Page 2 of Deven and the Dragon
If you didn’t look too closely at the pale azure tint to Fiora’s skin, anyhow, or his slit-pupil eyes.
Oh, there was no use. He couldn’t pass for human, and crying over it was so much wasted water.
Fiora’s study was two floors down in the tower, past his bedchamber’s suite, which occupied the level just below the roof. He’d chosen this tower to be his personal quarters for its views and for the size of the turret’s roof balcony, which allowed him to land comfortably. On days like this, he wished he’d put his study in the cellar, or somewhere else suitably gloomy. All the broad arched windows in the study accomplished was making him wish he could fling himself out of one.
The letter from the town council sat in the precise center of the perfectly polished desk, all of its seals nearly crowding out the heavily flourished lines of script. Clearly the guild of scribes had been involved, and Fiora anticipated a headache after he’d interpreted the meaning of all those loops and squiggles.
Finally letting out the sigh he’d been repressing, he dropped into his chair and began to read, absently sipping from the coffee cup set to his right hand as he did.
And then he popped bolt upright again, gripping the parchment hard enough to tear the edge, the cup clattering into its saucer as he almost dropped it.
“Andrei. Tell me I have not taken leave of my senses.”
“I’m sorry to say, my lord, I believe it is the town council who has taken leave of theirs.”
Fiora carefully relaxed his fingers, letting the parchment drop to the desk, and looked up to meet Andrei’s gaze. His servant had his hands clasped behind his back as he stood waiting, the picture of ease — except for the furrow between his brows, as expressive as Andrei ever was. It wasn’t just Fiora, then, who thought he’d never heard anything more absurd.
“A sacrifice,” Fiora growled. “A bloody ruttingsacrifice. Really? What the fuck have I done to make them think I’d want one of their miserable maidens? No one’s followed that tradition for centuries. And I don’t eat people! Why would I want to, when we have a cook who can prepare such divine roast mutton?”
He broke off, panting, and dropped his head in his hands. Oh, God, but this was a disaster. One more sodding inconvenience to add to the pile that already comprised his life. He’d come to this peaceful, civilized kingdom to getawayfrom the hidebound traditions of his homeland. (Well, and also to get away from his mother. But that was really only coincidence, as he assured her in twice-monthly letters.)
Back home, dragons were feared, respected, and treated as an entirely separate caste, except by the very highest echelons of the human aristocracy. Even among the nobility it had been hard for Fiora to find anyone who would look past his skin and his eyes and his oddity. And the last time, one of the rare times, he’d met a man who’d smiled and laughed and taken him to bed without a qualm…well, look how that had turned out. Even if he hadn’t hoped for more acceptance here, necessarily, he had hoped to be ignored.
Being offered a sacrifice, the most hidebound of hidebound sodding traditions, did not fall under that heading.
And anyway, he’d never eaten anyone and never planned to. All those clothes, and bits of jewelry…terrible for the digestion, not to mention how they’d get stuck in his teeth. He didn’t even hunt his own game very often. Fur and antlers tasted terrible.
And then Andrei added one more fillip of awfulness. “I doubt they expect you to kill her, my lord. I think the inclusion of the wordsinnocent and purehints at another use they believe you’d have for their sacrificial maiden,” Andrei said, with an arid dryness that verged on sarcasm.
“Ohhhh,” Fiora moaned, yanking on his hair and making his scalp ache. “Oh, God preserve me.”
“Unfortunately, God can’t write your answer to the council for you. That task, to my great and everlasting despair, falls to me. What ought I to reply to them, my lord?”
“Tell them to stuff their sacrificial maiden up their collective —”
“Hardly a suitable place for someoneinnocentandpure,” Andrei cut in, with acerbity. “Try again, my lord?”
Fiora peeked at him through his hands. Andrei was all but vibrating with annoyance. Well, that made two of them. But as it often did, seeing Andrei irritated calmed Fiora sufficiently that he was able to think, rather than simply react. He had spent years learning to ruffle Andrei’s usually smooth feathers. It always made him happy. That was what the man got for starting out as Fiora’s boyhood tutor, after all.
“Hang on,” Fiora said, his brain having taken a few moments to do its job. “What do they have to gain from this? Really, I mean? Because they can’t be stupid enough to think I’d burn their town or eat them all at this point, not when I’ve been living here for months. I pay really quite unsubtly inflated prices for their best wine, candles, and silk, not to mention all the food, rather than simply demanding it for free. I haven’t even bitten anyone. Not so much as a nip. Why now? If they want to try to steal from me, one girl isn’t the likeliest candidate. I’d think quite a few men with swords might be more the thing.”
“An excellent question,” Andrei said, with the faintest, smuggest hint of condescension. The bastard. That was what Fiora got in his turn, he supposed, for keeping his tutor on as his man of affairs. “Possibly to spy on you, to learn where you keep your gold. I think it more likely they may simply believe you’re expecting such a gesture, and they are growing nervous about your continued goodwill. Sending a sacrifice to the local dragon is a bit old-fashioned, but this isn’t the most modern place. They may think you’re waiting for them to welcome you properly.”
“But even my mother thinks sacrifices are out of style!” And now he sounded whiny again, damn it all. “And stealing from me makes no sense. I already spend so much gold in the town, and gold isn’t even what I hoard. They’re a town full of merchants, hardly the enterprisingly criminal type. Well, not openly, anyway. I’d maybe expect some of Ripley’s young men to try to steal from me, but not the town council. They’ll steal by overcharging me and call it a good day’s work, instead.”
“Hmm. Could it be possible,” Andrei began, and then shifted his feet a little and cleared his throat. “Could they have heard,” he said, and stopped again.
A vein began to throb in Fiora’s forehead. Ah, the headache was about to make its anticipated appearance after all. Lovely. “Spit it out.”
“The curse,” Andrei finished at last. “Do you think some rumor of it may have reached them?”
Fiora shuddered. “I’ve told you not to speak that word aloud.”
“I’m hardly going to pantomime it,” Andrei snapped, drawing himself up to his full, impressive height, his beaky nose pointed up in the air. “My lord. A dragon in such close proximity to the town was sure to raise a few eyebrows. Dragons are rare, and tend to prefer more remote locales, as you know better than anyone. A dragon bearing a —” At Fiora’s growl, Andrei quickly changed directions: “A magical inconvenience. Would be an even more potent source of concern. What if your…issue affected the town? It’s quite possible they want someone here, in the castle, to learn more of your affliction.”
Well, Fiora couldn’t say Andrei didn’t have a way with euphemisms. And he also couldn’t deny that Andrei had a point. He slumped down in his chair, wishing his coffee cup held brandy instead. It was cold, anyway. Ugh.
“What should we do?” If the town council did suspect the…oh, fuck it, thecurse, he supposed they might want to investigate. Curses could be simple and tailored to the individual — as Fiora’s was, in fact. But they could also be far broader in their scope. What if he was cursed to lose his reason and try to kill everyone, or what if the curse could spread to others and turn them all into frogs, or somesuch? Well. He supposed he could understand their curiosity, if they’d heard a rumor. “Ought I to simply let them send their maiden, and then watch her carefully to ensure she isn’t up to mischief? After a time, when nothing awful happens and she hasn’t found my strongboxes, I can send her home again, I suppose, without much harm done. But what an inconvenience.”
