The Dragonprince's Heir (16 page)

I nodded gravely. "You were lucky."

He chuckled. "Lucky indeed. But that only lasted so long. Daven took possession of the broodlord and killed a whole parcel of them, but the rest went wild. They knew better than to raid against the Tower, but there's nothing else on this coast until Whitefalls. Cara should have been burnt to ash."

"But Father saved you?"

"No," he said. "Not yet. Another man came. He appeared on my doorstep and begged an audience, promising he could protect me from the dragons."

"Really? Who?"

The old man frowned. "I still don't know who he was. I turned him away. At the time I had no idea what the rest of the world faced. I had no idea what your father had done to the broodlord. I only knew that Cara had gone untouched for more than a year while the rest of the world burned, and I had no reason to listen to some passing traveler."

I thought for a moment. "Was he a wizard?"

The old man smiled. "Why do you say that?"

"It's always a wizard. He's always turned away. And he always turns out to be right."

"Well...yes. On all three accounts, in fact, but it was not so much a story as that. I sent a steward to see him away, and he promised the steward I would come calling for him. Then that very night the dragons came."

My eyes went wide. "How many?"

"Dozens," he said. "I don't know. It was madness. The city burned. My guards fought as they could, but they were next to useless. In one night, I lost a thousand subjects and a third part of my city."

"Haven's name! Did you send for the stranger then?"

He smiled. "I did not have to. All night the dragons harried us, and then at dawn they were gone. And the stranger was waiting at my gate."

I shook my head. "What did he say?"

"He said he knew the dragons' secrets. He said he knew how to protect against them. He said if I would only trust him, he would keep me safe. If I would only pay him half my fortune, when it came right down to it."

"And did you?"

"I had him clapped in irons and thrown in the dungeons," the old man said. "The timing was too close. I set three questioners to learn what the charlatan knew."

"What did they learn?"

"Nothing," he said. "Nothing. That night the dragons came again, and it was worse than the night before. And when morning came, the stranger was standing at my gates again."

"But...you said he was in prison."

"He had been. But in the night he left. He left his questioners in his place. In pieces."

I shuddered, and the old man nodded. "He made the offer again, and this time I could not refuse. I gave him a place in this fortress, and he promised to keep the dragons away. I never saw how he did it—I never saw him do anything again—but the dragons did not return."

I frowned. "But what of my father?"

"Patience," he said. "You have to understand what had become of me. Of my town. For six months the world burned, but Cara went unharmed. We began rebuilding. We took in refugees from other cities, but the dragonlord insisted that we charge a heavy tithe for their protection."

"The dragonlord?"

"So he called himself. The dragonlord. And when I defied him, the dragons returned. Only one or two when I dared to argue with him, a full flight if I defied him outright. Soon the stranger was the true Lord of Cara. And I ruled only in name."

"But your city was safe?"

"My city was safe. My city was thriving. Lords and merchants came from hundreds of miles, and they paid whatever tax the dragonlord levied on them, to protect what else they owned. They brought a duchy's wealth into my walls, and they paid it gladly to the man who stood at my right hand. He reigned."

"How long?" I asked, beginning to guess the shape of the story.

"One year," he said. "Almost to the day. He reigned in my city while the dragons ravaged the countryside. But then, at the end, he began to grow agitated. He began to grow erratic. And one night he flew into a rage. Over the barest slight, he threatened doom on me and all my people. He roared like a monster and the dragons came, then and there, answering his call."

"He controlled them."

"Yes. And...no." He sighed. "That had to be the secret, didn't it? A man like your father, but bent on greed and power. I had done everything I could to hide from the truth, but deep inside, I had known it from the first. From the day I had him thrown in the dungeon."

"How did you survive?"

He smiled. "I met your father."

"Oh. But how? Where?"

He nodded back toward the sitting room, toward the outer wall. "I had retreated here. I had barred my door against the dragonlord's rage, though I never really believed it would help. I stood on my balcony and watched the fiery death dancing above my city. And then I realized there was more death than I had imagined."

