18

  Karellon, in a massive, open-air throne room:

  Princess Genevera zipped and dodged through the battle, darting past magical weapons, flying stones, ice shards and fire-bolts. She’d taken the form of a tiny green spy-eye, swooping down to examine one of Mikale’s spiky caltrops. It was easy enough to scan and record what she landed upon, for everything churned slowly as mud all around that sneaky young girl.

  Using what she’d learned, though…? That was the hard part. The hydra’s great, stomping legs were like clawed tree trunks uprooting themselves from a bog. Its heads swung around with ponderous slowness. Roaring, yes. Gaping wide open, but mostly to spew gas or fever-mist. Her tiny form couldn’t batter its way through that reeking, foul current. She just zipped from one to another, stopped short every time.

  Finally, as one of the monster’s heads snapped a tumbling cask into splinters, another one cut around to strike at Lord Galadin. Amid all the chaos, Genevera spied opportunity. The hydra’s nearest fanged mouth yawned open, big as a cavern. Better yet, blasting nothing at all but rank breath and shreds of Mikale.

  Genevera swerved. She darted into that gaping maw, between rows of teeth as long as her girl-arms had been. Squinting, the green spy-eye swooped past a serrated tongue and then down the hydra’s long throat, where… in the worst, tightest spot… she turned herself into a big, thorny caltrop. Next sort of huddled there, tips shaking, afraid that she’d blow up on contact, but her mimicry didn’t extend that far. (Thank all the gods fifty times!) All she did was pierce slimy, ridged flesh and get stuck, right by a torn, bloody foot.

  Outside, one of the monster’s heads gave a sudden wild jerk and a strangled cry. It had been tracking the prince consort while dodging a shower of searing fire-bolts. Then, just shy of biting Galadin in half, it whipped sideways, pop-eyed and choking. Three other heads turned from battling Korvin and Panya to strike at the coughing one’s neck.

  The marble tile underfoot turned boggy, again, leaving the elves once more knee deep and floundering.

  “It’s trying to dive!” shouted Alexion. “Dino! Mari! Bake that sludge solid! Freeze it!”

  Healing water had struck him like a pattering rain of soft light. The stuff was maybe still in his blood, giving him one chance in fifty of saving his friend. Not waiting to see if the others obeyed, Lex vaulted off the hydra’s back and onto a soaring rock, riding it over to poor, savagely wounded Mikale.

  The prince had been fully healed by droplets of spring water. Now, landing lightly and scrambling nearer, he gashed his own arm with Sparrow, then leaned in to splash blood onto Mik’s torn hip-socket.

  “Please, please, please…” he whispered, praying recklessly. His request was heard by a god with curling horns and a sense of humor (who valued quick wits and audacity). Chezzik it was, who made the healing water in Alexion’s blood last just a bit longer, turning it into a balm for the dying warrior. Spilled blood sank in and vanished.

  Mikale jerked, coughed and mumbled something. Not fully healed, but out of immediate danger… sort of. Alexion added spells and manna of his own, while Zesha and Alain protected him from the hydra’s lashing tail and clawed hind legs.

  The wyvern shot past them, screeching fiercely. Alexion ducked low, shielding Mikale with his own body. Through all of the yelling and roars, through the swoosh of fire and ker-ACKLE of ice, Lex heard Marika call out,

  “Genna! My daughter has attacked the beast from within! She is lodged in one of its necks! Do not let that monster escape with my child!”

  And escape was clearly what it intended. The hydra gathered itself and leapt like a broaching whale, shedding broken tiles, muck and liquified metal like water. It attempted to dive, lunging upward to be raked and seared by the wyvern, then rolling and plunging back downward, trailing streamers of ashes and blood. Only, the floor was no longer a boggy morass. Baked hard by the sword-arm of Firelord… frozen by Her Serenity, Autumn Princess Marika-Li… that surface was once again solid as rock.

  Three of the monster’s heads and two legs burst through before the muck hardened completely. After that, it was trapped. Stuck fast, thrashing and bellowing.

  “Where?” shouted Galadin. “Which head?”

  Marika and Korvin used similarity magic to pinpoint the missing girl, causing a partly trapped neck to light up at the top of its writhing loop. Freys and Galadin dashed through the creature’s remaining free heads, blasting, cutting and cursing like aerriors.

  The monster’s own magic kept re-thawing the floor, but Marika poured all of herself, with Panya’s aid, into freezing it solid again, clutching the hydra tightly. Swords and fire took out its heads. Water streamed out of its body to blast down the mountainside. Then it changed forms, becoming a dark, winged reaver that dropped terrified guards as it rocketed out of a sudden hole in the ground.

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  A cadre of guards tumbled free, along with Princess Genevera. As the wyvern banked and climbed to pursue the fleeing skin-changer… as five loyal half-elven guards collapsed to the floor in shock (one of them rubbing his neck) Genna rushed to her parents.

  “Mummity! Dadness!” she wept, embracing them both. “It’s gone! You’re safe!”

  And they were, all their differences set aside for a bit to embrace and make much of their daughter.

  Not Galadin. He left the guards to Freys… Mikale to Zesha, Alain and Lex. Instead of joining their hugging and back-slapping, Galadin misty-stepped across to the throne, where he took up the Crown of the Valinors.

  Just a circlet of gold with an inset black gem, the crown didn’t look like much. For a single, wild instant, he considered setting the thing on his own head, starting a fresh imperial line. Could absolutely have done it. The circlet was right there in his scratched, bloodied hands.

