Realm of Dragons

It ended there.

“NO!” Greave shouted. “IT CAN’T BE!”

Greave roared with frustration. Someone a long time ago had torn pages from the book.

Who? Why?

No, as crucial as that question was, it wasn’t the one that mattered right then. The thing that mattered was finding out the contents of those missing pages. Finding who had taken them could come later.

First though, he had to find the cure. How could he do it when this was all he had to go on? Greave read the book again, and there seemed no more clues, until his eyes fell on a small, crabbed note at the front.

Based on notes at GLA.

GLA, Greave wondered. GLA…..

Then it came to him: the Great Library of Astare.

Greave had heard of the library. It was a place in the northeast of the Northern Kingdom. It was closer to the dead, volcanic lands of the far north than it was to Royalsport, and would represent many days of travel. Even then, Greave didn’t know if he would be able to get in, because it was a place belonging to the House of Knowledge, and none but their number were supposedly allowed within. Even a prince might find himself refused for not being one of them, especially asking about something as sensitive as this.

Greave knew though that he had to go anyway. The contents of the book told a story that would have shaken most people, but to him, they were crucial to saving his sister. If a cure existed, then he had to find it, whatever the difficulties or the dangers. He knew then what he was going to have to do.

He would risk his life if he had to. He was riding to Astare.

CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN

Vars had planned to get Rodry to take over the duty of leading his half-sister’s guards. He had planned to listen to whatever nonsense his brother wanted to spout about him shirking his duties, then head off to the warmth of one of the House of Sighs’ establishments while his brother trudged through the rain after Lenore’s carriage.

Instead, something had gone wrong. Nerra had been sent away, not that Vars cared. Rodry had gone away on a hunt or something, at Lenore’s insistence. Now he found himself riding at the head of a marching column of men, all willing, even eager to protect his half-sister on her wedding harvest. Vars suppressed a sneer as he looked back at them. There must have been a hundred men there, and for what? To protect a sister who didn’t even matter as far as the succession went? Would they spring to his defense with such eagerness?

Vars really didn’t understand why he was being placed at risk for a task like this. His father could send the men if he had to, but to send Vars, the second in line, to the throne? It was madness. If there was trouble, he was the one who would be at risk, while his half-sister sat safe behind all the soldiers there. Vars shook his head, took a swig from a wineskin, and kept going.

Ahead, he could see a fork in the road. There had been a sign there once, but it had clearly blown down in a storm, so that it was impossible to tell which way was which. Riding up to it, Vars brought the column of men to a halt, giving them brief leave to sit and rest, readying themselves for the rest of the march. To his irritation, they didn’t break ranks while they did it, which put his own near slump from the saddle to shame. If a few had started dicing or drinking spirits, Vars would have felt a lot more at home.

“Which way, your highness?” the sergeant at arms who was supposedly second in command of the men asked.

“I’ll check,” Vars said. He got out the map, checking it and the route, wanting to make sure he knew where he was. The route stood out as a red ribbon leading around the kingdom; around far more of it than Vars cared for, through long sections that were nothing but villages, probably without a decent inn between them. Oh, Rodry was supposed to come help, but that just meant having to put up with his insufferable comments about how little Vars did that was brave or good.

If only there were some way to get out of this nonsense.

“Do you require assistance, your highness?” the sergeant asked.

“No, I do not,” Vars snapped back, realizing that the man probably assumed he was going to make a mistake about the route. He paused for a moment, thinking about that. He was the only one who had seen the map, after all, and the sign was down, so there was no way for the men to truly know…

“This way!” he said, pointing to the left hand fork with all the confidence that he could muster.

“Your highness…” the sergeant began, in a tone that was clearly about to question Vars. “Are you certain that’s the way? I thought that we were due to go through Neddis, and that’s—”

“Well, you thought wrong,” Vars said. “The route we are to follow is clearly marked. We are to go to the left and continue until we meet my sister. Now, stop questioning your prince and have the men ready to march, before I decide that you would be better off back in the ranks.”

“Yes, your highness,” the man said.

Vars smiled to himself. Manage this right, and he could take a tour of all the best places to drink before he headed back. Lenore would be fine; after all, she had that fool Rodry coming to protect her.

***

“A little to the left, Hershel,” Rodry called out to one of his companions. “You’ll never hit what you’re aiming for at this rate!”

He pretended joviality, although right then, he could only think of Nerra, and what he could be doing that was more useful.

“I bet that’s what the last woman you were with said,” the young nobleman called back, and nocked another arrow, firing it off in the direction of the pheasant that had just eluded him.

“Are all your hunts like this?” Finnal said, sitting atop his horse so primly and so calmly that he might have been riding in a courtyard and not across open fields.

“Like what?” Rodry demanded.

“So raucous?” he asked, and not for the first time that day, Rodry had to remind himself that this was the man his sister planned to marry, and that they would need to get along. He had promised Lenore.

“It’s not that raucous,” Rodry said. To be fair, it was quite raucous. Of the Knights of the Spur who had been co-opted into this, Halfin and Ursus seemed to be arguing about whether strength or speed was better on a hunt, Sir Twell was disagreeing vehemently and saying that they should set traps, while the younger noblemen seemed to be riding and shooting, or practicing sword blows with one another while looking on and hoping that the older knights would notice them.

“Okay,” Rodry admitted. “It’s a little raucous.”

“Just a little,” Finnal said. He held out a hand to an attendant, who passed him a loaded crossbow, since it was clearly too much work for him to draw it himself. Rodry saw him track a bird as it rose, then pull the trigger. There was a squawk as the quarrel struck home.

“A fine shot!” Rodry said. He would give his future brother-in-law that much.

“I suppose so,” Finnal said, apparently uninterested. He looked out over the knights and the noblemen. “So, is this what your companions do with their days? They ride and they hunt?”

“What would you have them do?” Rodry asked.

Finnal shrugged. “I don’t know. I just thought there would be… more. Lenore has spoken of your heroism.”

Rodry smiled at that. “Let me guess, she was trying to get you to be better friends with me?”

Finnal paused for a moment, and then nodded. “Though I have no wish to be your enemy, and there is no need. After all, your sister is to be my wife. She is the love of my life.”

Rodry wished he could believe it; that he hadn’t heard the rumors that had been brought from the House of Sighs.

“So long as you treat her well,” Rodry said. “So long as you mean what you say about loving her.”

“Why would I mean anything else?” Finnal countered. “Lenore is the most beautiful of women, and the daughter of a king. Any man would be lucky to be marrying her.”

That was true, but Rodry still couldn’t escape the feeling that Duke Viris’s son wasn’t being quite sincere. Right then, he would rather have had someone else marrying his sister; someone worthy.

“Maybe we should go to find Lenore,” Rodry said. He wasn’t due to start accompanying her yet, but at least it would mean that he wasn’t stuck alone with Finnal any longer.

Finnal shook his head. “It is considered bad luck for the groom to accompany the bride on any part of the wedding harvest.”

“Probably because people might think that he’s counting up all the gold she brings in before deciding whether to marry her,” Rodry said, unable to keep a trace of bitterness from his voice. He knew he should have liked Finnal. He was clever, elegant, a good shot, a better horseman. He was the son of a duke, handsome and not boorish. Yet there was something about him that Rodry mistrusted, something that made him certain that the rumors weren’t just rumors, and that he couldn’t truly be trusted with his sister’s heart.