Chapter 1 - Chapter One

Time passes by us, as it often does; swift on its course, it runs onward forever. There are very few races who don't feel the touch of Time's waters as she rushes by. The gryphon and the sphinx, few though they are, finding their homes among rocky crag and desert sun, are as far from Time's river as the east is from the west. Elves live in their forests, far from Time's rushing consequences, and the dragons living in the mountains are from her splashing streams.

Though they continue long into the ages, seeing mortal kingdoms come and go, though they are mighty and deadly, the dragons have a pestilence among them. It is a disease that has cursed them for eons, since the first king of the dragons insulted a great sorceress. From that time and onward, the dragons have been unable to bear female offspring. At first, they worried not, for their race stretches its claws far into the fabric of time, making them hard to displace and uproot.

Slowly, slowly, the number of their females began to wither and die. The cries of outrage that came from the dragons sparked wars and terrors. Sorceresses were killed, witches were hunted. Magic quickly became a practice for men alone; the women were often killed far before they could complete any training.

For nearly three hundred years, the dragons had no off-spring; no small ones were born to them. As by chance, however, a dragon became enamored with a princess who was offered up to him as a way of placating his temper. He took her to his caves, observed her and watched her. He gifted her with treasures he had collected over the years, priceless riches beyond imagining. He grew to love her and used his magic to shed his dragon form and take on a human one. He lay with her and she bore for him a male child who was capable of shifting his form from human to dragon and back again. News of this birth spread and the dragons began to steal princesses away, using them to breed their children and to keep their race alive.

Four years after this discovery was made, the first princess was found to be pregnant with a female child. Great anticipation clutched at the dragons and they waited with trepidation for the pregnancy to come to term and the child to be born. Once nine months had passed, the princess went into labor. Hours later, the human dragon went to his peers, carrying a bundle in his arms. He knelt with them and pulled back the blanket, revealing the child to be dead.

And thus continued the race of the dragons.



.o0O@O0o.



I sat, silent, beside my younger half-sister, Holly. We sat together in the high eastern tower, staring over the towns and cities at the eastern mountains as they towered above the lands, their spires piercing the clouds and the sky. From time to time, a dark speck would launch itself across the sky, a dragon taking wing or landing.

“Why do you continue to sit here everyday?” I asked my half-sister.

As she did every time I, or anyone, asked a question, Holly remained silent, staring at the mountains, a mournful look in her eyes.

“Why do you watch those mountains? Are you so scarred from being with the dragons?”

Holly turned her blank, blue eyes to me, and then turned back to the window.

I stood with a sigh and dusted off my skirts. “Well, I need to get back now. I have etiquette classes.” I gave Holly a rueful smile. “You know how much I hate those classes, but the teacher said if I missed another, he would report it to our brother.” I leaned over and kissed Holly on the cheek. “I'll see you another time, Holly.”

I departed from the room, walking gracefully down the stairs and the halls, as befitting of the Princess of the Eastern Lands. As I neared my lesson rooms, I saw my brother approaching. He was a tall man, though only just a man at nineteen. His hard jaw was set and his blue eyes - our father's eyes - were glowering at the world. He stopped just short of me, running a hand through his thick red hair.

“Where were you?” he demanded, his tone sharp.

“With Holly,” I replied, watching his jaw tighten.

“I don't like you seeing her,” he snarled, turning to walk at my side. “She was gone so long; we can only assume it was because she was plotting some sort of treason.”

I held back a contemptuous noise that was threatening to break out of me. Cavan had become so paranoid since ascending the throne after our father when the king died of grief over the loss of his second wife. Everything was about treason now. You could hardly breathe without being accused of treason against the crown.

But people had cause to talk. Cavan had broken so many treaties with the fae folk since ascending the throne. He closed down the weapons and materials trade between the humans and the elves. Magical pets, such as winged horses, were forbidden. Soldiers had orders to kill nymphs and dryads on sight. So much had changed, and no one could speak of it.
“I don't think the dragons would rise up against you, Cavan,” I told him, tucking a loose strand of blonde hair behind my ears. I had my mother's hair, while Cavan and Holly both had father's deep red flames.

Cavan grumbled to himself, turning away from me. “Everyone is rising against me, Aza,” he said, using the name I preferred. Azaphora wasn't a name I appreciated; the meaning was incriminating in times like these. “I can trust no one.”

I placed a hand on his shoulder and he jumped. “You can trust me, Cavan,” I told him quietly.

“Go to your lessons,” he said, his voice cold and closed, pulling away from me.

I watched him leave before I entered the room we had stopped in front of. Another boring etiquette lesson stretched on endlessly until I wanted to pull my nails out of my fingers. I took dinner with the etiquette teacher since he insisted that I prove to him that I could eat a full course meal with the proper utensils. When the dinner finally ended, I politely excused myself and went to my rooms.

Sitting hard on one of my many divans, I watched the sky behind the eastern mountains darken as the sun sank behind me, in the west. The mountains at night were always somewhat lit, glowing with dragon fire and dragon magic. They were beautiful, and I could understand why Holly enjoyed looking at them so much. But, for Holly, they were more than beautiful. They contained something that was quite obviously extremely important. Holly was only so single minded when something important consumed her.

I stood and moved to a large wardrobe, pulling out a small bag, a smile tugging at my lips. I had a driving need welling inside me to discover why Holly watched the dragon's mountains so intently. I couldn't resist a good mystery.

Placing some of my least obtrusive clothing in the bag, as well as an old magic book, I changed into a simple frock and slipped out of my room. I went to the gardens, walking through them as if I was merely taking a late night stroll. I passed several courtiers before coming to my private little grotto. I had played in this place since I was a child; it had been the first thing I had shown Holly when she had been old enough to walk.

Slipping behind a bush, I crouched and hobbled further back into the child-sized space. Reaching out in the dark, my fingers brushed first a stone wall and then cold air. With a victorious smile, I slipped into the hole, crouching as I walked along, through the wall. On the other side, I cam out on the edge of a sheer cliff. Carefully, I sidled around until I found the place I used to climb down when I snuck into the village.

After a few more moments, I was on the ground. I glanced about and then dashed into the nearby forest. When I could no longer see the spires of the palace rising above the trees of the forest, I collapsed in a heap on the ground, under a tree. I curled about my bag, closed my eyes, and fell asleep.

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