Dragons son, p.1
Dragon's Son, page 1
Copyright © 2023 by M. K. Casperson
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
To Amarea, who waits for me in Unimar. One day, perhaps you will read this.
—Alexis Comnenus, Crown Prince of Beotia
Dragon’s Son
M. K. Casperson
Contents
Part I
1. Amarea
2. Alexis
3. Amarea
4. Alexis
5. Amarea
6. Alexis
7. Amarea
8. Alexis
9. Amarea
10. Alexis
Part II
11. Amarea
12. Alexis
13. Amarea
14. Alexis
15. Amarea
16. Alexis
17. Amarea
18. Alexis
19. Amarea
20. Alexis
Part III
21. Alexis
22. Amarea
23. Alexis
24. Amarea
25. Alexis
26. Amarea
27. Alexis
28. Amarea
29. Alexis
30. Amarea
Part IV
31. Alexis
32. Amarea
33. Alexis
34. Amarea
35. Alexis
36. Amarea
37. Alexis
38. Amarea
39. Alexis
40. Amarea
Part V
41. Alexis
42. Amarea
43. Alexis
44. Amarea
45. Alexis
46. Amarea
47. Alexis
48. Amarea
49. Alexis
50. Amarea
Afterword
Also by M. K. Casperson
About the Author
Part One
Amarea
The enemy had won.
The golden gates had been breached that morning.
“Please!” Amarea struggled to get free.
“Stop it, you brat! Stop it!” Her mother’s fingernails dug into her shoulder and arm as she dragged the princess down the hall. Tears dribbled down the queen’s face, and sobs choked her voice. “Vicious little devil!”
“The king is dead!” Enja whimpered from behind, shoving Amarea along now and again with sharp pushes. “He killed himself!”
The city had fallen. Amarea had looked out the window earlier. Already, the Beotians were hoisting their dragon banners over the palace towers. Pelizia had lost.
“Will they kill us?” Enja wept.
“Mother, let me go!” Amarea sobbed. “Please, let me go!” How could her mother do this?
“Silence, girl!” her mother snapped. They had reached Amarea’s bedroom. The queen glanced over her shoulder fearfully and then thrust the door open.
Amarea was shoved inside. Enja scuttled in, and the queen slammed the door.
Running for the window, Amarea tugged at the lattice shutters, ready to leap to her death.
Anything was better than marrying the Beotian prince.
The queen seized her sleeve and twirled her around, giving her a solid smack across the face. Amarea gasped and stumbled backward.
“Her lip!” Enja cried.
The queen yelped at the blood smearing her daughter’s mouth. Frantically, she babbled for Enja to bring a rag and some water. Meanwhile, she hauled Amarea to the center of the rug and ordered her to stay put.
Amarea’s lip was tended to. She was stripped and dressed in her richest clothes. Her hair was greased and plaited. She was decked with jewels and beads. Enja painted Amarea’s hands and feet and dusted her with gold powder. The queen ordered her to stop crying.
Amarea couldn’t stop crying.
She didn’t want to marry him.
The Beotians had conquered her nation at last. Her mother was marrying her off to the enemy to save her own neck.
Amarea was twelve years old.
Alexis
Green Leaf Month, 20th day
Sixteenth day of our siege against Ravenhome
Of the beginning of my story, I can only give a secondhand report. Some years before my birth (seven years, if I have been told right) my father, King Pereas Comnenus of Beotia, led a party of his nobles out for an extended hunt. The excursion took them several miles from the palace, and they were gone for several days. Their enthusiasm for glory got them tangled in the web of the northern forest, and they became lost near the foot of the mountains.
As the party sought escape, they came suddenly upon a lone pavilion situated amongst the trees. There was no insignia and no horses. The king, my father, sent a man to investigate, and I am told that before the man could dismount the tent flaps parted, and a woman of proud height and fair face stood before them. Her hair was dark, black like our enemy’s scales and wrapping her like a cloak. She was clad in rich silk and banded from wrist to shoulder in bracelets of gold. A circlet crowned her brow. Jewels draped her neck. It sounds like an exaggeration, but I do not doubt she shone.
Silence struck the company. I suppose they were at once caught under her spell. She must have had the Eyes, and must have met the gaze of all present. Yet she held my father’s gaze the longest, I believe, for she knew who he was, and sought him.
“Great king,” she said, “you have kept me waiting.”
“I knew not that you waited,” my father answered.
The lady regarded him, and with each moment, her spell strengthened. “I am yours.”
“Join me,” my father said, offering his hand. “Join me at my palace.”
I have been told the course of the conversation went thus, but I imagine much more occurred. The witnesses were effectively drunk when it happened.
