Page 3 of Sugar & Dragon Act I: Temptation

“Who is the second candidate?” Dago asked suddenly, looking up at Kora.

The woman was about to reply but stopped, as if she wasn’t sure if sharing this information was a good idea.

Haron didn’t share her doubts.

“Hera Galenos,” he said. The queen glared at him, but he didn’t even blink. “She has aperfectreputation.”

II Dago

Hera Galenos. A maga from an unremarkably wealthy but respected family of healers. Hardworking, honest, and obliging.

Snooty.

No way, Dago thought, his eyes fixed on the blue sky visible through the transparent roof of the bathroom.Not her.

He’d known her since childhood. For seven long years in Arkadia, he’d been forced to watch her snooty face and her annoyingly fast progression in magic, which made her face even more snooty. She was so talented that the Archmagus himself took her on as an apprentice, even though he’d previously agreed to teach Dago, thus breaking his own rule of not accepting more than one student per year—and forcing Dago to endure the sight of her for another three years. In addition, she was friends with Pax Herkules, a mage-knight who the crowds called the Lion of Ilion, and who Dago had unofficially named “Buffoon” after the man publicly accused him of leading women off the path of virtue.

And then there was that issue with alchemy. As a self-proclaimed advocate of animal rights, Galenos conducted research on substitutes for mistberries—overexploitation of which forced the beetles that fed on it to migrate—and her success, combined with her angelic reputation and smart mouth, led to serious financial losses among the alchemists who specialized in producing potions containing the mentioned fruit. Even if Dago somehow learned to tolerate her character and friends, her revolutionary inclinations could threaten his businesses…

Nyx Nemesis, he thought suddenly.What am I thinking?

Was he really considering a marriage with Hera Galenos? He? Marriage? WithHera Galenos?

“Nyx Nemesis,” he murmured.

He shifted into a dragon and dove into the pool. He gazed at his silvery white scales which, bathed in water and sunlight, glittered against the black tiles like stars in the night sky.

Like a treasure, Dago thought with a tenderness he never showed to anyone.

After an hour of staring at his scales, Dago regained peace of mind and clarity of thought. He admitted (reluctantly) that Haron was right about the marriage, rejected (categorically) the candidacy of Hera Galenos for the position of his wife, and decided (reluctantly, again) to look for a woman who would meet the requirements set by both society andhim. He lived in a country bordering the Dreamland. It shouldn’t be impossible to find the woman ofhisdreams.

Dago swam up to the surface, filled with optimism, then froze. The image of Hera Galenos standing on the edge of the pool overlapped with the picture of his dream woman, causing a short circuit in his nervous system. In his daimonic form, he had no eyelids and couldn’t blink to make sure it wasn’t a hallucination, so he just had to wait until the hallucination disappeared from his vision.

He waited…

…and waited…

…and waited…

“Pandorian let me in,” said the apparition with Hera Galenos’s snooty face, brown locks, and bumptious voice.

Dago collected himself. Falling into a stupor wasn’t his style.

Meandering elegantly, he swam to one of the eight edges of the pool and slipped up the stairs. Even though his daimon was nearly ten chariots long, Hera didn’t flinch, cry out, or fall to her knees in admiration. He flicked his tail, which was still dipped in the pool. Instead of splattering her, the water evaporated after clashing with the wing of burning feathers the woman’s hand had partially turned into. He returned to his human form, annoyed. He no longer had any doubts that he was dealing with the original. In Olympus, there was only one maga with a phoenix daimon.

“So?” he asked, crossing his arms. “What’s the reason for this unsolicited visit?”

Hera cocked her eyebrow. “Aren’t you going to get dressed first?”

Dago cocked his eyebrow. “First you invade my house. Then, instead of waiting politely in the living room, you enter the bathroom while I am taking a bath. And now you expect me to indulge your whims. I didn’t think it was possible, but it seems you got carried away by your imagination, Galenos.”

He observed a blush creeping into her cheeks with satisfaction. He liked to embarrass her.

“Pandorian said that the living room washere,” Hera said through gritted teeth, morphing her fiery wing back into a hand. “I was about to withdraw when you broke the surface.”

Dago added an argument with the imp to his to-do list, then curled his lips into a cheeky smile. “Sounds verisimilar.”

Hera glared at him, but he didn’t care. Unhurriedly, he walked over to a long wooden bench, reached for a white towel, and wrapped it around his hips. When he turned back to the woman, the blush on her cheeks seemed a shade darker, and Dago changed his mind.

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