I smiled. "Other dragons?"

"Just one," he said. "And not even a large one. A little black dragon. But it was fierce. It moved like a shadow among the others, tearing them to shreds. And while I was watching, fascinated, I saw a man upon the dragon's back. I saw the other dragons turning on him. I saw man and dragon overwhelmed. I saw him fall."

"My father?"

"Your father," he said. "I watched him tumbling toward the sea. But he was never destined for such a boring end."

"He was a great wizard," I said.

"A sorcerer, in fact," the old man said. "He stretched out his hand to the wind, and it caught him in its grasp. Even falling through the sky, he tucked his arms against his sides and aimed his head, and flew to my balcony like an arrow to the mark."

"He came to you?"

"He said I was the only light of life in all the palace. The servants and the guards had fled."

"And the dragonlord?"

"He burned more dark than human blood," the old man said. "Your father's words. The dragonlord was corrupted. He was not a dragonrider like your father or your father's men, bonded to and controlling one of the dragons. He was the opposite. He was a man, a wizard once, enthralled to a dragon's mind."

I shuddered, remembering my conversation with Caleb. That could have been my mother's fate. With a tiny voice, I said, "That's terrible."

"It was. For more than a year, I had welcomed something like a broodlord into my home. I had given a dragon control of my city, while its broodlings scoured the country all around me. I had made Cara into its lair."

"And Father rescued you?"

"Rescued me? He hid under my bed."

"What?"

The old man laughed. "I told you, didn't I? You remind me much of him."

"But he was a sorcerer and a great fighter. He was a dragonrider."

"He was a man. He had fought a flight of dragons with just his one. The dragonlord came to pound upon my door, just as the king's Green Eagle did a moment ago, and your father hid himself beneath my bed until the stranger went away."

"And then he took you away?"

"Oh, he was not concerned for me," the old man said. "I was just a man. In fact, he was rather furious with me. I was the lord of the city, and I had given it to this monster. Your father did not come to rescue me, but to rescue the city."

"How?"

"With...knowledge. He is famous for his skill with the sword. For his inhuman magic. For his army of dragons. But everything Daven accomplished, he accomplished with his mind."

"That sounds like something my mother would say of him."

The old man nodded. "He spent half an hour interrogating me. Mostly, I think, he was catching his breath. Then he nodded his gratitude and leaped from the balcony to the back of that same black dragon, still flying and dripping with the blood of its enemies."

"Eww."

He laughed. "Indeed. Then your father disappeared—"

I very nearly shouted. "He ran away?"

"And moments later the dragonlord came to batter down my door. He wrapped me in chains of air and dragged me to the front gates. He had half the dragons down out of the sky, then, gathered in a half-circle like an audience. And the dragonlord threw me in the middle of them and called me traitor. And then—"

"Then my father rescued you."

He smiled. "Yes. But in his own way. He was miles away from here, skulking through the shadows in some black cavern, while more than a dozen adult dragons readied themselves to burn me to ash. I saw the lightning dancing in the dragonlord's hands."

"And?"

"Deep in its lair, your father killed the true broodlord, the dragon controlling the wizard's mind. And that killed all the other dragons in its brood as well. In an instant, they fell all around me. The wizard, my dragon executioners, even the ones still patrolling in the skies. They crashed to earth already dead."

"How many?" I asked. It was an important part of these stories. "How many altogether?"

"With the wizard and the broodlord, there were thirty-nine," he said.

"Not even forty?"

"Not even forty," he said. "But your father always counted the wizard for more than a dozen."

I nodded. "That's more fitting. Such a tale needed fifty teeth."

"You know, Daven always said the same."

"You knew him, then? After that night?"

"I knew him. We were friends, as much as those dark times would allow. He protected my city as well as the dragonlord ever had, and he defended the rest of the land as well. He was a good man."

"So I've heard," I said.