My father’s friends say the spell released them when they escaped the forest. Lady Rehlia, as the lady called herself, was mounted behind my father on his horse, arrayed no longer in jewels or gold, but in a simple chiton. They feared her then, but my father would not heed them, for Rehlia still held him enthralled, and would for many years hence.
Thus it was that my mother came to the Beotian palace, and my father dwelt with a dragon.
Amarea
Amarea’s wedding took place that very night. Alexis, the Beotian prince, said nothing to her before or during the ceremony. Enja insisted he was handsome. Amarea’s mother said she was lucky to be marrying such a young man and should not complain. Amarea stood next to this terrifying, murderous, handsome young man and did not look up. She hated him. She hated everyone now.
A feast was held. Amarea’s veil was pulled back and her face revealed to the court for the first time. She was married now. She need not wear a veil.
Amarea sat amongst the women, feeling immodest with her face showing. Her mother showered her cheeks with kisses and cooed adoringly. Amarea refused to speak to her. This was her fault. Amarea would never forget it.
The women tried to coax Amarea into eating, but she could not do it. She felt sick to her stomach. All around her, the women whispered tentative praise of the Beotian prince. He had held the wedding according to Pelizian customs. Perhaps his rule would not be so bad.
When night came, Amarea was handed over to a Beotian servant. Her mother bid her goodbye and hurried away. Amarea stood shaking in a hallway that now seemed foreign.
“Your Highness?” The Beotian woman curtsied.
Amarea stared at the woman, eyes wide. She did not like the way Beotians looked. Their skin was pale, more pink than sumptuous tan or gold. Their hair was brown, not black. Brown hair was not pretty in Pelizia. The woman was wearing a strange linen dress that had a curious name: stola.
The Beotian woman curtsied again. “This way, Your Highness.”
Amarea followed and was brought to a bedchamber, much bigger than her own now standing empty on the other side of the palace. Amarea felt sick with dread as she stepped inside. The Beotian servant shut the door behind them and curtsied again.
The woman’s name was Julia. With deft fingers, she helped Amarea out of her headdress and jewels and trinkets. Her wedding clothes were exchanged for a simple nightgown.
“Will Your Highness take some refreshment before bed?” Julia asked.
Amarea shook her head, trembling like a leaf. Then she changed her mind and nodded fervently. “Yes.”
Julia curtsied and fetched a tray from a side table.
Amarea sat down on the floor, crossing her legs. Anything to postpone the night.
“Your Highness?” Julia was staring at her, tray in both hands, expression puzzled.
Amarea didn’t understand what was bothering the woman.
Julia’s face cleared and she hastened to set the tray on the rug. Bowing, she backed away and then settled onto an orange settee
So Beotian servants were allowed to sit on furniture?
Amarea ate without tasting. Tea, milk, dates, and a bit of fish. Pelizian food. How long before she would be forced to eat Beotian food?
“You can put your mind at rest, little one,” Julia said suddenly.
Amarea looked up in surprise.
Julia was looking down at her in wise understanding. “He’s not coming tonight. Or any night in the near future.”
Still too shaken to speak, Amarea stared at
“You can thank Beotian tradition for that, Your Highness. You stay pure until you are a woman. You have much to learn of your new kingdom’s ways. Prince Alexis will be staying in Pelizia. You will be going home.”
“Home?” Amarea squeaked.
“To Beotia, Your Highness.”
Amarea covered her face and wept.
Julia let her weep. For a few minutes, neither spoke a word to the other.
“You will not weep for long, Your Highness,” Julia murmured, almost patiently. “You will come to love your freedom.”
What did the Beotians know about freedom? If Amarea weren’t so tired, she would have screamed a thousand curses at the servant.
She would never love Beotia.
And she would never love its prince.
Alexis
Green Leaf Month, 22nd day
We took Ravenhome yesterday. I believe our wedding anniversary is tomorrow.
I am writing this, Amarea, for not only your sake but for mine. My heritage is no secret, but we treat it as such, and my trials are very much my own. It settles me, the thought of writing it all out. I wish to tell you of my past, for I wish for you to know me. My habitual reticence suggests that pen and paper will be a surer way to the truth, and since I cannot countenance confiding in a person I’ve hardly met, I have not been open in my letters.
Let me continue and finish the part that I did not see, for I am eager to write other things.
My mother became my father’s favorite mistress, and in time she bore him my elder brother. My father named him Villian. I was born five years later. It is strange to relate that despite my father’s infatuation with our mother, King Pereas paid little attention to Villian and me. He had many children, for he had many women, and the only woman that mattered to the kingdom was the queen. At the time of my birth, she had failed to bear a single living child.
