Dragon Princess (16 page)

I might have just been really sick of the ex-dragon. It also might have been that I didn’t want to see Lucille condemned because of a lie. It might also be because this was an elven elder on his home turf, someone with enough power to freeze a dragon in mid-rampage, and it seemed to be the epitome of poor judgment to lie to the guy.

It may just have been that I had never stopped to explain myself or who I really was to Lucille, and at the very least she deserved to know the truth. When I was finished, I was looking into her frozen eyes, not the Inquisitor’s.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered to her.

A thunderclap echoed though the arena as the bailiff continued in his effort to beat the ground into submission. My two fellow defendants unfroze. The current Elhared shook his bars and spat at me. “You stupid bastard. We could have walked out of here. You’ll pay for this. I’ll find you—”

I was more concerned with Lucille, who had obviously heard and understood everything as well. She stared at me, and I realized that she had begun sobbing.
“You lied to me.”

Damn it. I didn’t lie, I just hadn’t gotten to the part where I wasn’t really a knight in shining armor.
And really, to be fair, given that Sir Forsythe was the best example of the genre locally, she should have been grateful.

The Grand Inquisitor spun around and addressed the spectators. “Testimony has concluded. Judgment will now be rendered.”

I had expected elven justice to be inscrutable. I didn’t realize how inscrutable.

The Grand Inquisitor pointed a finger at the ex-dragon who was still shouting invective at me. “You have lied to the court and have defrauded the blood of the fae. Your debts shall be paid in the service of your person to the Winter Court for a term of one year for each golden sovereign so owed; should you expire this sentence will pass to your descendants by blood.”

The newly sentenced Elhared the Fake did not take the news well. He howled at the Inquisitor, “You can’t do this. Let me go. I’m in a position where I can pay you back. I just need to get back to the castle. You understand, while I’m in this body I
am
Elhared, as far as the law’s concerned. Just let me go . . .”

The Inquisitor wasn’t listening to him. Instead, he pointed a finger at Lucille, who at the moment made the most dejected picture of a dragon possible. “You have been determined to possess property that belongs to the fae by right. You shall suffer no additional punishment, and may leave as you will at the termination of the original terms of service.”

Her head rose and she shook it in confusion.
“What? What property? What service?”

“The prior owner of that body wagered its service to the fae. We are owed a dragon.”

“What? He wagered with you, I didn’t.”

The Grand Inquisitor turned toward me, ignoring the cries of protest from the dragon.

“It wasn’t me!”

He pointed a finger at me and I could feel my heart stop beating for a moment. I had no idea what punishment I was in for, or what crime I may have committed; all I knew was that I wasn’t going to like what the Inquisitor had to say.

I was right, but not in the way I thought.

“You,” said the Grand Inquisitor, “are free to go.”

I opened my mouth, but no words came out. The bars slid into the ground around me until I stood, unrestrained, on the arena floor.

Needless to say, this didn’t go over that well with my former fellow prisoners.

“You’re just letting him go? He admitted to you that he was a thief, an outlaw—”

“He has stolen nothing from us,” said the Inquisitor. “Unlike some—”

He had to sidestep a jet of flame.
“He was supposed to be a knight. And now you’re just letting him go?”

“Lucille, I didn’t mean to—”

I had to dodge some fire myself.

“You’re letting him go? In my body? He lied to me!”

The Inquisitor was unmoved. He brushed off his robes and said, “Frank Blackthorne has not lied to us.”

Another thunderclap from the bailiff’s staff ended the court, and the Grand Inquisitor walked back toward the exit, leaving me standing there dumbfounded.

“Wait a minute!” I ran after him. Behind me I heard dragons former and current cursing after me.

“Just wait!” I interposed myself between the Grand Inquisitor and the exit.

The bailiff raised his staff and looked about to give me a taste of what the floor was getting, but the Grand Inquisitor raised his hand, stopping him. “What is it, Frank Blackthorne?”

“Why release me and not her? Lucille’s done nothing to you.”

“She is in the possession of our property.”

“She hasn’t wagered anything with you.”

