Heather set her glass down on the table and asked, “Have you seen Max this afternoon? He sort of vanished, and I haven’t seen him since.”
Marlene slurped a noodle into her mouth, swallowed it down with a sip of wine, and said, “No, the Council dragons all left. My mate is not on the council. He’s a younger dragon, and they didn’t choose to tell him where they were going so I haven’t seen Max, and I don’t know where he went. I’m sorry.”
Christy asked, “Why aren’t you having dinner with your mate?”
Marlene snorted. “He likes marzipan and meat stuffed with meat. He took one look at this dish and declared it might be good if it had a rabbit or a cow in it and it would probably be better if both were present.”
Christy asked, “Do you ever, like, feel out of place here? I mean, do you ever feel like an outsider?” She held her breath and looked over at Heather. Heather leaned forward, also very interested in that answer.
Marlene slid her fork through her dinner, bringing up cream and noodles. “Yes, sometimes. The humans don’t know much about the world I left behind, and they don’t really care to. A few have chosen to go over, but not in the time I have been here, and I think someone said it has been a hundred years or more since any of them have. It’s not their world anymore. That world is too different, too…too strange for them now.
“So, I don’t have a lot in common with the humans here, other than being human. I also don’t have a lot in common with the dragons. I mean, I’m human. So, while I love it here and would never regret having come, or willingly leave, I do sometimes feel like an outsider.”
Heather stared at her plate, and Christy knew, right then, that Heather wanted to stay. She was in love with Max, and she wanted to stay. She was just afraid to. That hit home, and hard: Heather’s love for Max. Part of Christy was incredibly happy for her friend. If anyone deserved happiness, it was Heather. But Max was a dragon, and so far, he had not given Heather any reasons to stay, which meant that Heather might very well end up heartbroken all over again. The other part of Christy was very pissed off at Max, and Blake, and dragons in general.
Had Blake gone off with Max and the rest of the council? It made sense that he had since he was the secondary ruler of that world. But still, he could have taken out the time to tell her he had to cancel!
She was fuming over that, over his inconsideration, and disappointed because she had wanted to see him. She did want to see him, even as she knew she should stay as far away from him as possible.
She exerted some real force of will and made herself smile. “This is really good. I can’t believe the cook wouldn’t let you serve it.”
Marlene said, “Oh she let me. But only so she could tell me I told you so. You know, it’s no wonder the wizard turned her into a dragon. She threw boiling water on him and tried to filet him with a kitchen knife during that battle.”
Heather leaned forward, her elbows on the table. “Nobody’s ever told us the whole story about that.”
Marlene refilled her glass. “No? You want to hear it?”
She had nothing else to do so Christy nodded. She did not particularly care about it but Heather did, and it showed.
Marlene said, “Back in their time, the oldest of the male elders were knights. They were the knights who protected the king of their former country and world, and they were so good at battles that they became something of a threat.
“It really hit came to a head when Blake’s father fell in love with a woman who nearly killed him.”
Heather interrupted, “Say what?”
Marlene laughed. “It’s true. The knights were fighting for the king, and the king was sometimes cruel to his subjects. There was some kind of rebellion, a group of people living in the woods who fought the knights and the corrupt sheriffs in their villages and so on. Anyway, Blake’s mother, Lianne, was one of them. She was also rumored to be a very strong witch.
“One day, Blake’s father, that was Gregory, was battling a few rebels who had caught him when he was riding alone. He’d killed all but one and when he whipped that one’s helmet off, well, there she was. Some say she cast a love spell on him. He swore, according the older dragons, that she kicked him in the balls and almost ran him through.”
Christy muttered, “What was he, a masochist?”
Marlene said, “Dragons appreciate courage. They appreciate valor. They know it and understand it. Opinions vary; some say he let her live. Some say she let him live. They couldn’t be together, of course; he would have been a traitor to the king, and she would have been a traitor to her people. So, they parted. Only they couldn’t stay away from each other, and they started having a secret affair, one that could have gotten both of them killed.
“In the meantime, the king had declared open warfare on witches, at the advice of his cousin, who was next in line for the throne, and secretly, a very powerful wizard. He wanted all witches and wizards who might oppose him dead because he had a plan to take the throne. Part of that plan meant he had to marry Janelle, who was Max’s mother and the king’s daughter. Yes, they were related. It was a different time, and back then it was all about the bloodlines. Only Janelle was in love with Thomas, Max’s father. Knights were no longer just from noble stock because the nobles kept getting themselves killed off. Thomas was from peasant stock, so they were in love and seeing each other but secretly. No way could a princess wed a peasant, even if he was the most feared and respected knight in the world at that time.
“To get Thomas out of the way, the wizard told the king that they were seeing each other. That was right around the time that Gregory found out that Lianne was about to be burned at the stake. He rushed in to save her, betraying the king. Thomas and Janelle tried to elope, also pissing off the king. He had them all imprisoned, and they were supposed to be executed, in a highly painful way.”
Christy had not wanted to hear that story when Marlene had first begun telling it. Now she was all ears. “Oh my God. How did they escape?”
“The other knights and a few nobles and a lot of humans who were loyal to them helped them escape, which made all of them outlaws. The king was murdered, by the wizard, and they were blamed. The wizard took the throne and declared that they had stolen Janelle, who was his betrothed, or so he said. He also blamed them for that murder and put a price on their heads and sent his army after them. So, they had no choice but to fight him and it was a horrible battle, a big one. It caused a lot of death and spilled a lot of blood.”
Heather breathed, “And he turned them all into dragons and sent them here.”
“Not all of them. He didn’t cast that spell on Janelle. That was his biggest cruelty, because she was human, and she aged. We don’t age here like we do in our world but she did age, and she did die. Thomas was lost without her, and he took the dragon fire when she died, wanting to be with her again.”
Heather sighed, “That’s love.”
Christy fiddled with her fork and the food on her plate. She asked, “They killed the wizard in that battle, right?”