  …But the Shining One was a god of honor and courage, not of low tricks, and Alexion was his best friend. As the imperial guards put it, no dice. Galadin smiled at the crown, but shook his head, no.

  “I have troubles enough,” he said quietly. “And there is a much fitter candidate lined up, over yonder.”

  He ported across to a snapped and bloodied stone column, where Lex was back at work on Mikale. Later depictions would add more drama and flowery speeches, but the truth is, Galadin simply dropped the crown on Alexion’s head like a hat. A little askew, because the startled prince looked up as that golden circlet descended.

  “My blade, life and fealty, and that of my house, Your Majesty,” said Galadin, kneeling. “Long life and reign to you, Sire, blessed seven times by the powers and gods.”

  Alexion shot to his feet, all at once surrounded by extra dimensions and swirling white mist. All alone, except for the Lord of the Dawn, who looked more weary than glorious.

  “My lord Oberyn!” blurted Lex, looking sharply around for the others. Spotted them all… there… looking as flat as pictures drawn on square of magical vellum.

  “If you will it so,” replied the god, growing suddenly nearer without having shifted at all. “The crown has given you rulership, Son of Aldarion, but it does not make you my sword-arm, which is a thing that must be consented to, freely.”

  Alexion bowed, to give himself much needed time.

  “Father didn’t consent, I take it?” he guessed, straightening to face that towering, dark-eyed god.

  “No, he did not. My service is not the same as your friend Galadin shares with Firelord. The Shining One is god of battles, present only in fights, begettings and questions of honor. My presence is continual, and if you accept Me as Lord, I shall remain in your mind for as long as you live.”

  “I… won’t be me any longer,” mused Alexion, slowly. “Never alone, never just Lex. I’ll be somebody else.”

  “That is the cost,” agreed Oberyn, inclining his silvery head. “The gain is power and prophecy, along with a greater bond with My gift to Kelmeridian, your ancestor.”

  “Devrax,” guessed Alexion, rubbing his left arm with the opposite hand. “Father always had to fight, he said, to win back the dragon.”

  “Aye, because he had to do it alone,” confirmed Oberyn. “All through Aldarion’s reign, I confined Myself to the Dragon Throne. Present, but not truly a part of the emperor, who could not bring himself to accept Me. The choice is yours, Alexion, as it was his.”

  The swirling mist began to break up, and those flattened people to fill out and move again. Oberyn started to fade. But…

  “Wait! My Lord, stay a moment. If… if my father had accepted Your presence, would he have survived Majesty’s crash?” asked Alexion, all in a rough, breathless tumble.

  “He would have prevented it,” corrected the god. “But you must return and take charge of doings below, Son of Aldarion. You must decide for yourself.”

  And, just like that, the newly-crowned emperor was back in his windy throne room, with dawn just a smudge of grey on the eastern horizon, all the bells ringing, and everyone down on their knees.

  Alexion seized Galadin first, hauling him roughly upright.

  “Stop!” he commanded. “We’ve shed blood for each other, Dino! You nearly dislocated your arm passing food through the grate in my cell, when they tried starving me! Get the drek off your knees, all of you!”

  “Tha’s good,” said Mikale, blurrily. “Since I only have one.”

  “You’ll regenerate, idiot,” snapped Lex, watching the others get up. “In fact, I command it. There’s got to be some benefits to this drekking cursed pit trap!”

  Alexion glared at that massive rock crystal throne as he said this, but Oberyn made no response. Next, taking a shaky deep breath, Lex released Galadin, then strode past the crater, to Marika.

  “My mother’s throne was removed from this place when she died,” he said to the princess, once his intended life-mate. “It’s waited in storage for over five hundred years, as father refused to marry again.”

  Mari nodded, summoning dignity and solemn reserve.

  “Your Imperial Majesty has all the beauties of the realm to chose from,” she whispered, head high, back rigidly straight.

  “All?” he probed, gazing directly at Mari’s wide and slanted dark eyes.

  She colored suddenly, the rosy-pink flush adding life to a divinely beautiful face and shivering body. He was already in love, aye, and deeply so. But tied to the rest of the gods, She-of-the-Flowers could not reduce herself to accept him without shaking Heaven and Midworld right down to their core. She could not ever sit upon Daria’s throne.

  “Marry me,” demanded Alexion, impulsively. “Spend three months of the year as my empress, returning to your mountains and court for the rest of the time. Reign in Okuni… and Karandun.”

  Alexion placed a hand on Marika’s arm, turning to look at his brother, Korvin. Kori’s thin face was unreadable, but he inclined his head, saying,

  “Wife, you are freed of our contract.”

  Those words released him from their loveless marriage, as well. Marika blinked away tears, then bowed to her former husband.

  “We are divorced,” she agreed. “Our contract is ended.”

  Next, turning to face Alexion, Mari said,

  “If you will take me to wife, Your Majesty, I accept with all gladness. Three months of each year shall be yours, and such heirs as may spring of our union, but… Oh, Alexi… What of Nalderick, my son? Please…?”

  Alexion pulled Mari into his arms and then kissed the top of her head, willing it all to come right, somehow.

  “We’re going after him,” promised the emperor. “All of us. Nothing else matters except healing Mikale. Nothing gets done before that and finding the prince. So may it be.”

  Genevera looked from one shining face to another, asking plaintively,

  “This is good? We’re happy?”

  “Better,” answered her father, glancing across at shy Panya. “We’re free.”