Shortly after my arrival, my mother disappeared. I am told that for several days the king mourned in acute agony, but then quickly rallied. As though he had forgotten Rehlia completely, King Pereas, my father, turned his attention to his kingdom in a way that he had not done in years. His sudden vigor was, of course, due to Rehlia’s removal. He had never believed the accusations placed upon her by his hunting companions, and it is not extraordinary to me that many of those hunting companions died during Rehlia’s years at the palace. I suspect his recovery was not as stark as my informants claim, otherwise Villian and I would surely have been dispatched as a precaution.
Whatever the case, Beotia experienced a revival, and the dreams of expansion long treasured by my kingly ancestors were made real in my father’s day. Borders were expanded, kingdoms subdued. Beotia’s empire rose, and Villian and I grew older. The queen bore a daughter and died, dashing my father’s hopes for a male heir. Remarriage is not legal in Beotia. It is one of our harsher traditions.
Like most of my father’s natural children, Villian and I were raised with scant view of him. Our nurse, Theodora, took care of us from sun up to sun down. We were tutored without an aim, learning random driblets of fact and philosophy, and lived chiefly to entertain one another.
Villian turned twelve. He had my love and loyalty by then, being the only face other than Theodora’s that ever looked at me with care. A few days after his birthday, he drew me into the garden and asked if I could keep a secret.
“Of course.” It is easy to keep a secret when Theodora is the only soul you can tell it to.
“Of a truth, Alexis, promise me.” Villian gripped my shoulders tightly. He had big hands, or at least they seemed big to me. He looked into my eyes. “Promise you will tell no one. Promise you will never tell Father.”
“Father?” I frowned at him as though he had mentioned something I had almost forgotten. “I promise. I’ll never tell.”
He seemed satisfied with my sincerity and checked our surroundings. I will show you the spot when I return. When I left, it looked somewhat neglected, but back then, it was well-groomed. Ivy covered the arbor, and the ground was blooming with flowers.
Satisfied that we were alone, Villian sat cross-legged on the grass and beckoned for me to sit near him. He leaned forward, voice low. “Our mother was a dragon.”
He should not have been so blunt. At once, I believed he was lying. “Liar!” I hissed. I scowled. “Villian, I thought the secret would be important!”
“Listen, Alexis,” Villian pressed. “I’ve heard whispers. I’ve been listening.”
“Theodora said our mother was a foreign princess.” I suppose now, of course, that Theodora had no idea where my mother came from, and had simply given me her best guess. “She was a rich princess!”
“Oh, don’t be a baby, Alexis. Who are you going to believe, me or Theodora? I haven’t told you the whole secret. Our mother came from the north. That is what the servants say. Do you know what lives in the north?”
“Dragons.” I scowled at him darkly. “Black dragons. Everyone knows that.”
“Did you know they can make themselves look human?”
I hesitated, then, recognizing the trap he had lain. To admit the truth made his stupid joke more plausible.
“They can,” Villian answered for me. “They have magic, too. Dragons can cast spells that make you trust them. They can trick you. Our mother tricked the king.”
I was not inclined to believe him. My brother did not often tease me, but he was not above it. His vehemence made it difficult to disbelieve, however, so I hesitated and said nothing.
“I always wondered if she was a dragon,” Villian went on, “but now I know for sure. I have proof, Alexis. I can show you.”
“I do not want you to show me.” I ground my teeth. I suspect that my eyes betrayed me, however. It was impossible not to be curious. Doubt gave way to boyish suspicion as I wondered what sort of proof he could mean.
“Remember,” Villian whispered at last. “You promised not to tell anyone.”
I nodded.
His features twisted. His jaw grew large. His thick black hair shrank and his body morphed into a nightmare. His skin blackened and hardened. He shuddered and bent forward.
I screamed. No, Amarea, I do believe I howled. I howled for Theodora and tried to run away.
“No!” The dragon had a voice. It pounced on me, pinning me down. Huge and hideous, it loomed over me with its gigantic muzzle and peered into my face with its wicked eyes. I am proud to say I struggled, but I could not flee.
The dragon shuddered and then shrank. My brother reappeared, hanging over me and sweating.
“See, Alexis?” he hissed. “See? I’m a dragon, Alexis! I’m a dragon! How else but through my mother could I be a dragon? We are both dragons, you and I!”
“I don’t want to be a dragon!” I hated the very idea. I was scared stiff that my brother would eat me, that in the next two seconds, he would be angry with my justified terror and snap me up as punishment. I stilled, trying to control my shaking. I did not want to be eaten.
“You do not have a choice!” Villian insisted. “It happened to me, Alexis, it will happen to you. I know it. It must be magic, but I know it. When you turn twelve, you will claim your inheritance. Your inheritance, Alexis! Do you know what an inheritance is?”
I had only a vague idea, because it was a very big word, but I nodded anyway. Villian must have seen that I was bluffing.