“That has little to do with it. She is in receipt of property that was forfeited to us. It is our right to recover that property. Beyond that, actions on her part are irrelevant.”

“It isn’t property. It’s her! You’re imprisoning an innocent woman.”

“True,” the Inquisitor admitted. “But when the dragon wagered the last of his gold, he wagered his service in thrall to the fae crown. The elf king is owed the service of a dragon for the next thousand years.”

“A thousand—” I took a step forward and felt the bailiff’s staff smack painfully across my boobs. I stumbled back and the Grand Inquisitor strode past me. As he walked by he said, “You should take your leave while you are still free to do so.”

I called after him. “This isn’t Lendowyn, you can’t hold her accountable for something the prior occupant of that body did.”

I think I heard the Inquisitor sigh. He turned around. “We do not hold her responsible.” He took a step forward, and his voice rose slightly and his eyes hardened. “But understand this, Frank Blackthorne, and if you are wise you will take this truth to your grave. The fae do not absolve debts.” He reached out and touched a finger to my chest just above my collar. His finger on my skin felt icy and remorseless. “We will
always
be paid. This does not change based on any hardship on your part. It does not change should you decide to die in our debt. And it certainly does not change should some random mortal choose to inhabit what is owed us. To this point I have shown considerable lenience because you have done the fae no ill. But my tolerance for your insufferable questioning has worn thin.” When he withdrew his finger I realized with a gasping wheeze that I’d been holding my breath. “The princess’s unfortunate luck is not our problem. Nor is it yours, Frank Blackthorne.”

“Really?” I muttered. “Have you taken a good look at me?”

He started to turn away, and against my better judgment I asked, “Can’t you do something for her?”

His voice rose in volume and lowered in tone. “You question the judgment of this court?”

I raised my hands. “No. No. Never. It’s done. Verdict and all. I understand. You get a dragon for a thousand years. It’s yours. But, can I talk to you outside your capacity as Inquisitor?”

“Grand Inquisitor!” the bailiff intoned.

The
Grand
Inquisitor looked at me and sighed. He looked over at the bailiff and said, “You’re dismissed.”

The bailiff saluted with his staff and took a step back into the shadows. Before I saw where he disappeared to, the Grand Inquisitor waved me along to follow him.

 • • • 

We walked past the entrance to the arena, across the broad golden road to a hillside overlooking the spun-sugar city. Other elves were about, but unlike any other city I’d been in, no one could be considered to be in a hurry, and no one seemed to show any curiosity at my presence. The looks I received were cursory at best.

I guess I should have been grateful. Most of my life, any undue attention I received in a strange place was always a bad thing.

Above us, the strange sun and moon had drifted together to the point where they nearly touched. The Grand Inquisitor stopped at a line of smooth, polished stones at the crown of the hillside. The stones were about thigh high, perfectly cubical, and displayed various colors; from a stormy blue-black granite to something with the color and markings of a star sapphire. He sat on the sapphire cube, and gestured to me to take another seat on a cube of speckled ruby.

“You can’t challenge the court’s ruling,” he told me as I sat. “There is no appeal.”

I nodded. I knew the fights I could pick, and directly challenging the elvish legal system was not one of them. “I know. But aren’t there other options?”

“Like what?”

“Aren’t you guys renowned for your skills in magic? Isn’t there someone here who could take her and put her in the right body?” I looked down at myself and smoothed the drape of my dress where it fell over the princess’s thighs. “I mean, since we have it right here.”

I think the Inquisitor’s eyes widened slightly. “Are you seriously suggesting that?”

I shrugged. “She doesn’t deserve being trapped in some stupid wager the dragon made.”

“Even if you could pay the fees of such a service, what would you have done with yourself?”

“Well if you put the dragon back where he belongs, you can stick me in Elhared . . . You’d have no reason to hold either of us then.”

He stroked his chin as if considering it, but he finally shook his head. “No, Frank Blackthorne. Even if you found a willing mage under the hill . . . The dragon is too valuable a commodity to risk just to salve your mortal conscience.”

“What?
Why?
” I stared at my knees and tried to ignore the quaver in my voice and the way my vision blurred.

