’t believe that.”
“Don’t I?” He lifts a brow. “I confess, I don’t want to. Indeed, part of my heart even now resists the idea.” His expression shifts then, all trace of either sadness or regret banished behind a mask of severe stone. “But I know firsthand what it is like to live enthralled to a dragon queen. To worship her majesty, to bask in her beauty, to live in the light of her smile. To find myself enslaved to her lusts and appetites.”
His words strike my ears, bearing with them a truth I would not have dared imagine. But now, hearing him speak, I realize what it is he is telling me. Horror yawns in my chest.
“You,” I say, and stop, uncertain I can bear to continue. “You are her—”
“Roselle’s father?” Alderin nods grimly. “Yes. And Mhoryga’s plaything for a time, chosen as her favorite to sire the queen’s egg. Her sons,” he adds with a dismissive shrug, “she can get off any man. But the daughters, now, the queens…they cannot gestate unless endowed with certain unique qualities from the paternal side.” His teeth flash in a grimace. “There were rumors, you know, that demigod blood flowed in my family’s veins. I supposethere was some truth to the old stories. Mhoryga sniffed it out, after all.”
My head spins. These revelations are more than I expected. I know Mhoryga. I know her deadly, immortal beauty. She often wears a mortal guise, but even in her human form, she is never anything less than a dragon. She is terrible and worshipful, beautiful and horrible, all things at all times. A monster whom a man cannot help but abhor and adore in equal measure.
To be taken as the lover of such a being? I can imagine neither a worse nor more intensely desirable fate.
“So you see,” Alderin continues, pacing slowly toward me, that chalice of hellfire in both hands, “I understand you, boy. I understand the lure of a dragon queen. Roselle has it too, even in her current form. But”—he flashes me a sharp look—“the other champions know what is required of them. They know to protect their hearts even as they strive to earn her trust. For they know what must be done in the bitter end.”
At first, I don’t understand what he’s saying. There’s some dire truth in his words, but I cannot quite flush it out. Then suddenly, the answer clarifies.
“You plan to kill her,” I say. The moment the words are spoken is the moment I know they are true. “When she has manifested, when she has defeated Mhoryga for you…you intend for her champion to slay her. Before she can rise up and take her mother’s place.”
Alderin’s eyes are sad in the firelight. “It is the ultimate purpose of the champion. He must wed the princess, dedicate his life to her service. He must win her heart and implicit trust, because only then can he hope to get close enough to her in her most powerful form. To slay her before she becomes truly invulnerable to any mortal blade.”
He shakes his head heavily, his eyes dropping from mine, staring into the flame he holds. “We have suffered so much under one demon queen. How can we bear to replace her with another?” He draws a great breath then, squaring his shoulders. “It is my destiny to bring salvation to the world. I gave everything. I laid with Mhoryga, sired her child. I submitted and debased myself, becoming little more than her besotted slave. And when the time was right, when it seemed as though I had long since forgotten everything I once was, lost in my blind devotion to my new goddess…that’s when Durona found me. Rescued me. Pulled me out of darkness so that together, we might fulfill our mission.”
He turns to me again then, a strange light shining in his eyes. “I am the instrument of the gods. And now, they require a new instrument. A hero willing to go as far as I did, to enter into intimacy so deep, so tender, so passionate…all the while never forgetting his true purpose, his calling.” He sneers then, looking me up and down. “The true champion of Princess Roselle would know better than to fall in love with her.”
My eyes narrow. “I’m not in love with her.”
Alderin laughs. “Do you think me blind? Do you think I don’t know about your little nighttime meetings, your stolen kisses? Do you think I don’t know about your explorations of the air shafts, how you come and go as you please about the palace?” His eyes flash. “I am master of this realm. You cannot draw breath without my knowledge. There is only one thing of which I am not certain, and that is why? Why have you really come here, Valtar Skylock?”
He holds up his chalice then, and the green flame it carries flares, momentarily becoming a brilliant torch. I feel the dragon blood in my veins throb in response. As though he felt it himself, Alderin’s teeth gleam in a smile that is more of a snarl. “Ah, yes,”he purrs. “Dracori. That’s what you are. Poisoned by Mhoryga, bent to her purpose. Temporarily beyond reach of her immediate influence, but no less her slave.”