The Lord of Cara clapped a hand on my shoulder. It was thin and bony, with none of the crushing weight I always got from Caleb, but still it caught my attention. The old man waited until I met his eyes, and then he said again, "He was a good man. The best I've ever known."

"For saving you?"

"For fighting against the darkness. He risked everything to protect the people he cared for."

"He cared for the whole world, then," I said.

"As I said, he was a good man. I do owe him such a debt."

"Enough to defy the king," I said. "You knew the guards' plans all along."

"Enough to defy the king," he agreed. "Enough that I would commit this house to war if your mother asked it of me. Enough that I would bar the king's ships from leaving my harbor, if it would keep Daven's family from danger."

His gaze was sharp, demanding, and I met it levelly. Then I shook my head. "We are in no danger. Haven't you heard? My mother will be the king's honored guest for a season."

The Lord of Cara said, "Ah. Of course, I remember that now. You will forgive an old man's foolish notions."

I didn't let it go. "That was more than a notion. That was...quite an offer."

"Son, I owe Daven enough that I would have Timmon killed in his bed this night and watch my city burn, if it were asked of me."

"Why? My father is years gone. What could you gain from him, that you would sacrifice so much?"

"Courage. Honor. Before I met your father they called me a lord, but I let fear turn me into a sniveling rat. Can you imagine how it felt, after I'd handed over
my
city to the dragonlord, to see this child come risk his life to save it? We were nothing to him."

"No," I said. "You were helpless. You needed help, and he could give it."

The Lord of Cara beamed at me. "No matter the cost. Just because it was right. I don't pretend to be a hero, but I am man enough to follow such a strong example."

"Well...you needn't. Not today. My mother is a willing guest."

"And you?"

I shook my head. "I just don't know."

"Oh? Is it so hard a question? What do you want?"

"I know what I
want
," I said. "I want to stay with Mother. I want to see her happy, without these terrible burdens. And, truthfully, I even want to see the City."

"That's not so strange. There are fabulous sights—"

"But it's not even that. I want to meet with wizards and defend my father's honor and show the king I'm...well, respectable. Not some foolish spoiled heir of a wretched long-lost traitor."

He laughed. "Is that all?"

"No!" I thought about the promises my mother had just made. "Most of all, I want to know what's going on."

"Ah. Now there at last is something worth wanting," the old man said. "But I doubt you will find it in King Timmon's court."

"Well?" I snarled. "What would you suggest?"

"I would suggest you don't ask such things of old men. They are notoriously bad at understanding the young."

"Lord Cara," I said, "you're the first person who has ever spoken to me as anything other than a child."

"It's not so bad to be a child," he said. "And it hurts more than you could possibly imagine to be a man."

"I think perhaps I know that all too well. I think I've stayed a child too long. I think it's time for me to be a man."

He grinned. "It took me more than sixty years to learn that lesson, and it took your father to teach me. I'd say you're right on schedule."

"Then what should I do?" I asked. "What should a man do?"

"I do not know your situation. But I know the easy answer is almost always the wrong one. Search your heart. Where is your fear driving you?"

I barely had to consider the question. Everything I wanted in the world, I wanted out of fear. In that instant I felt the full weight of everything Caleb had told me beneath the thorny trees. I thought of Mother's plans that had nothing to do with me. Of Caleb's desperate oath to protect her despite the distraction I provided.

And I thought of the people Mother had left behind, one burden betrayed to support another. They needed better direction than the king's stewards could give them. I belonged back at the Tower, not on this adventure.

I was not destined for the same great adventures my father had enjoyed, but I could at least bear my responsibilities as well as he had. I could do what had to be done.

"I...I would ask one favor of you," I said. "Two, perhaps."

He met my eyes and waited.

"Deliver a note to my mother. Tomorrow. Just as she boards the ships."

"This I can do. And your other request?"

I took a calming breath and forced a smile. "Get me out of town. Tonight. Unseen. I'm going home."