He explained that it would be very dangerous for even the most skilled practitioner to do such a spell to unenchanted individuals, more so now that everyone involved suffered from a prior spell. Without an exact duplication of the prior rite—in other words, without Elhared’s evil spell book of evilness—it was possible that an attempt would just completely sever a soul’s connection to the material realm.

“Dead dragons aren’t particularly useful,” he said.

Not unless you want to marry Lendowyn princesses.

“It is over. Even if I were moved to release the dragon, that decision was never in my hands.”

I raised my head and looked at him.

“Whose hands is it in, then?”

 • • • 

The palace of the Elf-King Timoras, lord of all realms under the hill, sovereign of the Winter Court, was not that difficult to find. All one had to do was stand somewhere in the fae realms and walk in the direction that got colder. Wherever in the realms you were, a thousand paces in that direction brought you to the aptly named Winter Palace.

In my opinion, they went a little overboard on the theme. You entered the frost-covered palace and found yourself attempting not to slide and fall on a floor made of ice, walking between icicle columns that supported a roof that appeared to be the better part of a blizzard frozen in place—so to speak.

As easy as it was to find the place, getting an audience with the elf-king himself was somewhat more difficult, even when I name-dropped the Grand Inquisitor and said he’d sent me. With all the functionaries, viceroys, and guardsmen who shunted me from one to the other, I began to expect that Lucille’s terms of service might actually conclude before I got anywhere.

But, as long as it may have seemed to me, it ended up being less than a day. I think. It was hard to tell since the elves never seemed to sleep, and what glimpses I got of the sky never did give me any hint how to tell night from day.

All I knew was that, when I finally got an audience with the elf-king, I was exhausted and ravenous. Unfortunately, what little I knew about the fae realms told me that eating or sleeping during a visit would not be the wisest thing to do.

Then again, no one had accused me of having an overabundance of wisdom.

They escorted me into a mostly empty room dominated by a dais and a massive icy throne. The long-limbed monarch sprawled on the throne, leaning against one arm while his legs draped over the other. An elaborate fur-trimmed brocade cape cascaded from his shoulders, over the arm of the throne, to pile on the floor. A crown graced his brow, cocked at a slight angle as he stared up into the unmoving blizzard of a ceiling. His hand cradled a silver chalice and raised it toward me in a somewhat mocking gesture. “A toast to what isles of distraction we can find in the great ocean of tedium.”

“Your Highness,” I said in a way that I hoped was properly deferential.

He cocked an eyebrow in my direction and said, “Your Lowness.” He tossed the chalice behind the throne where it landed with a clatter. “One of my endless retinue must suspect you have something of interest to say. Unfortunately, they are rarely correct.” He swung his legs around so he was in a normal sitting position, showing suddenly how tall he actually was, a head taller than any average elf, who were abnormally tall and lanky to begin with. It made it easier for me to keep the appropriately submissive gaze, since I’d have to strain the princess’s neck to look him in the eye. “Are you afraid, young lady?”

I bristled at the address, even though my reaction made no objective sense. “Young lady” wasn’t nearly the least appropriate thing he could have called me at the moment—it was technically correct after all. I shook my head and told the truth. “I’ve been too preoccupied to think of it, Your Highness.”

“Oh, please dispense with the formality. It is so predictably boring. Did anyone tell you what the price is to petition me?”

“No, Your—no.”

He chuckled.

Now I was afraid. I looked up and found his eyes. “What is the price?”

He clapped his hands. “There we go.”

I was tired, and hungry, and my nerves were frayed. I couldn’t keep up the façade anymore. I snapped at the elf-king, “What game are we playing now?”

He stood up so quickly I felt a chill breeze as displaced air blew past my face. He bent and grabbed my chin, tilting my face up as he bent down. His lips brushed my cheek, the skin so cold it burned. Then, his face next to mine, he whispered into my ear. “Entertain me.”

I stumbled a few steps back. “What?”

“Entertain me. That is the price. Tell me anything. Request anything, but . . .” He straightened up and pointed a finger at me. “Do. Not. Be. Boring.”